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.

Criminal Code

[Colin Carrie, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Industry]

Mr. Speaker, I listened with great interest to the member's speech and it was very typical of the Bloc. He was all over the place. He was talking about different types of crime and what the government is doing. What he does not realize is that today we are debating Bill C-10 and what we are talking about are offences involving firearms, in other words, people who pick up a gun and go into a store or somebody's home and have every intention of using it. The only reason people would pick up a gun is because they have the intention of using it.

This is not talking about jaywalking. He mentioned how it may be too harsh for a judge to put these people in jail. Maybe they need community work or a few weeks in prison. We are talking about serious criminals, criminals who would be willing to use a firearm to seriously injure or murder somebody and hopefully we would be able to catch them before that act occurred.

He stated that in the United States violent crime rates are up, but what he did not mention is that states that have minimum sentences, compared to states next door, have fewer violent crimes because criminals are smart. They know that if they commit a crime in the state that has the minimum sentence they are going to go to jail automatically, so hence the state next door has higher violent crime rates.

What does the member suggest we do with violent criminals who cannot be rehabilitated? Should we be hugging them, according to the Bloc member?

[Thierry St-Cyr, Bloc, Jeanne-Le Ber, QC]

Mr. Speaker, it is astonishing to hear my hon. colleague glorify criminals and say how smart they are. I think there is a problem when people commit crimes. I would not describe these people as smart. If they were so smart, they would not get caught.

If what the hon. member said were true, why do Ontario criminals not come and commit crimes in Quebec where we take a rehabilitative approach? This kind of pseudo-psychology is just too facile.

When people commit crimes, there are two main kinds. First, there is the kind that is planned, organized and prepared. The people who commit this type of crime do not say to themselves that if they are caught, they will get 7.5 years in prison instead of 4.8. The people who plan crimes think that they will not get caught. That is why, as all the studies show, imposing minimum penalties on these people has no dissuasive effect. They are convinced that they will not get caught. The second kind, often committed with firearms, is crimes of passion which are not thought through. These are people, for example, who just lose it at some point, go crazy, take a shotgun they keep around the house, and go and kill their spouse. These people do not go down the stairs with their gun saying to themselves, “Gee, the new Government of Canada passed minimum sentences so I had better not kill my wife”. That is not what they are thinking. This bill will not change anything here and this woman’s life will not be saved.

What might help this woman, though, is a firearms registry that works properly, gun control, and a campaign to raise awareness that shotguns are no less dangerous than handguns. In the example I just gave, by the way, the minimum penalty would not be any greater under this bill because the minimum for crimes committed with shotguns stays at four years.

This government bill is not consistent. They want it to look good, but the reality is something else. When criminals commit vicious crimes and deserve long sentences, judges hand them down. What the Conservatives are saying is that sometimes and in some situations, judges look at all the evidence and decide that the maximum penalty is not warranted or a lesser penalty should apply. Some critics say that these judges are wrong, but how are we supposed to know? What study shows that they are?

Studies have been done which took members of the public and gave them the facts of a case, all the evidence admitted by the court was explained to them, and they were asked whether the judge’s decision was appropriate. Most of the time, people who were well informed, who knew the facts well and who went beyond the news in the media concluded that the judges had made the right decision.

Personally, I am much more likely to have confidence in a judge who has listened to a trial for several hours and who weighs the evidence submitted to him or her before determining sentence than in a member who is talking about a hypothetical case, who does not even know the context and who says that the crime is less serious because it was committed with a shotgun or more serious because it was committed with a handgun.

Where will it stop? Will we be saying that if the crime was committed between midnight and three a.m., it is more serious? Honestly, this makes no sense. I think we have to get back to basics, do our job as legislators—establish a legal framework that clearly defines the maximum sentences for various crimes so the relative seriousness can be determined. Most importantly, we have to do the work that is needed on prevention, through our social policy and crime fighting programs. Those programs exist now, but they are still sitting on the desk of the Minister of Public Safety. They are just waiting for a signature

We do not need a bill to be read three times in the House of Commons and three times in the Senate and be given royal assent to do this. We need the minister’s signature. And we are still waiting for that.

This would be genuine crime prevention, it would help families in Quebec and Canada. Those families do not want criminals staying in prison for the rest of their lives, or for as long as possible. What those families want is for there to be no crimes and no criminals. So that is what we have to work on.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I think the member has raised some matters for consideration.

There is no question that all members in this place want to ensure that our criminal justice system is doing the job that is necessary for the protection and safety of Canadians, and for the deterrence, rehabilitation and prevention objectives of the criminal justice system. However, the aspect of deterrence, the mandatory minimums, is really what we are looking at.

