Bill C-35 (Historical)

An Act to amend the Criminal Code (reverse onus in bail hearings for firearm-related offences)

This enactment amends the Criminal Code to provide that the accused will be required to demonstrate, when charged with certain serious offences involving firearms or other regulated weapons, that pre-trial detention is not justified in their case and to introduce additional factors relating to firearm offences that the courts must take into account in deciding whether an accused should be released or detained pending trial.

Criminal Code

[Stockwell Day, Conservative, Okanagan—Coquihalla, BC]

moved that the bill be read the third time and passed.

[Rick Dykstra, Conservative, St. Catharines, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am exceptionally pleased that we are debating Bill C-35 at third reading. According to my colleagues, it is the second best thing that has happened yet today.

It proposes a reverse onus in bail hearings for a number of firearm-related offences.

Canada's new government is following through with its commitment to get tough on crime. That is why, since last spring, we have introduced 11 bills to make our communities safer. We have tackled key issues such as gun crimes, alcohol and drug impaired driving, street racing, and the protection of our youth from adult sexual predators.

This government is listening to what Canadians are telling us. We are making progress on amending the Criminal Code to make it more responsive to their concerns.

It is important that we maintain the trust of Canadians in the criminal justice system. Along with other bills, Bill C-35 aims to do just that. Bill C-35 demonstrates this government's commitment to ensuring that people charged with serious firearm offences do not roam our streets while out on bail.

In my view, the legislative reforms proposed in Bill C-35 are appropriately tailored to the concern that has been expressed by many Canadians, the concern about the release from custody of individuals accused of serious gun crimes who pose a threat to public safety.

Bill C-35 proposes to shift the onus during bail hearings from the Crown to the accused, so that people charged with serious firearm offences will not benefit from a presumption in favour of release on bail. The burden will be on them to demonstrate why it is not justified to keep them in custody until they are dealt with according to the law.

Under Bill C-35, a reverse onus will apply in a number of cases.

First, Bill C-35 creates a reverse onus for eight serious offences committed with a firearm. These offences are: attempted murder; discharging a firearm with intent; sexual assault with a weapon; aggravated sexual assault; kidnapping; hostage taking; robbery; and extortion. It is clear that these are serious offences and their severity is only heightened when they are committed with a firearm.

Second, Bill C-35 proposes a reverse onus for the offences of firearm trafficking, possession for the purposes of trafficking, and firearm smuggling. While firearm trafficking and smuggling are not offences that involve the actual use of a firearm, they are nonetheless very serious offences. Those involved in firearm trafficking and smuggling are responsible for the illegal supply of guns to people who cannot lawfully possess them and who are likely to use them for a criminal purpose.

The Criminal Code already provides a reverse onus for accused persons charged with drug trafficking and smuggling. It should also provide a reverse onus for those who are involved in firearm trafficking and smuggling. Just like those involved in the drug trade, firearm traffickers are also involved in organized and lucrative crime. In some cases, these activities go hand in hand and involve the same network of people.

Regardless of whether the charge is for firearm trafficking and smuggling or for drug crimes, a reverse onus should apply to the accused. The potential for continued involvement in that kind of ring is high, even after the accused has been arrested and then released. From a public safety perspective, firearm traffickers play a significant role in the firearm homicide problem. Their involvement poses an indirect but significant threat to the safety of the public.

Bill C-35 also creates a reverse onus for any offence involving a firearm or other regulated weapon if committed while the accused is subject to a weapons prohibition order.

Weapons prohibition orders are imposed in many cases, such as, for example, when a person is convicted of an indictable offence in which violence against a person was used, threatened or attempted. They are imposed on people convicted of certain drug trafficking and smuggling charges, as well as weapon-related offences. They remain in force for several years and in some cases for a lifetime.

Weapons prohibition orders are a very important tool in our criminal law to help prevent firearm violence, whether it is homicides or other gun related crimes, but also accidental injuries and suicides.

I would like to highlight the fact that there are approximately 35,000 prohibition orders currently in force in our country. This specific reverse onus situation has the potential to apply in a number of cases where the risk of future firearm violence is a concern. People should not be entitled to bail when they have demonstrated their inability to abide by a court order to not possess firearms or other regulated weapons.

Finally, Bill C-35 provides additional criteria specifically related to firearm offences for the court to consider when it decides whether the detention of the accused is justified.

This particular amendment is not a new reverse onus situation. The court will be able to justify denying bail to a person charged with an offence involving the use of a firearm or with a firearm offence that attracts a minimum penalty of three years or more.

If the court is not able to justify keeping a person in custody under the other permitted reasons, under Bill C-35 it will be able to do so if it is necessary in order to maintain confidence in the administration of justice.

Bill C-35 takes into consideration the broader picture regarding crime in the country. When it comes to gun crimes, the situation has changed, and we need to adapt to this change.

The reality is that organized crime and now street gangs are armed. Frequently they are armed with handguns or other restricted or prohibited firearms. Our criminal justice system must be properly equipped in order to step up to the challenges posed by this new brand of criminality.

Several of our large urban centres are now struggling with the criminal use or illegal possession of firearms by members of street gangs and by drug traffickers. Innocent people are affected by inter-gang violence, random shootings, armed robberies and, as we saw so recently, killings in schools. Just a couple of weeks ago, another young person, Jordan Manners, was fatally shot in a Toronto school.

We are adapting to changing times and changing crimes. Bill C-35 will enhance our bail regime to reflect our collective denunciation of gun crimes.

I am very happy that the bill is being met with quite a bit of support from all parties in the House and from various stakeholders. I would like to express how pleased I am with the recent support of the bill by the Bloc. Indeed, the study of this bill in committee has given us the opportunity to find out about important points of view, allowing all parties to appreciate its value. It is proof that committees can work.

The government believes that Bill C-35 is a very sensible piece of legislation. It is focused, strong and right. It is my hope that it will be well received in the Senate and that senators will move on it quickly and expeditiously.

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciated that comprehensive view of the bill. I want to add some more things to the record during this debate. One, of course, is that we do have a bail system in Canada. It is a right allowed to citizens. We do work in a system where people are innocent until proven guilty.

Witnesses also explained that people in most of the serious gun crime cases were not let out on bail anyway under the present system, so this would not affect a large number of cases.

What all committee members were shocked at was that there were no statistics to support the bill. I hope we are going to be improving on that. The Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics apparently does not collect these statistics. All members on all sides of the committee would have liked to have had some statistics about how many people are on bail and how many commit crimes while they are on bail, et cetera.

One of the statistics presented was that, particularly in the case of violent crime, roughly 40% of the people did not end up being convicted. Therefore, a number of innocent people are charged with crimes and, under this bill, could be more likely to remain in prison.

Hopefully we would have the support of the member to try to speed up the system so that as little damage as possible will be done to an innocent person who is put in prison for that time. That person might be one of those who are in prison by accident. That person would be affected by this bill, but could later be found innocent.

[Rick Dykstra, Conservative, St. Catharines, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to start by acknowledging the support of the hon. member on committee, as well as the work he did to make sure that we did move forward. It was a lengthy study. We did a lot of work. We heard a lot of witnesses.

As he pointed out, we did not necessarily hear specifics that went back historically a long way, but we certainly did hear from witness after witness that, based on their experiences, this is a necessary piece of legislation. It had to be put forward.

As the member pointed out, the statistic of 40% was put forward. Having said that, I also note that it did not necessarily include the fact that a number of individuals who are charged end up pleading guilty to lesser charges, not necessarily the original charge, but certainly a lesser charge as to degree.

