Bill C-2 (Historical)

Tackling Violent Crime Act

An Act to amend the Criminal Code and to make consequential amendments to other Acts

This enactment amends the Criminal Code by
(a) creating two new firearm offences and providing escalating mandatory sentences of imprisonment for serious firearm offences;
(b) strengthening the bail provisions for those accused of serious offences involving firearms and other regulated weapons;
(c) providing for more effective sentencing and monitoring of dangerous and high-risk offenders;
(d) introducing a new regime for the detection and investigation of drug impaired driving and strengthening the penalties for impaired driving; and
(e) raising the age of consent for sexual activity from 14 to 16 years.

Tackling Violent Crime Act

[Loyola Hearn, Conservative, St. John's South—Mount Pearl, NL]

moved that Bill C-2, An Act to amend the Criminal Code and to make consequential amendments to other Acts, be read the third time and passed.

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

Mr. Speaker, I will be keeping my remarks shorter than my allotted time for the simple reason that Canadians have already witnessed what took place in the preceding time.

The bill we are debating passed last night by a vote of over 200 to 1 and yet today the Bloc is delaying passage at third reading. I implore all members of the House to ensure a speedy passage of our government's tackling violent crime act.

There is no greater responsibility for us as parliamentarians and for the Canadian government than to protect the most vulnerable in society. Canadians from coast to coast and probably in all of our ridings have demanded changes to the criminal justice system to better protect victims, to better protect innocent Canadians and to better protect all of us from criminals, those who prey on other individuals, which is why we introduced Bill C-2, the tackling violent crime act.

This bill has been thoroughly reviewed by a committee. It is made up of five different components, most of which were thoroughly considered in the last Parliament and, in this Parliament, the bill was thoroughly considered by a committee and voted on by this House.

The bill tackles the dangerous offender provisions in that it would make our streets safer from those who are the most serious offenders, those who have shown an appetite for repeat violent offences, for recidivism, the very worst of the worst offenders of a violent or a sexual nature.

The bill also addresses gun crimes, bringing in mandatory minimum sentences for those who, in the most serious of cases, use a firearm to commit an offence. I think we should all agree that we need to send a clear message and take seriously gun crimes. Canadians are telling us to do this.

Another component of the bill that we have been hearing from coast to coast in cities across Canada is reverse onus on bail for those who are charged with a gun crime. Too often a serious crime is committed with a firearm and the person is out on the street in a very short period of time awaiting trial. In many cases, the person finds a victim at the local convenience store. Obviously, that shocks the victim and it should shock all of us. We need a reverse onus on bail for gun crimes.

We need to give our police the tools they need to tackle impaired driving, drug impaired driving and to use new technologies to the greatest benefit possible to make our streets safer.

It is also important that we raise the age of protection. It is unbelievable that this was not done over a decade ago. The previous Liberal government always refused to raise the age of protection even though victims' groups and child advocacy groups implored the Liberals to do so in order to protect children. This bill takes action. This bill does so.

Our constituents are asking us to take these measures without delay to make Canadian streets safer. I am asking all parliamentarians to look at the record of what has been done and look at the work that has gone into this bill, the tackling violent crime act. I ask each member to consider the safety of our streets, our communities and our children and to pass this bill as quickly as possible from this place. I also ask the senators to not allow, as we saw in the last Parliament, our criminal justice legislation to be bogged down in the Senate but to allow for a quick study and quick passage of what is a very important bill that is long overdue.

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

Mr. Speaker, my colleague from the other side said that the bill was bogged down in the Senate. I just want to set the record straight. Of the six bills that were not passed by the summer break, four reached the Senate but only in May, and two reached the Senate in June. It was impossible for the Senate to pass the bills in a matter of a couple of weeks at the most.

Therefore, It is really not correct to say that these bills were held up in the Senate. The member's government prorogued Parliament and the Senate did not have any time to deal with these bills.

Would the hon. member agree that the record shows that of the six bills the government had on justice in the last Parliament, four went to the Senate but only at the end of the session and that his government prorogued Parliament?

[Rob Moore, Conservative, Fundy Royal, NB]

Mr. Speaker, what I will confirm for the hon. member is what we all saw, even in this House, where our Prime Minister and our justice minister called on the leader of his party, the leader of the Liberal Party, to encourage senators to stop delaying our criminal justice legislation.

