Bill C-15 (Historical)

An Act to amend the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act and to make related and consequential amendments to other Acts

This enactment amends the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act to provide for minimum penalties for serious drug offences, to increase the maximum penalty for cannabis (marihuana) production and to reschedule certain substances from Schedule III to that Act to Schedule I.
As well, it requires that a review of that Act be undertaken and a report submitted to Parliament.
The enactment also makes related and consequential amendments to other Acts.

Controlled Drugs and Substances Act

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

There is plea bargaining; I understand that. If we want to talk about what happens in the real world, in the courts, we will see examples of where they will sacrifice prosecuting some low-level participant in criminal activity for an opportunity to get at the bigger kingpins, as it were.

There are all kinds of these things out there and people have to understand that. I am not a lawyer and I am not an expert in the courts, but I can say as a layperson that if we are dealing with an indictable offence that is subject to imprisonment for life and we say that we are going to also add a mandatory minimum of one year, that tells me that this life thing is not real. Why did the government members not explain that? They have to explain it.

There is a reason I want to speak to this bill. The member for Moncton--Riverview--Dieppe mentioned something about my age and that I have been around a long time. Well, it has been 15 years, but I have learned a lot.

Back on October 30, 1995 in the 35th Parliament, I stood in this place and gave a 40-minute speech. At the time, lead speakers actually had 40 minutes. I was the chair of the health subcommittee on Bill C-7 regarding the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act. This bill actually started under the former Mulroney government but was never dealt with. It finally came before the 35th Parliament and the subcommittee was set up because it was not just a problem of health; there were justice and criminal issues that had to be addressed. There was a whole bunch of issues within society about decriminalizing marijuana and the advent of designer drugs. All of a sudden, people were getting very clever on how to manufacture drugs which were not even known. They had different chemistries and names and they were not included on the list. As a consequence of second reading debate, we found that it was necessary to expand the list.

A subcommittee was established. The member for Hochelaga was on that committee as well. There were thousands of communications and representations and dozens of submissions and witnesses on broad aspects. One of the important reasons we were doing that is that Canada, which is a signatory to many international conventions, had been identified as having failed to live up to its international obligations and had become basically a shipment point for the export of drugs to other countries. This was a very serious issue. We were under a great deal of pressure. I will refer to that a little later.

When we were finished our work, it was clear that it was important that we not only have a national drug strategy but that we also have the tools and plans to make that drug strategy work. When a drug strategy works, it is not just a matter of someone having done something, whether it be possession or trafficking, being a given a penalty, going to jail and everything is fine; it involves people. There are people involved in drugs at all levels. There are users, traffickers, the people who are financing and everybody in between. People are hurt. Families are hurt.

As has been discussed by a number of members, there is the importance of having some balance, such as a harm reduction strategy. How do we deal with these things? There is the aspect of a four pillar approach: harm reduction, prevention, rehabilitation and treatment, and enforcement. It requires much more.

This bill is simply a proxy for the government to say it is getting tough on crime and there will be a mandatory minimum for terrible crimes. Incidentally, and the government does not tell us this, people are subject to life imprisonment already. It did not go far enough.

As a matter of fact, the other thing government members did not mention in their speeches was proposed section 8 in Bill C-15. Proposed section 8 states:

The court is not required to impose a minimum punishment unless it is satisfied that the offender, before entering a plea, was notified of the possible imposition of a minimum punishment for the offence in question and of the Attorney General’s intention to prove any factors in relation to the offence that would lead to the imposition of a minimum punishment.

In other words, notwithstanding what the bill prescribes, the crown attorney has to give notice before someone enters a plea. There is discretion, in fact, if Parliament passes this bill, notwithstanding what members from the Conservative Party said that it is going to be mandatory and people are going to jail, no, the bill hands it over to the courts, to the crown attorneys, plea bargaining and all of that other stuff.

I should mention that the speech I gave was on October 30, 1995. It was significant in my life, and I think in Canada's life, because that was the day of the last Quebec referendum. That is why there were many people engaged in other things. I was asked to give the lead speech on it.

At the time, we debated, we discussed, and the committee went for over two years to address all the issues and concerns that had been raised at second reading. It went to committee. We started getting feedback from our international partners in terms of dealing with drugs, and Canada was a laggard and needed to do something.

Interestingly, many of the points now raised in this debate are the same issues and points that were raised in 1995.

We could not legislate a number of these things. These were recommendations coming out of the committee. These were pleas on behalf of a committee, and a committee report. It said not only does the bill have to be dealt with, we have to deal with scheduling of drugs and with designer drugs. We have to deal with fortified drug houses, for example, organized crime. We have to deal with rehabilitation and treatment and we have to deal with prevention. We could not put that into a bill because that was beyond the scope of the bill, but we reported on those things.

Still today, the solution to all problems of the government is that if people commit an offence it is throwing them in jail. I suppose that is fine for some, but what is the reality in the courts where people are going through the system and they are being judged with regard to the offences that are being referred to?

Back in 1995, the courts were overcrowded. There was no money for rehabilitation and treatment. There were no resources to have effective prevention programs. There was no comprehensive strategy to address the whole family of problems in the world of drugs. There was a plea by Parliament back in 1995, and the same kinds of problems continue today.

The fastest growing industry in the United States now is the prison industry: building jails. It is a system where if one commits an offence, one goes to jail. They say, “We will squeeze them in there. We will keep building jails. We will start privatizing them.” It is a growth industry. It is the biggest growth industry in the United States.

In a small way we are following that same kind of pattern, that when we have crimes we put people in jail and that takes care of it. However, eventually those people come out of jail, they go back into society. Many of them are repeat offenders.

Our system of justice incorporates the whole principle of rehabilitation, but it does not often work. If there are no resources, how can we expect people to come out of jail with a sense that they did something wrong, it was not a good thing, it hurt a lot of people, their life is going to get fixed up and they are going to have the support to make sure they continue on the straight road.

That is not part of the Conservative philosophy. The Conservatives' philosophy is, “They are criminals. We are putting them in jail and we will throw away the key. We are getting tough on crime.”

I think the country is probably worse off if all we do is continue to throw people in jail without trying to deal with the importance of rehabilitation, treatment and crime prevention. Where are those things?

As the federal government, we can pass laws that can amend the Criminal Code and drug laws. Who enforces those? Who is responsible? The responsibility for dealing with crime on the street is substantively within provincial jurisdictions. They, most of them, are the ones that are responsible for the courts. They are responsible for the programs. They are responsible for most of the jails. We have federal judges, but there are also provincial judges.

If we continue to pass laws that pass on more onerous responsibilities and all they are doing is filling up jails, who is going to pay for it? How are they going to be able to afford to discharge those responsibilities that are thrown at them by the federal level of government?