However, certainly the intent of the legislation is to ensure that we are proactive. It is to ensure that we are proactive in the sense that certainly for criminals who are repeat offenders, and who have shown that they will offend again, it is up to them to prove, while on bail and while their charge is being held, that they have a right to move forward in a process that is going to be fair to them.

At the same time, we need to ensure, as many of the witnesses indicated, that justice will prevail, that those who are guilty will be found guilty, and that those who are not guilty certainly will not have to spend an extraordinary amount of time waiting for trial.

[Olivia Chow, NDP, Trinity—Spadina, ON]

Mr. Speaker, about two years ago when there were a large number of gun crimes in Toronto I was involved in investigating what we could do in the community to reduce gun crime.

Aside from a serious investment in intervention and prevention programs, the mayor of the city of Toronto at the time, together with the chief of police, were pushing for a reverse onus in bail hearings for firearms-related charges. We know it is important. It is very demoralizing for a neighbourhood when someone is arrested and charged with a series of serious gun crimes yet gets bail and is back out in the community in a few days.

Will there be an evaluation, perhaps in a year, to see if Bill C-35, this amendment to the Criminal Code, has the positive impact that it is supposed to have, so that we know whether this amendment actually works or not? Will there be some kind of evaluation or reporting back to Parliament?

[Rick Dykstra, Conservative, St. Catharines, ON]

When good legislation is enacted, Mr. Speaker, and in regard to the opportunity for review and updates and the opportunity to ensure that success has been met, it is something that the committee certainly has talked about. It did not necessarily recommend that, but it certainly talked about how a future justice committee could take a look back at it to see if the foundation that was laid with Bill C-35 was successful. I think it will be. That success will be clear as we move forward.

One of the difficulties, though, as everyone knows, is that we will never know when we have stopped someone from committing a serious crime, perhaps a murder. We will never know whether or not it has been prevented. That is the one difficulty the committee faced. It is certainly one that needs to be looked at in terms of review.

The member for Trinity—Spadina mentioned community programs. I would point out that the 2006 budget laid out community programs. The Minister of Public Safety certainly made announcements on it over the last year. I am not even going to talk about what the figure may be, because I think the figure is not as important as the recognition that this government has put this forward and has asked communities to come forward with programs for youth to make sure they have an education and an opportunity rather than belonging to a gang or, certainly, picking up a gun.

[Dean Del Mastro, Conservative, Peterborough, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I enjoyed listening to the hon. member's speech. I am very supportive of Bill C-35. It is a very important new law that the government is bringing in on reverse onus for serious crimes committed with guns.

Specifically, the chief of police in Toronto, Ontario OPP commissioner Julian Fantino, and my own Chief McLaren are very supportive of this bill. They are very frustrated with the revolving door justice system that they feel we have adopted here in Canada, whereby the offenders are often back out on the street before the police have even been able to leave the courthouse.

I would like to know whether the hon. member feels that this bill addresses those concerns. Does he feel it will be well received by chiefs of police in Canada?

[Rick Dykstra, Conservative, St. Catharines, ON]

Mr. Speaker, we heard presentations at committee and there were very few. If I recall, I think only one organization came forward and said that it did not necessarily support the bill. At the special subcommittee that studied this bill, not one organization or one individual, except that one, said that this was not the right thing to do and that it would not prevent future crimes from happening.

The Montreal police indicated very clearly that this was much needed and that it was long overdue. It was brought forward in a way that showed all party support. Members of police associations and the chiefs believe this is a step in the right direction and that it will make their jobs easier.

The fact that they put so much work into moving forward on an arrest, they believe that putting good evidence forward will then allow the courts to take over. They will have the assurance that it will be up to the individual who is charged to prove to the court that they deserve the right to be outside of the institution that they would be held in.

[Keith Martin, Liberal, Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to speak to Bill C-35, An Act to amend the Criminal Code (reverse onus in bail hearings for firearm-related offences).

The attorney general in my province supports the bill, as does the Liberal Party of Canada. This is part of a collection of government legislation that we tried to fast-track in March, including the age of consent legislation and a number of other bills. We tried to move them forward but the government inexplicably blocked our efforts to pass four major pieces of legislation dealing with criminals and criminal activity through the House in one day. Half of the government's legislative agenda on criminal activities could have been passed but the government chose not to. Those members can explain that to their constituents.

People have a lot of misconceptions on who is committing gun crimes and where the guns are coming from. Murders are not being committed by law-abiding citizens who get the background checks done, get the firearms acquisition certificate and then go out and hunt or engage in target practice. Murders are being committed by criminals who get these guns that are generally brought into Canada by gun traffickers.

Guns are often intimately attached to drug trafficking. In fact, trafficking in drugs, guns, other weapons or other contraband is part of what fuels organized crime financially. Guns are just another product to organized crime. The profound tragedy of this is that guns are used to kill people. Many of the guns used in homicides have been brought into this country illegally. They are not used by law-abiding people who get the firearms acquisition certificate. They are used by thugs. With the tough regulations that we have today, these thugs can only get guns illegally. They are brought up primarily from the United States.

It is important for us to focus on that. It is important for us not to veer off into initiatives that have nothing to do with dealing with the people who are committing these crimes. At the end of the day, those initiatives will not reduce crime in our country, which is why we are supporting this initiative.

This legislation is part of a whole collection of legislation that we introduced when we were in government that would have given Canada one of the toughest anti-pedophile laws in the world. Our legislation dealt with strong initiatives against sexual predators, tougher sentences for violent offenders and tougher penalties for those who engage in organized criminal activities. These individuals are actually criminals dressed in business suits.

It is also important for us to implement other initiatives that would make our country safer. One of the most important responsibilities that we have as elected officials is to implement solutions that ensure that our citizens are living in a safe environment.

Let us look at the prison population and at some of the antecedents as to why they are there. What kind of people are in jail? Some of them are bad and nasty people, which is why the federal government should listen to its provincial counterparts. I was having a conversation here with one of my colleagues. The provinces have a big challenge. The police are having a challenge on the ground with respect to this revolving door of people being arrested, going into the system and then coming out quickly. It is disheartening, immoral and defeating for our police officers and our correctional officers who work so ardently to keep our streets safe.

What could the government do? A lot of the people in prison have drug problems and psychiatric problems. It is estimated that 40% of them have fetal alcohol syndrome or fetal alcohol effect. This is a shocking number given the fact that fetal alcohol syndrome and fetal alcohol effect is the leading cause of preventable brain damage in newborns in Canada. It is completely preventable. It would be very smart for the health minister and the justice minister to work with their provincial counterparts to find comprehensive, doable and effective solutions that prevent fetal alcohol syndrome.

It is heartbreaking to see these children with an average IQ of 70. They have incredible difficulties in school and end up falling through the gaps. The teachers cannot handle them and, as a result, some of them act out with predictable consequences. When we go to a jail and we see who is there, we see a panoply of people with different issues.

I hope the government works on a rational drug policy but not the policy in the United States that has resulted in an increased use of both hard and soft drugs, a greater number of people in the prison population, more cost to the taxpayer and less safe streets because that does not work.

We do not need to have a binary situation between our solution and the United States. We could look to Europe. Europe has implemented some very sensible solutions in terms of a drug policy that does a lot in terms of harm reduction. I know the government does not particularly like harm reduction. It only extended the Insite safe injection site in Vancouver for one year instead of three years and it would be a catastrophic mistake if the government were to stop that program.

