Bill C-9 (Historical)

An Act to amend the Criminal Code (conditional sentence of imprisonment)

This enactment amends section 742.1 of the Criminal Code to provide that a person convicted of a serious personal injury offence as defined in section 752 of that Act, a terrorism offence or a criminal organization offence prosecuted by way of indictment for which the maximum term of imprisonment is ten years or more is not eligible for a conditional sentence.

[Myron Thompson, Conservative, Wild Rose, AB]

Well, the one thing that we can answer is that I think it's pretty ridiculous to see a guy go to jail for five years for poaching an elk and see a man get a two-year sentence for killing an infant baby. That's what troubles me. I don't know if Bill C-9 is going to correct these kinds of things, but that's what's being seen out there in the public.

I'd really like to see a little clearer stats. I'm starting to get a feeling that I understand a lot of it, but to be honest with you, I don't really understand most of it. It will probably take me a long time. But I'd like to get some real down-to-earth stats about what is actually going on in this country in regard to the treatment of victims. I get tired of hearing about what we're going to do to protect the criminal. To hell with the criminal. It's time to start looking at what kinds of stats we can get that will benefit the victims.

[Rob Moore, Conservative, Fundy Royal, NB]

Okay. So under that heading, you're grouping those and breaking out who would be captured, perhaps, by Bill C-9. It starts with the very serious offence of sexual assault, down to theft.

If I have a little time left, Mr. Chair....

[Lynn Barr-Telford]

Certainly; I can explain that chart.

As a reminder about what we've done in chart 12, we've taken the Criminal Code offences that were listed at the end of the Bill C-9 legislative summary and applied them to our 2003-2004 data. We've done this overall and you can see it by offence type. So if you look at the 89% for sexual assaults, for example, this means that 89% of those sentenced to a conditional sentence for sexual assault were convicted of a Bill C-9 listed offence, which was included at the end of the legislative summary document. This was the 246 cases.

[Craig Grimes]

There are a couple of problems involved in putting those data together.

First, for the vast majority of the country, there's no court data going back prior to roughly 1994-95. I wouldn't be able to put together any data related to the conviction history of those individuals, or whether or not there was a conviction.

On the police-reported crime, there is a difficulty in putting the statistics together in relation to the legislative summary of Bill C-9. The legislative summary lists the offences by statute section, subsection, and paragraph. Police-reported crime is reported based upon a UCR-2 violation code. There may not be a one-to-one match with those offence categories.

So if we put together an offence history going back to 1977, there may be many more offences in that category than you'd want to see, and for that legislative summary.

[Lynn Barr-Telford]

These are our courts data, so there are some exclusions. We cover about 70% of the national criminal court workload, so we have about 70% coverage.

It's really important to make the point here that the 4,800, let's say, individuals are those who would have been convicted of one of the offences that was listed in the legislative document as being a Bill C-9 offence. To that we added just over 1,900 drug trafficking offences and some drug possession offences, of which we know that the drug trafficking--about 90% from our data--are indictable offences. From that, then, we did the analysis on the guilty pleas. But we did not at the outset take into account the procedure that was followed, whether it was indictable or summary. We did that after we were breaking down that 300 population, after we had done the subsequent analysis. So that's the way our analysis proceeded in this particular case.

[Judy Wasylycia-Leis, NDP, Winnipeg North, MB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you very much to the presenters.

I'm taking Joe Comartin's place. I won't be the expert he is, but I know that he was anxious to get this kind of statistical information before the committee.

I don't know if you can answer this, but based on your statistical studies, could you say approximately how many offenders now receiving conditional sentences would likely be sentenced to custody under Bill C-9 or Bill C-10?

[Lynn Barr-Telford, Director, Statistics Canada, Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for the opportunity to speak to the committee about conditional sentencing in Canada.

