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.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Fast]

I call the meeting to order.

This is meeting 21 of the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights. You have before you the agenda for today. By order of reference, we still have before us Bill C-15, an act to amend the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act and to make related and consequential amendments to other acts. We have designated today and Wednesday as the final two days to hear witnesses on Bill C-15, with clause-by-clause to take place on May 27.

Today we have with us a number of organizations that will speak to Bill C-15. I first want to welcome Line Beauchesne, representing the University of Ottawa. We also have Chief Vernon White and Staff Sergeant Pierre Gauthier of the Ottawa Police Service. We have by video conference, from Washington, D.C., Eric Sterling, representing the Criminal Justice Policy Foundation. Finally, we have Professor Bruce Alexander of Simon Fraser University. He's joining us by video conference from Vancouver.

Welcome to all of you. I think you've been told you have ten minutes to present. Once you've presented we'll open the floor to questions. I encourage you to keep an eye on me as much as you can. If you come close to your ten-minute limit, I'll remind you. When you're answering questions, please stay within the seven-minute or five-minute limitation.

Ms. Beauchesne, perhaps you could start.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Minister, I'd like to thank you and your officials for your attendance here this afternoon.

Once again, I'd like to congratulate you on all the proposed legislation before the House--Bill C-14, Bill C-15, Bill C-25, and Bill C-26, plus the identity theft bill, the number of which escapes me; I believe it's in the Senate.

Mr. Minister, as you are aware, this committee travelled to Vancouver last week. In Vancouver I had the opportunity, and again subsequently on Monday when we were examining Bill C-15, to ask questions of a Mr. Kirk Tousaw, who was speaking on behalf of the BC Civil Liberties Association and an anti-prohibition league, whose name escapes me. He's also a one-time New Democratic candidate in the electoral district of Vancouver--Quadra.

You might be interested to know...and perhaps you do know, because I know that you and your staff follow these proceedings quite closely. Mr. Tousaw indicated a couple of things that I found disconcerting, to say the least.

First of all, in his view, very hard drugs, very serious chemical substances such as methamphetamine and crack cocaine and even heroin, ought to be legalized. In fact, he indicated to me that, in his view, the entire Controlled Drugs and Substances Act ought to be repealed.

As you might know--if you heard my S.O. 31 in the House today, you will know--a young 14-year-old girl in Edmonton, the city that I represent, recently died, tragically, from an overdose of ecstasy, which she had purchased at West Edmonton Mall, a place that is frequented by children and other young persons. In light of these events, I just wondered if you had any comment on the suggestion that the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act ought to be repealed and that hard drugs ought to be no longer subject to prohibition.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair, Mr. Minister, Mr. Deputy Minister, and Mr. Director.

Mr. Minister, I want to follow up with a few...I suppose they're budget items. They're financial resource items dealing with legislation both pending and past. In particular, they're the drug treatment courts. Bill C-15, as you know, is a bill presented by you and your government that, although having within it the imposition of mandatory minimum sentences, also allows for a convicted person to be given the choice to enter a drug treatment court in certain circumstances. The purpose, at least the way we're looking at it--and so far we're in support of that bill--is that it's a unique situation whereby a person is given a chance to avoid an imminent mandatory minimum sentence by selecting a facility they hope will rehabilitate the addiction aspect of the offender. I think we all think this is a prevalent part of what makes many of our offenders commit crimes. Addiction is a big piece of the puzzle.

When we see the drug treatment courts, the DTCs, as a white knight or palatable aspect of trying to avoid mandatory minimums, which in general may not always be effective, the issue comes up, how well resourced are they? How well placed are they? Is there going to be an expansion of DTCs so people who might be committing crimes under the purview of Bill C-15 might have access to these courts? Currently they're in the larger centres. That's the general question on funding for DTCs. What level is there? What resources have been asked for or applied for? Do you see an expansion?