Why does the government not work with the scientists and the researchers who have done intelligent work on the ground to reduce harm? At the Insite safe injection site, for example, not only was there a reduction in property crime but more people actually became attached to the health care system. As a result, they could access the health care system and use the detox site therapy. A lot of these people have what we call dual diagnosis, which means that some have drug problems and some have psychiatric problems but some of them go hand in hand. We cannot tease these things out in isolation. We need to deal with people for the collection of problems they have. The harm reduction strategies work very well.

The Insite program works well because it gets people off the street. What would be smarter, and I know this would be a real leap for the government, would be to adopt something like the NAOMI project in Vancouver where individuals are given the drug in an environment which disconnects them from going out on the street and buying it from those people who are attached to organized crime.

The worst thing we could do for members of organized crime that would actually cause them to get weak in the knees and be beside themselves with grief is to sever the ties between the drug user and organized crime. We can do that. I know people will say that it is not the business of the government to go out and give addicts drugs but these people will go out and buy drugs from people attached to organized crime and that serves no one.

If we can bring people into the health care system through a harm reduction site, particularly a harm reduction site where they get their drugs, then we can attach them to detox and get them into psychiatric therapy and the treatment they require. This would be something that the government could rationally adopt to deal with this problem.

When the government puts the population in jail, it should make sentence reductions conditional on those individuals participating ardently in the skills training, the psychiatric therapy and the drug therapy that would be mandated to them when they come in front of the court.

People would automatically get one-third off their sentence, which is frequently reduced more, and no conditions would be placed on the individual. It would be a lot smarter if that person had to work for that release by being able to get time off for good behaviour if they actually behaved well.

These people would need to follow the parameters set during sentencing, including the psyche therapy, harm reduction and drug therapy, as well as the skills training. When these people left jail they would then have the skills needed to get a job, their drug problem would, hopefully, be dealt with to a degree and they would be in the medical system where their psyche problems are being dealt with.

Some psychiatric problems are chronic. They may be one of the major psychosis, which is difficult to deal with, but at least they would have a head start when they got out of jail. If these problems are not dealt with while they are in jail, many of them go back to what they did before. As a result, we see the recidivism rate that plagues some populations within the citizen population.

It is also important to look at the population that engages in gun crimes. In Toronto, for example, 40% to 50% of the individuals who actually committed violent offences with a gun were actually on probation or on bail. These individuals were repeat offenders. They had been convicted and were out on bail and 40% to 50% of them committed gun offences. I think it is a really good idea in terms of putting the reverse onus upon them because we are dealing with a very fixed group of individuals who have committed violent offences.

The other thing that is worthwhile to bear in mind is that most people who commit murder do not use a gun. They use knives, baseball bats and other tools to murder another individual. It would be wise to extend the notion of reverse onus to those individuals who have committed violent offences, such as sexual assault, assault causing bodily harm, attempted murder and murder, as a starting group. We would then be dealing with a fixed population of people who have been proven to be a danger and a threat to society. We can look at the small population and ascertain, based on their behaviour and activities in jail, whether or not they are safe to be released.

One of the toughest things I had to do when I was working in a jail was to assess an individual who was about to be released. Some of these individuals had lists as long as their arms in terms of extreme violent behaviour. I remember being attacked by an individual in his cell, which was proof in terms of getting that person into a psychiatric facility. However, what if the correctional officers had not really been aware or called a physician to do the assessment on that individual to get him into hospital? The system should be sufficient to analyze a person to determine whether or not he or she is actually in a position to be released safely into society.

We are treading into very challenging ground in terms of people's rights but I am sure smart minds out there could put together a framework where people's personal rights would be protected but also the rights of society would be honoured as well.

While this is a difficult area to tread ethically, it is important that the government tackle it. I am sure that many people the House, as well as people in the public service and in Canada, have experience and knowledge in this area and perhaps they could guide the government in implementing a rational policy to do so.

I want to emphasize that we can do many things in terms of preventing a lot of problems from occurring. We can do things for those who are convicted and in jail. It is not a simple situation of focusing on higher penalties for individuals who have committed crimes. While those are important under certain circumstances, we need to look deeper into the situation to implement the solutions that work.

I have probably said this 100 times in the House over the last 14 years but I will harp on it again. The Head Start program for kids works when we look at it purely through the issue of youth crime. If I were to tell the House that there is a plan that reduces youth crime by 60%, a plan that saves the taxpayer $7 for every $1 invested, would members not think that was a plan that the government should adopt? A wise government would look at it and not simply dismiss it out of hand as some sort of woolly-headed notion.

The reality is that these programs have more than 25 years' experience and have been analyzed by very competent researchers. Those headstart programs work to strengthen the parent-child bond. They help parents, particularly vulnerable parents, access the parenting skills that they require. That has a profound impact on the development of the child.

In the first eight years of life is when a child's brain is actually developing the neuro connections. Those brain connections occur at that sensitive time. If it is done right, those brain connections work well and the child has the pillars and resiliency within his or her psyche to deal with many challenges. However, subject that child to violence, sexual abuse, poor nutrition, an absence of adequate parenting, and those connections simply do not work as well. Frequently that is the case, but not always.

If we are able to give that child that head start, if that child is able to develop his or her brain during that critical first eight years in a competent way, then that child truly has the ability to live a life that anybody would hope for an individual. Depriving the child of those basic elements, subjecting that child to those horrible events damages the child sometimes forever.

We often hear horror studies of individuals who commit horrible crimes. Sometimes it is difficult for us to sympathize with those individuals given the horrible things they have done and they pay the price. It should also cause us to reflect that things happened in the history of that individual who has committed horrible crimes.

If we are smart we would work with the provinces to implement that headstart program because it works. I am going to try to do that this summer in my riding. There are four teachers who have volunteered to do it. I hope by September we will be able to roll it out as a pilot project in Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca. If it works, maybe it could be shared with teachers in other areas of our country.

One of the most remarkable programs is the Hawaii healthy start program. It reduced child abuse rates a staggering 99%. It looked at parents who were vulnerable, parents who did not have good parenting skills, who themselves lived in vulnerable and sometimes horrible environments. Those parents were matched with women who had had their kids and who had strong parenting skills. In building that mentorship program with those vulnerable parents, child abuse rates were reduced 99%. That is pretty amazing.

It is not complex. It is not rocket science. It is pretty easy to do. It does require leadership.This leadership could be exercised at the federal level, even though the implementation and operation of it would be at the provincial level. I think all of us know that our provincial counterparts are looking for leadership. They are looking for help. They are looking for a hand and it is not that we do not have a plan or a program to do this.

I encourage the government to work with our provincial counterparts on that. I strongly encourage the government to look at the harm reduction strategies that work, to adopt those strategies, to support those strategies across our country.

For heaven's sake, I would ask that the government not cut harm reduction. I would ask it not to cut the Insite safe injection site. I would ask it not to stop the NAOMI project in Vancouver. Rather, it should look at those projects and see how other communities in Canada that want to adopt these programs can have access to these programs.

The failure to do so would result in the deaths of thousands of people in our country, the spread of communicable diseases, some of which are fatal. The costs to the taxpayer would be extraordinary.

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Wetaskiwin, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my hon. colleague for his impassioned speech. We are discussing reverse onus on gun crimes. I know that the hon. member did talk a little bit about gun stuff in his speech. I want to thank him for his support and hopefully for his and his entire party's support when it comes time to pass Bill C-35.

I noticed that in his speech he went through the life cycle of a law-abiding citizen acquiring a firearm. A law-abiding citizen would apply for a firearms acquisition certificate, or the possession only, or possession and acquisition licence, go through the waiting period, go through all the criminal checks, dot all the is, cross all the ts and then have to fill out a registration form to purchase a firearm. He said very clearly that these are not the people that we want to go after.