I would just note that the supreme court of the United States recently found the determinate sentences for mandatory minimum penalties found in the American federal sentencing guidelines to be unconstitutional and deemed them to be advisory only.

I wonder whether the member would maybe share some concern that even in Canada this particular serious escalation of mandatory minimums may in fact be challenged in the Supreme Court.

I note that the bill does not even come into force until there is a proclamation by governor in council, which means it is not going to be in force in Canada should it pass through all stages of Parliament. The government is going to have some discussions and I wonder if those discussions will reflect the fact that there may in fact be a constitutional challenge.

[Thierry St-Cyr, Bloc, Jeanne-Le Ber, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I do not want to pretend to be a constitutional expert, nor do I want to anticipate whatever decision the Supreme Court may make, but the decision in the United States clearly illustrates where we can end up when we mix up our functions, when we mix the legislative function up with the judicial.

In all advanced societies based on the rule of law and governed by laws, everywhere in the world where people live in true democracies that protect individual freedoms, everywhere, there is separation of the legislative and judicial branches. Members of legislatures and elected representatives enact laws and define crimes and the relative seriousness of those crimes. Judges apply the laws and determine sentences, and in my opinion, in this case, we should rely on this fine British tradition, which is a good thing.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I had the opportunity to debate Bill C-10 at second reading before it went to committee. Question period today reminded me of the circumstances which existed at the time when the government House leader pointed out that it took some 220 days for Bill C-10 to be dealt with by the justice committee.

It is a perfect example of how in this place selectivity of the facts tend to paint a different picture unless all the facts are put on the table. Indeed, I can recall one member outlining in some glorious detail exactly what the facts were.

We know that at the time that Bill C-10 was referred to the Standing Committee on Justice there were 10 or 11 other bills already in committee for it to work on. I am not sure the public would fully appreciate the due diligence and kind of work that needs to be done by a standing committee when a piece of legislation comes forward, but many of these had to do with the Criminal Code. Some of them did not, but they were all part of the crime-related agenda that the government had spoken about.

The interesting thing is that when we talk about 220 days, it is not 220 sitting days of this place, it is 220 calendar days. I suspect any bill that gets introduced in mid-June is going to be languishing for about 100 calendar days but only because the House will not be in session. It is kind of disingenuous to describe things in terms of calendar days when it comes to Parliament.

There was a lot of criticism of the approach that the government made to the criminal justice bills. Instead of doing what has been done in the past, which is creating a so-called omnibus bill where a number of the areas that a government would like to propose amendments to the Criminal Code would be put together in one bill.

All of the witnesses that would be called for any one of those bills probably would be the same witnesses needed for the other bills and any others that might come along. They are representatives from the legal community, the justice department, stakeholder groups, advocacy groups, et cetera.

Members may not necessarily be lawyers. There are a number of members of Parliament who bring a lot of diversity to some of the committees. Being a lawyer on the justice committee is not necessarily the only prerequisite, so the committee must rely on expert testimony.

It was kind of interesting that the committee found itself bogged down in so much work with so many different bills that it had to deal with, virtually sequentially, simply because the continuity of the witnesses and testimony made it so. Even though Bill C-10 was sent to committee, it did not get dealt with for some time, that is true, but it was not because the committee did not want to deal with it or the opposition was being obstructive. It was because the committee was fully engaged in other legislation.

Members will know that the Standing Committee on Justice along with the finance committee are the two most active committees. They meet several hours each week and have very detailed discussions of important legislation and other related matters.

I wanted to point that out in case someone suggested there was any deliberate delay. As a matter of fact, members may recall that the official opposition made an offer to the government on a number of those bills, I have forgotten at this time whether it was 8 or 10 of them, to deal with them summarily and pass them so they could go through the system.

The government rejected that opportunity to get legislation through this place quickly, to make compromises, which is important in a minority government. There are very few bills that ultimately get through here that have not had the rigours of debate, negotiation and some compromise. That is the nature of a minority Parliament.

We do have Bill C-10 before us. There are some issues. I find it kind of interesting that, depending on where our motivation is, some will say that we need these mandatory minimums and we have to have them a little bit higher because we have to get tough on crime.

First, we have to understand, and Canadians will understand, that we are talking about minimums. That does not mean that someone who has, for instance, robbed a bank and had a gun but did not use it did not commit a serious crime. Committing a criminal offence while in possession of a firearm is a serious offence.

The issue here is that minimums are established, but that the judiciary, the judges, have the discretion to set the penalties to fit the crime. We are not talking about the maximums. We are not saying, “Let us get tough on crime”. So, Bill C-10 really does not fit with the explanation or the characterization of being tough on crime. It has to do with deterrents.

