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

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am thankful to my colleagues in the NDP for not standing up in this round.

I want to make this clear again. I was in this place when, under Stephen Harper, the omnibus crime bill, Bill C-10, was passed. At that time, we already knew that there was no evidence that mandatory minimums would reduce the crime rate. We were watching in the United States as they were being removed in Texas. We saw at the time that these would probably be struck down as unconstitutional, as they are being struck down. The Charter of Rights and Freedoms is being found to be violated by a number of these laws. What they do, at their essence, is not deter criminals. They do not make communities safer. There is no evidence that they make communities safer.

I would ask my hon. friend for Calgary Rocky Ridge if he is able to produce at this time, or cite for us, any study by reputable criminologists or any group that works with criminal defence, or anything from the Elizabeth Fry Society or the John Howard Society that would suggest that mandatory minimums make communities safer, because there is no evidence for that proposition.

[Rob Moore, Conservative, Fundy Royal, NB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Just quickly on this, in the context of the debate on Bill C-5 and Bill C-22 before it, this is not to be partisan in any way, but to illustrate that the idea of the concept of Parliament sending a clear message to Canadians, to victims, to criminals and, yes, to the judges presiding over sentencing, is not a Conservative notion in some way exclusively.

Before we take what I think is a drastic step and possibly eliminate a mandatory prison sentence for some of these section 85 offences on using a firearm in the commission of an offence, I want to quickly note that the minimum was first introduced as far back as 1976. In 1976 and forward since then, some of these have been on the books. That doesn't mean we can never make changes—I get that—but some of these sections have lived on through Liberal governments, Conservative governments and so on, all of them agreeing to keep these provisions in place, and all the while, these provisions, although challenged, many of them were upheld.

I think it's important to contextualize that, because if you listen to the debate, you would think that all of these mandatory minimums—I'm kind of lumping a bunch of them together here—somehow came from the previous Conservative government when, in fact, I've taken the time to look at all of the mandatory minimums being eliminated, and virtually all of them pre-existed the previous Conservative government.

In fact, on the mandatory minimums that we brought in under the Safe Streets and Communities Act or previous legislation, the current government has chosen to keep those on the books, to not eliminate them.

It's important, before we make a change like this, to recognize that some of these have been on the books for the better part of 50 years. It's not something that just is a recent invention but something that we should really consider really very weightily as we deliberate on each of these clauses and on removing what could amount to the only barrier between someone who has committed a serious offence and their being right back out on the street.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[Michael Cooper, Conservative, St. Albert—Edmonton, AB]

Have you seen the impact of that since the passage of Bill C-10?

[Michael Cooper, Conservative, St. Albert—Edmonton, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to the witnesses.

I will address my questions to Mr. Barnum.

You cited in your testimony that since the passage of Bill C-10, adding that section to the Criminal Code has been an important tool for law enforcement. Given your extensive background in law enforcement and tackling organized crime, I would be interested in your comments related to the mandatory minimum aspect of Bill C-10 as it pertains to the trafficking of contraband tobacco.

We've heard a number of witnesses who simply say that mandatory minimums don't work, that they're ineffective and increase recidivism. Is that your experience? I presume it's quite the contrary.

Criminal Code and Controlled Drugs and Substances Act

[Yasir Naqvi, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the President of the Queen’s Privy Council for Canada and Minister of Emergency Preparedness]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise to discuss Bill C-5.

It proposes important reforms to reduce the over-incarceration of indigenous people, Black Canadians and members of marginalized communities.

I am going to spend my time primarily talking about conditional sentence orders. I would like to bring to this conversation today my experience as the Minister of Community Safety and Correctional Services and the Attorney General of Ontario. As we all know, responsibilities in the administration of justice lie at the provincial level. In my comments, I will share some of the frustrations I felt, when I was in my provincial roles, with some of the changes that were made during the Harper government that are trying to be undone by Bill C-5.

As we all know, a fair and effective criminal justice system is critical to ensuring that Canadians feel safe in their communities, have confidence in their justice system and trust that offenders are being held accountable in a manner that is equitable and transparent and that promotes public safety in Canada. The unfortunate reality is that far too many people face discrimination and systemic racism at all stages of our criminal justice system. This problem has been exacerbated by tough-on-crime sentencing policies, including the indiscriminate and broad use of mandatory minimum penalties of imprisonment, generally known as MMPs, and added restrictions placed on the availability of conditional sentence orders, or CSOs. These restrictions were meant to keep Canadians safe, so to speak, but this missed the point because conditional sentences are never permitted in cases where public safety is put at risk.

These restrictions have prevented judges from imposing non-custodial, community-based sentences, even in cases where these sentences would otherwise be appropriate under the circumstances. This one-size-fits-all approach to sentencing denies the reality that offences can be committed in a broad range of circumstances with varying degrees of seriousness. Someone who steals to feed their family is less blameworthy than someone who steals goods to sell on the black market. One-size-fits-all sentencing has too often used the latter example as the baseline for sentencing laws and this has created problems in our justice system. MMPs also run counter to the fundamental principle of sentencing, namely that sentences must be individually tailored to the particular circumstances of the offence and the degree of responsibility of the offender before the court.

Bill C-5 is an important step forward to provide alternatives to incarceration where appropriate, including for indigenous people and Black Canadians. One important component of the proposed reforms is a series of amendments to the conditional sentencing regime that would allow the regime to fulfill its original purpose, namely to address the overreliance on incarceration for less serious crimes.

To better explain the importance of Bill C-5's amendments in this area, let me take a moment to speak about their original legislative purpose. CSOs were enacted in 1996, and I believe Allan Rock was the Minister of Justice in the House at that time. They were enacted as part of a comprehensive set of reforms that recognized the need to address Canada's inflated incarceration rate, particularly as it related to indigenous people.

A CSO allows an offender who does not pose a threat to public safety to serve a prison term of less than two years in the community under strict conditions, including house arrest and curfew. The law governing CSOs provides judges with the ability to impose a broad range of conditions that balance public safety against other important objectives, including rehabilitation. For example, a judge can require an offender to attend an approved treatment program, which can help address the underlying reasons that led to offending in the first place. This makes good sense to me. As Minister of Community Safety and Correctional Services and the Attorney General of Ontario, I addressed this, because if an inmate or offender is sentenced two years less a day, that person goes to a provincial prison.

In my previous roles, I visited enough jails in Ontario to know they are not the best places to be. For someone who is facing an addiction or mental health issue, jail is not a place where they will get the right care, as opposed to being in a community. Evidence shows that allowing offenders who do not pose a risk to public safety to serve their sentences in the community under strict conditions, while maintaining access to employment and community and health-related support systems, is far more effective at reducing future criminality than harsh penalties such as incarceration.

Indeed, evidence gathered after the original enactment of CSOs supports this finding. Within the first few years of the implementation of CSOs, recidivism rates declined and the incarceration rate decreased by 13%. Criminal Code amendments enacted by the Conservative governments in 2007, with former Bill C-9, and in 2012, with former Bill C-10, have since severely restricted the availability of CSOs. These amendments made CSOs unavailable for all offences prosecuted by way of indictment that are punishable by a maximum term of imprisonment of 14 years or life, as well as those punishable by a maximum term of imprisonment of 10 years if the offences resulted in bodily harm or involved drugs or the use of a weapon. The reforms also introduced a list of ineligible offences to the CSO regime, including for non-violent property crime.

Because of these restrictions, the use of CSOs was significantly diminished. Statistics Canada data shows that the number of cases resulting in a CSO decreased from 11,545 cases in 2004 to 7,022 cases in 2018. Studies have further shown that these restrictions have had a disproportionately negative impact on indigenous people. These restrictions have also resulted in an increased number of charter challenges and calls for reform.

Bill C-5 would return the CSO regime to what existed prior to the 2007 amendments while ensuring that CSOs are unavailable for offences of advocating genocide, torture and attempted murder, as well as terrorism and criminal-organization offences that are prosecuted by way of indictment and for which the maximum term of imprisonment is 10 years or more. They would also continue to be unavailable for any offence carrying a mandatory minimum penalty. CSOs would thus become accessible for all other offences where the sentencing judge determines that a custodial sentence of under two years is appropriate, provided that the court is also satisfied that imposing a CSO would not endanger public safety and would be in keeping with the fundamental purpose and principles of sentencing.

This approach would allow sentencing judges to consider all available sanctions other than imprisonment for all offenders, consistent with the sentencing principle of restraint, which requires sentencing courts to take into consideration all available sanctions other than imprisonment that are reasonable in the circumstances, with particular attention to the circumstances of indigenous offenders. These amendments strike the right balance between ensuring the availability of alternatives to incarceration where appropriate and recognizing the importance of public safety where serious offending is at issue.

This legislation is a key milestone in our government's ongoing efforts to transform the criminal justice system. I applaud our government for proposing reforms that would realign CSOs with Parliament's original intent, an approach that evidence shows would directly contribute to reducing the overrepresentation of indigenous people, Black Canadians and members of marginalized communities in our criminal justice system, and would afford more opportunity for rehabilitation and better reintegration in appropriate cases.

These are the kinds of things that, when I was the Attorney General of Ontario, we were asking the federal government to undertake. I am thrilled to see that this is taking place through Bill C-5. I am also quite thrilled that in my new role as a member of Parliament, I am able to speak to this bill and will be supporting it. I encourage other members to vote in favour of it as well.

Criminal Code

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to rise today on this very important bill, Bill C-22, which I have to say, having served in Parliament representing Saanich—Gulf Islands during the time many of the mandatory minimums were brought in, is disappointing on a number of levels.

As I recall it from memory, I think it was Mr. Harper's omnibus bill, Bill C-10, and we fought really hard against it at the time. There was no evidence whatsoever from any jurisdiction that mandatory minimums worked. I am disappointed. Why, when 43 mandatory minimums have already been found to be unconstitutional by courts across this country, are only 19 of them being removed?

We could go farther. We should do more. Perhaps a willingness to take on more in committee would be salutary. We certainly would not remove mandatory minimums with this bill, which do not work. They just cause increased congestion in prisons, and, as we know, provinces have to take on those costs.

Justice for Animals in Service Act (Quanto's Law)

[Jean Crowder, NDP, Nanaimo—Cowichan, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the Conservative government, with its continued use of mandatory minimums, seems to be saying, in part, that it does not trust judges to review the evidence before them and use their knowledge, expertise, and long history in the courts to make the appropriate determination about what an appropriate sentence would be. By imposing mandatory minimums, in this particular case, it continues that line of reasoning and thought that seems to be evident in so many other pieces of legislation we have seen before the House.

Serious concerns have been raised, with regard to Bill C-10, the omnibus crime bill that was referenced, and a number of other bills, that the Conservatives continue to undermine the ability of judges to make appropriate decisions.

If there are judges who are completely outside the norm in sentencing, there are other ways of dealing with it other than putting mandatory minimums in bill after bill.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I want to spend a bit more time pursuing the issue of mandatory minimum sentences. The member noted in her speech that there was a body of academic literature that said that these were completely ineffective.

In reviewing the literature at the time we were reviewing what was then the omnibus crime bill, Bill C-10, in the fall of 2011, I could not find a single peer reviewed, academic paper that suggested any benefit whatsoever to mandatory minimum sentences. It was not just some academic papers, as far as I could find, but all of them.

I wonder if my friend has seen any evidence whatsoever that mandatory minimum sentences are anything other than, as she suggested the right-wing centre in the U.S. has now concluded, good intentions going toward an ineffective policy.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

There's no respect here.

My last example is that it's not always just the number of cities you visit that decides whether it's democratic or not, because not everything needs to go everywhere, i.e., for Bill C-15 nobody outside the Northwest Territories was pounding the table saying, you didn't come and see me.

Nova Scotia wasn't all upset that they didn't have a chance to make comment on Bill C-15. They may have had comments if it affected them in a government-to-government situation or could have constitutional impacts, but in terms of being the primary focus of who you'd want to hear from, I'd be surprised if there was anybody outside the Northwest Territories who was upset that no one was visited.

We've seen other committees that have pan-Canadian implications and those committees respected that, those countries respected that. Even Zimbabwe was on that list of governments that were willing to listen to their people. But it's not just the number, it's what's appropriate to the time, to the moment, to what's in front of us.

Let me give you an example that doesn't have a long exhaustive list, but shows how strategically they still left the Ottawa bubble to go and hear from Canadians. In the 39th Parliament, first session, the justice and human rights committee did a study of Bill C-10 and they had one meeting.

Technical Tax Amendments Act, 2012

[Mathieu Ravignat, NDP, Pontiac, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise in the House to support this bill on behalf of the people in my riding of Pontiac. A good housecleaning in this area can only help businesses in particular.

Bill C-48 implements over a decade of highly technical amendments to our tax system. I believe that these changes will have a positive impact on revenues and that they will generally discourage tax avoidance, which is an important element.

The very size of this bill shows that the government must manage the tax system in a more responsible manner. It must ensure in particular that it periodically passes legislation on proposed tax measures. Otherwise, there will be greater uncertainty for business people and tax experts, and it will be almost impossible for parliamentarians to deal with such lengthy bills.

I also want to point out the importance of guaranteeing the integrity of the tax system. Moreover, I believe that we must eliminate unanticipated tax loopholes in a timely manner. We must also consider the increasing complexity of tax laws and insist on the need to simplify them over time.

Like my fellow New Democrats, I think we must fight tax avoidance and tax evasion while preserving the integrity of our tax system. That is why I support the changes being made in this bill, especially those that aim to stop tax avoidance. It is a significant loss of revenue for the state, and that revenue is essential to support our social programs, which reflect the values of all Canadians.

Still, at nearly 1,000 pages, this bill is the perfect example of an omnibus bill. Fortunately, unlike the monster budget bills that contain badly designed and poorly conceived policies, this bill makes technical amendments to several closely related acts.

This bill's massive size is proof that there is still some work to be done in transforming such technical amendments into legislation and, as I said, doing that with good speed. Not doing that penalizes businesses and complicates Parliament's tasks. And that has a cost.

The harder it is for businesses to find their way around the country's tax laws and pay their taxes, the less effort they will make to pay their fair and responsible share of taxes. It is these taxes that the state uses to redistribute revenue and help the neediest people in our society and anyone who runs into problems.

In the fall of 2009, the Auditor General reported that there were more than 400 technical amendments that had been proclaimed but had not yet been enacted in legislation. Bill C-48 will enact more than 200 of these changes, or about half, but the others will be left in limbo. When can we expect to see those 200 amendments become law?

We may all wonder what is causing this delay. When the Liberals were in power, they, too, took some time integrating the technical amendments into tax law. The most recent enactment of a technical tax bill was in 2001, more than a decade ago.

I wonder why the Liberals did not pass such technical taxation bills regularly after 2001. They may have an answer. The Conservatives, too, have taken their time transforming these technical amendments into legislation.

Bill C-48 is designed to implement more than 200 of these changes. However, it is crucial that the other 200 be enacted and that the integrity of our tax system be maintained. The Conservatives should try to do a better job of incorporating these technical amendments into the legislation.

Compliance is a key aspect of maintaining the integrity of our tax system. What is the government doing to ensure that people comply with the technical changes being made in the tax system? We have not yet had an answer to that question.

The official opposition has consulted tax professionals and lawyers, who have told us that the technical changes in Bill C-48 are largely beneficial and necessary, but that there are not enough of them. That said, there have been other attempts to pass technical tax bills.

For example, Bill C-10 was introduced in October 2007 and was quickly passed by the House of Commons, but it had not passed the Senate committee stage when the 39th Parliament was dissolved in September 2008.

Governments have not been acting quickly enough. And that costs Canadian companies and taxpayers money. We want the government to act more quickly when it comes to tax changes, and we want these changes to be tabled more often. Many experts agree with us. For example, here is a quote from the Auditor General:

If proposed technical changes are not tabled regularly, the volume of amendments becomes difficult for taxpayers, tax practitioners, and parliamentarians to absorb when they are grouped into a large package....

In the 1991 Report of the Auditor General, Chapter 2, we expressed concerns that income tax comfort letters were given without public announcement. In response, the Department of Finance Canada stated that “the government intends to release a package of income tax technical amendments on an annual basis, so that taxpayers will not be subject to more lengthy waiting periods as in the past before amendments are released to the public.”... comfort letters have since been regularly released to the public...

Denis Saint-Pierre, the chair of the Tax and Fiscal Policy Advisory Group for the Certified General Accountants Association of Canada, said the following in committee:

First, the government must introduce a technical tax amendments bill. The last time a technical tax bill was passed by Parliament was over 11 years ago. Literally hundreds of unlegislated tax amendments to the Income Tax Act—which I showed this committee last year...—have been proposed, but not yet enacted, which brings uncertainty and unpredictability to the process.

In its 2012 prebudget submission—not too long ago—the Certified General Accountants Association of Canada said:

CGA-Canada strongly believes that the key to sustained economic recovery [the question was about economic recovery] and enhanced economic growth lies in the government’s commitment to tax reform and red tape reduction.

It is clear that we must take action that is in the best interests of Canadian taxpayers, to develop a tax system that makes sense and serves everyone.

Criminal Code

[Claude DeBellefeuille, Bloc, Beauharnois—Salaberry, QC]

Madam Speaker, on January 29 the Conservative member for Kildonan—St. Paul introduced a private member's bill, Bill C-268, for first reading in the House of Commons.

This bill would add a new offence to the Criminal Code. It would distinguish offences involving trafficking of persons under the age of 18 years from those involving adults.

The goal of this bill is to impose a minimum punishment of imprisonment for a term of five years for anyone found guilty of trafficking a person under the age of 18.

This bill is simple enough. There are eight clauses, but the heart of the bill is in the second clause, in its creation of a new offence in the Criminal Code, namely, section 279.011. The wording in this provision is exactly the same as section 279.01, regarding the trafficking of a person, but adds the distinction “under the age of eighteen years” to the definition of an exploited person. With this addition, a separate offence would be created when the trafficking involves a minor.

Although we are well aware of the worldwide scourge that is human trafficking, the Bloc Québécois cannot support this bill. Allow me to explain the reasons for its decision.

In 2005, the Bloc Québécois voted in support of Bill C-49. Creating an offence to specifically condemn human trafficking was necessary, and we willingly cooperated to see it passed. The amendment to the Criminal Code gave law enforcement authorities the legal tools they need to prosecute and convict anyone who unfortunately engages in these horrible practices that show no respect for human dignity.

Bill C-268, however, we believe is a step in the wrong direction. By automatically imposing a minimum sentence of five years on anyone convicted of the trafficking of persons under 18, the government is not solving anything. I will explain why.

First of all, many experts have established that minimum sentences have negative effects and dubious value when it comes to fighting crime.

For instance, criminal lawyer Julian Roberts, from the University of Ottawa, conducted a study in 1997 for the Department of Justice of Canada in which he concluded:

Although mandatory sentences of imprisonment have been introduced in a number of western nations... the studies that have examined the impact of these laws reported variable effects on prison populations and no discernible effect on crime rates.

In early May 2006, during a press conference on the controversial passing of Bill C-10, the Minister of Justice and the Minister of Public Safety at the time were forced to acknowledge that no Canadian study has demonstrated that new measures to introduce minimum penalties are effective in fighting crime.

Minimum sentences can also have a negative impact. According to André Normandeau, a criminologist at the Université de Montréal, minimum sentences can encourage plea bargaining by lawyers wanting to have their clients charged with offences that do not have minimum sentences. Minimum sentences can also force judges to acquit an individual, rather than be forced to sentence that individual to a penalty the judge considers excessive under the circumstances.

When it comes to sentencing, the first consideration must be individualization. The justification of this individualized approach lies in the principle of proportionality. The sentence must be proportionate to the gravity of the offence and the degree of responsibility of the offender. This is because no two crimes are identical, no two offenders are exactly alike and no two sets of circumstances are exactly the same. For all those reasons, the Bloc Québécois believes in the importance of maintaining judicial discretion.

When judges sentence an offender to prison, they take into account the offender's degree of responsibility, the seriousness of the offence and the best way to serve justice while maximizing the likelihood of rehabilitation.

People who know only the offence and the sentence often do not realize that there are other important factors that must be taken into account in sentencing.

Moreover, studies have shown that when people have the chance to go beyond what is reported in the media, the body of evidence and the factors considered by the judge, most conclude that they would have handed down a similar sentence.

The Bloc Québécois is therefore opposed to mandatory minimum sentences because it believes in the justice system and the importance of maintaining judicial discretion. We believe that judges, who are best able to assess the information presented in court, have to be free to decide.

In addition, Bill C-268 is not consistent. It does not provide for a minimum sentence when an offender found guilty of trafficking of a minor kidnaps, commits an aggravated assault or aggravated sexual assault against or causes death to the victim during the commission of the offence. The bill does not change the subsection that covers this.

We are having a hard time understanding the logic behind Bill C-268. On the one hand, they say that they want to prevent serious offences involving the trafficking of minors by imposing minimum sentences, but on the other, they are not changing sentences for offenders who use extreme violence in committing the crime.

To ensure the most appropriate court rulings possible, we would be wise to look at recommendation 33 of the House Standing Committee on the Status of Women's report on human trafficking. Judges and prosecutors should be informed of, educated about, and made aware of the Criminal Code provisions concerning human trafficking and the disastrous impact of this crime on its victims.

When it comes to justice, the Bloc Québécois firmly believes that the most effective approach is still, and will always be, prevention. We have to attack crime at the root. That being said, the Bloc is aware that the existing legal system needs considerable improvement, and that some changes to the Criminal Code are necessary. The government's duty is to intervene and use the tools at its disposal to make sure that people can live peacefully and safely.

On June 15, 2007, in response to the Conservatives' ideological approach, the Bloc Québécois recommended a number of measures. The party proposed a series of recommendations for major changes to Canada's justice system. Unlike the Conservatives' measures, which lacked nuance, the Bloc's measures reflected the concerns of Quebeckers, who want a more balanced system, one that is consistent with modern realities and will have a real impact on crime, but that avoids the pitfalls inherent in the repression-based American model, whose negative effects are manifest.

The Bloc Québécois proposed measures that are in line with Quebeckers' values, measures based on prevention, rehabilitation, social and economic integration, and better distribution of wealth. Our proposals included the following: streamlining the parole system, stepping up the fight against organized crime, eliminating double credit for time served before sentencing—which British Columbia's Minister of Justice supports—and more funding for the national crime prevention strategy.

The Bloc Québécois does not support the bill because we believe its approach is harmful and ineffective and we are convinced that it will do nothing to improve the safety of citizens. The Bloc defends a model of justice based on a process tailored to each case and founded on the principle of rehabilitation. Any measure seeking to automate the nature of the sentence given to the offender represents, in our opinion, a dangerous approach. Minimum sentences unnecessarily tie the hands of judges who, we believe, remain in the best position to determine what sentence is the most appropriate in light of all the facts of the case.

In closing, experts tell us that minimum sentences do not lower crime rates or the rate of recidivism.

Tackling Violent Crime Legislation

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the President of the Treasury Board]

Mr. Speaker, the compelling nature of the tackling violent crime act is illustrated more clearly by the fact that every party in this House is pretending to support it today. This party has always supported the contents of the tackling violent crime act. The Liberals have always opposed it, as have the Bloc and the NDP.

However, they know that their constituents profoundly support the principles contained inside that bill and, as such, have twisted themselves into knots today to pretend that they, too, support the Conservative tackling crime agenda. However, let us review their records before we give them a free ride.

In opposition, our party continually fought to raise the age of sexual consent from 14 to 16 to protect teenagers from adult sexual predators. The Liberals consistently, over 13 years, blocked those changes while in government. The NDP were of no help, I will mention by the way, during that time either.

On the issue of mandatory minimum penalties, the Liberals opposed those in government, opposed them even in opposition, but are pretending to support them now in order to try to pacify the immense public sympathy that exists for the provision. On dangerous offender status, the Liberals and the rest of the opposition have opposed our initiatives.

The bill, as well, addresses issues such as impaired driving and reverse onus on bail.

I am going to go through the elements of this bill one by one, but I am going to begin by making a very clear procedural point.

The Liberals claim that they were willing to fast track all of this legislation long ago. Even if they were telling the truth, and they are not, why is it that the Liberal Senate will not pass the legislation today?

Once again, if they were willing to fast track the legislation months ago, surely, they would be willing to adopt the legislation today, but they are not.

Let us examine, piece by piece, what it is that the Liberals have been obstructing for so many months. Let us start with mandatory minimum penalties for firearms offences.

To begin with, this legislation was introduced as its own bill in May 2006, almost two years ago. Now, the Liberals claim that they were just about to get around to passing that bill through the Senate when the Prime Minister prorogued Parliament some months ago. However, if they were really interested in passing that legislation, why did they not do it months before, given that it had been introduced almost two years earlier? The reason is they do not support our toughened measures to crack down on gun criminals.

On the issue of age of protection, this member sitting right next to me, the member for Wild Rose, pleaded with the then Liberal government to increase the age of sexual consent from 14 to 16. The Liberal government consistently blocked all of those efforts because the Liberal Party believed that 14 was old enough.

On the issue of dangerous offenders, Liberals stood in the House of Commons and said that our tough new measures to designate three-time violent or sexual criminals as dangerous offenders and then put them away indefinitely would violate the constitutional rights of the criminal. That is what Liberals argued. That is what many Liberals continue to argue. Now, they claim that they supported the bill. They cannot have it both ways.

Let me return to mandatory jail time for gun criminals. I would just turn the House's attention to the fact that while the Liberals claim that they support that legislation now, the vast majority of them, in fact, almost all of them, voted against mandatory jail for gun criminals. The Liberals consistently opposed Bill C-10, the then mandatory jail time bill. So, now they claim that they are in favour of it in order to mask the soft on crime position that they have historically taken. That is intellectually dishonest.

Mandatory jail time provisions that are now in the tackling violent crime act would guarantee that a gun criminal would have five years in jail for his first offence and seven years for the second offence. The bill would take the most violent and dangerous gun criminals off the street and ensure that they cannot wreak havoc on our communities any longer.

I would remind the House that the bill in its previous form sat before Parliament for almost two years before prorogation. It had been blocked in the Senate for months upon months when finally the Prime Minister did the responsible thing and bundled it in with other legislation that is also tough on crime and forced it through the chamber.

On the issue of the age of sexual consent, Liberals now claim that they are in favour of raising the age of sexual consent after 13 years of opposing that change.

However, there was a little problem in the Senate. Senator Carstairs apparently did not get the memo. She thought that Liberals were still being honest about their view on the age of sexual consent. She thought that she could tell people what she really thought and her real belief on the issue of the age of sexual consent. She did not hear from the Liberal leader that she was meant to perform a spectacular reversal and hide her real thoughts. She said this on Mike Duffy Live just recently: “The other issue is the whole age of consent issue. I am concerned that this may prevent young women and young men from reporting sexually transmitted diseases. I am concerned that it might put a chill on family life education programs. I am concerned that young prostitutes will be driven underground by this legislation”.

To begin with, prostitution, the last time I checked, is already illegal, so it is already driven underground. Second, I have no idea what Liberal Senator Carstairs means when she suggests that somehow raising the age of sexual consent to prevent adult pedophiles from targeting young kids will cause greater transmission of sexually transmitted diseases. I have no idea what she could possibly mean by that.

However, she removed the veil. She admitted that she opposes the Conservative effort to raise the age of sexual consent. She revealed where Liberals have always stood. The Liberals believe that the age of sexual consent should be 14. We believe it should be 16. That is why our government has been forced to make this a confidence issue.

The Liberal strategy on crime has been quite an interesting one. It has been to privately and procedurally oppose the tough new measures without publicly admitting those intentions. In fact, on the one hand while Liberals oppose the tackling violent crime act procedurally, they storm around pretending publicly that they are in favour of it.

We will not let them get away with that any longer. The Prime Minister packaged together the tackling violent crime act and shone the spotlight on Liberal hypocrisy on crime. All of a sudden, we have them moving over there. We have struck a hornet's nest because members of the Liberal caucus are now scattered around the House of Commons trying to convince the whole world that they always supported the Conservative agenda on crime, that they never really opposed it, and that their delays never really occurred.

I hope that this backtracking in the Liberal Party will take itself all the way up to the Senate. One thing is for sure, if the Liberal Senate will not bring the tackling violent crime act back to the House of Commons unamended by the end of the month, members of the Liberal Party will have to explain their behaviour on crime to voters in an imminent election.That is the simple reality. Does everyone know what that is called? It is called accountability.

If Liberals want to be soft on crime in a free country, it is their right to take that wrong-headed position. They have the right to their wrong opinion. However, it is the right of the Canadian voter to hold them accountable for that position and accountable they will be. More importantly, I believe that the Liberal Senate will back down and pass the bill because it is the right thing to do and Canadians are forcing the Liberal Party to change on crime.

Let us review the contents of this legislation. First, there would be mandatory jail time for gun criminals. This provision in the tackling violent crime act would guarantee that offenders convicted of gun crimes would go to jail for five years the first time and seven years the second time.

It would create new offences: attempted murder, sexual assault with a weapon, aggravated sexual assault, kidnapping, robbery, extortion, hostage taking and discharging a firearm with intent. All of these are new firearms offences that augment existing offences in the Criminal Code. These new offences would guarantee that criminals are held to account for their gun crimes.

This legislation has the support of the chiefs of police, police associations, and it even has the support of the Liberal Premier of Ontario. The only one who does not support it is the Liberal leader and the vast majority of his caucus who voted against it when it came before the House of Commons. The Liberal Party has never supported these measures, but we are changing that by putting the spotlight on it.

Changing the age of protection and the age of sexual consent is responding to the call of parents right across this country who want us to help them protect their kids from sexual predators. In my constituency, numerous police officers have approached me and said that this tool would help them protect local Nepean—Carleton kids against Internet child predators.

The appeals that police officers, like Ray Lamarre of Nepean, have made to me has caused me to summon all of my energy in order to achieve that change to our Criminal Code. I have been collecting petitions in my constituency. I even launched an essay writing contest for young people to participate in to explain the ideas they had to protect other kids from the scourge of Internet pedophilia.

However, the one change in our Criminal Code that experts all across this country, and by experts I refer to police officers and parents not sociology professors and defence lawyers, all of the real experts want the age of sexual consent raised from 14 to 16.

That might not accord with the values of the Liberal Party. The Liberal leader has a history of believing in strange academic theories that flow from his time as an aloof sociology professor and all of that is very interesting in some strange academic circle, but among everyday people, and we know the folks I am talking about, those who work hard, pay their taxes and play by the rules, raising the age of sexual consent is basic common sense.

I am very proud to support the tackling violent crime act. Given that most of this legislation has been before the House of Commons and Senate for months, and some of it has been here for years, there is no reason for any more delay. At this point, now that we have illustrated the necessity of passing the tackling violent crime act, let us get to the unfortunate political obstacle that sits in front of us.

We have a Liberal Party that secretly opposes the bill and is asking its friends in the Senate to do its dirty work. Liberals claim that they were willing to fast track all of this legislation months ago in a procedural stunt that the Speaker has indicated never would have been allowed.

However, let us assume for a moment that they were sincere about fast-tracking this legislation. If they really wanted to fast-track our tackling violent crime legislation seven or eight months ago, clearly they should have no problem fast-tracking it today. Why do they not? Why does Liberal Senator Carstairs, who is part of the radical left of the Liberal Party, stomp her feet, scream and holler that she cannot possibly do her job between now and March because it is not enough time, if her party claimed it was willing to fast-track all this legislation seven or eight months ago?

There is a logical inconsistency here and that speaks to the nature of the Liberal Party saying one thing in public and playing a different game in the dark halls of the Senate. These games they are playing will not go unnoticed by crime victims. They have not gone unnoticed by voters. Voters see that the Liberals are using the radical wing of their party through Liberal Senator Carstairs to block the tackling violent crime legislation and to oppose its measures from coming into effect.

A Liberal Senator has argued that raising the age of sexual consent would somehow cause sexually transmitted diseases to spread all across the country. That is Liberal Senator Carstairs. That woman could not be elected dog catcher, which is why she is in the Liberal Senate. She has absolutely no popular appeal among ordinary folks and yet--

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

Mr. Speaker, let us look at some of the facts concerning these bills. The age of consent bill, Bill C-22 in the last Parliament, was introduced by the government on June 22, 2006. The government moved second reading on October 30, 2006, and only sent it to committee on March 21, 2007. That bill, which we offered to fast track in October 2006 and which could have been the law in December 2006, only was adopted at third reading in the House on May 4, 2007. The Senate only received that bill on May 8, 2007.

When the member says that all of the bills had gone through the House and were sitting in the Senate, he is being wilfully incompetent or he is being sheerly incompetent by not giving the actual dates. It is the same thing for Bill C-32, Bill C-35, Bill C-10 and C-27.

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Wetaskiwin, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I listened with some interest to my hon. colleague's comments. The claim about the eight days that the bill has been in front of the Senate is simply a fallacy.

If we take a look at the precursor bills to Bill C-2 in the previous Parliament, those being: Bill C-10; Bill C-22, age of protection; Bill C-27, dangerous offenders; Bill C-32, impaired driving; and Bill C-35, reverse onus on bail for gun offences; four of those five bills had already passed through the House and had spent a significant amount of time in the Senate. The only one that had not was Bill C-27, which had been to committee and had been amended.

We were a very accommodating government, I thought. We basically bundled all of that legislation as it appeared in the previous session of Parliament, with the amendments, put it back in a bill, put it before the House and now it is sitting in the Senate.

We are not asking for anything that is extremely onerous.

My colleague also brought up the fact that she wanted to get her numbers right on something. Well, it is very clear from the information that I see, whether it is on TV or through various polls, that 70% of Canadians support tougher legislation against crime.

Is it sheer incompetence of her leader and her party, or wilful incompetence of her leader and her party, that they cannot get the Senate to pass the legislation?

[Rob Nicholson, Conservative, Niagara Falls, ON]

Mr. Speaker, let me get to the last part of the member's question first. Let me tell members that there is nothing before the Senate that is more important than the justice related legislation, whether it be the security certificate legislation or the tackling violent crime legislation. These bills are hugely important.

The hon. member said that all the bills were sitting in the Senate and being dealt with expeditiously in the Senate, but they did not get passed, and that is my point. We went home in June. I told people the truth when they asked me about why this legislation did not get passed. I said that 14 year olds and 15 year olds are not as well protected in this country from sexual predators as they should be and the blame goes right across the aisle.

Here is the beautiful thing about that group sitting across from me. I know that many of them actually agree with what we in this government are doing. It was of more than just passing interest in regard to the original Bill C-10, mandatory penalties for people who commit firearms offences, and people can check the record: there were about five members of the Liberal Party who did not even buy into the approach that the Liberal Party was taking. They stood with the government and I do not blame them, because those five members were right. It was the rest of the Liberals who were wrong.

I know the game those members are playing. It is not just me: they can call their friend Dalton McGuinty down at Queen's Park and ask him why he is pushing for this legislation to be passed so quickly. They can tell him it is once again sitting in the Senate being expeditiously dealt with there. They could tell him that is wonderful and ask if that is not good enough for him. I do not always agree with the premier of Ontario, but I know he would agree with me on this one. He would just tell them to get it passed.

Every so often those members throw out the words “fast track”. Great. Fast track it, then, I say, and get it passed by the end of this month. They have seen all these pieces of legislation. We have taken into consideration what opposition members wanted and suggested. We were very reasonable in the package that we put before the House. I am now asking them to do the right thing for this country and get the bill passed.

Criminal Code

[Réal Ménard, Bloc, Hochelaga, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to Bill C-13, which is fairly technical. It deals with the language of juries, procedures for service of documents and also, the aspect that interests us most, the whole issue of official languages and the provision of trials in the official languages. Consequently, it addresses access to justice by minority groups.

We support this bill and are in favour of the amendment tabled by our Liberal colleagues. If I have understood correctly, this amendment clearly recognizes the responsibility of a judge to inform the people before him in a court of law, the people who will be participating in a trial—whether or not they are the accused—that they have the right to a trial in either official language, naturally in the language of their choice. This ensures that justice will be served.

In general, I would like to remind the House that Bill C-13 initially proposed that an accused who does not speak the same language as the majority of a group of accused should not be penalized. It suggested as well that it would be possible for a judge or the chief court coordinator to ensure that a co-accused who does not speak the same language as the majority appears before a bilingual judge or has a separate trial. That is part of our constitutional guarantees. It is also in the Criminal Code and is one of the factors we should always remember as parliamentarians, that is to say, people must always have access to justice in their mother tongue.

For example, when francophones outside Quebec are put on trial—especially when the trial involves multiple charges or there are several accused at the same time—there is always a danger that they will be assimilated because the majority rules, and obviously that is not what we want. The bar expressed its concerns in committee that justice could be denied to minority groups at various points in our current trial procedures.

In regard to linguistic rights, the current system provides that at the request of the accused, a judge will order a preliminary hearing. We all remember that the preliminary hearing is the stage before the trial itself when a judge assesses the evidence that the Crown has and commits the accused to trial. It is a very important stage. The legislation currently provides that, at the request of the accused, a judge will order a preliminary hearing and trial before a judge alone or a jury that speaks the official language of the accused. There is always a concern, therefore, that no one in a minority language situation should be denied knowledge of the evidence against him and the legal procedure or prevented from interacting with the officers of the court and the judges, so that there is always the possibility of ordering a trial in the language of the accused.

I also want to remind the House of similar concerns surrounding the entire question of legal documents. When an accused asks to have his trial in the official language of his choice, in accordance with section 19 of the bill, the Crown must have the documents containing the charges, the information and the indictment translated into the official language of the accused or the language that he best understands. After everything is translated, if that would help the accused understand it better, it is turned over to him.

Changes have also been made in regard to the examination, cross-examination and preliminary hearing. I mentioned that the preliminary hearing is very important because it is here that the Crown reveals its evidence. This is when it is determined whether or not there is enough evidence to proceed to trial.

It should be noted that witnesses can use either official language at the preliminary hearing and the trial. Clause 20(2) of the bill enables the prosecutor, if authorized by the judge and if the circumstances warrant, to examine or cross-examine a witness in the witness’s official language.

Let us look at the case of a francophone accused of a crime. For example, suppose the member for Québec, a francophone, were accused—let us imagine the worst—of having killed her husband. She is ordered to trial and there is a person who saw her kill her husband, Mr. Lemieux, a man who gave her more than 20 years of his life, a veritable saint of a man. If the person who saw her kill her husband is an anglophone, he or she will be summoned to testify as a witness. In this case, the crown prosecutor is bilingual. One may ask in what language the prosecutor will ask questions of the witness. Thanks to the amendments to Bill C-13, it will be possible for the person conducting the examination of the witness, even if he or she speaks a different language than that of the accused, to communicate directly with the witness, thereby avoiding the need for interpreters. Thus, the member for Québec, a francophone, kills her husband; an anglophone witness is called to testify and the prosecutor who laid the charge is bilingual. The cross-examination could be conducted in the language of the witness. In my example, I referred to my colleague, the member for Québec, but honourable members will recognize the fictitious nature of my example because the member for Québec is well known as a peacemaker, without excess of any kind, far removed from anger and possessing total self-control.

That said, I want to say a few words about the amendments that the other place, the Senate, has proposed.

In my opinion—it was a recommendation of the Senate and it is a recommendation of the Liberal opposition—it is desirable that the judge should personally ensure that the person who appears before the court, whether at the preliminary inquiry stage or during the trial on the merits of the case, is clearly aware of his or her linguistic rights, including the right to request a trial in either official language. In a case were there are co-accused, one accused person can even ask for a separate trial when necessary.

Obviously, there are many people involved in the trial proceedings who could inform the accused that his or her linguistic rights must be respected. The prosecutor or the accused’s attorney could do so, or others. In my view, it is a wise move to make certain the judge is able to do that.

Our colleagues in the other place, the senators, have also asked that the legislation be reviewed in three years. This kind of review mechanism, I believe, is now quite common in our bills.

Of course, the Bloc Québécois supports this amendment. The Senate has submitted different cross-referencing provisions, particularly with regard to Bill C-2, the omnibus bill tabled by the government. I have been told there was a bit of a delay in the Senate, which provoked some anger from the parliamentary secretary. As I recall, Bill C-2 was a combination of five previous bills, namely, C-9, An Act to amend the Criminal Code (conditional sentences), C-10, An Act to amend the Criminal Code (minimum penalties for offences involving firearms) and to make consequential amendments to another Act, the bill on dangerous offenders, the bill on reverse onus in bail hearings and a bill dealing with impaired driving and the new charges that could be laid.

So, Bill C-2 impacts on Bill C-13, and the Senate has presented cross-referencing amendments.

Of course, the Bloc Québécois supports Bill C-13 and the amendments proposed by the Liberal opposition. However, I cannot conclude without talking about the court challenges program.

How sad it must be for all parliamentarians to see how this government has taken an insensitive measure. I thought the Minister of the Environment would join his voice to that of the Bloc Québécois and defend francophone minorities. If I am not mistaken, he was responsible for this issue when he was a member of the Mike Harris cabinet. Mike Harris will not be remembered as one of the most progressive parliamentarian in history, but I thought that the Minister of the Environment wanted to follow the philosophical saying to the effect that taking the middle road is doing the virtuous thing. How can one support abolishing the court challenges program and thus move away from the middle road and virtue?

As members know, the Bloc Québécois is a very responsible opposition party. It is the number one political force in Quebec, and it will continue to be so, if such is the wish of Quebeckers. So, the Bloc Québécois brought forward an amendment at the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage, and also at the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights, to resurrect the court challenges program. Unfortunately, we were disappointed by the Conservatives' response. The Conservative Party can no longer be called “progressive”. The fact that they removed the word “progressive” from their name is quite telling.

So, the Bloc Québécois brought forward an amendment in both of these committees. As we know, had it not been for the court challenges program, the French fact outside Quebec—for which our ancestors fought—would not be what it is now. And the Minister of the Environment must raise his voice in cabinet, regarding this French fact.

It is being said that the Minister of the Environment is part of the progressive wing of cabinet. How could he have supported this decision? I will have to tell the member for Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, because I believe he has some influence with this man. I believe that the member for Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie will have to make the Minister of the Environment understand that he has failed in his responsibilities by not crossing party lines and by leaving francophones outside Quebec to be denied an extremely important tool in this way.

Why is this important? Take the example of school boards. In Quebec, we call them commissions scolaires, but outside Quebec they are conseils scolaires. Governments have not always spontaneously decided to grant resources and equip francophones in some communities with all institutions, from Prince Edward to Alberta, and including Saskatchewan. By using the court challenges program, with public funds, they were able to bring challenges in the courts. The case went as far as the Supreme Court of Canada and forced the establishment of school boards in francophone communities outside Quebec, which are of course minority communities.

How bizarre, not to say stupid, is the reasoning of this government, which claims that it never enacts or introduces unconstitutional laws? Well, I have been sitting in this House for 14 years and I have seen legislation and regulations repeatedly challenged and held to be invalid. Remember that the tobacco regulations, for example, were declared invalid by the Supreme Court. A number of decisions that have been made have been held to be invalid. It is not simply a matter of laws being ruled invalid, it is a matter of getting new ones recognized.

For example, Michael Hendricks, a resident of Montreal, used the court challenges program to have same-sex spouses recognized.

Today, people whose sexual orientation is homosexual can marry, can have proper weddings and experience the joys of marriage—and of course sometimes also the anguish of divorce. Had it not been for Michael Hendricks and his spouse, René Leboeuf, we would never have moved so speedily toward full recognition of rights for the gay and lesbian community. So you can see that the court challenges program has served both francophone communities outside Quebec and gay men and lesbians well.

When we come to examine the Conservative government’s record, the debit side will include the insensitivity it has demonstrated. I can only mourn the fact that no one in the Quebec caucus of the Conservatives felt the need to stand up for francophones outside Quebec. In fact, I say “francophones outside Quebec”, but there is nothing in the court challenges program that made the anglophone minority automatically ineligible to use it. Of course I will be told that the National Assembly has long made sure to respect the anglophone minority in Quebec. In the plan he put forward before the 1995 referendum, Jacques Parizeau said that it was a founding minority of Quebec.

In Quebec, the constitutional rights of anglophones were recognized, and still are. For instance, anglophones have access to learning institutions from kindergarten to university. Even though Quebec is not officially bilingual, a whole range of programs and measures is available to anglophones outside Quebec.

Valéry, a famous name in history, wrote that one can measure how great a civilization is by how it treats its minorities. Of course, in Quebec, we have every reason to be proud of how we have treated the anglophone community. We are equally proud of how we have treated our aboriginal communities. It is well known that René Lévesque was the one who gave recognition to aboriginal communities. Indigenous languages are still used by aboriginal people, and mechanisms maintained by the state allow them to assert themselves as founding nations of Quebec.

In summary, we support this bill. It deals with a number of technical details, but where language rights are concerned, we feel that it is a good piece of legislation, particularly with respect to the right of the co-accused to be tried in the language of the minority, provided that it is one of the official languages. We also support the Liberal amendment that will see the judge presiding at the preliminary hearing or trial be put in charge of recognizing the rights of those appearing before him or her and having them recognized.

In addition, we condemn the Conservative government's insensitivity to minority communities. Hopefully, by the next election, the government will have had a burst of conscience and lucidity and restored the court challenges program.

Finally, I hope that the Minister of the Environment will rise and put a question to me.

[Brian Murphy, Liberal, Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe, NB]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak briefly to Bill C-13. This bill is similar to Bill C-23, which was debated in the House.

I may be a rookie here but I remember Bill C-23 very well. We were in favour of the bill but the government decided to dissolve Parliament. So here we are, debating the same bill all over again, except that the number has changed.

The context is fairly important as we start, Bill C-13 is really Bill C-23. It contains so many important new aspects to make our criminal justice system work more equitably and to modernize it. It is why I was proud as a member of the Liberal justice team and as a member of the Liberal justice committee team to approve it and to send it on for eventual approval and royal assent.

Alas, the Prime Minister and his team decided that they were afraid of the environment. Their new Minister of the Environment had failed so miserably to act on the environment that they had to scuttle the whole Parliament because they were afraid of a couple of bills that might change things. In that mess, in that melee unfortunately, this good justice bill was killed and had to be reintroduced again.

One might ask, what difference does it make? It makes a difference to people who care about the criminal justice system. It may not mean a lot to people, but one of the biggest things we could have done in the last two years that I have been here would have been to modernize and make more effectual our criminal justice system, to move the maximum fine to be imposed for any summary conviction offence from $2,000 to $10,000.

A $2,000 fine is within the means of many people, but a $10,000 fine for a serious summary conviction offence, that does not warrant jail time, is a serious fine and might very well have a deterrent effect on those type of crimes for which a fine is appropriate.

There were many other amendments, which could be in effect and the law in the country now, that were just simply thrown away.

Language rights are very important in my province of New Brunswick which is officially a bilingual province. I represent the city of Moncton, which is an officially bilingual city. This is bread and butter for New Brunswick politicians. It is disturbing to me that the parliamentary secretary, when asked why Bill C-23, which contained many provisions to improve the delivery of justice services in both official languages was not given the priority of other bills, turned his answer to Bill C-2 and the tackling violent crime bill.

I asked why Bill C-23, which everybody agreed upon, was given second shrift to Bill C-2 and of course why was Bill C-2 killed?

This love child of the Conservative justice agenda, why was it killed by the Prime Minister? Was he so afraid of other bills which showed the incompetency of his own ministers?

It seems shocking to me. It included: Bill C-10, involving mandatory minimums which was a bill improved upon at committee and which had passed the House; Bill C-22, which modernized issues surrounding the age of consent and the age of protection, and provided for the first time a close in age exemption which made the bill very palatable in protecting young people; Bill C-32, for which Mothers Against Drunk Driving had been clamouring for some time; and, Bill C-35, a reverse onus on bail provisions which in effect codified the existing treatment of the law by jurists in the country, jurists who are exceptional jurists.

I have said this for two years. It seems like I just got here but I am here again defending judges and saying that they were enacting the provisions of Bill C-35 long before we had to make it law. Finally, there was Bill C-27, with respect to dangerous offenders.

Those were all bills that were moved along and would be law now had the government not pulled the plug on its own agenda. It euthanized its own criminal justice program.

In light of the Conservative vote on the capital punishment issue today, it is not surprising that Conservative members believe in terminating things. They have terminated their own hopes and dreams for criminal justice.

However, we want to move Bill C-23 along, which is now Bill C-13. It is an important bill that will deliver a lot of valuable aspects to the criminal justice system.

However, as I move to what is probably bread and butter for me as a New Brunswick politician, the language of the accused, I want to highlight what the bill will do and what it has done in the past. It is important to note the existing context.

At the request of the accused, a judge will order that the accused be granted a preliminary inquiry, a pre-trial procedure, and trial before a judge without jury, or judge with jury, who speak the official language, one or the other, which may be the language of the accused.

If the accused speaks neither English nor French, a judge will order that the accused be granted a preliminary inquiry or trial, without a judge and jury, who speak the official language of Canada in which the accused can best give testimony. The court is also required to provide interpretation services. That is the existing set of laws.

What Bill C-13 does to improve upon that, in clause 18 of the original bill, is to suggest that once the accused appears in court, the judge is required to advise him or her of the right to trial in the official language of his or her choice, but this requirement, as it exists now, is only if the accused is not represented by counsel.

What Bill C-13 does, which Bill C-23 did and which we all agree on, is take away the issue of representation and says that the judge must advise the accused, whether represented or not, it was a false barrier, to his or her right to have a trial in the language of his or her own choice. That was a good change and it leads me into some of my further debate points when I say that the judge was required to advise the accused of his or her languages rights.

I know the member for Beauséjour is a member of the bar. He is experienced in certain criminal proceedings and would know, coming from a francophone milieu, that it is critically important that the gatekeeper for language rights in that context, the provincial court judge in most instances, has that positive duty to inform a judge of his or her right to a trial in the language of his or her choice. It is important to know that the judge is already doing that.

With respect to preliminary inquiries and the trial in both official languages, clauses 18 and 21 changed it so that they became more accessible. Trials in the proper language of the accused, either French or English, would be improved by this bill.

I might add, as an aside, that the translation of documents would be ameliorated certainly by these amendments and we are all in favour of that.

I guess where the rubber hits the road is what to do with the amendments presented by the Senate. My friend, the parliamentary secretary, discussed at length some of the amendments, and I want to counter on the two on which we might have a more elaborate discussion.

We know that this bill is aimed at modernizing our criminal justice system and making it more effective. That goes without saying. My party had indicated that it would support the passage of this bill when it was first introduced before prorogation. It was the bill that I mentioned earlier, Bill C-23.

In the context of this modernization, it is important that the rights of all Canadians be respected with regard to the use of official languages in court proceedings.

Canadians, particularly those in minority language situations, know they have certain rights under the Criminal Code, but it is the federal government's responsibility, and I suggest our responsibility as lawmakers, to ensure the application of those rights is clear and that the judicial process is not delayed.

The way the government presented its view of language rights in Bill C-13, a justice of the peace or court judge would only be charged with finding some way to ensure that accused persons are informed of their language rights. That is really not enough.

One of the amendments that we proposed should be supported. We are in argument with the government on this, at least according to the parliamentary secretary's speech. It is important to say from the outset that the judge already has a duty to advise the accused of his or her rights. The language says that the judge must ensure that the accused knows of this option.

I have witnessed many first appearances and I am very confident in the ability of our judges to advise accused persons of their rights. It is commonly done throughout the province of New Brunswick and in any federally appointed court system where official languages are important.

The amendment proposed by the Senate would ensure that the federal government takes on its responsibilities through its agents to inform any accused persons of their right to proceed in the official language they understand. The Senate amendment simply takes out any potential middleman in the administration of justice. The judge would inform the accused of his or her rights.

I do not think that it is an undue burden for a judge. If there is clear communication during court proceedings, we are simply providing for clear access to justice for all those involved. It falls in line with our democratic society's pledge to have an expedient judicial process and it takes out the aspect of appeal.

I think the government wants efficacious legislation but I cannot be sure sometimes because some of the legislation it presents is so poorly written and so hastily delivered, only for the purpose of a television spot on the news, it is not always clear. In this case, however, if the government would only support this Senate amendment, it could have efficacious and fair language policy through the Criminal Code.

Sadly, the other Senate amendment respecting the reporting on official language requests is not one that the opposition can support. We cannot agree with it because it would require the Minister of Justice to report on the language of proceeding or testimony in criminal matters across this country.

There can be no way that all attorneys general in all provinces and in all territories would have the means to uniformly report on this. As the parliamentary secretary rightly commented, it is not the minister's mandate. In saying this, I do not mean that the Minister of Justice is not competent. I mean that he is not competent in the law to do such reporting. For that reason, we support the government in its opposition to that Senate amendment.

I understand the Senate's concern with ensuring that there is accountability in respecting language rights but we can surely do a more effective job in ensuring this by using the other resources that are in the community.

I know well-known jurists and hard-working jurists in my own province.

They are Sacha D. Morisset and Christian Michaud, who are both members of the Association des juristes d'expression française du Nouveau-Brunswick. They often highlight the statistics with regard to French language trials in our province. If it can be done in New Brunswick, I am sure it can be done in Canada.

Again, we do not support that Senate amendment.

In short, we are very happy to get moving with this important legislation. We are happy the Senate took the time to improve the bill by suggesting that judges, who are the gatekeepers in our system, have the duty to inform an accused of his or her rights respecting language in this country.

It is bedrock in this community and this country that we offer services in both languages with respect, at least, to the Criminal Code of Canada and the criminal justice system.

On this one amendment from the Senate, I urge members of the government to agree with the Senate and with the Liberal Party and its justice team that it will make the situation with respect to the delivery of language rights in this instance a much better thing.

I am very proud to suggest that we support the bill and one of the amendments suggested by the Senate, which is one of the two that are excluded from the government's list in the final motion.

I want to move the following amendment. I move:

That the motion be amended by deleting the words “agrees with Amendments No. 2, 4, 5 and 6” and substituting therefore the words “agrees with Amendments No. 1, 2, 4, 5 and 6” and by deleting the paragraph commencing with the words “disagrees with Amendment No. 1”.

Controlled Drugs and Substances Act

[Brian Murphy, Liberal, Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe, NB]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to take this opportunity to say a few words about Bill C-26 and on the topic of justice, as this government sees it.

I must say I am very pleased to speak to this bill and this government's justice program, but, frankly, I have several concerns about this. Indeed, this government has introduced and will continue to introduce bills that do not work.

It gives me a great deal of anxiety to look at written laws that do not respond to what they are intended. I have some time to elaborate on that.

I listened to the bright and articulate Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice, who shares part of a county with me in terms of representation. Our people are not a world apart. It gives me a great deal of anxiety to hear him suggest, perhaps naively, that the bill would have its intended effect.

The government rolls out bills in front of blue plastic platforms and talks about the new government. Cabinet ministers are paraded around in ridings the Conservatives would like to hold, or hold onto slimly. They roll out justice bills in advance of discussing them with stakeholders, in advance of discussing them as a future agenda at the justice committee and in advance of having any real discussion about law reform with a law reform commission. Canadians would be interested to know that there is no law reform commission. There is no body that can discuss and promulgate laws that affect all of us, and which have the teeth they are intended to have.

The government can try to get a three minute spiel on the evening news, which it uses to tell Canadians that it will stop all drug production and send all producers to jail for longer terms. It feels this will end the problem. That is naive, which is better than saying it is devious. The Conservative government put bills before Parliament then prorogued Parliament so those bills never saw the light of day. It then reintroduces the same bills and new bills knowing they too will likely never see the light of day. It is almost devious. If I sat on the other side, I would probably know the big game plan, but to most reasonable people involved in criminal justice issues, including police forces, prosecutors, social workers, the Conservative justice program is intended to fail.

The Conservatives have been in office for two years now so they cannot claim to be the new government. If we had socks that old, we would not call them new socks. That is an old sock over there. The odour is pronounced. This says to me that the Conservatives have not really come to terms with how to make society safe.

There is one non-partisan point that binds all parliamentarians here. We all want safe communities. Try as it might, the Conservative government, the old sock government, wants to paint those of us in the opposition ranks as people who do not care about safety and society. Perhaps those things first motivated some of us to get into Parliament. I see mayors on this side of the House. I see people who have experience in emergency measures organizations, who have been involved on police commissions and who have headed police commissions. To suggest parliamentarians do not want to save society stinks like the old sock justice program that the Conservative government has introduced.

Those members do not mean what they say. A long time ago they had another one of those blue plastic background announcements with law enforcement officials at bay. They announced that they would create 2,500 new positions for police officers across Canada. They have not done that.

Most of the laws the Conservatives roll out require a certain amount of police presence, and that is an understatement. I can suggest that most of it, when it comes to the detection of drug manufacturing facilities, will require a significant outlay of police resources.

The hon. parliamentary secretary will know that in the Dieppe-Moncton-Riverview area, even before the RCMP took over the municipal force there, the joint forces operation for drug detection was up and running. It continues to run very well. It is like anything else and will be saddled with more duties under a law such as this, which will have well trained police officers wondering if the shoot of a marijuana plant in two places is two plants to get it over the 500 mark, or if it is one to get it under the 500 mark. These are problems of detection which have not been resourced. The government is not serious about its criminal justice agenda.

The other thing Canadians must know is what this law has in one part of it, and it might seem to be well-meaning. Again, I have nothing but the utmost respect for the parliamentary secretary over there. He probably thought, when he parsed the legislation on this law, he was protecting school areas and people who frequent public areas when he agreed to put his minister's pen to subclause (ii) of clause 1, which says that the mandatory minimum punishment of two years will apply if:

(A) the person committed the offence in or near a school, on or near school grounds or in or near any other public place usually frequented by persons under the age of 18 years,

If we all knew where everybody under the age of 18 years was at all times, there would be many happy parents, school superintendents and police forces. This is so vague as to fall on its face. I pray the able committee members at the justice committee, if and when the bill should be referred to the justice committee, can fix this. This goes to the point that in their rush to get in front of that blue plastic sign and give a moment of news release, the Conservatives did not yet again produce a proper law that we could look at and say with some satisfaction that the bill would change our society.

I have been a lawyer for some 20 years. I have been the mayor of a municipality. I know, as all members of the House do, that drug abuse is a problem in any western society. It is a problem in any world society. It is a problem with which many people are grappling. Parents are involved in grappling with these issues. Teachers, doctors, nurses and people from all walks of society, not only members of the justice committee who belong to the Conservative Party of Canada, are all involved in this. Why is there not more attention paid to consulting the stakeholders and coming up with bills that will work when it comes to drug abuse?

The whole other problem of treating the addict as a criminal has to be addressed. Unfortunately, because of the time involved, it cannot be done tonight.

Bill C-26 against controlled substances does not provide the balance needed to reduce crime, substance abuse and drug use, nor does it protect public health. The public health aspect is very important in this debate.

Instead of these commitments, and with no real bills, we are left with a strategy that comes from south of the border, the United States, one that mirrors the Bush administration's policies. Yet these same American policies are doing nothing but overcrowding American prisons.

This bill will lead us down the same path as the one chosen by the United States. There will be many more people in Canadian prisons, if this bill and other Conservative bills are passed and enacted in this country. However, this does nothing to resolve our country's drug problems.

There is no question that sentences are very important and they are an important part of the solution. I look forward at justice committee to hearing this evidence that serious sentences, mandatory minimums for drug use in particular, would have the effect of decreasing drug use and drug abuse, and decreasing crime as a concomitant of that. I am looking forward to those studies because I am afraid they do not exist.

Fighting crime with longer sentences does not work. If it did and there was insurmountable evidence of that, I get back to my premise that we are all interested in a safer community, a safer Canada. So if the evidence were overwhelming that mandatory minimums, longer sentences, longer prison time served actually would keep society safer, why would we not be for it?

In order to bring up good legislation through the process here in Parliament, we have to have evidence-based legislation. We have to show that if we pass this law, this will be the effect. We cannot just say it in front of the blue plastic sign in front of the TV cameras. Tougher penalties for people who produce and are trafficking in drugs will only scare the small time producers and organized crime will fill the gap.

The aspect of gangs and organized crime is something that every community in Canada has to grapple with again. There is no one piece solution to this, but this certainly is not it. As written, it would seem, and we will hear the evidence at committee, that there is a crackdown intended on many small-time, as the parliamentary secretary mentioned, on many small operations that can be put together with household materials and with common accessories for heating and containing liquids and powders.

However, no one is condoning small-time operations, but to crack down solely or to target mostly small-time producers, there is just going to be inevitably a gap. Unless we get to the issue of addictions and what we are going to do to deal with societal issues regarding addictions, the demand side of this equation is not going to be effective.

It seems that all republican, read this now as Conservative in this country, all republican dogma on the war on drugs is supply-based. Take out the supply and the problem is gone. Well, it did not work during prohibition in the 1920s and 1930s. If we take out the supply, that is just a layer of the supply. There will always be a supply if there is a demand.

I am sounding like a raving capitalist and I apologize to my Conservative friends for that, but supply and demand is very much at issue here. What should be tackled is the demand side. How do we make it so that there would be no more demand for crystal meth? How do we make it so that a teenager at a party is not given a date rape drug? Because we do not want anyone to use it, we have to attack the demand for the drugs. There is nothing in the bill that talks about that whatsoever.

Eugene Oscapella, a criminal lawyer who teaches drug policy, would be one of the experts who would come to a committee and give evidence. When we ask the minister questions on the first day of the committee hearings, we will be assured that he is contacted and spoken to because a recognized expert in drug policy living right here in Ottawa would certainly be someone that the minister or the parliamentary secretary or someone from the blue plastic old sock gang should probably get to see. He would say organized crime does not care about the law. With the changes to the law as proposed, the government is doing a service for organized crime.

Would that not be awful, that a government in Canada would actually benefit organized crime? It is certainly not what is intended. I will give my colleagues on the other side the benefit of the doubt. They cannot intend this, but by bringing forth such poor legislation it may very well be the effect of this.

The bill needs to reflect a balanced response to substance abuse and drug addiction which includes of course prevention treatment, enforcement and harm reduction measures.

Did I mention that 2,500 police officers and 1,000 RCMP officers in total were promised by the government and not delivered upon? When one makes a promise to fund something, all one has to do is pass a budget. I believe the government has passed two and things called mini-budgets. So, it has had the opportunity.

Prorogation and blue plastic background in announcements could not have interfered with the ability of the finance minister, if the Minister of Public Safety and the Minister of Justice really wanted, to put the money behind where the talk was to make sure that there would be 3,500 more police officers on the streets now or in this case, in the bushes of parts of this country where grow-ops are taking place.

Now, there is no one in the bushes of the places where these grow operations are taking place. Has the government walked the walk? No. It just talks the talk.

On mandatory minimum sentences for drug offences, we have had a lot of evidence during the hearings on billsC-9 and C-10 but Bill C-10 in particular with respect to mandatory minimums. Again, if they worked, we would be all for them.

There have been mandatory minimums in certain situations where it has proven that they acted as a deterrent for the institution of criminal acts. However, do we really think that by taking people, for instance at the lower end of the chain, who are making drugs in their kitchen and are using drugs in their home, and that by going to prison alone is going to stop the production of that drug in total or help those people to become meaningful members of society?

What does it do for the addiction issue? Where is the extra funding which would have to come to Correctional Service Canada, to the parole officers across the country, to the correctional services officers across the country, and to the various attorneys general in the provinces across the country who will need funding for all of their officers who supervise probation orders and conditional sentences? Where is all of the money to back up these laws?

Instead, we have a stack of laws, many of which were not intended to pass, many of which were killed by prorogation, and many of which show that the government is not interested in getting tough on crime or tackling crime. It is interested in tackling the airwaves.

What can we do to get us out of this mess? We can actually put politics aside, talk about a safe society, put our money where our mouth is, and send the bill to committee to see what can be done about reducing the number of harmful grow operations, which if not detected would destroy our society.

What about discussing how much resourcing this bill will need? What about getting rid of silly definitions that parse between 500 and 501 plants and at or near a public place where young people are headed? What about working on the bill together and what about actually having an act which will do what it says, which is to amend the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act and make consequential amendments which will make our society safer? We are all for a safer community. Let us work toward getting there.

Tackling Violent Crime Act

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

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak in this House on a subject to which I have devoted most of my professional career. When I left university, I became a crown attorney, first at the provincial level, then at the federal level. Then I became a defence attorney. I was even the president of the Association des avocats de la défense. I was the Bâtonnier of the province of Quebec, and then minister of justice and minister of public safety. As you can see, I have long thought about crime in general and effective ways to fight it. I have also thought about the bogus solutions that are sometimes proposed and that have produced disastrous results in neighbouring countries. I would not want this country to follow in its neighbour's footsteps only to end up with the same results.

From the outset, I would say that I think we all share the same goal, and that is to fight crime. Where we differ is in how to go about it. I give my opponents credit and they should give me credit as well, especially since my past has shown that, in situations where I really had power, I could fight crime effectively. Our major victory over the Hells Angels in Quebec is a very clear example of that.

Nevertheless, I often heard from the other side that we were filibustering on Bill C-2. I do not know whether the people who said that know what a filibuster is. In French, the word is “filibusterie”. The word “filibuster” comes from the French word “filibustier”. This tactic was first used in the U.S. senate by an elderly senator who had serious objections to a bill. At the time, there was no limit on speaking time, as there is now in all legislatures, thanks in part to him. To express his disagreement with the bill, he decided to speak without stopping. He even took the Bible and read long excerpts from it, and he kept on speaking.

Today, we have measures to prevent filibusters and systematic obstruction. We have a set amount of time to present our arguments. Filibustering means using every possible procedural means to prolong a debate.

Bill C-2 groups together five bills that were introduced during the previous session, including the bill on bail. The motion at third reading was adopted unanimously, without a vote, on June 5, 2007. I therefore do not see how we could have delayed that part of Bill C-2.

Bill C-32 on impaired driving died on the order paper, even before the report stage. Once again, I do not see how anyone could accuse us of filibustering.

Bill C-27 on dangerous offenders also died on the order paper, in committee. What does it mean when a bill dies on the order paper? It means that ordinarily we should have resumed the deliberations that were interrupted in late spring, but the session was prorogued. The government prorogued it. It was the government that aborted the process these bills had to go through before becoming law. As a result, these bills could not be discussed any further.

The same is true of Bill C-22. Even worse, this bill had been adopted at third reading. Once again, it had received unanimous approval.

We voted in favour of these four bills. Where, then, is the filibustering, this tactic where members try to prolong the debate so that a bill they disagree with goes nowhere?

One major bill remains, Bill C-10, which provides for minimum sentences for offences involving firearms.

We were against it for a number of reasons, but the bill was passed at third reading on May 29, 2007.

The government decided to group these five bills together for one reason: none of the bills elicited systematic opposition. Knowing that we have some objections to Bill C-10, which I will discuss shortly, the government is trying to say that if we vote against Bill C-2 because we are against this part, we are also against all of the other parts.

This argument keeps coming up in this House, and I do not think it is well founded. I cannot understand why all of the parties keep using this argument. I myself have never used it and probably never will. However, when we vote in favour of blocks of legislation—such as the throne speech, which contains numerous measures—that means we support some measures, but are against others.

We weigh the measures we support against those we oppose. We explain why we vote as we do. For a throne speech, when the negatives outweigh the positives, we vote against it even though we support some of the measures it contains. It is utterly unfair to say that since we voted against a group of measures, we must oppose all of the measures in that group.

The same goes for the budget when they criticize us for voting against measures that we actually want to see in place. We voted against the budget because the cons, the measures we did not support, outweighed the pros. The same applies when we vote for a budget, which does not necessarily mean that we support every single measure in it.

The argument is a faulty one, but the government has come to rely on this tactic to influence public opinion during the coming election, an election that the government seems to want as soon as possible. For example, they will say that we are against changing the age of consent, even though the bill passed unanimously, and so on.

Let us get to the heart of the matter: minimum penalties. We have some objections in principle to minimum penalties. Based on my personal experience, I believe that minimum penalties do not influence crime rates. I think many people who have long been studying crime would agree with me.

First, I think that no member in this House would be able to tell me how many minimum penalties there are in the Criminal Code. People do not know the minimum penalties. In Canada, the most glaring example is marijuana. I passed the Bar exam in 1966. I started working as a crown attorney at the provincial level, and that was the first time I heard talk of marijuana. There was not much at the time. Throughout university, I do not remember hearing about anyone smoking pot. I did not even know that expression, and I was obviously not the only one.

I then became a crown attorney at the federal level and I started to work on cases related to these issues. Let us talk about marijuana and hashish from Indian hemp. The Indian hemp growing here had no hallucinogenic properties. So at the time, all marijuana, hashish and Indian hemp that people have been smoking since the late 1960s to the present day came from somewhere else.

Does anyone know what the minimum penalty was for importing marijuana into Canada? I am sure that people do not know, just like people at the time did not. The minimum penalty was seven years in prison for importing marijuana. It is one of the harshest sentences in the Criminal Code. But it was while we had that minimum penalty that marijuana use started growing, reaching peaks in the 1980s.

Since that time, levels of marijuana use have remained very high. We can clearly see that minimum sentences had little effect. The problem is that people do not know what the minimum sentences are.

On the other hand, we have an example of success, but it still needs to be taken a little further. I am referring to impaired driving. The minimum sentences have not been increased, but we have seen awareness campaigns and increased education. People know that it is a crime to drive while impaired. I remember when I finished my studies and I was buying my first car, no one talked about it. Our attitude was to consider if the person was capable of driving and we did not really see it as a criminal act. This is no longer the case.

The public has become much more aware and we have seen a decrease in impaired driving charges. In fact, they have decreased significantly. When authorities began conducting the first tests on our roads to see if people were driving while impaired, it was not uncommon to stop about 10% of drivers. When road tests are done today, with the same sample chosen in the same manner, less than 1% of drivers are found to be impaired. People have become more aware. I think of my children who drive and who, when they go to parties, have a designated driver, everyone taking their turn. These are habits they have learned without the fear of prison.

Thus, as we can see, the simple fear of a sentence does not have an impact. Plus, people do not know what the minimum sentences are. We must know a little about how the criminal mind works. I practised criminal law long enough to know a little about the subject. Does anyone really believe that criminals think seriously about the sentence they might have to serve if they are caught? First of all, most crimes are committed on impulse. What people want to avoid and what prevents them from committing crime is not the penalty, but rather the fear of getting caught. If there is a good chance they will be caught, people change their behaviour.

I also had another experience in my personal and professional life. When I began practising law in Montreal, it seemed to be the capital of armed robbery. Some of those listening may remember the famous movie called Monica la mitraille. It was a very good movie. I do not remember her real name, but I did see her in court. She was the leader of one of the groups who committed armed robberies in Montreal. There was about one a day at the time.

Does anyone remember the last armed bank robbery committed last year? I am convinced that almost no one does. Is it because thieves are now more afraid of the sentence than back when it was harsher? Why did they do it? Why has the number of these robberies decreased considerably? It is because of intelligent preventive measures. Banks are built differently and there is no longer access to large amounts of money. The risk of being caught in relation to the anticipated profits is not worth it. Furthermore, all kinds of measures have been put in place in banks and the efforts of bankers has also decreased the menace of armed bank robberies.

Putting in place a series of measures resulted in a true decrease in crime. Fear does not stop people from committing crimes.

The third example I can give is the death penalty. We abolished the death penalty in Canada 25 years ago. Since then the number of homicides has declined steadily rather than increasing.

I am not saying that we should not have sentences. We must have sentences and for certain crimes in certain circumstances they must be severe. However, the use of minimum sentences does not work.

I have another philosophical problem with minimum sentences and it is worth talking about. A judge hears a case and arguments, then weighs all the factors that need to be taken into consideration when handing down a sentence, such as individual and general deterrents, the seriousness of the charge, the seriousness of the crime, the circumstances under which the accused committed the crime, his involvement in the crime, recidivism if any, his home life, his responsibility or the influence others may have had, and so forth.

Implementing minimum sentences forces a judge, who went over all these circumstances in his heart and soul, to conclude that, even though that person should get 18 months in jail, the minimum sentence is 3 years. He is required by law, in that case, to commit an injustice. I have heard judges say that when they hand down minimum sentences.

We often forget that when we want to impose minimum sentences we are thinking about the worst offenders. When I listen to the examples given by the members opposite who defend this bill, I know full well they are thinking about the worst cases. We have to realize that minimum sentences do not apply just to the worst cases, but also to less serious cases.

I will give an example that I witnessed in my career. This will show that, although the members opposite claim that seven-year minimum sentences are not being handed out, a number of people have, at one point, served seven years in prison for importing marijuana.

I remember a young woman whose capacities were diminished after an accident. She had a daughter and her husband had left her. She met a charming, smooth talking American fellow with an education, like her, and she fell for him. He was willing to live with her handicap. He was very attentive towards her. They were in love. He seemed to have a income, without being very wealthy. One day, he left, saying that he would be sending her parcels. It was not immediately clear to her what he was talking about. Parcels did start arriving. Based on telephone conversations between them, it is obvious that she suspected that the parcels contained something illegal, because he asked that she not open them. She did not import anything. She simply stored parcels in her home. But because she suspected that there was something illegal going on, under the doctrine of wilful blindness, she was undoubtedly guilty, like him, of importing narcotics.

I wonder what sentences my colleagues in the House would hand down to that man and that woman respectively. Does it not seem profoundly unfair that the same sentence be imposed on both of them just because the minimum sentence prescribed is seven years? Since the offence involved relatively small amounts of hashish, the least dangerous drug, he may not have deserved a seven year sentence and she certainly did not. This goes to show how minimum sentences result in unfair situations. Different situations have to be considered.

In addition, the examples of cases raised in the House often appeared very serious, based on the two or three reasons for which the judge imposed such sentences. I doubt, however, that this was the case. The judge probably cited 10 reasons or so, which are not listed, for coming to the decision which is described to us as unacceptable. It is entirely possible that a few of the thousands of sentences rendered every day in Canada seem too heavy handed. In the case of a truly unacceptable sentence, the potential remedy would not come from Parliament, as is suggested by our discussions, but from the appeal courts.

In none of the arguments put forward in support of increasing sentences was an unreasonable decision by an appeal court ever mentioned.

Finally, the most important thing to know concerning firearms: in the United States, they incarcerate seven times as many people as we do, and guns roam freely, so to speak. As a result, three times—

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Mr. Speaker, I am happy to speak to this bill. It is a bill that has a number of problems as well as a number of positive elements. I want to take us through this kind of bizarre situation where we are being forced to accept the bad in order to get the good. That is the problem with an omnibus bill. If a whole bunch of things are put into legislation, we have to take the bad with the good.

It is even more bizarre in this particular situation when the government has threatened that it is a confidence motion. Canadians being told that they have to accept this bill with all the bad in it or there will be an election even if they do not want one.

I am going to go through the problematic parts of the bill as well as the good parts and explain how, in spite of our efforts to get a number of provisions through that could have been law by now, they have been held up a number of times by the Conservatives.

This bill is a compilation of five old bills. I will go through each of the particular clauses of the bill and mention some of the good and bad parts.

I will start with Bill C-27, which is really the only part of the bill that had not been through the House before. The rest could have been law now had the Conservatives not used the mechanisms they did in proroguing the House and in not bringing back the rest of the bills at the stages they were in Parliament.

The minister suggested today in committee that he was concerned or upset about the problems I had with this part of the bill. Of course, the problems came from concerns that experts had with Bill C-27. The minister should be concerned. When he brings forward a bill that many experts say has a very high probability of being unconstitutional, he should be concerned.

Let us look at the parts of the bill the experts were talking about. First, they suggested it could possibly be unconstitutional as related to section 7 of the charter. Under the old system, there were four reasons, I think, which my colleague brought up today, whereby a person could be declared a dangerous offender. Under the old system, the Crown or the prosecutor would say for which of the four reasons one would be a dangerous offender.

Now, under the reverse onus, they say people are guilty until they prove why they should not be categorized as dangerous offenders, but they do not specify which of the four items they mean. In spite of my colleague's efforts to get this into the bill, there is no explanation as to which of the four items the prosecutor or the Crown thinks makes a person a dangerous offender. It is like putting the onus on people to defend themselves when they do not know what the charge is or what the reason is or what they have to defend themselves against.

The other item in this particular part of the bill that the expert said contradicted a number of points government members were making is that the government says this is only for the most vicious of vicious criminals, only for the most dangerous offenders, but the expert legal witnesses once again outlined how the offences in the bill could easily lead to people who are not the most dangerous of dangerous offenders being caught in this particular mechanism inappropriately.

The third problem, which was not brought up specifically that I can remember, although I am not sure if it was brought up by the experts, is the whole philosophy of proportionality in the justice system. According to the theory or principle of proportionality, the penalty should match the crime in severity. It should be a reasonable match. If, under the mechanisms I just mentioned, people are given a life sentence for what are not the most serious offences, there would certainly be a good chance of going against that principle.

When we talk about taking away people's liberty for the rest of their lives, it is a very serious matter. If Parliament has erred in that area, I recommend that the courts look at that aspect of cases. Indeed, many of the legal expert witnesses said that would actually be the case.

I also said I would talk about some of the good elements in this section. There is a clause whereby the Crown has to say in court whether it will proceed with a dangerous offender hearing. There actually was an amendment from the NDP. I did not quite understand why that would be taken out, because I thought it was a good element in this part of the law. It would stop someone from falling through the cracks. It stops a procedural missing of that opportunity. The prosecutors have to say whether or not under the evidence they are going to proceed. Certainly when there is a potentially dangerous offender we would not want the opportunity to fall between the cracks.

Let us go on to the second element that is pushed into this huge omnibus bill: mandatory minimums. Of course we have supported some mandatory minimums, but certainly not to the degree that is in the bill. Once again, expert after expert came to the committee and showed how mandatory minimums, under certain extreme circumstances, indeed could easily make Canada a more dangerous place, not a safer place. We would have criminals who are learning from other criminals. They are less adjusted. Of course people always forget that virtually all of them come back to society so in essence we would be making Canada a more dangerous place.

That was not just evidence during committee. Let me repeat what was in the Ottawa Citizen today to corroborate that. The article states:

Most legal experts agree with retired judge John Gomery's criticism of new mandatory minimum sentences being proposed by the...government, calling them simplistic and likely to produce unjust outcomes.

Also, in the same article, Ed Ratushny, law professor at the University of Ottawa, called the growing reliance on mandatory minimums to fight crime “simplistic and naive”.

In the same article, William Trudell, head of the Canadian Council of Criminal Defence Lawyers, said, “What it says is, 'we don't trust you, judge'.”

In the same article, David Paciocco, a former crown prosecutor, said that apart from the human misery they impose, mandatory minimum sentences generate huge costs for taxpayers.

Once again the government seems to be ignoring any sense of respect for the committee process. I have never seen such a barrage of complaints against bills as there was against Bill C-10 and Bill C-9 , yet where were the amendments from the government? They were non-existent in terms of trying to bring in a just law based on the knowledge that we received at the committee stage.

Once again I will talk about the good parts in that old Bill C-10. There were new offences. One was an indictable offence for breaking and entering to steal firearms. There was an indictable offence for robbery to steal a firearm. We certainly agree with those two, but the mandatory minimums were pushed through in the last Parliament by the Conservatives with the help of the New Democratic Party and were certainly in excess of what we believed was appropriate.

Going to the third of the five bills included in this new version, it was Bill C-22, which would increase the age of consent from 14 to 16. It is another example of a bill that had passed the House already. The delay was incomprehensible to us. Parliamentarians wanted to get it through. Why did the Conservatives, either the justice minister and/or the House leader, delay the bill on three different occasions? On October 26, we offered to fast track seven different bills, I think, including this bill. Yet the bill was debated at second reading on October 30 of that year and did not go to committee until March 11, which was 11 weeks later. The government totally ignored our offer of fast tracking.

The second time, the government delayed the age of consent bill by proroguing Parliament. I do not know if there has been a time in history when justice was set back so far by a prorogation of Parliament. Which department had more bills stopped when Parliament was prorogued, more than any other department? It was the justice department. What a way for the government to slow down its own agenda needlessly.

Some of these bills are those that the minister kept saying today in committee he so wanted to get through quickly. Then he prorogued Parliament. Once again, a number of those bills easily could have been through by this time.

The third time the Conservatives delayed the age of consent bill by not reinstating it. It had already been through the House. It could have been reinstated to where it was instead of going back to square one and being thrown into an omnibus bill with problems from other bills that had not yet been debated, particularly Bill C-27. That component of it could actually have slowed down and sabotaged something that people wanted to get through Parliament.

Finally, in what seemed to be even a fourth method of trying to stall the age of consent bill, the Conservatives started suggesting that a lot of bills would be confidence motions. Fortunately they have withdrawn this, I think. So they were trying to find some way of getting an election, when once again all the bills on the order paper would die and we would lose the age of consent bill.

I want to go now to the fourth part of this bill. It is related to impaired driving. This is another bill that has already gone through committee. Again, it could have been reinstated. After a prorogation of Parliament, bills can be brought back with the consent of Parliament to the stages where they were, so four of these bills could have been brought back in far more advanced forms. Some of them could have been through now.

Of course they would have been through if we had not prorogued Parliament and if the Conservatives had not slowed down the process, but the Conservatives could have brought these bills along faster and put them through instead of putting them into a huge bill where any one of a number of things could slow them down.

It was the committee's duty to spend time in committee and call witnesses to go over the items that they had not yet dealt with in those parts of the bills, particularly Bill C-27, which had not been through committee yet, and of course it was good to do that because of the very serious reservations that were raised in committee during those hearings.

Once again, I would highlight some of the good parts of the old bills. In this one, the impaired driving bill, one of the good parts is that it will make it easier to catch people who are impaired not only by alcohol but by drugs. We are making advances in making the streets safer by being able to have a mechanism for detecting and keeping off the roads people who impair themselves by the use of drugs. As members know, we already do that in relation to alcohol.

However, once again there is a questionable part in that section. In trying to close a loophole, the government added a section which suggests that only scientifically valid defences can be used as evidence. At what other time would a person go to court and only be allowed to use scientifically valid defences? When people go to court, they hear all sorts of witnesses on various things, and now the government is limiting their defences in this particular bill to only scientifically valid defences.

We also heard some disturbing testimony about the occasional lack of rigorous maintenance of machines used to determine abuse and about there being no regular schedules and no independent evaluation, all of which brought up concerns that should be dealt with by committee.

Members can see, with the number of concerns that I have talked about so far, and I have only done four of the five sections, that there are a number of major concerns. People's rights could be taken away. Constitutional rights could be abrogated. People could not bring evidence forward because it would be prohibited by a section of this bill.

This is a major undertaking so it is very important that the committee does its work and is not rushed, yet when I asked the justice minister this morning whether he believed in the committee process where we bring forward witnesses and then make some changes, he assented and said that he did believe in the committee process.

However, last week when the youth justice bill was in committee for one day the House leader complained that opposition parties were stonewalling. There was only one day for the committee to hear from all the witnesses, the minister, and departmental officials.

This particular bill is going to affect youth and the public in very serious ways. The Nunn commission did a comprehensive review of the bill and made a number of recommendations. The government took only one and then added something that did not come from that report at all and will totally change the way youth are sentenced.

Did the House leader expect one day of committee debate to be sufficient? When he was asked about this, he said it may not have been sufficient, but he would know on the quality of the debate. That is pretty weak.

The government House leader did not put in the bill the recommendation of the Nunn commission regarding the protection of the public to sentencing. One would think that victims in Canada would want to be protected. The public wants to be protected. A major recommendation was left out of the youth justice act, and yet the government House leader thought it was so simple that it only required one day of committee debate.

All parties in the House have to deal with the serious situation of the serious omissions and the things that have been put into this legislation without any rationale. We will find out from the witnesses their concerns about that.

Old Bill C-35, which dealt with reverse onus for bail and firearms, has been incorporated into this omnibus bill. Liberal members agree with this. We have been trying to rush it through. It could have been through a lot faster. Problems were raised in committee. There is the potential charter issue again about reverse onus.

In Canada, the general philosophy is that one is innocent until proven guilty. There are an uneasy number of provisions, as Bloc Québécois members mentioned this afternoon, where the onus is being reversed. The Conservatives are saying to Canadians that one is guilty unless proven innocent.

What do the experts have to say about reverse onus? What do the experts have to say about making this serious abrogation of a fundamental principle of Canadian law?

The experts have said that this reverse onus is not needed because it is going to make very little difference. This section has serious consequences. For the serious offences listed, where individuals would be denied bail, they are already being denied bail in the court system. This part of the bill would have little effect.

Liberal members have a number of problems with Bill C-2, but we do support its good elements. We certainly have problems with the way the Conservatives have forced bad things on Canadians by putting all the old bills into one omnibus bill.

We have problems with the Conservatives saying that we have to accept this bill, including the bad parts, or there will be an election. That is not a good way to develop policy. That is not a good way to get the trust of Canadians. Not allowing any amendments and not allowing any changes after having heard from knowledgeable experts is not a good way to develop legislation.

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

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak on Bill C-2 which we are examining today.

It is a pleasure for me to have the opportunity to help those listening to us by casting some light on what an omnibus bill is. An omnibus bill is a bill which combines several bills that could not be enacted in the previous session because the government decided to prorogue the House and terminate them at whatever stage they had reached. That was the choice of the Conservative Party and the reason behind Bill C-2, the bill before us now. If the government had not decided to prorogue the House, a goodly number of those bills would have already been passed.

Before getting into the heart of Bill C-2, I would offer a reminder to those listening. When a bill amending the Criminal Code is being passed, we need to keep the crime situation in mind. That is something easily done by people who follow the television news. We all know how the print and electronic media try to attract readers and viewers by focusing on certain situations, trying to sell papers or attract viewers by interviewing victims or their relatives.

Ours is, of course, a media-driven society. The media make the situation more difficult when they neglect to show the other side of the coin. It is all very well to focus on crimes, to opine that certain sentences are too soft, and so on, and to try to find evidence that the justice system is not working, but when it comes to the other side of the coin, discussing the crime situation in general, the media is not pulling its weight there.

This is what I wish to draw to your attention, as well as to the attention of those listening. Things must be balanced. That is our objective as legislators, to begin with. And it is my colleagues here in this House, such as the hon. members for Trois-Rivières, Shefford and Manicouagan, and all the members of the Bloc Québécois, who have the onerous task of balancing things out.

The Conservatives have but one thing in mind: to do everything they can to hold on to power. I often say jokingly—though I sometimes believe it seriously—that power drives one mad. One only needs to look at how the Prime Minister and some of his ministers are behaving to see what it is like to be in power after having been in opposition. A person might well say that power does have that effect on certain people and their sanity.

I am providing this background because crime has been declining steadily in Quebec as well as in Canada over the past 15 years or so. That is not an invention of the Bloc Québécois or the sovereignists that we are. Statistics Canada recently confirmed that the national crime rate reached its lowest point in over 25 years in 2006. Moreover, the homicide rate in Quebec was the lowest in that province since 1962.

So, we are doing fine. I am bringing this up, because the hon. members may have heard of people being surveyed. The Conservative Party, through the government, conducted a large survey of more than 2,000 people across Canada to determine how it might win its election by listening to what the people had to say about crimes and punishments. Interestingly enough, however, there was no mention of the current state of crime in any of the questions; I know this because, by chance, one of my assistants was among those surveyed. The press and electronic media give the impression that crime is rampant, but when we check the statistics and see that crime is down, with a crime rate at its lowest level in 25 years, we put things in perspective.

That is, of course, what the Bloc Québécois is trying to do. We have always been very aware and have always endeavoured to find a balance.

It is not easy to find a balance between the Conservatives, the Liberals and the NDP. I can say candidly that they are pretty much all the same. In light of all the surveys published all over the place, it is clearly important to have a party representing a majority of Quebeckers and trying to bring some balance to this House.

The Bloc Québécois has tried to bring such balance throughout the debate on Bill C-2 while at the same time bearing in mind the statistics. As I indicated, the national crime rate reached its lowest point in over 25 years in 2006. In Quebec, the homicide rate was the lowest since 1962.

Does this means that all is well? No, all is not well. We know that crime has not been eradicated. It is sad to say, but in our industrialized countries where the rich and the poor coexist alongside one another, there will always be crime. Our objective is to try to lower the crime rate as much as possible, and that is something the members of the Bloc Québécois work on every day.

However, we must also put all this crime into perspective. I will provide another statistic. In terms of violent crime, Quebec has the second lowest rate and is just behind Prince Edward Island. Quebec even recorded a 4% decrease in youth crime in 2006, surpassing all the other provinces.

It is important for members from other provinces to understand that it was quite some time ago that Quebec opted for social reintegration rather than repression and increased sentences, the establishment of minimum sentences or other measures. That is a choice made by Quebec.

I do not wish to repeat the statistics mentioned by other colleagues in this House, but when we look at U.S. states that also opted for reintegration rather than repression—the state of New York among others—we see that crime rates in those states, compared to others, are decreasing. That is the kind of statistic that is of interest to us.

As parliamentarians, we must mitigate the very harmful influence of media sensationalism. It is understandable because they have to sell newspapers or the best television news reports. They will try to capture the sensational aspect of an incident rather than portraying the balance that can be inherent in a society.

It is important to us that the rest of Canada understand that Quebec has done things differently. In addition, the effects on crime rates are very important and hence the position of the Bloc Québécois in the committee that discussed Bill C-2. Our position was different than that of the other parties in this House. We do not hold that against them. It is just that Quebec and the rest of Canada are very different. We do not think in the same way.

One day, Quebeckers will make the rest of Canada understand. We will decide to have our own country with our own laws and so forth. In the meantime, we participate and try to bring Canadian society up to speed with Quebec society. And that is not easy. It is not easy.

I will give some examples of the Bloc Québécois proposals made in committee that were rejected.

We proposed amendments to Bill C-2, to eliminate the practice of granting parole almost automatically after one-sixth of a sentence has been served. Since in Quebec we have reintegration, this causes a problem. Automatic parole after one-sixth of a sentence has been served means that when we want to create programs and force criminals to attend therapy, we find that they participate less when they know that they are automatically eligible for parole after serving one-sixth of their sentence.

Again, everyone will say that it does not make sense that criminals are eligible for parole after serving one-sixth of their sentence. This has been going on across Quebec. We wanted to change this in a House committee, but our proposal was rejected by the Conservative Party and the other parties.

Once again, Quebec society is much more advanced than Canadian society.

We also suggested putting an end to statutory release once two-thirds of a sentence has been served, by having a professional formally assess inmates regarding the overall risk of reoffending that they represent to the community.

As for social reintegration, we believe that statutory release once two-thirds of a sentence has been served is no longer acceptable in Quebec society. Before criminals are almost automatically released, we want them to be assessed by professionals. We made that suggestion in committee, but, once again, the other parties did not agree.

We suggested that the onus of proof should be reversed in the case of criminals found guilty of the offences of loan-sharking, procuring, robbery, fraud over $5,000 and counterfeiting in order to facilitate the seizure of assets that are the product of crime.

It was the Bloc Québécois that proposed reversing the burden of proof with respect to the proceeds of crime in cases involving organized groups. As some may remember, the Bloc Québécois led that crusade against organized crime by proposing that the burden of proof be reversed so that it would no longer be up to the Crown to prove where the money came from to acquire the goods. The opposite is now true. The burden of proof automatically falls on members of criminal organizations, who must prove that they paid for their goods with legitimate earnings. Since that is difficult to do, goods can be seized automatically.

That bill concerning criminal organizations was supported by the other parties in this House. We proposed to do the same for the issue under consideration today. Why not reverse the onus for criminals who have been found guilty of offences involving usury, procuring, robbery or fraud? That would cover not criminal organizations, but organized criminals. In cases of fraud exceeding $5,000, these criminals would be required to prove that the goods they acquired were paid for using legitimately earned funds. Failing that, the goods would be seized.

Believe it or not, the other parties rejected the amendments the Bloc Québécois proposed for Bill C-2.

We proposed attacking the street gang problem by giving the police better tools to work with, such as longer warrants for investigations using GPS tracking. As I said earlier, Quebec society is a little farther ahead than the rest of Canada. GPS technology is an integral part of fighting crime in Quebec. Unfortunately, the proposed amendments do not include this suggestion made by the Bloc Québécois.

We proposed a ban on wearing signs, symbols or other indications that identify individuals as belonging to groups recognized by court as criminal organizations.

Once again, we struck at organized criminal groups. Quebec fought a battle. It went very well. We are lucky to have with us in the House the former minister responsible for public security in Quebec, the hon. Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, who did an excellent job in that position. He went after organized criminal groups directly, with the support of the Bloc Québécois, by amending the Criminal Code to provide for reverse onus of proof. We did well. We wanted to ban the wearing of insignia by criminal groups, organized gangs of bikers and others, but this amendment to Bill C-2 was rejected.

We wanted to put an end to the rule whereby time spent in detention prior to trial was doubled for sentencing purposes. A sentence would begin at the moment of detention rather than at the time of sentencing, in order to put an end to an abusive practice which did no credit to the administration of justice.

We discovered that, when the rule is applied, that is, when an individual is taken into custody prior to trial, the time involved is doubled in the sentence. This is standard, and criminals have obviously understood it. So they put off their trial as long as possible since, when they are in custody prior to trial, they get a bonus of double time and a reduced sentence.

Quebec society understood it well because of the fight against organized crime and all that. We put these amendments forward, but, unfortunately, none of the ones we put forward was passed, even though some have the unanimous approval of the ministers of public security in Quebec and other provinces.

This exemplifies the Conservative government, which has its blinkers on tight, which conducts polls with very specific focus, and which tells us that no changes will be allowed to a bill and that it will be made a vote of confidence.

So, the Bloc Québécois will support the conclusions of Bill C-2, except we would have liked to improve it. However, once again, the sway of power over these Conservative men and women is such that they are self absorbed. They show no desire to improve bills. They think that they are right, that truth and life are within their power and are in the end opposed to any idea of improvement.

This is what power has done to them. We will see what happens in the next election. As I am the Bloc's chief organizer, I want to reiterate that we will support the bill, not because we are frightened by the possibility of a vote of confidence, but because we think it will further the fight against organized crime, even though this is not the way we would have chosen.

Here is an example. I am getting to the core of Bill C-2. It combines five bills, including one that strengthens the provisions on offences involving firearms. It is perfect. Initially, Bill C-10 was simply being repeated. That bill sought to amend the Criminal Code to increase minimum prison sentences to five, seven or 10 years, depending on whether the crime was a repeat offence, for eight serious offences involving the use of a firearm, if the weapon used was not a hunting rifle. Once again, we see the Conservative vision. It is a weapon, but not a hunting weapon.

For anyone who follows these things, hunting rifles have changed considerably over the past 30 years. First of all, they are no longer made of the same materials and they are very light. This often makes it very difficult for law enforcement. I would like to believe that no hunters will use their weapons, except there is no longer a registry. Indeed, the goal of the Conservatives is to eliminate the gun registry, claiming that only hunters are going to acquire weapons. Yet, given the new technology, more and more criminals are going to use long guns—as they like to call them—precisely because they are lighter, thanks to new technology and so on. The Conservative philosophy wants to protect long guns. Naturally, to do so, there can be no registry. After all, no one who has a long gun is a criminal.

I am sorry, but plenty of cabins get robbed and hunters' weapons make their way into the criminal networks. Yet, this legislative amendment would not apply to those who have firearms. And I repeat, when it comes to these offences involving firearms, for instance, it says “if the weapon used is not a hunting weapon”. Consequently, the bill deals with all weapons except hunting weapons.

I have a great deal of difficulty understanding that, but I can understand the Conservative philosophy behind it. To the Conservatives, you can do anything with a hunting weapon. It is as simple as that. That is all there is to it. There is a reason they want to abolish the gun registry.

I would like to digress for a moment. In Quebec, 95% of hunters registered their guns. This is no problem, because there are no longer any fees. We supported the amendment that eliminated the renewal fee. Since people had already registered their guns, no one lost any sleep over this, except in the west, where the situation is reversed, obviously. Westerners were opposed to the registry from the start and decided not to register their guns. Today, to please western Canada, the Conservatives have once again decided to abolish the gun registry, even though hunters in the rest of the country could live with it. This Conservative approach to governing is evident in this bill.

Once again, all we want to say to the people who are watching is that, yes, bills have to evolve. That is true, but we have to be careful. We must not succumb to the sensationalism of the media, which will not hesitate to blow any accident or crime out of proportion to sell newspapers or get people to watch newscasts. Yet statistics prove that Quebec's approach, which consists of rehabilitating criminals by giving them every possible opportunity to work their way back into society, is much more effective at reducing the crime rate than the punitive approach some societies have opted for, as the Conservatives would like to do.

Motions in amendment

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

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to join the debate on Bill C-2. I hope that my colleague from Wild Rose will remain with us so that we can have the kind of discussion that we had during our review of some other bills that have been adopted.

To begin, I wish to pay tribute today to the hon. Antonio Lamer, former chief justice of the Supreme Court of Canada, and probably one of the greatest criminal lawyers that the Canadian legal profession has known. As a criminal lawyer myself, I had the opportunity to get to know Mr. Justice Lamer, not at the Supreme Court, unfortunately, but through studying, analyzing and relying on decisions he had handed down. We know that in the years between 1980 and 2000, Mr. Justice Lamer and the Supreme Court rendered decisions taking into account the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms that came into force in 1982. I pay heartfelt tribute to the hon. Justice Lamer. He played a significant role in the interpretation of the legislation that we must debate here and that will eventually be applied to the people of Canada, and in particular, of Quebec.

To return to Bill C-2, this is a strange bill called an omnibus bill. It brings together Bill C-10, dealing with minimum penalties for offences involving firearms; Bill C-22, which deals with the age of protection; Bill C-27, concerning dangerous offenders and recognizance to keep the peace; Bill C-32, on impaired driving; and Bill C-35, concerning reverse onus in bail hearings for firearm-related offences.

That said, the government wants to put together a package of bills into a single omnibus bill and have it passed. Right away, I should say that several of those bills, three in particular, had already reached the Senate but died on the order paper when the Conservative government decided to produce a new Speech from the Throne.

The Bloc Québécois is in favour and will be in favour of the principle of Bill C-2. We feel that former bills C-10, C-22 and C-35 have already been debated in this House. I myself have spoken against one of those bills. Nonetheless, as a great democrat, I am respecting the decision of this House and we will respect the democratic choice that was made to move forward with these bills.

However, I want to point out that a number of these bills, Bill C-27 on dangerous offenders in particular, deserved and still deserve a more in-depth review. The problem is that when a person commits a third offence from a list of a dozen very serious offences, there will be reverse onus of proof. Personally—I talked about this with my party and here in this House—I have always been against the reverse onus of proof because this implies that the accused has to incriminate himself and provide explanations or be held responsible.