With respect to drug recognition experts, DREs, in the past we talked about impaired driving. One of the wrinkles in that regime is to make sure that a person stopped at the roadside can be adequately determined to be impaired and the tool used for the recognition of drug recognition experts.... Has there been sufficient funding in place for some time? Is there sufficient funding projected to have adequate experts to apply the law we passed with respect to impaired driving?

Justice

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

Mr. Speaker, last weekend in Edmonton, 14-year-old Cassandra Williams tragically passed away from an overdose of ecstasy. At a youth party at the West Edmonton Mall, she ingested 18 doses of this illegal drug. This shocked her tiny body so badly that her heart simply stopped beating.

Sadly, this tragedy was completely avoidable.

I would like to commend the hon. Minister of Justice for introducing Bill C-15, a bill which will keep criminals who deal drugs in public places frequented by young persons, such as the West Edmonton Mall, where they belong. In jail.

I encourage all members of the justice committee, on which I serve, to approve this bill expeditiously, and all members of this House to support this very important legislation, so that we can keep criminals, such as the one who sold Cassandra the lethal amount of ecstasy, where they belong. In prison.

[Philippe Lucas]

It's just a brief anecdote.

Our previous Prime minister, Paul Martin, used to tell how his wife had baked marijuana brownies for a party. Sadly, according to Bill C-15, this would have been considered a form of distribution. If she had been arrested and tried, she would have been given at least two years in prison for this crime. This shows that, sometimes, even the slightest of crime can...

[Len Garis]

So on that premise we started conducting safety inspections of homes that provided us with the threshold of electrical consumption or about which there were complaints from the neighbourhood. During that course of time, when we started, one in four of these homes had children present, and the homes were filled with mould, fertilizers, pesticides, and electrical wiring and ballasts. We were attending those as a preventative measure.

Since we started this program in 2005, as I indicated before, we have inspected and remediated 1,006 homes in our city. Since then, eleven other communities have come on board and started these safety inspections to make our homes safe. This was a public safety initiative.

I also want to remind the group--as the chair mentioned--that I need to connect this back to organized crime. What we heard before--and it's something I never wanted to know as a fire officer--is that 85% of marijuana that's grown in the province of British Columbia is connected to organized crime. So if you say there aren't safety issues, Bill C-15, I think, is good. But let's define what aggravation is in terms of growing it.

We did a study, and a home with a grow-op is 24 times more likely to catch fire than a home without one. We experienced that big time.

In Philadelphia there were two firefighters who were killed when they went into the basement of a home that had a grow-op, and they became entangled and suffocated trying to get out of there. It was only a matter of time before that was going to occur here in British Columbia, and we had to do something.

So why did we get involved? We talked about tougher sentencing and disclosure. In 1997 police got to 92% of the complaints that came to their attention, and they were able to interrupt them. At that time only 1.5% of grow-ops were discovered by way of a fire. In 2003--and we're going to find out something new for 2008--they were able to get to only 52% of them. Why? Because in 1997 it took three steps to get a search warrant. In 2003 it takes 68 steps to get a search warrant. So that protraction of time meant that these homes were sitting in our neighbourhoods for years before they could get to them. Those electrical systems would start to interrupt, fray, and break down. In some homes we found electrical systems in which the wiring had to be entirely stripped because it was so fragile and damaged. So that's what we're dealing with. And this is all predicated on marijuana, that $7 billion industry in British Columbia that's fostering organized crime.

If you want to look at a root cause, at where the money is coming from and why it's so profitable, we have created an environment--not directly--in which they can basically propagate, and make their money. That's where our gang-land crime is coming from.

So I would say that these initiatives may look soft, but we've proven that they work, and we've made a significant difference. These are the tools we would like you to take a serious look at and provide for us.

Thank you so much for your questions.

[Réal Ménard, Bloc, Hochelaga, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I will make a comment on Bill C-15, to Mr. Fassbender.