A balanced approach to the criminal justice system in any country around the world has three elements. First, there is prevention. In the bills that the government has brought forward, not one of those bills that I can recall is dedicated toward crime prevention.

The second element is deterrence. Deterrence does come from things like mandatory minimums, so that those who might contemplate committing a crime with a firearm, knowing that the offence may get them an automatic two year sentence in addition to whatever the judge may want them to have but it will be at least two years, that represents an element of deterrence.

What happens when we raise that from two to five or from two to seven or maybe two to ten? The expert testimony that came before parliamentarians was very clear. There comes a point at which the amount of time is irrelevant to someone who will be committing a crime, so the mandatory minimum, it does not matter how high it is, will not be a factor on whether or not they are going to do what they are going to do. That is why we have independence of the judiciary. That is why we have judicial discretion and on a case by case basis, the sentencing is dealt with by the court, by the jury, and by the judge to determine an appropriate sentence, given the circumstances of the case.

The final element in a balanced and responsible judicial system is rehabilitation. Rehabilitation is a very important part of our criminal justice system. People commit crimes and are sent to jail. If we did not have a program to promote rehabilitation, if we just put people away in a cell, slammed the door shut, slid the food through the door and that is where they stayed, we would basically be creating a situation where those people would come out of jail when their sentence was finished with a disposition that they would be very likely to be dangerous people in society.

The justice system does provide for every opportunity for rehabilitation for those who have committed crimes. That is important because once people come out, we want them to be able to resume their lives once they have served the time they had to serve.

Even within the system for good behaviour, the system provides for parole situations and early release. It is reflective of those who have shown the remorse for their crime or who have circumstances which would indicate they are not a further danger to society.

However, even under those circumstances, they also continue to have that sentence even though they may be on parole. If they violate any of their parole conditions, they will be immediately be back in jail. The sentence is the sentence. It depends on where one is serving it and in what form it is being served.

We have had some discussion about whether we have come to a point where mandatory minimums have escalated to an extent which brings into concern the issue of constitutionality. Earlier in a question, I advised the House about a note I had received about the supreme court of the United States. It recently found the determinant sentences for mandatory minimum penalties found in American federal sentencing guidelines to be unconstitutional and, therefore, deemed to be advisory only. I am also aware that about 25 states have eliminated the lengthy mandatory minimum sentences since 2003.

Why does the supreme court of the United States now have this problem? Why have a number of states backed off these very high mandatory minimum sentences? There must be a reason. They did not do it just because they thought it might be good thing to do. It is not a matter of handling it on a whim. It is handled on the basis of experience and evidence.

We know that the comparative penal systems between Canada and the United States are quite different. The penalty system within the United States is much more serious than it is in Canada. I think people's first intuition might be that if there are stiffer penalties and stiffer sentences, that will be good to reduce crime. It is not the case, and the United States compared to Canada is in fact the proof.

The sentencing is harsher in the United States, but the rate of criminal offences and incarceration of people is about 30% higher. However, that is not the only jurisdiction. There are others. The justice committee heard from expert witnesses to see what is going on. It had the benefit of this experience of tracking other jurisdictions and of what was happening in Canada.

People want to suggest that somehow Canada is a crime haven and things like that. Sometimes some very bad things happen in our country, but they plot on the graphs the incidents of criminal activity from a broad range. In general, the crime rate has been going steadily down over the last number of years. Canada is doing extremely well in addressing crime, but it is not through the penalties or the deterrents. It is what I talked about earlier. It is through the prevention measures.

I will divert a little to a related matter. It has to do with how to deal with those who are mentally ill, or an example as we debated on Monday, those who have fetal alcohol spectrum disorder. It is a subject matter that I have been working on as a member of Parliament for at least 12 years. The subject matter at the time was referred to as fetal alcohol syndrome or fetal alcohol effects.

I was a member of the health committee. I had studied and researched what the health committee had been doing before I became a member of Parliament. I came across a report called “Foetal Alcohol Syndrome: A Preventable Tragedy”. In brief, the consumption of alcohol during pregnancy causes brain damage to the fetus in a prenatal situation and that the child will be born with brain damage, with mental disabilities. Interestingly enough, if we look at the pattern, people who suffer from mental disabilities have a very high predisposition to run afoul of the criminal justice system.

This concerned me and I wanted to know more about it. I learned that because of the brain damage, people did not know the difference between right and wrong all the time. We can tell them a hundred times not to do something because it is wrong and they do anyway because they somehow think it is right.

