Bill C-30 (Historical)

Response to the Supreme Court of Canada Decision in R. v. Shoker Act

An Act to amend the Criminal Code

This enactment amends the Criminal Code to allow a court to require that an offender or defendant provide a sample of a bodily substance on the demand of peace officers, probation officers, supervisors or designated persons, or at regular intervals, in order to enforce compliance with a prohibition on consuming drugs or alcohol imposed in a probation order, a conditional sentence order or a recognizance under section 810, 810.01, 810.1 or 810.2 of that Act.

Criminal Code

[Marlene Jennings, Liberal, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine, QC]

Madam Speaker, more to the point is the question of how the member can sit there and watch his Conservative colleagues on the justice committee vote against a Liberal amendment. That amendment would have required the Commissioner of the Correctional Service of Canada to notify families of victims of first and second degree murders that the offenders, who are right now in prison, have not used their right to the faint hope clause, to early parole review. It would have required the commissioner to inform them in that same notification of the next date, which under the faint hope clause bill would be five years hence, in order to do exactly what the government says it wants to do with the faint hope clause. That is to alleviate the horror and anxiety that families of victims of murderers have to live with right now, where an offender can apply repeatedly every two years or every year. As soon as he or she is refused, he or she can apply again. Under the faint hope clause it would not allow those applications. It would have to be done at the 15th year, within 180 days, and then if refused, the individual would have to wait five more years.

The government, with its members, voted against requiring the Commissioner of the Correctional Service of Canada to notify the families that they are going to have five years of peace. Shame on them. That is not putting victims first.

[Serge Ménard, Bloc, Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC]

Madam Speaker, I would like to ask a question of the hon. member, for whom I have the greatest respect.

Surely she noticed that I asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice a question regarding the fact that the bill does not contain any clauses to specify that, when a sample of bodily fluids is taken, two should be taken and one of them should be given to the person from whom the sample was taken. The law stipulates that the person can provide evidence to the contrary but how can this be done if the person does not have a sample? I would therefore like to know whether the hon. member's party is open to considering this aspect of the law.

I am astounded that the Conservative government is expecting the people from whom the samples are taken to put all their trust in the machinery of government, when the Conservatives themselves are so suspicious of that machinery. These people are given the theoretical right to dispute the analysis but are not given the means to actually do so. Does the hon. member think that making such an amendment to the bill would improve it?

[Marlene Jennings, Liberal, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine, QC]

Madam Speaker, it is true that this bill does not establish the need to provide a sample to the person from whom the bodily substances were taken. However, I have always thought that, at least in penitentiaries and halfway houses, the entire sample of bodily substances is not usually required for the diagnostic test. Thus, the accused, the inmate or the person subject to the sampling may request that a portion of the sample be sent to a laboratory of his choice, or one that is certified, for example, by the Correctional Service of Canada. This should be carefully examined because we must ensure that procedures are put in place to permit an independent analysis. I hope that the Senate will take a closer look at that.

[Joe Comartin, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

Madam Speaker, to my colleague from the Liberal Party, one of the concerns I have had, and I share with her, is the length of time it has taken to get through. I have been making some inquiries as to how many cases were impossible to enforce.

I am just wondering if the member has had any opportunity to do similar research, because I have not been able to get any indication of that. However, from my own experience in practising law, I would have to think that there are literally hundreds of cases per year, so that we are getting up perhaps to 1,000 to 2,000 cases where our police officers, people who are enforcing probation or parole orders, could not do that effectively.

I am just wondering if the member agrees with that estimate or if she may have more specific knowledge in that regard.

[Marlene Jennings, Liberal, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine, QC]

Madam Speaker, I do not have specific numbers, unfortunately, and I have not practised criminal law. I am a lawyer, but when I did practise law outside of the House of Commons, I did have a great deal of contact with law enforcement and therefore was fairly familiar with it.

I believe that the number of cases may actually be more than a couple of hundred a year, if we take in those across Canada and we take the number of people who receive suspended sentences, for instance, or who receive a suspended sentence or have to spend a couple of months or a couple of years in prison and then are released on probation and are submitted to these orders.

These orders are standard in many cases, that the individual is not to consume alcohol, is not to be found in locations where alcohol is sold, is not to consume drugs.

Therefore my sense is that we are talking about more than a couple of hundred a year and we could be into the thousands since the government has refused to act in an effective and rapid manner on this.

I just deplore the fact. I think of the number of victims of the crimes that have been committed and for which the culprit has been found and has been adjudicated in a court of law, has been subject to conditions, and our law enforcement has been unable to enforce those conditions because the government did not act in a rapid manner with this legislation, notwithstanding the fact that the Conservative government knew it had the support of the three opposition parties to move quickly on the bill.

