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.

An Act to Bring Fairness for the Victims of Violent Offenders

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak in favour of Bill C-479 at third reading. As I said just a few minutes ago, we believe Bill C-479, as amended, contains important improvements in victims' rights.

Once again, I would like to thank the member for Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Westdale for his efforts to bring this improvement to victims rights before the House and to third reading, where it now seems assured to pass.

There are many provisions in the bill which would be of clear benefit to victims. Indeed, some of these have already become a normal part of the practice in the corrections and parole system. However, we agree that it is a good idea to entrench these rights for victims by placing them in legislation.

These rights include: the right of victims or members of their family to be present at parole hearings; the right of victims to have their statements considered by the Parole Board of Canada in its decisions regarding offender release; expanding the manner in which victims' statements can be presented at parole hearings through the use of technology, among other things; and requiring that the communication of victims' information be considered by the board. In other words, the victims would have a right to see what the board has looked at, so they can understand how that decision has been made.

Also, they include making it obligatory to provide transcripts of parole hearings to victims and their families, and making it mandatory to inform victims when an offender is granted a temporary absence, or parole or is released at the end of their sentence.

These are all good things, but there is one area in which we remain disappointed. That is the unwillingness of the government to go further in a very important area. We were surprised to see the government reject an amendment from our side, which would have expanded victims' rights in a proposal that would have allowed victims to choose other means of observing parole hearings than appearing in person.

We believe victims have the right to observe parole hearings by video or teleconferencing if they so choose. Strangely, with the way things work right now, victims only have the right to observe those hearings by video or teleconference if Correctional Service of Canada has banned them from appearing in person.

It is a strange quirk in the rules. If victims have made threats or been disruptive and Correctional Service ofCanada says that they cannot attend the parole hearings, they are then allowed to attend by videoconference or teleconference. We believe this right should be extended to all victims.

There are many good reasons why any victim might not want to make use of the right to observe in person. Some victims would prefer not to be in the same room as the offender, whether out of fear or revulsion.

It would also allow those victims who would otherwise have to travel to attend a hearing. Perhaps an offender has been transferred across the country and a hearing is in British Columbia and the victims live in Ontario. If they could attend by video or teleconference, they would not incur travel costs and they would not have to take time off from work.

Hearings far from home have become a problem for many victims. Again, we believe that if we extended them the right to choose to attend by videoconference or teleconference, it would be an important improvement.

We remain concerned about one aspect of the bill, which is the provision that was just mentioned by the member for Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Westdale in his answer to the question from the parliamentary secretary. This is the provision that would give the Parole Board the discretion to extend the interval between parole hearings for those convicted of very serious crimes.

We have no problem with this provision when it is applied to those serving life sentences. In fact, we proposed to amend the bill to do just that. However, there is a risk that lengthening the discretionary period between reviews for those serving shorter sentences may inadvertently remove incentives for offenders to participate in rehabilitation programs.

In other words, if offenders are told that their hearings have been put off for four years, what would their incentive be, when they are in the corrections institute, to enter into those rehabilitation programs?

Again, for those serving shorter sentences, it may inadvertently increase the number of people who leave custody without supervision upon their warrant expiry. In other words, if they are told that their hearings have been put off for three years and their warrants expire in three years and six months, they would have no incentive. They would not participate and they would get out without any of that very necessary rehabilitation.

How do we avoid that happening? Obviously, we support the bill, because we believe we could avoid that if there were a well-funded Parole Board. The Parole Board would be able to avoid these unintended consequences.

However, we have a Parole Board which is now suffering from restricted funding and so there will be the tendency for the Parole Board to be forced to extend the interval between paroles simply as a question of resources. It will have other things it has to do by law and therefore if the interval allowed, and we call it discretion, is longer, then it will inevitably become longer if it does not have adequate funding. As we have seen with the Conservatives in power, quite often we have underfunding of very important public services, and the Parole Board is one of those.

Finally, we remain concerned with process, and that is the process of making extensive changes to the Criminal Code of Canada and the Corrections and Conditional Release Act through multiple bills proceeding through different paths through Parliament on different timetables. The sheer volume of the changes that have been made by different bills often considered in different committees risk legal errors and omissions as well as unintended consequences. Some bills go to the justice committee, some go to the public safety committee where I sit.

For instance, in the case of Bill C-479, the public safety committee did not have the advantage of seeing the text of the government's victims bill of rights, Bill C-32, and now it will go to the justice committee where the members of the justice committee will not have the benefit of having heard the witnesses and the testimony that we had in the public safety committee on very closely related issues. Again, we think there is a potential problem by having multiple private members' bills as well as a government bill on victims' rights all going through the House of Commons with different paths and different timetables.

This piecemeal approach also means that sometimes important issues never end up in front of the House. What readily comes to mind is the question of how we address other needs of victims other than their needs in conjunction with the legal system.

Therefore, improving victims' rights with regard to the legal system is important. As I said, for that reason we have supported bills like Bill C-42 and the bill in front of us now. However, victims have other important needs like compensation for losses they may have suffered, financial help with time off work, counselling or help with other expenses necessary to get their lives back on track. Neither Bill C-479 nor Bill C-482 have tackled this question and Bill C-32, the victims bill of rights, suggests the answer can be found in simply expanding the rights of victims to restitution.

The problem that we on this side of the House see is that unfortunately very few victims will ever be able to recover anything through the restitution process because of the obvious fact that most offenders have few resources. This was a point that I tried to raise last night in the late night debate on the victims bill of rights. When I tried to put forward the need to discuss a better alternative, which has the potential to treat all victims fairly and equally, I was nearly shouted down in the House. It may have been the late hour that caused some of the rambunctious responses on the other side of the House, but it again illustrates the problem of doing these things piecemeal through the House of Commons.

What I wanted to put forward briefly was the idea that what we really needed was federal leadership on an adequate compensation plan for victims through criminal injuries compensation funds. The Conservatives try to slough this off, saying that it is a matter of provincial jurisdiction, yet one province, Newfoundland and Labrador, and all three territories, have no such program and in the other nine provinces the criminal injury compensation funds have very low caps on the amount of compensation available to individual victims. In some cases, this is as low as $5,000. If we think about it, $5,000 will not go very far in trying to cover things even like lost wages.

As I said before, no party in the House has a monopoly on a concern for victims, but we sometimes have different approaches to the problem. We have been supportive of these attempts to expand victims' rights through the legal system, but we believe there are other needs of victims that also need equal consideration. As well, we have argued all along that one of the most important things we in the House can do is adopt programs and ensure that corrections programs do not contribute to further victims in the future. A well-funded corrections system is an important part of not having further victims in the future.

Therefore, we are looking for a balance in our approach to public safety, where we can build safer communities through having punishment in place but also having adequate rehabilitation.

As my time draws to a close, let me conclude, once again, by stating the support of the New Democrats for strengthening victims' rights in the legal system. However, I would urge all members to consider the other important issue, the thing that victims also need, which is well-supported programs in order to help them put their lives back in order.

Criminal Code

[Mario Laframboise, Bloc, Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to Bill C-16, especially since at our caucus meeting this morning, our colleague from Marc-Aurèle-Fortin gave an excellent presentation on this important bill.

I am the chief organizer for the Bloc Québécois. I therefore have a political role as well. Before I go on any further about Bill C-16, I will try to explain how this bill shows that the Conservatives are in political disarray.

When the Conservatives came to power in 2006 and 2008, transparency was one of the main planks in their election platform. But the Speaker of the House was forced to take the Conservatives to task on the issue of Afghan detainees. So the Conservatives can no longer use transparency to score political points.

Then there was probity. The Liberal regime had just come to an end with the sponsorship scandal, and the Conservatives were keen to show that they were whiter than snow. It was their way of positioning themselves as the alternative to the Liberals, who were facing corruption charges.

In recent weeks, with the affair involving Rahim Jaffer and the former status of women minister, we have seen that the Conservatives do what the Liberals did as soon as they get the chance, so the Conservatives should forget about probity.

They also talked about the economy. They styled themselves as the great defenders of the economy, and they said they were going to help the economy turn around. But they made some very unfortunate decisions, such as reducing the GST. That was in their election platform twice, and it cost them $14 billion. Today, we have a deficit of close to $50 billion, and the Conservatives are trying to blame the global economy. It is true that there was a crisis, but the Conservatives did themselves out of substantial revenue with their political ideology. I remember that they even wanted to put things right in the employment insurance fund. The Liberals had taken $54 billion from that fund to reinvest in the consolidated revenue fund and pay other expenses instead of putting the money toward EI.

In recent weeks, government ministers have been saying that there is no more surplus in the EI fund. There will be an annual deficit. The $50 billion is gone. The Liberals spent it, but the Conservatives neglected to say that they ran up a $50 billion deficit this year.

What is left of their political agenda? They can be tough on crime. That is what they have left. That is why I said that the Conservatives are in disarray.

Look at the title of Bill C-16. It is quite something. Bill C-16 contains the exact same provisions as Bill C-42, which died on the order paper due to prorogation. Once again, they used Parliament for partisan purposes. Bill C-16 is now known as the Ending House Arrest for Property and Other Serious Crimes by Serious and Violent Offenders Act. Bill C-42, which is in fact the same bill, was known as the Ending Conditional Sentences for Property and Other Serious Crimes Act.

The Conservatives are grasping at straws. They are trying to use any means to prove that they are tough on crime and that they are trying to defend the public. However, this bill deals with something other than crime.

The title, Ending House Arrest for Property and Other Serious Crimes by Serious and Violent Offenders Act, suggests that it will solve the problem of extremely violent offenders, even though the bill really deals with conditional sentences. It has very little to do with the extreme violence suggested by the title.

Before 1996, persons found guilty of a criminal offence and sentenced to less than two years' imprisonment had to serve the sentence in jail. They no longer participated in their regular activities, such as work or school, and lost the ability to fulfill their family, professional and social responsibilities.

Conditional sentencing for adults has only been in place for 13 years. The bill before us amends a law that has only existed for 13 years. Conditional sentencing became law in 1996 with a bill that received the support of the Bloc Québécois. Our party felt it was important to create an alternative to incarceration because judges need as many tools as possible in order to hand down the most appropriate sentence, the one likely to result in the reintegration of the offender, while guaranteeing public safety and the appearance of justice.

Once again, this takes public safety into account. It is the first condition that must be taken into account, and that is why my colleague from Marc-Aurèle-Fortin mentioned it in his excellent speech this morning.

Before handing down a conditional sentence, the judge must first respect an initial condition, that public safety not be jeopardized. If the individual is a danger to the community, the judge will not release him into the community or will not issue a sentence that allows him to be in the community. The judge will simply send him to jail.

When an individual receives a conditional sentence, this means that he will serve his sentence within the community. He therefore stays out of jail as long as he respects the mandatory and optional conditions imposed by the court.

The main condition is house arrest. The courts have decided that someone who has received a conditional sentence must, in principle, be on house arrest for the duration of the sentence.

Prior to 1996, people found guilty of a criminal offence and sentenced to terms of just a few days were required in all cases to serve their time in prison. The primary objective of conditional sentences was to reduce incarceration and give the courts an alternative.

This is where we see the Conservative demagogy. It reminds me of the Quebec film À soir on fait peur au monde. The Conservatives believe that there are many criminals roaming the streets and that they are very violent and extremely dangerous. They are talking about sentences of less than two years for serious crimes—a crime is a crime—but for which we have been trying, since 1996, to focus on reintegration: young people go to school, fathers have jobs, and so on.

When the judge has determined that there is no danger to society, it is explained to the offender that he will be monitored, but that he can keep his job and support his family, as opposed to how it was prior to 1996, when he would have been sent to prison, would have lost his job, and would not have been able to support his family.

