Bill C-10 (Historical)

An Act to amend the Criminal Code (minimum penalties for offences involving firearms) and to make a consequential amendment to another Act

This enactment amends the Criminal Code to provide for escalating minimum penalties according to the number, if any, of previous convictions for serious offences involving the use of a firearm if the firearm is either a restricted or prohibited firearm or if the offence was committed in connection with a criminal organization, to provide for escalating minimum penalties according to the number, if any, of previous convictions for other firearm-related offences and to create two new offences: breaking and entering to steal a firearm and robbery to steal a firearm.

[John Muise]

Yes.

I don't want to overwhelm the committee, and I want to stick to Bill C-10. Let me start by saying my evidence is informed by 30 years as a police officer. It's informed by the round tables that were done as part of our “Martin's Hope” report.

I'm going to give you a copy of the report, because I have a couple of copies, in which the names of the 150 front-line criminal justice professionals, crime victims, and survivors—except for some of the victims' first names because they didn't want to be identified—are included in the back of the report.

In fairness to me, I might add that it was also informed by some evidence-based information. Juristat didn't pop out of my fertile imagination. I think it's as factual as it gets, and it's over the course of 40 years. I challenge anybody to suggest that this is not the proper way to look at the evidence.

[John Muise, Director, Public Safety, Canadian Centre for Abuse Awareness]

Thank you, Mr. Hanger, members of the committee.

My name is John Muise. I'm a retired 30-year veteran of the Toronto Police Service, as I think you know, and I'm here as the director of public safety for the Canadian Centre for Abuse Awareness. We certainly welcome the opportunity and appreciate the invite to speak about Bill C-10.

I would add, too, that our organization is a not-for-profit charitable organization and we do not take government funding.

Previously, our organization toured 10 sites around Ontario and spoke to 150 front-line criminal justice professionals, crime victims, and survivors. They told us a lot of things that they felt were wrong with the criminal justice system, but, in general terms, a recurring theme was with respect to the kinds of sentences handed down in courtrooms, and specifically the lack of proportionality with respect to violent crimes.

We suspect that if we did the same kind of round table discussions in other provinces across the country, the concerns would be identical.

I should also add that I've provided a brief to the committee.

Mr. Ménard, my apologies. I just completed the brief recently. I wish it was ready for translation right away, but I'm a one-man band, so I work to deadline, like many people.

Canadian law has always recognized that persons who repeatedly commit offences merit lengthier custodial sentences. In addition, Parliament has mandated by statute that repeat offenders receive lengthier sentences than first-time offenders. Mandatory minimums are nothing new. These principles are reflected in a number of mandatory minimum sentences for both first time and repeat offenders for a variety of crimes.

Certainly we know also that from a constitutional perspective, the Supreme Court of Canada, in Regina v. Morrisey 2000, has ruled in favour of the current mandatory minimum of four years for a conviction involving a firearm and commented—

[Prof. Peter Rosenthal]

Thank you very much. Thank you.

I'm not sure who decided to invite me here, but I know it was not because of anything I did in mathematics. I am also a practising lawyer with Roach, Schwartz and Associates in Toronto, and I'm also an adjunct professor of law at the University of Toronto Faculty of Law. So I do have a more direct interest in these matters than the other title might suggest.

I should like to make some general points you might find useful in considering this bill. One point I should like to start with is that, in general, criminal law should be certain, if possible, and shouldn't be changed very often unless there's good reason to change. But there should be a really good reason, if you're going to change the criminal law, and I don't see the reasons that have motivated this bill as being good.

One of you was asking Attorney General Bryant about the evidence to support the need for this bill, and I would hope you would all continue to ask that question very loudly, because what is the reason for this bill? Well, the bill itself has some “whereases”--and hopefully those would speak to the matter--and the “whereases” indicate that Canadians are entitled to live their lives in peace, freedom, and security. Nobody is going to argue with that.

They also indicate that gun crime is on an increase. That should be a matter of some evidence. That should be looked at. Maybe it's true, but it should be looked at. Different kinds of crimes do rise and fall from time to time.

Then the bill indicates that we want to promote the values of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. That's nice, but then it says:

AND WHEREAS these measures include legislation to impose higher minimum penalties on those who commit serious or repeat offences involving firearms;

There seems to me to be a disconnect. You need a couple of other “whereases” if you want to justify that conclusion, such as “Whereas there's been a problem in sentencing with respect to firearms offences....” Is there any evidence of that? Don't judges regard firearms offences as very serious already? Is there any evidence that suggests they don't impose serious enough penalties for that?

