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

[Rob Nicholson, Conservative, Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada]

moved 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.

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to lead off the third reading debate on Bill C-10.

During the last federal election, the Conservative Party of Canada laid out clear plans to make our streets and communities safer for Canadians. We promised to target criminal enterprise and the gangs that profit from violence, drugs and fear and undermine people's sense of personal security and their confidence in the Canadian criminal justice system.

Canadians listened to our message of hope and responded by granting us the privilege of forming the government, so today I am very proud to stand in the House as Minister of Justice to follow through on our promises to deliver on our core promises to tackle crime.

In order to make our communities safer, we introduced several criminal justice bills aimed at getting violent, dangerous criminals off our streets.

We introduced Bill C-22, the age of protection bill, to protect 14 year olds and 15 year olds from adult sexual predators.

We introduced Bill C-27 to improve the process for keeping violent and repeat offenders in prison, and Bill C-9, which aims to put an end to house arrest for serious and violent offenders and which, I am pleased to say, has passed this House.

These are just a few of our recent initiatives.

Bill C-10, the bill that we have before us at third reading, is an important piece of legislation that specifically targets gun and gang violence.

I am very pleased that we have received the support of a majority of members of the House to restore the bill, and while the bill we debate today is amended somewhat from its original form, it still contains tough mandatory minimum penalties for serious offences involving firearms.

More specifically, Bill C-10, as amended, proposes escalating penalties of five years' imprisonment on a first offence and seven years on a second or subsequent offence for eight specific serious offences involving the actual use of firearms. Those offences are: attempted murder, discharging a firearm with intent to injure a person or prevent arrest, sexual assault with a weapon, aggravated sexual assault, kidnapping, hostage taking, robbery, and extortion.

I should point out that these tough penalties will apply when the offence is committed in connection with a criminal gang or if a restricted or prohibited firearm is used.

Who can be against that? Who can be against those provisions? This is what we talked about with the Canadian public in the last election and I believe there is widespread support for a bill of this nature.

Bill C-10 defines what will constitute a prior conviction with respect to these use offences, that is, the use of firearms. This means that any prior conviction in the last 10 years, excluding the time spent in custody, for using a firearm in the commission of an offence will count as a prior conviction and will trigger the enhanced mandatory penalty for repeat offences.

Also, I should point out that Bill C-10 now proposes penalties of three years on a first offence and five years on a second or subsequent offence for four serious offences that do not involve the actual use of a firearm. Those offences are: illegal possession of a restricted or prohibited firearm with ammunition, firearm trafficking, possession for the purpose of firearm trafficking, and firearm smuggling.

For the non-use offences it is important to note that the prior convictions for both the use offences and the non-use offences will trigger the higher mandatory minimum penalties applicable in repeat offences.

The bill, as amended, also creates two new offences dealing specifically with the theft of firearms. Breaking and entering to steal a firearm and robbery to steal a firearm now are made indictable-only offences, subject to life imprisonment.

Therefore, as we can see, this bill targets serious gun crimes with a particular focus on when such crimes are committed by criminal organizations, which of course includes gangs.

It sends a very clear message to the public that this Conservative government is serious about dealing with this type of crime. I am very pleased and proud that we are introducing this piece of legislation and seeing it through to its conclusion.

I should point out the manner in which Bill C-10 was amended at report stage is an example of this government's willingness to make this minority Parliament work. Together with members of the New Democratic Party we dealt with a problem and we found a solution that responded to our respective concerns and priorities. I am pleased that we had their support and that of several other hon. members of this House.

I saw, I believe, about five members of the Liberal Party who broke ranks with their own party. I want to tell the House how much I welcomed that and certainly appreciated their support. I think they received the message on this. I am very pleased to have that support at third reading. I would welcome more support from other members of the opposition.

I should point out that Bill C-10 has the support of other important stakeholders as well. Police officers and prosecutors are supportive of this government's attempt to pass this tough on crime legislation. They have said that tougher mandatory penalties are needed to target the specific new trend that has emerged in many Canadian communities, and that is the possession and use of firearms, usually handguns, by street gangs and drug traffickers.

In that regard, I point out the support that this approach received from the attorney general of Ontario. He pointed out in a Globe and Mail article on March 6 that he liked this approach of getting tougher. He called on his federal colleagues in the Liberal Party to get behind legislation of this type because he believed this was the way to go.

Mr. Speaker, the safety and security of Canadians are not partisan matters. If we want to see progress in tackling gun crime, we will all have to do our part.

Police officers have to do their part in investigating and apprehending those who commit crimes. Crown attorneys have to do their part in ensuring that accused persons are effectively prosecuted, and of course, judges have their part to do in imposing sentences.

As parliamentarians we have a strong role to play as well. We set the laws. We signal to the courts what we consider to be appropriate penalties for specific crimes.

There are a number of opposition members who say they cannot support Bill C-10, but many of these same members have already supported mandatory penalties in the past, and particularly for firearms offences. In fact, it was the Liberal government that introduced a number of mandatory penalties in the mid-nineties and proposed a very modest increase to some of the gun-related crimes in the last Parliament.

This government does not believe a one year increase is going to make enough of a difference. We want to send a clearer message. We need to ensure that the appropriate stiff penalties are imposed on gun traffickers and gang members who use guns in such serious offences as attempted murder, hostage taking, robbery and extortion.

We believe that the proposals in Bill C-10, as amended, are both tough and reasonable. As I have already indicated, the proposals are restricted to the key areas that are a growing concern to people across this country.

There certainly is evidence to support the problems associated with the current level of gun crime. Crime statistics, police, and several other experts in this area, point to a growing problem with respect to guns and gangs. While the national trends show an overall decrease in some crime over the past few decades, it is not the case with violent crimes such as homicide, attempted murder, assault with weapons, and robbery, especially in larger urban areas across the country.

Statistics also show that while crimes committed with non-restricted guns are down, handguns and other restricted or prohibited firearms have become the weapon of choice for those who use firearms to commit crimes.

Toronto's rate of firearm homicides in recent years has frequently been reported by the press. Statistics Canada data shows that it is not just a problem unique to central Canada. The rate in Edmonton has also recently increased and Vancouver has consistently had higher rates over the last decade.

Gang-related homicides and the proportion of handguns used in violent crimes have become a major cause for concern and gun crime with restricted weapons or guns used by gang member is an increasing problem in urban communities.

Organized criminals are fuelling much of the crime problem and the government's justice agenda aims to curtail this problem by increasing the mandatory minimum penalties for crimes committed with guns, ending house arrest for those convicted of serious violent crimes and sexual offences, and other significant crime, such as major drug offences.

As I mentioned earlier, Bill C-10 includes a number of sentences for both use and non-use firearms offences with the stiffest penalties. The bill targets serious gun crimes committed by gangs or organized crime and the prohibitive weapons that they use.

In addition to this legislation, the federal government of course has a role to play in making funds available to help prevent crime before it happens. I am happy that the government has made investments in crime prevention and specifically to help at risk youth from becoming involved in criminal gangs, guns and drugs.

Funding is available to allow communities to examine issues surrounding gang involvement, create awareness of youth gang recruitment, prevention and intervention strategies, identify service gaps and best practices, and develop program responses.

Several activities have already started to fulfill the government's commitment to work with the provinces and territories to help communities provide hope and opportunity for our youth and end the cycle of violence that can lead to broken communities and broken lives.

I would like to speak for a moment on how the bill is consistent with the sentencing principles provided in the Criminal Code and charter rights. The Criminal Code provides that it is a fundamental principle of the Canadian sentencing regime that a sentence should be proportionate to the gravity of the offence and the degree of responsibility of the offender.

It also provides that the purpose of sentencing is to impose sanctions on offenders that are just, in order to contribute respect for the law and the maintenance of a just, peaceful and safe society.

Accordingly, the objectives in sentencing are to denounce unlawful contact, deter the offender and others from committing offences, and separate offenders from society where necessary, as well as assist them in rehabilitating and accepting responsibility for their actions while repairing the harm they have caused to victims and their community.

The manner in which the higher mandatory penalties will apply under Bill C-10 is intended to ensure that they do not result in disproportionate sentences contrary to the charter. The higher levels of seven years for using a firearm and five years for non-use offences are reserved for repeat firearms offenders.

If an offender has a relevant recent history of committing firearms offences, it is not unreasonable to ensure that the specific sentencing goals of deterrence, denunciation and separation of serious offenders from society are given priority by the sentencing court.

The government considers that the mandatory penalties proposed in Bill C-10 are not only just but are also appropriately targeted at the specific problem which they seek to address; that is the new trend that has developed with respect to guns and gangs.

At the beginning of my remarks I mentioned that the government is determined to make Canadian streets safer, communities safer and to stand up for victims. The good news on this front is that we are only just getting started.

[Christian Ouellet, Bloc, Brome—Missisquoi, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am amazed that our Conservative colleague is speaking of progress.

He feels that Bill C-10 is a sign of progress. The Bloc Québécois believes that it is reactionary and that it is reminiscent of 19th century thinking whereby those who commit crimes must be punished.

However, history has shown that those who commit crimes do not give a second thought to the fact that they may spend their lives, or many long years, in prison. This has been documented by studies conducted by universities and prevention groups.

I suggest that my colleague travel a bit and that he come to Quebec, where he will see that we think in terms of prevention rather than repression.

What does he have against prevention? Why does he always think about repression? Is it because he is mired in the reactionary thinking of 19th century morality?

[Rob Nicholson, Conservative, Niagara Falls, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member made a very interesting point. He said that people who commit crimes do not think about the consequences. Certainly, I believe they should think about the consequence. One of the good things about this bill is that we are going to give them the opportunity to think about them.

So, if individuals did not get the chance to think about the consequences or did not get a chance to think about the victims or what they are doing to their community or their family, it would be my sincere hope that with a mandatory five years in a federal penitentiary those individuals would have that time to reflect and think about where they had gone astray and how they have messed up their life.

As I said, one of the good things about this bill is that extra opportunity. If these individuals did not have enough time to reflect and to change their ways, and wanted to commit another serious crime with a restricted firearm in an attempt, for instance, to shoot or wound somebody, those individuals then would have seven years in a penitentiary to think about it. So then, again, that time for reflection would certainly be there.

However, as I said to the hon. member and as I pointed out in my remarks, I am certainly interested in intervening with these individuals who do not reflect on the consequences of what they do and I am very much in favour of programs and, quite frankly, funding.

I indicated a number of the areas in which the government is taking action. I think it is very impressive. I would let the member know that $16.1 million--

[The Deputy Speaker, Bill Blaikie]

Order, please. I am sorry but the Minister of Justice has gone on for some time and there are others who want to ask questions.

The hon. member for Vancouver East.

[Libby Davies, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I have just heard the Minister of Justice say that he wants to intervene earlier, and he has talked a little bit in his comments about Bill C-10 about crime prevention and community-based programs.

Following up on the comments made by the member from the Bloc, it seems that we have seen a huge amount of emphasis from the Conservative government on its crime agenda and that it is very willing to grab the Criminal Code and say, “What are we going to do to toughen up the Criminal Code and bring in more penalties?”

In certain circumstances, that is obviously an appropriate thing to do, but I think it begs the question as to what is the government's agenda in terms of crime prevention?

We have virtually had no debate on this. We have seen no initiatives from the Conservatives. I think that most people in local communities would agree that certainly law enforcement and penalties are very important measures.

However, the real building block of healthy and safe communities is around dealing with proper housing and dealing with substance abuse in a way that is actually helping people, from a health point of view, and not simply just throwing people in jail because of a health issue and a substance use issue.

I would really like to ask the minister this question. Although he made the briefest of references to crime prevention, where is the government's agenda on crime prevention and supporting strong and healthy communities? We have really seen that it does not exist from what the government has brought forward in terms of the budget and other legislative initiatives. I would like to ask him to comment on that.

[Rob Nicholson, Conservative, Niagara Falls, ON]

Mr. Speaker, in her opening remarks the hon. member said the government places a huge emphasis on its criminal law agenda. I agree with that. This is actually one of the pillars upon which this government rests.

We made it very clear to people in the last election that we want people to have confidence in the criminal justice system, we want safer streets, we want safer communities, we want less crime, and we are prepared to take steps in that direction.

I do not want there to be any misunderstanding from anyone on this. This is one of the very important items that this government promised when it came into office and we are prepared to stand on.

That being said, the hon. member made the very good point that everyone has a stake in intervening and trying to prevent crime in our communities and she said I only made the briefest of reference. Of course, I was running out of time at that point, but I certainly believe in that.

That is why I was indicating that there was funding. Just in the last budget, there have been initiatives introduced by my colleague, the Minister of Public Safety, and me to tackle the problem of youth gangs and to intervene at an earlier point to try and get those individuals.

Certainly, over the years I have supported those programs that work with young people and try to get them off a track, so that we are addressing those individuals who, as my colleague from the Bloc said, commit these offences, but they do not think about the consequences. Obviously, we want to work with the provincial authorities, the municipal authorities, interested--

[The Deputy Speaker, Bill Blaikie]

Order, please. The hon. member for Alfred-Pellan.

[Robert Carrier, Bloc, Alfred-Pellan, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I listened to the speech by the Minister of Justice, who is quite concerned with safety. However, I strongly believe that not allowing judges to decide on the appropriate sentence for each individual who commits a crime is not the right approach for ensuring safety.

With automatic sentencing, more people will go directly to jail. We know from experience that prison is a school for criminals. Thus, we will be training more criminals, unless the Minister of Justice introduces a bill that imposes a life sentence on anyone using a small firearm at some point in their life. With the minister's bill, more criminals will be turned loose. They will offend again and our cities will be even less safe.

Has he given some thought to this point in his bill?

[Rob Nicholson, Conservative, Niagara Falls, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member is upset that we are proposing to send these individuals to prison. I must point out again who we are talking about. These are individuals who have used a restricted firearm for the crimes of attempted murder, sexual assault with a weapon, aggravated sexual assault, hostage-taking, robbery and extortion.

The hon. member asks why there is no other alternative. Believe me, if I thought that sending these people to camp or sending them away on a vacation somewhere was the solution to this, I would go along with that. However, it seems to me that when individuals commit these serious crimes, and do them repeatedly, because the bill talks about escalating penalties, when people cannot get the message that this type of activity is abhorred in Canadian society, then one of the options proposed in this legislation is imprisonment.

I will give the Bloc Québécois credit for being consistent. It consistently opposes these efforts to toughen up the Criminal Code. We have a break coming up and I would ask the hon. member to go back and talk to some of his citizens, explain these offences that I am talking about here of people using restricted firearms, using a pistol in an attempted murder, and see if they agree with me. I bet they will. I think they will say that the Conservatives are on the right track and that maybe those individuals should be in prison and not sent to summer camp in those instances.

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Mr. Speaker, it is a great pleasure to address the House on Bill C-10, an act to amend the Criminal Code or, more specifically, an act to implement minimum penalties for offences involving firearms.

I would like to say at the outset that this bill does not allow judges to impose stiffer penalties. The maximums are still the same. For serious offences, the same maximums can be imposed on criminals by judges and they will continue to impose maximums in serious cases.

I would like to remind people that we have a committee system. When a proposal comes to Parliament we have a committee meeting. A number of members from each party go to the meeting to hear expert witnesses in the field. We look at bill after bill day in and day out and obviously members of Parliament cannot be experts on all of them. Therefore, we bring people who have spent their careers in these fields before committee and, based on their knowledge, expertise and input, we wisely make our decisions.

I do not think, in this particular case, a single committee member would not admit that the overwhelming evidence from a vast majority of experts indicates that mandatory minimums do not work. I am sure it would be self-condemnation of the cognitive abilities of any member to actually suggest that was not the case from the expert witnesses that came before committee.

It is in true conscience, using the system as it is meant to be used, that one could take the expertise and overwhelming advice in this particular case. Quite often in committees there is a lot of conflicting advice from both sides but in this case there was some on the other side but very little.

I agree with the Minister of Justice that this is a non-partisan issue and I will be doing that in my speech today. In order to be non-partisan, I will only refer to things that witnesses before committee have said. I will put their testimony on the record so that other members of Parliament can hear what some of the people who have devoted their lives to this type of work have said.

First, I will present some comments from the Canadian Bar Association, a national association that represents 37,000 jurists, including notaries, law teachers and students across Canada. The association's primary objectives include improvement of the law and the administration of justice. In fact, I believe the government's justice minister would have been a member of this association in his previous life.

The CBA consistently opposes the use of minimum penalties. It supports measures to deter the illegal use of firearms but stresses that such measures must be consistent with the fundamental sentencing principles in the Criminal Code with constitutional guarantees and following the well-established guidance offered by Canada's common law. This is the position of the CBA, representing 37,000 individuals. It is opposed to this legislation. Surely. it must have good reasons and information for making such an important decision.

The CBA's opposition can be summed up in four points. First, unlike what many people may think on the surface:

Mandatory minimum penalties do not advance the goal of deterrence. International social science research has made this clear. Canada's own government has stated that:

The evidence shows that long periods served in prison increase the chance that the offender will reoffend again...In the end, public security is diminished, rather than increased, if we “throw away the key”.

Basically, this law would make society more dangerous. I know that is not what appears to be what happens on the surface but, as the social science experts and the government's own report suggests, this would make society more dangerous.

The second reason the Bar Association brings forward is:

Mandatory minimum penalties do not target the most egregious or dangerous offenders, who will already be subject to very stiff sentences precisely because of the nature of the crimes they have committed. More often, the less culpable offenders are caught by mandatory sentences and subjected to extremely lengthy terms of imprisonment.

What happens is that these serious offenders are already given long sentences and the people who should not have long sentences because of the circumstances are the ones who are unfairly caught by these minimums once discretion is taken away from the judge.

The third reason the Bar Association provided is:

Mandatory minimum penalties have a disproportionate impact on those minority groups who already suffer from poverty and deprivation. In Canada, this will affect aboriginal communities, a population already grossly over represented in penitentiaries, most harshly.

The fourth reason the Canadian Bar Association provided is:

Mandatory minimum penalties subvert important aspects of Canada's sentencing regime, including the principles of proportionality and individualization, and reliance on judges to impose a just sentence after hearing all facts in the individual case.

Another important criticism from the CBA comes from its interpretation of section 718.1 of the Criminal Code. CBA states:

Section 718.1 of the Criminal Code states that the fundamental principle of sentence is proportionality, requiring that a “sentence must be proportionate to the gravity of the offence and the degree of responsibility of the offender”.

Bill C-10 would require the same mandatory minimum sentence to apply to all offenders, even though offences and the degrees of responsibility vary significantly. I think anyone would agree that that would not be fair.

Proportionality reflects the delicate balance that must be achieved in fashioning a sentence. Common sense and fairness require an individualized proportional sentence. The Canadian Bar Association believes this is why minimum sentences have been severely criticized in many important studies, including Canada's own sentencing commission report.

Further, the Criminal Code contains a statutory acknowledgment of the principle of restraint, stating that the purpose of sentencing is to separate offenders from society where necessary.

I will now quote the final words of the address from the Canadian Bar Association. It says:

The mandatory minimum sentences proposed by the Bill would focus on denunciation and deterrence to the exclusion of other legitimate sentencing principles, and too often lead to injustice. Ultimately, it is unlikely to enhance public safety, but likely to instead further erode the public's confidence in the fairness and the efficacy of the Canadian justice system.

I will now quote some other witnesses we had before the committee who also provided evidence and the expertise from years of experience in this field as to why this is flawed legislation, and by flawed I mean flawed in the view of the expert witnesses who came before committee.

One of the witnesses, Paul Chartrand, a professor of law at the University of Saskatchewan, told us that if we wish to “promote a just and tolerant Canada...then, with respect to Bill C-10, is minimum mandatory sentencing a legitimate means to address the problem? My answer is no.”

Professor Chartrand went on to ask, “Will mandatory sentencing work? Once again the answer is no.” In his opinion, the way to combat crime is to combat the root causes of crime: assist children through children's benefits; assist families through community services, recreation and so on.

Professor Chartrand also told us that the federal government could not do it alone. He said that it would need to work not only with the provinces and territories, but with municipal governments as well.

Another witness, Mr. Alan Borovoy, general counsel, Canadian Civil Liberties Association, told us about the flaw within Bill C-10. This is taken from the minutes of our justice committee meeting on November 29, 2006. He said:

I have another case to illustrate the nature of the injustices this is capable of producing. In 1994 the Ontario Court of Appeal reduced the jail sentence of a prisoner who had been convicted of discharging a firearm with intent to cause harm. They reduced this sentence from 12 months to six months because in the opinion of the court he had an exemplary record previously and he was acting in a situation of high stress that required split-second decision-making. The prisoner, it turns out, was a police officer. The person at whom he unloaded his firearm was a burglar he was chasing. He grazed his arm.

If that man had come up for sentencing today under the provisions of Bill C-10 he would serve no less than four years, and I am certain that the Conservative Party is definitely in support of our police officers and would not let such an egregious offence against justice occur. There would be all sorts of other situations when the conditions would mandate a sentence that is different from a minimum sentence.

As I said, the maximum sentences are not changed here. Very stiff penalties are available in the justice system. They are not increased in the bill and are still there for the judge to use under this particular bill.

Thanks to the grace of Bill C-10, this police officer, who was doing the best he could, might have had to serve five years. I find it inconceivable that even the most ardent proponents of mandatory minimum sentences would wish that kind of outcome on that police officer.

How does that happen? It is because simplistic solutions like mandatory sentences inevitably encounter a complex reality. We cannot always make them fit. That is why this bill is such an abomination.

Once again, those words were from testimony before the justice committee on Bill C-10 by Mr. Alan Borovoy, general counsel for the Canadian Civil Liberties Association.

Let us go on to another witness so that members do not think this is about just one or two people, although we have had the reference from an organization that represents 37,000 people in the legal community in Canada.

We will go on to Mr. Graham Stewart, the executive director of the John Howard Society of Canada. He left us with the following message to mull over:

Respect for the criminal justice system will never be achieved by measures that breed distrust of our judiciary. Measures that would eliminate the discretion of the court and replace it with one that is inherently arbitrary cannot generate public confidence in either the judicial or the political systems.

Mr. Stewart also outlined this grim reality, an offshoot of Bill C-10:

Harsh penalties encourage greater recidivism. When the impact of Bill C-10 runs its course, the same number of gun offenders will be released each year from prison as is the case today. Having served longer sentences, those being released from our prisons will likely be much more difficult to reintegrate into society. We will have fewer resources to either prevent crime or rehabilitate offenders. They will be more likely to offend again.

There we are hearing the same message that we have heard before. When we put people in prison for longer sentences, especially when under the circumstances those sentences are not just, offenders actually tend to reoffend. Our criminal justice system has actually failed in that respect. Most of the crimes in society are not first offences, so the way to stop them, as the witnesses said, is to first of all deal with the root causes and, second, with the treatment in the jails, or alternative sentencing, which another bill tried to eliminate a lot of, but fortunately Parliament would not allow that to occur.

That is why I was somewhat apprehensive when the justice minister said in his speech that there is much more to come after these bills.

Another witness explained that when we put people in jail for a longer time, in that university of criminals, they come out worse. They come out more likely to reoffend and then society's recidivism problem is worse. Thus, we are going to increase crime in society because people are more likely to offend when they come out. Once we get caught up on the years, we are going to have the same number of people being released.