It is a matter for the public to see. The public can see the Debates of the Senate just as they can our Debates. They know that these various bills and previous criminal justice bills were delayed in the Senate for literally hundreds of days, away from the eyes of Canadians and away from the debate that takes place in this House which is the most accessible to everyday Canadians.

Canadians are sometimes under the misconception that when a bill passes the House of Commons then it becomes law but in fact it does not. It goes to the Senate, which is where the leader of the Liberal Party refused to, or was unable to, encourage Liberal senators to give swift consideration and passage of the criminal justice legislation.

It brings into question a broader issue. It is not only acting swiftly now but why now? Why is it that over the last decade action was not taken to get tough on people who commit gun crimes? Why was action not taken in the face of pleas from city mayors and from provinces to introduce a reverse onus on bail? Why was there no action taken on raising the age of protection where Canada had a lower age of protection than other jurisdictions?

We do not know why the Liberal government that preceded us was so ineffective in addressing criminal justice issues. What we do know is that our government has been very aggressive. It has taken its clear direction and marching orders from the Canadian people who have said that they want to have a criminal justice system that works, that they want to get tougher on individuals who are recidivists and who are increasingly becoming the problem, that they want to provide opportunities for those who want to get out of a life of crime, and that they want to provide opportunities for those who are addicted to drugs or to alcohol. We are doing all those things. We are bringing in measures to the Criminal Code to update the code to better protect Canadians. I do not know who could possibly be against that.

The one thing Canadians are telling us to do is to get on with the work that we need to do, which is what I am hoping all members will do with the tackling violent crime act.

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

Mr. Speaker, I listened very carefully to the speech of the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice. I hope he will listen to me very carefully as well.

I have a problem with the bill. Yes, the Bloc Québécois will vote in favour of this bill. Nonetheless, two things bother me about it. Will the government address them?

My first point is this. Does the government realize that it is not by passing tougher laws with minimum sentences that we are going to reduce crime? Does the government realize that getting out of prison, not going to prison, is the problem? Convicts do not serve their entire sentence. That is the problem. Does this government realize that? Is this heading anywhere?

Since I do not have enough time to ask another question, I will go on to my second point, on former Bill C-32. The parliamentary secretary knows that I sat on the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights. As a criminal lawyer, I have one question: do we have the tools? In fact, does the department have the tools? Do the police have the tools to detect whether drivers are impaired by drugs? That is the problem with former bill C-32. Now, it is being lumped into Bill C-2. What is going to be done? Is there anything planned? Has anything been implemented or do we have to adopt the bill to see what happens?

I will close by saying that my primary concern is whether this government understands that getting out of prison, not going to prison, is the problem. Criminals are released too quickly. That is what people are complaining about.

[Rob Moore, Conservative, Fundy Royal, NB]

Mr. Speaker, I listened with interest to the hon. member's question. This has always struck me. In the last election campaign, the New Democratic Party, the Liberal Party and the Conservative Party called for an increase in mandatory minimum penalties for gun crimes. The parties said to the voters that if they elected them, they would bring in mandatory minimum penalties for those who committed a crime with a firearm.

In fact, the Liberal platform called for a doubling of the mandatory minimum penalties, which in some cases would have resulted in an eight year mandatory minimum penalty. However, Canadians have learned not to believe what they hear from the Liberals.

After the election, when we brought in a bill to bring in mandatory minimum penalties for gun crimes, all we received was obstruction and opposition from Liberals on what we had proposed. It was in effect an incremental change, moving from a four year minimum to a five year minimum on a repeat offence. Someone commits a crime with a firearm is caught by the police, is convicted in a court, is sentenced, serves some time, then gets out and commits another crime with a firearm. Who could argue that this individual should not receive a tougher sentence?

I will address the hon. member's other question dealing with drug recognizance experts. We have put it in place what is necessary for police officers to have the tools they require. Police asked us for the legislative measures contained in the bill.

[Ron Cannan, Conservative, Kelowna—Lake Country, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for bringing forth Bill C-2, the tackling violent crime act. My constituents of Kelowna—Lake Country have specifically supported our position with regard to the age of consent to look after the youth in our community.

As a member of city council for nine years prior to being elected in January 2006 to the House, I know our mayor and council had sent several letters to the previous Liberal government, but it did not get the job done.

Why did the opposition not support it in the past and why is it stalled in the Liberal dominated Senate? The fact is the bill has been debated and we need to get it passed. Canadians have asked for it and the time has come.

[Rob Moore, Conservative, Fundy Royal, NB]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for his work on behalf of his constituents on justice issues.