Obviously, the goal of today's consultation is not to discuss Bill C-15, but it makes sense to address it. I hope that no one is under the impression that just because we plan to pass Bill C-15, that you, as mayors, will have additional arrows in your quivers.

Earlier, Mr. Cessford was saying that you will have 500 additional prisoners and prisons holding 6,500 prisoners. If Bill C-15 were to be adopted, a person responsible for growing three marijuana plants—located next to a school—would receive a sentence of two years in prison. I'm not convinced that socially, municipalities need to have these measures. The problem, as far as Bill C-15 is concerned, is that no distinction is made between minor marijuana offences and the king pins of the underground drug world. This is the clarification I wanted to make, with all due respect to Mr. Watson. I believe that municipalities do not need these types of measures.

Mayor Fassbender raised a point that has yet to be made by any other witness up until now. His point concerns tax legislation.

I'd like for us to talk again about the proposal you made. I would like our research analysts to get more information on this subject. You seem to imply that the Canada Revenue Agency could intervene in matters of marijuana growing operations, large hydroponic operations. You talked about $300,000. That's a lot of money.

Please remind us of the concrete measures you would like to see implemented in this area.

[John Weston, Conservative, West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country, BC]

Bill C-15 deals with amending the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act, so it deals generally with grow-ops. But the specific provision I referred to deals with when there are aggravating factors that lead to more strict sentencing.

[John Weston, Conservative, West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country, BC]

Thank you.

I want to pick up where you left off, Brian.

I think having mayors in front of the committee is fabulous. You're on the ground and hearing what's going on. On the North Shore, Andrew Saxton and I have been working very closely with our mayors. I work with some 12 mayors throughout my riding and I find that I'm constantly educated and I'm a better federal representative because of that.

The second thing is that you're working together, so your influence is going to be so much greater because you help us by setting priorities. I think that is a great step forward.

From your comments I've been trying to summarize, and I'm hearing at least four priorities. You said there were some 55 in the materials that we'll be seeing, or maybe they've already been sent. You've expressed some support for more policing, sentencing issues, mandatory minimums, early intervention, and then new laws, some of which we are bringing on board.

I want to say something that you probably know. For some time the Conservative government tried to bring in various new laws and we never had consensus in the House. I think there's a new atmosphere, and by bringing in specific laws rather than omnibus ones, we expect to get more success from our friends from the other parties.

Mayor Fassbender, Bill C-15 is there to deal with situations where there are aggravating factors involved--grow-ops--and the penalties are to be increased if the offence was committed, for organized crime, near a school or in an area normally frequented by youth, or if the offence involved the use of violence or a weapon. Is this what you're looking for?

I'll ask the other two mayors as well what they have to say about Bill C-15. Are we on the right track there?

[John Weston, Conservative, West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country, BC]

Thanks to all of you for coming here today.

In my little riding of West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country, there was a recent incident in which someone went in and shot bullets in a seniors' home in the Gibsons area. Mounties went in and subdued the shooter in a very professional manner, and there were no casualties. That wasn't reported, but it is one of thousands of incidents that happen every day. We may be clueless, but we're not without great law enforcement officers. Thank you for what you do and for being here today.

I guess the closest I came to hearing something about bills that are before the House was from you, Inspector Stewart. I tried to catch all of your words when you were saying that people who are in a heightened state of criminal violence need to be arrested, held, and charged--and I think you said detained--in order to deter them.

I would appreciate it if you could comment on these bills we have before the House, Bills C-14 and C-15, which both depend on mandatory minimum sentences. We heard earlier today from a criminologist who felt that drug-related offences weren't best responded to by mandatory minimums, that they were more a health issue. Other speakers said that what you do with drugs should be your own personal problem. Can you comment on the public safety benefits that we might attain through bringing in mandatory minimum sentences to deal with the drive-by reckless shootings and drug-related activity?

