Bill C-42 (Historical)

Ending Conditional Sentences for Property and Other Serious Crimes Act

An Act to amend the Criminal Code

This enactment amends the Criminal Code to eliminate the reference, in section 742.1, to serious personal injury offences and to restrict the availability of conditional sentences for all offences for which the maximum term of imprisonment is 14 years or life and for specified offences, prosecuted by way of indictment, for which the maximum term of imprisonment is 10 years.

Ending Conditional Sentences for Property and Other Serious Crimes Act

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

A bunch of pinkos.

[Jim Maloway, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Yes, Madam Speaker, there would certainly be a revolution in the ranks. They would be trying to root out those pinkos for sure who would even suggest that something like that could ever happen in a Conservative government, and yet it has all come to pass.

There is always room for some reform, some change of thought. We are in a minority government and there is a possibility that the government can be trained. The member from Thunder Bay mentioned that governments need training, especially minority governments, so maybe we could do some work on this one and try to get it to redirect some of its crime initiatives into a more reasonable and more workable form. The Conservatives are certainly unable to do it on their own.

The cost of the system is simply a function of having huge amounts of people incarcerated. The annual cost for persons in provincial or territorial custody, including remand and other temporary detention, in 2005 was $52,000. I have read other figures up as high as $70,000.

The average annual cost of supervising an offender in the community, including conditional sentences, probation, bail supervision, fine options and conditional release in 2006-07 was only $2,398. Juxtapose that figure against $52,000 to $70,000 for incarcerating these people in what are nothing more than crime schools. They are just trained to be better criminals.

Why would we try to eliminate a system that actually works, that saves on cost, that gets results?

I want to deal with recidivism rates and not knowing how much time I have left I will have to deal with that rather quickly.

A 2004 study found that conditional sentencing has had a significant impact on the rates of admission to custody, which have declined by 13% since its introduction. This represents a reduction of approximately 55,000 offenders who would otherwise be in custody.

Another Statistics Canada study found that adult offenders who spent their sentence under supervision in the community were far less likely to become reinvolved with correctional authorities within 12 months. Is that not what we want to happen to the released and those who were in a correctional institution? This is a win-win situation.

The study found that in four provinces, 11% of people who were under community supervision became reinvolved with correctional authorities within 12 months of their release in 2003-04. Among those in custody, only 30% were reinvolved. In other words, people who were put in jail were twice as much, 30%, double the proportion of those who were under community service, likely to reoffend. If that is not proof that the system is cost effective and actually gets results with only half the people reoffending, I would say is an argument for keeping it.

In a study that concentrated on victims of crime and their attitude toward conditional sentencing, the benefits of conditional sentencing were said to be:

--that most rehabilitation programs can be more effectively implemented when the offender is in the community rather than custody...that prison is no more effective a general or specific deterrent than the more severe intermediate punishments...keeping an offender in custody is significantly more expensive than supervising him or her in the community...the public has become more supportive of community-based sentencing, except when applied to serious crimes of violence...widespread interest in restorative justice...has also revitalized interest in community-based sanctions. Restorative justice promotes the use of victim compensation, and service to the community...The virtues of community sanctions have thus become increasingly apparent in recent years. When offenders are punished in the community, the state saves valuable correctional resources, the offender is able to continue (or seek) employment, and maintain ties with his or her family.

It is very important to not lose contact with family and with any employment possibilities. We have to get people back to a better place than they were when we found them.

[Steven Fletcher, Conservative, Minister of State (Democratic Reform)]

Madam Speaker, I listened with great interest to the member's comments.

He began talking about the long gun registry. I would like him to tell this House right now if he is for the long gun registry or against the long gun registry. Which way will he vote? Will he support the member for Portage—Lisgar's bill to get rid of the long gun registry?

My second question is this. We are from the same city of Winnipeg. The member for Elmwood—Transcona comments on the criminal element and his lack of will to get tough on criminals is scandalous. I know the community of Elmwood--Transcona very well and people are sick and tired of criminals back on the street after spending a fraction of their time in prison. Where is the justice?

The member only won by 1,500 votes and I would like him to stand up and be very clear to the people of Elmwood--Transcona that he is not supporting the government legislation because this issue will cause him to lose his seat. The people of Elmwood--Transcona will be outraged.

[Jim Maloway, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Madam Speaker, I think the minister for democratic reform should be more concerned about saving his own seat from the resurgent Liberals than worrying about my situation.

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

What? Resurgent Liberals? You are down 25%.

[Jim Maloway, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

For the government member's information, there is a little bit of a resurgence in certain pockets of Manitoba. We cannot explain it. It may be an aberration of the polling system but it is showing there, so I want to alert him to the fact that he should be casting his gaze back and looking at that.