It is deplorable, and this is a government that will have to answer to anyone who has been victimized since, because law enforcement was unable to enforce conditions placed on an individual by a court, a judge, because the government did not act. It will have to answer to that.

[Serge Ménard, Bloc, Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC]

Mr. Speaker, we have agreed with many of the bills introduced recently in the House.

The Minister of Justice is always saying that it is the opposition's fault that his bills take so long to pass. He is lying outright, and this is a case in point. Here is a bill meant to fill a gap identified by the Supreme Court of Canada in October 2006. I believe the Conservatives were in power in October 2006. It took them three years to draft a bill to respond to that Supreme Court ruling, as its title indicates.

The government introduced an initial bill in October 2009. Then it prorogued Parliament, thereby killing the bill. So the government had to introduce it again. When the House resumed, the government did not introduce the bill right away. There is not one iota of difference between the current Bill C-30 and Bill C-55, which died on the order paper. I did not count the days like my colleague who spoke before me, but the government did not introduce the bill currently before us until May 31, 2010.

And yet the minister is always complaining that we delay his bills, that the opposition is preventing him from doing his work again. Just 15 minutes ago, he was in front of the cameras blaming the opposition for once again impeding the progress of his bills. This example is concrete proof that his incompetence and idleness are to blame. At his pace, he would have a hard time winning a race with a bunch of snails.

He introduced his bill on May 31, 2010, and this is the first time he has invited us to debate it in order to refer it to committee. No one can say that the opposition is to blame for the fact that the gap in the Criminal Code identified by the Supreme Court still has not been addressed over four years later.

This government is also in the habit of blaming judges. Not only does it blame them, but it speaks about them insultingly. I will demonstrate that in just a moment, but first, let us see what the Supreme Court decided.

The Supreme Court did not decide that a right should be taken away, contrary to what the parliamentary secretary said in his press releases. The court found that this right never existed and that it was important that it be established through legislation, not by police or the courts. It is up to Parliament.

Clearly, if conditions can be imposed prohibiting offenders from using certain substances, there needs to be some means of monitoring those conditions, even if it is not through testing. That is obvious. It is so obvious that the legislators at the time did not see it and did not provide for the obligation to provide samples.

That is what the Supreme Court found in 2006. Paragraph 732.1(3)(c), which allows a condition to be imposed that prohibits the use of certain substances, defines a criminal offence. But simply creating an offence does not result in enforcement powers. This is common sense and should have been obvious to the legislators at the time. Even though it is clear that the authority to require samples of a bodily substance and the resulting analyses would help enforce a condition prohibiting the use of certain substances imposed under paragraph 732.1(3)(c), that is not enough to conclude that this authority is implied.

That seems to me to be quite a sensible legal ruling. The court made the following suggestion:

Where Parliament authorizes the collection of bodily samples, it uses clear language and sets out standards and safeguards for collecting these samples.

The court is saying that things should not be done haphazardly.

Parliament has not provided a scheme under s. 732.1(3) for collecting bodily samples and such a scheme cannot be judicially enacted.

The fact that it cannot be judicially enacted is why the government introduced a 16-page bill. The law cannot go messing with people's bodies as it sees fit. There must be assurances that analyses will be carried out medically and correctly. But it is not up to the court to enact that. It is up to Parliament. That is what Parliament was told in 2006. But it was not until 2009 that the Conservatives introduced their first bill. Then they let it die with prorogation. They reintroduced it on May 31, 2010. Then they did not raise the subject again until now. Here we are debating it in December 2010, more than four years after the Supreme Court of Canada's comments.

This government is in the habit of demonstrating its scorn for the Canadian judicial system in all kinds of ways. I would like to read from the minister's press release about Bill C-30. In the last paragraph on the first page, it says:

The amendments being introduced today are an effective response to the Supreme Court of Canada's decision that made it impossible for law enforcement officials to fully monitor individuals under court order prohibiting them from using drugs or alcohol.

That is not what the court did. The court did not make it impossible. It was not provided for in the law. And the court decided that because it was not provided for, it was not the court's job to determine, in 16 pages, how the samples could be taken to ensure their accuracy or that conclusions could be drawn that might deprive people of their freedom.

We are so proud to be a country that respects rights and freedoms. This is part of how we respect people's freedom. Before putting them in jail on technical evidence, we have to ensure that the evidence is solid.

The Minister of Justice also began criticizing us for another reason recently. He laughed at us because we do not accept his alternative titles. In this case, I can tell him that we will agree with his title, which is “Response to the Supreme Court of Canada Decision in R. v. Shoker Act”. Now that is how to objectively describe, without using propaganda, the bill that is currently before us.