There has to be a shared responsibility. If the system is going to work, we need a strategy that covers all the possible approaches to dealing with serious crime whether or not there is a possibility of rehabilitation or appropriate treatment to deal with people who have been in the drug system. We have to deal with prevention.

I became a member of Parliament in 1993, and the first committee I was on was the health committee. I remember health officials coming before the health committee to talk about the state of our health system in Canada. They told us at the time that 75% of the money spent in the health system was on fixing health problems, addressing illness, and that only 25% was spent on prevention.

I will never forget it. There were 200 green rookies who had just been elected. Officials came before a committee of Parliament, and they concluded that how we spend our health dollars in Canada, with 25% on prevention and 75% on dealing with problems after we had them, was not sustainable. That has stayed with me all my years as a member of Parliament: the value of prevention versus punishment.

Our health system has tried to move in that direction, and it is very difficult, but I think that a dollar spent on prevention provides much more benefit in terms of better health for Canadians than a dollar spent on fixing problems and cures. We have to deal with it before it happens. That is part of why I wanted to speak on this.

I want the government members to know that I do not have a problem with mandatory minimums conceptually. If the courts are not able to do their jobs for one reason or another, there should at least be some period of incarceration. We need to defend the principles. The Liberals brought in mandatory minimums before the Conservatives. We had mandatory minimums in Canada, though not in all areas. It was not a philosophical thing, but it was not across the board.

However, the government seems to think that all it has to do is bring in 10 or 12 justice bills, prescribe mandatory minimums right across the board and that will tell everybody it is getting tough on crime. All it is really doing is filling up the jails and making angry people who will come right back to society. It is going to get worse, and it has in many cases, although some of the statistics I have seen seem to fly in the face of that in certain areas and for certain types of crime.

If we look at what happens in a period of recession and economic duress, the property crime in Canada goes up. It will track unemployment. It did in the last recession, and it will do so in this one too. That is going to put more stress on the system. We have to learn from history about how this works.

I want to conclude by saying that if the members are going to speak in this place, I do not want them to read the bill or give me all the provisions; I want them to tell me why we are doing this and to tell me the truth, that these provisions have life sentences associated with them.

However, proposed section 8 with regard to mandatory minimums sets conditions and provisions whereby the crown attorney and the people in the courts can basically decide that there will not be a mandatory minimum. Not one of those members said it, because it takes away from their argument that we are getting tough on crime. We are simply delegating that decision to the courts. The bill is not setting mandatory minimums; we are delegating that opportunity to the courts. There is much more that goes on in the courts. The members have not addressed it, and they have not done their jobs.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to participate in the debate on Bill C-15, An Act to amend the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act and to make related and consequential amendments to other Acts.

Government members seem to think all they have to do is come here and list the provisions of a bill and that is their speech, but that does not speak to why the government is doing things. It does not speak to the impact the government is expecting. It does not address what the opposing views may have been and how they have been addressed or how they have been dismissed or how they have been compensated for. When committees handle bills, it is important that they bring back to the House a sense of where they have been on their important journey dealing with issues that are very important to Canadians.

However, the starting point of this bill was flawed in the first place because it was presented as a justice bill. Therefore, members should understand that we are dealing with a justice issue, not in the context of other important elements such as health issues and certain other areas. In fact, it is even narrower than that because it simply is another proxy for the government to say that it is tough on crime because it has brought in mandatory minimums. If we listen to the speeches and read the transcripts of the speeches that government members have given on this bill, they have continued to say that there is going to be a mandatory minimum and people say that is good because the offenders are not getting a penalty otherwise.

Not one of the government members included in his or her speech, and I listened carefully, that all of the offences that are referred to in this bill are subject to penalties of up to life imprisonment. Do members realize that? I do not think a lot of the people who are following the debate realize that. We are talking about very serious criminal offences. We are talking about drug offences and trafficking related to organized crime, utilization of weapons, dealing with these problems in the schools and being plagues on society. These are very serious crimes and they are subject to imprisonment up to life. I will read from the bill itself. This is the justice language, but these are indictable offences and liable to imprisonment for life. It says “for life”. It does not say “up to life”. Members have to read it. It is imprisonment for life. There is judicial discretion.

We are dealing with the most serious crimes. We are dealing with organized crime, those who are the plagues on society who use drug money to finance all other kinds of criminal offences. That is very serious. I suppose that anybody who is going to be charged with an offence related to organized crime is going to get a penalty up to life. If the government prescribes a mandatory minimum of one year, how is that important? Does it not say something? If a mandatory minimum is being put in, then some people are getting no sentence for this serious crime under the existing law. Is that true? I do not think so.

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

Mr. Speaker, I would like to congratulate my colleague, who represents a very difficult riding in the Vancouver area, and has done a tremendous job on the whole issue of narcotics, drugs and diversion programs.

In a perfect world, I would tell her she is right. But since we live a world governed by the Conservatives, who lean to the right, if not the far right, we have a problem on our hands, and that problem is Bill C-15, as my colleague has made clear.

I have just one question for her. I know we are running out of time and I want her to have time to answer. I would like to know what impact this bill could have, not on the penitentiary—and I will come back to that in a moment, since that will have a different impact altogether—but on the provincial court and provincial detention centres in her riding in the Vancouver, British Columbia area.

What impact will this bill's enforcement have on the provincial court and the provincial detention centres?

[Libby Davies, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise in the House today to debate the final stage of Bill C-15, which I am sorry we are doing. I am very disappointed that the Liberal members moved a motion to prevent any further extension of the debate. They have obviously done that very consciously because they, like the Conservatives, want to see this bill go through. They do not want to deal with any of the controversy around this bill, so that is very disappointing. Nevertheless here we are at third reading and I do have some comments to make about the bill, why it is seriously flawed and why we are opposing it.

I want to begin by saying that, as the Conservative member mentioned, I represent a riding, Vancouver East, where we have had a very serious drug problem. When I first was elected in 1997, I think the first issue I dealt with was that so many people were dying from overdoses that were entirely preventable.

The rate was alarming. It was higher than heart attacks, strokes, cancer or accidental deaths. It was from drug use and it was because people were buying substances on the black market, such as heroin, crack and various cocktails, and people did not know what they were taking. Sometimes something would hit the streets and it would be deadly, and we would have seven people dying over several days. It was one of the first issues I dealt with and it became literally a life and death issue that I felt compelled, as a newly elected member of Parliament, to deal with.

When I look back 12 years ago, at that time it would have been very easy to take this traditional response to substance use problems in our society, to say that we have to crack down, we have to get tougher and we have to have tougher laws. As I began talking with people in my own community, when I began speaking with doctors and health experts, when I began talking with drug users themselves who rarely get heard because they are very vilified and demonized in our society, I began to realize that the whole regime of our drug laws, the enforcement and the way it happens, is actually, in many cases, more harmful than the drugs themselves.