Prior to 1996, people found guilty of a criminal offence and sentenced to terms of just a few days were required in all cases to serve their time. Since the adoption of conditional sentencing, judges can give a person who poses no danger to public safety a sentence that is less than two years to be served in the community.

The Criminal Code requires that a number of conditions be met before the judge can hand down a conditional sentence. That is important to understand. Since the Conservatives have decided to evoke images from the horror film À soir on fait peur au monde, we have to determine if this bill will really put extremely dangerous criminals in jail. The Criminal Code has requirements for conditional sentences. For one, the person must be found guilty of an offence not punishable by a minimum sentence.

There are minimum sentences and, to be eligible for a conditional sentence, the person must not be charged with a offence punishable by a minimum sentence.

The judge has to find that the offence merits a jail term of less than two years. I will say it again, a crime is a crime and it is always serious. However, when the crime is punishable by two years less a day, it is understood that this sentence obviously does not apply to the most serious crimes in society.

The judge must be convinced that serving the sentence in the community would not pose a threat to public safety. I spoke earlier about the title of the bill: Ending House Arrest for Property and Other Serious Crimes by Serious and Violent Offenders Act. The Conservatives want to be tough on crime. Every week they try to change public opinion because things are not going well with all their other political endeavours. Being tough on crime is all they have left. Of course, once again, they are trying to mislead us. Indeed, judges must be convinced that serving the sentence in the community would not pose a threat to public safety. So the first condition is that the offender must not be someone who poses a threat to society.

The judge must be convinced that the conditional sentence meets the criteria of the principles of sentencing set out in sections 718 and 718.2 of the Criminal Code. Of course I am not a criminal lawyer. If I have time later, I will talk more about those sections.

The following offences are ineligible: offences prosecuted by way of indictment; offences punishable by a maximum of 10 years or more; offences related to organized crime; terrorism offences; and serious personal injury offences, pursuant to section 752. I repeat, those offences are not eligible for conditional sentencing. Those are people who are convicted for being a member of organized crime, for a terrorism offence or for a serious personal injury offence, in which the victim was seriously injured or there was an attempt to cause serious personal injury or attempted murder, all very serious offences.

Bill C-16 adds to the list of offences that preclude conditional sentencing. Once again, the Conservatives' goal is to make that list longer. Let us continue with our original theory that the Conservatives are having political problems with the rest of their election promises. Being tough on crime is all they have left. They did not dare abolish conditional sentencing. They probably have another bill ready to go in a few years in which they will add more crimes to the list of offences that preclude conditional sentencing. That will allow them to continue their partisan politics, play their horror film again and scare everyone. That is the Conservative reality.

And that, by the way, is what the Republicans did. The crime rate in the United States is much higher than in Canada and higher still than in Quebec. The U.S. administration has had to release 30,000 prisoners over the past few months, primarily because it ran out of money, it ran out of room in the prisons and it was felt that the crimes and the sentences would be better managed through monitoring on the outside than by keeping those people on the inside.

For partisan and political purposes, the Conservatives probably want to score political points for trying to reassure people who have suffered serious harm from serious crimes. Indeed, this happens. There are street gangs. Crimes are committed, but I have never heard the government extending millions and billions of dollars to fight organized crime or to fight street gangs or very serious crimes. For that matter, I have not heard the government announce any funding for rehabilitation either.

As the hon. member for Marc-Aurèle-Fortin so very intelligently made us realize, people who have committed crimes and been rehabilitated do not brag about it. We must take the time to look around us. There are people who have committed crimes, had the good fortune to be rehabilitated and today are good and honest citizens. The problem with such people is that they do not brag about it, while we are more aware of violent crimes and those who commit them because that is what we see so often on television and in other media.

As I said, our colleague from Marc-Aurèle-Fortin intelligently—brilliantly even—told us that at this point in time, we can only imagine how many sentences are handed down in every court in Quebec and the rest of Canada every day.

Errors may occur, but should we scrap the whole system because one judge makes some kind of mistake? I think that is easy for the Conservatives to do. Television cameras are typically set up near courthouses to keep an eye on what is going on. That is something we see every day, something we live with. We rarely see good news stories on television. The media like to sensationalize bad news stories. However, the thousands of rulings handed down are generally excellent considering how justice is administered in Quebec and Canada. We have inherited a very good justice system from our forebears.

We inherited our justice system from our parents and grandparents. It is a choice. I am looking at how the Conservatives want to change it. There was a big debate on abortion in the House. Our predecessors resolved that issue.

For purely partisan reasons, some people are doing everything in their power to reopen debates that have been put aside. It is the sound and fury of partisan politics once again. I often say to those who will listen that power can make people crazy. Some of the people in power in this House are well on their way there. Once again, the only thing the Conservatives have left is their tough on crime agenda, and they are going to milk it for all it is worth. That is what is going on today with Bill C-16.

We have to take a respectful approach to this bill because the cases that will be exempt from the legislation involve conditional sentencing, which was brought in in 1996. As I said, Bill C-16 adds more crimes to the list of those not eligible for conditional sentencing.

Parts of the proposed new section 742.1 read as follows:

(c) the offence is not an offence, prosecuted by way of indictment, for which the maximum term of imprisonment is 14 years or life;...

(e) the offence is not an offence, prosecuted by way of indictment, for which the maximum term of imprisonment is 10 years, that

(i) resulted in bodily harm,

(ii) involved the import, export, trafficking or production of drugs, or

(iii) involved the use of a weapon; and

(f) the offence is not an offence, prosecuted by way of indictment, under any of the following provisions:

(i) section 144 (prison breach),

(ii) section 172.1 (luring a child),

(iii) section 264 (criminal harassment),...

(v) section 279 (kidnapping),...

(viii) paragraph 334(a) (theft over $5000),

(ix) paragraph 348(1)(e) (breaking and entering...),

(x) section 349 (being unlawfully in a dwelling-house), and

(xi) section 435 (arson for fraudulent purpose).

It can be any kind of arson, even setting fire to a moped. That is why members have to understand that adding to the list of offences for which a judge can no longer hand down a conditional sentence restricts the power of the law passed in 1996.

Once again, the government is restricting judges' power and, I repeat, we are talking about sentences of two years or less, so two years less a day. That is the reality.

The list is so long now that it is almost like turning the clock back 10 years to a time when conditional sentences did not exist as an alternative for adults.

Criminologists have long agreed that tougher sentences do not reduce crime. Recent studies confirm that there is little correlation between the severity of a sentence and the number of offences. But publicizing arrest rates and increasing the likelihood of being arrested do really have an impact on crime.

A conditional sentence not only involves a penalty, but also rehabilitation and restorative justice. This combination is more likely than incarceration in a correctional facility to prevent an offender from continuing to endanger the public after serving his sentence.

In addition, certain conditional sentences require the offender to make restitution to the victim and society and comply with very strict rules. Since 2000—

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

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak again about Bill C-16, which was known as Bill C-42 barely a few months ago. Two years ago it was Bill C-9.

There are always questions about the administration of justice. How can justice be better administered? How can we ensure that dangerous criminals stay behind bars as long as possible? We will not find positive answers to these questions in Bill C-16.

For those who are watching, I should explain what we are talking about. When an individual is brought before a court for having committed an offence, a break and enter for example, the judge has a myriad of options, ranging from a simple fine to jail time. Somewhere between those two options is parole and absolute discharge.

When it comes to detention, the Conservatives need to stop kidding us. I am sure that the translators, who are wonderful, will put this correctly in English: a conditional sentence is still a sentence. And that brings us to the final types of sentences a judge can impose—a fixed term sentence or a conditional sentence. Since the Conservatives are not familiar with this, I will explain it to them.

In 1996, a number of attorneys general and ministers of justice—including the current Minister of Justice, who was in Manitoba at the time—determined that this was expensive and that some people were jailed too long for nothing.

We must understand one extremely important thing, which I will repeat because the members opposite do not understand: a conditional sentence is a sentence of imprisonment. The Conservatives are saying that offenders serve their sentence at home with their feet up doing nothing. I will come back to that. They are bending the truth, if not totally lying to the public when they say such things. It is absolutely not true.

I practised law in 1985, 1990 and 1995, and from 1996 to 2003. I argued many cases and learned a lot about the system. For example, an individual is brought before a judge, who hands down a conditional sentence. It might be a good idea for certain Conservative MPs to read and consult section 718 of the Criminal Code, which is not being amended by this bill. This section is the basis of conditional sentencing. It reads:

The fundamental purpose of sentencing is to contribute, along with crime prevention initiatives, to respect for the law and the maintenance of a just, peaceful and safe society...

These words are important and our favourite Conservatives need to understand them:

...by imposing just sanctions that have one or more of the following objectives:

(a) to denounce unlawful conduct;

(b) to deter the offender...

(c) to separate offenders from society, where necessary;

We see that the third objective does not come first.

The fourth objective is, “to assist in rehabilitating offenders”. Those are not my words. That is what it says in section 718 of the Criminal Code. Do the Conservatives want to abolish section 718 while they are at it?

Then there is the fifth objective, “to provide reparations for harm done to victims or the community”. An intelligent judge—and God knows, judges are intelligent—who has read and understood section 718 knows how to apply it. Let us be clear about something once and for all. It is a shame my Conservative friends are not listening to what I am saying.

A conditional sentence can only apply to sentences of less than two years.

Less than two years. Is that clear enough?

The very title of the bill is reprehensible. It is absurd. It does not apply to hardened criminals or those who commit dozens of break and enters. It applies to sentences of less than two years given for offences such as petty theft, auto theft and joy-rides. These sentences are usually given to young people who do not understand. They are not hardened criminals. Judges want them to consider their actions. We are not talking about thieves who commit armed robbery. That kind of crime buys a minimum of four years in jail because a weapon was involved. Anyone who uses a weapon to commit theft gets a minimum of four years in jail. Is that clear enough?

This bill is worse than backward; it drags us back nearly 30 years. The Conservatives' mentality is dangerous because it would move us backward.

That is not the worst of it though. When the Minister of Justice told the committee that this was what attorneys general wanted, committee members asked him if every attorney general in Canada agreed with him. He had the nerve to say that the majority agreed. The problem is that he did not study the issue. The Minister of Justice just came up with this bill. Initially, it was Bill C-42. Now it is Bill C-16, but it is the same bill. Only its number changed. The Conservatives did not study the issue. God knows that I can say so because I was a member of the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights when we studied Bill C-42. We asked them if they had done any studies suggesting that this kind of bill is useful and necessary and that attorneys general and crown prosecutors want it. The answer was no.

So why are they introducing this type of bill? For one reason and one reason only—to respond to the Conservatives supposed target population, which is asking them to be tough on crime. The problem is that when you are tough on crime, you also need to be smart on crime. You have to understand these sentences and these demands. When the bill is studied again, they will trot out the same numbers again. Numbers can speak for themselves. Hold on tight, you are in for quite a surprise.

I will give the real numbers for those who are listening. I did not make these up; they come from the Department of Justice. Actually, they are from the Department of Public Safety, which is practically the same thing. They work hand in hand. This needs to be heard. The average annual inmate cost—I am going to take my time, Mr. Speaker; you can add this to the time I have been allotted—for persons in provincial or territorial custody—the provinces, Quebec, Yukon, Ontario—including remand or other forms of temporary detention was, listen carefully now, $52,205 in 2005-2006. I will repeat that in case the Conservatives did not understand. It cost $52,205 per year to keep someone in a provincial prison. But the best is yet to come. The cost of monitoring an offender within the community, including conditional sentences, probation, supervision, fines and release was $2,398.05 in 2006-2007. I will translate that into plain language since they did not understand. I will repeat it.