After briefly presenting some data to set the context, we will look at conditional sentencing from two vantage points: the courts and corrections. Our analysis was restricted to provincial-territorial corrections, given that conditional sentencing applies only to sentences of less than two years and that supervision is a provincial-territorial responsibility. Throughout the presentation, I will draw the committee's attention to any issues of data coverage and to circumstances where particular jurisdictions may have been excluded from coverage.

Referring to the second slide in your package, we see trends in police-reported crime rates since 1977. The key trends of note are that the overall police-reported crime rate, shown in red, increased throughout the 1970s and 1980s—and also throughout the 1960s, although this is not shown on your graphic—then it peaked in the early 1990s and declined throughout the rest of the 1990s. It has been relatively more stable since 1999.

This trend is mirrored in the police-reported property crime rate, where a 6% drop between 2004 and 2005 put it at its lowest level in more than 30 years.

The violent-crime rate is shown in yellow. It increased fairly steadily for 30 years, also peaked in the early 1990s, and while generally declining since the mid-1990s, it has been relatively stable. Between 2004 and 2005, we did see increases in serious violent crimes, such as homicide, attempted murder, serious assaults, and robbery.

Moving to slide three, this next slide also provides some context, showing trends in the sentenced correctional population under supervision. It shows average daily counts. Please note that there are jurisdictions excluded from coverage, and they are noted in the note on the slide.

The key points in the graphic are the green line is the conditional sentence population, the blue line is the provincial-territorial sentence custody population, and the pink is the population on probation.

So on any given day in 2003-2004, the average population on a conditional sentence was 13,285. The conditional sentence population has almost doubled since 1997-98—up 95% since that first full year of coverage. The average supervised population on conditional sentencing, as you can see from that green line, has increased each year since its inception.

Referring to the pink line, we can compare this to trends in probation, which have been relatively stable, fluctuating up and down. As well, the provincial-territorial sentenced custody population was down 31% over this same time period.

So with these trends, what we have seen is a shift in the relative distribution of the sentenced population over time. Conditional sentences represented 11% of the supervised sentenced population in 2003-2004, up from 6% in 1997-98, while sentenced custody was down to 8% from 10%, and probation was down to 81% from 84%.

Slide four gives you a closer look at those trends in the provincial-territorial sentenced custody population and the trends in the conditional sentence population. We've adjusted the scale so you can see the trends more clearly on this particular graphic. You can see the upward trend in the conditional sentence population and the downward trend in the provincial-territorial sentenced custody population.

Slide five shows that the decline we've seen in the sentenced custody population has coincided with an increase in the non-sentenced custody remand population. What this has resulted in is a negligible change in the overall provincial-territorial custody population. So in 1994, adults in non-sentence custody represented just over one-quarter of all those in custody; ten years later, it was close to half.

Slide six is our final slide of context, and it presents Canada's incarceration rates in an international context. As you can see, when compared to the incarceration rates internationally, Canada's rate is higher than those of many European countries but lower than in England, Wales, and New Zealand, and substantially less than the rate in the United States.

On slide seven, now that we've set the context, we'll turn our attention to our sentencing data. These data come from our courts program, and we can look at conditional sentencing by offence type. Let's start, though, with a few baseline statistics.

With our courts data, we can talk about cases and we can talk about persons. For the next several slides, we talk about cases and the most serious offence within the case. In 2003-04 there were 13,267 cases that upon conviction resulted in a conditional sentence. And 2003-04 is our most recent year of available data. These over 13,000 cases accounted for 6% of all conviction cases for the jurisdictions of coverage. Now, when we speak of persons, we have just under 10,000 whose last convictions in 2003-04 were conditional sentences.

For all of our court slides, we cover about 70% of the national adult criminal court workload. We do not have conditional sentence data for Quebec, and we do not have data for Manitoba, the Northwest Territories, or Nunavut.

We can look at conditional sentencing by offence type in two different ways. On slide seven, for example, we can ask for which offence types was a conditional sentence awarded most frequently upon conviction. We can also ask, of the total conditional sentences imposed, what the composition was by type of event.