[John Weston, Conservative, West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country, BC]

First, I thank you, colleagues, for coming to Vancouver. If I could move a motion in the House of Commons, I would move that most of our committee hearings should be in Vancouver.

Second, to our witnesses, I salute all of you. You have a common goal of reducing gang violence and helping victims. Particularly, Ms. Young, Ms. Humphreys, and Ms. Miller, you live it, you breathed it. I salute you. You have many stories to tell that we haven't heard today.

I have three questions. I want to focus on some of the laws before the House because my time is so limited.

Ms. Miller, I'm going to come to you with a very specific, a less specific, and a more general question: one, a date rape drug that will be more serious in sentencing; two, generally the question of organized crime and how that affects the victims of human trafficking; and three, the Olympics and what that's going to mean.

The first question is on one aspect of Bill C-15 that we haven't heard much about, which is the movement of a drug called GHB from schedule 3 to schedule 1. That's the date rape drug and many drugs like it. The effect will make it a more serious penalty for people using these drugs. The primary use of it is not for an individual looking for a high, but generally to aid an attacker who can somehow subdue a victim, and it's usually a male subduing a female in that way. My question is whether that is going to help in your campaign.

Second, on organized crime, this movement to target gang violence and other serious crime, if we succeed in disrupting organized crime, will that help victims of human trafficking?

Third, you mentioned the Olympics. How is the Lower Mainland going to be more susceptible to gang violence and human trafficking in the context of the Olympics?

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

I listened to your opening remarks quite carefully and your answers to the questions from my friends on the other side. I'm curious as to your opposition to Bill C-15, and I understand a big part of it has to do with the imposition of mandatory minimum sentences. Is that correct?

[Robin Wroe, Registrar, Unincorporated Deuteronomical Society]

I am not mister; I'm just Robin.

Thank you, Chief Justice.

Our position in respect of Bill C-15 and drug prohibition in general is quite simple.

Societies such as yours or ours govern their members by the content of those members. Drug crime is not really crime at all in any necessary sense. It is quasi-crime or crime mala prohibita on a par with an act forbidding the importation of wool and not at all on a par with, for example, that divine precept forbidding murder. I would also like to add that slavery of persons is another thing that I put in much worse regard than the possession of drugs or what not, to refer to Ms. Miller's comment.

But in any case, the rhetoric about drugs singularly destroying lives is fundamentally offensive. There is a wide variety of non-destructive reasons for drug use. Many human beings use drugs because they improve their happiness or quality of life. Other human beings use drugs for production of heightened spiritual, esthetic, and interpersonal experience.

In a commentary on DOB from the book PiHKAL by Dr. Alexander Shulgin, one of the amphetamines to be rescheduled--that's DOB, for example--in a three-milligram dose the experience was described thusly:

“Wunnerful. It's been one heck of a good experiment, and I can't understand why we waited nine years to try this gorgeous stuff. Without going into the cosmic and delicious details, let's just say it's a great material and a good level.”

Why should such a thing be prohibitorially scheduled at all? Everyone has personal tastes. Some run toward automobiles, and automobile users are taken care of by regulation, and there is no reason your society should not, at worst, apply some sort of gradated licensing to drug purchase and dispensation involving training as to the calculated statistical risk involved with drug use. At best, your society would leave each to his own diet and not use blunt corporate policy instruments for dietary control.

Further, repeal of the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act will redirect a revenue stream that currently pumps into organized crime. The stream will be diverted by the CDSA's repeal into legitimate, regulated companies subject to human rights law and all the other furnishings of a modern place of employment. Those legitimate companies will use law courts for dispute resolution, not guns.

Repeal of the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act will remove a key revenue stream from organized crime. Continuation of the act will sustain a key revenue stream for organized crime.

Harmless men and women do not need to submit to being governed by those who seek to harm them by imprisonment. If membership in a society becomes injurious to happiness, men and women may leave that society and they may form their own society capable of its own legislative acts. Of course, they cannot legislate away gravity, nor may they depart from certain customary behaviours. However, these have little to do with possessing or not possessing any specific plants or substances.