It costs $52,205 per year to keep someone in prison, while a conditional sentence costs $2,398.05 per year. The government's figures show that the recidivism rates for individuals who receive conditional sentences have significantly decreased. I am repeating that because they do not understand. The Bloc is not the one saying this.

However, if we were to adopt this bill as is tomorrow morning, we would have 13,000 to 15,000 more prisoners in our provincial detention facilities. That is many hundreds. I hope they know how to count on the other side. Let us take the lower number, 13,000, and multiply it by $52,000. I hope they know how to count. That money could be invested in rehabilitation programs and we could offer appropriate services to the people who need them.

The worst is that regions like Yukon and the Northwest Territories will pay the price because, unfortunately, those regions have a lot of crimes committed by aboriginals. There is a high rate of imprisonment among aboriginals.

In 1996, the government was smart. This government was not in power in 1996. The government implemented conditional sentences because it had thought it through and had conducted studies. It said this was about actual prison sentences. The offender must be found guilty of an offence not punishable by a minimum sentence.

It is clear that if someone commits murder, we will not waste our time. That is what the Conservatives do not understand. Conditional sentencing applies only to sentences of less than two years for which there is no mandatory minimum term of imprisonment. Possession of a firearm for dangerous purposes carries a minimum sentence of three years. That is not an eligible offence and conditional sentencing would not apply. Let us take, for example, multiple charges of impaired driving. If the court imposes a sentence of more than two years, this does not apply. It applies only to people who are imprisoned for less than two years.

Whether our Conservative friends like it or not, when we see the real figures, we can see that judges have taken their role so seriously that, since 2000, they have tightened up monitoring and imposed stricter conditions for an individual to be eligible for conditional sentencing.

When conditional sentences were first being developed, around 1996 or 1997, people were very concerned about whether an individual would respect all the conditions that were set. It was out of respect for the victims—the Conservatives like it when we tell them these things—that the criteria to qualify for a conditional sentence were tightened to include custody. It is a form of imprisonment. It might be at home or at a detention centre or reception centre. The individual's schedule is monitored. The monitoring system is very important in such cases. The individual is regularly and continuously monitored.

To demonstrate this, for days on end, many of my clients were woken up at 3 a.m. by the monitoring service that called to ensure they were at home in bed. Once that was confirmed, the service wished them a good day and hung up.

They are prohibited from having anything other than a land line phone. When cell phones came on the scene, someone could gallivant all over the place and answer as though he was at home. Now conditional sentences prohibit cell phones, because the individual must be reachable at home. So what happens when someone breaches one of the conditions of his conditional sentence? This is very important.

What the Conservatives fail to grasp is that the person is sentenced, for example, to an 18-month conditional sentence, with certain conditions that are set, approved and signed by the court. The individual who breaches the conditions is arrested and serves the rest of the sentence without being eligible for parole. What does that mean? I will explain it for my Conservative friends. Take the example of an individual who is arrested and is given an 18-month conditional sentence. If he does not respect the conditions on the first week-end, he is arrested and jailed, and has to serve the rest of his sentence without possibility of parole. I can assure you, as I have represented a number of these clients, that the court will be very reluctant and hard pressed to release them under other conditions.

I would like to end by telling my Conservative colleagues that eliminating conditional sentences for 39 offences is not the way to reduce crime. This propaganda must stop. This means one thing and we must realize it. If individuals, if the Conservatives, if the Minister of Justice wish to impose jail sentences rather than conditional sentences, it is because they do not trust the judges. That is extremely dangerous. In fact, we need to realize something: if we are unhappy with a judge's sentence, we can appeal. That is what the appeal courts are there for. The government should stop beating around the bush and just say that they do not trust them. We believe that we must trust our courts and, above all, that we must keep conditional sentencing, which is a good measure, one that works well and reduces crime.

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

Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to rise and speak to Bill C-16, which, but for prorogation, might be Bill C-42 and, but for incessant elections, might be Bill C-70. In any event, this is a proposed law that speaks to a tool the judiciary has in its toolbox called conditional sentencing.

I am struck by the previous speaker and the tone in the House generally when it comes to characterizing bills by names that presumably everyone can understand what they mean. The Conservative government attempts to cut, with a very large swath, colour with a large brush, a whole area of law with a very simply phrase.

For people tuning in to the debate about Bill C-16, they would, because of the way the government labels bills, think this is a debate about ending house arrest for property and other serious crimes by serious and violent offenders. That would be the title of the book or the movie that people would be watching if they were tuning in to this debate.

When we actually peel away the layers of the onion, we realize that we are talking about an enactment of Parliament that was substantially amended in 1995, with some minor amendments in the last Parliament, which is imposing conditional sentence. It does not say imposing house arrest with a big screen TV and extreme television. That is not to be found in the code.

The Criminal Code is a large volume that regulates the laws punishing criminals for proven facts that lead to a sentence or conviction. The Criminal Code does that. It is divided up into many sections, sections involving offences against the state, invasions of privacy, offences against the person, offences against property. Administrative aspects are in there as well. There are some 800 sections in the code and one of those sections deals with imposing a conditional sentence.

Let us be clear. If someone who commits a crime is sentenced to two years less a day, that individual is eligible, in some cases, for conditional sentence. Anybody who is found guilty of an offence that gets a sentence of more than two years is not, will not be, has never been, eligible for conditional sentencing.

Maybe some the people listening today are parents. They realize that if they take away their teenage daughter's cellphone, that is pretty serious punishment. If they banish her to her room for a week, that is really serious punishment. However, if they tell her she has to eat her vegetables, that is not that serious in the realm of possibilities of sentencing.

Conditional sentencing is available to judges. It provides them with the opportunity to say that there is some possible merit in the person. The individual has done a bad thing, but maybe he or she could be rehabilitated, maybe we could get to the root cause of why he or she is acting this way.

This opens up the larger debate of what are we doing as a Parliament about crime prevention.

We have been doing very little lately because we are spending our time watching our own big screen TVs and the Minister of Justice saying that this bill would end house arrest for property and other serious offences, when in fact it is trying to curb a tool being used by judges and prosecutors every day.

Let us be clear again. A defence attorney defends a person accused of something. That is not within the realm of this debate here. We are making law that would be used by police officers and prosecutors. Police charge a person with an offence. Prosecutors will look at a whole range of proof possibilities. They will also look at the range of possible sentencing. The prosecutors, the police and eventually the judge will look at the sentence in a holistic fashion and say that there are a number of options available, such as the individual is just a bad person and he or she should be locked away. Unfortunately the Conservative government thinks everybody falls into that category, and there are a number who do.

However, there are also people who, because of addictions to substances or horrendous nurturing child development socio-economic background problems, are driven to crime. A number of people, because of mental illness, which still has not been addressed in our communities, may turn to a life of crime and perhaps, in the first few incidences, are committing crimes that a judge, a prosecutor or a police force official would say that the person could benefit from a conditional sentence. Conditional sentences are often recommended by prosecutors.

This painting of the picture by the Conservatives that all policemen and all prosecutors want the most harsh sentence and want to put the person away is not always the case.

This is why we have debate in the House and why we have committees where we will hear from the people actually doing the work, the prosecutors, the policemen and, hopefully, the judges. They will tell us that this is a tool that exists among all the other tools which include incarceration. If someone commits an offence they can be charged with an offence and incarcerated. If it is a really serious offence, the offender will get a really long jail sentence.

My friend from Edmonton—St. Albert does not want to talk about cases but let us cut it up as to the type of offences that might occur and the sentences that would be incurred.

If someone commits a really serious sexual assault involving bodily harm and it is his fourth offence, he will not get six months or a year. He will get a serious sentence, not a conditional sentence. It is an academic argument. It is a wrong argument to say that we are giving house arrest to the big screen TV watching criminals for the very serious offences on multiple occasions. The evidence will be before us in committee. Contrary to what my friend from Edmonton--St. Albert said, the committee and this Parliament have not heard any evidence about conditional sentencing. We will hear that if the bill goes to committee.

I would remind members of the House that we get the big wheel of the justice committee going and then all of a sudden there is a prorogation and we start all over again. Heavy is the head that wears the crown over there, in that the government keeps stopping Parliament and bringing in legislation and we have to hear evidence all over again.

However, we are looking forward to hearing from the participants in the justice system as to whether the tool is being used and whether it works.

As I was saying, the other tools that a judge, prosecutor and police officials have at their disposal is to work together toward incarcerating criminals. Let us review that one. In many circumstances the best deterrent for future criminal activity is having someone not out and available to do that crime. There is no question about that. The best prospect for public security and public safety with respect to certain individuals is keeping them incarcerated. A little side note is that when they are in our corrections facilities they often commit crimes as well because it is not as controlled as Canadians would like to think. Criminal activities do take place inside our corrections facilities. Therefore, when we remove someone it is not as if we are getting rid of their criminal activity. That is number one.

Number two is that without any rehabilitative programs and without any care for making the person better, the period of incarceration has, in many cases, especially for a first or second offender who might merit a conditional sentence, the opposite effect. The offender does not learn necessarily good things in prison and he or she comes out a worse offender or a worse potential offender.

There is another fallacy in the Conservatives' hide and seek justice philosophy. They think they can convince the Canadian public that by putting people away and removing them from society they will never come back into society, and, in some cases that is true. I do not have the facts in front of me about that but our list of dangerous or long term offenders who will be incarcerated forever, multiple murderers, is in the percentage of 1%, 2% or 3% of our incarcerees now. I think it is that low.

I will be conservative for a moment and say that the vast majority, 80% perhaps, of offenders will get out of prison. When they get out even the Conservative would need to come up with a reason to put them back in. Therefore, they do need to reoffend and thus the victimization reoccurs.

What is in everyone's interest is to know that incarceration happens, which is the first element in the toolkit. Second, if there is a sentence that merits a period of leave or freedom, it can be accomplished with a guilty plea, a sentence and a probation order. In some cases, a probation order would be very acceptable. However, as we heard time and again, probation orders are not as fluid. They are not a useful tool to judges because they do not allow as many conditions attended to the probation order as a conditional sentence. I do not hear the government saying that we should end all probation orders. It must think the probation order works even though it has fewer conditions than a conditional sentence regime.

The conditional sentence is the third element in the toolbox that I would like to discuss. It is found in section 742.1 of the Criminal Code of Canada which, as I have said before, is the best thing a Conservative justice minister ever did by creating the Criminal Code or putting it together. That is some 100 years ago and we are looking for some improvement and some new things from a Conservative justice minister, but near the end of the code it has a tool for judges to say that if a person is convicted of a offence and it is less than two years and, this is a key thing, the judge is satisfied that serving the sentence in the community would not endanger the safety of the community and would be consistent with the fundamental purpose and principles of sentencing set out in section 718, the conditional sentence may work and may be used by a judge.

Section 718, which I have referred to a number of times, is probably the most important part of the Criminal Code because it sets out our principles of sentencing and they do not weight one more than the other. It says that if a person has done a crime we should seek to denounce that crime. There also should be an element of deterrence so that it does not happen again. Deterrence is general to the general public. If a person does something, the conviction of that and the sentence attended to it should deter people generally from doing that and it certainly should deter the person specifically.

There are also elements of rehabilitation. Is the person who committed the crime and has been convicted eligible to be rehabilitated? The goal of most of the criminal justice legislation that comes from this place must be to make society safer. Making society safer would occur if there were less crime. There would be less crime if there were a serious crime prevention agenda, a serious attended budget for crime prevention and less bickering between the federal government and the provinces with respect to how to spend resources on crime prevention.