I have a simple question for my hon. colleague. If it makes so much sense to support Bill C-35, which is to put the reverse onus on people who commit dangerous offences, whether their motivation is through drug trafficking or anything else, would it not make more sense to use those resources that we are currently spending on the gun registry, which is Bill C-21? It sounded to me he was making an excellent case for passing Bill C-21 and getting rid of the long gun registry and taking the resources from that and using it for implementing Bill C-35 and some of the other programs that the hon. member thinks are so important for the social well-being of members of his community.

I am just wondering if I could count on his support for Bill C-21 as much as I could count on his support for Bill C-35.

[Keith Martin, Liberal, Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the government has not put Bill C-21 back on the legislative agenda. It is not there. When it brings it forward we will be able to discuss it.

The member's question on the issue of the long gun registry was a good one. I have asked a lot of police officers about it. Regarding the operating costs for the gun registry, the economic cost of supporting it, one has to question whether that money would best be used where it is today in the long gun registry or whether it would best be used somewhere else.

I argued against the long gun registry. In fact, I went in front of the justice committee to argue against having it. If it were reintroduced today I would not support it. However, we have it. I have asked police officers should we or should we not get rid of the long gun registry and I have received two answers.

Police officers who work in urban areas say we should keep it because they access it quite frequently. There are thousands of hits on the registry every single day. I have received that answer from that population of police officers.

The other population of police officers to whom I spoke are those who work in rural areas. They say they do not need it. They do not use it. They respond to a situation with the presumption that there are guns in the house. They always do that. The rural police offers say that the registry is not needed.

At the end of the day, I have to say I am in a quandary. The overriding principle as to whether or not I support the abolition of the long gun registry resides in a simple question. What is in the best interests of the police who have to deal with people in a very dangerous situation and what is in the best interests of the Canadian public? It boils down to whether or not the money is best spent doing something else as the hon. member quite rightly said, or since the money has been spent on creating the registry, is it better to have the money there so that the police who are working in an urban area can access the registry? I would not advocating and I am sure that nobody in the House would advocate doing anything that would increase the insecurity and danger to our police officers. At the end of the day, that is the question that we all have to answer.

[Stockwell Day, Conservative, Minister of Public Safety]

Mr. Speaker, I wonder if the hon. colleague is aware, when he mentioned the CPIC system, that there is a bit of a myth about how many times it is accessed daily for the purposes of the gun registry.

The CPIC system across the country, depending on how busy officers are getting, could be used up to 5,000 times a day, but it is used in any and every instance. When officers tap into the CPIC system, included in the information available on the CPIC system are elements tied into the gun registry. It is nowhere near being used 5,000 times a day. That would be horrendous in terms of checking for firearms offences. That would make Canada the most vicious nation with the most firearms in the world--

[Blair Wilson, Liberal, West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country, BC]

We are. The number of firearms we have per capita--

[Stockwell Day, Conservative, Okanagan—Coquihalla, BC]

Mr. Speaker, one member just said that we are. We are not. We are one of the safest nations in the world. People who perpetuate that myth to try to move along their own ideology by scaring people are being irresponsible.

I know the member is sincere in his comments. It is only a few times relative to 5,000 times a day that it is actually used to tap into information on the firearms system. In fact, it was the Auditor General who said that the data on that system related to the long gun registry in fact is not reliable. That is why we want to see dollars focused on more officers on the street, resources to deal with smuggling of firearms and things like mandatory jail time for firearms offences and also prevention programs for youth at risk and gun crimes.

I wonder if the member is aware that relative to 5,000 times a day, it is relatively a few times a day that it is actually used for access to the firearms registry.

[Keith Martin, Liberal, Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Public Safety's question is a difficult one, an impossible one really, to answer. To determine which police officers are actually accessing the CPIC system to ascertain whether or not a house or dwelling they are going to has guns is very difficult. Police officers should be asked that question.

I have asked police officers and as I said, the information that I received from police officers was that it is accessed thousands of times. I asked that question only in the context of firearms. I asked how many times they access the registry for the purpose of determining whether an individual or group has firearms. The minister is correct. It is an imperfect system. That is why in part we see the difference in answers between the urban police officers and the rural police officers.

I also want to say to the minister that very clearly my leader has supported more police officers and investment in better training in those areas. The minister articulated some of the more penalty focused initiatives which we support. However, he also has to recognize that if he only does that, if he does not deal with the harm reduction aspects of drug policy, if he does not direct investment into substance abuse rehabilitation, if he does not provide access for psychiatric therapies and treatments, if he does not provide skills training for individuals who have gone down that road, then he will be creating a system that is not going to make our streets any safer in the long run. He is not going to prevent people from going down that road.

I would argue that it is a lot cheaper to go down the road of addressing both of those elements than to simply focus on one. In fact it is incumbent on the government to take both of those duties very seriously and implement both of the solutions that I articulated in my speech.

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Mr. Speaker, I was quite impressed with the member's comments at the end of his speech about the direction of reducing crime in Canada and working on crime prevention and healing. The aboriginal head start program is an exceptional success in my riding as well. I certainly encourage him to keep pushing for the expansion of that program. I will too.

I wonder if the member would like to expand on the government's efforts at crime reduction. It is probably misguided and not the best investment when simply a number of the bills, not this particular bill which we are supporting, but a number of the bills lead to increased incarceration. Many witnesses have shown that it actually makes society more dangerous. The criminals come out of incarceration and actually reoffend more because of what they learned. More important, the investment would be toward prevention and those types of initiatives. For instance, over half the crimes are committed by someone who is under the influence of something or is purchasing drugs--

[The Deputy Speaker, Bill Blaikie]

Order. I am afraid the hon. member will not be able to expand because the question was too expansive. Resuming debate, the hon. member for Windsor—Tecumseh.

[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.

[Judy Sgro, Liberal, York West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I have a few questions for the hon. member. I know that as we all do he clearly has similar concerns about just what we can be doing to reduce crime in our cities and to improve the overall safety of our country. I think all of us have that same issue at heart, and the question is, what is the answer?

For some of the issues around Bill C-35 and reverse onus, in some cases those things are already happening, but it does send the message that we want to send to the judiciary. My concern is about our large urban centres like Toronto, which I represent, and the unfortunate and continuing gun violence in my riding.

I have two questions. First, what are his thoughts when it comes to the whole issue around handguns in our cities? This is something that the community safety minister in Ontario and the attorney general have talked about. They have talked specifically about a ban on handguns in major cities. They also told me that two weeks ago the police raided an apartment looking for someone and found 260 legally registered handguns and 1,000 pounds of ammunition.

Bill C-35 is not going to be big in helping us in those avenues, so what other suggestions does the member have? Does he think we should be going in that direction as a next step when it comes to the handgun issue?

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

Mr. Speaker, the Liberal Party raised the issue of a ban on handguns as a policy that it would have implemented had the Liberals returned to power. That was one of the promises they made in the last election.

For the NDP, I have done a fair amount of background work with respect to this issue. I remember talking to the chief of police in Windsor who asked me how we were going to ban guns and then referred to the immediate adjacent communities around Windsor. If guns are banned in Windsor, they are going to be found in the adjoining municipalities of Tecumseh and LaSalle. That is one of the problems.

I can say for the member that as a result of the Dawson shooting last year, some members of city council in Montreal are looking at bringing forward a bylaw to ban handguns in metropolitan Montreal. I will be watching that. I would encourage other members to watch as well to see whether or not that comes forward, whether it passes successfully, and then what the experience is with it.