Why should any reasonable marijuana smoker consent to being governed by a society that sustains the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act? Why should he not instead consent to government by a society that respects his peaceful transaction with his chosen supplier? If your society fails to take up the duty of regulating demand-oriented drug suppliers, should some society or societies not fill that void?

We will quote from our summary of Bill C-15, in short, just to include one part that we think is rather important. It highlights the lack of care that has gone into the drafting of Bill C-15.

As to the appending of amphetamine and its analogs to schedule 1 of the act, we wonder why you've included the brominated and chlorinated variance of 2,5 dimethoxy-4-chloroamphetamine, yet have excluded the diogenated analog 2,5 dimethoxy-4-iodoamphetamine. This gives us cause to question what principles were involved in the drafting of the proposed appendix to schedule 1.

To conclude our statement, prohibition is a failed corporate policy and it causes harm to members of your Canadian society. The Controlled Drugs and Substances Act is the instrument that carves out the market enjoyed by organized crime in respect of drugs. Repeal of that act would also give the benefit of freeing up your scarce judicial resources. Absent repeal, we declare that men and women may constitute their own governments respectful of their right and good custom and be done with you, and that would be a shame, for Canada is a decent idea. It is not, however, a mandatory idea.

[Kaity Arsoniadis Stein, President and Secretary-General, International Ship-Owners Alliance of Canada Inc.]

I am very pleased to be appearing before you. I would like to thank the committee for taking the time to listen to us. I would also like to thank Mr. Radford for organizing this meeting.

My name is Kaity Arsoniadis Stein and I am the president and secretary general of the International Ship-Owners Alliance of Canada. Our group represents approximately 400 vessels, locally and internationally, managed out of Vancouver, including bulk carriers, tankers, and containers, as well as tug operators and BC Ferries, one of the largest ferry operators in the world. Teekay, which is one of our founding members, transports more than 10% of the world's seaborne oil.

I'm also here today on behalf of the Council of Marine Carriers, an association operating Canadian tugs and barges, covering the entire west coast of North America and the Arctic, and the Canadian Shipowners Association, which represents vessels trading in the Great Lakes and the St. Lawrence, with an annual trade volume of over $18 billion.

The board of directors of the Vancouver Maritime Arbitrators Association lends its full support, as well as international shipping associations, whose letters have been submitted in our brief—the International Chamber of Shipping, Intertanko, Intercargo, Hong Kong Shipowners Association, and our global partner, BIMCO.

We fully support the objective of strengthening Canada's environmental laws and making sure those laws are enforced. Our concern is that the reverse onus situation brought about by former Bill C-15 of the 38th Parliament has not been corrected by Bill C-16.It has instead created a greater problem, since the possibility of strict liability fines of $6 million will be made available on a per-day basis. With the aggravated clause, it is $12 million available on a per-day basis.

Bill C-15 has removed the traditional legal concept of the presumption of innocence, thus breaching our constitutional guarantees of section 11 of our charter. The leading case on this issue is Wholesale Travel Group, 1991, where our Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin, currently the only remaining justice who served on this, stated that “...the penalty of imprisonment cannot, without violating the guarantees in the Charter, be combined with an offence which permits conviction without fault or because the accused has failed to prove that he or she is innocent...”.

It is important that we do not lose sight of fundamental principles of law. There are serious flaws associated with the loss of the presumption of innocence. One is that they breach international principles that are codified in the IMO convention and UNCLOS, to which Canada is party. MARPOL 73/78 makes a fundamental distinction between accidental and intentional pollution. The UN Convention on the Law of the Sea supports MARPOL and points to monetary penalties rather than imprisonment being the normal sanction. They provide serious criminal sanctions against almost everyone involved in the shipping operation without regard to whether the incident was accidental.