For a moment I will digress and say that there is a bickering by distance. The provinces may get social transfers but they always say that they do not have enough resources to fund probation officers and police officers who intervene in the community. The provinces are doing very little with federal money to get involved in crime prevention. We must remember that everything with the government is storefront. It is not what is behind the storefront, but in the storefront the Conservatives put the Ombudsman of Victims of Crime, Mr. Steve Sullivan. He did an admirable job. He spoke up for victims. However, like Kevin Page, AECL and everyone who gives the government a few problems, speaks up and speaks the truth to power, the Conservatives are not renewing the contract to Mr. Sullivan. How serious are they about victims rights really and how serious are they about a crime prevention agenda?

The provinces would like to do more in this regard.

I do not know if our intergovernmental affairs critic is here but in the old days there were a number of first ministers meetings, attorneys general, justice ministers and even the prime minister might be involved occasionally in the past, but there has been very little dialogue with respect to crime prevention and to changes to the Criminal Code from the current government members.

The Conservatives are not as much interested in finding the root causes of crime and treating them, or in finding out what programs are effective and funding them, or in talking to the provinces on how to better implement their programs on a national scale, province by province and territory by territory, as they are in the 5 p.m., 6 p.m. in the Atlantic provinces and 6:30 p.m. in Newfoundland, national news stories that say, “We have done this today. Look at us. We are going to make the language simple.”

I find nothing wrong with simple language but in this case it is misleading to say that this is about house arrest. This is about the section of the code that gives the judge options. If a judge chooses to employ the conditional sentence for a crime that is less than two years, he or she may, in most cases has to, implement certain conditions, and they are here, that every person convicted of a crime that befits a conditional sentence shall keep the peace and be of good behaviour, shall appear before the court when required to do so, shall report to a supervisor within two working days after making the order, thereafter, when required and at the behest of the supervisor, shall remain within the jurisdiction of the court unless has permission to do otherwise, shall notify the court or the supervisor in advance of any change of name or address and promptly notify the court.

If any of those conditions are broken, and if provinces are adequately funded for officers to enforce these orders, which is a big problem for the provinces, the government throws out legislation, puts it on the books and subsequently has a turf war with the provinces and territories as to how the laws will be implemented and who pays for it. There is a systemic downloading of services to provinces in this regard. However, those are the standard conditions and if they are broken the person goes back.

I think we will hear from witnesses, if this goes to committee, why it is a valuable tool that need not be restricted any more than it is and needs to be a tool of the judicial discretion that exists. We must remember that from the moment the government took office it has attacked judges because it did not like anyone who was not in their caucus, which is getting smaller month by month. In other words, the government would like to have judges like those in the United States who run on political campaigns, on a set of political promises and toe a political party line.

The government has had very little respect for judges since it came to power and now it wants to take away further discretion. It is okay to have that belief, but when it stands and says that it believes in judicial discretion, its actions with respect to legislation does not show that.

Let us talk about a good judge, a good prosecution and good police officer bringing an individual to court who may be saved. These additional conditions are available to a judge for people who have been found guilty of an offence for which a conditional sentence order might apply. They could be ordered to abstain from the consumption of alcohol or other intoxicating substances. There is no such order in our corrections facilities. It is a given that they cannot in corrections facilities but the reality is that it happens.

As I said earlier, and I think we would all agree, many people who commit crimes and are in our prisons have substance abuse issues. It is the root cause of much crime in this country. We should be doing something to allow judges to force people convicted of offences to refrain from consuming alcohol or intoxicating substances.

Another condition could be abstaining from owning, possessing or carrying a weapon. Other conditions are to provide for the support and care of dependents, if the person has them; perform up to 240 hours of community services over a period not exceeding 18 months; attend a treatment program approved by a province; and comply with, and this is the catch-all, such other reasonable conditions as the court considers desirable.

Let us not throw the baby out with the bathwater. Let us keep conditional sentences subject to what the evidence tells us about their efficacy. Let us not completely denigrate the system, which is the whole pith and substance of what the hon. member for Edmonton—St. Albert, in leading the government in this discussion, said. He said that because conditional sentences are used, so people can watch their big screen TVs, the whole system of justice is brought into disrepute.

What brings the system of justice into disrepute is the agent of the government, the representative of the government who stands here and says that something that is being used every day by good judges, good prosecutors and good policemen is not working. That is what brings it into disrepute.

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

Mr. Speaker, it is certainly an honour for me to rise today to begin second reading debate on Bill C-16, ending house arrest for property and other serious crimes by serious and violent offenders Act.

This bill, aptly named, proposes to restrict the availability of conditional sentences in the same manner as advanced in the former Bill C-42 in the last session of Parliament. Our government is taking further action to crack down on crime and to protect the safety and security of our communities.

A conditional sentence of imprisonment is one that is less than two years and one that a court may permit an offender to serve in the community under conditions and supervision. Bill C-16 proposes amendments to the Criminal Code to ensure that conditional sentences are never available for serious and violent offenders, and serious property offences which were never intended to be eligible for a conditional sentence in the first place.

Let me be clear to all members of the House. This government's proposed legislation would ensure that House arrest is no longer used for offences that pose a significant risk to law-abiding citizens.

Conditional sentences of imprisonment came into force over 13 years ago with the proclamation in 1996 of Bill C-41, entitled “Sentencing Reform”, which is found in chapter 22 of the Statutes of Canada, 1995. Among the key elements of that legislation were the following: the creation of conditional sentences as a new sentencing option; the first ever parliamentary statement of the purpose and principles of sentencing, which are contained in sections 718 and 718.2 of the Criminal Code of Canada; and increased emphasis on the interests of crime victims, including the recognition that the harm done to victims should be considered at the time of sentencing.

As originally enacted in 1996, a conditional sentence was available as a sentencing option provided that the following prerequisites were met: first, the sentence must be less than two years in duration; second, the court must be satisfied that allowing the offender to serve the sentence of imprisonment in the community will not endanger the safety of the community; and third, the offence must not be punishable by a mandatory minimum term of imprisonment.

Shortly after the implementation of Bill C-41 and in response to concerns that courts were awarding conditional sentence orders for quite serious offences, a requirement was added that the court be satisfied that sentencing the offender to serve a conditional sentence of imprisonment is consistent with the fundamental purpose and principles of sentencing as set out in the Criminal Code.

The fundamental purpose of sentencing, as described in section 718 of the code, states that a sentence must contribute to respect for the law and the maintenance of a just, peaceful and safe society by imposing just sanctions that have one or more of the following objectives: first, denouncing unlawful conduct; second, deterring the offender and other persons from committing offences; third, separating offenders from society where necessary; fourth, assisting in the rehabilitation of offenders; fifth, providing reparation for harm done to victims or the community; and finally, promoting a sense of responsibility in offenders and acknowledgement of the harm done to victims and to the community.

The preconditions for a conditional sentence, along with the deemed aggravating factors added to the Criminal Code by Bill C-41, such as evidence that the offender abused a position of trust, were designed to screen out serious offences committed in circumstances for which denunciation, general deterrence, and incapacitation should be considered the primary sentencing objectives. In addition, the fundamental principle of sentencing is that a sentence must be proportionate to the gravity of the offence and the degree of responsibility of the offender.

In 2000, the Supreme Court of Canada held in Regina v. Proulx that the conditional sentencing regime does not exclude any category of offences other than those with a minimum period of incarceration, nor is there a presumption for or against its use for any category of offence. The court said, however, that it was open for Parliament to introduce such limitations. Unfortunately, sentencing courts have interpreted the availability of conditional sentences in an inconsistent fashion because of the lack of clear parameters, allowing in some instances violent and serious offenders to serve their sentences under a conditional sentence of imprisonment.

This unfortunately has resulted in criticism of the sanction and a loss of public confidence in the administration of justice and, I would submit, in the justice system overall.

The government responded expeditiously to these concerns when it took office by tabling, in May of 2006, Bill C-9, an act to amend the Criminal Code regarding conditional sentence of imprisonment. As introduced, Bill C-9 proposed to eliminate the availability of conditional sentences for any offences punishable by a maximum sentence of 10 years or more that were prosecuted by indictment.

This would have caught serious crimes such as sexual offences, weapons offences, offences against children, and also serious property crime such as fraud and theft over $5,000. However, as ultimately passed by Parliament, Bill C-9 only further restricted the availability of conditional sentences by excluding terrorism offences, organized crime offences, and serious personal injury offences that were punishable by a maximum sentence of 10 years or more and when they were prosecuted by indictment.

As defined by section 752 of the Criminal Code, a serious personal injury offence has two components. First, it is defined to specifically include the three general sexual assault offences which are contained in sections 271, 272 and 273 of the Criminal Code that are used for adult and some child victims.

However, the second component of a serious personal injury offence does not provide the same certainty because it includes indictable offences other than high treason, treason, first degree murder or second degree murder involving the use or attempted use of violence against another person, or conduct endangering or likely to endanger the life or safety of another person, or inflicting or likely to inflict severe psychological damage on another person, for which the offender may be sentenced to imprisonment for a term of 10 years or longer.

It is this aspect of the existing conditional sentencing provisions that are so problematic and this is what the bill before us today addresses. Rather than leaving it to the individual courts to determine whether a particular case qualifies as a serious personal injury offence, this bill clearly identifies all offences which will never be eligible for a conditional sentence. It removes the uncertainty and provides clarity to our law.

Up until the coming into force of Bill C-9 on December 1, 2007, sentencing courts only interpreted serious personal injury offence for the purposes of determining whether the threshold for a dangerous or long-term offender application had been met under part 24 of the Criminal Code. This is because the term had been enacted and defined for the dangerous and long-term offender provisions only.

Since Bill C-9 came into force, courts have had to interpret the definition of serious personal injury offences in the context of conditional sentences, a context which is quite different than that for dangerous and long-term offenders.

For instance, in Regina v. Becker in 2009, a decision of the Alberta Provincial Court, and in Regina v. Thompson, a decision by the Ontario Court of Justice, the courts were asked to determine whether the offence of robbery was a serious personal injury offence in the context of the availability of conditional sentences.

In both cases, threats were made, yet in only one of the two cases did the court ultimately find that robbery met the definition of a serious personal injury offence. In other words, the eligibility of the same offence, in this case robbery, for a conditional sentence was interpreted differently by these two courts, with the result that a conditional sentence was available in one case but not in the other. Clearly, that inconsistency needs to be resolved.

In two other cases before the Courts of Appeal in the same two provinces, both courts interpreted the serious personal injury in the conditional sentence context in the same way, but differently from how serious personal injury had been interpreted to date in the dangerous offender context. More specifically, in the 2009 decision by the Alberta Court of Appeal, in Regina v. Ponticorvo, the court held that serious personal injury in the conditional sentence context included the use or attempted use of any violence and was not restricted to only the use of serious violence. In so doing, the court applied a different interpretation than it had to the same term in the dangerous offender context in Regina v. Neve in 1999.

Moreover, the Court of Appeal for Ontario, in Regina v. Lebar, in 2010, confirmed this approach and concluded that for the purpose of the availability of conditional sentences, Parliament created:

--a divide between crimes where violence is or is not used, not between crimes of serious violence and less serious violence.

That is found at paragraph 69 of the Ontario Court of Appeal judgment.

What these cases illustrate is that there is considerable uncertainty about how the existing conditional sentences will be interpreted and applied. However, this bill would provide the needed clarity and the certainty to say which offences are not eligible for a conditional sentence. This would, in turn, prevent the need to wait for these issues to be finally resolved by the appellant courts.