Criminalizing drug users continually and pushing people to the margins of society where they can get very little help and where they are outside the health care system was actually creating a worse situation in terms of the individual health of drug users, where we had a skyrocketing rate of HIV, AIDS and hepatitis C. It was the worst in the western world. It was an epidemic in the downtown east side, but it was also affecting the whole community in terms of crime and a lack of feeling safe. It really affected the overall health of the community.

It was at that point that I began to realize that the approach we had traditionally taken in Canada, which was very similar to that in the United States, was a failure. Many of us began to look further, to what was happening in Europe, to see where very different strategies had been tried in dealing with substance use, where there were, for example, safe injections sites and a much broader continuum of dealing with drug use as a health issue and focusing on that. There was enforcement as well, but it was primarily focused on it being a health issue.

Europe had, for example, a heroin medication program for chronic users, where instead of people having to buy their heroin on the black market, they could actually get a prescription and go through rehabilitation. There are tons of studies on this to show that what happened in Europe over many years had a very different impact than what was happening in the United States and Canada.

I became very convinced that the so-called war on drugs and emphasizing a law enforcement approach was really a very failed strategy. As the member for Hochelaga pointed out, this was very much reinforced by the Auditor General's report in 1998 or 1999, which showed that 90% of federal costs on drug policy were actually spent on enforcement, to no effect. She questioned what the value was and what kind of rationale was behind these policies.

I thought for a while that we were making progress in this Parliament when we adopted the four-pillar approach. It began in Vancouver, led by big city mayors. It began with the former mayor of Vancouver, Philip Owen.

It was continued by the successive mayor, Larry Campbell. It was a municipal grassroots approach. It began in the local community because we needed a different approach to drug policies in this country. So the four-pillar approach, based on prevention, treatment, harm reduction and enforcement, was adopted, and it was beginning to move across the country.

I thought we really were beginning to make some progress and people were beginning to want to have an honest debate about drug policies and recognize that prohibition itself is an issue that we need to examine and take on, and that prohibition, just as we saw in the 1930s with alcohol, where it fueled organized crime, where it fueled increased violence that had an impact on innocent civilians, is exactly what we are seeing today in these gang wars that are taking place in Vancouver.

Then a Conservative government was elected and we embarked on this mad journey of a crime agenda that is so closely associated with what we have seen in the United States that I find it frightening. To me, it is not based on any sound public policy analysis. It is not based on any evidence. It is based on some sort of ideology and plays on people's fear, because there is fear about drug use.

All of us as parents worry about what happens to our kids when they are in school and whether they are being lured by dealers. These are all fears that we have about safety in our community, but what I find really difficult, because it is so politicized now and so politically motivated, is to lure people with the idea that by bringing in tougher and tougher laws that we are somehow solving the problem.

That is the problem with the bill. It is based on the premise that mandatory minimum sentences for drug crimes will improve the situation that we see in our local communities, that it will help our kids, that it will help drug users, that it will help deal with big kingpins, the big traffickers, the dealers that people worry about.

I believe we have a responsibility as members of Parliament to actually examine that question and to ask ourselves, is that the right direction? Is that the right route to take?

I began with the Minister of Justice and asked him to please show us the evidence that mandatory minimums work, because everything I had seen coming out of the United States was telling us that they do not work. In fact, many of the states are now repealing, have repealed or are about to repeal their mandatory minimums.

So I thought, if we have a Conservative government that wants to take us down this road, at least let us see the evidence that the government has that it will work. Let us see the evidence and the estimates of what it would cost the judicial system. How many more people would it put in jail? What would be the cost to the provincial and territorial system?

However, the minister could not answer that. All he could say was that Canadians had told him that they wanted this to happen.

I felt very dissatisfied by that answer. I thought it was a very pathetic answer, and it really exposed the lack of analysis and substance that brought this bill forward.

In committee, we heard from some pretty remarkable witnesses. We heard from 16 witnesses, 13 of whom were strongly opposed to the bill and to mandatory minimums. In fact, the executive director of the John Howard Society forwarded the committee information about 35 studies, and he actually produced 17 of them, that showed that mandatory minimum sentences do not work in this area. We had overwhelming evidence showing that this is a very failed approach.

I feel that we are at a point now where it is just pretty awful that the bill will go through. I have been listening to the Liberal members, scratching my head and wondering, what on earth are they thinking? Why are they trying to fool us? Why are they trying to fool the Canadian public that by somehow lining up with the Conservatives on the bill they are doing the right thing?

I know there are individual members there who probably do not agree with this bill. We just heard from the member for Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca who did introduce a bill on decriminalization of marijuana, which I very much support.

The bill is going in the complete opposite direction. I do not know how the member, or other members who I know have a similar view can, in any good conscience, can support this.

We know from the experience in the United States, contrary to what the Conservatives tell us, the bill is not levelled at the big kingpins. It is levelled at the low level dealers. It is levelled at the users who also deal because that is part of the cycle.

The idea that minimum sentences would be a deterrence to these folks is completely false. We have so much evidence to show that they are no deterrence at all. All minimum sentences will do is put more people in jail, people who already deal with substance use issues and need medical and social support, treatment and rehabilitation, and good housing.

We have to figure out why people become addicted and how to help them out of that. The government cannot just throw out a bill and give a six month sentence to one person and a three year sentence to another. People will be thrown into a system and will come out even worse.

The Canadian HIV-AIDS legal network recently produced a report about the lack of accessibility to harm reduction practices in our prison system, whether it is needle exchange or health support, which is truly shocking. People are being put into an environment and coming out much worse than when they went in.

The bill is completely harmful in its consequences. I really believe that it should be defeated, and that is why, from day one, the NDP made it clear that we thought it should be defeated.

I want to deal with some of the issues that have been brought forward.

There has been a suggestion in the debate that if we do not support the bill, there will not be any enforcement. It has been suggested that the bill is about bringing in an enforcement regime and that what we have is not working. There is no evidence of that.

Bill C-15 proposes to amend the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act. In the current act, trafficking, as I pointed out earlier, is already subject to life imprisonment, so is importing and exporting and production for the purposes of trafficking.

There is already a whole set of aggravating circumstances contained in the CDSA similar to Bill C-15. The courts already have the legal tools to use aggravating circumstances, whether it is carried use, or threaten to use a weapon, or the use of violence, or being near a school ground, or a previous conviction or the use of the services of a person under the age of 18 years to commit or involve such a person in the commission of a designated substance offence. These already exist in the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act.