We can see from this slide that conditional sentences are not imposed with the same frequency for all offences. Offences in this particular chart represent those that are most often subject to a conditional sentence on conviction. Approximately one-third of drug trafficking offences and other sexual offences received a conditional sentence on conviction, and one in five sexual assaults received a conditional sentence.

In addition to the two sexual offences, there are four other crimes against the person offences in this chart. There are other crimes against the person--robbery, major assault, and criminal harassment. Between 8% and 13%, depending on the offence type, received a conditional sentence upon conviction in 2003-04.

Some of these offences are of lower volume, so while they may have been more likely to be subject to a conditional sentence on conviction, they do not necessarily make up the highest number of offence types within the conditional sentencing population.

In fact, if you turn to slide eight, what you'll see here is that ten offence groups represented the vast majority of the 13,267 cases, where a conditional sentence was imposed on conviction in 2003-04. Almost one in five, 18%, or just over 2,400 cases of conditional sentences imposed were for drug trafficking convictions under the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act. There are two crimes against the person in this list of ten. In total, major assault and common assault represented 17% of all conditional sentences imposed in 2003-04.

Moving to slide nine, let's now shift our attention. Let's look at what our courts data can tell us about the factors a court may consider when arriving at a sentence. There are many factors that the court considers, and these can include the seriousness or gravity of the offence, the degree of responsibility of the offender, and the nature of the incident for which the accused is convicted.

Our courts data allow us to look at three possible mitigating factors that may be associated with the imposition of conditional sentences: the type of criminal procedure, the prior conviction history of the accused, and the final plea entered by the accused. While not a definitive measure of the gravity of the offence, one way we can proxy the seriousness of an offence is to look at the type of criminal procedure that was followed--that is, was it summary or indictment?

From chart nine, we can see that slightly less than half, 47%, of the convicted cases with a conditional sentence were proceeded by way of indictment. Slightly more than half, conversely, were proceeded by summary conviction. If you look at the list of offences, with the exception of drug trafficking, break and enter, and fraud, the vast majority of many conditional sentence were not indictable.

For the two violent offence types in this list, that's major assault and common assault, at least two-thirds of all conditional sentences imposed were for summary conviction violations. Overall the total number of indictable offences is being driven by drug trafficking, which represents 18% of all conditional sentences, of which 90% were proceeded by way of indictment.

As mentioned, there are a number of mitigating factors that the court considers when imposing a sentence, as outlined in the Criminal Code, section 718. Prior conviction history of the accused is another possible factor that we're able to look at with our data. For this slide and the next two, our population is a person or the accused. This is a person who received a conditional sentence during their last appearance in criminal court in 2003-04. Here we're talking just under 10,000 people.

Approximately half of all conditional sentences were imposed on offenders with no prior conviction history. The percentage with no prior conviction history, as you can see, varied by offence type. Of note is the proportion of first-time offenders among the conditional sentence population when we look at certain offence types. Approximately 50% of persons sentenced to a conditional sentence for drug trafficking, fraud, impaired driving, theft, and major assault did not have a prior conviction, and 64% of those convicted for sexual assault did not have a prior conviction.

If you look at slide 11, the type of final plea is another mitigating factor listed for consideration when imposing a sentence. The final plea entered by the accused is the third and final factor that we're able to look at with our courts data. Again, our population here is the person or the accused, but in this particular slide we're focusing only on those offenders who were convicted of an indictable offence and sentenced to a conditional sentence in 2003-04.

You will recall from an earlier slide that just under half of conditional sentences that were imposed were proceeded by way of indictment. Here we have just under 4,500 accused as our population of interest. For this population, just under 4,500, the chart presents the prior conviction history and the type of final plea entered. Overall, six in ten had no prior conviction history, and almost 90% entered a guilty plea. The data in the chart seemed to be suggesting that both the prior conviction history and the type of plea may be factors considered at sentencing. The vast majority, 95% of those with a conditional sentence for an indictable offence, had either no prior conviction history or a plea of guilty as a possible mitigating factor.