And then you would expect some evidence that more serious penalties tend to deter crime, and we know that most of the studies by criminologists are in the opposite direction. People don't think about the penalty as they're committing a crime. They think about the possibility of being caught, and the possibility of being caught does deter crime, but they don't think if it's only six months now, they'll do it, but if you pass this and it's amended to one year, they won't do it. Nobody thinks like that when they're committing crimes, and the studies show that.

So what is happening here? When this bill was introduced in May, the Minister of Justice talked about tackling crime and restoring confidence in the justice system and so on. It seems there are some political issues here, and many people believe it's popular to promote the idea of harsher penalties and so on. There is some question about that. That's even been studied. There's a study that suggests maybe it's not as popular as some of you may think. It seems that politicians in all parties seem to think that.

So I would ask you to look at the reasons here, and look at some evidence, before you change things. There is a problem with mandatory minimum sentences because they do interfere with the discretion to be proportionate. How much they interfere depends on how high the minimum is and the nature of it and so on. But with any mandatory minimum sentence, as the Latimer case showed us all, for example, even with respect to murder, there are possible problems in particular cases. As to how serious, it depends upon the circumstances. But you shouldn't just do it without some good reason to do it. As everyone is aware, we have a Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and that limits the ability of Parliament to impose punishment. It has to be consistent with the charter. Section 12 of the charter prohibits cruel and unusual punishment, and, as you all know, it has been considered with respect to minimum sentences, and sometimes it has been held to be cruel and unusual and sometimes not.

But what the Supreme Court says is...of course, the Supreme Court defers to Parliament, to some large extent. So the only way they will interfere with a law like this, strike it down, is if they hold that it's grossly disproportionate. That's what the cases say, Morrisey and Latimer and so on. If the sentence is grossly disproportionate, then it is cruel and unusual punishment and it should be struck down. Do you want sentences that are just disproportionate, not grossly disproportionate? Why do you want disproportionate sentences? That's what you are introducing if you have minimums. You will, in some cases, at least, be introducing disproportionate sentences. If they're found to be grossly disproportionate, they will be struck down. Who knows how these provisions you have in Bill C-10 will fare in the courts. Nobody, I don't think, can give you any assurance as to what's going to happen. How they fare will depend on particular cases, on the particular facts of those cases, and so on.

One thing you can be sure of is that there's going to be an awful lot of charter litigation about this. There will be an awful lot of it. There will be a lot of time, energy, and money spent.

You know, it is easy to design a hypothetical case where this would be grossly disproportionate. A little while ago you were talking about cottage break-ins. Some kid of otherwise good character, a 19-year-old young man, breaks into a cottage, urged by his friends. They grab a bag and run away, and in the bag is a shotgun. Will that kid have a mandatory minimum sentence of one year? That's going to be grossly disproportionate if it's as good a kid as the one I'm thinking of. Then that kid will, if he has the funds to do it, fight it, and there will be charter cases and so on. But why do it? Why enact it in the first place? Shouldn't a judge in that case be able to say to the kid, “You're going to be given a conditional sentence”? Why not? Do you want to put that kid in jail for a year, really? Do you really want to do that?

As I said, there are a number of studies that show that the severity of punishment doesn't deter crime. We have a distinguished criminologist at the University of Toronto named Anthony Doob, for example. I'm sure that those of you who care about these things know his name. He had such a study in the year 2003, consistent with many other studies.

If you want to deal with the causes of crime, deal with them. And there are things to deal with. There are situations in which many 19- or 20-year-old kids in Toronto, for example, see it as a better future for themselves to join a gang and sell drugs than to try to get a decent job, because they don't see the prospects of decent jobs and they see the prospect of that gang right around the corner.

There could be larger studies about these issues that might really result in reduced crime. In particular, the whole question of drugs is something that should be looked at. I would urge you.... It's not part of this bill, but it is part of this bill in a way, because a large number of firearms offences are in connection with drugs. We all know that in movies in the thirties gangsters were shooting it out with respect to the prohibition of liquor. A lot of the shootouts in Toronto are with respect to gangs fighting over turf for drugs, for selling drugs. I would suggest that if you really want to cut down on some of this crime, look in other directions.

This legislation is going to lead to enormous costs. There's this hearing and its cost. There will be a huge amount of charter litigation emanating from this over the years. There's going to be a problem with guilty pleas. No lawyer is going to plead someone guilty to a charge like this if he's facing a minimum of three years, a minimum of five years. There will be many more trials and many fewer guilty pleas.

Then there's a particular peculiarity about the way the bill is structured that's going to lead to a real mess, too. For consecutive offences, as you know, you get higher penalties in various ways here, right? But “consecutive” is defined in terms of when you're convicted. It's not in terms of when you committed the offence. So if somebody committed two different offences like this, they'll be jockeying as to which one should be tried first, because some of them have more serious penalties as a second offence than others. That's even discussed in the legislative backgrounder here. They give an example.