Another concern is that the definition of serious personal injury offences does not cover other serious property crimes which would still be eligible for a conditional sentence.

For instance, fraud, which can have a devastating impact on the lives of its victims, is punishable by a maximum sentence of 14 years. Although this type of offence can be every bit as devastating as a serious personal injury offence, it is still technically eligible for a conditional sentence.

In addition, the current prerequisites of the availability of a conditional sentence do not exclude drug offences unless they are committed as part of a criminal organization and provided that they are punishable by 10 years or more and prosecuted by indictment. Consequently, as a result, a conditional sentence would be available for the production, importation and trafficking in a schedule 1 drug, such as heroin.

I think members would agree with me that most Canadians would not find that result reasonable.

It is my view that the current conditional sentencing regime still fails to categorically make conditional sentences ineligible for many very serious crimes. Greater clarity and greater consistency is needed to limit the availability of conditional sentences and to protect Canadians from serious and violent offenders.

In order to address these concerns, this bill proposes to eliminate the reference to serious personal injury offences in section 742.1 and make all offences punishable by 14 years, or life, ineligible for a conditional sentence. This would make the offences of fraud, robbery and many other crimes ineligible for conditional sentences.

It would also clearly make offences prosecuted by indictment and punishable by 10 years that result in bodily harm, that involve the import or export, trafficking and production of drugs, or that involve the use of a weapon, ineligible for a conditional sentence.

While this element of the legislation would significantly limit the ambit of the conditional sentencing regime, the addition of these categories would not capture all serious offences prosecuted by indictment and punishable by a maximum of 10 years.

To resolve this, this bill also proposes a list of 11 specific offences prosecuted by indictment and punishable by a maximum sentence of 10 years that, upon passage of this legislation, would become ineligible for a conditional sentence. These offences are: prison breach, luring a child, criminal harassment, sexual assault, forcible confinement, trafficking in persons, abduction, theft over $5,000, breaking and entering a place other than a dwelling house, being unlawfully in a dwelling house, and arson for fraudulent purposes.

Conditional sentences are an appropriate sentencing tool, in many cases. However, access to them does need to be restricted when it comes to serious property and serious violent offences.

This government shares the common sense belief of all Canadians, that the punishment should fit the crime, especially when it comes to serious and violent offences, and serious and violent offenders.

This legislation, when passed by this House, would make it clear to the courts that those who commit serious property and violent offences will serve jail time and that house arrest will no longer be an available sentencing option.

I hope that all hon. members will appreciate that and support this legislation.

Status of Women

[Helena Guergis, Conservative, Minister of State (Status of Women)]

Mr. Speaker, the government has taken a number of concrete steps to protect women across this country.

We passed the Tackling Violent Crime Act. We have made significant investments in policing. We are supporting Sisters in Spirit. We have introduced Bill C-42, which is to end conditional sentences for violent crimes such as kidnapping, human trafficking and rape, and yet I note there are so many members in the opposition benches who are against this piece of legislation.

[Helena Guergis, Conservative, Minister of State (Status of Women)]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the member for Sarnia—Lambton for the work that she has done to end violence against women.

For Status of Women Canada, one of our key pillars is ending violence against women. We are in fact supporting hundreds of projects across the country that address the number of faces of violence against women and children.

We have also taken a number of initiatives. We have introduced and passed the Tackling Violent Crime Act. We have made significant investments in policing. We are supporting Sisters in Spirit. We also introduced most recently Bill C-42 to end house arrest and conditional sentences for violent sexual crimes. We hope the opposition will support us.

Criminal Code

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

Madam Speaker, in my career as a criminal lawyer, my most important client was always the one in front of me, whom I had to defend before the court. It is worth repeating: justice issues are very important. I do not mean to denigrate the work of other members, because I respect what they do, but this work is very important because it gives people their freedom. We must give this the attention it deserves.

As a parliamentarian and a lawyer, when someone forgets—I was going to use another word, but I will avoid it so as to avoid a point of order—deliberately or not, to hand over documents or to give us the information we need to make decisions, I take exception to that. In fact, I think I should take exception more often.

Bills C-52, C-42, C-36, C-31 and C-32 need to be studied immediately. Should they be studied quickly? No, we will take our time and give them the careful consideration they deserve, as we should and as we are expected to do. Then we will see.

For now, the issue that concerns me is Bill C-36. In my opinion, we must take time to give it the consideration it deserves. The Conservatives must stop forgetting to give us the documents needed to study this bill.

Business of the House

[Jay Hill, Conservative, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, in relation to what day the House will be doing its annual tributes to the sacrifices of our veterans and those in the Canadian Forces currently serving, that will be under negotiation. I suspect that is something that will be discussed among all House leaders in the days ahead. We will decide, obviously, collectively and co-operatively on the appropriate time to make that important tribute.

In regard to our ongoing justice program, obviously we are going to continue along, as we have last week and this week, for the remainder of the week with our justice legislation. I would note that since my last statement, we introduced Bill C-53, Protecting Canadians by Ending Early Release for Criminals Act, and Bill C-54, Protecting Canadians by Ending Sentence Discounts for Multiple Murders Act. Both of those additional bills are a key part of our ongoing efforts to reform the justice system in our country.

We sent to committee this week Bill C-42, Ending Conditional Sentences for Property and other Serious Crimes Act; Bill C-52, Retribution on Behalf of Victims of White Collar Crime Act; Bill C-46, Investigative Powers for the 21st Century Act; and Bill C-47, Technical Assistance for Law Enforcement in the 21st Century Act.

By the day's end, we hope to conclude debate on Bill C-43, Strengthening Canada's Corrections System Act. If we do that, I intend to call Bill C-31, the modernizing criminal procedure bill, and Bill C-19, the anti-terrorism bill.

Tomorrow we will continue with yet another justice bill, Bill C-35, Justice for Victims of Terrorism Act, followed by the remainder of the justice bills that I noted if they have not been completed.

Next week I intend to call Bill C-50, the employment insurance for long tenured workers' bill, which is at report stage, having had it returned from committee.

Following Bill C-50, we will call for debate the report and third reading stage of Bill C-27, Electronic Commerce Protection Act, and second reading of Bill C-44, An Act to amend the Canada Post Corporation Act,

Finally, Wednesday, November 4, will be an allotted day.

Investigative Powers for the 21st Century Act

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

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise here today to speak to Bill C-46. We will probably study Bill C-47 either later today or tomorrow. Bills C-46 and C-47 are very closely related to each other and, for those watching us, have to do with cybercrime.

It appears that the Canadian government has finally entered the 21st century and wants to address the very serious problem of cybercrime. Before going into the details, I would like to give some background. There was a convention, if we can call it that, known as the convention on cybercrime. That convention was the subject of many meetings. In fact, there were 27 different versions of the convention on cybercrime before the final version was drafted and signed by many countries, including Canada, the United States, Japan, South Africa, and even the Council of Europe. All the countries that signed the convention undertook to introduce one or more bills to implement the convention on cybercrime. That is precisely what the government is doing here today.

We can examine the technical details of the bill in committee. Yes, the Bloc Québécois agrees that Bill C-46 should move forward and be referred to the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security. This will also probably be true for Bill C-47.

Bill C-46 should allow police forces to adapt their investigative techniques to modern technologies like cellphones, iPods, the Internet, as well as social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter that link today's online world. This bill will give police forces access to such technologies.

When a bill like this is introduced there is one thing the government and parliamentarians must not forget: the bill must not infringe on basic rights even though we are trying to properly equip our police forces to deal with crime. All of this is being done in response to what happened in 2001. Even though we know that work on cybercrime began in 1995, the events of September 2001 had a substantial impact. That is when governments realized they did not have the means to intercept certain communications. Before and after 1995, and even before and after 2001, surveillance was used. It was very easy to realize you were being followed. We are not talking about a James Bond movie here. We are not nearly as sophisticated as the show 24, where the characters are totally equipped to deal with crimes of this nature. We needed to find tools to help deal with cybercrime and make them available to our police forces.

Cybercrime is very subtle and very insidious. It is everywhere today. The members opposite, especially those from the Conservative Party, talk about the luring of children or what some people attempt to do with computers, namely slowly but surely approach children to have sexual encounters.

It is much more than that. I am not saying that the luring of children is not a serious crime, far from it. This is an extremely serious crime. There are also other crimes that are much more subtle, including identity theft and the planning of major crimes. Just look at the London subway bombings. They were planned right here in Canada. Somewhere near Toronto, attacks were being planned with global targets. Here in Canada, the police thanked an individual whose assistance was instrumental in foiling a crime about to unfold in Great Britain.

Cybercrime has become a global phenomenon. Today, we cannot simply say that cybercrime only occurs in Canada, Quebec, or Ottawa and the surrounding region. Cybercrime is a global phenomenon and it has to be addressed globally. That is the purpose of Bill C-46 and Bill C-47, which we will study in the coming days.

There is something worrying me. We will have to carefully study the intrusion into the personal life of an individual. I hesitate to say this because the line between the intrusion into the rights of an individual versus the protection of society is increasingly blurred. We will have to keep a very close eye on this as we study the bill. We must ensure that citizens do not run the risk of being more vulnerable to an intrusion into their private lives. I do not think that anyone in this House is against adapting legislation to the new realities in technology and crime.

I believe that it is abundantly clear that criminals, especially those working on the Web, are brilliant for the most part. Anyone who can use such tools as Facebook or Twitter and the whole Internet is intelligent enough to hatch a good plan for a crime.

We are very close to that reality when we see someone using their cell phone, sending coded messages and providing information over the Internet. We have to follow this up. I will give the example of the transfer of “illegal” funds to tax havens. I spoke about this when debating Bill C-42 and Bill C-52. Today, criminals who use computer technology are increasingly smart. Thus, police forces must be equipped to deal with them. That is the objective of Bill C-46.

Technologies do not just benefit criminals and are also available to police. The Bloc Québécois believes that it is important and rather urgent for police to be equipped to detect not just crimes that have been committed, not just those about to be committed, but those that are being planned. We have to be one step ahead of the criminal planning a crime and able to intervene before an offence is committed. That is the objective of Bill C-46.

However, we must avoid allowing the police to use their investigative tools to gain access to a very large amount of information—it goes that far—but we must also monitor some peoples' activities on the Internet to learn more about their private lives. It goes far beyond listening to telephone conversations. This bill goes much further than that.

However, we must find a balance between the fundamental rights to privacy and safety. That is what this is all about. Is the right to privacy more important that the right to safety? That line is easily crossed by police officers or unscrupulous individuals.

We must remember that some police offers were convicted of having used the computer system of the Société de l'assurance automobile du Québec to monitor a spouse's new friend and watch over the movements of that individual. Those police officers were convicted because they had taken private information.

We must be very careful, and this will probably be the most important debate over the next few months. The Ligue des droits et libertés has raised some concerns. We must be careful, we must be prudent, we must be aware, and we must realize that there could be some slip-ups. When it comes to truly addressing security concerns, is protecting the rights of individuals less important than protecting society? That is a debate that will have to be held when the time comes to examine the bill in committee.

It is clear, and I would like to share a little about what the Ligue des droits et libertés has said. According to the Ligue, the bill constitutes an unprecedented invasion of privacy. It has brought up the following points. The government is presenting its bills as a way to make the necessary changes to traditional investigative powers for electronic surveillance to adapt to new communication technologies. But there is no comparison between the information transmitted through a telephone conversation and information that circulates freely.