People have to remember that all these criminals get released. Everyone we are dealing with under the bill gets released. There are a few dangerous offenders, but there is another bill that keeps them in forever. Under this bill, everyone gets out.

If we want to do justice to the victims in our society, if we want to do justice to innocent people so they are not re-victimized or are not victimized for the first time, we want society to be safer. We want people who are coming out of prison to be less likely to reoffend because they are the ones who actually create most of the crimes.

How are they going to be less likely to offend? The statistics, the social scientists and the experts who came to committee showed that the actual facts are that they are less likely to reoffend if they have had shorter sentences and the appropriate treatment.

Mr. Stewart also asked this key question, which no one on the government side could respond to, when he said:

The introduction of new mandatory penalties will be increasingly difficult to control. If mandatory minimums work for one offence, why not all offences?

I would like to go on to yet another witness who came before the committee. I guess people listening at home and the many members of Parliament here are beginning to understand why the public perceptions on crime are different from what we might have thought. I think that is one of the reasons why the committee system serves Parliament well. People thought that in general crime was going up, but violent crime is going down.

In fact, I have to commend the Federation of Canadian Municipalities. In about two weeks, it will have a session specifically on crime, on the fact that violent crime is going down, and on what the role of the media is to ensure that people get the right perception.

Similarly, a number of people coming to committee would have thought that on the surface this type of bill is common sense. That is why I think the testimony from so many witnesses, who were called to the committee by all parties, changed the minds and the understanding of a number of people in regard to what is a very complex situation. It has to be complex or we would have solved it long ago and obviously we have not.

I will go to the second last witness I want to speak about and that is Ms. Debra Parkes, member of the board of directors of the Canadian Association of Elizabeth Fry Societies, which of course has tremendous experience in this area. She said:

--we're seeing a moving away from this approach [of harsher sentences] by other jurisdictions that have taken this approach in a very concerted effort. A number of American states, as well as jurisdictions in Australia, are starting to move away from imposing mandatory minimum sentences, precisely because they come at great human and fiscal cost, as well as not delivering on the promise of deterrence.

Once again, although we would not think it, intuitively it turns that yet another witness has explained that this approach is not a deterrent.

Also, Kim Pate, executive director of the Canadian Association of Elizabeth Fry Societies, summed up the association's position by saying:

--the public would be best served by the withdrawal of this bill and not proceeding any further with mandatory minimum sentences provisions of this nature.

As I mentioned at the start of my speech, these were the people who appeared before the justice committee hearings on Bill C-10.. The overwhelming majority of witnesses advised the government not to proceed with this legislation, reminding the government that the vast majority of information and their extensive experience indicate this policy will not succeed, and the government would best serve the interest of Canadians by directing its attention at other and more successful ways of deterring crime.

In conclusion, I think it is the objective of all members of the House of Commons to reduce crime. I think members of the House are very good listeners in their role. Hopefully they will listen very carefully to the evidence, to the facts and to the experts as they search their hearts in making their final decision on what is actually best and what will make Canada safer, and hopefully they will take into consideration the years of expert testimony that I have just presented for the members of the House of Commons.

[Brian Jean, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Transport]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the member opposite if he has been involved in any altercations that involved armed robberies. As a criminal lawyer practising in northern Alberta, I remember, for instance, one individual who took an axe, believe it or not, into a convenience store and held it up. He was a relatively young man. It was his second offence. He had been out on I think a fairly light sentence on a previous offence. Indeed, when he held up that convenience store, he traumatized the clerk behind the counter, quite frankly, and also the other individuals who were there.

I know that we often speak of criminals and the rights we should give them, but I am wondering if the member actually has been a victim or has talked to victims who have been involved in this type of altercation and what his interests are in that. Could he see himself supporting a bill that allows people to be traumatized, that allows people to continue to be aggressive in robberies or situations like that, and that allows people to not be deterred? Because there is evidence on both sides of the equation to say that these types of bills indeed do deter people from committing crimes like that.

I am wondering if he has talked to victims' groups or has been involved with groups of people who have suffered as a result of these kinds of crimes.

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Mr. Speaker, I have not been involved with that type of firearm, although I have been shot at by artillery when I visited our troops in Afghanistan.

On the case in question, we leave that decision to a judge. This bill does not give out more severe penalties than could be given to that person. That person would be provided the severe penalties by a judge who has heard all the witnesses and who is an expert in this field of making those decisions as to what is deserved.

As I said, in certain cases this bill could put a person in for longer than they reasonably should be in jail, therefore making them more dangerous when they come out. This would make it more likely that person the member talked about who was so upset would be reoffended against by a criminal coming out in a worse state and being more likely to reoffend.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

Mr. Speaker, I listened with interest to my hon. colleague's points in his presentation. I was taken by the story about the policeman. What I am considering now is that right across this country we are arming more of our peace officers, our park wardens and our border guards. I am thinking to myself that in reality these people must uphold the law at least to the extent that every other Canadian citizen must. In the case of those who are empowered to carry a firearm, they must act with complete regard for the law.

I am thinking of the case of a police officer who shot at someone and was charged for it. He obviously had done it outside the law. He grazed the person, but he could well have killed somebody there, and there has to be some deterrent for that as well. There has to be some understanding that leniency is not given simply because one is in a position of authority in this country. There is no leniency given to endangering other people's lives.

The effects of this law are going to be profound for people who carry lawful firearms, but there are important considerations that we must take into account as well in the protection of our citizens and their rights.

Does the hon. member across not consider that whether a policeman shoots somebody unlawfully or an ordinary person shoots somebody unlawfully, the end result is the same, with the victimization of both the person who was shot and his or her family?

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Mr. Speaker, I agree completely, and that is why the police officer received a jail sentence. Whether it was a police officer or not, the judge felt in this case that it was a high tension situation, the person had to act quickly and there should have been some leeway for him to give a just sentence.

The member mentioned people who carry firearms for the protection of Canadians. Will these people be deterred from using their firearms given the fact that they could get lengthy unjust sentences? Will they be less likely to discharge their firearm in the line of duty to protect innocent citizens, allowing more innocent citizens to be in danger or hurt in a particular situation? People should think about that ramification.

I hoped the member would talk about aboriginal people because we both have them in our ridings. I did not get a chance to emphasize a point that one of the witnesses made, which is the fact that we already have a disproportionate number of aboriginal people in our justice system. A number of the bills that the government has brought forward will exacerbate this situation. I do not want to just chastize the government and its agenda, but there has been no effort by Parliament to deal with that problem.

[Christian Ouellet, Bloc, Brome—Missisquoi, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the hon. member for Yukon for his clear and concise presentation. I very much appreciate him mentioning the committee that could not find expert witnesses in favour of this bill. I also appreciated it when he talked about the 37,000 jurists from the Canadian Bar Association who are opposed to this bill.

This leads me to my question for the hon. member. Is this not a vote-seeking bill? The minister seemed to be saying earlier that the Conservatives introduced this bill because they promised they would. That seems very much like electioneering to me.

With this kind of bill, judges no longer have free will. Could the hon. member for Yukon tell us—in aboriginal communities in particular—how a judge can truly assess a person's situation when he is forced to impose minimum sentences under the law? We keep hearing exactly the same thing, but I think the hon. member could give us a different and clearer explanation.

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Mr. Speaker, first, unfortunately the member is right. Some people will vote on this because of what they said during the election campaign. In true fairness, to be wise and just legislators, we sometimes have to eat crow if expert witnesses show us we are doing the wrong thing. That is why we have a committee system.

The member's second point was very important. The Criminal Code of Canada specifically allows under sentencing that the special circumstances of aboriginal people be taken into account, specifically because they are incarcerated disproportionately in numbers.

The member is exactly right. How can the judge look at that situation if he has no option. This may actually be unconstitutional. It may be against the provisions of sentencing in the Criminal Code because it does not allow special consideration for aboriginal people. They are automatically assigned a minimum sentence. The government has set up a conflict by having these very long mandatory minimum sentences.

[Penny Priddy, NDP, Surrey North, BC]

Mr. Speaker, when we track criminals and their histories, research has shown that if we support parents and their newborns and young children from say the ages of five, six and seven, this can prevent them from ending up in the criminal justice system to a much lesser degree.

What can we do in those early years so we do not end up having this same discussion five or ten years from now? I am interested in the member's comments on the early prevention side.

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Mr. Speaker, a couple of witnesses definitely talked about the root causes. They said that the solution was to deal with those, including early childhood development.

We have to deal with the problem early on and resources should go toward addressing that. However, it has been proposed that the resources go toward incarcerating more people, which will cost more, make them more likely to reoffend and make society more dangerous.

[Nicole Demers, Bloc, Laval, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I have been listening to what has been said because this is not the first time we have talked about this bill. The more I listen, the more I realize this is nothing but smoke and mirrors and that the government wants to implement a bill to try to bolster its image and make people believe that minimum sentences are the only solution to making them safe at home, in their town, province and country.

If we look at everything going on around us, we see that truly tragic events occur, like the one at Dawson for example. I doubt that the prospect of a minimum sentence would have stopped this young man from committing that crime. I doubt that the prospect of a minimum sentence would have stopped Mr. Lépine from killing so many young women at the École polytechnique.

Most of the tragic events of this kind are unplanned crimes committed by a deranged individual, and minimum sentences would not change a thing.

A number of American states, unfortunately, still have the death penalty. But still a lot of crimes, murders and homicides, are committed in those states. This means that it does not work very well, despite the death penalty. We should wake up and look at who the people are in the U.S. prison system who have been sentenced to death. They are not white collar workers, or millionaires, or people who have had an easy life. There is always a small percentage of incorrigibles, of course, people who can never be helped to reintegrate into society or turn their lives around. Unfortunately, these people do exist. The devil exists. I know personally that he exists.

Earlier, one of my colleagues asked the hon. member in the Liberal Party whether he had ever been victimized by a criminal act. If so, he would know and understand what it is to be afraid of being victimized. Personally, I have been victimized. Several times I have found myself in dangerous situations where I was facing firearms and knew the end might be nigh.

I had a job in a restaurant and, very late one evening, a young man put a gun on his table because I did not want to serve him and so he tried to threaten me. I know, therefore, what it is to be threatened. However, the fact that crimes are committed does not mean that all the people who commit them are habitual criminals. That is not true. Many people can be reintegrated into society and can go on to make a great contribution. We see it every day and we know some of these people. I would not want to see these people’s lives permanently blighted because they made a mistake when they were young. But that is exactly what minimum sentences do.

Under the Canadian legislation, there are already 29 acts that can result in a minimum sentence. Does the system work better because we have all these provisions? Are there fewer people in prison?

As my colleague in the New Democratic Party just said, if we really want to combat crime, I think we should attack the root causes, which are poverty and a lack of human contact, human warmth and communications, as a result of which many of our young people find themselves isolated and without anyone to guide them.

I believe that if we paid more attention and ensured that people have real jobs and real salaries perhaps it is possible that we would have less crime. I am not talking about cheap labour, about seasonal jobs, or jobs where a woman who works 35 hours, 40 hours or 60 hours is compelled to remain on the employer’s premises and can not go out. It has been proven that imposing minimum sentences does not reduce crime. Many studies have been done on this subject.

I found a study conducted by Nicole Crutcher and Thomas Gabor. It is a study that was carried out over a period of 20 years. Twenty years is not insignificant. A study carried out over 20 years is a serious study.

This study showed that minimum sentences accomplish nothing and do not help in any way. It is simply a way of making people believe that because we put more people in prison and give them minimum sentences that there will be less crime. That is not true. That is not the way it works.

According to this study, only a small proportion of offenders committed to prison are of the calculating type who carefully weigh the pros and cons of committing a crime. They also said that many offenders prefer to go to prison rather than serve community-based sentences. They do not consider the difference between a sentence of three years, five years or ten years. They do not make that distinction. When they commit a crime, they do not think of the sentence they might receive. The only thing they think about is not getting caught. Publicizing the penalties will not make them think about them any more, believe me.

It would be better to reinstate the gun registry and ensure that we do not just give young people the tools to commit crimes.

Yesterday, on television, I heard that a grandfather had obtained a gun permit for his two-year-old grandson. Two years old. Is that what our colleagues of the Conservative party want to see? Is that what should happen? Do we need weapons to defend ourselves? That is what was claimed in the United States during the shooting some weeks ago. Is that what we want? Do we all need to have weapons so that the law can come after us every time we use them to commit a crime? There are no weapons in my house. Most people do not want them either. We will not prevent people from owning weapons through minimum sentences. Rather, let us arrest the real criminals and put them in prison.

Very often, young people who are members of a street gang commit small crimes. That is unfortunate. Let us deal with the problem of street gangs. We should not think that minimum sentences will stop young people from becoming members of a street gang. That is not the way things work.

When criminals commit crimes, they do not think, “I might get caught and be put in jail for three years, so I had better not use a weapon. Instead, I will just give the victim a little piece of paper that says I am about to commit a crime”. They do not think that. Once they have decided to commit a crime, they do it regardless of the minimum sentence associated with it.

For example, if a young man without a record gets caught doing the kind of thing teenagers do to impress their peers or if the only thing he knows how to do is to be the baddest of the bad, he could wind up in jail for a long time. He could be lost to our society. That would be very unfortunate.

Now, instead of getting rid of the methamphetamines, ecstasy and hard drugs that hurt our children, instead of conducting raids all over the place to wipe the drug problem out, the government wants to give people minimum sentences. That makes no sense. That is not how our society works.

I know that teenagers are often easily influenced. We have to keep an eye on them constantly. The most easily influenced teenagers are the ones who fall through the cracks. The rate of incarceration among young people from aboriginal and visible minority communities is high. Why? Because poverty is even more prevalent in those communities than elsewhere. Would it not be a better idea to provide social housing and affordable housing, to offer young people decent jobs and to build community centres? Would it not be better to give them the opportunity to work in the summer and in their communities rather than cut youth employment assistance programs? That is not what the government is doing.

Under the pretext of wanting to ensure public safety, the government has introduced legislation that will help very few people, and will fill up our jails with even more people. What will they do once our jails are full? They are already full. Will they build more jails? Perhaps they want Canada to become a military state. Do we want to live in the kind of country where the only thing the government does is make sure that nobody ever commits a crime? We have to get serious. The government does not govern for itself. It governs for the people it represents.

We were accused earlier of not consulting the people we represent. It is precisely because we consulted them that we refuse to adopt such a philosophy. It is precisely because we consulted them that we know that this is not what people want. On the contrary, people are asking us to restore the gun registry. Police forces are asking us, and so are abused women and other groups. That is what people want to ensure real security. That is what we need. We need tools. We do not need stringent legislation that will put more people behind bars without giving them the opportunity and the chance to otherwise rehabilitate themselves. That is not what we need. That is not what people want.

My colleagues from the Bloc Québécois, the NDP and the Liberal Party have also made their position very clear. We want humane measures, measures that allow people who have lost their way to get back on the right track, to start over and participate in society, instead of being sent to the dungeons for 10, 15 or 20 years, where they will certainly not learn anything.

When these people are released from prison, they certainly will not be out to do good, because they will have only one thing in mind, and that is what they learned on the inside to avoid being sent back. When a person is released after 10 or 15 years, a person who was young going in, what have they learned about society? What have they learned about living in society? What have they learned about involvement, sharing or integration? Nothing. They have learned only how to survive. Is that what we want, a population of survivors? That is not what I want.

I am convinced that many members in this House will agree with me. Survivors are like rats and will do anything to get by. That is frightening.

It is scary. But with progressive and humane laws that take into account all the factors, enabling judges to hand down informed sentences, we can move forward. As a society, with such laws we can be proud because our children will not fall through the cracks. I am sure of this, because all the studies say so and prove it. It is not Nicole Demers saying it. I am sorry, Mr. Speaker, but I am allowed to name myself. Hundreds of experts say so. The proof is that in the United States, in states where there are mandatory minimum sentences, there is more crime than in other states.

So what does the government need to see the light? What does it need to open its eyes? I do not know. Instead of using smoke and mirrors, the government should listen to real people and stop holding little focus groups that give the answers they want to hear, instead of real answers from real people who live in the real world. That is what it should do.

I hope that this bill will not be adopted. I really hope so because if that is the direction we are going, it will be a serious mistake that will affect our children, grandchildren and the society we live in. That is for sure.

[John Williams, Conservative, Edmonton—St. Albert, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I was listening to that speech but I thought it was somewhere between a rant and a ramble. I was not exactly sure where the member was coming from. She was all over the map, talking about wanting to represent the people and then bringing out some studies and focus groups to support her opinions.

The legislation that we adopt in this place is about representing the people. Canadians are asking for tougher sentences. It is fairly simple. We are giving them tougher sentences because that is what Canadians want. We know that these things are a deterrent.

The previous speaker, the member for Yukon, was talking about how prison actually makes people worse. He would argue there be no prison at all under those circumstances.

The opposition members' comments on this kind of legislation is that they have no real position other than they would like to hold these people by the hand and the poor little darlings are the victims rather than the perpetrators of the crime. It is time that we said that criminals are criminals and they deserve to be punished accordingly--it is that simple--rather than to hold them by the hand, pat them on the head and tell them, “Be a nice little person. Please, do not do it again”.

I would hope that all members of this House would recognize that Canadians want a judicial system that works, that applies punishment, that makes sure our streets are safe. This kind of legislation is resonating with the general public.

[Nicole Demers, Bloc, Laval, QC]

Mr. Speaker, as usual, our Conservative colleagues are not listening. They do not listen to us and they do not listen to the people. So those comments do not surprise me.

[Alan Tonks, Liberal, York South—Weston, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I actually found the member's overview to be quite eloquent and substantive. It is funny how members can sit in this place and draw different conclusions and inferences, but that is mine.

I would also like to make clear that in terms of mandatory minimums what is being offered up and the amendments that have been proposed by the opposition, in particular this party, are very close. In fact, there is only a difference of about a year in terms of the discretionary capacity. We really are not arguing from hugely different perspectives.

My area of York South—Weston in Toronto is one of 13 neighbourhoods that are at risk. At a public meeting I was told that we are treating the symptoms and not the disease when we come down heavily with respect to our criminal justice system. My son is a lawyer and he has told me that judges have indicated that they do not have a lot of flexibility with respect to people in the criminal justice system who in fact return to prison.

What tools are available within the criminal justice system, in particular in the prisons, for effectively dealing with those who have to go to prison? It is not that we want them to go to prison, but that is where they end up. How can we ensure that when these people, in particular the young people, get out they can be productive members of society?

Could the member perhaps give us a bit of insight as to what tools and programs the government could establish that would make sure that we are not creating further problems for our community when people do come out of prison?

[Nicole Demers, Bloc, Laval, QC]

Mr. Speaker, certainly, with rehabilitation services in our prisons, we would be further ahead. In Quebec, we have a number of programs designed to rehabilitate our young people and prisoners. If we really wanted to tackle crime, we would tackle the problem of excessively early parole. That legislation has no teeth. If we really want to deal with this problem, that is what we should do.

At present, we have education, information and awareness programs in our prisons, especially in Quebec. Groups such as Narcotics Anonymous, Cocaine Anonymous and religious groups visit prisoners and meet with them to talk with them, try to understand them and see how they can get back into society when they leave prison.

A great deal of prevention is done as well. Other groups promote discussions where victims meet with criminals and talk about their experience as victims. Even if that particular criminal was not directly involved with these particular victims, the victims can still explain how crimes affected them.

This raises awareness. When someone becomes more aware, I think we have to look at what point that person has reached in his or her own life. Often, these people are quite desperate and not very spiritual. In my opinion, with this sort of approach, which is much more humane, we may be able to bring these people out of the misery they are living in, so that they will not go back to prison but choose to re-enter our society.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

Mr. Speaker, in reality, what we clearly need to do in this Parliament in the near future is to concentrate on crime prevention.

The continuation of some of the things we do in this country as a result of the ill-fated war on drugs that has been going on for the past 30 years has driven up the crime rate to an unbelievable extent. It centres around the activities of human beings and their needs and desires. It has created a situation where we built the criminal industry to a degree that is unprecedented for one particular substance or another in our society.

Does the hon. member not think that in the future we in Parliament should be looking at crime prevention? Should we not be looking at ways to take the oxygen out of the criminal industry and look at ways that we can rationalize the behaviour of people in society so that the use of heavy sentences is not the prime consideration of Parliament?

[Nicole Demers, Bloc, Laval, QC]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague is quite right. This government's prime consideration is not really getting rid of crime. The government has slashed funding for every area where money is needed to prevent people from turning to crime. It has cut funding for prevention and information and for programs to help the illiterate, who do not have much opportunity to improve their lives and are easily influenced by others. The government has turned its back on every area where continued funding is needed. It has abandoned aboriginal communities, women, children and seniors.

In so doing, it has set the stage for even more crime.

[Robert Carrier, Bloc, Alfred-Pellan, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to commend the hon. member for Laval on her fine presentation on the human side of this issue, which is important to the Bloc Québécois. I am proud to have the hon. member for Laval representing the riding next to mine.

I would like her interpretation, among other things, of the fact that the government is cutting $10 million from the summer career placements program. Students need this additional income in the summer in order to pursue their studies. I find it inconsistent to invest this $10 million in maximum sentences that will result in more incarceration. I would like my colleague to say a few words on that.

[Nicole Demers, Bloc, Laval, QC]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague is absolutely right. In this matter, not only has there been a financial cut, but the method has also changed. Now one major centre has the opportunity to decide, for the surrounding regions, who will get the summer jobs programs. This is being done without any regard for the area, the social stakeholders who need this money, or for what has been done in the past. Now an impersonal, administrative approach is being used in a big office. These are administrative cuts and an administrative approach is being used without any regard for the impact these cuts will truly have in these areas.

In my riding, four agencies were doing exceptional work; one agency in particular. They were working in a multi-ethnic area that has a high crime rate with youth who cannot necessarily rely on their parents for help with their school work, people who do not have many job opportunities. Unfortunately, racism still exists today and a person whose skin is a different colour than the local people sometimes has a hard time finding work.

These young people, through agencies working in the area with people from the area, could be assured that at least for the summer they could gain self-confidence, become involved and stay motivated. This no longer exists.

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it gives me great pleasure to rise in this House today to speak to Bill C-10.

This is a bill that would improve the safety of all Canadians by ensuring that violent criminals who use firearms to commit their offences will receive serious prison time consistent with the gravity of their offences.

This bill addresses two groups of offences. First of all, there is one group which involves offences in which a firearm is used in the commission of another crime. We call that the use offence, where it is actually being used in the commission of a crime. The second group involves the possession of illegal firearms, and we call those non-use offences.

Let me deal with the first group. Bill C-10 will impose mandatory minimum penalties where a gun is used in the commission of a serious Criminal Code offence. These offences would include such things as attempted murder, discharge of a firearm with intent, sexual and aggravated sexual assault, kidnapping, hostage-taking, robbery and extortion.

If a restricted or prohibited weapon is used in the commission of any of these offences or if such guns are used in relation to gang activity, which of course is a very real problem in Canada, a first time offender will receive an automatic five year prison sentence. Penalties escalate to seven years on a second and subsequent offence for the same or similar type of gun crime.