You should think about it. Do you really want to put that mess into the Criminal Code?

This means, for example, that if an individual illegally imported a firearm and subsequently committed breaking and entering to steal a firearm but was convicted on the break and enter charge first, the second offence would be importation. As a result, the individual would receive a minimum sentence of five years, whereas if he was convicted of the other one first, it would be a minimum sentence of three years. Suppose he commits these offences within a couple of weeks of each other—that happens in real life from time to time—it's creating a real mess with that whole definition. That's just one of a number of issues that are going to play themselves out day to day in the courts if this bill is enacted as it is.

I really think you should go back to the drawing board and have some serious study about all these issues. There's no immediate urgency. You don't have to pass it this week. The only reason to pass it this week, or next week, or this year is for political reasons. If you want to look at this in a serious way, you need some serious study of the consequences of minimum sentences and other possibilities for reducing the use of firearms.

Those would be my submissions to you. They are quite different from any of the positions of any of the political parties, but I hope you all would consider them to whatever extent it may be useful.

[Daniel Petit, Conservative, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

Mr. Bryant, thank you for coming. You have made yourself readily available but I know that your position is very demanding. You are the attorney general of Ontario. Naturally, we also have an attorney general in Quebec. Earlier on, you referred to two or three items you would like to see amended in Bill C-10.

First, could you send a hand written copy to the clerk of the committee of what you explained to us?

You stated that there should be an amendment on mandatory minimum sentences. I am trying to quote you according to the translation of your remarks. You are saying that there should be minimum sentences, not maximum sentences. I hope that I understood the translation correctly. Could you expand on this? You are the first person to point us in that direction. I would like to better understand what you mean by that.

[The Hon. Michael Bryant, Attorney General, Ontario Ministry of the Attorney General]

Thank you, Chair. I appreciate the opportunity to address the committee.

I'm sure the justice committee is very aware of the role the provincial Attorney General and his or her agents play in our criminal justice system. But just as confirmation, I guess, for those who torture themselves by reading Hansard for a committee, the provincial Attorney General is responsible for prosecuting the Criminal Code. So that's everything from shoplifting to murder.

As you know, federal crown attorneys are responsible for drug crimes, under the Narcotics Act, and other offences. But within the rubric of organized crime--in guns and gang crime--it is the provinces that are responsible for most of the prosecutions involving guns and gangs, unless there specifically end up being drug crime charges.

In the province of Ontario, unlike in the provinces of Quebec and British Columbia, for example, there is a distinction between who lays the charges and who prosecutes the charges. In B.C. and Quebec, the charges are laid by crown attorneys. Here in Ontario, charges are laid by the police, and then the provincial agents of the Attorney General decide whether to prosecute based on whether there is a reasonable prospect of conviction and if it's in the public interest.

In Ontario, there are 900 crown attorneys--900 prosecutors--who address 500,000 charges every year. As such, the Criminal Law Division in the Province of Ontario has a considerable amount of experience, and I will say that they have developed a considerable amount of expertise. They have had the opportunity to work with officials in the federal Department of Justice under different governments and are obviously more than happy to work with the Department of Justice under this government, and have done so.

There's a role for the province and the municipality and the federal government in the fight against gun crime. It is not solely the job of one level of government. I will quickly go through a few things the province is doing, and then if you'll permit me, Chair, I'll spend the bulk of my time talking about the bill—issues around amendments, issues around why have mandatory, and some examples--and then I'll happily take your questions.

The province's approach to guns and gangs--Ontario's approach, the McGuinty government's approach--is that we have to do everything. It is not simply a matter of crackdowns alone or prevention alone or deterrents alone or denunciation alone. It is the whole package. So for the first time in Ontario, we established a guns and gangs task force that involved both police and prosecutors working together, literally, in the same building and on the same floor.

A few months after I had the honour and opportunity of being sworn in, for the first time, a crown prosecutor, a crown attorney for the Province of Ontario, left his offices and moved into the offices of Chief Blair. The purpose of that, and the purpose of having prosecutors and police working together is this. As you heard from Chief Blair, there are thousands and thousands, sometimes over 100,000, wiretaps, often in many different languages. Usually most of the evidence involved in guns and gangs cases involves electronic surveillance. The disclosure requirements established by the Supreme Court of Canada and pursuant to our charter require timely disclosure. The search and seizure powers and the sophistication of some of the gangs, who understand very well what the laws are, has led to Ontario's approach to what we call organized justice.