It's important to note as well that there may have been other mitigating factors considered, but we have only information on the three factors I have spoken of in our data set. For the 242 persons, the 5% on the chart, who were convicted of an indictable offence without being a first-time offender or entering a guilty plea, there may be other mitigating factors being considered. Unfortunately, we're not able to discern that.

Slide 12 we included for illustrative purposes. Criminal Code offences that were listed in the Bill C-9 legislative summary document have been applied to our 2003-04 data. The purpose was to identify the number of persons who were given a conditional sentence for an offence type that was included in that Bill C-9 summary document. It's important to note that the list of offences that were subject to the Bill C-9 legislation were as specified in that legislative document.

Chart 12 indicates that almost one in three persons, 29%, just over 2,800 people, sentenced to a conditional sentence in 2003-04 were convicted of a Criminal Code offence that was listed in the Bill C-9 legislative summary document. For some further information we have also listed it by offence type in the chart.

Although it's not in the chart, if we add drug offences to the Criminal Code Bill C-9 offences, we see that half--that is, 4,865--of all persons sentenced to a conditional sentence in 2003-04 were convicted of a Bill C-9-listed offence or a drug offence.

We looked at the plea and the prior conviction history previously for our data; we can do the same analysis for this particular subpopulation. Once we took into account the prior conviction history and the guilty pleas, there were 310 people of the 4,865 who did not enter a guilty plea or who had a prior conviction history, and of these 310, the recorded procedure was summary for 110 persons, so we can't speak to any of the other mitigating factors that may have been considered for the remaining 200 people, for whom the procedure was either by indictment or unknown.

Slide 13 is our final chart from our courts data, and it presents information on the length of supervision time ordered for the 13,267 conditional sentencing cases. As you can see from the chart, conditional sentences are under supervision longer.

When ordering a term of prison or a conditional sentence, the court may also impose a term of probation to be completed following the completion of the more serious sanction. Thus, a convicted person could be under sentence supervision for a maximum of the combined total of these sanctions.

After we eliminated federal prison sentences--which are not subject to conditional sentencing--cases that were sentenced to a conditional sentence in 2003-04 were, on average, in sentence supervision for approximately twice as long as cases sentenced to prison. The total average ordered supervision for cases sentenced to a conditional sentence was 453 days, compared to 223 days for cases sentenced to prison.

We can see from the chart that a term of probation was ordered for a slightly larger proportion of those sentenced to a conditional sentence than of those sentenced to prison. When you combine sentences, you greatly increase the average time the convicted person will spend in supervision. The average ordered supervision time for an offender sentenced to a conditional sentence and probation was 700 days; this was 36% longer than for an offender sentenced to prison and probation. The shortest average ordered supervision time was for an offender sentenced to prison without probation; it was an average of 47 days.

The last three slides in our presentation, beginning with slide 14, make use of data from our new integrated correctional services survey. This is a microdata survey that follows individuals under the supervision of the correctional system. As of 2003-04, the survey had been implemented in four jurisdictions: Newfoundland and Labrador, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Saskatchewan. Each of the next three slides lists the jurisdictions covered in the title; we cannot generalize beyond these jurisdictions.

Slide 14 presents the optional conditions attached to probation sentence and conditional sentence. When we look at the optional conditions most frequently attached to probation-only community involvements and those attached to conditional sentences, we do see some differences. Over 60% of conditional sentences had a reside or house arrest condition attached, and about one-third had a curfew attached. These were not on the list of the most frequently attached conditions for probation only.