Nonetheless, Bill C-2, and former Bill C-27, resolve part of the problem. Once criminals have to be monitored, there are reasons they have to appear before the court and the court has reasons for asking them why they would not be considered dangerous criminals who have to be monitored for a long time, in light of the offences they committed.

The Bloc Québécois wants to be very clear on this. We need to deal first and foremost with poverty, social inequality and exclusion, a fertile breeding ground for frustration and its outlets, which are violence and criminal activity. There is no point to just passing legislation; one day we will really have to think about how to attack crime. If we do not attack it by dealing with poverty and exclusion, some people will see no other way out except crime. Crime is not a solution of course, but some people see it as one.

The measures we introduce will really have to have a positive impact on crime and go beyond mere rhetoric or campaigns based on fear. They will have to be more than a weak imitation of the American model, which has had less than stellar results.

The crime problem in Canada cannot be solved—and I say this with great respect for the House—by imposing minimum prison terms or reversing the onus of proof but by dealing instead with a problem that has festered for far too long: criminals get out of jail too soon. Canadians are genuinely shocked that people sentenced to 22, 36, 48, or 52 months in jail are released after 5, 6 or 7 months.

Our friends across the aisle will have to understand some day that we cannot reduce crime by passing tougher laws but by ensuring that criminals who have been sentenced actually serve their time. This is the key factor and one of the obvious problems in Canadian society. Tougher laws will not ensure that people serve longer sentences. This is what will happen: the judges and courts will probably revise their decisions thinking that they are too onerous and tough. Contrary to what the Conservatives say, section 2 of the Charter applies and if a law is too harsh or a sentence almost too tough for a criminal, the court can revise this decision.

There are a number of objectives therefore. We know what Bill C-2 is all about. It strengthens the provisions on offences involving firearms by creating two new firearms-related offences and increasing the minimum prison terms. However, even increased minimum prison terms will not solve the problem. People are not frightened off by the possibility of long-term imprisonment but by the likelihood of being caught. We will have to check how judges and the police apply it.

I do not have a lot of time left. I would therefore like to say quickly as well that we need to do something about impaired driving. We hope that the police will find ways of determining the presence of drugs in the bodies of drivers. We still do not know how. When I sat on the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights, all the experts who came to testify said that no machine could detect whether someone had consumed cocaine or smoked marijuana and whether it was influencing his driving.

This is an important bill and I hope that when the House passes it, the Senate will also quickly do so. I know that some of the provisions to be amended by Bill C-2 will be studied by the courts and probably the Supreme Court over the next few years.

[Yasmin Ratansi, Liberal, Don Valley East, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is wonderful to hear the Conservatives constantly repeat their mantra “hard on crime”. I think they are hard on people who cannot defend themselves. They are not hard on crime; they are stupid on crime. U.S. crime policy is what they want. Tough measures, similar to what is in the Tories' omnibus bill, are costly and pointless. That is what the report found. Nobody has disappeared.

Our party's amendments added value to Bill C-9 and Bill C-10. We are respectful of people. We are respectful of understanding a holistic approach. Nobody in our party is soft on crime and the member should understand that.

[Yasmin Ratansi, Liberal, Don Valley East, ON]

Mr. Speaker, as I was mentioning, as parliamentarians we have to be cognizant and not pass bad legislation. We have to ensure that we do not interfere in the justice process as well.

These bills were thoroughly debated when they came before committee. Bills have to be handled properly if they are to get through Parliament. If they are to be handled properly, they have to be prioritized. It appears the Conservatives have no priorities. They only want to create a hodgepodge of stuff.

On October 26, 2006, the Liberals offered to fast track a package of justice bills through the House. These included Bill C-9, as it had been amended, Bill C-18, the DNA identification legislation, Bill C-19, the street racing legislation, Bill C-22, the age of consent legislation, Bill C-23, the animal cruelty legislation and Bill C-26, respecting payday loans. This offer effectively guaranteed that the Conservatives would have a majority to pass the legislation.

On March 14, the Leader of the Opposition added Bill C-35, the bail reform legislation, to the list of bills the Liberal caucus would fast track. Despite this offer, it took the Conservatives until May 30 to get the bill through committee. If the Conservatives were so keen on being hard on crime, as they have claimed, they should have taken this offer.

According to a report entitled “Unlocking America: Why and How to Reduce America’s Prison Population”, produced by the JFA Institute, the tough measures, which the government claims it is bringing through its omnibus bills, are costly and pointless. The report says that due largely to tough on crime policies, there are now eight times as many people in U.S. prisons and jails as there were in 1970, yet the crime rate today in the U.S. is about the same as it was in 1973. There is little evidence that the imprisonment binge has had much impact on crime.

As legislators, we are supposed to be here to pass good legislation, not bad legislation. We are here to debate and to amend. Amendments were proposed to the bills and the members of the Conservative Party on the committee did not want to pass them.

It is important that we reflect on what these bills talked about.

Bill C-10 talked about minimum penalties. It proposed five years for a first offence and seven years on a second or subsequent offence for eight specific offences involving the actual use of firearms, attempted murder, discharging a firearm with intent, sexual assault with a weapon, aggravated sexual assault, kidnapping, hostage taking, robbery, extortion and when the offence was gang related or if a restricted or prohibited firearm such as a handgun was used.

The bill was brought to committee and the committee made the necessary amendments. The committee still has very grave concerns that the bill needs to be properly documented and it has to be properly put in place so legislators know the intent of the legislation.

There is the creation of two new offences, an indictable offence of breaking and entering to steal a firearm and an indictable offence of robbery to steal a firearm. There is no difference with the version of Bill C-10, which passed through the House, and the language used in Bill C-2.

The question to be asked is why then group this in an omnibus bill? No one on the government side seems to give us an answer. All the members do is repeat their mantra that they are hard on crime. However, as I pointed out, the U.S. crime policy, which they so desperately want to follow, fails the system. It does nothing right.

Bill C-22, which was the age of protection bill, proposed to raise the age at which youth could consent to non-exploitative sexual activity. The age would be raised from 14 to 16 years of age and the age of protection of 18 years would be maintained for exploitative sexual activities.

Through amendments, the committee brought about a five year close in age. This was not there when it was proposed by the government. Therefore, another question arises. What happened to the good amendments in the mandatory minimum penalties in the age of protection?

What about Bill C-23, which was criminal procedure? According to the Official Languages Act, the committee ensured that there were changes to the bill. We said that a person who was a French-speaking person, if he or she were in court, should get a French counsel. It is important to protect language rights. In a country that has two official languages we have to protect minority rights as well. Why is this bill not mentioned at all?

Bill C-27 deals with dangerous offenders. It would provide that an offender who was serving a long term supervision order in the community and who was violating the conditions of the order would be guilty of an offence and the crown could choose to hold a dangerous offender hearing following convictions.

That was originally proposed by the Liberal justice critic. The bill would expand the possible sentence available to a judge following a finding that an individual would be a dangerous offender. The judge could now impose a long term supervision order or simply impose the sentence for the offence for which the offender had been convicted in addition to the previous option of detention in prison for an indeterminate period, which was previous available.

The Conservatives love to introduce bills. They want to take credit for a lot of things and make it on the six o'clock news. If something does not make the six o'clock news, like Bill C-23 because it was protecting minority language rights, they do not bother.

The last bill I will speak about is Bill C-32, the drug recognition experts to conduct roadside sobriety tests. It is good to promise all sorts of things, but there is no funding. When we do not have funding, how will we get these experts? For example, in Seacow Pond where would we get a person who is an expert?

It is very important that when we prepare bills and we make promises, those promises have to be kept. We have to provide the legislators with enough resources.

Tackling Violent Crime Act

[Yasmin Ratansi, Liberal, Don Valley East, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise to speak to Bill C-2. The bill, which is an omnibus bill, combines five previously introduced Conservative justice bills into one, Bill C-10, Bill C-22, Bill C-27, Bill C-32 and Bill C-35.

Canadians need to know what exactly this omnibus bill is really about. It is an omnibus bill that tries to combine five pieces of legislation together. Why is it necessary to combine all these bills and how will it affect legislators?

What is the intent of the Conservatives in getting all these bills together when they were fast-tracked previously? They were debated in committee thoroughly, amendments were made, and these amendments strengthened the bill and the legislation.

We, as parliamentarians, have a responsibility, and the responsibility is to be cognizant--

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to participate in the debate at report stage motion on Motion No. 2, and generally on Bill C-2, which is an omnibus bill consolidating five previously introduced justice bills.

I would encourage members to look back to the last session to the speech of the member for Windsor—Tecumseh in which he gave his, I think, respected views to the House about the problem with introducing 10 or so bills in sequence, all of which would have to go to the justice committee, which could not possibly deal with them all at once.

It would have to deal with them one at a time. By doing that, the government was basically frustrating the process. We should have had an omnibus bill right from the beginning of the last session in order to include some of these items where the same witnesses could have appeared and the same or similar Criminal Code amendments or whatever might have been introduced.

I want to encourage members to look at that speech because what is happening right now with Bill C-2 is exactly what the member said. I think that is why this House honoured that member as the most knowledgeable member of Parliament in a recent survey. I congratulate him on that. It was well-deserved and earned, and I think his record shows it.

I asked the member earlier about whether or not there were certain conditions or criteria or exceptions that would be taken into account with regard to sentencing and penalties as prescribed under the Criminal Code. I specifically mentioned fetal alcohol spectrum disorder not only because it is a matter that I am interested in, and I have tried to do some work on, but because there is clear evidence and testimonials by lawyers and by judges that as much as half of the people who appear before the criminal courts suffer from alcohol-related birth defects.

People who suffer from alcohol-related birth defects, like some form of fetal alcohol spectrum disorder, have a problem understanding the difference between right and wrong. They have brain damage. They are in a situation where it is a permanent condition. They are in a situation which cannot be rehabilitated, and yet we have a criminal justice system which says that if people do something wrong, they go to jail. They go there, and what do we do? We put them in a program of rehabilitation

I see a tremendous contradiction in suggesting that somehow all persons in Canada who may run afoul of the laws of Canada and be guilty of a criminal offence have to be subject to the same identical sanctions and criteria for those sanctions. There are certain circumstances for which I believe they should not be.

I wanted to put that on the table because it is not good enough to just have a slogan of “Let's get tough on crime”. It is not good enough for me. I do not think it is good enough for Canadians. We have to be smart on crime. We need to spend as much time on crime prevention as we do on tough penalties and hope that it is a deterrence.

When we talk about mandatory minimums, we are not touching the prescribed maximums. They are still there. They are a discretion, but when we have mandatory minimums, what we do is in fact impinge on the judicial discretion.

Every case is different. I thought that under the laws of Canada, we would have a system which would be responsive to the facts on a case by case basis, taking into account that a crime has occurred, but what were the circumstances?

We do know if there is mental incompetence, there are certain possibilities. We do know if there is coercion or there is some other problem, that it may be taken into account in sentencing, but when we get into the situation of mandatory minimums, it gives the judge no latitude whatsoever to have sentences which would be lower and prescribe, in lieu of that, some other treatment, rehabilitation or appropriate assistance because this person had some extraordinary circumstances.

I wanted to raise that. The previous Liberal government brought in mandatory minimums. There is a level, but we should not raise them to levels in which the mandatory minimums are so high that we in fact impinge on judicial discretion.

I have given this speech before, but I wanted to reiterate that I have no problem with being firm on crime, to strengthen the dangerous offenders provisions for criminals, for bad people, for repeat offenders. Those are important. Canadians expect that. Our legal system must reflect that. We have to deal with those things and we have to have the tools, but what is being created here is somewhat more rigid and maybe not as effective as it otherwise might be.

I raise it for members to be considering as we do this. I am pretty sure that we are going to have support for the omnibus bill, but I think that we are going to always have to be vigilant about what we have done, and what the implications and results are of taking those steps. We have to make sure that we are vigilant enough to make sure that maybe we have gone too far. It is now going to be up to the legislators to be able to monitor what they have done. Hopefully we have not gone too far, but I am still concerned about the issue of judicial discretion.

Bill C-10, which is part of this omnibus bill, deals with the mandatory minimum penalties. It creates two new offences: an indictable offence for breaking and entering to steal a firearm, and an indictable offence of robbery to steal a firearm.

Since there are five bills here, it is impossible for any member to deal with the entire omnibus bill. It is almost impossible for a committee to properly do some of these things when so much is piled on. Where is the prioritization here? There are certainly things that had to be done. There is no disagreement in this place. It could have been fast-tracked through this place.

There is no reason why some of these bills had to be in this omnibus bill. They should have been brought back at the same stage of legislation, and they should have been passed promptly and swiftly, sent to the Senate, returned here, given royal assent and become law in Canada.

I do not know whether there is other work to do in terms of regulations or other matters, but when we have something that is the right thing to do, let us take the most expeditious and the least litigious route to get there. What we have done is taken the longest route and the most convoluted route to get important legislation through, and I do not understand why. What is the motivation of the government to do this?

It piled on 10 bills in the last Parliament. We could not possibly do it, yet the Prime Minister, in the last press conference I saw him give on this, said the Liberals delayed the bill for 1,000 days. We have not been here 1,000 days. I am pretty sure we have not. That also is calendar days and it includes the five months that the House of Commons was not even sitting and could not hear these bills, although a committee could choose to sit outside of the time. It did not take into account the fact that when the justice committee is sitting and dealing with a bill, the other nine bills are waiting to be dealt with. We have to deal with one at a time.

It appears that there is a strategy simply to keep bills in front of this place, to continue to parrot throwaway lines like “I am tough on crime”, but not to deliver effective legislation on a timely basis, which is what we need. That is the issue here.

The Conservatives think Canadians are going to just roll over and say, “Yes, we want to be tough on crime”. They better understand what underlies that because we have some issues here. There are not enough of us, I do not believe, to defeat this omnibus bill, but I think that this approach and what the government has done with regard to these bills has been such that the public interest has not been properly served.

I have a lot more to say and I would ask for the unanimous consent of the House to continue on for another 10 minutes.

[Bill Siksay, NDP, Burnaby—Douglas, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak to Bill C-2, An Act to amend the Criminal Code and to make consequential amendments to other Acts, also known as the tackling violent crime act.

I have significant problems with this bill and with the Conservative government's approach to crime in general. The Conservatives are adopting a U.S. style crime agenda that says they are tough on crime but begs the question of what measures are actually effective in reducing crime and making Canadians safer. There is a lot of sloganeering but very little that shows these measures would actually make Canadians safer and give us more effective crime legislation.

The measures in Bill C-2 focus on punishment and incarceration. We know this is the least effective part of an approach to reducing crime in our society. Incarceration does not work to reduce crime and more prisons do not reduce crime. The evidence shows that, at best, there is no relationship between increasing incarceration and reducing crime or, at worst, that these approaches increase crime and become counterproductive.

Many U.S. jurisdictions that went down this tough on crime incarceration road have recognized that these measures do not work and have begun to undo them. As has been mentioned already this morning in debate, a recent report titled “Unlocking America” exposes the fact that incarceration has not worked to reduce crime and, in many cases, has increased the violent crime rate.

What does work? We know that more enforcement, more police on the beat, increasing the possibility of being caught and increasing the possibilities for detection and apprehension do work. Unfortunately, this is one place where the Conservatives are breaking a promise to increase the number of police on the beat in our communities.

We know that community policing, increasing the opportunities for police to develop real relationships with members of the community, also reduces crime. We know that prevention measures work. Working to address issues like drug addiction, family dislocation, poverty and providing parenting support, all those measures go toward reducing crime in our society.

We know that parole and release programs work. I was very lucky to have had the opportunity to sit in on a support group for sex offenders in the Vancouver area. I saw the kind of work that happens in that kind of setting. I was very impressed with the way that session proceeded and the kind of support that was being offered. I was also very concerned to hear from those folks that access to psychiatric and psychological support was very limited in the Vancouver area.

We also know that restorative justice programs work. Those programs seek to help offenders assume responsibility for their crime and restore the relationships that have been broken in the community because of that crime. We need more of those programs.

COSA, Circle of Support and Accountability, is a Canadian pioneered post-release program that matches community members with offenders. It is a support and accountability mechanism. Sadly, this program has not received the kind of support it deserves from the government, especially when other countries have adopted it.

Bill C-2 includes provisions in the old Bill C-10 on mandatory minimum sentences for crimes committed with a gun. We know that mandatory minimum sentences, of themselves, do not reduce crime. They do, however, reduce or eliminate judicial discretion, which is the ability of a judge, having reviewed all the evidence and knowing the person involved, to make a decision based on the facts of the case and of the individual involved. This is an important principle. I do not believe there is one judge sitting on the bench who wants to see serious crime go unpunished.

The cost of keeping someone in prison is $94,000 a year. Evidence shows that programs that support someone on parole or a drug treatment program for an addicted criminal are 15 times more effective than incarceration in ensuring he or she does not reoffend.

In testimony before the committee on Bill C-2, the president of the Canadian Association of Elizabeth Fry Societies, said that the government must stop using prisons as a substitute for mental health services, public housing or shelters for women escaping violence.

Bill C-2 also includes a reverse onus on dangerous offenders designation, that it would kick in after a third offence and that there would be a presumption that the person was a dangerous offender. It would be up to the offender to prove he or she was not a dangerous offender. When we are talking about a dangerous offender designation, we are talking about life in prison.

Reverse onus has very serious implications for our criminal justice system. Having reviewed the testimony presented at the standing committee, I am convinced, as were many of the experts who testified, that this section of the bill would not survive a charter challenge.

When the state is seeking to jail someone for life, the burden should be on the state to prove the necessity of that imprisonment. That is the case with the current law. To put this burden on the person who has been convicted is unjust, to put it simply. It would only increase the inequity of our criminal justice system where wealthy people would be able to muster the resources to mount a case and everyone else would be more likely to fail because they would not have the money to do so. Legal aid costs would skyrocket given the huge costs associated with this type of process.

Why does the bill suggest measures of automatic designation of dangerous offenders only after a third conviction? Surely, if someone is a dangerous offender, we should be looking at dealing with them sooner and ensuring the system has the resources to do that sooner.

Reverse onus has other serious problems. Judicial discretion, which I have already spoken about, would be removed. It would eliminate the ability of the accused to remain silent and it would incarcerate people on the basis of what they might do rather than what they have done. Our ability to predict behaviour is notoriously poor. What it boils down to is essentially a measure of preventive detention.

I want to support very strongly the motion put forward by the member for Windsor—Tecumseh to delete the provisions of reverse onus that are included in Bill C-2.

I also want to point out that aboriginal people are already overrepresented among those who have been designated as dangerous offenders in Canada. Twenty per cent of the dangerous offenders are aboriginal and this would increase as a result of the bill. Something is seriously wrong with this measure when 20% of those subject to it represent a group that only represents 3% of the total population of Canada. This legislation would only make this problem worse and it would also increase the family dislocation and social costs that aboriginal communities already experience because of incarceration rates.

Bill C-2 also includes measures on the age of consent, and I have already spoken extensively about this. I believe the existing age of consent legislation is excellent and comprehensive legislation. This bill would criminalize sexual activity for young people, especially those 14 or 15 years of age. No matter what we think of young people being sexually active, I do not believe the criminal justice system is the place to deal with that issue when a consensual, non-exploitive relationship is involved.

We must be smart on crime. We know enforcement, parole, community programs, social programs, addressing inequality and a change in our approach to drugs do work. Drugs are a significant factor in both petty crime and serious violent crime. Alcohol prohibition did not work and it caused exactly the same problems that we now face due to drug prohibition. We need more treatment programs for addictions and more harm reduction measures, not more jail time. That does not work.

Bill C-2 goes in exactly the wrong direction. It buys into a model that has been proven to have failed in the United States where many jurisdictions are already seeking to undo the damage done by this exact approach. I have very serious reservations about this legislation.

[Carole Freeman, Bloc, Châteauguay—Saint-Constant, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to take part in today's debate at report stage of Bill C-2, An Act to amend the Criminal Code and to make consequential amendments to other Acts.

Briefly, on October 18, the Minister of Justice tabled omnibus Bill C-2, which regroups the main “law and order“ bills that were introduced by the government, during the first session of the 39th Parliament.

Indeed, Bill C-2 includes defunct Bills C-10, An Act to amend the Criminal Code (minimum penalties for offences involving firearms) and to make a consequential amendment to another Act, C-22, An Act to amend the Criminal Code (age of protection) and to make consequential amendments to the Criminal Records Act, C-27, An Act to amend the Criminal Code (dangerous offenders and recognizance to keep the peace), C-32, An Act to amend the Criminal Code (impaired driving) and to make consequential amendments to other Acts, and C-35, An Act to amend the Criminal Code (reverse onus in bail hearings for firearm-related offences).

Those who are listening to us should know that this government bill provides nothing new. During the last session, I had the opportunity to take part in the debate and to express Quebec's vision on justice, as it relates to several of those bills.

In fact, before prorogation, three of those bills were already before the Senate, namely Bills C-10, C-22 and C-35. As for the other two, that is Bills C-27 and C-32, they were in the last stages of the parliamentary process in the House.

However, all these bills died on the order paper, when the Conservative government itself decided, for purely partisan motives, to end the parliamentary session and to present a new Speech from the Throne.

Today, we find ourselves debating again the work that has already been accomplished in the House. This is why, when the government pretends to be the only one going to bat for innocent people through rehashed and amended legislation, I cannot help but wonder about such a preposterous claim.

The people of Quebec deserve that crime be tackled seriously, without playing petty politics with fundamental rights, and, above all, they deserve to be presented with the real picture. For those interested in politics, I point out that the Bloc Québécois was fully involved in the review process for Bill C-2, in spite of the very tight timeframe, to consider all aspects of that bill. My colleagues and myself believe that any bill of such importance, which could have such a significant impact on the people, has to be thoroughly examined.

It would, however, be somewhat tedious to examine again amendments made previously. With respect to former bills C-10, C-22 and C-35, in our opinion, the parliamentary debate has already taken place and the House has already voted in favour of those bills. We therefore respect the democratic choice that has been made. As for former Bill C-32, which died on the order paper before report stage, we had already announced our intention: we would be opposing it. This brings me to the part stemming from former Bill C-27, about which we expressed serious reservations at the time but which we nonetheless examined in committee so that it would be reviewed responsibly.

In short, the provisions in Bill C-2 which stem from former Bill C-27 amend the Criminal Code to provide that the court shall find an offender who has been convicted of three serious crimes to be a dangerous offender, unless the judge is satisfied that the protection of society can be appropriately ensured with a lesser sentence.

At present, the dangerous offender designation is limited to very serious crimes, such as murder, rape and many others, and to individuals who present a substantial risk to reoffend. An individual may be found to be a dangerous offender on a first conviction, when the brutality and circumstances of the offence leave no hope of the individual ever being rehabilitated.

We have some concerns regarding Bill C-27, particularly the impact of designating a greater number of dangerous offenders and reversing the onus of proof, two processes that definitely increase the number of inmates and that are contrary to the wishes of Quebeckers as to how offenders should be controlled.

We are not the only ones who have expressed concerns with regard to this aspect of Bill C-27. My colleague for Windsor—Tecumseh is proposing an amendment today that would remove the reverse onus of proof found in this bill. He believes it would not survive a charter challenge. Even though we realize that this amendment could lead to improvements in Bill C-2, we will reject it because the Conservative government, in attempting to govern with contempt for the majority in the House of Commons, would link this amendment to a confidence vote.

With regard to amendments, I repeat that the Bloc Québécois is aware that many improvements must be made to the current judicial system and that changes to the Criminal Code are required. The government must intervene and use the tools at its disposal enabling citizens to live in peace and safety. In our own meetings with citizens we identified specific concerns as well as the desire to change things by using an original approach. We wanted to make a positive contribution meeting the aspirations of our fellow citizens.

We therefore proposed a number of amendments that my colleague the member for Hochelaga, right here, worked very hard on with the caucus. We prepared a series of amendments to improve the bill and the justice system. These are complementary measures that will strengthen its effectiveness.

We proposed, among other things, realistic amendments to eliminate parole being granted almost automatically after one-sixth of a sentence has been served and statutory release once two-thirds of a sentence has been served, by having a professional formally assess inmates regarding the overall risk of reoffending that they represent to the community.

Another amendment was aimed at attacking the street gang problem—with which my colleague from Hochelaga is very familiar—by giving the police better tools, in particular, by extending the warrants for investigations using GPS tracking.

We put forward many other amendments. Unfortunately, none of them was accepted, even though some amendments are unanimously supported by the public security ministers of Quebec and other provinces. Consequently, Bill C-2 was not amended in any way during committee review. It is a shame that the Conservative government once again preferred an approach based on ideology rather than democracy. It preferred to combine bills that, for the most part, had already been approved by the House of Commons, rather than focusing on some others that deserved very close examination. Above all, it is refusing to improve Bill C-2 with respect to practical priorities.

In putting forward its amendments, the Bloc Québécois has remained consistent with its objective of using effective and appropriate measures to evaluate the relevance of each bill. It has also demonstrated its concern for prevention of crime, which should be high priority. Attacking the deep-rooted causes of delinquency and violence, rather than cracking down when a problem arises is, in our opinion, a more appropriate and, above all, more profitable approach from both a social and financial point of view.

That must be very clear. The first step must be to deal with poverty, inequality and exclusion in all forms. These are the issues that create a fertile breeding ground for frustration and its outlets, which are violence and criminal activity.

However, it is essential that the measures presented should actually make a positive contribution to fighting crime. It must be more than just rhetoric or a campaign based on fear. It must be more than an imitation of the American model and its less than convincing results.

I mention the important fact that for the past 15 years criminal activity has been steadily decreasing in Quebec, as it has elsewhere in Canada. Statistics Canada confirmed just recently that for the year 2006 the overall crime rate in Canada was at its lowest level in more than 25 years. What is more, Quebec recorded the smallest number of homicides since 1962. Indeed, in violent crimes, Quebec ranks second, just behind Prince Edward Island. Quebec also recorded a drop of 4% in the crime rate among young people in 2006, which was better than all other provinces. Those are solid facts which should serve as an example to this government and on which it should base its actions.

I will close by saying that we will be supporting Bill C-2 at third reading, on its way to the Senate. However, I remind the House that we were in favour of four of the five bills that are now included in Bill C-2 and those bills would have already been far advanced in the parliamentary process if the government had not prorogued the House for purely partisan reasons.

[Brian Murphy, Liberal, Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe, NB]

Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure, at report stage of Bill C-2, to deliver some comments to the omnibus crime bill.

I have had the experience of serving on the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights and also the legislative committees that were involved with the former Bills C-10, C-22, C-27, C-32, C-35 and C-23, which is not part of the omnibus bill.

I speak with experience at least with respect to the bills and I understand how we came to be here today to speak about what the bill contains. A lot of discussion took place in the debates of the House and in committee with respect to the direction we should take with respect to our criminal justice.

It is important for us, as parliamentarians, to consider what we do when we amend the Criminal Code and its corollary acts. We are dealing with the Criminal Code. It is an organic document. It changes with the times. It is copied and exemplified by one of Canada's justice ministers and prime ministers, Sir John Thompson, from eastern Canada. It has certainly changed with the times as has our society.

In the 1890s the crimes that were top priority might have been things like cattle and horse theft, murder and some common ones. However, with the changing times, we have seen a proliferation of gang related violence, e-crimes, things that would not have existed at the turn of the century.

The point of raising that is as our society changes and the code changes, we owe it to this place, to the committees, to the law enforcement official, which include prosecutors, policemen, probation workers, corrections officers, people in the correction system and judges, quite a fraternity of people involved in the criminal justice system, to say that we looked at these various laws. We looked at how Canada was changing and at the end, we did the very best we could to keep track of what tools would be best to tackle the new problems that exist in society. It is not as if we are inventing new aspects of law. Many of these bills represent an evolution or a progression of laws that already exist.

Just briefly on the guts of the bill, if you like, Mr. Speaker, Bill C-10, which is now part of C-2, was of course dealing with the mandatory minimum provisions which were increased by the introduction of this bill, but they were not increased as much as the government had wanted them to be originally.

I would like to thank the hon. member for Windsor—Tecumseh and the opposition Bloc Québécois critic on the committee as well as the Liberal members on the committee who fought very hard to have some sense reign over the debate with respect to the evidence that was adduced at the committee hearings regarding the efficacy of mandatory minimums in general.

A review is in order. Mandatory minimums existed before the Conservative government was elected. Mandatory minimums were in place for serious crimes with the known aspect of repeat offenders and with some hope, which studies will show one way or the other, that there might be a deterrent and a safety to the public aspect of mandatory minimums.

At least on this side we joined with the Conservatives who, I would say, were very sparse in their acknowledgement that mandatory minimums existed before they came into office, but we joined with them and said that these are good tools for the law enforcement agencies and good tools in the realm of criminal justice.

It is a matter always of how far we go. How far do we go in disciplining our children? Do we take away their favourite toy? Do we ban them from seeing their friends for two weeks? Are we less severe or more severe? Many of us are parents and we deal with this every day. It is our form of the justice system that rules in our own house.

With respect to mandatory minimums, it is a question of calibrating to what extent the mandatory minimums are useful, to what extent do they work, and to what extend should they be increased, if at all.

During the debate process we were very successful in getting the government to get off its basic premise, which is if it is good for the six o'clock news and sounds robust, steady and law and orderish, then it has to be good in the Criminal Code. That is where the slip from the cup to the lip occurred, where it was obvious 90% of the witnesses were saying that the severe mandatory minimums that the government side were proposing would be inefficacious.

We can be as tough as we want, but if it does not work, if it does not make society safer, then we have not posited a good solution to the problems that face our community, and that was the case when we looked at mandatory minimums.

The happy medium that exists in Bill C-2 I think will be borne out, but it is very important to remember that this is an organic process and we could be back here some day soon, perhaps, looking at mandatory minimums in general.

How more timely could it be than in today's Ottawa Citizen, a report called “Unlocking America” is reviewed. In this report, it makes it very clear that the mandatory minimums, one of the many tools used by the American government from the 1970s on when it was felt that the rise in criminal activity was abhorrent, was not as effective as the Americans would have hope it would have been. It left the United States with 2.2 million people behind bars, more than China. The nine authors, leading U.S. criminologists, said that they were convinced that they needed a different strategy.

I am happy to report that as a result of the efforts of the NDP, Bloc and the Liberal Party in general at committee, we did not go as far as the Conservative government wanted to, which was close to where the United States had been which now New York State and New York City admits, is ineffective.

The three effects of imprisonment, and emphasis only on imprisonment, at the cost of crime prevention dollars, if you like, Mr. Speaker, is that the heavy, excessive incarceration hits minorities very hard. In the United States, 60% of the prison population is made up of Blacks and Latinos.

We heard evidence at our committee that there is a preponderance, an over-exaggerated percentage, of first nations and aboriginal people in our jail system, according to their population, which is deplorable. It is overwhelming and undisputed that the negative side effects of incarceration outweigh the potential. That is the two bits on Bill C-10,

On the other bill, Bill C-22, the close in age exemption, was never brought up. Despite all the rhetoric from the government, nothing would save Bill C-22. The issue of sexual consent being given by a person of tender years has never been put forward by any member of the opposition while the Liberal Party was in power.

The close in age exemption was never put in there, so for members of the opposite side to say that finally we dealt with the issue of sexual exploitation of 14 year olds is simply not accurate. The close in age exemption, five years between a person of the age specified, will save many relationships that should not be criminalized.

Lastly, I noted that Bill C-23 was not included in Bill C-2. I have to wonder why.

I live in Acadia. And Bill C-23 included many improvements with respect to choosing the first language of prosecutors during a trial. French is the language spoken by most people in my province. That element was very important to us in Acadia, but the government overlooked this fact.

Why did the government turn its back on the francophone people of New Brunswick in this country?

[Carolyn Bennett, Liberal, St. Paul's, ON]

Mr. Speaker, we should not even be here debating this bill, which should have received royal assent last spring. The government has been playing games with Parliament. It is not governing and it uses Parliament as a political playground. It has shown a complete lack of respect towards Parliament.

The government refused the fast tracking offer of our party and it actively delayed these important initiatives while hoping for an election last spring in which they could run on their crime and punishment agenda.

As was mentioned by the member for Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine, I too would like to remind this House of the scenario from last spring. Bill C-10 received first reading on May 6 and was delayed 38 days before second reading, 146 days before it was sent to committee. The committee met 105 days and then from the committee report to report stage it took another 75 days. From report stage to third reading, it took 22 days.

Bill C-22 received first reading on June 22, 2006 and was delayed 130 days before second reading, 142 days before it was sent to committee. The bill was 29 days in committee, four days until the committee reported, 11 days to report stage, and then to third reading on the following day.

Bill C-27 received first reading on October 17, 2006 and was delayed 199 days before second reading on May 4, 2007, four days to committee, and then 36 days to report stage.

Bill C-32 received first reading on November 21, 2006 and was delayed 77 days before second reading, 113 days until it was sent to committee, and then 20 days in committee and the committee reported the following day.

Bill C-35, an act to amend the Criminal Code, received first reading November 23, 2006 and was delayed 123 days before second reading, two days before it went to the committee where it was studied for 61 days, and then one day until it was reported in the House. It took five days to report stage and one day until third reading.

This is no way to tackle violent crime. In fact, again the government is simply posturing and using the Parliament of this country as a little electoral toy, instead of actually taking this seriously. The Conservatives are only posturing. I have never been so disappointed, from the committees to the behaviour here, to see that these parliamentarians have not been allowed to act like parliamentarians because of this appetite for an election and a majority.

Last evening, at the End Exclusion 2007 conference, one of the members of the disability community said to me that social policy and social justice was homeless in the government. In terms of tackling violent crime, women with disabilities, who are the most abused, most often the victims of violent crime, want to see some policies that will affect them.

The seniors that we met with the member for London North Centre are very upset in terms of the people looking after them. Elder abuse no longer has automatic charges and the poor, vulnerable seniors are still asked as to whether or not they want to press charges.

From early learning and child care where we know we can help effect the behaviour of young children, to bullying programs, literacy programs, to cutting women's programs that affect the Interval houses, to the summer jobs program where kids can finally maybe find out that they are good at something, the government has consistently cut the prevention and the causes of violent crime.

I remember in 1995 when I ran provincially. We knew then what premier Harris was about to do. He cut the arts programs, the music programs, the sports programs, the homework clubs and the family counselling, and 10 years later we ended up with terrible trouble with guns and gangs.

At the Tumivut shelter in my riding, when I meet with some of the members of the black community, it has been absolutely horrifying to hear that the results of those cuts were really to people who did not feel included. The first time this young man said that he had ever felt included was when he joined a gang. The first time he was told that he was good at anything was when he was shoplifting.

It is very upsetting to see that the government just does not understand that investing in programs allows kids to find talents in art and music and find summer jobs. It is absolutely horrifying to think that this idea of just locking up people and throwing away the key will be the way to get a safer society.

Canada used to boast the lowest recidivism rate in the world because of what happened to people in prisons. That meant an education. They might even get a bachelor's degree. Some of them have even obtained law degrees. With anger management and drug rehabilitation programs, they have been able to come out with new talents, meet new friends, and never reoffend again.

We do not want our prisons to become schools for criminality, where people are trained for a life of crime. It is hugely important, as we look forward to the real challenge of tackling violent crime in the long term, that the government address the causes of crimes and the kinds of programs that are so important in our prison system.

I feel that I cannot stand in the House without commenting that the government has rendered this place and the committees of the House to an all time low in my 10 years as a parliamentarian. Members of Parliament are not allowed to speak freely in committee, they are scripted and rehearsed in the Prime Minister's Office. There is this unbelievable inability of cabinet ministers to even speak or show up at events they had booked themselves. As the Clerk of the House of Commons so often reminds us, this building is to be something more than to hang Christmas lights on.

It is appalling that we do not understand that the job of chairs of committees is not to dictate. Their job is to find the will of the committee and put it forward. They are not to have, like what happened yesterday in the health committee, the minister whispering in the chair's ear in the middle of the meeting. It is not up to the chair of a committee to decide, with 15 minutes to go, that the minister gets 15 minutes to sum up.

There seems to be an absolute lack of understanding of the role of the House and the role of committees in terms of really calling the government to account. Government reports to Parliament. It is not the other way around. No amendments mean no democracy. This is a travesty of the role of citizens.

I hope that in the next election people will see that the ballot box question will be whether citizens have a role at all after the next election because citizens have been silenced, members of Parliament have been silenced, and ministers are being instructed what to do. I worry for the democracy of this country should these people be allowed to govern any longer.

[Réal Ménard, Bloc, Hochelaga, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I will remind the House what happened. We fought Bill C-10 in committee. The NDP, with its inflated egos and puffed up chests, says it is against mandatory minimum sentences. The Liberals, the New Democrats and the Bloc Québécois fought the government and defeated those provisions of Bill C-10, a bill that would have imposed mandatory minimum sentences.

We are witnessing a contradiction on a scale I have never before seen in this House, since I arrived in 1993, and there is nothing we can do. The neo-Bolsheviks are resuscitating Bill C-10 with such a complete lack of consistency that I will never forget.

In closing, on the topic of softwood lumber, the Bloc Québécois aligned itself with the FTQ, the CSN and all those who defend the workers. This is why we are the strongest political party in Quebec, while the NDP remains at only 13% in the polls.

[Réal Ménard, Bloc, Hochelaga, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his question. Let me make something clear. Our problem with this bill has to do with mandatory minimum sentences. We have always been uncomfortable with such sentences.

The NDP members, our neo-Bolshevik friends, are introducing an amendment today when they and we defeated all the amendments to Bill C-10 in committee and kept only two provisions of that bill.

Which party was it that, in an act of complicity approaching intellectual treason, resurrected the bill?

I could not believe my ears. I asked Annie Desnoyers to pinch me. I could not understand why this party, which had defeated all the amendments to Bill C-10 in committee, was resurrecting the bill in the House of Commons.

The moral of this story is that I give my colleague A+ for courtesy, but D- for his party's consistency.

[Réal Ménard, Bloc, Hochelaga, QC]

Mr. Speaker, thank you for allowing me to continue. When I was interrupted, I was saying that the fight against organized crime had been a Bloc Québécois issue for a long time. I was citing the example of the anti-gang bill that I tabled in 1995. I also recalled the initiatives of the member for Charlesbourg who had worked on taking $1,000 bills out of circulation and who had presented the bill to reverse the onus of proof for proceeds of crime. That bill was passed unanimously in this House.

Bill C-2 before us may be considered a compilation of all the legislative measures initiated by the government since coming to power in February 2006. It contains five measures, including former bill C-10, which caused a great deal of difficulties. In fact, that bill established mandatory minimum sentences for offences involving firearms.

It also contains the former Bill C-22, which invites us to no longer talk about the age of consent, but the age of protection. It increases that age from 14 to 16, and has close in age clauses. The Bloc was worried about this. More specifically, the hon. member for Laurier—Sainte-Marie clearly expressed our view to the media. We did not want young people who attend the same school and have non-exploitative sexual relations to be subject to charges. That is why a close in age clause, with a five-year age difference was established for 13 and 14 year olds. They may have non-exploitative sexual relations with young people of a similar age, on condition that the age difference does not exceed five years.

Bill C-2 also contains a former bill that also provided for reverse onus of proof at the pre-trial hearing stage. If a person commits an offence involving a firearm, the reverse onus of proof applies and that person, who could of course be released by a justice of the peace, must show that he or she is not a threat to society.

Lastly, Bill C-2 also incorporates the former Bill C-27. I discussed this with the member for Repentigny, and we found that this is the measure we have the most difficulty with. Even so, we will support this bill, but we would have liked this measure to have been reworked. These provisions reverse the burden of proof for individuals who have committed a third offence from a designated list.

Despite all that, we believe that the bill is reasonable and that it merits our support. However, we wanted to see greater discretion for the Crown. What makes us uncomfortable is our belief that the government is addressing the wrong priorities for justice. We wanted to see a plan to fight poverty or to address the bail and parole systems, particularly the accelerated review process. We also wanted to address the issue of individuals wearing colours and logos recognized by the court as representing criminal organizations.

We cannot have a balanced vision of justice without considering the causes of delinquency and the ways to ensure that everyone in our society has a fair chance.

Right now, the Bloc Québécois is especially committed to seniors and to addressing the guaranteed income supplement and the retroactivity issue. I would like to thank the member for Repentigny for his excellent work on this file. I am sure that my colleagues will join me in thanking him for all of his hard work.

In conclusion, we will support Bill C-2, but for the record, we were hoping for some adjustments. Nevertheless, we will support this bill.

[Réal Ménard, Bloc, Hochelaga, QC]

I'd like to take up where Ms. Jennings left off. I must admit that my understanding of the issue is somewhat muddled and I hope you can clarify things for me, Mr. Hoover.

Perhaps we did not agree with the proposed increase in minimum sentences in Bill C-10, but at least the proposal was clear. It was a matter of judicial philosophy and one could be either for or against the recommendation.

I don't quite understand and I would like you to explain where the problem lies for the prosecutor, who as we understand is often the crown. Why are the current provisions of the Criminal Code inadequate? Why does the government feel the need to put forward a list? You talk about primary designated offences, but as I understand it, there is also a list of secondary designated offences.

What is the problem, if I am a crown prosecutor and I want to invoke these provisions in the case of a dangerous offender? You told Ms. Jennings that the criteria were overly stringent, but could you be more specific? Don't be afraid of referring to administrative realities, because that will be a determining factor in whether or not we choose to back the provisions taken from the former Bill C-27. Administratively speaking, where does the problem lie at this time for the prosecutor trying a case in a court of law?

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

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I'm pleased to be joined at the table by Catherine Kane, the acting senior general counsel, criminal law policy section; and Douglas Hoover, counsel, criminal law policy section.

Mr. Chairman, I'm pleased to appear before your committee as it begins its review of Bill C-10, the Tackling Violent Crime Act.

This is the government's first piece of legislation in this session of Parliament. The Tackling Violent Crime Act underscores our commitment to safeguard Canadians in their homes and on their streets and in their communities. It is a confidence measure. Bill C-10 reflects the depth of this unwavering commitment by the Government of Canada.

As a confidence measure, Bill C-10 reflects the depth of this unwavering commitment.

Canadians are losing confidence in our criminal justice system. They want a justice system that has clear and strong laws that denounce and deter violent crime. They want a justice system that imposes penalties that adequately reflect the serious nature of these crimes and that rehabilitate offenders to prevent them from reoffending. Bill C-10 seeks to restore Canadians' confidence in our system by restoring their safety and security in their communities, and this is in fact what is reflected in the preamble to Bill C-2.

The proposed Tackling Violent Crime Act brings together five criminal law reform bills that we introduced in the previous session of Parliament. One of them, Bill C-10, imposed higher mandatory minimum penalties of imprisonment for eight specific offences involving the use of restricted or prohibited firearms or in connection with organized crime, which of course includes gangs, and also for offences that do not involve the actual use of a firearm--namely, firearm trafficking or smuggling--or the illegal possession of a restricted or prohibited firearm with ammunition. The Tackling Violent Crime Act reintroduces the former Bill C-10 as passed by the House of Commons.

It also includes one of my favourites, Bill C-22, which increased the age of consent for sexual activity from 14 to 16 years of age to protect young people against adult sexual predators. There is proposed, as I'm sure you are aware, a five-year close-in-age exception to prevent the criminalization of sexual activity between consenting teenagers. The Tackling Violent Crime Act reintroduces Bill C-22 as passed by the House of Commons.

It also includes Bill C-32, which addressed impaired driving by proposing the legislative framework for the drug recognition expert program and requiring participation in roadside and drug recognition expert sobriety testing; by simplifying the investigation and prosecution of impaired driving; and by proposing procedural and sentencing changes, including creating the new offences of being “over 80” and refusing to provide a breath sample where the person's operation of the vehicle has caused bodily harm or death. The Tackling Violent Crime Act reintroduces the former Bill C-32 as amended and reported back from the justice committee.

We also have Bill C-35, which imposes a reverse onus for bail for accused charged with any of eight serious offences committed with a firearm, with an indictable offence involving firearms or other regulated weapons if committed while under a weapons prohibition order, or with firearm trafficking or possession for the purpose of trafficking and firearm smuggling. The Tackling Violent Crime Act reintroduces the former Bill C-35 as passed by the House of Commons.

The Tackling Violent Crime Act also reintroduces reforms proposed by the former Bill C-27, addressing dangerous and repeat violent offenders, with additional improvements.

As I have noted, and with the exception of the dangerous offenders reforms, all of these reforms have been thoroughly debated, reviewed, and supported in the House of Commons.

These reforms included in Bill C-27 had not progressed to the same level of understanding and support in the previous session and now include additional improvements to address concerns that have been identified in the House of Commons as well as by my provincial and territorial counterparts. Let me take a moment to go through these reforms.

The Tackling Violent Crime Act retains all of the reforms previously proposed in Bill C-27 regarding peace bonds, which had been well received within the House of Commons and beyond. Accordingly, Bill C-10 proposes to double the maximum duration of these protective court orders from one to two years and to clarify that the court can impose a broad range of conditions to ensure public safety, including curfews, electronic monitoring, treatment, and drug and alcohol prohibitions.

I believe this particular provision will be well received across this country. Many people have complained for many years that by the time you get a one-year peace bond, it's too short a period of time, and that two years would be much more appropriate in terms of getting the bond and having it put in place.

Under this bill as well as under the former Bill C-27, crown prosecutors will still have to declare in open court whether or not they intend to bring a dangerous offender application where an individual is convicted for a third time of a serious offence.

We have retained some procedural enhancements to the dangerous offenders procedures, allowing for more flexibility regarding the filing of the necessary psychiatric assessments.

As in the former Bill C-27, an individual who is convicted of a third sufficiently violent or sexual offence is still presumed dangerous.

Bill C-10 also toughens the sentencing provision regarding whether a dangerous offender should receive an indeterminate or a less severe sentence. This amendment modifies Bill C-27's approach to make the courts impose a sentence that ensures public safety.

Finally, it includes a new provision that would allow a crown prosecutor to apply for a second dangerous offender sentencing hearing in the specific instance where an individual is convicted of breaching a condition of their long-term supervision order.

This second hearing targets individuals who were found by the original court to meet the dangerous offender criteria but were nonetheless able to satisfy the court that they could be managed under the lesser long-term offender sentence. If they show by their conduct, once released into the community, that they are not manageable and are convicted of the offence of breaching a condition of their supervision order, they would now be subject to another dangerous offender sentence hearing.

Importantly, this new proposal does not wait for the offender to commit yet another sexual assault or violent offence to bring the offender back for a second hearing for a dangerous offender sentence. Instead, it would be triggered simply by the offender's failure to comply with the conditions of his release contained in his long-term supervision order--for example, for failing to return to his residence before curfew or for consuming alcohol or drugs. Of course, this second hearing would also be triggered if the offender in fact did commit a further sexual or violent offence after his release into the community.

These new proposals directly respond to a serious problem identified by provincial and territorial attorneys general in recent months. Indeed, some of these issues have been flagged since about 2003. Since the 2003 judgment by the Supreme Court of Canada in the Johnson case, many violent offenders who meet the dangerous offender criteria have nonetheless managed to escape its indeterminate sentence on the basis that they could be managed; that is, the risk of harm that they pose to the community could be successfully managed in the community under a long-term offender sentence.

So we reviewed the dangerous offender cases since the 2003 Johnson case and identified 74 such violent offenders. We then looked at how these individuals fared once they were released into the community. To date, 28 of these 74 dangerous offenders have been released into the community. Of these 28, over 60% were subsequently detained for breaching the conditions of their long-term supervision and 10 were convicted of breaching a condition of their long-term supervision orders.

Bill C-10 will prevent dangerous offenders from escaping the dangerous offender indeterminate sentence in the first place and will enable us to more effectively deal with those who nonetheless receive the long-term offender sentence but then demonstrate an inability to abide by the conditions of their long-term offender supervision order.

Of course I have carefully considered the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the Canadian Bill of Rights in respect of the totality of these new dangerous offender reforms, and I am satisfied that they are fully constitutional. These measures have been carefully tailored to provide a prospective, targeted, and balanced response to the real and pressing problem posed by these dangerous offenders.

To sum up, Mr. Chairman, the Tackling Violent Crime Act proposes reforms that have already been supported by the House of Commons.

In the case of the new dangerous offender provisions, it proposes modifications that many have signalled an interest in supporting.

I appreciate the collaborative spirit this committee and members have shown thus far to enable the commencement of the review of Bill C-10, and it is my hope and that of all Canadians that this collaboration will continue to enable expeditious passage of this bill.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[Réal Ménard, Bloc, Hochelaga, QC]

Actually, I know that this will certainly be discussed at the steering committee, but I would have liked a look at it first. Do my colleagues want to see a list of all the witnesses? When we discussed it with our leaders, we definitely said that we wanted the committee to concentrate its efforts on the contentious matters from the previous session, that is to say Bill C-27.

I would not want us, for example, to hear again from all the witnesses that we heard in the last session when we were discussing Bills C-10, C-22, C-32 and C-37. I would like us to spend more time on Bill C-27 that caused us difficulty. I wonder if all my colleagues are of the same mind, given that it is more or less what the leaders agreed among themselves when they were discussing the legislative committee.

[Jay Hill, Conservative, Secretary of State and Chief Government Whip]

Mr. Speaker, as I have done with all the speeches this afternoon, I listened with great interest to the words of my colleagues from the opposition parties. I would like to take this opportunity to perhaps correct some of the motives the member attributes to the Conservative government in bringing forward this tackling violent crime act, Bill C-2, and then pose a question.

Toward the end of his remarks he asserted that our government is driven by partisan political considerations. I would like to state for the record that no, what we are driven by here is to try to reform our justice system or, maybe more appropriately, that we are driven by a desire to restore fairness and justice to our legal system in this country.

That is the real reason behind the fact that in our short-lived government we have brought forward so many new initiatives in the justice department. In fact, he mentioned the fact that we brought forward a dozen bills alone in this Parliament already.

The other fallacy that I would like to quickly correct for the record is this whole business that somehow by combining these bills we are going to delay them. The fact is, and my colleague clearly identified this, Bill C-2, the tackling violent crime act, encompasses some five previous bills. I will run through them very quickly.

Previously, Bill C-10, mandatory minimum penalties for firearms offences, was stalled in committee for 252 days and the bill died after a total of 414 days before Parliament.

Bill C-22, age of protection, was stalled in committee for 175 days and the bill died after a total of 365 days before Parliament.

Bill C-27, dangerous offenders, was stalled in committee for 105 days and the bill died after a total of 246 days before Parliament.

Bill C-35, reverse onus on bail for firearms offences, was stalled in committee for 64 days and the bill died after a total of 211 days before Parliament.

Finally, Bill C-32, drug impaired driving, was stalled in committee for 149 days and the bill died after a total of 210 days before Parliament.

I think Canadians are waking up to the fact that a lot of these bills were stalled in the upper chamber in our parliamentary system. What are we talking about? We are talking about an unelected, unaccountable, Liberal dominated Senate. In other words, an upper chamber dominated by our process in this Parliament by the opposition.

Obviously, even the temporary current leader of the official opposition, the leader of the Liberal Party, has no control over the Senate. He has no control over his colleagues over there in getting this legislation moved forward.

In the last election campaign, all four parties running in the election said they wanted to get tough with violent crime. Yet, when we put this legislation through, the Liberals allowed it to be stalled over there. What have we done? We have combined them because the Senate will be less able to stall one or two bills because Canadians will be awakened to the fact that if the Liberals stall Bill C-2, they will clearly understand that the Liberal Party has never been serious about violent crime. It says one thing but does the opposite.

[Réal Ménard, Bloc, Hochelaga, QC]

Mr. Speaker, today we are debating what the government considers to be the most important component of the throne speech presented a few days ago, Bill C-2.

First of all, there is a myth that I would like to dispel. On several occasions the members on the government side have unfortunately taken some liberties with the truth. They have suggested that, in this Parliament, the opposition parties—the official opposition, the Bloc Québécois and the NDP—did not cooperate, that they acted like spoilsports and had unduly and excessively delayed passage of the justice bills. We need to set the record straight. This presentation of the facts is false, dishonest and, at the very least, misleading.

Since coming into power in January 2006, the Conservative government has tabled 12 justice bills. They were studied by the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights and the legislative committee and six of them have received royal assent. Therefore, since the government came into office in January 2006, six bills have been adopted and received royal assent.

I will mention them quickly, for information purposes: Bill C-9, on conditional sentencing; Bill C-17, on the salaries of judges; Bill C-18, on the DNA data bank; Bill C-19, which was meant as a tribute to a Conservative member who unfortunately passed away, and which makes street racing a new offence under the Criminal Code; the fifth bill, namely Bill C-48, on the United Nations Convention against Corruption and on international crime, was fast-tracked and supported by all opposition parties and the government; finally, the sixth one, is Bill C-59, creating a new offence, under the Criminal Code, for the unauthorized recording of a movie in a movie theatre. That legislation was quickly passed, at the request of the Bloc Québécois, which had enlisted the support of the official opposition and of the NDP.

Again, of the 12 bills introduced by the government, six received royal assent. That left six, with four of them being in the Senate. That was the case for Bill C-10, on minimum penalties for offences involving firearms, and for Bill C-22, on the age of protection. The Conservatives proposed to raise the age of protection from 14 to 16 years. As mentioned earlier, opposition parties requested that a close in age provision be included, to provide for a difference of five or two years, depending on the age being considered.

As I just mentioned, Bill C-10 and Bill C-22 were before the Senate. Bill C-23, which is a rather technical bill on the language used during a trial before a jury, was also before the Senate, as was Bill C-35, dealing with the reverse onus, at the pre-trial hearing, for a number of very serious offences. The committee was told that this was already the usual practice, and that a justice of the peace or a superior court judge very rarely grants bail at the pre-trial hearing, when the individual is accused of murder, assault or sexual assault. This was already an established practice.

In summary, six bills have been passed and have received royal assent, and four had already gone through third reading in the House of Commons and were in the Senate. This left us with two bills: the dangerous offenders bill, Bill C-27, which I will address later, and Bill C-32 dealing with impaired driving.

Could the Prime Minister and the Conservative team be asked to be a little more relaxed and show a more nuanced and respectful attitude toward the opposition?

We are going to do our job. In the past, we have given the government our cooperation when that was necessary, but we have introduced amendments because, unfortunately, an entire segment of the Conservative caucus has no idea of nuances. I will give examples. Had Bill C-32 been passed as written, without amendments, anyone driving his or her own car with a passenger on board who was in possession of a small amount of marijuana could have faced prosecution or arrest.

Was that the purpose of the legislation? This bill was intended to address a public safety issue, recognizing that no one should be operating a vehicle on public roadways while under the influence of drugs, and to allow for drivers to be subjected to standardized tests known as standardized field sobriety tests. The intention certainly was not to pass legislation to target drivers carrying drugs without their knowledge. That could happen. I could give three people a ride to my cottage without knowing that one of them has marijuana in his or her pocket. This would have made me liable to prosecution.

This is the sort of excess the Conservatives are guilty of, when we are talking about a bill, a motivation, and an intent that are utterly defensible in terms of public policy. But when the Conservatives are left to their own devices, when they are ruled by that extreme wing of their caucus and blinded by the idea of law and order, they come up with bills that have to be amended.

Conditional sentencing has been mentioned. When we began looking at Bill C-9, the first justice bill the Conservatives introduced—the member for London West will recall—we were told that conditional sentences represented only 5% of sentences.

If you look at all the sentences handed down in all the courts in Canada in recent years for which records have been kept, you see that conditional sentences, which allow offenders to serve their sentence in the community under supervision, represented only 5% of sentences.

If we had adopted the bill as introduced by the Conservatives, all offences punishable by more than two years in prison might have been excluded from this tool judges have for determining how a sentence can be served in the community.

I repeat that I am extremely disappointed with the attitude of the Prime Minister, who asks the opposition to vote for bills, but will not tolerate any amendments to those bills. How can anyone be so authoritarian? How can anyone be so cavalier? How can anyone be so disrespectful of Canadian democracy and tell the 57% or 58% of Canadians who did not elect Conservative members that if their representatives do not fall into line with the Conservative platform, they cannot introduce amendments in this House?

I assure my colleagues that we are going to consider the issue and that we will work very quickly, with all due diligence. And we will introduce amendments if we feel that they are in the interest of the people we represent.

The government wants this bill to go to committee quickly. The leaders have agreed on this. Later today, the whip will introduce a motion, and once again we have offered to cooperate.

Next week, we will have this bill before us, but we will not allow ourselves to be led by the nose by this government. When the Conservatives were in opposition, they were intractable and often mean-spirited. They constantly, systematically filibustered. Never have I seen such filibustering. Sometimes it went on day and night.

The current Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food did the filibustering. He led this House in circles regarding employment equity. At the time, I was a young, naive and vulnerable member. I had just been elected and was experiencing my first filibuster. Furthermore, the current Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development was uncompromising on the issue of employment equity, which was under the responsibility of the Canadian Human Rights Commission.

They cannot have it both ways. A person cannot say that it is fine to filibuster when they are in opposition, only to turn around, once they are in the governing party, and refuse the opposition's right to present amendments. This is irresponsible and disrespectful.

Bill C-2 merges five pieces of legislation. Of those pieces of legislation, the Bloc Québécois supported four of them, with amendments. In committee, of course, we will not ask to repeat the work that has already been done.

However, we have a problem with Bill C-27, concerning dangerous offenders. As we all know, the Criminal Code has included provisions on this matter since 1947. In the past, we did not use the term dangerous offender, but rather habitual criminal. I wonder whether certain members, those who have been practising law for some time, remember that expression. The Liberals already changed those provisions by creating a new category of dangerous offenders—long-term offenders—in Bill C-55.

What is our line of questioning? I would like to be clear. I am telling the government that the Bloc Québécois would like to see three main groups of witnesses. First, we would like to hear constitutional experts on the constitutionality of the reverse onus principle, in the same terms in which this bill was presented.

We would then like to see a second group of witnesses. I would remind the House that when the Minister of Justice appeared before the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights, he was unable to tell us what it is about the administrative and judicial process for dangerous offenders that is not working.

Currently, a person can be labelled a dangerous offender after committing a first serious offence. Section 753 of the Criminal Code is very clear. If there is any reason to believe that that an individual is likely to cause a death, is out of control, or is likely to reoffend, that person can be declared a dangerous offender after a first offence. I am not saying that this is what usually happens. We are not talking about a large number of people here. About 350 people have been declared dangerous offenders, and some of them have been released under mandatory supervision. Of course, most of them are inside federal prisons.

We will run this by constitutional experts. It is our responsibility to ensure that this bill is not unconstitutional. We will ask people who make their living dealing with this issue before the courts to explain to us which parts of the current legislation are not working.

We will also ask a third group of witnesses about the list of offences. In the bill before us today, five types of offences would result in an individual being declared a dangerous offender. Naturally, most of them are serious crimes, such as attempted murder, murder, homicide and serious sexual crimes.

The government wants to expand this list to include 42 offences. The preliminary list includes 22 offences, one of which is assault. I do not wish to downplay the importance of assault. However, should an individual who has been convicted of assault three times be put on a list of dangerous offenders, with all of the consequences that entails?

There is a list of designated offences, which, I agree, are offences generally punishable by a sentence of more than five years. The question is, do we need to take this further? Is it important to have these two lists of offences?

Why ask this question? We are not questioning the fact that we need provisions in the Criminal Code for people who are so dangerous and present such a risk of recidivism that they need to be designated long term offenders, or dangerous offenders. A dangerous offender is someone who can be imprisoned for an indefinite period. Obviously, they are denied their freedom and denied eligibility for parole. Certainly—and I am not afraid to say so—this is justified in some situations. We understand that for some individuals there is no chance for rehabilitation and they have to be imprisoned for an indeterminate period.

Nonetheless, it is our responsibility to ensure that if we are going to pass legislation that considerably broadens the scope of this rule—which is in fact an exception to the general rule—then we have to be able to verify the facts in committee in order to make sure there is no risk of abuse or excess.

As hon. members know, the Conservatives are driven by partisan political considerations. That is “partisan” with a capital “P”.

As it stands, the crime rate has gone down in Canada. In any event, the homicide rate has gone down. The incidence of violent crime has gone down. I am not saying there has not been a worrisome increase in property crime in certain communities. However, generally speaking, we know full well that for a number of years now, major crime, such as homicide—crimes involving violence—has gone down year after year.

Criminologists who have studied these issues are saying that there is no correlation between a reliance on imprisonment and lower crime rates in a society. We do not live in a safer society and the communities are not safer because of widespread prison sentencing.

We know that the United States has an incarceration rate seven times greater than Canada's. In Canada, there are 132 or 134 prisoners for every 100,000 people.

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

Mr. Speaker, I did not realize we were going to be moving on this quickly, which is a good development because it will move these bills along, as opposed to the government's approach, which has been one of delay.

In that regard, I want to do a quick resumé of what has happened in this Parliament starting in roughly mid-February of 2006, at which time we were faced with a large number of crime bills by the government. I took the opportunity to go through the list of bills that have been dealt with in one form or another.

The list was quite lengthy, starting with Bill C-9, which was a bill on conditional sentencing. That went through both Houses and has royal assent. There was one on the Judges Act, Bill C-17, and it also went through all stages. Another one relating to DNA identification went through all stages. As for Bill C-19 on street racing, a particularly emotional point for the Conservative Party, we got that one through. There was one on criminal interest rates, Bill C-26, and it got through. There was one, Bill C-48, which dealt with international crime syndicates and the need to fight corruption at that level, coming out of the UN, and it got through. The next one, dealing with the illegal recording of movies, went very quickly through the House with all parties cooperating. It never even went to committee.

In addition to that, we have had Bill C-22, which actually is part of Bill C-2, the bill that is before us now, passed at second reading in the Senate. It went through the House all the way to the Senate. We have had Bill C-10, an important bill on mandatory minimums, go through this House and into the Senate, where it was at first reading.

Similarly, Bill C-23 went through this House and got to the Senate, but it is not part of this bill. I am not sure if the government is going to bring that one back or not. On Bill C-35, which was the bill dealing with bail reviews involving alleged gun crimes and the reverse onus being placed, again, it got through all the work in this House and went to the Senate.

The final bill with regard to work that we had done and which was almost through this House was the bill dealing with impaired driving. That had cleared the committee and was coming back to the House. It would have been back in the House if we had not prorogued in the middle part of September.

These are all the bills we have had from the government. The final bill was still in committee and we had just started on it. We had three or four meetings taking witnesses on that bill, which deals with dangerous offenders and amendments to recognizance in the Criminal Code.

In addition, there were at least four to six private members' bills, all of them coming from the Conservative Party interestingly enough, which we dealt with and passed or dealt with in some fashion. One had to be withdrawn. We dealt with those as well.

All of that work was being done at the justice committee, with the exception, and this is really interesting, of two bills that went to special legislative committees. Because the justice committee's workload was so great, we moved them into special committees. However, we worked on those bills and got them through.

All of that is work we have done in a little over 18 months, yet in spite of that, there are two things the government does. It constantly complains about the length of time it takes, in regard to which the Conservatives could have done much better by originally having omnibus bills. I have said that in the House to the point where I am almost sick of hearing it myself, and I am sure everyone else in the House is, but it is the way they should have conducted themselves. Of course, though, because of their political agenda of wanting to highlight each one of these bills, they did not put them together. They finally came to their senses and realized that it is a way of moving bills through the House more rapidly.

However, we did all of that work, and now what we are hearing, which is the second point I want to make about the government, is that the delay is the fault of the opposition. That is absolutely false.

One can see from the length of the list of bills we have had to deal with, plus the private members' bills, plus working on two legislative committees in addition to all the work that we have done at justice, that nobody in the opposition has done any delaying. The delay with regard to the five bills that are incorporated now into Bill C-2 is entirely at the feet of the government. It prorogued and that cost us a month.

It is interesting to note what could have happened in that one month's time. It is my opinion that all three of the bills that were in the Senate would have been through and ready for royal assent, which again is in the hands of the government. If the government had conducted itself with any kind of efficiency, those bills probably would be law today.

The fourth bill, the one dealing with impaired driving, which again is part of Bill C-2, would have come to the House in the middle part of September when we came back. There was not a great deal of debate, and although I and my party have some reservations about it, we in fact would support it.

The bill would have had some debate in the House at report stage and third reading, but it would have been through the House and at least at first reading in the Senate now, perhaps at second reading. It is not beyond the pale to think that the bill also would have cleared the Senate and would have been ready for royal assent.

This bill bothers me. Of all the ones we have, this one bothers me the most because of the conduct of the government in dealing with the individuals, including the police officers and police associations, who lobbied really heavily to get this legislation, and in particular the families and supporters of MADD, Mothers Against Drunk Driving. It bothers me that the government would have misused the loyalty and the support that those groups had given to the bill by leading them to believe that somehow it was the opposition that was holding it up, when in fact it was prorogation. Now there is this tactic of combining that bill with the other bills to actually slow down its passage. Otherwise there is a reasonably good chance it would have been law by now, and if not, it would have been in its final stages at the Senate and it certainly would have been law by the end of the year.

That is much less likely to happen now. It is more likely that this bill will not get final approval and royal assent until well into the spring, no matter what the government tries to do. Quite frankly we will do whatever we can to be cooperative in moving these bills forward.

Our party was quite prepared to have all four of those bills that I have mentioned which form 80% of Bill C-2 back at their original stages, again so they would be law or on the verge of becoming law, that is, receiving royal assent today, as opposed to what is likely to happen now. It is going to be into the new year and maybe well into the spring before these bills become law, assuming of course that the government does not collapse and there is an election, which is another problem.

The government has delayed it, and in addition, it has clearly pushed it back at least until the new year, with the real possibility of an election intervening and a number of these provisions never seeing the light of day until after the election, when we would come back and start the process all over again.

That is reprehensible conduct on the part of the government. The only reason the Conservatives are doing it is so they can stand up in public and say, “We are tough on crime”. They do the macho thing. They beat their chests. They do the King Kong thing as if they are coming out of a jungle. The reality is that the delay is all at their feet.

I am really angry when I think of all the work that so many groups have done, the victims of crime in particular, and now are being misused by the government in such a way.

I am not going to take up much more time but I do want to address the final bill that was at committee. Former Bill C-27 is now part of Bill C-2. It deals with two amendments to the Criminal Code. One would be on the provisions relating to dangerous offenders and the other is with regard to recognizance.

With regard to recognizance, I think I can safely say that all the opposition parties are in support of those provisions. They give additional authority to our judiciary to deal with people who are out in the community on their own recognizance, but we can put additional conditions on them.

The bill provides for things such as requiring them to wear a monitoring device. There is a number of other provisions that would substantially improve security in our communities regarding people who have now been released from charges and who have already served their time. It is a substantial step forward and one that has been needed.

I have said this in the House before, that when I started practising law back in the early 1970s we needed it at that time. Successive governments have tended to shy away from it. Our judiciary has attempted on a number of occasions to introduce these types of control devices, if I could put it that way, in terms of sentencing or conditions imposed on people and it has consistently lost in our courts of appeal. It required legislative intervention. The provision is in this bill and we need to pass that and get it into play so our judges can do a better job of helping protect Canadians, which they want to do.

The other part in this provision, the old Bill C-27 now part of Bill C-2, is with regard to dangerous offenders. We have significant problems with this. Originally when the bill came before the House as Bill C-27, all three opposition parties indicated that on principle they had to vote against it because it has a provision of reverse onus with regard to the dangerous offender.

All of us believe that that part of the bill would suffer a charter challenge that would be successful in striking it down. What I do not think the government has ever understood is that not only would it be struck down, but perhaps the whole dangerous offender section would be struck down. Just as we saw with the security certificates where the Supreme Court said that if it could not be fixed, they were all going down, the same type of thing could happen in a ruling on dangerous offenders. The government has never understood that.

Ultimately, the opposition parties decided that there were perhaps ways of amending this in committee to improve the use of the dangerous offender section, because we know we need to do that, and at the same time make sure that the section was not jeopardized by a successful charter challenge at some point in the future.

We were working on that when we ended in June. We fully expected that was one of the bills for the special legislative committee and that we would be back and working on it in September, that we would complete the witness testimony and improve the bill by way of amendment and if not, then I suppose we would have been faced with a conundrum of whether we could support it or not. That is where we are at this point.

That bill needs significant work in order to be sure that we do not lose the entire dangerous offender section of the Criminal Code. We will be doing that work as soon as we can get the committee up and running again and the bill into the committee.

It is very clear that the government, and I do not say this about the opposition parties, is prepared to play politics with public safety. The Conservatives want to be seen as the champions and they are prepared to take these kinds of manoeuvres of delaying these bills by incorporating them all into Bill C-2 so that they can do that. They want to stand up in the House and in the media and out on the hustings and say “we are the champions of it”, when in fact the truth is just the opposite. They were guilty. They are guilty of delay. The opposition parties are not.

[Brian Murphy, Liberal, Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe, NB]

Mr. Speaker, on Bill C-2 and justice issues in general, I heard just recently in the House the term “a revolving door”. The only revolving door is the justice minister and officials in the Conservative Party going in and out of press conferences announcing and reannouncing the same bills on which they pulled the plug.

With respect to Bill C-2, I have reviewed all the material. I sat in on all the committee hearings. What I have recently discovered, through obtaining a bill briefing, is a note from the Prime Minister about Bill C-2, in that it regurgitates all the bills we dealt with in the last Parliament. The message from the Prime Minister is that he is sorry that he pulled the plug on Parliament and flushed all the good work of the justice committee down the drain.

That is what happened. All these bills were well on their way. They were going through the due process of Parliament, which followed the rules of parliaments before, and they were on the way to being in effect.

The reason we are here today is that the Prime Minister prorogued Parliament and those bills were killed in their tracks. It is not true that perhaps that is why the Prime Minister prorogued Parliament but I think it is. In fact, I think that is why we have a new session.

I may be new and I may be in the back row but I read the papers and I know what is going on. Parliament was prorogued and all legislation was stopped in its tracks.

What is important to remind ourselves, and the Canadian public will want to know, is that there were 13 bills in the justice dossier and 7 of them were passed and are now the law of Canada.

As a member of the justice committee, I would expect all parties to tell all members of the justice committee that it was a job well done, that seven out of thirteen justice bills that affect the citizens of Canada are now law. Five of those bills are currently the subject of Bill C-2, which I will turn to, and one, mysteriously, of the thirteen bills, the criminal procedure act, which all parties agreed to unanimously, was a creature of a previous Parliament and which all prosecutors are waiting intently for. These prosecutors are the people who are on the front lines, as well as the police officers, in the criminal justice system. I suppose they are wondering why, despite the offer to fast track the bill by this party and despite the unanimous support by the justice committee, Bill C-23 has not been moved up. Perhaps in the government's haste and the revolving door of the press circle and the press club, it forgot to bring along an important bill.

Overall, the 13 bills, the 7 passed and the 1 dropped by an incompetent justice minister and the parliamentary secretary for forgetting that, and the 5 we are about to discuss, all of these bills need to be enforced. Each police officer, prosecutor, probation officer and corrections official, all those people in the system need to know that if there are 13 new laws, 12 because 1 was dropped by the incompetent ministry, but if there are 12 new bills we need to know we have the resources to put them into effect.

It is urgent for the public to know that despite a promise by the government, the law and order government, the tough on crime government, it is toothless without following up on the promise of 2,500 new police officers and the false promise in the Speech from the Throne for 1,000 new RCMP officers when the RCMP cannot recruit 1,000 officers. It is behind in its recruitment. It is a meaningless, toothless promise to the people of Canada but, even worse, it takes away the hope of the Canadian Police Association, the Canadian Association of Police Chiefs, the prosecutors and the probation officers, all the people who must put into effect, on a daily basis, the laws of the justice system.

I want to emphasize that the party on this side of the House is not so fickle. We support our justice system. We support our judges, our prosecutors, and all of the police officers who are responsible for protecting Canadians.

Over the past 18 months, the Liberal Party has undertaken a thorough review of the legislation pertaining to crime while the Conservatives have been busy playing political games. The Prime Minister put an end to this Parliament's activities and committee work, thereby throwing out the amendments that this bill sought to make to five acts. It is his fault that these five acts have not yet been amended.

We on this side of the House have faith in our justice system and are convinced that it will keep the peace in our communities.

I say that because it should be a non-partisan issue that we all believe in a safe community. We are all here as parliamentarians, surely, to ensure that we have a safe community. We may differ on the avenue to get there, but how much did we, the Liberal Party of Canada and its members on the justice committee, really differ from the plan of the Conservative Party in general and, more importantly, in the organic process which is called the development of criminal law through amendments to the Criminal Code?

I say to the House and to the public: not much.

There were 13 bills proposed. Seven passed and there are five in Bill C-2 that we are substantially in agreement on because they would have been law by now had Parliament not been prorogued, and I must say for the record that there is one that has been dropped by the government and that we are also in favour of.

So how is it that we, in trying to keep the community safe, are against the elements in Bill C-2 and the elements in these bills? I will repeat them: Bill C-9, on conditional sentences; Bill C-18, on DNA identification; Bill C-19, on street racing; Bill C-25, on proceeds of crime; Bill C-26, on criminal rate of interest; and just to add two others that were not part of Bill C-2, Bill C-48, on the implementation of a UN convention against corruption, and Bill C-59, on the unauthorized recording of a movie. These have all been supported.

But there is more. I hear members on the opposite side talk about 13 years of inaction with respect to criminal justice and I think the Canadian public would be interested to know that these laws, while continuing on the evolution of our criminal law and making our community safer, are but part of the Criminal Code of Canada.

On the Criminal Code of Canada, I might say this in a moment of non-partisanship and to congratulate a Conservative politician, albeit a dead one.When Prime Minister John Thompson, a Conservative prime minister, was minister of justice he essentially created and adapted the criminal law of Canada into a code that we would follow in this country. I want to get credit for giving plaudits to a Conservative in this place.

A principal part of the Criminal Code of Canada, which we have been talking about since I have been in Parliament, is sentencing. What is sentencing? The purpose and principles of sentencing are set out in section 718. I hear very often in this place and at the revolving door of the press conference centre for the Conservative Party of Canada that there is but one principle in sentencing, that is, to put the bad guys away.

I know this is a novel concept for those who are directing the Conservative justice agenda, but why do we not refer to what the law says about the purpose and principles of sentencing? They are set out in section 718. I am not going to read this word for word because it tends to be bogged down in particularness and assuredness and literal things that, again, the Conservative justice team really knows nothing about, having adopted and written such sloppy legislation that it had to be sent to committee to be fixed.

However, in general, there are six important factors or principles in sentencing. It is the reason we have sentences for people who have committed crimes. One principle is to denounce unlawful conduct. That is the one I hear about most often from the Conservative justice team. That is a valid principle, but it is one of six.

What are the others? One is to deter the offender from doing it again. That is another one I hear a lot about. The point over here is that those two of the six are very important. We are not shirking the importance of those. The law does not say that any one is more important than the other. It is a guidepost to judges who make our law pursuant to what they read here. It is a guidepost to say that we will denounce unlawful conduct. Yes, we will, by bringing in this sentence. We will deter the person or any person in the public from doing it again. They are two very important objectives.

However, that is where the Conservative justice team stops most of the time. The Conservatives forget that they must separate offenders from society when necessary and that they must assist in rehabilitating offenders. This is not to mean that the criminal gets more justice than the victim. What it means is that if there is a chance to rehabilitate an offender before that offender is reintegrated into society, or after, we ought to take that chance. Society is not safer, and let us remember that this safety is the principal goal of all parliamentarians here, by sending a more dangerous person back into the community after his or her sentence is served. It is a very important principle, as important as deterrence and as important as denouncing unlawful conduct.

The fifth aspect is to provide reparations for harm done to victims. That is very key. I will get into speaking about Bill C-9, which was a failed bill and flawed until it was amended at committee by all parties. One of the key aspects of Bill C-9 was to amend it to allow some white collar criminals, for lack of a better term, who had done a very denunciatory offence, which should be deterred, such as acts of stealing money through a breach of trust from someone, say, the option of a conditional sentence. It was to allow them to make reparations and restitution during the term of their sentence when it might mean the difference between an aged person with a stolen RRSP account getting that money back or not.

It gave back discretion to the judge, which he or she had in the first place, and it was a very necessary amendment to a flawed and hasty bill to make sure that this principle of sentencing, that is, to provide reparation for harm done to victims, was put in place. It was made better law by the intervention of the committee.

The final principle is to promote a sense of responsibility in offenders, an acknowledgement of the harm done to victims and to the community. What that is about is making sure that these offenders are not so divorced from the community in which they live, so that they know when they have done wrong that they have a responsibility to that community to be remorseful, to make amends and, I think very importantly, to reintegrate into that community if possible. We should never forget that.

The overall principle, and it is written as the fundamental principle in section 718.1 of the code, is that of the proportionality, of the gravity of the offence and the degree of responsibility of the offender. This is a very important principle, which judges rely on all the time.

I hear members speak about 13 years of Liberal inactivity. Actually I was not here for any of those 13 years. I was on the outside looking at all of the criminal justice bills that had been brought in during that time. I remember that it was a Liberal minister of justice who brought in the whole concept of mandatory minimums, which at the revolving door of the Conservatives' press circle was as if it was invented by them. I wonder if they invented the laws of gravity and found the North American continent. I suspect not, Mr. Speaker, and I do not suppose you could answer objectively if they say they have somewhere else, but I am not sure that they would not stand here and say that they have.

They did not invent mandatory minimums. The other sentencing principles in section 718.2 were brought in, in successive Liberal governments, by amendments in 1995, 1997, 2000, 2001 and 2005. All of those amendments in section 718.2 were brought in to recognize the changing nature of our society and to allow judges for the first time in the history of the Criminal Code to take into account these factors when sentencing, either in increasing or in decreasing the sentences, and I am very proud of that.

These factors include evidence that the offence was motivated by bias, prejudice or hate. It is the first time that it was codified that a judge should take into account hate crimes when sentencing. For any crimes committed based on someone's ethnic origin, language, colour, religion, sex, age, mental or physical disability, sexual orientation and other factors, is it not correct, right and fair in this society that those sentences were brought in and that judges should be told to take into account those factors in section 718.2, or whether the violence was against a spouse or common law partner?

Is it not important, for instance, that a judge be given that discretion to increase a sentence if the crime was against a spouse or a common law partner, or if the crime was done to a person of tender years under the age of 18? Is it not important that this be taken into account?

Is it not important, as it says in subparagraph 718.2(a)(iii), whether or not the person who committed the crime “abused a position of trust or authority”, or also whether the person was a member of a criminal organization, or that the offence was a terrorism offence?

All of these factors were in judges' hands before 2005. These were not invented by the Newtons over there in the last 18 months. They were there, it was Liberal legislation, and I presume it had all party support because it makes such sense.

Finally, in the principles of sentencing categories, paragraph 718.2(e) has the all important factor of recognizing that if an offender is of aboriginal origin or from a first nations community special circumstances should be put in place. We found during much of the deliberation at committee that this sentencing principle was often ignored.

I look at the amendments in place with respect to Bill C-10 and Bill C-9. It is a particular affront to this established sentencing principle, and it seems to have been completely forgotten by the Conservative government, that these two important sections of the code had existed before the Conservative government took place and certainly will exist when it moves on into the sunset.

About the laws in Bill C-2 and why it is so easy on this side for us to say we support the bill, it is important to remember that we on this side, and the members of the justice committee from the New Democratic Party and the Bloc Québécois will vouch for this, and the members of the justice committee had made Bill C-10 and the mandatory minimum aspect a better bill when it left committee. Arrogantly, and without respect for the work of the all party committee, the Conservative justice team, coming yet again from the revolving door of the press club, suggested that it would put in at report stage the entire bill as it was before.

However, over the summer I think the Conservatives had blueberry festivals and strawberry festivals and must have eaten some humble pie at some festival, as they decided that they would accept the amendments as they came from the committee, reintroducing Bill C-2 with the Bill C-10 amendments to make our community a better place and enlarge upon the mandatory minimums that were already in place under the Liberal justice program before the Conservatives took office.

The other bill that needs clarification on why it is an acceptable bill now, and why it was never acceptable when the amateur Conservative justice team brought the topic up before, is Bill C-22, the age of consent bill.

I have heard well-meaning, honest and forthright members of the House, such as the member for Wild Rose, say that he and his colleagues could never get an age of consent or age of protection bill through the Commons. I was disturbed by that. I asked why we would not protect our young persons. Why would we not get in line with many of the communities around the world which recognize that consent may not be freely given by a 14 year old when the world has become smaller and the age of the predator is upon us?

I looked into it. There were two very fundamental flaws with all bills that were presented as part of a justice package by an opposition entitled the Conservative opposition. They are as follows.

There was absolutely no close in age exemption. This bill, Bill C-22, contains a close in age exemption, making it flexible enough to recognize that not every relationship that is separated by a number of years is a relationship between an innocent young child and a sexual predator.

Finally, as I wrap up, age of consent as presented previously would have criminalized normal adolescent sexual activity which, whether the Conservatives like it or not, is out there, and 14 year olds and 15 year olds having relations are protected by this. It does prevent sexual predators from preying on the young. It is good legislation.

In summary, the five bills in Bill C-2 are good law because the committee made them so. I encourage the Conservative justice team, the Prime Minister and all Conservatives out there to watch what they write, to watch what they present to Parliament, and to not keep going through that revolving door called the press circle to give press releases without having done their homework to ensure that they are passing good laws which will make Canada safer.

[Rob Moore, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to join in the debate on Bill C-2, the tackling violent crime act.

As the Minister of Justice noted when he spoke in reply to the Speech from the Throne, safe streets and secure communities are the Canadian way of life. This is what I would like to focus my remarks on today, how we are building a stronger, safer and better Canada, beginning with Bill C-2.

I have had many opportunities, as probably all members in the House have had, to talk with my constituents, parents, community leaders, police, lawyers, and many others about their concern with crime and what we should do about it.

What I have heard has likely been heard by all hon. members as they have travelled throughout their ridings and indeed across Canada. Canadians are clearly expecting their government to take concrete and effective action to tackle crime.

Unlike previous governments on this issue, the current government listens. We share these concerns and we have made tackling crime a key priority for our government. We have made it a key priority for our government because it is a key priority for Canadians, but there is so much more that needs to be done.

We know what crime looks like in Canada. Crime statistics have been recorded since 1962 so we have 45 years of information. Statistics Canada reported last July that the overall national crime rate has decreased for the second year in a row.

We all want to see a lower crime rate. So this is the good news. But the national crime rate is an average and does not tell us about some of the more serious problems or localized problems.

The long term trends over the last few generations show us what we all know in the House, that crime has increased drastically. Since the 1970s, for example, the violent crime rate has increased 98%, but the national crime rate does not tell us what may be going on in individual communities. Community leaders, victims groups and law enforcement know their particular challenges, and we are listening to them.

Many Canadians have lost confidence in the criminal justice system and question if it is doing enough to protect them. They know that violent crime is all too common. They dread hearing statistics like those released on October 17 by Statistics Canada.

Those statistics tell us that 4 out of 10, or 40% of victims of violent crimes sustained injuries. They tell us that half of violent crimes occurred at private residences. They tell us that firearms were involved in 30% of homicides, 31% of attempted murders and 13% of robberies committed. They tell us that one out of every six victims of violent crimes was a youth aged 12 to 17 years old and children under 12 years of age account for 23% of victims of sexual assaults and 5% of victims of violent crimes.

Canadians are looking to the federal government to work with them to restore community safety. The government understands the need for leadership in criminal justice and this is what our tackling crime priority, and our commitment in this regard is all about. It is about reducing all crime and providing an effective criminal justice system. Our plan is ambitious, but Canadians can count on us to get it done. As they have seen on other issues, we have been able to get things done for all Canadians.

In the last session of Parliament the government tabled 13 crime bills. This is proof of our commitment to address crime and safety issues in our communities. It is interesting to note that it was 13 crime bills as it was 13 years of Liberal governments that have left us with a revolving door justice system in which Canadians have lost faith, a justice system that Canadians feel puts the rights of criminals ahead of the rights of everyday, law-abiding Canadians. This is what our government is going to address.

Six of these crime bills, of the 13, received royal assent and are now the law or will soon become the law. For example, one of the government's first bills and first priorities was to curtail the use of conditional sentences or house arrest for serious violent crimes.

We all know the issue of house arrest. In all of our ridings we have heard cases where someone has committed a very serious, sometimes violent, crime and there is an expectation in the community that there will be a severe consequence for someone who commits a severe crime. All too often the community is outraged when it hears that criminals will be serving out their sentence from the comfort of their own home.

Bill C-9, which received royal assent on May 31, 2007, and will be coming into force on December 1, 2007, makes it clear that conditional sentences or house arrest will not be an option for serious personal injury offences, terrorism offences, and organized crime offences where the maximum term of imprisonment is 10 years or more.

This change was a long time coming. It is well past due and Canadians will be better served by a justice system that does not allow, for these serious offences, criminals to serve a sentence in their own home. Canadians wanted this change.

Bill C-18 strengthened the laws governing the national DNA data bank. This will facilitate police investigation of crimes. Bill C-18 received royal assent on June 22, 2007. Some provisions are already in force and others will soon be proclaimed in force.

Bill C-19 made Canada's streets safer by enacting new offences to specifically combat street racing. These new offences built upon existing offences, including dangerous driving and criminal negligence, and provide higher maximum penalties of incarceration for the most serious of street racing offences.

As well, mandatory driving prohibition will be imposed on those convicted of street racing. In the most serious cases involving repeat street racing offenders, a mandatory lifetime driving prohibition can now be imposed.

We also took concrete steps to protect users of payday loans. Bill C-26, which received royal assent on May 3, 2007, makes it an offence to enter into an agreement or an arrangement to receive interest at a criminal rate or to receive payment of an interest at a criminal rate. The criminal rate of interest is defined as exceeding 60% per year.

We also took further measures to combat corruption. Bill C-48 enacted Criminal Code amendments to enable Canada to ratify and implement the United Nations convention against corruption on October 2, 2007. By ratifying the convention, Canada has joined 92 other state parties committed to working with the international community to take preventative measures against corruption.

Our bill to stop film piracy or camcording, Bill C-59, received widespread support. It was quickly passed and received royal assent on June 22, 2007.

Unfortunately, none of our other important crime bills progressed to enactment before Parliament prorogued. That is why the tackling violent crime act reintroduces the provisions of the following bills that died on the order paper.

The bill imposing mandatory minimum penalties of imprisonment for firearms offences, Bill C-10, is included in Bill C-2 as passed by the House of Commons.

Bill C-22, which increased the age of protection against adult sexual exploitation, has been included, as passed by the House of Commons.

Bill C-32, addressing drug impaired driving and impaired driving in general, has been introduced as amended by the House of Commons Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights and reported to the House of Commons.

Bill C-35, imposing a reverse onus for bail for firearms offences, has been included in this new bill, as passed by the House of Commons. This bill will make it tougher for those who have committed a firearms offence to received bail and be back out on the street.

Bill C-27, addressing dangerous and repeat violent offenders, as originally introduced, is included in this bill, but with some further amendments, which I will elaborate on shortly.

The tackling violent crime act respects the parliamentary process and includes the bills as amended by committee or as passed by the House of Commons, and in the same state that they were when Parliament was prorogued. As a result, these reforms are familiar, or should be familiar, to all members of this House, and so I would call on all hon. members to quickly pass the tackling violent crime act.

Indeed, many hon. members have already stated that they support these reforms. There is therefore no need to further debate these reforms or for a prolonged study of the provisions that Parliament has already debated and committees have already scrutinized. It is time for us all to demonstrate our commitment to safeguarding Canadians and for safer communities, and to quickly move this bill forward.

For those who need more convincing, I would like to reiterate that the tackling violent crime act addresses a range of serious issues that put Canadians at risk: gun crimes, impaired driving, sexual offences against children and dangerous offenders.

We know that Canadians expect their government to take action and to protect them from these crimes. To do so, we need the support of all hon. members, as well as Canadians, our partners in the provinces and the territories, and law enforcement and community groups.

Time does not permit me to address each of the equally important elements of Bill C-2. I know that other members will rise to speak to the reforms that are of most concern to them. I propose to highlight a few of the issues that have been raised repeatedly with me by my constituents, and I am sure by constituents in ridings held by all hon. members, in particular, about impaired driving, the age of consent and dangerous offenders.

Alcohol and drug impaired driving have devastating effects for victims, for families and for communities. Impaired drivers are responsible for thousands of fatalities and injuries each year, not to mention billions of dollars in property damage.

Once the tackling violent crime act is the law, impaired drivers will face tough punishment, no matter which intoxicant they choose, and police and prosecutors will have the tools that they need to deal with these offences.

Although drug impaired driving has always been a crime, until recently, police have not had the same tools available to stop those who drive while impaired by drugs that they have to address alcohol impaired driving. Under this bill, they will.

The tackling violent crime act strengthens the ability of police, prosecutors and the courts to investigate, prosecute and sentence those who endanger the safety of other Canadians through alcohol or drug impaired driving. I know that all hon. members recognize the pressing need to ensure the safety of our streets, highways, communities and our schools. By giving police the tools they need to combat impaired driving, we are doing that.

These reforms were applauded by the stakeholders and supported in the House of Commons. I am sure every member of Parliament in the House has received correspondence urging them to support the bill. There should be no impediments to making progress on this part of the tackling violent crime act.

The act also reintroduces the reforms to raise the age at which young people can consent to sexual activity from 14 to 16 years of age. The bill takes away the ability, and let us be clear on what the bill does, of adult sexual predators to rely on claims that their young victims consented.

Again, these reforms were welcomed by child advocates and supported in the House as part of former Bill C-22, so there is no need for further debate. We can move ahead.

It is worth spending a few moments to focus on the dangerous and high risk offender provisions of former Bill C-27. Some of these provisions have been modified and, therefore, hon. members may want to scrutinize these aspects more than the other reforms included in the tackling violent crime act.

The dangerous offender reforms in Bill C-2 respond to the concerns highlighted in the debates and before the justice committee, and by provincial attorneys general. I am sure that all hon. members will agree that these modifications are welcomed.

As members will recall, former Bill C-27 was tabled in the House last October. That bill included dramatic enhancements to the sentencing and management of the very worst of the worst, those offenders who repeatedly commit violent and sexual crimes and who require special attention, because it has become clear that the regular criminal sentencing regime simply cannot effectively manage the small but violent and dangerous group of offenders.

The tackling violent crime act includes all of the original amendments to the Criminal Code from the former Bill C-27, as well as two important changes which will go further in protecting Canadians from dangerous offenders.

First, let me provide an overview of the provisions brought forward into the House under Bill C-27. It includes the requirement in dangerous offender hearings that an offender be presumed to meet the dangerous offender criteria upon a third conviction for a primary designated offence. In other words, an offence that is on the list of the 12 most violent or sexual offences that typically trigger dangerous offender designations.

Second, the bill would also place a requirement on crown prosecutors to inform the court that they had fully considered whether to pursue a dangerous offender application. This is to prevent these applications from falling through the cracks. This would occur in cases where an offender had been convicted for a third time of a relatively serious sexual or violent offence.

The declaration is intended to ensure more consistent use of the dangerous offender sentence by the Crown in all jurisdictions. Although the Crown must indicate whether it has considered bringing a dangerous offender application, we are not dictating to it that it must do so. We are not attempting to arbitrarily fetter the discretion of the Crown or of the court. Rather, we are providing a way to make sure that the Crown turns its mind to the issue of a dangerous offender application.

Third, Bill C-2 would also bring forward the very significant reforms to the section 810.1 and 810.2 peace bond provisions that enable any person to apply to a court to ask for stringent conditions to be imposed against individuals who are felt to pose a threat of sexual or violent offending in the community.

We have all heard the horror stories from one end of the country to the other of someone who is known to be a threat to commit a sexual or violent offence against an innocent member of the community. There is often great frustration among Canadians at the perceived inability for government, for officials, for police, to act to protect the community from a subsequent violent or sexual offence.

Specifically, we are doubling the duration of peace bonds from one year to two years. We are also providing specific authority for the court to impose conditions regarding curfews, electronic monitoring, treatment requirements and other prohibitions as well as making it very clear that the court may impose any conditions it feels are necessary to ensure public safety.

Since the tabling of the former Bill C-27 last October, provincial attorneys general have raised concerns about violent offenders who are found to be dangerous offenders, but are not receiving indeterminate sentences. This is due to a finding that they could be managed under the long term offender designation.

The long term offender sentencing option currently in the Criminal Code allows a court to sentence an individual to a regular sentence of imprisonment, but add up to 10 years of intensive community supervision to the sentence.

Based on the interpretation of the lower courts of the 2003 decision of the Supreme Court of Canada in R. v. Johnson, many individuals who fully meet the designation of a dangerous offender have nonetheless been given long term offender designation instead. The Crown has been unable to convince the sentencing court that the offenders could not be managed under the less severe sentence option.

The big concern is that some of these individuals may not in fact be suitable for community supervision sentences. Yet, until they commit another violent sentence, their status as a dangerous offender cannot be reviewed by a court. I should mention, and it should be obvious, until they commit another violent offence, then it is too late for the community, for innocent victims and for families.

Given the concerns expressed since former Bill C-27 was tabled, the government has been examining the scope of this problem and developing potential solutions. It is clear that a large proportion of the individuals who meet the dangerous offender criteria, but have been given a less severe sentence, have demonstrated that they simply refuse to cooperate. The majority eventually breach one or more of the conditions of their long term supervision order. This is a clear indicator that the original sentence was based on a flawed presumption that the offender was manageable. As such, there is a real need to revisit the original sentence in order to stop the reoffending right then and there before another tragedy occurs.

The tackling violent crime act addresses this problem and includes new provisions that were not included in the former bill.

First, the tackling violent crime act makes it clear that from now on if offenders meet the dangerous offender criteria, they will always be designated as a dangerous offender first, and that designation is for life. The court must then determine the appropriate sentence, either an indeterminate sentence or a determinate sentence, with or without the long term offender supervision order. Critical to this scheme is that from now on the court must impose an indeterminate sentence unless it is satisfied that the offenders can be managed under a less severe sentence.

Second, in cases where dangerous offenders are able to satisfy the court that they can be managed under the lesser sentence and are subsequently charged and convicted with a breach of a long term supervision order, they can be brought back to the court for a new sentencing hearing. At the new hearing, dangerous offenders will have to satisfy the court once again that they can still be managed under the lesser sentence. If not, the indeterminate sentence must be imposed.

The government believes that the impact of these new reforms will be significant. Because of the clarification to the sentencing provisions, fewer offenders will escape the dangerous offender designation. In addition, for the few offenders who are declared to be dangerous offenders, but given a long term offender sentence, they will know that if they do not abide by the term of their supervision orders once released, they will be returned to court for a new sentencing hearing and an indeterminate sentence will be the likely outcome.

It will not take a second sexual assault or a second violent offence to bring the offender back for a new dangerous offender sentence. This new provision would be available, for example, even if the violation were simply that the offender failed to return to his residence before curfew or consumed alcohol or drugs in violation of a long term offender supervision order.

Our government remains committed to ensuring that all Canadians live in safe and secure communities. The tackling violent crime act will protect Canadians. It is fulfilling our commitments to Canadians. The government is committed to taking action, acting on behalf of the safety of all Canadians. I urge all members to support the tackling violent crime act.

Resumption of Debate on Address in Reply

[Réal Ménard, Bloc, Hochelaga, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to take this opportunity to wish you and your team a good session, and to welcome the new pages as they start their new jobs.

No one will be surprised if I speak specifically about justice. Overall, the Bloc Québécois was disappointed in the throne speech. Our leader, the member for Laurier—Sainte-Marie, clearly indicated our conditions and expectations.

We also spoke about the Kyoto protocol. We clearly wanted the government to confirm that it would follow through with the commitment we made when Kyoto was signed: to bring greenhouse gases down to their 1990 levels and then reduce them further still. We do not have a green government—this we know. This government is very irresponsible when it comes to the environment, and the member for Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie has had many opportunities to speak about this.

We would also have liked the government to agree with the views of many important representatives of civil society and our fellow citizens, that Canada's mission in Afghanistan must end in 2009. Since the beginning of the mission we have been critical of the fact that there has not been a satisfactory balance of development assistance, international cooperation and military objectives.

Obviously we hope that attention will be focused on the entire question of forestry and the manufacturing sector. We know what hard times those sectors have experienced. Certainly we hope that supply management will also be discussed, for it is an extremely important issue in rural communities. And we hope that the government will eliminate the spending power in relation to matters under provincial jurisdiction. There have been calls for this for 50 years, and the Bloc Québécois is certainly not going to be satisfied with the government’s dishonest subterfuge.

With that introduction, we must now talk about the justice system. First, what an exercise in cosmetics this is, what an exercise in stage management! Watching the press conference given by the Minister of Justice, his colleague the Minister of Public Safety, and the Minister of the Economic Development Agency of Canada for the Regions of Quebec, we had the impression that we were attending a play by Molière, starring Tartuffe. We were given to think that since the Conservatives took power in 2006 the House of Commons has been the victim of obstruction when it comes to the justice system. We were also given to think that the government has been prevented from having its justice initiative passed.

And yet when we look a little closer, we see that since January 2006 the Conservative government has tabled 12 bills relating to the justice system. As we speak, six of those bills have received royal assent and have thus become law. Of those six bills that have become law, three were passed using what is called the fast-track procedure, with the unanimous consent of all leaders in the House of Commons.

So out of 12 bills, six have become law, and three of those were passed with the consent of all parties using the fast-track procedure; four reached the Senate, at first, second and third reading, while both in the House and in committee there were only two bills remaining. It has to be said that in parliamentary history there have been more vigorous examples of obstruction. When six bills receive royal assent, four are being considered in the Senate and only two are left, you cannot, in all honesty, appear at a press conference and say that you have been unable to get your bills passed.

For the benefit of our constituents, I will mention the bills that were passed.

First, there was Bill C-9, on conditional sentences. It is true that we did propose some amendments. It is our job to do that. We are a responsible opposition. What is the role of the opposition? It is to ensure that bill are improved and made as perfect as possible. We would be completely irresponsible if we did not do our work. As far as the bill on conditional sentences is concerned, the government ultimately wanted to do away with that option for judges and we highlighted that.

Bill C-17, which dealt with judges’ salaries, was also passed, followed by Bill C-18, a rather technical bill on DNA data banks. Moreover, in tribute to our unfortunately deceased colleague, Bill C-19, which creates a new offence under the Criminal Code with regard to street racing, was passed unanimously.