We want to be one step ahead of organized crime, not just traditional organized crime, but organized crime in the form of the street gangs we see, literally franchised operations with recruitment practices and a level of sophistication with some of them--as Chief Blair said, not all of them, but a level of sophistication--that allows them to do their best, unfortunately, to try to organize themselves around both the federal-provincial division of responsibilities and also around the Criminal Code and the justice system itself. Thus, we have organized justice. We have a crown attorney working with our police officers from day one of an investigation right through to the end. That assists in terms of timely disclosure. That assists in terms of ensuring all aspects of the investigation, and ultimately the evidence will be usable and positive before the courts, etc.

It's expanded. We now have more than 60 prosecutors in the guns and gangs task force. We've established an operations centre that will be operational in January that puts everybody in the same room, all levels, RCMP, provincial policing and municipal policing, as well as enforcement. There's room for federal prosecutors. Obviously, there will be Ontario crown attorneys and the technology and the wiretapping experts. There's no substitute for being able to walk down the hall and talk to your colleagues, instead of having them across town or in some cases across the province.

Third, we entered into an agreement with other provinces, Quebec and Manitoba--Ontario did so simply because of geographic proximity--to have the provinces collaborate on guns and gangs operations. Obviously, these are international and national efforts for some organized crime. The prosecution effort involves work from literally 10 or more police forces, different municipal police forces, several provinces, sometimes several countries. We have collaboration between provinces now. It has existed over the years, but it has never been formal or formalized. There has never been a real push to collaborate to get one step ahead of organized crime and, for example, to share expert evidence. So if an expert is being used in one province for a gun crime, and we know that person is there and is in Manitoba and we know how that went, we may be able to use that expert in the province of Ontario. There's no reason why that can't expand across the country.

Our government fast-tracked an additional 1,000 police officers, and we also established major crimes courts, courts geared toward these relatively new prosecutions that involve dozens and dozens and sometimes over 100 accused. That involves particular security requirements. As you can imagine, that means we have to keep the witnesses apart from the accused. We have to protect victims' rights, thus the special victims unit within the operations centre. As I said, electronic surveillance dominates these trials, and therefore we have to have courts that can accommodate that, thus the establishment of these major crimes courts.

Next, again, I said we have to do everything. We use our provincial legislation, civil legislation, to seize and in some cases forfeit property that's used for unlawful activities. Yesterday we announced the seizure of a crack house in Hamilton, not the first, but the second crack house we've seized in Hamilton using the provincial civil legislation.

Last is prevention. We have to do it all. So the premier established a challenge fund, an up to $45 million challenge fund to prevent, to reach out to communities, to provide opportunities to communities, so people don't have to choose between a gang and doing nothing, but rather have community activities they can turn to.

Enough of telling you what I do for a living; let me get into your bill. Thanks for your indulgence.

Ontario supports Bill C-10. Ontario, at least since the McGuinty government has been in office, has been calling for increased mandatory minimum sentences. I have written to the previous justice minister and the current justice minister, attended federal-provincial-territorial justice ministers meetings, and attempted to forge a consensus among justice ministers. We achieved that in Whitehorse, which I'll speak about in just a moment.

We support mandatory minimum sentences.

I am encouraged by the federal government's commitment to move the justice system forward.

We view mandatory minimum sentences as part of a larger package, as I've just discussed in terms of what the province's role is. This is not the only change that Parliament ought to address and of course is addressing.

I don't know what time it is, but I think it may be at this very second that the Prime Minister, the premier, and the mayor are making an announcement on bail reform.

As I say, under the McGuinty government, Ontario has been pursuing the fight for zero tolerance on gun crimes. We are very committed to doing that, to doing all we can to fight gun violence.

In November 2005, at the federal-provincial-territorial justice ministers meeting in Whitehorse, Ontario, we worked with the other justice ministers and with the federal minister to establish a national consensus, which was achieved at that time, that sentences for gun-related offences should carry increased mandatory minimums.

At that meeting, Ontario proposed, among other things, two new offences, which we are pleased form part of the proposed bill that we're here to discuss. The creation of the charges of breaking and entering to steal a firearm and robbery to steal a firearm would, if passed, officially recognize two crimes that unfortunately have become all too common in this world of gun and gang culture.

I said I support the bill. I also understand that committees have work to do, and one of the things committees consider is the specifics in the amendments. So I'd like to speak to that for just a moment.

Ontario is concerned about the application of mandatory minimum sentences, about how they are used. It has been upheld by the Supreme Court of Canada that minimum sentences have an inflationary effect, as Madam Justice Arbour upheld in Morrisey. Namely, I would argue that minimum sentences are the floor, they're not the ceiling, but the bill, prima facie, does not reflect that right now. So I would submit that a statement of principle to the effect that mandatory minimum jail sentences are minimums and not maximums would be helpful in ensuring that the courts do not use a mandatory minimum as the tariff, because if it's used as a tariff, then it will not be a minimum; it will be used as a maximum.