This is one case where he did not fall back into his bad habits. Unfortunately, not all bill titles are like this. The best example is the Minister of Justice's new trick, which involves inserting his campaign propaganda into the legislation. Since he is likely somewhat unsure of the value of the legislation, he starts by spewing his propaganda, which is an insult to the judiciary. One example is Bill C-16, Ending House Arrest for Property and other Serious Crimes by Serious and Violent Offenders.

Has there ever been a ruling in Canada ordering house arrest for serious and violent offenders? If so, it is contrary to the current legislation, which states: “[if the court] is satisfied that the service of the sentence in the community would not endanger the safety of the community...”

Thus, the first condition for house arrest is that it does not endanger the safety of the community.

That should go without saying. If we stop detaining violent and dangerous offenders and release them, that will jeopardize public safety. The minister never said that that was happening anywhere in Canada. And if this was the case with one out of the thousands and tens of thousands—if not more; I think that the number of sentences handed down every year in Canada is in the six figures—, there is recourse and it can be taken to the Court of Appeal. The case can be appealed on the basis that the offender is violent and dangerous.

It is a ruse, a trap to eliminate more cases in which house arrest could be used. The Conservatives do not like house arrest. This happens in almost every country in Europe. It is extremely useful with an offender who has committed a first offence. By imposing some conditions, we can turn them away from crime. We can force them to take courses and support a family, we can impose a curfew, monitor him and impose an addiction treatment if he has a substance abuse problem.

Keep the person at home. It is a lot less expensive and much more effective than sending him to do time, when he will likely lose his job if he has one, interrupt his studies and meet other criminals who will teach him tricks to commit other crimes. We know that prison is not a very good school. In civilized countries, prison is reserved for truly dangerous people. Here, we are following the model used in the United States, a country with the highest incarceration rate in the world: between 730 and 760 incarcerations per 100,000 inhabitants. Our rate is 120 per 100,000. I do not know how much the Conservatives want to increase that number by, but at 120, we are average. Out of 155 countries, we rank about 50th. Our rate is even higher than that of almost every European country, except one country in the United Kingdom.

The bill will take this tool away from judges in first offence cases. When I was public safety minister in Quebec, I was told—and this was consistent with my experience after more than 25 years practising criminal law—that up to 90% of people who are brought before the court are brought there only once in their life. It is the other 10% that causes us major problems.

In any event, we have already said we agree that the Supreme Court was right to shed light on this anomaly. We can prohibit someone from consuming certain substances without giving the court the power to order a technical and scientific verification that the person is complying with these conditions. This is a lot like drinking and driving, a more common crime, and one that is even committed by people who do not have a criminal record or other criminal behaviour.

When I first started pleading cases, it was quite funny to listen to those cases because police officers had observed, in the accused, the symptoms that the Supreme Court had defined as symptoms of drunkenness in a case in 1926: eyes glazed over, slurred speech, staggering gait. The police would say that the accused was staggering and his speech was slurred and that was how they established whether a person was drunk or not. It was rather ridiculous and that is why we were finally able to get objective evidence with the breathalyzer. There has been a dramatic drop since this objective measure has been in place.

In this case, I think this legislation was necessary. Personally, I think six months should have been plenty of time to draft such a bill following the Supreme Court ruling. It should not take three years to do so. The minister, who is supposedly thinking of the potential victims, could have sped things up a little. Fortunately, he has no problem tooting his own horn. He concluded his November 30 news release by saying that the government, “is standing up for victims of crime, and putting the rights of law-abiding citizens ahead of the rights of criminals”.

I do not know why he said that. It must have been out of habit. In this case, the provision was suggested by the Supreme Court, which he does not like. I do not see how this puts the rights of law-abiding citizens up against the rights of criminals. In any case, nearly all sentences that come with probation orders do in fact include abstinence conditions.

I do not believe that all of these people are criminals. Indeed, just because someone commits a single offence or has a drug problem at one time in his life does not make him a criminal for the rest of his days. It seems perfectly reasonable to me that if an abstinence condition is imposed because the offender has a drug problem, there should be some scientific way to verify his compliance. If it were obvious—

[The Acting Speaker, Denise Savoie]

Order. I must interrupt the hon. member.

It being 5:46 p.m., the House will now proceed to the consideration of private members' business as listed on today's order paper.

When debate resumes, the hon. member will have about three minutes left to finish his speech, to be followed by questions and comments.