Two other bills were passed within 48 hours, which is an indication of the cooperation among opposition parties. One of those two was introduced by the Bloc Québécois, because of incidents of piracy, the unauthorized use of camcorders to record movies in theatres, particularly in Montreal. The other bill dealt with the signing by Canada of an international convention to fight organized crime.

Four other bills were being dealt with in the Senate, or I should say, “the other place.” There was, first, Bill C-10, concerning minimum penalties for offences involving firearms.

Next, there was Bill C-22, which dealt with the age of protection under the Criminal Code. Some of my colleagues followed that subject with a great deal of interest. The Bloc Québécois had asked for a five-year proximity clause. The Bill was before the Senate. In spite of some questions, our position was relatively favourable. The bill had been amended in committee.

Then there was Bill C-23, somewhat technical, on the language of juries and the accused.

I do not want to forget to say, Mr. Speaker, that I am sharing the time allotted to me with the likeable and charming member for Sherbrooke.

Finally, Bill C-35 on reversing the onus of proof was also passed. Some television journalists described this bill as reversing the onus of proof for parole. However, the bill was not about parole but about pre-trial bail hearings.

There were two bills remaining about which we had and still have questions and amendments to propose.

The first deals with drug-impaired driving. We are in favour of the new provision in the bill requiring individuals to take sobriety tests. Peace officers and police could stop people who are driving erratically under the influence of drugs. We were in favour of certain provisions to require people to submit to sobriety tests.

We amended the bill however because, as unlikely as it might seem, it would have been irresponsible to pass this Conservative bill without any amendments. Imagine someone driving along in his car together with a friend. They drive down the road—let us say the Trans-Canada highway, for example, to please some of my colleagues here—and it turns out that the friend, who is driving, has marijuana in his pockets or his luggage. If we had passed this bill, the car owner would have been held liable. That did not seem responsible to us or legally sound.

There was also another bill about which we had a lot of questions. Unfortunately though, I have only a minute left and so I am going to proceed to my conclusion and allow the hon. member for Sherbrooke to take over.

We are going to take our work in committee very seriously. We will not allow ourselves to be dictated to by the government which, in a fit of authoritarianism, might demand that the opposition propose no amendments to Bill C-2.

We will amend Bill C-2 if we think that is the direction in which the testimony we hear is taking us. As always, I can assure the House that the Bloc Québécois will act in a serious, responsible, reasoned way. We would also like to remind the House of the justice proposals we made last June.

Resumption of debate on Address in Reply

[Rob Moore, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada]

Mr. Speaker, it is a privilege to participate in this debate today in the reply to the Speech from the Throne.

I want to address what was mentioned previously by one of the members opposite. The member wondered why our government has introduced 13 bills related to justice since we came to office. Perhaps it would be because for 13 years the Liberals neglected our justice system. For 13 years Canadians had to put up with a revolving door justice system, a soft on crime justice system and a system that put the victim somewhere at the very bottom on the list of priorities.

There remains a lot of work to be done.

The member mentioned some of the bills. Bill C-10 would have brought in mandatory minimum penalties for serious gun crimes and was stalled in committee for 252 days. Bill C-35 was stalled in committee for 64 days and 211 days between the House and the Senate. That would have provided a reverse onus on people who commit gun crimes. Bill C-27 dealt with the worst of the worst: dangerous offenders. It was 105 days in committee and 246 days in the House. Bill C-22 was to protect the young from adult sexual predators. It was 365 days in the House and the Senate.

Those members wonder why we have to work so hard. They wonder why we have to do so much.

Because they left us so much work to be done.

The government's first Speech from the Throne set clear goals and we stayed on course to achieve them. The results are evident in the improved quality of life Canadians share and the higher confidence they have in government leadership.

The new Speech from the Throne, as we heard this week, offers Canadians the same clarity and framework to build on our achievements made to date. As the Speech from the Throne notes, the government is committed to continuing to build a better Canada. We are going to do this by strengthening Canada's sovereignty and place in the world, building a stronger federation, providing effective economic leadership, continuing to tackle crime, and improving our environment.

I am pleased to stand to speak in support of our government's unwavering commitment to a balanced justice agenda, to a law-abiding society, to tackling crime, and to building safer communities, streets and neighbourhoods. I might add that in the last election this is what our constituents from coast to coast elected us to do. It is exactly what they asked us to do.

As all of us in the House know, or should know, Canadians value a law-abiding society and safe communities. The rule of law and Canada's strong justice system are defining characteristics of what it is to be Canadian.

Canadians express strong support for the law. In fact, the vast majority of Canadians responding to a set of questions on the world values survey, repeated several times between 1990 and 2006, consistently expressed a strong willingness to abide by the law. Compared to citizens in most other countries in the world, Canadians have one of the highest levels of support for law-abiding behaviour.

We know where Canadians' values lie and we share those values. As parliamentarians, we must reflect these values in all that we do.

Canadians' perceptions of crime reflect their community experience and are supported by long term and local crime statistics and news. I am sure that every member in the House, from no matter which party, could bring forward stories from his or her own riding about how Canadians have been victimized or how someone has been a repeat offender but is allowed back into the community to re-victimize innocent Canadians. Every one of us gets those phone calls and emails. Every one of us can somehow relate to that experience.

Community leaders, victims' groups and law enforcement know their particular challenges and for once they have a government that is listening to them. Every province, territory and major city has street corners and neighbourhoods where people do not want to go any more, and if ordinary Canadians do not want to live there, then neither will they shop there or play there. Businesses will leave and schools will deteriorate.

There are too many of those street corners in Canada now. It is not consistent with Canadians' expectations and hopes for their communities. And they deserve better. All Canadians should be able to walk our streets and travel to and from our homes, schools and workplaces in safety.

This is why we are standing up to protect our communities and to work with Canadians to ensure a safer and more secure Canada.

Let me give the House an example of the kind of tragedy people are reading and talking about in my part of the world. The Nunn commission arose out of a tragedy in Nova Scotia. A 16 year old boy went from no prior record to a nine month crime spree involving 38 separate charges and 11 court appearances and ended when, two days after his release, high on drugs, he killed an innocent mother of three by speeding through a residential intersection.

Commissioner Nunn, who headed the inquiry into this tragedy, stated:

We should be able to halt the spiral [into crime], through prevention, through quick action, through creative thinking, through collaboration, through clear strategies, and through programs that address clearly identified needs.

I agree with Commissioner Nunn. We should be able to do better and to stop such behaviour before it gets out of control. Canadians expect and deserve no less.

These are the kinds of real life tragedies that our communities want us to address. They are the tragedies that I know my constituents expect us to address. They are the tragedies that motivate many of us on this side of the House to do something to protect innocent Canadians.

I know that Canadians across the country and in every community have similar stories of kids who are in serious trouble and causing serious harm, stories of binge drinking, using illicit drugs, committing auto theft, property crime and other crimes, all of which are elements of this tragedy I just mentioned.

Canadians are particularly concerned about crimes victimizing the most vulnerable community members, such as seniors and children. Families worry about how to keep their children and grandchildren from becoming victims of youth crime. They also worry about their young family members being drawn into the wrong crowd and beginning a life of crime.

In the face of such tragedies, Canadians look to us for a way forward, for a way out of despair for their youth and worry about the safety of their streets. They look to us for solutions. They look to us to restore their confidence in the justice system. That is what members on this side of the House intend to do. We intend to restore their confidence in the justice system.

I want to mention a few statistics.

We know that Canadians are not always confident that the criminal justice system is doing enough to protect them. That is a major theme. We have heard about this time and time again. They know that violent crime is too common. They dread hearing statistics like those released this week by Statistics Canada.

These are just a few statistics, but they tell us that four out of 10 victims of violent crime sustain injuries and that almost half of violent crimes occurred at private residences. By the way, private residences, and I am sure all members would agree, are where we should feel most safe. These are our homes. Half of violent crimes occurred at home.

The statistics also tell us that firearms were involved in 30% of homicides, 31% of attempted murders and 13% of robberies. We are all deeply saddened to hear that one out of every sixth victim of violent crime was a youth aged 12 to 17 years old. What is worse is that children under 12 years of age accounted for 23% of victims of sexual assaults and 5% of victims of violent crimes.

Of course we know that most crime is never reported. Statistics Canada's victimization survey found that only about 34% of criminal incidents committed in 2004 came to the attention of police. When we think about it, that is really an alarming statistic. For all the crime that is reported there is that much more out there that goes unreported.

There is a reason why. I hear this in my own riding and I am sure many of my colleagues do as well. Victims do not report crime because they think it will not make a difference, because our system will not treat it seriously. It is going to take a lot of work to change that impression, but we are a government that is set on changing it.

Twenty-eight per cent of Canadians, or one in four persons, reported being victimized in 2004. When I speak with my constituents and people across this country about crime, they often tell me that the justice system does more for offenders than for victims. Our government is listening to victims, increasing their voice in the justice system and helping them play a more active role. Addressing the needs of victims of crime in Canada is a shared responsibility between federal and provincial and territorial governments. It is an issue that we are already addressing in collaboration with these partners.

New programs and services are being implemented in the Department of Justice. The victim fund is being enhanced to provide more resources to provinces and territories to deliver services where they are needed.

We have appointed for the first time ever a Federal Ombudsman for Victims of Crime, Mr. Steve Sullivan, who is a well known advocate for victims. The ombudsman will ensure that the federal government lives up to its commitments and obligations to victims of crime. I think I hear the member for Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe applauding the appointment of Mr. Sullivan. I thank him for that. Victims expect and deserve no less.

As mentioned, we remain committed to the goal of ensuring that all Canadians live in a safe and secure community. That is why we are introducing Bill C-2, the tackling violent crime act.

The measures in this legislation represent a clear and sustained commitment on the part of our government to deal with the crimes that weigh heavily on the minds of Canadians as they go about their daily lives. Through this bill we will address the crime of the sexual exploitation of youth by adult predators. We also are tackling the crime that takes the highest toll in death and injury: impaired driving.

We know that Canadians want us to protect them from these crimes. We know also that to do so we need the support of all hon. members as well as Canadians and our partners in the provinces and territories, in law enforcement and in community groups.

I want to speak briefly about each component. Alcohol and drug impaired driving have devastating effects on victims, families and communities. Impaired drivers are responsible for thousands of fatalities and injuries each year, not to mention billions of dollars in property damage. With this legislation, impaired drivers will face tough punishment whatever intoxicant they choose. Police and prosecutors will have more tools to use to stop them.

Statistics Canada reports that there were an alarming 75,000 impaired driving incidents in 2006 and approximately 1,200 caused bodily harm or death. According to Mothers Against Drunk Driving, alcohol and/or drugs lead to more fatalities and injuries than any other single crime. The total financial and social costs are immeasurable and these impacts are felt in all of our communities. Research by Ontario's Centre for Addiction and Mental Health shows that Ontario drunk driver fatalities decreased when the driving licences of impaired drivers were suspended for 90 days.

So there are good approaches that the police and courts can use once there is a conviction for impaired driving. Part of our job as custodians of the Criminal Code is to help them get those convictions. Then more impaired drivers can be kept off our roads and streets.

One reason that impaired driving remains common is that drug impairment is now a frequent factor. Until now, police have not had the same tools available to them to stop those who drive while impaired from drugs as they did to address alcohol impaired driving. With this bill, now they will.

If passed, this legislation will strengthen the abilities of our police and prosecutors to investigate, prosecute and penalize those who endanger the safety of their fellow Canadians through alcohol or drug impaired driving.

The bill will also ensure that the punishment fits the crime and the damage it causes. Chronic offenders, or what are called hard core offenders, will be targeted with appropriate measures. These chronic offenders are disproportionately a cause of death and injury on our roads. All of these provisions will help police, crown prosecutors and the courts deal with these offenders.

Impaired driving is hurting so many families and communities that there are calls on Parliament to take action. For example, earlier this month MADD urged that these reforms be passed as soon as possible. We are certainly listening.

I know that many members here recognize the pressing need to ensure the safety of our communities by providing our police the tools necessary to address drug impaired driving. It is time they had those tools in their hands and it is time for us to act.

On the issue of the age of protection, this is something that is very timely and is in the news all the time. It strikes at the core of our society's values in protecting the most vulnerable, in protecting the young. For the same reason, parents, teachers, police and communities share this government's commitment to protecting young people from sexual predation. One of the most disturbing thoughts for any parent is the thought of a sexual predator preying on their child.

I should mention that members from this side of the House have been advocating for this for years and we welcome having a government that takes the protection of children seriously enough to take this step.

The tackling violent crime act reintroduces our proposals to raise the age at which young people can consent to sexual activity from 14 to 16 years to better protect youth against sexual exploitation by adult predators. In short, it will take away the ability of adult sexual predators to rely on claims that their young victims consented.

The Speech from the Throne provides Canadians with a clear and achievable blueprint for criminal law and policy reforms. It will provide Canadians with safer streets and healthier communities, communities and cities where people want to live and raise their families. Community by community we will build a better Canada.

I addressed some of the bills. There is a question as to why we have introduced this bill in a comprehensive format. We did it because there is a lot of work to be done and many of the measures that were introduced in the last Parliament that are substantively contained in this bill were delayed. They were delayed by the opposition. They were delayed in the House. They were delayed in committee.

In the day and age we live in members should know that many households in Canada have the Internet. Anyone can log on to the House of Commons website and read Hansard, as we all do. Any Canadian can read from the House of Commons committee transcripts. Canadians can judge for themselves whether there was a delay.

I sat in the justice committee while those bills were being debated. I listened to the victims of crime who came forward and begged us, as they have over the years. There are many colleagues on this side of the House who have been here a lot longer than I have been here.

In the past, the member from Calgary introduced legislation to raise the age of consent. At the time, the Liberal government did not want anything to do with it. The Liberals would not take action. Now they claim that we should not be proceeding in this format. We are going to proceed because Canadians have demanded that we act to protect children, that we get serious with repeat violent offenders, that we get serious with individuals who use firearms in the commission of a crime, and that we get serious regarding drug impaired driving, a scourge on our streets.

We are taking those concerns seriously. That is why we have brought Bill C-2 forward. I look forward to support from members on all sides of the House as we move forward to make our Canadian streets, communities and homes safer for all Canadians.

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

Mr. Speaker, I find it interesting. The NDP supported Bill C-10, an act to establish escalator clauses for minimum mandatory penalties. The NDP supported it and agreed with escalator clauses. That is in the omnibus bill. The NDP supported Bill C-22, an act to increase the age of protection. That is in the omnibus bill. The NDP supported Bill C-32, the impaired driving act. That is in the omnibus bill. The NDP supported Bill C-35, which is in the omnibus bill--

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

Mr. Speaker, I did not misrepresent any statement that I made about the Conservatives and their record on their own justice bills.

If we look at Bill C-10, for instance, it was tabled by the Conservatives for first reading on May 6, 2006. They waited 38 days before they moved second reading on June 13. The House adjourned shortly after that, came back at the beginning of September and they waited until November to move it into committee. The committee reported back to the House on February 21, 2007. The Conservatives left it on the order paper for 75 days before they moved to report stage. That was not the opposition. That was the Conservatives.

If we look at Bill C-22, the age of protection bill, they tabled it for first reading on June 22, 2006. They then left it on the order paper for 130 days. On October 26, 2006, the Liberals offered to fast track it. The Conservatives said no, but that put a fire under them and on October 30, they finally moved second reading.

That is a party and a government that has obstructed its own justice legislation for partisan reasons. Had the Conservatives cared about our children, they would have taken up the Liberal offer to fast track the legislation back in October 2006.

[Rob Nicholson, Conservative, Niagara Falls, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I have included the age of consent provisions in this bill because I want to get them passed. I guess that is the whole point of what is going on here. It is easy enough to say that it probably would have been passed at some point in the process. The fact is it was not passed. As I said to my colleagues, Canadian youth were not as well protected this summer as they should have been by the passage of that.

In his comments with respect to provincial enforcement and police officers, the hon. member said that they all appreciated toughening up the laws, and that is good. I want their support on that. This is exactly what we are trying to do across a whole host of provisions in the bill. If the New Democratic Party supports us on this, I welcome that.

I was very fair about this when I talked about Bill C-10, which is the bill that would give mandatory prison terms for people who committed serious firearms offences. I said that the NDP cooperated with us to getting most of them into the bill. That was in stark contrast to the Bloc and to the Liberals.

This is the day to day nuts and bolts of getting these things through. Forget the comments that members might have heard from the Liberals in the last election. As we saw, the Liberals did not support that legislation. However, to their credit, I think five or six members of the Liberal Party, who could not stomach the position that their party was taking in opposing mandatory prison terms for people who committed serious firearms offences, supported the government, and we could check the record on that. I appreciate his suggestion that they will help on this measure.

I am sure he has read the Speech from the Throne provisions with respect to extra policing, which is the responsibility of my colleague, the Minister of Public Safety.

I look for the support of all members to get this legislation through. All Canadians want it. All Canadians deserve that kind of protection.

[Monte Solberg, Conservative, Minister of Human Resources and Social Development]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise today and engage in the debate on the Speech from the Throne.

Today I rise wearing a number of hats. I am here today as the Minister of Human Resources and Social Development Canada. I am here as a member of Parliament for Medicine Hat. Also, when we talk about issues of crime and law and order, I think it is appropriate to mention that I am here as a husband and a father, because this is an issue that I think we all feel very acutely and personally.

It is a pleasure, though, to talk today about what was in the Speech from the Throne, first of all wearing my hat as the Minister of Human Resources and Social Development. Yesterday and in the Speech from the Throne read by the Governor General on Tuesday, the Prime Minister talked about the need for the country to finally and forever get serious about the issue of tackling crime and making our communities safer. I would argue that in order to do this an “all of government” approach is required.

I think the Prime Minister has signalled his intention to do exactly that. It was not very long ago in Winnipeg that the Prime Minister and the Minister of Health talked about a national anti-drug strategy designed to steer young people away from drugs but also to ensure that those people who are addicted get the help they need.

I feel that in my portfolio we do a number of things, and I am proud of this, that are designed especially to help young people so that they do not get drawn into a life of crime, which is an easy temptation in neighbourhoods that have broken down and where families are not stable. To that end, we provide a lot of programming aimed at helping youth and in fact targeting youth who in many cases are most likely to get drawn into that kind of situation. We do that through the youth employment strategy.

We have also launched a number of new and very important initiatives. I want to touch on them briefly. We have done things like announcing in the budget new labour market agreements which allow us to work with the provinces so that we reach out to all those individuals who are not eligible for employment insurance, such as people who have been on social assistance, and people who, for whatever reason, have not been able to get into the workforce and need a helping hand from the government. This is a very significant initiative of $3 billion over the next six years. We believe this is an important way to reach out to people who left school early, for instance, and who have struggled to find work, and to give them the helping hand they need to get employment and avoid that life.

We have also announced an apprenticeship incentive grant, which we think will help 100,000 people a year get into the trades. We have doubled the size of the aboriginal skills employment program, which benefits aboriginals around the country, but certainly in the north. I point out that unfortunately we have very high levels of crime on reserve in many parts of the country and certainly north of 60. We have very high levels of violent crime, levels at nine times the national average, for instance, in places like Nunavut.

We believe these initiatives are extraordinarily important in terms of preventing crime and reaching out to people who are vulnerable and ultimately giving them some hope. As the Minister of Human Resources and Social Development, I note that these are some of the new initiatives we have undertaken.

I want to highlight one other initiative that I think is important. I see a member of the opposition across the way with whom I discussed this the other day. This initiative is the homelessness partnering strategy, which is an initiative that we put in place a number of months ago. It is designed to work at a community level, whereby we have communities leading the charge in identifying how we can best help people who find themselves homeless, knowing that the best way to start to give them the help they need is to put a roof over their heads first and, even before that, to prevent homelessness.

We think this can best be done at the community level. This new initiative brings together the federal, provincial and municipal governments and certainly the not for profit organizations that on the ground are the real experts. I am proud of that initiative. I am looking forward to working with local groups to achieve some of the ends I have just discussed.

If I may, I will now change hats and, as a member of Parliament from the riding of Medicine Hat, talk about an issue that is vitally important to Canadians. I come from a rural riding not unlike those of many members in the House. It is a riding chiefly peopled by a lot of middle class Canadians who enjoy relative prosperity, but of course there is a range of incomes in the riding. Nevertheless, despite the fact that these people seem to have a pretty good situation in general, when I tour the riding and go to town hall meetings, as I did this fall, many people raise the issue of crime. They are deeply concerned about crime.

I always argue that I do not think there is a people in the world fairer than Canadians; they are fair to a fault. They believe in fairness. By extension, I believe they also feel very strongly that there must be justice in the country. I think very often they believe that we do not have a very just justice system in Canada today. I want to talk about that for a moment.

As I mentioned, I think we live in a pretty good part of the world, but when one talks to people, whether they are young people who very often themselves are the victims of youth crime, or older people who very often are afraid of the chaos they sometimes find on the streets of their communities in the form of property crime or very aggressive panhandling, or people who are worried about the rapid rise in drug use and ultimately the crime that springs from that, they are concerned.

When people see stories like the one we saw recently regarding a young constable murdered in Hay River, or when they see some of the terrible gun violence on the streets of Toronto at Jane and Finch, they are extraordinarily concerned. They wonder why we do not do more to provide police officers and crown prosecutors with the tools they need in order to bring this problem under control.

I would be extraordinarily remiss if I did not point out that as an opposition member of Parliament I certainly spoke on these issues a number of times over the years, but there are others in this place who have done far more than I to draw attention to this. I think about a couple of members of Parliament on our side who have announced that they will soon be leaving this place. They have announced their retirements. I think of my friend from Calgary Northeast, who chairs the justice committee, and my friend, the member of Parliament for Wild Rose. They both have spoken eloquently in this place for years about the need to provide precisely those tools to crown prosecutors, the RCMP and local police forces so they can do their jobs.

Our government has made this a priority since the time we came to power. We have brought forward a number of measures to attempt to address some of the issues raised by my constituents. In fact we have introduced in this place something like 13 different pieces of legislation dealing with the issues of criminal justice. The sad fact, though, is that unfortunately at almost every turn these initiatives have been thwarted by the opposition.

I have to say that I am simply required by honesty to point out that it is not the people one might suspect who are thwarting a lot these initiatives. Sometimes we have run into problems with the Bloc and the NDP in trying to get these things through, but I can say that overwhelmingly it is the Liberals who are standing in the way of delivering measures that will make Canadians safer. Unfortunately, they do this in one of the most sneaky and underhanded ways possible.

On the one hand, they stand up in this place and talk about the need to address these problems. Then, when the cameras are off, they go into committee, gut individual pieces of legislation and try to send them, hollow, back to this place. If these pieces of legislation do pass, they go to the Senate where the Liberals sit on them to the point where of course ultimately those bills do not go forward.

As a result, we are in a new Parliament. Now we are asking for the authority of this place to go ahead and pursue some of this legislation aggressively so we can do exactly what we told Canadians we would do, which is to bring in legislation and provide tools to the police and crown prosecutors so we can make our streets safe again.

There is not a member of Parliament in this place who is not touched by this every day. I get very frustrated in regard to this issue, because I do not think there is any more important role we have than that of ensuring the protection of the citizens of our country.

The throne speech speaks about this country's commitment to peace, order and good government. I can tell the House that I am never more proud as a member of Parliament than when we do something to protect the most vulnerable in this country. That is exactly what we will be doing if we start to address some of the issues laid out in the Speech from the Throne.

I could best do that by talking a little about some of the pieces of legislation we brought forward in the past that were stymied by the opposition, in particular by the Liberals, and then talk about the need to bring them forward again in a new bill, in the tackling violent crime initiative the Prime Minister spoke of yesterday.

One of the most important pieces of legislation we offered in the last Parliament was Bill C-10. Bill C-10 would provide a mandatory minimum sentence, a mandatory minimum penalty, for firearms offences. In other words, that means there would be a minimum amount of time that someone would have to serve if found guilty of committing a crime with a firearm. It would mean that judges would no longer have the latitude of allowing someone to walk away without serving any time at all. I think that is common sense to the great majority of Canadians.

Sadly, that was never observed in many, many cases. The result is that people ultimately completely lose confidence in the justice system in this country. They start to throw up their hands and say, “What is the point?” After a while, people even quit reporting crimes.

Our Bill C-10 was designed to address some of those concerns. That bill was stalled in committee for 252 days. The bill died after a total of 414 calendar days before Parliament. In other words, we brought that bill forward, the public was with us, and the opposition spoke in favour of these types of initiatives during the election campaign, but when the rubber met the road, when members of the opposition had a chance to do something to protect Canadians, they stood in front of us and blocked our way.

They should be ashamed of that, because there is not a member across the way who does not have people coming into his or her office every week and complaining about the crime they read about, hear about or experience. They want something done, but it never happens because members of the opposition stand in the way. They stood in the way of it when they were in government for 13 years. Now it is time to start to deal with it.

Another bill we brought forward was the reverse onus on bail for firearms offences, Bill C-35. It was stalled in committee for 64 days. The bill died after a total of 211 days before Parliament.

What does this mean? What does the bill do? The bill ensures that persons accused of a gun crime have to show why they should not be kept in jail while awaiting trial. That would apply to people who are accused of using a firearm to commit certain offences, including attempted murder or discharging a firearm with a criminal intent, sexual assault with a weapon, aggravated sexual assault, kidnapping, hostage taking, robbery, and extortion.

When those people are accused of those crimes, we are simply asking that they demonstrate why they should be allowed bail. The onus would be reversed. If we think about what is at stake, I do not think that is too much to ask. What is at stake is the safety of ordinary men, women and children in this country who want nothing more than to go about their lives and pursue whatever it is that pleases them.

However, again we were stymied in our attempt to bring forward this common sense legislation that was supported by the Premier of Ontario and the mayor of Toronto, jurisdictions where all too often they see the results of laws that do not adequately address the problems of crime.

Another bill that we are anxious to bring forward is Bill C-27, which deals with the issue of dangerous offenders. This bill was stalled in committee for 105 days and it died after a total of 248 days before Parliament. The bill would create a presumption of dangerousness, so that when an individual has been convicted three or more times of violent sexual crimes, it would be up to that person to prove that he should not be regarded as a dangerous offender.

I honestly do not understand why the opposition would stand in the way of what is, in my mind, very common sense legislation. If we are committed to the ideal of peace, order and good government, we must back it up with legislation and resources. I would argue that the opposition has failed us on that count, irrespective of what it says during election campaigns when it is very popular to appear to be law and order parties.

Another bill that we brought forward dealt with the age of consent, the age of protection, which was tabled in Parliament on June 22, 2006. It was endorsed by the Kids' Internet Safety Alliance and the Canadian Crime Victim Foundation. It was stalled in committee for 175 days and died after a total of 365 days before Parliament. It sought to raise the age of consent from 14 to 16, which to me is such an obvious way to protect the most vulnerable people in our society, children, but again the opposition finds all kinds of odd and strange justifications for not pursuing this.

Where is the conviction that we have an obligation as legislators to protect vulnerable people in this society? This was, I would argue, a common sense initiative that again was thwarted by the opposition.

Finally, I want to talk about Bill C-32, drug impaired driving. It was introduced into the House on November 21, 2006 and referred to the justice committee in February 2007. Despite being endorsed by Mothers Against Drunk Driving, Bill C-32 died after 149 days in committee and the bill died after a total of 213 days before Parliament. The bill would have given the police the tools they need to better detect and investigate drug and alcohol impaired driving and penalties for impaired driving would have been increased. Persons suspected of being impaired by a drug would be required to submit to a roadside sobriety test and, if they failed, to provide a blood or urine sample to confirm whether they had consumed a drug.

I again would remind members how often we read in the newspapers, see on TV and have people come into our offices to talk about the terrible effects of the scourge of drug and alcohol impaired driving. However, when the opposition had an opportunity to help us deal with this and make Canadians safer, it failed us at every turn.

Today I am very proud to speak in favour of the initiatives outlined in the Speech from the Throne and to speak in favour of the justice minister, the public safety minister and the Prime Minister for their unwavering stance in favour of giving police and crown prosecutors more tools. I really do believe it is our duty and our obligation as legislators to ensure we do everything in our power to protect the most vulnerable people in our society.

Democratic Reform

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

Mr. Speaker, this spring the House of Commons has been very busy. There were 29 bills sent to the Senate, including all of the government's priority bills such as the budget, and bills to make our streets and communities safer.

However, the Liberal dominated Senate continues to obstruct and delay bills like Bill C-10, which institutes mandatory sentences for gun crimes.

I heard the Liberal dominated Senate is now refusing to do its job on democratic reform and refuses to vote on a bill that will democratize the Senate by limiting senators' terms to eight years instead of 45.

Could the Prime Minister please tell me if the Liberal dominated Senate is really refusing to do its job?

Criminal Code

[Jay Hill, Conservative, Secretary of State and Chief Government Whip]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure for me to rise. I would like to state at the outset that I will be splitting my time with my colleague, the member for Blackstrap.

I will begin by describing a little about the riding I am privileged to represent in the House of Commons. The riding of Prince George—Peace River is over a quarter of a million square kilometres up in northeastern British Columbia. It is almost perfectly dissected by the Rocky Mountains. It is a huge rural riding. Without a doubt, one of the most controversial and emotional issues that my constituents deal with and feel about is the long run registry and their opposition to it. It is almost uniform throughout my riding. I am very pleased to have this opportunity to rise tonight and raise their concerns.

As someone who was a member of the House of Commons, when the original legislation to establish the firearms registry was being debated in 1995, I cannot adequately convey my relief that we have now been provided with an opportunity through Bill C-21 to right that wrong.

We knew back then that the move to register each and every long gun in Canada was the wrong move. Many of us spoke out about that increasingly and persistently throughout that debate and in the years since. We knew then it was a waste of tax dollars that would do nothing to keep Canadians safe. Of course, history has proven us correct. The statistics have proven us correct.

Unfortunately, even MPs, like myself, who opposed the long gun registry could have predicted that the cost of this failed Liberal experiment would spiral from their projected estimate of $2 million to somewhere in the order of $2 billion today.

This evening I will use my limited time to reassure those Canadians who may have been misled by distorted facts and misinformation by the official opposition and others, as they attempt to defend their fiasco known as the long gun registry. In other words, I want to dismiss the most obvious myths about the long gun registry that members from the other side of the House are attempting to portray as fact. Indeed, we have heard a number of them repeated here again tonight.

The myth is the Conservative legislation to scrap the long gun registry will make it easier for Canadians to obtain firearms.

The fact is the registration of each and every shotgun and rifle in Canada is separate from firearms licensing. Nothing will change in regard to licensing. Canadians will still require a thorough background check and safety check. Violent behaviour and certain criminal convictions will continue to be checked as well. Applicants for a licence will also be subject to specific safety standards and training. Stringent storage requirements will also be maintained.

The former Liberal government was fond of quoting the fact that tens of thousands of firearms licences were refused or revoked under firearms legislation. Again, this is a licensing issue and is not a registry issue.

The myth is the proof that the long gun registry is an essential tool relied upon by law enforcement agencies is the fact that the Canadian Firearms Registry On-line, or the CFRO, gets 6,500 hits per day from police officers. We hear various numbers. Some people say 5,000 or 5,600. I will quote 6,500.

The fact is that figure certainly sounds impressive until we realize that whenever a police officer enters a person's name for any reason, even an address check, an inquiry or hit is generated with the CFRO. Regardless of any changes to the registration of long guns through Bill C-21, police will still know whether a person is authorized to own a legal firearm.

The myth is the $2 billion spent on the problem ridden long gun registry are well worth it because the registry helps to reduce gun deaths in Canada.

The fact is according to Statistics Canada 2004 homicide report, firearms homicides actually went up 13% over a two year period. In fact, statistics continue to demonstrate that the long gun registry has done absolutely nothing to reduce firearms homicides. That is because most gun crimes are not committed with registered firearms. I know it has been repeated many times before in the House, but criminals do not register their firearms. That is why our Conservative government has taken concrete steps to target criminals on our streets.

As we also heard tonight, Bill C-10, which I am pleased was passed by the House late last month, targets organized crime and gangs by imposing tougher mandatory penalties on those who use firearms to commit crimes. We recognize that we have to target the people who are using firearms to commit crimes, not the firearms themselves. Two billion dollars are better spent cracking down on the people who commit gun crimes than on reams of paper and bug ridden computer systems to chase down millions of rifles and shotguns legally owned.

The myth is Bill C-21 will remove the need to register handguns.

The fact is the handgun registry has been in effect in Canada since 1934. Bill C-21 does not change that. Whereas shotguns and rifles are an essential tool in many parts of Canada, and I already mentioned my particular riding, handguns are primarily for the use of sportsmen and collectors. Handguns are also easier to conceal and are best registered to better avoid their misuse.

Two-thirds or 65% of firearms homicides in 2004 were committed with handguns. That is because they are the weapon of choice for organized crime and gangs. Again, Bill C-10 targets the real root of gun crime and firearms homicides by going after the real criminals.

The myth is a complete ban on handguns is a worthy consideration to enhance the safety of Canadians.

The fact is although our Conservative government believes handguns should continue to be subject to registration, we do not believe they should be banned. As I said earlier, it is a perfectly legitimate use for sportsmen and collectors to possess handguns. A handgun ban will do nothing but unnecessarily impact upon those individuals.

I contend that gangs and other criminals could care less whether there are registration requirements or an outright ban on handguns. If they want a gun, it has been well proven, not only in our society but in other western societies, that criminals will get their hands on a gun if their intent is to use it for a criminal purpose.

The final myth about firearms registration, which I will address tonight, concerns the Conservative government's fundamental position on this matter. I want to reassure my constituents and all Canadians that this Conservative government, as demonstrated by Bill C-21, remains as committed as we ever were before to putting an end to this long gun registry that imposes a great burden upon law-abiding Canadians, consumes substantial federal resources, yet brings no measurable benefit to public safety.

In short, we are as committed today as we were for the last 12 years, which seems like a lifetime, not only to myself but to those of us who have been waging this fight against this senseless registry. We will scrap the long gun registry and redirect those previous resources to measures that will actually make our streets and communities safer for all Canadians.

[Rob Moore, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada]

Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Public Safety.

I sit on the justice committee but I also represent my constituents as an MP in my riding. I have had concerns from my constituents from day one on this issue that it unfairly targets law-abiding citizens and that it creates an unbelievable burden on seniors. I am speaking specifically about many of the seniors in my riding.

I have real life examples of women in my riding, widows over 80 years old, who are concerned and lose sleep at night because of the requirement that their long gun be registered, the old shotgun that used to belong to their husband and is now theirs. Are these the people we should be targeting?

On the one hand, we have the program that the Liberals invented, a scheme that was supposed to cost $2 million and ended up costing over $1 billion, targeting 80-year-old women.

On the other hand, I sit on the justice committee and the Liberal members have opposed our government's legislation that would actually crack down on criminals. I thought that was the idea, not to go after law-abiding people but to go after criminals.

Does the member have any comment as to why Liberal members on the justice committee would oppose our Bill C-10 that targets criminals and yet they continue to go after grandmothers?

[Dave MacKenzie, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Public Safety]

Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time tonight with the member for Northumberland—Quinte West.

It is an opportunity for me to discuss Bill C-21. This legislation addresses firearms control, an area of great concern to all Canadians. Everyone who watches the news knows how prevalent gun violence has become in some communities and this is extremely troubling.

Gang members carrying illegal handguns and brazenly settling scores in public areas have brought fear to cities across the country. In some neighbourhoods, people witness gun violence regularly but are intimidated into silence by criminals. This kind of criminal activity must be stopped. Canada has always had the reputation of being a peaceful country. We must do something now to help ensure this remains the case, and that means cracking down on violent crime.

The government made a commitment to protect Canadians and that is what we intend to do. Bill C-21 is part of the government's larger plan to strengthen the safety and security of Canadians. The government has taken steps over the last year to keep Canadians safe and to do so in a way that simplifies compliance for law-abiding citizens.

The first responsibility of any government should always be to protect its citizens from harm but governments should also be careful to do this in a way that law-abiding citizens can comply with easily. This government is working diligently to ensure that this balance is respected.

We have introduced Bill C-21 to reinstate a balance between protecting Canadians and easing requirements for responsible firearms owners. I would like to highlight some of the public safety measures our government has taken in the past year. The government has an overall plan for safer communities and Bill C-21 fits within our vision of a safe and prosperous Canada.

First, the government felt that policing and law enforcement needed to be bolstered in Canada. In budget 2006, we invested a significant amount of money to give the RCMP additional resources to focus on law enforcement priorities. These included the expansion of the RCMP's National Training Academy, known as Depot; increasing the DNA samples on file to include a greater range of offenders; support for a special contingent of first nations RCMP; and an additional 1,000 RCMP resources to focus on drugs, corruption and border security.

Now in Budget 2007, we have continued this support for our national police services to protect children from sexual exploitation and trafficking and supporting the Canadian Police Research Centre's work in science and technology in policing and public safety.

Furthermore, we are taking action to crack down on white collar crime by appointing a senior expert adviser to the RCMP to help develop and guide the implementation of a plan to improve the effectiveness of the integrated market enforcement teams. We are also investing $80 million over two years to make the Canadian Security Intelligence Service's operations more effective.

On another front, the government took steps to strengthen our borders in a way that keeps legitimate goods and people moving across the border and threats out of our country. We put in place a plan to start arming border guards. Through our plan, approximately 4,800 officers will be trained and armed. This includes 400 officers who will be hired so that no officer will be required to work alone. Some of these officers will be deployed as early as this summer and we expect that by March 2008, between 200 and 250 armed officers will be working at the border.

There is another issue that affects our communities directly and that is youth crime. Many communities in Canada have youth crime problems. It can sometimes mean vandalism, drug abuse or even gang involvement.

Our work is based on the principle that the surest way to reduce crime is to focus on the factors that put individuals at risk, factors like family violence, school problems and drug abuse. We aim to reduce crime by tackling crime before it happens. That is why my hon. colleague, the Minister of Public Safety, announced in January $16.1 million in funding for youth at risk. These projects are funded through the National Crime Prevention Centre and they help youth make good choices and stay or get back on the right track.

Firearms control should focus on criminals, not on law-abiding and responsible firearms owners.

I hope that the hon. members of this House can now better understand the broader public safety context within which our gun control measures operate. Gun control is but one of many ways we are working to protect Canadians.

The object of today's debate, Bill C-21, deals with an aspect of the firearms control program that has been at the centre of discussion ever since the introduction of the Firearms Act in 1995: the registration of non-restricted firearms. These are ordinary rifles and shotguns most often used for hunting.

Why do we wish to abolish the requirement to register these firearms? The answer is twofold. The first reason is that we are not convinced that the registration of non-restricted firearms prevents gun crime. The second reason comes back to what I said earlier. Governments have a responsibility to direct limited to resources where they will have the most effect. With respect to gun control, we believe this means investing in measures that focus on criminals rather than on law-abiding citizens.

The most recent example of this was the successful raid carried out in Toronto last week that resulted in over 60 arrests and the seizure of 30 illegal guns, dealing a significant blow to a notorious street gang that terrorized the neighbourhood. Protecting the most vulnerable is where our limited resources should be directed to, not inundating law-abiding citizens with cumbersome rules and regulations.

Therefore, the government has decided to remove the registration requirement for legitimate and responsible non-restricted firearms owners and focus on gun crime.

Indeed, to achieve this very goal, my colleague, the hon. Minister of Justice, tabled a bill on May 4, 2006 to strengthen the mandatory minimum sentences for violent gun crimes. The government has introduced a number of legislative initiatives that target gun crimes and we encourage opposition MPs to support these initiatives.

Bill C-10 passed third reading in the House on May 29 and is awaiting second reading in the other place. Bill C-10 proposes escalating minimum penalties for specific offences involving the actual use of firearms. These offences include attempted murder, sexual assault and kidnapping, among others. Minimum penalties are also proposed for certain serious non-offence uses, such as firearm trafficking and smuggling. The higher minimum penalties rest on specific aggravating factors such as repeat firearms offences, use of restricted or prohibited firearms or the commission of firearm offences in connection with a criminal organization which includes a gang.

Bill C-35 is another important piece of legislation on our agenda to tackle gun crimes. It deals with the burden of proof during bail hearings for firearm related offences.

These reforms will lower the risk that people charged with serious offences may reoffend while out on bail. It will also reduce the risk that they may take flight to avoid facing trial for the charges. This bill was also recently passed by the House of Commons and is awaiting second reading in the Senate.

These new measures send a clear message that the Government of Canada will not tolerate gun crime on our streets and in our communities. However, as the members of the House no doubt know, firearms control includes much more than handing tough sentences to those who commit crime. Firearms control includes measures that aim to prevent firearms from falling into the hands of ineligible individuals.

The registration of non-restricted firearms has not proven itself to be effective in accomplishing this goal. In fact, in our view the most effective system currently in place that accomplishing that goal is licensing. We have the support of many groups that agree that licensing is the critical information necessary.

As deputy commissioner of the RCMP, Peter Martin, stated to the public safety committee:

If we go to a residence on a call, we're not interested in articles in the house as much as the person in the house and what they have available to them.

The critical piece of information right now is who is licensed and who has the potential to have in his or her possession a firearm, regardless of whether it's a long gun or a restricted or prohibited weapon.

Through the steps that an individual must take to obtain a licence, authorities can determine if the individual in question poses a security risk. The steps include passing the exams for the Canadian firearm safety course, passing the background checks that are performed using police files and answering personal history questions to identify the possible safety concerns such as serious problems with substance abuse. The answers to these questions must be corroborated by two references who have personally known the individual for at least three years.

Screening individuals before they are issued a licence is paramount to an effective firearms control system. Even once a licence is issued to an individual, a continuous check is performed through an automated link between the Canadian firearms information system and the Canadian police information system or CPIC. If any new information is entered on the CPIC system by police, such as a report on threats made to another person, the firearms information system automatically checks to see if the person in question is a firearms licence holder. If so, steps can be taken to suspend or revoke the licence and law enforcement authorities are notified so they can take appropriate action to remove the firearms.

Bill C-21, is an important piece of legislation that would re-establish the proper balance in the area of firearms control. It would ease the requirements for firearm owners while ensuring that records of firearm purchases continue to be kept. Our government believes that resources should be invested to keep Canadians safe. However, we believe in investing those resources in effective initiatives and programs. That is why we have focused on areas such as law enforcement, border security, youth crime and, of course, gun control. In all cases we are taking a results based approach.

I therefore encourage all members of the House to support Bill C-21.

Justice

[Gary Goodyear, Conservative, Cambridge, ON]

Mr. Speaker, Canadians do not want to wait any longer for mandatory sentences for gun crimes or for an increase in the age of protection for young people. They waited long enough while the opposition stalled and delayed at committee.

In fact, just this morning the member for Yukon filibustered a discussion on Bill C-32 which would increase minimum penalties for alcohol and drug impaired drivers.

Bill C-22, increasing the age of protection from 14 to 16 years, was held up at committee.

Bill C-18, the DNA identification bill, was held up at committee.

Bill C-10, the bill for mandatory sentences for gun crimes, was also held up at committee by opposition members who are so out of touch with Canadians and still prefer to coddle criminals.

The good news is these three bills have finally passed the House. The bad news is that they are down the hall at the Senate.

Will the Liberal interim leader tell his unelected senators who are preoccupied with protecting their terms to protect Canadians and pass these bills?

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

Mr. Speaker, our government has decided to take action by proposing a justice agenda that targets organized crime and gangs. Bill C-10 will impose longer mandatory sentences for criminals found guilty of serious gun crimes. Why are the Bloc and the Liberals not supporting this bill? Why?

Extension of Sitting Hours

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I listened with interest to the member say that from April 23 to May 4 we did not discuss anything of consequence in the House. I guess that includes the four opposition days, which she must consider inconsequential. I guess that includes Bills C-40, C-43, C-48, C-10, C-22, democratic reform bills, finance bills, Criminal Code bills, two justice bills. I guess in the hon. member's opinion none of these are consequential.

All those things are pretty consequential to the constituents in my riding who care about Senate reform, safe streets and finance bills. They are very important. Does the hon. member truly considers those things inconsequential?

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons and Minister for Democratic Reform]

Mr. Speaker, I move:

That, pursuant to Standing Order 27(1), commencing on Wednesday June 13, 2007, and concluding on June 21, 2007, the House shall continue to sit until 10 p.m.

He said: Mr. Speaker, this is a motion that can be made one day a year, not on Christmas Day or Ground Hog Day, but this day, the 10th sitting day before June 23. It is a motion that can be made to allow the House to sit late into the evening.

I know that many members, when they look at that portion of the calendar and they see possible extension of sitting hours, they think that means we get to leave early for summer vacation, but that is not what it means. What it means is that under the Standing Orders of the House we can potentially sit and work late to get as much of the people's business done as possible because there are very important priorities for Canadians.

I will bear my soul here and say that it was not always my intention to move this motion. It was my hope that it would not be necessary. I was hoping that we would be making good progress.

For example, Bill C-52 in particular, the budget implementation bill was a bill which we believed we had an understanding with the other parties; in fact it had been shaken on by the member for St. Catharines, the member of the Liberal Party for Scarborough and others that it would be over to the Senate by June 6. Somewhere along the way the Liberal Party sought to treat it a little bit differently and as a result we are still debating it here almost a week later than the date we thought it would be over at the Senate. As a result of course we have lost considerable time to deal with other priorities for Canadians.

I want to talk about what those other priorities for Canadians might be, but first I want to focus on that number one priority which is Bill C-52, the budget implementation bill. As we have heard from many people in the House today, if that bill does not pass by the time the House rises for the summer, if that bill has not been dealt with, there are a number of financial priorities on issues that are very important to Canadians that will be lost, because it is a bill that reaches back to the previous fiscal year to spend funds. Those funds have to be allocated. The bill has to be passed and receive royal assent in order for those funds to be available in that fashion. If not, they are lost.

Some of those examples are ones which we have heard about today. The one that is at the top of my personal list is the $620 million in the budget for the patient wait times guarantee trust. This is money that is allocated to assist provinces in addressing what is one of our number one priorities—actually one of our top five priorities; I should put it that way—from the last election. That priority is to achieve a patient wait times guarantee, to help people get the kind of health care they need on a basis that is reasonable, that is practical, that is clinically sound.

For too long we saw patient wait times under the previous government actually double in length. We have this much vaunted Canadian health care system that we all purport to believe in, but if we really believe in it, we have to see that it works. An important part of it working is that Canadians should receive the health care that they need on a timely basis. That is what the $612 million is specifically aimed at.

The provinces are very anxious to receive these funds. It means a great deal for a lot of provinces. In my own province of Ontario that means $200 million plus of real money that Ontario needs for its health care system. The same thing, together with other elements, will mean for the province of Nova Scotia for health care $639 million including the transfer there. There is similar money throughout the country.

We are talking of significant funds. There are other elements in the budget. Much of that transfer will not be lost, as I said, because it is in the main budget funds, but the patient wait times guarantee money, that $612 million, is money that will be lost if we do not deal with that on a timely basis.

Another one that is very important is the $1.5 billion for the clean air and climate change trust. That is to help the provinces implement their plans to reduce greenhouse gases. It is very important.

On January 4 of this year, the Prime Minister addressed Canadians and identified what our priorities would be in government this year. One of those major priorities was to take real action on the environment. We have just seen that at the G-8 summit. In the summit declaration Canada's approach is an approach that is drastically different than it was for 13 years under the previous government when greenhouse gas emissions rose dramatically regardless of the commitments it took on. Now we have a national plan that results in real reductions, an actual plan that does that in both the short and medium term but also very importantly in the long term.

It is that approach by the Canadian government that was hailed as an example not just by world leaders, by other G-8 leaders, but by journalists from around the world, by special interest groups. The World Wildlife Fund, for example, issued a statement heralding Canada's approach as a model. The reason it is held out as a model and an example is it is an approach that can be used regardless of how lousy one's track record may be. This is important for a lot of the major emitters that had not been part of the arrangements up until now or did not have obligations under Kyoto to implement, major emitters like China, India, Brazil and the United States, to get them to the table and realize that if we are going to take on the challenges of addressing greenhouse gas emissions and turning around the risk of climate change and what it can potentially do to our world, we are going to have to take action in the long term. That is the approach of Canada that is being held as a model.

An important critical component of that approach is to engage and involve the provinces and ensure that they have in their hands the resources they need to be able to deliver. A big part of that is that $1.5 billion of ecotrust money, the clean air and climate change trust money. I underline that if we do not get Bill C-52 passed in time, that money will be lost.

This is where the delay and obstruction that the Liberal Party in particular has been conducting has been very harmful to the interests of Canadians who care about the environment, and in fact even those who do not care about the environment, because even if people do not care about it, it does affect them. It is important for all Canadians that they have that healthy environment.

Another example of the money that could be lost if Bill C-52 is not approved, if the Liberal obstruction is successful, is the $400 million for the Canada Health Infoway project. This is state of the art technology so that people can have better health care, taking advantage of technology to improve our health care system. This is something that is very important for the provinces to be able to deliver on the health care for Canadians, for their residents. Again if the Liberals are successful in their delay and obstruction plan this is something that will be lost if the bill is not dealt with and does not receive royal assent in the near future.

There is another one that is of particular of interest to me because it does affect residents in my part of Ontario. In fact the announcement was made in York region where I live and where my constituency is. That is the $225 million to protect endangered spaces, working in conjunction with groups like the Nature Conservancy of Canada to acquire sensitive lands that otherwise might be lost to development, or if not to acquire them, to put in place the kinds of conservation easements to ensure that they will be protected in their natural state for the foreseeable future, for as long as our legal regime remains in place, which is basically for as long as life continues as we know it. That money is very important but that money and the potential to protect those endangered lands will be lost if we cannot get the budget implementation bill passed in the appropriate time.

I also want to talk about the $30 million going to the Rick Hansen Foundation. Rick Hansen is the man in motion, a great Canadian who rolled his wheelchair around the world. He is a very strong personality and a great activist for his cause of spinal cord research. He suffered an injury but he showed that it did not hold him back and he did his around the world tour. I think it was in 1984 when he started his tour, which was an inspiration to all of us. The ongoing work of the foundation from the money he raised then is important. There is $30 million that we would like to see dedicated to that foundation. That $30 million would be lost if the Liberals have their way and they delay and obstruct this bill past the deadline we are dealing with.

For all of those reasons, the budget implementation bill is very important, not just because we want to see it passed, and that is a good reason, but there are actual, real consequences with a ticking clock, because of the fact that a significant amount of the funds are anchored in the previous fiscal year before March 31. That means we have to pass it before the books are closed. Basically we have to get royal assent. We have to get it all the way through before the folks here on Parliament Hill go home to their ridings for the summer. In order to do that, we want to see the potential to deal with this bill for as long as we need to.

I might add that we had hoped to be debating many other bills but the Liberals have chosen to delay this budget implementation bill in every way possible and for as long as they can, as we have seen in the House today and as we saw last Friday and so on. We have tried other measures to speed things along but they have stepped in to block them every time.

The other important bill that we need to deal with is Bill C-23, a Criminal Code amendment. Our justice agenda is very important, and Bill C-23 is a bill to update the Criminal Code provisions. It has come back to the House from committee and it is now at report stage. We would like to deal with that quickly but we will need some time in the House.

Similarly, we are expecting to see Bill C-11 on transport come back from the Senate with amendments. We will need to see whether this House agrees with those amendments or not. Bill C-11 is an important bill that has been around a long time, as members can see by the number, and we have been waiting for about a year to deal with it.

We also have Bill C-31, the election integrity bill. It is in the Senate and the Senate has indicated a desire to make some amendments to the bill. We and, I think, all parties would like to see that bill in this place, or at least three of the parties in the House would. The bill was amended at committee and we, as the government, accepted the amendments proposed by the Liberals and the Bloc.

Unfortunately, the Liberals in the Senate had a very different view of how the bill should work from the Liberals in the House of Commons. The Liberals in the Senate are actually getting rid of the House of Commons Liberal amendment on how to deal with the lists and the disclosure of information to political parties. They actually changed it to a position that was identical to what the Conservatives had originally proposed at committee.

As a result of the Liberals in the Senate deciding that they do not agree with the Liberals in the House of Commons, it means that we as the House of Commons need to deal with that bill one more time once the Senate has dealt with it.

We are waiting for that little ping-pong game between the Liberals in the Senate and the Liberals in the House of Commons to come to an end. When it does end, hopefully we can achieve a resolution on which we can all agree to ensure that future elections will proceed with a greater degree of integrity and probity, something that is very important to all parties and all members of this House.

Another bill that has come back after a long stay at committee is Bill C-42, the Quarantine Act, a very important bill on health matters and something we would like to deal with.

I know of one bill that the opposition House leader, the member for Wascana, has been very generous in showing a willingness to fast track and deal with very quickly and we are hoping to have it at report stage in the House very soon. I think we are in a position where we can do that very soon. I know other parties want some level of scrutiny so the very generous offer of the opposition House leader was one that we took up, but not everybody did. We can seek to get it passed through as many stages as possible in the House as quickly as possible. The bill I am talking about is the one dealing with Olympic symbols. I would like to see it dealt with on the House of Commons side and then go to the Senate.

That is an important bill for the folks who are putting together the 2010 Olympic Games in Whistler and Vancouver. It is important because it deals with copyright, trademarks and the like. We all know how challenging it is to put on these kind of games in this day and age and the ability to protect copyrights, to deal with merchandise and to generate that revenue to support the athletes, the games and the legacy venues that will be constructed as a result of that is important to the people who are involved, whether it be the athletes, the organizers or the people in those communities who will benefit from the legacies.

We are also waiting on other bills, such as Bill C-51, the Nunavik Inuit land claims, and Bill C-59 on video piracy. Bill C-59 was just introduced but the newspapers are saying that it is an important bill because it would create some meaningful consequences for people who engage in the illegal video taping of major films with the ultimate objective of putting them on the black market to sell them illegally without the copyright rights to it. That is something that has been hurting the film industry.

In places like Vancouver and Toronto, in fact all across the country, the film industry has become very important, but those places in particular. It is important that Canada maintains its credibility within that industry and that we support our artists and the people who give value to that intellectual property and that we show leadership as a country in protecting it.

In the future, as we move away from manufactured goods and products to the kinds of services that have more to do with intellectual property, we need to be seen as real leaders in that regard. As I said, media reports are suggesting that all parties actually support Bill C-59, which is why we would like to move it quickly.

Another bill that we recently introduced would support the Red Cross/Red Crescent in the adoption of a new symbol. We need to do that here in Canada through legislation because of a charter that exists. The bill would create an additional non-denominational symbol, which is the Red Crystal, that can be used through ratification of a treaty. If the Red Crescent symbol or the Red Cross symbol creates some discomfort with the local population, the Red Cross/Red Crescent Society would be able to use the Red Crystal symbol as an alternate symbol, which is why as a country we need to recognize and ratify that it would have all the protections under the Geneva convention so that anyone would respect it. However, there would be consequences if people misused the symbol in trying to conduct an offensive military operation. The symbol would need to be used for the purpose intended, which is to protect and save lives in difficult scenes around the world.

All of the bills I have spoken about are on the House calendar. Some are in front of us and we would like to deal with them but others are still at committee.

I did not even speak to the first nations land management, which is a bill that was launched in the Senate.

We would like to see the passage of some bills that are still in committee and which we would like to see back from committee. We thought some would come back a little bit sooner, such as Bill C-6, the amendments to the Aeronautics Act. The committee has been doing clause by clause on Bill C-6 for almost a month now. I am glad to see that the committee is being that attentive but it is a bill that is important and we would like to see it.

The bill that I hope the committee deals with soon is Bill C-32 on impaired driving. I have spoken about the importance of justice and making our streets and communities safer. It was one of the five cornerstone priorities of the Conservatives when we ran in the last election. It was restated on January 4 by the Prime Minister as another priority.

I should acknowledge that we have had some good progress on getting some of those justice bills through the House but it was not easy. Some of them, like Bill C-10 dealing with mandatory penalties for gun crimes, stayed at committee. If one were to listen to politicians speak, one would think there is a consensus on the importance of mandatory penalties for gun crimes. Even the Liberal Party in the last election had that as one of its key elements in its platform.

However, when it came to committee, things were a little bit different. The Liberal Party actually gutted the meaningful parts of the legislation and it held up the legislation at committee for 252 days. Fortunately, that time is past and, thanks to the support of the New Democratic Party, we were able to put some teeth back into that legislation and make it meaningful. The legislation now contains some meaningful mandatory penalties for those gang members and crooks who want to terrorize our communities with guns and commit violent acts. They will face real consequences. When they commit an offence like that they will go to jail. There will be no more “get out of jail free” card and no more house arrest as a solution. They will actually serve real jail time for some of those offences. Where there already were mandatory penalties, they will be tougher and stronger mandatory penalities so that we can take real action.

I know these are important justice issues for Canadians, and that the gun legislation is a part of it, but the other bill that we are waiting for from committee is Bill C-32 on impaired driving. It is very easy to deal with impaired driving on alcohol right now because we have breathalyzers and standards. However, a much more difficult element is driving impaired through the use of other illegal substances, such as controlled or narcotic substances, or, in simple terms, drugs. People who use and abuse drugs and then proceed to drive a vehicle are just as impaired, if not more impaired, as someone who has consumed excessive alcohol. The consequences in terms of the risk to other drivers on the road are just as great. It can change the lives of a family if someone were to die or become injured. The lives of a family could be absolutely shattered when an accident occurs because of that kind of behaviour.

[Professor Ian Lee, Professor, Carleton University, As an Individual]

Thank you very much for inviting me here to speak today and to testify today.

I just want to bring to your attention that I'm not a lawyer; I'm not trained as a lawyer. I'm a professor at Carleton University in the business school. However, I did my doctorate in political science in Canadian public policy and my minor field was political philosophy. So I'm much more interested in the logic of the public policy and the underlying values expressed in that. That's the level at which I am focusing.

What I'm presenting today is based on an article that's being published August 1, in just over a month. It's the annual edition of How Ottawa Spends, published through McGill-Queen's University Press. My article is entitled “Righting Wrongs: Tory Reforms to Crime and Punishment—Locking Them Up Without Losing the Key?” The article really focuses on Bill C-9, Bill C-10, and Bill C-27.

One of the premises of the article is that Bill C-27 contemplates incapacitating violators of human rights—that is, repeat, violent, dangerous offenders—because I make the assumption in the article, following the late Dean Lederman from Queen's Law School, that criminal justice concerns human rights and that, as in his famous phrase, the most fundamental human right is the right to be left alone in peace. So violence against a human being is a violation against their human rights. That's the premise that drives through the entire article.

I have some background information in front of you. Some of it you'll be familiar with. I have the principles of sentencing reproduced from the Canadian Sentencing Commission because I think it's clear that the second-last, the incapacitation, is the basis for Bill C-27. I testified last fall before the justice committee, and there was some debate about the amount government spends on prisons, so I put that in the slide, showing that the government spends a very small amount—it's about $1.7 billion annually. I also have the crime funnel there, just as background, and we can talk about that later.

However, one thing I did want to bring out before I talk about the California example as a case study—essentially three strikes and you're out—is I did provide data from Statistics Canada and I called it “the industry of crime”. I have the data there, showing that—this is 2003 data—the annual data cost of crime is about $80 billion and the victims carry the burden of about 65%, so about two-thirds. This is something that is quite serious and people don't always focus on that.

I also have the stats, again from Statistics Canada—and I'll come back to this—showing that the majority of victims of violent crime are under 30 years old, while most of the people who analyze crime, such as academics, criminologists, and parliamentarians who pass the laws, tend to be middle-aged, affluent, middle-class people who aren't bearing the price. They have the lowest levels of victimization. There's something that I want to bring up later on that issue.

I have some stats in there about the average offence, the average length of sentence, and the changing profile of the federal offender. Of all offenders now in a federal penitentiary, 75% are there for violent crimes. I noticed that in the previous debate you were debating what the number of annual designations were under dangerous offender, and I have the chart on slide 18 showing that it was a low of eight in the last 20 years, and peaking at 29 in 2001. So there's a very small number of people designated under the dangerous offenders. Of course I have the overall incident rate of violent crime per 100,000.

I'm very aware of the fact that I only have a few minutes, so I just want to pick up on a couple of things dealing with rehabilitation and recidivism and then deal with California, and then I guess we'll go to questions.

I do have some interesting data from the Correctional Service Canada showing the rehabilitation metrics for the last five years, and these are the number of offenders in our federal prisons who are completing their rehabilitation programs. It's only about 60%, which means four out of ten—40%, almost half—of all offenders are not even completing their rehabilitation programs. I did discuss this more extensively in the article, because it points to some serious problems. In terms of the recidivism, my colleague here suggested that there aren't stats. CSC, in the 2005 report, estimated that 36% of all federal offenders will be convicted with a new crime within two years of being released from a federal penitentiary. So that's there.

I'll just finish up now on California, because I know this subject has been debated in the media. I think your committee has discussed it, and I would like to suggest to you that there's an enormous amount of misinformation and disinformation about the California three-strikes laws.

I think I read that one member of Parliament said someone could go to jail for stealing pizza three times in California. This is false. This is absolutely false. Jennifer Walsh was a district attorney in California, in Los Angeles. She went back to school, to Claremont College, got her PhD, and wrote her thesis on this. She has the data in there. There's an amazing set of empirical data.

There are two things about the California law. Two of the strikes must be for a designated serious felony, a violent act. The third crime that can trigger the life sentence can be any felony, but she actually wrote an article called “In the Furtherance of Justice”, because the California law has a sentence saying that the judge or the DA cannot count the third offence if it was not a violent offence.

As it turns out, in her thesis she found that 98% of all the people being convicted under California's three-strikes law are in fact going to jail for really violent, vicious acts—murder, attempted murder, rape, and so forth. They are not going to prison for life for stealing bubble gum. That's a great urban myth in our country. It feeds into, I suppose, the anti-Americanism in Canada that I talk about in my classes.

So I really want to put that on the table, into the debate today. You have the data from California showing the impact of ten years of three-strikes. Regarding violent crime only, it collapsed; it went down by half. This wasn't a mistake. This has been studied over and over. Jennifer Walsh has done, I think, the most empirical research on that. So the data is there.

Finally, I just want to conclude, because I'm probably going to be out of time any minute. I'm arguing, and I argued in my article in “How Ottawa Spends”, that if Bill C-27 passes, it will incarcerate the worst human rights violators in our country, those who violate the human rights of the most vulnerable members of our society. Those are defined by Statistics Canada as people who are young, female, and with low income. If we're not concerned about that, then maybe this bill isn't such an important bill. But if we are concerned with the rights of the most vulnerable members of our society, it's something we have to take heed of.

I just want to close by reminding everyone that the late Prime Minister Trudeau, who was a political scientist, by the way, did say that societies are judged by the way they treat their most vulnerable members. When we don't incarcerate these violent people who are preying on young, female, low-income, vulnerable people, we are not looking after those people.

Thank you.

Criminal Code

[Carole Freeman, Bloc, Châteauguay—Saint-Constant, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak today at third reading of Bill C-35, An Act to amend the Criminal Code (reverse onus in bail hearings for firearm-related offences).

Bill C-35 proposes that, at the appearance stage and in some cases even at the preliminary investigation stage, the onus be placed on the person charged. Before the trial, the accused has to be able to show that he can be released. At present, as a general rule, the crown prosecutor has to demonstrate that the accused should not be released on bail because he poses a danger to the public. The Criminal Code provides for some exceptions, however, and in those cases the accused must prove that pre-trial detention is unjustified. These exceptions are: breach of release conditions, involvement in organized crime, terrorism, drug trafficking, smuggling or production, murder, treason or war crimes.

With Bill C-35, the Conservative government wants to expand this list of exceptions. So it will be up to the accused to prove to the judge that he may be released without causing concern for society in connection with any and all of the following offences: attempted murder with a firearm, discharging a firearm with intent to wound, sexual assault with a weapon, robbery, aggravated sexual assault, kidnapping, hostage taking, extortion, firearms trafficking or possession for the purpose of trafficking, or any offence involving a firearm if committed while the accused is bound by a weapons prohibition order.

The Bloc Québécois is reluctant to expand the list for reverse onus, since this approach affects the important notion of presumption of innocence. However, we like the idea of giving police officers the most effective tools for conducting investigations and bringing people to justice. We agree that in certain cases, an accused should not be released and must be detained until the trial starts.

As I was saying to my colleague from Hochelaga, similar provisions existed elsewhere in the Criminal Code, for example the gangsterism provisions passed in 2002. It is true when release conditions have been violated, when someone who was already out on bail or probation violated the conditions. If an individual already tried once to dodge the legal system and violated the conditions, it is completely understandable that he will not be released. There are situations, of course, when it is prudent, justifiable and perfectly comprehensible for the Crown to say that an individual should not be released, for example when evidence might be destroyed, when the individual may not appear as required for his trial, or when the individual poses a danger to the victim or the community.

We had a number of concerns about the relevance of Bill C-35 before it was referred to the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights. Our first concern was the lack of studies or analyses showing that reverse onus effectively deters people from committing crimes with firearms. Second, the bill would have inevitably led to a greater number of incarcerations in institutions that the provinces own and operate. These institutions are often crowded already, and they need funding commensurate with their responsibilities.

Last, we doubted that this bill would help curb the trade in illegal arms. However, witnesses who appeared before the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights provided assurances on two points. First, the bill must be constitutional and must therefore respect the principle of the presumption of innocence; and second, in practice, a person accused of any of the crimes included in the bill is generally detained before trial. The testimony of two defence lawyers was the determining factor in our decision. They told us that, in practice, amending the act would not bring about injustice because reverse onus would, in actual fact, change very little.

I would like to quote William Trudell, the Chair of the Canadian Council of Criminal Defence Lawyers, who summarized the situation in these words:

The bill provisions, as elucidated now in Hall with a tertiary ground of public confidence in the administration of justice, are already there. It is extremely difficult for someone charged with this type of offence to be released on bail.

In her testimony, lawyer Isabel J. Schurman gave a good description of the situation covered by Bill C-35 when she said that there is de facto reverse onus in the case of firearm-related offences and that, in fact, the chance of obtaining bail is very slim in such cases.

In addition, setting aside the committee testimony confirming the practice of law in this specific situation, it is important to remember that the accused will still have an opportunity to be released on bail. Bail will be granted even if someone is accused for the second time of one of the crimes listed in the bill.

Reverse onus pertains only to release or detention pending trial. It has nothing to do with guilt or innocence. Bill C-35 therefore will not serve as a shining example of initiatives to improve public safety, something this minority government often boasts about. As well, the passage of new legislation will not necessarily dissuade firearms traffickers from selling weapons. Many of the weapons on the streets of our cities are smuggled into the country. Consequently, reverse onus, as provided for in Bill C-35 on bail hearings for firearm-related offences, seems to pose a real challenge. The question is to what extent the bill will reduce the number of firearms in circulation.

My colleagues will understand that we have a responsibility to consider how to prevent crime. Unfortunately, many questions will remain unanswered, even after Bill C-35 is adopted at third reading. Would taxpayers' money be better spent on preventing crime and putting more police on our streets? For example, would it be more effective to assign more police officers to strategic areas than to throw more people in jail and deny them the right to release on bail?

With good reason, during the previous debate in this House, I said that detention offers a certain degree of protection to society. On the other hand, I added, rehabilitation and the rebuilding of social relations are more difficult to achieve once there is recourse to incarceration, not to mention the fact that prisons are often considered to be schools for crime and a great networking opportunity for criminals.

Those are some areas we might reflect on more deeply. This government wants to be seen as fighting against crimes committed with firearms, but it is ready to dismiss the gun registry on the sole grounds of inefficiency and exorbitant program costs. For example, it is letting the registry go to seed by failing to keep it up to date and by extending the full amnesty for holdouts who refuse to register their firearms. Does this not demonstrate a certain inconsistency in terms of the government's goal of making our society more secure?

In conclusion, the Bloc Québécois will get behind Bill C-35 and will support it at third reading so that it can be sent to the Senate. The reason for our support at the end of the legislative process is that the bill will have no major impact on current practice. However, I repeat, shifting the burden of proof will not solve the problem of the traffic in weapons. Bill C-35 will have no effect on that trend. The approaches that the Bloc Québécois advocates reflect the concerns of the people of Quebec with respect to justice. Providing better protection for our citizens means attacking the root of the problem, in other words, the causes of delinquency and violence.

As I mentioned in some recent remarks concerning Bill C-10, poverty, inequality and feeling excluded will always be the breeding grounds of crime. As a consequence, firearm-related crimes always remain as a difficult social problem to eliminate. Again, and this time I will avoid debating the inconsistency that I emphasized previously, that is the government’s claim that it is acting effectively on the problem of firearm-related crimes while at the same time it is weakening the gun registry.

Like my colleagues, I believe that a greater sharing of riches, working toward better social integration and emphasizing rehabilitation represent essential solutions for the prevention of crime.

Unfortunately, this government always has that unproductive tendency to ignore those approaches. It thinks it can achieve security by filling the penitentiaries. What a sad social observation for a government that wants to give the impression that it is doing something, even though what we have here, as Bill C-35 demonstrates, is only the appearance of action.

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

Mr. Speaker, Bill C-35, back from the special legislative committee, really addresses two points. The major one that most people have heard of is to reverse the onus, so that the accused would have to establish why he or she would be released on bail and the other, which is a secondary point but flows from this, is that we have added some criteria that the judge would take into account when determining whether a person would be released on bail.

To expand on that a bit so that we are clear, we have effectively had the reverse onus within the Criminal Code in many respects if one understood how the practice took place. We are emphasizing and the legislature is sending a message to our judiciary that we want it to be very concentrated in its focus on gun crimes and the use of guns in crimes. If people before the court are alleged to have used guns in serious crimes, they would be required to establish under those circumstances whether they should be released from custody pending their trials or disposition of the charges.

It was interesting to listen to the evidence. The very first witness, other than the minister and the officials from the Department of Justice, was a representative from one of the defence bars in Canada, an association of defence lawyers. I have to say quite frankly that he stunned the committee with his opening statement that the organization in fact was not opposed to Bill C-35.

This was confirmed by a number of other witnesses, but he went on to establish to our satisfaction that this bill simply represents what is now happening in our courts across the country. Both he and other witnesses from the defence bar and other people who might have traditionally been expected to be opposed to this legislation, and in some cases were on principle, came forward with the same evidence time after time.

At least in all of the major metropolitan areas right across the country, the courts have already begun to apply a reverse onus. Even though it is not mandated by statute, they in effect were doing it practically on a day to day basis in our courts across the country. They were doing it particularly when crimes involved youth and the use of guns.

I know I have given this part of my speech before, but I am going to repeat it. When we deviate from what is an accepted practice in our criminal justice system, we do so only when we are faced with a serious problem. We know that in spite of the fact that the murder rate in this country continues to decline, as it has on a regular basis over the last 25 years, there have been some spikes but generally it has declined, the rate of violent crime has declined in similar ratios over that 25 year period.

I will digress for a moment. I use the 25 almost 30 year period now because it was over that period of time that we have had good, reliable statistics with regard to the crime rates in this country. Prior to that, the figures are somewhat suspicious in terms of their validity.

For the last 25 to 30 years the murder rate has continued to decline and the violent crime rate continues to decline, but there are exceptions to that and that is really what this bill, to some significant degree, is attempting to address.

One of the areas of crimes involving guns where we have seen a spike, even with some trend to it, has been in street gangs primarily in our major metropolitan centres right across the country. It is higher in some areas, but generally a trend right across the country.

We know that because there are more handguns and illegal guns, rapid fire guns in particular, that have ended up in the hands of gangs through organized crime, the biker gangs in particular. They have imported a lot more weapons in the last decade or so and we are seeing those guns get right into the hands of street gangs.

Therefore, we are seeing a substantial increase in crime within that very specific group. We cannot help but think if that had not happened, that those guns had not ended up in their hands, that the violent crime rate in this country, both for murder and for violent crimes generally, would have dropped even more dramatically than what we have seen over that 25 to 30 year period.

The bill specifically addresses this with an amendment, not only reversing the onus but it specifically requires, under the facts and circumstances, what the court is to take into account when granting bail. We have added to additional sections and one is an amendment to an existing section.

We had traditionally assigned to the court guidelines in section 515 of the Criminal Code as to what was to be taken into account. The overall encompassing section says that the detention is necessary to maintain confidence in the administration of justice, having regard to all the circumstances, and then we go down this list. Bail was to be denied if in fact there was a loss of confidence in the administration of justice.

As I said earlier, we were hearing from the witnesses that our judges right across the country, in the metropolitan areas in particular, were concerned about the effect of confidence on the administration of justice. They had begun to say to people who came before them, charged with crimes involving guns and involving serious violence, that they must establish why they should not be held in custody pending their trial or the disposition of their charges.

These sections were already in, so the judge in determining whether the administration of justice was falling into disrepute had to take into account, first, the apparent strength of the prosecution's case; second, the gravity of the offence; and third, the circumstances surrounding the commission of the offence.

To that we have now added in this bill, assuming it passes the House, in looking at the commission of the offence, whether it included the use of a firearm. Of course that would be a negative factor to be taken into account and the basis on which bail could be denied.

We then went on to add an additional factor. If the accused was liable on conviction to a potentially lengthy prison term, then we added, in the case of an offence that involved or whose subject matter was a firearm, a minimum punishment of imprisonment for a term of three years or more.

Therefore, the judge confronted with a charge of that kind involving a gun would take into account what the potential penalty is and if it is more than three years, that again would be a negative factor in determining whether the individual would be allowed out on bail and more than likely would not.

That has begun to happen right across the country. What we are doing with this legislation is confirming, I suppose, to our judges that we agree with them, that it is an appropriate practice on their part in giving them in effect legislative authority above and beyond what they already have to continue that practice where it is appropriate to do so.

There were a number of concerns around the bill. We heard those from the witnesses. One of them was on principle. We do not use reverse onus in the criminal justice system in this country in the long history that we have had, that the presumption of innocence is overriding in all cases.

However, again, we have made those exceptions on occasion and this is one of the times because of, I will say fairly and justifiably, the crisis that we are faced with, with the use of guns in those particular circumstances, and so it is justified on that basis that we should do so.

One of the other concerns that was raised repeatedly, and we heard from the member from the Liberal Party, was regarding some statistics that show the number of subsequent offences that are committed when someone is already out on bail.

I want to be very clear that we brought forward one of the first witnesses, the people from Juristat, the individuals from Statistics Canada who keep records on bail. We have not been doing that until very recently. The reliability of how many crimes are committed when somebody is already out on bail is certainly not foolproof at all.

The figure that was quoted came from one of the police associations. It was over a fairly limited period of time. It involved a fairly limited number of charges involving weapons on which bail was granted. It is difficult to assess the basis on which we are making this decision on solid, hard statistical evidence. We simply do not have that.

What we are doing here is making this decision based on the anecdotal experience we are being told about. We do not have solid statistical evidence. It is being gathered now. Our police forces across the country are providing that to Statistics Canada, but they have in effect only started that roughly three years ago.

The validity of that needs a period of time, as much as 10 years, before we know for sure just what our experiences are. How many people do get out on bail and who then subsequently commit an offence? We do not know that. We will have that over the next six or seven years at a scientific level that is reliable, if I can say that, but we do not have that at this point.

A statistic that did come out, and is accurate, is the number of people that we have in custody pre-trial. These are people who have not been convicted of any offence but are in custody. This is a major problem for our provincial governments because we actually have more people in this country in pre-trial custody on any given day than we do who have been sentenced to a period of time either in our federal penitentiaries or our provincial prison system.

I was trying to find the figures earlier but I could not. We have about 9,000 people on any given day in this country who are in pre-trial custody and not convicted of any offence. We are holding them in pre-trial custody versus about 7,000 who are in our federal and provincial prisons.

That is a cause for concern because of the cost. Those costs in the pre-trial custodial system are all maintained by the provinces. Obviously there is some sharing that goes on between the federal and the provincial governments, but there is no specific money that is allocated from the federal government for that.

The best estimate we could get was that the impact of Bill C-35 would have very little impact on adding to the pre-trial incarceration in this country because the judges have already done that. That is the immediate impact.

More long term, where judges may have backed off somewhat, assuming the crime rate goes down by the use of guns, it may very well keep that pre-trial incarceration rate up higher than it would be if the judges had simply been left alone with the discretion they have had up to this point.

That is a concern that we are going to have to continue to monitor on an ongoing basis by dealing with it in either one of two ways: looking at ways of perhaps amending this legislation at some point in the future or looking at ways that we can have more funds flow to the provinces to assist them in the cost of that pre-trial incarceration.

Those are concerns that we will have to continue to monitor. Any government, whether it is this one or some subsequent government, will have to monitor those costs on an ongoing basis.

I want to go back to the bill itself with regard to why we would proceed with it. Last week we had Bill C-10 before us on mandatory minimums which went through the House. I spoke at that time about the importance of us focusing on the use of the criminal justice system on specific areas when we have a specific problem, a significant problem, even a crisis level problem in those areas.

That is what we are doing here in Bill C-35. Our judiciary, to a significant degree if maybe not completely, has already addressed this problem.

What we are doing with Bill C-35 is simply confirming that it is a problem in this country. This legislature is sending a message to those street gangs, to the youth of this country who are inclined to carry guns and use them in crimes, that they are not going to get bail, that they are going to be held in custody and, if subsequently committed, that they are going to be faced with quite severe penalties.

That message is the message that we need to send in a very targeted and very focused way. I believe the combination of Bill C-10 and Bill C-35 goes some distance in doing that.

I would make this final point. One of the witnesses we heard from is a well known professor of criminology and sociology, a highly respected expert. If not the expert in the country, he certainly has no individuals in the country who would be superior to him. He may have a few peers, but there is no one superior.

He made a point in opposition to this legislation. He said that one of the problems with this legislation is that we are creating an expectation that this bill will not meet, because it is already happening. He said that we are creating an expectation that this is going to significantly drive down the crime rate with regard to the use of weapons, illegal guns in particular. He said that it is not going to happen and he is right.

It is not going to happen. It may have a small impact, and he was prepared, I think, to concede that, but as for a major impact, we will hear from some of the government members in particular that it is going to have that major impact, and it is not.

If we are going to drive down the crime rate, especially crime involving guns and serious violent crime, it means more enforcement by our police officers. We saw that again in Toronto, where Chief Blair was very successful in shutting down several of the street gangs by using existing law and existing methodology, before Bill C-10 and before Bill C-35. But he needs more resources, as do a number of our other chiefs across the country.

The other point that we have to be looking at is programming that will prevent individuals, youth in particular, from getting involved in the street gangs, so that they never get to that point where they have to make the decision on whether to take a gun into their possession. Unless we move more dramatically on those prevention programs, we will not see a dramatic reduction in gun crimes in this country.

This is part of the agenda that the government and this legislature have to face on an ongoing basis. I say this repeatedly, and I know it is almost becoming a cliché now, but one violent crime in this country is one too many. The target for us as a legislature is to say that we will do whatever we can to prevent every single violent crime in this country.

Are we ever going to achieve that? I am not naive enough to think we will achieve that ideal society, but I do know, from looking at experiences around the globe, that we can do much more than we are doing now in preventing crime. That is really what the agenda should be for this legislature when we are dealing with the criminal justice system over the next decade.

Justice

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

Mr. Speaker, that certainly is a good question, but I want to thank all those members of the House who supported Bill C-10. That is the bill that provides mandatory minimum sentences for people who commit serious gun crimes.

I realize that the members of the Liberal Party are going to have a lot of explaining to do to their constituents this summer. They ran on a promise of getting tough on gun crime and then voted against Bill C-10 when they had the first opportunity.

They should have been listening to the premier of Ontario and the mayor of Toronto who know what most Canadians know, that if members want to do something about gun crime in this country they have to support the agenda of Canada's new government.

Criminal Code

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

Mr. Speaker, I am very happy about the passage at third reading of 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, which provides for tougher mandatory sentences for persons convicted of serious offences involving firearms.

But the Liberals should be ashamed. They state publicly that they want to fight crime, yet they consistently refused to vote for Bill C-10. Why do the Liberals not want to protect victims of crime?

As for the Bloc, they voted against Bill C-10. The Bloc claims to be defending the interests of Quebec, but it is neglecting to protect the rights of victims of crime in Quebec. Whose interests is the Bloc really protecting? Clearly, the Bloc and the Liberal Party prefer to protect the criminals rather than the victims.

We are taking real steps to make our streets and communities safer.

[The Speaker, Liberal, 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 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.

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

First of all, I agree with everything the last two speakers said, in particular in reference to Mr. Ménard. I think the witnesses were very convincing for me, and that's the purpose of committees. I would commend the government members to take the same attitude toward witnesses' evidence when they vote tonight on Bill C-10.

The main thing I want to say is that although I'm supporting this bill, it is with some trepidation, in that we found out—to the shock of parliamentarians and probably to the embarrassment of the government members—that there was no evidence to support this bill, that Canada has not actually collected the statistics of who is on bail, who is not allowed bail, and if they commit crimes on bail. We have a bill here with no evidence before us, and I know all members of Parliament are a bit worried about that. Nevertheless, as the previous speaker said, because the witnesses have convinced me that this pretty well occurs, that it's not going to make a big change, and that it is a useful bill, I will be supporting it.

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.

Justice

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

Mr. Speaker, all Canadians mourn when they hear of the death of a young person in these circumstances.

Our crime fighting agenda has been very clear. We have taken aim at the illegal use of firearms. We introduced almost a year ago Bill C-10 which would give mandatory penalties for people who commit crimes with firearms. I urge all hon. members to work expeditiously to get these bills passed before summer so that police will have the tools they need to keep our streets safer and our schoolyards safer.

Government Policies

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons and Minister for Democratic Reform]

Mr. Speaker, on the contrary, we have been trying to get legislation through this Parliament. The difficulty is that with the opposition, in particular the Liberal Party, it is very difficult to do so.

Bill C-10, the mandatory penalties for gun crime, something that I know Canadians care about a great deal right now, was held up at committee for 252 days and then all the relevant portions of it were gutted by the Liberals. We had to rely on the hon. members of the NDP to restore those provisions. I could go through justice bill after justice bill where that has been the case.

What is more, they have used other devices, like concurrence motions, to take up, on 20 occasions, three weeks of House time with delay and obstruction tactics.

We are the ones who are trying to get the job done. It is the opposition parties that have been obstructing.

Criminal Code

[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.

[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.

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.

Committees of the House

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons and Minister for Democratic Reform]

Mr. Speaker, the opposition is obstructing Parliament.

Let us look at the justice agenda: Bill C-10, the mandatory penalties for gun crimes bill, a very important part of the agenda, was held up for 252 days in committee by the opposition parties, particularly the Liberals and the Bloc members; Bill C-23, the amendments to the Criminal Code, was held up for 214 days at committee by the opposition parties; Bill C-22, the age of protection bill, 175 days; the DNA identification bill, 148 days; and the conditional sentencing bill, 139 days.

Criminal Code

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, 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.

[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.

[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.

[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, 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.

[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, 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.

[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.

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.

Business of the House

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, York—Simcoe, ON]

I would not do that.

Tomorrow is an allotted day.

Next week is constituent consultation week, when the House will be adjourned to allow members to return to their ridings and meet with constituents to share with them the activities of Parliament since the last constituency break.

For the interest of members, I will quickly review our plan for the context of our overall legislative agenda.

As he requested, this is currently strengthening the economy week, where a number of financial bills moved forward. The budget bill was sent to committee and, hopefully, it will be reported back tomorrow, or soon, so we can deal with it at third reading when the House returns after the break.

Bill C-40, an act to amend the Excise Tax Act, was read a third time and sent to the Senate. Bill C-53, an act to implement the convention on the settlement of investment disputes, Bill C-33, the sales tax bill and Bill C-47, the Olympics symbol bill were all sent to committee and we all would like to see those back in the House for report stage and third reading.

In an earlier week, Bill C-36, the bill that makes changes to the Canada pension plan and the Old Age Security Act, was made into law after receiving royal assent.

Strengthening accountability through democratic reform week was a success with the consideration of Bill C-43, Senate consultation. We had three new democratic reform bills introduced that week: Bill C-55, to expand voting opportunities; Bill C-56, an act to amend the Constitution Act, democratic representation; and Bill C-54, a bill that would bring accountability with respect to loans. We hope to continue debate on that particular bill later today.

Bill C-16, fixed dates for elections, was given royal assent and is now law, which I think is the cause of the commotion now in all the committees where Liberals are using procedural tactics. Now they feel they can do it with a free hand.

Two other democratic reform bills are in the Senate, Bill C-31, voter integrity, and Bill S-4, Senate tenure. I really would like to have the term limits bill from the Senate for an upcoming democratic reform week if the opposition House leader can persuade his colleagues in the Senate to finally deal with that bill after 352 days. We may get 352 seconds in a filibuster, but they have had 352 days so far. They have been stalling for a year.

During the consultation week, I will be interested in hearing what our constituents think of the plight of Bill S-4 and the irony of those unaccountable senators delaying it.

We dedicated a good deal of our time focusing on making our streets and communities safer by cracking down on crime. Now that we have had the help of the NDP, we restored the meaningful aspects that the Liberals gutted in committee to Bill C-10, the bill to introduce mandatory penalties for violent and gun crimes. We are continuing to debate that bill today at third reading.

Bill C-48, the bill dealing with the United Nations convention on corruption, was adopted at all stages.

Bill C-26, the bill to amend the Criminal Code with respect to interest rates, was given royal assent.

Bill C-22, the age of protection, was given final reading and sent to the Senate, although it did spend close to, if not in excess of, 200 days in committee where the Liberals were obstructing and delaying its passage.

We made progress on Bill C-27, the dangerous offenders legislation. We would like to see that back in the House.

Bill C-9, An Act to amend the Criminal Code (conditional sentence of imprisonment) and a host of other justice bills are working their way through the system.

Members can advise their constituents that when we return, we will be reviving two themes, back by popular demand. Beginning May 28, we will begin again with strengthening accountability through democratic reform with: Bill C-54, political loans; Bill C-55, additional opportunities for voting; and Bill C-56, democratic representation.

Up next is a second go-round on strengthening the economy week with Bill C-52, the budget implementation bill, which will be called as soon as it is reported back from committee.

In the near future, we will have the improvement of aboriginal people quality of life week with Bill C-44. This bill will grant first nations residing on Indian reserves access to the Canadian charter of human rights. They have been denied this right for 30 years. Unfortunately, Bill C-44 is being delayed by the opposition. This is another bill being delayed by the opposition in committee.

After Bill C-44, I intend to debate Bill C-51. The agreement establishes the use and ownership of land and resources and will foster economic development. This bill illustrates Canada's commitment to the North and to settling land claims.

I wish all members a productive constituent consultation week and look forward to more progress on the government's legislative agenda when the House returns on May 28.

Industry

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons and Minister for Democratic Reform]

Mr. Speaker, I understand it when I hear it from the Liberals, but I am surprised when the NDP members start being concerned about the way that things are being conducted. They think that an hour or two of debate in a committee by a Conservative is a delay and an obstruction.

Let me talk about delay and obstruction. Let me talk about some bills that were at the justice committee. Bill C-10 on mandatory penalties for gun crimes was there for 252 days. That is obstruction and delay. Let us talk about, for example, the criminal procedure bill, Bill C-23. That was at committee for 213 days. Let us talk about the age of protection bill, Bill C-22. That was held up at committee by the opposition for--

Criminal Code

[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—

[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 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 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?

[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.

[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?

[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]

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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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, 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.

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

I have one more question, and then I'll share with Ms. Jennings.

Did you put in—for instance, on bills such as Bill C-10, where fewer people will plea bargain, because there are stiffer penalties—more money for the longer court time that is anticipated?

[Réal Ménard, Bloc, Hochelaga, QC]

Do you not have the impression that the problem lies in the fact that this government does not have confidence in its judges? If it had confidence in the judges' ability to weigh the facts, to tailor each decision to the individual and to satisfactorily assess the seriousness of each offence and decide on the appropriate course of action...

The root of the problem, that started with Bill C-9, continued in BiIl C-10 and is now found again in Bill C-35, is that this government, its Minister of Justice and its Prime Minister, do not have confidence in the judiciary. Does that not make you a little sad?

[Réal Ménard, Bloc, Hochelaga, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Welcome. This is not the first time that you have appeared before this committee. You always bring perspectives that are very useful for our understanding of the bills that the government sends us for study.

We have been dealing with this bill, but the Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics has not been able to provide us with conclusive evidence on bail requests at bail hearings. As a result, the bill has no scientific basis to it. It is motivated by ideological concerns. That may be fine when you are forming a government, but it seems to me that the role of legislators is to decide on laws based on conclusive evidence. The same thing happened with Bills C-9 and C-10.

Mr. Petit reminds me that it was more the case with Bill C-10, but we did not have much information with Bill C-9 either.

You have stated that, in actual fact, when people are before the courts, it is wrong to believe that bail is granted to those accused of firearm-related offences, more particularly when the offences are serious, such as the nine proposed in the bill. This seems a reasonable view. It is important that it appear in the minutes.

Can you confirm that, in practicality, this bill is useless because it does not achieve any concrete objective?

Business of the House

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons and Minister for Democratic Reform]

Mr. Speaker, as you are aware, this week is strengthening accountability through democratic reform week. It has been a busy week for the democratic reform family of bills.

We sent out invitations for the first birthday of Bill S-4, the Senate tenure bill, which Liberal senators have been delaying for almost a year now.

While we are disappointed with the behaviour of Bill S-4's caregivers, we did have some good news this week with the successful delivery of two new members of the family: Bill C-54, a bill to bring accountability with respect to loans; and Bill C-55, a bill to expand voting opportunities.

There is more good news. We are expecting.

Tomorrow, I will be introducing an act to amend the Constitution Act, 1867, on democratic representation, which is on today's notice paper.

Bill C-16, fixed dates for elections, was finally allowed by the clingy Liberal-dominated Senate to leave the nest when it was given royal assent last week.

With respect to the schedule of debate, we will continue today with the opposition motion.

Friday, we conclude strengthening accountability through democratic reform week with debate on the loans bill, possibly the Senate consultation bill and, hopefully, Bill C-52, the budget implementation bill.

Next week will be strengthening the economy week, when we will focus on helping individuals, families and businesses get ahead.

Beginning Monday, and continuing through the week, the House will consider: Bill C-52, the budget implementation bill; Bill C-33 to improve our income tax system; Bill C-40, to improve the sales tax system; Bill C-53, relating to investment disputes; and Bill C-47, the Olympics bill, which help us have a successful Olympics. Hopefully, we can get to Bill C-41, the Competition Act.

If time permits, we will also call for third and final reading Bill C-10, the minimum mandatory sentencing bill.

Thursday, May 17 shall be an allotted day.

Wednesday, May 16, shall be the day appointed, pursuant to Standing Order 81(4)(a), for the purpose of consideration in committee of the whole of all votes under Canadian Heritage of the main estimates for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2008.

Thursday, May 17, shall be the day appointed for the purpose of consideration in committee of the whole of all votes under National Defence of the main estimates for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2008.

Finally, there is an agreement with respect to the debate tomorrow on the 13th report of the Standing Committee on Public Accounts. I believe you would find unanimous consent for the following motion.

I move:

That, notwithstanding any Standing Order or usual practice of the House, the debate pursuant to Standing Order 66 scheduled for tomorrow be deemed to have taken place and all questions necessary to dispose of the motion to concur in the 13th Report of the Standing Committee on Public Accounts be deemed put and a recorded division be deemed requested and deferred to Wednesday, May 16, 2007, at the expiry of the time provided for Government Orders.

[Réal Ménard, Bloc, Hochelaga, QC]

Good afternoon, Mr. Trudell. I am glad to see you again. With the Canadian Police Association, you are, no doubt, among our most regular witnesses. However, you rarely share the same opinion about a bill. But that is another matter.

This bill deals with subsections 515(6) and 515(10) of the Criminal Code. It seeks to modify the principle of release on bail before the hearing.

You have already touched on the point that interests me. First, you are right in saying that the government tabled the bill before we could obtain any reliable and conclusive statistics. Our first witness was the Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics. As was the case with Bill C-9 on suspended sentences and Bill C-10, we feel that the government is motivated by ideological factors that are not supported by any reliable statistics.

I think that you have much to contribute to the committee. You represent people who appear before justices of the peace and before courts on a daily basis, people who have committed offences, some of which are firearms-related.

Several witnesses told us that whenever firearms are involved, judges seldom grant bail, and as this was already well established in practice, it did not need to be enshrined in legislation.

Moreover, subsection 515(10) gives the judge an option to deny bail, if he thinks that evidence will be destroyed or that the individual poses a threat to society or that he will not show up at his hearing, despite the individual's constitutional right to bail.

Please tell us about how defence lawyers, whom you represent, approach release before the hearing when a client applies for bail in a firearms-related offence?

Criminal Code

[Jay Hill, Conservative, Prince George—Peace River, BC]

Mr. Speaker, if you were to seek it I think you might find unanimous consent to apply the results of the vote just taken to all the remaining motions dealing with amendments to Bill C-10.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Royal Galipeau]

It being 6:30 p.m., the House will now proceed to the taking of the deferred recorded division at report stage of Bill C-10.

Call in the members.

The House resumed from May 3, consideration of 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, as reported (with amendment) from the committee, and of the motions in Group No. 1.

Senate Appointment Consultations Act

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Yes, Mr. Speaker, definitely the bill has passed. It had Liberal support and it was a terrible example to use.

I want to give another terrible example from the justice committee or perhaps two. One shows the lack of consultation. We had a witness in Toronto, when the justice committee was travelling, who said that the normal procedure when the government drafted bills was to consult with the stakeholders. In this way many people bring forward their opinions and that is not what the government is doing with these bills. It did not do that type of normal process. I think that may be an underlying problem behind this and other bills.

Another example where the Conservatives pushed forward very hard is Bill C-10. A lot of the Conservatives think it is a good bill and that it is important to increase mandatory minimums. When the minimums were defeated in committee, the Liberals put forward an amendment to increase them moderately so at least there would have been some increase in mandatory minimums and every Conservative member in the committee voted against it.

We gave them the opportunity twice, so I think they have to stand up with the philosophies they believe in on all the votes, even if there are things that are proposed by Liberals which do not go as far as they would like, but certainly further along the road that they would like to go than not having any progress at all.

Business of the House

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons and Minister for Democratic Reform]

Mr. Speaker, today and tomorrow we will continue our focus on making our streets and communities safer by cracking down on crime.

This morning we completed the debate at report stage on Bill C-10. That is a bill to introduce mandatory penalties for gun related crimes and other violent acts. Our government proposed amendments at report stage to restore what the Liberals had gutted from the bill at committee, mainly those aspects that will ensure violent criminals actually serve time in jail. We will be voting on these amendments next week.

We will continue this afternoon with Bill C-22, which is the age of protection legislation, followed by Bill C-27, the dangerous offenders legislation that would require criminals who are convicted on two separate occasions of a violent crime to prove to the court why they are not a danger to the community.

Next week will be strengthening accountability through democratic reform week. It effectively kicked off today when Bill C-16, the fixed dates for elections act, received royal assent.

On Monday we will resume debate on Bill C-43. That is the bill that proposes to give Canadians a say in who they want representing them in the Senate.

Our government will be introducing a number of new measures in the House of Commons next week, which I will address at the appropriate time.

Of course, we still have Bill S-4, the bill to establish Senate term limits, which has been languishing in the Senate for almost a year now. It would be nice if the Senate passed that. It would be nice if the Liberal senators could get on with it, so that we could actually have that bill here in the House of Commons as part of our focus on democratic reform next week.

Tuesday, May 8 and Thursday, May 10 will be allotted days.

Pursuant to Standing Order 66 I would like to conclude debate tomorrow on the 11th report of the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights, and I would like to conclude debate on May 11, 2007 on the 13th report of the Standing Committee on Public Accounts.

Subject to an agreement with other parties, there may be interest in concluding debate at second reading of Bill C-33, the income tax bill, as early as tomorrow.

On the question of Bill C-30, we see elements of that legislation that we brought forward that are very valuable relating to biodiesel, alternative fuels and so on, and we will seek ways of introducing that in the House of Commons. However, we have absolutely no intention of bringing forward the Liberal carbon tax plan, which is now at the fore of that bill, which would establish an unlimited right to pollute for polluters. All they would have to do is pay and they would have an unlimited right to pollute. That is not our approach. We are bringing in regulations to achieve real reductions in greenhouse gases. That is our approach.

New Democratic Party

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

Mr. Speaker, I rise in this House to denounce a bizarre political alliance, a sort of perverse marriage between the NDP and the minority Conservative government.

To everyone's surprise, we learned earlier this week that the member for Windsor—Tecumseh supported a series of retrograde amendments to Bill C-10. These amendments were tabled by none other than the member for Fundy Royal. Who would have believed it?

It is sad to see the NDP's enthusiastic support for such a reactionary government. This is not the first time; we all remember the travesty of the income trusts and the loyal support provided by the NDP.

There is no longer any doubt about the fact that the real opposition to the current government is the Liberal Party of Canada.

Criminal Code

[The Deputy Speaker, NDP, Bill Blaikie]

In my opinion the nays have it.

And five or more members having risen:

The recorded division on the amendment to Motion No. 9 stands deferred. The recorded division will also apply to the amendments to Motions Nos. 10 to 16.

The House will now proceed to the taking of the deferred recorded divisions at report stage of Bill C-10.

Call in the members.

And the bells having rung:

The recorded divisions at report stage of Bill C-10 stand deferred until Monday, May 14, after government orders.

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

Mr. Speaker, thank you for allowing me to speak to Bill C-10 to provide for minimum penalties of five, seven and ten years for certain crimes according to the number, if any, of previous convictions.

The Bloc Québécois has looked carefully at this bill. In fact, in committee, a number of amendments were withdrawn and now the government is presenting them again here. Why is the Bloc Québécois against this bill? Certainly not because it wants crime to increase.

The crime rate has gone down in Canada. In the past, we realized that prevention measures such as maintaining the firearms registry and better monitoring of the parole system would provide the necessary conditions for continuing to lower the crime rate. What will be the impact of the approach the government is proposing today? The incarceration rate will increase. There will be less money in the budget for prevention and less chance of reintegrating people into society.