A statement of principle to that effect would be helpful in clarifying that for the courts, and obviously if the Department of Justice or this committee wishes Ontario officials to provide some more specific language around that, we would be happy to assist on that front.

The bill ought to address, in my submission, a number of sentencing issues.

First, the bill could better toughen the prohibition period for possession of firearms and ammunition.

Secondly, we would recommend that the bill provide sentencing judges with the power to increase the period of parole ineligibility for any sentence involving a firearm-related offence.

Thirdly, we would recommend that the bill deal with section 92 of the Criminal Code, the possession of a firearm--knowing its possession is unauthorized--to provide for a mandatory minimum jail sentence for a first offence.

Fourthly, we would recommend that the bill provide a mandatory minimum jail sentence under section 94 for those found guilty of illegally possessing a firearm while in a car.

On those two offences, and I understand that they are not entirely without controversy, the idea is this. If you get into a car and you have a firearm, you need to know that if you get pulled over, you're going to go to jail. I can only imagine the danger posed to police officers pulling over somebody who has a firearm in that car. Not having a mandatory minimum sentence, I would argue, does not (a) send the right message and (b) does not denounce that offence to the extent that it ought to be denounced.

The same argument, I would argue, should be applied to the possession of a firearm, knowing that its possession is unauthorized, to provide for a mandatory minimum jail sentence for a first offence. Again, it's if you are in public and you have a firearm and you know it is unauthorized. We are not talking about the hunter here. We're talking about the person in public with a firearm knowing it's an unauthorized firearm. You need to know, when you decide to walk out of your house or apartment, or wherever you were where you got that gun, that if you get caught, you're going to go to a jail.

I think that's entirely consistent with the principles and the spirit behind this bill. It would be a significant denunciation of those gang members who have weapons on them and who know that they are unauthorized.

I also want to speak to the issue of resources, to reiterate what has been said at the federal-provincial-territorial justice ministers meeting. As you know, we already have increased the number of prosecutors in the province of Ontario, entirely funded by the treasury in the province. We have also appointed more justices to the Ontario Court of Justice than in any other three-year period in the history of the province. There have been more than 60 additions to the Ontario Court of Justice in the last three years--60, six zero. We've done that to enhance the ability of the criminal justice system. We've added 1,000 new police officers as well and have established the provincial operations centre. These are part of a $51 million expansion of the criminal justice system announced last January by the premier, Chief Blair, and the commissioner for the OPP. It is the single largest expansion, in one fell swoop, of the criminal justice system the province has ever seen. So I would submit that we're doing our part in the province of Ontario.

Obviously, accused persons, under this bill, will be facing increased penalties. That's going to have an impact on the justice system; it always has. In the past, the federal government has assisted the provinces in funding federal legislative initiatives, especially when the bill carried the type of anticipated pressure that this one carries. The submission was made by all the provincial and territorial justice ministers to the federal justice ministers at the last federal-provincial-territorial meeting last autumn in Newfoundland. I would argue the precedent of the federal government assisting the provinces with federal legislative initiatives that has applied in the past should apply in this case.

Let me get into mandatory minimum sentences and why. In my respectful submission, the debate over mandatory minimum sentences is a false debate. We have mandatory minimum sentences in Canada. We already have them. And we already have them for gun crimes. The question is, which offences? And where there are mandatory minimum sentences already, what should the increases be?

The purpose is to incapacitate persons who have been convicted of gun crimes, persons who have proven themselves to be dangerous. They have the most dangerous weapon imaginable to the public--a firearm, a gun--and they ought to be incapacitated.

Denunciation is, obviously, another purpose.

Deterrence has been spoken to already by the chief, and I would echo his remarks. Deterrence applies to some; it doesn't apply to others. If deterrence was the sole purpose of the mandatory minimum for murder, you could make the argument that some people are not going to be deterred by the sentence. Of course, it applies to some but not to others. The reason we have the sentence we do for murder is, in part, because of denunciation by Parliament. So it should apply with respect to gun crimes.

I want to give a few examples of—

[Chief William Blair, Chief, Toronto Police Service]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. It is a great pleasure to be here. Just as a point of clarification, I am delighted to be able to welcome you to the city of Toronto. You're still in the city of Toronto, although you're right on the edge of our border.

As has been indicated, and obviously by the way I'm dressed, I am the chief of the Toronto Police Service. It is my pleasure to come before you today to speak a little bit about our experience in Toronto as it pertains to gun violence.

As I am sure you are all aware, in the past year in particular, but actually over the past three or four years, we have experienced a significant increase in the level of gun violence in our city. That culminated in what was characterized by the media last year as the year of the gun. It was a year that saw an increase in the number of gun-related homicides in excess of 85% in Toronto, a significant increase in the number of shooting occurrences, and, equally significant, great concern among our citizens about public safety on our streets.