On the issue of the age of protection, I cannot answer for the negligence of the members opposite over their 13 years in government for not passing legislation that would raise the age of protection so our most vulnerable, our children, would be protected from adult sexual predators.

We know that groups such as Beyond Borders and child exploitation groups are advocating for the protection of children. For years they have been calling on us to raise the age of protection. This bill does that. Let us get on with passing it.

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

Mr. Speaker, before I begin to speak to Bill C-2, I have to address my hon. colleague's contradictory comments about the lack of mandatory minimums. On the one hand, he lambasted the Liberal Party for not wanting mandatory minimums. On the other hand, he said very clearly that we had them and we called for a strengthening of them.

When the member for Mount Royal was the justice minister, he introduced mandatory minimums for weapons offences. That was a good thing. That is why we support Bill C-2. We have been trying to drive forward much of what is in the legislation. Ironically, we have been obstructed by the government.

I will go through the facts. Unfortunately, in the House one could look at the old adage that “in war, truth is the first casualty”. What we have here is war by another name. Sometimes truth is the first casualty in the House of Commons, and that is sad for the public.

Let me talk about the facts for a minute and give viewers a bit of history on the bill.

Bill C-2 is an omnibus bill involving a combination of five bills, including mandatory minimum penalties. We support mandatory minimum penalties. I caution the government, however, to ensure that the mandatory minimum penalties for weapons offences, violent offences and sexual offences cannot be plea bargained away and that they run consecutively and not concurrently. Too many times people who have committed serious offences receive penalties that get plea bargained away, so there is no effective penalty.

We also support an increase in mandatory minimums for weapons trafficking. My colleague from Mount Royal introduced many mandatory minimums for these offences in the last Parliament.

The Liberal Party supports the provisions for dangerous offenders, impaired driving and reverse onus in firearms offences. Many years ago there really was no penalty for a person using a weapon in the commission of an offence. That was changed by the last government. The Liberal Party supports the changes in Bill C-2.

Let me talk for a few moments about a few facts around the passage of the bill.

On October 26, 2006, our Liberal leader made a first offer to fast track a package of justice bills in the House, including Bill C-9, as it had been amended, Bill C-18, the DNA identification legislation, Bill C-19, the street racing legislation, Bill C-22, the age of consent legislation, Bill C-23, the animal cruelty legislation and Bill C-26, respecting payday loans. We also added Bill C-35, on March 14 of this year, a bill for bail reform, and we support that.

On March 21, we attempted to use our opposition day to pass the government's four justice bills: Bill C-18, Bill C-22, Bill C-23 and Bill C-35. The Conservative House leader raised a procedural point of order to block the motion. Those four government bills would have been fast tracked through this place in the same day, yet the government House leader, for reasons unknown to us and the public, blocked this. Those are facts.

What has been the path of government justice bills through the Senate? Of the six justice bills that had been passed before the summer break, only four went to the Senate. How on earth could the Senate pass bills that it just received prior to the government proroguing Parliament? It could not do that. It is disingenuous for government members to stand and suggest that the Senate was trying to block their bills. By the time the Senate received the bills, the government closed Parliament. Those are the facts. Anybody can check them out if they wish.

We support Bill C-2. However, I want to bore down on a few dangerous issues that the government is pursuing. One deals with the issue of drug trafficking. The government has said that it will increase the penalties for those who traffic in drugs.

There are two populations of traffickers.

There are those parasites in society who are involved in commercial grow operations, frequently attached to organized crime. We should throw the book at them. Those people are a cancer in our society and they deserve to be in jail.

There is another population that will be swept up in the government's anti-trafficking bill. It is the low level dealers who sell small amounts of illegal drugs to people, but they themselves are addicts. In essence, they are selling drugs to pay for their addictions.

If we criminalize people who have addiction problems and throw them in jail, they come out being hardened criminals. We also do not deal with the underlying problem, which we will have at the end of the day when they come out. In effect, we increase public insecurity and costs to the taxpayer. We do not address the underlying problem and we make our streets less safe. That is stupid, not to put too fine a point on it.

If the government goes through with the bill to criminalize people who are addicts, the low level people buying and selling drugs, it will end up with the situation we see south of the border, which has used a war on drugs approach. It has proven to be an abysmal failure.

What we see south of the border is a view of the future for us if the government pursues its course of action. There have been increased rates of both soft and hard drugs use, increased numbers of people have been incarcerated, increased costs to the taxpayer and more violent crime. Society loses.