I come back to the fundamental question that has to be answered by the government. Why are the Conservatives introducing a regime of mandatory minimums when there is no evidence showing that they will work? In fact to the contrary, this will only make it worse.

The Conservative member for Edmonton—St. Albert said in committee, after we had heard from the John Howard Society and the Civil Liberties Association:

I suppose I will accept the representation made from the John Howard Society and the Civil Liberties Association that this bill is targeted to the so-called low-level distributor or low-level dealer. You may be correct that it may not be as effective as we would like in going after the kingpins. I may accept that.

Conservative members know what the bill is about. Even though they say publicly that this legislation goes after the big guys, that it will make us all safe, because the bill is so broad and because it will capture so many people, they know it will be low level distributors, many of whom are also users, who will be caught.

I would argue that is why the Conservatives included a small aspect in the bill around drug treatment courts. They want to give people the idea that at least there is some alternative regime to allow people to go through a drug treatment court.

The big kingpins, the big drug dealers are not going through drug treatment courts. They are the ones who negotiate their way out of anything. They are the ones who have the resources to do that. The people who go to the drug treatment courts are the poorest of the poor. They are the people who are visible on the street. This is very much a class issue as well.

Drug use exists at every level of society, whether it is lawyers or professionals, but the visibility of what we see is on the street. That is where the enforcement is being levelled and that is where people are being sent into these drug treatment courts.

The evidence of the drug treatment courts is very mixed. I have serious problems with them. If we believe people should get help, why would we wait until they are convicted and then ask them if they would like get some treatment? Part of treatment is to make an early intervention. If we wait until people are all the way through the justice system and then say that we will help them is a completely ridiculous way to organize a continuum of support and help required for people who face addiction issues.

The Liberals are very much hanging their hat on the drug treatment courts, saying that they are going to go after the drug treatment courts, that we need more of them. However, they are very controversial as to whether they are working.

I would also like to read into the record what the Minister of Public Safety said when he appeared before the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security back in April of this year. He said:

Why is it that we're having to convert our prison system into a mental health hospital system? Why is it that people are ending up in prisons who shouldn't be? The fundamental problem is this. Why are we not getting adequate health care to individuals? Why, when they have their first couple of encounters with the courts, do they still not get adequate health care?

Understanding how you get there is important, because by the time someone has had serious enough problems that they're in the federal penitentiary system, it's pretty hard to put the puzzle back together again. What we want to do is find ways to deal with it well before that happens, and that's better for society. It's better for the individuals involved; it's better for the taxpayers; it's better for our prison system....

There are so many contradictions. On the one hand, the minister himself is questioning why so many people are being sent into incarceration who really should not be there. On the other hand, we have this draconian bill.

I did call it radical. I believe mandatory minimum sentences are a radical approach that has been shown not to work. We will be sending more and more people into the justice system where they are not going to get the help they need and they are not even going to get the help they need from the drug treatment courts.

The bill will go through. I am very glad that at least the NDP was able to get through a couple of amendments, one of which was to have a review of the bill within two years. I hope there will be enough of us around, and I am sure there will be a strong NDP contingent here, to ensure the bill is reviewed. We will do it very objectively, and as the member for Windsor—Tecumseh says, if necessary, have it repealed. That is very important. We were glad we were able to get through one amendment to provide an exemption for one to five plants.

At the end of the day, this is probably the worst crime bill the Conservatives have brought forward. It has no evidence to support it. It is purely driven by a political agenda. It is going to hurt people. It is going to send more people into our prison system. It is not going to solve our substance use issues in local communities or nationally. It is going to drive us down the road where the U.S. went, which has been the most colossal failure that we could imagine, financially, politically and in terms of its justice system.

That is where we are headed with the bill. It is a huge mistake. I am very glad the NDP is voting against it. I appreciate that the Bloc is voting against it also, but I wish the other parties would too.

[Réal Ménard, Bloc, Hochelaga, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to make a friendly remark before addressing the actual substance of Bill C-15, which is extremely important because it will implement the Conservative government's anti-drug strategy.

When I was first elected to this House, people said that when the Liberals were in power, they governed like the Conservatives, and when they were in opposition, they behaved like the NDP. Today, listening to my colleague talk about Bill C-15, I learned that Conservative policies haunt the Liberals, whether they form the government or the opposition.

That being said, this is an extremely important bill that is very disappointing. First of all, we have been hearing a lot of rhetoric from certain members suggesting that, if we seek some sort of alternative to minimum sentences and misguided crackdowns, it means we are going easy on organized crime in our communities. This kind of insinuation makes it extremely difficult to properly debate the issue.

The Bloc Québécois is against minimum sentences. We have maintained that position from the beginning of our existence, and I will explain why. We oppose such sentences, unlike certain parties who say they are against them but voted in favour of Bill C-268. I imagine my NDP colleague will want to explain that when he gets a chance to speak, which will be soon.

We are opposed to minimum sentences and I will explain why. We do not, however, need any lectures about the need for vigilance against organized crime. I myself was the first member to introduce an anti-gang bill in this House, at a time when bombs were going off in Montreal, there were gang wars going on, and yet the elected representatives and officials of the government of the day were saying that there was no need for any new legislation and that organized crime could be broken up using the provisions on conspiracy.

That said, the Bloc Québécois is also responsible for the successful abolition of the $1000 bill, which was obviously a favourite of major organized crime syndicates. The former Bloc member for Charlesbourg, Richard Marceau, was the one who, in the dying days of the Martin regime, convinced the government to pass legislation reversing the burden of proof in connection with the proceeds of crime. I myself put forward a motion in the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights that would be instrumental in cracking down on the most criminal groups, one of whom of course is the Hells Angels.

So we have an impressive record that is clear evidence of our commitment, our vigilance and our desire to always foil organized crime and to keep our legislation up to date, since it is well known that organized crime is a constantly evolving phenomenon.

The government's problem is its ideological stubbornness, which is so deeply rooted that it sees everything in black and white. The Liberals, unfortunately, are no different in this respect.

Of course, when it is a matter of major drug trafficking networks, no one in this House would object to tough penalties. I am in favour of them and so, I am sure, are all my colleagues. If an individual gets involved in major organized crime and is involved in drug imports or exports, this has harmful effects on the legitimate economy of our communities and on the members of the community who get involved with these substances. We agree that the penalties need to be as tough as possible.

We do, however, believe that in the administration of these penalties there is a certain phenomenon at play. A judge assesses the context, and then has total freedom to reach his decision after having heard and absorbed all of the evidence, heard the witnesses, and of course examined the text of the law. That phenomenon is called judicial discretion.