The violence that occurred last year is very much tied to the activities of gangs involved in a wide variety of criminal activities in our communities, most notably drug trafficking. Gangs have increasingly armed themselves with handguns over the past number of years and have been engaged in very public use of those handguns, endangering very many people in our city.

Last year we had a number of very high-profile events in the city, which I am sure you're aware of, but let me recount some of them for you. In July 2005 there was a gun battle engaged in one of our housing communities in which a four-year-old child was injured. The child was shot four times while playing in his backyard. We had another incident where a young man attended the funeral of a friend and was shot down on the steps of the church in which the funeral was taking place.

Perhaps the most widely publicized event, and the one that caused the greatest public concern in our city, was the Boxing Day shooting that occurred at Yonge and Gould last year at about 4:30 in the afternoon on a day when the people of Toronto frequently come down to that location and have historically attended there. Very few citizens in my city have not been down to Sam the Record Man, located at that corner, on Boxing Day.

A number of individuals, about 12 to be precise, were engaged in a dispute over drug territories, and guns came out. There was an exchange of gunfire on the street, and when the smoke had cleared, seven people had been shot, one of them a 15-year-old innocent child who was shopping with her mother. She lay dead on the roadway.

We have conducted a very exhaustive investigation and brought the people who we believe to be responsible for that crime to justice. They are currently before the courts. But the wounds that that event and others like it have inflicted upon our city and our communities remain. There is still a great concern about violence in our communities.

You may have read that this year in Toronto we have mounted an effective response to some of the gun violence we have experienced. I am very proud of the fact that we have undertaken a strategy known as the Toronto anti-violence intervention strategy, in which we have dedicated hundreds of new police resources to the fight against violence. We have been very active in identifying, apprehending, and prosecuting the most violent of offenders, to remove them from our streets and make the communities in which they were preying safer. We've put uniformed officers in those areas that were experiencing violence, and we have had some success in suppressing some of that violence. We have not eliminated it.

We've put a lot of people in jail. We've seized a great number of guns. We have worked very hard with our community partners in an attempt to restore a sense of safety and create opportunities and hope in those communities that had none, where people can now be safer and feel safer. As I indicated, we have had some success, but our success has been limited by the continued violence by a number of individuals.

Even as recently as this week, we had another event where gunmen took out guns and sprayed bullets on Yonge Street, only blocks south of where Jane Creba was killed last year. Hours later, on the 401, three young gunmen fired upon police officers who were attempting to apprehend them after they had robbed a business premises earlier in the evening. The individuals responsible for that are now in custody.

But we continue to see the use of guns in our community. I'm strongly of the opinion, having read the provisions proposed in Bill C-10.... I've spoken to my people, and we're looking very hard at what is happening in our city, and not only in our city, but in cities right across Canada. As the chair of the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police organized crime committee and of the Ontario Association of Chiefs of Police organized crime committee, I have had the opportunity to speak with my colleagues in every city and every jurisdiction in this country. What we are seeing, certainly across the province of Ontario, and what large urban centres across this country are experiencing, is an increase in gun violence, the availability of guns, and the willingness of criminals to use those guns to enforce their will upon communities to terrorize communities. And what we're seeing very often is even young people gaining access to guns, carrying guns, resolving disputes that used to be resolved with a punch in the nose but now are resulting in a spurt of gunfire, killing not only the protagonists involved, but innocent people in the vicinity. That remains a significant concern across this country. I am strongly of the opinion that in order to reduce this violence, we must accomplish many things. There is no simple answer to this. There is no one answer.

Certainly we have a responsibility to apprehend the most violent offenders and to take them off the street. In addition to taking them off the street, they have to know that there are real consequences for their criminal conduct. The only reason to carry a loaded handgun in my town is to kill people. So when an individual chooses to take up a gun in the city of Toronto, they are putting all their fellow citizens at risk. They have to know that there is a strong likelihood that they will be caught, and that's my job. But they also have to know that when caught, there are real, serious, and certain consequences for those actions. Quite frankly, the certainty of those consequences is not currently available in our system, and our criminals are not being deterred.

But I can also tell you, from experience, that this year we undertook a significant organized crime investigation in a neighbourhood known as Jamestown, not very far from where we are sitting now. It is a neighbourhood, a relatively small neighbourhood, that had 10 gun-related murders--murders committed with handguns--in 2005. We conducted a major investigation, and in May of this year we apprehended 106 members of the Jamestown Crew--gang members and organized crime members from that community. We kept most of the violent ones in custody. We managed to keep them in custody through the summer.