I do want to say with regard to the ban proposed by the Liberal Party in the last election campaign, and I know we would hear this from the Conservatives as well, that it was modelled after what happened in Australia. What Australia did is what I believe the Liberals were proposing to do. People in Australia who had handguns for collection purposes or for recreational purposes were exempted. The situation my colleague described earlier of 200-plus guns and 1,000 rounds of ammunition would have been exempted, because those were all registered legally as the individual was either collecting them or using them for recreational purposes. When Australia did that, it had no ascertainable impact at all on gun crime rates in that country.

If we are going to ban handguns, it will have to be a complete ban. It is hard to imagine recreational shooters and collectors willingly accepting that. I think what we will be looking at, and I am hoping this is what we will see in the experiment in Montreal, is that a different form of storage of the weapons will be required where an individual has them legally because he or she is a collector or uses them for recreational purposes.

I need to make one more point. If we are going to do that, we have to recognize the reality of what we are dealing with. We know that more than half of the handguns and repeating illegal weapons used in crimes in this country are smuggled in from the United States, so a ban on handguns will have no impact on those. It will have some impact on the guns that are stolen from retail outlets and from individual collectors and owners and are then subsequently sold on the street and used in crimes.

The issue of the handguns that are smuggled in is a whole other problem that we need to deal with, but I know I have run out of time, so I cannot tell the House what we should be doing in that regard.

[The Deputy Speaker, Bill Blaikie]

The hon. member did have another minute or so, but I think we will call it 6:30 because we really do not have time for another exchange.

The House resumed from June 4, consideration of the motion that Bill C-35, An Act to amend the Criminal Code (reverse onus in bail hearings for firearm-related offences), be read the third time and passed.

[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.

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

Mr. Speaker, I would like to congratulate the hon. member on her comments, but as a member of the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights, I have a question.

I heard testimony from defence lawyers who said that existing practices in criminal courts are the same as Bill C-35 hopes to establish. Indeed, the bill will not bring about any major changes, because judges, attorneys and defence lawyers already practice some of the things set out in the bill.

Does the hon. member intend to accept the lawyers' testimony as true, since they are the ones working on the front lines of justice and they indicated that this is already their practice?

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

Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for his question.

Indeed, during testimony heard in committee, all witnesses said they were in favour of the bill. Only two witnesses were opposed, namely, William Trudell, president of the Canadian Council of Criminal Defence Lawyers, and Isabel Schurman, who is a defence lawyer. The two dissenting testimonies in committee came from those two lawyers. They told us that this bill could prove to be of no use, because de facto preventive detention is already the norm for all crimes committed with a firearm.

This perhaps explains why the Bloc Québécois did not support this bill in the beginning. Indeed, as we have always said, the reverse onus principle poses a problem for the Bloc Québécois. However, in very specific cases of crimes committed with a firearm, all the witnesses heard in committee were in favour of this bill, and those who did not support it simply said that it was redundant because it was, de facto, already used in all such proceedings.

The committee was nearly unanimous in approving this bill, which is why the Bloc Québécois supported it.

[Denise Savoie, NDP, Victoria, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for her speech. As she said, and although we will also support it, this bill gives the impression that it will fight gun crimes more effectively. But this is not true since, as we know, judges already have a certain amount of leeway in these cases.

She also talked about how we should focus more on the causes of crimes. For example, I know that in my region, in my riding, we have been trying to obtain funding for a project that aims to help young people obtain not only basic job training, but also life skills: how to dress, how to apply for jobs. We have had many problems finding funding, from the federal government or other sources.

I think these are the types of programs that would really help keep vulnerable young people and youth at risk from joining gangs, and so forth.

I wonder if the member would have any thoughts on this type of program, which would really help prevent crimes.

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

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for her question.

In fact, the Bloc Québécois is just as concerned as my colleague about this government's approach, which gives the illusion of fighting crime. We find that the amounts invested by the government in this form of repression do not attack the root of the problem. To do that we must ask ourselves if the amounts spent on policing, all these forms of repression and detention in penitentiaries are monies invested in the well-being of all our citizens. Why not allocate monies to the rehabilitation of youth, to prevention and training? Why not provide more means and tools to prevent crime rather than constantly focussing on applying repressive measures and imprisonment?

In my opinion, opening penitentiaries and multiplying the types of detention do not reduce crime; they have the opposite effect. The Bloc Québécois is in favour of prevention, rehabilitation, and social integration.

[Joy Smith, Conservative, Kildonan—St. Paul, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I realize that the member's intentions are good but this side of the House has put millions of dollars into programs for my province and provinces across the nation to help children stay away from gangs. This is a very important aspect that helps prevent crime.

What would the hon. member say to a family whose mother was killed at four o'clock in the morning in Winnipeg, Manitoba by a group of kids who stole a car and ran into her van? What would she say to the family members when they say that the laws are not strict enough and that these kids get away with absolutely everything?

We also need to have a dialogue about the victims of crime and putting in tough laws that will be a deterrent to this kind of crime happening in the middle of the night in Winnipeg, Manitoba.

What would the member say to the family members who just lost their mother?

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

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for her question.

I think that there are two aspects to be considered. What is important to this government is giving the appearance of solving everything by implementing very strict laws that increase the rate of detention. In addition, as I was saying earlier, there are all the costs associated with penitentiaries and the infrastructure arising from these laws.

We are keenly aware of what these families go through; it is very unfortunate and we are not ignoring it. However, I do not believe that multiplying these laws truly helps prevent crime. It is not enough to punish. We must look to prevention, especially among youth, because future criminals will be recruited primarily from this group. I believe that is where we should invest our money, and not in penitentiaries.

Having said that, I have a great deal of respect for those who are victims of criminal acts. However, the Bloc Québécois does not agree with the proliferation of repressive measures. We are really in favour of rehabilitation and reintegration.

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

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to Bill C-35, the main purpose of which is to require an accused, when charged with certain serious offences involving firearms or other regulated weapons, to demonstrate that pre-trial detention is not justified in their case. This is a reverse onus, specifically for firearm-related offences.

From the outset I would like to present the philosophy defended in this House over the years by the Bloc Québécois. We are very respectful of the society handed down to us by our parents, our grandparents and our great-grandparents. It is society's choice to say that we are innocent until proven guilty. And that is the society we inherited from those who came before us.

When a society is built on such a principle or such a philosophy, in other words the presumption of innocence, every time we challenge this presumption of innocence we are also challenging the very foundation of our society. We must do so sparingly and with all due respect to this system. We have to take our time weighing the matter. We have to avoid being swayed by the media frenzy surrounding crimes and try to protect the very foundation of our society.

Our neighbours to the south like to hold highly publicized trials that are the glory of television channels and other information networks because they can sell advertising. When these reports are filed—even special reports are filed—not only do the networks make money from the crime, they glorify it. This is not the type of society our ancestors left us. We have to try to be very circumspect and not be influenced by the media when it blows a specific case or matter out of proportion and tries to influence the entire justice system. That is what the Bloc Québécois opposes, out of great respect for the society we inherited from those who came before us. That is why, when it comes to discussing reverse onus, we like to get to the bottom of things.

In the past, we were very interested in certain specific cases, including the fight against organized crime. We proposed, in this House, reverse onus with respect to the proceeds of organized crime. Now, thanks to the Bloc Québécois' action, criminals are the ones who must prove that their money is not the proceeds of crime. It is not up to the State to prove that it is. This had been very difficult to do in some cases, because these people hired specialists to destroy all incriminating evidence and to prove that their fortunes had been legitimately acquired.