I raise this because in our criminal justice system we have to deal with people who have, in some cases, mental disabilities. If a person has a mental disability and maybe had a gun when he or she robbed a bank, under certain circumstances in Bill C-10, this person could be put in jail with a mandatory minimum of say five years or maybe even seven year.

We have to ask if prevention, deterrence and rehabilitation are all elements of a responsible criminal justice system. How is it responsible to take people who suffer from a mental illness and who probably do not know the difference between right and wrong and put them away in jail, in a system which is based on delivering rehabilitation? In the case of someone who suffers from mental illness, rehabilitation is not applicable.

It is an interesting case, but I raise it because there are circumstances on a case by case basis where two identical crimes may get different sentences. Some may be lower, some may be higher. Why? Because there are sometimes mitigating circumstances, sometimes exacerbating circumstances. That is why we need judicial discretion. That is why we have the independence of the judiciary.

With regard to judicial appointments, I heard the Prime Minister say in this place that he would like to have judges who were more closely associated with his ideological thinking, people more attuned to the way he saw the world. Does this not attack judicial independence? Does this not affect our court system? It concerned me that the Prime Minister was prepared to say he would start shaping the courts just as is done in the United States. The President of the United States makes appointments to the supreme court because of a person's history on a certain side of an issue.

It is a pattern that we have seen time and time again, not only on justice bills, but on other legislation. Canada seems to be more driven by what is happening in republican America, what is happening with George Bush and how does George feel about these things. We seem to be following blindly.

Canada has a responsible system. The Liberals brought in 45 different instances where mandatory minimums were proscribed. There is no question that we support mandatory minimums, but there comes a point, and I believe that is the issue in this bill, where the escalation has gone so far that it brings into question the constitutionality of it and whether there will be a constitutional challenge here. If there is, Canada will not be the better for it.

[Mario Laframboise, Bloc, Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC]

Mr. Speaker, it is interesting to listen to my colleague discuss this bill. I would like to hear a bit more because the society bequeathed to us by our ancestors is a lawful society based on striking a balance between the crime committed and the punishment imposed. That is the choice our ancestors made in order to pass down a society that is different from American society. Too often we look at the Conservative government and see that it is moving closer to the system of repression established in the United States. That is not the system that our parents and our grandparents wanted to leave us.

I would therefore like my colleague to elaborate on the importance of maintaining a system of law where the punishment fits the crime.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the member is absolutely right. There are some principles and values which are built into our system, certainly starting with the charter and the protection for all under the rule of law. Even a serious criminal has rights under the charter and the rule of law.

The member is also right with regard to proportionality. It is a principle that the judicial system tries to ensure. If we were to take a particular crime and put it outside of the proportionality model, we may find that all of a sudden the integrity of the system comes into question. That is a very serious consideration.

The principle of the punishment fitting the crime, and I think the member would agree, is subject to certain elements or aspects in a certain case. No two cases are identical in all aspects. There may be mitigating factors. There may be exacerbating factors. They may warrant a more serious punishment or a lower one. This is with regard to people who we would consider lucid, who knew what they were doing, et cetera.

As I raised in my commentary, we also have the situation where we have people whose knowledge or admission and their ability to understand what they have done all of a sudden creates a whole different situation. I do not know what happens to people who are put into the system. What I do know is it has been estimated that in some provinces almost half of the population in the jails of some of our provinces and in federal institutions suffer from some sort of mental illness or an alcohol related birth defect. This concerns me a lot.

The fastest growing industry in the United States is building jails, putting people away. It has done nothing to make the United States safer. We should learn from their experience.

[Mario Laframboise, Bloc, Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the Bloc Québécois is often criticized for not participating or for being very different. Today, however, it is aligned with the Liberal Party on the discussion of minimum sentences.

I would like to discuss a second aspect. The almost automatic nature of parole is at issue and not the entire system of penalties, or penalties in the Criminal Code. Therein lies the problem and I would like to hear what my colleague has to say about that.

At present, criminals are released when they have served one sixth of their sentence. That is the problem. The fact that we impose minimum sentences is not at issue. When the sentence has been imposed, the individual or the criminal must serve that sentence. Nothing in this bill challenges the fact that parole is granted almost automatically. Does my colleague agree?

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the member is quite right. When Bill C-10 is considered in isolation, there are a number of other elements related to an effective criminal justice system which are not reflected in this bill. There are some other bills, and I mentioned about 10 or 11 other bills that have been presented by the government, some of which could have come together. There could have been a more comprehensive approach. The Liberals absolutely agree with that.