The government ought to work with the provinces to implement solutions that address some of the underlying problems.

I will get to the organized crime aspects in a moment.

For the drug problems, I cannot overemphasize what a disaster this will be. The government has been warned of this by people across the country.

Let us take two projects, in particular, that have been extremely effective in dealing with people who have intravenous drug use problems. Both of them are found in Vancouver and championed by Dr. Julio Montaner and Dr. Thomas Kerr, superb physicians and research scientists, who have underneath them the Insite supervised injection program and the NAOMI project.

The supervised injection program is a place where addicts can go to a supervised setting and take the drugs they are given. What has that done? It has reduced harm, put more people into treatment, reduced crime and saved the taxpayer money. Fewer people have gone to emergency and there has been less dependence on our health care system. It works.

The other project I would recommend we pursue is the NAOMI project. Before I get to it, I point out that in the eleventh hour the government extended Insite's ability to engage in its program up until June 2008.

All the evidence published from The Lancet to The New England Journal of Medicine shows, without a shadow of a doubt, that the Insite supervised injection program saves lives, reduces crime and gets people into treatment. It is good for public security and it saves the taxpayer money. Why extend it to only eight months?

If the government gets a majority, it will kill the program. That, in short, will be murder. The government knows full well the program saves lives. To remove that program, would result in, essentially, the killing of people.

A program that works better, which the government does not support but ought to expand, is the NAOMI project. The NAOMI project deals with hard-core narcotics abusers. These people are over the age of 26. They have had five years of drug addictions and two failed attempts at treatment. They are the hard nuts of intravenous drug use.

The NAOMI project took 243 addicts and randomized them into three populations. One population received intravenous heroine, the other one received intravenous dilaudid, which is a prescription narcotic that is legal, and the third was to take oral methadone, which is a weak narcotic.

What happened to those populations? Of the population on IV drugs, more than 85% of people were still taking those drugs, receiving treatment and counselling, getting their lives together, obtaining skills training and being able to live while not being on the street and not engaging in criminal behaviour to feed their addictions. Of the third population, the ones in the methadone program, 50% of people were still in treatment after a year. It works.

What the government should be doing for both Insite as well as NAOMI, is expanding those programs across our country. Our urban centres need it.

In Victoria there are 1,243 people living on the street, 60% of which have what we call dual diagnoses, which means some of them have both a drug problem and a psychiatric problem. I would also add that some people within that population have had brain injuries in the past and have fallen into the terrible spiral of drug use by being on the street. Those people could be you or I, Mr. Speaker, who one day fall off a ladder or get into a car accident, sustain a significant closed head injury, have major cerebral trauma and as a result their lives are affected forever.

Some of those people are on the street and take drugs. Do we throw those people in jail? Do we throw the psychiatric patient, who is dealing to pay for his or her addiction, in jail? That is what would happen with the bill that the government has introduced. Those people need medical treatment. They do not need to be in jail.

My plea to the government, to the Minister of Health, the Minister of Justice and the Prime Minister is to bury their ideology, follow the facts and implement the solutions that will help people with addictions, keep our streets safe, and reduce costs to the taxpayers. It is a win-win situation for all concerned.

The interesting thing about the NAOMI project is that because NAOMI actually gave the drug to an individual who was proven to be an addict, that person did not have to go on the street to get the drugs. If that were done in a broader sense, it would be horrific to organized crime that benefits from this situation because the NAOMI project severs the tie between the addict and organized crime. That is what we need to do.

Organized crime would be horrified if a forward thinking government one day were to enable drug addicts to receive their drugs. Doing that enables addicts to get into the treatment programs that they need. It enables them to detoxify, obtain addiction counselling, skills training and the psychiatric therapy they need. If we do not do that, we will not make a dent in what we see on the ground. There will not be any affect on addictions and it will actually increase the criminal population in our country.

The other side of this coin, of course, deals with organized crime gangs, as I mentioned, the parasites and cancer in our society. These parasites are essentially people in $3,000 suits who benefit from a substance that is nearly worthless but has a value well beyond what it ought to have because it is illegal.

I have a bill on the order paper that would decriminalize the simple possession of marijuana. No one condones anybody using marijuana, everybody wants to prevent people from using it, and everyone certainly encourages children not to use this or any other illegal drug. The fact of the matter is that people do use it and a significant percentage of Canadians have used it at one time in their lives, particularly when they were very young.