The problem with this government is that, for basically ideological reasons, it has embraced mandatory minimum sentences. When the Minister of Justice appeared before the committee, my colleague from Vancouver and I asked him, notwithstanding the fact that mandatory minimum sentences were part of the Conservative election platform, whether anyone from his department had assessed their impact. In other words, is there a correlation between including mandatory minimum sentences in the Criminal Code and the deterrent effect sought and eventually observed? The answer is no. And yet, since becoming Minister of Justice, like his predecessor, he has been unable to provide studies that show conclusive evidence in support of mandatory minimum sentences.

Not only are mandatory minimum sentences an illusory ideology, but they also have an adverse effect on the administration of justice. In what way? Justice Paradis, a former judge from Vancouver who does not speak one word of French, told us that when he was on the bench and had to hear cases, minimum mandatory sentences made him uncomfortable. He also told us that when attorneys have to lay charges involving a mandatory minimum sentence that will tie the judge's hands, they prefer to choose other charges.

It was not the Bloc or the member for Hochelaga or our NDP colleagues who said that, but a retired judge who appeared before the committee.

I hope that we will eventually see the day when the Conservative government does away with its ideological dogma. Why not provide police officers with more tools? Every time our party has had the chance, it has supported putting more police officers in communities, broadening electronic surveillance and giving police forces more sophisticated investigative mandates. We agree that we need to fight organized crime and that we need a number of tools to do it. But we will not win by instituting mandatory minimum sentences.

The bill before us addresses trafficking. One kind of trafficking that is easy to condemn involves networks of people who import and export drugs. Often, seizures produce tens of kilos of cocaine and other controlled substances. The people involved are linked to organized crime, such as the Hells Angels and other similar groups seeking to profit from illegal activity and corrupt our society. But if four students get together to celebrate the end of classes and one of them has a joint that he or she passes on to another, according to the letter of the law, that constitutes a drug trafficking violation.

That can set in motion a mandatory minimum sentencing mechanism. For example, with respect to drug trafficking, thanks to God and the members who supported the amendment, the committee managed to get rid of the mandatory minimum sentence for trafficking in controlled substances if the person charged is in possession of fewer than five plants. A six-month minimum sentence still applies if the person is in possession of between 5 and 201 plants. Clearly, that is excessive. Those of us who are against mandatory minimum sentencing agree that just because three students have a little marijuana, that mechanism does not necessarily have to apply. That does not mean that we are inviting our fellow citizens to use marijuana. The Bloc Québécois is not suggesting that marijuana is part of Canada's food guide.

We know it is a drug, it can create dependency, and this is not desirable in a person’s life. Of course, we hope, and we sincerely call for there to be awareness campaigns to prevent any kind of drug use. However, the prohibition route is really not the one we should be going down.

In fact, in that committee, when we considered Bill C-15, we also heard from law enforcement officials from the United States, and in particular Washington, who offered the example of New York. When we look at the American example, the results we see are striking. In terms of the administration of justice, the United States was the first to go down the mandatory minimum sentence road. But the states that have adopted mandatory minimum sentences are not the states that have won the war on drugs. There is no correlation between mandatory minimum sentences and winning the war on drugs. So as a society, we do better to put our efforts into awareness when we are dealing with something like trafficking in small quantities.

We should remember that on the last day of the Paul Martin government, this Parliament failed to adopt an alternative approach to penalties for marijuana offences. Once again, I would repeat that I have never smoked either cigarettes or marijuana, and that is not something I feel a need for in my life. But as a society, should we be putting offences relating to cannabis and marijuana and offences involving trafficking in large quantities, engaged in by groups like the Hells Angels, on the same plane in the offence scheme? That is where the bill makes no sense. We would have liked to see this distinction made.

For example, on the last day of the Paul Martin government, the Bloc Québécois had introduced this itself in this Chamber, and it was the member for Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie who led the charge. And lead it he did. He is a very active member and he is much loved by his constituents. He is the green conscience of our party, and the connection between his green conscience and all the battles he leads can be seen.

So when we are looking at small quantities of marijuana, we would have hoped to see an offence scheme adopted that favoured fines over criminal penalties. In fact, in a few days, we will be tabling a report by the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights about driving while intoxicated. Without disclosing the recommendations, which are confidential, I can say that our committee will be proposing a somewhat less enforcement-oriented approach than is now contained in the Criminal Code.

It is too bad this government did not heed the alarm sounded by extremely knowledgeable witnesses such as Line Beauchesne, a professor of criminology at the University of Ottawa. She reminded us that since the mid-19th century, the federal government has taken a prohibitionist approach. The government thought that the sanctions in the Criminal Code would deter people. That prohibitionist logic has not worked.

Obviously, that does not mean that I hope we legalize drugs and make them widely available. That means that we have to take different approaches to this problem. It is not as though we had a bill that increased the maximum penalties, for example. We have never had a problem with increasing maximum penalties. The government should have gone after major traffickers. Drug imports and exports are worth billions of dollars.

In 2001, the Auditor General determined that even with the whole existing repressive approach, the whole arsenal and all the money for the police—we are talking about millions of dollars—law enforcement authorities were able to seize less than 10% of the drugs on the Canadian market.

We are in favour of going after the major trafficking networks connected with the Hells Angels. That is why I want to mention a motion I have introduced in the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights. I hope that before long, we will be living in a society where membership in the Hells Angels will be an offence in and of itself. I hope that there will be a list. The Bloc Québécois is waging this battle, and I want to acknowledge that we are supported by government members, the Liberals and the NDP.

We will not really address the drug problem with mandatory minimum penalties. The Hells Angels and other criminal groups—there are 38 in Canada—make a living from selling drugs. But if we succeeded in getting rid of these groups, would we not be solving part of the problem?

Another amendment was passed in committee requiring parliamentarians to conduct a review. We will therefore have to review the legislation. I do not know what the composition of the House will be at that point, and I do not know whether I will have the pleasure of taking part. Still, we passed an amendment stipulating that, two years after the section comes into force, there is to be a detailed examination of this legislation and the effects of its application together with a cost-benefit analysis of mandatory minimum sentences by the committee of the House of Commons or of both Houses of Parliament, which Parliament designates for this purpose.

Obviously, this is increasingly common with bills. I recall our adopting such a provision for new reproductive technologies. I think parliamentarians adopted it when the set of regulations on tobacco was either passed or under consideration. It is one way for them to get feedback and verify a law's effectiveness. We could have objectives as lawmakers, but are these objectives met once the bill is passed? That, obviously, is a whole other matter.

We would have been more comfortable with the idea of aggravating circumstances rather than minimum sentences. The Criminal Code—as my colleagues no doubt know—provides in section 718 that a court may take into account a number of circumstances specific to a context and impose a harsher sentence.