Clearly, this bill targets repeat violent offenders who must be kept off the streets for the good of our communities. It also provides a deterrent to youths who are involved in gangs, forcing them to weigh the consequences of their actions before engaging in crime.

The second group of offences of course involves the illegal possession of a restricted or prohibited firearm, and some of the offences that would be targeted under this particular section would be firearms trafficking, stealing a firearm, possession of a firearm for the purposes of trafficking in narcotics, making an automatic firearm, and also firearms smuggling. For these non-use offences of course there are going to be mandatory minimum sentences as well.

This legislation is aimed directly at, among other things, the gun trafficking industry. Virtually all gang-related crime we see across Canada is committed not by those who purchase their firearms legally and register them, but by people who purchase them illegally on the black market or steal them from legitimate gun owners.

In my home province of British Columbia, it is estimated that gang-related shootings or murders occur on average of once every month, sometimes more often than that. The rate of increase in gang activity in B.C. is astonishing. Most of it, of course, is fueled by the drug trade, mainly high grade marijuana, and it is carried out by young people with illegal firearms who have complete disregard for the safety and the lives of those around them.

In my home riding of Abbotsford, we are known to be a beautiful community. It is a safe community, relatively speaking. It is in a beautiful setting, nestled between 10,000 foot Mount Baker and the Fraser River. We are a community of elderly, young families, singles and students who all enjoy Abbotsford because of the quality of life it offers. It consistently scores high in all of these areas. In fact, it was recently named as the most generous community in all of Canada, and that is backed up by a number of different studies, both Statistics Canada and other studies within British Columbia.

However, the blight has crept into Abbotsford. Gangs and guns are increasingly common, usually in connection with the drug trade. Although the gangs in my area are quite fluid and frequently travel throughout the lower mainland, we have seen our share of unimaginable pain and grief caused by shootings.

The 2006 year end statistical report from the Abbotsford Police shows that 126 firearms offences took place in my riding. Some of these include robbery; assault; a sexual assault with a weapon; drive-by shootings, which are very common now; and home invasions. This is happening in Abbotsford and it is happening right across the country in communities that all of us live in.

On September 26, 2006, the Abbotsford Times reported that the police responded to a 25-year-old man who had been shot and was in serious condition. The man was known to police who believed he was purposely targeted.

Just last Friday, May 11, the CBC reported a shooting on Commercial Drive in Vancouver in a popular cafe. This man was shot several times in the stomach and transported to hospital for emergency surgery.

An 18-year-old Abbotsford native, Yulian Limantoro, was gunned down when he got caught in the crossfire of a drug deal gone sour and that was in Surrey on March 3, 2006.

On October 28, 2005, a 40-year-old woman in Port Moody was struck by a stray bullet while watching television in her living room. The bullet lodged itself in her brain but luckily she survived.

Of course, none of us can forget the string of violent crimes the city of Toronto suffered in 2005. By mid-September 40 people had been slain in the city. All of us were shocked and horrified especially by the senseless death of grade 10 student, Jane Creba, on Boxing Day 2005. Jane was gunned down on busy Yonge Street along with six others who were injured in the crossfire. The 15-year-old was the 52nd murder in Toronto in 2005.

Going back to 2006, police in B.C. recorded that over 1,000 firearms were used in crimes or kept illegally in the lower mainland. Anyone who still thinks gun crime is an American phenomenon need only look at British Columbia.

Between 2001 and 2006, 195 British Columbians died in gun-related homicides. In 2006 alone police recovered 379 semi-automatic pistols, 28 revolvers, 139 other handguns, 76 rifles, 66 shotguns, 88 assault rifles and 12 modified weapons.

The current mandatory minimum penalties for gun crimes are not sufficient. We need to discourage these criminals by making it costly to buy, sell or use firearms in the commission of offences. The way we do that is by taking away their freedom to commit such crimes and making the penalties for subsequent offences escalate in severity.

Bill C-10 will not only send a clear message that gun activity will be met with serious consequences, it will also take these criminals off the street for longer periods of time.

To place this into context, I want to stress that the bill does not represent an across the board increase in mandatory minimum sentences. Rather it targets crimes that are specifically related to gang activity and repeat and violent offences.

Going back to my community of Abbotsford, as the House knows, Abbotsford shares the border with the United States and it is part of a complex web of organized crime on the lower mainland of British Columbia. Drugs, such as high grade marijuana, meth amphetamines, crystal meth are regularly exchanged for firearms from the U.S. These are the same firearms being used to commit the wide range of violent gang related crimes we are witnessing today.

Although both American and Canadian border security officials are quite vigilant in protecting our borders and stopping the cross-border gun trade, there is only so much that they can do with limited resources when the same people go to prison for short periods of time and are turned back onto those very streets only to take up crime once again. Of course, usually that is violent crime.

The gun and drugs trade are quite lucrative industries. Unfortunately, there are many young people that are into the gang lifestyle. These mandatory minimum penalties that we are proposing should go a long way in discouraging youth from taking up this behaviour.

Our Conservative government is also concerned with preventing young people from getting involved in the crime lifestyle in the first place through community initiatives. That is why in our 2006 budget the government invested $20 million in a plan for communities. This money will be focused on preventing youth crime and helping young people stay away from guns and gangs.

I believe that both this bill and our other prevention initiatives will work together to reduce the number of gun-related crimes and deaths in Canada.

If we do not send a clear message to criminals that the consequences of using handguns to carry out a crime will far outweigh the benefits, I believe these gun crime numbers will only increase. The clear message we are sending is this. Criminals should be prepared to go to prison if they commit a serious gun offence, period.

I believe these penalty schemes will also be an important tool for police officers who must place themselves in potentially deadly situations on a daily basis. They will now know that should they send an offender to prison for committing a firearms offence listed in Bill C-10, that offender will not be back on the streets for a long time. When we take those offenders off the streets and put them behind bars for longer periods of time, they do not represent a crime threat during that period to ordinary, hard-working, law-abiding citizens. At the same time, police officers can focus their efforts on other criminals in our communities.

It is clear that our communities across the country are suffering from violent gun crime, yet the previous Liberal government, over 13 years, did absolutely nothing to address this scourge in our country. Sadly, the Liberal and the Bloc opposition parties have done everything in their power to try to thwart our attempts to pass Bill C-10.

In fact, when this bill went to committee, it was essentially gutted, leaving it meaningless. It had no teeth to it anymore. It was only with the support of the NDP that we were able to reintroduce the mandatory minimum sentence provisions of the bill, a five year mandatory minimum sentence for the first offence and seven years for a second and subsequent offence. Even so, the 10 year mandatory prison sentence that we had proposed for a third and subsequent offence was removed. The bill, as drafted, is better than nothing at all. Canadians are demanding this kind of legislation.

It would be comical, if it were not so serious, how the Liberals have managed to flip-flop on the issue of gun crime. The House may recall that through a deathbed conversion late in the election campaign, the Liberals suddenly agreed to get tough on crime and specifically promised to introduce and support tough mandatory minimum sentences for gun crimes. They suddenly got religion so to speak.

These were promises that were made to Canadians about their personal safety, yet here we are. The Liberals are asked to defend Canadians against an ever increasing cycle of gun violence, and what do they do? They have done a 180° turn and have fought against our Bill C-10. Shame on them. The Liberal Party of Canada has rightly earned its title of being soft on crime.

In order to end the cycle of gun violence, our new Conservative government is committed to filling our election promise to get tough on serious criminals. We owe nothing less to the Canadian public than to protect it to the fullest, and I believe this bill is the way to do that. Effective deterrents, including escalating minimum jail terms, are an important step in reducing crime on our streets, as is choking off the supply of illegally acquired handguns.

That is why we have these two facets to the bill. One deals with the use of firearms in an offence. The second is the illegal possession of firearms. Typically, if a drug trafficker's car is stopped, guns will be found in that car, so it is easy to prosecute these individuals.

British Columbians and residents of Abbotsford are tired of watching criminals execute violence and get off with a slap on the wrist. Finally, we have a government that is committed to the right of law-abiding citizens to live in safety and security. That is a promise we made during the election and one on which we are fully following through.

I trust the House will do the right thing, protect Canadian families the way we promised to do.

[Derek Lee, Liberal, Scarborough—Rouge River, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I sincerely tried to listen to and absorb the remarks of the hon. member. However, in the end I found his remarks to be partisan, simplistic and misleading in many respects. I am not saying everything he said is misleading, but simplistic to be sure. As a result, they are not credible and I will ask him a couple of things.

He said that the proposed new sentencing will cause gangs or criminals to reconsider if they really want to go ahead and do the crime. Has he ever been to one of these crime meetings where they sit down and consider if they really want to do the crime? Do they use a calculator? Do they have a lawyer come in and tell them what the sentencing might be if they are convicted? Do they have a chart on the wall and a road map that tells them exactly what the sentence will be?

I have not heard of these meetings, these deliberations, so maybe he could inform the House about where these meetings take place and what they consider. It is a revelation to me that criminals or potential criminals sit down and go through the deliberation about whether they will really do the crime and measure up what the penalty will be.

The second thing I want to ask the hon. member, and he is really being quite misleading, is this. He said, “The Liberal government, in 13 years, did absolutely nothing to address the issue of firearms crime”. I will not use the harsh words, but what he said is absolutely untrue and misleading. The member clearly omits to mention that the House, under a Liberal government, did enact additional penalties, mandatory minimum penalties of one year and four years for firearm crimes. That does not equal absolutely nothing.

The member should be careful about what he says. Could he answer those two questions, please?

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the member referred to my speech as partisan and simplistic. Quite frankly, that is exactly the kind of double-talk that Canadians have come to expect from the Liberal Party of Canada.

For years the Liberals have been promising to get tough on crime. What the hon. member does not explain is why, during the last election, they promised to impose tougher mandatory minimum sentences for gun crimes and now have done a complete flip-flop. That is embarrassing. Canadians expect more than that.

Am I being partisan? You bet, Mr. Speaker, I am being partisan. I am standing up for Canadians who deserve to be protected against gangs, drug criminals and those who use guns in committing crimes. They are not only targeting people who are involved in the drug trade, but are impacting innocent bystanders who are being killed and permanently maimed.

I ask the member to reconsider his position, as a party. The Liberal Party should come on side and do what is right for Canadians. I would be ashamed to be a Liberal today. I would be ashamed to stand up and say “We promised to get tough on these gun criminals, but today we are changing our minds and we hope Canadians forget about it”.

I encourage the member to re-evaluate his party's position on this issue. This is an issue that is critical to Canadians.

[Christian Ouellet, Bloc, Brome—Missisquoi, QC]

Mr. Speaker, at the time I thought the member for Abbotsford was speaking about prevention. I would like to point out to him that, just before, the Minister of Justice also spoke about prevention. He said that the Conservative government was very interested not only in being tough on crime, but also in establishing prevention programs.

When the minister said that, I wondered why current projects on the table and accepted by the provinces are subject to cuts when they get to the federal level? Cuts have been made to all prevention projects, even those that are inexpensive.

I believe that the member for Abbotsford provided the answer. He said that the government was providing $20 million for prevention. Imagine, $20 million in prevention for all of Canada. The Canada summer jobs program injected $95 million and now has been reduced to $85 million. It is a prevention program because it keeps young people busy, teaches them a trade, and gives them something to do.

The experts estimate that between $400 and $500 million are needed for a solid prevention program to be implemented in Canada. Yet, we are talking about only $20 million. What can we do with this amount? That is a pittance.

In view of their election promise—since that is what the Conservative Party always goes back to—I am asking the member for Abbotsford why he does not think he could support a bill that calls for prevention rather than repression.

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

Mr. Speaker, in fact, we do have a plan for prevention. I want to remind the hon. member that on January 23, 2006, Canadians elected a new Conservative government, certainly not a Bloc government and not a Liberal government. Why? One of the reasons was the Liberals were known to be soft on crime.

To specifically to address the member's question, I remind him, just from my own experience in British Columbia, that our Conservative government does take a balanced approach to the issue of crime in our country, ensuring that our youth are not enticed into a life of crime in the first place.

In fact, let me give him an example. We have taken action by giving almost $2 million to British Columbia's anti-gang initiative, which is called “Preventing Youth Gang Violence in British Columbia”. It is going to be implemented in Abbotsford, my hometown, as well as in Vancouver, Surrey, Richmond, Kamloops, and we hope to expand that in the future. It aims to reduce gang involvement through public forums that discuss issues that are relevant to the community, education and awareness campaigns, after school recreation programs, youth mentoring programs, intervention programs, parent education and youth outreach programs.

Do we have a balanced approach to this? Yes. It is not all about getting tough on crime. That is part of it as is Bill C-10. However, we are also addressing the underlying causes of crime.

[Penny Priddy, NDP, Surrey North, BC]

Mr. Speaker, given that the purpose is over time to ensure that we have fewer people facing the criminal system and in the position of being incarcerated and given that we know what happens in the early years is the single biggest determinant about whether youth and then adults will be involved in crime, other than the $100 a month for families, could the member tell me why slashing child care programs and programs that support parents to do a good job at raising their children will be of assistance in this way?

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I have appreciated getting to know the member over this past year and a half, another colleague from British Columbia, although we sometimes share different perspectives.

I remind her that it is not only the universal child care benefit that our government has delivered. We have delivered many other family friendly initiatives such as the $500 sports tax credit for families. We have also delivered just recently the family tax credit, which provides an extra incentive for families to take the money and apply it to the children rather than paying it to the tax man.

I want to also mention that the focus of Bill C-10 is not just deterrence. In fact, in my mind deterrence is probably the least of it. For me, it is important that we get the violent offenders out of society so our police can focus in on some of the underlying petty crime that our youth tend to get into. By allowing them to focus their efforts on the criminals who perhaps are on the cusp of becoming lifetime criminals, we are going to do an excellent job of moving forward, ensuring that our youth are encouraged to be upright, responsible citizens.

[Derek Lee, Liberal, Scarborough—Rouge River, ON]

Mr. Speaker, as I begin my remarks I thought I should refer to the remarks made by the Minister of Justice who spoke earlier. He clearly was speaking in an effort to articulate good politics as opposed to good public policy. What the minister was articulating was in part lousy public policy but, from his point of view, good politics.

He said that the government wanted to send a message. I think he meant the government was trying to send a message to criminals on the assumption that we have in every case identified who those criminals are. He wants to send a message to criminals, but really what the Minister of Justice and the government are trying to do is send a political message to Canadians. It is political. It is not good public policy. The whole exercise smacks of politics and not public policy.

My colleague from Yukon mentioned a list of witnesses who appeared before the justice committee, the vast majority of whom had good public policy reasons not to agree with the mandatory minimum sentencing regime proposed in this bill.

One of the assumptions underlying mandatory or harsh sentencing is that it will deter. There is a sense that the higher the sentence, the higher the deterrence. There may be some logic in that, but statistics, sociologists and criminologists now consistently tell us that it is not the severity or length of the sentence which deters, it is the prospect of being caught that is the major component of deterrence in society.

Whether it is a potential life sentence or a two day sentence, the person who may or may not commit a premeditated crime is thinking more about the prospect of getting away with it as opposed to what sentence might be imposed later. It is false logic to presume that by increasing sentencing or imposing a mandatory minimum sentence there will be a direct linkage into the mind of a potential criminal.

By the same token, my party and I readily accept that there are envelopes within the Criminal Code, components of activity where society needs to denounce the criminal activity in a way that requires the use of a mandatory minimum.

I will point out for the sake of reference that the Criminal Code was amended relatively recently, just in the last three or four years, to impose one year mandatory minimums for firearm offences and a four year mandatory minimum sentence for a robbery with a firearm. I believe that is section 344. We also have mandatory minimums for drunk driving, particularly on a second offence. If someone reoffends, the offender will do time. Parliament, government and Canadians accept the existence of mandatory minimum penalties.

The false logic underlying this bill, however, is that by creating and delivering a whole raft of mandatory minimum penalties, it will cause a direct response and a reduction in crime. This is not the way it works. I do not think any credible witness at the committee that reviewed this bill was prepared to accept that if we bump all these sentences into mandatory minimums, the crime rate is going to drop. There might have been a feel good part in putting criminals away.

I will quote the Minister of Justice. I found it hard to believe, but the Minister of Justice said that the criminals will have time to think about it in jail. The question raised by the member from the Bloc Québécois was whether or not the potential offender might have thought about it before he or she committed the offence. The minister's logic was the person would have time to think about it afterward. That is like the horse going out the barn door; once the act is done, it is done. There is no deterrence there. I regretted that logic and I regretted the fact that the minister did not want to address the logic pattern that was introduced by the member from the Bloc.

The minister was also, in my view, trying to send a message and another example of that messaging is a quite inappropriate use of the term “house arrest”. House arrest actually has nothing to do with the bill that we are debating. Bill C-10 deals with mandatory minimum penalties. The minister was referring to Bill C-9, the bill dealing with conditional sentences. Purely for the sake of a twisted messaging, the Minister of Justice, the Attorney General of Canada, resorted to a street term that is not used in the Criminal Code and he referred to the concept of house arrest.

Most Canadians would ask what is house arrest, does it have something to do with bail or prison? Anyway, if the minister wants to use these silly street terms instead of the proper terms, that is his business. He also referred to “sending the offender to camp”. What nonsense. We are hearing this from the Minister of Justice. Surely he could use terms that are properly in use in the Criminal Code instead of using street terms to try to send some subliminal message to the public.

Anyway, I thought that his use of the terms “house arrest” and “sending people to camp” was really a disingenuous and dishonest attempt to deprecate our current corrections procedures. I personally do not like that coming from a government minister, but that is his business and if he were here now, we would probably have a little debate on it. Having had an opportunity to address the minister's remarks on this bill, I will now get to some of my own.

[An hon. member]

Maybe you should.

[Derek Lee, Liberal, Scarborough—Rouge River, ON]

Well, maybe I won't. The member does not like my remarks about the minister but this is a public forum.

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

That is shameful.

[Derek Lee, Liberal, Scarborough—Rouge River, ON]

There is nothing shameful about this. This is a House of free speech.

In any event, I want to note that throughout the country there is a perception that there has been an increase in violent crime. In the statistical data if we look back into the 1960s and forward to the present, we can see an increase in crime. Many criminologists say it is actually an increase in reported crime. The criminal activity of the 1960s and early in the 1970s, was in fact arguably under reported so that our data was a little bit lower than it actually should have been. In any event, the trend line was there. We can see the material increase from the 1960s right up to 1992.

In 1992 things changed sociologically. I do not believe it was anything government did or did not do. We were in a bit of an economic recession at the time but we can see the trend line. After that point in time, all criminal activity starts to drop. I still accept that there is a perception in society, that people see a lot more crime. They are certainly getting a lot more media. We have more television, more newspapers and more Internet. If there is something happening out there in crime, people are going to hear about it and that may exacerbate the public policy problem.

I am not saying there is not any crime. There is a truckload of it and it is a social issue, but it is not increasing in the way that people are being led to believe that it is. In Toronto there was a sense that we had of a very serious firearm problem about two years ago. That was true. There was a clear spike and increase in the number of shootings and firearm incidents in Toronto. As I am going to point out a little later, that year 2005 turns out to be spike, a spike up and down. Things are actually quite different now.

However, in looking at crime statistics from across the country, I can see that not every city, not every urban area or every rural area is in the same position. There are cities in Canada that have crime rates almost double what they are in Toronto or Montreal. That may seem counterintuitive to many of us, but while big cities do have crime, small cities also have crime. In some cases the rates of crimes, not necessarily the raw incidents, are significantly higher than some of our other urban areas.

In these places across Canada, citizens definitely have an issue. I represent a Toronto area riding. It is impossible for me to speak about this issue without acknowledging that in various parts of the country, the north, the east, the west, the south, there are different takes, different perceptions of just how bad or how good or where the level of criminal activity is.

Before going on any further, on the sentencing that is currently in the Criminal Code, including the existing mandatory minimums that I mentioned earlier for firearms, my party in the last election campaign did undertake to increase the mandatory minimum penalties. The member opposite makes that point, but the increases that were proposed were an increase of the one year and four year penalties that were there.

What the government had proposed in Bill C-10 was a whole regime of increasing mandatory minimums, an escalating scheme of mandatory minimums that ran three, five, seven and up to 10 years. That is a much different kettle of fish than what the Liberal Party had proposed, of targeted, specific, reasonable mandatory minimum adjustments in the Criminal Code. Maybe we could put that debate to rest. Was it discussed in the election? It sure was, but I wanted to be clear about what my party had proposed.

We are not talking about creating a new offence. This bill does not create new offences. This bill does not create new sentences. All of that is already in the Criminal Code. What the bill does, and I could say only, is create a mandatory minimum sentence at the bottom end. Judges in this country are charged with sentencing and they can give the appropriate sentence and they do. Ninety-nine per cent of the time they give the right sentence. They can sentence to more than the mandatory minimum and sometimes they do, but it depends on a whole number of criteria set out in the Criminal Code. We legislated them here about 10 years ago.

In my view the criminal justice system from the point of view of the sentencing regime is working quite well. Once in a while there is an aberration. Once in a while there is a circumstance in a court and a judge and a set of facts that looks a little odd. A newspaper, a television station, a reporter will see it and think it looks strange, that a penalty looks a little stiff, or that a penalty looks a little light and it becomes a public issue, but those cases are far and few between. We just see a lot more of them now because we have a lot more media. If it is a story, it is a story.

In one of the comments on this bill earlier today there was a scenario that I found very compelling at the committee. It relates to sentencing in the rural areas, in the north, the west and the east of the country, but generally in the north. We have to remember that before someone is actually sentenced, there has to be an investigation, the person is charged, convicted in a trial and then is sentenced.

A witness at the committee made this point in a very compelling way. When there is a conviction in a northern community for an offence, even if a violent one, the only prospect for rehabilitation and reintegration of an offender from those northern communities is if he or she is able to be in that community.

It is just not possible to take offenders from a northern community, yank them out, send them to some place in the south and hope that they can rehabilitate or reintegrate. They are not from the south. They are citizens of our north.

Instituting a mandatory minimum regime of sentences over two years essentially ensures a federal sentence. All sentences over two years are served in federal penitentiaries. Sentences under two years are served in provincial penitentiaries. By imposing mandatory minimums way beyond the two years, this type of sentencing would remove individuals from their northern communities and place them in a federal penitentiary, which could be a thousand miles away or two thousand miles away, but not even close to their communities.

It is generally accepted that prisons are simply warehouses for offenders, where young people actually learn better how to become criminals. Prisons are not the best location. I accept that we need them to protect society, at least as a clearing house, but the witness from the north said that the existence of these new sentencing regimes with mandatory minimums greater than two years would make it virtually impossible to rehabilitate and reintegrate offenders from those northern communities. In other words, we are creating lost causes before we even begin.

Members may ask me what I would propose for someone who has committed a serious crime and needs to do serious time. The criminal justice system has already provided for that with a regime of sentencing options and a skilled judge who will make the decision on what an appropriate sentence for that convicted offender will be, taking into consideration all aspects of the case, including the circumstances of the victim, previous criminal record, propensity to reoffend and prospects for rehabilitation. That is what we ask our judges to do. The escalating sentencing regime contained in this bill would, practically speaking, remove all of those options from a sentencing judge. If the bill passes, that will be the case. I regret that but that is the way it is.