For example, under the bill, for armed robbery there would be a minimum sentence of three years for a first offence and a minimum sentence of five years for a subsequent offence. What this does not say—it is there between the lines—is that an accomplice would automatically be sentenced to three years. An unarmed youth involved in an armed robbery would automatically be sentenced to three years. The government has deliberately and knowingly elected to automatically send a 19- or 20-year-old to crime school and likely create a career criminal. We currently rely on something very important and that is the intelligence of judges. Judges are humans with analytical skills. They are considered to have the competence to do this type of work and can take into account the entire context of a crime. This is not an area where automatic sentences will resolve the situation. They will not solve anything. If the bill is passed, I can guarantee that in 10 years, the penitentiaries will have bigger budget problems. The crime rate will go up and there will be less money for prevention. The result will be the exact opposite of what the government was looking for.

It is very easy to say that, for certain crimes, the more severe the minimum sentence, the lower the chances of recidivism. The entire situation must be analyzed. Some people are able to successfully return to society. It has been done in the past. There are also other tools that can be used, such as better supervision of parole. Greater effort is needed in this area.

The Conservative government, in good faith, wants to find a way to reduce crime. However, it is only looking at the first level, while concrete and practical solutions are to be found at the second and third levels. We must look further to achieve results. The American model offers a good example. There are more people in prison in the United States than anywhere else in the world. This breeds a team of criminals, contributes to organized crime and encourages people to become involved in organized crime. Here, we developed a system that allows people to reintegrate into society and return to a normal lifestyle. Thus, we are achieving a number of our objectives.

Experts indicate that the use of minimum sentences does nothing to lower crime or recidivism rates. Evidence to that effect was heard in committee. For example, a criminologist from the University of Ottawa, Julia Roberts, conducted a study for the Department of Justice Canada in which she concluded:

...mandatory sentences of imprisonment have been introduced in a number of western nations. ...The studies that have examined the impact of these laws reported variable effects on prison populations, and no discernible effect on crime rates.

No discernible effect on crime rates. On one hand, we have a knee-jerk, short-term approach, and on the other, we have a professional analysis of the situation. Since crime rates have dropped in Canada, I think we must continue to cultivate this different attitude towards such behaviour, developed in Quebec and in Canada. In the United States, they have not achieved the desired results. In order to continue to reduce crime rates, we need a major systemic intervention to create a society that has less poverty.

That is the primary factor here. Every society that does a better job of fighting poverty finds that fewer people commit minor, entry level crimes. These crimes are often committed by people who are just trying to make ends meet or because they are addicts and do not have access to support programs. I think that is the solution we should be looking at.

More support and better supervision once offenders exit the penal system will help lower the risk to reoffend. We also have to find new ways of doing things. Today, parole is automatically offered once an offender has served one sixth of the sentence. We have to reconsider this. I think modifying the parole system is more important and more urgent than the approach the government has proposed, and would be more effective, too.

We think that bringing in automatic sentencing is a dangerous approach that has not resulted in desired outcomes in the United States and will not result in desired outcomes in Canada. That is why a majority of committee members voted to remove so many of the amendments. Now the government wants to put them back in. We will see what the House decides to do about this, but it seems obvious to me that this approach is not well thought out.

Introducing this bill was like a gut reaction; when you burn yourself, the first thing you want to do is put water on the burn, but that may not be the best solution. Something else might be needed. In this case, there should be a collective approach that allows the situation to be dealt with and worthwhile results to be achieved.

I would like young people, who unfortunately get involved in crime, to return to society as soon as possible and to be properly integrated, thanks to adequate support services. That is better than creating individuals who join organized crime and therefore cost more to society.

That is why the Bloc Québécois will be voting against this bill. We hope the hon. members in this House are paying attention to our arguments and that we will get the desired results. In fact, we hope this entire problem and this bill will be submitted for consultation—even if it is rejected—in order to come up with solutions that will truly improve the situation without making it worse.

We are not necessarily here to copy the U.S. model. The Americans make their choices, and we must not condemn them, but we do not need to copy their methods entirely because they do not necessarily correspond to our social values.

We would like, more than any thing else, to see reintegration as a possibility in our society . I hope that the hon. members in this House will listen to our arguments.

[Jean-Yves Laforest, Bloc, Saint-Maurice—Champlain, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I listened carefully to the excellent speech by my colleague from Berthier—Maskinongé regarding Bill C-10.

I was struck in particular by certain points that he made earlier. First, the Conservative government failed to consult statistics compiled since 1992 that show that the crime rate is declining. In addition, the member referred to a study published in 1997 that argues that mandatory prison sentences have no effect on the crime rate.

Does the member not feel that this bill is driven strictly by ideology? That is definitely how it comes across. We do not have the impression that the bill is based on an analysis supported by solid arguments and facts. I find the government's position very ambiguous. I would like to hear my colleague's thoughts on this.

The House resumed from May 2 consideration of 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, as reported (with amendments) from the Standing Committee on Justice; and of the motions in Group No. 1.

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

Mr. Speaker, I feel it is very important to rise today to speak to Bill C-10, which I have had the opportunity to study. Indeed, for some time, I was a member of the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights. When this bill arrived before us, we had the opportunity to carefully examine it and to see what the government had in mind.

I would first like to invite all hon. members of this House to watch a criminal lawyer at work for a day in a court house. For those who are unfamiliar, I would like to explain how it works.

Unless they are very well-known, people who practice criminal law, generally speaking, do not have only one client. We usually have several. We do not represent only people involved in organized crime, the mafia or other criminal groups. Quite often, we represent people who are appearing before a court for the first time and who, in a moment of weakness—and God knows, we have all had them—decided to rob a convenient store in order to make ends meet. This is a classic example.

Under this bill, if individuals already have a similar offence on their record, or other offences in reference to this bill, they would receive a seven year sentence. This is what will happen. The individual will go to court. He will ask to be tried by a jury with a preliminary hearing, all in an attempt to drag out the process as long as possible. Since there are hundreds of thousands of cases in Canada every year, there will be a considerable backlog in the court houses. Since the administration of justice comes under provincial jurisdiction, the federal government will have to give provinces considerable amounts money to appoint new judges, new crown prosecutors, hire new police officers and, especially, to build new prisons.

In the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights we obtained some figures. It seems that between $20 million and $22 million in additional funds will be needed annually to implement Bill C-10.

I want to appeal to my colleagues opposite and explain to them that they are going down the wrong path by thinking that implementing automatic processes in sentencing will reduce crime. That is not so. This premise is wrong and sends the wrong message directly to the public. Crime rates in the U.S. were not lowered by imposing minimum sentences. In fact, the crime rate went up.

I can understand the position of the Conservative Party, but I do not understand the NDP's position. I do not understand the New Democrats, unless they have a strictly political agenda, but I dare not say. I think they are going down the wrong path by supporting such a bill.

When the time comes to sentence an individual, one of the primary criteria, the essential criterion that the Supreme Court determined in a number of cases—that I will not name here—is that the sentence has to be individualized. I will explain what that means for my colleagues opposite. We have to sentence the individual before us based on the crime he committed and his chance for rehabilitation, in order to send a clear message that this type of crime should not be committed.

Rehabilitation starts when an individual accepts his sentence. When I was a criminal lawyer, before sitting in this House, I had the obligation to explain to my client that the court would impose a sentence of three to five years. We can prepare our client to accept this kind of sentence for very serious crimes. As soon as the individual accepts this sentence, the rehabilitation process can start.

Because of what the NDP is preparing to do, along with the Conservative Party, individuals will dig in their heels. I promise you that court backlogs will increase considerably. We are aiming at the wrong target.

Judges receive direction and information. Unfortunately, contrary to my colleagues opposite, whether from the Conservative Party or the NDP, supreme court judges, appeal court judges, superior court judges and Quebec court judges—in the case of Quebec—read court decisions. They are able to understand that their sentence was not severe enough and that the appeal court has overturned it. I do not need to give examples. As I have several times been in appeal court, I know that the learned judges were asking us whether we did not think that our client should have received a sentence that was more severe, given the seriousness of the crime. We knew right away that they would overturn the sentence that had been handed down in the court of first instance.

I have said it before and I will say it again, and I hope that some of the members opposite will understand this time. The problem is not with sentencing, but with carrying out the sentence, with when they get out. Perhaps we should take a closer look at parole. Perhaps convicts get out too quickly. Perhaps, but that is not what I am talking about.

Individualized sentencing is essential if we want our legal system to work. It is the foundation of our legal system. Individuals appearing before a judge need to know that the judge will be talking specifically to them and sentencing them, and that they will be the ones serving the time. If we bring in automatic sentencing, people will play that game and commit armed robberies with knives instead of guns. The Conservative and NDP position in terms of Bill C-10 will not solve anything.

About 30 studies were submitted to the committee. I can assure you that I read them all, and I tried to prove that my colleagues opposite were right, but none of those studies indicated that minimum prison sentences lowered the crime rate. Not one of them.

The homicide rate in the United States is three times higher than in Canada and four times higher than in Quebec. Will minimum prison sentences expedite cases? Absolutely not. They will be dragged out, they will take a long time, and nothing will be resolved. Bill C-10 will not help the Conservatives and the NDP achieve their goal. Down the road, they will come back here and say that maybe they made a mistake. By then, the Supreme Court will probably have decided that the sentences are too harsh and that we MPs will have to rethink this.

In closing, I would like to suggest that every member spend a day with a criminal lawyer at a court in Montreal, Toronto or Vancouver. If they do, they will realize that the Bill C-10 solution proposed by the Conservatives and the NDP is not a good one.

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

Mr. Speaker, I appreciated listening to my colleague from Etobicoke North. I appreciated hearing his comments on the issue of mandatory minimums and on the importance of the fact that in all studies virtually all experts are in agreement that mandatory minimum sentencing can be effective on a first conviction, because that then lays the groundwork if there are subsequent offences for the judge to take it into consideration and tailor a harsher sentence, a sentence that is tailored to the accused, to the circumstances of the crime, to the victim and to the impact on the community.

However, studies have shown consistently that if one also creates mandatory minimums on a second and subsequent conviction it in fact is counterproductive. I believe my colleague mentioned something about 25 states that had mandatory minimums and escalator penalties, which is what the Conservatives have attempted to do with Bill C-10, and those states in fact have now moved away from the escalator minimum mandatories. Perhaps the hon. member would like to give us a few gems from his thoughts on that.

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

They should.

At any rate, based on the conversation the hon. member had with us here in the House, I am not clear about the Liberal position.

In Bill C-10 we are increasing the mandatory minimum penalties for use of a firearm in the commission of a crime. That graduates upward. The hon. member was quoting U.S. statistics and so on and saying that mandatory minimums do not work or that the U.S. is moving away from that.

Is it the Liberal position that you would like the Government of Canada to move away from and get rid of mandatory minimum sentences?

[Roy Cullen, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to participate in the debate on 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.

Regrettably, my riding of Etobicoke North has experienced much gun crime related to gangs and drugs. Certain pockets within Etobicoke North have had particularly bad experiences. We have been compared in Toronto to an area in Scarborough called Malvern as two of the highest gun crime centres in Canada. It is not a very proud statistic to claim.

Fortunately, in the last year or so the violent crime rate in my riding has diminished somewhat as a result of a number of factors. One factor was the very large swoop in Rexdale in May 2006 with 106 gang members being arrested and charged. They were generally involved in drugs and gangs. It was the anti-gang legislation that our government introduced many years ago that helped the police conduct that raid.

We have also seen a lot of changes in the way the police operate in the riding, more visible policing, and a lot of work has been done in the area of community building crime prevention programs. I will give a couple of examples. We have a program in my riding called breaking the cycle, which is funded by the human resources development department. It helps young people exit gangs and get back into normal family life, find jobs or go back to school. The program is working.

In Etobicoke North, we have taken advantage of much of the program funding that is available through the national crime prevention program, another federal program administered by Public Safety Canada.

Another program is Hoops Unlimited, a basketball program that provides young people with an alternative after school, instead of going to malls and getting involved with gangs and drugs.

The North Albion Collegiate Institute had a program where students were involved in a theatre production. We have had many such programs, which are all helping to keep young people engaged in a constructive way rather than a destructive way.

It was part of our government's response to gun crime in the last couple of years of its mandate that we saw it as needing a holistic response. We needed tougher sanctions, good gun controls and more community programming, and that was how our government approached it. In fact, it was our government that tabled tougher sanctions for gun crimes because the evidence was somewhat clear that while mandatory minimum sentences were not very effective, they could be effective in targeted ways for gun related crimes.

That is why our government proposed changes to the mandatory minimums for certain gun related crimes and why our party has tabled certain amendments to increase mandatory minimums for certain gun related crimes from one to two years and for other gun related crimes from four to five years, which are measured responses.

We need to understand that when young people go to jail, they are exposed to hardened criminals. They will get out at some point and we need to think about how we will rehabilitate them and turn them into productive members of society.

The evidence would suggest that in the U.S. many states are moving away from mandatory minimums for a wide variety of crimes because their jails are filling up but the crime rates are not diminishing and, in fact, they could be increasing.

We need a very holistic response. We can do better with our witness protection programs. While clearly right now there is an issue with the RCMP in one of the witness protection programs, the police in the city where I come from tell me that it is necessary to have the kinds of programs whereby people's identities are changed and they are sent off to live in another location.

However, we can bring witnesses forward in a much more constructive way through changes in the judicial process. That is why the Standing Committee Public Safety and National Security will be inviting various stakeholders, including the city of Toronto Police Service, to testify about what we need to do with our witness protection program.

In Etobicoke North and indeed across Canada, what the police are finding is that for violent gun crimes and drug related crimes people are not coming forward. That is hampering the investigations and the conviction of some of these criminals.

I believe also in the reverse onus provisions for bail. Too often we have people, not only young people but mostly young people, certainly in my area, who have been charged with gun crimes but are released on bail and reoffend. Therefore, our caucus is supporting measures that will bring in the reverse onus. In other words, a person who has been convicted would have to show a judge that he or she should be released on bail rather than the other way around. I think that is a good step.

In 2006 during the election campaign, the then prime minister, the member for LaSalle—Émard, came to my riding of Etobicoke North and announced the ban on handguns. It was criticized at the time, with people saying that it would not do anything. Of course on its own it would not have, but it was part of a whole set of solutions or prescriptions.

Certainly in my riding of Etobicoke North a ban on handguns went down very favourably. It did not go down so well in other parts of Canada, I would have to admit, but we need to have gun control measures. We need to have the kind of gun control and gun registry that is prevalent in Canada.

If we look south of the border, we can see that it is so easy to get a handgun, and we can see what happens as a result. Incidents of handgun crimes in the United States are in much higher numbers than they are in Canada. In fact, if we look at homicides generally, in the year 2000 there were 542 homicides resulting in a national rate of 1.8 homicides per 100,000 population in Canada, whereas in the United States the rate was three times higher at 5.5. We know that relates also to gun crimes. Guns per capita in Canada: .25. In the United States: .82 At rates per 100,000, firearms deaths in 1998 in Canada were at 4.3 and in the United States at 11.4.

We need good gun control. Certainly we know there is a black market in handguns, so that if someone is shot with a handgun in Etobicoke North, there is probably a 50% chance that the handgun came from the United States or a good chance that it was obtained on the black market. That does not mean we should not control handguns. That is a fallacious argument.

As for the licensing, I know the government is still committed to licensing and I say alleluia for that. However, we still need to control and register long guns because the reality is that long guns are responsible for as many gun related crimes as handguns.

We know, as I have said, that in the United States the mandatory minimums, the three strikes and they're out concept in California, is not proving to be effective. I will support measures that increase the sanctions against gun related crime in Canada and will have an impact in Canada. That is why I like our party's proposals. I will certainly be supporting them.

We know, as I said earlier, that to deal with this problem we have to deal with it in a very holistic way. I have argued, for example, that we should look at having an integrated border enforcement team in the city of Toronto.

Our government brought in integrated border enforcement teams, with I think 13 or 14 teams across Canada. They tend to be located in the major crossings like Detroit-Windsor and the Peace Bridge, but we do know that a lot of guns are coming into Toronto via these border locations. Integrated border enforcement allows law enforcement agencies to work together to solve and prevent these crimes.

Let us get tough on crime, but let us do it in a way that has results.

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I do not disagree with my Bloc colleague's presentation on the bill before us, Bill C-10.

The previous speaker talked about causes. I am actually a board member of an organization called Transitions for Youth which helps young people, who are in trouble or who are about to get in trouble, to find a better way than the criminal courts or other areas. We have worked very hard at promoting what it does in the community. It does great work there and I am proud to be associated with that group.

I do agree that kind of work needs to be done but we also know that once one commits a crime, particularly with a gun, which is what the bill deals with, we need to have the framework to ensure they are penalized for what they do. We do need to make communities safer and I believe mandatory minimum penalties will do that.

Based on the Bloc member's position on the bill before us, am I to understand that the current four year minimum, regardless of the number of previous convictions, is good enough for her communities?

[Carole Freeman, Bloc, Châteauguay—Saint-Constant, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to participate in today's debate on the government's motion concerning Bill C-10, an act to amend the Criminal Code (offences involving firearms).

This is not the first time I have commented on this bill. Initially, Bill C-10 sought to amend the Criminal Code to increase minimum prison sentences to five, seven or 10 years, depending on whether the crime was a repeat offence, for eight serious offences involving the use of a firearm.

The bill set out prison terms according to several factors, including whether the firearm in question was a restricted weapon or a prohibited weapon, or if the offence was committed in connection with a criminal organization.

The bill also set out minimum prison sentences from one to five years according to the number, if any, of previous convictions for other firearm-related offences. It also created two new offences: breaking and entering to steal a firearm, and robbery to steal a firearm.

My colleagues and I have read and analyzed every detail of this bill very carefully. The Bloc Québécois has always been a staunch supporter of fighting crime via rehabilitation. We believe that the best way to eliminate the scourge of violence is to deal with the causes of violence. The Bloc supports a justice model based on a personalized process that recognizes that each case is unique. Long-term solutions to deterring crime are based on rehabilitation. We also think that judges are in the best position to determine the most appropriate sentence in light of the facts presented to them.

That is why, in the Standing Committee on Justice, we brought this concept of justice to the forefront along with our concerns about the government's vision of law and order. The validity of this approach was corroborated by most of the witnesses who appeared before the committee. Bill C-10 is damaging and ineffective because there is no convincing evidence that it will make citizens safer.

The experts who testified before the committee said that minimum sentences did not reduce the crime rate or the recidivism rate. In addition, the clerk of the Standing Committee on Justice provided us with some 30 American and Canadian studies showing that there is no correlation between mandatory minimum sentences, deterrence and the crime rate.

After it was studied in committee, Bill C-10 was gutted, an indication that the government's desire for tougher legislation is at odds with the other parties' vision. Only clause 9 survived, concerning theft of a firearm.

The majority spoke. But now, the government is back with new motions designed to restore the old version of Bill C-10.

Aside from a dozen clauses that were in the original bill, the government's motions essentially restore the clauses in the original bill, including those pertaining to sentences for crimes committed with a firearm.

Motion 10, for example, concerns an individual who discharges a firearm at a person with intent to wound, maim or disfigure, to endanger the life of or to prevent the arrest or detention of any person—whether or not that person is the one at whom the firearm is discharged. This motion reintroduces heavier minimum sentences: five years for a first offence, seven years for a second and 10 for each subsequent offence.

This government is persisting and still does not understand. There is no evidence that heavier minimum sentences for offences involving weapons or other serious offences will deter criminals. I firmly believe that the Criminal Code, as it now stands, has proven effective in imposing minimum sentences and protecting public safety.

The code already contains mandatory minimum sentences. The judge can use his or her discretion to impose a sentence that is heavier than the minimum. In other words, the government needs to understand that the minimum sentence is a starting point, not a cap.

Might I remind the government that these offences already fall in various categories, such as use of a firearm in an indictable offence, use of a firearm in ten listed violent offences, and possession, trafficking et cetera of various prohibited firearms.

The ten listed offences include mandatory minimums if a firearm is used in connection with the offences of criminal negligence causing death, manslaughter, attempted murder, causing bodily harm with intent to harm, sexual assault with a weapon, aggravated sexual assault, kidnapping, robbery, extortion and hostage taking

I should add that mandatory minimum sentences are also provided in the Criminal Code for use of a firearm to commit or with the intention to commit an indictable offence, and for possession of firearm knowing it is unauthorized.

Mandatory minimum sentences are also found in the Criminal Code for possession of restricted or prohibited firearms with ammunition, possession of a weapon obtained by crime, weapons trafficking or possession for the purpose of trafficking, making an automatic firearm, and importing or exporting of a firearm knowing that it is unauthorized.

Still, as I said a moment ago, mandatory minimum sentences affect the sitting judge's discretion in cases tried before the courts. There is no exception, no escape clause, no discretion. Without mandatory minimums or with the lower mandatory minimums as they exist today in our Criminal Code, the courts do have the discretion to fashion a sentence more proportionate to the gravity of the offence and the conduct of the offender, and to consider both aggravating and mitigating circumstances in each case. In my opinion and that of my colleagues, it is essential that the latitude of the judiciary be preserved. The Bloc Québécois did support the idea of mandatory minimum sentences once, but that was for one specific type of offence, namely child pornography.

I cannot conclude without saying that these motions hide an unwanted reality that would affect our citizens' quality of life. When we combine all the plans that the government has regarding this issue, we see a significant increase in the cost of the prison system, and some of that cost will certainly be downloaded to the provinces.

I want to stress the fact that this shift to incarceration will move funds from enforcement and prevention programs. Also, with more people in jail, the issue of crime will not be solved: it will merely be moved into another area.

In a way, incarceration does offer some level of protection to society, but the rehabilitation side, the rebuilding of social relationships is also more difficult when incarceration is used, not to mention the fact that prisons have often been called schools for crime and a great networking opportunity for criminals.

I think that all these concerns raise questions about the emphasis put by the government on increasing incarceration rates in Canada. I wonder if the government has taken into consideration the fact that these motions would have a disproportionate impact on some communities, including aboriginal people.

For all these reasons, I have no choice but to oppose these motions, which resuscitate the original Bill C-10. Let us be clear: my party wants a safer society for everyone. However, better protection for citizens is primarily accomplished by attacking the root of the problem, by targeting the causes of crime and violence. Poverty, inequality and feeling excluded will always be the breeding grounds of crime.

That is why the real solutions to crime prevention are further sharing of wealth, working on better social integration and relying on rehabilitation. Unfortunately, the motions ignore these avenues, and the government thinks that it will improve safety by building more jails and filling them up. This is a sad move on the part of a government that wants people to think it is taking action, even though it is essentially creating a false sense of security.

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague from British Columbia on the other side of the House for made some interesting comments in terms of the coming of the Liberals' view of how they were going to be pro-security for Canadians. Based on what the they have done recently, it is hard to believe that they are on this.

We are debating Bill C-10 today. It has a five year mandatory minimum penalty for a first conviction using a firearm, seven years for a second conviction and ten years for a third and subsequent convictions. Under the present system, it is currently four years, regardless of previous convictions.

Does my colleague from British Columbia support getting tough on criminals who use guns? For mandatory minimum penalties, what does he not like about having people serve time for serious crimes?

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

I do not know whether this is parliamentary language, Mr. Speaker, but Bill C-10 will do diddly-squat for getting guns off the street or for reducing criminality. It will do absolutely nothing.

If the hon. member cannot read statistics, then I am sure there are people like Professor Doob at the University of Toronto who will help him out with the statistics. He appeared before the committee and he is a noted expert and a noted criminologist who has said that violent crime is down.

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

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Newton—North Delta. As you know a member of Parliament's life is somewhat frantic at times and this is one of those days. I want to thank him for his generosity and I appreciate the opportunity to speak in this debate.

It is a bit of a bizarre bill. It is quite obvious this is the government's attempt to switch from a pretty bad week it had. Conservatives want to get back to their so-called law and order agenda, which is little more than a cheap ploy to take people's attention away from their hapless handling of Afghanistan, the environment, income trusts, interest deductibility and a whole variety of other economic issues.

It is beyond me why the government considers increasing minimum mandatory penalties to be a matter of such urgent national importance that it has marginalized far more other important issues such as income trusts, interest deductibility and fighting climate change and making excuses and firing incompetent ministers of defence and for that matter, for finance. The emphasis on this matter is even more perplexing when it is taken into account that, contrary to myth propagated by the government, crime rates have in fact generally been declining since the early nineties. Of course facts never get in the way of legislation for the government.

A number of reasonable suggestions were made by Liberal members at the committee with respect to trying to put the bill into some sort of a reasonable context, but they were rejected and the government quite clearly indicated that it was not interested. Conservatives were rather soft on the causes of crime. There is absolutely no interest in dealing with those root causes.

In fact, the government's lax attitude toward gun control makes it easier to obtain guns. It has been starving the gun registry and now there are more guns on the streets of Toronto and other cities. To no great surprise, there is more violence and there is more violence that is associated with guns. So much for a law and order party. The Conservatives want everyone else obey the laws, but when it suits them, they do not want to obey the gun control laws and they want to ensure they fade into oblivion.

It is more than just a little perverse to contribute to the guns on the street and then come along and save the problem it just created. More guns are on the street in part because of that party. More guns and more violence means more criminality. More criminality means more court time and more taxpayer money, more prisoners and a backlogged justice system, all because of the government's fear of alienating the very powerful gun lobby.

Once again we see a vicious cycle caused by misplaced priorities and identification of the problem of a party that is soft on the causes of crime. The Conservatives would rather throw money at the problem after they created it in the first place because of this self-perpetuating counter-productive process.

I suggest that the cynical government's true intent in Bill C-10 is to create the illusion that it is taking effective measures with respect to making Canadian communities safer. In fact, this piecemeal, incoherent, punishment based obsession to crime is all about optics and nothing but optics.

Simply put, the approach of Conservatives to crime is more concerned with appearance rather than substance, which would explain why they ignore the best advice of experts in the area who have long argued for a balanced and comprehensive approach to crime, which consists in equal parts of prevention, deterrence and rehabilitation.

The government is not fond of listening to anyone. In fact, it does not even listen to its bureaucrats. There was an article in the Ottawa Citizen entitled “Tories warned early automatic prison terms won't work”. At various points in the article, it says:

—within days of taking office, was warned by senior federal bureaucrats a central election pledge to impose new automatic prison terms won't deter crime nor protect the public.

The Conservatives, apparently, ignored the advice from the justice department lawyers. Their briefing book said that minimum mandatory sentences had no discernible benefits and that they prompt more people to plea bargain their way out of jail.

It is not just their own lawyers the Conservatives ignore. They also ignore criminologists, the people who make their living in this field, who have actually studied the phenomenon and who give advice that is universally consistent. Many criminologists are actually very dismissive of minimum mandatory sentences because all they do is clog prisons and there is scant evidence they in fact deter crime.

Having ignored their experts and their own department, the Conservatives also chose to ignore international experience where many jurisdictions are backing away from minimum mandatory sentences because they do not work. A number of U.S. states have abandoned this particular approach. The department is ignored, the committee is ignored, the experts are ignored, international experience is ignored and, of course, the community is ignored.

The other reason we oppose Bill C-10 is because of its serious unintended consequence. When discretion is taken away from judges, it impedes their efforts to tailor sentencing in accordance with the particular circumstances of each offender and each offence. Each offence is unique and it is very difficult to achieve a cookie cutter approach to justice. I do not believe the government is actually interested in justice. It is interested in the conviction process. As long as there are convictions, it is fine, and justice is kind of an incidental byproduct.

The fact remains that there is anything but a widespread consensus that mandatory minimum penalties have much value as deterrents to crime, which helps explain why many other jurisdictions and stakeholder groups remain doubtful of their effectiveness.

However, the evidence puts a lie to such a distorted image of the crime situation in this country because crime has actually been going down over the past 15 years, in some categories of crime quite dramatically and in the category of violent crime not as dramatically.

This past weekend I attended a few events in my riding and met with about 100 people over the course of the weekend. I can honestly say that not one person mentioned Bill C-10 to me and not one person wanted to talk to me about minimum mandatory sentences. In fact, I do not even recollect any conversation about criminal issues whatsoever. However, among people's chief concerns were the environment and Afghanistan and one or two talked about income trusts.

Last year the United Way identified a number of postal codes in the GTA which are particularly impoverished areas. One of those postal codes is in my riding. The United Way, the TD Bank and other interested community leaders got together and asked the community what they could do. The community and community leaders worked together. In a short period of time an alliance was formed among the community leadership and they addressed the real causes of crime.

I can say that in the two years that the United Way has been working in that postal code, real crime in real terms has actually been reduced. The police love this initiative, the community is thrilled and the leadership is quietly quite satisfied. Some people are moving back to the area after having put their houses up for sale.

Accompanying this initiative is a commitment on the part of the government to spend something in the order of about $250 million. I put a challenge out to the minister. If he could pro-rate that among 308 ridings, I would appreciate my riding receiving its share and forgetting about this bill. I can tell him and the House that if that pro-rated share came to my riding, it would do more to reduce the causes of crime than all of these minimum mandatory so-called justice and tough on crime bills put together.

I appreciate the opportunity to speak and thank my colleague from Newton—North Delta for sharing his time.

[Guy André, Bloc, Berthier—Maskinongé, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I was listening to my dear colleague express some of the reserves he has with regard to Bill C-10. I would like to hear what he has to say on one particular point.

As other members of this House, I saw that member introduce last week a bill aimed at reducing violence in television broadcasts. Many members on the government side are claiming that they want to fight crime, to better protect our fellow citizens and to enact bills providing for increased penalties as a form of repression.

However, they voted against that bill to reduce violence in television broadcasts. As you know, certain studies show that television violence can lead to other forms of violence.

I would like the member for Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie to comment on this.

[Bernard Bigras, Bloc, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, it gives me great pleasure to speak to Bill C-10 today. Essentially, the purpose of this bill is to significantly increase minimum sentences for firearms related offences.

In his speech, my colleague who spoke just now accused the opposition of being small-minded and hypocritical, among other things, about Bill C-10 in the parliamentary committee and in the House of Commons. I feel I must explain that the Bloc has disagreed throughout the Bill C-10 process not because of surface issues but because of substantive issues. The approach the government is seeking to initiate with this bill is damaging and dangerous, and we do not think it will bring about concrete results.

The Conservative government's approach, as expressed in Bill C-10, is contrary to the approach Quebeckers have always wanted, an approach that often produces real results. We have always focused on prevention and rehabilitation. I remember the debates on young offenders here in the House of Commons, debates that were led by the then member for Berthier—Montcalm, who was our party's justice critic.

We proved that Quebec's approach to the issue produced results and that the prevention and rehabilitation approach justified supporting a point of view that, while diametrically opposed to the one proposed by the federal government, nevertheless maintained the social equilibrium we needed. Members of the Bloc Québécois are against this bill because it is damaging and ineffective and will not make our citizens safer.

We are among those in this House who believe that to reduce violence in our society, we must work on prevention. We believe that we must implement measures such as gun control. We believe that we must, for example, reduce the amount of violence on television. This is the purpose of my bill to amend the Canadian Broadcasting Act. We belive that we must take preventive measures to reduce violence on television, which is the complete opposite of the government's approach in Bill C-10.

Also, we believe that minimum sentences unnecessarily tie the hands of judges, who remain in the best position to determine what sentence is the most appropriate in light of all the facts of the case. The Robert Latimer case, where a man who wanted to end the suffering of his 12-year-old daughter, took her life out of compassion, shows that although this man was sentenced to 25 years in prison, the judges' assessment was quite different. The problem with these minimum sentences is that some sentences are not really commensurate with the person's actions. The sentence should be personalized, instead of having a mandatory minimum penalty that often does not fit the crime committed.

Third, experts indicate that the use of minimum sentences does not lower crime rates or recidivism rates. I would remind the House about a study conducted in 1997 for the Department of Justice Canada by University of Ottawa criminologist Julian Roberts. Mr. Roberts concluded that: “mandatory sentences of imprisonment have been introduced in a number of western nations. ... The studies that have examined the impact of these laws reported variable effects on prison populations, and no discernible effect on crime rates.”

Clearly, the impact of minimum sentences has not been conclusive. When we look at the statistics, even though the government tries to ignore them and says that the opposition is manipulating the figures, the fact remains that homicide rates—including first and second degree murder, and manslaughter—have dropped by 36% in recent years.

During that time, crime rates did not increase. The homicide rate did not increase. On the contrary, it fell. In 1975, there were three victims for every 100,000 inhabitants. In 2004, by contrast, there were only 1.95 for every 100,000 inhabitants. Thus, in recent years, we have not seen an increase in the homicide rate. On the contrary, it went down.

The problem with the approach the government would like to take is that it tries to copy an American model, a model initiated south of the border. But our statistics are different from those of the United States.

In the United States, in 2003, there were five victims for every 100,000 inhabitants. In Canada, we had 1.73 victims for every 100,000 inhabitants and in Quebec there were 1.34 for every 100,000 inhabitants. They would like the public to believe that the homicide rate has increased; but that is completely false as it has decreased by 36%. The government wants policies from south of the border to be adopted here in Canada. That is completely wrong. Better results will not be achieved by handing down longer or more prison terms. On the contrary. If you believe in prevention and rehabilitation and look at Quebec's example, you will realize that the results are a good deal better than those south of the Canadian border. That is why we are opposed to Bill C-10.

In the two minutes I have left, I will say that rather than increasing minimum sentences, the government should be reviewing the parole process. My colleague from Ahuntsic probably gave the best example in question period yesterday when she asked the Minister of Public Safety the following question:

—a halfway house in my riding, located very close to an elementary school, houses Clermont Bégin, a sexual predator whom the National Parole Board still considers very dangerous. My constituents are worried.

Setting aside the fine work being done by the staff at this halfway house, does the Minister of Public Safety think it is right that a facility like this, located fewer than 300 metres from an elementary school, is housing sexual predators?

Consequently, rather than looking at increasing minimum sentences, the government should carry out a review of the parole board process.

In closing, I will say that we are opposed to this bill. Our reasons for opposing it are not superficial. There are fundamental issues and cosmetic amendments will not satisfy the approach proposed by the Bloc Québécois. We believe in prevention and in rehabilitation. For these reasons we are opposed to Bill C-10.

[Tom Lukiwski, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons and Minister for Democratic Reform]

Mr. Speaker, it is with great pleasure that I rise today in this place to express my support for Bill C-10, and my desire and hope that all members will see fit to support this bill as well.

Bill C-10 is one of a suite of government initiatives that we have introduced in this House in an attempt to get tough on crime. We have seen several other initiatives pass before this House in debate, but unfortunately, I must say at the outset my concern is that members of the opposition, particularly the official opposition, seem to have tried, almost on a continuous basis, to obstruct debate on these bills.

I speak of Bill C-10 now because we have seen many times before when debate has been engaged that members of the official opposition have moved concurrence motions to interrupt that debate.

Again I must say that despite the fact that we have given our best efforts to try to introduce legislation that not only would get tough on crime, but in doing so would protect Canadian citizens and Canadian communities, we have seen a concerted effort by members of the opposition to water down bills in committee. When that has not worked, they have tried to obstruct introduction and debate of these bills in this place.

I can only say that I find that to be unconscionable, quite frankly, because I think that these bills, even though there may be genuine differences of opinion by members of the opposition, at least deserve the opportunity to be debated fully in this place. Any attempts that we have seen by members of the opposition to interrupt such debate is, as I mentioned before, unconscionable. I am very pleased today to see that at least this day we have an opportunity to continue debate on this very important bill.

It is important that members of this House and other Canadians who may be watching this debate understand fully the implications behind Bill C-10 and its intent. Quite frankly, Bill C-10 is an attempt to increase and impose mandatory minimum sentences on those individuals convicted of crimes, either gang related or firearm related crimes.

Mandatory minimum sentences are initiatives to which all opposition parties in the last federal election committed in their own campaign platforms. We had been very clear in our commitment that if elected, we would introduce legislation that would deal with mandatory minimum sentences for a number of offences, use and non-use offences that have dealt with firearms.

If I recall, the Liberal Party during the last election campaign also supported those initiatives. In fact the Liberals said that if they were elected, they would ask that mandatory minimum sentences be doubled if they formed government. In fact just the opposite was true. When Bill C-10 was introduced at committee, we saw a combined opposition, primarily led by the Liberal Party of Canada, that seemed to gut Bill C-10.

I found it to be somewhat hypocritical that on one hand, during the campaign when Canadian voters were examining which political party they wished to vote for, on the issues of law and order and crime in general, the Liberals said at that time that should they be elected to government, they would be introducing legislation that would double the mandatory minimums for gun related and gang related offences. Yet what happened in reality away from the spotlight of an election campaign, in committee we saw that the Liberals wanted to gut the bill and in fact remove all but two of the clauses of that bill.

On one hand, the Liberals spoke to the Canadian electorate about one thing, but the reality is that when they got behind the closed doors of the committee chambers, they did quite another. I find that to be quite reprehensible.

I believe that Canadians deserve to be treated with respect, and we saw anything but that with respect to the Liberals with Bill C-10.

Luckily, however, we have seen that the member for Windsor—Tecumseh, the hon. member representing the NDP, has found it in his heart and in his party's heart to restore some of the initiatives contained in Bill C-10 and support us in getting this bill passed through this place and to eventually make it into law. I applaud the member for Windsor—Tecumseh for his initiative and support in this matter.

What the bill states, quite frankly, quite clearly and quite simply, is that if someone is convicted of a first offence, gang, gun or firearm related, there would be a five year minimum sentence imposed by the judiciary. For any second or subsequent offence, it would be a seven year minimum sentence.

This is a reasonable approach. In fact, when the original Bill C-10 was introduced, we wanted even tougher legislation. We wanted five years for the first offence or conviction, seven years for the second, and then 10 years for the third and subsequent offences. However, again the opposition decided to gut that provision and without the support of the member for Windsor—Tecumseh, we would see Bill C-10 in a state nowhere near the original bill that it was intended to be.

However, I think we have struck a reasonable compromise with the support of our colleagues from the NDP in restoring at least some of the provisions of the original Bill C-10 , so that now we see that we will be getting support to impose five year minimum sentences on the first offence and seven years for second and subsequent offences.

Not only do I think that is reasonable, but it reflects the will of the majority of the Canadian public. For too long Canadians have seen a justice system, and some would call it a revolving justice system, where individuals convicted of serious gun related crimes would far too often be back out on the street before the end of their sentences. In fact, time and time again people in my riding have said to me, “Why do you not do something, if you are finally elected and become the government of this land, about protecting Canadian citizens?”

I am a big believer in deterrents. I believe that if individuals who are considering the commission of a crime knew that if caught, sentenced and convicted, the sentence at the end of the day would be severe enough, that would act as an effective deterrent to the commission of that crime. In all cases, certainly not; in some cases, yes, I believe it would happen.

My point is that if we can do anything that would prevent or reduce the level of incidence of serious crimes, that is an initiative in which we as parliamentarians should be engaging. We should support those initiatives.

I have heard time and time again from members of the opposition that statistics tell a different story, that statistics say that deterrents such as mandatory minimums do not work. With all due respect, I disagree vehemently with the approach taken by the Liberals. I believe that deterrents do work and we should do everything in our power to set a course of action in our justice system in Canada to ensure that serious offences are dealt with severely.

I agree with members of the opposition when they say that greater effort should be put into trying to find ways to prevent crime from occurring originally. I agree with that. The Conservative Party of Canada agrees with that. The only difference I see between our party and opposition members is that when all exhaustive efforts to prevent crime from occurring fail and serious offences occur, the perpetrators should actually be punished and punished severely.

This is the essence behind Bill C-10, to impose mandatory minimums on individuals who commit gang related or firearm related offences. It will act as a deterrent. It is a bill that I ask all members of this place to support.

The House resumed from April 30 consideration of 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, as reported (with amendment) from the committee, and of the motions in Group No. 1.

[Yves Francoeur, President, Fraternité des policiers et policières de la Communauté urbaine de Montréal Inc., Canadian Police Association]

I did not bring any statistics on Montreal because they do not indicate the number of people out on bail pending trial. However, Montreal probably has the best statistics in Canada. People told me last week that only Montreal and Toronto had detailed statistics. One thing I do know is that, on Saint-Laurent Street in Montreal, 28 handguns have been seized since January 1^st, 2005, including 11 that were directly related to street gangs, with the rest connected to organized crime.

If Bill C-35 had been in force, Basil Parasiris, who murdered Laval police officer Daniel Tessier, would never have been on bail while awaiting trial. It was Basil Parasiris in this case, but in Montreal we are often dealing with street gangs. We might, for example, arrest three of them with handguns in a car. If a street gang member happens not to have a criminal record because he has never been caught before, he will receive a bail hearing in court and be released.

This legislation needs to be passed in its entirety. But we also need to look at firearms more broadly. Bill C-10 and the firearms registry will probably be back in the spotlight soon.

I am particularly sensitive on firearms issues. On December 6, 1989, at 4:40 in the afternoon, I was patrolling on Décarie Boulevard in Montreal, when I received a call to go to the École Polytechnique. Unfortunately, we arrived too late; there were 14 victims. For 12 hours, I guarded a crime scene a little larger than this room, where 6 female students had been killed and were lying on the ground. Against the back wall stood a metal ladder leading up to a small window. Those young women had tried to escape, and there were bits of flesh everywhere.

In Montreal and other major cities, we have seen a trend toward greater use of firearms. I was a patrol officer in Montreal from 1987 to 1998. During that period, we very rarely seized any handguns. We seized sawed-off weapons, prohibited weapons, because handguns were not available. These days, anyone can get hold of a handgun. I work for the police in Montreal and I could bring you to an Indian reserve in Châteauguay and find you a 357 or 9 mm handgun to buy.

Bill C-35 is a first step in the right direction, but it is up to you, as our current decision-makers, to ensure that future generations, our children and grandchildren, will be able to live in a society without firearms. So please, it is important to begin by passing this bill.

Thank you.

Justice

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

Mr. Speaker, as part of the government's crime fighting initiative, we brought forward Bill C-10 for debate yesterday, a bill that would give a five year mandatory minimum sentence for people who commit a serious crime with a gun.

At the first opportunity, the Liberals interrupted with a three hour motion that made it impossible to discuss that important piece of legislation.

When will the Liberal Party figure out that it will take more than a press release or a press conference to get tough on crime in this country? I want to know that and I think the people of Canada deserve the answer to that.

[Merv Tweed, Conservative, Brandon—Souris, MB]

Mr. Speaker, after listening to Canadians, our government brought forward numerous bills aimed at cracking down on crime.

Yesterday in the House we were debating Bill C-10, the bill to establish mandatory minimum sentences for gun crimes.

Will the Minister of Justice update the House on the status of Bill C-10.

Criminal Code

[Tom Lukiwski, Conservative, Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I am sorry to interrupt my colleague but I rise on a point of order.

In light of the fact that the official opposition today brought concurrence down and interrupted debate on Bill C-10, one of the government's justice bills that we are trying to get passed as quickly as possible this week, I wonder, if you sought it, if you would find unanimous consent for the House to continue to sit for an additional three hours for the consideration of Bill C-10.

The House resumed consideration of 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, as reported (with amendment) from the committee, and of Motions Nos. 1 to 20.

Justice

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

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for her support of the government's crime fighting initiative.

In the last election, candidates from all parties promised to get tough on crimes, particularly crimes committed with guns. That is why the government introduced Bill C-10, which would have a five year minimum sentence for people who committed serious crimes with guns. Unfortunately, the Liberals and the Bloc got together to gut that bill at committee.

However, I am pleased to say that with the support of the member for Windsor—Tecumseh, we are going to restore the intent of that bill.

Unlike the Liberals and the Bloc, we will fulfill our commitment to Canadians to fight crime.

[Joy Smith, Conservative, Kildonan—St. Paul, MB]

Mr. Speaker, during the 2006 federal election, the government, the NDP and the Liberal Party all promised to get tough on gun crimes. In fact, the Liberal platform promised to double mandatory minimum sentences for serious gun related crimes. However, the Liberals broke that promise by gutting nearly every clause of Bill C-10 at committee.

Despite this flip-flop from the Liberals, could the Minister of Justice explain what our government is doing to fulfill this campaign promise to Canadians?

Public Safety

[Rob Moore, Conservative, Fundy Royal, NB]

Mr. Speaker, Canada's Conservative government is committed to making our communities a safer place to live. We are delivering on this promise by bringing forward bills that strengthen our laws and crack down on crime.

We have presented Bill C-10 to impose tough minimum penalties for offences involving firearms, Bill C-22 to raise the age of protection and ensure the safety of young Canadians, Bill C-9 to restrict conditional sentences and guarantee that serious offenders are not eligible for house arrest, and Bill C-27 to crack down on the most dangerous offenders in Canada.

However, we have not had the support of the official opposition party that does not seem to think that public safety is an important issue. The Liberals have even gutted some of our bills at the committee stage and prevented Canadians from benefiting from their protection.

When will the official opposition finally make the safety of Canadians a priority and stop blocking this government's justice legislation?

Motions in Amendment

[The Deputy Speaker, NDP, Bill Blaikie]

Before we resume debate, the Chair is ready to rule on the admissibility of the amendments by the official opposition to Bill C-10.

The Chair has carefully examined the amendments proposed by the hon. member for Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine to report stage Motions Nos. 5 to 16 of Bill C-10, An Act to amend the Criminal Code (minimum penalties for offences involving firearms). The Chair has also reviewed the arguments presented by the hon. members for Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine and for Windsor—Tecumseh.

The Chair would articulate the principle of the bill as imposing mandatory increasing minimum penalties for repeat offences. The amendments are at odds with this, as they basically propose minimum sentences, thus contradicting the principle of the bill, which is to deal with repeat offences. Therefore, I regret to inform the member that all these amendments are inadmissible, as they are contrary to the principle of the bill.

In addition, the Chair notes that a series of amendments to Motions Nos. 9 to 16 are also inadmissible for a second reason, as they do not relate to the amendments proposed by the hon. member for Fundy Royal. In other words, they could only be proposed as subamendments to the amendments of the member for Fundy Royal and not as amendments to the motions.

I thank all hon. members for their contributions.

Resuming debate, to the hon. member for Scarborough—Rouge River.

[Rick Dykstra, Conservative, St. Catharines, ON]

Mr. Speaker, we cannot take an approach to justice that is a revolving door. If we do that, then we will treat our justice system like the polls, which go forward and backward in the country.

What somebody believes or thinks one day and what somebody does not think another day, proven by statistics, if that is how we will be running government, then we are in a whole bigger problem than what the member likes to think or wants to suggest. We need to solve problems and we do that through legislation.

The legislation is good and it is sound. It is supported by a majority of members in the House, and most important, it is supported by Canadians.

I understand the hon. member's passion and commitment. However, at the same time, we cannot say on the one hand that we are for something, an election commitment, and then after try to use statistics on this issue to argue why we are against it.

If the member thinks about this a bit, he will understand that the right thing to do is stand up in the House and support Bill C-10.

[Rick Dykstra, Conservative, St. Catharines, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I will make a few brief remarks and I will separate them into three areas. First, I will propose amendments to Bill C-10 that will reflect the government's willingness to accommodate specific concerns, while at the same time keep our election commitment to Canadians and make our streets safer by cracking down on gun crime. Second, I would like to restate the underlying purpose of what Bill C-10 was all about. Finally, for the purpose of informing Canadians, I would like to briefly discuss the events at committee where the majority of the clauses of this bill were deleted.

Let me start by saying that the government has agreed to amend the bill by targeting a core of key offences, those of great concern. Therefore, motions to restore certain clauses of the bill have been proposed. They deal with four serious non-use offences, namely, firearm trafficking; possession for the purposes of trafficking; smuggling; and the illegal possession of restricted or prohibited firearms with ammunition. They also deal with nine offences that involve the actual use of a firearm.

In addition, I would like to take a moment to discuss the amendments moved earlier by the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice. Motions were moved to amend clause 1, clause 2 and clauses 17 through 24 of the bill. Except for the amendment to clause 1, all of these amendments seek to remove the third tier minimum penalties.

For clauses 17 to 24, which deal with eight serious offences in which a firearm is used in the commission of an offence, the government is prepared to remove the 10 year minimum penalty that has been proposed, leaving a five year minimum penalty on a first offence, and seven years on a second offence or a subsequent offence.

For clause 2, which deals with section 85 of the Criminal Code, the separate offence of having used a firearm or an imitation firearm in the commission of other indictable offences, the government seeks to remove the five year minimum penalty that is proposed, leaving a one year minimum penalty on a first offence and a three year minimum penalty on a second or subsequent offence.

The amendment to clause 1 relates to other clauses in the bill, namely clauses 2, 7, 10, 11 and 13. It is a consequential amendment that should the clauses I just referred to pass, then clause 1 should be amended as proposed by the motion.

With these additional amendments, I would submit that Bill C-10 would be both appropriately tailored and measured, and therefore should be adopted by this House. I would urge all members to support the bill which will give police and prosecutors what they have said they need to tackle this serious problem.

Moving on to the second issue to which I wanted to speak, Bill C-10 addresses a very important public safety concern, the threat of gun crimes. This bill aims to ensure that the Criminal Code sets out firm penalties for serious or repeat firearm offences.

It is important to note that Bill C-10 targets gangs and it targets the criminal enterprises that threaten our neighbourhoods and our communities through intimidation and violence.

The factors that trigger the toughest sentences in Bill C-10 are limited to those who are linked to criminal organizations, or the use of restricted or prohibited firearms which are the signature tools of gangs and organized crime. This bill seeks to establish escalating mandatory minimum sentences of five years for the first offence and seven years for the second offence and offences thereafter.

I would like to read the list of offences into the record so that this House can truly understand the intent of this legislation: attempted murder, discharging a firearm with intent, sexual assault with a weapon, aggravated sexual assault, kidnapping, hostage taking, robbery and extortion. These are very serious crimes. During the last election our party committed to raise the mandatory minimum sentences for violent gun crimes and so did the Liberal Party and the NDP.

The Liberals promised to toughen sentences for firearm offences. Let me read a few lines from an election platform. This platform said that they would reintroduce legislation to crack down on violent crimes and gang violence and double the mandatory minimum sentences for serious gun related crimes. I probably do not have to tell the House that the platform was a Liberal platform.

I am pleased the hon. member for Windsor—Tecumseh and his party are in part honouring their election commitment and have worked cooperatively with the government to amend Bill C-10 in a manner that is not what we originally wanted, but it is effective and it does reflect in a positive way our campaign commitments.

The protection of our citizens from preventable harm is a responsibility of the government and it supercedes all politics.

Bill C-10 is being reported back to the House from the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights although it looks nothing like the original bill, which was approved by the majority of the House prior to being sent to committee for consideration. It is very important that I take a moment to discuss what happened to Bill C-10 in committee.

As I mentioned a moment ago, Bill C-10 seeks to increase the minimum penalty for gun crimes. However, the bill, as amended by committee, is left with no increase or new minimum penalties whatsoever.

At committee the Bloc members ideologically stated from the outset that they were opposed to the concept of mandatory minimum sentences. If we act ideologically, it makes it very difficult when action requires pragmatism, not ideology.

The position of the Liberal members on the other hand was much harder to comprehend. Even though they promised in the last election to double mandatory minimum penalties for serious gun crimes, it did not happen at committee. The Liberal members stated their opposition to mandatory minimum sentences, decrying the lack of statistical evidence to prove their effectiveness in reducing crime.

They then proceeded to introduce amendments that sought to increase the mandatory minimum sentences on a number of non-use or possession offences, while opposing their campaign promise to increase the mandatory minimum sentences on the violent crimes, which I listed previously. This action clearly illustrates that the opposition and its priority on criminal justice matters support only initiatives from which one can gain political mileage. Once again Liberal politics trumped public interest.

The committee heard from numerous witnesses who had divergent opinions. Many questioned the effectiveness of minimum penalties. The government believes it is a matter of perspective. Bill C-10 does not seek to address the overall criminal justice system. Nor does it seek to address the societal factors that contribute to crime. Bill C-10 is a pragmatic response to the specific problem of gun crimes perpetrated by gangs and organized crime. It is fair, it is focused and it is firm in its resolve to make our streets safer.

This type of focus was woefully lacking from the Leader of the Opposition's press conference where he announced his sudden conversion to law and order by stating his steadfast opposition to stiffer sentences for violent criminals. It is unfortunate that the Leader of the Opposition did not heed the advice from an attorney general in the country whose commentary on federal Liberal justice policies were recently quoted in the Globe and Mail. I just happen to have a few excerpts with me. He said:

—the Liberals have very little substance to offer by way of alternative, and certainly nothing new or effective....The typical federal Liberal approach to crime, in a word, is a boomer approach that is stuck in the summer of love....focus on prevention alone does nothing for those families in crime-ridden high rises where illegal guns police the hallways...

He went on to say:

We need to take a close look at strong statutory measures, including reverse-onus clauses and mandatory minimums.

Michael Bryant, the Liberal attorney general in the province of Ontario said that.

The government has acknowledged that tougher laws, such as those proposed in Bill C-10, are only part of the solution to this complex problem, but it is consistent with the Criminal Code and sentencing principles as a whole, and is not merely focused on the goal of general deterrence.

In light of this, the government demonstrated its willingness to examine how Bill C-10 could be amended in a manner that would be accepted by the majority of parliamentarians but, more important, to a majority of Canadians.

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

Mr. Speaker, with regard to the use of mandatory minimums, the history in Canada has been, for a long period of time, to look with great concern on the use of that technique in dealing with sentencing individuals who have been convicted of crimes.

It has been generally frowned upon, both by historical legislatures at this level and by our courts. I think back to a period of time, which was a long time ago, going through law school and having the mandatory minimum of seven years for importing drugs into Canada. Shortly after the charter came into effect in 1982, that was struck down by our courts.

In a riding like mine, which has a large number of people moving back and forth between Canada and the United States on a daily basis, one can imagine the number of individuals who were convicted and sentenced to jail for seven years for the simple possession of a small quantity of marijuana.

When the charter came into effect, the courts took the opportunity to strike that down. That is a good example of a mandatory minimum that was grossly inappropriate to the crime and the consequences of the crime.

When we look at mandatory minimums we must ask ourselves when it is appropriate to use them. I will use an example of when it was appropriate in a campaign that worked extremely well, which was with regard to impaired driving as a result of the consumption of alcohol.

What happened, historically, was that large groups of people, MADD in particular, but also our police forces, our judiciary and the legislature, recognized that we had a major problem with impaired driving due to alcohol consumption and that we needed to do something about it, which we did.

We introduced massive education programs to determine the seriousness of the problem and to deter people from using alcohol. We introduced legislation for mandatory minimums, fines, suspension of licences and, in certain cases, jail time. These things had a significant and effective impact. It has tabled off in the last few years but it significantly dropped the rate of impaired driving in this country.

When we hear the Liberals and the Bloc stand and say that it never worked, we need to think of the impaired driving program and that campaign which was effective in driving the rate of that crime down significantly.

What we are faced with today is the use of firearms by a small group of people, which is one of the reasons we were prepared to push the Conservative government strongly to back down from the extreme positions it has taken with some of the provisions of Bill C-10 and brought forth these amendments that are contained in the motions that are currently before us.

Where the principles lie when we use mandatory minimums is to focus on the specific crime and determine whether the use of mandatory minimums will have some impact. We know that it only has an impact if there is an overall campaign, and there is that campaign in this country. We are saying to criminals who are prepared to use guns to commit a crime, serious violent crimes in particular, that we as a legislature will penalize them for the crime. Our police officers are saying that on the street and our judges are saying that in the courtrooms. What we are doing here is being part of that overall campaign to drive the use of guns in violent crimes, in particular, completely out of the country.

We are focused on the specific crimes, which is what the bill does. It looks specifically at serious violent crimes and uses mandatory minimums to say that we condemn the use of guns in those circumstances. We are telling criminals that if they insist on pursuing that type of activity they will face a serious penalty if, at the end of the day, they are convicted of that crime. It fits within the scheme of when we would use it.

I am particularly critical of the Liberals and a little critical of the Bloc in this regard. The use we can make of this has been watered down because the Liberals used it so often when they were in power. In excess of 60 crimes now have mandatory minimums. This will add a number more. Quite frankly, a number of those 60 crimes do not need mandatory minimums, but that was done under the Liberal administration.

When I deal with the Conservatives on these issues, I tell them not to make the same mistakes. If they are going to use mandatory minimums they should use them sparingly, appropriately and in a focused fashion. If they were to do otherwise, they might as well not bother because mandatory minimums would not have any impact whatsoever. A mandatory minimum worked in the impaired driving situation, but had we done that on a whole series of other crimes of that nature, its effectiveness would have been extremely limited and reduced.

I told the Conservative Party, on behalf of the NDP, that as we promised in the last election, and as opposed to what the Liberals did, we kept our promise, that is what we did here, but we were not prepared to go to the extreme to which the Conservatives were prepared to go. That is why we have these amendments. It is quite clear in my mind and from all the opinions that we have heard, if we had included the mandatory minimum of 10 years on the third offence, it would have been struck down under our charter. Our courts have sent us clear messages that they are not prepared to allow mandatory minimums to go that far even on these serious crimes.

I proposed that amendment to the government. It accepted that. It was an acceptance of the reality of our jurisprudence at this period in time.

That is not to say at some point we may not move to a mandatory minimum of greater than the seven years which we have now, but at this point in time, with our jurisprudence in our courts in terms of proportionality of sentencing and under the charter, that is as far as we can go. I believe it is as far as our courts would allow us to go. Quite frankly, I agree with our courts in that regard.

If we pass these amendments, what clearly will go out is the message that we are serious when it comes to the use of guns in serious violent crimes. To some degree, the bill targets the street gangs and organized crime more extensively because most of the guns are smuggled into this country through more traditional organized crime groups and are sold to street gangs. We are telling those groups that we are not tolerating that any more. If they do not stop using guns in crimes, they will go to jail for an extended period of time. There is no discretion. They will go to jail for an extended period of time. That message has to be communicated.

I will finalize my comments with direction to the government. As with the mandatory minimum used in impaired driving, we have to have a very clear and focused educational program directed to those two groups that this is what is going to happen. We have to carry that out.

[Réal Ménard, Bloc, Hochelaga, QC]

Mr. Speaker, that is an excellent question. I congratulate my colleague who also worked on Bills C-9 and C-10, because there are links to be made between the two.

It is true that the government has not been able to provide convincing and conclusive data. I believe that is what my colleague is getting at with his question. It is the role of parliamentarians to make decisions based on convincing and conclusive data. Naturally, we must be wary when we are told that statistics, witnesses and rigour are not necessary. However, that does not mean that our desire to back up our claims with scientific studies cannot be reconciled with raw instinct and pure common sense.

It is true that our fellow citizens are worried about offences committed with firearms. It is true that at this time there are street gangs in the major urban centres of Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver. But there are ways of effectively dealing with street gangs, firearms, and the flow of firearms. We can never say it enough times. It is quite a contradiction for the government to want to abolish the gun registry that police forces wish to have, on the one hand, and to have mandatory minimum sentences, on the other hand. That is very contradictory, lacks logic, and shows a lack of respect for those who support this gun registry, which, naturally, must be managed effectively.

[Réal Ménard, Bloc, Hochelaga, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would ask the members to calm down, since things seem to be getting a little out of hand. We must be calm while doing our work.

I am pleased to speak to Bill C-10.

We must remember that, unlike what some government members have been insinuating, violent crime and the number of homicides are on the decline in Canada. Since 1992, crime rates have been decreasing in Canada, and there is every reason to be happy. Is crime going down because our economy is doing well, because, demographically, there are fewer young people? These are explanations that should be considered.

Let us talk about the solutions put forward by the government. It does not tend to take action in terms of prevention, to trust the judges, and to invest in social programs, but rather to resort to incarceration. It is inclined to go for mandatory minimum penalties, in its push for incarceration.

We in the Bloc Québécois are convinced that there are situations that call for incarceration. Moreover, it was the Bloc Québécois that took the initiative in the mid-1990s to propose measures to combat street gangs and criminal biker gangs. The Liberal government at the time said that the conspiracy provisions were enough to dismantle biker gangs. The Bloc Québécois, together with the police association and a number of other stakeholders, called for a new offence and new legislation. In response, the government introduced Bill C-95, which was amended by Bills C-24 and C-36.

Today, the government is addressing a real problem, compounded by the street gang phenomenon: the use of firearms in the commission of crimes. But the government is taking the wrong approach. It is focussing on certain specific offences, which are admittedly serious, disturbing and reprehensible. I am referring to attempted murder, discharging a firearm with intent, sexual assault, aggravated sexual assault, kidnapping, hostage-taking, robbery and extortion. For each of these offences, the government wants to increase three-year minimum sentences to five, five-year minimums to seven and seven-year minimums to as much as 10. The government is completely ignoring the fact that true deterrence means that a judge who is sentencing someone who has committed an offence involving a firearm, which is reprehensible, must assess the overall context in which the offence was committed. Does the individual have a criminal record? Was the offence premeditated? Did the individual act on behalf of a street gang or organized crime? In light of these factors and using judicial discretion, the judge must hand down the most appropriate sentence. In criminal law and especially in sentencing, the punishment must fit the crime. It is not a question of being soft on crime or saying that individuals should not be convicted.

Why are minimum sentences not the answer to the problem we are trying to solve?

First, let us start with the studies that were provided by the Department of Justice.

When former minister Allan Rock—I do not know if I am conjuring up good memories or bad in this House—had Bill C-68 passed to create the firearms registry—a registry the police want to have and which is consulted 11,000 times every day across Canada and that the Conservatives want to abolish—he created mandatory minimum sentences for a certain number of offences, particularly those involving firearms. Minimum sentences of four years were created. The logic behind minimum sentences is that they are deterrents and studies have been done to determine whether their intended purpose is being achieved. Allow me to read what an expert said at the University of Ottawa, which is a good university. Criminal lawyer Julian Roberts, from the University of Ottawa, conducted a study in 1977 for the Department of Justice of Canada, which the parliamentary secretary should have consulted. He found that, “Although mandatory sentences of imprisonment have been introduced in a number of western nations...the studies that have examined the impact of these laws reported variable effects on prison populations”—he was referring to the rate of recidivism—“and no discernible effect on crime rates”.

In other words, just because some countries, some legislatures, or some justice systems have mandatory minimum sentences that restrict judicial discretion, that does not mean they have lower crime rates. All the studies show that a true deterrent to crime is the real fear criminals have of being caught red-handed and ultimately being charged. Being caught has more to do with our ability to lay charges, with having police in the field, with the ability of crown prosecutors to review the evidence, and so forth.

Furthermore, several witnesses told us about the perverse effects of mandatory minimum sentences. I would like to quote some of the witnesses. André Normandeau, a criminologist at the Université de Montréal—which is also a good university—said:

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

Obviously, minimum sentencing can have extremely perverse consequences. We are not saying that people who commit offences with firearms should be let go. What we are saying is that there are maximum sentences and that judges have the discretion to impose appropriate sentences somewhere between the maximum sentences and acquittal, sentences that take into consideration the circumstances surrounding the offence. That is why the Bloc Québécois, which has an extremely tough attitude toward criminals when severity is required, does not want to have anything to do with the artificial, ineffective logic underlying mandatory minimum sentencing. That is why we do not support either the bill or the amendments.

We have proposed a whole range of solutions to the government, solutions that include maintaining the gun registry, reviewing the parole issue, reviewing the double time issue, and doubling the budget for the national crime prevention strategy. We think that all of these options are far more appropriate than automatic sentencing, which does not stand up to scrutiny and which makes Bill C-10 a very bad bill.

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

Mr. Speaker, I truly appreciate the ruling you have just made that allows me to speak to the admissibility of the motions for subamendments that I have just tabled.

In fact, those of us on this side, the Liberal caucus, believe that these amendments in fact are admissible because they speak to the very heart of Bill C-10. If we look at Bill C-10, we see that it says very clearly “An Act to amend the Criminal Code (minimum penalties for offences involving firearms) and to make a consequential amendment to another Act”.

I do understand that the legislative summary talks about increasing or “escalating minimum penalties”, but I think the Speaker is wise enough to know that the legislative summary that is found in a bill is not something that is debated or voted on in committee. It is not. What is in fact debated on and adopted or modified, for instance, is the title of the bill. The bill talks about “minimum penalties for offences involving firearms”. It does not talk about escalating. That is the first point.

Second, it is clearly what we heard in committee and it is clearly what the original bill itself did, which was to increase the minimum mandatories. Our subamendments do that. I believe that our subamendments are in fact admissible, because were they to be deemed not admissible I think it would be creating a dangerous precedent, like the precedent the Speaker set by ruling that a parliamentary secretary could table subamendments to the amendments that his own minister and government tabled.

I am not aware in the 10 years that I have been here that a competent Speaker has made such a ruling, because in doing so it effectively precludes any opposition party from bringing subamendments to report stage amendments that have been tabled by the government itself. That, Mr. Speaker, is a dangerous ruling.

On the other hand, a ruling to rule the Liberal subamendments at report stage admissible is a ruling that would follow in the tradition of precedents in the House. I will rest at that point, but I believe I have made the point very clearly, and I feel that I have made the case very clearly.

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

Mr. Speaker, with respect to the comment just made by the hon. NDP member, he knows very well that the former prime minister of the Liberal government was very committed to Bill C-82.

We must ensure that Canadians are not deceived again, which is more or less what the Conservatives and the current Prime Minister are trying to do with the environment. In fact, they are trying to do the same thing with the criminal justice file and, unfortunately, the NDP has abandoned its principles here in this House.

Bill C-10, which the Liberals tried to amend in committee, was blocked by the Conservatives and the New Democrats. The amendments were intended to ensure stronger mandatory minimum sentences for convictions for a first offence.

Furthermore, case law clearly shows that in cases of recidivism, a judge can take into account any aggravating factors, including the recidivism itself, the impact on the victim, the impact on the community, special circumstances surrounding the commission of the offence and so on, and can ensure that the penalties imposed are more severe than the minimum sentence.

I have a number of motions to table.

I move:

That Motion No. 5 be amended by deleting all the words after the words “as follows” and substituting the following:

7. (1) The portion of subsection 95(1) of the Act before paragraph (a) is replaced by the following:

95. (1) Subject to subsection (3), every person commits an offence who, in any place, possesses a loaded prohibited firearm or restricted firearm, or an unloaded prohibited firearm or restricted firearm together with readily accessible ammunition that is capable of being discharged in the firearm, unless the person is the holder of

(2) Paragraph 95(2)(a) of the Act is replaced by the following:

(a) is guilty of an indictable offence and liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding ten years and to a minimum punishment of imprisonment for a term of two years; or

I also move:

That Motion No. 6 be amended by deleting all of the words after the words “as follows” and substituting the following:

10. Subsection 99(2) of the Act is replaced by the following:

(2) Every person who commits an offence under subsection (1) where the object in question is a firearm, a prohibited device, any ammunition or any prohibited ammunition is guilty of an indictable offence and liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding ten years and to a minimum punishment of imprisonment for a term of two years.

(3) In any other case, a person who commits an offence under subsection (1) is guilty of an indictable offence and liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding ten years and to a minimum punishment of imprisonment for a term of one year.

I move:

That Motion No. 7 be amended by deleting all of the words after the words “as follows“ and substituting the following:

11. Subsection 100(2) of the Act is replaced by the following:

(2) Every person who commits an offence under subsection (1) by possessing a firearm, a prohibited device, any ammunition or any prohibited ammunition is guilty of an indictable offence and liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding ten years and to a minimum punishment of imprisonment for a term of two years.

(3) In any other case, a person who commits an offence under subsection (1) is guilty of an indictable offence and liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding ten years and to a minimum punishment of imprisonment for a term of one year.

I move:

That Motion No. 8 be amended by deleting all of the words after the words “as follows” and substituting the following:

13. Subsection 103(2) of the Act is replaced by the following:

(2) Every person who commits an offence under subsection (1) where the object in question is a firearm, a prohibited device or any prohibited ammunition is guilty of an indictable offence and liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding ten years and to a minimum punishment of imprisonment for a term of two years.

(2.1) In any other case, a person who commits an offence under subsection (1) is guilty of an indictable offence and liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding ten years and to a minimum punishment of imprisonment for a term of one year.

I move:

That Motion No. 9 be amended by deleting all of the words after the words “as follows” and substituting the following:

17. Section 239 of the Act is replaced by the following:

239. (1) Every person who attempts by any means to commit murder is guilty of an indictable offence and liable

(a) if a restricted firearm or prohibited firearm is used in the commission of the offence or if any firearm is used in the commission of the offence and the offence is committed for the benefit of, at the direction of, or in association with, a criminal organization, to imprisonment for life and to a minimum punishment of imprisonment for a term of five years.

(a.1) in any other case where a firearm is used in the commission of the offence, to imprisonment for life and to a minimum punishment of imprisonment for a term of four years; and

(b) in any other case, to imprisonment for life.

I move:

That Motion No. 10 be amended by deleting all of the words after “as follows” and by substituting the following:

18. Section 244 of the Act is replaced by the following:

244 (1) Every person commits an offence who discharges a firearm at a person with intent to wound, maim or disfigure, to endanger the life of or to prevent the arrest or detention of any person--whether or not that person is the one at whom the firearm is discharged.

(2) Every person who commits an offence under subsection (1) is guilty of an indictable offence and liable

(a) if a restricted firearm or prohibited firearm is used in the commission of the offence or if the offence is committed for the benefit of, at the direction of, or in association with, a criminal organization, to imprisonment for a term not exceeding fourteen years and to a minimum punishment of imprisonment for a term of five years; and

(b) in any other case, to imprisonment for a term not exceeding fourteen years and to a minimum punishment of imprisonment for a term of four years.

I move:

That Motion No. 11 be amended by deleting all of the words after “as follows” and by substituting the following:

19(1) Paragraph 272(2)(a) of the Act is replaced by the following:

a) if a restricted firearm or prohibited firearm is used in the commission of the offence or if any firearm is used in the commission of the offence and the offence is committed for the benefit of, at the direction of, or in association with, a criminal organization, to imprisonment for a term not exceeding fourteen years and to a minimum punishment of imprisonment for a term of five years;

(a.1) in any other case where a firearm is used in the commission of the offence, to imprisonment for a term not exceeding fourteen years and to a minimum punishment of imprisonment for a term of four years; and....

I move:

That Motion No. 12 be amended by deleting all of the words after “as follows” and by substituting the following:

20(1) Paragraph 273(2)(a) of the Act is replaced by the following:

a) if a restricted firearm or prohibited firearm is used in the commission of the offence or if any firearm is used in the commission of the offence and the offence is committed for the benefit of, at the direction of, or in association with, a criminal organization, to imprisonment for life and to a minimum punishment of imprisonment for a term of five years;

(a.1) in any other case where a firearm is used in the commission of the offence, to imprisonment for life and to a minimum punishment of imprisonment for a term of four years; and....

I move:

That Motion No. 13 by amended by deleting all of the words after “as follows” and by substituting the following:

21(1) Paragraph (279)(1.1)(a) of the Act is replaced by the following:

(a) if a restricted firearm or prohibited firearm is used in the commission of the offence or if any firearm is used in the commission of the offence and the offence is committed for the benefit of, at the direction of, or in association with, a criminal organization, to imprisonment for life and to a minimum punishment of imprisonment for a term of five years;

(a.1) in any other case where a firearm is used in the commission of the offence, to imprisonment for life and to a minimum punishment of imprisonment for a term of four years; and....

I move:

That Motion No. 14 be amended by deleting all of the words after “as follows” and by substituting the following:

22(1) Subsection 279.1(1) the following:

279.1(1) Everyone who takes a person hostage who--with intent to induce any person, other than the hostage, or any group of persons or any state or international or intergovernmental organization to commit or cause to be committed any act or omission as a condition, whether expressed or implied, of the release of the hostage--

(a) confines, imprisons, forcibly seizes or detains that person; and

(b) in any manner utters, conveys or causes any person to receive a threat that the death of, or bodily harm to, the hostage will be caused or that the confinement, imprisonment or detention of the hostage will be continued.

(2) Paragraph 279.1(2)(a) of the Act is replaced by the following:

(a) if a restricted firearm or prohibited firearm is used in the commission of the offence or if any firearm is used in the commission of the offence and the offence is committed for the benefit of, at the direction of, or in association with, a criminal organization, to imprisonment for life and to a minimum punishment of imprisonment for a term of five years;

(a.1) in any other case where a firearm is used in the commission of the offence, to imprisonment for life and to a minimum punishment of imprisonment for a term of four years; and....

I move:

That Motion No. 15 be amended by deleting all of the words after “as follows” and by substituting the following:

23(1) Section 344 of the Act is renumbered as subsection 344(1).

(2) Paragraph 344(1)(a) of the Act is replaced by the following:

(a) if a restricted firearm or prohibited firearm is used in the commission of the offence or if any firearm is used in the commission of the offence and the offence is committed for the benefit of, at the direction of, or in association with a criminal organization, to imprisonment for life and to a minimum punishment of imprisonment for a term of five years;

(a.1) in any other case where a firearm is used in the commission of the offence, to imprisonment for life and to a minimum punishment of imprisonment for a term of four years; and....

Finally, I move:

That Motion No. 16 be amended by deleting all of the words after “as follows” and by substituting the following:

24(1) Paragraph 346(1.1)(a) of the Act is replaced by the following:

(a) if a restricted firearm or prohibited firearm is used in the commission of the offence or if any firearm is used in the commission of the offence and the offence is committed for the benefit of, at the direction of, or in association with, a criminal organization, to imprisonment for life and to a minimum punishment of imprisonment for a term of five years;

(a.1) in any other case where a firearm is used in the commission of the offence, to imprisonment for life and to a minimum punishment of imprisonment for a term of four years; and....

[Rob Moore, Conservative, Fundy Royal, NB]

Mr. Speaker, I should have time to answer both questions.

In answer to his first question, what people find most alarming is that it was the Liberal Party in the last election that campaigned on doubling the mandatory minimum penalties for serious gun crimes. Many serious gun crime offences in Canada have a minimum sentence of four years. The Liberals' proposal would have been to double that to eight years. That is what the Liberals were saying during the election campaign.

After the election, when we got to committee after forming government, we introduced Bill C-10, which would have provided an increase in the mandatory minimum to five years and then, on a subsequent offence for the serious recidivist, repeat offenders who use firearms in our communities, such as gang members, it would have been seven years. On a third offence, if someone still had not got the message, after using a firearm in either a gang related offence or using a restricted or prohibited firearm in a violent offence against Canadians, it would have been a 10 year mandatory minimum.

Unfortunately, the Liberals have completely reversed themselves from their election platform when they were talking tough on crime. Now that it is time to actually get tough on crime, they have completely backed down. We are pleased to be moving forward with our commitments and we are pleased that the NDP is keeping its campaign commitment to get tougher on serious gun crimes.

The amendments that I was just speaking to in my speech would make the mandatory minimum penalty for a serious firearms offence five years and on a second, third or fourth offence the mandatory minimum would move up to seven years. These changes are being called for by Canadians, by provincial attorneys general, by mayors and by police.

We heard from many witnesses who said that the scourge of gun crime has to be stopped. It is a relatively few number of people who are doing it, but when people do not get the message that they cannot use firearms to victimize other Canadians, we as members of Parliament also have to send a strong message.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Royal Galipeau]

Mr. Moore (Fundy—Royal), seconded by Mr. Comartin, moved:

That the motion proposing to restore clause 2 of Bill C-10 be amended by substituting the following for paragraphs 85(3)(b) and (c) contained in that motion:

(b) in the case of a second or subsequent offence, to imprisonment for a term not exceeding fourteen years and to a minimum punishment of imprisonment for a term of three years.”

Mr. Moore (Fundy--Royal), seconded by Mr. Comartin, moved an amendment to Motion No. 9. Shall I dispense?

[Rob Moore, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada]

, seconded by the member for Windsor—Tecumseh, moved:

Motion No. 17

That Bill C-10 be amended by restoring Clause 26 as follows:

“26. Subparagraph (a)(ix) of the definition “primary designated offence” in section 487.04 of the Act is replaced by the following:

(ix) section 244 (discharging firearm with intent),”

Motion No. 18

That Bill C-10 be amended by restoring Clause 27 as follows:

“27. Subparagraph (a)(xviii) of the definition “designated offence” in subsection 490.011(1) of the Act is replaced by the following:

(xviii) paragraph 273(2)(a) (aggravated sexual assault — use of a restricted firearm or prohibited firearm or any firearm in connection with criminal organization),

(xviii.1) paragraph 273(2)(a.1) (aggravated sexual assault — use of a firearm),”

Motion No. 19

That Bill C-10 be amended by restoring Clause 29 as follows:

“29. Paragraph 1(r) of Schedule I to the Corrections and Conditional Release Act is replaced by the following:

(r) section 244 (discharging firearm with intent);”

Motion No. 20

That Bill C-10 be amended by restoring Clause 30 as follows:

“30. (1) If subsection 1(5) of An Act to amend the Criminal Code, the DNA Identification Act and the National Defence Act, being chapter 25 of the Statutes of Canada, 2005, (in this section, the “other Act”) comes into force before section 26 of this Act, section 26 of this Act is replaced by the following:

26. Subparagraph (a.1)(v) of the definition “primary designated offence” in section 487.04 of the Act is replaced by the following:

(v) section 244 (discharging firearm with intent),

(2) If section 26 of this Act comes into force before subsection 1(5) of the other Act, subparagraph (a.1)(v) of the definition “primary designated offence” in section 487.04 of the Criminal Code, as enacted by that subsection 1(5), is replaced by the following:

(v) section 244 (discharging firearm with intent),

(3) If subsection 1(5) of the other Act and section 26 of this Act come into force on the same day, subsection 1(5) of the other Act is deemed to have come into force before section 26 of this Act and subsection (1) applies.”

He said: Mr. Speaker, I rise today to address Motions Nos. 3, 4, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15 and 16 as moved by the Minister of Justice.

Bill C-10 addresses a very important public safety concern, the threat of gun crimes. The bill aims to ensure that the Criminal Code sets appropriately tough penalties for serious or repeat firearm offences.

The aggravating factors that trigger the toughest sentences in the bill are limited to those linked to gangs and criminal organizations or those who use restricted or prohibited firearms. These crimes include attempted murder, discharging a firearm with intent, sexual assault with a weapon, aggravated sexual assault, kidnapping, hostage taking, robbery and extortion. These are very serious crimes. During the last election our party committed to raise the mandatory minimum penalty for violent gun crimes, as did the Liberals and the NDP.

I am pleased that the hon. member for Windsor—Tecumseh and his party are honouring their election commitment and have worked cooperatively with the government to amend Bill C-10 in a manner that is effective and reflective of our campaign commitments.

After discussion with the opposition, the government has agreed to reduce the scope of the bill by targeting a core of key offences, those of greatest concern. Therefore, I will proceed to move amendments to those motions that reflect the compromises reached with the hon. member for Windsor—Tecumseh.

Time does not permit me to fully explain these amendments, however, my colleagues will do so later in the debate.

I move, seconded by the member for Windsor—Tecumseh:

That Motion 3, proposing to restore Clause 1 of Bill C-10 be amended by substituting the following for the portion of subsection 84(5) before paragraph (a) contained in the Motion:

(5) In determining, for the purposes of any of subsections 85(3), 95(2), 99(2), 100(2) and 103(2), whether a convicted person has committed a second or subsequent offence, if the person was earlier convicted of any of the following offences, that offence is to be considered as an earlier offence.

I move, seconded by the member for Windsor—Tecumseh:

That Motion 4 proposing to restore Clause 2 of Bill C-10 be amended by substituting the following for paragraphs 85(3)(b) and (c) contained in that Motion:

(b) in the case of a second or subsequent offence, to imprisonment for a term not exceeding fourteen years and to a minimum punishment of imprisonment for a term of three years.

I move, seconded by the member for Windsor—Tecumseh:

That Motion 9 proposing to restore Clause 17 of Bill C-10 be amended

(a) by substituting the following for subparagraphs 239(1)(a)(ii) and (iii) contained in that Motion:

(ii) in the case of a second or subsequent offence, seven years;

(b) by substituting, in the English version, the following for the portion of subsection 239(2) before paragraph (a) contained in that Motion:

(2) In determining, for the purpose of paragraph (1)(a), whether a convicted person has committed a second or subsequent offence—

Speaker's Ruling

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Royal Galipeau]

Before I recognize the hon. the parliamentary secretary, I must read a decision by the Speaker.

There are 20 motions in amendment standing on the notice paper for the report stage of Bill C-10. Motions Nos. 1 to 20 will be grouped for debate and voted upon according to the voting pattern available at the table.

I will now put Motions Nos. 1 to 20 to the House.

The House proceeded to the consideration of 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, as reported (with amendment) from the committee.

Criminal Code

[James Bezan, Conservative, Selkirk—Interlake, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I stand today to speak in support of Bill C-343, An Act to amend the Criminal Code (motor vehicle theft), and I thank the member for Regina—Qu'Appelle for bringing this important bill forward.

It is clear from reading Bill C-343 that this proposed legislation is directed at combating the high rate of auto theft in Canada. Reducing the rate of auto theft would make Canadian streets safer and would target a major source of profits for criminal organizations.

The bill would amend the Criminal Code to create a distinct offence with enhanced penalties for the theft of a motor vehicle. The bill provides that the sentence for a first offence would be a minimum punishment of a fine of $1,000 or a minimum prison term of three months, or both. A second offence would result in a mandatory minimum fine of $5,000 or a minimum prison term of six months, or both. A third and subsequent offence would result in a minimum fine of $10,000 and a minimum term of two years imprisonment with a maximum of ten years.

The auto theft rate in Canada must be reduced. Statistics Canada reports that more than 160,000 cars were stolen in 2005, which is up from 130,000 in 2003. The Insurance Bureau of Canada estimates that motor vehicle theft costs Canadians over $1 billion a year in insurance costs, health care, court, policing and out of pocket expenses such as deductibles.

While the financial cost of auto theft is a serious concern, an even greater concern is the dangerous driving that often results from the commission of the offence of stealing a car. Dangerous driving can and does result in serious injury and death to innocent Canadians. Such was the case of the tragic death of Theresa McEvoy, a Nova Scotian educator and mother of three children. She was killed on October 14, 2004 when her car was struck by a youth driving a stolen vehicle. Just recently in Regina a young girl was killed when the minivan in which she was driving was struck by a stolen car whose driver was evading the police.

In my own province of Manitoba, the city of Winnipeg has become the auto theft capital of Canada. Manitoba's auto theft rate jumped over 10% in the last two years, despite a $22 million program to put in ignition immobilizers in as many vehicles as possible. In 2006, Manitoba recorded 9,449 vehicle thefts, up from 8,957 in 2005, but still down from the record 10,638 in 2004, one of the worst years ever for car theft, which placed Manitoba on top among provinces for auto theft.

This epidemic often leads to the destruction of vehicles and serious injuries to law-abiding motorists and pedestrians when the stolen vehicles are used as weapons or taken for dangerous joyrides.

Just last month a group of kids in Winnipeg stole vehicles and then targeted joggers, clipping them with their car mirrors. It is these kind of criminals that we need to get off our streets.

There is also a trend in Canada where auto theft is shifting away from random acts of crime toward organized criminal activity. Experts link the recovery rate of stolen cars to the degree of organized crime involvement. The recovery rate for stolen cars is on the decline. For example, in Toronto, over 90% of stolen cars used to be found and returned. Now that rate is less than 70%. In Quebec, less than 50% of stolen cars are recovered.

Out of close to the 170,000 automobiles stolen every year, police and insurance experts estimate that about 20,000 of these cars are shipped abroad to destinations such as eastern Europe, West Africa, the Middle East and Latin America.

Vehicle theft rings are insidious organizations that the government is determined to fight. They tend to be complex organizations made up of brokers who hire middlemen who, in turn, hire thieves to steal the cars. Typically, the thieves are young people who are instructed to steal the vehicle and deliver it to a set location. At this point, the vehicle is normally chopped and dismantled for parts or re-VINed, where the vehicle identification number is altered, or the car is exported.

Another serious issue is the role of young offenders in motor vehicle theft. Almost 40% of those charged for stealing a motor vehicle are between the ages of 12 and 17. Oftentimes cars are stolen for joyriding but, increasingly, organized crime is recruiting youth to their operations. Youths are required to steal the cars and deliver them to a middleman, while the criminals at the upper levels of the organization are protected from the risk of getting caught by the law.

Canadians know that our government is committed to getting tough on crime. We have introduced a number of pieces of legislation that aim to crack down on serious criminal offences.

Bill C-10 was introduced to increase the mandatory minimum penalty for serious offences involving firearms for gang related offences. For offences committed with a restricted or prohibited firearm, such as a handgun, there are mandatory minimum penalties of five years on a first offence and seven years for a second or subsequent offence.

The government has proven its commitment to combat dangerous driving through Bill C-19, which created five new offences to combat street racing and also provided for mandatory minimum periods of driving prohibitions. I am pleased that the House supported the bill and, indeed, that it received royal assent on December 14, 2006.

Another step that the government has taken to make our roads and highways safer is with Bill C-32. In 2003, alcohol and/or drugs were involved in 1,257 fatalities, 47,181 injuries and 161,299 property-damage-only crashes involving 245,174 vehicles. The total financial and social costs of these losses are estimated to be as high as $10.95 billion.

The bill would significantly increase fines and minimum jail terms for driving while impaired. It also would make it easier to investigate and prosecute impaired driving cases. The bill also deals with those who drive while on drugs, authorizing police to demand roadside physical sobriety tests and bodily substance samples at the police station.

The government has shown its commitment to crime prevention in the 2007 budget in which $64 million over two years were set aside to establish a new national anti-drug strategy to crack down on gangs, grow ops and crystal meth labs, prevent illicit drug use and treat illicit drug dependency. In addition, $14 million over two years have been set aside to combat the criminal use of firearms.

Under the current law, a person who steals a motor vehicle is normally charged with theft over $5,000. Bill C-343 would create a separate, distinct offence for motor vehicle theft.

Another compelling reason for the creation of a distinct offence is that it would make the criminal justice system more efficient. Currently, a prosecutor is often unaware of whether an offender is a career car thief. Normally the offender is simply charged with theft over $5,000 and there is no indication on the record as to the type of property that was stolen. The creation of a distinct offence would help to give the courts a clearer picture of the nature of the offender for bail hearings or when it comes time to handing down a sentence.

I support Bill C-343 and urge hon. members to send the bill to committee so it can be reviewed in greater detail.

[Joy Smith, Conservative, Kildonan—St. Paul, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to express my support for Bill C-343, introduced by the hon. member for Regina—Qu'Appelle.

The government agrees that there is a pressing need to reduce the high rate of vehicles stolen every day in this country. This bill, by creating a distinct offence for motor vehicle theft, aims to do just that.

It is true that there are many offences in the Criminal Code that already address motor vehicle theft, such as theft, fraud, joyriding, possession of property obtained by crime, and flight from a peace officer. However, this bill will create a distinct offence, with penalties in the form of mandatory minimum sentences.

The sentence for a first offence will be a minimum fine of $1,000 or a minimum term of imprisonment of three months, or both. A second offence would result in a mandatory minimum fine of $5,000 or a minimum prison term of six months, or both. A third and subsequent offence would result in a minimum fine of $10,000 and a minimum term of imprisonment of two years, up to a maximum term of 10 years.

I am aware that not all members will agree on the penalty that a distinct Criminal Code offence for motor vehicle theft should have. However, I am certain that most members can agree on the utility of creating such an offence. Accordingly, the bill should be sent to the appropriate committee for review on its merits, including the proposed penalties.

I would like to note that the idea of a distinct offence for motor vehicle theft was supported by the hon. member for Winnipeg Centre on March 20, 2007, when he introduced Motion No. 295 calling for, among other things, an amendment to the Criminal Code to include auto theft as a distinct, stand-alone offence. Clearly this is an issue that cuts across party lines and is one that most members of the House can support.

Winnipeg holds the dubious distinction of being the car theft capital of Canada. For example, in Winnipeg, the auto theft rate in 2005 was 1,712 thefts per 100,000 population, whereas in Toronto there were 306 thefts reported per 100,000 population.

It is clear that the rate of auto theft in Canada is simply unacceptable. In 2001, the per capita rate of auto theft was 26% higher in Canada than it was in the United States. In the 1999 international crime victimization survey, Canada ranked fifth highest for a risk of car theft, with 1.6% of the population being a victim of car theft. Overall since 2001, the auto theft rate has remained roughly the same.

While in recent years auto theft rates have held steady at unacceptably high rates, the number of stolen vehicles that are recovered has been on the decline. It used to be that over 90% of stolen cars were recovered. Today, that rate has fallen to 70% nationwide, with recovery rates varying by city. In large cities in Ontario, Quebec and Nova Scotia, organized crime groups are believed to be more active in thefts, thanks in part to readily accessible ports that allow cars to be shipped out of the country quickly and with relative ease.

Out of the approximately 170,000 automobiles stolen every year, police and insurance experts estimate that about 20,000 of these cars are shipped abroad to destinations such as Eastern Europe, West Africa, the Middle East and Latin America.

Stealing and reselling a vehicle is an extremely lucrative way for organized criminals to make money.

Let us take, for example, the scenario when a new luxury SUV is stolen. It is valued at $65,000 on the lot. It would cost an organized criminal around $1,000 to pay a youth to steal the car and approximately $1,500 to have the car “re-VINned” if it is being sold in Canada, or if it is exported to another jurisdiction, around $3,000 for shipping and handling. The automobile would likely be sold for around $45,000, resulting in a profit of nearly $40,000 per car.

Clearly the rewards for motor vehicle theft are enormous. There is a great incentive for young future career criminals to get involved in motor vehicle theft rings.

The involvement of youth in motor vehicle theft is a serious problem. Almost 40% of those charged with stealing motor vehicles are between the ages of 12 and 17 years. While vehicles are often stolen by youth for joyriding, it is also frequently the case that youth are enticed by organized criminals to steal an automobile and deliver it to a predetermined location all for a set fee. This involvement in organized crime unfortunately often has the effect of cementing criminal behaviour in young offenders. This influence on Canada's at risk youth is another tragic aspect of motor vehicle theft.

Not all of the news is bad though. Advances in technology, such as alarm systems, steering wheel locks, and GPS tracking units are making it harder to steal motor vehicles. However, as technology advances so do the skills that professional car thieves use to defeat these technologies.

So while the smash and grab method employed by most joy riders will no longer work on newer cars outfitted with sophisticated anti-theft devices, the new career car thief will ultimately find ways to outfox these devices.

It has already been mentioned that auto theft costs Canadians more than a billion dollars a year in insurance costs, medical costs, legal costs, police costs, and costs to the victims, such as insurance deductibles.

However, what about the costs that are impossible to calculate? I am referring to the human toll that motor vehicle theft has on our society. All too often when a car is stolen, the offender will drive erratically or at a high speed and not always because of police pursuit. Each year motor vehicle theft results in over 30 deaths and over 50 people being seriously injured a year in Canada.

Recently, a 10 year old girl in Regina was killed after a driver of a stolen pickup truck smashed into the minivan she was travelling in while he was attempting to escape the police.

As a society we do not tolerate impaired driving and our laws should treat this type of dangerous driving with the same seriousness. It is time that we reaffirm our commitment to making Canada's roads and highways safer.

I am proud that the government is taking a number of measures to tackle crime in Canada. We have introduced a number of pieces of legislation that deal with serious criminal offences.

Bill C-10 was introduced to ensure that criminals who use guns in the commission of an offence or if an offence is gang related receive a very serious sentence with escalating mandatory minimum penalties for first and subsequent offences.

As well, the government also introduced Bill C-35 which seeks to protect the public from gun crime by amending the bail provisions in the Criminal Code. The proposed amendments would reverse the onus to the accused to prove why he or she should not be denied bail when the accused is charged with a serious offence committed with a firearm or charged with smuggling or trafficking firearms.

The government is serious about making our roads and highways safer. We introduced Bill C-19 which created five new offences to combat street racing. It also gets these dangerous drivers off the road by providing mandatory minimum periods of driving prohibition. I am pleased that this bill received royal assent on December 14, 2006.

Another step the government has taken to make our roads and highways safe is with Bill C-32 which aims to significantly increase fines and minimum jail terms for driving while impaired. This bill tackles driving while under the influence of both alcohol and drugs. Although it is already a crime to drive while impaired by drugs, currently police officers have to rely on symptoms of impairment to driving behaviour for an impaired driving investigation. There is no authority in the Criminal Code to demand physical sobriety tests or bodily fluid samples.

Bill C-32 would authorize the police to demand roadside testing and a drug recognition expert evaluation at the police station, and if this evaluation shows impairment, the police will be authorized to demand a sample of bodily fluid to identify that the impairment was caused by an illegal drug. Refusal to comply with these demands would be a criminal offence punishable by the same penalties for refusing to submit to an alcohol breath test.

The government is also committed to crime prevention. The 2007 budget allocates $64 million over two years to establish a national anti-drug strategy to crack down on gangs, grow ops and meth labs, prevent elicit drug use and illicit drug dependency. As well, the government has set aside $14 million over two years to combat the criminal use of firearms.

The hon. member for Regina—Qu'Appelle has brought forward a very important issue for the House to consider. I urge all hon. members to vote to send this bill to committee for further review.

Business of the House

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons and Minister for Democratic Reform]

Mr. Speaker, today we will continue debate on an opposition motion.

On Friday, we will resume debate at second reading of Bill C-43, the senate consultations bill. That is the bill to strengthen accountability and democracy by giving Canadians a say on who they want representing them in the Senate.

Next week we will focus on making our streets and communities safer by cracking down on crime. It will actually kick off tonight with the Prime Minister's address to the annual police appreciation night in York region where I live. Getting tough on criminals is the best way parliamentarians can show our appreciation for those brave men and women who put their lives in danger every day while protecting and serving their communities.

Our plan for next week's focus in cracking down on crime will begin with Bill C-48, the bill dealing with the United Nations Convention Against Corruption. There will hopefully be an agreement to pass that bill at all stages.

Following Bill C-48, we will consider Bill C-10. That is the bill to introduce mandatory minimum penalties for gun and violent crimes. Our government will be proposing amendments at report stage to restore the meaningful aspects of the bill to ensure that violent criminals actually serve time in jail, all of which was gutted by the Liberals in committee.

Bill C-22, the age of protection bill, was reported back from committee and will be considered at report stage and third reading.

Following Bill C-22, we will move on to Bill C-27, the dangerous offenders legislation, which would require criminals who are convicted, for example on three separate occasions of a violent sexual assault, to prove to the court why they would not a danger to the community.

Tuesday, May 1 shall be an allotted day.

If time permits, we will seek to call Bill C-52, the budget implementation bill.

With regard to the question on the environment, our government is taking action on the environment. Later today he can look forward to seeing a cornerstone step in taking action to reduce greenhouse gases with the environment minister's announcement, action that has never been taken by another government and more action than any government in the world is taking.

[Réal Ménard, Bloc, Hochelaga, QC]

For us, whether the prosecution uses summary procedure or indictment does not affect bail, the right to be released, or not, before trial. What this confirms is that Canadian society is less violent and that fewer offences are committed with firearms. All the opposition parties said this when Bill C-10 was being studied. But the government did not listen to us. Not that it does not like us, but it was in ideology mode.

I trust that Mr. Petit will not say that on the radio. But if he does, I will defend myself.

The justice system tends to remand people more than in previous decades. In the statistics that you have provided, I find two are very relevant. In 1995-1996, 28% of adults were remanded in custody, while in 2004-2005, the figure was 50%. The only scientific conclusion that can be drawn is that courts dealing with the seven offences that you spoke to us about are more likely to keep people in custody than to release them.

Am I correct in my understanding?

[Rob Nicholson, Conservative, Niagara Falls, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Thompson. You've certainly covered a fairly wide range of interests and concerns in the justice system.

You started off by talking about the age of consent, and I'm pleased that you did. I know of your support and the general support in Parliament for that particular legislation. In my opinion, it addresses a problem that has long been overdue for a solution. The idea that in this country a 40-year-old adult can have sex with a 14-year-old youth and claim there was consent is plain wrong. For those individuals who like to prey on young children, we need to update the law. It's part of the challenge that we as legislators have as we continuously look at these laws and make sure they are updated.

You talked as well about Bill C-10, the bill that would provide mandatory minimum sentences for individuals who commit serious gun crimes. Of course, we in the government are very supportive of it, and the bill was quite extensively amended at the committee. I would certainly like to see it restored, because, in my opinion, what we are suggesting is very reasonable. An individual who commits a serious crime with a gun should be subject to a mandatory minimum sentence of five years.

I think it is reasonable. I can tell you that in my discussions with Canadians, and I'm sure you heard the same thing in the last election, Canadians think this is reasonable. It quite frankly sends out the right message to everyone involved that society takes a very dim view of this type of crime.

I thank you for your support of that particular piece of legislation.

You talked as well in your comments about the federal ombudsman for victims. I congratulate you and your like-minded colleagues who have made the rights and the concerns of victims a priority in your political career.

There has been progress on victim impact statements, even in my lifetime or in my career as a lawyer. I believed then and I believe today that these were steps in the right direction. There was work going on at the provincial level, of course. There's a huge responsibility with respect to the administration of justice, and they are working with victims. But I believe a lot more needs to be done.

For instance, on the victims fund that I talked about in my comments with Mr. Comartin, I was told that financial assistance would be available for Canadians who became victims of crime in a foreign country, if they couldn't afford to get home or they were having trouble getting home. All I was told was that they were entitled to a 30-day loan. Well, it's not acceptable in terms of where we're going. One of the areas that I am pleased has now been expanded on, as part of our effort to assist and support victims, is to make that available.

Those are the kinds of things we have done.

With respect to the federal ombudsman for victims of crime, as I again indicated in my comments to Mr. Comartin, I want that individual to focus exclusively on the issues that concern victims. He or she is not to expand the role or the office to get into other even important areas. I want that person to be completely focused on that.

Some of the things that individual can do is raise with the government issues that he or she believes are not being addressed in the present system. It would be within the mandate. For instance, if there wasn't compliance with the existing law, he or she would look into those kinds of complaints.

I gave an example, not at this committee but elsewhere, of an individual who was the victim of a crime being in a grocery store and seeing the individual who had victimized them. The victim hadn't even been notified that the individual was coming up for parole. That's the kind of complaint I would want the federal ombudsman for victims of crime to look into. Why wasn't the law being complied with? How is it possible that this individual was released and the victim wasn't notified of that, or wasn't given the opportunity?

In that regard, we've also expanded the availability of the victims fund for individuals to get the support they may need. You may have an invalid, for instance, with a disability that makes it very difficult for them to attend a parole hearing. It would be perfectly reasonable, and is now possible, for a support person to go with the individual, who could make a request of the fund.