Slide 15 also draws from our corrections data and is for two jurisdictions. It refers to offenders who completed a conditional sentence involvement in 2003-04. There were 4,300 of these cases. We can see that just over one-third of the persons in these cases were admitted to custody at some time as a result of a breach of condition while serving a sentence. This breach was severe enough to reach a threshold that resulted in an admission to custody. This is not an indication of the total number of breaches, however. The proportion admitted to custody on a breach, as you can see, varied by offence type--drug offences in this particular list are at the lowest, and you can see that robbery is at the highest.

Slide 16 is our final slide today. It also uses our correctional data and it looks at the proportion of those who left correctional supervision in 2003-04 and subsequently returned to corrections within a twelve-month period. Here we're looking at reinvolvement after a sentence has been served, and as we can see for the jurisdictions listed, the proportion of probationers who returned to corrections within the twelve months was a little lower than for those serving a conditional sentence, but the proportions are quite similar. The blue line in this graphic represents conditional sentence. The pink line represents probation. And the two intersecting blue lines are for sentence custody.

The proportion who returned to corrections after finishing a sentence custody was much higher, around 30%. It's important to note with these data that we weren't able to take into account any prior conviction history when we conducted the analysis.

Mr. Chairman, that concludes my presentation. My colleagues and I welcome any questions from the committee.

Thank you very much.

Justice

[Vic Toews, Conservative, Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada]

Mr. Speaker, this week MADD Canada distributed a press release supporting Bill C-9, this government's initiative to eliminate house arrest for serious crime. The national president said:

In the case of violent crimes, where a person has been killed or seriously injured, conditional sentences such as house arrest and community service are totally inadequate.

I would like to join with MADD in calling upon opposition parties to support Bill C-9, and not play politics but to act expeditiously and pass this bill.

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

So that was the last year we had statistics for. Under Bill C-9, roughly a third of them would no longer be available. You make the point--let me address that first--that some of these may end up with probationary sentences. Mr. Minister, my sense is that a probationary sentence is more restrictive and gives the community more control of the convicted person than a conditional sentence would. Do you agree with that?

[Vic Toews, Conservative, Provencher, MB]

In 2003 and 2004, there were 15,493 conditional sentences imposed in the country. I anticipate that after Bill C-9 is passed, some offenders who have committed offences and who are no longer eligible for house arrest will receive probation while others will receive a custodial sentence. And based on that year's statistics, about one-third of conditional sentences, or 5,784 of the 15,493, will be ineligible for conditional sentence.

If Bill C-9 is narrowed by eliminating property offences, 2,634 of the 15,493 offenders who received a conditional sentence in 2003-2004 would be ineligible for a conditional sentence. So what I'm saying, Mr. Chair, is that we can narrow this, but the issue isn't violent sentences or sentences for violent crimes alone. The issue is for serious property offences. It may be all right in some members' communities that houses are broken into at a regular rate and that's considered simply a property offence, but I can assure you that the people in my community--and I dare say across Canada--don't consider that simply a property offence. In my opinion, you are violating the personal security of individuals when you break into their homes in that fashion.

I've indicated I'm open to this discussion. I don't understand the hostility of the member. I am open to looking at some of these issues. I'm willing to look at those issues. The organization--

[Vic Toews, Conservative, Provencher, MB]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

During the election campaign, our party made a firm commitment to protect families and Canada's way of life by cracking down on guns, gangs, and drugs. Since assuming office, we have taken leadership in tackling crime, with measures to strengthen communities and assist millions of ordinary, hard-working Canadians. It has been one of our five key priorities, along with helping Canadians get ahead by cutting taxes, including a cut in our GST, and introducing a real child care plan. Parents have already begun receiving child care cheques worth $1,200 a year for each child under six. We're also moving towards a patient wait times guarantee and restoring Canadians' faith in accountable, responsible government by introducing the most sweeping accountability measures in our country's history.

As Minister of Justice, I am pleased that we have followed through on our commitment to tackle crime with tough new measures. We are ensuring that criminals are no longer coddled, and the voices and rights of victims are respected. This is what Canadian families and taxpayers expect, and we are delivering results for them.