In response to the member's question, here is what a Liberal government would do. We would immediately convene a round table meeting of the federal, provincial and territorial ministers, together with representatives of key organizations representing the police to commence discussions on developing long term, sustainable, cost-sharing arrangements for additional police officers. This is the prevention side of it. In terms of early parole, conditional release, et cetera, these are areas of concern which still continue to be discussed by parliamentarians.

There is no question that we need to continue to re-evaluate things. There has been some success, but the system must be responsive. I would certainly suggest that in a balanced system in which there are appropriate elements of deterrence, of rehabilitation and of prevention, the kinds of issues that the member talks about, whether or not the public sees someone getting out earlier and maybe reoffending, there are reoffenders, but statistically, they are not the majority. By far they are the minority of cases.

Is there a balance to be achieved? Is there more work to be done? Absolutely. The criminal justice system, much like our Constitution, is going to be as dynamic as a growing tree. I expect there will be more discussions, and there should be more discussions, in this place on the propriety of sentencing and release and parole provisions.

[Marlene Jennings, Liberal, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask my hon. colleague about other initiatives that a new Liberal government would be prepared to implement immediately.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Immediately, if not sooner, Mr. Speaker.

We do have a published commitment of some of the initiatives. We would give the RCMP money for 400 additional officers to help local police deal with guns and gang activity. We would ensure more money was available for the provinces to hire crown attorneys. We would continue to support reverse onus bail hearings for those arrested of a gun crime. We would establish a fund that would help at risk communities cover the cost of security in their places of worship or other gathering places.

We would strive to set up organized crime secretariats like Ontario's guns and gangs task force. We would strengthen legislation aimed at preventing Internet luring. We would act on the recommendations of the Privacy Commissioner. We would update and toughen legislation to deter and prevent identity theft. We would amend the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act to make it mandatory for organizations to notify people of data breaches involving their personal information. We would act immediately to implement all 22 recommendations made by the federal task force on spam which have been ignored by the current government.

There are many more, but I know the time is up. I am sure when we do form a government after the next election that all of these issues will be dealt with swiftly.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to speak in this debate. It seems to me that the agenda is a little thin and so the government has gone back to its law and order agenda.

I want to talk about my riding. In some respects this is the kind of issue that the government thinks it is resolving. I have a riding in the east end of Toronto. I do not know how well members know Scarborough or the east end of Toronto, but Scarborough is the centre of the universe. My particular section of Scarborough is interesting in that below Kingston Road are some of the nicest homes one can buy in all of Toronto. It is a lovely area. Some of the homes run upwards of $2 million. North of Kingston Road, which is a rough dividing line, are some of the more impoverished areas in all of the greater Toronto area.

One of the more impoverished areas is Markham and Eglinton. In a very small area are approximately 17,000 people in a series of high rises. Many of them are new to this country but certainly what they all have in common is that they do not have a lot of income. The United Way identified that particular area, which is called Scarborough Village, as an area that was in need of assistance. There were a number of other areas around the GTA that got special attention from the United Way.

The United Way comes into an impoverished area and what would be, statistically at least, a high crime area and says to the community, “This is a problem. The community is not functioning. What should we do here?” It does community assessment, assesses community needs and identifies community leaders.

In the process of working in that community for a year and a half to two years it has done the assessment. It has developed things like community events. It has developed a functioning community centre. The United Way has assisted the community in pulling itself up by the boot straps.

We have to bear in mind that a fair number of these 17,000 people are just desperate to make the rent. That is about as good as it gets for them. They have come from afar. They are struggling with the language. They are struggling with a diminished status vis-à-vis what it would have been like in their former countries. That creates social problems between spouses. It creates social problems between one generation and the next. Sometimes the kids adapt fairly easily and do not necessarily respect their parents who are having more difficulty adapting.

It is a bit of a fertile ground for crime. We as the larger community have been concerned, but the specific community of Scarborough Village has been concerned also.

I have gone to quite a number of meetings. I have met with folks who think that something needs to be done. The police are very involved in this process. They are very keen on seeing the community heal itself, have respect for itself and reduce itself from a high crime area. Not once did they ever talk about minimum mandatories. Surprise, surprise. They did not talk about minimum mandatories. They did not really think that there was that much wrong with the Criminal Code. I can see areas where we might want to do reverse onus on gun crimes, the guns and gangs task force and things of that nature which have actually been useful in terms of getting some of the bad apples off the street, but minimum mandatories is certainly not one of the things that they actually talked about.

That seems to me to be just about the classic statement of how wrong-footed this particular government is on the issue of security and safety in our communities. The Conservatives missed the boat.