We support, of course, the imposition of a harsher sentence when an offence is committed for the benefit or at the direction of a criminal organization. We agree that when an individual committing an offence uses or tries to use violence it should be considered an aggravating circumstance, as should the use of a firearm in the commission of an offence.

We obviously agree that when an offence is committed within a school, in school grounds or in a place frequented by young people it should be considered an aggravating circumstance.

We would, however, not have wanted these specific circumstances to culminate in a mandatory mechanism that leaves no room for legal discretion. I refer of course to mandatory minimum sentences. That seems a mistake to us.

Those are the comments I wanted to make on Bill C-15. We will not support it in the vote at third reading.

[Brent Rathgeber, Conservative, Edmonton—St. Albert, AB]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure for me to begin the debate at third reading of Bill C-15, An Act to amend the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act and to make related and consequential amendments to other Acts.

I am pleased to note that this bill was adopted by the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights of which I am a member. I would like to point out to the House that the bill was amended in committee and that most of the amendments were proposed by members of the Bloc Québécois and members of the NDP. I am pleased to see that these members worked hard and were able to submit constructive amendments to the bill, amendments which were adopted by the committee.

The Government of Canada recognizes that serious drug crimes including marijuana grow operations and clandestine methamphetamine labs continue to pose a threat to the safety of our streets and our communities. Bill C-15 is part of our strategy to address this problem. The bill proposes amendments to strengthen the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act provisions regarding penalties for serious drug offences by ensuring that these types of offences are punished by an imposition of mandatory minimum penalties. With these amendments we are demonstrating our commitment to improving the safety and security of communities across Canada from coast to coast to coast.

During its review of the bill, the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights heard from the Minister of Justice, government officials, including officials from the Department of Justice, and a range of stakeholders, including representatives from law enforcement. The bill was supported by law enforcement representatives who testified and by various other stakeholders, although the bill was not supported universally, as I am sure my friends from the opposition will point out.

As has been mentioned before, the government acknowledges that not all drug offenders and drug trades pose the same risk of danger and violence. Bill C-15 recognizes this. That is why what is being proposed in this bill is a focused and targeted approach. Accordingly, the new penalties will not apply to possession offences, nor will they apply to offences involving all types of drugs. The bill focuses on the more serious drug offences and the most serious drugs are targeted. Overall, the proposals represent a tailored approach to the imposition of mandatory minimum penalties for serious drug offences, such as trafficking, importation, exportation and production.

For schedule 1 drugs, that is, for drugs such as heroin, cocaine and methamphetamine, the bill proposes a one year minimum for the offence of trafficking or possession for the purpose of trafficking in the presence of certain aggravating factors.

The aggravating factors would be that the offence is committed for the benefit of, or at the direction of, or in association with organized crime; or the offence involved violence or threat of violence, or weapons or threat of use of weapons; or the offence is committed by someone who was convicted in the previous 10 years of a designated drug offence. Moreover, if youth are present or the offence occurs in a prison, the minimum sentence is increased to two years' imprisonment.

In the case of importing, exporting and possession for the purposes of exporting, the minimum penalty is one year if these offences are committed for the purposes of trafficking.

I should point out that this part of the bill was amended in committee by the government so that an offender who commits one of these offences and abuses his authority or his position, or if the offender has access to a restricted area and uses that access to commit a crime, a one year minimum penalty will be imposed. Moreover, the penalty will be raised to two years if these offences involve more than one kilogram of a schedule 1 drug.

A minimum of two years is provided for a production offence involving a schedule 1 drug. The minimum sentence for production of a schedule 1 drug increases to three years where aggravating factors relating to health and safety are present. These factors are: if the individual used real property that belonged to a third person to commit the offence; or if the production constituted a potential security, health or safety hazard to children who are in the location where the offence was committed, or in the immediate area thereof; or if the production constituted a potential public safety hazard in a residential area; or if the individual placed or set a trap.

For schedule 2 drugs, somewhat softer drugs such as marijuana and cannabis resin, the proposed mandatory minimum penalty for trafficking and possession for the purpose of trafficking is one year if certain aggravating factors such as violence, recidivism, or organized crime are present. If factors such as trafficking to youth are present, the minimum sentence, quite appropriately, is increased to two years.

For the offence of importing or exporting and possession for the purpose of exporting marijuana, the minimum penalty would be one year imprisonment if the offence is committed for the purpose of trafficking. The government amendment mentioned above would also apply for an offender who abuses his authority, position or access to a restricted area in committing the offence, and he would also receive the minimum one-year penalty.

For the offence of marijuana production, the bill as amended proposes mandatory penalties based on the number of plants involved. For the production of 5 to 200 plants, if the plants are cultivated for the purposes of trafficking, the penalty would be 6 months. The minimum number of plants was raised to five plants from one plant as a result of an amendment that was proposed and vigorously debated at committee.

For the production of 201 to 500 plants, the minimum mandatory sentence would be one year; for the production of more than 500 plants, it would be two years; and, finally, for the production of cannabis resin for the purpose of trafficking, it would be a minimum jail sentence of one year.

The minimum sentences for the production of Schedule II drugs would be increased by 50% where any of the aggravating factors relating to health and safety that I have just described are present.

The maximum penalty for producing marijuana would be doubled from 7 to 14 years' imprisonment.

Amphetamines, as well as the so-called date rape drugs such as GHB and Rohypnol, would be transferred from Schedule III to Schedule I, and would thereby allow the courts to impose higher maximum penalties for offences involving these all too common drugs where unsuspecting victims are subjected to date rape.

The bill, as further amended in committee, would give the courts the discretion to impose a penalty other than the mandatory minimum on a serious drug offender who has successfully completed a court treatment program. I submit that this diversionary tactic is one of the strengths of the bill, and I know this is universally supported by the members of the committee.

Last, I should point out that the bill was amended to add a new section to the act. Proposed section 8.1 would require that a parliamentary committee undertake a comprehensive review of the provisions and operations of the bill two years after it comes into force.

To conclude, I am pleased that Bill C-15 has been thoroughly examined and rigorously debated by the justice committee and that we are rapidly approaching our goal of seeing this legislation passed into law. The bill was amended in committee, both by government members and by members of the opposition, and in my view these amendments are in keeping with the spirit of this bill and consistent with its objectives.

Bill C-15 is part of the government's continued commitment to take steps to protect Canadians and to make our streets and communities safer. We hear time and time again from our constituents that Canadians want a justice system with clear and strong laws that denounce and deter serious crimes, including serious drug offences. They want laws that impose penalties that adequately reflect the serious nature of these crimes. This bill would accomplish that lofty goal.

[Chuck Strahl, Conservative, Chilliwack—Fraser Canyon, BC]

moved that Bill C-15, An Act to amend the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act and to make related and consequential amendments to other Acts, be read the third time and passed.