Do we throw those people in jail? Do we throw an 18-year-old who has a joint in his or her back pocket in jail? Do we throw an 18-year-old in jail who exchanges or sells or gives a couple of marijuana cigarettes to a friend? That would be trafficking under the government's bill. Do we throw that 18-year-old in jail? Do we give an 18-year-old a criminal record, which is what we have today, affecting his or her ability to work or gain employment and have access to professional facilities for the rest of his or her life? Is that a humane way to deal with our population? It is not.

The worst news for organized crime, in my personal view, would be that marijuana is legal and regulated. It is not to say that marijuana is safe. It is not. It is dangerous, but so are alcohol and cigarettes.

If we can imagine today that cigarettes were going to come onto the market and were proposed as being something that ought to be sold today, do we think for a moment that they would be allowed, with all the cancer, respiratory and cardiac problems that cigarettes cause? No, they would not be, and neither in fact would alcohol. Alcohol would not be allowed today either, for all of the damage it does, but the fact of the matter is that cigarettes and alcohol are legal today.

The groups that benefit the most from the status quo, from marijuana being illegal, and it is just a weed with its value elevated well beyond what it ought to be because it is illegal, are the organized crime gangs. They are making billions of dollars off the status quo, and those billions are used to do any number of things including: trafficking of weapons and people, prostitution, embezzlement, fraud and murder. That is what organized crime is involved with.

What the government should be doing is coming up with a more comprehensive plan to deal with the biker gangs and organized criminal gangs who are--

[The Acting Speaker, Andrew Scheer]

The hon. member for Selkirk--Interlake on a point of order.

[James Bezan, Conservative, Selkirk—Interlake, MB]

Mr. Speaker, we are debating Bill C-2. This is third reading where we should be specifically discussing the points of the bill. The member has just proven that he is filibustering and helping out the opposition parties in trying to delay the passage of Bill C-2. I ask that he gets back on topic and discusses the bill that is before us right now.

[The Acting Speaker, Andrew Scheer]

The hon. member for Selkirk--Interlake brings up a good point. I just requested a copy of Bill C-2. The member's remarks are dealing specifically with issues around illegal narcotics. I believe that is a different government bill that has been introduced, so I will just remind the hon. member for Esquimalt--Juan de Fuca to keep his remarks confined to Bill C-2 which is before us.

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

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. For my friend's information, if I were going to be filibustering, I would be using more than 20 minutes, but I have 20 minutes and he can certainly ask questions after that.

However, these issues are extremely important because this bill has to do with tackling violent crime. The relevance to what I am saying is that organized crime is actually a purveyor of an awful lot of violent crime in our country. What the member should do, with his government, is to work with us in developing a comprehensive plan to deal with organized crime. It is the real parasite in our society that we have to address.

In dealing with this, I also want to talk about a drug policy that works because it is attached to organized crime and putting up posters, as the government wants to do, is not going to affect change.

I can tell members, from working in many clinics where violence and drug use is endemic, that simply putting up posters on clinic walls or in communities is not going to stop people from taking drugs.

What works? I have said probably 100 times in the House that if the government wanted to prevent drug use and reduce youth crime, as an example, it would support the headstart program for children.

The headstart program for children is something the police have asked for. It is essentially a program where children and parents come together in a classroom once every week for a couple of hours to talk about the harm of drugs, the harm of alcohol, and to talk about literacy, and about proper eating and proper parenting. All of that can be done and should be done. The headstart program for children would save the taxpayers $7 for every dollar invested and reduce youth crime by 60%.

I implore the government to adopt the headstart program, have a rational drug policy, listen to the scientists, follow the facts and bury its ideology, and we will have a safer country for all.

[Ron Cannan, Conservative, Kelowna—Lake Country, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I want to clarify a question that I asked my colleague earlier. As I mentioned, when I was spending nine years at city council pushing for the age of protection legislation, our mayor and council wrote several letters to the previous government. The member had commented about us being disingenuous.

I am wondering as the member had said he supported and always wanted to get this legislation changed. He had 13 years to get it done. Could the hon. member answer why he did not change the legislation, if he was so passionate about this in his government?

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

Mr. Speaker, I was only in the previous government. I cannot answer for governments before that, but I can certainly speak about the evidence. The evidence shows that, in the bills that we have and I will go back to my previous comments, on the age of consent, on October 26, 2006, we pushed the existing government and offered to fast-track the age of consent legislation. At that time it was Bill C-22 but the government refused to do that. The government can answer that question as to why it did not push that forward over a year ago and allow it to go at that time.