The Conservatives missed the boat because they think that getting tough on crime, which means this kind of draconian sentencing, taking away the discretion of judges, eliminating the ability of a judge to shape a sentence to fit the crime under all the circumstances, is the way to go. They do not think that minimum mandatory is the way to go.

My colleague earlier talked about particularly disadvantaged people and how this kind of draconian one size fits all approach to the crime somehow or other would reduce crime. Unfortunately for the government, there is not a statistic, there is not a jurisdiction, there is not a study in the world that actually shows that. Minimum mandatories have virtually no impact on crime.

If in fact the government were seriously interested in doing something about crime, actually reducing recidivism, in fact getting criminals in particular back into a functioning element of society, it would get behind the guns and gangs initiative, it would get behind organizations like the United Way.

I have a suggestion, and I have suggested this in other instances. Of the enormous amount of money that is going to be spent on housing all these criminals by virtue of this minimum mandatory legislation, which I am told would be something in the order of about $220 million to $250 million over the next five years, I would suggest that my riding's portion just be directed to the United Way.

I have a little bet going with the government that if we were able to put that money into the United Way, we would have a lower crime rate. That money would be of more use than throwing folks in jail and throwing away the key. That does not seem to be a favoured view these days. People want to be tough on crime.

Our position in the Liberal Party is we want to be smart on crime. We want to do what works. What a strange concept.

It has been shown that having minimum mandatories does not work. In fact there are apparently something like 25 jurisdictions in the United States that have backed away from minimum mandatories because they have experienced it and it does not work. Recidivism is up and they are spending enormous sums of money on keeping people in jail.

I can see how this legislation works for those who are pro jail and for those who want to develop more and more jails so that we are housing more and more people. I guess it is some form of solution for homelessness.

My suggestion would be that the money be given to the United Way and organizations such as that to develop the community, to allow the community to develop. The best policing of the community is the community itself. Statistic after statistic, study after study shows that minimum mandatories fall disproportionately on disadvantaged groups.

I do not have a particularly large aboriginal population in my riding, but what I do have is a large black population in my riding. When we talk to the community leaders, they are very concerned about black crime, particularly black on black, and youth crime. What they need and what they are crying out for is community development, the ability to do some parent substituting, basketball courts, community centres, homework programs. They are asking for facilities where they can access the Internet, facilities where they can access all kinds of services that we tend to take for granted. They are not talking about amending the Criminal Code to get minimum mandatories, because they know that is just a useless exercise.

I respectfully say to the government that this exercise in minimum mandatories is frankly an exercise of hot air. The government could have allocated the money to facilities such as I am suggesting here.

Mr. Speaker, I see that you are standing for some very good reason.

[The Acting Speaker, Royal Galipeau]

It is with regret that I interrupt the hon. member for Scarborough—Guildwood, but it is 5:30 p.m.

The House will now proceed to the consideration of private members' business as listed on today's order paper.

When we return to the study of Bill C-10, there will be 10 minutes left for the hon. member for Scarborough—Guildwood.

The House resumed from May 17 consideration of the motion that Bill C-10, An Act to amend the Criminal Code (minimum penalties for offences involving firearms) and to make a consequential amendment to another Act, be read the third time and passed.

[Réal Ménard, Bloc, Hochelaga, QC]

Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to speak to Bill C-10 concerning offences involving firearms. This bill is a follow-up to Bill C-9, concerning reduced access to conditional sentences.

I would like to make it clear that the Bloc Québécois is concerned about and condemns all offences involving firearms. Everybody understands that offences involving firearms are serious, and that is why, since 1997, the Bloc Québécois has been steadfast in its demands for a mandatory gun registry, a public registry that police officers consult 6,500 times a day. We believe it is inconsistent to seek to implement a mandatory minimum sentencing strategy for offences involving firearms while attacking the very existence of a gun registry, which is a true public safety tool, as I will demonstrate.

Bill C-10 imposes mandatory minimum sentences. Right off the top, there is a problem with that because when it comes to sentencing, when a court must sentence an individual, the first consideration must be individualization. The judge must consider all of the factors that shape the context of the offence. That is the first consideration.

It is certainly true that the Department of Justice—not the Bloc Québécois, not the NDP, not the Liberals—awarded contracts to carry out studies. It asked professionals, in this case criminologists, to carry out studies. They looked at the experience of countries that had adopted mandatory minimum penalties, in particular for crimes committed with a firearm, to see if that had any deterrent effect. After all, that is the goal. There are certainly some maximum penalties in the Criminal Code. Those penalties must be severe when one is dealing with crimes committed with a firearm because the potential for destruction is extremely high and very real. Usually, we put our trust in the judge and we can say that a judge or a magistrate, whether in a trial court or an appeal court, should be able to give proper weight to the facts and circumstances and determine the appropriate sentence.