Last year there were 10 murders in that community; this year there have been none. Last year there were over 45 shootings in that community; this year there were only a handful. The difference in that community has been extraordinary. And it's because the individuals who were preying on that community and committing so much violence have been incapacitated in their ability to terrorize that neighbourhood. Because they are in custody, they haven't been out on those streets to kill people and kill each other. And that neighbourhood is experiencing a significant renaissance.

The other things we are attempting to do in that community--to make it safe, to create new opportunity, to create hope, to restore a community's confidence and its pride--can only take place when the bullets no longer fly around the neighbourhood. So by taking the most violent offenders off the street, and, most importantly, by keeping them off the street, we create an opportunity for the other positive things to happen so that our youth workers, our schools, our faith leaders, our community leaders, the business community, and all of us together can make a real difference in those communities. But it only works when the gunmen are gone.

I am available, sir, to speak to any issues you may have.

[The Chair, Conservative, Art Hanger]

Thank you, Ms. Barnes.

Would Chief Blair come to the table?

Chief Blair, the committee, of course, has been studying Bill C-10 and the concern over the issue of offences involving firearms. We've had some meetings already, but the debate certainly has not come to any conclusion at this point. We anticipate several more weeks of meetings and witnesses to be heard.

It's our pleasure, certainly, to be in your city. There was unanimous agreement to attend here to get some first-hand information and make ourselves available to whoever would like to speak.

With that, Chief, the floor is yours. Perhaps you could present, and then I know we will have a series of questions.

[The Chair, Conservative, Art Hanger]

I call to order the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights, on this date, Thursday, November 23, 2006.

We are continuing our discussion and debate on Bill C-10, an act to amend the Criminal Code—that is, minimum penalties for offences involving firearms.

We certainly have the pleasure of being in the city of Toronto. I guess actually Mississauga would be more the area where the airport is, but at least in the area of Toronto. With us, of course, are several witnesses from this region, one being the chief of the Toronto Police Service, Chief William Blair.

Just before I ask Chief Blair to sit at the table, we have one quick item of business that we would like to address. You have a copy of a motion before you, and I would turn to the Honourable Sue Barnes, MP, with the Liberal caucus, to make that motion.

[Daniel Petit, Conservative, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

Thank you.

Mr. Turner, you got off to a good start. I think I'll be needing the documents you're given me and that you'll be handing over to the clerk so that we may consult them.

I have a question that always comes to mind and which is generally asked by the Liberal Party members. Whenever we are looking at homicide, attempted murders, sexual assaults, they always ask if there are more Indians among the group. For instance, in Montreal, because of the Haitian street gang phenomenon, the question is automatically asked about blacks. When the time comes to amend legislation, people tell us that what we are doing is inverse racism, because if you put them all in jail, there will be an over population of blacks or Indians.

I like to put forward an hypothesis to you. Take for instance the city of Montreal, it should be rather short for you, at least I hope so. If all of the districts were controlled by Haitian street gangs and that they killed people, there would automatically be more Black murderers in jail. So, tomorrow morning, I would have the Black Coalition on my back, telling me that we, the Conservatives, are racists.

In your statistics on homicides, what does that correspond to? Are these people whites, blacks or Indians? It is important. Usually, the Liberal Party members say that there are more Indians than whites in jail. So, I want to know what this corresponds to. I think that if you had their names, you would be able to give me an answer, or at least to say whether they are blacks, whites, Indians, etc. It's very important because it will help us later on, in studying other parts of Bill C-10.

[Mike Lake, Conservative, Edmonton—Mill Woods—Beaumont, AB]

You haven't done any. There are no statistics. I would think that would be information that would be pertinent to what we're studying here, not only the repeat crime but also the seriousness of the follow-up crime.

The next question I would ask is this, and I imagine I have the answer already because it follows on that. I'm looking at slide 6 and I'm wondering whether any research has been done, especially pertaining to Bill C-10--and you're going to have to stick with me because it's hard for me to even explain the question and what I'm looking for here--on what this graph would look like had Bill C-10 been in place during, for example, the last 15 years. If some of the people who committed these crimes were repeat offenders, and under the provisions of Bill C-10 would have been imprisoned at the time they committed the crime, the graph would certainly be more downward. To what extent would that be the case, or has anything been done?

[Mike Lake, Conservative, Edmonton—Mill Woods—Beaumont, AB]

Good afternoon. I appreciate your being here today. This is my first time sitting on this committee, so if I mix up my terminology or something like that, you'll excuse me.

We're here studying Bill C-10, and Bill C-10 includes escalating firearm use offences. In slide 11, it depicts a situation in which about 30% of offenders, the top three bars there, in 2003-04 had prior firearm convictions. So first of all, it seems that the escalating penalties of Bill C-10 will only touch a relatively small number of offences. Is that accurate?