The House resumed from December 8 consideration of the motion that Bill C-30, An Act to amend the Criminal Code, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

[Joe Comartin, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the Shoker bill is a response to a decision by the Supreme Court of Canada that came down in February 2006. The government is finally getting around to dealing with this almost five years after the ruling.

The ruling, even in 2006, was not a surprise because it started at the trial level, went to the Court of Appeal and then the Supreme Court of Canada. In each case, as I recall, the rulings were the same all the way up to the Supreme Court of Canada.

It was interesting to listen to the parliamentary secretary in response to a question from the opposition side saying that the government needed three years to consult before it could even draft the bill. I have a hard time with that. The reality is that it has decided that this bill and correcting the problem are not very important because it does not do the usual thing that its crime bills do. There are no easy victims that it can trot out for photo ops and push its ideological agenda with regard to crime.

On the other hand, for our police forces in particular, and our prosecutors and judges who deal with the criminal justice system, this is a very important problem for them. The solution is quite clear. I am not suggesting that the government could have turned this around overnight but almost five years after the fact is way too long.

In terms of the constant false accusations that we hear from the Minister of Justice about opposition parties delaying crime bills, this bill is before the House only because I asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice a couple of weeks ago why we were bothering with this bill going through its normal process.

It is a technical bill and, even though the bill is fairly lengthy, it is quite simple. We are responding to the Supreme Court of Canada decision. It was only before the House earlier this week and today for debate on the agreement of all parties that we will limit debate and send it through all stages today once I finish my speech.

What it really says is that the government has a priority around crime but only where it benefits it from a partisan political standpoint, and this bill does not do that. I want to go back to just how important this bill is for the police officer on the street. I will put it in context.

I cannot remember how long this goes back, but for a long time people have signed recognizances when they are initially charged and they are sometimes released with financial bail but usually just on conditions and most often those conditions are for the individual to abstain from the consumption of alcohol or, at the very least, drugs and other illicit substances of that nature. There are many cases of where people have been convicted within the criminal justice system and put on probation or, as part of their parole when they come out of incarceration, the same conditions, which are no consumption of alcohol or drugs.

What has been a practice for about 20 to 30 years that I am aware of is that if police officers, in their normal course of duty, came across individuals who were subject to a recognizance, probation order or parole order, including these conditions, and became suspicious that they were breaching those conditions, they would demand a sample, usually urine but sometimes blood, and if the analysis of the substance was that there was alcohol or drugs present, they would lay a charge against the individuals for breach of recognizance, probation or parole and the courts would then deal with it, with the analysis being the principal piece of evidence against the individual.

Around 2004, the Shoker case came before the courts on a charge of breach of probation. The defence counsel raised, for the first time in Canada, that there was no authority anywhere in our criminal laws that allowed the police to demand the sample. Even though accused people, convicted people in most cases, had probably breached their terms of probation or parole, there was no way police officers could demand what in effect was the proof they needed.

As I said earlier, it was found that this was the case, that there was no authority for the police to do this. It went through the Court of Appeal and on up to the Supreme Court of Canada, all confirming there was no authority and unless the federal government set in place provisions within the Criminal Code and a system as to how those samples would be dealt with, the practice had to cease, and that has happened.

The result of that is we have substantial frustration within our police forces. If police officers have a very solid suspicion that a person has breached these conditions, the consumption of alcohol or drugs, they are prohibited to act on that. Unless police officers actually catch the person in the process of consuming alcohol or drugs, which is rare for them to do, there are no effective means of proving the person has broke his or her parole conditions. When police officers catch people who they are suspicious of doing this, they have to turn a blind eye and let the person go.

I want to emphasize the significance of what this has meant in one area. In trying to combat the street gangs, a few years ago Police Chief Blair in Toronto, the chief in Halifax more recently and I believe in Calgary as well will charge an individual who the police are suspicious of is part of a street gang, oftentimes a violent street gang. In most cases that person will get out on bail, but he or she will be under these conditions.

Police forces have been targeting specific areas of their cities. They have been going to the houses of those people every day to check on them, particularly if they are on a curfew. If they have breached their conditions under that recognizance, then they will charge them, and in most cases those people will then be incarcerated until their trial.

It has been a very effective tool. There are areas in the city of Toronto with I am fairly familiar. There are two areas in particular where the crime rate among the youth gangs dropped by 30%, 40% and 50% because of this tool. We have no way of proving this, but we can argue that if Shoker did not apply and if we had Bill C-30 in place, it would be even more effective. In cases where police officers are suspicious of drug or alcohol consumption prohibited by the signing of a recognizance order, they have no way to charge them because they cannot prove it.