Every time there is a mandatory minimum penalty, there is cause for concern. I recall that the Department of Justice called on one of the most renowned criminologists, Professor Julian Roberts, of the University of Ottawa, who testified before the Standing Committee on Justice during the review of Bill C-9 and Bill C-10. What did that criminologist say about a study carried out in 1977 by the Department of Justice? He concluded that mandatory prison sentences had been introduced by many western countries, among them, Australia, New Zealand and others. He emphasized that the studies that reviewed the impact of those laws showed variable results in terms of the prison population and no discernable effect on the crime rate.

Julian Roberts, who was asked to review all the existing studies on this subject, concluded that, in the case of mandatory minimum sentences, in those countries where there are mandatory minimum sentences no positive or negative effect on the crime rate can be seen.

When the Minister of Justice appeared before the committee, he was unable to table any scientific evidence to contradict those words.

The bill provides that, for some 20 offences—of which the most serious are attempted murder, discharge of a firearm with intent, sexual assault, aggravated sexual assault, kidnapping, hostage taking, robbery and extortion—where there is a minimum sentence of three years, a minimum sentence of five years should be imposed and that where a five-year minimum sentence is now provided, a sentence of seven years should be imposed.

Initially—and this was defeated in committee—there were even offences for which, in the case of a second offence, the minimum sentence could be up to 10 years. I emphasize that minimum sentences remove any kind of discretionary power a judge may have to consider the circumstances and evaluate the factors related to the incident. That is extremely prejudicial to the administration of justice.

Why should we not worry about a government that says it wants to get tough on criminals? Committing an offence with a firearm is certainly reprehensible, and we are not being complacent about that. We recognize that there may be cases where the judge will impose a 10 year sentence. There may even be cases, for example if there was an attempted murder or a homicide, where the sentence could be as much as 25 years. It is quite acceptable to have such sentences. But it is never acceptable to rely on an automatic process and to remove the judge's discretion in assessing the events which led to the offence.

Let us take a look at societies. If imprisonment through mandatory minimum sentences really were useful in making societies more secure, reliance on such penalties would necessarily have a visible positive effect. The United States would be a model society. The incarceration rate is 10 times higher in the United States than in Canada. Mandatory minimum sentences are used much more in the United States than in Canada. I have some statistics that show that following the American model with more imprisonment, for longer periods, is a bad strategy. Here are some of the statistics: three times more homicides are committed in the United States than in Canada. Fewer violent crimes are committed in Quebec than anywhere else in Canada.

Look at the Conservatives and their legal activism. They have introduced about 10 bills. When they are good, we support them. For example, we supported the bill on street racing. We supported the bill on DNA data banks. In the 1990s, it was the Bloc Québécois that applied pressure, especially my former colleague from Berthier, Mr. Justice Michel Bellehumeur, who was appointed to the bench because of his merits. Mr. Justice Michel Bellehumeur campaigned, with my support, to create a new law to deal with a new phenomenon: organized crime and criminal motorcycle gangs. There were 35 of them in Canada around 1995. I well remember the former justice minister Allan Rock—who became Canada’s ambassador to the United Nations but has been recalled since, if I am correctly informed—who was kind enough to let me meet some senior public servants. He attended the meeting as well. At the time, criminal biker gangs were fighting among themselves for control of the narcotics trade in our big cities, including Montreal. I well remember discussing this with senior public servants, who felt we could break up organized crime using just the existing conspiracy provisions in the Criminal Code.

I was convinced, as were Michel Bellehumeur and all the hon. Bloc members then, that a new offence was needed. At the Bloc’s initiative and thanks to its resolute leadership—the government and public service did not really see things this way at the time—some new offences were created, such as working on behalf of an organized gang. At the time, we had the three-fives theory: if five people committed five offences for a gang over the previous five years, they would be charged with a new offence established by Bill C-95. However, the police told us that this was not working and we had to go from five to three. This amendment was taken up by the government in Bill C-24.

All of this is to say that the Bloc Québécois is not soft on crime. When we need to clamp down and ensure that our toughest criminals are behind bars, we are ready to do so. We have always brought forward very positive proposals. In just a few days, the Bloc Québécois is going to announce its proposals for improving the criminal justice system. That is our responsibility as parliamentarians and as a party with seats in the House of Commons.

It is extremely contradictory—and I am sure this has not escaped my colleagues—to repeatedly introduce bills to toughen sentences and yet not attack the root of the problem, which is granting early parole to some offenders. We in the Bloc Québécois will have an opportunity to express our views on this in the near future. But I am certain that all my caucus colleagues would agree that the government should have tackled the parole system in January, when this Parliament began. That would have been a wiser course of action.