Moreover, unlike telephone conversations, which leave no trace unless they are recorded, modern communications leave a trail in computer memories that can be detected long after the fact. That is a very important point, and I hope that nobody in this Parliament or in Canada or Quebec believes that once an email has been sent, it is over and done with. Unfortunately for them, I have bad news, because when people send an email using their computer or even their BlackBerry, there is always a trail. Their hard drives retain information about every email ever sent, and that information can be retrieved. That is where we find ourselves in a grey area.

But the Ligue des droits et libertés adds that everything we do in our everyday lives could come under police investigation. They will have access to lists of the websites we visit, emails we send and receive, credit card purchases, purchases of all kinds—clothing, books, winter gear—our outings, our movements abroad and in Canada, gas purchases, on-line and ATM banking transactions and medical information. Naturally, the list might get even longer.

We have to be prudent. I do not necessarily share all of the concerns expressed by the Ligue des droits et libertés, but they are urging us to be prudent. As parliamentarians, we have to use our judgment. We have to tell police forces—the RCMP, the Sûreté du Québec, the Ontario Provincial Police and other police services in large municipalities—that there are lines that must not be crossed once Bill C-46 is passed.

I firmly believe that one thing is for sure: police forces must have the tools they need to deal with crime in the 21st century. Yes, armed robberies and bank heists are still happening, although less frequently according to the latest statistics. We still hear about corner store hold-ups and all kinds of other assaults. But there is now a new kind of crime called cybercrime. We have been looking for ways to fight it since 1995. We have to make sure we have the tools to do that.

I listened closely to what the Ligue des droits et libertés said, and I feel that we have to be careful. The Ligue says that the bill provides little or no protection against unreasonable seizures without a warrant. The authorities will be able to obtain subscriber data even though the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act recognizes that this information is private. This is provided for in Bill C-47, but the authorities could still obtain this information. Without a warrant and on the basis of a suspicion, an officer will be able to ask a service provider to keep the contents of all your communications. It is like asking the post office to photocopy all your mail in case something should happen. I feel that people may go a bit too far sometimes, but this serves as a reminder that we must be cautious. I do not necessarily share the views of the Ligue des droits et libertés, but as politicians, we have to listen to both sides of the story.

The Ligue des droits et libertés also says that with a warrant obtained on the basis of a mere suspicion, an agent will easily be able to compel the service provider to turn over all its lists and so on. I believe that this is a bit dangerous, and we will have to address it when this bill is studied in committee. The Ligue added that with a warrant, which can be obtained on the basis of reasonable grounds to believe—less stringent conditions than for wiretapping—the content of your communications could be intercepted.

Certainly, what the Ligue des droits et libertés is saying is important. It is calling on parliamentarians to be careful when we print and pass legislation, but especially when we apply it. Once the law is passed, it may be too late to amend it. I will say one thing right now: police forces must be equipped to deal with cybercrime and 21st century crime. It is clear that crime prevention is one promising solution. The police will need to be able to prevent such crimes, and that takes equipment.

Obviously, the authorities have to try to uncover a plot before it is carried out. Once a crime has been committed, it is a little late to intervene, even if the criminals are brought to justice. In closing, if the authorities can thwart the crime before it is committed, I believe that this bill is a step in the right direction.

Retribution on Behalf of Victims of White Collar Crime Act

[Bob Dechert, Conservative, Mississauga—Erindale, ON]

Madam Speaker, as the member would have heard in my speech, Bill C-42 addresses the issue of conditional sentencing, which is something that we support strongly. The government does not believe that conditional sentences should be an option for fraud.

I am not familiar with the details of the amount stolen by Mr. Lacroix, but if there were 9,000 victims, one would expect that the value of that crime probably did reach $1 million or more.

I am pleased to see that members of the Bloc are concerned about white collar crime. However, if they were really concerned about white collar crime in this country they would have supported the national securities regulator, which would strengthen the ability of securities regulators across Canada to enforce the securities laws of Canada and really get at the root cause of securities fraud.

[Bob Dechert, Conservative, Mississauga—Erindale, ON]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to add my strong support to Bill C-52, An Act to amend the Criminal Code (sentencing for fraud). This bill is a message to fraudsters in the headlines and a response to the victims who have suffered due to the greed and deceit of these fraudsters. The message is that our law will not tolerate this conduct and that serious sentences will result.

As this government has said time and again, it is time to put the concerns of victims at the forefront. While Bill C-52 may not restore their life savings and may not deter all future fraud, it does demonstrate that we mean business when we say that those guilty of fraud will be held accountable.

The troubling aspect of fraud is that any one of us could be a victim. Even though we may be careful in all our personal financial matters, today's white-collar criminals are clever and smooth, and even the most cautious investor could be caught in a fraudulent scheme. It is a shame that these fraudsters could not put their cleverness to good use to the benefit of society in such tough economic times.

Other speakers have highlighted the nature and scope of fraud today, and I am sure we can all think of other examples. We know that such schemes are not limited to organized crime.

We have heard a lot about Ponzi schemes recently, but we have also heard about the impact on victims of a wider range of other types of fraud. The impact on the victim of a $500 fraud may be just as devastating as the impact of a $1 million fraud if the victim has limited means. These reforms address the offence of fraud regardless of value, although there are mandatory minimum sentences applicable for fraud of over $1 million.

Fraud, regardless of the value, is a real and serious crime with real and serious consequences, and it is time that everyone in the criminal justice system took fraud seriously. Bill C-52 is an important step in the right direction. It will improve the Criminal Code sentencing provisions for fraud to ensure that sentences imposed on offenders adequately reflect the harm they cause.

For fraud that has a value of $1 million or more, that in the “large scale” category, a minimum sentence of two years will be imposed. I should make it clear, though, that this is only a minimum and where the fraud is larger than that, as it is so often, or if there are other aggravating factors, the sentence should be well above two years and can go as high as 14 years.

The bill is not just about the ultimate sentence for the offender. It is also about the victim's role in the sentencing process. The Criminal Code has evolved over the years to improve the experience of victims in the justice system and to provide a role, albeit limited, for victims of crime. These provisions include victim impact statements and the opportunity to present such a statement along with consideration of restitution at sentencing, testimonial aids and publication bans on the victim's identity, where needed.

Bill C-52 will further address the need to consider victims of crime when sentencing the offender for fraud. For example, the reforms will make clear that if the fraud had a particularly significant impact on the victim because of his or her financial situation, health or any other relevant factor, that should aggravate the sentence. In other words, those factors, as well as others, should move the sentence up toward the maximum. I would note that this is another aspect that will be welcomed by victims, because all victims agree that no one else should suffer as they have and that such fraud must be prevented from happening in the future.

A new prohibition order can be part of an offender's sentence. When so ordered by a judge, the offender can be prohibited from having authority over another person's money, real property or valuable securities in any employment or volunteer capacity in the future. If the offender does not respect this prohibition, he or she can be charged with a separate offence.

As mentioned, the Criminal Code already permits victim impact statements and provides for restitution to be part of the sentence in appropriate circumstances. Bill C-52 highlights the importance of both measures when it comes to fraud.

The Criminal Code currently provides that judges may consider a statement made by a victim of crime, known as a victim impact statement. Its purpose is to provide the sentencing judge with additional information, in the victim's own words, on the harm or loss suffered by the victim as a result of the offence. The statement is shared with the offender in advance, and victims may be cross-examined on the statement. Although this cross-examination rarely happens, it does ensure that the statement stays focused on the harm caused and not on recommendations about the sentence.

The statement provides judges with information on the impact or effect of the offence. For victims of fraud, the impact will be significant and can extend not only to their financial loss but to their sense of trust and overall well-being.

The bill also acknowledges that it is not just the actual victim of fraud who will suffer a loss or an impact. If the victim has been stripped of his or her savings, then they will not be buying goods and services, participating in leisure and charitable activities, pursuing their hobbies and interests or enjoying life in their communities.

The provisions in Bill C-52 recognize this and go a step further than the victim impact statements by enacting a community impact statement provision for fraud. Community impact statements are not unheard of, quite the contrary, but the code does not specifically provide that the court should consider such statements. The existing victim impact statement provisions in the code include that the court may also consider any other evidence concerning the victim for the purpose of determining the sentence.

This authority has led some courts to broadly interpret the term victim so that others impacted by the crime, including communities, have submitted statements at the time of sentence. There have been several examples in the case law of the courts' acceptance that crimes have an impact on the community as a whole.

Bill C-52 would make that recognition clearer with respect to fraud. When an offender is sentenced for fraud, the court may consider a statement made by a representative of the community describing the loss or harm to the community. The statement must be in writing, identify the community, clarify that the person can speak on behalf of the community, and be shared with the crown and the defence. So, for example, as I mentioned, where the victim cannot participate in the activities and the economy of his or her community, that community may suffer and that community may seek to submit a community impact statement.

As other speakers have noted, community impact statements are quite consistent with the purposes and principles of sentencing that are laid out in the Criminal Code, in particular, to provide reparations for the harm done to the victims or the community and to promote a sense of responsibility in offenders and acknowledgement of the harm done to victims and to their community.

I would also like to note the reforms regarding restitution.

Many speakers have noted the need for victims to actually receive restitution. No one disagrees that this should occur, but the reality is that if there is no money or not enough money to address the victim's losses, this cannot happen.

Restitution, to have any real meaning for the offender, must be paid by the offender to the victim. Where offenders can do so, they often do, so they can get a lesser sentence, but if they cannot make restitution, it is likely pointless to suggest that they do only to dash the hopes of the victims later.

We also need to keep in mind that we are reforming the criminal law and the sentences for fraud. The sentence must take into account a range of factors and restitution can be a part of that sentence, but if the restitution is not paid, the offender is still serving the other parts of his sentence and that restitution debt will remain to be paid. I should also note that the ability of an offender to pay restitution must also be considered before this is included as part of his or her criminal sentence.

As noted, restitution is the payment by the offender to the victim of a specific amount that reflects the financial losses of the victim. An order for restitution may be made as part of the overall sentence imposed on the offender as a stand-alone measure or as part of a probation order or a conditional sentence.

Of course, a conditional sentence should not be an option for fraud and it will not be an option for fraud once Bill C-42, the conditional sentence bill, is passed, because it carries a 14-year maximum penalty.

Bill C-52 would make a real difference in addressing fraud. No one disagrees that other initiatives are also needed: prevention, regulation, enforcement and prosecution.

In summary, the bill would help to improve the responsiveness of the criminal process for victims of fraud. It would require the sentencing court to consider if restitution should be ordered and it would permit the court to receive a community impact statement in cases where a community, in addition to individuals, have suffered from fraud.

I would encourage all hon. members of the House to support this bill and ensure that it becomes law as soon as possible.

[Pierre Paquette, Bloc, Joliette, QC]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to take part in the debate on Bill C-52, Retribution on Behalf of Victims of White Collar Crime Act.

I believe this is something that has unfortunately affected too many victims in recent years. We have every right to expect the government to amend legislation to reflect this situation, which is not new. However, in the context of the deregulation of financial markets and changes in technology that now make possible operations previously impossible to hide or to carry out, it is clear that the government must modernize our laws in this regard.

Unfortunately, the bill the government has introduced is way off the mark. In fact, it appears more like a public relations operation to show that the government is doing something. It looks more like a public relations move in keeping with the ideological battle the Conservatives are waging to introduce into Canada a sort of justice based on the American model, which is currently being challenged by the harsh economic reality.

In California, for example, more is spent on the prison system than on universities, because the laws have been tightened over the years automatically and without thought. The problem is a serious one. California, on the brink of bankruptcy, has had to release 40,000 prisoners because it could no longer feed them.