In the remarks of my friend opposite, he referred to the spike this year in Toronto of gun crimes. I am pleased to report that while in 2005-06 the incidents of shootings were at about 87 and 81, this year the number of shootings to date is at 60, which is a drop of over 25%. The reason for that is good policing. However, I do not have time to go into the details. One shooting is too many but if we have a huge city with a few million people, we will have incidents, and I am saying that there has been a 25% drop. The perceived increase in these firearm incidents is not there, and these decreases have occurred under current laws. I just wanted to get that on the record. I give a lot of credit to the Toronto police and their new policing methods.

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

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak today on Bill C-10.

I will point out to my colleague that in the province of Quebec—my province—there is a body, namely the Société de l'assurance automobile du Québec, which has an obligation to protect citizens and in particular to make recommendations to the federal government, since we are responsible for the Criminal Code, on harsher sentences for alcohol-related offences.

My response to my colleague's theory is as follows. When I started practising law, the fine for someone who had consumed alcohol was only $300. We subsequently created three different levels with different penalties for each of the first three offences. This is called the progressive system. If we had heeded my colleague at that time, today there would be but a single $300 offence, and everybody would be fine with that. The criminals would be protected but the victims left out.

I would like to ask a question of my colleague, my fellow committee member, whom I appreciate for his good advice on procedural matters. Even if his party is opposed to the bill, I know very well that his fellow citizens will agree with us, because the people of Canada do want to see victims protected before criminals.

Why does my colleague not agree with imposing progressive penalties for criminal acts, particularly in these specific cases where extremely serious offences are involved? We are not talking about minor situations, but extremely serious ones. We have been doing that same thing for over 20 years, and the most clear example of this is section 259 of the Criminal Code which, as my colleague is well aware, sets progressive sanctions for criminal acts.

[Derek Lee, Liberal, Scarborough—Rouge River, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I did say in my remarks that I support, as does my party, the existence of mandatory minimum penalties for drunk driving offences. Those penalties, of course, start off with a mandatory fine and then the offender will do time after a second offence. The person will not do seven years, but the person will do a few weeks, although I do not recall exactly how many weeks. The point is that with the mandatory minimum the offender will do time. There is an escalator for a third offence and the offender will do more time. However, we are talking about doing time as opposed to doing years and years of time.

The reason I would object to the escalating three, five, seven and ten-year type escalation is that the three, five, seven and ten years have never been shown to provide any more public safety. If it is necessary to keep the individual in jail because the person is a very violent offender, then the judge should impose a lengthy sentence of that nature.

However, I object to the automatic, structured, built-in, no exception mandatory minimum in the bill running up to seven years.

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate my colleague's comments but I was somewhat disturbed with his approach to Bill C-10. He has acknowledged that the perception among Canadians is that we have a crime problem and, quite frankly, I concur with that perception. I believe there is statistical evidence to support that.

What really jumped out at me was his statement that “the sentencing regime is working quite well”. In other words, business as usual, no change is required and even though Canadians misunderstand, everything is okay.

I do not know whether he has spoken to victims. He may have but I would be surprised if he had. I have. Has he spoken to police officers? I have spoken to police officers in Abbotsford and they do not concur with the assessment that the system is fine and working well. It is a revolving door justice system right now and rank and file police officers will tell him that.

The member then accused the minister of having twisted messaging, subliminal messaging and of twisting the facts. That is disrespectful language toward a member of this House of Commons who has been a lawyer for many years, has served as crown counsel, as attorney general in Manitoba and is now serving as justice minister here. He should not make such demeaning references to what is an attempt to protect Canadians.

If Canadians have the perception that our justice system is not serving their needs for safety and security, how is it that the member can justify taking the approach that everything is okay and that the current sentencing scheme is actually acceptable?

[Derek Lee, Liberal, Scarborough—Rouge River, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I did not say that everything was A-okay. I said that the current sentencing regime in the Criminal Code was generally working all right. However, there has never been a time in the history of the human race when there has not been a problem with crime, let us say, ever since Cain killed Abel. There also has never been a time when we have not found the need to alter the Criminal Code. We are always adjusting. I have been here for 19 years and I can hardly recall a year when there was not a Criminal Code amendment on the order paper somewhere. There are 15 of them now.

The point is that it is one thing to respond to public perception that there is a problem but it is another thing to analyze it from a public policy point of view to see exactly what the problem is and what the best response is. A whole bunch of knee-jerking, increase the sentencing and get tough on crime things, without dealing with the public policy issue in detail and with precision is not my way of doing things.

If a problem is seen, I really do want to address it. If a weak sentence in a particular case or systemically is a problem for society, if we saw one place where we, as a society, had to really firm up, like we did with drunk driving and with firearm offences three years ago, and as we might need to do in other things in society, I am prepared to do that.

What I do not support is the approach in the current bill that simply lists about 20 different things and says that we will now impose an escalating three, five, seven, ten-year thing where we know statistically, based on corrections' social science, there is no payback unless we need to keep an offender in because he or she is a danger.

[Libby Davies, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Mr. Speaker, although I did not hear the full debate and just caught the last comments of the member, I share a number of his concerns about an over-reliance on the Criminal Code to fix problems around crime instead of having a balanced approach around crime prevention and building healthy communities.

From the point of view of minimum mandatory sentences, I would remind the member that it was the former Liberal government that, I believe, had brought in about 60 such new offences in terms of minimum mandatories.

Our justice critic has made it very clear that where we can use it in a very specific way, and the issue of drunk driving would be one of those instances, it can be very effective. However, in actual fact we already have a history, as a result of the previous government, of using minimum mandatory sentences.

I believe that in the last election the then Liberal leader made a commitment that he would double the minimum mandatory sentences for this particular offence that would go actually beyond where the current bill is. It would have been a doubling of the sentence and would have taken us beyond where we are now. I just wanted to remind the member of that in terms of the history.

[Derek Lee, Liberal, Scarborough—Rouge River, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the reference to doubling the mandatory minimums was with respect to the now existing one year mandatory minimums, which were applied to quite a broad spectrum of firearm offences and which exist in the code now.

It is one thing to double one year to two years or two years less a day. There is one offence--

[Libby Davies, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

No, it is four to eight.

[Derek Lee, Liberal, Scarborough—Rouge River, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I hope the member is not suggesting that there is a whole bunch of four year mandatory minimum sentences in the code, because there is only one. It is section 344 and it is robbery with a firearm. Robbery with a firearm currently has a four year mandatory minimum.

All the other offences to which the hon. member has made reference are the one year mandatory minimums which currently exist in the code and which the Liberal Party in the last election said it would double. Making a one a two or two years less a day is a far cry and much different from three, five, seven and 10. That is the difference. That is a huge difference.

[Myron Thompson, Conservative, Wild Rose, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I do not know how much time I have, but I will not be taking up a lot of time. I will start and see where we end up.

I was listening to the debate on the monitor in my office for the entire morning and trying to get a lot of things done, but I could not help but come over and try to get involved with the debate to some degree because there are a few things that I would like to point out.

Just very recently we heard a speech from the member for Abbotsford that was what I considered to be a talk that was coming from the hearts, the souls and the minds of ordinary people in his riding. A lot of ordinary people are out there wondering what is going on and what is happening.

I have a lot of respect for lawyers, I really do, but they seem to approach things with a totally different idea than a lot of us do. I say that simply because it is difficult to understand them when they begin their lingo. Their language becomes so legalistic that it is difficult to know exactly where they are at and their comeback always is that the problem with people like me, the member for Abbotsford and others is that we are just too simplistic. I have heard that term so many times that it just about drives me crazy.

It is a simplistic answer, they say, when what we are doing is expressing this in terms as best we can, as every member can, and I know that you are the same, Mr. Speaker. We listen to the people in our ridings. They are really fed up with some of the things that are happening in our justice system. They want a truly good justice system. It appears to have turned into more of a legal system, where we are constantly engaging in debates as to what this term means and what that term means, et cetera, such that we lose sight of some things, that is, the public is not happy with the way that the justice system is operating. That is it, pure and simple. The public is not pleased.

Members can check any poll, or if they like they can conduct their own in their own riding. Even the Liberal member who just spoke can do that in his own riding with just ordinary people out there. Members can forget about those ordinary people being simplistic. Members should just remember that they are the people who are thriving in this country, who are working and paying their taxes, and they want the services rendered by this government to be efficient and effective.

One of the best things we can do to answer a lot of their concerns is provide a system that will make society as safe as possible and will protect society as a whole. One of the most elemental duties that we have as members of Parliament is to come up with legislation that will do that. I think we all try hard to do that, even in our own way of thinking, which too often is referred to by too many people in this House as simplistic.

The day that I really started getting more concerned than I ever had in the past was the day I saw 14 farmers, and prior to that another two, hauled away from a court, in shackles and chains, and going off to jail to serve consecutive sentences. Consecutive sentences meant that for each crime they had to serve a specific amount of time before they began to serve the next one. The courts do not usually sentence people consecutively; they sentence them concurrently. Clifford Olson, for example, is serving a life sentence for the death of 11 people, but he is only serving one. He probably should be serving 11 life sentences.

These farmers were hauled off to jail. They were taken to jail in shackles and chains, in most cases in front of their wives and children. For what? For selling their own grain, their own product that they raised on their farms with their own hard-working hands. They broke the law because they went across the border and tried to sell their grain. Nobody is denying that it was a disobedient thing to do and nobody is denying that maybe there should have been some charges. That is not the question.

The question is this: how did the punishment fit the crime? How well did we do in that department? We had farmers who worked hard to raise their own crops and who, in a form of civil disobedience, made a move to try to make more money, more profit, for their farms, which are struggling all the time. How well did we do when the Liberal government in power at the time did nothing about the fact that all these people were hauled off to jail?

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

That's the Liberal way.

[Myron Thompson, Conservative, Wild Rose, AB]

That is the Liberal way. That is what I was thinking. This is not right. There is something wrong with that picture.

Of course, somebody might say that is a simplistic way of thinking, but it is not. The punishment should fit the crime. I see nothing wrong with that philosophy. Yet when we check on various other aspects of sentencing, we see that offenders actually receive house arrest or community service when they commit a violent offence. All of this was going on at the same time that those 14 farmers were hauled off to jail for selling their own grain. But that is probably simplistic talk.

Millions of Canadians are wondering when we are going to stop all this nonsense and start addressing crime. They want us to send out a strong, loud and clear message that it is not acceptable for criminals to hurt people or their property or do something that is against the law. It blows my mind that some members cannot grasp that concept.

Yet on one occasion a bunch of farmers were hauled off to jail in shackles and chains for selling their own grain. They were hauled off in front of their crying wives and kids. I was there and I saw it. I talked to the wives and the children after the event was over and those farmers were locked up and the doors were slammed shut. It was that day that I vowed we had to get some common sense into the minds of the people here in the House of Commons. We need to realize that this kind of activity is not right.

So we prepared legislation. We want to get tough on crime so we brought in minimum mandatory sentencing for the use of a gun in the commission of a crime. We are trying to send the message that it is not acceptable to use guns for the purpose of committing crimes. We are telling criminals that it is not going to be tolerated. We are going to get tougher. We are telling criminals that minimum mandatory sentences will be the result.

Is this going to deter criminals? As people say, it probably will not go through the minds of a lot of them. I do not disagree with that. That is not the point. The point is this: is the punishment going to fit the crime? Is it going to match up? Yes, we are starting to take serious action, particularly against people in cases of violence and who use guns in the commission of a crime.

There are a lot of examples out there. There is not a member in this House of Commons who cannot think of one particular instance where house arrest or community service was the punishment for a crime of violence. It is a shameful disgrace to this place. Unfortunately, many of the crimes I know of were crimes against children, the most vulnerable in our society, who are treated with the least respect.

We are trying to bring forward a piece of legislation that will send a message that this House of Commons is not going to tolerate violent crimes. We are going to do our very best to make certain that criminals pay the price for their crimes, that they get a penalty they deserve.

Yes, at the same time, we have to work very hard with earlier programs and prevention activities. I was in a schoolhouse for 30 years and 90% of my time was spent trying to prevent kids from getting into trouble. However, they learned after a period of time, and they knew that once they crossed the line they were going to be held responsible for their actions. They knew that the punishment would not be pleasant. I was trying to send out a message that I did not tolerate the activity that took place and I wanted it to cease.

I find it really discouraging when we get a debate going in the House of Commons and the best argument I keep hearing is, “I listened to the speech by the fellow from Abbotsford and he was far too simplistic”. Good grief, he is talking the hearts and minds of the people in his riding who discuss these very issues day in and day out with every one of us.

I will be frank. I am pretty simplistic and I will be as simplistic as I can. I am sick and tired of this nonsense. I am really sick and tired of it. I have acquaintances, friends of mine, who have lost loved ones and have had no real closure because the perpetrator is going to be released on parole very soon who took the life of an individual. They do not understand why their loved one is gone forever and the perpetrator, who committed the most sadistic crimes of sexual assault and murder, is going to be released back into our society soon.

We can all rub our hands together and say we have done a wonderful job. I want us to think about that just a little, just start thinking about it a little more. Does the punishment fit the crime? If it does not, then let us do something about it.

I am proud of the Minister of Justice who brought this bill forward and wants to do something about it. None of us has any magic answers as to what we can do that will make it better, but we have to concentrate on all the possibilities.

In the meantime, when individuals cross the line and use a gun in the commission of a crime, the penalty will be stiff. It will be tough. If that does not work, we may have to make it tougher. We have to get a message out that this is not the society we want to live in.

If it takes a few million dollars more to build another penitentiary to keep people like that off the streets, then let us do it. What is wrong with that? I always thought keeping criminals behind bars was a wise thing to do.

There are small communities in rural Alberta that do not have police on every corner or do not have access to police. There are small businesses and little grocery or hardware stores in small towns where it would take a policeman half an hour to get to once a crime has been committed.

How do they live? They live behind bars. They have bars on every window and door. They are doing everything they can to protect their property and keep criminals from coming in. They unlock their doors, enter their businesses, slam their doors and work throughout the day behind bars because they are afraid of the people on the street running free. There must be too many of them because there are constant troubles of breaking and entering and destroying property. Hopefully, they do not run into any these people while they are at work because it could be dangerous.

I hope that people do not believe that I am being too simplistic. I have lots of friends and relatives who all work hard and pay their taxes. The least I can do for them while I am here, I hope, is to make certain that we have people in this place who are willing to decide that criminals are not a good thing in our society and we are going to do the very best we can do take care of it. Then we get into these legal matters and opinions which most of us, including me, do not understand when conversations are engaged in with witnesses in committee. When the Bar Association representatives have discussions with members who have law degrees, they lose me most times. I admit that.

I listened to one speech today about the expert witnesses who are against this bill. I do not know why they are considered to be expert witnesses when people who agree with the bill, like the police and many others, are not referred to as expert witnesses. In other words, if witnesses agree with that member's idea of what the bill should look like, then they are experts and if they do not, they must not be experts.

The police made a very good presentation in regard to their support for this bill and others associated with it. It made very good sense.

We certainly did not get into any legal wrangling because they would lose me, but we can converse and society as a whole can converse. I simply say “Wake up, folks, wake up”. The public out there is not satisfied with the way the justice system is working.

If people do not believe me, get on those little computers and newspapers and put out all kinds of polls and ask: “Folks in my riding, are you satisfied with the way our justice system operates, yes or no”? Then people will see how satisfied Canadians are.

Canadians are not satisfied. They are paying for something they are not satisfied with. I say let us work hard to give them something that they are paying for and that they will be satisfied with. I believe in satisfying the customer.

If that is too radical or too extreme for some members of the House, then that is too bad. That is the way it ought to be. That is the way people are telling me in my riding it ought to be. As long as I can stand on my two feet in this place I am going to expound that. That is the way it ought to be.

Wake up and do the right thing and support Bill C-10 to indicate to the public out there that we are taking crime a little more seriously. Let Canadians know that we are not being simplistic about it, but that we are sincere about it. If people think I am not sincere then give me a test.

I do not know if I have any time left, but I do not think I need to say any more. I have just about said all I want to say and all I can say. For the love of me, I cannot understand what goes through the minds of individuals who simply say that the punishment fitting the crime is not right.

I will revert once again to that day that I saw farmers hauled off in shackles and chains for selling grain. I do not think there was a person in the entire public society of Canada that cheered that day, not one. “Yes, we are going to teach those farmers a lesson”.

They say it is not a deterrent to do these other things, but they certainly thought that would be a deterrent. It is not about deterrents. It is about punishment fitting the crime, letting society know as a whole that it is not acceptable to hurt people in this country, that it is not acceptable to destroy their property or steal from them. It is a wrong thing to do. It is a very wrong thing to do and we are going to take tough action.

I am thankful that we have a minister sitting in that seat that wants to do just that. I thank the House for the time. I did not intend to speak today, but I could not resist after hearing many of the things that I heard this morning.

I hope people will give this bill a second thought before they react to the bill with such negativism and criticism that says we are too simplistic because we mean what we say and we are going to get the job done. It has not been done for years. Now is the time to get it done.

[Derek Lee, Liberal, Scarborough—Rouge River, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I would never second-guess the hon. member in articulating on behalf of his constituents, or for that matter, any MP here. That is what we are here to do. I have worked with the member on the justice committee. We do not always agree, but most of the time we do and it has been a good run over a number of years.

However, I wanted to ask two questions. The first one is really a comment. In the matter involving the grain farmers who were ultimately jailed, as I recall it, I believe they were fined by the court. When they came back to court, not having paid their fines, not because they could not afford to but because they refused in protest to pay the fines, I believe the court had no alternative but to resort to either imprisonment or contempt. The court resorted to the short jailing. So the member is correct. It happened, but the sequence involved more than just selling grain and going to jail. It was more complex than that.

Does the member not think that in this House from time to time we are forced by reason of the federal jurisdiction to focus on only two things when it comes to response to criminal activity? The only thing we can do federally is write the Criminal Code and from time to time set the sentencing range. That is all we get to do.

With criminal activity there has to be an offence, an investigation, it may need police intelligence gathering, a charge, a conviction, and a sentence, but we only write the law and deal with the sentencing. The provinces and the cities do the policing, the investigation, and the prosecution is done by the provinces. So, we actually may be kind of frustrated from time to time that we do not have a greater role on the ground in the components.

Does the member not think that out of frustration from time to time we federally may tend to overemphasize our role in that whole complex thing with just the law and the sentencing?

[Myron Thompson, Conservative, Wild Rose, AB]

Mr. Speaker, first of all, I want to comment once again with regard to the farmers. It is strange that such things as house arrest, community service or those kinds of penalties did not enter the minds of the court. It was jail. The farmers did not comply. Jail.

I am talking about the punishment fitting the crime. They did not pay a fine. Jail. I guess the Liberals do not get the picture. It is not the idea of how much more was involved in it. That was the event that took place. Did the punishment fit the crime? The answer in Canadian society was no, not even close. Unfortunately, the answer is also no in society when we ask if the punishment fits the crime in so many of our violent crimes that take place. The answer is still no.

As legislators, we write the laws and what is wrong with providing sentences that we believe, from our discussions with our constituents, are more in line with the thinking of society as a whole which pays for a system that it wants to work on its behalf. We must write laws that make it possible.

We have many laws. Sometimes I do not think we need to write any more laws. I look at the maximum penalties on some of these charges and my goodness, when is the last time we ever had a maximum penalty issued in Canada? So, I guess the judges need a little nudging from minimum penalties to nudge them toward a little more severity in their sentencing.

[Robert Carrier, Bloc, Alfred-Pellan, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I listened carefully to what my colleague from Wild Rose had to say. I can assure him that I do not think anyone tolerates crime. I understand that he is impatient and fed up with the crimes being committed.

I do not feel that the solution proposed in the bill is the right one. For example, in the United States, more criminals are incarcerated and the crime rate is much higher than it is here. It has been proven that the homicide rate is three times higher in the United States than in Canada. Maximum or additional prison time does not have the desired results. I do not believe that anyone here thinks that people in big cities such as New York or Chicago feel safer because more people are put in jail.

Instead, I would direct my colleague to the budget cuts the government is making to get to the source of the problem. The summer career placement program was cut by $10 million this year. The are not consulting those who live in the communities, and decisions are made by civil servants who are not necessarily aware of the needs. Young people absolutely need these jobs. The government's budget cuts could leave these kids with nothing to do, and perhaps they will become criminals.

I would like to know what my colleague thinks about that. Should the government not get to the source of the problem, rather than further punishing the criminals?

[Myron Thompson, Conservative, Wild Rose, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I understand the question and I would not mind getting into a debate with him some day on the cuts that took place and on the that things we are doing. However, I hope everything that is being done is being done in the best interests of Canadian society. I trust it is, but I am not going there today. We are talking about Bill C-10.

All I am saying is that as part of the justice system, we must provide tools for our courts to allow them to move more toward penalties that Canadian society would expect for the kinds of crimes criminals commit. We will work on all kinds of aspects of preventing crime, and we should at every chance we get. The debates on the cuts will take place and they should take place.

When he compares us to the states, I have been in many of the penitentiaries in the states, visiting and finding out what is going on. They have some penitentiaries that are releasing inmates who are having no recidivism. They are run in a manner that we would not even consider in Canada because it seems to be too draconic.

Maybe our prison system needs to be looked at when we release them. What are we doing in the penitentiaries other than letting the inmates call the shots?

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

Mr. Speaker, I followed the logic and the desire of my hon. colleague, the member for Wild Rose, to be simplistic, but it does not seem to follow in terms of crime.

His party has insisted on continuing a war on drugs when we know does not work. It just creates more crime, more criminals, more shootings and more trouble in the homes and the neighbourhoods of this nations. An enormous percentage of the population makes choices about what kinds of substances they indulge in and we make crimes against some of them. We make it criminal for some of those things, so we create crime.

Does the hon. member agree with me that we should look at our laws to see if they are working to reduce crime or to eliminate it? When we take those choices, then we can also look at how tough we can enforce the—

[The Acting Speaker, Andrew Scheer]

The hon. member for Wild Rose has approximately 30 seconds for his reply.

[Myron Thompson, Conservative, Wild Rose, AB]

Mr. Speaker, 30 seconds is a tough amount of time to answer a question like that.

I am pleased we are continuing to work on the war on drugs. I have attended at least seven funerals of students of mine who died because they were involved in drugs. It is an activity that needs to be stopped. I do not know how we stop it, but it has to be stopped. If a person starts saying that legalizing it makes it better, that is absolute nonsense. I will not even go there.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

There you go, you lose your simplistic argument.

[Myron Thompson, Conservative, Wild Rose, AB]

I knew I would get a reaction like that from an NDP. After all, if we would legalize everything that is immoral or evil against society, then it would not be used. I guess that is what he is thinking.

I will use my last three seconds to defend the war on drugs, and I hope we become victorious in that one.

[Marc Lemay, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I hope that my colleague from Wild Rose will listen to what I have to say to him because I want to start by pointing out that my intention is not to say that he is a simplistic member. I do not believe he is, for a number of reasons.

I have had the opportunity to see the member for Wild Rose at the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights, and he is a reflection of many people in Canada: people are asking serious questions about crime and how to put a stop to it.