Moreover, a parliamentary committee had expressed concern about a number of provisions that could raise concerns among members of the public. My colleague Pierrette Venne was sitting on the committee at the time. Instead, the government chose an approach that implied that Canadian communities are safer when mandatory minimum sentences are in place, even though scientific literature does not support this view. Few witnesses aside from the police testified before the committee that our communities would be safer if we had mandatory minimum sentences.

I would like to quote an eminent criminologist, André Normandeau, who has researched and written extensively about the concept of neighbourhood or community policing, which has become a reality. I do not know whether community policing exists in English Canada, but it has become commonplace in Quebec. I will quote him directly so as not to be accused of misrepresenting what he said.

André Normandeau, a criminologist at the Université de Montréal, said:

Minimum sentencing encourages defence lawyers to negotiate plea bargains for their clients in exchange for charges that do not require minimum sentencing.

This shows the perverse effect of plea bargaining between defence lawyers and lawyers for the crown to drop charges that carry mandatory minimum sentences for charges that do not. Mr. Normandeau added:

Minimum sentencing can also force a judge to acquit an individual rather than be obliged to sentence that individual to a penalty the judge considers excessive under the circumstances, for cases in which an appropriate penalty would be a conditional sentence, community service or a few weeks in jail.

It was evidence like that that prompted all my predecessors, be it Richard Marceau, the former member for Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, or all my predecessors in the Bloc Québécois, to consistently say the same thing. My position in this matter is not original.

I am part of the long tradition in the Bloc Québécois. Every time we have mandatory minimum sentences and someone is trying to cut into judges' discretion to impose the sentence they consider appropriate, we think that it is not going to be in the interests of the administration of justice.

Some witnesses even took this line of reasoning farther, and gave us an example that much ink was spilled over at the time, and that got a lot of media coverage: the Latimer case. I do not know whether our colleagues will remember the Latimer case. He was a father in western Canada who helped his daughter to put an end to her horrific suffering. It was a case of assisted suicide. However, assisted suicide was not recognized as such by the court, and he was found guilty of homicide.

Consider what the witnesses told us in committee. To demonstrate the rigidity of mandatory minimum sentences, we can cite the case of Robert Latimer, the father who killed his severely disabled 12-year-old daughter. He killed her—and we have to remember this—out of compassion. This man was convicted of second-degree murder. In the Criminal Code, second-degree murder is an automatic sentence, so the judge was automatically forced to sentence him to 25 years in prison, when the jury—because this was a jury trial—wanted a much more lenient sentence.

These are some examples, and I know that if my colleague from Marc-Aurèle-Fortin has an opportunity to speak today he will also point out flaws in Bill C-10 and the extremely pernicious and perverse nature of mandatory minimum sentences. This does not mean that we are lenient when we have to deal harshly with crimes that are committed with a firearm.

I said earlier that the Bloc Québécois would have been extremely happy if, when we began our examination, we had been able to discuss the entire question of parole. That is quite unfortunate. I do not know whether the expression "dishonest" is parliamentary, but I will use it. What is dishonest in the Conservatives' discourse is that it suggests, when we look at what is in their legislative arsenal and the nine bills that have been introduced, that we are living in a society where violence is getting worse, where crime rates are on the rise, a society that is therefore much more disturbing than the one we lived in 10, 15 or 20 years ago.

Statistics show a completely different reality. That does not mean that we must avoid imposing sentences or controlling some individuals. We can all easily understand that imprisonment is the appropriate solution in certain cases. That is obvious. However, let us look a little more closely at the statistics. In the recent past, from 1992 to 2004, the number of violent crimes has been decreasing in Canada. When I say violent crimes, I mean homicide, attempted murder, assault, sexual assault, kidnapping and robbery. There were 1,084 of those crimes per 100,000 inhabitants.

At the beginning of the period, there were 1,084 of those crimes per 100,000 inhabitants. In 2004, that number had fallen to 946 per 100,000 inhabitants. In fact, Quebec, with 725 violent crimes per 100,000 inhabitants is the place with the fewest violent crimes. The number of homicides also diminished. In short, in general terms, the Conservative logic does not stand statistical analysis.

In concluding, I will say that we are taking all crimes involving firearms very seriously. We remain convinced that the best way to counter such crime is obviously a public firearm registry with compulsory registration. We know that the present registry is consulted 6,500 times daily by police forces across Canada.

We do not believe in the reasoning behind mandatory minimum sentences and that is why we cannot support Bill C-10.