[Daniel Petit, Conservative, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

I would like that to be submitted to the committee.

I'm surprised to see that you've included Sweden in that list. As far as we're concerned, in Quebec, Sweden is seen as a leader. We always try to emulate Sweden, but I think this is the only case where we would not want to do so. There are more homicides over there than here. Is it due to socialism? I do not know, but either way, that will be decided later on.

I have another question for you, Ms. Barr-Telford. I'm intrigued by something here. You probably don't know organized crime, but I will ask you a question as though you did.

Do you know about loan-sharking, in other words loans that are given at an exorbitantly high interest rate? Take the example of a loan-shark from whom you borrowed money at a 50 per cent-interest rate per day. If he comes up to you carrying a weapon—you may not see it but you know that he's carrying one—I can assure you that you're going to give him what you owe him.

I understand that your statistics strictly deal with cases where there was a conviction, but you also refer to threats made by people carrying weapons. There are a number of people, in Montreal for instance, who are being had by organized crime carrying weapons and literally threatening others. We didn't come up with bills to prohibit that type of business for nothing. This is the type of thing we see in Montreal. We all know about José Théodore, the former star Montreal Canadian goaltender whose family is embroiled in loan-sharking. When you do that kind of thing, you carry weapons.

If individuals in organized crime, like the Hells Angels, come up to you, you know that they're carrying weapons. You're afraid of them and you obey their orders. They commit crimes and they force you to do things which you do because you know that they're carrying weapons and you are afraid of them. Naturally, you don't tell the police about it, because that just may get you shot in the back. That's what it's all about.

However, there is no mention of it in your statistics. I'm looking at them carefully. I find them pretty good, but we're going to have to take a stand on Bill C-10, and I am missing some information in order to respond to Mr. Ménard, Mr. Lemay or Mr. Murphy.

I'd like to know what you mean by threats or offences with firearms. There are individuals who commit many offences, but who are not necessarily convicted. I know that mobsters know how to use weapons.

So, I don't have this information, how can I get it? Do you have something to guide us? I'm not a statistician; I'll tell you that right now.

[Réal Ménard, Bloc, Hochelaga, QC]

From an empirical perspective, what do you think this means? Why were there fewer firearm offences committed? I've seen studies commissioned by the former solicitor general, which showed that over a given period, following the adoption of Bill C-68, fewer firearm offences were committed, but perhaps other types of offences were.

Once again, it is important for me to understand this. As legislators, we are being asked to increase sentences. Quickly, based on what you've just shown us—and I will be reading it over calmly in the train—we would not be inclined to vote in favour of Bill C-10, because under the current regime, there are already fewer firearm offences being committed.

Do you think this is due to economic, demographic or perhaps criminal factors? Based on your statistics, why would there be fewer firearm-related offences being committed in Canadian society?

And if you can answer my questions, you may now run for a position as assistant deputy minister.

[Réal Ménard, Bloc, Hochelaga, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

We are studying Bill C-10. When the previous government created the firearms registry, it also defined 10 offences involving firearms which were to receive special mention in the Criminal Code. The logic behind Bill C-68 that the Liberals introduced was to deter people from committing crimes with firearms.

The question we must address today is with respect to increased sentences. So, the Conservative government wants to increase sentences by one or two years, depending on the offence, for all of these offences, and include two new offences.

Based on the data you presented to us, what would enable me to understand that harsher sentences act as a deterrent?

I'm sorry if I missed the beginning of your presentation, but I was held up in the House. If I've understood your reasoning, you're saying that generally speaking there has been a drop in firearm-related offences, but when it comes to violent crime, like homicide or murder, there's a greater chance of them being committed with firearms.

What evidence, if any, would prove to me that harsher sentences for crimes committed with firearms have a deterrent effect?

That is the question we must answer, under Bill C-10. That is what the government wants to do: where there was once a three-year sentence the government wants four years, and two-year sentences would be up to three. The government is considering longer sentences for offences involving firearms.

What lessons have we learned from Bill C-68? From a statistical point of view? I'm not asking you for your personal opinion, because I know that you must reserve judgment on this. But from a statistical standpoint, how can you answer our questions on Bill C-10?

[Myron Thompson, Conservative, Wild Rose, AB]

The last three years. We know then that because of the last three years we have to do something about guns, and that's why we're doing Bill C-10. You're the wrong people to ask your opinion of Bill C-10, I realize that, as you're here to provide us with some information, but I really think the cost of crime is never brought into the picture.

Is there any way, because of your experience as statisticians, that this kind of thing could be brought front and centre? I don't think we really measure the cost of crime. We know what it costs to feed a goofball to put him in the penitentiary, but I don't know what it costs as a result of what he did. Is there any way we can do that?