In order to avoid the extremes a number of American states had to face, it seems to me there should be a much more vigorous and broad public debate on the type of justice we want, rather than what the Conservatives are offering us. They in fact are offering us measures piecemeal that aim to establish a justice system that has nothing to do with the values of Quebeckers and Canadians, I am convinced, with no public debate and no real examination of all the aspects.

This bill is therefore off the mark, as it will not contribute in any way to fighting white collar crime. On the contrary, it includes a whole series of neo republican Conservative themes, on minimum sentences, for example. I will come back to this.

There should be a debate on the way to modernize our laws, in matters of justice, in particular, but it applies to everything to do with the regulation of the financial sector. It is very clear that we cannot continue in the environment engendered by the 1990s. There must be new regulations for the financial sector worldwide and within individual countries. The debate must get underway. It is in this context that the Bloc Québécois has decided to vote in favour of this bill, even if it does not meet the target it claims it wants to meet, so that it may be studied in committee. At that point we can introduce measures that might bring real solutions to white collar crime.

Very clearly, this kind of debate cannot be held piecemeal, as the Conservatives are trying to do with nearly half of the bills before us amending the Criminal Code or dealing with the justice system. We have to have a genuine debate where all of the principles on which a justice system should be based are front and centre in the public discussion. Obviously, the members of this House must be participants, but Canadian and Quebec society as a whole must also take part. The bill will be considered in committee and a number of proposals will be made that seem to us to be much more promising than what we see in the bill. Once again, the bill does not reach all the targets it says it wishes to reach.

When we look at it closely, as I will have an opportunity to do in a moment, we see there is a fly in the soup, as one of my friends used to say. That means there are some hitches, some measures are proposed that are essentially a smokescreen.

I will start right off with the question of minimum sentences. The Conservatives want to implement minimum sentences everywhere.

We are currently debating Bill C-42, which proposes to eliminate conditional sentences in order to create two things at opposite ends of the spectrum. We will have either suspended sentences or minimum sentences of imprisonment for two years. That is going to be completely untenable for judges. We will have situations in which accused persons who should have been given a conditional sentence, for example, find themselves with suspended sentences or with no sentence at all, in order to avoid a minimum of imprisonment for two years. There will also be people who will be sentenced to two years for whom a different approach should have been taken, in terms of rehabilitation. What we are seeing in C-52 is a debate that has run through this entire Parliament, an obsession on the part of the Conservatives.

Minimum sentences serve no purpose. That is shown by every study, and I think the example of Americans, or of the USA, as my colleague from Sherbrooke likes to say, demonstrates this clearly. That society has one of the highest incarceration rates in the world, and that incarceration rate in fact has a perverse effect, because it artificially lowers the unemployment rate. Every time the unemployment rate in Canada and Quebec is compared to the rate in the United States, we have to add 1 to 1.5 percentage points to it. There are so many people in prison, for all sorts of sometimes relatively minor offences that could be remedied by other kinds of interventions. As I said, the incarceration rate means that an entire segment of the population that could be in the labour force is artificially and temporarily eliminated from the statistics.

That does not have any dissuasive effect. The United States is not a society at peace with itself. People may feel safe, but they do not feel at peace. They close themselves off now in gated communities where they are isolated from society. This is not a well-integrated society at peace with itself. It is not even real safety, just the appearance of safety. This is what happens in a country that has increased the number of offences with minimum sentences. They have no dissuasive effect.

Fraud over $1 billion is pretty rare. Not only is it unusual, but when it happens, the sentences are for more than two years. A provision was included in Bill C-52, but it is just for show, to say that the Conservatives will be tougher. The reality is that whenever there is fraud over $1 million, judges take all the circumstances into account and pass sentences of more than two years. The Conservatives are flogging a dead horse here, but no one is fooled. It is just an insidious ideological campaign conducted around justice and how justice is perceived.

When we asked the Minister of Public Works to give us an example of a case of fraud over $1 million in which the sentence was for less than two years, he was unable to provide one because these cases do not exist.

In cases of fraud of this magnitude, the sentences are about six or seven years.

The Conservatives created the impression they are passing tougher laws, but it is just a public relations exercise. This may also have been a bill that was quickly cobbled together by the Conservative government in view of the disgust expressed by much of the public and the victims of the various fraudsters. There were Vincent Lacroix and Earl Jones, of course, but also various other people in financial and business circles who have behaved badly over the last few years. I am thinking, for example, of the fiddling with the books at Nortel and at Enron in the United States. The government probably wanted to act in view of all the public pressure but did something that will not produce results. This bill is terribly makeshift.

They have also added aggravating circumstances. If you look at the court's decision in the Vincent Lacroix case, you will find that all the aggravating circumstances put in the bill by the government—for example, the psychological effects of fraud on the victims—were included in the reasons given by the judge, in the Vincent Lacroix case, to justify his sentence. If my memory serves me well, he was sentenced to 12 or 13 years.

Once again they are flogging a dead horse. They are trying to give the impression that they are making tougher laws to deal with economic crimes and white collar criminals. But in fact they are just codifying the existing decision-making process used by the courts.

Restitution orders are another example. It is quite logical to ask fraudsters to return the stolen money to victims when possible. However, these restitution orders already exist. They are expanded somewhat in the bill.

We can also question whether or not it would be feasible, in the case of Vincent Lacroix, Earl Jones and many others, to recover the money—given that nothing is being done about the means used by these fraudsters to make it disappear, either through financial schemes or tax havens. I will come back to that.

The prohibition restricting the activities of convicted offenders is interesting. But that, too, is an existing practice whose scope has been broadened.

When we take stock of what Bill C-52 has to offer, we find that there is nothing new in the bill and that the measures are often inferior to what we already have in our system.

I would like to mention the example of the minimum sentence of two years once again. If the current standard is six or seven years, are they giving judges and the courts a signal that sentences should be lower? That is exactly how this bill, if it is ever passed, could be interpreted by some judges.

So they missed the target. The Bloc is taking it to committee in order to broaden the debate on the real ways to fight economic crime. One of these ways is advocated by the legal profession and those who write about crime or legal matters and it is eliminating the granting of parole after one-sixth of the sentence has been served.

Since the start of the week, the responses by the Minister of Public Works and Government Services and the Minister of Justice have intimated that this is a highly complex matter, when in fact, it is a matter of repealing two sections of the Criminal Code.

A decade ago, parole was not granted after one-sixth of a sentence had been served. This practice appeared over the course of the years. So, we could backtrack, given that it does not allow for criminals found guilty to be sentenced or to serve much of their prison term. So the matter of serving one-sixth of a sentence can easily be reversed by repealing the two sections that gave rise to this measure.

They do not get it. There is no logic in the responses by the Minister of Public Works and Government Services and the Minister of Justice. Why is the government delaying the implementation of this measure, which has the full support of all groups and which would be very easy to implement?

Today in question period, the leader of the Bloc Québécois wondered whether the Conservative government—and this brings me back to my introduction—did not want to use a perfectly logical, effective and fully supported measure, namely eliminating parole after one-sixth of a sentence has been served, in order to include other measures which are far less popular, effective and transparent.

We are used to having these little poison pills with the Conservative government in connection with perfectly valid measures that have the support of consensus and has been proposed often by the opposition. I would point out that the Bloc has been proposing eliminating parole after one-sixth of a sentence since 2007. This is not something we invented in response to the white collar crimes of recent months. It comes from in-depth study by the Bloc and its supporters over the years. This is what we fear, and our fears are based on experience.

One I remember, for example, is the bill that created a whole set of tax measures, into which the government had inserted a little, tiny clause that meant that funding could be denied for films or works that were considered not to be in the public interest. If I recall correctly, that was Bill C-10. No one had noticed it in this House, in spite of the work done by the Standing Committee on Finance. The Senate noticed it, and the government, rather than take responsibility for the problem and eliminate it, did its utmost to try to keep it. This is one example, but we have seen a number of others over the several sessions since this Conservative government has been in office.

Eliminating parole after one-sixth of sentence would be an extremely easy thing to do. We could include it in this bill. We could even, in the cases of Vincent Lacroix and Earl Jones, make sure that the two of them serve a healthy portion of their sentences rather than what will be the case as a result of this government’s inaction. In January 2011, Vincent Lacroix will be as free as a bird, or very nearly. I cite these two examples again because they are the best known in Quebec.

This bill does not include those elements. Another major element that has not been talked about and that the government does not want to talk about is the question of tax havens. I come back to what I said a moment ago. This means that people commit fraud and think they will be able to come out of it just fine, based not just on the fact that they will be released after one-sixth of their sentence, but also on the fact that as a result of all sorts of mechanisms that are allowed under the Canadian Income Tax Act, that money will be sitting in tax havens, safe from the Canadian tax authorities. The negligence of the Conservative government on this issue is blatant.

Two weeks ago, Statistics Canada revealed that, if I recall correctly, there is $146 billion owing from Canadian taxpayers. These are mainly very wealthy individuals. As we know, an ordinary taxpayer does not have the resources to pay the accountants and lawyers they need to make use of all these mechanisms. There are also companies, the banks among them. We know that the Canadian banks, in particular, use tax havens to a huge extent. This is money that is sitting in tax havens, as a result of negligence on the part of Liberal or Conservative governments. Eventually, when these fraud artists are released, they are going to be able to get the victims’ money back, safe from the Canadian justice system and Canadian tax authorities and, it has to be said, with the complicity of the Conservative government of Canada.

Here is one of the examples we gave this week. It had to do with signing an agreement to weaken the border between Panama and Canada. Everyone knows that Panama is a tax haven. It is notorious. We just signed an agreement to make it even easier to transfer money from Canada to Panama. That is completely counter to current policy directions espoused by responsible governments, such as the administrations of President Obama and President Sarkozy, who have condemned the situation and are seeking solutions. Not only are our government and our Minister of Finance not seeking solutions, they are creating new problems.

Here is another example in addition to the agreement with Panama. They are not doing anything about the tax agreement with Barbados. When the Conservatives were in opposition, they made much of the fact that Canada Steamship Lines, which belonged to the Minister of Finance, Paul Martin, who later became Prime Minister, used schemes allowed in Barbados to avoid paying taxes in Canada. Not only have they maintained the tax agreement with Barbados since coming to power, they have reversed a decision made in one of the budgets to prevent double deduction of interest in the case of foreign investment. We are moving backward instead of forward like almost all of the other G20 countries.

It is all smoke. We will study the bill in committee and come up with concrete solutions for the justice system, specifically with regard to the practice of serving only one-sixth of a sentence, and, more generally, for ways to curb the use of tax havens by fraudsters who shelter their assets from Canadian justice and tax law, and we will find ways to give the stolen money back to the victims. That is what the Bloc Québécois will do in committee.

Business of the House

[Jay Hill, Conservative, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, I will proceed in the same order in which my colleague presented his questions.

We will continue today with our government's justice program because this is a justice week. We will be starting with our latest edition, Bill C-52, the retribution on behalf of victims of white collar crime bill.

That bill will be followed by Bill C-42,, the conditional sentencing legislation; Bill C-46, the investigative powers legislation; Bill C-47, the technical assistance for law enforcement legislation; Bill C-43, legislation to strengthen Canada's corrections system; Bill C-31, modernizing criminal procedure legislation; and Bill C-19, the anti-terrorism act.

All of these bills are still at second reading, but members can see from the long list that we do have many pieces of legislation to debate and hopefully move through the legislative process.

We will continue with these law and order bills tomorrow and next week when we return from the weekend. As is the normal practice, we will give consideration to any bills that are reported back from committee as well.

On the issue of an allotted day, Wednesday, October 28 shall be the next allotted day.

We will then resume consideration of the government's judges legislation on Thursday following that opposition day.