I think that reverse onus is good for society as a whole. The Bloc Québécois proposed this after conducting thorough research and realizing that the presumption of innocence did not work when it came to organized crime. The State's burden of proof made it impossible to find any evidence about how the money had been acquired.

In this case, from the very beginning, the Bloc Québécois has considered the matter carefully. During first and second reading, before the bill was referred to committee, the Bloc was against it because of the presumption of innocence and the fact that a person who is presumed innocent can be released on bail, and because it was up to the State to prove that the person should not be released on bail. After hearing all of the witnesses in committee, the Bloc Québécois eventually came to the conclusion that this bill reflects existing jurisprudence.

This bill does not actually change anything. People who have committed a crime with a firearm automatically remain in prison until they appear in court. This is why the Bloc Québécois, after having heard the witnesses and experts who came to shed light on the debate, quickly realized that in the end the bill reflected what actually happens.

In this connection, I will simply read the statement by one witness, William Trudell, Chair of the Canadian Council of Criminal Defence Lawyers. He said: “...it’s our experience on the ground that people charged with gun-related offences are not released”. That means that this bill is not proposing much of a change, contrary to what the government is letting on. It will not change things so as finally to reduce crime. No, this bill does no more than reflect what takes place at present, the current state of affairs in jurisprudence, that is, the court decisions. I will reread this statement by the Chair of the Canadian Council of Criminal Defence Lawyers: “...it’s our experience on the ground that people charged with gun-related offences are not released”.

Bloc Québécois justice critics have said in this House that all the witnesses, almost unanimously, acknowledged this state of affairs. All the bill before us does therefore is acknowledge a practice in effect in Canada’s and Quebec’s courts of justice. They very quickly brought us around to this idea.

After having heard the witnesses, the experts in their fields, we are now in favour of bill C-35. The Chair of the Canadian Council of Criminal Defence Lawyers knows what he is talking about. If the bill is acknowledging what actually takes place in the courts, we can only agree with that.

Furthermore, the Criminal Code already includes some exceptions to reverse onus in bail hearings. It talks about breach of bail conditions, organized crime—I was explaining the Bloc Québécois position earlier—terrorism, trafficking, smuggling and production of narcotics, murder, treason and war crimes. When someone commits one of these crimes, it is up to them to prove to the state, to the Crown, that they can be released, and not the other way round. It is not up to the Crown to prove to the judges that this person should not be released.

The following offences will be added to the exceptions to which the reverse onus applies: attempted murder with a firearm; discharging a firearm with intent to wound; sexual assault with a weapon; robbery; aggravated sexual assault; abduction; hostage taking; extortion; trafficking; possession for the purposes of trafficking; and any firearm-related offences committed when the accused was under an order prohibiting him from possessing a firearm.

Henceforth, people accused of any crime committed with a firearm will have to demonstrate to the Crown that they are not a danger to the lives of their fellow citizens in order to be granted pretrial release. This is actually an established practice, a reflection of what happens now in our legal system. Since this is what really happens, the Bloc Québécois is in favour of it.

However, we need to watch the Conservative government’s position very carefully, especially in regard to firearms. On the one hand, it has decided to eliminate the firearms registry, while on the other, it is reversing the onus of proof in crimes committed with a firearm.

This is important because it helps me further clarify our position on the gun registry: the Bloc Québécois is still in favour of keeping it. I know that some hunting enthusiasts are listening to me now.

In Quebec, 94% of gun owners have registered their guns in accordance with the law. The problem we have with the system is located in western Canada, where a majority of the citizens have not obeyed the law.

For all those people who registered their firearms, paying for renewal was a major irritant. The government decided, with the Bloc’s support, to eliminate this charge. We were happy with the government’s decision to keep the registry but not make users pay for it. In Quebec, 94% of firearm users registered their weapons and were quite happy to obey the law. That left 6%. Some got all worked up because they were told that the registry infringed on their rights. But people know that once their guns are registered, their rights will be respected. The people who use the registry, especially the police, do it before going to a certain address in order to determine whether there are any guns in the house, and if so, what kind.

When this is explained, citizens, even gun owners, fully understand that, in rare situations of violence, it is very important that the police have access to this information before they go to someone's home. If the registry were maintained and respected by all citizens, including Canadians in the west, there would be no problem. The problem is that there are gun users who decided to protest the system for a variety of reasons.

In Quebec, when I sit down with gun owners who have registered their weapons and I explain the situation, it does not bother them. They fully understand that this makes sense. If they committed violent crimes themselves, it would be important for the police to know that they have weapons at home, for the safety of police officers and the people in the neighbourhood.

In a society, we must set important benchmarks and make a distinction between individual and collective rights. Yes, every individual has rights, but their neighbours also have the right to know if they have any weapons, and for several reasons. The ideology that individual rights allow citizens to keep weapons in their homes, while others do not need to know about it, is an American ideology, common among our neighbours to the south.

But here, we have the right to create a society that protects individual rights and that allows citizens to own firearms for the purpose of a certain sport, for example. However, it is also important to know that the individual who practices that sport uses an attack weapon and that he or she can harm other individuals. This is important, even if it is a handgun used for hunting.

People talk to me about many things, such as duck hunting, where you use a .12 gauge shotgun. You can use this gun to rob a bank or corner store. You can do a lot of things. It is important to stop making that distinction and to look at the emotional capabilities of individuals. We have to look reality in the face. People have the right to practice a sport with a gun. However, they must realize that the community is entitled to know that they own guns in case there is a robbery at their home. It could be a case of home invasion. When the homeowner is away, someone could enter their home. It is important to know if there are guns inside the residence.

Things are always a little complicated with the Conservatives because we never know in what direction they are headed. One thing is certain. Increasingly they have this unfortunate tendency of aligning themselves with what is happening in the United States and with Americans. In relation to crime, that is not a model to be adopted. Let us not go there. Americans have increased sentences and they have more crime than in Canada. That is the reality.

That is not the type of society that our ancestors—our parents, grandparents and great grandparents—wanted to leave to us. The Bloc Québécois has a great deal of respect for this way of life that we have adopted. We will always be there to defend the interests of and respect for individuals in the justice system and to defend the presumption of innocence, among other things, which is one of the tenets of our society.

People are always presumed innocent until proven guilty. That has served us well in the past. Today, the problem is that the media have seized on that, as we have seen. I keep repeating this, and I know it may be a bit redundant, but the Americans and their media make a lot of money when a crime is committed by giving it as much media coverage as possible. That is not the sort of society we want to live in.

Clearly, when we make this distinction and take away all the media coverage of a crime, we need to be able to strike a balance and decide what type of society we want to live in. Quebeckers and Canadians have chosen to live in a society where people are presumed innocent.

As I explained, there are some cases that call for the presumption of innocence and others that call for the reversal of the traditional burden of proof. The Bloc Québécois did not hesitate to suggest reverse onus in cases such as crimes committed by biker gangs or organized crime, especially in relation to the accumulation of property by organized crime. At the time, the State had to prove that property had been acquired through the proceeds of crime, whereas now criminal organizations must prove that they acquired property legitimately.

Obviously, this has caused a major shift in how these people are defended. More and more, their property is being seized, and they have no money to defend themselves. I believe this is as it should be, because it was too easy for them to use this money to deny justice or thumb their noses at the justice system. They told themselves that they would get lawyers because they had money to go to court and so on. The Bloc Québécois therefore proposed a major step forward.

My colleagues heard witnesses and our critic, the member for Hochelaga, whom I commend on his excellent work on the committee. After hearing the witnesses, he realized that this bill was putting in place a reality that already existed in our courts. And witnesses told us that this bill will not change anything, because even now, when people commit crimes using a firearm, they are not released pending trial.