I would never dream of telling the member for Wild Rose for whom I have enormous respect, that he is a simplistic person and has simplistic solutions. We are dealing with the extremely complex problem of crime here. My colleague and I do not look at things the same way when it comes to fighting crime.

In the few minutes I am allotted, I will try to show that the way to fight crime is not to increase minimum sentences. I know that I will not show this to the satisfaction of the member for Wild Rose, but I hope that some in this House will understand.

I was a lawyer for 25 years. For the last 15 years, I worked exclusively in criminal law, as a criminal defence lawyer. I have seen virtually all the amendments that members have adopted in the House of Commons in the last 15 years, to amend the Criminal Code. Because I have been here only since 2004, I had nothing to do with the amendments to the Criminal Code made by this House. We criminal lawyers, however, worked with those major changes to the Criminal Code.

I want to point out to my colleague from Wild Rose and all his colleagues in the Conservative Party that from 1991 to 2000—I am not going back very far, and I have the same figures as my colleague has—crime dropped by nearly 26% in Canada. Crime has fallen and is still falling.

But even better, the number of violent crimes—homicide, attempted murder, assault, assault with a weapon, sexual assault, kidnapping and robbery—fell year over year between 1992 and 2004. In 1992, there were about 1084 violent crimes, the ones I have just listed, per 100,000 population in Canada. But in 2004 there were only 946. That is a drop of 13%.

Violent crime fell by 13%, but crime overall fell by 25%. Quebec and Canada are safe countries. These are good places to live. So where is the problem?

There is a fundamental principle, one that has been stated by the Supreme Court of Canada. I hope that the 308 members in this House respect that institution. The Supreme Court of Canada has said, and reiterated, that when sentence is to be passed, one of the essential factors is the individualization of sentences. What that means, in words that are easy to understand, is that when a person comes before the court, the judge must impose a sentence that fits the person standing before the judge. I know that, unfortunately, these are not words that the member from Wild Rose and a majority of the Conservative Party members want to hear. They should go and read the Supreme Court’s decisions. I am not the one who wrote them. Personally, I have enormous respect for the Supreme Court and what it has said, which I repeat: the sentence must be individualized and must fit the individual.

What that means is that when an individual receives a sentence, we must tell that person or make him or her understand that the crime is serious and that society condemns that crime. However, in the sentence that the judge is about to render, an important factor must be considered: the possible rehabilitation of the individual. On that point, once again, I address myself to the member for Wild Rose and his colleagues in the Conservative party. Following recent amendments, the court must take into account the impact of the crime on the victim. In English, that is known as an impact statement. The victims come into the court and give testimony to explain the impact of the crime on them.

I would say to the member for Wild Rose and his colleagues in the Conservative party that since this measure came into force less than 10% of victims come before the court. It is not because we do not want to hear them; it is because, very often, they do not want to have any more to do with the justice system. Why is that? There are a lot of questions to be asked.

In the Bloc Québécois, we think that introducing minimum prison sentences is not the way to solve the problem. The member for Wild Rose and his colleagues in the Conservative party should realize that perhaps the problem lies not at the entrance to the court or prison but at the exit. What we are saying is that an individual who receives a sentence must serve time in prison and, if he or she serves a prison sentence, that person should be eligible for parole. Could someone be paroled too quickly? That is a debate that we should have soon in this House. However, we will not solve this problem by tying the hands of judges with minimum sentences. That is false.

Once again, I address the member for Wild Rose. He was present at the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights when the former justice minister came to testify. We asked him questions. We asked him if there were studies; whether any investigations had shown that increasing minimum prison sentences had reduced crime. The answer is no. It is no.

Therefore, we cannot vote in favour of a bill that does not solve the problem. I will try to explain to the member for Wild Rose and his colleagues in the Conservative party what will happen if this bill is adopted. We will have an accused person, who initially faces a minimum prison sentence of five years, for example.

So on his lawyer’s advice, he will plead not guilty, choose trial by jury, and ask for a preliminary hearing in order to drag out the proceedings as long as possible. Then he will try to plea bargain.

I invite the hon. member for Wild Rose to come to some court houses with me, whether in Calgary, Vancouver, Toronto or Montreal. Anyone who has done any criminal law will tell him that plea bargaining goes on, and the Bar came and told us that Bill C-10 will only cause it to increase.

This means that people will come before the judge, talk to the crown attorney, and ask him to withdraw a charge in exchange for them not dragging out the proceedings forever. We have seen it on many occasions.

I believe that the hon. member for Wild Rose and several of his colleagues were present here in the House when the Supreme Court of Canada determined that a minimum sentence of seven years in prison for importing narcotics was cruel and unusual punishment. I did not make up the Charter. However, we have had a Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms since 1982, and it is applied.

What I am trying to say, not only to the hon. member for Wild Rose but many of his colleagues as well, is that we are not getting at the root of the problem. Increasing minimum prison sentences will just jam the courts with legal procedures. We even have some figures. The hon. member for Wild Rose will agree with me on this because we saw figures in committee showing that we will have to spend nearly $22 million a year just to deal with the additional inmates in the prison system.

If they want to build prisons, they can build them, but that will not solve the crime problem. There are deep-seated reasons for crime. We do not want to get into this debate right now, but there are deep-seated reasons for delinquency and violence. I hope that the hon. member for Wild Rose and his colleagues are familiar with them. It is poverty. That much we know.

As I was studying this situation, a question occurred to me. If the hon. member Wild Rose is so much in favour of Bill C-10, why are crimes committed with hunting weapons not included? They are not in the bill. We have a problem, though, because 35% of the homicides in Canada are committed with hunting weapons. So little holes are starting to appear in this, and soon little holes become big holes.

This bill will not solve the problem. What I mean—and I want the hon. member for Wild Rose to be very aware of this—is that this bill tries to condemn people who walk around with revolvers shooting at anyone at all in the streets. On this point, I totally agree with him. We need to get rid of that. But what is going to happen? Instead of committing armed robbery with revolvers, people will do it now with a 12, 410, 22 or 303 calibre weapon.

This is what I have to say to the hon. member for Wild Rose. This aspect is not in the bill. I put the question to the minister. If the member for Wild Rose was at that committee meeting—like his colleagues, he did not miss many—he knows that I asked the minister. The minister replied that it was not necessary because it could lead to the imprisonment of aboriginal and Inuit people. How ridiculous. We have a problem here. We are in the process of creating a second justice system, and that is unacceptable.

I would add that there are three times more homicides in the United States than in Canada, and four times more than in Quebec. There is a real problem here. This bill does not solve the problem of violent crime. That is what I want the members opposite to understand.

The Bloc Québécois believes that it is perhaps the parole system that poses a problem. I leave it to the hon. member for Wild Rose to pass along this message, because he knows the Minister of Justice very well.

I would like to return to what the member for Wild Rose said in response to my hon. colleague from the Liberal Party. Perhaps judges must be given instructions. In my opinion—at least, I hope this will be the case—there will always be courts of appeal and the Supreme Court to review, study and analyze the appropriateness of a sentence, and to confirm if it was handed down in accordance with the sentencing rules governing the courts. That is what I would like the members opposite to understand, as well as those who are about to vote in favour of a bill that not only is incomplete and fails to solve the problem of violent crime, but will only exacerbate the existing backlogs in our court rooms. If this bill passes, there will be more backlogs. Criminal defence lawyers will make a pile of money. I can guarantee it.

What I find regrettable as well as that huge investments are also planned for the prisons. The hon. member for Wild Rose has visited a number of penitentiaries. I too have been inside on a number of occasions to visit clients, unfortunately. Penitentiaries are schools for crime. No one in this House can convince me otherwise. Programs need to be set up to provide help to people who want to take control of their lives.

Throughout my career, I asked my clients questions, as did others when they were inside. What I asked is whether they would have thought twice about committing such a crime, had they known there was a minimum three year jail time for it. They said no. When a person has made up his mind to commit a crime, he will do anything to make sure he does. We must stop holding on to this belief that crime will be reduced if prison time is increased. It is a false belief.

What we must do is to work as quickly as possible at solving the problems that are the causes. What must be done in particular is to start thinking seriously that there may be a problem at time of release. What I mean by that is that people may be getting out a bit too soon. On this point , I agree with the hon. member for Wild Rose, who shares that opinion and has often expressed it in committee. Inmates are getting out too soon. They get three years jail time and are out on the street in six months. That may be one part of the problem, but it is not going to be solved by tying the judges' hands and telling them they have to impose this or that minimum sentence. On the contrary.

Mr. Normandeau, a Université de Montréal criminologist who has examined most of the files at the Montreal Palais de Justice, reports that the result of having minimum penalties was that lawyers plea bargained to get their clients charged with offences not carrying a minimum sentence. So what will happen next?

It is not difficult to figure out. They will go to court and say to the crown attorney: “Withdraw this charge and I will plead guilty to a slightly more serious charge, armed robbery”. They will then be given a two-year sentence and the problem will be solved.

In closing, I invite the member for Wild Rose and his colleagues in the Conservative Party to think twice about a bill that does not solve the problem of crime. Probably the best thing to do is to admit that they made a mistake, withdraw the bill and to do what it takes to find other means of dealing with crime.

[Myron Thompson, Conservative, Wild Rose, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I should be honoured because I felt that the entire speech was dedicated to the member for Wild Rose. Although I appreciate the member's speech and his opinion, I could not disagree with him more. I am encouraged more than ever to support these kinds of legislation and I will continue to do so.

The member constantly insists, as do other members, that poverty is the major cause of crime and that if we did not have poverty there would be no crimes.

I would like to remind the member that in all the crime statistics from the dirty thirties, the poorest time on the North American continent, that was when crime was the lowest in the history of the North American continent.

I will not say that poverty does not contribute to crime because it probably does. However, on my tour throughout the country visiting all the penitentiaries, when I asked the inmates how they ended up in prison, I would say that close to 70% to 75% of the inmates said that it was because they drank alcohol and got drunk a lot. They said that if it had not been for booze they would not be there.

Most of the guards and the wardens agreed that our prisons would be quite empty if it were not for booze. Evidently booze is a major cause of crime. What does the member suggest we do about that?

[Marc Lemay, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Mr. Speaker, first of all, I would like to say to the member for Wild Rosethat I respect his opinion. I respect what he said because he is talking about real, everyday life. He is a worldly man and I know that he has been in this House since 1993. He is experienced. However, we do not have the same perspective and I respect that.

Yet, I would say to the hon. member that the best sentence—and I can speak about this out of experience—is the one that our client accepts and that he is willing to serve. I know that what I am saying is difficult to accept.

This is what I mean. When we tell a client that he has committed a crime while under the influence of alcohol, we explain that the judge has no choice but to impose a sentence. Let us take, for example, impaired driving causing bodily harm. Until the accused recognizes that he has a problem with alcohol, there is nothing we can do. We could put him away for centuries, but that will not solve the problem. He must come to the realization that he has a problem, he must accept it and take steps to deal with it. Then, rehabilitation can begin.

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

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague from the Bloc for his speech. I have a few points to raise.

We, the Liberals, intend to vote against Bill C-10 at third reading stage because we are against the escalating minimum sentences as proposed by the government, with the support of the NDP.

The Bloc sat in the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights throughout all the meetings for consideration at second reading stage, and the experts were all but unanimous that, generally speaking, minimum sentences are not effective. Nonetheless, under very specific circumstances, this could be acceptable, but escalating minimum sentences should never be implemented. Since 2003, some 25 U.S. states have experimented with this type of program and have cancelled it.

I am still rather stunned to see that the NDP, after hearing all these expert witnesses, has decided despite everything to form an alliance with the Conservatives—such a regressive party and government—and support this bill and the amendments the government reinstated at report stage. What does the hon. member think about that?

[Marc Lemay, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I have a very simple answer. I can understand the Conservatives because this is part of their platform. I respect that. I am trying to get them to change their minds and to explain this to them. However, I cannot understand the NDP. The only explanation I can come up with is that they are quite simply playing politics. Often those who play politics do not ask too many questions. Nonetheless, I am utterly convinced that the NDP members will vote in favour of this bill even though they are fundamentally against it. I highly recommend to them that they call in sick and not come to the House because, with all due respect, I would have a hard time understanding the New Democrats thereafter.

I spoke to them. I did everything I could to make them understand that it does not make any sense to pass such a bill, unless they are getting ready to join the Conservative Party, which I doubt. Either that, or they are playing more politics. In a matter as important as fighting crime, we should avoid playing politics, which only serves a small group and will truly deny many people their rights.

That is all I can say. With all due respect to my NDP colleagues, I would invite them to reconsider their position. That being said, I understand the Conservatives. I tried to explain things to them at the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights several times, but I did not succeed.

[Joe Preston, Conservative, Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON]

Mr. Speaker, during the member's speech, thankfully, because I have heard many members from his party speak to this issue, he at least mentioned victims. He talked about victims' impact statements and about victims being involved in this. He said that victims' statements should be part of sentencing, and that would be good, but that only a limited number of victims got involved in the victims' impact statement process.

I might suggest that the reason for that is the limited time they see the person who committed a crime against them getting. They may not want to be involved in sitting across the table with the person who victimized them so that the person could get out early and victimize them again.

He also said, in answer to the question asked by the member for Wild Rose, that the best sentence was the sentence that the client accepts. I love it that we are judging the sentences on how well the criminal likes them and that we should tailor the sentence to fit the individual. Again, we should set sentences based on what the perpetrator should say.

He went on to say that perhaps we should look at the parole system in closing off the end of it so that if people were not getting out early we could probably accomplish what we are trying to accomplish by putting them in for longer

I am not certain how opening or closing either end of this works but I will just quickly get to how we protect the victim. One of the greatest ways is to have the person incarcerated at the time when they might have committed the crime and then the crime would not occur at all. What we are suggesting by mandatory minimums is that people are actually in jail rather than out perpetrating crimes.

[Marc Lemay, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Mr. Speaker, there might have been a communication problem somewhere. I have a lot of respect for the interpreters, so it cannot have been a bad translation.

I will try to speak slowly. We respect the victims. Anyone who takes the time to listen to me will understand that.

Recently, victim impact statements were introduced. Victims can go to court to explain things in their own words. That is important.

I hope the members will listen carefully to all of what I have to say. I never said, and I will never say, that we have to impose a sentence at the request of a rapist, an individual who committed armed robbery or a murderer. With all due respect to my colleague, that is not what I said.

I am talking about a sentence that will be accepted by the individual. If I tell my client that he will get three years in jail, that that is to be his sentence, he will be prepared for a three-year sentence and will serve out those three years in jail. But if he gets a minimum sentence that he was not expecting, that is dangerous because basically, it means he is going to crime school—

[The Acting Speaker, Andrew Scheer]

I am sorry to interrupt the member, but his time is up.

The hon. member for Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine.

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

Mr. Speaker, I am honoured to speak today in this House about 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.

This bill has been brought back to the House with significant changes after being reviewed by the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights. But behind the scenes, an unholy alliance has developed between the reactionary minority Conservative government and the NDP. Together, these two parties put back a series of regressive provisions, ruining the good work of the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights. I think that the newly amended bill is simply not good legislation.

However, I am happy that this bill has shed some light on the debate on mandatory minimum penalties.

So I am proud to speak, and I invite my fellow members to follow the lead of the Liberals and vote against the bill as newly amended.

The bill the government initially introduced proposed heavier minimum sentences for repeat offences, despite the views expressed by experts on the fight against crime. In addition, the bill even went so far as to add offences unrelated to the crime in question to the previous convictions.

It is important to remind this House why the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights so substantially amended the initial bill. The opposition members on the committee were very reluctant to introduce escalating minimum sentences depending on the number of previous convictions.

In undertaking this tack, the committee members were simply agreeing with most of the expert evidence they heard. In the opinion of all the experts, and it is perhaps rather surprising, there is no proof that minimum terms of imprisonment deter offenders who commit serious crimes.

In certain cases, in California, for example, the method seems to have actually been counterproductive. The annual rate of serious crime has risen since this type of sentencing was introduced. This is the conclusion of the recent report by a commission set up to study the California correctional system.

In January 2005, the Little Hoover Commission submitted to the governor of California its report on what it called “California's corrections crisis”. The report highlights the major failure of the Californian “three strikes and you're out” system. It raises serious questions about the Californian model of sentencing, which there is called “determinate sentencing”. Here in Canada, it is called “minimum mandatory penalties”. In other words, its determinate sentence is the U.S. equivalent of the mandatory minimums that the Conservative government wishes to not implement, but to make even harsher and escalating here in Canada.

The report of the Little Hoover Commission of California is clear:

Despite the rhetoric, thirty years of “tough on crime” politics has not made the state safer. Quite the opposite...

California has one of the highest recidivism rates in the nation. Furthermore, Governor Schwarzenegger himself described the California prison system as a powder keg.

Is it not absurd that at the very moment that Americans are trying to fix their flawed system, Canada, under the Conservative minority retrograde government, is trying to copy the American's old and utterly proven to be inefficient model?

The American model of escalating minimum mandatory sentences is a failed model. Why in God's name, for heaven's sake, would Canadians want to follow a failed model? We want to follow models of excellence. The American model of determinate sentencing, and in particular escalating determinate sentencing, which is the equivalent of the Canadian mandatory minimum sentencing or penalties, is a failed model. In fact, since 2003, some 25 American states have eliminated their lengthy minimum mandatory penalties and their escalator penalties.

Criticisms of mandatory minimum sentencing are based on very sound arguments. It has more than its share of drawbacks. Often, and because of the excessively serious consequences it can have, what happens is charges are withdrawn or pleas are modified to get the charges changed and diminished. Equally often, the threat of a mandatory minimum sentence will discourage an accused person from pleading guilty, which obviously results in greater costs and delays for the system.

As well, this type of measure can also make a jury hesitate to convict, not because of the accused's actual guilt or innocence, because the sentence strikes the jury as being unjustly harsh, given the crime committed, given the accused, given the victim and given the real and proven impact on the victim and the community.

Also, it is known that mandatory minimum sentencing seems, as evidenced by the Australian and American experiences, to hit harder at members of certain ethnocultural communities, blacks and aboriginals. That certainly is not an outcome that Canada should be seeking.

Paradoxically, the increase in mandatory minimum sentences suggested in the newly amended bill would have cost Canada's justice system an exorbitant amount of money. Does this government realize that, by proposing to increase the number and length of minimum sentences and decrease the number of conditional sentences, it would have added a huge number of inmates to our already overcrowded penitentiaries, according to its own Minister of Public Safety?

According to Neil Boyd of Simon Fraser University, Canada would have to build no fewer than 23 new prisons to house all these new inmates. At $82,000 a year per inmate, the bill this government initially introduced would have cost Canadian taxpayers an additional $220 million to $245 million over five years.

In addition, this new obsession with sending people to prison systematically will obviously lead to other additional costs, because it is reasonable to assume that, with this attitude, appeals and lengthy trials will become increasingly common. Mandatory minimum sentences are therefore not the best way of dealing with crime in Canada. They restrict judges' discretionary power to look at the particular circumstances of a case. We should use mandatory minimum sentences very sparingly to target specific offences and, above all, we should limit them to first offences. That is what Bill C-82, introduced under the former Liberal government, sought to do.

The whole point of minimum sentencing is its effect on an individual committing a first offence, taking into consideration the impact on the victim of that offence and on the community where the offence took place. It is designed to take the person guilty of serious wrongdoing out of his or her community for awhile in order to prevent that person from committing other crimes, while at the same time ensuring the community is not put at risk again. In such cases, this kind of sentencing serves its purpose very well.

The problem with escalating minimum mandatory sentencing, proposed in the newly amended version of Bill C-10, was that they applied to repeat offenders. What was initially proposed would have forbidden judges, in the case of a recidivist, to tailor an appropriate sentence that took into account the criminal, himself or herself, the particular circumstances and nature of the new crime, the impact on the victim and the community and the background situation and the possibility of rehabilitation.

In the case of a repeat offence, a judge needs to be able to consider all these factors in order to determine an appropriate sentence. With escalating minimum sentences, this is impossible. With this bill, as it has been amended at report stage by the government with the collusion of the NDP, it will now be impossible.

The newly amended bill shows that the government wants to bring its so-called crime fighting strategy into line with the repressive approach favoured in the United States by the very right wing. The Conservative Party is proposing to emulate a model that does not work.

I might add that the NDP's support for this style of justice is baffling, at the very least. Once again the NDP is sacrificing its progressive roots for short term political gain and being the enabler of the right wing agenda of the Prime Minister.

Let us look at a few facts. The difference in rates of serious offences between our two countries is astonishing. For example, according to Statistics Canada, and that is not a left wing organization, the rates for robberies are 59% higher in the United States than in Canada. What about the rates for aggravated assault? They are 85% higher in the United States than in Canada. What about the murder rates? The murder rates are 275% higher south of our border than they are in Canada.

I am sure my hon. colleagues will be interested to learn that a Calgary resident is 840% less likely to be the victim of murder than a resident of Dallas. If we want to compare the degree of safety of our two capital cities, a resident of Washington, D.C. is 2,700% more likely than his or her Ottawa counterpart to be the victim of a serious crime.

I do not know where the government wants to lead us with its copycat, tough on crime strategy, but one thing is certain. These numbers show—

[The Acting Speaker, Andrew Scheer]

The hon. member for Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine will have seven minutes at the end of question period, but now we will move on to statements by members.

The House resumed 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.

[The Speaker, Peter Milliken]

Prior to oral questions, the member for Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine had the floor. She has seven minutes for her remarks. She now has the floor to speak on this bill.

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

Mr. Speaker, I would like to resume where I had to interrupt my remarks. The Liberal Party of Canada is not against minimum sentences. However, it considers that they do not represent the best way to combat crime in Canada. That is why we believed that Bill C-10, as amended in committee, constituted an excellent compromise because it dealt in a serious and coherent manner with major crime in Canada. As I have explained, this compromise was destroyed by the deplorable union of the Conservatives and NDP.

Without trivializing crime and the problem of access to weapons, the bill, newly amended by the Conservatives and the NDP, serves to establish and reinforce the neo-conservative ideology that is trying to impose itself in this House. It promotes increases in mandatory minimum sentences, so generously used but really only effective in very specific circumstances. It is important to mention that the Liberal Party in no way opposes minimum sentences but like a majority of the stakeholders in the criminal law community, it considers that they must be limited in use to already existing offences. They cannot constitute a new response to crime management.

Finally, I must remind members that the Liberal Party proposed a multitude of amendments designed to improve the original bill during discussion in committee. We tried the same thing at the report stage. Unfortunately, this government and its loyal allies in the NDP obstinately voted against my party’s initiatives on this issue. That is why the value of their joint bill is so diminished

I therefore invite my fellow members to reject Bill C-10 at third reading, in large part, because of the amendments adopted at the report stage.

“The fight against criminals won't be won with more police officers and bigger jails”. That is not only my view and that of my Liberal colleagues. It is a quote from Ben Anderson, spokesman for the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police.

If front line witnesses of crimes, victims of crimes, our police in Canada, consider that crime needs to be tackled through social development in large part, maybe it is time for this government to show leadership in that direction. I suggest that effective justice is more than just a slogan.