The development of these measures has had a negative effect on Canadian credibility in terms of our status as an important trading nation. These measures have, without a doubt, dissuaded business investment in Canada. Not a single shipping company that we are aware of has set up in Canada since the passing of Bill C-15.

Our government has invested $2.5 billion into the Pacific gateway and is working on a comprehensive package to stimulate the Canadian economy. If Canada, an export nation rich in resources, plans to retain and expand its current industry, our laws must be amended to provide confidence and security. Any blue chip company involved in transport that has located itself in Canada for a number of excellent reasons must now weigh these reasons against the risk of exposure to its directors, officers, and employees, and seriously consider relocating to less hostile jurisdictions.

You have letters of concern from the international community. Since the passing of Bill C-15, Canada has been blacklisted as an unfavourable jurisdiction to do marine business. It is publicized widely that Canada must amend Bill C-15 through Lloyd's List, P and I club circulars, and annual statements, and the international community is watching the progress of Bill C-16 very closely.

The international community is watching the progress of Bill C-16 very closely. I'll take a moment to read two excerpts.

One is from the International Chamber of Shipping, the ITF, and the Oil Companies International Marine Forum. It is a joint statement, a collective statement, and it is in the brief:

The introduction of the “due diligence” requirement in the case of accidental or non-intentional pollution is...problematic. We acknowledge that an accused person or vessel will not be found guilty if they can show that they exercised due diligence.... However, it is unreasonable, particularly in the case of accidental pollution, to apply strict criminal liability thereby placing the burden of proof on the accused to rebut an automatic assumption of guilt. Such an automatic assumption of guilt, where imprisonment is possible, raises significant human rights concerns.

I'll also read from Intertanko's support statement:

Bill C-15 seeks to introduce a strict liability offence for acts of pollution by individuals including a vessel’s master, officers as well as the vessel’s owner’s directors or officers. The prosecution is not required to prove the accused’s intent to commit the offence. We are very concerned that such provisions will, in effect, criminalize accidental or non-intentional pollution, and will seriously prejudice the master’s or crew’s action during a potential incident. While we recognize that an accused person is able to escape conviction provided he or she has proved that all reasonable steps were taken to prevent the pollution, the accused person is considered guilty and must prove his or her innocence, rather than vice versa.

The shipping industry has been requesting an amendment for the past four years and has worked very closely with Environment Canada and Transport Canada. While we fully support measures to protect the marine environment, we also seek to ensure that regulations are balanced, safeguard our crews, and do not prejudice the safe operation of vessels. We support the efforts in environmental legislation to minimize pollution and make polluters pay. These efforts should not, however, imperil individual liberty. Every individual has the right, in a modern democratic society, to the presumption of innocence. No one should be imprisoned without proof of commission of an offence and due process.

We have retained numerous lawyers to check this point for us to ensure that we're not in error. I will read from one of our statements. It's a joint legal opinion again, and it is in the brief:

It is entirely incongruous with the principles that should guide free and democratic societies, which purport to guarantee the presumption of innocence, to sweep away those constitutional rights for those who face imprisonment for infractions which involve a lack of diligence.

Finally, we have had consultations with Sarah Cosgrove and have met with some MPs from this committee. Given their concerns, we have reconsidered our previous submission and now suggest the clause that follows, which we believe preserves the fundamental objectives of Bill C-16 yet also addresses our concerns and those of the international community.

We therefore recommend that every act amended by Bill C-16 include a clause in the following terms:

Notwithstanding anything to the contrary in this act, where imprisonment is sought as a penalty, every accused shall be presumed innocent of the offence charged and shall at a minimum be entitled to a defence of due diligence.

Thank you for this opportunity to make our views known. I hope that we will find a solution that satisfies everyone.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Fast]

Thank you so much, and thanks for staying within your time.

Dr. Gordon, I'm going to exercise a little bit of flexibility as well, because your assistance would be helpful on Bill C-15 as well.