Once my learned colleague realized that this was the case, he recommended that we change our position and support this bill, which we are doing. We are serious democrats, we are very mindful of what is happening in Quebec society. For that reason, the Bloc Québécois will support Bill C-35.

However, this bill will still be very, very, very suspect in terms of the advances made by the Conservatives in relation to justice, because—I will say it again and it cannot be said often enough—they have this annoying tendency to become very Republican in how they interpret justice and very American-oriented when it comes to increasing minimum sentences and not giving our society or our judicial system a chance to hear the members of this House, and in fact filling up the prisons.

Believe it or not, the fastest-growing industry in the United States is prison construction. It is a very profitable industry and it is running very well, except that this is not the type of society that the Bloc Québécois wants. On the contrary, when we see the crime rate, we realize that crime does not go down when sentences go up. It is a proven fact: crime goes up. In fact, when a criminal has decided to commit a crime, the criminal does not bother to read the Criminal Code before committing the crime, to know what sentence he or she is going to get. Forget about that. If people think that, their imaginations are—

[An hon. member]

Very fertile.

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

Very fertile. You are entirely correct. Well, the Conservatives have a lot of imagination.

To protect the interests of Quebeckers and of the society passed down to us by the people who came before us, the Bloc Québécois will support Bill C-35. We will also be very vigilant when it comes to the advances made by the Conservatives in relation to justice.

[Wayne Marston, NDP, Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON]

Mr. Speaker, most members understood during the last election campaign that the Canadian public wanted some changes, but Bill C-35, in my opinion, is simply codifying what the justices of our country are doing already. In fact, to some extent, it is window dressing.

One of my concerns is that it is easy to run on a law and order platform, but we cannot lose sight of the fact that rehabilitation is one of the most important avenues of protecting the public, because we know that convicted criminals will one day be back on our streets. I ask the member if he would support the fact that it is essential for our government to make sure that rehabilitation gets equal time in its law and order platform.

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

Mr. Speaker, my colleague is entirely correct, punishment will always be bad counsel when it comes to the entire criminal justice system.

When an individual, for whatever reason, has decided to commit a crime, the way to ensure that the person does not commit more crimes is to rehabilitate and supervise him or her. But we must be careful. There are indeed changes, but we must put more into rehabilitation.

When it comes to parole and that entire system, we must ensure that there is as much staff as possible, so that the analyses done are the best they can be. Rather than building prisons to try to set up factories to turn out criminals, if there is no rehabilitation, we must invest the money that is needed in rehabilitation so that the entire parole system has the staff that are needed and is capable of doing the analyses that are called for. We have to avoid putting people back on the streets who should not be there.

This is what we should be tackling, rather than trying to amend the Criminal Code and increase sentences and trying to replace judges by mandating minimum sentences. That will change absolutely nothing. We have to rehabilitate young criminals to try to ensure that they do not stay criminals. As well, we have to ensure that we are not releasing people who should not be released. That is the philosophy that the Bloc Québécois has always argued for and that it will continue to argue for.

[Denise Savoie, NDP, Victoria, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I would also like to speak about programs that would help to prevent crime. This bill, as has already been said, does no more than codify already existing practices. This government slashed literacy programs and summer jobs programs. Yet, those are the very programs that would help young people who are vulnerable or at risk. Those programs would help to prevent crime and would convince young people to follow a different path.

I wonder if my colleague could comment on those cuts. The government not only slashed programs that could otherwise have been useful for creating a more inclusive society, but it is refusing to do long-term planning on literacy and it refuses to implement a long-term funding program for literacy.

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

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for her question because it allows me to talk about the street gang phenomenon.

Today, the government is attacking the street gang problem with prison sentences, but we must ask why street gangs have developed. It is because young people did not know what to do and the system marginalized them.

These are programs that people tried to establish and that the government has abolished. Afterwards, questions were asked and a range of measures has been proposed, trying to combat street gangs by means of prison sentences, while the real problem of street gangs is that there was poverty on our streets and we did not concern ourselves with our young people.

This social problem was ignored by the Liberal Party and has become worse today with the Conservative Party. We left young people with social problems on the streets of our big cities and, now, we are very surprised to learn that those young people have become criminals.

The young people who lived in our cities told us that they had problems but we did not deal with them. We really need to try to start over, to wipe out the past and make a new beginning. We have to restore support programs for the young people in our big cities.

[Réal Ménard, Bloc, Hochelaga, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to congratulate my colleague from Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel on his erudition—let us not fear words—and on his willingness to dedicate himself so generously to the work of this House. He never declines an invitation to share his point of view, and I am sure that this is greatly appreciated by all of our colleagues.

Bill C-35 was the subject of much debate in the parliamentary committee. It seems to me that the underlying principle is a good one. The government is seeking to ensure that people who might be a menace to the safety of our fellow citizens cannot be released on bail before trial unless we can be certain that they do not present a danger to society. It is important to understand where Bill C-35 is coming from.

There are various stages in our criminal proceedings: arrest by a peace officer, court appearance, and preliminary hearing. At this stage, a magistrate or justice of the peace—in Quebec, at least—decides whether there is sufficient evidence to allow the Crown to take the matter to trial. So we have arrest, bail hearing, preliminary hearing and, of course, the trial. If the case involves murder or one of the offences set out in section 469 of the Criminal Code, there is a good chance that the trial will be held before a jury of the accused's peers, a group of individuals selected for that purpose.

If the case involves an offence set out in section 553 of Quebec's code, the trial takes place before the criminal and penal division of the Court of Quebec. There too, the stages are familiar: arrest, bail hearing, preliminary hearing, trial and, after that, sentencing submissions. Then, if necessary, a certain number of appeals processes are available.

The Bloc Québécois had some concerns about this bill. What does it say? We should start with the beginning. Under our legal system, bail is generally granted at the hearing stage. In some cases, though, bail cannot be granted by justices of the peace. Only superior court judges, that is to say, judges of the Superior Court of Quebec, can grant pretrial bail to an accused.

This occurs when a person is accused of a crime under section 469 of the Criminal Code. Justices of the peace cannot grant bail when the accused has violated the conditions of release. If a person is on probation, therefore, and is supposed to comply with a certain number of conditions but violates them, he cannot be given bail. For example, if a person is not supposed to be in possession of a firearm but is found with one, that person has failed to comply with one of his conditions of release and cannot be granted bail by a justice of the peace.

When someone is arrested by a police officer, taken before a justice of the peace and charged with an offence related to organized crime, of course, that person cannot be granted bail. For a very long time, all the organized crime related offences were listed in the Criminal Code. Actually it was not the Criminal Code but the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act where all the offences related to the possession of narcotics, drug trafficking, and the exportation and importation of narcotics were listed.

Around 1995, we had an extremely worrisome clash among criminal motorcycle gangs: the Hell’s Angels, the Rock Machine and the Bandidos. There were 35 Hell’s Angels chapters. It is not that there were an awful lot of them—just a few hundred people—but they were obviously very dangerous.

I can recall some conversations I had with senior public servants who thought that the criminal motorcycle gangs could be disbanded using just the existing conspiracy provisions in the Criminal Code. The former Bloc Québécois member for Berthier—Montcalm, who was elevated to the bench because of his great talents and had gone to law school at the University of Ottawa in the 1980s and 1990s, was our justice critic and was as convinced as I that new legislation was needed and some new provisions had to be added to the Criminal Code.