In terms of my electoral prospects, I would tell the hon. member that he is welcome to come in and campaign for any Conservative candidate that the government wants to run against me next time because we demolished the last candidate who was an NHL hockey player with a full campaign of $70,000, and we rolled right over him. We are willing to take on anybody the government wants to send our way.

I think he is looking at old stats. He is looking at stats from a year ago. Let me inform him that things have changed a lot.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Madam Speaker, I thank the hon. member for his insight into the debate.

It is going to be very important to have this matter dealt with at committee. I am sure that many of the questions that have been raised in the debate will be resolved there, things such as cost, and I know the Parliamentary Budget Officer has been engaged to look into the costs of this and other legislation dealing with the Criminal Code.

The member talked about recidivism rates in his speech. I have recently seen a case in a media report that seems to indicate that all of the studies and the literature find that people who are given conditional sentences are substantially less likely to reoffend than those who would are put in jail and have to serve that full term.

It makes an interesting question about whether or not the intent of the legislation that we bring forward should be to reduce recidivism, and conditional sentencing appears to support the action of reducing recidivism.

I wonder if the member has any some comments on that.

[Jim Maloway, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Madam Speaker, I often wondered why I liked the hon. member. He is very wise. He does not always follow the Liberal line on the Canada-Colombia trade deal and other issues. He takes a bit of an independent stance and I kind of like that. He is certainly correct. The stats do seem to bear out.

I had mentioned that a Statistics Canada study found that adult offenders who spent time under supervision were far less likely to become re-involved with correctional authorities within 12 months of their release than if they were in a correctional institution. The figures were that 11% who were under community supervision reoffended within a year, whereas of the people who had been in incarcerated, it was 30%.

Not only do statistics show it is twice as effective, there are also statistics to show that it is enormously more effective financially. Rather than costing between $50,000 and $70,000 per person per year, it was only a matter of a couple of thousand dollars.

Do not bother the government with the facts. The Conservatives do not want to know about the facts because they are too busy stoking up the polling machine to get the numbers up. Look at what they are doing now. They are sitting over there asking us about the gun bill because they just cannot wait.

I say to the Minister of State for Democratic Reform, there are just a few more sleeps. He can show up in the House on November 4 and he will find out how we are all going to vote. He should come here and he will find out that day.

[Claude Gravelle, NDP, Nickel Belt, ON]

Madam Speaker, we have heard a lot about criminals committing blue collar crimes and white collar crimes. One thing we have not heard about are the victims. I would like to ask the hon. member what this bill is going to do to help the victims of crime.

[Jim Maloway, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Madam Speaker, I owned an insurance agency for 30 years and I certainly had numerous opportunities to deal with people who were victims of crime. Those people are very supportive of what the Manitoba government has done in terms of victims' rights.

Victims' rights have been improving over the years, since the days of Howard Pawley. The Gary Filmon Conservatives took over and made some improvements. Then Gary Doer's NDP took over and made some more improvements, to the point where Dave Chomiak and Gord Mackintosh constantly made improvements over the years so that victims are being recognized in the system and have a say over how things develop.

There was a time 20 years ago when if people's homes were broken into and things were stolen, the victims could not find out any information about what had happened. They could not track down what the status of the thieves were, whether they were in court, when they were in court and what the resolution was of the case.

Fortunately, things have improved over the last number of years and it has happened in an environment where the NDP government in Manitoba has made those initiatives. Even the two for one credit which the government is ballyhooing about and finally got through the Senate was started by justice minister Dave Chomiak in the NDP government of Gary Doer in Manitoba.

I wish the Conservatives would quit harping about how everybody in the opposition is soft on crime and they are tough on crime. They may be tough on crime, but they are not smart on crime and that is where we want to be at the end of the day.

[Garry Breitkreuz, Conservative, Yorkton—Melville, SK]

Madam Speaker, I will make this question very brief in order to give an opportunity for the member to answer the questions that the Minister of State for Democratic Reform asked regarding the gun registry and which the member very cleverly avoided answering.

Will he be accountable to his constituents? Will he tell them publicly now how he is going to vote on that and on conditional sentencing?

[Jim Maloway, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Madam Speaker, it may be a surprise to the member, but I was a provincial member for 23 years.

My constituency is an urban seat. I do not know why he is getting so excited here. It is not a rural seat at all. It is an urban seat. If anything, the majority of people would probably support gun registration. For his information, in the 1995 provincial election, I was one of the members who at that point had said that I did not like the way gun registration was developing, and—

[The Acting Speaker, Denise Savoie]

The hon. member has run out of time.

Is the House ready for the question?

[Some hon. members]

Question.

[The Acting Speaker, Denise Savoie]

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