I am pleased to meet once again with the members of the justice committee, this time to discuss one of those strong new measures, Bill C-9, an act to amend the Criminal Code on conditional sentence of imprisonment.

As you know, a judge may impose a conditional sentence for house arrest provided that the sentencing judge finds that permitting the offender to do so would not endanger the safety of the community, and would be in accordance with the fundamental purpose and objectives of sentencing. The Criminal Code also forbids the use of this type of sentence where the offender was found guilty of an offence that is punishable by a minimum term of imprisonment, or where the offender was sentenced to a term of imprisonment of more than two years. Bill C-9 would add a fifth prerequisite that would prohibit conditional sentences, essentially house arrest, for offences punishable by ten years or more that are prosecuted by indictment.

As we had the opportunity to hear during second reading debate on this bill, the government's move to reform the conditional sentences is aimed at limiting those sentences to the cases for which they were originally intended to apply. Conditional sentences were never designed to be used for the most serious offenders, a point made repeatedly by members of the Liberal government of the day when they brought forward the concept of house arrest. This is why this government promised to prohibit the use of conditional sentences for serious crimes, including designated violent and sexual offences, weapons offences, major drug offences, crimes committed against children, and impaired driving causing bodily harm or death.

To quote from a paper entitled “The Conditional Sentence of Imprisonment: The Need for Amendment”, prepared in June 2003 by the Alberta justice minister and attorney general on behalf of British Columbia, Manitoba, Ontario, and Nova Scotia:

Allowing persons not dangerous to the community, who would otherwise be incarcerated, and who have not committed serious or violent crime, to serve their sentence in the community is beneficial. However, there comes a point where the very nature of the offence and the offender should result in actual incarceration. To do otherwise brings the entire conditional sentence regime, and hence the criminal justice system, into disrepute.

The options to reform the conditional sentence of imprisonment put forth in that paper included the implementation of a prohibition against the use of conditional sentences for serious crime.

I am aware that members of the opposition are concerned about the scope of Bill C-9. The ten-year maximum sentence threshold represents a clear and straightforward message that serious crime will result in serious time.

I am open, ladies and gentlemen, to considering reasonable amendments that will improve this bill and ensure its early passage. However, in shaping these amendments, we must take into consideration the commitment of this and previous governments that conditional sentences are not to be used with respect to serious crime. Crimes against the person that are prosecuted by way of indictment, offences like breaking and entering and home invasion, are plainly serious offences in the eyes of many Canadians.

An important aspect of Bill C-9 is that it targets only offences prosecuted by indictment. For instance, a conditional sentence would still be available for assault causing bodily harm, provided it is prosecuted by summary conviction. As I said during debate in the House, in order to ensure that the sentence is proportionate to the gravity of the offence and to the degree of responsibility of the offender, the justice system will have to rely on the discretion of prosecutors and police to charge an offender appropriately, using summary conviction charges in minor cases only.

Another important aspect of this bill is that while many offenders who would have been eligible for a conditional sentence order will in future serve their sentence in custody, not all will. It is anticipated that some will receive a suspended sentence with probation. Some offenders who would now be eligible for a conditional sentence order will likely get a prison sentence that is shorter than the conditional sentence it replaces, followed by a period of probation of several months.

Mr. Chairman, some have expressed concern that this bill would potentially increase the overrepresentation of aboriginal offenders. However, when considering this, we should also note that aboriginal Canadians are also overrepresented as the victims of crime. Bill C-9 is aimed at providing protection to those victims and their communities.

A report released on June 6, 2006, and prepared by the Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics found that aboriginal people were more likely to be victims of crime than were non-aboriginal people. It states that 40% of aboriginal people aged 15 and over reported that they were victimized at least once in the 12 months prior to being interviewed. This figure compares with 28% of non-aboriginal people who did so. Restorative justice is an important tool for aboriginal offenders, but aboriginal victims are as deserving of protection and safety as every other Canadian. Bill C-9 is a step to delivering that protection.