[The Speaker, Liberal, Peter Milliken]

Pursuant to order made on Tuesday, June 2, the House will now proceed to the taking of the deferred recorded division on the motion at report stage of Bill C-15. The question is on Motion No. 1.

The House resumed from June 2 consideration of Bill C-15, An Act to amend the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act and to make related and consequential amendments to other Acts, as reported (with amendment) from the committee, and of Motion No. 1.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for enlightening the House on a few important details.

My understanding is that where there is an indictable offence, as prescribed under Bill C-15, there is a proviso where the person is liable to imprisonment up to life. Then it goes on to say, “or subject to a mandatory minimum of one year”.

I do not know whether the committee, and maybe the member could help, heard from legal officials as to the process that has to be gone through to seek the mandatory minimums to be imposed. My understanding is that the crown attorney would need to make application and that it is usually the practice for them not to make application for mandatory minimums simply because these are the small potatoes and they are really after the serious criminals who are behind the drug offences.

Is the member aware of that and does she know that even existing mandatory minimums often are not even exercised by the crown attorney?

[Megan Leslie, NDP, Halifax, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I support the work that VANDU does generally. It is a group of experts that is made up mostly of people who have addictions, who have overcome their addictions and who know first-hand what addictions can do to their lives and the lives of their friends. We need to look to them as experts on this issue and we need to take them and their recommendations very seriously. They did not appear at this committee to talk specifically about holus-bolus decriminalization. They came for a very specific reason, and that is the testimony I heard and that I had in front of me. I think they are right. I think they hit the nail on the head when it came to Bill C-15.

[Brent Rathgeber, Conservative, Edmonton—St. Albert, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for Halifax for her eloquent and very well researched speech in opposition to Bill C-15 and in support of the amendment, which would essentially gut Bill C-15.

I noted with interest that the member quoted the VANDU, a group of drug users from Vancouver in support of her position that minimum mandatory sentences do not work. I am curious to know whether the member supports VANDU's well pronounced policy statement against prohibition of all narcotics, including what most people consider serious narcotics like cocaine and methamphetamine.

[Megan Leslie, NDP, Halifax, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak to Bill C-15, An Act to amend the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act and to make related and consequential amendments to other Acts.

This bill would amend the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act to provide for minimum penalties for serious drug offences, to increase the maximum penalty for cannabis or marijuana production, to reschedule certain substances from schedule 3 of that act to schedule 1, and to make consequential amendments to other acts.

I spoke to this bill at second reading and I spoke against it. I spoke against it because generally I do not believe that mandatory minimums are an effective legislative policy and I certainly cannot support mandatory minimums in the context of drug laws.

Why is that? We have had many studies and reports that show that mandatory minimums have a negligible impact on crime control. For example, I will quote from one of the reports from our own Department of Justice in 2002. It states:

Harsh mandatory minimum sentences do not appear to influence drug consumption or drug-related crime in any measurable way.

Another report in 2005 from our own Department of Justice stated:

There is some indication that minimum sentences are not an effective sentencing tool....

When this bill was at committee, the John Howard Society provided summaries from 17 studies from the U.S. and the U.K. on mandatory minimums, lengthy sentence terms and recidivism. They found that the longer prison terms do not reduce recidivism. The detailed analysis of the United States Sentencing Commission found that mandatory minimums went after the low-level criminals and that they were ineffective at deterring crime.

In 1987, the Canadian Sentencing Commission noted that since 1952, all Canadian commissions that addressed the role of mandatory minimum penalties have recommended that they be abolished. Here we are in 2009 and we are advocating for mandatory minimums.

The Canadian Sentencing Commission also found that existing mandatory minimum penalties, with the exception of those for murder and high treason, serve no purpose that can compensate for the disadvantages resulting from their continued existence but we still have politicians promoting mandatory minimums as an effective means of fighting crime.

Let us unpack what politicians are doing. We are saying that we will punish people for committing a crime and punish them harshly, but punishment comes after the fact. I will quote the author, Michael Tonry, in an article he wrote entitled “Mandatory Penalties”, where he gives the reason that legislatures and politicians continue to enact mandatory minimums. He says that “most elected officials who support such laws are only secondarily interested in their effects. Officials' primary interests are rhetorical and symbolic. Calling and voting for mandatory penalties is demonstrating that officials are tough on crime. If the laws works, all the better, but that's hardly crucial. In a time of heightened public anxiety about crime and social unrest, being on the right side of the crime issue is much more important politically than making sound and sensible public policy choices”.

There we have it. It seems that the emperor has no clothes. I want to repeat: “Public anxiety about crime and social unrest...is much more important politically than making sound and sensible public policy choices”. That is what we have here today.

I stood up against this bill at second reading but it did pass and it went to committee. At committee, we heard from many knowledgeable expert witnesses. We heard from front line workers, legal scholars and policy experts. Sixteen witnesses appeared and, of the 16, 13 provided evidence and studies showing that mandatory minimums are costly failures that target low-level dealers. This is the issue, because the government is trying to tell us that this bill will stop drug trafficking. We are trying to get the kingpins but the evidence shows that it targets low-level dealers, users and a disproportionate number of visible minorities and poor people. As I stated earlier, our own justice department has two reports clearly stating that mandatory minimums are not effective for drug crimes.

When the minister was asked if he could produce a report showing that mandatory minimums work, he could not, but he did insist that this was what Canadians wanted.

Three of the 16 witnesses did support mandatory minimums. What did they say? Not one of the three could produce evidence showing that mandatory minimums actually work to reduce drug use, drug crimes, organized crime or gang violence. We have nothing except three witnesses who say that they support this. We have no evidence.

My colleagues have spoken to the known results of mandatory minimum sentences: increased pressure on the criminal justice system; and substantial increased costs to the provincial prison and court systems. The bill would capture the low-level dealers, not the kingpins, as it is intended. It also would not address the real issue of addiction that we know is best combated by a four pillar approach: enforcement, treatment, harm reduction and prevention, with each one being equal.

I would like to touch on an issue that is not raised in this hon. House often enough, and that is the issue of race and class. Representatives from the Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users, also known as VANDU, testified that drug prohibition serves to further marginalize people because in Canada police profiling centres on poor visible street users and sellers. Canadian jails and prisons house the poor, and our most visible drug users and sellers are aboriginal people and people of colour. They are vastly overrepresented.

VANDU looked to the U.S. where it did implement mandatory minimums in the 1970s and 1980s. In states that legislated these mandatory minimums, by the 1980s it became apparent that poor people and people of colour were most vulnerable to police profiling and imprisonment for drug offences even though drug use rates were no higher than in other sub-groups.