I would like to talk about what a new 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 a long term, sustainable, cost-sharing arrangement for additional police officers. This is a step the Conservatives have refused to take despite their campaign promise to hire more police officers.

We, a new Liberal government, would give the RCMP money for 400 additional officers to help local police departments deal with guns and gang activity as well as organized crime and drug trafficking.

We would ensure that more money is made available to the provinces to hire more Crown prosecutors or Crown attorneys. We would continue to support, as we have done, the reverse onus bail hearings for those arrested for gun crimes.

We would establish a fund that would help at-risk communities cover the costs of security of their places of worship and other gathering places, whether it be schools, community centres, for instance, which was started by the previous Liberal government but which has been abandoned by the Conservatives.

We Liberals would strive to set up organized crime secretariats, like Ontario's anti-guns and gangs task force, in every province, ensuring that each of the provincial secretariats would be seamlessly integrated across the country, kind of like organized crime is. But the Conservative government does not seem to realize that.

A Liberal government would also strengthen legislation aimed at preventing Internet luring. While passage of the above-mentioned bill would assist law enforcement in tracking down predators who use new technologies, new offences are needed to address explicit online conversations initiated by adults with children that are intended to groom the child for future attempts at luring the child.

We would also act on the recommendations of the Privacy Commissioner to update and toughen current legislation to deter and prevent identity theft.

There were almost 8,000 reports of identity theft in the past year, resulting in losses greater than $16 million. Too often, the victims have been seniors whose lifetime of hard work and savings can vanish in an instant.

A new Liberal government would also amend the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act, PIPEDA, 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 completely ignored by that Conservative government.

These recommendations include: introducing legislation that would make it an offence to use false or misleading headers or subject lines, construct false or misleading URLs and websites for the purpose of collecting personal information under false pretenses, and the harvesting of email addresses without consent.

Those are just some of the initiatives that a new Liberal government has made a public commitment that it would implement immediately upon return to power.

However, I want to come back to Bill C-10. The Conservatives use retail politics when it comes to the fight on crime. They are not using effective measures that really would result in effective justice because were they doing so, they would be listening to the experts, and the experts, yes, include our law enforcement.

What does our law enforcement tell us, whether it be the Association of Canadian Chiefs of Police or the Canadian Police Association? They tell us one thing very clearly. They want the government to invest in our children and to invest more money in targeting our at-risk youth, and our communities, which are at risk of either being victims of crime or being perpetrators of crime.

One of the ways to do this is by actually investing in the organizations that deal with our youth in those communities where there is a high level of crime, where there is a high percentage of youth being swept up into street gangs or into organized crime. Investments, funding and opportunities need to be provided for the local law enforcement in the field to be able to work with those communities. We have seen it happen.

I urge every single member in this House to vote against Bill C-10 at third reading because it is not effective justice. It is simply sloganeering.

[Ken Epp, Conservative, Edmonton—Sherwood Park, AB]

Mr. Speaker, if those are all the wonderful things that the Liberals would do if they formed government again, then my question is somewhat rhetorical. How come they did none of those things in the 13 years when they were government, most of the time a majority government where they could have done whatever they wanted? They did not do it.

I have one daughter, a daughter-in-law and five grandchildren. I am thinking of the following situation. Someone assaults or rapes either one of my adult female children or one of my grandchildren and that criminal has a gun and/or a knife. Let us say that when the perpetrator was found, it was discovered that this was not his first, not his second, but his third offence. I do not know the family situation of the member opposite. I have never investigated whether she has a daughter or not. If this were her daughter who was brutally attacked by an individual with a weapon who had three previous offences, I wonder what she would do in order to address the situation.

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

Mr. Speaker, the member opposite said that if a new Liberal government were prepared to do all of these things, why did it not do it when it was in power? Let me talk about some of the things the previous Liberal government members did when we were in office.

The previous Liberal government brought in the national strategy on crime prevention, which directed moneys into local communities that needed to work with their youth at risk and to ensure better levels of security. They were able to coordinate with the local law enforcement, community police officers, the health organizations and the schools to bring down to the grassroots real effective programs to ensure we had lower crime rates. That is an example of what a previous Liberal government did.

The previous Liberal government brought into being the dangerous offenders system. It was not a Progressive Conservative government, it was the Liberal government. It was a Liberal government that brought into existence the long term offender system. It was a Liberal government that recognized minimum mandatory penalties in very targeted areas could send a clear message and could be effective in the sense of removing the offender from the community and ensuring that the victim and the community were not re-victimized.

We are the ones who brought in minimum mandatory penalties for firearm related criminal acts. It was not a Conservative government. It was not a Progressive Conservative government. It was a Liberal government that brought into effect integrated law enforcement teams. Whether it was for the border enforcement, or for financial money laundering, or for whatever, it was a Liberal government that brought those into effect.

It was a Liberal government that brought into effect all the new provisions, which are no longer new, to the Criminal Code to create the ability for law enforcement to seize drug money and to define a criminal organization and organized crime.

The Liberal government did all of that.

I believe the member opposite should go back to the school benches, learn the actual history and cease taking the rhetoric and sloganeering of his party, which has tried to paint Liberals as not being tough on crime. Tough on crime does not do it. The supreme court of the United States of America recently ruled that its determinant sentencing, under the American federal sentencing guidelines, what it calls mandatory minimum penalties, was unconstitutional and should be used as an advisory only. In other words, in the United States federal mandatory minimum sentencing is considered to be unconstitutional and should only be used as a guideline.

I am appalled that the Conservative government would want to take a failed model, which is the escalating minimum mandatory sentence system that existed in virtually all of the states in the United States and for which 25 of the states since 2003 have eliminated or severely reduced, and impose it here in Canada.

Effective justice is not sloganeering. Effective justice is not retail politics. Effective justice means taking the time to educate people. It means putting the taxpayer money where it will reduce crime. It is not pandering. The Conservative government panders and it conducts retail politics. It is not too lofty for the government to stoop to the most base accusations, disinformation, untruths in its quest to try to portray itself as being tough on crime.

Being tough on crime means taking the effective measures that will actually make a difference on the ground. We had expert after expert come before the justice committee, whether it was on Bill C-35, or other bills, which the government has lauded to try to make Canadians believe they will make them safer. The experts have said that they could not really oppose them because it would not make any difference.

The de facto reality is that it already happens. Whether it be reverse onus for bail for gun related crimes, it already happens. If one is accused of a criminal offence and a firearm is involved, judges do not give bail. Therefore, we would simply be codifying an actual de facto practice.

That is one of the reasons why the Liberals are able to support Bill C-35, but we are unable to support Bill C-10. It is not effective justice. It is retail politics, and shame on the NDP for supporting it.

[The Acting Speaker, Royal Galipeau]

The hon. member for Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine might like to know that the question lasted two minutes and the answer six minutes, so there are two minutes left. Let us hope the question will take about 45 seconds and so will the answer.

The hon. member for Mississauga South.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the thrust of Bill C-10 has to do with the subject matter of mandatory minimums. It has been suggested by some members on the government side that the Liberals are opposed to mandatory minimums. I do not believe that is the case. Could the hon. member inform the members of our history?

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

Mr. Speaker, it was a Liberal government that brought in mandatory minimum sentencing for firearm related crimes. There is a whole category of them where currently it is a minimum of one year. There is second category of designated offences where currently it is four years. In committee, and again at report stage in the House, the Liberal members attempted to increase the one year to two years and the four years to five years.

What we oppose is escalating mandatory minimum penalties. That is where if a person reoffends, the judge will have no discretion. The studies have shown and the experts have stated that it does not work.

[Penny Priddy, NDP, Surrey North, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the debate I have heard today is an interesting one. We are involved in a very serious and complex discussion.

The New Democratic Party is supporting the bill, with the amendments that our justice critic, the member for Windsor—Tecumseh, brought forward.

I realize the Liberals and the Bloc are not supporting it. I heard an earlier comment by the member of the government that it must mean the people approve of criminals. In fairness, I do not think anyone who sits in the House approves of criminals, whether they support the legislation or not. It is not a matter of supporting criminals. However, I do think it is a matter of how we approach it.

First, I have asked myself some questions. How do I, as the member for Surrey North and as a member of the House of Commons, ensure that the public can have faith in our justice system? I can assure the House that much of the public with whom I speak do not have faith in the justice system. These people have not necessarily found that because someone comes before a judge on a firearms offence, that they are not released on bail. We would have many examples where this was not the case.

Second, we have to look at what is the appropriate use of this legislation on crimes committed with a gun. In all the debate this morning, if people were sitting at home listening, they would fail to recognize that we are not talking about a general discussion on mandatory minimums. It is a discussion about crimes committed with a firearm. By the way, firearms today are much more technical, much more deadly and much more powerful than the image people might have of firearms that may come from a different place.

Third, I have to ask myself is what are we doing, other than the sentencing, to reduce gun crime. I have heard many people say either one is tough on crime or soft on crime, depending on where one stands on the bill. I do not think that is the case at all. We talk very much about being smart on crime. It is not hard or soft on crime. It is being smart in the way we approach crime.

Think about this. When someone picks up a gun to commit a crime, they automatically know there is a risk of someone being killed or critically injured. There is not a question in anyone's mind that this is what a gun will do, unless we are talking about a child picking up a gun. Anyone who is going to commit a criminal act with a gun knows there is an extreme risk to the person who will be the victim of that crime, not that any crime is acceptable.

I come from the Lower Mainland of British Columbia, from Surrey. Many of the things I have experienced around gun crime do not fit some of the things that I have heard about in the House. I hear people talking a lot about gun crime in inner cities. The gun crime I have seen, some of it certainly is inner city, but much of it has nothing to do with youth raised in inner cities. Some of it has to do with youth raised in affluence.

We must be careful not to stereotype this by saying that it is only inner city people who are vulnerable to being involved in a gun crime.

Over the last 10 or 11 years, 100 young men in the lower mainland and some in Surrey have been killed in a gun crime, which is not an insubstantial number. Is anyone behind bars? No. Was it the person's first offence? I do not know for sure, but I know with some it certainly was not their first offence.

We must remember that what we are doing is being smart on crime.

Although I am in support of the bill, with the NDP amendments, and having talked to the parents whose daughters and sons have been killed in a gun crime or critically injured, I do not feel that I have turned into a neo-Conservative. I do not know if anybody has ever called me a neo-Conservative before.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

You would remember.

[Penny Priddy, NDP, Surrey North, BC]

My colleague said that I would remember. I am absolutely certain that I would remember and perhaps many things that were the opposite of that.

However, as I talked to the parents of a young teenager who was shot, is in hospital critically injured and no one knows what the outcome will be, they do not think this is a draconian measure.

There are some things I would say about it that I find interesting, some things we should do and some things we should acknowledge about the public. What does the public see and feel? There is a difference between what the public sees and what it feels. There is a difference between being safe in our community and feeling safe in our community. They are two quite different things.

I have read the statistics that homicides may not be up. Well, homicides actually are up in some of the groupings of people I am talking about, but the incidents of gun crimes are certainly up. People read about gun crimes in the newspaper about where, in a perfectly ordinary kind of community, a bullet suddenly comes through the living room window and lodges in the living room wall or a bullet comes through a bedroom window and lodges just above the crib of a child. That is random. This is not gang violence. The people in those houses were not even the intended victims. Those were random shootings at the wrong houses, and that is not all that unusual. Those people actually are unsafe.

However, people also need to feel safe and therefore they need to see their governments, municipal, provincial and federal, doing something so they will feel safe in their communities. The member who just spoke actually talked about this.

In the last 13 years, 40 to 45 mandatory minimum sentences were created by the Liberal government so I do not think this is somehow a great step off the path the Liberals followed, which was, as I say, 45 more mandatory minimum sentences in the length of time the Liberals were in government.

I also heard earlier today from a number of parties about sloganeering, about people changing their minds because they were influenced by politics and not by what they believe.

Since I entered politics, I have been very clear on what I believe about crime. I talked about mandatory minimums in the last campaign, as did our leader, because we understand the devastating effect it has on our communities. This is not sloganeering and it is not pandering, and to suggest that we are sloganeering to a parent who is crying because of the loss of a family member is actually quite shameful.

We hear a lot about the conclusions that have been drawn in the United States about whether mandatory minimums work. As I said, some of the amendments we put forward at committee were accepted and now some of those mandatory minimums are not what they were when they were first proposed. Our justice critic worked very hard to get these amendments through and agreed to.

However, I think in the United States, it is missing a piece that I actually think the Conservative Party opposite is missing as well in some ways, because in any of the literature I have read which has concluded that it does not work, it has used the single-pronged approach, which is simply raising the mandatory minimums, sending people off to jail and then going back and saying that our prisons are about to explode and that they are hot spots.

I can understand how many prisons in the United States would be hot spots because many of them are quite appalling, but we cannot solve a problem with one single prong. Work still needs to be done in that area and I look forward to the government bringing forward what I would hope would be the second part of what needs to happen here.

People often say that mandatory minimums do not work and that there is no history of them working at all but that is not true. I want to take people back to when drunk driving became a much more top of mind issue in our country and to the early work by Mothers Against Drunk Driving. The flaw in the United States' studies and what the Conservative government still needs to do is to look into other things that we need to do to ensure this becomes successful.

I will use the drunk driving issue as an example. Yes, after a certain number of offences there is a mandatory minimum jail time, and people knew that, but that was not all they did. They increased the police resources to deal with drunk driving. In my province we called them BAT mobiles. I do not know what they were called in other places, but police set up to stop cars to see if the drivers had been drinking alcohol while driving. Many of those have been discontinued because the police do not have the additional resources to keep doing that.

It takes intensives awareness and education, not just doing it once in grade six or grade 10, but continuous awareness all though school about the seriousness of it and the consequences of it.

Often when I talk to 16, 17 or 18 year olds they know people in gangs who are using guns. Many of them have heard of a mom, a dad or a grandma and sometimes it is themselves who have been left quadriplegic and in a wheelchair as a result of either a deliberate or a random shooting, and when they tell their stories I can see people starting to think differently about the consequences.

We need to continue to inform and educate people but somehow we think that if we inform one group of people our work is done. Well, it is not. It does not matter whether we are talking about racism or something else, we must do it continuously. It is like putting a pamphlet on the dangers of alcohol in a doctor's office. If we do not keep putting them there for more people to read then we are not finished doing our jobs.

The job we have in front of us today is a continuous job. This is not just about passing the legislation. This is a continuous piece of work that involves additional police resources, intensive education and, yes, jail time when necessary. However, I would say, as others have, that this is not a blanket answer, which is why I talked about the other things that were not done in most of the U.S. jurisdictions, where they came to the conclusion that it did not work, and that have yet to come forward from the government.

I wait with baited breath to see those initiatives come forward because this is not a blanket answer. It is something that should be used sparingly, appropriately and in a focused fashion.

I will now move on to the part that is critical to all of this. We often wait until somebody gets involved with a gang before we begin worrying and trying to figure out how to get them out of the gang, which, by the way, is using guns. Our leader has talked about things like safe houses because it is very hard for a gang member to get out of the gang safely and to ensure his or her family is safe.

Let us look at the new baby that comes home wrapped in a blue or pink blanket. I unwrapped the blanket when I brought mine home and there were no instructions. By simply bringing the baby home did not automatically mean that I knew how to parent. It did not mean that I knew how to do all of those things to ensure that my youngster, in the zero to five years, would have the kind of support, education, choices, boundaries and all of those things that we do so that when children start school at five or six they are ready in all of the five areas that they are supposed to be ready in.

From the longitudinal research on this, we know that those children are far less likely to ever be involved in the criminal system. That is the work that is not here. That is the work that is missing. If that work does not come into place then we will have a problem having this be successful. We need to put into place good child care programs, which we had but which the government slashed, to teach parents how to parent.

I do not assume that just giving birth makes one a good parent. Those programs have been cut by the provincial government in my province. The provincial government's child care was cut so it just downloaded it and cut the programs that support parents, those parents who are either in the workforce or parents who are parenting at home, who have no place to go for expert advice and resources on just about all those challenges that any of us face as a mom or dad in raising children. Without that, and without those kinds of additional multi-prong initiatives, this has far less chance of being successful.

However, I can support the bill because: first, I understand that our amendments are there; second, I know what people in my community have been telling me for a long time; and third, because I do have hope that the government will bring forward other initiatives to support this.

There is no such thing as a single piece of legislation that is narrow and does not have other issues to support it--

[The Acting Speaker, Royal Galipeau]

Order, please. I gave the hon. member a full 20 minutes. I gave her a two minute signal and a one minute signal. Her time is up.

Questions and comments, the hon. member for Elgin—Middlesex—London

[Joe Preston, Conservative, Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON]

Mr. Speaker, we have heard from all sides of the House today and I would like to thank the member for Surrey North for bringing her views to this debate today and approaching this more from the victim's point of view and from the view of the faith people need to have in their justice system. I was happy to hear her say that at the beginning and move this debate that way.

I think that too often we look at this as a crime and punishment issue. I keep having to explain that I am not here to punish anyone. It is not that I want mandatory minimums to punish anyone, but as the member stated in her speech, anyone who picks up a gun knows what it can do and what danger it can inflict.

This is not about punishing the people who do this. It is about protecting those whom these people may victimize or have victimized. If these people are away for a minimum period of time, perhaps they will victimize no one else while they are away.

I would like to hear more from the member about the victims she has reached out to, just as I have had to speak to victims in my own riding. They are the victims that this type of legislation will actually help, rather than having them just hearing talk about how hard this will be on the criminals of this country.

[Penny Priddy, NDP, Surrey North, BC]

Mr. Speaker, as probably many members in this House do, I see a variety of people who have been affected by gun crime. I must admit that I also talk to parents who, for a variety of reasons, have not even recognized that their sons or daughters are moving into that area. It is not a matter of blame. That is not a lack of caring or love or appreciation of their children. Sometimes it is simply circumstances. They cannot be with their children or their teenagers on a continual basis, as none of us can, of course, in order to always be aware of what is happening.

I have talked with those parents who blame themselves. They wonder where they have gone wrong. They wonder what they can do to help other parents so that other young people do not find themselves in the position of actually being the perpetrator.

For the most part, the people I see who are victims of gun crimes are younger people. I have talked with the parents of a young person who is in a wheelchair. He is quadriplegic and therefore will require full-day assistance, for the most part, for probably the remainder of his life. It was a random shooting. He was not even involved in what was going on. He just happened to be present somewhere.

As well, I have talked with those people whose family members have been, very deliberately, victims of gun crime. They have been murdered. Those parents and those families as well look to what could be done differently. They want to know that there is an appropriate sentencing mechanism that appropriately reflects the severity of the crime.

Nobody has said to me, “Put somebody away forever”. But people do want to know and the parents I talk with want to know that this life that was lost or the critical injury sustained is not simply something to be brushed aside, with no mark or legacy left other than in the hearts and minds of that family. They worry very much about that.

Those are some of the victims that I have talked to. By the way, I do not have a chance to do this very often, and I am very glad I do not, but as well I talk with the victims who are police officers. Every day in our communities, RCMP or local police go out. They respond to a call and we know that certain calls are more likely to be dangerous. They actually have been victims of a shooting. Sometimes it is because there was not enough staff. Sometimes they did not know that there was a gun there. There is a variety of reasons.

However, I have talked to law enforcement people. We are telling people to please enter law enforcement because we need more people and we need them to be more diverse, including women, so that our police forces reflect our community. These police need to feel that they are backed up by the community, by the public and by the system.

These are some of the victims who have done me the honour of sharing with me or disclosing their experiences to me.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I know that the member is quite familiar with FASD, fetal alcohol spectrum disorders. She also knows that there is a prevalence of criminal activity among those who suffer from that mental disability and, indeed, mental disabilities in general.

I wonder if the member would care to comment on the fact that rehabilitation would not be applicable in terms of these particular persons who may be convicted of crimes. Exactly how do we help them if they are automatically subject to a mandatory minimum sentence to an institution, where rehabilitation is the activity that goes on during that period? Obviously there are cases where incarceration in the general prison population is not applicable. She may want to comment.

[Penny Priddy, NDP, Surrey North, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I would be pleased to do that. There are many pieces to this, but it goes back in part to the fact that appropriate supports need to be in place much earlier. I know that the member is very familiar with this and he knows this. Those kinds of appropriate supports for people with FASD, FASE and autism need to be in place much earlier.

I am still waiting for the autism strategy from the government and I am still waiting for a FASD strategy from the government, but surely we do not wait until those folks find themselves in a position of having picked up a gun. That is where those prevention programs are so critical.

That is why without those prevention programs this will not be a successful initiative. We must have those in place.

It does not mean that I will not support this bill, but I am very vocal in saying that we need those supports in place early on. We should never even find ourselves in the position of having someone with a severe mental disability, or with FASD or any of the other disabilities we could name, in front of a judge, with the judge having to think about sentencing for somebody who indeed may not be able to reason that out.

[The Acting Speaker, Royal Galipeau]

The hon. member for Jeanne-Le Ber has the floor. There is one minute left in the time allocated to the hon. member for Surrey North, so he has 30 seconds for his question.

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

Mr. Speaker, my question is a very simple one. The bill supported by the NDP calls for lesser minimum penalties, and in some case none at all, for crimes committed with firearms.

Can my colleague tell me why the NDP believes that a murder committed with a hunting rifle, a long gun, is less serious than one committed with a hand gun?

[The Acting Speaker, Royal Galipeau]

The hon. member for Surrey North has half a minute to respond.

[Penny Priddy, NDP, Surrey North, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am not sure if I totally understand the question. I think that a murder committed with a handgun or any firearm is a heinous crime. I think it is somewhat less likely that people are carrying long guns as they are going about the kind of criminal activity that I see in my community, but obviously any murder is serious and any murder committed with a gun is serious.

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

Mr. Speaker, continuing on the subject of my question, the Bloc Québécois has opposed Bill C-10. In my previous question, I said that one of the aberrations of this bill is that the proposed increase does not apply to hunting rifles. This bill creates two classes of firearms. There are long guns, as they are called in English—hunting rifles—and then there are hand guns. Some clauses in the bill even refer to prohibited weapons.

This seems rather odd at the stage of defining offences in the Criminal Code. As legislators, normally it is our responsibility to establish the relative severity of each of these sentences.

In this bill, however, there are instances where minimal sentences will not be not the same, depending on whether the crime is committed with a long gun or a prohibited or restricted firearm.

Let us take the example of section 239 of the Criminal Code, which deals with discharging a firearm with intent, sexual assault with a weapon, aggravated sexual assault, kidnapping, hostage-taking, extortion and robbery. Bill C-10 proposes to impose a minimum five-year sentence for a first offence, seven years for a second, and to leave it at four years if another type of firearm is used, namely, a long gun.

If this bill is passed, the message it sends is that it is considered more serious to commit an offence such as attempted murder or sexual assault with a hand gun than with a long gun. This is, in my opinion, completely ridiculous and totally baseless.

That was what lay behind my question to my NDP colleague as to why the NDP were, as legislators, backing a bill in which committing a murder with a hunting rifle is less serious than committing a murder with a hand gun.

I think this illustrates the approach taken by the Conservative government and its view of how to fight crime, to which the NDP has subscribed for the last few months. Under this approach, they take care of repression after the crime has already been committed but do nothing about prevention. This is not the first time under this government that we have seen this dichotomy between how hand guns and long guns are treated.