As my hon. colleague from across the way mentioned, speaking of our justice agenda, I should add that I was extremely pleased to see that despite the Liberals' best efforts to try to gut the bill, it was passed in the other place. For those who are not aware, there were 30 Liberal senators in the other place at the time when they were voting on those amendments. All of them voted for the amendments that would have gutted that legislation. Fortunately, the Conservatives in the other place were sufficient in number to defeat those amendments and actually pass Bill C-25, the truth in sentencing legislation. It actually received royal assent earlier today.

I would like to thank my hon. colleagues, the Conservative senators, for all the good work they did in pushing that bill forward and for all the good work they are doing in pushing forward other legislation.

The House dealt with Bill S-4, the legislation to crack down on identity theft. It was passed and received royal assent as well today.

Retribution on Behalf of Victims of White Collar Crime Act

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

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise on behalf of the Bloc Québécois to debate Bill C-52 , which is getting off to a bad start.

This bill was announced by the Minister of Justice on Monday morning. For the past few weeks we have been asking questions in the House. I hope that my colleagues opposite, who are always reading notes, will remember that the Bloc Québécois was already asking questions about this bill on June 15, 2007. It was announced with great fanfare everywhere in Canada but in the House of Commons.

On Monday, the bill was announced in Calgary by the minister, in Montreal by the Minister of Public Works and Government Services, and in an Ottawa hotel by the Minister of Justice. The only thing they did not do was distribute a copy of the bill to the journalists present. However, they explained what it was all about. They are giving this bill a poor start in life.

We would like to tell this House that we will be voting in favour of the bill. I hope that my Conservative colleagues will finally understand that we are voting for this bill not because we support their agenda but because we intend to study it in committee and make substantial amendments. I hope that is clear to our Conservative friends. They should not believe that this bill will be passed handily. We will be making improvements in committee.

The chair of the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights told the House yesterday that all bills would be studied quickly in committee. I have good and bad news for him: the good news is that I hope he will be chair of the committee for a long time; the bad news is that we will take whatever time is necessary to study this bill thoroughly and, in particular, to add what we believe a bill should contain, that is, sufficient measures to fight, rein in or at least adequately punish these white collar criminals.

I am going to share a true story. A man from Quebec just pleaded guilty to charges of fraud, so we can talk about it. Vincent Lacroix defrauded 9,000 investors. It is true, so I can say it. I am not talking about Mr. Jones, who also defrauded a lot of people. I am talking about Mr. Lacroix, who scammed people out of more than $150 million.

The bill has good intentions, but does anyone believe that the $150 million Vincent Lacroix stole is still sitting in a Canadian bank account? I hope that nobody in the House is naive enough to believe that the money is still in Canada.

This bill has two big problems. If we want to go after white collar criminals, we have to go after tax havens. I will explain what tax havens are, because I have a feeling that my Conservative colleagues do not really get it.

Their government has supported tax havens, and even helped create them in the first place in countries like Panama, Jamaica, the Bahamas and the Cayman Islands. Anyone in Canada can deposit a million dollars in an account anywhere—be it Jamaica, the Caymans or Panama—but the money must be declared. Interest earned on the money must be declared. Money and interest invested in other countries must be taxed in Canada. But some people conveniently forget that they have put money in accounts in other countries, and they conveniently forget to declare it. Consequently, those countries become tax havens.

What do people think white collar criminals do? We are taking on extremely smart criminals here. We have to be honest and tell it like it is. These criminals are brilliant. They plan their schemes carefully. They spend months, even years, planning their schemes.

What do they do? They cheat people and take their money.

Are they going to deposit $150 million in some off shore account overnight? No, instead they will deposit small amounts: $1 million, $500,000, $2 million, $700,000. They deposit money outside of Canada a little at a time and then forget about it. They also forget to pay back those who gave them the money to invest. So they are in fact stealing from and cheating people.

Until we eliminate tax havens, this bill is doomed to failure. It is not complicated; it is doomed to failure if this government does not understand and agree that tax havens must absolutely be eliminated in conjunction with this bill, because that is where the money goes.

I hope there is no one—least of all the hon. member for Lévis—Bellechasse—naive enough to believe that Vincent Lacroix's money is still in Canada. I hope nobody believes that, because if they do, they are out in left field.

There are two important points here. The first, which I already addressed, is that tax havens must be eliminated. We have already asked the minister about this. This is about criminal law. Some of us have practised criminal law. I did for 30 years. I can say for sure that during my entire career, I never saw anyone sentenced to less than two years for fraud involving over $1 million or $2 million. I have never seen that.

Mr. Burns from the Trois-Rivières area just pleaded guilty to fraud involving $4 million. He stole $4 million. Does anyone really believe that this man will be sent home to put his feet up and relax, as the members across the floor would have us believe? Please. The proof is that the organization that monitors Quebec's financial markets prosecuted Vincent Lacroix and managed to get a sentence of 12 years. That sentence was reviewed, re-examined and reduced by the court of appeal.

That is not the end of it. Mr. Lacroix was convicted and has just pleaded guilty to fraud in the amount of $150 million. Is it possible that he will be given a sentence of less than two years? What is he going to do? I will tell you what he is going to do. He has pleaded guilty and the judge has sentenced him to 12 or 13 years. If the one-sixth rule is not eliminated, he will be eligible for release after serving one-sixth of his sentence. That has been requested. Let us do the math: dear Mr. Lacroix will be eligible to get out of prison after one-sixth of his sentence, in a year and a half or two years. He will then be 50 years old. And what will he do then? He will get on a boat or a plane or a train or a subway, or get in a car, or all of them if necessary, to get as far away as possible and go to whatever tax haven he has put his money in. That is why speedy action must be taken.

And that is the problem with this bill. At present, it is not possible, because the government is going about it piecemeal, amending anything at all in the Criminal Code, and introducing things. I think the Minister of Justice neglected and forgot to look at his Criminal Code when he introduced this bill, because when we consider the victims, the court has to be sure, before sentencing, that the victims have been heard. That is in section 718 of the Criminal Code. Why is he putting this in the bill? It is not necessary, because it is already there. What point is there in putting it in again? It is just one more thing to complicate the Criminal Code, according to the judges.

We are saying that the one-sixth of sentence rule has to be eliminated, and that we have to tackle tax havens. This is urgent. It has to be done at the same time as this bill is supported, amended, changed and chopped up in committee. It all has to be done at the same time, and the parole system has to be eliminated.

The best one is what I heard in this House yesterday afternoon, when the Minister of Public Works and Government Services told this House that the Minister of Public Safety was currently looking at the parole system and did not want to go at it piecemeal, and rather wanted to make comprehensive changes. That is really laying it on a bit thick, since that is exactly what they are doing in the Criminal Code.

They are chopping it up and amending it. If it is not section 742, it is section 350. If it is not section 350, it is section 132. This government will amend anything anywhere, without making sure there is any logic behind it. That is what the judges are criticizing it for. It has been criticized by the Quebec bar and in argument in various court cases. Unfortunately, judges cannot speak and do not often speak. When they do, however, particularly retired judges, they say that this government has no vision.

Tough on crime: that means nothing. It means nothing when they do not take all the appropriate action.

This bill is like Bill C-42 yesterday. They are eliminating conditional sentences. Where will those people end up? Unfortunately, they will end up in the prisons of Quebec, the prisons of Ontario, the prisons paid for by provincial governments . The prisons in Quebec are overflowing right now. The same is true in Alberta, in Vancouver, and everywhere in Canada. They are thinking no further ahead than to respond to a supposedly immediate need.

It is really too bad, but this bill does not meet society's needs at the moment. This is something the Bloc has criticized and will continue to criticize. In addition, the bill could send the wrong message. Fraud in the amount of $2 million or more warrants a sentence of two years or more in prison. In other words, someone committing fraud in the amount of $1.5 million would deserve a six month prison sentence perhaps. That is what it says. It runs the risk of sending the wrong message and resulting in lesser sentences. At the moment, the average sentence for fraud of over $2 million is at least five years, and I checked out only the sentences in Quebec and some elsewhere in Canada. I did not look further afield. It is a minimum of five years. What have they done with this bill? We do not need this. The sentences already exist and they are longer than two years.

Other things must be dealt with. They have been telling the Bloc for a very long time that their tough on crime policy requires a series of measures that, in combination, will ensure that crime is fought properly. For example, a police squad has to be established. We have to stop thinking the RCMP is limited to catching drug dealers. It will have to become specialized. There will have to be special squads, which some of us call the accountants or auditors, that may consist of police officers. Some officers did not know the other side of this. In the past, there were police officers who knew about drugs. That is good and can continue, but special squads will have to be set up and the people in them will have to be able to read a balance sheet and follow a trail.

I have explained that to the Minister of Justice. I do not think he understood, so I will explain a little more to him. Does he think that the funds appearing on balance sheets exist? Those who commit fraud for huge sums do all sorts of things. They are really brilliant. They can have balance sheets say things that practically no one can understand. It takes special squads. The banking regulations must be tightened. Bank secrecy is all very well, but today, in our situation, the banks must cooperate with the police squad on the trail of white collar crime. The Income Tax Act must be amended.

In addition, I hear my colleagues opposite talking about confiscating assets. I heard the member from the Quebec City region, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice, who sits on the Standing Committee on Justice, say on air yesterday that it will be possible to remove and seize assets belonging to white collar criminals. Is someone in this House dreaming? Do they think that white collar criminals bought themselves 44 houses, three castles and four boats? Oh, come on! They buy themselves a house and maybe a cottage, but all the money is in tax havens. Often, the house is not in their name but in the name of their brother or sister. How will it be proven that the house was purchased with assets or money from the fraud perpetrated by Vincent Lacroix? Good luck! That is what is happening now. So, this money has to be tracked and the special squads will be able to do it.

I was talking about tax havens, and they should certainly be eliminated. They are a great place for hiding money, stealing and committing fraud. We should also abolish the right to parole after one-sixth of the sentence has been served.

I would go even further. Although I was a criminal lawyer and defended people accused of serious crimes, I have always said and will continue to say in the House that parole should be earned. That should be included in the bill because people who do nothing, who just sit in prison and wait for a quarter or a sixth of their sentence to go by, are not doing anything to earn their release. They are just sitting and waiting in these schools for crime, which is what penitentiaries are. If they do nothing, they do not deserve parole. It has to be earned.

Programs have to be made available. If people do not participate in them, they should serve their full sentences. That is what we say and what I have been repeating in the House ever since I was elected in June 2004. Criminals must serve their sentences. We do not need minimum sentences. They do not solve anything. But criminals must serve their sentences. As things stand now, people sentenced to three years in prison do not even serve eight months.

Nothing can be done with people like that. They are sent to prison for three years and get out after eight months. They have learned nothing. That is the problem the Conservatives do not understand. If we want to deal seriously with crime, we have to deal seriously with the reason why criminals are able to get out most easily, and that is parole. We have to put an end to this system which allows people to be released after serving one-sixth of their sentence. They do not even serve a third of it. Conditional release has to be earned.

We think this bill should be studied in committee and the justice minister should appear before the committee. I already know what my first question will be for the minister. I hope he will be prepared and that someone on the other side will tell him. Has he ever seen sentences of less than two years handed out in cases of fraud over $1 million? If someone can answer that, I would like a response as soon as possible. This kind of fraud generally attracts sentences of six or seven years.

At this stage, I can say that the Bloc Québécois will be in favour of the bill. However, I would not want this to be misunderstood. I will say it one last time. It is not at all because we agree with the Conservatives’ tough on crime program. It is because we want to amend this bill to reflect what modern Quebec society wants.