In terms of breakdown by type of offence, the study reports that out of 22,878 violent incidents reported to police on-reserve in 2004, 20,804 were assaults, representing 90% of violent incidents reported to police. Common assault, if prosecuted by indictment, is punished by a maximum sentence of imprisonment of five years, pursuant to section 266 of the Criminal Code, and therefore would not be caught by Bill C-9. The CCJS study found that aboriginal people were twice as likely as their non-aboriginal counterparts to be repeat victims of crime, and three and a half times more likely to be victims of spousal abuse. Finally, the study reports that between 1997 and 2000, the average homicide rate for aboriginal people was 8.8 per 100,000 population--almost seven times higher than that for non-aboriginal people, which is at 1.3 per 100,000 population.

Mr. Chairman, considering these statistics, I believe Bill C-9 is a necessary step to protect aboriginal victims and aboriginal communities in a manner that closely aligns with the purpose and principles of sentencing as set out in the Criminal Code.

Drug offences and drug-related violence remain a growing threat to our communities and to our Canadian way of life. As I stated when I appeared before this committee on the main spending estimates of the Department of Justice, the number of marijuana grow ops has increased dramatically in Canada, spreading into suburban and rural communities. The production and distribution of drugs such as crack cocaine, methamphetamine, and ecstasy have increased as well. Bill C-9 will help to ensure that serious drug offences will result in greater punishment.

This bill applies to the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act, as well as the Criminal Code, by prohibiting the use of conditional sentence for drug offences prosecuted by indictment and punishable by a maximum sentence of ten years or more. Consequently, a conditional sentence order will not be available for trafficking or producing a substance in schedule I or schedule II--except for cannabis--or for trafficking or producing a substance in schedule III if prosecuted by indictment. It would not be allowed, either, for importing or exporting a substance in schedule I or schedule II, or for importing or exporting a substance in schedule III or schedule IV, if prosecuted by indictment.

Mr. Chairman, I would now like to refer to some court cases and submit to this committee that the conditional sentences handed out in these cases were simply unacceptable.

In Regina v. Wong, from the British Columbia courts, the offender, a 42-year-old man and a father of two, pleaded guilty to trafficking in a dial-a-dope scheme involving three sales of cocaine to an undercover police officer. A dial-a-dope operation is a drug enterprise with a certain level of sophistication that permits people at home to order drugs via phone. The drugs are dropped off at a specific location, often at the buyer's home. These types of dial-a-dope operations often involve large amounts of narcotics.

The offender had a previous criminal record at the time of these offences and was under a conditional sentence of imprisonment for related drug offences. Despite the aggravating factors, the court sentenced the offender to two years less a day, to be served in the community--in other words, house arrest.

In Regina v. Kasaboski, an Ontario decision, the 22-year-old offender pleaded guilty to one count of trafficking in methamphetamine and was also charged with trafficking and possession of ecstasy. The facts of this case established that the offender had trafficked 500 tablets of methamphetamine and was later discovered with 200 tablets of ecstasy. The offender had no prior criminal record, but after committing the offences I just mentioned, he was found guilty of failing to attend court and of possessing property obtained by crime.

In sentencing the offender, the court found that he had made substantial efforts to change his life, he had been clean for 17 months, he had held a job in a brewery for 16 months, and his parents were in support of his efforts. The court also said the following:

Both ecstasy and methamphetamine are dangerous drugs. While the nature of the overall organization with which Mr. Kasaboski was associated is not clear from the facts presented to the court, it is plain that he was well up in the distribution chain. These were not street-level transactions and small amounts, but rather substantial sales for substantial amounts of money. The motive, I infer, was for profit.

The court found that both denunciation and deterrence could be achieved by a conditional sentence of two years less a day.