We saw it as well with the firearms registry. It was the same thing. To look good, the government says it wants to keep the firearms registry, but just for handguns and restricted weapons. They want to abolish it for long guns. What does that mean? Where did the Conservatives get the idea that long guns were less dangerous than other guns?

Give me a couple of seconds here to find a very interesting statistic showing that a good proportion of crimes are committed with long guns. Unfortunately, I do not remember the exact figure, but it was not negligible.

The differing treatments depending on the type of firearm highlight the inconsistency in the message conveyed by the government and the NDP, which supports it. This inconsistency can be seen again in the supposed intent of the bill, where they say they want to be tough on crime and fight criminality.

As the minister himself admitted when he came to testify before the committee, there are no Canadian studies showing that minimum sentences are effective at fighting crime.

We could obviously debate it from the standpoint of vengeance or punishing people for having committed a crime. If that is the purpose of the government’s bill, it should clearly say so and not try to make people think that the purpose is to make Canadians safer, when that is clearly not the case. Minimum sentences only apply after the crime has been committed. All the studies show, though, that minimum sentences do not have any impact on the commission of crimes. Some other studies have been done in Canada. One very large study showed that the recidivism rate hardly changed on the basis of the length of incarceration or whether the offender was given a prison term or a community-based sentence.

This is very interesting because it shows once again that the sentences criminals receive has no influence on the recidivism rate. Another study followed up on offenders. These authors even concluded that quite the opposite was the case and that increased prison terms led to a slight increase in the recidivism rate. I will provide a reference for this study so that my Conservative colleagues can read it.

I am referring to a study done by Paula Smith, Claire Goggin and Paul Gendreau of the Psychology Department and the Centre for Criminal Justice Studies of the University of New Brunswick entitled The Effects of Prison Sentences and Intermediate Sanctions on Recidivism: General Effects and Individual Differences. The study was delivered in Ottawa in 2002, and was written for the Solicitor General of Canada. The government will have ready access to it. The conclusion that I quoted is on page ii of the introduction.

I wanted to talk about this to show, once again, that there is no connection with the length of time a prisoner is incarcerated and serving a community-based sentence or a prison sentence. As well, there are certainly no automatic deterrent effects.

There are other useful statistics in this regard and the Conservatives would do well to consider them: there are three times more homicides in the United States than in Canada and four times more homicides in the Untied States than in Quebec. In Quebec, in fact, an approach based much more on rehabilitation than punishment has been adopted, and this is the part of Canada where there are the fewest violent crimes and the least crime.

Apart from a particular kind of popular morality or the simplistic discourse that amounts to saying that we must punish criminals severely, that we must be hard on them and impose longer sentences, ultimately reality will catch up to us. Everywhere in the world where a jurisdiction has tried to fight crime with punishment, we see higher crime rates than in jurisdictions that place greater emphasis on rehabilitation.

Obviously a balance has to be struck, and in the Bloc Québécois we believe that punishment is necessary in many case. We must keep that balance, however, so that we do not have to invest extremely large amounts of money in keeping people in prison. I gave the example of the United States, where the homicide rate is much higher, and the prisons are bursting at the seams because the incarceration rate is much higher than ours. The United States is using that money to put all those people in prison for longer times, rather than investing in fighting crime.

Some of our government colleagues rose in the House earlier to give some examples. They asked me what sentence I would like to see given to the guilty person if I were the parent of a person who was killed.

Personally, I would prefer that that individual not have committed a crime. It seems to me that it is essential, and more important, to prevent crimes than to console ourselves by saying that the person who committed the crime will go to prison for a long time and will suffer, because he or she will not like it there. That does not cancel out the crime. That does not mean that the families who have had members killed, families in which women have been raped, families of people who have been terrorized by home invasions or the like, are going to be able to turn back the clock.

Minimum sentences raise another problem, and I think that this should prompt us to use them very sparingly.

Minimum sentences have perverse effects. This is documented, and is a known fact. I would like to talk about two of those effects.

First of all, there will be instances in which judges will be forced to impose a minimum sentence that they find unwarranted. In such cases, they might acquit an individual entirely, rather than be forced to sentence that individual to a penalty they consider excessive under the circumstances, for cases in which a more appropriate penalty would be a conditional sentence, community service or a few weeks in jail.

This has happened in the past, and this should be a real concern to those people who wish to get tough on criminals. By trying to force the hand of judges, we would be creating situations in which judges could not sentence certain individuals to a minimum sentence that would be inappropriate. They would therefore acquit the individual instead.

Another problem is likely to arise, André Normandeau, a criminologist at the Université de Montréal, reminded us. With minimum sentences, lawyers often negotiate plea bargains for their clients in exchange for charges that do not require minimum sentencing. This involves some negotiation and ultimately does not lead to an appropriate outcome.

This measure leaves judges with no flexibility and, in certain cases, could lead to situations that are questionable, to say the least, because, when passing legislation, we could not possibly take into consideration all parameters and every case that could make its way to court. Judges are appointed specifically to consider these cases.

I would like to highlight the example of Robert Latimer, the father who killed his 12-year-old daughter, who was severely disabled, in an act of compassionate homicide. This is a subject that concerns us considerably and that many people are talking about. Mr. Latimer was convicted of second degree murder, which automatically forced the judge to sentence him to 25 years in prison, even though the jury that convicted him asked for a much more lenient sentence, given that it was an act of compassionate homicide.

The judge did not even have this option, because, quite simply, the law did not allow it.

In a future case, a jury could be faced with the same dilemma and could go to the other extreme by saying that it makes no sense to send someone to prison for 25 years for a murder committed out of compassion and that, in that situation, it would acquit him completely. In the end, that is what happens when we meddle in the judicial process.

I was astonished, because so often we hear the Conservatives complaining of judicial activism, which is when the judges—those who are close by, at the Supreme Court—use the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, for example, to amend or to strike down laws and influence our judicial and legal system.

The Conservatives repeatedly complained about this state of affairs, whether in the case of same sex marriages, or abortion or other issues. After having said that it is not right for judges to get involved in politics, the Conservatives table a bill that does the opposite and where members of Parliament want to do the work of the judges. I am sorry but it seems to me that as legislators we should be concerned with the issue of the gravity of crimes, establish maximum penalties in the Criminal Code to put into perspective the relative gravity of crimes, compared one to another, and leave to the judges the task of evaluating each situation in detail and determining what sentence is the most appropriate.

Another important point should be emphasized, which is that there is a major issue of perception in this whole debate, with the explosion of the all-present media—especially a certain class of media—which puts out the news as performance. In fact, there really is a perception among the population that crime is increasing and that we are living in a society that is becoming more and more violent. It is unfortunate to see that government members, instead of doing the work of explaining the real facts to the population, will manipulate and use people’s fears to advance their right-wing cause.

In general, I would emphasize that between 1991 and 2000, the rate of crime went down by almost 26% in Canada. That is true in almost every area: the rate of crime is in constant and general decline. To claim that crime is a growing problem and that, therefore, we need tougher penalties does not in any way correspond to reality. The proof is that the place where the fewest violent crimes per 100,000 population are committed in Canada—I referred to this earlier—is Quebec. The government, therefore, should focus on getting results, take inspiration from the Quebec model of combating crime rather than that of the United States, which I spoke about previously and which has met with a resounding failure.

I would like to conclude by saying that there is a little hypocrisy in what the government is proposing. In order to fight crime it should fully reinstate the gun registry and free up all the grants for programs to combat crime in all of our ridings that the minister has blocked and that are languishing on his desk. That would be a real campaign against crime rather than the appearance of a campaign.

[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.

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to commend the member for his good work in committee on this particular bill.

I would like to ask him why he believes that the Conservatives, and I guess the NDP, are ignoring what happens in committee? Why are they ignoring the evidence, some of which he just mentioned and I have other evidence from committee, that basically shows that long, lengthy mandatory sentences would make society more dangerous? The member mentioned plea bargaining or prisoners being more dangerous when they get out.

Our committees perform very important work, and all parties agree that the major work is done in committees. The government is now ignoring all the results of committee work. Are the Conservatives doing it just for ideological reasons? Are they saying they will make society less safe just for ideological reasons? That does not make any sense. It is not because they cannot read or understand what people are saying. They understand what witnesses and experts say in committee. Do the Conservatives not agree with committees at all?

The Conservatives are sort of the laughing stock of accountability this week because of the leaked document from the Prime Minister's Office. The government whip said today that the party did produce it and suggested that it was for blockading or obstructing committees.

Why does my colleague think the Conservatives, and much to the surprise of many the NDP, support the bill given all the evidence that he has outlined, that I outlined in my speech, and that witnesses and experts have outlined that suggest these lengthy mandatory minimums would make society more dangerous? We heard more overwhelming evidence in committee than we normally hear on a topic.

[Réal Ménard, Bloc, Hochelaga, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Yukon for his question. Far be it from me to put the New Democrats and the Conservatives on the same footing. I believe this would not be fair, given the fine analysis that was made by the NDP justice critic. So I would not put the NDP and the Conservative Party on the same footing. However, I appreciate my colleague's concern toward the somewhat narrow-minded, stubborn and rigid nature of the government. Of course, when witnesses come to us with scientific literature supporting their views, we would expect this to be taken into account in the development of public policies.

It is obviously our duty to pass legislation on the basis of compelling evidence, and I know that this government does not have much consideration for such arguments. I share the member's sadness, I invite him to remain strong in this ordeal and I remind him that it will be up to our fellow citizens to dismiss this bad government as soon as they have an opportunity to do so.

[Joe Comartin, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

Mr. Speaker, as I was saying to my colleague from the Bloc, it is now my turn to point out all the inconsistencies of the two opposition parties to my right.

However, let me start with an acknowledgment that this is a piece of legislation that does divide the House. I think that division is also reflective of the situation in the country. I do not believe that there is a member in this House who does not want to do whatever we can do to protect our citizens. That is the absolute first and primary responsibility of any democratically elected government. It is not a responsibility that I believe any members in this House ignore or shirk in any way.

What Bill C-10 is really about is what methods best protect our citizens.

There are givens. The NDP recognizes that the overall violent crime rate in Canada has been dropping. I think this is quite provable by solid statistics for at least the last 25 years, as we have been keeping better statistics around crime rates. There is really no debate with regard to this. It is an accepted fact.

However, there are within that criminal activity certain areas where in fact from time to time we will see spikes in certain crimes or where some crime rates in fact are going up. One of the areas in which we have seen an increase has been crime with the use of guns, the use of handguns and illegal guns in particular, but long guns as well, and involving street gangs and youths in particular.

I have to say that most of those guns that get into the hands of the street gangs and the youth of this country and are then used in serious criminal activity almost always flow from organized crime activity. Many of the guns are smuggled in from the United States, where organized crime is the major actor behind that conduct.

That is the reality of what we are faced with in this country at this time. What we attempted to do with this legislation was to take a significant overreaction by the Conservative Party in the form of the present government and reduce the more radical parts of the bill to achieve what we felt was the proper method to respond to that specific crime statistic and crime conduct.

Is this perfect? I will be the first to admit that I do not think so. Is it better than what the Conservatives proposed? Yes. Is it better than what the Liberals proposed in the last election? If the Liberals' promise had been carried out, there would have been even more severe minimum mandatory penalties, not nearly as well focused, and that is a key point.

I also want to say for my colleagues from the Bloc that it is interesting to hear them rant against this bill, but we in this House passed mandatory minimums to fight impaired driving. Again, it was a condition in the country that had to be dealt with. The rate of impaired driving was going up. The casualities on the ground, on our streets and in our cities were horrendous. We used mandatory minimums to deal with it, and the Bloc supported it, as did the Liberals and the Conservatives and my party.

In the last Parliament, led to a significant degree by a charge from both the Bloc and the Conservatives, we introduced a whole bunch of mandatory minimums into child abuse charges, some of which I simply could not accept because they were so overblown and so irresponsible, in effect, but the Bloc members supported that. Not only did their member on the committee who led the charge support it, but when the bill came to the House they supported it 100%. There were a lot of mandatory minimums in that bill.

As the last speaker mentioned, the Bloc members also led the charge in introducing, properly so, mandatory minimums with regard to organized crime.

In each case, with the exception of some of those in the child abuse file, it was appropriate for this legislature to do that. It was appropriate because we had a specific problem in this country with regard to that criminal activity. If we are going to use mandatory minimums, we have to be sure we use them in a focused manner.

Again, I am highly critical of the Liberals. When they were in power, they introduced between 45 to 60 new mandatory minimums, depending on how we use the sections, in their 13 years in government. Thus, when they stand in the House and criticize the NDP for supporting mandatory minimums, they are being highly hypocritical, quite frankly, in particular because they used that method so often that it loses its effectiveness.

We saw this in particular with regard to impaired driving. We put together a program in this country, led by citizens' advocates, our police, our judiciary and, yes, members of the House at that time. The message that went out to the country was that we had a major problem with impaired driving and our laws were not adequate to deal with it, not only with regard to the actual legislation but also the enforcement.

In that period, we brought in the use of the breathalyzer, which as an enforcement tool was phenomenal. I happened to be practising criminal law at that time, doing defence work, and I know how easy it was to get people off on the impaired driving charges at that time, but as soon as the breathalyzer came in and there was a scientific method to show that the person in fact was impaired, the ability to get acquittals dropped dramatically.

We had a really good enforcement methodology, a good technique and a new technology. As governments, both provincial and federal, we spent the money to make sure that our police officers across the country had access to that technology. We had a major advertising and promotion campaign to fight against impaired driving, to get the message out to society at all levels that it was wrong, and yes, we introduced mandatory minimums. We had mandatory minimum suspensions for licences. We had mandatory minimum fines. Also, if there was more than one conviction, if there were subsequent convictions, the person was looking at jail time.

That is the system we have in this country. Again, is it perfect and has it stopped impaired driving completely? No, but we have reduced the rate of impaired driving in this country quite dramatically.

That is what we are trying to do. That is what the NDP is trying to do in supporting the legislation as it has been amended. We have to do the same thing. We must have legislation in place that sends a message from this House, the House that governs this country, that we are going to be very serious in how we treat individual criminals who are convicted of serious crimes involving guns. This is the message that goes out with the passage of the bill.

At the same time, we know it is not enough. In fact, I again will be critical of the government and the Conservatives for trying to get the message out that this is the be-all and end-all and we are going to make our streets safe by passing this particular bill, 100%. That is a false message. That is not what is going to happen. It is going to have some impact, but we need to be doing much more. In fact, the impact of the legislation, I always say, is relatively minor compared to what we have to do in other areas, enforcement being one of those other two areas.

Part of this was interesting in that we had the opportunity to go to Toronto and take some evidence from the chief of police there, Chief Blair, and hear about some of the experiences he had in dealing with some of the street gangs, the exact people we are trying to get at with this legislation, and about some of the methods he put into place. He was able to do so only because additional moneys were given to him by the province of Ontario and the city of Toronto to focus specifically on the gangs and specifically on gun crime.

He was quite successful. The violent crime rate in one area of the city was reduced by 40% in one year. It was a phenomenal experience and is attributable to his skill and that of his officers, but also, at the governmental level, resources were deployed. We need to do that in a number of other communities across the country. The government needs to help in that regard, because certainly there are provinces, and I think in particular of Manitoba and Saskatchewan, where additional resources are needed for provinces that are not as wealthy as Ontario and do not have the ability to deploy resources.

Coming back to it, what we are dealing with here is legislation, yes, recognizing that it is of small impact, and enforcement, yes, because it has a much greater impact, but there is a third area in which we need to be doing much more work. Again I am critical of the government because it has not spent enough money. There are all sorts of programs that need to be deployed, again specifically targeting youth, and particularly the youth in our inner core cities, not exclusively but primarily, programs that will get them before they get attracted to those street gangs and get involved in criminal activity at a very young age.

That is not happening right now. The government has spent very little money in this regard. It is not well targeted, but at the very base it is no sufficient. We can pass this bill, and we should, but we cannot say to the country that we really are doing what we are supposed to be doing to prevent these crimes from happening unless we put additional resources into crime prevention. There are a lot of good programs out there, a number of which we can identify, and we should be assisting them to a much greater extent than we have up to this point.

There is one final area that I want to cover with regard to the nature of this bill and what could have been done in addition to it. I have said this in the House repeatedly. Every time I get up to speak to a government crime bill, I raise it, and I am going to do so again. Perhaps at some point the government will finally get the message.

I accuse the government of this and I will convict it as well: the government has been guilty of highlighting specific crimes with specific bills. Then the government is critical of the opposition for taking too long to get those bills back through the House. This bill in particular is a classic example of how the alternative would have been so much more effective and efficient, both in using the time of the House and in terms of dealing with the problem.

We have a bill, Bill C-10, which deals with mandatory minimums for gun crimes, for guns that are used in serious violent crimes. In effect that is what the bill is about. Currently before our justice committee we have another bill that deals with crime of a serious violent nature involving guns. It is a bail bill. It is a reverse onus bill. It is one that all the parties support. It is one that would go through very quickly.

It is one that could very easily have been combined with Bill C-10 a year ago, so that Bill C-10 would have been about both mandatory minimums and bail review, the reverse onus of bail. That bill would now be before the House. We would be voting on it either this week or next and it would be on its way to the Senate and hopefully shortly after that would be the law of the land.

However, what is going to happen is that the bill is not going to get back to the House before we break for the summer. It is probably not going to get through the process until the latter part of this year and then go on to the Senate and royal assent and the rest of it. Roughly a year later, it is going to come into effect.

We need that bill. We need it in conjunction with this mandatory minimums bill that we are dealing with. It was a logical one to do.

This can be repeated. I do not know how many crime bills we have had from the government. I think there have been 10, 12 or 15 up to this point, since January of last year. Any number of them could have been combined and we could have gone through this.

For members of the House, who already know this, but for the Canadian public as well, the same witnesses repeatedly appear before committee, whether it is the police associations, the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police, sometimes retired judiciary people, advocates around crime, defence lawyer associations, bar associations or academics in this field. We keep hearing the same people over and over again. They could have come once to give us their evidence on a whole bunch of points. However, the government is insistent, and I accuse it of doing this for straight partisan purposes, to try to highlight that it is tough on crime, that will do this, then it will do that and it will do the other thing.

The reality is it could have been done all at once. If there were one all encompassing bill, we could have done that. With those 10, 12 or 15 bills, we could have done all of that and we could have added in a whole bunch of the private members' bills on crime. I cannot even remember all the numbers of the bills that I am supposed to deal with as the justice critic for my party, and I am sure the justice critics of the other parties are in the same boat. There have been that many, if we combine both the government bills and the ones coming as private members' bills.

There have been well over 20 in the last 15, 16 months. All of them could have been combined in an omnibus bill. A lot more amendments need to be made to the Criminal Code to clear up some of the problems, and to the Evidence Act and other parts of the criminal process.

The justice department, through the work it has been doing over the last number of years, very well qualified, would know what sections we need to encompass in an omnibus piece of criminal law. If we had done that, the government would have been unable to say that it was in favour of mandatory minimums, that it was in favour of this or that. It lost that political flavour, and that is to its eternal shame.

The NDP will support the bill now that it has been amended in line with what members believe is a responsible, focused way to deal with mandatory minimums vis-à-vis crimes that involve guns of a serious violent nature.

I encourage the government, once again, to look at its crime agenda legislation and find ways of bringing the bills together so we can get this done in a much more efficient way and Canadian people overall can be better protected than they are at the present time.

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Mr. Speaker, I agree with much of what the member said, in particular the other major steps that need to be taken to reduce crime. I commend him for mitigating an overreacted bill.

I have a comment and then I will ask a question.

First, I put on the record for the public the fact that the bill does not increase maximums. It does not allow judges to give more severe penalties. One would think that if someone wanted to be tough on crime, there would be more maximums. This does not allow judges to impose increased penalties.

If it does not do that, which is a surprise to many people, what does it do? It reduces the judge's discretion at the lower level. Those who commit less serious crimes in that category would get lighter sentences as opposed to the maximum sentence.

What does the NDP believe is accomplished by reducing the discretion of judges for less serious offenders in that category, the ones who would be getting lower sentences?

[Joe Comartin, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

Mr. Speaker, there are really two parts to the question asked by my colleague, the member for Yukon.

In terms of the judicial discretion, it limits the judge's discretion, and I recognize that. What it does accomplish is it is part of the message we are trying to send to the country as a whole, to law-abiding citizens who are frustrated at times when they see sentences they believe are too lenient. We know that happens. Judges are not perfect. I am a very strong proponent, as I think most members of the know, of our judiciary.

I think there is no better judiciary in the world than ours. There may be some that are as good, but there are none that are better. However, judges are not divine. They are human and they make mistakes from time to time. We are saying to them that when the crime is of a certain nature, this is the minimum they have to give.

It does not do anything for discretion except to limit it somewhat, but it does make the sentences more consistent across the country. We get some variation across the country, so to some degree it tightens that up in terms of what it does with regard to the lower end and not having any increases at the other end.

The vast majority of these crimes, if we try to add mandatory minimums at the top end, I believe those would be struck down by our courts, under the charter, as being cruel and unusual punishment. With respect to any attempt to add mandatory minimums at the top end beyond the seven years, I think the Supreme Court and other courts of appeal have made it clear that the seven years is the maximum they are prepared to tolerate under the charter with regard to these types of crimes.

At the lower end, I agree. This is a valid criticism of the legislation. We are probably sacrificing a few people who judges might, because of extenuating circumstances, give lower penalties than the mandatory of five years. Of course, the mandatory for these in just about every case where it is now four at the present time will go to five. It will not be a big difference.

There are cases of extenuating circumstances. I always think of a story I was told as I was lobbied by some groups that were opposed to the mandatory minimums. It was about an individual who had suffered a severe head injury as the result of a trauma in a motor vehicle accident. He was married, had children and was living a pretty normal middle class life by Canadian standards. There was a complete change in his personality. His intelligence level was lowered dramatically. He came under the influence of his brother who was a long-time criminal and was involved in a serious robbery involving guns.

If one takes that kind of fact situation, one would think he would get five years. What one hopes for, and what in fact happened in that case, is a negotiated deal where the charges are reduced on the basis of what the crown says. The fall back is that if the issue is to be dealt with, to a great extent it will be our crowns who will have to deal with it.

[Serge Ménard, Bloc, Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I want to say at the start, rather like my colleague from Windsor—Tecumseh, that I believe the majority of members in this House want to work effectively against crime, particularly the most violent kinds of crime. Where we do not agree is on the way to achieve that. As representatives of a democracy, are we going to give the people of this country what they expect or are we going to give them the benefit of what we learn, given our role, from the consultation that we have to carry out, from deeper examination of the references to the science of criminology, which is not an exact science like mathematics, physics or chemistry, but which is certainly a science on the same level as psychology or sociology, in deciding what are the most effective methods? On the government side, they are trying to give the impression to the people that they are doing something to address those crimes that we all want to deal with.