I remind the House that in the 1990s there was one thing that triggered our realization of the need to create new legislation in order to deal with criminal biker gangs. This was of course the car bomb attack that occurred in my area, Hochelaga—Maisonneuve, on August 9, 1995, and that took the life of young Daniel Desrochers. From then on, there was a call by citizens seeking anti-gang legislation. Obviously we could not follow Italy’s example, since Italy did not have to worry about compatibility with the Canadian Charter of Human Rights. In Canada, however, we had to be concerned about compatibility with the Canadian Charter of Human Rights, which—I would point out—was never ratified by the National Assembly when it was patriated in 1982.

I digress here to remind you that René Lévesque, one of the greatest premiers in the history of Quebec—as we all know—was opposed to the unilateral patriation of the Constitution, because he was worried about language rights. There was the possibility of removing whole chunks of Bill 101, one of the first bills that René Lévesque had passed by his government following the adoption of the Referendum Act and, of course, an act on democratic election funding.

So we had to be concerned about the compatibility of the new provisions of the Criminal Code and the Canadian charter, which has never been accepted by the National Assembly because of the incompatibilities regarding language. Of course, with regard to section 27 respecting multiculturalism, there were some very great concerns. In any case, we will recall that René Lévesque became the spokesperson for this long line of premiers who wanted, before the charter was patriated, to give the National Assembly new powers. This was Jean-Jacques Bertrand’s position; it was Robert Bourassa’s position; it was Jean Lesage’s position; it was the position of Quebec’s intellectuals. Even a man like Claude Ryan who, as we know, was not a sovereignist, wanted there to be a new distribution of powers before patriating the Constitution, which was—we agreed—a colonial relic. Of course this was not normal, but it was not a priority.

I do not want to wander too far away—you know my discipline is legendary. Still, I want you to know that it is extremely important to remember that, in the 1990s, the Bloc Québécois rallied in order to obtain anti-gang legislation. The first anti-gang legislation was passed in 1997. We had created a new offence. I mentioned the Canadian charter. But it was not possible to make it a crime to belong to a group.

We cannot say that belonging to the Hells Angels, the Rock Machine, the Bandidos, the mafia or an Asian crime group, that simply belonging to a criminal organization constitutes an offence. This would never pass the Charter test and would not be compatible with the freedom of association. This was the challenge facing the public service and parliamentarians.

I was part of the committee that examined these things to find an offence that would work with the Charter. At the time, a new offence was created: gangsterism. Five individuals having committed an offence punishable by a five-year term, for a criminal organization within the last five years, could be charged with gangsterism.

As unbelievable as it may be, with these provisions, among others, municipalities can play an extremely important role in dismantling organized crime networks. I hope my colleagues will remember this. Municipalities legislated against bunkers. They legislated against fortresses in urban areas. Under municipal bylaws it was not possible to have fortified houses with cameras and bulletproof windows. Believe it or not, this is a good example of the link between federal law, criminal law, and municipal affairs.

If I may digress, one thing that makes a municipality dynamic is festivals. I am sure that the Minister of Labour will agree with me. There is nothing more important than tourism to our communities.

Take the example of Hochelaga-Maisonneuve. It is a working-class neighbourhood with a rich heritage. I could tell you about the botanical garden and the Château Dufresne, the historic middle-class residence. It is important to provide public funding for festivals. I will conclude on this point by wishing all my colleagues a most cordial welcome to Montreal this year and this summer. I hope that the funding that will make it possible for us to spend a beautiful summer with tourists and all of the events we can organize in our communities will materialize. Of course I am counting on all of my colleagues to ensure that this scenario comes to pass.

This is the situation we found ourselves in in the 1990s. Criminal motorcycle gangs were running wild and the public was worried. I and other people persuaded the then justice minister, Allan Rock, to add new provisions to the Criminal Code. Those provisions made it possible for us to end the war that had caused several hundred deaths and claimed an innocent victim, Daniel Desrochers, who died on August 9, 1995.

Thus we can see that the Bloc Québécois has never been unwilling to legislate when it was necessary. The goal of Bill C-35 is to add a number of offences, the seriousness of which we can recognize as a society. I will list them: attempted murder with a firearm, discharging a firearm with intent to wound, armed sexual assault, robbery, aggravated sexual assault, kidnapping, hostage taking, extortion, trafficking, possession for the purposes of trafficking, and any offence involving a firearm if the accused was under a firearms prohibition order.

We have to acknowledge that these offences are in fact serious in terms of criminal law. At the show cause stage, the trial has not yet been held. In Quebec, you appear before the justice of the peace. The accused will have to call evidence, because there is a reverse onus. Reverse onus does exist in the Criminal Code now, as I mentioned, for organized crime, terrorism offences and offences relating to section 469. Reverse onus exists. That does not mean—and we must be very clear on this point—that it will not be possible for the accused to be released.

What it means is that the onus is on the accused, and not the Crown, to prove that he or she is not a threat to society. The judge will then take a number of criteria into consideration.

If the individual is released, the judge must be sure he will appear for trial and will not destroy the evidence, abscond, reoffend or engage in violent behaviour. If the judge is satisfied that all these conditions will be met, in light of the submission by counsel for the accused, the individual can be released. If the judge is not satisfied, the individual—the accused—who will be tried for one of the offences I have mentioned, must remain in custody.

I repeat that this is not the rule in our legal system. As a rule, individuals are released pending trial. Hon. members may remember a famous ruling from early this decade, the Askov ruling, concerning a case in Ontario. The legal system was backlogged at the time.

When the Constitution was repatriated, the National Assembly did not subscribe to the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Among the legal guarantees in the charter is the right to be tried within a reasonable time. Waiting for a trial causes anyone anxiety. Waiting for a trial is stressful, and there is also the risk that witnesses' memories will fade. With time, people called to testify could be slightly less accurate in their testimony.

The Bloc Québécois heard the witnesses who testified before the committee, and my colleagues know how reasonable, moderate and cooperative the Bloc is. We ask only to work in the spirit of brotherhood.

I take great personal pride in the fact that I have no enemies in this House. Mr. Speaker, if you were to ask members who consider themselves my enemies to so indicate by a show of hands, I am sure you would see none. I was afraid the member for Jonquière—Alma would raise his hand. That would have made me sad.

The Bloc Québécois will support Bill C-35 because, in committee, witnesses told us that in any event, the general practice at bail hearings for firearm-related offences is for the judge not to release the individual, or grant them bail. The Minister of Justice's bill confirms or recognizes something already being done by judges and the courts.

We do not see why we would be against this bill. A witness from the Council of Criminal Defence Lawyers even told us this was the current practice. There are very few witnesses who oppose the bill, two in fact. A University of Toronto professor, Anthony Doob, opposed the bill, saying there needed to be more focus on prevention. The Canadian Bar Association also voiced some reservations. For the rest, the witnesses were extremely favourable toward the bill.

The Bloc will support this bill since it recognizes a practice the courts have formalized. Of course, that does not mean we are not calling on the government to invest in prevention.

I recently learned that the Prime Minister entrusted, not to the Minister of Health, but to the Minister of Justice, the modernization of the national anti-drug strategy. I hope when the format of this new strategy is known, hopefully a few months from now, that money could be sent to the provinces for prevention, which is still our best defence as a society for living in safer communities.

Since I am running out of time, I will stop here. I want to reiterate my call for money to be allocated to this summer's festivals, more specifically those in Montreal, which is a major tourism centre. I hope my call will be heard.

[The Deputy Speaker, Bill Blaikie]

Is the House ready for the question?

[Some hon. members]

Question.

[The Deputy Speaker, Bill Blaikie]

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

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Deputy Speaker, Bill Blaikie]

I declare the motion carried.

(Motion agreed to, bill read the third time and passed)