Another example can be found in Regina v. Basque. In the recent decision of the B.C. court, the offender, a 22-year-old, was found guilty of possession and trafficking in cocaine. The offender operated along the lines of what I described earlier as a dial-a-dope dealer. In reaching its decision, the court found the guilty plea entered by the offender, the fact that he had no prior criminal record, and the fact that the offender was trying to avoid his former lifestyle, to be mitigating. However, the court found the following to be aggravating, and I quote:

The aggravating circumstances in this case are: (i) the Dial-A-Dope circumstances; (ii) the fact that the drug purported to be trafficked was cocaine; but the most aggravating is the fact (iii) that this offence took place while Mr. Basque was on an undertaking with respect to virtually the same offence.

Even though these circumstances were present in that case, the sentencing judge sentenced the offender to 12 months imprisonment to be served in the community--again, house arrest.

I submit to the members of this committee that these types of sentences for these types of drug offences are inappropriate. Such cases are not rare. They demand that action be taken by this Parliament to ensure that serious drug crime results in actual incarceration.

Canadians are concerned about sentencing in crimes of violence, as well. It is clear from the case law that house arrest is not a rare occurrence in these cases, either. For example, from Calgary, a Michael John Wilson, age 25, was convicted of manslaughter. Wilson was given a two-year conditional sentence for an incident in which his infant daughter's spine was snapped and her aorta torn, causing her death.

In Toronto, Scott Carew was sentenced to two years of house arrest and 240 hours of community service after pleading guilty to an aggravated assault that left his five-month-old son permanently brain damaged.

In Cayuga, Ontario, James Peart, convicted of ten counts of indecently assaulting boys as young as eight over two decades, was given a conditional sentence or house arrest of twenty months.

In Peterborough, Ontario, Fred Cole, 58, convicted of raping a young girl, was given a two-year house arrest sentence.

R. v. J.G.C., a 2004 case, is a stark example in which the offender, a man in his late thirties, pleaded guilty to sexually assaulting two boys under the age of 14 on several occasions. He used inducements such as video games, candy, cake, and money to gain the trust of one of the boys. The second victim was a cousin of the first. In sentencing the offender to a nine-month house arrest period, the court stated that such a sentence was appropriate because the offender did not represent a threat to the community, did not use force to sexually assault the two boys, and had attempted suicide, which showed a certain degree of remorse.

I personally find the sentences reached in these cases unconscionable, and I'm sure that many members of the public do too. The sentences in these cases do not properly reflect the principles of denunciation, deterrence, and proportionality. This bill will ensure that the sentencing objectives and principles are better reflected in sentences handed down in cases such as these.

I would like to conclude by saying that Bill C-9 is a necessary step toward more just sentences that will protect not only our communities and our children, but also our Canadian values. It will ensure that conditional sentences remain available for those who commit minor crimes and, in all the circumstances, merit the opportunity to serve their sentences at home. But when a criminal commits a serious criminal act, it will ensure that the sentence will be served in custody. The appropriate use of conditional sentences will strengthen confidence in our criminal justice system.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Art Hanger]

The Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights is now called to order.

On our agenda today, pursuant to the order of reference of Tuesday, June 6, 2006, is the debate of Bill C-9, an act to amend the Criminal Code on conditional sentence of imprisonment.

We have before the committee the Honourable Vic Toews, Minister of Justice. We also have Catherine Kane, who is the senior counsel with the Department of Justice and the director of the Policy Centre for Victim Issues.

Welcome.

The House resumed from June 5 consideration of the motion that Bill C-9, An Act to amend the Criminal Code (conditional sentence of imprisonment), be read the second time and referred to a committee.

The House resumed from June 2 consideration of the motion that Bill C-9, An Act to amend the Criminal Code (conditional sentence of imprisonment), be read the second time and referred to a committee.

The House resumed consideration of the motion that Bill C-9, An Act to amend the Criminal Code (conditional sentence of imprisonment), be read the second time and referred to a committee.