The reason that we object to the bills that are now before us is that they will do absolutely nothing to reduce the number of violent crimes in Canada. While that number is to be deplored, it is still lower than in most other parts of the world. It is also true that it is lower than in those countries that we consider to be civilized countries, without giving too many examples. It is also much lower than the model from which the Conservatives have taken their inspiration, that is to say, our neighbours to the south. We know that our southern neighbours have a homicide rate that is three times higher than in Canada, and four times higher than in Quebec. Yet, that country puts six times as many people in jail as we do in Canada. On a per capita basis, there are six times as many people in prison in the United States as in Canada. However, in sociological terms our two countries are similar. The difference, which I am only too willing to point out, is that we are less accepting of extremes of poverty and the gap between the rich and poor. That definitely has sociological consequences. In that respect, if you ask any educated American, and I have done so many times, why there are so many homicides in the United States compared to Canada, the inevitable answer is the lack of gun control and the wider circulation of firearms.

The solution we know—I believe it has been confirmed— is to first deal with weapons and not to try to correct the situation after the crimes have been committed. That is also what is paradoxical, and there is the same paradox in the United States. People want tougher sentences, but wider access to firearms whereas, if we did the opposite, we would get the opposite result: that is a reduction that would probably be comparable to other civilized countries, when we think of western countries, Australia, New Zealand and many other countries. Including those in central Europe.

We are absolutely convinced—and it is science that tells us, namely criminology— that minimums do nothing. Why do they do nothing? First, because the criminals do not know them. Not only do they not know them, even we, we do not know them. If journalists asked members, after we had voted on this issue, to explain what minimum related to what law they had voted for, I am convinced that less than half the members, and perhaps a great deal less than half, would be able to answer that question.

I am convinced that, in this House, not even 5% of members know how many minimum sentences there are in the Criminal Code. If we do not know that number, how can we think that offenders will know what offences are punishable by a minimum sentence? To start with, they do not know that. Then, when they are about to commit a crime, they do not think about the sentence which they could be given. They are too busy preparing to commit their crime, and most of the time, we do not know about their intention.

Some crimes are essentially impulsive actions, such as crimes inspired by jealousy or, in some cases, by anger, but they are the exception. Nevertheless, do Conservatives think that criminals make a cold-blooded calculation under those circumstances and, if the risk is too great, decide not to commit the offence whereas if the risk is less great, they decide to act? This is not the way criminals think when they commit a crime. This is not even the way ordinary people think. Therefore, this approach is useless.

Science simply confirms how useless it is. The Canadian experience on minimum sentences is quite interesting. Let us take a look at the harshest minimum sentence which ever existed, except for major crimes such as first or second degree murder, where the minimum is not 20 or 25 years, but life imprisonment without eligibility for parole for 25 years in the case of first degree murder and for 10 to 20 years in the case of second degree murder, as recommended by the jury.

In Canada there was a seven-year minimum prison sentence for importing marijuana. When I was in university, I had never heard of marijuana. I was called to the bar in 1966 and I was immediately hired at the Montreal crown prosecutors' office. I worked there for 11 months and then I was hired at the federal crown prosecutors' office where I started handling cases involving hashish and marijuana. That is when I became informed on marijuana and hashish. At the time it was referred to as Indian hemp—the common name for the plant according to Flore laurentienne by Brother Marie-Victorin—but the plant had no hallucinogenic effects. This is no longer the case today. It has been imported and today's crops are much stronger.

At the time, there was no marijuana in Canada. I had never heard of it when I was a student. I completed my education a long time ago: in 1966. That is when the trend began. There were seven-year minimum prison sentences and, contrary to what the Conservatives might say sometimes, that these minimum sentences were never imposed, I am here to say that they were at first. Not only were seven-year minimum sentences or more imposed for importing marijuana, but I saw a case where a two-year prison sentence was imposed for simple possession.

It finally became apparent that marijuana was one of the least dangerous drugs. Nonetheless, all this realization and change came about when the seven-year minimum sentence already existed in law. The effectiveness of such a severe sentence—as a deterrent—can be measured. In Canada we have had the opposite experience and enjoyed some success. Obviously, this will never be absolute and we will never get rid of certain types of crimes. However, we have made remarkable progress when it comes to drinking and driving, so much so that it is no longer the number one cause of accidents in Canada.

Unlike the hon. member for Windsor—Tecumseh, I remember when there were minimum sentences for repeat impaired driving offences: 15 days for a second offence and 3 months for a third offence.

Nothing has changed in the law when it comes to degree of incarceration, but a lot of progress has been made.

How have we done that? We did it through greater awareness and through education. We also did it when we finally made it easier to prove the offence by introducing breathalyzers and enabling police officers to set up roadblocks. At the beginning, during holidays, the first roadblocks found that approximately 10% of drivers were drunk, while today it is less than 1%. This is objective and compelling proof. We have not increased the severity of the laws and crime has decreased. In the other case, there was a considerable increase in marijuana trafficking, although the sentence is severe.

Bank robberies is the third example. When I started practising, if a person was killed during a bank robbery, it was called constructive murder. This was the case as soon as a person was killed. Some people were found guilty of murdering their accomplice even though they had been killed by a security officer. If that was how the robbery ended, it was the death sentence. My colleagues no doubt know that since the death penalty was abolished in Canada, the homicide rate has steadily decreased, to the point where it is no longer an argument for those who want to reinstate the death penalty. No one is talking about it. It is obvious that the severity of the penalty is not what stops people.

A few years ago, a very good, successful film was made in Quebec called Monica la Mitraille. Monica la Mitraille was a remarkable woman—and I am not being complimentary—who led a group of bank robbers. She was remarkable in the literal sense of the word. At the time, if a person committed murder, they were sentenced to the death penalty. She was not the only one.

I began practising in the late 1960s and practised until 1993, when my political career began. I recall that, early on, in Montreal, there were a great deal of bank robberies, enough to fill the newspapers. There was at least one a day to draw the attention of the Journal de Montréal, as well as the trials and so on. There are hardly any bank robberies any more today. Is that because of more severe penalties? Not at all. Banks are now built better. Prevention has made it more difficult to commit bank robberies and the potential proceeds are limited compared to the risk of getting caught.

Thus, if we want to lower crime rates, we have to think more about the “before” and less about the “after”. But, when we think about the “after” and we still go on the assumption that criminals plan based on sentencing, we think about the worst possible way the crime might be committed and then declare that it warrants a particular sentence. That is how minimum sentences are set. Minimums of five years or seven years are not negligible minimums. That is because we thought about the most serious cases. However, we are forgetting something. The sentences set out for the most serious cases are the same sentences that judges must impose on less serious cases. This is where the injustice lies and what I find most appalling.

I always thought our system of criminal law was exceptional, figuring that it is better to run the risk of releasing a guilty party, rather than convicting an innocent person. Much the same applies to sentencing. Why would we risk imposing the minimum sentences intended for the most serious cases on less serious cases? This type of injustice is just as serious as convicting an innocent person.

There is one more thing that could be convincing. I remember already having this debate here in the House. People have given me examples of circumstances in which the minimum would clearly be appropriate and in which a judge did not impose such a sentence. For one thing, I have heard very few details to explain such exceptional sentences.

Moreover, we are never told about the outcome at the appeal level. Considering the number of rulings made each day under the criminal justice system of a country of 30 million people, it is inevitable that judges, who have a great deal of discretion—and it is important that they have such discretion to be able to properly review each specific case before deciding to deprive an individual of his freedom—impose thousands of sentences. It is also inevitable that, in such a subjective area—this is not an exact science—mistakes are sometimes made. Is the solution to turn this Parliament into a court of appeal? Under our system, there is a way to correct these exceptional sentences, and that is through the appeal process. Some may give me more examples. If I am asked whether I think that a sentence imposed in a specific case—about which I am only informed of a couple of facts—is justified or not, my answer will be the same, namely: was the decision appealed and what did the court of appeal decide? We, as a Parliament, should only get involved if the court of appeal were to make a number of rulings that we would deem unjustified. It is important that sentences be fair and appropriate, and that they be perceived as such. This is a fundamental rule in the fight against crime. When a judge imposes a sentence, he must take into consideration who the offender is, and he must determine why he committed these crimes, whether they are part of a continuing process, whether the offender can be rehabilitated, and what role he played in the crime that took place. Those are the questions that the judge must ask himself. This is not an automatic process, where the judge concludes that he must impose this or that sentence, because he is bound to do so under a minimum penalty provision in the legislation.

I am convinced, and so is the government itself, that the only reason why it wants to impose these minimum penalties is not because this will help reduce the number of such crimes. In fact, I would be curious—and I do not think that the government ever mentioned it—to know what the goal is here. On the basis of what criteria would we be able to determine, five years from now, whether this legislation has been successful or not? Personally, I believe that, regardless of the legislation, things will go in a certain direction because of circumstances that have nothing to do with whether or not minimum penalties are imposed.

What is remarkable is that this government has decided not to get involved beforehand, or to get involved beforehand, but by imposing criteria. I find it strange. It wants to increase penalties, but at the same time it wants to make it easier to have access to firearms. This is the American way, and we know what the results are.

With respect to prevention, it has cut all grants for crime prevention projects while criteria are being defined. For one thing, that is killing a number of these projects, which are not receiving grants in a timely manner. Among other criteria, the government wants to provide grants only for short term projects that show demonstrable results in the short term. I would like the government to apply the same criteria to their bills. This means no more grants for the Société québécoise de criminologie and in-depth studies on crime. That is typical of this government. It pretends. It sees a problem and pretends to act on it. Its reaction is the most basic: if crimes are committed, it is because the punishments are not severe enough. So, it increases the punishments instead of doing as we have so often done in Quebec, through prevention for example, with remarkable success.

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Mr. Speaker, the last two speakers mentioned impaired driving and the successful effect of minimums. I want to make sure that people realize we are comparing apples and oranges here. It is not the same thing. I would not want people to have the view that it was just minimum prison sentences that had an effect. As the member just mentioned, and appropriately, it was the increased enforcement of roadside checks, regardless of the penalty. As criminologists say, the chance of getting caught is what reduces offences. Some of those minimums are related to fines and prohibition of driving; they do not put criminals in jail where they could learn more crimes.

The member talked about the United States. Would he like Canada to move more toward the system in the United States where there are three and a half times the number of murders? That country has already tried mandatory minimums. Perhaps he would confirm that many states are removing the minimums because they found that they did not work.

By keeping prisoners in jail longer, they could learn more crimes and could become more dangerous to society when they come out. This would make Canada more dangerous. Does the member think it would be better to invest money in more rehabilitation, in education, in adapting criminals? In that way when they did come out they would be less likely to reoffend and it would make Canada safer. The possibility of reoffending is a major problem today.

[Serge Ménard, Bloc, Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Yukon must be a good lawyer; he only asks questions to which he already knows the answer. The answer is yes. The money would obviously be better invested in crime prevention and in education.

In fact, as I said earlier, the U.S. homicide rate is four times higher than that of Quebec, and three times higher than that of Canada as a whole. In Quebec, we have taken the Young Offenders Act very seriously. Our attitude was that the young offenders should be reformed rather than punished. We had already achieved quite spectacular results, with a crime rate 50% lower, or rather with Canada's crime rate being 50% higher than that of Quebec. I am talking about youth crime. This rate is then reflected in the various cohorts as offenders grow older.

My colleague raised two important points in his question. First, prison is crime school. I know very few people who received a harsh sentence and who managed to take control of their life—I know a few of them. Generally, the risk is very high that those who are incarcerated will be worse criminals when they get out than they were when they were sent to prison. Moreover, imprisonment is very expensive compared to other measures. According to the latest statistics, I believe that the present cost of keeping someone in prison in Canada in $88,000 a year. Imagine how much we could invest. That is what the Supreme Court indicated, very intelligently, when commenting on sentences to be served in the community.

However, provincial governments must invest in monitoring. I understand that this may be difficult. Nevertheless, I tried to do it in Quebec when I was public safety minister. It is true that many of our colleagues are opposed to that idea. When making budget cuts, we always cut funding for monitoring, but I always said that we must invest in monitoring. Many convicted criminals could serve their sentence in the community, with proper monitoring to ensure that they do not reoffend, at a much lower cost than $88,000 a year.

So, prison is less effective, more dangerous and a lot more expensive. With that money, we could do a lot more in the area of prevention and be successful, as we were in the case of impaired driving.

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Mr. Speaker, does the member think that if we put in unnaturally long, unfair sentences in certain circumstances, prosecutors would make deals and either prosecute as a summary conviction or make other deals to avoid an unjust sentence? The person would not get the reasonable jail sentence that he might normally get and he would be out sooner than would have occurred under the previous system.

[Serge Ménard, Bloc, Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I can give the member an answer—and I think he knows what that answer might be—but I also can give him glaring examples.

Could the member repeat the last part of his question?

[The Acting Speaker, Andrew Scheer]

Perhaps the hon. member for Yukon would like to repeat his question. I am not sure if the hon. member for Marc-Aurèle-Fortin heard the last part of his question.

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Mr. Speaker, it was just about whether the prosecutors might plea bargain.

[Serge Ménard, Bloc, Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the answer is yes. That is what usually happened, especially with marijuana after about four or five years. It did not make sense. I remember people coming back from Acapulco with a small amount of marijuana because it was a lot better than what they could get here. Suddenly, they discovered they were facing a minimum sentence of seven years.

I think it perverts the legal system. The agreement was: “That is right, you will not be accused of possession even though it is for your own use. You will be accused of possession for the purpose of trafficking”. I remember it had become virtually automatic by a certain point. I evidently took the Crown by surprise when I said that someone had brought back a small amount of hashish from Morocco and had been accused of possession for the purpose of trafficking. I said I wanted to have a jury trial. I was told, “You cannot do that; we are not going to have a jury trial, because it is about possession for the purpose of trafficking”. I was convinced, though, that it was for this person’s own use.

Personally, I have never liked plea bargaining. I practised criminal law for over 30 years and I think it perverts the legal system. One of the things that plea bargaining leads to is not just the difficulty of introducing evidence but also situations like that one. Things like that will happen, inevitably.

Here is another example. When I started practising, there was a very strange charge in the Criminal Code of taking a motor vehicle without the owner’s permission. Fresh out of university, I innocently said to myself that taking a motor vehicle without the owner’s permission was theft and I wondered why this provision existed. It was because, for this offence, there was no minimum sentence of one year in jail. For automobile theft, a minimum sentence of one year in jail had been introduced. But then a problem had to be solved because it did not make sense to send too many people to jail. So another offence was created. It was exactly the same thing, except that in this case, there was no minimum. That is another harmful effect of provisions like these. They pervert the legal system.

[The Acting Speaker, Andrew Scheer]

At this point in the debate the speeches will be 10 minutes and the period for questions and comments will be 5 minutes.

Resuming debate. The hon. member for Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup.

[Paul Crête, Bloc, Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I rise after my colleague for Marc-Aurèle-Fortin. He has demonstrated the expertise developed in his career as a litigator, as Quebec's justice minister, and through various experiences that he has shared with us. We have had a good indication, from inside the justice system, of the extent to which the bill tabled by the Conservatives diverges from the justice system that we want to have.

Personally, I have no experience in this area. My reaction to this bill is more like that of any citizen, a father, a member of society, someone who has not necessarily had much contact with the justice apparatus as such but who tries to assess the common-sense merits of measures such as this one.

It seems to me that the approach adopted by the Conservatives is more harmful and inefficient than others and that it will do nothing to improve the safety of citizens. It is harmful because it strips the judges of some of their responsibilities such as evaluating in a concrete manner the particular situation of each accused, of each individual found guilty, and determining the sentence. Imposing mandatory minimum sentences will have consequences for our justice system. It may well have the opposite effect to that desired by the current government.

This seems to stem from the desire to lower the crime rate. But when it comes to solutions, the other side of the House has adopted an approach developed in the U.S. that has not given the results we would like to achieve here.

Minimum sentences will needlessly tie the hands of judges.Judges are in the best position to determine the most appropriate sentence in light of the facts presented. I am certain that, if this law is enacted, in a few years situations will arise where judges will be very uncomfortable handing out a minimum sentence because it will not correspond to the desired outcome. It may even influence whether or not an individual is found guilty. At that point, the outcome may be the complete opposite of what was desired in the beginning. In addition, many experts are saying that the use of minimum sentences does not lead to a reduction in the crime rate or recidivism rate. This presumption is in part due to the show put on in the media.

This focuses on very specific situations without providing context. A snap decision has been made about penalties that may not seem harsh enough. Yet we have a whole legal system that includes appeal rights and the ability to pass judgment on the situation as a whole. I do not think that the Conservatives' plan will produce the desired results.

Criminologists are the experts. They have worked in the field and can provide expert advice, as was done with the Young Offenders Act. Quebec developed a preventive model that produced very good results. When the American approach blew in on a breeze from the right, the government wanted to go ahead with legislation to amend this situation. Major intervention was needed to ensure that the legislation made as few changes as possible with respect to young offenders in Quebec. Unfortunately, the bill before us could very well have similar consequences. When people read a newspaper article, it is very easy for them to say how awful it is that the sentence is not harsher than it is. It is important to know the details, to understand how things happened. Judges are competent individuals who have honed their expertise and who must consider a wide range of facts before handing down a sentence. In my opinion, automatic minimum sentencing will not help the justice system be truly just, which is the desired outcome. We believe that any measure to automate sentencing is a dangerous approach.

The Bloc does not believe that this is the way forward. We think it would be better to maintain the system that was developed in the past. It gives judges freedom and enables them to reach conclusions that reflect reality. Let us never forget that both sides have the right to appeal. The sense of responsibility will never disappear. People must be aware of that reality. This measure would take some of that responsibility away from judges. They would be forced to make automatic decisions.

If justice were administered by machines, as per the government's wishes, the result would not be desirable, whether it is for crime assessment, the impact on victims and the criminal, and the way of working toward rehabilitation. We will not contribute to rehabilitation with a measure such as the one we have before us.

The Bloc Québécois defends a model of justice based on a personalized process to ensure as much as possible that the least number of people become hardened criminals and the highest number of people are rehabilitated. Thus, they will be able to rebuild their lives, become law-abiding citizens once again and contribute to the development of society.

Way too many examples from the United States show that the approach provided by this bill has the opposite effect of what was intended in the first place. Thus, we end up with criminals with a greater likelihood of further criminal behaviour. I believe that the result is not what we were hoping for in the system in Quebec and in Canada.

If the federal government absolutely wants to make reforms, it must instead look at the nearly automatic nature of parole. Under the current system, many criminals are released after serving one-sixth of their sentence, while any release should be based on merit. We believe that the government would be better to look at this issue and to let judges maintain the right to make their decisions and to take all the circumstances into account. However, we must ensure that parole is not so automatic.

I believe that this approach is the right one. Let us remember the approach taken by the government throughout the consideration of this bill. Indeed, several amendments made in committee were agreed to. However, in the House, the government reversed all these decisions with the support of the NDP and came back to committee with a bill that the majority did not want.

In my opinion, the House of Commons should not support this bill. If it is adopted, in a few years, we could find that its impact has been the opposite of what was initially expected and that crime and especially repeat offences have gone up. People will receive minimum sentences and will experience the penitentiary system. In my opinion, this will have a negative impact. That is why it is important to find a different solution.

This bill is at third reading and will be voted on shortly. I invite the government to reconsider the whole situation, review all the expert advice we received and send this bill back to the committee for further discussion. If we adopt this bill as is, within a few years, we will probably have to review the work that has been done here, because the bill will not have produced the desired results.

I would have liked the House to take into account the expert advice we received and the committee's opinions in order to prevent the adoption of a bill that will not create a justice system that truly renders justice. That is why the Bloc Québécois will vote against this bill.

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Mr. Speaker, we have been debating this bill all morning and one of the items that has not come up is the over-incarceration of certain minority groups in the country. That is not being dealt with at all by the government's plan to deal with criminal justice. I am just wondering if the member thinks that this particular bill, as well as Bill C-9, would just exacerbate that problem.

In particular, in relation to aboriginal people under the principles of sentencing in the Criminal Code, there is actually a section that allows judges to take into account the specific situation of aboriginal people and the conditions related to the crime.

By removing their ability to make decisions in that area now with a mandatory minimum, it could almost be declared unconstitutional. Certainly, if it is not legally unconstitutional, it is at least against the spirit of that part of the Criminal Code which would allow a judge to look at the situation that aboriginal people were in.

Does the member think this also frustrates and exacerbates this problem that is in society, as opposed to helping to improve it?

[Paul Crête, Bloc, Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his question. He very clearly illustrates the negative impact this bill will have. If we look at how justice has been rendered in the past among aboriginal peoples, with an emphasis on forgiveness, collective decision-making and correcting behaviour, it is clear that aboriginal peoples will be hit hard by the proposed changes. They are being taken even further away from their original model, their justice system, and subjected to a far more punitive model.

In the past, we saw how detrimental it was for aboriginal peoples to have to go through the traditional system, especially at the penitentiary level. I do not know whether we can expect judgments that challenge the legality of the legislation, but in practical terms, in the day-to-day application of this bill not only to aboriginal peoples, but also to many other segments of our population, people who make a mistake or commit a crime for the first time in their lives, mandatory minimum sentencing will result in more crime. Unfortunately, there is a strong possibility that crime will increase rather than decrease in the end.

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Mr. Speaker, witness after witness said there would be much more productive progress in reducing crime if we invested in prevention, in the root causes of crime, in poverty, and in reducing drug addictions. Over half of crimes are committed either under the influence of something or to obtain the funds to purchase the influence. Does the member think there would be a far more productive agenda to reduce crime if we invested our focus and funds on prevention?

[Paul Crête, Bloc, Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am deeply convinced that prevention is the way of the future. This does not mean that all people can be rehabilitated. But more effort must be put into crime prevention and ensuring that people do not enter into the vicious circle of the criminal system. Additional efforts can be made about this in terms of money.

The Bloc Québécois also proposes to reconsider the nearly automatic nature of parole. Before releasing people in the community, it would be possible to make sure that they stay out of trouble and that they are ready for reintegration. We should be able to say that we have put all the chances on our side in order to achieve the desired results, so that they become fully participating members of our society, citizens that we can be proud of. The present approach of the government to move to minimum sentences is completely incompatible with this practice. Unfortunately, the government did not listen to the arguments presented by several experts in this field. If it had listened, we would have a bill emphasizing prevention instead of minimum sentences, which will not reduce the crime rate.

The House resumed 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.

[The Speaker, Peter Milliken]

Is the House ready for the question?

[Some hon. members]

Question.

[The Speaker, Peter Milliken]

The question is on the motion. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

No.

[The Speaker, Peter Milliken]

All those in favour of the motion will please say yea.

[Some hon. members]

Yea.

[The Speaker, Peter Milliken]

All those opposed will please say nay.

[Some hon. members]

Nay.

[The Speaker, Peter Milliken]

In my opinion the nays have it.

And five or more members having risen:

[The Speaker, Peter Milliken]

Call in the members.

And the bells having rung:

At the request of the chief government whip the vote on the motion before the House will be deferred until tomorrow at the conclusion of the time provided for government orders.

The House resumed from May 28 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.

[The Speaker, Peter Milliken]

The House will now proceed to the taking of the deferred recorded division on the motion at the third reading stage of Bill C-10.

(The House divided on the motion, which was agreed to on the following division:)

Vote #191

[The Speaker, Peter Milliken]

I declare the motion carried.

(Bill read the third time and passed)