Deborah Small, the executive director of Break the Chains, an organization based out of the U.S., also testified at committee. She said:

I think it's important to note that while all studies show that drug use is pretty much endemic across every population and socio-economic group, the history in the U.S. has been that drug law enforcement has disproportionately impacted poor people.

She went on to say something that is quite damning. She said:

I think it's important to note that one of the effects in New York of enacting the Rockefeller laws is that it forced the state to reallocate money in ways that were really very detrimental. We saw a dollar-for-dollar trade-off in increased expenditures for prisons versus higher education. That sent a message to young people, particularly young people of colour, that the state would actually prefer to invest in their incarceration rather than their education.

How can we stand here and support a bill that we know will not work? We cannot. Therefore, how could we possibly propose an amendment to a bill? We could just throw up our hands and refuse to participate but I do not believe Canadians want that from any of us here. I believe they want us to engage on issues, despite our party lines and our personal ideologies. They send us here to work and sometimes we are working on issues on which we cannot agree.

As parliamentarians, I believe we have an obligation to try to make bills better, even if we strongly disagree with the fundamental premise of the bill.

I would like to point out that we asked many of the witnesses if they would amend the bill if they could and an overwhelmingly majority said that we should scrap it and start over. They actually said “scrap it”.

However, despite that clear message, the NDP has proposed an amendment to strike clause 3 of the bill because it is our duty to try to make this bill better. Perhaps we do give up some of our principles by engaging on the amendments but it is the responsible thing to do.

Clause 3 would create quite a few of the mandatory minimums for various schedule one and schedule two drugs, and striking out the clause would result in striking some of the mandatory minimums that we feel would capture the wrong people: people who are poor, aboriginal Canadians, people from racialized communities and compassion clubs.

I would like to thank my colleague from Vancouver East for moving this amendment and doing her best to try to make a bad bill better.

The House resumed consideration of Bill C-15, An Act to amend the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act and to make related and consequential amendments to other Acts, as reported (with amendment) from the committee, and of Motion No. 1.

Motion in Amendment

[Réal Ménard, Bloc, Hochelaga, QC]

Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to take the floor on Bill C-15, which we have studied in committee. Even though my natural inclination might be to comment on the political news of the day, I shall refrain from doing so.

I sat on the committee formed early in the year 2000, when Conservative member Randy White was in this House and tabled a motion to allow us as parliamentarians to study the whole issue of the use of drugs for non-medical purposes. Naturally, in the course of this study, we spent many months hearing witnesses. This was going on at about the same time as the study being conducted in the other chamber, led by Senator Nolin, on the whole issue of the legalization of cannabis. Something became obvious to us, and this in a way is the problem with the Conservative government. Of course we do not advocate the use of drugs. I myself have totally abstained from them. I am perfectly aware that drugs can be extremely harmful in people’s lives. Certain drugs can even lead to an escalation phenomenon, that is, to dependence on and increased need for them. However, in this Bill C-15 which is before us, as in many of the Conservative government’s bills, we find this worrying inability to qualitatively distinguish between different phenomena.

We in the Bloc Québécois have no problem, for example, going after the traffickers who organize and maintain large-scale networks, who are involved in the exporting of opium or other types of drugs. If there is one party that has long been working against organized crime, it is indeed the Bloc. I myself was the first member to table an anti-gang bill, in 1997. My former colleague from Charlesbourg, Richard Marceau, an excellent parliamentarian, succeeded in convincing the government to remove the $1,000 note from circulation, it being agreed that this note made things easier for organized crime. This same colleague from Charlesbourg also succeeded, in the last days of the Martin government, in persuading the House of Commons to pass a bill to reverse the burden of proof for property obtained by crime.

The problem with Bill C-15 is not that it targets traffickers, or that it provides for longer maximum sentences for people who engage in the trafficking and exporting of drugs that do such great harm in communities. It is that it is incapable of distinguishing between different things.

Certain provisions of the bill are extremely disturbing. First, something we have said over and over again. It was mentioned by my colleague from Abitibi, an eminent member of the bar and a criminal lawyer for 30 years. In committee we asked for studies or scientific material showing that incorporating minimum sentences in the Criminal Code will be a deterrent. This is a philosophy of this government. In all the bills, the clauses proposed are accompanied by minimum sentences, ignoring the fact that this does not act as a deterrent. On the contrary, when there is plea bargaining, this encourages people to plead not guilty. As a result prosecutors will prefer to avoid charges that carry minimum sentences.

More troubling still, it is certainly not with a prohibitionist drug strategy that we are going to succeed against organized crime and manage to deter people.

We had people appearing before us in committee from Washington and New York who had been tempted by mandatory minimum sentences but had unfortunately discovered that the states which adopted them were not the most successful at reducing drug use.

The bill itself does not distinguish between big traffickers from the underworld and occasional users. We know, of course, that it is best for people not to use drugs.

That being said, though, young people will not refrain from doing so just because the Criminal Code says that they should not. Would we not be better equipped as a society if we had prevention campaigns, if we encouraged addiction courts, and if we worked together with community groups involved in harm reduction?

What is worrisome about the bill is, first of all, the definition of trafficking. Take an arbitrary example. I am at a party with friends and someone hands me a joint of marijuana. In the eyes of the law, just passing it along is considered trafficking. A young person at an end of term party for students in political science could be charged. I said political science but it could be students at the École des hautes études commerciales, I do not mean to discriminate. We are incapable, therefore, of distinguishing small users from big traffickers.

We need to take a close look at the bill. A person can engage in trafficking, but that does not necessarily mean loading three containers in the port of Montreal. A recreational situation where people hand joints around could also result in a trafficking charge.

We need to look at the gradations in the penalties prescribed. The person is guilty of an indictable offence and liable to imprisonment for a term of not more than 14 years. It is at the discretion of the judge. This is not a minimum sentence, and the maximum sentences are never a problem for us. It is up to the judge to assess the evidence, the circumstances and the context in which the offence was committed.

We are told as well that the prison term may be no less than—so it is a minimum penalty—six months when the offence is committed for the purpose of trafficking and there are fewer than 201 plants involved. A young person from the University of Ottawa sitting outside and offering a joint to one of his friends is liable to a sentence of six months.

I repeat that the Bloc does not encourage the use of any drug whatsoever. It is not part of the Canada food guide and we do not think it essential for self discovery or that it is a good habit. However, socially, will the problem of drug use be resolved with minimum sentences of six months to two years? This is what we tried to explain to the minister.

Individuals with considerable authority, such as criminologist Line Beauchesne of the University of Ottawa, and others, have studied the issue of drug use. We have difficulty with the fact that there are minimum penalties for trafficking and with the increments of these minimum penalties given the scope of the problem. We do not believe that, socially, this is the best way to discourage young people from using drugs.

This is one of the reasons we will vote against the bill.