As you quite correctly point out, the federal ombudsman for victims of crime is an important component of what we are doing, but there are other measures, and the victims fund is one.

Again, in answer to your question, the legislation that I will be bringing forward at the present time will be related to the Youth Criminal Justice Act. We will be announcing as well the national anti-drug strategy. But that's on my legislative agenda for now.

Quite frankly, Mr. Thompson, this is my priority right now—the bills that are before Parliament right now. I indicated in my opening comments the ambitious legislative agenda of my predecessor, Mr. Toews, which was completely consistent with what we told the Canadian public. I understandably would like to see progress on those.

That being said, I can see that we're making progress in a number of areas. I was at the Senate last Thursday. Again, I asked them, please, let's move forward on Bill C-9, the conditional sentencing bill; I would like to see it in law.

So I'm doing my best in terms of encouraging, and working with this committee, working with parliamentarians, working with senators to try to move that legislative agenda. That certainly is my priority. It was the priority of my predecessor, and it is one of the priorities of this government. Our crime agenda is very important in terms of what we promised Canadians and where we want to take this country. The Prime Minister and others continuously emphasize how vital we believe that is to the best interest of this country.

Again, thank you for your comments, and thank you to you and all of your colleagues who have been pushing some of these ideas, quite frankly, for many years.

[Myron Thompson, Conservative, Wild Rose, AB]

Thank you very much. Thank you, Minister, for being here.

I want to say right off the bat that your comments in the beginning certainly rang a lot of bells with me. The age of consent bill, which is close to becoming a reality, is something the chairman and I—we've been here for 14 years—have both put in as a private member's bill. Since 1995, I believe, we started this. It's good to see this coming to a conclusion. I thank you for your emphasis on the importance of that.

Also, I'm with you in highly hoping that Bill C-10 will get some restoration of some sort. I know that during the election campaign in January I felt that this was the right way to go. I based that on a lot of the debates I had with my Liberal and NDP friends during the campaign, that it seemed that was exactly where everybody wanted to go. I didn't have any Bloc opposition in my riding, but the Green Party was there and they were quite excited about the direction that Bill C-10 was taking, that type of legislation. So I'm with you on that.

I want to congratulate you on your appointment, Mr. Sullivan, as the ombudsman. I've known Mr. Sullivan a long time. I realize that he's not bilingual, but I know that he has the heart and the soul for the job. I think that's really key. It'll overcome any barriers that may create a bit of a problem in terms of language. But knowing the man as well as I do, I'm very confident that it was an excellent choice, and I'm looking forward to continuing to work with him.

I'm going to go back to one scenario, and maybe you can give me some idea of how an ombudsman would be effective in the case. This is going back to when I was first elected. The very first group of victims I worked with was a family whose five-year-old daughter was kidnapped out of the backyard and later found in a dumpster murdered. And she had been raped. The perpetrator was found, arrested, and charged. During that period of time he received legal aid. He also had access to psychologists and later on had a 30-day stay in an institution under the care of a psychiatrist. There were all kinds of services for the offender in this crime. In the meantime, when I visited the family—the siblings and the parents—I never saw a more devastated group of people. They had no access to psychologists, no professional medical help whatsoever, no access to any psychiatrist, and I believe that one of the parents could have probably used it. It had a devastating effect on them, and yet there seemed to be no assistance.

I immediately began my conversations with the then Justice Minister Allan Rock, indicating that we needed something in place for victims that they could turn to. I feel that today, with the announcement of Steve Sullivan, that has now been really strengthened to the degree that I think it should be.

I would like for you to expand a little on the powers and the authority of the ombudsman, what we can expect, to a little greater extent, if you don't mind. Also, you could comment on one section that I think has always had a major impact on victims, and that is the faint hope clause. When one of these perpetrators gets out in 15 years, after being sentenced to 25 years to life, it has a devastating impact on victims. Is there any hope of eliminating section 745? That is another private member's bill I've got in place, if I ever get my name drawn.

I think what you have done has indicated a very strong care and concern for victims, and I appreciate that, and I know you've made the right choice with Steve Sullivan and that he will overcome the barriers that Mr. Ménard and Mr. Comartin have indicated.

I'll just let you comment on what I've said.

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

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

I'm pleased to be back in front of you.

I'm pleased to see Mr. Rick Dykstra, one of my colleagues from the Niagara Peninsula and now a member of this committee. It's nice to see him here. I know of his dedication to justice issues, and I appreciate that.

Mr. Chairman, I've learned over the years that any time you get up to speak, if you're going to start recognizing people in a crowd, then you should have the names written down in advance so that you don't miss anyone. I missed someone yesterday. I was at the National Victims of Crime Awareness Week symposium in Ottawa, and when I got up to introduce the first federal ombudsman for victims of crime, I recognized my colleagues Stockwell Day, Dean Allison, and Laurie Hawn. I didn't see Ms. Jennings in the audience, and I apologize to her for that.

I actually noticed you, Ms. Jennings, as I was walking off the podium, when I saw you in the second or third row. That's not something I would do; I would certainly acknowledge all my colleagues in the House of Commons. In future, I'll revert to my usual procedure, which is to write down the names of the people I'm going to acknowledge—or not do it at all.

In any case, I'm glad to see you here, and I'm glad you were at the meeting yesterday.

It is a pleasure for me to meet with the members of the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights to discuss the main estimates for the Department of Justice.

And I'm pleased to have my colleagues joining me here today—and you have introduced them, Mr. Chairman.

You would know, Mr. Chairman, as well that not only am I Minister of Justice and Attorney General, but my portfolio also includes the Canadian Human Rights Commission and the Supreme Court of Canada.

The Minister of Justice, of course, is also responsible for the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions, created last December by the Federal Accountability Act to enshrine in legislation the notion of prosecutorial independence.

I'll speak more about that in a moment, but first of all, I want to say that the work of the Department of Justice focuses on ensuring that Canada is a just and law-abiding society, with an accessible, efficient, and fair system of justice, providing high-quality legal services and counsel to the government and to client departments and agencies, and promoting respect for the rule of law.

Within this broad context, the department has a specific priority to develop legislation and policy that address crime more effectively and increase the confidence of Canadians in the judicial system. Ultimately this will promote safer communities for all Canadians and have a very real impact on their lives.

Mr. Chairman, I am pleased with the progress that our government has made on the priorities of Canadians, particularly in the realm of tackling crime. My predecessor, Minister Toews, was placed in charge of an ambitious legislative agenda. I have now taken on the challenge of that agenda and will continue to work diligently to guide the legislation through the House and of course will work with this committee.

One overarching priority has guided our government's work over the past 14 months, and that is safer communities for all Canadians. Part of that priority is tackling crime. From the beginning of our mandate, we have been committed to stronger laws that deal with gangs, guns, and drugs; ensuring serious consequences for serious crimes; and ensuring that our communities are safe from crime. That commitment has not wavered.

We also believe that Canada's justice system must adapt to the needs of the 21st century so that it can remain in step with changes in technology and an increasingly sophisticated population. In these endeavours, I've been working closely with my colleague, the Minister of Public Safety, Stockwell Day, to deliver on that promise to tackle crime.

We have introduced legislation on a number of fronts. For example, Bill C-35 proposes to shift the onus to the person accused of serious gun crimes to explain why they should not be denied bail. And Bill C-18 intends to strengthen our national DNA data bank and help our police forces identify the guilty and exonerate the innocent.

I am pleased to say that with the support of all parties in the House we brought into force Bill Bill C-19, which creates new offences that target street racing specifically. These new offences recognize street racing for what it is, a reckless and dangerous act that too often kills. With our new legislation, people who treat our public streets as race tracks will be dealt with more seriously.

We also passed legislation, introduced by my colleague, the Minister of Finance, the Honourable Jim Flaherty, to strengthen the Proceeds of Crime (Money Laundering) and Terrorist Financing Act. These changes will help ensure that Canada continues to be a global leader in combatting organized crime and terrorist financing.

We are also committed to better meet the needs of victims of crime in areas where the federal government is responsible. Our government has listened and responded to victims of crime, giving them the respect they deserve. We have established the Office of the Federal Ombudsman for Victims of Crime. Just yesterday, I was pleased to name Steve Sullivan as the first federal ombudsman. This office will be an independent resource for victims who have concerns about areas for which the federal government is responsible, including the federal correction system. Mr. Sullivan will work at arm's length from the government so that victims will be more confident that their views are being heard.

We also recently provided $52 million in funding over the next four years to boost programs, services, and funding for victims of crime, including: enhancing financial assistance to victims to travel to sentencing hearings to deliver victim impact statements, as well as to National Parole Board hearings; increasing funding for services in the north, where rates of victimization are much higher than in the rest of Canada; and providing limited emergency financial assistance for Canadians who become victims of serious violent crimes while abroad.

However, Mr. Chairman, the government also recognizes that it is equally important to prevent criminal behaviour before it has a chance to take root. We are addressing the root causes of crime by supporting community programs with effective social programs and sound economic policies.

In support of these goals, Budget 2007 commits $64 million over the next two years to create a national anti-drug strategy. This investment builds on ongoing annual funding for current programs and initiatives. This government is determined to sever these links by implementing a coherent, comprehensive national strategy against drugs. Although some details of the strategy remain to be worked out, I can say that it will focus on preventing drug use, treating drug addiction, and combatting drug production and distribution. Together, these three action plans will form an integrated, focused, and balanced approach to reducing the supply and demand for illicit drugs as well as the crime associated with them, leading to healthier individuals and safer communities. The strategy will address all illegal drugs, including marijuana, and will include a national awareness campaigned aimed at young people.

To succeed over the long term, I believe we must educate young people about the real risks associated with drug use, such as the dangers to mental and physical health, potential legal consequences, and impacts on career and travel options. It will also spur communities into action and engage local leaders in preventing the harm caused by illegal drugs.

Our government is also providing $20 million over two years to support community-based programs that provide youth at risk with positive opportunities and help them make good choices. And we will continue to work with the provinces, municipalities, police, and community leaders in areas threatened by gun and gang violence to support programs that reach out to young people.

We've also continued the drug treatment court program, which is an important initiative of the Department of Justice. In conjunction with Health Canada, my department has been instrumental in expanding the concept of drug treatment courts beyond the initial pilot program in Toronto to several communities across Canada. Our government supports the use of drug treatment courts because they help reduce criminal behaviour and drug use while holding offenders accountable for their actions.

We've also made changes to improve and strengthen the justice system. Last November, my predecessor implemented changes to the judicial advisory committees. These changes have broadened the base of stakeholders who will contribute to their discussion and assessment of competence and excellence required for federally appointed judges.

More specifically, we've included members of the law enforcement community, a community no less implicated in the administration of justice than lawyers and judges. These new members contribute another perspective on the competent and qualified individuals recommended to me for appointment to the bench. And we have moved expeditiously to fill vacancies in federal and provincial courts. To date, we have appointed 84 federal judges. I think this is an impressive record, given that the coming into force of Bill C-17 on December 14, 2006, provided federally appointed judges with new options for electing supernumerary status, which created even more vacancies. However, I must emphasize that we will not sacrifice the quality of our appointments in the interest of speed. These appointments will continue to be based on merit and legal excellence.

Additionally, in the interests of accountability we have created the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions and have now begun the process of selecting a permanent director. Candidates will be assessed by a committee, with representation from each political party, the senior public service, and the legal profession. As Attorney General, I will make a choice from among three candidates, and that choice will be referred for approval to a committee of Parliament.

By establishing this office as an entity separate from the Department of Justice, our government has it made absolutely clear that criminal prosecutions are independent from political influence.

At this point, I must clear up two misconceptions.

First of all, this action does not suggest that the government believes federal prosecutors were unduly influenced in the past. As my predecessor Minister Toews has said:

We are not here to correct a problem that has already occurred; we are here to prevent problems from arising in the future.

Second, it's simply incorrect to state, as has been reported, that creating this office has cost the taxpayers an additional $98 million. The truth is this figure represents the budget of the former Federal Prosecution Service, which was a division of the Department of Justice. After the transfer, the budget for the department decreased.

The key driver in creating this office is to be as cost neutral as possible. It is in fact an investment that will benefit Canadians and increase their confidence in the justice system.

Mr. Chairman, although our government has been making great strides in improving our justice system, there is still a great deal left to accomplish.

There are still nine bills in Parliament for which I am responsible as Minister of Justice and which I am committed to bringing into force.

We introduced Bill C-9 to restrict the use of conditional sentences to ensure that people who commit serious crimes will serve their time behind bars, not in the community.

We introduced Bill C-10 to impose escalating mandatory minimum penalties for serious gun-related crimes. This legislation outlines clear consequences for gun crimes: prison sentences that are in keeping with the gravity of the offence.

As I mentioned, Bill C-10 seeks to increase the minimum penalty for gun crimes. This matter will soon be discussed in Parliament, and I hope that bill will be restored to the way it was prior to being amended.

Our legislative priorities also include Bill C-27, which will ensure tougher sentences and more effective management of dangerous offenders, including imposing stricter conditions on repeat offenders to keep such criminals from offending again. Bill C-27 responds to concerns that repeat and violent sexual predators are not being properly sentenced or managed once released into the community by strengthening the dangerous offender provisions and sections 810.1 and 810.2, the peace bond provisions, of the Criminal Code. No one will be automatically designated a dangerous offender upon third conviction, and that's another misconception, Mr. Chairman, that I would like to clear up. Crown prosecutors may or may not elect to seek dangerous offender status. In those cases where the Crown elects to proceed, the offender will be given the opportunity to explain why they should not be designated as dangerous, and judges will determine whether the offender should be designated as a dangerous offender.

We are also working to strengthen the laws against alcohol-impaired and drug-impaired driving. Bill C-32 will ensure that drug-impaired drivers face similar testing to that which drunk drivers now face. It will give police better tools to detect and investigate drug- and alcohol-impaired driving, and it will increase penalties.

Bill C-22, which this committee recently considered and supported, will better protect youth against adult sexual predators, including against such predators on the Internet, by raising the age of sexual consent from 14 years to 16 years. I believe there is a broad consensus among Canadians that raising the age of protection is the right thing to do. We know it is strongly supported by many who work with youth or advocate on their behalf. I know there's a great deal of support across different levels of government, and indeed across the political spectrum.

This law would also bring Canada in line with many other developed countries throughout the world. It's time to get serious in dealing with the crimes of adult sexual predators and it's time to take a realistic and respectful approach to protecting our young people.

Beyond the legislative agenda is our role as the lead department on the national anti-drug strategy, as announced in Budget 2007. The Department of Justice has traditionally had a role in supporting the development of drug policy, and until recently played an integral part in the prosecution of drug offences. It also has responsibility for the youth justice policy development, including the Youth Criminal Justice Act.

As mentioned previously, along with preventing illicit drug use and treating dependency, this strategy will also crack down on gangs and combat illicit drug production such as grow-ops and methamphetamine labs.

I will work hard to ensure that the government's tackling crime agenda progresses through Parliament in my role as justice minister and Attorney General, so that we can all enjoy safer streets and more secure communities.

Mr. Chairman, our government has done more than just promise to improve Canada's system of justice to create safer communities; we have backed it up with financial resources. I am pleased to note that Budget 2007 reflects the government's commitment to building safer communities and creating a better Canada. We are cooperating on a number of initiatives.

On the new national drug strategy, which I have mentioned, we are committed to $64 million over the next two years to refocus current efforts on combatting illicit drug use and manufacturing, as well as prevention and treatment.

We renewed the aboriginal justice strategy with funding of $14.5 million over two years. This will significantly increase the number of aboriginal communities and people that have access to community justice programs. Under the strategy, aboriginal communities will take greater responsibility for the administration of justice, leading to a further reduction in crime and positive impacts at the community level.

We have allocated an additional $6 million per year to strengthen current activities on combatting the sexual exploitation and trafficking of children and to ensure that those who commit these heinous crimes are brought to justice.

In addition, for the first time in more than 10 years, the provinces and territories will have stable and predictable funding for criminal legal aid. This approach will permit jurisdictions to develop long-term strategies to support the delivery of criminal legal aid.

Budget 2007 takes important steps to prevent crime, as well as the precursors of crime, and to ensure that our corrections, intelligence, and security systems are strong.

Finally, the government recently received the House of Commons subcommittee and special Senate committee reports on the review of the Anti-terrorism Act. I would like to take this opportunity to thank the members of both committees for their excellent work in tackling the numerous issues they were confronted with in the course of their review.

Both committees addressed issues of great concern to the government, and we will consider these recommendations very carefully.

In closing, Mr. Chairman, I wish to thank you and your committee members for your important work. It is an honour for me to take part in this process as Canada's Minister of Justice.

However, I am acutely aware that improving Canada's system of justice is a collaborative effort. Our system is a shared responsibility with the provinces and territories, and our many programs and initiatives require collaboration with our provincial and territorial partners as well as municipalities and other government departments. Together we will continue to work to ensure that Canada's system of justice contributes to the safety and security and well-being of Canadians.

Thank you for this opportunity. I look forward to any questions or comments you may have.

[Julie Besner]

The scope of certain offences is very broad. This is true of manslaughter and or criminal negligence causing death. You may have noticed that these two offences were not included in Bill C-10, for example. The same model was more or less followed in terms of selecting offences with a limited scope.

It should also be noted that the reverse onus scheme applies in the case of a person who has been ordered by the court not to be in possession of weapons. Therefore, if such a person were to commit an offence with a firearm, the reverse onus provision would apply. Consequently, up to a point, this is included, but not from the outset, as is the case with the eight other offences.

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons and Minister for Democratic Reform]

Mr. Speaker, on the question of Bill C-16, it is obvious that the Liberal House leader is very concerned about having an election and wants to do anything he can to stop it. Having watched the news last night and having seen some numbers, I can understand his sentiments. That is not surprising.

However, I am also not surprised that he could not remember what the bill was about. That is because it has been out of this House for half a year while the Liberal Senate was trying to deal with it. If those members wanted it passed quickly perhaps they could have avoided making amendments to it. However, there are amendments and we have to consult about them. As well, certainly, the information about everyone having consented is very different from the information that has been provided to me by the other parties to this point.

We will continue to pursue that and we hope to move forward on democratic reform. At the same time, as we said earlier, we will invite the other parties to move forward with Bill S-4 in the Senate. If they want to see things move quickly, that would represent good democratic reform. As well, we invite them to indicate their support for Bill C-43.

However, this afternoon we will continue with the list of bills on today's Projected Order of Business.

Tomorrow we will begin debate on the budget implementation bill. When the House returns from the Easter break, it will continue with the budget implementation bill if it is not already completed tomorrow.

Also on the list of bills for that week are: Bill C-33, on income tax; Bill C-40, on the Excise Tax Act; Bill C-10, on mandatory and minimum penalties; the Senate amendment to Bill C-16, fixed dates for elections, if we can get everyone's agreement on that to move quickly; Bill C-27, on dangerous offenders; and Bill C-45, the Fisheries Act, 2007.

Thursday, April 19 shall be the first allotted day in this supply period.

The Liberal House leader continues to make comments about moving quickly today. I wish he had been over there in the Senate talking to his Senate friends for the past six months while we were waiting. Perhaps while he is busying hurrying things up he can go and talk to the senators about Bill S-4.

I have a motion that I would like to make at this time.

There have been consultations, Mr. Speaker, and I believe that you would find unanimous consent for the following motion. I move:

That, notwithstanding any standing order or usual practices of the House, the remaining debate on the motion to concur in the second report of the Standing Committee on Health be deemed to have taken place and all questions necessary to dispose of the motion be deemed put and a recorded division deemed requested and deferred to Wednesday, April 18, at the end of government orders; and notwithstanding Standing Order 33(2), government orders shall conclude today at 5:30 p.m.

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons and Minister for Democratic Reform]

Mr. Speaker, I believe that the opposition House leader takes a very broad view of the definition of technical. However, we hope that Bill C-16 will progress and will be approved in a form that is appropriate and reasonable to approve and that we will have it here to deal with in the House quickly. That has not happened yet, however, and therefore today we are going to continue with the Liberal opposition motion and the business of supply.

Tomorrow we will continue debate on second reading of Bill C-35, which is the bail reform bill. This is one that has been the subject of positive words from the opposition, and we hope that we will be able to move to unanimous approval.

That would allow us to get on with other issues such as Bill C-42, the Quarantine Act; Bill S-2, hazardous materials; Bill S-3, which deals with defence and justice matters; and Bill C-33, which is an Income Tax Act item.

On Monday, we will be having day three of the budget debate. On Tuesday, we will have the final day of the budget debate.

On Wednesday and Thursday we will continue with the unfinished business from this Friday, including hopefully, the addition of Bill C-10 dealing with mandatory minimum penalties, which I know the opposition House leader will want to add to his package of justice bills he wishes to enthusiastically support.

On Friday, March 30 we will begin debate on the budget implementation bill.

I would like to designate, pursuant to Standing Order 66(2), Wednesday, March 28 for the continuation of the debate on the motion to concur in the 11th report of the Standing Committee on Agriculture, and Thursday, March 29 for the continuation of the debate on the motion to concur in the second report of the Standing Committee on Health.

There is one further item that the opposition House leader raised which was the question of the labour bill. I believe he heard a very generous offer from the Minister of Labour today. I believe the ball is now in the opposition's court on this.

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

Earlier, we asked you what you thought of a government that did not do this or that. What do you think of Bills C-9 and C-10? C-10 included minimum sentences, particularly in cases involving luring. The piece of legislation was castrated, as Mr. Ménard said on the CPAC television channel.

What do you think of Bill C-9 and conditional sentences? Bill C-9 that has been completely gutted. We have two major pieces of legislation. How can you expect, even with Bill C-22—

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

Point of order. I think the member from Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine is making assumptions. She's asking the witnesses to judge the government. In that case, she may as well ask them why, for Bills C-9 and C-10, you stood in the way of their adoption.

Ask them that question as well. Your question is biased.

[Rob Nicholson, Conservative, Niagara Falls, ON]

Nonetheless, I welcome, Madam Jennings, any attempt to get these things through. This committee, as you know, had Bill C-10, the mandatory minimum sentences. And you'll know that in the last election we were promised the doubling of mandatory minimums for firearms, and I would have liked to see it. I would still like to see it, and I certainly welcome any support on this.

[Rob Nicholson, Conservative, Niagara Falls, ON]

I'll have a look. I've just been informed that it's justice related and that the Liberal Party wants to expedite four bills. They don't include Bill C-10, the mandatory minimum bill. It doesn't talk about dangerous offenders. But I'm always interested in any procedure, anything that might expedite the passage of bills. Whether that can be done on an opposition day, or in fact if it should be, is something I will have a look at, and I hear your concerns on that.

We know the concerns of the Liberal Party in this area and perhaps the reasons they're coming forward, but again, I won't do anything in haste—

Crime Legislation

[Rob Moore, Conservative, Fundy Royal, NB]

Mr. Speaker, one day last week, the Leader of the Opposition woke up and decided to become tough on crime.

Canadians can see through this blatant Liberal hypocrisy since this is coming from the same member who voted against funding for 1,000 new RCMP personnel, the same member who blatantly ignored the Liberals' own election platform in which they promised to double mandatory minimums for gun crimes and whose party is now blocking our Bill C-10 and the same member whose party gutted this government's bill to crack down on house arrest.

The Leader of the Opposition is clearly only pretending to be tough on crime because Canadians are fed up with a Liberal justice system that, according to the Liberal Ontario Attorney General, is stuck in the summer of love.

I know the Liberal leader finds it difficult to set priorities but will he for once make the safety of Canadians a priority and tell his MPs to stop blocking this government's justice agenda?

Business of the House

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons and Minister for Democratic Reform]

Mr. Speaker, today we will continue the debate on the Bloc opposition motion.

Tomorrow I hope to start and conclude the debate on the third reading stage of Bill C-36. This relates to the Canada pension plan and old age security.

Next week and the following week will of course be constituency weeks and members will be working in their constituencies while the House is adjourned.

When the House returns on Monday, March 19, it is my intention to call the report stage of Bill C-10, the mandatory minimums penalty part of our agenda to make communities safer; Bill C-42, An Act to amend the Quarantine Act; Bill S-3, to do with defence; and Bill C-33, relating to income tax.

At 4 p.m. on Monday, March 19, the Minister of Finance will present his budget, as he has previously advised the House. Tuesday, March 20 will then be the first day of the budget debate. Wednesday will be day two.

I am currently asking that Thursday, March 22 be the last allotted day subject to any need to reschedule given that we are three weeks away from that day.

Criminal Code

[Dave Batters, Conservative, Palliser, SK]

Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to rise today on behalf of my constituents in Palliser to speak to Bill C-343, An Act to amend the Criminal Code (motor vehicle theft), which will toughen penalties for car theft.

Before I begin my remarks, I would like to talk about my colleague from Regina—Qu'Appelle, who of course is an excellent Acting Speaker. This is his chance to rise on behalf of his constituents on an issue of great importance in his riding and to deal with a subject of great importance to him. For the member for Windsor—Tecumseh to impugn his future fairness in decisions is way over the top. He is certainly very capable of balancing his role as an elected member of Parliament representing his constituents and his duties sitting in the chair.

Canadians have a right to feel safe in their homes and on their streets. That is why our government has taken tough action since being elected more than a year ago to crack down on dangerous offenders and to make our communities safer.

However, Canadians also have a right to be protected from car theft. Bill C-343 does that by toughening penalties for criminals who steal cars.

The member for Regina—Qu'Appelle has brought forward an important issue worthy of debate as to whether to create a new distinct offence for motor vehicle theft. Under the current law, a person who steals a motor vehicle is normally charged with theft over $5,000.

After they gutted Bill C-9, we know that the Liberals and the NDP think house arrest should be a sentencing option available to judges. Conservative members strongly disagree.

Bill C-343 would create a separate distinct offence with enhanced penalties for motor vehicle theft. Bill C-343 would amend the Criminal Code so that everyone who steals a car will be subject to jail time or a fine or both. These punishments increase if the person steals subsequent cars.

These reforms are essential. Stealing a car is a serious crime. It is critical that this bill be referred to the appropriate committee so these proposed punishments can be debated. Certainly not all members in the chamber will agree on the specifics of the punishments, but they should at least support the bill on its merits of getting tough on car theft, get it to the appropriate committee and have that discussion there. My colleague from Regina—Qu'Appelle has said that he is certainly open to amendments.

Bill C-343 would help deter car thieves because it promises swift and certain punishment. The importance of that cannot be overstated. Of course we need better social programs and we need to work with the youth who are most likely to commit these types of crime, but as part of that strategy, someone who steps outside the law needs to be punished.

This bill would also help those who prosecute car thefts by creating a distinct offence for motor vehicle theft. A problem currently facing the courts is that very often a prosecutor is unaware that the offender is a career car thief. Normally the offender is simply charged with theft over $5,000 and there is no indication on the record as to the type of property that was stolen. The result is that the prosecutor and the judge do not know if they are dealing with a prolific car thief or someone involved in organized crime. The creation of a distinct offence would help to give the courts a clearer picture of the nature of the offender for bail hearings or sentencing.

It is clear from looking at the statistics that we need to reduce auto theft in Canada. In 2003 there were over 130,000 automobiles stolen in Canada. That is roughly one car stolen every three minutes. Car theft costs Canadian insurers over $600 million a year or $43 a year for every insurance policy. It is further estimated that other costs such as health care, courts, policing and out of pocket costs such as deductibles also cost Canadians another $400 million per year.

The real crime that occurs when a car is stolen goes far beyond the loss of property and the financial cost to replace it. Having a car stolen is a serious breach of personal security and a violation of one's right to own personal property. This is not a victimless crime. For those Canadians who rely on cars to get to work or school or drive their children to hockey practice or swimming lessons, having a car stolen can be disruptive and devastating. We as a society cannot stand idly by while this happens.

There is also the threat to public security and safety when a car is stolen. Very often auto theft leads to dangerous driving which can result in serious injury and death to police officers, the accused or innocent bystanders.

A study carried out by the national committee to reduce auto theft reported that between 1999 and 2001, 81 people were killed as a result of auto theft and another 127 people were seriously injured.

We also know that auto theft is not just kids taking cars out for a joy ride. It is also part of the way that gangs and organized crime profiteer while terrorizing ordinary citizens. Because of this, the recovery rate for stolen cars is on the decline. We also know that gangs target young people to commit car thefts.

In 2002, 40% of persons charged criminally for stealing a motor vehicle were between the ages of 12 and 17. Organized vehicle thefts rely on the legal system to be lenient with young offenders and when apprehended, young offenders are unable to identify other members or senior members of the theft ring.

Motor vehicle theft is an ideal recruitment tool for organized criminal groups. Research shows that youth, whose first offence is motor vehicle theft, are most at risk of continuing along the career criminal path. We need to take better action to prevent this and that is exactly what Bill C-343 will do.

Our government is committed to getting tough on crime. In fact, we have introduced a number of pieces of legislation designed to do just that.

Bill C-10 was introduced to ensure that criminals who use guns in the commission of an offence receive a very serious sentence with escalating mandatory minimum penalties.

Bill C-19 introduced by our government created five new offences to combat street racing and also provided for mandatory minimum periods of driving prohibitions. I am proud to say that this bill is now law.

Despite claims from the opposition parties that they will act and get tough on crime, we have not seen evidence of this in the House. The Liberals have declared that they are fighting Bill C-10. The Liberals and the NDP worked together to gut Bill C-9, an important piece of government legislation designed to eliminate house arrests for arsonists, car thieves, and those who commit break and enter.

The opposition parties are soft on crime. They do not like to hear it, but it is the truth.

In addition to introducing legislation our Conservative government has committed significant financial resources to crime prevention. Budget 2006 allocated $20 million over two years for communities to help prevent youth crime with a focus on guns, gangs and drugs. That is our government's record on getting tough on crime.

We have taken real action and our tough on crime agenda has the support of Canadians and certainly the people in Regina and Moose Jaw, and throughout the great riding of Palliser. Part of the reason that there is such widespread support for getting tough on crime in Saskatchewan is that we have a provincial NDP government that has one of the worse records in the country when it comes to crime. It made a promise in 1999 to hire 200 new police officers. It never did; it broke its promise.

Saskatchewan's overall per capita crime rate is higher than Ontario's. Saskatchewan has the highest homicide rate and the highest rate of violent offences of any province per capita. It also has the highest rate of break and enter in Canada. Regina, which is part of my riding of Palliser, is the second most crime ridden city in Canada and Regina has the highest number of car thefts per capita in Canada.

I guess the member for Regina—Qu'Appelle is going to bring this forward when he has a chance to present a private member's bill. That is shocking and totally unacceptable that we have the highest number of car thefts in Canada.

While the recently introduced Regina auto theft strategy has helped to decrease the rates of auto theft in the city, the numbers are still too high and more decisive action must be taken.

That is what this bill does. That is why I am proud to second the bill put forward by the hon. member for Regina—Qu'Appelle. Toughening penalties for car theft is the right thing to do. It is another step that our government is taking to get tough on crime. That is what the residents of Palliser and Canadians across the country have asked for.

We all have a right to feel safe. Enough is enough. It is time to take action to stop people from stealing automobiles.

[Réal Ménard, Bloc, Hochelaga, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I will resist the temptation to talk about foreign affairs, even though I could have a positive influence.

First I would like to congratulate the hon. member for his initiative. He is right to remind us that auto theft is a harsh reality that harms our society. He is certainly right to want us, as parliamentarians, to discuss this reality and propose the most appropriate measures. However, I do not believe that the bill before us this evening allows us to respond to our colleague's concern. In some respects, this bill is even contradictory and inconsistent with the current provisions of the Criminal Code.

Let us start at the beginning. The Bloc Québécois has never been in favour of increasing mandatory minimum sentences. The hon. member for Windsor—Tecumseh knows that the Bloc Québécois is not in favour of this, with only a few exceptions.

Mr. Speaker, allow me in passing to wish my former colleague from Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles the best of luck. He is a brilliant man. You know that Richard Marceau is a candidate for the Parti Québécois in the riding of Charlesbourg, in the Quebec City suburbs.

As the hon. member for Windsor—Tecumseh politely but incessantly reminds me, the Bloc Québécois has supported mandatory minimum sentences before, but in one very specific context, child pornography.

For the rest, it has been well documented, both by the Toronto centre of criminology and the Université de Montréal centre of criminology. When it was time for the parliamentary committee to review and examine Bill C-10, the committee clerk, Ms. Diotte—whom I thank for her fine work—sent us some 30 studies, both American and Canadian, showing that there is no correlation between having mandatory minimum sentences, their deterrent effect and the crime rate.

We know full well that the society with the highest rate of imprisonment in the world is still the U.S., our neighbour to the south. Nevertheless, the U.S. does not have the lowest crime rate.

From the perspective of criminology, law enforcement, and the design of legislation, we do not believe that having a mandatory minimum sentence for an offence will deter individuals. Not only do we believe that mandatory minimum sentences are not a deterrent but, furthermore, we are against such sentences because they do not allow for judicial discretion.

The sacred principle in law, and the sacrosanct principle in sentencing, is the individualized sentence. Appearing before the judge are the Crown and the accused, both represented by lawyers. The truth emerges from the clash between these points of view. The judge, who must be impartial, must weigh the evidence. In some cases, the jury will do so. The judge will hand down a sentence based on the circumstances, the specific offence and the evidence presented.

This is why, in principle, we do not agree with mandatory minimum sentences.

There is something disconcerting about our colleague's bill. Once again, auto theft is a worrisome reality and the Association of Canadian Insurers provided some very convincing testimony in this regard. Section 322 of the Criminal Code defines theft, although it does not make specific reference to auto theft. Section 322 defines theft and Section 344, a little further along in the Criminal Code, sets out the applicable sentence.

In the case of theft of a vehicle worth more than $5,000, the maximum sentence is 10 years' imprisonment. There are not many cars today worth less than $5,000, as we know.

Our colleague has presented a bill in which the maximum sentence for second or subsequent offences is five years. Why dispense with the provisions in the Criminal Code? Even if it is not a subsequent offence, a judge is able to look at the seriousness of the offence, the context and motivations, and the history of the offender. Thus, in cases of theft of a motor vehicle, the judge may impose sentences of up to ten years.

The second problem with this bill is that it relies on fines. For the first offence there is a fine of $1,000; for a second offence, $5,000; and for a third offence, $10,000. This brings up questions about the relevance of using fines in cases of vehicle theft. Obviously fines do not affect criminals in the same way. A $10,000 fine will not have the same impact on an organized crime leader as it would on a person living in poverty. With respect to my colleague's objectives, I am not convinced that imposing fines for vehicle theft is the way to go.

In a way, would it not have been preferable for our colleague to ask us to have a closer look at the charges brought against organized crime? It is clear that, here in Canada, there are certain sectors in which organized crime is very active. This is true in the car sector and the resale of car parts. In certain areas of Canada, especially where there are port facilities, cars are brought into Canada in containers, and this is a real problem. As parliamentarians, it is our responsibility to ensure that we have the best possible detection technology within the various infrastructures, such as our ports. It is also our responsibility to ensure that we have the best investigation mechanisms.

In the past, the Bloc Québécois has been extremely concerned about the whole question of police investigations and the tools available to the police to conduct their investigations. We agree entirely with the police that they should have electronic surveillance warrants, as well as with the notion that reverse onus is possible before a court of justice, in certain circumstances in which property is obtained by crime and when that property belongs to a criminal organization.

To conclude, I would like to emphasize that my hon. colleague's motivation is certainly commendable and that this is a real problem. Every year, I read the reports from Criminal Intelligence Service Canada and from the RCMP, and I know that, in Canada, auto theft is a real problem, especially thefts by organized crime rings. However, I do not think that the bill in its current form will find any support from the Bloc Québécois caucus, given that it contradicts sections 322 and 334 of the Criminal Code.

Business of the House

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons and Minister for Democratic Reform]

Mr. Speaker, today we will continue the debate on the Liberal opposition motion.

Tomorrow morning we will begin debate on the procedural motion relating to the back to work legislation, to which the opposition House leader was referring. Also, we will have Bill C-45, the Fisheries Act, following question period.

On Monday, we would like to conclude the debate on the statutory order regarding the Anti-terrorism Act, which is very important for Canadians for public security reasons. We are also getting down to the deadline when certain provisions of the Anti-terrorism Act will sunset.

I have consulted with the other parties and I will propose a related motion at the end of my business statement.

Next week we will consider the following bills: Bill C-37, financial institutions; Bill C-41, competition; Bill C-11, transport; Bill S-3, defence; Bill C-42, the Quarantine Act; Bill C-36, Canada pension plan and old age security; Bill C-10, mandatory minimum penalties; and depending on developments regarding the railway strike, we may call the procedural motion relating to the back to work legislation.

Thursday, March 1 shall be an allotted day.

As I mentioned earlier, following discussions with the House leaders of the other parties, Mr. Speaker, I believe if you seek it, you would find unanimous consent of the House to adopt the following motion. I move:

Motion

That, notwithstanding any Standing Order or usual practices of the House, once the Statutory Order regarding the Anti-terrorism Act is called on Monday, February 26, and when no member rises to speak on debate or at the expiry of the time provided for Government Orders, all questions necessary to dispose of the Statutory Order regarding the Anti-terrorism Act be deemed put, a recorded division deemed demanded and deferred until Tuesday, February 27, at 5:30 p.m.

[Rob Moore, Conservative, Fundy Royal, NB]

To respond to what Mr. Lee said, as much as I would have liked this motion had we not heard from these witnesses on Bill C-9 and Bill C-10, I certainly understand what you're saying. It shouldn't be a precedent for everyone who has a pet motion to put forward that we would adopt this motion not having heard evidence.

The reason I support Ms. Jennings' motion is because throughout the last year, through the course of the study of different bills, we have heard these types of witnesses. We've heard from ethnocultural communities, we've heard from Correctional Service Canada, and we've heard from police departments. On the mounting evidence that we have, I'm able to support this.

I certainly wouldn't support a motion that we hadn't heard any evidence on. That may help to alleviate any fears, or it will maybe quell someone's idea to bring a motion next week on something we haven't discussed. But we have discussed a lot of this quite extensively, and I'm happy to support it.

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

I don't have any problems with the motion and the intent. I only want to flag that the practice of committees generating business for the House is not something I would normally subscribe to.

We have not done any substantive work on this issue. It is a sentiment expressed by the members here. We could adopt it and send it out to everybody who cared about the issue, including the government departments. We wouldn't have to report it to the House. The end consequence of reporting it to the House as a committee report is it becomes grist for the mill in the House. I'm only being honest about that.

We're going to have a five-minute discussion here. In reporting to the House as a report of the committee, the House would not have the benefit of any transcript or any substantive discussion of the issues. It really wouldn't be much different if a member simply proposed a motion to the House under private members' business and brought it up there. But of course on a concurrence motion, a committee report manages to preempt some routine proceedings and other parts of the day's work. I only wanted to be honest about that.

The motion is well crafted and well worded. As a one-off, having heard some of the evidence we heard during Bill C-9 and Bill C-10, I'd be happy to support it and send it off to the House.

Although some other committees may engage in it, I wouldn't want it to become a common practice for us to do wishful motions at committee and then send it off to the House as if we did some work on it.

Thank you.

[Daniel Gagnier, Senior Vice-President, Corporate and External Affairs, Alcan Inc.]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I will spare you the company commercial. You can read about it in the presentation. But I'd like to start off basically by outlining some of the things we've been doing and how we've approached the issue of clean air and greenhouse gas.

I'll begin by talking about Alcan and greenhouse gas emissions. To us, climate change represents both a commercial challenge and a business opportunity. Our strategic approach has been driven by a win-win philosophy based on both environmental and economic benefits. The energy measures Alcan instituted in the early 1990s showed that it was indeed possible to reduce GHG emissions significantly, while maintaining economic growth. Our experience in Quebec has shown that governments and industries can work together in order to achieve voluntary reductions.

Concerning Alcan's early actions, the record will speak for itself. Total smelter GHG emissions from 1990 to 2005 were reduced by an actual 25%; smelter GHG emissions by intensity—and we measure both—were reduced by 45%; there was an 80% reduction in PFC emissions, which has a high concentration of greenhouse gases; and there were production increases of up to 40%. That's worldwide.

In Canada, from 1990 to 2005, total smelter GHG emissions were reduced by more than 30% and smelter GHG emissions intensity was reduced by 50%, while we increased production by 50%.

So we've established, I think, the bona fides of our approach to the issue of clean air. We have another 10% further in targets that were announced in Montreal at the beginning of this week, between now and 2010.

The next slides from the deck that you will see are merely proof points showing the trend lines on PFC emissions, on reducing emissions of air pollutants—fluoride emissions in particular—on polyaromatic hydrocarbons, and on total emission reduction by installation over the years.

Now, let's take a look at what we are doing today.

Process-related improvements to older technologies are continuing, and Alcan is intensively modernizing its Canadian assets with new technologies. Those efforts are leading to significant positive impacts in energy efficiency and reductions in GHG emissions. Alcan's AP35 series electrolysis technology is the most energy and GHG efficient technology in use today. And, while we continue to enhance that technology platform, we are also investing in its future, namely AP50, by building a US$550 million pilot plant in Jonquière, Quebec.

To give you an idea of the potential convergence of this technology and other technologies, we believe that in five years, GHGs will have dropped and energy efficiency will have improved by 20%.

We are aggressively pursuing win-win opportunities in the downstream applications of products and their inherent energy and GHG benefits, through development, promotion and sales of a range of aluminum products, including a focus on end-of-life recycling benefits.

These efforts and their results are proving that economic growth and competitiveness, and responding to environmental challenges, can be mutually supportive objectives.

On slide 17 in the long deck you'll find a chart on the cost of abatement that is very complicated, but I'll simplify it for you. Everything below the line shows things that we can achieve today, and if you look above the line, for nuclear, wind, forest, solar, coal-to-gas shifts, and avoiding deforestation, you have a series of technologies that can be invested in and that will yield results.

On policy and regulations—slide 18 in the longer deck—to leverage existing solutions and encourage future solutions and build on early action to date, Canada and companies like mine need a smart policy framework. We need smart regulations and we need pragmatism in terms of the tool kit at our disposal that we can use.

The strategic combination of policy, regulations, and tax as an incentive to strongly encourage investment in technologies and energy efficiency will assist companies in leveraging business plans and investment cycles and we believe will contribute to win-win solutions.

We need a suite of approaches that recognizes what companies have already done. We need these approaches to be flexible, in the sense that all sectors deal with different realities, and while we need incentives on the technology front to do more, there's much that we can do and have already done. Sectoral approaches within Canada can be effective to build on, where provinces have already taken a lead, as they have done with the aluminum industry in Quebec, including voluntary measures within the tool box used by regulators.

Let's talk about our coordinated approach.

Federal-provincial cooperation is critical if we are to effectively regulate GHG emissions and emissions of air pollutants. Provisions on equivalency in Bill C-30 need to be passed to facilitate the avoidance of overlapping or conflicting regulations. Equivalency of effect will achieve the same results as equivalency of regulation in meeting overall policy objectives.

We support the federal government's power to regulate directly, when necessary, but advise caution in revisiting standards for a sector such as aluminum when it is already being well-covered provincially on both air pollutants and GHGs with significant results to date, and concrete plans moving forward.

On policy and regulations, slide 21, mandatory targets need to be an important part of the tool box, as they set clear, transparent, and consistent long-term objectives and represent a strategic intent regarding where we want to be. Long-term targets set clear mandates along the way to unleash competitive market forces. But we also need short- and medium-term targets that provide the foundation for an immediate call to action. Some of us have already started to act.

Finally, on market tools, the government needs to establish the rules and regulations of the market aimed at ensuring proper market functioning, including emissions trading and offsets, and then pull back to let the market forces operate effectively.

As for targets in the aluminum industry, for some industries like aluminum it will be important to measure both the actual and the intensity level of emissions to know where we are, until reductions from downstream applications are also recognized. To put the context around intensity targets, they merely allow us on an efficiency basis to continually improve and to set the benchmarks. That's why they're important. However, absolute reduction targets that don't take into account consideration of growth, capital stock turnover for product, and recycling opportunities can severely handicap the ability to leverage the inherent energy- and GHG-saving qualities of any material.

In conclusion, Mr. Chair, Alcan has been taking this challenge on both air pollutants and greenhouse gases, and the general challenge on environmental performance, seriously since 1990, and we've demonstrated many successful actions to date. If we want to be competitive—and there is an issue of competitiveness here—we will all have to take action and we will need smart, pragmatic approaches that foster environmental performance improvement while enhancing Canada's economic competitiveness.

Our message is that we've had that belief for some time and we believe that now is the time to act.

Merci beaucoup. Thank you.

Justice and Human Rights

[Art Hanger, Conservative, Calgary Northeast, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present, in both official languages, the ninth report of the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights.

In accordance with the order of reference of Tuesday, June 13, 2006, the committee has considered 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, and has agreed on Tuesday, February 20, 2007, to report it with amendments.

[Rob Moore, Conservative, Fundy Royal, NB]

Mr. Speaker, I do not think the hon. member was listening to my speech because I did say that guns and gang problems were evident in all our large urban centres. I also spoke at length about the resources that we were putting into youth at risk to prevent crime. I believe those specifically addressed two of the issues she just raised.

We have been listening to Canadians and they have told us that they are fed up with violent crime. They have told us about the emergence of this problem and support this government's approach with respect to Bill C-10 that would provide tougher sentences for those who commit gang related crimes or crimes with a firearm.

We need to do our part to deliver to Canadians what they want and need, and that is meaningful reforms that target the illegal possession and use of firearms by criminal gangs, as well as firearm trafficking and smuggling.

The government has signalled its openness to work with the opposition to ensure that our laws are strengthened in a manner that focuses on the problem. We need to find a way to be successful in our efforts to effectively protect Canadians.

[Rob Moore, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada]

Mr. Speaker, the Government of Canada recognizes that organized crime, including gang activity, continues to pose a threat to the safety of our streets and communities. The government is taking both legislative and non-legislative steps to counter it.

For example, with Bill C-10, the government is proposing to toughen minimum penalties for serious repeat firearms offences, tailored in a manner that targets the specific problem that currently exists with respect to guns and gangs.

With Bill C-35, the government is proposing to create a reverse onus for bail for those charged with certain serious firearms offences.

With Bill C-27, we are targeting serious dangerous offenders.

I should point out also that Bill C-25 received royal assent on December 14 and ensures that Canada's anti-money laundering regime more fully complies with international best practices.

The Department of Justice officials are currently undertaking a review of our criminal laws to ensure that Canada's legislative measures appropriately respond to threats posed by organized crime.

Of course, strong laws are not by themselves enough to fully combat the threats posed by organized crime. That is why the government has invested in a range of measures designed to prevent crime before it happens.

For example, we committed nearly $200 million to enhance the ability of our national police force, the RCMP, to combat crime and to keep our communities safe.

We have also invested in crime prevention activities, specifically targeted at youth at risk, and focusing on gangs, guns and drugs.

There are several important reasons why society should be concerned with youth involved in gang activity. Gang members commit a disproportionate number of offences, and commit serious and violent offences at a rate several times higher than youth who are not involved in gangs.

In the 2006 federal budget, the government announced resources in the amount of $10 million per year to prevent youth crime, with a focus again on guns, gangs and drugs.

Last October, federal officials signalled to the provincial and territorial counterparts that resources were available for communities in need.

To date, several proposals have been received and a number of pilot projects that provide programming for youth involved in or at risk of gang involvement have been funded.

Before closing, I would be remiss not to highlight everything Bill C-10 proposes to do to tackle the specific serious threats that repeat firearms offenders pose to our society.

As members know, in spite of a general decrease in gun crimes, the situation across Canada is not looking all that bright and there is a major cause for concern. Serious gun crimes, such as firearm homicides, gang-related homicides, and the proportion of handgun robberies have increased in a number of our larger cities.

The guns and gangs problem is not a concern only in large urban centres of Canada, it is also a concern in some of the rural and other areas across our country. So, this is something that we, as parliamentarians, have to take very seriously.

I should mention what the opposition has done with the government's bill, Bill C-10, that would have had escalating penalties for individuals who commit offences, gang-related offences, and offences with prohibited or restricted firearms. The legislation would have taken a more serious approach with offenders and had escalating penalties for those who were repeat offenders. Unfortunately, the opposition rejected the government's proposal to provide higher minimum penalties for firearms, traffickers and smugglers.

[Réal Ménard, Bloc, Hochelaga, QC]

I would like to ask the Speaker of the House and our procedural experts to clarify certain points.

I think that Mr. Lee inadvertently misled the committee members. The committee is totally independent with respect to the way that it organizes its work. Of course, a government bill is given priority, but it is the prerogative of the committee to organize its work. Neither Marleau and Montpetit nor jurisprudence states that it is impossible for a committee to spend time on something other than the bill that has been referred to it for study. And yet, I heard comments to the contrary on several occasions. I am surprised that this is coming from opposition colleagues.

I'm going to ask for legal advice from the Speaker of the House. We are the masters of our work. When procedural issues are raised with the Speaker of the House, he reminds us often about this principle.

To conclude, I would like to point out that we are not responsible for the government's legislative activism. We are not responsible for the fact that the government has chosen, for ideological reasons, to create a bottleneck here, in the committee. Some committees have yet to receive one piece of legislation since the government was elected, whereas we have had to review nine. Consequently, the Standing Committee on Justice will never have any time to do something other than review government bills.

The government cannot be hegemonic. We have to strike a balance, and we have found it. We took upon ourselves to examine Bill C-9 and C-10, we looked at section 25 of the Criminal Code and now we are about to examine Bill C-18. Nevertheless, in addition to studying the government bills, it is understandable that parliamentarians, be they members from the opposition, make recommendations. That is part of our job.

I am not going to accept this analysis and I am going to raise a question of privilege in the House in order to have the Speaker validate this position. We are the masters of our business, and nothing compels us to organize our business according to the sequence of bills submitted by the government.

You should know, Mr. Chairman, that when people talk about me in Montreal or on Parliament Hill, I am defined first and foremost as a reasonable man. I will always live up to this reputation.

[Julie Besner]

Clause 28 is similar, in and that it is also a consequential amendment. Here, we are dealing with breaking and entering. Section 662 of the Criminal Code provides that when there is insufficient evidence before the court to prove that a break and enter actually occurred in order to steal a firearm, a conviction can still be registered for the attempt to do so.

Under Bill C-10, a new offence is created, breaking and entering for the purposes of stealing a firearm. So, even if the Crown cannot prove that firearms were stolen, there may still be a conviction for breaking and entering for the purpose of stealing a firearm.

[The Chair, Conservative, Art Hanger]

I call the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights to order with our continued deliberation on the clause-by-clause of Bill C-10.

We will pick up where we left off, which is at clause 14. Does everyone have their information in front of them?

(On clause 14)

Judicial Appointments

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons and Minister for Democratic Reform]

Mr. Speaker, this government has its agenda. I invite the Bloc Québécois to join our government by supporting Bill C-10, for example. This bill proposes minimum sentences for criminals who commit an offence with a firearm.

I would invite the member of the Bloc Québécois to join with us and with Quebeckers and other Canadians in ensuring that that bill, which the Bloc Québécois together with the Liberals have effectively gutted at committee, gets the meaningful penalties restored in it when it comes back to the House.

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons and Minister for Democratic Reform]

Mr. Speaker, for example, we have Bill C-10 which is proposing minimum sentences for crimes committed with firearms. The Liberal Party is opposed to this bill. This is one way that our party,our government, wishes to fight crime.

I invite the deputy leader of the opposition to tell his colleagues that if they do want to show that they care about getting tough on crime and they do want to make our streets and communities safer, they can support that bill for mandatory minimum penalties for gun crimes.

Justice Legislation

[Rick Dykstra, Conservative, St. Catharines, ON]

Mr. Speaker, political parties are judged on whether they can walk the walk, not just talk the talk.

In the last election, the Conservative, Liberal and NDP platforms all called for stiffer mandatory sentences for gun related crimes.

Acting on our commitments, the government has introduced safer community bills that will restrict the use of conditional sentences, better manage dangerous offenders, crack down on alcohol and drug impaired driving, protect youth against sexual predators, and Bill C-10, which would impose mandatory minimum penalties for serious gun crimes.

The government realizes that it takes cooperation in a minority Parliament and we have offered fair changes to answer the opposition on our gun crime bill. The Liberals, in their arrogance, have demanded we either pass their old, weaker crime bill or they will gut ours.

The Liberals will not meet us halfway and are putting their interests ahead of Canadians. When Bill C-10 comes back to this House gutted of protective measures, Canadians will know who the guilty party is.

Opposition Motion--Government Policies

[Rob Moore, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to address the somewhat rambling motion put forward by the deputy leader of the opposition. This motion illustrates that the member for Etobicoke—Lakeshore is just as challenged at establishing priorities as his current leader as well as the previous prime minister from LaSalle--Émard, well known for his almost 200 most important government priorities.

Among a myriad of issues, the motion before us today attacks the government on the process of appointing judges. The party opposite would like to divert the attention of the House from the real issues to an academic discussion of a process which has existed for years.

This is a desperate attempt to distract Canadians from the fact that the Liberals are in the process of rendering this country vulnerable to future attacks by terrorist organizations by gutting key provisions of the Anti-terrorism Act. This, one day after we learned of an al-Qaeda directive to focus terrorist attacks on Canada's resource base, presumably the oil fields of the west and the Atlantic offshore oil platforms.

I cannot understand why the Liberals would want to hide from this irresponsible and short-sighted position, but the House should not just take my word for it. Let us hear from some prominent Liberals quoted in recent media reports on this very issue.

Former Liberal deputy prime minister, justice minister and public security minister, Anne McLellan, speaking of the provisions in the Anti-terrorism Act that are set to expire, said:

They were not created in haste, if what that means is that we did not think about them carefully, craft them carefully...The Supreme Court has ruled that investigative hearings are constitutional. I am in a sense perplexed as to why at this point you would take these important tools away from law enforcement...and there is absolutely no evidence they've been used at all, and certainly nobody's used them in an abusive way.

Another well-known Liberal, deputy prime minister and chair of the cabinet security committee, John Manley, said, “The most important responsibility of government is the preservation of order and the protection of its citizens.” I agree that one of our highest responsibilities as a government and as a Parliament is the protection of Canadian citizens. He went on to say:

And the most important civil liberty is freedom from fear of harm on the part of the civilian population, without which our other liberties mean very little.

The anti-terrorism law did not violate the Charter of Rights as some have claimed. If ever needed, it may be key to protecting our citizens from serious harm, enabling them to enjoy the rights that the Charter guarantees them.

I have just one more quote from one time Ontario NDP premier, federal Liberal leadership candidate, and the chair of the former government's review of the Air-India tragedy. Bob Rae had the following to say about the provisions that are due to sunset. For those who are watching today, they are due to sunset unless the House votes to continue these provisions contained in our Anti-terrorism Act. Bob Rae said:

I certainly think the impact on Air India has to be considered as we go forward and I would hope that people would take that into consideration.

With these criticisms coming from within their own ranks, it is easy to see why the Liberals are asking the Canadian people to look away from their irresponsible choices and attempting to fabricate news on the government's judicial appointments with the mock self-righteous indignation that only Liberals can muster.

There was a very interesting article in the news today discussing the Liberal Party record of using judicial appointments to reward political staff and party bagmen. I invite all my colleagues to read the article and I would welcome a fulsome discussion of its content.

I would like to thank the member for Etobicoke—Lakeshore for providing me the opportunity to highlight our government's impressive track record in addressing the criminal justice concerns of Canadians.

I should add that I will be splitting my time with the member from Mississauga.

On the issue of the judiciary, the Minister of Justice is committed to appointing the best and brightest legal minds in the country to serve on the bench.

The member for Etobicoke—Lakeshore uses terms “neo-conservative” and “right wing”. What I find remarkable is that just over a year ago the Conservative, Liberal and NDP campaign platforms all called for tougher sentences for violent crimes, mandatory minimums for gun crimes, and a crackdown on organized crime and gangs.

It is important to remember that each and every member of the three federalist parties, the NDP, the Liberal Party and the Conservative Party, was elected to the House with a mandate to get tough on crime and specifically to introduce tougher mandatory minimum sentences for those who use a firearm in the commission of a crime against another Canadian.

What do we have a year after the election? We have Bill C-10 which is before the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights right now. While the Conservatives are holding up their end of the bargain by introducing and supporting the bill, we see the NDP and the Liberals seeking to gut provisions of that bill that would bring in tough sentences for people who use firearms. Cities, towns, villages, police, victims groups and everyday Canadians across this country are calling for these measures and we see the Liberals and the other opposition parties failing to support them.

Canadians have a right to feel safe and secure in their communities. In fact, safe streets and secure communities have been touchstones of Canadian society since Confederation. Of course we all know, unfortunately, that in recent years this hard won reputation has been put to the test by rising rates of crime, particularly involving guns, gangs and drug activity. Our government promised to tackle this problem head on and that is exactly what we are doing. Since taking office last year, we have brought forward no fewer than 11 new legislative proposals that will help reduce crime and create safer communities.

With the support of all parties in the House, we brought into force Bill C-19 which creates new offences that specifically target street racing. We also passed legislation to strengthen the Proceeds of Crime (Money Laundering) and Terrorist Financing Act. These changes will help to ensure Canada continues to be a global leader in combating organized crime and terrorist financing.

Our government has committed further to provide $20 million over two years to support community based programs that provide youth at risk with positive opportunities and help them make good choices and avoid the culture of guns, gangs and drugs.

We have made some progress, but there are still nine bills in Parliament that the Minister of Justice is committed to bringing into force. Among other things these bills would restrict the use of conditional sentences and impose mandatory minimum penalties for gun crimes.

The first bill dealing with conditional sentences was Bill C-9. Again we witnessed at committee opposition members who were elected with a mandate to get tough on crime acting to gut this bill. This means that people who are convicted of luring a child, arson, auto theft, among other things, are going to be able to serve their time in the comfort of their own homes rather than serve time in prison.

We also have legislation to ensure tougher sentences and more effective management of dangerous offenders, including imposing stricter conditions on repeat offenders to keep such criminals from reoffending.

We have introduced legislation to strengthen the law against alcohol and drug impaired driving and to protect youth against adult sexual predators by raising the age of consent, the age of protection in fact, from 14 to 16 years. I believe there is a broad consensus among Canadians that raising the age of protection is the right thing to do. We know it is strongly supported by many who work with youth or advocate on their behalf.

Moving forward we will also focus on other initiatives that will improve our justice system. For example, we will continue to work toward establishing a victims ombudsman's office. I should add that as we hear testimony before the justice committee on any number of these bills, it is often the victim who is the forgotten voice in all of this. It seems that when an incident takes place too often the focus is on all areas but the perspective of the victim. It is time that we restored a role for victims in our justice system.

Our last budget committed $13 million per year until 2010 toward these types of initiatives. The government also committed to develop a new strategy to deal with illicit drugs. The strategy that we will introduce will put greater emphasis on programs that will reduce drug use and help Canadians, particularly our youth, lead healthier and safer lives.

I could go on and on but I see that my time for debate is almost up. My point is that government is representing the concerns of Canadians and communities large and small. I am proud of our commitments in the field of justice and even more proud of our record for carrying them out. This is what Canadians expect of us and this is what we deliver.

Criminal Code

[Rob Moore, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada]

Mr. Speaker, it is a great pleasure today to rise to speak in support of Bill C-35. This government bill would amend the bail provisions of the Criminal Code to provide a reverse onus for firearm related offences.

It was with great interest that I listened to the speech of the hon. member for Windsor—Tecumseh and the exchange in questions and answers. I think parts of it were quite informative.

The government said it would tackle gun crimes with effective measures that would be targeted at the right group. That group, as all right thinking people know, are those who would use a firearm for a criminal purpose and not law-abiding firearms owners.

We have seen the effects of targeting the wrong the people. When we have a problem, we should all know intuitively that we have to target the problem and not target what is not the problem.

In Canada the law-abiding firearms community, people who are duck hunters or who represent us at the Olympics in shooting sports, are not the problem. The problem, as we all know, are those who would use a firearm in the commission of an offence against an innocent Canadian, against another person.

Like Bill C-10 on mandatory minimum penalties for serious and repeat firearm offences, Bill C-35 is appropriately directed at the gun crime problem that we must address in Canada.

I am proud that the government has come forward with this important legislation. It aims to protect Canadians from the threat of gun crimes.

In the context of studying and debating Bill C-10, both in the House and at the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights, we have heard from many witnesses, professors, criminal justice experts and police representatives, all describing the gun crime trend in Canada. We have received many statistics from the Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics. As a general overview, I believe it is fair to say that while there has been a decline in most firearm offences in Canada over the last few decades, there has been a growing problem in many parts of the country with respect to guns and gangs.

This is precisely why the government, in Bill C-10, has targeted specifically individuals who use handguns and other prohibited weapons in the commission of a crime and gangs that use firearms to victimize other Canadians.

In many areas the problem largely revolves around the drug trade or turf wars, particularly in many of our large urban centres. Police officers have expressed the concern for some time that they have come across more illegal guns, particularly handguns, in their investigations. The problem with guns, gangs and drugs is not only communicated to us by the police. There have been several cases reported on in the media in the last year to confirm the prevalence of gun violence in many different parts of Canada.

In the last year or so there has been the Dawson College shooting in which a student was killed and approximately 20 others were sent to hospital, many with very serious injuries.

There was the shooting of three police officers in Winnipeg late last fall. Earlier in the year a Windsor police officer was killed in the line of duty.

There was a shooting in London, Ontario last fall where the accused, charged with four counts of attempted murder, was released on bail. I will repeat that one. Bill C-35 seeks to address the issue of bail.

Also, there was the 2005 Boxing Day shooting in downtown Toronto, which resulted in the tragic death of another innocent young woman.

These are just a few examples, as Canada has on average a couple of hundred firearms homicides each year.

Some people may say that, as parliamentarians, we ought to be cautious and not react too swiftly with legislative reforms to address a few high profile horrendous cases. However, we must be alert to the undercurrent behind an emerging trend and be prepared to act decisively to address the problem.

I have always found it problematic when individuals say that it is just anecdotal or that it is just one example. Of course it is just one example. These are the life stories of many Canadians, in fact the life and death stories of many Canadians. It means something to them and to their families. We should all agree in the House that if we can prevent one of these anecdotal crimes, then we would be doing a great service to those individuals and our country.

Bill C-10 was the government's first step in tackling the problem of gun crimes. This initiative was coupled with other measures to help prevent crime, such as funding for programs directed at keeping at risk youth from getting involved with guns, gangs and drugs in the first place.

This is another aspect that we hear all the time at justice committee and public safety committee. People ask these questions. Why do we not go to the root cause of crime? Why do we not address funding shortfalls? Why we do we not put more resources to youth at risk? I am pleased to say we are doing that. We are addressing youth at risk. The Minister of Public Safety recently announced funding for programs targeting at youth at risk.

We are also using preventative measures such as putting police on the streets. From many jurisdictions where this has taken place, we know that putting police on the streets does have an impact on crime. However, sometimes there are those cases where the crime does happen. In spite of all the preventative measures we take and in spite of the police being on the street, someone commits a crime with a gun against another Canadian.

That is where our Criminal Code comes into place. It is our responsibility at the federal level and as parliamentarians to ensure that the Criminal Code is up to snuff, it is up to date, it is up to the task of preventing crime and protecting Canadians.

I feel that Bill C-35 is an important component of our plan to fight gun crime at the beginning of the criminal justice process. Bill C-35 deals with bail hearings. After people are charged, they are brought before the court for a bail hearing, unless they are released by the police because they do not pose a threat to public safety nor represent a risk of absconding.

During bail hearings, the prosecutor usually bears the onus of demonstrating why an accused should be denied bail. In some situations, the onus falls on the accused. Bill C-35 proposes to add other reverse onus situations to specifically include serious offences involving firearms.

Why does this make sense? Evidence has shown that someone who is involved in an offence regarding a firearm or someone who is violating a prohibition order involving a firearm could indeed pose a significantly greater threat than someone who perhaps stole a stereo, for example. We need to crack down on all crime. I cited an example earlier in my speech where someone, who is out on bail, committed horrific acts against innocent Canadians.

Bill C-35 proposes a reverse onus for the offences of weapons trafficking, possession for the purpose of trafficking and weapons smuggling. It also proposes a reverse onus for any indictable offence that involves a firearm or other regulated weapon if the offence is committed while the accused is under a weapons prohibition order.

It should be noted that this reverse onus is not limited to offences that involve the actual use of a firearm or other weapon.

Bill C-35 proposes a reverse onus for eight serious offences when committed with a firearm. Those offences are as follows: attempted murder, robbery, discharging a firearm with criminal intent, sexual assault with a firearm, aggravated sexual assault, kidnapping, hostage-taking or extortion.

Bill C-35 proposes another amendment to require the bail hearing court to consider the fact that a firearm was allegedly used in the commission of other indictable offences, when deciding whether the accused could be kept in custody in order to maintain confidence in the administration of justice.

Lastly, an amendment is proposed to provide that the courts must also consider whether the accused faces a minimum term of imprisonment of three years or more for a firearm related offence.

The new reverse onus situations proposed in Bill C-35 will assist in ensuring that persons involved in serious weapon related offences are not released back into the community without full consideration by the courts of the risks such individuals pose to the safety of the public. It will help address the underlying problem that has emerged in recent years with respect to guns, gangs and the drug trade.

When we talk about guns and gangs in the urban centres, we often focus on the urban centres. It is not limited to the urban centres. Firearms offences take place in probably all areas of Canada. In my province of New Brunswick and in my riding of Fundy Royal we hear about these offences. The Criminal Code applies equally to all areas of Canada because all Canadians are deserving of that protection. This is not something that is limited only to the cities.

We have heard overwhelmingly from the cities. We have heard from the city of Toronto, Canada's largest city, that this legislation is exactly what is needed to deal with some of the problems it is experiencing with gang and gun violence.

I urge all members, whether from a rural or an urban area, regardless of their political stripe, to listen to what the experts and front line workers have to say, those who work with victims, those who work in the justice field and those who work in corrections. Listen to what the mayors of the cities have to say about people who have committed offences, or charged with them, and are out on bail. Hear what they are saying about putting the onus on those individuals to prove why they should be out on bail, or released onto the streets, especially when the incident involved a firearm or a criminal act while they were on a prohibition order for a firearm.

I urge all hon. members to consider supporting this worthwhile bill.

[Réal Ménard, Bloc, Hochelaga, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to Bill C-35, concerning release on bail.

I must say that the Bloc Québécois, my leader, my colleagues and my colleague from Châteauguay, will not be supporting this bill. Not because the issues raised are not important, but we believe that this government has an insidious reflex, a dangerous propensity and tendency to want to undermine the principles of natural justice.

This bill wants to narrow the important concept of presumption of innocence. There are litigators in this House. I know that the hon. member for Marc-Aurèle-Fortin was an extremely vigorous, formidable and respected attorney.

I have a small anecdote. Yesterday, I was at my last law course on evidence and procedure when, quite nonchalantly, my professor told me and my colleagues that he had an idol. He was referring to the hon. member for Marc-Aurèle-Fortin. Obviously, I was flattered by association by this tribute to the hon. member for Marc-Aurèle-Fortin. It was the part of the course when we were talking about plea bargaining. It was extremely moving to me to hear my professor tell me that in the courts of justice where the hon. member for Marc-Aurèle-Fortin worked as a stern defence attorney, he was a tough and formidable man. The professor explained to us that there was something insidious in plea bargaining, but that without it, the judicial system would break down under the pressure of all these charges and all these cases that have to be tried.

I know that the hon. member for Marc-Aurèle-Fortin will agree with me that there is something absolutely sacred in the presumption of innocence. We have learned that we have to minimize cases where there is reverse onus. The presumption of innocence must never be lost. It is the responsibility of the prosecution, it is the responsibility of the Crown to prove that the accused breached a provision of the Criminal Code.

Of course the Bloc Québécois is in full agreement with the idea—in fact it made a significant contribution to it—of giving police officers the most effective tools for conducting investigations and bringing people to justice.

In Quebec charges are not laid by the police. They are laid by attorneys general. But we are constantly concerned about the need to provide the police with the most effective tools. This is why in the past we have asked for extended wire-tapping warrants. This is also why we demanded provisions in the anti-gang law to bring charges against organized crime in the 1990s.

The most worrisome thing is to hear the Minister of Justice say that the bill will help prevent crime. This could not be less true. If the government is really concerned about crime prevention, perhaps—and I am sure that many members feel as I do—the Minister of Public Security will sign some projects under the national crime prevention strategy so that community groups can get down to work in our various ridings at the grassroots level with people in the communities, and do some real prevention work.

So Bill C-35 proposes that, at the appearance stage and in some cases even at the preliminary investigation state, the onus be placed on the accused, the person charged. Therefore before the trial the accused has to be able to show that he can be set free.

The Bloc Québécois does not think that this should be automatic. Being set free when one has broken the law is not a constitutional right. The constitutional right is the right to be represented by a lawyer, the right to be heard and to have a fair trial.

What we do not understand is why the Crown, why the Crown attorney, should be exempt from demonstrating that we are in the presence of an accused who does not deserve to be set free.

Once again I want us to be clear about this. We agree that in some situations an accused should not be set free and should be detained until his trial begins. The Criminal Code has such provisions. I would remind members that we are not before a judge or in a trial. We are in a situation where bail is an option. We are weighing the evidence, we are at the stage of an appearance or a preliminary investigation.

There are situations, of course, when it is prudent, justifiable and perfectly comprehensible for the Crown to say that an individual should not be released, for example when evidence might be destroyed, when the individual may not appear as required for his or her trial, or when the individual poses a danger to the victim or the community.

We also already have provisions that require people charged with an offence to show themselves why they should be released. This is true, for instance, in cases of gangsterism.

I was a member of this House when we passed Bill C-95. In its original version, this bill stated that if five people had been found guilty of five offences over the previous five years, they were members of a gang. It was the crime of gangsterism. Nowadays, the term has changed and we speak of a criminal organization.

We agree that if the information or indictment involves Criminal Code sections 467.11, 467.12 or 467.13, this is a serious enough matter. If a person is accused of gangsterism and is one of the members of society that has been criminalized to this extent, we agree that there should not be any automatic responses and it should be up to the person to demonstrate that he or she does not pose any threat to society. In most cases, these people are not released.

This is true not only of the old charge of gangsterism but also, as the hon. member for Châteauguay—Saint-Constant pointed out, of the new gangsterism provisions passed in 2002. It is true as well when release conditions have been violated, when someone who was already out on bail or probation violated the conditions. If an individual already tried once to dodge the legal system and violated the conditions, it is completely understandable that he or she will not be released.

The bill goes much too far and there is a problem and considerable concern about offences committed with a firearm. I can never say enough about the inconsistencies, contradictions and stupidity of this government. On the one hand, it asks us parliamentarians to pass stricter legislation on offences committed with firearms, while on the other, it is willing to leave more arms in circulation.

What a disappointment it has been to us to see this government maneuvering, ever since it was elected, to abolish the gun registry.

The police have reminded us that this registry is consulted all across Canada, not just by the RCMP; not just by the Sûreté du Québec, and not only by the Montreal police. Police officers and law enforcement officers consult the registry 6,500 times a day. That is not insignificant.

I want to thank the researcher for the Bloc, Olivier Bernard, for providing us with very precise statistics. I will share them with you. What a contradiction this is. The gun registry, with compulsory registration, has been in existence for several years, notwithstanding the fact that the Conservatives have tabled a bill to dismantle it. This registry that is consulted an average of 6,500 times per day is not unimportant. There are 1.2 million restricted firearms that were required to be registered. That means 1.2 million firearms that were taken out of circulation thanks to this registry.

What does this mean? The Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights is now debating that point. We are going through clause-by-clause consideration of Bill C-10. Unfortunately, it is not a good bill because it is based on a philosophy that has been refuted by I do not know how many studies.

The bill seeks to impose mandatory minimum penalties for a number of crimes committed with a firearm. The Bloc Québécois is concerned about rigour and consistency. When Allan Rock established the gun registry, he established minimum mandatory penalties for crimes committed with a firearm.

We would like to know what that has meant. Scientific studies presented to the committee show that there is no correlation between minimum mandatory penalties and any deterrent effect that the presence of those penalties in the Criminal Code could have on criminals.

As a legislator, it is normal to ask questions about the consequences of public policies before adopting them.

What inconsistency, what contradiction. I am anxious to see some sign of enlightenment in the Conservative caucus. Someone who was a bit enlightened could make the government see reason. They could make it understand that one can not, on one hand, adopt or table bills that call for more severe penalties for crimes committed with a firearm, and, on the other hand—as though there was a constitutional right to bear arms—freely allow firearms to be carried as if that were not something that had consequences.

I am again appealing to all members to ensure that the government listens to reason, as urged by the police association. Many stakeholders from civil society have told the government that it does not make sense to dismantle the gun registry.

The shortcoming of Bill C-35 is that it is much too general. In some cases, pre-trial release is not justified. We reiterate that point and we concur. However, at present, we are discussing a number of offences that, in our opinion, should not automatically allow for reverse onus.

We must not shift the presumption of innocence without concern for the consequences to the administration of justice. We cannot toy with the principles of natural justice. Very often, I heard Conservative members, whom I will not name out of kindness—although I have a terrible urge to look at them and point them out, I will not do so—say that it was as though the Charter were a necessary evil.

Naturally, it is easier to devise the judicial system when we think in black and white and when there is no need to reconcile respect for the burden of proof or for disclosure of evidence, for example. That is certain. There is obviously an imbalance when we want a society where, on the one hand, there is the Crown with all its resources and means and, on the other hand, there are the offenders.

The Bloc Québécois supported increasing penalties for the most serious offenders. Again this morning, I made a proposal to the committee in an effort to bolster the fight against organized crime, with its contemporary incarnation of street gangs. We know that street gangs are a significant phenomenon. They are a reality in Montreal and in Toronto and, I am told, are organizing in Calgary, Saskatoon and Halifax. And of course there is Vancouver, where street gangs are a very important reality.

We cannot just go along with this idea that justice will be administered more effectively and things will be more acceptable if reverse onus is generalized. We do not believe that this is the right approach.

Unfortunately, we cannot support the bill as it currently stands. What is more, I was very surprised to learn something, which I checked with my leader. I think the government could have had the courtesy to inform the members of the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights that it planned to create a legislative committee. Of course, the government has the right to create a legislative committee.

For the people who are watching, a legislative committee is a committee that has a limited lifespan, existing only as long as a bill is being studied. For example, legislative committees studied the language-based school boards when the constitutional amendment was made and also studied Canada's clean air act and same-sex marriage. Obviously, this means double the time for the people on the committee, and I believe I will be sitting on it with my colleague from Châteauguay—Saint-Constant. In my opinion, the government could have had the courtesy to tell us about it.

The bill is too broad, because it targets all offences involving firearms. In my view, this is not the right approach. We repeat: the Bloc Québécois will always support legislation that gives the police more resources to conduct investigations, for example.

We recognize that, in a certain number of cases, maximum sentences need to be increased. We believe that. We support Bill C-10, which creates two new offences. We voted for the bill in committee, and we will vote for it at the report stage if the committee decides to send Bill C-10 back to the House. We will support the two new offences created by Bill C-10: robbery to steal a firearm and breaking and entering to steal a firearm.

In conclusion, I call on the government to take a much more moderate approach, and I hope that the members of this House will understand the risk that reverse onus poses to the administration of justice. Because of these concerns, the Bloc Québécois will vote against Bill C-35 at second reading.

[Brian Murphy, Liberal, Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe, NB]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for his question about firearms. It is appropriate to be speaking about the gun registry just before question period. I would like to add that our side supports gun control.

We think it is very important to regulate handguns and guns of all sorts. We think it is disgusting, frankly, that the Conservative government would bring in a bill, and I am speaking of Bill C-10, that excludes crimes committed with long guns and includes crimes done with restricted weapons.

In other words, a person could hold up someone and hurt them with a handgun in a 7-Eleven in Moncton, New Brunswick or Red Deer, Alberta and be subject to mandatory minimums of three, five and ten years, as the current legislation has proposed, but if the person went into the same store with a shotgun and did the same thing, the person would not be caught by that same provision. I ask members to tell me why that makes sense.

The hon. member asked questions about the long gun registry, but really he asked questions about the safety of our communities. The question goes back to him and to the members of the government, what are we going to do about controlling guns? Bill C-35 will not have much effect in getting guns off the street.

The remonstrances of the member for Wild Rose will do nothing to get guns off the streets and away from the borders. The minister said nothing about the money backing up Bill C-35, Bill C-10, Bill C-9 and other justice bills that will get guns away from the people who are using them.

We need to address that question in Parliament. When is the program coming? It is so close to question period that I wish the Prime Minister were here so I could ask him this question: what are we going to do to get guns off our streets?

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

Mr. Speaker, from his analysis of his own government, I must say that getting rid of the long gun registry would only save the government about $10 million a year, which would give us perhaps 15 more police officers.

In terms of Bill C-35, the minister has on a number of occasions, in his diatribe with the Bloc, given anecdotal stories about the type of impact the bill would have. I wonder if the minister has any hard facts as to how many of these offences occur in the year where the person gets out on bail and then commits another offence. Do those statistics exist and, if they do, would he share them with the House?

Similarly, the eight serious offences, to which this reverse onus would now apply, does he have the statistics on the number of those per year, or are we faced here with, as we just saw with Bill C-10, a very few number of offences where this is an issue?

If that is the case, are we creating a system that will be a real burden for our judiciary and our legal aid in terms of responding to the types of applications that would come out under Bill C-35?

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

moved that Bill C-35, An Act to amend the Criminal Code (reverse onus in bail hearings for firearm-related offences), be read the second time and referred to a committee.

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak to Bill C-35 which proposes that additional reverse onus situations apply in bail hearings for firearm related offences.

Procedural law is an important issue because it relates to how our criminal courts operate.

During this session of Parliament our government has introduced 10 bills to strengthen or improve Canada's criminal justice system. We have taken action to increase the mandatory minimum penalties for gun crimes, ban house arrest for serious offences, crack down on street racing, impose stricter conditions on dangerous offenders, and bring our impaired driving laws into the 21st century.

In Canada the law provides that a person charged with an offence has the right not to be denied bail without just cause. That means that the accused must be released unless the Crown shows that it is justified to keep the accused in custody before trial. Occasionally, the accused is required to show why pretrial detention is not justified. This is called a reverse onus.

Parliament has already created several reverse onus provisions for bail hearings. The concept was first introduced into the Criminal Code in 1976. When creating reverse onus provisions, Parliament must be mindful of balancing the rights of the accused to reasonable bail with the need to safeguard the safety of the public and to maintain confidence in the administration of justice.

The Criminal Code provides that there are three grounds that can be relied upon in order to justify keeping an accused in custody before trial. The first ground is to ensure that the accused will face the charges in court and not flee from justice. The second ground is to protect the public if there is a substantial risk that the accused will reoffend while on bail or if there is a risk that the accused will interfere with the administration of justice. The third ground is where the detention of the accused is necessary to maintain confidence in the administration of justice.

Bill C-35 is consistent with the principles that currently underlie Canada's bail regime. I would like to take a minute to talk about the proposals contained in the bill.

Bill C-35 creates a reverse onus provision for eight serious offences when committed with a firearm. They are: attempted murder, discharging a firearm with criminal intent, sexual assault with a weapon, aggravated sexual assault, kidnapping, hostage taking, robbery and extortion.

These serious crimes carry a mandatory minimum penalty of four years and under Bill C-10 the minimum penalty would increase in certain circumstances to five years on a first offence, seven years on a second offence and if they still do not get the message, 10 years on a third or subsequent offence.

Bill C-35 also creates a reverse onus provision for any offence involving a firearm or other regulated weapon if committed while the accused is bound by a weapons prohibition order.

A mandatory weapons prohibition order is imposed upon conviction for over 70 offences, namely, when an offender is convicted of an indictable offence in which violence against a person was used, threatened or attempted and for which the maximum penalty is 10 years or more; specific firearms offences; or trafficking, smuggling or producing drugs.

In other words, mandatory weapons prohibition orders are imposed on people who are convicted of violent crimes, drug offences or serious weapons related offences.

The courts are also empowered to impose prohibition orders after conviction for other less serious crimes if they consider it appropriate in the interests of public safety. These are called discretionary prohibition orders and they remain in force for up to 10 years. A mandatory weapons prohibition order remains in force for a minimum term of 10 years and in many cases for life.

It should also be noted that it is possible to have a weapons prohibition order imposed on a person even though the person is not charged with or convicted of a criminal offence.

An order prohibiting someone from possessing firearms or other regulated weapons can be obtained by the court for preventive reasons. If a peace officer or a firearms officer has reasonable grounds to believe that it is not desirable or in the interests of the public safety that a person should possess firearms or other weapons, an order to prohibit possession can be obtained and it can remain in force for up to five years.

Weapons prohibition orders are an important tool in our criminal law to help prevent firearm violence, whether it is firearm homicides or the full range of other firearm related crimes, but also accidental injuries and suicides.

Whether the prohibition orders that are currently in force were imposed in a mandatory or discretionary way following conviction for a criminal offence or in a preventive manner due to public safety concerns, I would like to highlight that there are approximately 35,000 prohibition orders currently in force in Canada.

Therefore, this proposal, which provides a reverse onus for anyone charged with an indictable weapons related offence, if already prohibited from possessing weapons, has a very broad reach, given the large number of offenders currently subject to a prohibition order.

The idea of triggering a reverse onus for persons charged with serious weapons related offences if committed while prohibited makes sense. These people already have been considered by a court to be a public safety threat. That is why the prohibition order was imposed in the first place.

They should not benefit from a presumptive entitlement to bail when they have demonstrated their inability to abide by a court order on a matter of direct relevance: their alleged reoffending involving weapons in direct contravention of an existing court order not to possess weapons.

The courts must be required to take a serious look at these types of cases. The accused persons should bear the onus of demonstrating why it is not justified to keep them in custody.

I realize that I have taken a bit of time on this point, but I think it is an important feature of the bill. As I said earlier, from a public safety perspective it makes sense.

Bill C-35 also creates a reverse onus provision for the three following serious firearm related offences: firearm smuggling, firearm trafficking or possession of a firearm for the purposes of trafficking.

While these offences do not involve the actual use of a firearm, where the safety of the public is directly put at risk, they are still serious offences nonetheless.

Those who are involved with firearm trafficking and smuggling are responsible for the illegal supply of guns to people who cannot lawfully possess them and who are very likely to use them for a criminal purpose.

We also have a problem with an underground firearms market where guns that have been stolen from within Canada or smuggled into country are traded and sold to people who are not allowed to possess them legally. We want to get at those individuals who are trafficking in firearms and we want this bill to apply to them.

Today in Canada street gang members and drug traffickers arm themselves with guns, usually handguns, therefore creating the demand for illegal guns. They are well organized and sophisticated illegal operations.

Law enforcement officers tell us that some of the schemes involve drugs first being smuggled to the United States and sold there, and the proceeds are used to purchase guns that are smuggled back into Canada. Law enforcement officers also tell us that some firearms traffickers even rent out guns for the night, if anyone can believe it.

We have a reverse onus that currently applies to those charged with drug trafficking and smuggling. There is no good reason not to include a reverse onus for those who are involved in firearms trafficking and smuggling. From a public safety perspective, although firearms traffickers may not be the ones actually pulling the trigger and causing the death of a person, they certainly play a significant role in the firearm homicide problem.

In addition to the reverse onus provisions, Bill C-35 also proposes additional factors that the courts must consider in determining whether the accused should be detained before trial in order to maintain confidence in the administration of justice. Namely, the courts must consider the following factors: whether the accused allegedly used a firearm in the commission of an offence; or whether the accused faces a minimum sentence of three or more years.

With respect to this provision, referred to as the “tertiary or third ground”, it should be noted that certain terms ruled to be too vague in the existing provision are being removed in response to the Supreme Court of Canada decision in the case of R. v. Hall. Specifically, the phrase “on any other just cause being shown and, without limiting the generality of the foregoing” is being removed.

We know that Canadians are concerned about violent firearm offenders being released back into the community. The goal of Bill C-35 is to prevent the re-commission of offences, particularly gun violence, by persons out on bail.

Bill C-35 seeks to enhance the current bail regime by making it more effective with regard to serious crimes involving firearms and it does so in a way that is consistent with the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Subsection 11e) of the charter recognizes the right not to be denied bail without just cause.

The Supreme Court of Canada recognized that there are situations in which the reverse onus is necessary to prevent absconding or reoffending while out on bail, for example, in drug trafficking cases.

I consider these bail reforms to be a rational and constitutional approach to tackling serious gun and gang problems that currently exist in our communities.

Police officers, provincial and some municipal governments, who are more directly involved in fighting crime, have been expressing serious concerns for some time about the release from pre-trial custody of persons involved in gun and gang related crimes. This tougher bail scheme for firearms offences responds to their concerns.

Persons involved in criminal gangs are able to easily regain possession of illegal guns, to continue with their criminal activities, which usually revolve around the drug trade and turf wars.

These proposals appropriately focus on serious firearm offences, and particularly when committed by those already prohibited from possessing firearms and other weapons.

These measures are beneficial for the victims and their families as well as for witnesses who may be reluctant to come forward with information or to testify for fear of retaliation. It is important that they be encouraged to cooperate with authorities and knowing that the accused is behind bars will help in that regard.

These measures are also beneficial for Canadians in general. This bill will help restore Canadians' confidence in the administration of justice. Bill C-35 confirms the government's resolve to ensure that Canada's criminal justice system appropriately safeguards the safety of the public.

It is important to note that this bail reform initiative is part of a larger plan for tackling gun and gang violence. The government's plan includes interventions at different levels. We have taken action to put more law enforcement officers on our streets and at our border points including armed border guards to help crack down on firearm smuggling and trafficking.

We have dedicated resources to help prevent crime and to focus specifically on preventing youth at risk from getting involved in street gangs and drugs. As mentioned earlier, we have proposed tougher sentences for those convicted of serious crimes involving firearms with particularly stiff penalties for repeat firearms offenders.

Canada's new government promised to tackle crime to make our streets safer.

Bill C-35 appropriately targets serious offences involving the use of firearms and it also addresses the emerging concern with respect to firearm trafficking and smuggling. Equally important, Bill C-35 targets violent repeat offenders by proposing a reverse onus for any indictable offence involving firearms or other regulated weapons if committed while the accused is under a weapons prohibition.

This is a minority Parliament. We have to have the support of all political parties and I say to them, it is not enough to talk about fighting crime at election time. We have to do it when we are sitting here in this Parliament. I believe that this is a worthwhile positive contribution to making the streets and Canadian communities safer.

[Rob Moore, Conservative, Fundy Royal, NB]

I'll address that. Some of the government amendments were brought forward to bridge a gap and were a compromise between our Bill C-10, which I feel is a good bill, and what the opposition members were proposing—opposition members who felt the bill went too far. We tried to bridge that gap with some government amendments. Now that it is clear that opposition members will not support the bill, even as amended by the government, we are certainly going to be supporting the bill as it was introduced. I hope that clarifies any confusion there may have been.

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

Thank you.

I'd just like to add one thing. When we travelled to the Toronto area, a provincial Liberal minister who had read Bill C-10 remarked that it was a good bill. He was a Liberal minister. I would imagine that he is a credible individual. That was the first point I wanted to make.

The second point is this: as our parliamentary secretary was saying, the aim is not to stick it to first offenders, but rather to target repeat offenders. Throughout the course of the testimony given, we heard that repeat offenders were the cause of the problems. One individual can create many problems and that's who we should be targeting. We need to rein that person in, to put an end to these problems.

The motion introduced by Ms. Jennings on behalf of the Liberal Party does not address this problem. We shouldn't be locking up people for the sheer pleasure of it. As you're always saying, we're not idiots either. However, we have to remember one thing: our courts are clogged with repeat offenders and they are the ones creating all of the problems for us. With all due respect, Ms. Jennings, your motion fails to address the problem.

That's all I wanted to say. Thank you.

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

Yes.

Chair, I have a difficult time following your reasoning. If in fact the whole principle of the bill is to, one, create escalator clauses on subsequent second, third, etc., offences, then the government amendments remove escalator clauses that we found in Bill C-10, which then means that those amendments are out of order. They are removing escalator clauses that we find in the original provisions of Bill C-10.

First, where there is no change to existing Criminal Code provisions, if your ruling is to have weight, then Bill C-10 should have addressed every single criminal provision and introduced escalator clauses for every single sentencing provision in the Criminal Code. Second, it should also have included escalator clauses beyond third offences.

[The Chair, Conservative, Art Hanger]

Thank you, Monsieur Ménard.

Notice has been served. We will now go to clause-by-clause study of Bill C-10.

(On clause 1)

[The Chair, Conservative, Art Hanger]

I call the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights to order. Of course, we're still considering Bill C-10, An Act to amend the Criminal Code (minimum penalties for offences involving firearms).

I know some discussion has taken place over the last few days and some more is yet to be considered this morning. So I'm going to open the floor, and I know the parliamentary secretary, Mr. Moore, has something he would like to put on the table.

Mr. Moore.

Business of the House

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons and Minister for Democratic Reform]

Mr. Speaker, today we will be continuing the debate on the Bloc opposition motion.

Tomorrow we will begin debate on the statutory order concerning the Anti-terrorism Act. That is for the extension of its provisions.

Next week will be justice week, when the government will showcase part of its safer streets agenda, starting on Monday with the continuation of the debate on the Anti-terrorism Act if it is not completed on Friday.

On Tuesday we plan to begin debate on Bill C-35, which deals with bail reform, and on Wednesday we will resume debate on the second reading stage of the dangerous offenders legislation, Bill C-27.

Thursday, February 15 shall be an allotted day.

On Friday it is my intention to call the report stage of Bill C-10 on mandatory minimum penalties, on the assumption that the justice committee can have it to the House by that time.

For each day, we will have the following business scheduled as backup bills: Bill C-31, the voter integrity legislation; Bill C-44, relating to human rights; Bill C-11, on transport; and Bill C-33, the technical income tax act.

I will be working closely with my counterpart in the Senate with respect to progress on Bill S-4 or, as we keep hearing, the lack of progress.

As you know, Mr. Speaker, a strong, effective and responsible government must speak with one voice, whether it be in the Senate or the House of Commons. The fact that the Leader of the Opposition in the House of Commons and the Leader of the Opposition in the Senate cannot present the same position on Bill S-4 is further evidence that the Liberals are currently not fit to govern. I certainly would like the opportunity for this House to deal with that bill.

Criminal Code

[Brian Murphy, Liberal, Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe, NB]

Mr. Speaker, it is very typical in the Conservative justice agenda to make grand pronouncements on law and not back them up with the resources needed to effect the law as proclaimed.

Bill C-9 and Bill C-10 deal with mandatory minimums and conditional sentences. Some $225 million was budgeted for prisons. Most attorneys general met in Newfoundland last year and collectively said it should probably be something like $2 billion. With respect to this law, there is no indication that there will be adequate resources to develop the tests for drug impairment detection. We will have a law with no teeth in it.

I can look at the testimony of Chief Blair of Toronto who, using existing law passed by previous Parliaments and extensive resources, had a major and effective crackdown in crime in the GTA. There has been no indication from the Canadian Chiefs of Police that adequate resources will be put in place for the new panoply of Conservative laws which are intended to be tough on crime. Without adequate resources to put its wishes into effect, I am afraid the Conservative government is leading the Canadian public into a false sense of security by promoting law on the 6 p.m. news but not backing it up with the necessary resources. It is cutting funding to everything that is dear to Canadians, including effective, smart, judicial discretion and effective and smart law enforcement. That is what is missing from the agenda.

We are willing to work with the Conservative government as the bills go through the House. I do not know what we do with a minority government that governs like a majority and will not fund the necessary tools to put good laws into effect once they come out of committee.

[Réal Ménard, Bloc, Hochelaga, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to Bill C-32, which the Bloc Québécois would like to review in committee. In committee, members can realize their full potential and focus on all the details. The Bloc Québécois would like this bill to be referred.

Before getting into Bill C-32, I want to take a few minutes to say that the government, where justice is concerned, has a rather controversial record. We know that this government has been very active, having introduced nearly a dozen bills. I would add that none of the bills really appeal to us.

There was Bill C-9 to amend section 742 on conditional sentencing. The government wanted to remove judicial discretion from the judiciary. One of the characteristics of the government is not to believe that our judiciary is serious and competent. It always wants to control and restrict the capacity of judges and increase their limitations when they pronounce sentences or make rulings.

The purpose of Bill C-9, which amended section 742, was to remove conditional sentences as an option for the trial judge for all offences punishable by 10 years in prison, even if it was brought down to one or two years in prison.

Unfortunately, we had to fundamentally change this bill in committee. I think we did our work as parliamentarians. Bill C-32 before us is a little more interesting because its purpose is to harmonize section 253 with everything to do with impaired driving. This a significant social problem and there is jurisprudence. I will have a chance to say more on this. They want to harmonize the legislation and use standardized sobriety tests. Our challenge, in committee, will be to look into the sensitivity, performance and operational nature of these tests.

There was also the bill on judges' salaries. This is an important debate because we have all studied Montesquieu and I know we are all motivated by the philosophy of strict separation of the legislative, the judiciary and the executive.

It is important for the three branches to live together with a healthy regard for each other's jurisdictions. That is why, when the question of judges’ salaries arises, Parliament wants to have an independent commission. It is hard for Parliament to decide how much judges’ salaries should be because judges are a major branch of the government involved not only in the administration of justice but ultimately in the interpretation of our laws. As parliamentarians, we make the laws. The government is empowered to implement them, and we hope that judges can interpret them.

For a long time, there was a balance. The Chief Justice of the Supreme Court was supposed to earn the same salary as the Prime Minister, and everything flowed from that. Then the government decided to upset the balance and proposed remuneration levels that were different from what the independent commission suggested. That was another bill we were unfortunately unable to support.

As I was saying, we want Bill C-32 referred to a committee because impaired driving is an extremely serious matter. People who take the wheel and drive on public roads must not pose a danger to their fellow citizens; that is obvious.

Thus, the government has passed legislation on suspended sentences and on the remuneration of judges.

The government has also introduced a bill on dangerous offenders. The government even hopes to establish a legislative committee. Everyone in the House understands the difference between a legislative committee and a standing committee. A legislative committee exists for the life of a certain bill, for example, the air quality bill leading to Canada’s Clean Air Act, which has been introduced by the government. My hon. colleague from Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie is one of the Bloc Québécois’ leading lights when it comes to the environment and the Conservative government should also recognize him as a leading light in view of his great expertise and the soundness of his views.

It is the Speaker of the House who appoints the committee chairs for as long as the work of each legislative committee continues. It is not the chair’s peers, the hon. members assigned to the committee, who elect the chair.

The bill on dangerous offenders is a very bad bill. It is animated by a reflexive reaction that would lead to the “three strikes” kind of approach we see in the United States. This is not a bill that the Bloc Québécois intends to support.

The government has introduced a bill on the age of consent, which is called the age of protection, with a clause that creates an exception when the age difference is less than five years. I believe that the leader of the Bloc Québécois said he was in favour of this bill when he was asked. Clearly, we will have to make amendments to reflect the new reality. It is true that sexuality is probably not what it was in your early childhood or early adolescence, Mr. Speaker. Today, adolescents start having sex earlier, when they are younger. In my day, we waited longer. All that has changed, and we have to take stock of those changes.

The government has also introduced a bill containing amendments relating to summary prosecutions. This is a rather technical bill, and I have to say that we are more or less in favour of it.

The government has also introduced Bill C-10 concerning minimum penalties for offences involving firearms.

Hon. members will remember Allan Rock. I am not sure whether his name evokes good or bad memories for the members of this House. When Allan Rock was minister of justice, he introduced a bill. I think that for my colleague, the former leader of the official opposition, this is an excellent memory. I know he was close to Allan Rock, whom the member for LaSalle—Émard, the former Prime Minister, appointed as Canada's ambassador to the United Nations. I have a great deal of respect for Allan Rock. I think he is a brilliant man who served this House well, except when it came to young offenders. The former government went completely off track on that issue.

All of this is to say that the current government has introduced Bill C-10, which seeks to increase the mandatory minimum penalties for offences involving firearms. Unfortunately, we do not have any conclusive studies on the deterrent effect of mandatory minimum penalties.

This morning in committee, we were doing a clause by clause study of Bill C-10. There is a great deal of wisdom gathered when all of the opposition parties are united in asking the government to do certain things. All of the opposition parties—the Liberals, the Bloc and the neo-Bolsheviks—asked the government to undertake a longitudinal study of the impact of mandatory minimum sentencing to find out whether it works as a deterrent or not.

Simply increasing mandatory minimum sentences is not enough. We have to know whether that will really bring peace to our communities. The Bloc Québécois, with its characteristic complete openness and scientific rigour, will see if the government does agree to the request for a longitudinal study of the impact of mandatory minimum sentences for gun crimes because we have had mandatory minimum sentences for 10 years now.

Before I get back to Bill C-32, I cannot help but emphasize the government's remarkable inconsistency. On the one hand, the government is demanding that we increase mandatory minimum sentences for gun crimes, but on the other, it wants to abolish the gun registry. Police officers in Canada and Quebec consult this registry hundreds, if not thousands, of times a day. Before entering a dwelling, officers need to know if there are firearms inside. I cannot for the life of me understand why the government wants to abolish this registry and deprive police officers of a tool they need.

I felt it was my duty to review the government's record. The government also introduced a bill about the national DNA database maintained by the RCMP. The committee will have an opportunity to study this bill.

Historically, the Bloc Québécois has always been concerned about street gangs and organized crime. It is always a pleasure to work with my colleague, the member for Ahuntsic. She and I have agreed on a number of measures and proposals that I will be presenting to the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights to ensure that we have the most effective means of combating street gangs and organized crime.

The Bloc Québécois is more committed to an approach that would enable our police to carry out successful investigations than to increasing mandatory minimum penalties.

Having completed this overview, I feel it my duty to begin discussion of Bill C-32. This bill would enable police officers to require that a person suspected of impaired driving due to alcohol or drugs submit to a sobriety test.

At present, the Criminal Code already contains provisions concerning impaired driving involving alcohol. Now, there would be more specific provisions concerning drugs. A person suspected of impaired driving could be compelled to submit to a test. However, jurisprudence is not clear on that subject. The interpretation that the Minister of Justice makes in this bill is to say that the Criminal Code at present does not give police officers the power to require that a person submit to a sobriety test nor to take a sample of bodily fluids as part of an investigation into infractions related to impaired driving.

If Bill C-32 is adopted, police officers will be able to require that a person suspected of impaired driving involving drugs must undergo tests and consent to the taking of bodily fluids for testing.

There is a need for some fine tuning. The work of the committee will be to ensure that the available detection technology—and I believe this is based on experience in the United States—is not unduly intrusive. We have a Charter and judicial guarantees. We want the police to have the proper tools, but it is a matter of balance.

It is important to talk about the difference between drugs and alcohol. As a member, I drink very little alcohol. I can claim no credit for that; I have never liked alcohol, and I do not use drugs. In short, I could be considered rather straight and my lifestyle reflects that. My greatest pleasures are not derived from alcohol or drugs. However, some of our fellow citizens do use drugs and alcohol.

We do not want people with a licence driving out on public roads to pose a threat to their fellow citizens. We believe that the police are empowered under the common law and the Criminal Code to stop people they see in situations of potential risk.

In 1985, if I am not mistaken—I do not want to mislead the House—in the matter of Dedman v. The Queen, the Supreme Court examined the legality of the R.I.D.E. program in Ontario. Under the program, road blocks are set up. This is done in Quebec too. Checks are done in busy areas. The police, peace officers on duty, stop people to find out whether they have been drinking. Obviously, when this practice began at the end of the 1980s, there were questions about the legality of the operation.

Usually, under the common law and the Criminal Code, a person stopping someone in a car must have reasonable grounds for believing that the individual is impaired or contravening the law. Operation R.I.D.E., as run in Ontario and as it is now run in Quebec, was simply a preventive measure. The aim was to see that all who were stopped were sober, even if there were not reasonable grounds. But, I repeat, under the common law and the Criminal Code, the exercise of the power to stop and arrest people must be based on reasonable grounds.

The Supreme Court said that people could be stopped to see if they were sober, but that would be as far as it went. When a person is stopped at a roadblock to check if they have been drinking, their car cannot be searched for heroin. The Supreme Court authorized the practices saying that a public goal of sufficient importance was involved to warrant police intervention.

The bill today wishes to go a bit further. The aim is to be able to determine impairment not only from alcohol but also from drugs. A major distinction, however, must be made. The presence of alcohol in the blood is much more easily detected than the presence of drugs. From what we have been told, if a person has consumed marijuana, traces of such consumption can be detected in the blood of this individual for up to seven, eight, nine or ten days afterwards, but that does not mean that the person was intoxicated at the time of their arrest.

That is why the committee must be very careful to recognize that what is actually important to the public is to make sure that the people who are driving vehicles on public roads are completely sober, that they are not intoxicated by either alcohol or drugs.

Breathalyzers work according to a different premise. Breathalyzers can determine whether the alcohol level in the blood is over 0.08% or 0.8 grams per litre. These facts are verified and charges can be laid. Where drug detection technologies are concerned, however, we have to make sure that they are sophisticated enough so that peace officers do not end up laying charges against people who are not really intoxicated.

Since I still have a minute, I will close by adding that one of the merits of this bill is that it will harmonize things. Since section 253 provides for different penalties, depending on whether charges are laid under paragraph (a), in which an individual is impaired by alcohol or a drug, or under paragraph (b), in which it is proved that an individual has consumed a specific quantity of alcohol or drugs.

The penalties are not the same, which does not make a lot of sense. It is the consequence of the deeds committed, and not just the evidence provided under paragraph (a) or (b), that should determine the sentences.

In conclusion, the Bloc Québécois hopes that Bill C-32 will be the subject of serious study in committee. I am sure that we can count on all parliamentarians to be thorough and rigorous in their work.

[Rob Moore, Conservative, Fundy Royal, NB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I've been listening with interest to everything that has been happening. To address what Mr. Bagnell said, I look at that as being a bit distinct. We're providing funding for policing, preventative measures, youth at risk, and so on. But dealing specifically with Bill C-10, Mr. Lee mentioned campaign rhetoric; some people would call it campaign rhetoric and some people would say campaign commitments—whatever.

Mr. Ménard has been very clear about his position on the bill. I've certainly expressed that the government is willing to entertain the Liberals' suggestions on how we can make the bill better. If they are open to doing that, we have a couple more days set aside for clause-by-clause. The minister's office is willing to work with opposition members to see exactly what we can do to make the bill workable in their view and find some common ground, so at the end of the day we have a bill in place that the majority here on committee can support.

If this is appropriate, are the opposition members willing to take some time this week to work with department officials and the minister to hear from each other where they would like to see some changes made to the bill to make it more acceptable to their party?

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

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

When one listens to certain members of the government, one would assume that right now, under our Criminal Code, there are no minimum mandatory penalties, and in particular none with regard to criminal offences committed with firearms.

In fact, members who premise their comments so that people who are watching and listening to this session will believe that there are none—that there are no criminal infractions and sanctions and penalties and minimum mandatory penalties with regard to crimes committed with firearms as we speak, right now, in the Criminal Code--are doing a disservice to the Canadian population.

I'm sure the members—Mr. Thompson and Monsieur Petit, and Mr. Moore himself—have read the Criminal Code and therefore know very well that you already have, for instance, section 85, “using firearm in commission of offence”, and that does not include serious-use offences such as attempted murder, discharging a firearm with intent, sexual assault, aggravated sexual assault, but just use of a firearm in the commission of an offence other than those serious uses in assaults. There is already a first-offence minimum and there's a subsequent-offence minimum. We have section 95, “possession of restricted or prohibited firearm with ammunition”. There is already a mandatory minimum for that offence.

One can go through every single section that Bill C-10 amends and find that in most of them there are already mandatory minimums. In creating higher mandatory minimums and second- and third- and subsequent-offence mandatory minimums, the one thing Bill C-10 accomplishes is the complete removal of the discretion of a judge for subsequent offences.

It also creates two new offences: breaking and entering with an intent to steal a firearm, and robbery—which is under section 343—with intent to steal a firearm. Those two new offences were actually introduced in Bill C-82 of the previous government.

In relation to those two new offences Mr. Comartin makes the point very clearly, as I believe Mr. Murphy did, that if there are mandatory minimums and the judges have absolutely no discretion, it could have a serious negative impact on our aboriginal communities.

So, first, I would ask the members, when they are speaking to Bill C-10 and criticizing the Liberal Party of Canada, the Bloc Québecois, and the NDP, to please not do so in a way that would lead Canadians to believe that the current law has no mandatory minimum penalties for criminal infractions committed with firearms, because it does. That's the first thing.

Second, I would also ask members when they are speaking to this to not lead Canadians to believe that the laws on the books as they are now are not being enforced or are not being used, because they are in fact being used. Law enforcement will tell you that very clearly.

So don't use your ideological bent to push it. This committee heard scientific fact, based on scientific study. Now, if a member wishes to throw that out the window and base his or her voting intention and work here in the House of Commons on the subjective and the emotional, fine; that is your right, but say so in the beginning. Say that you do not base your decisions as a member of Parliament on fact, proven fact, scientific fact; you care nothing about science; you care nothing about accurate, proven fact; you care only about emotion and subjectivity. Then we know what we're dealing with.

Thank you.

[Myron Thompson, Conservative, Wild Rose, AB]

Sorry, I missed that exchange there. I didn't get the interpretation. That's too bad. I like good exchanges.

I'd like to thank the parliamentary secretary for reminding us of the platforms that were struck during the election. This is because I'm finding it really hard to understand, after this period of time, that when I stood on the stage in the campaign and I laid out our platform quite clearly, which I believe didn't even go as far as we'd like to have seen, but I was satisfied with Bill C-10—But when we talked about that platform—and I'm always looking forward to a good debate at election time with my NDP friends and Liberal friends, on justice and law and order—when it came to this issue they made me look like a wussy. They were saying he's right on; we happen to agree with Mr. Thompson on that; we agree with Mr. Thompson. That was the Liberal and the NDP candidate. Maybe they'd like to have their names, so they make sure they don't run again. How dare they support this unwavering old cowboy from the west? He's right. Mr. Comartin is right. I am unwavering because that was very appealing to the public.

It is the public we're here to serve. I constantly hear Mr. Ménard indicating what our duties are in terms of providing legislation. I'm well aware of our duties. But I believe the first and most primary duty that we have as elected people is to provide protection to our society. That has to be priority number one. But I keep hearing these other things that seem to take priority over that, like giving more discretion, like making sure it passes the charter test. Are we going to make protecting society a high priority? I think it ought to be. I know the public would certainly want us to do that.

But we enter into these debates about we have to do this because we have to make sure the judges have discretion, or we have to make sure it passes the charter test. I don't believe the inventors of our charter intended for that document to be a hindrance to any justice and law and order at all. I don't think that was their intention at all. Yet it seems like those kinds of things are always brought forward and thrown into our face, even though, during the election, all the candidates, including the Liberal and the NDP, were quite excited about this kind of legislation being possible.

Then when I get here and I hear what I'm hearing throughout this last year, I'm surprised. What happened? What happened to the desire in the hearts of the elected people to do something about guns and protecting society? I think these debates and these discussions are futile. Either we're going to get at doing the job of protecting the people, as we said we'd do, or we're going to sit around here and debate whether this judge ought to have more discretion, or that judge ought to have more discretion, or is it going to pass the charter test? Those things are not the priority. The priority is to protect our young people, our kids and our families and our women and children. That's our duty. And these kinds of discussions that lead off into these other things just irritate me.

And, Mr. Comartin, you're correct: I don't waver. We have a job to do, and that's to protect society. Let's not waver because of these other kinds of discussions.

[Réal Ménard, Bloc, Hochelaga, QC]

The role of legislators is always to pass laws while taking into account the most convincing and conclusive facts possible. While Bill C-10 was being studied, we asked the Justice Department on numerous occasions to tell us what the impact of minimum mandatory penalties would be.

Obviously, everyone pointed to the contradiction between the desire to fight crime involving the use of firearms and the elimination of a mechanism to publicly control firearms, namely the gun registry. This stands as a major public policy contradiction, but that's not the focus of our attention today.

We have before us Bill C-10. Can the Justice Department and its research and policy division produce some studies that might convince us that minimum mandatory penalties really do have a deterrent effect?

May I remind you that draft legislation introduced by Minister Allan Rock to establish the gun registry provided for a certain number of minimum mandatory penalties. Why are we revisiting this subject today? The department does not have a single serious study in hand to convince parliamentarians that this is a step in the right direction.

Mr. Chairman, the committee has heard testimony from a number of criminologists. The clerk has forwarded some studies to us. Based on all of the information that we have received, aside for law enforcement officials, few people said that minimum mandatory penalties had a deterrent effect. Yet, this goes to the heart of the bill that we are being asked to vote on.

I am very concerned about crime. In my opinion, the best way of fighting crime is to give police officers the proper investigative tools. The Bloc Québécois is planning to introduce a motion calling for police officers who deal with street gangs and organized crime to be given additional resources to do their job.

Give us some additional conclusive evidence that minimum mandatory penalties do help you to reach your objectives. We would then be better able to assess the situation. However, based on the testimony given here, we cannot make this finding. I don't believe that you have any serious studies to share with us. If you did, I'm sure you would have shared them with us by now.

So then, Mr. Parliamentary Secretary, do you have any probative, conclusive studies that could guide us in our work?

[Rob Moore, Conservative, Fundy Royal, NB]

Thank you, Ms. Jennings.

From the government's perspective, three out of four of the parties around the table today were elected in the last election with a mandate in their platform to bring in measures that target gun crimes. Three of the four—the Liberal, NDP, and Conservative parties—all mentioned increased mandatory minimum sentences in their platforms. It is with a clear mandate from Canadians that this bill, Bill C-10, was brought in. It includes targeted mandatory minimum sentences for serious firearms crime, use offences, serious non-use offences, and non-use offences.

Based on that, that's why we're here today. We've heard extensively from witnesses. I don't think the issue of mandatory minimums targeted at gun crimes is at issue at all among at least three of the four parties, because if we look at what we've been saying all along, it's something we've all committed to do. This bill provides a framework to do that.

Many sentences are targeted, many different mandatory minimums are in place in the bill. What I'm asking is for Madam Jennings or whoever else around the table to say where they'd like to see a change. We're talking about mandatory minimums and we're talking about firearms offences, and that's all this bill touches on. When you have a commitment to increase mandatory minimums for firearms offences, surely there's something in this bill that has merit; there's something in this bill that mirrors what you would have done anyway, or that was your commitment to do.

You mentioned targeted mandatory minimums, targeted penalties for gun crimes, so I'm asking: where do you see that taking place in this bill, and where do you see it perhaps going beyond what you would like to do? Perhaps there's some way we as a committee can address that. That's the approach we want to take.

The difference I see with this bill is that almost everyone around this table came to this Parliament with a commitment to get tough, to increase mandatory minimums on gun crimes. That was the premise, that's the basis, that's the foundation of the bill. We introduced a bill that does just that, and now I'm asking if there's some way you would like to see it changed to accommodate any concerns you have, to bring those forward. What would you like to see in the bill? In your opinion, where does it go too far, and where does it perhaps not go far enough?

[The Chair, Conservative, Art Hanger]

I call the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights to order on Tuesday, February 6, 2007, for a clause-by-clause consideration of Bill C-10 , an act to amend the Criminal Code on minimum penalties for offences involving firearms, and to make a consequential amendment to another act.

With us is the parliamentary secretary to the minister, Mr. Rob Moore; Mr. William Bartlett, senior counsel, criminal law policy section; and Ms. Julie Besner, counsel, criminal policy section.

Pursuant to standing order 75(1), the preamble is postponed in our clause-by-clause consideration. We will begin with clause 1.

Is there any discussion prior to entering into the clause-by-clause consideration?

Monsieur Ménard.

Organized Crime

[Rob Moore, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the hon. member for his question and also for his very hard work on the justice committee.

Gangs and criminal organizations have been growing in size, strength and wealth in this country over the past decade. This government has a very clear legislative package to address this problem. For example, Bill C-10 presently before the justice committee has targeted measures to disrupt criminal enterprises by establishing mandatory minimum sentences for gangsters and organized criminals who use guns, particularly prohibited weapons, to commit violent crimes.

[Sgt Larry Butler]

I'm not sure if any piece of legislation is going to stop anything anywhere. Street gangs, from my experience, are fuelled by a number of things, and I think one of the largest things fuelling it is ego. You can't legislate ego.

I think Bill C-10 is an improvement on the firearms legislation out there now, but as far as street gangs go—and I'm sure Mr. Gordon will agree—the street gang phenomenon goes back to social and economic bases. You spoke about the red and the blue scarves. That's a phenomenon from the L.A. street gangs, the Crips and the Bloods.

As far as a piece of legislation is concerned, I think things can be done in Parliament that will help. I don't think anything's going to stop it.

As far as feeling guilty about somebody getting shot, speaking for Vancouver only, there is such a possibility of that every single night out in the nightclub scene that if you gave us a piece of legislation to arrest and lock up and throw away the key on anybody we think has a gun, I still don't think we'd stop it. The flow of guns into Canada—and I can only speak for British Columbia—is out of control. We are taking offloads of guns in the numbers of 200 and 300 at a time, and they're just going out there on the street. They are expensive, but the drug trade gives people the money to buy these things.

Without getting into a whole lot of other philosophical discussions, I don't think we're going to stop it. We just need some tools to help curb it, but it's going to keep going on. It's a socio-economic thing and largely an ego thing, unfortunately.

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

I don't have a lot of time left.

My question is mainly for Larry Butler. I'd like to hear your view on the following question.

The Province of British Columbia and the Province of Quebec have adopted what, in politics, are called socialist assistance measures. In Quebec, all kinds of preventive measures are in place in an attempt to eliminate organized crime and participation in organized crime. We have free street workers, free psychologists, free psychiatrists, free social workers, shooting galleries where they give out free needles, free arenas and gymnasiums, volunteers to help people, free primary and secondary schools. There are all kinds of things that your province, like our province, provides in order to help the public.

However, barely three weeks ago, in Montreal, a person was walking with a red scarf on. One group, the Blues, shot at him. During the same period, barely three weeks ago, a number of youths who had exchanged songs through YouTube fought each other with guns because one didn't like the other one's song. You're familiar with the same kind of problem in British Columbia.

In my province, there's also a firearms problem. As you know, we've had the three biggest killings, the one at the École Polytechnique de Montréal, the attack on Valery Fabrikant and what happened at Dawson College. We've really had our quota.

Recently, however, a Bloc québécois member published a very good book on street gangs. I don't know whether you've had the opportunity to read it. This book shows that, despite all the free resources for helping youths to avoid getting involved in street gangs — we're told that youths of 12 or 13 belong to street gangs, as is the case in your province — you can currently buy weapons in Montreal in less than half an hour. You can even rent weapons there and return them afterwards. That tells you how big a problem this is.

We're considering Bill C-10. The problem this bill attempts to solve is that there are now 34 active street gangs in Montreal. We were unable to get rid of them, and, in addition, they're growing.

Today there are two philosophies. Either you pardon criminals and find all kinds of explanations, or you try to defend the victims and future victims. Bill C-10 may be the least costly measure that can help you.

I'd like to hear your comments on Bill C-10. You no doubt know that that's why you are here. In your opinion, could Bill C-10 prevent people from being shot at in the street?

We have to know what position to adopt. I don't want to find out tomorrow morning that someone was killed in the street because I made the wrong decision. That's my problem; it's a matter of conscience.

I'd like to know whether you think that Bill C-10 could help you.

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

We'll talk after, yes.

Related to the tools, this has been fantastic today, this much work. In our party we don't think Bill C-10 is going to help you because the judges already have the same maximum penalties now that they can give and this doesn't increase that, but you've given all sorts of great examples. I would suggest that with the arbitrary search related to the warrants, the wiretaps, the proceeds of crimes, there are lots of things we could do.

It might be helpful if, like the Hells Angels, you got your lawyers together to come up with.... Rather than waiting for us, because we and the Department of Justice often get sidetracked on things, propose some draft laws and work with the human rights groups to make sure it's acceptable so they don't come here and trash them. Get the whole package together, present it, and lobby us and the Department of Justice on that with the wording of the laws and everything. You might be able to move faster than by waiting for us. There are all sorts of discussions we could have on that. I'd love to, but we don't have time today. Hopefully we'll do it in the future.

I have a question for Mr. Gordon.

It's interesting talking about crime as a business and the deterrents to this business. I'd like to know from yourself or any of the witnesses if there are international examples of laws that we don't have in Canada now that have successfully provided this deterrent to crime and made it unpalatable so that they've moved to other countries. Obviously a lot of these things don't work in the United States. But are there laws that other countries have that actually have caused organized crime and street gangs to move because it's an unpalatable business decision to stay there?

[Rob Moore, Conservative, Fundy Royal, NB]

The reason I raise that is we are dealing in this committee with Bill C-10, and that's one of the things I think is good about Bill C-10. It targets those who are recidivist, repeat offenders.

We also heard testimony here on mandatory minimum sentences. On the first offence, there's not a whole lot that changes from the current regime. For some firearms offences now, there's a four-year mandatory minimum. Under Bill C-10 there would be a five-year mandatory minimum for some of those offences. If someone after being convicted for that offence goes out and commits another firearms-related crime, then there's an escalation of that mandatory minimum sentence. It's very much directed at what you're talking about, at people who, no matter what we do, are going to continue to commit crimes.

One of the things that was mentioned, and I'd like everyone's comment on this if possible, is when you take those chronic offenders—as you have labelled them—or recidivists off the street, that somehow there's some measurable improvement in public safety.

I know this committee travelled to Toronto and we heard from Chief Blair. He mentioned one operation they had in a neighbourhood in Toronto where, by taking the few offenders--and in every community there are only relatively few to the entire population--off the street for even a short period of time, they saw a marked, measurable improvement and a decrease in crime in that district. Can you comment on that? How important is it to take some of these chronic offenders, who no matter what you do...?

It's remarkable again, when we hear about that case, I think you said it began in 1995 or so, and finally people were sentenced in 2002, some seven or eight years later, only to be back on the street within a matter of months. Can you talk about that?

[Chief Jamie Graham]

Sure, there are a couple of points. Larry covered most of the material I was working on.

As you address the specifics of Bill C-10, I think this was a specific interest that I was asked to bring to this by some of my colleagues. We fully support the minimum and maximum sentence provisions. I think it's three...as it advances. I couldn't tell you how much we support that, as does certainly every police officer who I talk to nationally.

I'm not a lawyer, so I won't try to craft the words that go into legislation, but any time you craft legislation dealing with firearms, we would simply ask you to consider the words “imitation” and “replica” in your dialogue. It means that any time you make an order or there's a prohibition order or a sanction against a firearm, you always have to add the words “imitation or replica” afterwards.

The reason is the huge numbers. We seized, I think, 250 firearms off offenders in Vancouver last year. Ten times that were seized in terms of pellet guns and imitation replica guns. You cannot tell the difference. You've seen it all on TV.

Many times the prohibition orders that are given by the courts will ban an individual for ten years from having firearms or ammunition or explosives, but they leave that replica and imitation.... It's a huge advantage to the police to have that ban in there. We try to seek those at the local level, but to have it enshrined as part of the sanction instead of in a probation order would be very helpful.

The imitation law.... I don't want to harp too much on the imitation replica. In Canada it's an offence to be in possession of an imitation weapon for a purpose dangerous to the public peace. The trouble is that's a very high threshold and it's very hard to prove. So we would like to see almost the reverse onus. If you are in suspicious circumstances and in possession of a replica gun, in the reverse onus you have to explain why you have that gun. This would allow us to deal with the innocent high school kids who have a pellet pistol in their car and mean no harm...to the drug dealers in Vancouver who pull up their shirt to threaten purchasers by flashing an imitation gun.

In Vancouver we lead the country--I'm not proud of this--in armed bank robberies. I think we have three times as many in Vancouver as they do in Toronto, and the majority of them are lone bandits producing an imitation weapon.

In Bill C-10, under clauses 17 to 24, there's a list of offences that are outlined in there, a series of offences. I would simply ask, in addition to the offences that are already articulated, that you consider break and enter and commit.... It sounds like the old break and enter, B and E, of a dwelling house. That's not the case. It's break and enter and commit an indictable offence that would allow us to deal with home invasion. Also conspiracy--anyone charged with conspiracy would fall under the same....

These are just add-on sections that we think would be somewhat helpful to us. I'm sure the lawyers on the committee would help you work that through.

There's a provision in there of transferring gun licences. We would ask that there be a provision in there for an individual to have a thumbprint on a gun licence. It allows an officer on the street to quickly look at an individual's thumbprint and compare it to a licence. You can tell even with the naked eye whether it's the same person. There's an IT solution to how that can be done on these plasticized cards.

I read with interest the Canadian Bar Association...and there were a couple of religious groups, I think, that presented to the committee. Excellent presentations. I disagree with some of the things they said. They had their statistics wrong in a couple of areas. Violent crime in Vancouver is up 6%; it's not down. We are, as I said, the bank robbery capital. We seize hundreds of loaded firearms a year.

I'm very proud that next year will be 40 years in policing for me. I've worked many years with the RCMP, and my colleagues and P.Y. and I are on a couple of committees together at the national level. The support from this committee, at least what I've heard so far, is very positive.

I'll just end this on a more global level. We accept the fact that the best deterrent in the world to offenders is to sow the seed in the mind of the offender that there's a likelihood they'll be caught. That's our biggest deterrent. That's the number-one prevention strategy we have. If two offenders are planning a crime and they know there's a chance they'll get caught, they will not do the crime. They just won't. They'll go elsewhere. The fear of going to jail is not a large deterrent, but I'll tell you, it sure is helpful.

We don't particularly like sending more and more individuals to jail for long sentences, but as Larry pointed out, when they're in jail they do not hurt anyone else for the time they're in jail, and that cannot be overstated.

We have 1,200 officers in Vancouver, and I've got six full-time surveillance teams—full-time. Four of them are strike force teams and two are patrol based. Now, instead of doing global investigations, we track what are called “chronic offender programs”. We identify through various means who the chronic offenders are.

Our definition of a chronic offender is if you commit 12 or more crimes you are arrested for in a year—that's chronic. We have about 80 such offenders now, and we target them; we pick them up one at a time. Once we get to the bottom of the list, we go back to the top and keep getting them. We started off with five indictable offences a year for a chronic offender, and we had 800 such offenders in Vancouver. The pool was too big, so we just moved the goalposts and raised the numbers. That gives you an idea of the level of offenders we deal with and the violence.

Anyway, thank you very much for the opportunity to say a few words. I'd love to be able to answer your questions.

The support is really appreciated.

[Sergeant Larry Butler, Sergeant, Vancouver Police Department]

Mr. Chairman and committee members, I'd like to speak today with a little more concentration on the city police and the street-level focus of organized crime, with a particular focus on firearm aspect.

On the gang demographics a little bit in the Vancouver area,it's a very popular area for gangs, ranging from highly structured international criminal organizations such as the Hells Angels, to lesser known or less obvious gangs, such as Asian Triads, Indo-Canadians, Persians, and the like.

We have approximately well over a hundred Hells Angels within the greater Vancouver area. The other gangs range anywhere from just under a hundred to several hundred members. What we're finding more and more is an ever increasing conflict with respect to the drug distribution network and turf wars, and even clashing on the street just with respect to egos. The levels of violence that we're experiencing are also significantly on the increase. Never in my career have I seen it the way it is becoming in the city of Vancouver. The elicit drug trade amongst these organized crime groups is driving the violence levels through the roof. We're seeing shootings on a regular basis. It's commonplace in the city of Vancouver to go out to nightclubs on any given weekend and find gangsters in the nightclubs, wearing bullet-proof vests. Even the doormen and the staff at the nightclubs are starting to wear body armour just when doing their job in a nightclub, due to the indiscriminate firepower that's on the street and the shootings that have taken place in the city of Vancouver. Of particular concern and interest to us is the new firearm legislation from a city and a street-level point of view.

I'd like to give a couple of examples of some of the recent shootings that we've had in Vancouver, just so you can grasp what is going on in Vancouver. A nightclub in Vancouver called Loft Six, a busy nightclub in the downtown core, was full of patrons on a particular night it, at about two to three in the morning. A conflict erupted between the Hells Angels and Indo-gangsters. On that particular night, there was a shooting between the two gangs. We had nine people shot, six of whom were innocent. We had three people killed and one crippled for life. One of the individuals who was killed and the crippled individual were innocent people caught in the crossfire. Three handguns were used. We recovered two handguns, neither of which were used in the shooting, so there were at least five handguns involved in the nightclub on that particular evening. Of note is the fact that all three suspected shooters from that night are now dead from other shootings. It's just proliferation.

Purple Onion is another Vancouver nightclub, located very close to Loft Six. Again, it's a very busy nightclub, usually full of patrons. A dispute among Asian gang members erupted outside the door. What happened was that a gun was drawn and a young lady stepped between the combatants to try to quell the situation. She ended up getting killed. That night there was one handgun used. Seven people were shot, including three innocent people, with two people killed.

The most recent example was in the greater Vancouver area, in what I would describe as an urban park surrounded by multi-family dwellings, condominiums, and the like. It was a Persian gang conflict, and it was clearly an orchestrated shooting. On that particular night, numerous firearms were fired, including assault rifles and handguns. Approximately 150 rounds were fired in this little melee. Three people were shot and injured. The surrounding townhouses took the brunt of the rounds that were fired, with shots going through people's homes, given the high firepower of the assault weapons. One narrowly missed an infant in a crib.

I can't explain enough the seriousness of the firepower that's being used in Vancouver. I'm not sure if the messages or the media are getting back here with respect to what's going on. In British Columbia last year, we seized over 2,300 firearms. Almost 80% of the shootings were in public places, coming at the cost of human lives, those of innocent people and bystanders. It's not just the gangsters. The gangsters don't seem to be able to shoot that well. Like I said, at Dover Park, 150 rounds were fired and nobody was killed, but three people were injured. There's just indiscriminate firepower out there on the west coast of Canada.

With respect to organized crime legislation, I think Deputy Commissioner Bourduas laid things out very clearly. We agree with everything he has spoken to. As a member of a municipal police department, I can say that these types of large and lengthy investigations are difficult and costly for us to undertake. In British Columbia, we undertake the integrated model that was spoken of. One in particular was focused on the east end chapter of the Hells Angels, Project EPANDORA. That was a partnership led by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, the Vancouver Police Department, and the combined forces special enforcement unit.

This investigation was about a two-year investigation. At the culmination, we ended up seizing what I would describe as the war chest of the east end chapter of the Hells Angels, which included dynamite, blasting caps, hand grenades, fully automatic weapons, silencers, and handguns. The criminal organization legislation was used to its full extent, with the cooperation of the Department of Justice and the regional crown counsel. In that investigation alone, 39 charges of gangsterism were laid, between facilitating, participating, and directing. It's very useful legislation. It's very helpful. But as I say, from the street officers' point of view, we're very concerned with the firearms.

On Bill C-10, the proposed firearms legislation, we're very optimistic with respect to the minimum mandatory sentences that are proposed. I know there are all sorts of studies from all over North America with respect to jailing people for longer periods of time. Does it really help? I think the studies go in both directions. I know from the street level and from the public safety level that if you take the guys who are out there doing the crime off the street for three years for the first offence and five years for the second offence, those are individuals who are not going to be shooting people any longer.

I also think there's a huge deterrent factor when it comes to the younger people who are looking at the gang situation and are trying to decide if they're going to go down that path in life. When one of their brothers goes away for three or five years, I think it does weigh heavily on their thought process.

Again from a street officer's point of view, one thing I would like to suggest or put on the table is a tool that's commonly used by the police, and that's the ability to search an individual when the police officer can illustrate articulable cause sufficient to justify the search, based on the need for preserving the safety of both the individual and the officer involved.

This concept of articulable cause arises out of a peace officer's common-law powers of search and is based largely on case law. The threshold necessary to perform a search of an individual based on articulable cause is reasonable suspicion, which is significantly lower than that of reasonable and probable grounds, as defined by the Criminal Code of Canada. It is still respectful of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The frailty of this is the fact that it's based on case law and not legislation.

As we know, case law has the ability to change dramatically and rapidly, and it can have a sweeping effect through the Canadian court system. It would be interesting and highly beneficial to see Parliament create legislative authority that recognizes the greater good of protecting society over protecting the rights of an individual. This can be accomplished by lowering the threshold to legally search a person of a notorious character and his immediate surroundings, such as an automobile, for a firearm or a weapon dangerous to the public peace, from “reasonable and probable grounds” to “reasonable suspicion”.

In proving reasonable suspicion, numerous factors can be considered, including the individual's previous violent background; gang involvement; location; documented associations with other know violent criminals or gang members; the individual's actions at the time of the investigation; and other relevant information and intelligence. To illustrate this, I would point to one of the enforcement models that we use in the city of Vancouver. On Friday and Saturday nights, we use what we call a firearms interdiction team because of the number of shootings and firearms in Vancouver now. Simply put, this is SWAT members and gang squad members going out and hunting down gangsters, trying to take guns off the street.

One of our biggest tools in this area is articulable cause, where we embark on some type of investigation or lawful detention, such as a Motor Vehicle Act offence or anything, and using articulable cause, we will then search the person and his vehicle. Like I say, it's a valuable tool, but it's based largely on case law, which could be taken away at any time and it would affect officers across Canada.

What would be very valuable is to have it codified by legislation, allowing us not first to need another type of law, such as the Motor Vehicle Act, to initiate the search and work within the laws of Canada. What would be very valuable is to identify this person of notorious character as a gangster, and someone who's most likely got a gun on him or in his vehicle, and that would be good enough for us to initiate the search for guns. Because that's what we're trying to do in the long run, get these guns off the street so they don't kill innocent people.

With respect to the Hells Angels and the effects of the gangsterism laws on these criminal organizations, I would suggest that in Vancouver, the greater Vancouver area, the Hells Angels are really the only ones that are concerned about the gang legislation, as it stands. We all know, and I'm sure you're all aware, that they have a national fund, they call it the C-95 defence fund. They put money into a fund to fight the actual legislation itself. Every member participates, contributes, and that's what they do. They've identified it as a definite threat and they put money towards fighting that threat.

In British Columbia, we have very media-savvy Hells Angels. They're very concerned about their public image. They've actually changed the name of their C-95 defence fund to the West Coast Freedom to Associate Society. It sounds very nice, but basically it's a fund to fight the organized crime legislation.

We find in our Hells Angels trials.... We had a Vancouver police investigation where we convicted two members of the Nomad chapter, Hells Angels, in British Columbia, of conspiracy to traffic cocaine, trafficking cocaine, possession of proceeds of crime. A lot of times the Hells Angels aren't concerned about being found guilty or not. They are under the gang legislation. But we're also finding that their biggest concern is they want to find out how we did things, who was the rat, that type of thing.

And they are masters at delaying the court process. To give you an example, a very short example, of the delay process these guys do, in this case it was a 1996-97 investigation, arrests were in 1998, they were convicted in the Supreme Court of Canada in 2001 and sentenced to four and a half years in prison. They launched an appeal to the B.C. Court of Appeal, and subsequently the Supreme Court of Canada, and these individuals eventually went to jail for four and a half years, commencing November 2005. Eight months later, on a 55-month sentence, one of these individuals is out on parole already. So the time and money spent by the criminal justice system on these individuals is phenomenal. And it was a relatively simple case, nothing like a criminal organization case. That is just to give you an idea of another type of battle that we fight out there with these criminal organization groups, who are masters of delay in the court system.

In summing up, I would just like to say thank you very much for having us here. It's an excellent opportunity to get our point across. As I said, I talked to the fellows at work, and I really wanted to bring a street perspective to the committee, as opposed to the large criminal organization investigative perspective, because I knew that our compatriots here would certainly cover that area and I felt it was important to get more of a street-level perspective. I know all the large cities across Canada are dealing with these similar firearms issues.

Thank you very much.

[Randall Richmond]

I want to start off by saying that I don't have a mandate here to comment on whether Bill C-10 should be adopted or not. I don't have a mandate from the Attorney General of Quebec to come out for or against the bill, so any comments I make on it are purely personal and engage only myself.

But I have had an opportunity to look at Bill C-10. I've also had an opportunity to read many of the transcripts of witnesses who came here in previous meetings of this committee. I can say to you, definitely, I am not against Bill C-10 at all. I was surprised to read in many of the transcripts of other witnesses that the debate seemed to be on whether mandatory minimum sentences are good or not. It surprised me, because in Bill C-10, for almost all the offences that are mentioned there, there already is a mandatory minimum prison sentence, and all that's being done in Bill C-10 is to raise it slightly in the case of restricted and prohibited firearms. In most cases it's an increase of one year for a first offence, and in some cases it's an increase of two years.

The really big increases are for repeat offenders who come back for a second or a third time within a period of 10 years. In the case of someone who hasn't learned his lesson the first time and is repeating within 10 years, I don't think those sentences are abusive.

So it's hard to see this legislation as extreme. I don't think it's extreme in any way. I think it's a serious attempt to try to attack a growing problem—that is, the use of firearms, particularly handguns—and it's true that we've seen that all across the country.

[Sgt Guy Ouellette]

For example, Randall talks with the attorney and asks why he's withdrawn his gangsterism charges. There's a reason for everything. You have to talk and to ensure that the Criminal Code of Canada is uniformly enforced, not because we passed an anti-gang law because there was a biker war in Quebec and because it was a bit different at the time, or because we now want to pass Bill C-10 because things are getting a lot worse in Toronto, where a lot of weapons-related murders have been committed. There's a firearms problem in Alberta, in Edmonton, Calgary and Vancouver, but there's big pressure in Toronto because there was an innocent victim. There were 29 innocent victims during the biker war, and that happened in Quebec. Perhaps we should disregard these things and say to ourselves that, in Canada, we have a Criminal Code, a Charter, laws to enforce, and that it would be preferable that we all work toward the same end.

A Supreme Court judgment in the Stinchcombe case concerns the disclosure of evidence. In the context of the biker bill, the criminals have the 375 CDs concerning disclosure of evidence. In Winnipeg, in the context of Project Defence, the criminals have the 15 CDs also concerning disclosure of evidence. However, when I, as a police officer or expert witness, have to file an application concerning gangsterism and know what was seized in Winnipeg, I have trouble getting what I need, madam. In Ontario, when a request is made in the Lindsay-Bonner affair, a search warrant is necessary in order to conduct a search of the police in Delta, British Columbia, whereas all the bandits in the village have the information. It's nonsensical. We must not give up. We're talking about these things, and that does some good.

[Sgt Guy Ouellette]

It's not that nothing works; it's that we have to use the tools we have and to make the most of them.

As a result of Bill C-10, you're in the forefront with regard to firearms, which is a Canadian, indeed global problem. You are lucky to be at the head of the parade and say that, for offences, things will happen in such and such a way. There's an aggravating factor with criminal organizations.

There are one or two attorneys in Quebec who specialize in street gangs. As for those who specialize in bikers, they belong to a small group called the Organized Crime Prosecutions Bureau.

We indeed all have to work together and acknowledge that we have a problem and that we'll try to improve our communications, to exchange, for example, with the guys from Manitoba.

[Sgt Guy Ouellette, Retired Sergeant, Sûreté du Québec]

I realize I'll have to be very concise in the next 10 minutes, Mr. Chair.

I was a police officer with Sûreté du Québec for 32 years. I've been retired for six years. I'm highly specialized in organized crime, both biker and Aboriginal organized crime. Most of the case law that was prepared for this committee, whether it be the Leclerc decision, the Carrier decision or the Lindsay-Bonner decision, concerns trials in which I had to testify as an expert witness.

The first anti-gang law was passed 10 years ago on May 2. I followed it, and I'm still very much involved at all levels because I still have to testify regularly across Canada in various cases.

I would have liked to tell you about the opportunity I had to write a book, which unfortunately is only available in French. It concerns the president of the Hells Angels, Maurice Boucher. By the way, those who read the Journal de Montréal this morning will see that picture on the front page. They say the Revenue Department will be seizing Mr. Boucher's houses. I want to tell you that the day we think about seizing their assets, we'll have understood that that's their life blood.

Bill C-53, which parliamentarians passed on November 25, 2005, hasn't yet been used by any police force in Canada. Why? I'd like to tell you right off the bat that organized crime very often takes advantage of the fact that the system is disorganized. It's disorganized because police officers don't talk to each other, because federal agencies don't talk to provincial agencies, because Bills C-95 and C-24, which have become the anti-gang laws, were passed because there were gang wars in Quebec. The rest of Canada didn't care; they were killing each other in Quebec.

We have a bill, Bill C-10, on firearms. Why? Because people are shooting guns in Toronto. And last year in Toronto, 52 murders were committed with firearms, including that of a young girl, Jane Creba, on December 26. Now there's pressure, and we're going to amend the Criminal Code of Canada because, I'm telling you and I repeat, it's the Criminal Code of Canada, not that of Quebec or Ontario.

We've had quite extraordinary results — Mr. Richmond told you about that — with regard to convictions for gangsterism in Quebec. I'd like us to do the same thing in Ontario, Manitoba and Alberta.

You'll be hearing from someone from the Vancouver police department two days from now. Do the same thing for Vancouver, and you'll see that there have been very few gangsterism convictions there. You'll realize that, in the other Canadian provinces, when charges are laid for offences under Bill C-24 and C-95, they are withdrawn in exchange for a guilty plea on drug trafficking charges. That's what's called plea bargaining. It has a harmful effect.

I have two examples to cite on this point: one occurred in Ottawa and concerns the Hells Angels Nomads, who are based in Ottawa, in your beautiful city; the other one occurred in Oshawa, another project of an Ontario police department. The guy is going to be sentenced to six years for drug trafficking. But we have the Canadian Conditional Release Act. On a first sentence for drug trafficking, an individual is eligible for parole after serving one-sixth of his sentence; that's called accelerated parole review. As a result, a guy who is sentenced to six years can get out of prison after one year.

What's been done? If he had been convicted on gangsterism charges, the penalty would have been longer, harsher, but we could have asked that he at least serve half his sentence. That would delay his conditional release by the same length of time and would send a message. However, the message we're sending right now is this: we're charging you with engaging in gangsterism, but someone in British Columbia, the president of the Hells Angels, is filing an application to challenge the wording of section 467.11 because it isn't clear. Oops! Another trial is being held in Quebec in which lawyer Benoît Cliche is also challenging section 467.11. And now the blows are coming from everywhere. If you need information that the Vancouver police department has gathered as part of their investigation, I can't give it to you.

It's very, very hard to exchange information. That goes as far as it went in the Lindsay-Bonner case, which you have in your case law report. The Ontario Provincial Police was required to go and execute a search warrant in the exhibit vaults of a British Columbia police department to obtain evidence that would help it convict criminals on gangsterism charges.

We have to stop making up stories, splitting hairs and believing that we're good and nice. We'll be able to deal with organized crime if we talk to each other and if everyone in the system works together.

You parliamentarians have to decide on the fate of Bill C-10. You're leading the parade. You'll have to decide, to conduct a clause-by-clause consideration of a bill on firearms. Thank you! You're giving police agencies tools. Now they have to use them. Thank you! You're giving Crown attorneys tools. Now they have to use them.

Before Bill C-10, section 95 of the Criminal Code contained a provision stipulating that the minimum penalty for possession of a firearm was one year in prison, if the holder was charged with an indictable offence. But only a fine is provided for if the individual is found guilty on summary conviction. I'll tell you that, in my 10 years of fighting organized crime very closely with the units in the field, in a number of cases, people are charged under the summary conviction procedure in order to avoid work, save time and avoid a trial. So the criminals pulled up, took out their little case and paid the clerk their little fine. And we had to start all over again!

As regards gangsterism charges, subsection 515(6) of the Criminal Code provides that it is up to the accused to provide evidence in order to obtain his release, to give the system guarantees. It wasn't normal that there was an extensive operation in Toronto in which 125 individuals related to street gangs such as Jane Finch and another, the Jamestown Crew, were arrested. It wasn't normal that, for the vast majority of these people, it was the third time this year that they were arrested because they hadn't been charged with gangsterism and that the justice system had released them for all kinds of reasons.

For the majority of people who are charged in Quebec, there are automatic release investigations, particularly as regards organized crime. Moreover, I would say that, in more than 60 or 70 percent of cases, people will be detained following their release investigation, which is conducted with the assistance of police officers, experts and so on.

We have another problem in Canada. We want to have laws, we want to have a lot of things, but we have a big file on the Italian mafia. I checked with Claude a little earlier: we don't have an expert witness who can testify in order to prove gangsterism.

I've been retired from the Sûreté du Québec for six years, but I don't have a successor. I'm retired. When you retire, you're supposed to be at home in a rocking chair watching the cars go by your house. But they call me regularly because they have a problem and have to provide evidence of gangsterism. It takes an expert witness who is able to tell the story. So organizations have to provide for that.

It's not normal for a guy like Harry Delva, who, as he told you, is in the field in Montreal North and Ville Saint-Michel to tell you that, every day, in the pool of emerging street gangs, he sees youths of five, six, nine, 10 and 15 years of age, which corresponds to the real police definition of street gangs. However, every six months, he's forced to fight with various departments in order to authorize a program to train a successor. There's nothing permanent in his work, and he has no security. However, it's announced that there will be 2,500 police officers or more and $10 million to invest in prevention programs. Bu, every six months, he is forced to fight for $90,000 in funding. And yet he's the one who has them in his face every day.

I'll conclude by telling you that, in the few minutes you've allotted me, organized crime has fought the disorganized system. The day we manage to regularize the situation and work together just a little bit, there will be no more criminals. I wrote in my book that I find it hard to understand why 15,000 police officers can't control 150 bikers. The answer is simple: we all have to work on the same side and stop fighting over details. Give us the tools we need, and the police officer in the street will make his observations, the investigator will investigate, the attorney will do his job, the judge will decide, the conditional release guy will manage the sentence, and you'll pass laws to help those people. You have a social responsibility toward the citizens of Canada. But there won't be any difference between a gangsterism crime committed in Quebec and another committed in British Columbia, and no one in British Columbia...

Only three years ago, in 2003, the Hells Angels did a big national run in British Columbia. Quebec police officers who went to help their British Columbia colleagues were told that, if one of them was seen monitoring a Hells Angels member, he'd be put back on an airplane and sent home. Such is the fight against organized crime in Canada. I don't want to be very negative, because I still like doing what I do, and I still say yes when I'm asked to go and testify, but I think we have to stop thinking that we're good, that we're nice and that everything is going to solve itself. We all really have to work together.

You represent different ridings in Canada. Apart from Mr. Bagnell, from the Yukon, where the British Columbia Hells Angels go from time to time, all of you have horror stories to tell, whether it be about the Hells Angels in Windsor, the Bandidos in London, street gangs and bikers in Moncton, or about Asian street gangs that do drive-by shootings in Calgary. The same thing is going on in Montreal with the Haitians. The same is true anywhere else in Canada.

So from the moment we work together, we'll achieve good results. Thank you.

[Randall Richmond, Deputy Chief Prosecutor, Organized Crime Prosecutions Bureau, Department of Justice (Quebec)]

Thank you very much.

My name is Randall Richmond. I have been a lawyer and a prosecutor since 1983, and prosecutor for the Province of Quebec since 1988.

I began pleading organized crime cases in the 1990s and I worked in the Proceeds of Crime Bureau (BLPC) from its inception in 1996. In 2000, when the Quebec Ministry of Justice created the Organized Crime Prosecutions Bureau (BLACO), I was named deputy chief of this office, a position that I still hold today.

In addition to my administrative and supervisory responsibilities, I personally pleaded the cases borne from the shooting for journalist Michel Auger. I also pleaded the trial borne of Operations Springtime 2001 and implicating the Hells Angels Nomad Donald Stockford and his associate, the former Hells Angels national president, Walter Stadnick.

The minutes of proceedings of the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights indicate that the committee wishes “to examine the overall effect on gangsterism of Bills C-94 and C-24, adopted in 1997 and 2001”.

As a practitioner specialized in organized crime cases, I can say without any hesitation that the legislative changes brought about by Bills C-95 and C-24 have been extremely helpful and have had a significant impact on our fight against organized crime in Quebec. We have used the tools provided to us by these two bills on a regular basis and continue to do so.

The changes that have been most useful to us can be summarized as follows: wire taps are available more easily and for longer periods of time; infiltration of criminal organizations is easier; pre-trial custody is easier to secure; sentences are longer; and convicts have to serve more time in jail before being released on parole.

Quebec was the first province to apply these new measures and remains the one that has applied them the most. In the Organized Crime Prosecutions Bureau alone, we have charged over 1,000 people since 2001, due in great part to the tools provided by C-95 and C-24 which facilitated the investigations. The acquittal rate in these cases is less than two percent.

Among these people, many were charged with gangsterism, either in its original form as provided by C-95 or in the form modified by C-24.

Since the creation of the Organized Crime Prosecutions Bureau, its prosecutors have secured the convictions of 286 people for criminal organization charges.

Consequently, we have met the following objectives.

First, end the biker gang war that caused 174 deaths and 150 attempted murders.

Second, break up and put an end to the Quebec Nomads chapter of the Hells Angels as well as the puppet club, the Rockers, by securing sentences of 20 years in prison for the Nomads and 15 years for the Rockers, on average.

Third, suppress crime by the Hells Angels across Quebec. Consequently, as of 2005, half of the Hells Angels in Quebec had been neutralized because they were either in jail, on parole, or on the run.

Fourth, break up and put an end to the Bandidos biker club all across Quebec.

Other beneficial effects of our work are worth mentioning: putting an end to biker impunity, putting an end to the climate of fear, and exposing the true nature of the criminal biker gangs. Obviously these results cannot be explained exclusively by the new anti-gang provisions of Bill C-95 and Bill C-24. They must be attributed to the combined effect of the legislative changes with other measures, such as the creation of specialized police task forces, with the participation of different police agencies; lengthy police investigations that targeted whole criminal organizations; the use of civil infiltration agents; the creation of specialized teams of prosecutors, such as the Proceeds of Crime Bureau in 1996 and the Organized Crime Bureau in 2000; the construction of the Grouin Judicial Services Centre; and the renovation of several courtrooms around Quebec, which allowed for the instruction of several mega-trials in different places at the same time.

The results obtained demonstrate that it is possible to prove gangsterism, but one should not conclude that it is easy to do so. On the contrary, it can be arduous. In almost all of the cases where we have charged gangsterism, this came after lengthy investigations of 12 to 24 months, during which wiretapping and physical surveillance were carried out and prosecutors were involved as legal advisers during the investigations.

In addition, in 90% of the cases, the prosecution had at its disposition a special witness, that is, an informant witness or a civil infiltration agent. The special witness facilitates the proof of gangsterism, because he has been a member of that organization and has participated in its activities. He can, therefore, testify to the existence of the organization, its structure, its hierarchy, the identity of its members, and its criminal activities.

A notable exception to this is the recent case of R. v. Aurélius, where 15 people were convicted, including five for charges of gangsterism, without the help of a special witness. In this groundbreaking case, the first to convict a street gang of gangsterism, the prosecution had to rely on evidence from wiretaps, physical surveillance, and about 40 drug purchases made by police undercover officers. It goes without saying that all of these investigative techniques can be expensive.

In conclusion, proving gangsterism with the present legislation is indeed possible, but the necessary resources must be available for investigation and prosecution.

With regard to Bill C-10, it is likely that for most prosecutions of a crime committed with a firearm, proving the use of a restricted or prohibited firearm will be easier than proving a connection with a criminal organization. However, there are cases where long-barrelled guns are used by criminal organizations; for example, see the case of R. v. Rodrigue at the Supreme Court of Canada in 2005. There are other cases where firearms are used in crime, but never found by the police, which can make it more difficult to prove the use of a restricted or prohibitive firearm than to prove the connection to a criminal organization.

So there are indeed circumstances where the connection to a criminal organization can be seriously considered as an aggravating factor in sentencing for a crime committed with the use of a firearm.

Thank you.

[Royland Moriah]

It's a broad question in some senses, because when you're talking about discretion under Bill C-10, there are a couple of things. First is the general issue of whether or not people believe judges are using appropriate discretion in dealing with sentencing issues. That's one of the things underlying some of the discussion we're having here about Bill C-10, and certainly about the push to implement mandatory minimums.

What we have to think about first when we're talking about judges' discretion is that they are experts to some extent in the field they're working in. They were appointed through a very good process in Canada in terms of the way we decide who our judges are going to be. So even though they are appointed, it's a very open and transparent process that is not as political as a politician choosing a particular person.

In terms of the actual use of that discretion, we have to realize judges' discretion covers a number of areas, as you've said, and particularly in sentencing you have to realize we're talking about mandatory minimums. But as some of my colleagues have said several times today, judges can always implement a range of sentences. The issue is whether or not we believe they're doing so appropriately and whether mandatory minimums will be the panacea to make sure they do so. From the information we have available, that doesn't happen, because what happens is the discretion judges have in terms of charging and determining sentences merely gets transferred to another player within the judicial system, whether it be the police or the prosecutors. What we have to think about first is that judges have the ability to give at least that mandatory minimum sentence, but they also have the ability to give a larger sentence.

What we have to be concerned about particularly for the African Canadian community, recognizing we have racism within our criminal justice system, is that any exercise of discretion should be done in an open and transparent manner. That's particularly important in sentencing because you have the ability to review sentences, to appeal them, to determine whether or not they are appropriate in any given circumstance. Unfortunately, when you have mandatory minimums that shift the judicial discretion to police and prosecutors, that process is no longer available, and that's particularly problematic for communities such as African Canadians, such as aboriginal communities that have disproportionately borne the brunt of a discriminatory use of discretion within the criminal justice system.

So, yes, we want to make sure judges use their discretion appropriately, but we have to realize they have processes available to do that. They have minimum and maximum sentences they can impose. More importantly, it's important that whoever is exercising that discretion is doing so in an open and transparent way that can reviewed.

[Royland Moriah]

I don't know that I'll dwell on it anymore, but I think I'm going to reiterate what my colleagues have said.

Certainly, and especially in the African Canadian community, we want people who are using guns to be off the street. I will make that very clear to you. We share in our community the same frustration, because it is mostly members of our community who are being killed.

However, in addressing how we're going to do that, we think it's important to look at what effective strategies we have and whether the strategy we've chosen is going to work. And in terms of what the public has asked for, it is not necessarily Bill C-10. What they have asked for is safety from guns and gangs and violence. That's why we're here today to tell you that mandatory minimums are not an adequate response to guns and gangs and violence.

[Dr. Anthony Doob]

Well, I think the issue is whether you want to do something that's effective or whether you want to do something that might, for a moment, look good. It seems to me that the evidence is overwhelming that what you're going to be doing if you pass this bill is telling the public that something effective is being done when the evidence is clear that we're working in the other direction.

Why does the public want mandatory minimums or tougher laws and so on? They want them because they've been told repeatedly by this Parliament and others that mandatory minimums are the way to solve the problem of crime. This is not a party issue. All three national parties have endorsed mandatory minimums at one point or another. I'm against all three of those parties for that.

I think what one has to do is to ask what it is we can do that will actually do something. So again, to repeat what was just said, getting the gangs and the guns off the street has nothing to do with sentencing. We all agree that's good. We all agree that the sentences that are available in the Criminal Code allow people to be put away for serious crimes for a long period of time.

What you're asking is whether the promise that is explicit in Bill C-10 is a legitimate promise. I am telling you it is not.

[Myron Thompson, Conservative, Wild Rose, AB]

What is your suggestion? Am I out of line by suggesting to you folks that you're not addressing Bill C-10 and that you're addressing the bigger picture? That's fine. I think there's a time to do that, but specifically, the public wants something done in Toronto, Montreal, and other cities. Get the gangs and guns off the streets and help protect our society.

[Myron Thompson, Conservative, Wild Rose, AB]

Thank you all for being here.

Welcome, Mr. King, from my home country before I emigrated to Canada in the 1960s. Of course, by looking at you I can see I probably spent my 32 years down there when you were but a twinkle in your mom and pop's eyes. But I'd like to welcome you.

I was kind of pleased to see Mr. Doob with his charts. I think it's always interesting to go back to the 1960s. I think it's also good to go back to the 1920s, you know, this steady incline and then sort of leveling and peaking and all that sort of stuff. I find it really interesting.

Most of the witnesses that we have here I think and what we as politicians are trying to do is answer the pleas of the public. Too many people are dying because of guns and gangs. What are you guys going to do about it? We want these people off the street.

If you ask the public what we should do with these people who are shooting people in Toronto, probably almost 100% will say “Put them in jail.” “Are you willing to pay for more jails? Are you willing to pay the extra costs? Absolutely. I want my kids safe.”

Now, we're talking about a very focused thing in this Bill C-10. We're not talking about a broad range of how we should deal with this. The police like what we're doing. The victims are supporting what Bill C-10 is doing. And I think the public at large is appreciating what we are doing.

People like yourselves come in, and I understand you want to get to the root cause as well. I've talked about the root causes a hundred times. You don't really want to get to the root causes with these issues, but if you did, then you would do something about alcohol. It's a major cause. They tell me that 80% of the people wouldn't be in prison today if it weren't for booze and drugs. I don't know if any of you can, but I can't think of one root cause that justifies anybody picking up a gun and shooting somebody. I cannot think of a root cause that would justify that.

Through that chart, Mr. Doob, that you've shown, we've already made a lot of decisions that help make that climb. I'm talking about the days in the States when they had 21 years for drinking. It went down to 18 for awhile; all hell broke loose in the schools, and now I think they're back to 21 all across the States. They're trying to do something about root causes. I appreciate that.

I'm trying to point out.... In Warkworth Penitentiary out here, it's full of sexual offenders. The last time I was there--I believe you were here that time with me, Mr. Chairman--there were 745 sexual offenders in this place. I visited with lots of the inmates. Of those who sexually attacked the children, almost to a man, they wouldn't be there had they not got hooked on child pornography. They started overusing it, and they got to the point where they had to act out their fantasies, driven by child pornography.

So you come here and you try to fight child pornography, but the government for the last thirteen years has brought things forward and the courts have decided, “Well, that's not quite good because it might infringe on our freedom of expression. Well, you can't do it that way because there might be some artistic merit. Well, there might be some public good. Well, it might serve a useful purpose.”

I think going to the root causes is a futile exercise in this country because we're forever worried about somebody's rights being infringed on, so we never get the job done. For thirteen years now I've asked the government of the past, and I'm asking this government today, to come up with something and get to the root cause of those kinds of offences. Stamp out child pornography. It's not getting anywhere because somewhere some court will decide, “Wait a minute, that doesn't meet the charter test, or that isn't exactly the right thing to do because you'll infringe on....”

My whole message to you folks is that I appreciate you being here, but I don't think you're really focusing enough on the issue of Bill C-10. The public outcry is, “Do something about gangs and guns”, and it's very focused. I think it certainly is not the answer to all the crime that is happening. It's maybe not going to reduce crime, but those who are in jail are not going to do it again.

It's an effort by the politicians to try to accomplish something that (a) the public wants, because we're the servants of the public, and (b) the victims want, because I happen to have a lot more concern about victims than I do about criminals, and (c) is the right thing to do.

If it can be done better, we've got to work at that as time progresses, but we need an immediate answer to guns and gangs and crime, and I think it has to be found through Bill C-10. We can talk about all the issues that we've talked about, but they will not stop if we don't take some serious, concrete action.

[Dr. Anthony Doob]

What I would like to see is a debate about how we should use limited resources to deal with crime. The problem with firearms is not a problem we're having only in Canada. It's a problem that's occurring in other places. What we really need to do about firearms—and obviously I'm not saying anything very important—is to stop people from having them and stop people from carrying them.

What we're really talking about, even if we move to a deterrence model, is looking for ways to apprehend people who have them or keep people from having them. That has to do with catching people, and catching people is unfortunately a lot harder than simply changing laws and fiddling with penalties.

I would say to move away from the penalty structure, because we have plenty of harsh laws that deal with serious crimes having to do with firearms. After all, if it's a prohibited or restricted weapon, what we're talking about at most on a first offence is moving it from four years to five years. I don't think we know many people who would commit an offence for four years but not for five years. It's a silly argument.

What we have to do is think of it in terms of the suppression of firearms, but let's also look at what it is that makes people carry firearms. One of the difficulties—and there is certainly some evidence of this—is that people carry weapons in part because they are frightened of other people carrying weapons. What we have to do is address our communities and address these things. These are much harder. It is a much harder task to do. It's not an area that I would consider to be part of my expertise, but in reading the gang literature from places like Los Angeles, which has very serious gang problems, when the experts there are worried about the narrow approaches we use, all I can say is that their narrow approaches look very much like the narrow approaches we're using.

We have to approach these in a broader fashion. We're not going to solve the problem of gun crime by passing a simple law like Bill C-10. I would say that if this committee wanted to look into this issue about how best to use resources, that would be a very good program for the committee to take on.

[Réal Ménard, Bloc, Hochelaga, QC]

I'm sorry to have missed your presentations. But, today in the House of Commons, there was a debate on re-opening the same sex marriage issue, and I had to make a speech.

I am very pleased to meet Mr. Doob. I have been hearing about you for years now, and I am a strong admirer of what you have produced. I read the study that the Clerk forwarded to us, in which you identify everything that has been written about the deterrence factor associated with minimum mandatory sentences, and you suggest that in that respect, there is absolutely no evidence that they do. But that is not exactly what I would like to discuss with you today.

I believe it has been proven that minimum mandatory sentences do not serve the objectives for which people claim that they are needed and that there is no connection between minimum mandatory sentences and deterrence. I also believe that the government is motivated by ideology alone and that there is no scientific rigour in Bill C-10. Finally, the best thing that could happen would be for Bill C-10 to be defeated by the Committee, right here.

In addition, I would like to know how we can tackle the problem of violence perpetrated by certain street gangs and to what extent we know what the effect of legislation passed to tackle gangsterism has been effective. As you may recall, we passed sections 466, 467 and 468 of the Criminal Code, which now refers to gangsterism.

Does any one of you have suggestions to make with respect to the whole question of guns and gangsterism, smuggling and street gangs? Are you able to share any information with us that could help us refocus the debate on more effective, more inspired actions?

[Dr. Anthony Doob]

In terms of the deterrent issue, he focused largely on Steven Levitt's work. Steven Levitt is, as I said, in large part because of the book Freakonomics, a very well-known person. There are very serious concerns above and beyond this particular study that Professors Webster and Zimring and I did. There are very serious problems that have been raised about a number of different things that Steven Levitt has done, including things like simply not presenting the results of analyses, which are in fact the ones that he describes. Conveniently, certain variables are left out of the equation, which changes dramatically what his findings are.

Mr. Lee, in terms of deterrence, depended largely on two things. One was Steven Levitt's assessment, which I'm saying is fundamentally flawed in large part because of the rather cavalier fashion in which he deals with data, and the second one is the issue of Florida. I couldn't tell from the PowerPoint when it was, and I wasn't able to find on the web the transcription of this committee, so I wasn't able to see when it was Mr. Lee indicated that the change in the law in Florida happened.

The two figures I have here are from a much more detailed study than Mr. Lee's study, because what it did is not only just plot the crime during the 1990s, but it also did quite a sophisticated statistical analysis on overall crime, on violent crime, on homicides, on homicides with firearms, and, again, found no evidence whatsoever.

To answer your question, I go back to Mr. Lee's testimony before you, and I wonder what it was he was saying. These are all public domain articles in refereed journals that are available on the web. These are not in obscure places; they are in the major journals in criminology. He presented information to you that was accurate in the sense that he and I are talking about the same overall trend in Florida crime. The figure I presented from a research piece happened to have in it when the law changed, and it also went back further. My feeling is that what you have to do is look at the overall figure. I think when you do that you see very different things.

Similarly, for example, saying crime is higher than it was in 1962, we do know that. There is no question of that. The question is, what's the relevance of that to Bill C-10? It seems to me that one has to say not whether crime is going up or crime is going down. I would be making exactly the same arguments to you about mandatory minimums whether crime was going up or down. That's not relevant. They either work or they don't. It doesn't matter whether crime is going up. If it's going up or down, we should be doing something.

To go back to the earlier question that was put to me, it does seem to me that when we have 600-and-something murders a year in Canada, that's too many. I don't care if it's already going down; I'd argue it's too many. So we can have fewer maybe in 2006 than we did in 2005, but that doesn't make me feel any better. We should be looking for effective ways of dealing with crime whichever direction it's going.

Mr. Lee was dependent on, in a sense, saying crime is out of control and we've got to do something. We've got to do something, but let's do it effectively.

[Royland Moriah]

I'll focus perhaps a little bit on the issue of the different strategies we can use. I'd like to make it clear right away that given the impact that gun and gang violence has had on the African Canadian community, we certainly are in favour of strong laws that do protect us from people who are using guns. We are a community that has been primarily impacted by gun violence, and I think I would do a disservice to my community if I said to you that it's not important to us. However, I think what we need to do is think critically about what we're trying to accomplish here. What we are trying to accomplish is safety for communities.

You did mention the importance of safety for victims as well. What we're trying to do is accomplish that through mandatory minimums, which is a system that we know does not work. So it's very hard for us to give suggestions on something that we know doesn't work. I think that's fundamentally the problem right now. You're asking us to give you some sort of idea of how we can improve a piece of legislation that fundamentally is flawed. As I said, we need to step back from that, and we need to look at the criminal justice system as a whole, as an important part of this process, because it is important, and recognize that we also have systems in place within the criminal justice system that are working. Part of that, as Mr. Kulik said, is the idea that judges are there to judge and can make decisions, in particularly heinous crimes, that somebody needs to be locked up.

It's not that I'm against that; it's just that we have to look at the processes we're using to make sure they are going to be effective, to make sure that our communities are safe. And we believe that Bill C-10 doesn't do that.

[Rob Moore, Conservative, Fundy Royal, NB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to all the witnesses for appearing. I've listened with interest to all of your testimony.

I want to read something from Statistics Canada this past year that says that the national homicide rate rose for the second straight year in 2005, reaching its highest point in nearly a decade. Firearms-related killings increased for the third year in a row. There were 658 homicides last year, 34 more than in 2004. Of these, 222 were committed with a firearm, up from 173. They report that 107 homicides were believed to be gang-related in 2005, 35 more than in 2004. Two-thirds of gang-related homicides involved a firearm, most often a handgun.

What all that tells me is that it's beyond dispute, in my opinion, that what we're doing currently is working. That's what it tells me. I'm not satisfied with those statistics, and I think we can do a lot better.

Mr. Moriah, I listened with interest to what you had to say, and some other witnesses have made the same point. A piece of legislation can't be the be-all and end-all. We have to work from all angles to tackle the problem. I agree with you.

I think Mr. Doob or someone mentioned jobs, opportunities. No one is against those things. We're all in favour of jobs, opportunities, and resources. Some of the things we've done have been to put more law enforcement officers on the streets and at the border, dedicate resources to help prevent crime, and focus specifically on preventing at-risk youth from getting involved in street gangs and drugs.

We can do all those things, but I haven't heard from any of the witnesses that there's any place at all for the Criminal Code. I didn't hear any suggestions of how we can make this bill better. You say you're against the bill, but we do in fact have a Criminal Code that deals with a situation when, despite all our best efforts, someone has taken a gun and shot someone.

We can talk about root causes all we like and we can go back as far as we like, but at that moment that someone has taken a gun and shot someone, I don't think we should make excuses for that person. At that point, there's a role for the criminal justice system, I believe. Some of you may disagree, but I'd like to hear what you propose. What role do you see for criminal justice?

I'll give you all an opportunity to speak to that.

I do have to mention something. Concerning Dr. Levitt, we've heard testimony that mandatory minimums do deter, and we've heard testimony that they don't. Dr. Levitt, of course, is not here to defend himself. He was one of Time Magazine's 100 people who shape our world, for 2006. He is a senior fellow for the American Bar Foundation. Without him here to defend his own work, I don't quite take what my colleague Mr. Bagnell said, that all evidence that this would work has been debunked. I think you've made arguments on one side. There's other work on the other side. I would like some comment on that.

Mr. Kulik, you said your organization supported Bill C-68, and you oppose this Bill C-10. Bill C-68 was, overall, misguided. I think history now, after ten years, has looked at it as a total failure. The problem with Bill C-68 is that it went after law-abiding citizens and said you have to line up and register your duck gun, and it ignored gangs that use handguns on the streets. Those people did not register their gun. The evidence that I just cited from Statistics Canada says people continue to get handguns.

We talk about resources and what this bill will cost. Bill C-68 has cost over $1 billion. Imagine what we could have done with $1 billion wasted registering people's legal firearms. I have to say, on the cost associated with Bill C-10, firearm cases are, I think we'd all agree, very serious incidents, but they represent less than 1% of the national caseload. So what we're talking about overall, globally, in cost, we have to put in perspective.

I've touched on a number of bits of your testimony, I think all of you, except Mr. King.

I do want to mention one thing. This is not an American three-strikes rule. I appreciate hearing the American perspective, but this bill is focused on specific crimes. Gangs committing crimes with handguns--that's where the problem is. It's not a broad three-strikes rule. We don't have broad application of mandatory minimum sentences. It's very focused. And we've seen evidence that says when you have very focused use of mandatory minimums, it works, because it takes those who continue to commit crimes off the street.

So I'd appreciate all your comments on your testimony.

[Irving Kulik, Executive Director, Canadian Criminal Justice Association]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you for inviting us here to give testimony regarding Bill C-10.

I believe you all have received the French and English versions of our presentation.

This afternoon, I would like to give you a brief summary of what has already been presented. I hope you don't mind.

I am the Executive Director of the Canadian Criminal Justice Association. Before assuming this position, I worked for the Correctional Service of Canada for 35 years. For most of those years, I held senior positions.

The Canadian Criminal Justice Association is one of the longest-serving, non-governmental organizations of professionals and individuals interested in criminal justice issues in Canada. The CCJA began its work in 1919, and it has testified before this committee on numerous occasions.

Our association consists of over 700 members. It publishes the Canadian Journal of Criminology and Criminal Justice, the Justice Report, the Justice Directory of Services, and the Directory of Services for Victims of Crime. We also organize the Canadian Congress on Criminal Justice every two years.

We are not an advocacy group for offenders. Our mission is to promote a humane, equitable, and effective criminal justice system. We support research-based and reasoned policies that lead to such an effective criminal justice system for Canada.

Mr. Chairman, our association welcomes the initiative of this government in putting forward a proposal designed to deal with the problem of gun crime. Our concern with needless deaths of Canadians as a result of gun crimes goes back decades. Indeed, our organization provided testimony to the subcommittee on firearms control, on then Bill C-17, in August 1991. In that brief, we hoped that our recommendations would lead to a reduction in criminal activity involving firearms, a reduction of unnecessary deaths, and better control of firearms.

In May 1995, we provided evidence to the justice and legal affairs committee concerning Bill C-68, an act respecting firearms and other weapons. We supported the passage of that bill, with the exception of mandatory prison terms. I quote:

Our association has a long history of opposing mandatory sentences. Of course, the sanctions fail to take into consideration individual characteristics of the offence as well as that of the offender. They tend to shift discretion away from judicial officers toward the police and prosecutors. They increase populations in overcrowded penitentiaries. They are often the subject of plea negotiations. They undermine the totality rule in sentencing and they often increase both the costs and time of litigation in our courts.

Finally, the evidence isn't clear that mandatory prison sentences deter those planning to use a weapon in the commission of a crime.

It would appear that certain problems and deemed solutions are intractable.

Today I'm here to tell you that, with respect, our association has some grave reservations concerning Bill C-10. I will outline them briefly and look forward to your questions and comments.

First we need to ask ourselves what we are trying to accomplish with new legislation. Obviously, the government is attempting to implement new measures in order to ensure greater safety for Canadians. Every Canadian should agree with this intent. As a citizen, as a father, and as a husband, I want to be sure that my family and my neighbours are as safe as can be. How safe? Based upon what we read in the newspapers, probably safer. I want to be sure that they can go about freely wherever they need to be—be it in school, shopping, or at work--without fearing assault or injury.

So how does Bill C-10 intend to do this? By increasing the criminal sanctions for offences involving firearms. We already have mandatory minimum sentences for about 40 criminal offences, including a number for gun crimes, that were instituted in 1995. How well are they working? Are they not harsh enough and thus potentially leading to the commission of more crimes?

I can tell you that in 12 years of direct daily contact with inmates, I never met one who indicated that he would not have committed a crime had the potential sentence been longer. Few ever remarked that they used complex decision-making models, dependent upon the length of sanction, before committing a crime.

Evidence presented here today by us and others, and that we cited in our paper, demonstrates that there is no relationship between the length of a sentence, in particular a mandatory sentence, and deterrence of crime. If anything, it is a certainty of apprehension and rapid sanction that may deter a criminal act.

What then is left but greater harshness of punishment? If that is the case and the intent of the legislation, we need to turn to an enormous meta analysis that reviewed 111 studies, involving 442,000 offenders, which was carried out by Paul Gendreau and his correctional research colleagues in 2002, on behalf of the Solicitor General of Canada. This study seemed to indicate that, if anything, harsher punishment may have led to a 3% increase in recidivism. Again, as has been cited, many of the jurisdictions that evoke the harshest punishment, including the death penalty, have the highest rates of violent crime.

Bill C-10 will further blur the lines between police, prosecutors, and judiciary. By further moving judicial discretion and sentence determination, discretion will be enhanced for police in charging and for crown counsel in prosecuting offences. The impact will be more plea bargains for those who are less guilty but fearful of mandatory minimum sentences--as has been stated a moment ago by my colleague--and as well, curiously, lengthy trials for those who might normally admit their guilt were it not for a lengthier mandatory sentence.

We need to reiterate the impact this will have on the correctional side of criminal justice as well. Obviously, the number of inmates will increase. At the provincial and federal levels, it will lead to even greater burdens on overcrowded facilities, more double-bunking, and increased risk to staff and defenders.

Programs that have a positive impact in safely reintegrating offenders will become even harder to obtain in a timely fashion, because mandatory sentences have a negatively differential impact on the disadvantaged. We can expect a further increase in the number of offenders who would best be served by the mental health system rather than the correctional one. The proportion of aboriginal offenders will grow further, even though they're already overrepresented by a factor of six or seven in penitentiaries relative to the Canadian population at large. The number of incarcerated aboriginal women in particular will continue to expand beyond all reason.

Finally, Mr. Chairman, we need to consider the cost of more inmates serving longer sentences. Certainly one could say that no cost to ensure public safety is too great. However, if the measures adopted do not work or, worse, have the opposite effect, then the expenses incurred are wasted money and wasted resources that can better be used for Canadians' health care, educational opportunities, and other social needs, which will also in fact assist those communities that suffer daily from the effects of crime. It's by investing in these causes that we can indeed have a positive impact in reducing crime and assuring public safety.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Although I made most of my presentation in English, I will be very pleased to answer any questions in French.

[Royland Moriah, Policy Research Lawyer, African Canadian Legal Clinic]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you very much for the opportunity to appear before the committee today. My name is Royland Moriah. I'm the policy research lawyer at the African Canadian Legal Clinic. With me today is Charlene Theodore.

I'd like to apologize at the outset for not having our written submissions. I know there obviously was an issue with Mr. Doob's submission, at least with respect to his slide not being available or translated. Unfortunately, ours isn't translated yet, but I have spoken to the clerk and she has assured me that it will be done and will be available to the members of the committee as soon as possible. I would urge you to contact me if you do have any specific questions with respect to those submissions after you have received them.

I'll give you a little bit of information about the African Canadian Legal Clinic, which I'll refer to as the ACLC throughout the course of my submission. We're a specialty legal clinic funded by the Ontario legal aid system. We conduct legal work aimed at addressing systemic racism and racial discrimination in the province of Ontario. We engage in our work using a test case litigation strategy. To that end, we've represented litigants at tribunals and all levels of courts, up to and including the Supreme Court of Canada. We also monitor legislation—that is why I'm here today—and engage in advocacy and legal education in eliminating racism, and anti-black racism in particular.

Criminal law issues and issues of racism and discrimination in the justice system, of course, are central to our mandate. As noted in our brief, which you will hopefully have an opportunity to read, we've been involved in a number of interventions at all levels of court. For example, we were involved at the Supreme Court of Canada, in Regina v. Spence and Regina v. Williams, which dealt with addressing issues of race in jury challenges for cause; and Regina v. Golden, wherein the Supreme Court outlined strip search procedures for police. At the Court of Appeal, we were involved in some of the seminal racial profiling cases, including Regina v. Brown and Regina v. Richards. More recently, we've been involved in a lot of policy work, particularly with respect to Justice Patrick Lesage's review of the Ontario police complaints system. And this past summer we had part II standing in the Ipperwash inquiry, wherein we provided the inquiry with a report on police use of force.

We're very pleased to have an opportunity to present submissions on Bill C-10, as criminal justice issues are obviously very important to the community we serve. As already noted, numerous reports from jurisdictions across Canada and from all levels of court have raised concerns about the impact of race on the Canadian criminal justice system.

It probably comes as no surprise to many of the people on the committee, because the information is out there, that African Canadians are particularly overrepresented in the criminal justice system. For example, in the recent 2001 census, African Canadians represented approximately 4.5% of the population. However, the federal offender management system, as of this past April, indicated that African Canadians right now comprise 16.1% of federally incarcerated individuals.

Many reports have noted that the overrepresentation of the African Canadian community is due to systematic over-policing. Research by criminologists such as Scot Wortley, from the University of Toronto, have confirmed that African Canadians are targeted by police, and African Canadian males, particularly young males, generally are at greater risk of being stopped and harassed, and thus more likely to be charged with an offence.

The issues that are raised by Bill C-10 are of particular importance to our community, especially the community in Toronto. As most of you have probably seen from the media reports that have been out there over the past year and a half, there has been a rash of gun violence in Toronto over the past year and a half, and it has particularly impacted our community. Given this reality, we submit that there's a clear need to develop effective strategies for addressing this problem.

As noted in our brief, since the outbreak of gun violence, our community has in fact called for strategies that address the root causes of gun crime, with a focus on preventing gun crime from happening rather than punishing its effects. I would submit that most Canadians would agree with us that it's not good enough for us to react to the issue of gun crime and put people in jail after people are maimed and killed, but to prevent it where possible, to prevent the loss of life.

Part of the approach that we had recommended, recognizing that this is a complex issue that will require a multi-faceted approach, was the need to increase funding for services in at-risk communities. It was the need to re-establish many of the social programs that had been cut by the successive governments over the past decade or so. These are governments at all levels, too--both the provincial level and the federal level through transfer payments.

However, our concern with respect to Bill C-10's approach to dealing with gun violence is that at best it is simplistic and at worst it is a reckless response to gun violence. Instead of considering the causes of gun crime and implementing effective strategies, we are essentially relying on rhetoric and ideology, giving the appearance of action while doing little to truly address the problem. It is the ACLC's submission that the proposed Criminal Code amendments won't be effective because they fail to address the complexity of the problem of illegal guns. Unless we commit to recognizing and addressing these underlying causes, we cannot have effective strategies for addressing the problem.

While there are numerous problems that arise out of the proposed mandatory minimums—Professor Doob has raised some of them, and I'm sure you've heard quite a few over the course of the hearings into Bill C-10—my submissions for the ACLC will focus on three main issues: the impact of mandatory minima on the fundamental principle of proportionality—to which Professor Doob has alluded somewhat; the recognized ineffectiveness of mandatory minima—as Professor Doob and I'm sure many others have raised again and again before this committee; and particularly important to the people we serve, the impact of mandatory minima on African Canadians and African Canadian communities, and I would also say communities at large across Canada.

With respect to the principle of proportionality, as Professor Doob noted, sentences under section 718.1 of the Criminal Code should be proportionate to the gravity of the offence and the degree of responsibility of the offender. Mandatory minima distort this principle by removing judges' ability to consider other relevant factors, including aggravating and mitigating circumstances. As noted in an article by Julian Roberts:

A mandatory sentence prevents judges from modulating the severity of the sentence to reflect the seriousness of the offence and the degree of blameworthiness of the offender.

An example given by Ms. Sue Barnes in her speech to the House, which is actually referenced in our written submissions--and again, I'm sorry that you don't have those available to you--highlights the importance of judicial discretion in the sentencing process. What she talked about was a situation where somebody without a criminal record who's carrying an unloaded gun would actually, under the proposed amendments, get a higher sentence than somebody with a criminal record with a loaded long gun. I think right there that raises some issues with respect to the issue of proportionality.

This is only a very limited example; there are many examples. This is something we really have to consider, how this will impact the criminal justice system and the way our sentencing procedures work under the system.

That's why it's important to consider the role that judges do have. They are uniquely situated to assess all the circumstances of an offence to fashion a suitable sentence that takes into account all the relevant factors, including the need for deterrence, rehabilitation, and protection of society where it's demonstrably necessary. Mandatory minimum sentences usurp this critical role of judges, and they will result in disproportionate sentences. The evidence is clear. They will not adequately consider all the circumstances that are necessary for the proper functioning of proportionate sentencing under the criminal justice system.

In terms of effectiveness, I know I'm probably beating a dead horse, because this is something that has been talked about again and again by probably many of the people who have appeared before this committee and the many people who have a lot of expertise, more expertise than I do in this area. There's just no doubt that mandatory minima do not work. This debate isn't new in Canada. It has been going on for quite some time. The last sentencing commission looked at sentencing commissions and law commissions over the course, I believe, of 40 or 50 years and noted that none of them endorsed mandatory minimum sentences as an appropriate response in the criminal justice system. They were quite clear that they simply do not serve their stated purpose of deterrence or incapacitation.

Recent research done by academics or even commissioned by government departments also concludes that mandatory minimums are not effective. Reports from other jurisdictions--primarily a lot of research in the States and also research in Australia, because they followed some of the mandatory minimum sentences provisions in their country--also confirmed that mandatory minimum provisions do not lower crime rates, do not serve as a deterrent, do not have an incapacitation effect, do not work. In fact, jurisdictions in the States are now moving away from mandatory minimums as lawmakers are starting to understand that they have gone down the wrong path, that these are not effective, and they have a very detrimental impact on the functioning of their criminal justice system.

Even the legislative summary for Bill C-10 noted the questionable effectiveness of such provisions. Yet, under the guise of being tough on crime, the government has introduced amendments that, given the available research, you should be well aware, will do little to address the problem of gun violence.

[Dr. Anthony Doob]

Thank you very much.

To understand whether increased penalties affect crime, I would suggest that you have to look at the overall weight of evidence. The conclusion that Professor Webster and I came to, based on a thorough survey of the evidence, especially that which was carried out in the last fifteen years, was that variation in the severity of sentences does not affect crime rates.

The reviews that come to different conclusions have generally looked selectively only at the occasional paper that finds some evidence that harsh sentences deter. In other words, for more than 25 years, the overwhelming weight of evidence has been consistent with the conclusions that harsh sentences, in legislation or in practice, will not have any consistent or appreciable impact on levels of crime in the community.

I would now like to turn to two sets of data that have received a lot of prominence here in Ottawa. Each of these has been used to demonstrate that harsh sentences deter. The first example comes from an analysis of a paper that has been referred to in the context of the current bill. It seems that when the deterrent impact of harsh sentences is raised, the name Steven Levitt, one of the authors of the best-selling book, Freakonomics, is mentioned, and his paper with Daniel Kessler, published in 1999, is cited.

On the basis of their evidence of the effects of the June 1982 California initiative, Proposition 8, these two economists concluded that the increase in sentence severity that came into effect in June 1982 was responsible for the reduction in crime in California. As a result of this 1982 change in sentencing laws in California, sentences for certain crimes committed by repeat offenders were made considerably longer. From a deterrence perspective, the change in sentencing laws was seen as a good opportunity to test the deterrence theory, since the change in the sentencing was dramatic, sudden, and well publicized. The typical finding is what's shown here, and it is also shown in the translated document.

These are data from Kessler and Levitt's original paper, and what you see is the timing of the law changes marked by the vertical line. From this graph one could easily conclude that crime was going up until the time the sentencing law in California became dramatically harsher. Crime then dropped dramatically, immediately after the law, one could conclude, and these would obviously be quite impressive results.

The findings are similar for four other crimes that were covered by the change in law. Crime went up before the change in the law, Kessler and Levitt's data would show, and then dropped dramatically afterwards. It's no wonder that the supporters of the current bill have repeatedly cited this single study by a quite famous economist, but I'd like you to look again at these data.

Look at this curve carefully and what you'll see is something that's quite peculiar. Levitt, in the published paper, presented data only for the odd-numbered years. That's what's in the figure; that's what was in his paper.

Let's look at the full set of data that were never publicized and never presented in this very highly cited paper on deterrence. This slide simply adds the even-numbered years. The data for the odd-numbered years is identical to what you saw before. Again, the vertical line is when the law change occurred. Unlike the partial set of data, which Kessler and Levitt relied on, what you see is that crime was going down, and started going down before the law changed. The other offences examined by Kessler and Levitt, which were subject to these especially new harsh sentences, show the same kind of pattern.

On the left of these panels, I've presented the data as published by Kessler and Levitt. On the right panel, all I've done--all, in fact, Cheryl Webster, from the University of Ottawa, and Frank Zimring, from California, and I did--was to add the data for the even-numbered years. By choosing, as Kessler and Levitt did, to present the data only for the odd-numbered years, they gave you a picture of the trends that is completely different from the picture you see when all of the crime rates for all of the years are included.

If you wish, you can look at the monthly data to get a more exact estimate of when the crime drop occurred. We did this as well. Here's one example of it. Again, we marked the time when the law changed by the vertical line, and what you see is that the crime drop started before the law changed, not after, as you would expect if it were the law that was responsible for the change in crime rates.

These graphs are part of a paper that I co-authored with Professor Webster, and Professor Franklin Zimring, from the law school at the University of California, Berkeley. Professor Zimring is one of the world's experts on deterrence, having written extensively on deterrence, beginning with his classic book on the topic in 1972.

As you can imagine, Professor Levitt is not very pleased with our analysis. The best one can conclude I think from Levitt's very interesting, very selective use of data is that it would be risky to base any policy on a study such as this.

About a year ago, in the last session of Parliament, when you were examining Bill C-215, you had a witness before you who indicated that sentence enhancements had helped to drive down the rate of violent crime in Florida. His evidence, like that of your local witness last week, concluded that Florida's 10-20-life law may have sounded convincing. The implication of their statements is clear: tough sentencing regimes drive down crime.

I'm old-fashioned. I think you should look carefully at the data. From the data I presented to you at the outset, you should already be skeptical about such assertions. Crime was already on the downward trend in the United States. Violent crime peaked in the United States and Canada in the early 1990s and then drifted downward.

So let's look at this trend in California. The next two figures show total index crime, which is a measure of the total more serious kinds of crime, and index violent crime for Florida in the 1990s. The timing of the implementation of the so-called 10-20-life law in Florida is marked again by the vertical line.

If you look at this figure, or the next one, which deals with violent crime, the problem with the inference that the law created a change is immediately evident. Crime was going down anyway. If these two figures didn't have a vertical line in them showing where the law change took place, you wouldn't have any idea that anything special was happening. Crime was going down in Florida, just the way it was going down in other parts of the United States and in Canada. There is no evidence that the change in law changed anything.

There are obviously many more studies on this topic. The best research examines more than one jurisdiction and attempts to control for other factors known to correlate with crime rates. Considerably more sophisticated studies have been carried out.

In the United States in the 1990s, largely as a result of the popularity of the so-called three strikes laws, many U.S. jurisdictions brought in very harsh sentencing regimes for at least some offences. Some studies have looked, overall, at the impact of these sentencing changes. One set of investigators, for example, examined the impact of the sentencing changes on seven different crimes in 21 states, using the data from states where no changes were made as a form of a control.

This slide shows you a summary of their findings. The authors report that there were as many increases in crime as there were decreases that followed the imposition of three-strikes sentencing laws. Clearly, it is just as inappropriate to focus on only those changes in the law where crime decreased as it would be to focus on those instances where crime increased after sentencing got tougher. But these findings do show you the dangers of taking isolated findings out of context.

There are two other sets of problems with mandatory minimum sentences that I would like to mention. It is almost inevitable that mandatory minimum sentences will result in disproportionate sentences for at least some offenders. We already have a requirement in the Criminal Code that sentences must be proportionate to the severity of the offence and the offender's responsibility for that offence. It is my impression that most Canadians endorse proportionality in sentencing.

Clearly, Parliament, in attempting to constrain judges with mandatory minimum sentences, is purposefully sending the message that it does not trust judges to judge the severity of offences. But in addition, mandatory minimum sentences almost certainly force judges to hand down sentences that violate section 718.1, the proportionality principle in sentencing.

If the proportionality principle needs strengthening in the Criminal Code--and I, for one, believe it does--then there are ways in which this can be done. But mandatory minimum sentences have been shown repeatedly not to be an appropriate tool to accomplish this goal. There are other harms that can come from proposals such as this one. If the Parliament of Canada were to approve Bill C-10, it would be telling Canadians that Parliament can make our communities safer by increasing mandatory minimum sentences. This is, quite simply, a false promise. If you were to vote in favour of this bill, therefore, you would be, in my opinion, making a promise to Canadians that is known to be false. But it is worse than that. Focusing on such matters as mandatory minimum sentences also distracts you, the Parliament of Canada, from considering approaches to crime prevention that might actually make our communities safer. In other words, by convincing yourselves and others that the proposals such as this one will improve our communities, you necessarily do not adequately consider approaches to crime prevention that would improve our communities.

Thank you very much.

[Dr. Anthony Doob, Professor, Centre for Criminology, University of Toronto, As an Individual]

Thank you very much.

I'm a professor at the Centre for Criminology at the University of Toronto. My research on various topics in criminology has been published in a number of peer review journals during the last 35 years. Recently, a colleague at the University of Ottawa, Professor Cheryl Webster, and I wrote a detailed review of the research literature on deterrent impact of sentencing for Crime and Justice: A Review of the Research, which is one of the major publication series in this field. A summary of my CV has been given to the clerk.

I'd like to make three rather straightforward points. First, contrary to what various people have said in the House of Commons and elsewhere, the research evidence does not support the conclusion that sentencing enhancements such as those contained in Bill C-10 will reduce crime. The best research on this is quite consistent. Mandatory minimum sentences will not reduce crime.

Second, you should be very cautious about accepting some of the evidence that is sometimes cited as demonstrating that mandatory minimum sentences can reduce crime. Much of the evidence contains obvious artifacts that can be easily demonstrated.

Third, you do the Canadian people a serious disservice when you imply or state that serious crime can be controlled, even in part, by imposing increasingly harsh mandatory minimum sentences. This disservice is easy to describe by focusing on approaches we know are not going to work; you fail to consider approaches to crime that would make our community safer.

At least one previous witness urged you to consider comparisons with the United States. He concluded these comparisons demonstrated harsh sentences would reduce crime in Canada. Simply put, I found his analysis to be astonishingly inadequate. Though I don't think these are the best data available for either side of this debate, I would like to spend a couple of minutes giving you a more adequate description of some of the differences across these two countries.

This is a graph of total crime and violent crime, as recorded by the Canadian police over the last forty years. I've multiplied the violent rate by ten to be able to see the shape of the curve. It is the shape rather than the absolute value that's important. Reported crime obviously went up rather steadily until the early to mid-1990s, and then it started to drift slowly downwards.

Crime is reported differently in the United States, hence you cannot legitimately compare the absolute values from these two graphs. This is the United States. What you see is a remarkably similar trend to what you saw in Canada; increases up to the early 1990s and then decreases since then.

Turning to homicide, because homicide figures can be made comparable, I've plotted the actual homicide rates of the two countries on this slide. American homicide rates are typically about three times those of Canada, but if you look carefully, you can see the overall trends in Canada and the United States are similar. Homicide rates peaked in the mid-1970s and then drifted downwards, heading up a little bit in the late 1980s and then downwards in the 1990s.

To be able to compare these trends visually, I've put the two countries' homicide rates on the same scale by setting the 1961 rate for each country to one and then plotting the change from that rate. What you see, again, is similarity. Increases from the 1960s to the mid-1970s, then a gradual and uneven decline, most notably in the 1990s.

What does this have to do with punishment?

This is the picture of Canadian imprisonment levels for the past 45 years. For various reasons, largely because we found ways of punishing those offenders who committed less serious offences in the community rather than by sending them to prison, we have had a rather steady level of imprisonment over the last 45 years.

In contrast, this is what the American imprisonment rates look like. U.S. imprisonment rates were rather constant for 50 years, ending in the mid 1970s, and then increased dramatically. U.S. imprisonment rates went from being slightly higher than ours in the early 1970s to about seven times that of Canada now. In the last few years we have jail data, which for various reasons weren't available until then, but what you see is an imprisonment rate that is about seven times Canada's rate.

Most criminologists would agree that the levels of imprisonment do not predict the crime rate. In this case, we have two countries, the United States and Canada, with patterns of crime that are fairly similar. Yet the two countries have dramatically different patterns of imprisonment. Therefore, when you're told that high levels of imprisonment will make Canadians safe, you should ask yourself why the shape of our trends are so similar to those of a country that has had very different levels of imprisonment.

I do not consider these to be the best evidence on the subject. I raise it only because apparently you've been urged to follow the American model of attempting to deal with crime by increasing imprisonment levels.

The conclusion from the actual data, if you want to think this way, would be that we have accomplished similar crime trends without having to spend billions of dollars imprisoning people.

To understand whether increased penalties affect crime, I would suggest that you look at the overall weight of the evidence. The conclusion that Professor Webster and I came to—

[The Chair, Conservative, Art Hanger]

I call to order the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights.

We continue our debate on Bill C-10, an act to amend the Criminal Code, on minimum penalties for offences involving firearms.

Before I call upon the witnesses to present, I'm going to deal with two matters of business that are before the committee, two motions.

Committee members, I apologize. The two motions that are before you are actually notices of motion. They will be brought forward on Monday of next week.

We will go on to the business at hand. We have four presenters here today, as you will note on your agenda. They are Anthony Doob, who is a professor at the Centre for Criminology at the University of Toronto; from the African Canadian Legal Clinic, Royland Moriah and Charlene Theodore; from the Canadian Criminal Justice Association, Irving Kulik; and from The Sentencing Project, Ryan King, who is a policy analyst.

Are you from the U.S.?

[The Chair, Conservative, Art Hanger]

Thank you, Mr. Brown and Mr. Weinstein.

That brings us to a conclusion. I would like to thank all of the witnesses for coming forward with your presentations. This certainly has generated a good discussion, and we have something else to think about in our evaluation of Bill C-10.

Thank you for coming.

[Proceedings continue in camera]

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

When an individual with connections to a gang is the victim of a crime involving a firearm—and Mr. Ménard made reference to this earlier—there are what is known as aggravating circumstances. Let us also look at a different case, where an individual who is not a member of a gang is a victim of an indictable offence in which a firearm was used. So we have two victims: one who was attacked with a firearm because of membership in a criminal gang, and the other a victim of a serious indictable offence even though he was not a member of a gang.

How will the judge react? In the first case, he must do one thing because of the aggravating circumstances; in the other, he is not required to do so.

I'm trying to summarize my question, Mr. Brodeur. From the victim's point of view, I would prefer to be "attacked" by someone who is a member of a gang, because I am sure that person will go to jail longer, rather than by a person who is not a member of a street gang. Something should be mentioned to the judge. Things are always the same for the victim. In some cases, victims will think that the approach is rather lax, while in others, it is rather severe.

In light of what I have just said, do you think Bill C-10 is strong enough to ensure that victims are treated in the same way by the justice system? I have tried to outline my point as best I could.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you for coming. This is very interesting. Needless to say, I appreciated you statements. I have practised criminal law as a defence attorney for 25 years and I oppose this bill. I think that my position is clear.

As I have practised criminal law for a long time, I carefully read the brief from the Canadian Bar Association. I had the same question and I want you to explain something to me. Perhaps, Ms. Joncas, you could confirm it for me as well.

As we analyze Bill C-10, it would almost be fair to say that it contains some heresies. In fact, I do not know what came over the minister or his assistants when they drafted this bill, but if we knew, it might help us to understand this. I would like some clarifications on section 1, which amends section 84 of the Criminal Code. If I understand correctly, time spent in custody awaiting trial would not be taken into account for repeat offenders. I do not know whether you are following me.

As you studied this very closely, could you tell me whether I am right in saying that one must be entirely disconnected from reality to take no account of the time spent in custody awaiting trial? I refer specifically to section 1 of the bill, which amends section 84 of the Criminal Code.

I would like to hear what you have to say about this. I would also like to hear what you have to say about time spent in custody pursuant to subsection 719(3) of the Criminal Code and of course about the Supreme Court's Wust decision, whereby the time spent in custody must be taken into account. The legislator has decided to go against a decision made by the Supreme Court! I would like to hear what you have to say about this because to me, it seems entirely divorced from reality.

I would like to hear your opinion on this, Ms. Joncas or Mr. Weinstein; I do not know which one of you two has read this attentively.

[Rob Moore, Conservative, Fundy Royal, NB]

Thank you, Professor, and I appreciate that point. That's certainly not what we are proposing, any mass incarceration.

That is precisely why this bill, Bill C-10, is narrowly targeted at those involved in gang activities and using guns to commit crimes. Not wanting to cast the net too wide, we're focusing very much on what Canadians are telling us are the most serious offences.

I've heard quite a bit of talk about this discretion of judges, but I'd like some comment from the Canadian Bar Association or others. For many of the offences we've listed, and I'll talk about some of the primary offences where it's an escalating five, seven, or ten years, what we're dealing with in the second and third cases, of seven and ten years, is someone who has used a firearm in attempted murder, discharged a firearm with intent, committed sexual or aggravated assault, and so on—what we've found to be the most serious offences—and has done it not only once but twice.

Many people feel that when there's been a recidivist activity, obviously we have to bring in safeguards and start to err on the side of protection of society. When someone has done this once, that's one thing. When they're out and have done it again, it's quite another, in the public's view.

Just so I know what we're really talking about, isn't it the case with many of these offences that there's already a four-year mandatory minimum? What Bill C-10 does, instead of making it a four-year mandatory minimum, is make it a five-year mandatory minimum. We're talking about taking discretion away from judges.

It's been presented, I know, by the opposition—in some cases very alarmingly—as that we're narrowing the discretion of judges. But what we're doing with this bill is saying that on these most serious offences, on a first offence, instead of four years, it's five. Is that not the case?

[Sandra Elgersma, Domestic Policy Analyst, Mennonite Central Committee Canada]

We'll both be presenting, but I'll lead off.

The Mennonite Central Committee of Canada is the relief, development, and peace-building arm of the Mennonite and Brethren in Christ churches in Canada. In the area of justice, we have a long history of programs that work with victims, programs that work with offenders, and programs that bring the two together in dialogue. We thank you for inviting us here today.

MCC envisions a criminal justice system where human realities are taken into account. Communities play a strong role in addressing justice, and a variety of alternatives exist to ensure that victim needs are met, that offenders take responsibility and have the opportunity for rehabilitation, and that harm is repaired.

This vision conflicts in several ways with Bill C-10. Taking into account the human realities of guns and gangs calls for a much broader response than the sentencing provisions proposed here; however, even these provisions cause us some concern. As we have already heard today, mandatory minimums reduce judicial discretion, which is important for responding to human realities and creating community alternatives.

Additionally, the increased use of incarceration has undesirable affects. It limits opportunities for victims to receive restitution and other forms of restoration. As crowding becomes a problem, incarceration limits opportunities for offenders to leave jail with more life skills than they went in with.

Longer sentences create greater difficulties for successful integration into community life. Increased use of incarceration leads to these negative effects, while at the same time it has no positive effect on reducing the crime rate.

Today we'd like to speak to you of our own experience with deterrence and community safety, both strong themes in the justification of Bill C-10. In previous appearances before this committee, we have talked to you about our program of circles of support and accountability; today we're going to elaborate on that experience.

[Joshua Weinstein, Secretary, National Criminal Justice Section, Canadian Bar Association]

Thank you.

While the criminal justice section supports measures to address violent crime rates, such a call to action must be acted upon using only measures that are both fair and effective. This section opposes the use of mandatory minimum penalties. Any action must proceed only if it is likely to achieve the goal of public safety and is at the same time consistent with what I'll call the three Cs: charter, common law, and Criminal Code--specifically, the principles of sentencing. We oppose the use of mandatory minimum sentences because they limit a judge's ability to fashion an appropriate sentence and they distort sentencing principles established by the Criminal Code.

Now, let me start with the judge's ability to craft a just sentence. You've had, I think, criticism in the past before this committee about the “one size fits all” approach. As someone who is 6'8", I can tell you that's not always the case.

Our section has faith in the judiciary, who are charged with the often difficult task of weighing a number of considerations when imposing a just sentence. They are guided by both common law principles, the charter, and again, the principles of sentence as outlined in the code. But let me go further. They're in the unique position of being able to address the just punishment not only based on the principles of sentence, but also taking into account the specific circumstances of an offender, the circumstances of the offence, and the particular community of the offender and the victim.

In addition, given Canada's track record of over-incarceration of aboriginal peoples, section 718.2 was a tool put in place to require judges to look at such options when sentencing aboriginal offenders. The bill would have the effect of taking away such a requirement and would amplify the current problems of over-incarceration of aboriginals. If a particular offence warrants a lengthy penalty, the sentencing judge already has the tools to impose the appropriate sentence. It is our section's experience that gun crimes already receive lengthy sentences.

Bill C-10 has the potential to distort a number of sentencing principles. One of those principles is proportionality--that is, that a sentence must be proportionate to the gravity of the offence and degree of responsibility of the offender. Bill C-10 would set the floor of sentencing for all offenders, even those whose degree of responsibility is towards the lower end of the spectrum.

The Criminal Code also recognizes the principle of restraint--that is, that we restrain ourselves from jailing an offender unless it's necessary to protect the public. As outlined in our written submission, and as I present to you today, the criminal justice section believes that mandatory minimum sentences do not advance the goal of deterrence.

Other goals of sentencing, particularly denunciation and rehabilitation, are also principles a judge must consider. In the indiscriminate application of mandatory minimum sentences for all offenders, a judge is limited in fashioning a rehabilitative sentence for an offender who would benefit from such a disposition.

Now, it's also our opinion that Bill C-10 would not improve justice efficiencies and would most likely lead to lengthy delays within the criminal justice system; more trials, given the higher stakes; higher incarceration rates; and more jails. This obviously all comes at a higher cost to the public.

Clause 9 of the bill would create two new offences: breaking and entering to steal a firearm, and robbery to steal a firearm. While theft of firearms already constitutes an aggravating factor on sentence, what the proposed amendment would likely do is create another hurdle for crown prosecutors to prove. To prove that the accused specifically intended to steal firearms would require very compelling evidence of intent, which often isn't the case unless there is an admissible statement by the accused or co-accused.

Now, another aspect of the bill that our section submits is a problem is the sheer complexity of its provisions in calculating the applicable sentence. I have read with great interest background information before appearing in front of you today. The debates have, I believe, illustrated this point. It is not just my inherent inability at doing simple math that is the source of the confusion, but the scheme itself, which in our opinion lacks cohesion and is just outright complex. If our section had difficulty in winding through the maze, imagine what it would be for those individuals we want to send a message to.

Now, our section wants to also bring to your attention a very real phenomenon that is actually occurring already, whereby sentencing discretion is being transferred to the Crown. When an accused is facing a mandatory minimum sentence, the negotiations between Crown and defence cease to become plea bargains; rather, they're charge bargains.

Let's say an individual is charged with discharging a firearm with intent. The Crown will agree to reduce the charge in exchange for the accused's pleading guilty, thus securing a conviction, while at the same time allowing the accused to avoid jail time. However, the charge bargaining process relies on Crown discretion. While meaning no disrespect to prosecutors, an accused is more likely to buy into a process that has as its pillar an independent arbiter exercising discretion rather than a representative of Her Majesty.

The second problem is that such a process dilutes the intention of things like the present legislation, instead of being tough on crime, as an accused comes out of the process with not only a potential lesser sentence, but a lesser offence. Eliminating mandatory minimums may very well have the effect of such an accused receiving the appropriate sentence, but still within the framework of the charge as originally laid.

Our section urges this committee to reject this bill. While the bill strives to achieve the goal of protection of society, a goal we share, it does so in a manner that won't have the intended effect and will lead to injustices.

Thank you very much.

[Tamra Thomson]

Thank you, Mr. Chair and honourable members.

The Canadian Bar Association welcomes the opportunity to present our comments to you today on Bill C-10.

The CBA is a national organization that represents 37,000 jurists across Canada, and among our objectives is improvement in the law and fair justice systems in Canada.

The submission before you today was prepared by the national criminal justice section of the CBA. It's interesting to note that the members of that section comprise both defence and crown counsel and university professors who teach criminal law. In that sense it brings a balance of multiple perspectives to the review of the law.

I'm going to ask Mr. Weinstein to give the comments on the particular aspects of Bill C-10.

[Lucie Joncas, President, Association québécoise des avocats et avocates de la défense]

Hello.

The Association québécoise des avocats et avocates de la défense is a not-for-profit association composed of 600 criminal defence lawyers practising throughout all regions of Quebec. Our members include private practice lawyers as well as those working for the Commission des services juridiques. I have had the honour of serving as president of the association since June 2005. I have been practising mainly in the field of criminal law for almost 15 years now.

First off, the AQAAD would like to thank the committee for this invitation to appear. I hope my remarks will be useful to you in the course of your deliberations.

It seems troubling to read the May 1, 2006, press release that states the objective of these new dispositions. It says that mandatory minimum penalties will ensure that sentencing is proportionate to the seriousness of the offence that involves guns and gang violence.

The aim is obviously a direct attack on judicial discretion. It is my belief and experience that judges in Canada are currently imposing just and proportional sentences. Furthermore, the concern with gang-related offences is already the object of a specific sentencing provision of the Criminal Code, namely subparagraph 718.2(a)(iv). It is considered an aggravating factor on sentence that an offence is committed for the benefit of, or under the direction or association with, a criminal organization.

The AQAAD is in agreement with the statement found in the legislative summary of Bill C-10: “Mandatory minimum terms of imprisonment are generally inconsistent with the fundamental principle that a sentence must be proportionate to the gravity of the offence and the degree of responsibility of the offender, as they do not allow a judge to make any exception in an appropriate case.” It is generally recognized as a principle, and is borne out by my experience as a defence attorney, that the deterrent effect is triggered by the fear of being apprehended rather than by the existence of harsh sentences.

The Canadian crime rate does not require these legislative changes. The American example has served as an eloquent example of the ineffectiveness of such measures.

Moreover, the new wave of bills your committee has dealt with and those it will be considering, such as Bill C-9, and reverse onus for dangerous offenders, to name but two, may have a domino effect. We would like to draw this to your attention because we believe it is a possibility you should consider. Allow me to explain: the combined effect of these measures will have a direct impact on the justice system's ability to deal with cases within a reasonable timeframe, as provided under the charter.

These provisions will also effectively short-circuit the case settlement process. At the moment, as a general rule, approximately 90% of criminal charges are resolved through guilty pleas, and a number of these guilty pleas are accompanied by joint submissions. These figures may drastically change as a result of so many legislative amendments. Consequently, the number of individuals in pre-trial detention will increase, thereby increasing the burden on provincial resources.

We must remember that under sentencing in Canada, if the crown finds a sentence too lenient, it is always at liberty to appeal. Conversely, this same right would be denied under mandatory minimum sentences when the defence believed that given the circumstances of the offence and the offender, a sentence was clearly too harsh.

We consider that these legislative amendments are not necessary, and feel that they will have a significant negative effect on the criminal justice system. Finally, as an alternative—and I repeat, as an alternative—if the committee were to come to the conclusion that the proposed sentences may be useful as guidelines, we would suggest an amendment to section 718.3 of the Criminal Code, an amendment calling for residual judicial discretion. Under special circumstances and when it is in the interest of the community and of the accused, judges could exercise their discretion at the time of sentencing.

I thank you and I am now prepared to answer any questions you may have.

[The Chair, Conservative, Art Hanger]

I'd like to call the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights to order.

Our agenda is still on 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.

We have a number of witnesses appearing today: the Quebec Association of Defence Lawyers; Mr. Jean-Paul Brodeur, as an individual; the Canadian Bar Association; and the Mennonite Central Committee Canada.

I would like to proceed along the lines as noted on the agenda. I turn the floor over to the Quebec Association of Defence Lawyers and Ms. Lucie Joncas.

Ms. Joncas.

[Alan Borovoy]

Your comments glossed over something rather important when you talked about recidivism and what that would attract under Bill C-10. You somehow managed to exclude the police officer I was talking about from the sweep of Bill C-10. I'm suggesting to you that if that officer were convicted today--first offence, good record, committed while he's chasing a fleeing burglar--he would have to go away under Bill C-10 for at least five years.

I will have to put my question to you in the same way I put it to Mr. Kramp. Whether it's responded to here or in the next life, I don't know, but suffice it to ask you whether you would be pleased to see that officer mandatorily jailed for five years.

There's something else—

[Alan Borovoy]

All right, I will ask you the question. Would you be pleased to have that police officer locked up for five years? That's what Bill C-10 would require.

While I'm at it, do you have no objection at all to the fact that Robert Latimer continues to languish in jail for a crime committed out of love and compassion for his little girl?

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

No, my colleague Mr. Petit made a statement I do not agree with, and I wanted to talk to you about it before putting my questions.

It concerns the statistics in the brief by the John Howard Society of Canada, regarding the correlation between unemployment and robberies committed between 1962 and 2000, the figures you reported. The statistics should be examined more closely before that correlation can be assumed. Nineteen eighty to 1983, as it happens, were the years in which the number of robberies was highest and in which the unemployment rate was also very high. Unless we were living on another planet, we all know what happened in Canada during that time. The number of robberies was also high between 1989 and 1992, and 1993, and perhaps in 1994 as well.

We also had to be living on another planet to claim that unemployment insurance is the only factor at play here. You are quite right in saying that when the economy is doing well, crime rates drop. However, the economy is only one of the factors that need to be taken into account.

I am putting this question to any of you who might wish to answer. I have not heard much about the impact Bill C-10 might have on the increase—and I am choosing that word carefully—in racial prejudice we find in our prisons.

I am talking about penitentiaries, because it is penitentiaries I know about. In fact, I even met with you at the Leclerc detention centre.

[Sue Barnes, Liberal, London West, ON]

The other thing is prosecutorial discretion, which is not visible to the public, as a judge would be in a courtroom in sentencing. Here in Bill C-10 right now, there are a number of hybrid offences that are noted. If the Crown proceeds by way of summary conviction, as opposed to indictable, then there are mandatory minimums coming into play.

Mr. Borovoy, go ahead and tell me what you think of the prosecutorial discretion.

[Alexi Wood]

Yes, I would agree with that statement. When you look at the way the bill is drafted, such that you have a selection of different offences from which you can proceed, and the sentences vary according to whether it's a first offence, a second offence, and so on, then yes, you are going to have that opportunity to change how the sentencing would happen, based on how the Crown chooses to proceed.

I'd also like to confirm what my friend here was saying about the mandatory minimum depending upon what type of gun is being used, or whether or not a gun is being used at all. Bill C-10 ups the mandatory minimums that were already present in the Criminal Code for when a firearm is used. But if a machete, for example, were being used, there is no mandatory minimum for several of the offences, as my friend was illustrating during his comments.

[Laurent Champagne, President, Church Council on Justice and Corrections]

Hello, my name is Laurent Champagne and I am the President of the Church Council on Justice and Corrections. I also work for Correctional Services of Canada, as an institutional chaplain at the Leclerc facility and at the Aumônerie communautaire de Montréal, as a coordinator. I work with some 15 partners.

Although we share the government's concern with ensuring the safety of Canadians, we would however like to point out that harsher sentences have no deterrent effect on offenders and no effect on recidivism. The American experience has been eloquent on this point. Mandatory minimums would only serve to provide Canadians with a false sense of security, because sentence length and decreased crime rates are independent variables. There is no causal relationship between the two. We would like to remind you that there has been a drop in the crime rate in Canada, based on a Statistics Canada study.

Bill C-10 would also hamper the social reintegration of offenders. Excessively long incarceration may jeopardize an offender's chances at a successful rehabilitation, because it is crucial to allow offenders to re-enter society when they are prepared to take this step in the process. If offenders remain in custody despite that, their chances at reintegration may be compromised.

Finally, we are very concerned by the possible effect Bill C-10 may have, in particular on the Canadian criminal justice system. This bill undermines one of the basic tenets of our legal system, the principle of the individualization of sentences. This principle allows for the consideration of multiple factors and for an in-depth assessment which serve in the determination of a fair and appropriate sentence, based on individual needs.

Moreover, this bill strikes a serious blow to judges in terms of the trust they are granted. By eliminating judicial discretion in sentencing, the government is removing some of the judiciary's discretionary tools. However, are judges not in the best position to decide on a fair and appropriate sentence and to assess an offender's ability at social reintegration?

The Church Council of Justice and Corrections of Quebec's mission is to promote preventive and restorative justice, based on Christian values, by working with legislators, offenders, victims, communities and society through research activity and support for groups and individuals in their quest for growth.

With respect to legislators, we work with provincial and federal governments.

With respect to offenders, our work centres on all forms of support to individuals, be they accused or not, detained or formerly detained.

Victims play a very important role. This overlooked group of individuals deserves special attention if we want to ensure full offender reintegration.

The community is defined as individuals living within a specific area who share an awareness of situations of conflict. These individuals are aware of their own value and of a social responsibility to recognize the facts.

When it comes to society, we wish to mobilize a variety of political forces and their power to address the issue of globalization in order to promote the spirit and the letter of preventive and restorative justice.

This year, Correctional Services of Canada celebrated Restorative Justice Week. We discussed innovative partnerships and strong cooperation. It is on this basis that the Church Council on Justice and Corrections works with its various partners.

I had an opportunity to live in Latin America as a missionary for 15 years, and I can say that Canada is a peaceful and safe country compared to many others. We are proud of this peace and of this safety. However, the growing indignation in society about the effects of crime are concerning to all of us. We have witnessed the suffering felt by so many victims of crime. We feel compelled to seek out a justice system which treats crime in an honest and fair manner, and which contributes to healing individuals, families and society as a whole. Fear and indignation undermine our collective well-being and social fabric.

The growth in the prison population indicates that incarceration is too often regarded as the solution to social and criminal problems. Although it is important to recognize the genuine need to protect ourselves from certain offenders who represent an immediate risk to society, we must also admit that incarceration as a punishment is a costly and exacting type of justice which is clearly ineffective as a deterrent. The rate of recidivism is also a sign of incomplete healing and rehabilitation among offenders. Victims' needs for healing and safety are not being met. To address these issues, overly simplistic measures based solely on the desire to appear tough on crime will not lead to the desired results, because our society as a whole cannot heal until offenders, victims and society in general experience healing.

Our current justice system as it is applied does not work. Suffering and fear continue to grow. We believe that the search for genuine and satisfying justice will forever be linked to the spiritual growth of the individuals involved. Conversely, over-incarceration, which is so typical of a vengeful spirit and repressive mentality only harden the soul of this country.

Under the amendments proposed pursuant to Bill C-10, the following situation could occur. A person carrying a loaded long gun like a hunting rifle commits a robbery in a convenience store, for instance. He has a long criminal record which includes many previous firearms-related guilty pleas. Under section 344(1)(a.1) he would be punishable by a mandatory minimum sentence of four years.

Another person commits a robbery under similar circumstances, but carries an unloaded handgun. It is a first offence and the person has no criminal record. In this case the offender would receive a mandatory minimum sentence of five years, under section 344(1)(a). The same provision would apply if instead of robbery, the offence was sexual assault, kidnapping, hostage taking or extortion.

This proves that the length of mandatory minimum sentences under the bill depends on the legal status of the firearm in question rather than on the actual danger to the public caused by the offence. An unloaded handgun is considered more serious than a loaded long gun, shotgun or hunting rifle, regardless of the actual circumstances of the crime or of the offender's actions, the actual harm caused or any victim-related considerations.

The specific technical details of this bill would add insult to injury by maintaining mandatory minimum sentences in Canada long after the 1987 Canadian Sentencing Commission, and all other commissions having considered the matter over the last 50 years, recommended abolishing all mandatory minimum sentences—fines and custodial sentences—for all offences, except murder and high treason. These grounds are all well documented, as you must know, and this basic criticism has remained unchanged.

When judges must contend with mandatory minimum sentences, they cannot consider the context within which an offence was committed, in other words the seriousness of the crime and the situation the person who committed it was in, in order to consequently mitigate the sentence. As highlighted in the commission's report, mandatory minimum sentences can lead to cruel and unusual punishment, arbitrary imprisonment and serious concerns with respect to liability during the legal process. Under mandatory minimum sentences,

[...] discretion would not be exercised as overtly and would be transferred from judges to crown prosecutors and the police. The Crown would not exercise its discretion to decide which charge would be considered in a public hearing, but rather it would do so unilaterally, through plea bargaining which only judges are privy to, and of which the public are largely unaware.

This was a quote from Mr. Renate Mohr, criminal lawyer and former president of the Church Council on Justice and Corrections in Quebec.

Lastly, those sentences pose yet another significant problem, in that they are against the principle of using imprisonment as little as possible, a principle to which the Church Council has been committed for a long time.

Last week, I took part in a conference entitled "What works in the Community Reintegration of High-Risk Offenders." I have today brought those elements I considered most significant. Victims and offenders worked together on the conference, in an effort to work together to achieve community reintegration.

Thank you.

[Graham Stewart, Executive Director, John Howard Society of Canada]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'm pleased to be here again to speak to this particular legislation.

The John Howard Society is a national charity comprising those who believe an essential component of community safety lies in social measures that serve to reintegrate those who have offended into the community as law-abiding citizens. We're located in 60 communities across Canada. Our mission is effective, just, and humane responses to the causes and consequences of crime.

Crimes committed with guns are very serious. Even when no injury occurs, the potential for injury or death is high. The Criminal Code and the courts clearly take such offences very seriously now.

It is not for the John Howard Society of Canada to propose what the sentences for gun crimes should be. It is our position that sentencing is an individual process that must reflect the specifics of the offence and the offender. The John Howard Society of Canada is making this submission in order to express its view regarding who should set the nature and quantum of a sentence and identify the principles on which those sentences should be based.

In particular, the John Howard Society believes that the principles of sentencing found within the Criminal Code are substantially correct and give sufficient and appropriate guidance to the sentencing court. The sentencing courts, with reviews through appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada, are competent and the only bodies capable of establishing appropriate and just sentences within the principles established by Parliament. There is neither need nor benefit to be derived from imposing particularly severe sanctions on every case for gun crimes beyond those sanctions already imposed today. Data do not support the notion that gun crime rates are growing at alarming rates, except in very particular circumstances and locations. Research over many years shows conclusively that neither the deterrent nor incapacitative intentions of higher penalties are likely to have a significant or cost-effective impact on gun crime rates. And finally, the new expenditures associated with the proposed mandatory minimum sentences could be spent much more effectively to reduce crime generally, including gun crime, if directed towards preventative initiatives.

Severe mandatory minimum sentences conflict with the most important principles of sentencing. Mandatory minimum sentences, particularly when they involve long periods of incarceration, are incompatible with the fundamental principles of sentencing as set out in section 718.1 of the Criminal Code, that being that “A sentence must be proportionate to the gravity of the offence and the degree of responsibility of the offender.”

Under Bill C-10, penalties could increasingly become arbitrary and excessive. Parliament cannot consider individual circumstances, and without such consideration, the penalty becomes arbitrary, particularly as the severity of the mandatory minimum penalty increases. This point is reflected by Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin when she said that “Absence of arbitrariness requires that punishment be tailored to the acts and circumstances of the individual offender.”

Confidence in the justice and political system will decline. The Government of Canada should not take action that would promote and reinforce unfounded distrust of our judiciary. If the judicial system of courts and appeals cannot be trusted to give appropriate sentences within current principles and precedents, then it would be difficult to explain why they should be trusted in any other circumstances.

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.

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.

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

Thanks to the escalation in the use of mandatory minimums in the United States, they now have five to eight times the incarceration rate of any other western industrialized country. Canada has created a just and peaceful society. With an incarceration rate that is one-seventh that of the United States, we should be reluctant to adopt their approach to sentencing now.

Discretion will shift from the judge to the crown or even the police. In a study for the Department of Justice, Thomas Gabor concluded:

There is no evidence that either discretion or disparities are reduced by...[mandatory minimum sentences]. While judicial discretion in the sentencing process is reduced (not removed), prosecutors play a more pivotal role as their charging decisions become critical.

Canadian experience does not show that harsher penalties reduce crime. Because of our principles of sentencing primarily, Canada benefits from a substantially lower rate of imprisonment than the United States, where mandatory minimums have become common. This was not always the case.

Looking back 30 years, the incarceration rate in Canada was at 90 per 100,000, as compared to the United States, which was 149. Today, the incarceration rate in Canada is 108, while the incarceration rate in the United States has soared to 750.

One might expect that if incarceration prevented crime either through deterrence or incapacitation, these stark differences in incarceration rates would lead to very different crime patterns over time. In fact, this is not the case. Crime fluctuations in Canada and the U.S. have remained surprisingly similar. Property crime is about the same between the two countries, while serious violent and in particular gun crimes in the United States have remained consistently much higher than in Canada.

The variation in gun crimes between cities in Canada is substantial. The fact that between and even within cities there are often huge differences between neighbourhoods in rates of gun crimes cannot be explained by the existence of tougher sentencing in the low-crime neighbourhoods.

Most research does not support the effectiveness of mandatory minimum sentences. Academic studies that challenge the theory that harsh penalties reduce crime abound. A large-scale review of the United States experience with enhanced sentences for gun crimes involving data from nearly all states over a 16- to 24-year period concluded that several small-scale studies have suggested the laws might reduce some types of gun crimes. We found the laws produced such an impact in no more than a few states, and there is little evidence that the laws generally reduce crime or increase prison populations.

Similar studies have occurred in Virginia and Florida, and in California the experience is interesting. Crime rates have moved in opposite directions between young and adult offenders, even though adults were subjected to severe mandatory minimum sentencing provisions and much higher levels of incarceration. With youth in California the opposite occurred. The incarceration rate and the crime rate of youth in California is the lowest it's been in 30 years.

In Canada, a large meta-analysis of all valid research conducted over 50 years in North America that tested the impact of sentence length and recidivism found that the type of sanction did not produce decreases in recidivism. There was no differential effect of the type of sanction on juveniles, females, or minority groups. Thirdly, there were tentative indications that increasing lengths of incarceration were associated with slightly greater increases in recidivism.

Canadian criminologists Antony Doob and Cheryl Webster published an exhaustive review of the international literature over several decades. They concluded that harsher punishments do not deter crime.

Deterrence-based sentencing makes false promises to the community. As long as the public believes that crime can be deterred by legislatures or judges through harsh sentences, there is no need to consider other approaches to crime reduction.

Trends with gun crimes in Canada do not support the need for harsher punishments. Data produced by the Department of Justice in January 2006 show startling and presumably reassuring trends, including the fact that the homicide rate in Canada dropped between 1974 and 2004 by 25%, while firearm homicides dropped even further during that period, with a drop of 54%.

Firearms used in robbery dropped 53% between 1974 and 2004, and dramatic declines in virtually all violent crimes were recorded over the last 15 years, with a combined drop of 60%.

While these changes are dramatic and positive, very recent data from Statistics Canada shows that in the last two years there's been an increase in gun-related homicides in a few major centres. As troubling as this may be, these changes can not be explained by different sentencing practices in those centres and are unlikely to be addressed through sentencing measures.

In conclusion, all of the above gives rise to the conclusions articulated in our submission that principled sentencing can not be achieved through severe and arbitrary mandatory minimums proposed by Bill C-10. Neither does the evidence suggest that such measures will reduce gun-related criminal activity.

Thank you.

[Alan Borovoy]

Thank you.

I'm here on behalf of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association. To my immediate left is our project director of public safety, Alexi Wood.

I have three points to make. The first is that mandatory minimum sentences are capable of producing very serious injustice. One of the most effective examples is the current plight of Saskatchewan farmer Robert Latimer. For ending the life of his severely disabled daughter, Mr. Latimer was charged with and convicted of second-degree murder. And for that, he drew the automatic sentence of life in jail with no chance for parole for ten years. What's particularly troubling about this case are the facts. As found by the judge, Mr. Latimer committed this deed to relieve what he saw as the unremitting, terrible pain his young daughter was suffering. In the judge's words, Mr. Latimer was motivated solely by his love and compassion for his little girl. As a result, the judge gave Mr. Latimer a constitutional exemption from the operation of the mandatory minimum and gave him a much lighter sentence. The other tryers of fact, the jury, recommended he be eligible for parole after one year. So those who were finding the facts, who heard all the evidence and saw all the witnesses, urged a course of leniency.

Now, it isn't necessary to excuse mercy killing in general, or Robert Latimer in particular, in order to be outraged by the current punishment this man is suffering. Most second-degree murders are committed out of hate, greed, or at least selfishness. It is repugnant that a compassionate father who breaks the law out of love should suffer the same penalty as a malevolent robber who breaks the law out of greed. In the opinion of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, this situation is nothing less than a national disgrace, and the culprit is mandatory minimum sentences that permit no flexibility, that rigidly impose a sentence regardless of whatever peculiar or particular circumstances may apply. That is the first case.

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.

Now, if that man had come up for sentencing today, he would have to serve no less than four years. Thanks to the grace of Bill C-10, he could have 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 this happen? It's because simplistic solutions such as mandatory minimum sentences inevitably encounter complex reality, and you can't always make them fit. That's the reason why this is such an abomination.

That's the first point. The next two points will run much more quickly.

The second point is that even as mandatory minimums cause a lot of harm, they also produce virtually nothing for public safety. One of the reasons is probably quite obvious, and that is that, as studies have demonstrated, the greatest number of people in the public don't have the remotest idea what crimes are accompanied by what mandatory minimums.They simply don't know. The more you add to it with all the fancy tables—if you're convicted this many times, and that many times.... Whoever thinks that any member of the public is going to know this?

How in the world is anything supposed to deter the commission of crime if the people it's supposed to deter don't know it exists? Small wonder that there is a wealth of literature that reaches the conclusion that these mandatory minimums do not contribute to public safety.

The third and last point is that there are alternatives to mandatory minimums. If a judge imposes an excessively lenient sentence, there is recourse to appeal. And prosecutors have appealed, and courts of appeal have increased sentences in circumstances that warranted it. It has happened on a number of occasions; this is no secret.

Consider the difference. If a sentence is too lenient, it's subject to appeal; if a mandatory minimum in a particular set of circumstances is too harsh, there's virtually nothing you can do about it, except perhaps pray. That is an unacceptable double standard in our justice system.

The final point I would like to make about the alternative is that for those few crimes that are so horrendous it's inconceivable that they wouldn't be worthy of this mandatory minimum—such as murder, for example—one way to deal with them is by what we call a “presumptive minimum”. That is, you might provide—for murder, let's say—life in prison, but say presumptively “unless a court finds exceptional circumstances”. That signals to the court that this minimum should apply unless the circumstances are genuinely compelling.

There's no reason to make it a conclusive mandatory that is so insensitive to peculiar differences in situations. There's simply no earthly reason to do it.

To sum up, Mr. Chairman, we say that mandatory minimums should not increase. Indeed, they should decrease, first, because they are capable of producing very serious injustice, and have; secondly, because they contribute virtually zilch to public safety; and thirdly, because there are viable alternatives to using them.

All of which is, as always, respectfully submitted.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Art Hanger]

I would like to call to order this meeting of the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights. Before us is the continued debate and discussion on Bill C-10, an act to amend the Criminal Code on minimum penalties for offences involving firearms.

We have the following witnesses before us today: from the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, Alexi Nicole Wood, the program safety project director, and Mr. Alan Borovoy, general counsel; from the Church Council on Justice and Corrections, Monsieur Laurent Champagne, the president; and from the John Howard Society of Canada, Mr. Graham Stewart, the executive director.

I thank you all for being here.

I will turn the floor over to the—

[The Chair, Conservative, Art Hanger]

Thank you very much, Mr. Lee.

Mr. Stuesser, I'm an old robbery detective; I've been a major crimes investigator. Among all the cases you have alluded to, when it comes to loopholes and the way matters are handled in court, the definition of things such as “membership in a criminal organization” has created a real problem for the courts. Nobody's been able to define it in logical terms, such that the police can go and collect the evidence and say, “Here it is.” I know that some of this can be rectified. But to prove that a particular individual is a member of a criminal organization, you're having to go into maybe revealing police sources about what kind of evidence is there, which may not be to the best interests of the public, because it's intelligence.

If this is so difficult to do with Bill C-10—matters like this, or the description of a firearm—when you're looking at a victim who's been traumatized.... If this is so difficult to do, what would your suggestion be? I detect that you're not wanting to really say, “We don't want this legislation, period.” You see some very practical issues here that need to be addressed.

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

Thank you.

My question is for Mr. Lee, Mr. Cannavino or Mr. Stuesser.

When we want to evaluate a justice system, we have to know how others perceive us. In the United States, one New York judge gave one criminal convicted of aggravated assault the choice of one year in prison in the United States or three years in Canada. The individual chose three years of prison in Canada. It's obvious: it's because we're permissive. Is that out of greatness of spirit? Is it a quality? I don't know, but for the moment, we have a problem, and that's how people perceive us.

When a drug trafficker has to land because we know he's transporting drugs, he won't land in Vermont. He'll do everything possible to land in Beauce, because he knows his sentence won't be as harsh.

There's also another factor that bothers me a bit. The Attorney General of Ontario, Mr. Bryant, appeared before our committee. He seemed to agree with us, and you mentioned him in your brief. He represents 16 million of the 32 million inhabitants of Canada, approximately half of Canada. I imagine he speaks on behalf of at least 50 percent of the population. What's strange is that he's a Liberal. In his region, there are other federal Liberals and New Democrats. So I imagine they must talk to each other because they're close to each other.

Mr. Cannavino, the bill we want to pass concerns serious crimes. However, in Montreal — here I'm referring to Mr. Chartrand's remarks — there are now gangs of blacks. That's the fashion. There are others in Toronto. We know there will be more blacks in prison, because they hold the power in the Montreal region.

In your view, is that the only justification? Mr. Chartrand said earlier that it was senseless, because there will be more people from certain ethnic groups in prison. I'd like to know whether you believe that Bill C-10 has a colour or whether it will help you solve the gang problem that exists right now.

[Prof. Lee Stuesser]

I suppose I'm a bit of a pragmatist. Some people may well argue that we should have general discretion for all of the sections in Bill C-10. I don't think that will fly, with all due respect. I believe the tenor of the community, of the country, is that they do want some tougher laws.

I propose a very limited exception. There is some wording used by, for example, some of the justices in a case called Morrisey, where they talk about “grossly disproportionate” with regard to both the offence and the offender. For example, if a gang person committed an offence, I would submit that no judge in the land would regard this person as falling within the exception. It would be phrased such that the court would well appreciate that this would be an exception.

Incidentally, in my own view, I feel that the courts will in fact support the constitutionality of the provisions. I really think the whole difficulty is going to be, as in my lady example, that she will have no recourse, she will go to jail for four years--unless Parliament recognizes that there should be an easier way for unintentional use of a firearm.

[Prof. Lee Stuesser]

I'll just make a couple of general observations.

If you're going to look for statistics to show that deterrence works, you're not going to find them, quite frankly. I think all the studies have indicated that maybe there might be minimal input. This issue isn't really for criminologists or sociologists, quite frankly. It's a political decision that, as part of, hopefully a whole package of things, can address this. This is but one bit.

I'm just being blunt on this because when I look at the literature that I've seen, I've not seen any conclusive studies that say deterrence works. In fact, if anything, the studies in the United States in particular have shown that it has not worked. But, in fairness, I think the United States went to excess in California or elsewhere. The legislation that you have here is far more surgical. You seem to be pointing at violent crimes and the use of firearms, and that's far more surgical than what we have in the United States.

You can bring in all the experts you want on this, and one will say, “Mr. Lee will say one thing, but we can bring ten other experts to say the other.” Where is that going to get you? It's the battle of the experts.

Firm, fair, and fast--I couldn't agree with you more. I come from Manitoba. We're a small province. You'd think we should be able to arrest a person, have the trial, and get that done within, say, three or four months. Do you know what the average time is from the time of arrest to trial in Manitoba? It's approximately a year or more. And we're a small province. That's terrible. And it's systemic, right? It's in the court system and the lawyers.

As a result of the delay, the judges have a very difficult decision to make. They have a person who has committed a violent offence. What do they do? Do they deny bail? That means he's going to be sitting in remand for a year, which is why judges will often release, as the legislation in fact provides. Then, of course, the person commits.... So if we could have speedier.... Now here's the reality. It's going to cost, and it's going to cost the Province of Manitoba a great deal because they're in charge of the administration of justice.

All I'm saying in terms of these things is that I quite agree with you.

On fairness, though, if you look across the common-law world where mandatory sentences have been in for quite awhile, do you know what they're doing? They're retreating. They've been moving a little bit more to some discretion because I think they recognized it was too blunt an instrument.

All I was saying in my presentation here is that I've identified two crimes in particular where I think real unfairness can occur, and I gave you the concrete examples. One is criminal negligence causing death and the other is manslaughter. They are not in Bill C-10. Bill C-10 is dealing with intentional crimes. All I'm saying is that I would like to see Parliament turn its mind to being firm and fair. Fair would be a discretion for those two crimes.

I'm a realist. I'm not here to say to you to have discretion everywhere. That's where I was coming from.

[Myron Thompson, Conservative, Wild Rose, AB]

Thanks very much. I appreciate you people being here.

I'm going to ask four questions, and I hope to ask them quickly. There's a question for each one of you. If you just make a note of it, I'll go back to the first question and then we'll go from there.

To Professor Chartrand, you say that the legislation we're doing here to try to lock up more people is going to cause more jail time and is going to cost a lot more. Have you ever done any cost analysis of what crime costs when these people are left on the street and continue to commit crimes? Sometimes we can measure that in monetary things. The cost of crime should never be left out of any formula. Why is that not talked about by people like yourself?

Front door to back door--we know what happens when we go into the front door of a penitentiary and out the back door. You say they come out more dangerous. I would suggest to you, sir, that what happens inside the penitentiary should never be happening because of our lax laws. How in the world can you have a penitentiary where people are in debt because they don't pay their rent inside, or because they're drinking too much alcohol, or because drugs are overused, and they lay around an awful lot in these things? I've been to many of them and I've seen this. I think what takes place in that penitentiary could have a lot better effect on those coming out the back door than what we're doing today. You can comment on that.

Last is root causes. I don't even want to go there. Root causes is something we should all work on, but not through this committee. We're talking about people who have committed a crime, and now we have to deal with it. The root causes are something we all can engage in by some other method than through the justice committee.

To the police commission, I thank you so much for being here. I really appreciate hearing about the number of cases that have happened when they're on bail, probation, and parole. I understand that the authority you have as police officers for arresting without warrant when someone is obviously breaking parole does not exist. I'd like you to comment on how much effect you think that would have in curbing crime, as well as some of the sentencing that's taking place with Bill C-10.

Professor Lee, I really appreciate your charts. A lot of people, this committee included, don't seem to think that from 40 years ago there has been a significant increase in crime. I agree with you, sir. I'm so glad to see that chart; it is extremely significant. The silly decisions we've made over the years are a lot of the root cause for that thing going up.

They keep claiming alcohol is a root cause of crime. Well, I agree, but we're the society that said it's okay to keep bars open seven days a week and it's okay to keep them open till three o'clock in the morning. So they carry a bunch of knives or anything with them. “This is Canada; we have some freedoms we have to respect”, and all that nonsense. So we've asked for a lot of our own problems. I'd like your comment on that.

Mr. Stuesser, I too believe in the firm, fair, and fast—the three-F—system. We used to have it in the military. I thought that was one of the best systems. But I need a little more clarification. Are you suggesting that this Bill C-10 is okay, but we also need legislation for unintentional commissions of a crime? I think accidental shootings and self-defence are already covered in the code, but if that's not true, I'd like your comments on that.

Those are my questions, and if you take them in order, I'd like to hear your response.

[Réal Ménard, Bloc, Hochelaga, QC]

I'd like to understand your recommendation exactly. If I understand correctly, you're saying that Bill C-10 in its present form provides, for the offences you list on page 8, that, in the case of indictable offences committed with restricted weapons or for a gang, the system of escalating penalties applies. However, in cases where those two conditions aren't met, you're talking about a four-year sentence. You would like the new system of offences to apply in all cases where a firearm is used.

[Tony Cannavino]

If there's one problem that we've observed over the years, it's that plea bargaining, that is negotiations between the Crown prosecutor — which was a very well-paying livelihood for Mr. Lemay in his previous life — and the defence obviously considerably reduces the impact of the sentence, in terms of length of sentence. You heard the eloquent presentation by Ian Lee, who explained the statistics he had compiled on the effects of these minimum sentences, and on the reasons why we need them.

As you know, if we can find a way to reduce the crime rate or to prevent people from reoffending, we'll be the first to support that approach and to tell you to adopt that way of doing things rather than another. I was listening to Mr. Chartrand's presentation. Yes, indeed, we advocate prevention, therapeutic programs and all that. We understand that, and we're ardent promoters of that method, but, when that doesn't work, when the person, despite everything we've offered him, nevertheless decides to use a firearm, that's when we need bills like this one, Bill C-10.

[Brian Murphy, Liberal, Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe, NB]

It seems to me you're suggesting that even if it's a seven-month sentence, the person should be in for 21 months to be rehabilitated. But I'll read the documents on safe return. Thank you.

To Mr. Cannavino, on blue-skying, we asked the chief of police of Toronto about this. What we have seen recently in the statistics is a sharp increase in gang-related violent crime, particularly with handguns--homicides and so on. There's no real division of opinion on that. There's a sharp problem right now, particularly in urban centres.

You eloquently canvassed the whole issue that there shouldn't be any difference between the type of firearm.... But is there a further measure of gun control that you think might be necessary, once we're done with Bill C-10?

[Prof. Paul Chartrand, Professor, College of Law, University of Saskatchewan, As an Individual]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

My name is Paul Chartrand. I teach law in the College of Law at the University of Saskatchewan.

I thank the committee for inviting me. I am here at the invitation of the committee. I belong to no political party. I have never belonged to any political party. The views I will offer are based on my experience, which includes being involved in the production of some reports and recommendations on criminal justice policy, particularly pertaining to aboriginal peoples. I cite in particular my service as a commissioner on the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples, and also more recently as a commissioner on Manitoba's Aboriginal Justice Implementation Commission.

I am here at your invitation and I view my participation here as a matter of my contribution to public service.

As legislators, you have a high duty and responsibility to protect society. Whatever can be done to make our community safer, including reducing the use of firearms, is a good thing and you ought to do it. We all deplore and denounce the use of firearms in the commission of crimes. However, the matter of sentencing and the matter of administration of criminal law is fraught with emotion and complexity.

We must recognize that there are no easy solutions to complex problems. In fact, I always advise my students to be very wary of those who offer simple solutions to complex problems. I can give you examples of the danger they pose to society.

I presume that all of us wish to legislate in such a way as to promote a just and tolerant Canada. Let me ask, then, with respect to Bill C-10, is minimum mandatory sentencing a legitimate means to address the problem? My answer is no.

A second question is, will minimum mandatory sentencing work? The answer again is no.

Let me elaborate in the short time I have. It is not a legitimate means for the following reasons. First, it is arguably contrary to the law of the Constitution. Second, it is demonstrably in conflict with Canada's obligations under international human rights treaties. I cite among others--and I will elaborate if there is sufficient time in the question period to follow--the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination with respect to aboriginal peoples.

Mandatory minimum sentencing is unprincipled. It clashes with the fundamental principles of our criminal justice system. In fact, mandatory sentencing is an oxymoron. After conviction, the process of sentencing seeks to address the degree of blameworthiness. If you have seven people committing the same offence, you are faced with potentially seven different degrees of blameworthiness. All that is removed by a minimum sentence.

A very quick example is taken from a case involving an aboriginal man who used a rifle and was subjected to one of these mandatory minimum sentences. He used his rifle in defending himself against a criminal gang in his community. He didn't like gangs, but he had a rifle--he belonged to a hunting community--and he faced the mandatory minimum.

Let me go on and emphasize why mandatory minimum sentences do not work, notwithstanding what has been proposed to you by Professor Ian Lee. When I say this, I'm relying mainly on the literature that I read and on my being briefed by Canada's and other places' top criminologists, lawyers, and practitioners who work in this area every day. I must say I'm not aware of the work of Professor Lee from the School of Business at Carleton in this regard.

Why will it not work? First, it will create a much more expensive system. True, it's a political easy fix because you don't need to attach a budget to this particular legislation, but it will cost a lot on the road. All the statistics point to that. It will be tremendously expensive, and if you ask questions later on on this, I will elaborate on why it has become more expensive. First of all, I think it costs roughly $80,000 a year to keep people in jail. Obviously, if you're going to put more people in jail, it will cost you a lot more. If you set a minimum, and if judges do try to ignore what I suggested, that it's an oxymoron, then they will take the minimum to be applicable to the best offender and all the sentences will go up, ergo the costs will increase. You cannot avoid that. It will be horrendously expensive.

My next point is that it will not work, because presumably you're trying to create a less dangerous society. An earlier speaker suggested that we need harsh sentences. We have a lot of experience in the use of harsh sentences. We can cut off their hands. We can jail them forever. We can use steel pincers to pull out the flesh and pour molten tar into the wounds, which are examples of the harsh punishment that has been meted out to offenders in the past. These are historical examples. If you want to be harsh, there are many ways of doing that very effectively, but it does not work. You create a more dangerous society.

Usually people are inclined to look at the people going into jail. As you will hear with these minimum sentences, they ought to go to jail; they have to go in. So you're looking at the front door and then you don't look at what goes on inside. Essentially, I suggest to you that you're telling people to go to hell. You want to ignore them because there the place is hell.

I submit there's no evidence to support the previous contention that you need longer sentences to allow for rehabilitation. That proposition is based on the assumption that there is rehabilitation. Instead of looking at the front door, at who goes into the jail, I invite you to go and have a look at the back door. Who comes out? Every day criminals are sentenced and come in the front door, but every day criminals come out the back door. If you think you're sending dangerous people to jail at the front door, think of the kind of people you're letting out the back door. Send a 20-year-old—

I ask you when you're contemplating enacting legislation like this, think about Canada and jailing Canadians. Think of a recipient of those kinds of sentences as your son, your grandson, or your niece. They're human beings. They will come out tougher criminals. In jail they will get sodomized. They will become heroin addicts. Those are the kinds of things that happen there. They will be harsher and tougher. Being tough on crime actually results in creating and manufacturing tougher criminals. It seems to me if society can live with the people who get out the back door, surely you can live with most of the ones who go in the front door.

Finally, I want to say that aboriginal people are incarcerated...in statistics that are disproportionately higher in comparison to other people.

This will create tremendous social disruption and problems, not only for aboriginal individuals, their families, and their communities, but for the provinces. In effect, the federal government will be off-loading a lot of the costs onto the provinces, particularly the western provinces, like Saskatchewan and Manitoba, that have very high aboriginal populations. I think there are statistics that suggest that something like over 500 aboriginal people were sentenced last year. If they were subjected to this mandatory minimum sentencing, you'd have 500. So multiply 500 times 80 and so on and you get the statistics.

I want to conclude my presentation by suggesting that these complex problems can only be fixed in a holistic way. Holistic is realistic, but it's very difficult. You have to attack the root causes of crime. These are not easy to sell politically or in 15-second sound bites. The evidence all shows us--and I've been briefed on this--that you can tell when a child is about seven years old whether that child is going to go to jail. And Indian people who become reserve residents have way more probability of going to jail than of going to university.

So the way to combat crime is to combat the root causes of crime: assist children, have children's benefits, assist families, have community services and recreation, and so on. I can give you statistics on that. The Manitoba Northern Fly-In Sports Camp that the RCMP conducted some years ago would be an example of that. But the federal government can't do it alone. You would have to work not only with the provinces but with the municipal governments as well.

It's very easy to just adopt an easy fix like minimum sentences, but they're neither legitimate nor do they work. I ask members of the committee not to adopt Bill C-10, because this kind of legislation will create not a more tolerant and just Canada; it will create a meaner and nastier Canada, and I wish that my little granddaughters would not live in a meaner and nastier Canada.

Thank you very much

[Prof. Lee Stuesser, Professor of Law, Robson, Hall, University of Manitoba, As an Individual]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I want to first of all thank the committee for inviting me to appear this afternoon. It's my honour and privilege to do so.

I don't represent any association. I don't represent any lobby or interest group. I'm simply a law professor who has been teaching criminal law, evidence, and trial advocacy for the past 20 years. Hopefully, I can assist you with some of my experience.

I'd like to start with two fundamental principles in criminal law: clarity and fairness. The law has to be clear and it has to be fair. In my written submission to you, I point out that there are two problems with Bill C-10. I think there is a problem with clarity and a problem with fairness. I've provided two suggestions on how to make the law clearer and fairer.

First of all, I'd like to turn to the issue of clarity. Actually, it builds upon something the last speaker was talking about. In my view, Bill C-10, as it now stands, is unduly complex, and it will in fact be unworkable in practice. In fact, if Bill C-10 is put into law, you may well be creating a loophole for those who do use firearms in the commission of offences. That's my primary concern: the issue of firearms in the commission of offences. I think what you simply need to do is to simplify the law. Make it simple. Use the existing wordings in the Criminal Code.

I want to illustrate this with some examples. Let's assume we have an accused who robs a store. He has a shotgun, which isn't that unusual. Let's say the Crown can prove identification, which isn't that easy, but they can. Well, once they have identification, they also see that he has a prior record for violent offences using firearms. You'd think we'd now be triggering the second offence mandatory minimum of seven years. Will it apply? No. When you look at your triggering mechanism in Bill C-10, it requires that the weapon either be restricted or prohibited--a shotgun is neither--or that this person is a member of a criminal organization acting for the benefit of or at direction of the criminal organization. Quite frankly, good luck. That's very difficult to prove. In the absence of that, you have the residual, which means the four-year minimum. We can prove that he used the shotgun. We can see that. We have witnesses to that. We can prove identification. But this will not trigger the legislation.

Take another example. A woman is sexually assaulted at gunpoint. She's traumatized by it. When she's asked to describe the weapon, she has difficulty. She can't tell whether it's a handgun or a rifle or a shotgun or anything. She knows for darn sure that there was a gun and that she was sexually assaulted. We have DNA that shows the perpetrator. We have him. We can identify him. Will we trigger the second or third offence? Say, for instance, we see that he has prior offences for violence. Will it be triggered? No, it won't. She won't be able to tell us whether this is a prohibited or a restricted weapon. If she can't, you then have to try to prove that he was a member of a criminal organization doing a sexual assault for the benefit, direction, or association of the gang. Good luck, again. It's not going to happen.

Let's take a third one, a drive-by shooting. A person is shot. He was driving down the street, a car drove up, and someone shot him. We see that it was a .22 calibre. We have our forensics that can identify that. But can they identify that it's a .22 handgun? Or is it a .22 long rifle? If you can't prove that, you're not into the second or third strikes. You're back to the residual four-year, where we are now.

Here's the simple question I have for the members of the committee. If your intention is not to have those individuals punished with the second or third strike, then ignore what I have to say. But I would venture to say that your intention is that those people should be caught by the legislation the second or third time, and that's where I urge the committee to go back to simplicity.

In my written submission, I compare the wording in Bill C-10 with the existing wording. Isn't the concern firearm violence? Isn't that the fundamental concern? And if your answer to that is yes, then does it matter that the rapist or the robber used a handgun versus a long rifle? I think the answer is obvious—it's no.

Given this added complexity, I will tell you what crowns will do: they will not charge using your two or three strikes legislation; they will not. They will charge using the residual. Why? Because that is the course of least resistance.

You are giving me, a former defence counsel, an argument to raise in court with this legislation. You are giving me a means to negotiate out of two or three strikes with the Crown, because they're going to have real difficulty proving a criminal connection. My guy may well have been a gang member, but he was freelancing, and that means it doesn't apply.

So I urge the committee, there is nothing wrong with the existing wording. It has been around for over 10 years, since this Parliament passed the mandatory minimums for these intentional crimes, and I urge the committee to go back to simplicity. I think you will find that it will be workable. As drafted, the bill is, in my view, unduly complex, unnecessary, and, quite frankly, it will constitute a loophole.

I've got a second concern, the issue of making the law fairer. I don't care what anyone says—and you've no doubt been told this—mandatory minimum sentences are a blunt instrument. They remove discretion and they make all offenders subject to the same minimum. Some people are unfairly caught. Some people should not receive the mandatory minimum; they are caught. Some might say that's the price of justice, that's the price of using a firearm, but I think most countries who have introduced mandatory minimums have recognized that there needs to be some discretion.

When I look at the types of crimes where, in my view, people ought not to receive the mandatory minimum, there are two types of crimes committed. They are criminal negligence causing death and manslaughter. Both now have the four-year minimum—and, incidentally, they are not part of Bill C-10.

What I urge the committee to do is to consider discretion for those types of unintentional deaths arising from firearms. I want to give you two simple specific examples that occur on, I hate to say, a regular basis, but very routinely.

We've got the police association here. Let's deal with police officers, who have weapons. Let's assume we've got a police officer in a volatile standoff. The officer thinks he hears a gunshot. The officer panics and uses a weapon; he fires in return and kills someone. He ought not to have fired. He was mistaken; he panicked. He may well be charged, because we expect our police officers to be well trained and to be restrained in their use of firearms. He may well be charged with criminal negligence causing death, and he would then be subject to the four-year minimum sentence. I'm not sure what the views of the gentlemen to my right would be on that, but I can give you cases where this has indeed been the situation.

I give you another common situation from one of the first cases I was involved in when I was a young man. It dealt with a middle-aged woman. I remember the case well because it wasn't that often we had a truly innocent person, if you like, we were defending, so it stuck in my mind. She had blasted her husband away with a double-barrelled shotgun at close range with both barrels. It didn't look good. She was charged with murder. When we started to investigate, though, we found that the husband had been abusive. We found as well that he was a drinker, and we found that he loved his guns—and he had guns all over the place. He would routinely take those guns and threaten her and her family. She got so fed up one day, she picked up the shotgun—and she didn't have any idea if it was loaded or not—and pointed it at him and said, how do you like this? How do you like this? And bam, the gun went off because it had a hair-trigger. When the first barrel went, the second one discharged too. And she was devastated.

She was convicted of manslaughter. We got it reduced from murder, but she was convicted of manslaughter. At the end of the day, the sentencing judge gave her a suspended sentence. Members of the committee, that was a just and fair sentence for that woman.

The problem with criminal negligence and manslaughter charges is they are so broad, they catch people who unintentionally kill with firearms. Now, you might say, what does that have to do with Bill C-10? Well, if this committee or Parliament were to look at an exceptional discretion for criminal negligence and manslaughter offences, I would think it would show three things. First, it would show that Parliament has turned its mind to be firm but fair. It would recognize where the vast majority of fairness cases would arise. Second, it would provide a simple mechanism for people like the woman I represented to seek a just sentence. Right now, she would have grave difficulty doing so; she'd have to challenge the legislation under the charter or seek a constitutional exemption. And here's a third reason. It would show the distinction between unintentional and intentional crimes. Bill C-10 is concerned with intentional crimes.

Quite frankly, here's what my argument would be. If Parliament had a discretion for unintentional crimes, it would actually reinforce the point that when you use a firearm for an intentional crime—attempted murder, robbery, or whatever—Parliament has indicated there is no discretion. It would, if anything, make your mandatory minimum, in these types of crimes in Bill C-10, charter-proof.

I simply point that out to you. In my view, the vast majority of cases involving unintentional killings is where you have a disproportionate sentence.

Members of the committee, those are my concerns and my suggestions. I look forward to your questions.

Thank you for listening.

[Tony Cannavino, President, Canadian Police Association]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Chair, committee members, good afternoon.

The Canadian Police Association welcomes the opportunity to present our submissions to the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights with respect to Bill C-10, An Act to amend the Criminal Code (minimum penalties for offences involving firearms).

The CPA is the national voice for 54,700 police personnel serving across Canada. Through our 170 member associations, CPA membership includes police personnel serving in police services from Canada's smallest towns and villages as well as those working in our largest municipal cities, provincial police services, members of the RCMP, railway police and First Nations police associations.

The Canadian Police Association is acknowledged as a national voice for police personnel in the reform of the Canadian criminal justice system. Our goal is to work with elected officials from all parties, to bring about meaningful reforms to enhance the safety and security of all Canadians, including those sworn to protect our communities.

Urban violence has been a significant concern for our association. For over a decade, police associations have been advocating reforms to our justice system in Canada, and in particular we've called for changes to bolster the sentencing, detention, and parole of violent offenders.

At our 2004 annual general meeting, CPA delegates unanimously adopted a resolution that includes a call for federal legislation to be introduced to ensure tougher and more adequate mandatory prison sentences for individuals involved in firearm-related crime.

Repeat offenders are a serious problem. There's been considerable debate at this committee about the use of minimum sentences and the frequency of repeat offenders. Make no mistake about it: repeat offenders are a serious problem. Police understand this intuitively, as we deal with these frequent flyers on a routine basis.

Statistics released by the Toronto police homicide squad for 2005 demonstrate this point. Among the 32 people facing murder or manslaughter charges for homicide in 2006, 14 were on bail at the time of the offence, 13 were on probation, and 17 were subject to firearms prohibition orders. The revolving-door justice system is failing to prevent further criminal activity by these repeat violent offenders.

Gun violence requires a non-partisan approach. Support for tougher measures to thwart gun violence transcends party lines. During the last federal election, three major parties promised tougher sentences for crimes involving firearms. The NDP platform promised to “Increase the mandatory minimum penalty for possession, sale and importation of illegal arms such as hand guns, assault rifles and automatic weapons”, and “Add mandatory minimum sentences to other weapons offences”, including a “four-year minimum sentence on all weapon offences, such as possession of a concealed weapons'”.

Former Prime Minister Martin promised to toughen penalties “by re-introducing legislation to crack down on violent crimes and gang violence, by doubling the mandatory minimum sentences for key gun crimes”. Former Liberal Justice Minister Irwin Cotler introduced Bill C-82 in November 2005 to address gun violence. Bill C-82 would include increasing certain minimum penalties relating to smuggling, trafficking in, and possession of firearms and other weapons, and creating two new offences, breaking and entering to steal a firearm and robbery to steal a firearm.

When Bill C-10 was introduced this spring, Premier McGuinty was quoted as stating that the bill will “make a real difference when it comes to promoting safety for our families and our communities”. Last year, Conservative MP Daryl Kramp introduced a private member's bill, Bill C-215, that would require that a sentence for commission of certain serious offences be supplemented if a firearm is used in the commission of that offence.

A justice department survey conducted in March 2005 by Decima Research confirmed that an “overwhelming majority” of Canadians support mandatory minimum jail terms for gun crimes such as robbery with a firearm and criminal negligence causing death with a firearm. According to CanWest news, the poll of 2,343 Canadians revealed that “Support for mandatory jail terms for robbery with a firearm was as high as 82%, compared with 14% who opposed the prospect”.

Similarly, an Ipsos Reid CanWest Global poll conducted December 30, 2005, to January 2, 2006, of 8,336 Canadian voters found that 73% of the respondents supported changing the current laws so that being convicted of committing a gun crime would carry a mandatory 10-year prison sentence with no eligibility for parole or early release.

Clearly, there is broad political and public support for tougher measures to deal with firearm crimes. We urge Parliament to move swiftly to address the areas of consensus as quickly as possible. The CPA supports in principle the measures contained within Bill C-10 with necessary modifications.

On amendments, although the CPA supports the vast majority of proposals contained within Bill C-10, we do have one significant area of concern. It relates to the proposal dealing with the use of firearms in the commission of attempted murder, discharging a firearm with intent, sexual assault with a weapon, aggravated sexual assault, kidnapping, hostage-taking, robbery, and extortion.

Bill C-10 contemplates a tiered response. Offenders who commit these crimes, whether with a restricted or a prohibited firearm or any firearm in connection with a criminal organization, are subject to escalating penalties—five years for a first offence, seven years for a second offence, and ten years for a third or subsequent offence. Conversely, if the firearm is not used in connection with a criminal organization and the weapon is not restricted or prohibited, the mandatory minimum sentence is only four years, regardless of whether it is a second, third, or subsequent offence.

We find the different treatment for long guns to be misguided, and we are at a loss to understand the rationale for distinguishing the penalty on the basis of the class of firearm that is issued by a person in the commission of a very serious crime. Police officers routinely discover these weapons in firearms seizures, clandestine drug labs, and marijuana grow-ops. Will shotguns and rifles become the weapons of choice for repeat violent offenders? In many situations, a rifle or shotgun is a far more lethal threat in the hands of a criminal than a handgun.

For example, high-powered rifles are capable of shooting through body armour and other protective equipment. Shotguns can be extremely powerful weapons when used at short range. A tragic example is the murder of Constable Valerie Gignac of Laval last fall, who was shot through a wall with a high-powered rifle. Of the 13 police officers killed with firearms in the past decade, only three were murdered with handguns; 77% were murdered with long guns, and it's unlikely that any of the offenders in these cases would have met the threshold for participation or membership in a criminal organization.

This latter threshold of connection with a criminal organization also presents an additional hurdle for prosecutors to prove in order to obtain the higher mandatory penalty. While we applaud measures to deal proactively with criminal organizations, we contend that any person who uses any firearm in the commission of an offence should receive the full mandatory minimum penalty available, and particularly repeat offenders.

The recent tragedy at Dawson College in Montreal has reinforced the need to strengthen Canada's control over civilian firearms possession. To our knowledge, no new firearms have been added to the restricted or prohibited categories in Canada for over a decade, yet many new firearms have been designed that are being offered for sale in Canada and would arguably meet existing criteria. As a consequence, some weapons are being legally sold in Canada despite the fact that they meet existing criteria for restricted or prohibited status and present significant concerns for public safety.

Retailers understand and exploit these loopholes, as demonstrated by the website for Wolverine Supplies in Manitoba. You'll find that in our brief. We submit that further steps must be taken to close the loopholes by updating and maintaining the restricted and prohibited firearms classifications.

In conclusion, I'll say that one of the concerns of police officers across the country is to stop the violence. The solution to this begins with bringing an end to Canada's revolving door justice system. Canada's police officers have lost confidence in a system that sees violent offenders regularly return to the streets. We need to restore meaningful consequences and deterrence in our justice system, which begins with stiffer sentences, real jail time and tougher parole eligibility policies for violent offenders. We need stiffer minimum sentences for offenders who commit crimes with guns, or any type of weapon.

Bill C-10 provides a positive component in an integrated strategy to address current shortfalls, specifically pertaining to the concern with gun violence. We believe that it can provide an effective deterrent against violent gun crimes, and we fully endorse the principle of creating tougher mandatory minimum penalties for the commission of serious offences involving the use of a firearm.

We thank you for your attention and we welcome your questions.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Art Hanger]

I'd like to call the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights to order. In our agenda, we're still on Bill C-10, an Act to amend the Criminal Code (minimum penalties for offences involving firearms).

We have quite an august group of witnesses here today. Many have undoubtedly testified before the committee. It's good to see you all.

From the Canadian Police Association, we have Tony Cannavino, and you have Mr. David Griffin with you. Hello.

As individuals, we have Mr. Ian Lee of Carleton University; Lee Stuesser of Robson Hall, University of Manitoba; and Paul Chartrand, professor in the College of Law, University of Saskatchewan. Thank you all for being here.

I know, Professor Lee, that you wanted—and maybe it's a good idea—to proceed with the presentation you have. You have a PowerPoint presentation.

If you would begin, Professor, that would be fine.

[Fiona Sampson]

I think the scenario you described is very real. It does in fact happen. Absolutely.

This is why LEAF takes the position that getting guns out of circulation and taking preventative measures, such as endorsing gun control, are really much more effective in terms of promoting women's equality than measures, such as Bill C-10, that actually don't promote women's equality and the equality of other disadvantaged persons.

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

Thank you.

I have a question for each of our witnesses, the first one to Mr. Rudin. It's a bit of a lob, but I'm sure he'll deal with it well.

Looking at the Gladue decision and looking at the sociological circumstances involving aboriginal offenders, Bill C-10 is starting to look like some kind of a scholarship program to a boarding school or crime college, if it goes into effect. I'll just put it that way and I'll leave that with you. You can think about it.

Then to Mr. Biggar, I had always understood the court's view that the charter section providing for a right to counsel—certainly it wasn't a right to legal aid, but a right to counsel. I always thought it was the right to be able to go and get yourself counsel, as opposed to the right to actually have the counsel there. Could you update us on the status of that? I think you'll be pretty familiar with it. If that right to counsel has evolved into close to having a right to have legal aid, then this is always going to be a cost component of federal legislation, especially where it involves potential incarceration.

To Ms. Sampson, you've described what I would call “adverse effect” discrimination against women, imported by this proposed legislation. There was another component that was mentioned to me, and it involves a woman—unfortunately, there are probably a lot of them out there who are repeatedly subjected to intimidation by a spouse or someone in that circumstance—in a circumstance where she might pick up his gun and say, “Not anymore”. Then, in the event the court would find that the use, of course, of that force was excessive, she—the hypothetical “she”—could end up much worse off than he. Perhaps you could comment on that.

We'll go to Mr. Rudin.

[Fiona Sampson]

You asked what Bill C-10 does. From LEAF's perspective, what Bill C-10 does is discriminate. That's what we see is the effect of Bill C-10.

I understand that the goal is to reduce violent crime, and that's a laudable goal, but we would argue that these mandatory minimum sentences don't achieve that end for the reasons I have already outlined.

In terms of deterrent effect, I think all the evidence we have supports the proposition that there is little evidence to support that mandatory minimum sentences have any deterrent effect. I think maybe it's helpful to think about deterrence in a couple of different ways to distinguish between certainty of conviction and severity of punishment, and that maybe helps to clarify why mandatory minimum sentences and the severity of punishment, as we understand it, doesn't have any effect in terms of preventing or diminishing crime.

[Fiona Sampson]

Okay. Thank you. I keep pitching it, hoping you will.

We have a lot of the evidence in there in terms of the way in which Bill C-10 targets these already disadvantaged groups and how it perpetuates the disadvantage experienced by these vulnerable groups. That meets the fundamental criteria of section 15.

[Fiona Sampson]

From LEAF's perspective, we would say that Bill C-10 is vulnerable to a section 15 challenge because of its discriminatory effect and the discriminatory impact.

It would be a challenge in terms of the court's most recent interpretation of section 15 to make a successful argument, so we think it's definitely vulnerable to a challenge.

[Fiona Sampson]

I think you're right to understand that it does nothing to decrease women's vulnerability and it does nothing to increase their equality. It's actually 85% of men who own guns and 30% of women who are the victims of gun violence. Those numbers are a real concern to us, but mandatory minimum sentences on firearms like those proposed through Bill C-10 just do nothing to address that inequality and the oppression that women experience through the connection between violence and guns and masculinity.

In terms of concrete examples of women's disadvantages associated with Bill C-10, women aren't just white, able-bodied, non-racialized women; women are members of other communities. It is primarily men who are gun offenders, and when those men are targeted by these provisions, it disadvantages the whole community, so it disadvantages the women in those communities as well.

[George Biggar]

As I said at the outset, every change to the justice system is an increased pressure on all of the system, and that includes legal aid. Some of these changes we can estimate better than others. For example, we've done estimates on the likely cost of legal aid due to increasing the number of police officers on the street by 1,000, as the government has done. We did an estimate on the cost effects of Bill C-9, the bill that deals with alternatives to incarceration, and we have done the estimate I presented this afternoon in relation to the cost of Bill C-10. What we in general are seeking from the federal government, since criminal law is a federal responsibility and that is in fact recognized by the federal government through the federal-provincial contribution agreement, is that the government, through the budget process, increase the funding available to the legal aid plans across the country in order that they may effectively respond to the increased—

[Réal Ménard, Bloc, Hochelaga, QC]

Of course, if minimum mandatory sentences were not consistently applied, people would say that they are not true mandatory minimum sentences. Whatever the case may be, few studies point to any deterrent effect these types of sentences might have. So deterrence is not really an argument which would convince us of the effectiveness of mandatory minimum sentences.

My question is for Mr. Bigger from Legal Aid Ontario. So what you are basically saying is that mandatory minimum sentences might lead to more trials and that it might affect the provinces, yours in particular, which is, incidentally, the wealthiest in Canada, at least in terms of per capita revenue.

What would you like to say to the federal government as far as the financial implications of Bill C-10 are concerned, if it was adopted? Of course, that's not a given. The more testimonies we hear, the more we should worry. Minority governments have many virtues, including the virtue of allowing the opposition to work harder to improve the government. It goes without saying that for us, the work is never ending, and we end our days completely exhausted because the task is so huge.

So what type of financial support should the federal government provide if Bill C-10 was passed?

[Jonathan Rudin]

Thank you.

Again, I apologize for my lateness. I also apologize on behalf of Marisha Roman, our vice-president, who was with me last month in Ottawa. She very much wanted to be here today as well, but she came down with the flu this morning, had to leave work, and was not able to make it.

We are very pleased to be appearing here again before the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights. Since our last appearance before you was just a month ago, we'll dispense with the background information on our organization, as we trust it's relatively fresh in your mind. We first want to thank the members of the committee for its consideration of our submissions regarding Bill C-9.

We're here today to discuss Bill C-10, a bill that amends the Criminal Code. Prior to commenting specifically on these amendments, we feel it's important to address what is, for us, the disturbing trend of the increasing reliance on minimum sentences in the Criminal Code.

This trend did not begin with the current government. Bill C-2, passed in the last Parliament, added minimum sentences to 11 sexual offences. In some cases, the minimum sentences were as low as 14 days. It appears that often the only explanation for the imposition of a minimum sentence is to prevent judges from considering a conditional sentence. Minimum sentences of 14 to 90 days cannot seriously be justified for their ability to deter crime or to lead to a change in behaviour of offenders while incarcerated.

In our discussion before the justice committee last month, we spoke about the ability that judges have to craft conditional sentences that can address the root causes of offending behaviour without sacrificing community safety. In fact, a well-crafted conditional sentence will lead to increased community safety. Unfortunately, increased reliance on minimum sentences means there is less room for conditional sentences.

We would like to raise four specific concerns with respect to Bill C-10 and make one suggested amendment. Our concerns are: one, we believe the manner in which the bill deals with hybrid offences is unconstitutional; two, too many minimum sentences start with penitentiary terms; three, there is no reason to believe that minimum sentences deter crime; and four, the bill will increase aboriginal overrepresentation in prison. Our suggested amendment is that the bill allow for a judge to avoid the imposition of a minimum sentence in exceptional circumstances.

We will start with our concerns.

At our last appearance before the committee, we noted that one of the problems with Bill C-9 was that it gave the Crown the ability to decide whether an offender could receive a conditional sentence, based on whether the Crown proceeded summarily or by indictment. This problem is even more acute in Bill C-10. A number of offences in Bill C-10 are hybrid offences. There are no minimums if the Crown proceeds summarily. There are minimums if the Crown proceeds by indictment. In some cases, these minimums start at three years' imprisonment.

For example, a first-time offender charged with unauthorized possession of a prohibited or restricted weapon that is loaded or near ammunition will, if the Crown proceeds summarily, have all sentencing options available. On the other hand, if the Crown, in its sole discretion, chooses to prosecute by indictment, the minimum sentence is three years' imprisonment.

Such an arrangement places a great deal of unchecked power in the hands of the Crown. It also raises very serious concerns that the section violates the protection against cruel and unusual punishment found in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. We will participate in any constitutional challenge against these provisions of Bill C-10.

Secondly, we are concerned by the increased number of minimum sentences that start at three years' imprisonment. While there are some individuals who, for public safety, must be sentenced to penitentiary time, this bill casts the net too wide. Members of this committee should be under no illusion that a three-year sentence will lead to positive change in the lives of offenders. Information we have received from Correctional Service Canada in Ontario indicates that individuals sentenced to two- to three-year sentences will receive no substantive programming at all in penitentiary prior to their release.

This bill will result in some individuals with little or no prior involvement with the criminal justice system going directly to the penitentiary. Being incarcerated with the most dangerous offenders in Canada will give these people the opportunity to learn new skills, but not, unfortunately, the skills we would want them to learn.

We have to be realistic about what happens to people when they go to penitentiary. In most cases, they come out worse than when they went in.

Third, at the heart of this bill is the belief that minimum sentences deter people from crime. Since much of this bill is concerned with increasing the minimum sentences for offences where minimum sentences already exist, the assumption must be that higher minimum sentences deter people even more. The fundamental problem with this theory is that there is no evidence to support it. Studies by the eminent British criminologists Andrew Ashworth and Andrew von Hirsch both concluded that deterrence in the criminal justice system comes from the probability of detection rather than consideration of potential punishment.

The penalty for first degree murder is life imprisonment without parole for 25 years, yet despite this most severe mandatory minimum sentence, gun violence and gun death were quite prominent last year. If a 25-year mandatory minimum did not deter the most serious of gun crimes, why should we expect that shorter minimums would accomplish the task?

Our final concern with the bill relates to aboriginal overrepresentation. It must always be kept in mind that reliance on deterrence as a theory for punishment has a significant impact on aboriginal people. As we noted last month, despite making up only 3% of the Canadian population, aboriginal people comprise 22% of those in Canadian prisons. Aboriginal people know better than anyone else that doing the crime means doing the time, yet rates of aboriginal over-incarceration continue to rise. In large part, this is because much of aboriginal offending is not calculated organized crime, but rather an unthinking response to immediate pressures. Addictions, interpersonal violence, a sense of hopelessness, and the legacy of government practices such as residential school and mass adoptions all play a large role in explaining why aboriginal people commit crime. This does not excuse the behaviour, but we need to understand that the threat of minimum sentences will do nothing to address the root causes of aboriginal offending. It will merely lead to more aboriginal people being sent to jail for longer and longer periods of time.

Why should Canadians care that our jails are becoming increasingly the preserve of aboriginal people? After all, if aboriginal people commit crimes, why should they be exempt from jail, the most serious sanction the criminal justice system provides?

To answer these questions it's helpful to return again to the decision of the Supreme Court of Canada in Gladue. When discussing aboriginal overrepresentation, the court said:

These findings cry out for recognition of the magnitude and gravity of the problem, and for responses to alleviate it. The figures are stark and reflect what may fairly be termed a crisis in the Canadian criminal justice system. The drastic overrepresentation of aboriginal peoples within both the Canadian prison population and the criminal justice system reveals a sad and pressing social problem.

Aboriginal overrepresentation speaks to the failure of the criminal justice system to address the root causes of aboriginal offending. The result of paragraph 718.2(e) and the Gladue decision has not been that aboriginal people have stopped going to jail.

Both paragraph 718.2(e) and Gladue speak of the need for restraint in the use of incarceration for everyone. In fact, it has been non-aboriginal people who have been the primary beneficiaries of these initiatives. A study by Julian Roberts and Ron Melchers showed that from 1997 to 2001 the rate of aboriginal incarceration rose by 3% while the rate of non-aboriginal incarceration decreased by 27%. Similar results have been found in examining the impact of sentencing changes in the Youth Criminal Justice Act. Despite specific admonitions in legislation, the judges need to look for alternatives for aboriginal offenders. It is non-aboriginal people who are seeing the greatest decline in incarceration rates.

Please rest assured that we are not urging that more non-aboriginal people be jailed, but it is vital that you be aware that the impact of moves to make the criminal justice system more punitive will fall disproportionately on aboriginal people.

Jail has proven itself to be singularly incapable of resolving the social problems that are at the root of aboriginal offending. More jail will be similarly ineffective.

These concerns lead to our proposed amendments to the legislation. We suggest that the bill give judges an option to not impose a minimum sentence in exceptional circumstances. Such a provision will go a long way to meeting objections that the law is unconstitutional and would allow judges to consider other sentencing provisions, such as contained in paragraph 718.2(e) of the code, in situations where to impose a minimum sentence would be clearly unjust in the circumstances.

For almost 20 years, royal commissions, judicial inquiries, parliamentary committees, and decisions at all levels of courts in Canada have urged that the problems of aboriginal overrepresentation be addressed. For every small step forward, we confront great obstacles pushing us back. Sadly, Bill C-10 is another example of a serious step back.

We urge this committee to move away from increasing reliance on minimum sentences. If we are serious about wanting to make our communities safer, we need to do more than lock people up. We need to ensure that there are programs in place in the community to address the root causes of criminal behaviour. We need to have programs in place in correctional facilities to do the same.

Thank you very much.

[Fiona Sampson, Director of litigation, Women's Legal Education and Action Fund]

Okay, thank you.

Hello. Bonjour.

My name is Fiona Sampson. I am the director of litigation at LEAF, the Women's Legal Education and Action Fund.

I'm here today to talk to you, I understand, for ten short minutes. I have three important points that I want to make, so I'm going to get right into it.

I want to start by telling you a little bit about LEAF and then move into a summary of the three main reasons why LEAF is opposed to the passing of Bill C-10.

LEAF, the Women's Legal Education and Action Fund, is a national non-profit organization that's dedicated to the advancement of women's equality rights in Canada. Primarily, we do that through using section 15 of the charter and the equality guarantees that are included in section 15 of the charter.

Fundamental to our mandate is the understanding, endorsed by the Supreme Court of Canada, that section 15 obligates the federal government both to protect the guaranteed rights against discrimination and to equality found in section 15 and to promote those rights.

Moving to the three main reasons why LEAF is opposed to the introduction and passing of Bill C-10, which are actually outlined in submissions we have forwarded to the justice committee, and I understand they probably aren't before you because they haven't been translated yet, but they are something for you to look forward to—they are coming your way—the first reason LEAF is opposed to Bill C-10 is that Bill C-10 does not reduce violence against women. If the point of Bill C-10 is to reduce violence, it doesn't achieve that with respect to women.

Women experience violence because of their unequal social, economic, and political status in Canada, a status that results in their objectification, their disempowerment, their devaluation, all of which results in the status of second-class citizens, which leaves us vulnerable to violence. That's the cause of violence against women. Bill C-10 and mandatory minimum sentences relating to firearms do nothing to reduce that source of violence against women.

Certainly LEAF supports the reduction of violence and the reduction of crime, but what happens with Bill C-10 and with mandatory minimum sentences attached to firearms is that they come too late to be of any real help to women. They're imposed after the fact. They do nothing to prevent violence, and they come at a time when women have already experienced the violence, so they're really of no value.

Definitely women and LEAF recognize the violence that's associated with guns, and we oppose it. There is an intrinsic link between gun violence and masculinity and violence against women, and that's apparent when you just look at the statistics: 85% of guns in Canada are owned by men and 30% of gun victims in Canada are women. That's something that concerns and distresses LEAF, and LEAF supports gun control to address that concern, and we support measures that get guns off the streets. But having mandatory minimum sentences attached to firearms doesn't address that problem.

Our second main point relating to our opposition to Bill C-10 primarily relates to the disadvantage that's associated with Bill C-10 and that we predict will be felt because of the implementation of Bill C-10.

Bill C-10 is a classic example of the failure of the federal government, were it to pass, to actually protect and promote equality rights, the obligation the Supreme Court has found the federal government has under section 15 of the charter.

What really happens with something like Bill C-10 and the imposition of mandatory minimum sentences attached to firearms is that it targets already disadvantaged groups. If I can draw your attention to.... Well, you don't have the submissions yet, but you will soon. The Report of the Commission on Systemic Racism in the Ontario Criminal Justice System found that black people are already overrepresented among prisoners with weapons possession charges, so we know that with the targeting of firearms crimes by attaching mandatory minimums to those crimes in particular, they will affect black persons disproportionately.

They will also affect aboriginal people disproportionately. We already know that aboriginal people are disproportionately represented in the criminal justice system and in prisons, so they will be further disadvantaged if Bill C-10 is passed, particularly the section of Bill C-10 that relates to the attachment of mandatory minimums to persons who have committed previous offences. If you go to LEAF's submission, footnote 18, we have a whole list of primary and secondary sources available to you to support that. So the evidence is there.

Sometimes proponents of mandatory minimum sentences understand it to be a form of equality, and on one level it can be understood to be a form of equality. It's what we call formal equality; it applies equally to all persons. Another example of formal equality can be seen in a situation where you have a building, and the building has been designed so it's only accessible by stairs. The architects of that design might say that it's equally accessible to everybody, that anyone can get in, that nobody is prevented. There's no sign that says certain groups are excluded. But if you're in a wheelchair, you're essentially excluded. So it looks like it's available to everybody, but in effect it's not.

With mandatory minimum sentences, it's a similar theory you can apply. It looks as if it's applicable to everybody, and it looks as if it's fair, but actually, in effect, what happens is that because it's targeting individuals who are already predisposed to disadvantage, who are already over-criminalized, it results in further disadvantage and, LEAF would argue, discrimination. So that's a problem.

The other reason it can be understood to be inequitable rather than equitable is the pre-existing racism that we know informs and characterizes the criminal justice system in Canada. Every level of court, royal commission, justice inquiry, independent research, and academic research--we have it all--provides evidence that the criminal justice system in Canada is characterized by racism, and that gets perpetuated by mandatory minimum sentences attached to firearms. So that's another problem, and that's another reason why LEAF is opposed to the introduction of Bill C-10.

Really, the problem with Bill C-10 is that it does nothing to promote or protect equality. It only perpetuates disadvantage and inequality, and it really targets and individualizes the problem, rather than addressing the social causes of the problem.

This is the third point that LEAF would like to make in terms of our opposition to Bill C-10. Really, what LEAF identifies as much more preferable to the punitive measures attached to Bill C-10 are preventative measures and looking at the social causes of violence and crime and firearm crimes, in particular. In particular, what we would support are measures that provide for community development and increased education, increased employment opportunities, and improved community development--programs that would promote opportunities for people who are already disadvantaged.

They're definitely long-term solutions. They're definitely not quick fixes, and they're not easy sells. They don't win votes the same way a quick fix like mandatory minimum sentences attached to firearms might sell votes. But they're really much more effective, they're much more long term, and they actually promote and protect equality for disadvantaged persons. So that's why LEAF supports that approach rather than the approach of punitive measures attached through mandatory minimum sentences.

In closing, I'd just like to read a quote by Helene Dumont. It's from her article in the 2001 Osgoode Hall Law Journal, and it really captures LEAF's position on Bill C-10. This is on the cover of our submission, so you'll get a chance to enjoy it for yourself. Helene Dumont writes:

How can our criminal laws better reflect the public's concern for safety, while promoting their desire for a democratic society based on peace, liberty, tolerance and justice? To accomplish this goal, legislators and the Canadian public as a whole, should try to apply more reason than fear in developing criminal law-infrastructure for safety. They must recognize the symbolic and political power of criminal laws, and determine the effectiveness of each punitive measure in terms of securing personal and public safety. Finally, legislators must always choose the solutions that will result in a peaceful, free, tolerant, and just society.

So subject to any questions you might have, those are our submissions.

[Myron Thompson, Conservative, Wild Rose, AB]

Thank you for being here.

I'm speaking mostly to Mr. Rady, and anybody else can join in.

Right off the bat, I want to remind Mr. Rady that it's true that the extra police in New York created quite a reduction in crime, but behind that was the broken windows theory. There was a decision made by the authorities and legislators that if you break a window, you go to jail; if you put graffiti on the wall, you'll be picked up and go to jail. That required more policing, the two worked pretty well hand-in-hand, and it's a very safe place to be. We forget about the fact that there was a decision made in regard to what to do.

Regarding root causes, I'll tell you that we've had lots of discussions and we hear an awful lot about this. When I was first elected in 1993, I sat down with Allan Rock, and we hit it off pretty good for quite a while. We used to talk a lot about root causes.

Yes, I agree that the root causes need to be addressed. We used to make our lists. I was sitting here today after you made your presentation about root causes, and you talked about poverty. Then I remembered my grandfather telling me that the Roaring Twenties was an awful era for crime, and yet the Dirty Thirties really tamed down. If it was poverty, there was a whole lot less crime than during the Roaring Twenties. Whether that has any bearing on the conversation, I don't know.

Then we talked about Hollywood and violence in film and the WWF—my God, have you watched that ultimate fighting on TV lately? It's violent. In all of these things, maybe there's a cause.

We know that drugs exist. I've been told over and over again that the population in the penitentiaries would go way down had it not been for alcohol. Yet we've had decisions that our bars should be open seven days a week instead of only six, and that they should stay open until three or four in the morning instead of closing at eleven or twelve in the evening. All of these decisions are root causes.

Child pornography is rampant out there. It poisons a sick brain even further. It causes them to act out their fantasies, and drastic things happen. It's a root cause.

Yet every time you try to do something about it, you get different decisions in courts that affect that effort, such as the John Sharpe decision. It had quite an impact, and I honestly believe that we tried hard with the Liberals to do something about child pornography. That decision made it practically impossible to move on this.

Can you imagine what you are going to do about alcohol? Bring back prohibition? That doesn't work, we've been told one hundred million times. Always another root cause that's hard to deal with.

When you go through all the root causes...I can't for the life of me figure out one cause that justifies any human being picking up a gun to endanger, threaten, or hurt the life of a citizen in this country. I cannot find one root cause. Yet we put an emphasis on how we have to do deal with root causes.

Mr. Trudell mentioned that things are decided for political reasons, and I would suggest a lot of these are. All of us stood on the platform in January and we said we've got to do something about crime and these guns; we have to do this, and we're going to do so. Lo and behold, we've been elected, and we're here now trying to do something about it. Because I can't find any root or justified cause to pick up a gun and hurt people, we have to create some legislation to deal with those who choose to do so.

Thus comes Bill C-10—I have not heard any other solution that makes any more sense to me—because now we have legislation dealing with what I know is a root cause, which is the criminal. Lo and behold, criminals are really a big part of the root cause of crime.

Let's deal with them, which we have to do as legislators.

But to talk about it in terms of, “We'll have to deal with root causes”, my goodness, I could give you a whole list. We tried to do that. It doesn't work. We've tried to protect the victims when it comes to pornography, when it comes to the rights of expression, and when it comes to the freedom of being able to run a bar and put on TV what you want to and listen to hard rock music whenever you want. We know that's been a cause.

I think we're really barking up the wrong tree about that, because I just can't find anything that justifies picking up a gun and hurting people.

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

My question is for Mr. Trudell and Mr. Rady, or for Ms. Beare. I will begin by making a brief preamble to help you understand where I am coming from.

First, you compared Ontario's legal aid system to a Cadillac, and I can confirm this. It's absolutely true, if I compare Ontario with the situation I am familiar with in Quebec. That's a problem. In Quebec, we have fixed mandates, whereas here, lawyers earn an hourly rate in what is called a certificate system. Further, more guilty pleas are entered in Quebec. There are fewer here in Ontario because lawyers are paid differently. Perhaps that explains the deficit. In any case, that's their problem.

Ms. Beare, I would like to hear you address an issue which intrigues me. You completely reject Bill C-10. However, I want to explain something to you. As is the case with Mr. Trudell, I have been working in the field for 33 years. In fact, I am still a lawyer, and I still have a lawyer's office. I therefore still work in this profession.

Just imagine: some of our citizens, after having killed a moose outside of the official hunting season, and after receiving a $1,500 fine which they are unable to pay, might spend up to three months in jail. Furthermore, if they do not pay their federal income taxes, and the fine becomes due, since they are being prosecuted and cannot afford to pay the fine, they are jailed because they have not paid their taxes.

But today, the only thing we are trying to achieve is to protect individuals by simply amending the Criminal Code. So I would like to know what bothers you so much to the point where you reject the bill.

Here is my second question. We also represent many women who have been beaten by their spouses. Are we to say to women that we try to adopt a bill to protect them or, at least, to mitigate the problem? If you tell me today that you will reject this bill, what will I say to women's groups which I met throughout the summer and who told me that we must become more forceful if we are to address this problem, which exists in Quebec's system?

I would like to hear you respond to these two questions.

[Réal Ménard, Bloc, Hochelaga, QC]

Thank you.

The most conclusive study on mandatory minimum sentences was conducted for the Solicitor General of Canada, by Mr. Crutcher and Mr. Tabor. These studies are very clear: mandatory minimum sentences do not act as deterrent, nor do they have an incidence when it comes to reoffending. There is no doubt about this. There is a whole host of studies demonstrating that they do not work.

This bill is ideologically based and attempts to give a false sense of security. This is why, unfortunately for some, the opposition parties are likely to do what they have to do by voting against this bill at committee stage. If you'd like, Mr. Petit, I'd be willing to bet you a large beer.

Now let's come back to organized crime and Bill C-95, which has become Bill C-24. I'd really like you to take your time and tell us... First, your appraisal of the mega trials is interesting. In my opinion, an offence under sections 466 and 467 of the Criminal Code should have been established. Indeed, during the 1990s, the Department of Justice thought it could break up organized crime networks by relying on the conspiracy provisions. I remember having discussed this with senior officials who were convinced networks could be pulled apart simply by virtue of the conspiracy provisions.

I didn't agree; I really thought the notion of a gang needed to be defined, because the existing definition wasn't always functional. Initially, a gang was five people who committed five offences over five years. Then, a parliamentary committee suggested three. Warrants for wiretapping were extended. The whole process was enhanced. This meant that the major organized crime networks were able to be broken up, not as a result of mandatory minimum sentences, but rather, because law enforcement was given the tools it needed to gather evidence, including wiretapping, which is the best way to dismantle organized crime. As a result of the decision in Stinchcombe, it became possible to bring people before the courts. This decision made complete disclosure of the evidence mandatory. Initially, people weren't happy about this. Eventually, people learned to deal with it.

Having said this, Ms. Beare, I would like you to say more about your fears concerning gangsterism and its effects on Bill C-10, which you referred to at the start of your presentation.

I'll then have a short question for the Canadian Council of Criminal Defence Lawyers.

[Andy Rady]

I believe you are reading the section the right way. Some parts of Bill C-10 refer to firearms and others refer to restricted and controlled weapons. There it refers to restricted and controlled weapons, not firearms per se, so that does in fact mean that if a person robs a corner store using a .30-.30 rifle, which he might have a licence for, he would get a four-year minimum, but if he went in with a handgun he would get a five-year minimum sentence. I would think from the point of view of the victim looking down the business end of that weapon, they wouldn't distinguish between what kind of a firearm it was, but Bill C-10 does seem to distinguish between those.

[Andy Rady]

I was going to speak much more quickly, but I'll speak slowly so that people understand.

I'm a provincial director, as well, of the Criminal Lawyers' Association. This is an association of just over 1,000 criminal lawyers from the province of Ontario. I'm the representative of the Criminal Lawyers' Association to the Canadian Council of Criminal Defence Lawyers, and as such I'm a director of the CCCDL. The Criminal Lawyers' Association of Ontario has also submitted its own brief to this committee and I commend it to you.

I've been practising criminal defence law for 25 years in the city of London, and I have appeared at all levels of court throughout Ontario. My perspective here today is that of someone who has the knowledge of criminal law as practised in this province. I've represented persons charged—sometimes acquitted, sometimes convicted—with crimes involving guns, and any insights I have come from that point of view.

I obviously adopt what Mr. Trudell has said, but in my own capacity here I've looked at the legislation and there are a few points I'd like to make and a few questions I'd like to ask. That's what criminal defence lawyers tend to do: they ask questions. My first question is, why? Why this legislation? What is it hoping to accomplish?

Well, at first blush, what it's hoping to accomplish is to get tough on serious crime. That is the phrase we've heard many times over the past little while. But does it do that? Let's look at this in a deeper way.

Why has gun crime increased, if it in fact has? Why is gun crime a problem that needs to be addressed? Will this legislation answer the question as to why? I submit to you that it does not.

I represent people who are charged with gun crime, and I look across at them, sometimes through the bars of a jail cell, sometimes across my desk, and I always ask myself, why did this person commit this crime, if in fact they're guilty? Why are they charged with this crime? What is going on here? That is the root problem that we have to get to before we have the kind of safety that is sought as a result of this legislation.

There are various levels of criminality, even with gun crime, and there is a root cause to that. That is not being addressed. Until it is, I'm going to submit to you that all this is going to do with the passage of Bill C-10 is to in some way instill a sense of false security over people. We have to understand why crime is being committed.

Let's look back 30 years in this country. We did not have, apparently, the level of gun crime then that we do now. We had the same Criminal Code and we had a Criminal Code that had no mandatory minimums. In the mid-1990s, the Liberal government passed some mandatory minimums of four years for robbery and one year for possession of certain firearms. We still have the problem. The question again is, why?

The reason, perhaps, is that we have to study, we have to consider, what we can really do not just to punish crime but to stop it from its root level. We have to understand the issues of poverty, of education, of social welfare. Those are much broader issues than perhaps what this committee can do, and they are much more expensive issues from the point of view of a parliament. They are expensive issues because they cost a lot of money to implement. Social justice programs, anti-poverty programs, increased education, understanding how our children are socialized into accepting the fact that gun violence may be acceptable is what we really need to do in order to stop this.

A number of years ago it was socially acceptable to smoke in this country. We still have smokers, but the way smoking was cured was not by any punishment but because it was made socially unacceptable to do that.

Impaired driving has decreased. The punishments have increased, but if you look around, one of the reasons, of course, is that it has become socially unacceptable to be that person who gets behind the wheel and might harm someone.

So we have to ask ourselves—and I don't have the answers—why is it attractive to use guns? It's not because the Criminal Code is soft. My clients don't commit these kinds of offences because they think they're not going to be punished. They don't consider that. They consider being caught.... You've probably heard this from other persons who've made submissions before this committee and elsewhere, but it is the fear of being caught that perhaps is the greatest deterrent, not the actual punishment itself.

So what I'm saying is, to just impose mandatory minimums and arbitrarily believe that maybe if we make it five years, seven years, and ten years, that will work, I submit to you that there's really no evidence of that.

Even if you do pass the legislation on that basis, you're still not getting to the problem of why, as in why this horrible incident happened in Toronto on Boxing Day. It didn't happen because someone said, “Oh, we're soft on crime, so I might as well go and shoot up the streets.” I think it would be extremely naive for anyone to believe that was the cause of it, or to think that the corollary of that, imposing a stiffer penalty, if one isn't considering the consequences of crime, will have an effect. We have to understand why those young men may or may not have been there, what was going through their minds, and why that was acceptable. Why is it that gun violence is tolerated? What is the root cause of that? That is the greater issue that requires the kind of consultation and study we are talking about today.

Two things I'll point out in support of my position. One, you're all familiar with New York City, of course. A number of years ago, I don't think any of us here would have considered venturing into Times Square in the evening. Now Times Square is perhaps one of the safest places in the United States. Why? It isn't because mandatory minimum punishments were imposed. It's because the police presence in Times Square was expanded greatly. There are police officers every 100 feet, and they have a police precinct there.

So it's the fear of being caught and it's the presence of the police that deters crime in that instance. I point that out because it reiterates the fact that it is the detection of crime that is important.

One item in the bill that I would point out specifically as one that may be problematic to you is proposed section 230, dealing with murder. This bill creates the new offence of breaking and entering to steal a firearm. It now says that culpable homicide is murder where a person causes a death during the course of certain offences, and that is one of them. It also includes the offence of robbery under section 343 of the Criminal Code.

I think it's incumbent upon the committee to realize that some years ago, the Supreme Court of Canada struck out robbery, in a case called Vaillancourt, as being available for this constructive murder section. Consequently, I believe and would submit to you that including this section concerning break and entering to steal a firearm would likely meet the same fate. What does that say? It says that, similar to what Mr. Trudell said, had there been, before this, the kind of consultation that we are suggesting, it would have been a very simple matter for someone to have pointed out that the section is probably unconstitutional on its face with respect to those two sections, one already being struck down.

Frankly, it's sloppy in terms of the way the matter has been drafted. That didn't have to be in there from the beginning. This goes back to our position that if we consult about these matters ahead of time....

We are criminal defence lawyers. We defend people who are charged with crimes. But we're also citizens of this country. We also have families and homes and properties. We have a stake in having a safe Canada. We are here to assist. Our message for you today is that we're still prepared to do that, but Bill C-10 is not going to get you the result you want in terms of safe streets.

You have to consult more. You have to look at the root causes of crime. That's what has to be dealt with.

[Margaret Beare, Former Director, Nathanson Centre for the Study of Organized Crime and Corruption, As an Individual]

Thank you very much for the opportunity to be here. I understand I have about ten minutes, but it probably won't take quite that long.

Most of the general criticisms regarding this legislation have already been outlined, probably this morning as well as in the legislative summaries. It's somewhat disheartening to realize that the problems have in fact been so thoroughly acknowledged, yet the proposal is for the legislation to proceed regardless. Research findings over a significant period of time, in various countries and distinct jurisdictions, are apparently treated as irrelevant to some extent. I would therefore like to make six points that I think are important in thinking about this legislation.

First of all, contrary to Justice Minister Toews' comment that academics who were critical of the bill did so without knowing what was in it, I do realize that this legislation is not similar in very many ways to the three strikes model that occurs within the United States. In fact, this legislation is limited to certain firearm-related offences, and that's to the good. But it does still have the arbitrary aspect of putting its weight behind the concept of the “sequence of convictions” notion of punishment, with the unsubstantiated claim that somehow this legislation and this kind of supposed get tough approach will contribute to making streets and communities safer.

Keeping to the popular baseball analogy, the minister is correct. It does not follow the typical three strikes. In looking over the summary on minimum imprisonment under Bill C-10, it offers us a two-strike model for certain offences, rather than three. There is an unfortunate occurrence in baseball when the second strike results in a foul ball caught by some overly eager opponent. Of course, there are quite a number of examples where the second strike can add the weighted sentence. Trafficking in or possession for the purposes is three years for the first, and the second offence is five. Altering a firearm is again three and five. It becomes a second-strike situation.

It claims to promote deterrence, yet contradicts the principle of specific deterrence, in that there does not appear to be in the legislation a guarantee that the sequence of convictions will be spaced so as to give the offender the benefit from any learning, rehabilitation, or actual specific deterrence following the first conviction. Lawyers speak of the Coke principle, whereby the second offence, with the punishment that's due to that second offence, must not have been committed nearly simultaneously to the first conviction and therefore the first sentence.

If we believe at all in deterrence and rehabilitation, then fairness and justice require that the convicted person should have an opportunity to learn before harsher penalties are applied. An example given in the parliamentary summary presents us with the example of a person who commits two firearm-related criminal acts. The point is made that regardless of the order in which they were committed, the order that matters is the order of conviction. This issue is particularly troubling with the sections pertaining to criminal organizations, where the punishment can in fact turn out to be crushing, and perhaps especially crushing for a young offender or a young individual who is not being treated as an adult. The first offence brings five years, the second offence brings seven, and third offence ten, when in fact the criminal acts could have been committed nearly simultaneously.

Thirdly, this legislation has the potential to turn the process of prosecution into a game, with the potential for the justice system to “time” convictions based on having the longer sentence saved for the second offence. As is described again in the summary, a person commits two offences, possibly simultaneously or very close in time. The example given was illegal importing of a firearm and B and E to steal a firearm. A decision can be made to proceed quickly with the B and E, so that the second offence has the longer prison sentence, five years versus three years. I realize that lawyers are used to playing games in order to avoid mandatory second offence legislation with drinking and driving or gaming legislation. The games will continue, but in a changed format, this time to the detriment of any serious attempt at rehabilitation.

Of course, from my involvement with the Nathanson Centre, I am particularly concerned about the linking of this bill with criminal organization legislation. The application of criminal organization legislation is broad and vague, and now it's linked to this new legislation. Yes, while it has withstood some challenges, the new offence of “participation”, particularly that offence within a criminal organization, is extremely broad. The crown, as you know, does not have to prove that the participation actually enhanced the ability of the criminal organization to commit the act. The crown does not have to prove that the criminal organization actually even committed the indictable act. The crown doesn't have to prove that the accused was even aware of the specific act that he or she might have been facilitating, and the crown doesn't have to prove that the accused knew the identity of any of the persons who constituted the criminal organization.

Now, if we take this “participation in criminal organizations” category of criminal and apply it to this legislation, again remembering what the crown does not have to prove, a person can be charged and convicted of participating in a criminal organization where a restricted or prohibited firearm is used in connection with the criminal organization, and the result can be that the individual then earns, if it's a first offence, five years, if it's a second, seven, and if it's a third, ten.

What is of particular significance to me is that what seems to be happening is that we pass legislation to address specific, high-profile incidents, usually where there are political consequences, and they're treated as if they're to address a particular problem. But then they become normalized in our justice system. Hells Angels spawned the criminal organization legislation--the so-called anti-gang legislation--and now street gangs are being treated as criminal organizations. The question then becomes, who's next?

The first point is the notion of bang-for-buck, which I thought was an appropriate consideration, given the anti-firearm legislation. We already know that the mega-trials are swamping the justice system. The only way the justice system is surviving under their weight is due to plea bargaining and the dropping of charges. Yesterday's newspaper told us what we already know: the gang mega-trials have swamped legal aid. We're told that a single person earning $16,000 may not qualify for legal aid. And with this legislation, there will be an enthusiasm for more mega-trials, hideously long trials, attempting to show that the operation was in fact a criminal organization. And there will be suspects without adequate defence facing these extensive mandatory charges.

The impact on plea bargaining may in fact be mixed, which again hardly qualifies as equal justice. There may be less plea bargaining. Therefore, there will be more demand for trials, more legal aid needed, and more prisons. Or there may be more plea bargaining with the crown dropping or not laying the second charge, with some sort of agreement being made for consideration of above-the-mandatory minimum for the first sentence. However you figure it, it's not going to be the uniformity that I suppose underpins the thinking behind this legislation.

Finally, what is the answer? The legislation only discusses mandatory minimums, which serve only to limit the discretion of judges and result in the kind of finagling I'm talking about. The ceiling still applies, and the judges can still, and do, give adequately harsh sentences. No one anywhere, except possibly in the United States, thinks that prisons are the answer to the crime problem. Again, in the background information on this, it acknowledges the need to build prisons.

What I would argue we need to do is pay more attention to research being carried out in Toronto and elsewhere. The focus should be on resources and working with the communities where gun violence is prevalent.

Resources should focus on taking seriously what guns actually mean to the mainly men who use them. Money that is seemingly being designated for prison-building and the corporate entities that profit from that exercise should be turned back toward the communities. There should be a focus on funding policing, which has already claimed significant successes in helping make our communities safer and more secure, which has happened without this kind of legislation in place.

Thank you very much.

[John Muise]

Yes.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[Prof. Peter Rosenthal]

Thank you very much. Thank you.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

We support mandatory minimum sentences.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Denunciation is, obviously, another purpose.

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

I want to give a few examples of—

[Chief William Blair, Chief, Toronto Police Service]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[The Chair, Conservative, Art Hanger]

Thank you, Ms. Barnes.

Would Chief Blair come to the table?

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

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

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

[The Chair, Conservative, Art Hanger]

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

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

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

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

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

Thank you.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I would like that to be submitted to the committee.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[Réal Ménard, Bloc, Hochelaga, QC]

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

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

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

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

[Réal Ménard, Bloc, Hochelaga, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[Myron Thompson, Conservative, Wild Rose, AB]

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

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

[Myron Thompson, Conservative, Wild Rose, AB]

Thank you, and welcome. Thanks for coming.

We're here talking about Bill C-10 and increasing the incarceration levels for the use of a gun in the commission of a crime. We're referring to gangs and guns. More than anything, I think we're trying to respond to the reply from the public at large, who seem to be fed up with what's happening in the streets and cities and elsewhere in regard to the use of guns.

When I look at a chart like the one on page 6, I see that with rifles and shotguns there has been a steady and continuing decline from 1975. And then I see with handguns that it's up and down all over the place; I don't think that has anything to do with the registry, since registries for handguns have in place since 1934, or something like that.

Bill C-17 came in because of the peak in 1991. Can I assume that from this chart? Is that correct? Was the bill an attempt by the government of the day to deal with the issue of guns?

[The Chair, Conservative, Art Hanger]

I would like to call the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights to order. On the agenda today, if you look on the sheets provided, is 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.

Our witnesses are from the Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics, Ms. Lynn Barr-Telford, Mr. John Turner, and Mr. Craig Grimes. I welcome you to the committee.

I do apologize too. We had a statement in the House and a motion put forward on which there was some discussion and debate, but we are here now.

I assume, Ms. Barr-Telford, you will be presenting. Please proceed then. Thank you.

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

Thank you.

I have listened carefully to the comments. Thank you for being here. I have fairly specific questions.

Mr. Woods, has the RCMP assessed the additional costs that would result from the implementation of Bill C-10?

[Réal Ménard, Bloc, Hochelaga, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I admit I am a bit surprised, if not disappointed, with the RCMP submission. I expected you to be more generous in your comments. You appear to have stayed at a level of generosity that is not very compatible with the committee’s expectations in including your name on the list of witnesses. You restricted yourself to trivial remarks, truisms and platitudes. There is nothing there that can really help us.

I would have liked you to talk about the current gun trafficking situation in Canada, street gangs, groups most at risk. Is there someone at the RCMP who has analysed the potential consequences of Bill C-10? Granted, you are in favour of deterrence, but I must say that no one will become deputy minister with a statement like that.

Your style is easy to understand, but be a little more specific in your comments. Can you give us figures on gun trafficking and information on gangsterism and the street gang phenomenon? Would the bill have a negative impact on at-risk groups?

Live up to your potential a little more. You have given too dry and institutional a viewpoint.

[C/Supt Michael Woods, Director General, National Criminal Operations, Community, Contract and Aboriginal Policing Services, Royal Canadian Mounted Police]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, ladies and gentlemen.

I'd like to thank you for the opportunity to provide this perspective of the RCMP, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, on Bill C-10. We recognize that achieving public safety, or a safe society, requires commitment and a continuum of action from all stakeholders. The criminal justice system, including enforcement and sentencing provisions for legislation, is one tool that can assist in achieving this.

The RCMP Public Safety and Crime Reduction Strategy is premised on a few guiding principles, specifically targeting crime, location and offender; simplicity of design and execution; coordination of partners and process; a continuum of action on prevention, enforcement and rehabilitation.

This strategic approach is about preventing crime in the first place, intervening early where people are at risk, taking rapid enforcement action and providing support and rehabilitation and resettlement services to victims and offenders.

In 2006-07 the RCMP's planning process identified the need to focus on the impact of guns, gangs, and drugs. To that end, RCMP units across Canada will be aligning initiatives to combat this menace. In doing so, we draw on research done on the impact of organized crime in remote and rural communities, the growth of youth gangs, and the nexus with vulnerable populations such as our aboriginal communities. We are working with our key partners and stakeholders at the community, provincial, territorial, and federal levels to operationalize strategies that will increase public safety through the reduction of crime.

The major impact of this legislative reform will be at the provincial and territorial level in the administration of justice. If there are more trials, police agencies across Canada will find their resources heavily taxed by the workload this will require upstream.

I am ready to answer your questions.

I have prepared a few other notes. If you would permit me to continue, I will read them.

[Kim Pate, Executive Director, Canadian Association of Elizabeth Fry Societies]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

And thank you very much to the committee for inviting our organization to appear and to present testimony before this committee with respect to Bill C-10. I'm here, as you've indicated, representing the Canadian Association of Elizabeth Fry Societies. I'm joined by one of my board members, who is also the co-chair of our social action committee, Professor Debra Parkes. She's also a law professor at the University of Manitoba. So I'm very pleased that she was able to join us as well, and thank you very much for inviting her.

I will skip over who our organization is because it was just a few weeks ago I was here when we were speaking about Bill C-9. But suffice it to say that our organization works with both victimized and criminalized and imprisoned women within the criminal justice system. Our agencies, our 25 members across the country, provide services that range from working with those who have been victimized to those who have ended up in the prison system. It's in this context that we offer our testimony.

Our testimony primarily focuses around a couple of areas, as you'll see from our brief. I won't repeat everything that's in our brief. I'll merely summarize to say that we do have concerns about Bill C-10. Our main concerns have to do with the extent to which we see much of what is being presented as contrary to the principles of sentencing that exist.

[The Chair, Conservative, Art Hanger]

[Inaudible--Editor] ... The agenda, I believe, is before the committee members. 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 is the topic of discussion.

The witnesses before us today are Ms. Kim Pate, the executive director of the Canadian Association of Elizabeth Fry Societies, and she has with her Debra Parkes. We also have, from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, Mr. Michael Woods, director general of national criminal operations for community, contract, and aboriginal policing services.

Thank you for being with us today.

I will start with the Elizabeth Fry Societies, as it shows on our agenda first. I would ask them to put their presentation forward in approximately ten minutes, and then we'll go over to Mr. Woods to make his presentation.

Criminal Code

[Rob Moore, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada]

Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for South Surrey—White Rock—Cloverdale.

We have heard all the rhetoric from the other side time and time again. I have seen this in committee. I have the privilege to serve on the justice committee. We have seen on Bill C-10, which would bring in mandatory minimum penalties for gun crimes, how all of the opposition, the NDP, the Liberals and Bloc, are united in opposing getting tough on crime, even though the NDP and the Liberals ran on a platform in the last election of getting tough on crime. Actually, they were promising to bring in measures that were even tougher than what our bill contains. For them to now say that our bill goes too far, is ridiculous.

We saw the same thing with Bill C-9, the bill that would have brought an end to conditional sentences for people who commit serious crimes, like arson, break and enter into a home and car theft. Again the opposition ganged together to gut that bill.

I think Canadians are saying enough is enough. Three of the four parties in the House were elected with a mandate to get tougher on crime. The NDP, the Liberals and the Conservatives said that we would get tougher on crime.

A few months later, we brought forward Bill C-9 dealing with conditional sentences, Bill C-10 dealing with mandatory minimum sentences, and legislation dealing with raising the age of protection. When our party is putting forward the legislative initiatives to protect Canadians, we see the opposition parties dragging their feet, standing in the way and flip-flopping, when they should be cooperating with us so we can make Canada safer.

I reject the premise of some of the remarks today that crime is not getting worse. The crime statistics that were just released yesterday say that violent crime is up, gun crime is up and gang-related crime is up. I do not say that to be an alarmist. It is just that we on this side of the House have decided that we will face the facts that Canadians want us to take crime seriously, that crime is serious and that effective measures need to be put in place.

I want to speak today to Bill C-27, a bill involving dangerous offenders, a bill that addresses the worst of the worst, as it were, when it comes to criminal offenders, those who prey on innocent Canadians, those who have been shown to be perhaps repeat offenders and those who commit the most serious crimes. This is not about any low level crime. It is the most serious crimes and the most serious offenders.

The bill responds to our government's goal of tackling crime by strengthening measures to protect families from offenders who are of a high risk to offend sexually or violently in our communities. Most of these amendments are the result of changes that the provinces, the territories and other stakeholders, including victim's groups, have supported. That is important to note.

The bill amends the dangerous offender and long term offender provisions, as well as sections 810.1 and 810.2 of the Criminal Code dealing with peace bonds.

The dangerous and long term offender amendments in the bill seek to strengthen and enhance those provisions. One of the amendments deals with applications for a dangerous offender hearing under part XXIV the Criminal Code. It requires a prosecutor to advise a court, as soon as possible after a finding of guilt, which is important to note, and before the sentence is imposed, whether it intends on proceeding with an application.

However, for this provision to apply, the prosecutor must be of the opinion that the predicate, or current offence, is a serious personal injury offence as defined in the code, and the offender was convicted at least twice previously of a designated offence as newly defined in section 752, and was sentenced to at least two years of imprisonment for these prior convictions. This person has to have committed a serious crime for which he or she were tried and sentenced twice before for this particular provision to come into play. When that is the case, the crown prosecutor must indicate whether he or she will be pursuing the designation of dangerous offender.

Another amendment ensures that a court cannot refuse to order an assessment where it is of the opinion that there are reasonable grounds to believe that an offender might be found to be a dangerous or long term offender. This was a technical amendment recommended by provincial and territorial ministers of justice.

The bill also imposes a reverse onus on the offender in some situations where a crown prosecutor has sought a dangerous offender designation. If a prosecutor is able to satisfy a court that an individual was convicted of a third primary designated serious sexual or violent offence, one of the most serious offences under the Criminal Code, the crown is deemed to have met its case that the individual is a dangerous offender and the individual must then prove on a balance of probabilities that he or she does not meet those criteria. We are shifting the onus, after a third offence, on to the offenders to show why they should not be designated as dangerous offenders. This brings some balance and fairness into our system.

However, the bill also clarifies that even when the conditions to make a dangerous offender designation have been met, the court must consider whether a lesser sentence, including a long term offender designation, would be adequate and neither the prosecutor nor the offender has the onus of proof in that matter.

These amendments clearly strengthen the dangerous and long term offender provisions and will ensure that prosecutors can more readily seek a designation for violent and/or sexual criminals who will in turn receive some of the toughest sanctions in the Criminal Code.

I also want to touch on peace bonds. Bill C-27 seeks to amend the provisions related to section 810.1 peace bonds for the prevention of sexual offences against children. The member for Wild Rose spoke passionately about his desire to protect children from sexual offenders and this bill deals with just that. I commend him and all members who have taken this up and are concerned about protecting children. Also, section 810.2 peace bonds target more serious violent and/or sexual offences.

These types of peace bonds are preventive in nature. They are instruments that are available to law enforcement officials to protect the public. It is not necessary for an offender to have committed a criminal offence for a judge to make such an order. These orders require individuals to agree to specific conditions to keep the peace and be of good behaviour. They aim to protect individuals and the general public from persons who are a danger of committing sexual offences against children or are likely to commit a serious personal injury offence. These situations we know all too often do exist.

Once granted, failure or refusal to enter into peace bonds could result in an immediate term of imprisonment not exceeding 12 months. They can be renewed and breaches of any of the conditions in the peace bond would be considered a criminal offence and can be prosecuted in any provincial or territorial court with criminal jurisdiction, providing up to a two year prison sentence.

Specifically on a peace bond, where there is fear of a sexual offence, the current section of the code allows anyone who fears, on reasonable grounds, that another person will commit an offence under specific provisions of the code against a person under the age of 14 years, may lay an information before a provincial court judge for the purpose of having the defendant enter into a peace bond. The specific offences covered include sexual assaults, sexual assaults with a weapon, sexual interference, invitation to sexual touch and child pornography offences.

Obviously, those are very serious offences and this bill seeks to protect young children from them. The peace bond can set out certain areas, for example, where an offender is not allowed to go.

Bill C-27 also clarifies and outlines several additional conditions available to a judge if the judge considers it desirable to secure good conduct from the offender.

Our new government was just elected in January. We said that we would tackle crime to make our streets safer. What is a bit ironic is that the NDP and the Liberals also said that they would take steps to tackle crime but we have seen no evidence of that so far in this session.

Bill C-27 is one of the many initiatives the government has taken toward attaining the goal of making our streets safer. We consider offenders, who are at high risk of offending sexually or violently, to be a very serious threat to public safety.

I support this bill, as do all members on this side. I hope other members of the House will see how important these provisions are and how they are necessary measures that can be implemented as soon as possible to protect Canadians, protect children and protect society from the worst offenders.

Justice

[Vic Toews, Conservative, Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada]

Mr. Speaker, the homicide survey released by Statistics Canada is a shocking wake-up call to Canadians. We need to take action on guns and gangs right now.

I tabled Bill C-10, which is a targeted measure. It proposes mandatory prison sentences for gang members who use guns to commit crimes.

During the election, we promised to introduce mandatory prison sentences for criminals who used guns, as did the Liberals, as did the NDP. We kept our word. Why will they not support the legislation?

Judges Act

[Brian Murphy, Liberal, Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe, NB]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the efforts of the member for Ottawa South, but being a veteran in dealing with the member for Nepean—Carleton, I think I can manage.

Briefly put, Bill C-9 concerning conditional sentencing was saved by the Liberal Party on this side, including crimes that deal with gang violence. Bill C-10 involving mandatory minimums was in fact an extension of a Liberal program first instituting mandatory minimums in 1995. Finally, the three strikes legislation is based on a Republican model, sadly, and the Republicans went down to defeat. We can only wish the same for the members on the other side. This legislation is clearly unconstitutional.

That brings me back to the substance of this bill, which is constitutionality, judicial independence and judicial integrity. Where are the members on the other side? Where was the Minister of Justice at committee yesterday, for instance, to answer this very simple question, “Do you have respect for Canada's judiciary?” Conservatives are not answering the questions the way they should be answered, questions about whether they believe in their country, whether they love Canada, and many other things, and whether they believe in an independent judiciary.

The answer from members on this side to all of those questions is yes, we do.

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

Indeed, you have.

Are there currently any repair, improvement, construction, renovation or remodelling projects under way in your penitentiaries, despite Bill C-10?

[The Chair, Conservative, Art Hanger]

Thank you, Mr. Moore.

I have one question for the witnesses.

The minister yesterday made it very clear that the bill before us, Bill C-10, is designed to target a certain element, folks who go out and use guns and commit violent acts with those guns. When Corrections Canada did their analysis...you're obviously looking at the higher end of those who are going to commit certain kinds of violent crime. Would not the majority of them fall into the maximum security level if you weighed them all out? Of these 270, wouldn't the majority of them be in the maximum?

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

Mr. Chairman, could I just make a point of order here? We're studying a bill here, Mr. Chairman, and for reasons totally not explained, Mr. Brown now wishes to invite our witnesses to cost out a platform position from a previous election, made by one of our recognized parties in the House.

I don't see this as being relevant at all to the costs involved in Bill C-10. I think it's not only irrelevant, but it's unfair to ask our officials to cost out something that a political party might have recommended a day ago or a hundred years ago. I just do not see the relevance.

That's my point: relevance.

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

Okay. Today, or I guess it was yesterday, there was an announcement from the Minister of Public Safety that people convicted of murder were now going to have to spend their full two years' minimum in maximum security before they went into other parts of the prison population.

Have you taken into account the impact of the capacity of the system to absorb these additional ones under Bill C-10?

[The Chair, Conservative, Art Hanger]

I call the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights to order.

On our agenda today is 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.

The witnesses appearing are from Correctional Service Canada, Mr. Ian McCowan and Mr. Ross Toller.

Who will be presenting, of the two of you?

Firearms Registry

[Stockwell Day, Conservative, Minister of Public Safety]

Once again, Mr. Speaker, I consult people and have meetings with many groups and individuals who have a variety of views and standpoints.

The question remains, however: why will the Bloc not support Bill C-10 to prosecute criminals who kill and use firearms in criminal, dangerous ways. Why will it not support us?

[The Chair, Conservative, Art Hanger]

Thank you, Mr. Bagnell.

Thank you, Minister and department officials, for attending the meeting and informing us about Bill C-10.

The meeting is adjourned.

[Vic Toews, Conservative, Provencher, MB]

Certainly in my discussions not only with the Toronto Police Association but with the Toronto police chief, they've been very supportive, not only of Bill C-10, but of Bill C-9, which was unfortunately gutted by the opposition.

On the issue with respect to the increase in penalties, yes, we believe that is important along with policing. You can't have one without the other. It doesn't help to simply have tough laws on the books without policing. So the policing that we have seen the Toronto police do this summer has been exceptional--very hard work, targeted. I think you should have the chief here to talk about the use of resources to actually apprehend these individuals. The stories they're telling me about the amount of manpower they need--or “person-power”, whatever the politically correct term is--has been incredible.

They're investing all this in police presence, but if they're not getting appropriate sentences, it's a revolving door over and over again. They point out the fact of the numerous killings or shootings in Toronto that were committed by people out on bail. The numbers are simply staggering. So, again, it shows you that having those people incapacitated, even if it's not going to deter them when they're out, is going to save lives in a very real sense.

So what we've tried to do in listening to the police.... For example, the issue of the loaded or restricted firearm inside a motor vehicle, just possession, is a growing problem. Every police officer walking up to a car now has to assume that there is a loaded firearm in that car. That's an intolerable state of affairs, something that would have never occurred....

I remember years ago prosecuting back in 1977. A police officer on highway number 1 at 2 o'clock in the morning stops a car, the door opens, and the handgun falls out. That was such an exceptional circumstance back then. Now they assume it occurs.

The handguns are being kept under the front driver's seat. So there will be three or four gang members in the car, and then it's difficult to prove the possession--so very difficult to prove. We believe that if you're making a practice of carrying this handgun in your car, loaded, there should be significant consequences.

Now, if the NDP say, look, we should move that up to four years, in that kind of circumstance, I would say, yes, let's move it up to four years. We haven't done that; we've said three years.

Again, I disagree with what the Liberals did. For example, a firearm, a long gun...an aboriginal using it and getting eight years doesn't make sense to me either. There has to be a proportionate response. So I would reject the Liberal response as being one that would unnecessarily increase the inmates in prison of a certain type, who can, I believe, be deterred in other ways other than using the Liberal approach.

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

Here is what I want to know. Have you made any analyses, any studies to determine whether your Bill C-10 could pass the Supreme Court’s test, in light of the Smith decision of 1987? Do you think it could?

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

Our researchers can access that easily, and I assume they have or they will, because that data is useful and obviously relevant.

This is one bill, we numbered it Bill C-10, but there are two other bills, Bill C-9 and Bill C-27. Each of these bills, Minister, deals with the Criminal Code, deals with sentencing. I'm wondering why we have three bills. Why didn't the government simply introduce one bill dealing with Criminal Code sentencing, dealing with conditional sentencing, in this bill mandatory minimums and the other involving long-term offenders? Wouldn't that have been the simple and prudent thing to do? Why did you choose three bills instead of one?

[Rob Moore, Conservative, Fundy Royal, NB]

I'm going to read from the NDP platform:

Increase the mandatory minimum penalty for possession, sale and importation of illegal arms such as hand guns, assault rifles and automatic weapons. Place each of these minimum penalties at four years, up from current one-year penalty. Add mandatory minimum sentences to other weapons offences. Place a four-year minimum sentence on all weapon offences, such as “possession of a concealed weapon”.

My read is that this goes even further in some cases than the government bill.

I appreciate that you and your department have tabled evidence to support Bill C-10. I think it's a well thought out bill. I commend you on the efforts made to make it proportional to the offence and the recidivist nature of some of the crimes.

I also want to give the opportunity to the Liberals and the NDP on this committee to table the evidence they studied to bring this forward in their platform. I'd like to give them the same opportunity you have taken to table the studies they must have undertaken to come up with their proposals and platforms that go beyond what our government bill does. I look forward to your tabling that evidence.

Mr. Bagnell quoted former Justice Minister Cotler who said, "Minimum sentences are sometimes required to send a message of 'denunciation' to potential offenders." I would agree with him on that.

Could you comment on the proportionality and incremental nature of this bill and how it's not as strict as the Liberals' platform, which proposed an eight-year first-time mandatory minimum?

[Réal Ménard, Bloc, Hochelaga, QC]

Has your department done any studies since 1995? What you say is not logical. Since 1995, there have been minimum penalties for offences involving firearms. You say that despite these minimum penalties, these offences have continued to climb. We have figures to the contrary.

Has your department been tracking the situation so that it can really persuade us that Bill C-10 is worthwhile. Do not tell me about Chicago, Michigan, New Jersey or New York. I am talking about the Canadian situation. Yes or no, has your department done any studies? The only studies you have are those by Julian Roberts, which prove the opposite of Bill C-10.

[Vic Toews, Conservative, Minister of Justice]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'm pleased to be back here again. I promised Mr. Ménard yesterday that I would be back again, and I am.

I have the pleasure to introduce two of my officials, Julie Besner and Mr. Donald Piragoff. They will be assisting me on some of the technical issues.

Mr. Chair, members of the committee, I'm pleased that the committee is beginning its review of Bill C-10, which seeks to protect public safety by tackling the problem of guns and gangs. This bill is part of our government's commitment to take steps to protect Canadians and make our streets safer.

As I've travelled across Canada and discussed these and other criminal justice measures, I've been struck by the call for measures to address gun crime. Mayors, chiefs of police, and attorneys general have been clear that we must take steps to target the gun crime on our streets. Bill C-10 will provide significantly tougher mandatory minimum penalties for serious or repeat firearms offences in a manner that is both measured and specifically tailored to the problem it seeks to address. It will also create two new offences targeting specifically the theft of firearms for robberies and breaking and entering dwellings and other places.

Bill C-10 seeks to build upon the existing minimum penalty scheme for certain firearms offences. Currently, four-year minimum mandatory penalties apply for ten specific offences involving the use of firearms. For other indictable offences in which a firearm is used, a one-year consecutive minimum penalty applies on a first offence; three years apply on a second offence. A handful of other offences involving firearms, but not their actual use, such as firearms targeting and smuggling, currently attract minimum penalties of only one year.

Bill C-10 is a targeted measure that focuses on gang members who use firearms to commit their crimes and on individuals who would use restricted weapons to threaten Canadians. It is a direct response to the scourge of handgun crime that plagues our country, especially in our cities. It focuses on the limited number of individuals who commit these crimes and will make sure that they face significant penalties for their actions.

Bill C-10 seeks to expand the existing law by providing an escalating mandatory minimum penalty scheme. The applicable penalty will increase based on repeat offences, similar to the increased minimum penalty scheme for impaired driving offences. However, because the range of firearms offences is significantly broader than impaired driving offences, different escalating schemes are needed.

Bill C-10 proposes three different escalating schemes, which I will describe to you in detail in a moment. But first I'd like to elaborate more on the nature of the problem the government is tackling with this bill.

Over the last thirty years, the types of firearms used in crimes or uncovered in criminal investigations have shifted dramatically. Police, and specifically those involved in weapons enforcement, have told me that they are coming across more illegal handguns, especially in the context of gang violence and the drug trade. This is a dramatic change from the 1970s and 1980s during which the firearms involved in crimes, particularly in homicides, were mostly long guns.

What we are hearing from the police is supported by the available statistics from Statistics Canada, which have been forwarded to the clerk of the committee. The statistics show that in recent years handguns have become the weapon of choice in gun crimes and are used in approximately three-quarters of violent firearms offences.

Bill C-10 targets serious and repeat firearms offences. When you look at the offences that are targeted by these mandatory minimum penalty schemes, you will see that they are all serious firearms offences. Firearms offences that typically engage more serious criminal conduct are captured by these proposals. One could say that what we're doing in Bill C-10 is codifying specific aggravating factors that the courts must take into account in sentencing persons convicted of these serious firearms offences. We have proposed higher minimum penalties of five years on a first offence, seven years on a second offence, and ten years on a third offence.

There are eight serious offences involving the use of firearms. These 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. The enhanced penalty scheme for these offences will only apply if one of the two possible aggravating factors is present.

The first aggravating factor is whether the offence is committed in connection with a criminal organization. This would include street gangs if they are composed of three or more persons intent on committing serious offences for material benefit and any class of firearm is used. So it's important to remember that any class of firearm used in the context of a gang activity and the criminal activity involved in that applies.

The second factor is whether a restricted or prohibited firearm is used. As you all know, these weapons are hand guns, automatic weapons, or long guns that have been in some way modified.

I would like to take a moment to clarify a few things about this last point, because I note that it seemed to generate a fair bit of confusion during second reading debate. Bill C-10 does not propose to provide higher mandatory minimum penalties only when restricted or prohibited firearms are involved. It is true that this is a specific aggravating factor that will trigger the higher mandatory minimum penalties for the eight serious use crimes targeted by this bill.

However, the other aggravating factor that's applicable to these offences, whether the offence was committed in connection with a criminal organization or gang, does not require that the firearm used in the offence be a restricted or prohibited firearm. It could be any firearm, including a non-restricted long gun where that long gun is used in furtherance of a criminal gang activity. A gang member who uses a firearm of any sort to accomplish their criminal ends will be subject to the mandatory minimum penalties contained in this bill.

I also want to make it clear that the serious so-called non-use offences, which I will describe in a moment, do not make a distinction based on the type of firearm, except in one case where it already exists as an essential element of the offence. We have included the specific aggravating factor of using a restricted or prohibited firearm in serious use offences because it is directly linked to the nature of the crimes we are targeting.

As I have previous explained, this bill is the result of the increasing popularity of hand guns with street gangs and drug traffickers. Bill C-10 defines a prior conviction as a conviction that has occurred in the last ten years, excluding time in custody. In other words, if an individual has been convicted of using a firearm in the commission of an offence within ten years of the conviction before the court, it will count as a prior offence. In calculating the ten years, the court will exclude any time spent in custody. If the offender has a prior conviction within the ten-year period, it will trigger the enhanced mandatory minimum penalty.

Therefore, for example, someone who is convicted of a robbery using a hand gun with two prior convictions for robberies with a firearm in the last ten years will face a mandatory ten-year minimum penalty. The prior conviction or convictions could involve another firearms use offence as well, such as attempted murder using a firearm.

Enhanced mandatory minimum penalties are also proposed in Bill C-10 for other serious offences involving firearms but in which the firearms are not actually used. The escalating minimum penalties in the case of serious non-use offences are based only on repeat firearms offences. The escalating scheme will be three years for a first offence and five years for a second or subsequent offence for the following serious non-use offences.

First is possession of a loaded, restricted, or prohibited firearm. That's something the police have specifically brought to my attention--the prevalence, especially in big cities like Toronto, and the presence of these loaded firearms in motor vehicles especially.

Then we have firearms trafficking, possession for the purpose of trafficking, making an automatic firearm, firearm smuggling, and a new offence of robbery to steal a firearm. As an example, someone involved in the business of supplying illegal handguns to people and convicted of a firearms trafficking offence would face a mandatory penalty of three years' imprisonment. If the accused had a prior record for illegally possessing a restricted firearm with ammunition, the person would face a five-year mandatory minimum penalty.

A three-step escalating minimum penalty scheme of one year on a first offence, three years on a second offence, and five years on a third or subsequent offence will apply for the following offences: possession of a firearm obtained by a crime, possession of a firearm contrary to court order, a new offence of breaking and entering to steal a firearm, and the offence of using a firearm or imitation firearm in the commission of other indictable offences. As an example, someone who is convicted of breaking and entering into cottages to steal firearms that can subsequently be diverted onto the street would face at least one year in prison, and if that person has a criminal record for firearms trafficking, let's say two counts in the last ten years, then that person faces a five-year mandatory minimum penalty.

These penalties directly target the supply of handguns and restricted weapons to the criminals on our streets. They are a proportionate and necessary response to the handgun problem we face and they target the business of illegally supplying firearms. For the non-use offences, it is important to note that prior convictions in the last ten years, excluding time spent in custody for both use offences and non-use offences, will trigger the higher mandatory minimum penalties applicable in repeat offences.

There are a few reasons why two different penalty schemes are proposed for the non-use offences. First of all, several of these offences can cover quite a broad range of potential conduct with varying degrees of severity. Second, in the case of the offence of possessing a firearm contrary to court order, it does not currently attract a mandatory minimum penalty, but Bill C-10 will make an amendment to do so. On the other hand, clause 85, which is the additional charge of having a firearm or imitation firearm in the commission of an indictable offence like robbery, currently has a one-year mandatory minimum penalty on a first offence and three years on a second offence. These mandatory minimum penalties are being maintained in light of the fact that the courts are already required to impose those mandatory penalties consecutively to the penalties imposed for the underlying offence. However, a five-year minimum is being introduced for a third or subsequent offence.

Bill C-10 also proposes to create two new offences, one for breaking and entering to steal a firearm and another for robbery to steal a firearm. These amendments, which are firearm-specific, are intended to reflect the more serious nature of these offences where the accused are seeking to obtain illegal firearms, whether for their own use or to feed the illicit gun trade. These proposals also provide tough escalating minimum penalties consistent with the overall penalty scheme for serious firearm offences proposed in this bill.

Before closing, I'd like to speak about constitutional considerations. As Bill C-10 addresses the issue of penalties of imprisonment, it raises considerations under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Section 12 of the charter provides that people have the right not to be subjected to cruel or unusual punishment. The courts in Canada have frequently been called upon to assess the constitutional validity of the mandatory minimum penalties and imprisonment currently set out in the Criminal Code, and in particular many of those that apply to firearms offences. In examining these provisions, the courts have recognized that Parliament is entitled to take appropriate measures to address the pressing problem of firearms-related crimes. In proposing the new range of penalties for certain firearms offences, we have taken under consideration the sentencing principles currently set out in the Criminal Code.

The code provides as 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 and that contribute to respect for the law and the maintenance of a just, peaceful, and safe society.

Accordingly, the objectives in sentencing are to denounce unlawful conduct, deter the offender and others from committing offences, and separate offenders from society where necessary. Sentences must also assist in rehabilitating offenders, cause offenders to accept responsibility for their actions, and repair the harm they have caused to victims or the community.

The manner in which the highest mandatory minimum penalties will apply is intended to ensure they do not result in grossly disproportionate sentences. The highest level of ten years for using a firearm and five years for the non-use offences are reserved only for repeat firearm offenders. If an offender has a relevant and recent history of committing firearms offences, that is, within the past ten years, it's not unreasonable to ensure the specific sentencing goals of deterrence, denunciation, and separation of serious offenders from society are given priority by the sentencing court.

While the overall trend in firearms offences is generally downward, when it comes to guns and gangs, Canada has not yet made meaningful progress in tackling the challenge. With Bill C-10, we are aiming to make a positive dent in the recent trend of illegal firearms use and possession by street gangs. By specifically targeting serious firearms offences and repeat firearms offenders or organized criminals and recognizing the types of firearms they are using, Bill C-10 focuses on the problem it seeks to tackle.

This bill offers police and prosecutors the tools they have said they need to ensure that serious firearms offences are met with serious sanctions, especially when committed by street gangs.

Thank you very much.

[Brian Murphy, Liberal, Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe, NB]

Great. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Minister, concerning Bill C-17, I suggest to you there have been many comments made, and some in a political forum—the other place. I want to make sure, and Mr. Cotler and all Canadians want to make sure, that you have an opportunity to say here today that you have the utmost respect for the judiciary, which I'm sure as an officer of the court you do.

I'd like to hear you say it, because the questioning is in this line of thinking. There have been comments made in the press and in the other place about Liberal judges. Bill C-9 and Bill C-10, as you well know, take away some discretion of judges in certain circumstances, which could be seen as a disdain for judicial discretion. In fact, the whole process with respect to Justice Rothstein's confirmation could be seen as putting judges on public example. Notwithstanding that it was a very positive experience in this instance, it could be seen as putting judges on public display for public approval by elected politicians.

Now we have BillC-17, and the concern is this. There are provisions in Bill C-17, for many of which the ship has gone by in the public somewhat, and we're on the road to finally getting a settlement of the issue. But there are contained in Bill C-17 issues with respect to...let's call it “the rule of 80”, or the ability of judges to go supernumerary in certain provinces. Supernumerary judges may not be under the same leash or chain from their respective chief justices as are full-fledged justices. This bill, when passed, will result in more supernumerary judges; I know that from the field.

I want to hear from you first of all on this issue of respect for judges. I want to hear from you, if I may be so bold as to ask, what you are going to do to get these supernumeraries to work. Are you going to appoint other judges to fill the backlog of vacancies that exist? Was there any rhetoric from you or your department with respect to getting chief justices to get their supernumerary judges to work to make the system work? You will realize there's a heavy caseload coming down the pike in justice. We will need our judges.

The two-part question, in short, is, do you have respect for judges, and will you resource the field enough so that justice gets done?

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

I have a question, but if it is an uncomfortable policy question, then you can suggest that I ask the minister or someone else.

Just for clarification, under Bill C-10—there was a little discussion on that earlier when the minister was here—my understanding is that for the mandatory minimum component, long guns would be excluded from that proposition. Is that your understanding?

[Stockwell Day, Conservative, Okanagan—Coquihalla, BC]

No, I have to finish. You had your time, with respect, and I listened carefully.

With respect to Bill C-10, which introduced a number of measures that we think—and this is a debate—will serve to reduce crime with firearms, three of the four Liberals present chose not to support it, and that's certainly their right. That's why I say, when we want to put a focus on crime with firearms, I find it curious that they give the appearance of wanting to have a focus on something else.

Now, on the anecdotal side—and anecdotal evidence has to be taken as such, and for security reasons I can only give some information here—our policing forces have told me that in one very densely populated area of our country, and I'd prefer not to say which, both their human and their listening-in intelligence on things that go on shows, from the street, that when we tabled Bill C-10 there was considerable discussion among those who choose criminal activity, and especially those who operate in the area of trafficking in firearms, that we were getting tough, that mandatory jail was probably going to be the result if they were apprehended, and that they were going to move their focus of business.

Now, I don't know what they're going into. I hope it's legal business—I doubt it is—but we're hearing anecdotally that just tabling and moving this legislation through is having an impact on the street. We hope that's true, and time will tell.

Criminal Code

[Brian Murphy, Liberal, Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe, NB]

Mr. Speaker, contrary to what the minority government across the way would like Canadians to believe, the current system with respect to dangerous offenders and long term offenders does work well.

Unfortunately, Bill C-27 seems to me to be more motivated by the Conservatives' partisan political agenda than by a real desire to better protect Canadians. It is unfortunate that this minority government thinks its partisan agenda is more important than the greater good of its citizens.

Even more importantly, Bill C-27 is a direct attack on a key concept in the Canadian justice system: the presumption of innocence.

In Canada, the presumption of innocence is guaranteed by section 11(d) of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms which states that any person charged with an offence has the right “to be presumed innocent until proven guilty according to law in a fair and public hearing by an independent and impartial tribunal”.

One wonders in that last term, with the spate of Conservative appointments to the judiciary, whether we could find an independent and impartial judge of recent appointment who has not been a major contributor to the Conservative Party or has fundamental Christian beliefs. All of the appointments have not been filled and I would not make that comment until they are. One hopes for impartiality and independence in the tribunals.

The real point in this legislation is whether the person charged with an offence has the right to be presumed innocent. There are two parts to this: the part of the trial and the part of the mini-trial with respect to the designation of dangerous offender.

The reversal of the burden of proof set out in Bill C-27 is questionable.

Many legal experts have already said that the legislation could be challenged in court. Their arguments seem to me to be serious enough to warrant taking the time to examine this seriously.

In light of the provisions of the charter, Bill C-27 creates a problematic situation with regard to the reversal of onus. The burden shifts. In the past the Supreme Court of Canada has said that the presumption of innocence will be violated whenever a trier of fact may be led to convict an accused person, even though there is reasonable doubt as to some essential element of the offence. I think all parties are on the same page with respect to the conviction of the accused and the burden of proof.

Although the proposed legislation does reverse the onus, we must keep in mind that this reversal only comes into play once the offender has been found guilty of the designated, serious violent or sexual offence three times. Each time the offender is accused, he would have benefited already from the presumption of innocence. Thank God that has not been taken away. This essential principle will not be changed by Bill C-27 as it relates to the finding of guilt, but what about the effect of this guilt?

Under the proposed legislation, the offender who has been found guilty already three times of one of the listed offences in Bill C-27 will no longer be presumed innocent. As a matter of sentencing law and not constitutional law, the Supreme Court has previously held that on sentencing, any aggravating fact that is not admitted by the offender, must be proven by the Crown beyond a reasonable doubt. Let us keep that clear. On sentencing, the Supreme Court of Canada has said that we still have to prove things beyond a reasonable doubt when it comes to the aggravating circumstances in that conviction. I would say it again if I thought the other side was listening or could understand.

This rule has since been codified under section 724(3)(e) of the Criminal Code, that big book the criminal law is in. In the context of dangerous offender applications, section 753 (1.1) would undo this long standing judicial principle and rule.

Furthermore, some could argue that not only does Bill C-27 deprive offenders of the right to be presumed innocent until proven guilty, as stated in section 11(d) of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and this is more telling and more appropriate to the argument before us today, it also allows for deprivation of liberty as stated in section 7 of the same charter. This creates the right not to be deprived of life, liberty and security of the person, except in accordance with the principles of fundamental justice, a key term.

It is not clear that transferring the burden of proof from the Crown to the accused, as set out in Bill C-27, respects the principles of fundamental justice. It is not at all clear. For a long time now, the concept of fundamental justice has been one of our justice system's guiding principles. This applies to the legal system in Moncton, in New Brunswick and in Canada, as well as to all countries whose legal system is based on British common law—the root of our own common law—including the United States.

I would even go so far as to say that the Crown's duty to prove beyond a reasonable doubt the existence of aggravating factors when determining the sentence is now a widely accepted concept. It is so widely accepted in our justice system that it can now be called a principle of fundamental justice, as it is written in section 7 of the Canadian Charter of Human Rights.

Under the current provision of the dangerous offender section of the Criminal Code, which is charter proof, 360 offenders have been designated as dangerous offenders and are currently behind bars. The system works.

Once again the minority government is all about sentences and law and order. My colleagues on the other side of the House might argue that these measures will protect innocent Canadians. As I have just said, section 7, the reasonable demands of having fundamental justice at any stage in the judicial determinations, puts in question whether this law, as presented and not yet amended at committee albeit, is in danger of falling like a house of cards on the dangerous offender designation system that already exists. It was put in place and monitored by Liberal governments. It was in the process of being improved because of the R. v. Johnson decision until the wrench was thrown in the problem.

The Conservatives have become the architects of disaster in suggesting we put in the reverse onus and the “three strikes you're out” because Arnold Schwarzenegger and those guys like it. What they are doing is possibly putting in jeopardy the whole system and that is not going to be good for victims.

Most of the justice legislation currently before the House will do little to protect Canadians and do very little for the victims. In fact, by cutting conditional sentences, sending more convicted individuals to the criminal schools of higher education, our jails, by building more jails and cramping the budget room for other needed programs, by putting longer sentences in place that will surely bring out a whole new round of graduated criminals determined to do more harm to victims and by cutting preventive and rehabilitation programs, we have no reason to think the crime rate is going to go down in Canada.

Furthermore, many studies, which is not germane to this discussion but very much germane to the discussions we have had at the justice committee, clearly indicate there is absolutely no link between harsher sentences and a lower crime rate.

It is quite telling at the committee level. When the proponents of the Conservative agenda on law and order are asked to bring witnesses who will prove empirically and objectively how these programs will work, they have very few names to present. On the other side, the people who suggest that harsher sentences do not lower crime rates have a plethora of witnesses available. That comes down to a determination by the Conservative minority government that most of those are criminal lawyers, professors and people who believe the criminal.

We have to ask ourselves this. If it is a truism that more sentences, harsher sentences and more people in jail will result in lower crime rates and a safer society, where is the proof? Canadians want the proof. Liberals want the proof. Liberals have been determined, with a justice program of over 13 years, to continually work with the outdated Criminal Code to modify the laws, as Canada grows, to protect society and victims.

In a non-partisan half second I say that is the same goal for the Bloc Québécois as well as the NDP. I know it is the same goal for the Conservatives because they keep saying it. However, they do not act in furtherance of that objective. They in fact act against that objective. They are not making the communities safer by locking everyone up. We ought to really take a non-partisan moment and say that if there is proof that these things work, show us. We are open to it.

In summary, Bill C-27 is no different than most justice bills recently tabled. It puts the political agenda of the Conservatives before the greater good of Canadians. The proof of that is they have overloaded the committee with so much work. Probably all the justice bills they keep tabling have no real intention of coming back to Parliament before what we perceive will be the next election.

Canadians have to ask, what was the objective in that? What was the objective in putting forward Bill C-9 and Bill C-10 separately? We now know that the list of witnesses is the very same and the hearings will take double the time. Why not propose them as one bill? The reason is simple. The Conservatives want to scare people into thinking we do not have a safe society. We do have a safe society. We support law and order. We support the victims in the community. We support the average Canadian who wants to be safe in his or her home.

Average Canadians are safe in their homes, even on Halloween when we have politicians masquerading as the proponents of law and order and when we have policy written on the back of a napkin dressed up as the law of the country.

We should take our duties more seriously. We should be earnest parliamentarians and pass good laws, not laws that are destined to be broken down by the loopholes contained in them by Conservative writers.

[Réal Ménard, Bloc, Hochelaga, QC]

Point of order.

We can't work this way. There is a sacred principle within parliamentary democracy: ministers appear before committees because of their ministerial responsibility. We began this meeting 15 minutes late. We are entitled to two questions, the Liberals are entitled to three. The Minister was our first witness. Out of all witnesses, he is the one who should be most available to answer our questions.

When you sat in opposition, you insisted on having ministers appear before committees every two weeks. I don't understand this. Mr. Chairman, if this is how you plan to chair this committee, there will be no cooperation on our part. I'd like to remind you that we have a majority here.

Yesterday, you asked for our cooperation to have the Minister appear on Bill C-10 despite the motion we had passed. I agreed to that, given the fact that the Minister has a busy schedule, but now the Minister, our first witness on a bill dealing with a constitutional matter, in other words judicial appointments, leaves, despite the fact that a former minister has not had an opportunity to ask a question nor has my colleague. If this how you intend to chair this committee, if this is how you want to have this committee operate, Mr. Chairman, you're not going to see many bills passed between now and Christmas. Mark my words.

Justice

[James Moore, Conservative, Port Moody—Westwood—Port Coquitlam, BC]

Mr. Speaker, over my time as the member of Parliament for the tri-cities, no issue has been more frequently raised by my constituents than the frustration over the seeming injustice in our justice system.

I and this Conservative government have heard those concerns and we are taking action to make our streets safer.

For example, we have introduced tough new legislation. Bill C-9 will limit or eliminate house arrest for dangerous violent criminals. Bill C-10 will establish a mandatory minimum amount of jail time for gun violence. Bill C-19 will create a new Criminal Code offence for street racing. Bill C-22 will raise the age of protection to 16 and protect tens of thousands of children from sexual abuse.

In our budget we committed millions toward tougher border security and millions more toward hiring new police officers from coast to coast.

The first responsibility of the state, before all else, is to protect law-abiding citizens from those who would do them harm. For 13 years the Liberals did nothing and for 13 years the NDP encouraged the Liberals to soften our already soft laws on crime.

This Conservative government is getting tough on crime and protecting Canadian families.

[Brian Murphy, Liberal, Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe, NB]

Yes, very briefly. The government's driving the ship here, and if their interest was really getting this legislation through, they could have done a lot of things more efficiently. The bills could have been drafted a little tighter and they could have been drafted in the same bill.

I really deeply suspect that the politicization of the justice issues lies at their feet, particularly when you have a press conference every week on a new justice initiative. So this is more about politics than a good working committee. We're going to have almost all the same witnesses for Bill C-10 as we had for Bill C-9. We're going to hear almost the same people all over again. Why couldn't it have been one bill? I know why, because there are another two months' or three months' news stories on a different bill in a different area.

You're hoisted by your own petard here, folks. I'm going to support the Bloc.

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

Mr. Chairman, I am respectful of Mr. Petit and of the team sitting across from me. I do not know how they work, but personally, I have to prepare for the meetings.

Take for example, Bill C-10, because we just finished our study of Bill C-9. Many people have sent us briefs on Bill C-10; we have a lot of documents to read. Moreover, some of us do not only sit on the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights. I also sit on the Standing Committee on Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development, and I replace Mrs. Freeman, who is ill.

I felt that three meetings per week to study Bill C-9 was acceptable, but if we went back to two meetings per week that would suit me, because it would give me the time to prepare and to study the documents. I do not know what you think of this, Mr. Chairman, but there is a great deal of material. Also, the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights is overwhelming us; they sent us pile of papers for Bill C-27 alone. We have to read everything we are sent, just to prepare ourselves. We just received the list of witnesses we want to hear on Bill C-10. Looking at the list of witnesses, I thought to myself it would be nice to have the time to make enquiries, to find out what this or that person has to do with this file.

It is not that we want to work less, it is that we would like to be able to work properly. If we meet on Monday afternoon, Tuesday afternoon and Wednesday afternoon, we will not have the time to prepare. That is why I agree with the motion. It is not that we do not want to work, because reading does not bother me, but it is getting difficult.

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

I'm in favour of the change, Mr. Chair, because of the indication we now have that Bill C-27—and I have to assume that the government will be using this tactic on an ongoing basis—will be sent to a special legislative committee. This will make it impossible for me to maintain any kind of schedule to sit on that committee as well as on this one and public safety. Mr. Ménard is going to get caught in a somewhat similar situation.

It is important that the people sitting on justice continue to deal with all of these bills, if they come. Certainly the dangerous offender provisions have some overlay with a number of other bills—with Bill C-10 in particular, which is coming next—and to have different members of whatever caucus sitting on these different committees just begs for inconsistencies to crop up.

If, as the government has already signalled, it is going ahead with putting Bill C-27 into a legislative committee, it's logical that we make it possible for Mr. Ménard and me to be on both that legislative committee and this one, on an ongoing basis.

As I said, I will support this motion.

[Brian Murphy, Liberal, Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe, NB]

I think he said something about the cost of legal aid for Bill C-9, Bill C-10, and Bill C-27. I think I heard that today in the locker room or somewhere.

No, that doesn't work. Oh well, darn it.

[Brian Murphy, Liberal, Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe, NB]

Right now, even at $126 million, if that's what the figure is going to be, none of that includes increased legal aid costs as a result of the government program, let's say, of Bill C-9, Bill C-10, and Bill C-27.

All we really know is that the government has put about $225 million in Mr. Flaherty's budget for prisons, when our estimate is that the capital for prisons is $1.5 billion. Notwithstanding that the government has done estimates for cabinet purposes on police, prison, and legal aid costs, we don't have those figures and we don't know the cost of the program.

Mr. Thompson is a big supporter of the program. He says his people tell him that whatever the costs are, we'll pay for it. I would think he and others would want to know what it's going to cost and would stand behind the figures.

I guess we're waiting for that. Mr. Moore may have them in his sheath of documents over there, but we'll have to wait for another day and another witness to get that answer. Is that right?

[Réal Ménard, Bloc, Hochelaga, QC]

Yet, those people who have been accused of being involved in terrorist organizations have to request assistance from the provincial legal aid system. That's my understanding.

That brings me to my second question. I would like you to be perfectly comfortable and for your generosity to match my conviction that my question is well founded. You are aware that we are considering Bill C-9, whose future is uncertain, and Bill C-10. Both bills could lead to an increase in the prison population. You could tell me that an increase in the prison population is part of the Conservative Party's platform, but I don't want to ask you political questions.

Have you assessed the impacts of theses bills on the demand for legal aid? I know that you have. Otherwise you would not be living up to your responsibilities. Would you agree to providing us with these studies, if we guarantee you that they will be for our use only?

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Okay, that's fine.

You've evaluated the costs of the new initiatives the government has brought forward, Bill C-9, Bill C-10, etc. Could you table those estimates of the costs with the committee?

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

I wanted to know whether you had had an assessment done of the legal aid costs associated with the enforcement of Bills C-9, C-10 and C-27.

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

In the draft budget, $955,000 was earmarked as support for a legal aid pilot project. Why doesn't that show up in the 2006-2007 main estimates? That's my first question.

As for my second—and I hope you will be able to answer it—I would like to know whether your department has contemplated the increased cost of legal aid associated with the enforcement of Bills C-9, C-10 and C-27, which we are going to be considering in the next few days. Have you looked into that? I look forward to your answers.

[Sue Barnes, Liberal, London West, ON]

That's fine. I understand that.

Can you tell me what will happen, say, in my province of Ontario, where the provincial legal aid, which is responsible, is in a deficit situation? The year hasn't gone through, and yet we have legislation before us, in Bill C-9 and Bill C-10, that will put people at risk of going to prison. That's the test in my province: if they have a substantial risk of going to prison, they're supposed to be able to obtain legal aid. They're $10 million in debt right now in that system, so what is the federal government going to do and what were the discussions on those areas?

[Lucie Joncas, Vice-President, Board of Directors, Canadian Association of Elizabeth Fry Societies]

I'll take one minute of your time to address you in French.

First thing , I wish to underscore the importance of maintaining the court's authority. A democracy must respect the separation of the legislative, executive and judiciary branches. Bills such as C-9, C-10 and other pieces of legislation to be tabled in upcoming weeks distort judge's role by significantly restricting his discretionary power.

Canada is considered an important ally in the reconstruction and development of several countries' legal systems, countries which acknowledge and argue that our justice system is one of the best in the world. I would argue that none of the data calls for the reform being proposed. According to government statistics, 90% of cases resolved in conditional sentences of imprisonment follow a guilty plea.

The abolition of this measure will lead to a backlog in the legal system, and I would ask that you take this into account. I have been practising law for the last 14 years and can say that we agree on most of the cases, but we must have the means to carry out our work well.

Thank you.

Criminal Code

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

Mr. Speaker, there seems to be a lot of support for this bill because few questions and comments have been raised. At first glance, this is an interesting bill to which members of this House and litigants should pay close attention. This bill would have a direct impact on litigants like me.

I have been practising law for 25 years. For the past 10 or 15 years, I have focused on criminal law. Bill C-23 is therefore of great interest to me. It will probably also be of interest to my colleagues in the legal profession who specialize in criminal law or who have been practising it more and more over the years and have become very knowledgeable about it.

Bill C-23 is interesting. With all due respect to the Minister of Justice, I would have liked this bill—which is neither right-wing nor repressive ideologically—to have been introduced before bills C-9 and C-10. We are currently debating these bills in committee, and they seem to be based on repressive right-wing ideology. In contrast, Bill C-23 is interesting in many respects.

As I was saying, for 25 years I was a lawyer and argued all sorts of criminal cases. It is not unusual to have clients or cases where it is a matter of possession of break and enter instruments, as this bill addresses. Time and time again attorneys general in the various provinces—the Attorney General of Quebec who administers criminal law in Quebec as well as the Attorney General of Canada—have been told that this does not make sense. Our client was automatically accused of breaking and entering and possession of break and enter instruments. He was accused of a criminal offence because that act was automatically considered as such. This seems utterly unusual and unacceptable to us.

It seems that Bill C-23 will at least amend that—without removing it, of course—and will allow a person accused of breaking and entering and of possession of break and enter instruments to be tried by summary conviction.

In the Criminal Code there are two types of offences and that is what I want to talk about now. There are offences that can be tried by indictment; they are indictable offences. Murder, homicide and all sorts of offences are examples. There are a number of such offences in the Criminal Code. Other offences are called dual procedure offences. The Crown prosecutor filing the complaint can decide to try by indictment or by summary conviction. In summary conviction cases, if the person is found guilty or pleads guilty, he or she will receive a maximum fine of $2,000 or a six month prison sentence or both the fine and sentence.

This new bill, and I think this is important to point out, proposes a number of amendments. It is a large bill that deserves our time and attention and careful consideration as to how it will be debated in committee.

Criminal procedure sets out how to proceed in criminal cases. Let us take for example an accused who is to receive documents. If this bill is passed, it will provide for a means of telecommunications to be used to forward warrants for the purpose of endorsement and execution in a jurisdiction other than the one in which the search warrant was obtained.

In French, that means that if someone was arrested in Rouyn-Noranda and they wanted to search the person’s residence in New Liskeard, Ontario, the original document was required. They sent it by car, from one police officer to the next, until it got to Ontario, and that could take hours. If this bill were passed, it would be possible to send it by fax, for example, with the original document to follow by mail.

On reading the bill, I think that it would be possible to send it by Internet, by e-mail, so that it could be executed as soon as possible. That is a good thing.

Changes are made to the procedure for challenging jurors, among other things, to help to preserve their impartiality. This is also a very good thing, which the bill will bring in if it passes. In the jury selection process, particularly in terms of challenges, this means that we will be able to preserve and protect the impartiality of jurors, which is the very foundation of a jury trial.

There are also a host of other details, such as summary dismissal by a judge of the court of appeal where the appeal has been brought in error. Before, a motion had to be made, saying that it had been filed in the wrong place and asking the judge to dismiss it. Now this will be handled expeditiously.

Where it starts to get interesting is in an appeal to a court of appeal from an order of a superior court relating to objects that have been seized. For example, in the past, you could not move forward as long as the court of appeal had not ruled. You had to wait, but now you will be able to proceed.

Turning now to trials by way of summary conviction for a co-accused where the co-accused fails to appear. This avoids a lot of delay. Before, the accused appeared, but the co-accused was not present, for one reason or another. The judge then adjourned the appearance until the co-accused was located. Now, if this bill is passed, the accused could be tried much more expeditiously than before.

There are all sorts of things like this, and useful things. I mentioned earlier the reclassification of the offence of possession of break-in instruments to make it a dual procedure offence. That may be useful.

Certain things are even more useful, but would almost run counter to Bill C-9. We know that that bill would eliminate the possibility of suspended sentences for a host of offences.

We all hope that this bill will not come before this House again, as introduced by the hon. Minister of Justice. On behalf of the Bloc Québécois and probably many of my colleagues on both sides of this House, I would add that Bill C-9 does not really accomplish what justice demands: that judges have the opportunity to hand down individualized sentences.

Bill C-23 contains some interesting amendments. The bill provides for the power to order an offender in custody not to communicate with identified persons and creates an offence for failing to comply with the order, which increases protection for victims. We had long been calling for this. Defence lawyers had been calling for this. Often, our client in detention would receive telephone calls from victims who wanted to talk to him, and he would call them back. In future, offenders will be prohibited from doing so. If they do not comply with this order, they will be charged with a separate offence of failing to comply with a court order.

The clarifications with respect to the application of impaired driving penalties had long been called for.

Among other things, the possibility of using an alcohol ignition interlock device was raised. This device makes it possible for an individual found guilty of impaired driving to drive a car. The offender has the right to use this device after three months.

We can now provide clarification. Previously, the matter was very complicated, and it still is. For example, a taxi driver who also owned his own car would have to have two alcohol ignition interlock devices. If this bill is adopted, it seems that things will be less complicated. We might come to a consensus about placing the device only in the principal vehicle. It is starting to look interesting.

Probably two of the most important aspects of this bill are the suspension of a conditional sentence order or a probation order during an appeal.

Today, October 16, if an accused is found guilty by a judge, he is subject to a probation order or conditional sentence order and if the accused decides to appeal, the orders remain in force. Thus, even today we still have serious problems. I hope we will be able to change this quickly.

As criminal lawyers we tell our clients that we will appeal their sentence, but that the probation order is in force. The probation order may be for a term of two years and it might be one year before the appeal is heard. The individual would have been subject to a probation order for one year for nothing.

Henceforth, we can at least apply to the court of appeal and ask the judge, upon filing of the notice of appeal, if it would be possible to suspend the sentence. Even today, this can be requested. However, criminal lawyers who live, as I do, in a region such as Abitibi-Témiscamingue are ofter forced to go to Quebec City to do so. This results in additional expenses for the accused. Thus, we believe that this is a very useful amendment. I hope it will be adopted quickly.

One of the interesting comments and one of the even more interesting amendments, is the power to delay the sentencing proceedings so that an offender can participate in a provincially approved treatment program.

This is important and here is what it means. When judges hand down a decision and find an accused guilty, after a fair trial, they will very often delay sentencing, by asking, say, for a pre-sentence report. This is a report that establishes the circumstances of the charge, the circumstances of the offence and who the accused is. Generally a pre-sentence report is prepared at the request of the accused and most often in very important cases.

The accused may in fact have a long criminal record. For instance, he may be charged with manslaughter or found guilty of criminal negligence. These are often very serious cases. The following example comes to mind. An accused found guilty of, or who pleads guilty to, impaired driving causing bodily harm, or causing death, is automatically subject to a prison sentence. The court will generally hand down its decision.

However, under the proposed amendment, the court could delay sentencing until the accused completes his addiction treatment or another appropriate treatment program.

Take, for example, an accused who is sentenced for domestic abuse. He decides to attend a treatment program or violence counselling. The judge hands down his decision, stipulating that the accused must continue his therapy. The accused continues his therapy, but the judge does not know anything about it. Is the accused still dangerous?

So there were some cases—and we defended many—in which the judge, in a case of manslaughter or impaired driving causing bodily harm, handed down his sentence without knowing what the effects were on the accused and the victims.

If this amendment is passed, sentencing could be delayed. Sometimes it takes from three to six months before we get all the reports. Nowadays we do so by consent, but it is illegal.

So the proposed amendment could make it very interesting for the courts in their decisions.

Moreover I would like to urge the House to look very seriously at Bill C-23 with regard to anything to do with both official languages. I was able to take a quick look at the proposed amendments proposed to section 730.

It is proposed that section 720 respecting probation orders and treatment orders be amended. As far as probation orders are concerned, the accused is entitled to have the documents. So someone who has been found guilty must receive the documents and they must be explained in the official language of his choice. Let us take the example of a francophone accused who works in Calgary or Fort MacMurray. These are areas in which English predominates but someone who asks for his trial to be in French can get it.

I draw your attention to subsection 5 of section 732.1, where it is stated that a copy of the documents explaining the conditions must be given to the offender in order to ensure that the terms of presentation and so forth are respected. The following would be added to that subsection, “For greater certainty, a failure to comply with subsection (5) does not affect the validity of the probation order.” This subsection deals with the fact that when a court issues a probation order it gives a copy of the documents to the offender.

This casts some doubt on what the parliamentary secretary told us earlier when I asked him the question. We will have to pay extremely close attention when the amendments set out in Bill C-23 are being examined. It is fine to talk about bilingualism, but bilingualism has to be applied. To achieve that, it is necessary that a person not only receive all the information in his or her official language, but that he or she should understand the information and that someone should take the time to explain it.

On the whole, this is a very interesting bill. The amendments proposed in the bill could clarify the provisions of the Criminal Code and simplify some judicial proceedings.

Mr. Speaker, I see you signalling that I have only one minute remaining. I will proceed directly to my conclusions. The Bloc Québécois is especially pleased to see amendments that contribute to improving the work of judges by giving them greater discretion. These measures will give judges better tools to do their job, which is to determine the most appropriate sentence. And this will contribute to the objectives of deterrence and reparation, as well as an objective that is too often forgotten by our friends opposite in the government, which is that of rehabilitation.

In closing, the Bloc Québécois will be in favour of this bill and we hope that it can receive the support of this House as quickly as possible, in the interests of improving justice.

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

Mr. Speaker, with all due respect to the hon. Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada, CPC, I will put my first question to the hon. member who just spoke. It will probably also concern the minister, who is sponsoring this bill.

It is surprising that we have to wait a few weeks, or even a few more months, before debating in committee this legislation, which was introduced in June, because it is an important measure. I do not understand why the government waited like this. Considering that this bill does not reflect a right wing ideology, it should take precedence over Bills C-9 and C-10. However, there is one issue of concern to me, because I practised criminal law for 25 years and this is an interesting piece of legislation as regards criminal proceedings: how will the government ensure that the accused is informed of his right to be tried in one of the two official languages? That is the first question.

Secondly, how can the accused be sure to obtain a translation of all relevant documents, including those relating to the indictment and the preliminary inquiry?

Of course, this is not a problem in Quebec, but I am thinking of my clients in Calgary, Vancouver, Winnipeg, or in other places in Canada where English is the official language. As we know, in those regions documents are only translated in French when there is time to do so.

Before introducing this legislation, did we make sure that the constitutional right to be heard by a justice would be respected? This means the right to appear before a judge who can speak and understand French fluently—not someone who just took language courses on the weekend—and who can explain the principles that underlie this bill.

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

Mr. Speaker, I listened carefully to my colleague and I am in complete agreement: Bill C-23, An Act to amend the Criminal Code (criminal procedure, language of the accused, sentencing and other amendments) needs some fine tuning.

I trust that my colleague believes, as I do, that this is probably one of the most interesting pieces of legislation tabled by this government in the past few months. However, I would have this to say. Unlike Bills C-9 and C-10, Bill C-23seems very interesting at first glance. I believe that we, the members of the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights, should spend some time on it as it really strikes me as very important.

This is the question for my colleague: does she know whether or not the Law Commission of Canada—which our current government has just cut or would like to abolish—helped draft Bill C-23 and made any recommendations? In addition, are these the recommendations found in Bill C-23? If yes, which ones are they?

[Rob Moore, Conservative, Fundy Royal, NB]

Mr. Speaker, I look forward to exploring in committee all areas of the bill and this question and all questions the hon. member may have, which can be put to our witnesses there. Some of the provisions dealing with jurors have dealt with not wanting to taint the sworn jurors when there are questions being put to potential jurors by crown attorneys and by defence lawyers. This is one area relating to jurors which we have to address to ensure that people get a fair trial.

Most of what is contained in Bill C-23 is there to streamline our judicial process, to make it more effective and to take out some of the ancient modes used in the past. Bill C-23 recognizes that we are living in a new era where we have to use a more streamlined system. It recognizes that technology has moved on, so we as a government have to move on in order to better protect society.

That is the main thrust of the bill. It is not to make major substantive changes. We have other bills, such as Bills C-9 and C-10, that make some very substantive changes to the Criminal Code. Bill C-23 is going to make our entire system more streamlined without making major changes to the code itself.

[Brian Murphy, Liberal, Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe, NB]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for his examples from the United States. We all know how fond the other side is of following whatever is done in the United States.

Let me correct what he may think about the State of New York. Yes, George Pataki was the conservative republican governor who came in. Yes, he is the governor under whose administration most of the mandatory minimum sentences in the State of New York have been revoked. This is Bill C-10 for the member's information.

The mandatory minimums in that state have completely been removed. I know it is not popular, but the facts show it does not work.

We have to be oriented toward the facts in all of these cases. I was simply saying on Bill C-23 that these are good amendments. The fact is they were born by contests in the Court Challenges Program and the good work of the Law Commission. Now we do not have these programs, so we will probably not have a Bill C-23 in the future.

I would like to agree with the member that these are good reforms and they will improve our society and make them better. Basically, they are the fruit of Liberal institutions.

We will see if the member will put his vote where his mouth is and vote against this Liberal bill presented under the guise of the Conservative government and truly not want more safety in our community which this side wants.

[Réal Ménard, Bloc, Hochelaga, QC]

Mr. Speaker, in a few minutes I will have the opportunity to deliver my speech informing the House that the Bloc Québécois is favourably disposed towards this bill. I am, however, going to take advantage of the minister’s speech to try and get a few clarifications. We know that the minister is an extremely enterprising man, who in a way practises judicial activism. At present, six bills are under consideration, and there is a rumour, which I would be inclined to believe has some foundation, to the effect that six other bills will be tabled.

I would like the minister to tell us, in order, his government’s priorities. Does he hope to begin with the passing of Bill C-9? Is it Bill C-10, followed by the bill respecting age of consent? Is it the one dealing with DNA data banks?

Soon there will be more bills than the minister has teeth. It is not easy to figure out what the government’s priorities are. Each bill will be discussed in committee and in the House. Some are good, others less so, but overall, I would say that the output is fairly discouraging.

Can the minister, for each of the bills and in numerical order, tell us his government’s priorities? I am sure that he does this in consultation with the leader.

[Brian Murphy, Liberal, Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe, NB]

Mr. Speaker, Bill C-23 is a good clean-up bill because it takes care of a lot of loose ends. The Department of Justice should be complimented on its good work.

However, I cannot say the same about the justice minister's implications in this bill. The bill was the fruit of the good work of the Law Commission, which has been eradicated. One of the first steps of the Minister of Justice, through the government purse keepers, the Minister of Finance and the President of the Treasury Board, was to cut the Law Commission.

Would the minister agree that the government was hasty in completely gutting the Law Commission?

The second point I would like to make is that the new Official Languages Commissioner, Graham Fraser, before the official languages committee said that he would be in favour of keeping the court challenges program.

The minister will know, at least I hope he knows, that the battle and struggle for language rights in this country has been in part as a result of successful court challenges applications and the testing of municipal and provincial laws and even, in some cases, federal laws to ensure that francophones across the country have the rights that have been improved in Bill C-23 but were in fact instituted by court challenges. Will the minister reconsider the efficacy of the court challenges program?

Finally and briefly, the imposition of a fine up to $10,000 on summary conviction offences from $2,000 is certainly to be lauded. This is a modernization of the reality of the effect of crime and the willingness to pay and the capacity to pay which must be judged by a judge. The judge's judicial discretion in deciding up to $10,000 in the capacity to pay area is something that acts totally against what the government has done to the judiciary. It was held up, I learned today, and it completely delayed bringing back the discussion in the House of the pay packages for our judges, ripping them of their discretion when it comes to Bill C-9 and Bill C-10, and yet in this case lauding the fact that we are increasing the discretion to $10,000 on summary conviction offences when in fact every other step of the government and the Minister of Justice has been an attack on the judiciary and its wise use of discretion.

Those are three little questions on which I will await the minister's response with apt attention.

An Act to Amend Certain Acts in Relation to DNA Identification

[Rob Moore, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada]

Mr. Speaker, the thoughtful speech of the hon. member for Fundy Royal is correct in saying that we on this side of the House are taking justice issues seriously. We have listened to Canadians.

We are busy in the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights, of which he and I are both members. By way of example, we are dealing with Bill C-9, which deals with conditional sentencing and ending the possibility of conditional sentences when a serious crime is involved, with Bill C-10, which deals with mandatory minimum penalties for gun crimes, and with Bill C-19 on street racing, which I and the hon. member spoke to yesterday. We are going to be dealing with other issues that deal with protecting Canadians.

I am proud to say that we are backing up our legislative action with resources. Our budget provided funding for 1,000 new RCMP officers. We are providing funding to train and hire new municipal police officers. They are the essential resources that must be in place to add teeth to our legislative agenda.

In light of the fact that the hon. member does support Bill C-18 and improvements to the DNA data bank and recognizes the importance of the DNA data bank, will he work within his party to move Bill C-18 along as quickly as possible? Recognizing that we are busy in the justice committee, will he take steps within his own party to see that Bill C-18 moves even straight through to the Senate considering that many of the issues dealt with in Bill C-18 have already been debated?

[The Chair, Conservative, Art Hanger]

I know you're prepared to discuss both Bill C-9 and Bill C-10, but I would like you to keep your comments to Bill C-9, because this is the bill that is before the committee right now. Bill C-10 is coming up at a later date.

If you could separate that information from your presentation, I'd appreciate it. Your time is running out, so I encourage you to put your conclusion forward.

[Lorraine Berzins, Community Chair of Justice, Church Council on Justice and Corrections]

My name is Lorraine Berzins and I've been on staff with the Church Council for 22 years. Before that I worked for 14 years in federal corrections. When I worked in federal corrections I was the victim of a hostage taking. I say that because I really want to impress upon you that the issues coming before you today, while they may seem a mere matter of words, matter a great deal to the people whose lives are going to be affected. They are going to affect people in several communities whom I know very well. So I bring a real, personal commitment to trying to let you know what we know because we are there with people in the community.

I want to make three particular points about the two bills. We will be discussing Bill C-9 and Bill C-10 together because both bills propose changes that are going to affect judicial discretion, and that's the most important issue for us. They're going to result in greater limits on a judge's ability to impose sentences that fit the specific circumstances of a crime and the offender regardless of actual risk assessment in a particular case and regardless of the real interest of the victim and the community as a result of a particular criminal incident. These changes would tie a judge's hands. They would enforce some new mandatory minimums and they would remove the possibility of a conditional sentence that exists for many offences, even though conditional sentencing is already specifically designed to allow only offenders who do not pose a danger to serve a prison sentence in the community. Any such decision that is deemed inappropriate can be appealed. We believe judicial discretion in sentencing is too important to let this happen. I'm going to come back to this at the end of my remarks.

The second point is about the research evidence about harsher sentences. The design of the changes proposed by both bills shows they are based on the belief that harsher sentences will keep us safer from crime. We acknowledge the real need to protect ourselves from certain offenders who pose immediate risk to the community. But harsher sentences do not translate into increased public safety. Research has clearly shown for years that imprisonment as mere punishment, regardless of actual risk, just to send a message to other potential lawbreakers, is clearly ineffective as a deterrent. The level of recidivism for specific offenders is actually higher if they go to prison. Nor do harsher sentences meet the needs of victims for healing and safety in any individually meaningful way.The changes proposed, upping the tariff of the punishment regardless of individual circumstances and needs, is going to make that courtroom experience for victims even worse by making the legal system even more adversarial than it already is in ways that can deal very hurtfully and disrespectfully at a very highly vulnerable time for a victim. That's the way it works. That's not likely to change.

We agree with the conclusions of credible scholars like Doob and Webster who state that despite a minor study or two that may appear to show signs of some small area of controversial findings in this field, the support for the proposition that harsher sentences work is very weak. Canada's public policy should be based on reflective experience and sound research and not on any single study that is contradicted by a host of other better studies. To do otherwise is irresponsible, and this is especially the case when we can also anticipate the new laws are going to result in higher correctional costs and in more prison time for our most vulnerable groups, like first nations people, other visible minorities, people with psychiatric disorders, and members of the poorest sectors of society. Women, particularly, are going to be affected by a lot of these changes.

Finally, we are particularly distressed about the inconsistencies in the proposed legislation. One example of the inconsistencies in mandatory minimum sentencing provisions proposed, Bill C-10, is what could happen as a result of what's proposed. For example, an individual can rob a corner store, while armed with a fully loaded long gun, such as a shotgun. Let's say he or she has a lengthy criminal record, including numerous prior convictions for other firearms-related offences. He or she faces a mandatory minimum sentence of four years, as proposed. Another individual commits a robbery under similar circumstances but is armed with an unloaded handgun. He or she is a first-time offender with no criminal record. He or she faces a mandatory minimum sentence of five years, as proposed. The same would apply in several other kinds of cases.

In other words, the length of the mandatory minimum in the proposed legislation is based on the legal status of the firearm in question rather than the extent of the actual danger to the public presented by the situation. An unloaded handgun is more serious than a loaded long gun, regardless of the actual circumstances of the crime and the offender or the actual harm done and victim considerations.

[Jane Griffiths, President, Board of Directors, Church Council on Justice and Corrections]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Good afternoon.

I'm speaking here today as one representative of the Church Council on Justice and Corrections, which is a national coalition of eleven Christian denominations with multi-faith and other community partners. It is well known as an NGO in the criminal justice field, nationally and internationally, for its work since 1974 to bring public attention to more socially responsible approaches to crime and justice. Recent council activities have included educational conferences, supporting local community restorative justice projects, analyzing public policy, and partnering with the arts community in public education about justice.

CCJC was created by eleven founding churches: the Presbyterian Church in Canada, the Religious Society of Friends--the Quakers, the Roman Catholic Church, the Salvation Army, the United Church of Canada, of which I am a minister, the Anglican Church of Canada, Canadian Baptist Ministries--we have a representative from them today as well--Christian Reformed Churches, Disciples of Christ, Evangelical Lutheran, and the Mennonite Central Committee.

We realize that our own faith tradition has had some negative influence in fostering a culture of justice and legal institutions that have been steeped in retribution in ways that have worked to further marginalize often some of the most vulnerable citizens of our Canadian communities. We take responsibility for helping to undo the harm this has done.

Our primary mandate is to assist our own faith constituencies to reflect upon this and to become aware of the people in their midst who are suffering from the causes and effects of crime and the fear of crime. Our educational resources encourage citizens to reach out to each other with responses and services that can help us all come to grips with the evil of crime when it happens, to survive and to heal, to discover that life can still be good and worth living, and that we can learn better ways to live together in safety and peace.

The focus of CCJC are the human realities that people in our communities are struggling with related to crime, its causes and effects, and the repercussions of how our legal system, the justice system, and society generally deal with crime. We do not expect our legal system alone to be able to do this for us. The job of justice is also a community responsibility, reaching far beyond what any law or justice system of the state can accomplish.

Long years of experience have taught us that how the state carries out its responsibilities, the laws it enacts, the financial resources it allocates, and the public statements it makes can either assist community effort or undo community initiatives by giving the problems of crime a twist for the worst. It will either assist efforts based on sound evidence to transform attitudes and criminal justice practices or perpetuate prejudices and understandings of the true realities of crime. This is what we wish to discuss with you today.

We believe that the changes in law that these two bills are proposing will make what is already a bad situation even worse. There are other, better ways to remedy the concerns that these bills seek to address. We would all be safer if the resources that would be needed to support the implementation of these unhelpful changes were put toward some of the effective new approaches that have emerged in recent years.

Our book, Satisfying Justice, has documented over 100 of these initiatives. One example is the collaborative justice program, which is here in Ottawa in the courthouse. We have representatives here today, Tiffani Murray and Kim Mann.

The proposed legislation will severely restrict the ability of judges to make use of these programs. We want to take our time with you to explain why we have come to the conclusion that the proposals in Bill C-9 and Bill C-10 would not contribute to better justice for our communities and would make things worse.

The distress of Canadians, the trauma and anguish and fear of crime, is a very compelling force. We are all united in our desire to make changes that will make Canada a safer place to live, and the key challenge is to know what will bring the desired results. It may seem that all that is required would be a simple shifting of words here and there--more time for more crime. We believe, however, that what is being proposed is bound to lead to many unintended consequences, consequences that have been unforeseen because the changes proposed are not strategic in any informed way. Our purpose here today is to bridge the two realities: the words, and the human realities that will be impacted by these words.

We urge you to vote not on the words in a battle of rhetoric taken in a vacuum, but with a meaningful reference to their impact on people's real lives.

Criminal Code

[Brian Murphy, Liberal, Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe, NB]

Mr. Speaker, since this is my first intervention in the House since the election campaign in New Brunswick, I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate the Liberal government in New Brunswick and Premier designate, Shawn Graham, and his team.

As partners, we will represent New Brunswick in a new era of relations between the three levels of government.

It is my pleasure today to speak on Bill C-19. It is another one of the bills presented by the new Conservative government.

Once again, with the introduction of this proposed legislation, the Minister of Justice does not address the real issue. While he and his government might be playing to another audience, an audience in large municipal centres of rich population, dense population and voters who did not support the government, they are playing to the issues that affect people very much. While the purported message in the bill is to prevent crime and keep communities safe, the real objective of the bill, like all other bills the Minister of Justice has led through the House, is political gain.

Like the hon. member for Windsor—Tecumseh said earlier, we must look at the issues involved and the real merits of the bill and compare it to other bills, which have been presented in Parliament's past, to give a good review of where we want to go. I submit that this matter be sent to committee for procedural as well as substantive review.

The real issue is the saving of lives before lives are put in danger. Instead of investing time and energy into creating new offences that have a catchy title, such as is the case with Bill C-19, we as a responsible nation and as responsible parliamentarians need to invest in prevention and education to prevent street racing from happening, rather than dealing just with the victims and deaths once street racing has occurred.

It occurred to me that this would be an appropriate time to bring forward the fact that, under the public safety and emergency preparedness cuts of last week, the RCMP cut from its budget $4.6 million to do with the elimination of drug impaired driving programs through its training budget. It seems remarkable to me that on the one hand the government is suggesting our streets will be safer. On the other hand, it takes money away from a program that would have made the streets safer.

I am proud of the fact that Mothers Against Drunk Driving is a Canada-wide organization. It has probably met with every member of Parliament. It is very focused. I am very proud that the president of MADD currently is a resident of New Brunswick. It would not be particularly pleased that the first focus of the government, when it comes to driving offences, is street racing. For some time, it has been lobbying for measures such as those cut in the recent budget. It would like to see the penalties meted out to drunk driving offences, which have a long history in the Criminal Code, as severe as those for street racing violations, and they are not under this bill.

We can all agree that street racing is a dangerous activity and has no place in Canadian communities. I am tired of other parties in the House being castigated with the brush, that we are not for the protection of our citizens. I make a non-partisan statement that every member of the House is for public safety and safety in our streets. We will differ on how to get there. My remarks are about that.

How to address this problem is the real issue. The Minister of Justice believes that by creating a new series of offences that reference the existing Criminal Code offences, we will have a panacea. Because it is called a street racing bill, I am very concerned that members of the public will now think it will eradicate street racing. Nothing can be further from the truth.

The truth is there are in existence a number of harsh and severe offences, which have to be meted out by the justices and for which this very Minister of Justice has absolutely no respect. The Minister of Justice has showed that he does not even know how judges get appointed. He has to know what colour they are in political allegiance, but he has no idea how they get appointed. He has shown so little respect for judges and their discretion that he has held up a long overdue pay increase to them. He has criticized judges as Liberal judges. Today he might have argued that judges have no political stripes. We are waiting for a lot of answers from the Minister of Justice on his view and his level of respect for the judiciary of our country.

Clearly, by these amendments, he has no respect for judicial discretion. This is in a long line of bills that the government has presented. I am not sure the minister has read them all but they all represent one thing: no discretion to be left in the hands of judges, who are probably all Liberal judges, but of course that will gradually change appointment by appointment. The minister has no respect for the discretion of these judges. That is the case with this bill as well. It would take away discretion.

Mr. Speaker, unlike my hon. friend, I am used to the courtroom and there is decorum in a courtroom.

This bill, like Bill C-9 and Bill C-10, takes away the discretion that judges have and instead of sculpting what could be taken from the late Chuck Cadman's bill and Bill C-65 as presented, where these factors would be taken into account on sentencing, the Minister of Justice, in his marquee cinema like world, wants to name something and pretend that all citizens of Canada will now be safe from street racing. However, that is not the case. The bill, on a technical aspect, would further cloud some issues by creating these new offences.

The definition of street racing itself has been talked about so I will eliminate that from my speech. It is something that can be cleaned up at committee. As members have said, the definition as it relates to at least one other motor vehicle can be made to make sense because there are races that include only one vehicle.

There are also problems with the definition of “public place”. While the bill is primarily oriented toward an urban environment, the Minister of Justice and members of the House will know, whether or not they are lawyers, that public places and motor vehicles have been defined and they may include snowmobiles on icy surfaces of lakes in rural Canada. This may be of concern as we go forward in looking at this bill.

On the solo race, the race against time and against oneself, the bill does not address that behaviour. This may be more dangerous than the actual one-on-one racing that occurs in some municipalities.

Bill C-19 creates another confusion. There is a lot of confusion in every Conservative bill because the Conservatives are in a hurry to leave a strong impression in Canada. It has been well established in law that objectively the offence of dangerous driving is not as serious as criminal negligence. However, this bill establishes an identical system of imprisonment for both offences. That does not make much sense.

It is respectfully submitted that the proper approach to deal with this dangerous conduct is simply to make street racing a mandatory aggravating factor in sentencing.

I heard talk in the House about whether people need to be lawyers but surely they do not. They need to have good sense. However, it does mean that the lawyers in this House need to have common sense too. It does not excuse the lawyers from the requirement for good common sense. The good common sense from having street racing as a mandatory aggravating factor in sentencing means that while we trust judges, and on this side of the House we do, to make proper decisions, we are saying by way of public statement that they shall consider street racing, when it is present, as an aggravating factor. This would remove the issue of having to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that a street race has occurred.

One could imagine, in very serious circumstances, that the lawyers would spend most of their fighting over the definition of street racing because it has not been provided in the bill. The hon. Minister of Justice says that there is a lot of common law on this but common law on racing in Canada would probably be more tuned to horse racing than street racing because Canada has not had a law on street racing, which leaves it as a dog's breakfast. We probably have a whole bunch of Liberal lawyers trying to figure it out.

Instead, we would like some Liberal legislators to make it inevitable that we will not need to deal with the definition of street racing. The Minister of Justice and his cohorts can still go out on the bandstands and say that they have cured the issue but the technical aspect is that aggravating factor in sentencing would ensure the judge is just dealing with whether he thinks there was a race, whether there was dangerous operation of a motor vehicle or whether there was criminal negligence. Those are the standards that have been used. Those terms have meaning in law. They have been considered in cases. Those are judicial decisions that judges write.

This would remove the issue of having to deal with street racing, which has not been defined, just as the Liberal's Bill C-65 and, as I said before, private member's Bill C-230, proposed by the late Chuck Cadman, proposed to deal with this. I think it is the right way to go. Preferably we will deal with it in committee and, if not, by amendment at third reading stage.

It is suggested that by providing a mandatory aggravating factor in sentencing, the message to the public will be as serious as the marquee name “street racing” and the message would be heard loud and clear. It would be easier at a sentence hearing to argue that the aggravating factors existed.

Members will note in the material supplied by the Library of Parliament that a number of the cases showed that there were other aggravating factors, not mitigating factors. The Minister of Justice likes to speak about mitigating factors, the people who got off because of circumstances. We have had plenty of cases where there are multiple increased aggravating factors, such as the use of alcohol, criminal gang activity and lack of remorse. These are aggravating factors that can be combined with the mandatory aggravating factor in sentencing that was in place in Bill C-65.

The difference between a dangerous driving offence and a dangerous driving offence involving a race will be a dog's breakfast before the courts. I think we need to be careful that, while we agree on a goal, which is keeping the streets safer, we give, not only the judges but prosecutors, the tools they need to succeed in getting convictions and not give them loopholes with undefined terms, all for the purpose of political gain.

The bill would increase the available maximum prison terms. Once again, it is a well-established legal principle that the maximum sentence is usually reserved for the worst offender in the worst case. This might give people who are very concerned about street racing offences the false impression that every street racing offence will be charged under a maximum or asked for by charging the maximum.

We know that there are summary conviction methods of proceeding here, which give prosecutors discretion in the way they wish to proceed. We also know that maximum terms are not meted out that frequently.

It is important to tell the truth to the Canadian public, that even this bill, in its form, does not guarantee that every street racing offender will get 10 or 14 years. It is time to be real with the Canadian public. The bill would provide for mandatory orders of prohibition from driving.

At this time I would like to mention again the spectre of MADD. Mothers Against Drunk Driving might very well be at our doors next week or the week after, should we move this on or pass it relatively quickly, to ask where the tough mandatory orders of prohibitions are for longer periods on continued, excessive and repetitive drunk driving offences. The bill is harsher than those infractions are and those infractions were built up over a long period of time.

Though it should be easy to support this initiative with respect to the mandatory orders of prohibition, the manner in which it is addressed is inadequate, specifically when dealing with repeat offenders.

It is important to know the distinction between dangerous driving causing bodily harm and criminal negligence causing bodily harm. Let us take ourselves to a situation in an area not unlike the area that my friend from Fundy Royal represents, a countryside where there is a known repeat offender with respect to racing. This person is dangerous to the public and to himself or herself. The person is convicted the first time of dangerous driving because the prosecutor and the police, in that case the rural RCMP, say that this will show that person and this will be a deterrent. Hopefully that person is meted out the proper sentence and the proper time is served.

On the second conviction, the police might very well charge that person, because it is a repeat offence, with criminal negligence causing bodily harm. In both cases there could be bodily harm, the same modus operandi, the same facts, but the police authorities and the prosecutor have said that, for deterrent's sake, they must charge the person with the worse offence because the person will get more time.

Under this bill as drafted, and I hope we can sort this out at committee, I submit that the repeat offence will not be caught by the mandatory prohibitions and the longer sentences. The reason is that the definition of dangerous driving causing bodily harm, if amended, with or without a street race, is not a repeat if it is charged under criminal negligence causing bodily harm.

These definitions and these legal words certainly have to be worked out at the committee level but there is more than that. It is not good enough for the chief law officer of this nation to sign off on a bill for which homework has yet to be done. It is not fair enough to say that we can fix this at committee. It is a trend. It is trend of the government to present ill-conceived, ill-drafted, hasty and sensational bills to this House, known more for their titles than their substance, and expect the hard-working members of the committee to set it all right.

If I could send one message to the government members it would be that they read the bills, consider them and consider that the Criminal Code of Canada is holistic, it is organic and it should be taken in this context.

When a person is charged with criminal negligence and dangerous driving causing bodily harm, it begs the question of whether this is a repeat offender. Is the criminal negligence a second offence? We would not know. The bill fails to answer those questions. I can tell members that every doubt will be cast in favour of the accused in our courtrooms, as they are constituted.

Many if not all studies have shown that there is no link between more severe, longer and harsher sentences and the diminution of crime rates. While I, as a member of society, might be very willing to go with the government on longer sentences and try the principle of sentence that says deterrence is important, I would need to know and I would need to be able to tell my constituents that it will work, that the thrill-seeking street racer will be deterred by a harsher sentence.

It goes back to our first point. Through education or funding in law enforcement and more cooperation with the provincial law authorities, I think more could be done than just simply getting it out on the five o'clock news that we will cure street racing now because we have a three page bill. That is not good enough.

If the minister uses the word “holistic”, then let us put it into action. Let us work together to make sure that as Nicholson, Rob he convenes meetings with provincial attorneys general and that he sees the good work being done in cities like San Diego and Los Angeles and, if I may for local advertisement, the city of Moncton in enforcing its bylaws, in preventing drive-throughs, and in preventing people from circling certain locations on a habitual basis.

Let us work together with these various levels of government, because the cities and municipalities in this country are the third order of government, and let us try to make a better bill that would save the government money, but more important, would save lives.

Bill C-19 would create a new offence punishing people for street racing just as they are already being punished now for street racing. This is already covered in the current Criminal Code. This bill would allow us to arrest people only after they have put other people's lives at risk. We have to look at the big picture. We have to work with other members of other governments to make sure that we make a better law.

[The Chair, Conservative, Art Hanger]

I would like to thank the witnesses. I know the committee members here really appreciated your input. I think we had a good discussion going, and it certainly revealed some areas that we can look at, concentrate on, and maybe fix. I appreciate your attending here. Undoubtedly we'll see some of you when we're into Bill C-10. Thank you for appearing.

I'm going to suspend this session for a moment and then were going to get into the--

[Tony Cannavino]

Bill C-10 is one thing, and that's why we've been asking for a review of Correctional Service Canada and the National Parole Board and sentencing, because that is important.

As we've said, it's good to talk about it to try to find some ways and exceptions to this and that, but we also have to address that huge problem of the policies of Correctional Service Canada and the National Parole Board and the way they deal with the sentencing. That's another issue also.

[Judy Wasylycia-Leis, NDP, Winnipeg North, MB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you very much to the presenters.

I'm taking Joe Comartin's place. I won't be the expert he is, but I know that he was anxious to get this kind of statistical information before the committee.

I don't know if you can answer this, but based on your statistical studies, could you say approximately how many offenders now receiving conditional sentences would likely be sentenced to custody under Bill C-9 or Bill C-10?

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 second time and referred to a committee.

The House resumed from June 12 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 second time and referred to a committee.

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 second time and referred to a committee.

The House resumed from June 9 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 second time and referred to a committee.

The House resumed from June 7 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 second time and referred to a committee.

The House resumed from June 6 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 second time and referred to a committee.

[The Deputy Speaker, NDP, Bill Blaikie]

Order, please. There seems to be some confusion in the House. It is my understanding that the bill to which the hon. member is speaking is Bill C-13 which was just passed. We have now moved to debate on Bill C-10. Is the member speaking to Bill C-10?

The House resumed from June 5 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 second time and referred to a committee.

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 second time and referred to a committee.

[Vic Toews, 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 second time and referred to a committee.

Mr. Speaker, it is with great pleasure that I rise today to speak to Bill C-10.

This bill follows through on one of the key elements of the priority to tackle crime that the government set out in the Speech from the Throne. Bill C-10 proposes a number of tougher mandatory minimum penalties to ensure that appropriately high sentences are imposed on those who commit serious or repeat firearms offences.

This bill is not about universal mandatory minimum penalties. It introduces targeted mandatory minimum penalties for serious gun crimes and ensures that those who carry out these crimes will be penalized. This bill clearly sends a message that Canadians do not accept this behaviour.

Before describing the proposals themselves, I would like to take a few minutes to explain the nature of the problem that Bill C-10 seeks to address. This bill is aimed at tackling the problem of gun violence, particularly gang related gun violence which is prevalent in Canada's major urban centres.

In looking at the gun crime problem, it is important that we acknowledge what our role is in this fight. Firearms crime is a difficult problem. There are many partners involved in responding to this concern. The police are, of course, on the front line. Canadians were reminded a few weeks ago, with the shooting death of Constable John Atkinson of Windsor, Ontario, of the risks that police face in protecting us against those who use firearms for a criminal purpose. Those risks are real and unfortunately, often deadly.

On the issue of gun crimes in Canada, the police have told us that they remain very concerned about the number of guns they encounter in their investigations. They tell us they are coming across more illegal handguns, particularly in the hands of gang members or those involved in the drug trade.

I mentioned earlier how there are many partners involved directly in this fight. The police are not the only group with a strong role to play and who have voiced recent concerns about firearm violence. Other levels of government, provincial and municipal, have key areas of responsibility as well.

With respect to gun crimes, many provincial governments have requested that this issue be tackled aggressively. At the meeting of federal, provincial and territorial ministers responsible for justice in Whitehorse last November, it was the provinces of Manitoba and Ontario in particular that sought a resolution for tougher legislative measures for firearms offences, including higher minimum penalties. The other provincial ministers agreed.

Provincial attorneys general are responsible for the vast majority of the prosecutions of firearms offences in this country. Last November they agreed that more needed to be done to tackle this problem. Since then, several of them have reiterated their desire to have tougher measures in place. As Bill C-10 responds to most of their concerns with respect to mandatory minimum penalties for gun crimes, it represents a positive and strong first step toward accomplishing some of the common goals in this fight.

Several provincial prosecutors have expressed the concern that the existing mandatory minimum penalties for firearms offences are frequently being imposed as the sentence, while in many cases a penalty higher than the minimum should be imposed given the seriousness of the offence and the offender in question. Mandatory minimum penalties are intended to be just that, a minimum penalty, a floor, not a ceiling.

It would not be acceptable for the government to become complacent and to fail to listen to the concerns being expressed by those directly involved in the criminal justice system in dealing with this problem. Furthermore, the government is not only listening to the concerns expressed by police, prosecutors and the provinces, the people of Canada have said they want action from the federal government to help fight gun crimes. With Bill C-10, this government is responding to that call.

The federal government has a strong role to play to help further reduce gun crimes. We have policing responsibilities and we will follow through on our commitment to put more RCMP officers on the streets. This government also committed in the budget to invest in crime prevention measures to keep young people away from gangs, guns and drugs.

As parliamentarians, we are this country's lawmakers. It is incumbent upon us to see that our laws provide appropriate and adequate measures to address this pressing problem.

Some members of the House may be of the view that the current gun crime problem does not require a response such as the one contained in Bill C-10. However, the facts are clear that gun crime is a growing problem in Canadian cities and towns.

For example, in 2004 Winnipeg experienced a threefold increase in its firearm homicide rate, bringing it to over three times the national rate. In that same year the number of firearm robberies doubled in the province of Nova Scotia, bringing its rate to just behind the leading rate in the province of Quebec.

Toronto's rate of firearm homicides in recent years has been frequently reported on, but that city is not alone in having rates higher than the national average. The rate in Edmonton has also increased. Vancouver has consistently had substantially higher rates over the last decade, five and six times the national rate.

Handgun crime is a problem in our cities. This is particularly true in connection with organized crime, including street gang activity such as in the drug trade or in turf wars. The statistics also show that while crimes committed with non-restricted long guns are down, handguns and other restricted or prohibited firearms have become the weapon of choice for those who use firearms to commit crimes. It is important to note that handguns in this country have been registered, or supposed to have been registered, since 1934.

This leads me to the proposals contained in Bill C-10. Some may comment that the escalating penalty schemes proposed in Bill C-10 seem rather complicated. This follows from the need to provide for different schemes for different offences, which is directly related to the specific nature of the current crime problem involving guns that I have just described.

The escalating minimum penalty scheme for serious offences involving the use of firearms is based on specific aggravating factors most commonly present in the guns and gang context. The higher minimum penalties of five years on a first offence, seven years on a second offence and ten years on a third offence will apply when the offence involves the use of a handgun or other restricted or prohibited firearms. They will also apply if the commission of the offence is in connection with a criminal organization and any firearm is used.

I would note that while these factors are common factors in urban gun crime, they will apply to offences in both urban and rural settings. The following offences are targeted under the scheme of five, seven and ten year minimum penalties: attempted murder; discharging a firearm with intent; sexual assault with a weapon; aggravated sexual assault; kidnapping; hostage taking; robbery; and extortion.

Also, when we talk about the first offence, second offence and third offence, it is important to note that any prior conviction in the last ten years, excluding 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 minimum penalties for repeat offences.

Enhanced minimum penalties are also proposed in Bill C-10 for various serious crimes in which firearms are not used but are involved. The escalating minimum penalties in the case of serious non-use offences are based on repeat offences and not on whether the aggravating factors are relevant to the serious use offences.

The escalating scheme of minimum penalties will be three years for a first offence and five years for a second offence or subsequent offence for the following most serious offences: possession of a loaded, restricted or prohibited firearm; firearms trafficking; possession for the purpose of trafficking; making an automatic firearm; firearms smuggling; and a new offence of robbery to steal a firearm.

The police especially are interested in the higher mandatory minimums for the possession of loaded or restricted firearms. More and more of them are turning up in automobiles. When the police check the cars, they are finding loaded firearms inside.

The benefit of that kind of a charge is that often civilian witnesses are not involved. It is the police officer's testimony, taking the weapon, which is the crux of the evidence. In fact, it is very important to have those higher minimum penalties. In this context of course, civilian witnesses cannot be intimidated because it is essentially only the police involved.

I would also point out the illegal possession of these firearms is becoming a growing concern. In Vancouver, the police tell us that 97% of firearms, the handguns, found there are in fact smuggled in from the United States. The registration of handguns does not deter the determined criminals in terms of even handguns.

An escalating minimum penalty scheme of one year on a first offence, three years on a second offence, and five years on a third or subsequent offence will apply for the following schemes: possession of a firearm obtained by a crime, possession of a firearm contrary to a court order, a new offence of breaking and entering to steal a firearm, and the additional offence of using a firearm or imitation firearm in the commission of other offences which attracts a consecutive minimum penalty.

For the serious non-use offences, it is important to note that prior convictions in the last 10 years will trigger the higher minimum penalties applicable in repeat offences. This would exclude the time in custody because we do not want to give credit for the time a person has been involved with handguns when serving time in custody, so it would exclude time in custody for both use offences and non-use offences.

Mandatory minimum penalties that are targeted at particular offences have been effective at reducing crime. Not only do they address the real problems of criminal conduct by denouncing the behaviour to society, but they have been shown to reduce criminal conduct. Studies by Steven Levitt in the Journal of Law and Economics in 1999 and in the Journal of Economic Perspectives in 2004 showed that there is a direct link between mandatory minimum prison penalties and a decline in crime rates and criminal behaviour.

I would like to speak to constitutional considerations. As Bill C-10 addresses the issues of penalties on imprisonment, it raises considerations under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Section 12 of the charter provides that people have the right not to be subjected to cruel and unusual penalties. It is important to note that the courts have in fact upheld mandatory minimum prison sentences. There is nothing unconstitutional about mandatory minimum prison sentences. It is how they are applied and in what context which is important.

The courts in Canada have been frequently called upon to assess the constitutional validity of the mandatory minimum penalties of imprisonment currently set out in the Criminal Code and, in particular, many of the ones that apply to firearms offences. In examining those provisions the courts have recognized that Parliament is entitled to take appropriate measures to address the pressing problem of firearm related crimes.

It is indeed Parliament's role to set the range of penalties which it deems appropriate for Criminal Code offences. That is not the role of the courts. It is the responsibility of parliamentarians. In doing so we need to ensure that our response is founded on recognized sentencing principles.

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

Accordingly, the objectives in sentencing are to denounce unlawful conduct, deter the offender and others from committing crimes, and separate offenders from society where necessary, as well as to assist in rehabilitating offenders, have them accept responsibility for their actions, and repair the harm that they have caused to victims or the community.

I would submit to members of the House and to Canadians in general that the proposed mandatory minimum penalties contained in Bill C-10 are not so high as to outrage public decency. They are certainly strong measures, but they are reasonable and they are a real response to a problem that is increasing in our cities and plaguing our cities.

Much effort went into ensuring that they are appropriately tailored to the pressing nature of the current gun crime problems. The highest level of 10 years for using a firearm and five years for other serious firearms related offences will apply to repeat firearms offences.

The manner in which the highest minimum penalties will apply is intended to ensure that they do not result in grossly disproportionate sentences being handed down. The question we need to ask ourselves is whether it could be considered intolerable to send those guilty of these offences to jail for at least these set minimum terms.

If an accused for example were charged with attempted murder using a handgun and he or she has two prior convictions in the last 10 years for robberies with a firearm would a minimum penalty of 10 years constitute cruel and unusual punishment? When it comes to looking at each of the proposals under that kind of lens, we will find that the minimum penalties proposed in Bill C-10 appropriately reflect the seriousness of those offences.

I would remind the House of the other parties' commitment to mandatory minimum prison sentences. The New Democratic Party indicated that it would agree to mandatory minimum prison sentences of four years for firearms and indeed the justice critic for the NDP has said that a five and seven year range would be constitutionally acceptable. I would suggest that when we are talking about third offences, 10 years is certainly not outside the scope.

I would also point out that the Liberal Party itself, during the election, supported mandatory minimum prison sentences for gun crimes. The Liberal premier of Ontario, the attorney general, and the mayor of Toronto have all supported these kinds of measures and these are all measures that are going to address a very serious problem.

Canada's new government has said that it will tackle crime to make our streets safer. Bill C-10 is one of the first initiatives the government has taken toward realizing that goal. That is because we consider gun crimes to be a very serious threat to public safety.

I am confident that we will have the support of most of the members of the House for these measures. I look forward to discussing and studying the proposals contained in Bill C-10 in greater detail in committee with other members of the House.

[Vic Toews, Conservative, Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada]

moved for leave to introduce 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.

(Motions deemed adopted, bill read the first time and printed)