We were speculating in the earlier debate on this that the number of cases where the police have been unable to charge people clearly has to be in the thousands over the last five or six years. Again, it is not an issue that the government felt was important enough to deal with, but it has certainly been a very important one for our front-line police officers.

I will go back to the decision by the Supreme Court. It was made very clear that there had to be a clear regime of how the samples would be demanded, how they would be treated and how they would ultimately would be disposed of. I acknowledge that the government has done this, which is a bit surprising given some of the other things it does with crime bills.

The government made it quite clear, and I suppose it was because the Supreme Court would have ruled this ultimately, that any of the samples could only be used for the purposes of proving the breach. The samples could not be used in any other criminal charges.

The importance of that is to be very clear to the Canadian public generally that we understand, the courts understand and the criminal justice system understands that asking for a bodily fluid sample is an invasion of that person's general rights to privacy. Therefore, we had to be very careful, and the Supreme Court made this clear in its decision, in upholding the lower court ruling. That was the major reason for doing it. It said that this was a major incursion into an individual's rights of privacy.

I want to make it clear that this is no reflection on the average police officer. However, some police officers, who were either overly zealous or abusive of their authority, would make unreasonable demands. Therefore, it wants to be very clear that if these demands are made, they are made for a very limited purpose in compliance with that court order or recognizance or parole condition and only for that purpose, thereby reducing the potential for those demands to be made unreasonably or abusively.

That section is in Bill C-30 and it is one that is in keeping with both the wording and the spirit of the Supreme Court of Canada's decision in R. v. Shoker.

As well, I want to be quite clear on the fact that the bill deals with the three separate areas where it is used. I made reference to the recognizance. The majority of cases where the police will attempt to enforce this are probably the recognizance cases. Again, when individuals are charged but not yet convicted or found innocent, if they do not want to be incarcerated pending their trials, they are required sign this recognizance, which in effect is a court order at that point.

There are very standard clauses in the recognizance right across the country. The abstinence from alcohol and drugs is a very common one. Not associating with certain people is also a very common one. Being subject to a curfew between certain hours, not being out on the street, having to be in their residence and having to maintain a regular residence, is very standard. Those are the most common ones that I can think of just off hand. The one on alcohol and drugs is really important.

It is hard to perhaps make the case without talking about the methodology and the mechanism that was used in New York to reduce the amount of crime. Generally the chief of police, but also Mayor Giuliani, really insisted on this. We can look to other communities in the U.S., and in some cases now Canada because of the current administration, where they use legislative responses to high crime rates.

Any number of studies in the United States and some here have shown that a legislative response generally is much less effective in dropping the crime rates than it is using these kinds of tactics. I mentioned the ones that Chief Blair used in Toronto and the ones that chief in Halifax uses currently. I believe other chiefs have done it as well.

New York City went after the little crimes. We talk about them cleaning up the graffiti. One of the areas that it went after was breaches of conditions, and the alcohol and drug one was the major one. Again, much was done in Toronto, this was widespread across the city. If people were caught consuming alcohol or drugs when they were prohibited to under the recognizance, they ended up back in jail.

The effect was the serious crime rate for crimes such as drug trafficking and serious violent crimes, not the graffiti, not consumption of illicit drugs, dropped dramatically because the person was incarcerated and was physically removed. It also it gave the message to that crime element in New York City that it would not longer be tolerated. If people did something like this, they would be caught.

It comes back to everything I learned in law school, in my law practice and in all the work that I have done here as a member of Parliament. It completely reaffirms, every time, that we could have a safe society, as safe as we can make it, by saying to that criminal element, those people who are so anti-social that they will commit crimes, and by convincing them that if they commit that crime, they will be caught. If we have a society where the vast majority of crimes are identified and prosecuted successfully, we very much drive crime rates down and we protect our citizens, which is our fundamental responsibility as parliamentarians.

The fact that we have been unable to do this for the last four or five years has resulted in more crimes being committed that otherwise would not have been. We would have had these people either getting the message clearly that they would not get away with this, or they might be incarcerated and not available to commit crimes. That is why this is so important.

The other point I want to make is with regard to those individuals who have been convicted, whether they are on provincial probation orders from the courts or they are under a parole order from our corrections authorities at the federal level. The availability of this right to demand samples and to use them is a key ingredient for those people, such as the social workers and corrections officers, who supervise people who are out on probation or subject to a parole order.

It is one of the key ways they have of being able to say to people that they are engaged in lives very actively, that they want to ensure they do not commit a crime again. This is the message that goes to people who have been incarcerated but who are now out. The message is they are very closely monitoring their conduct. If they are subject to an order that requires them to abstain from alcohol or drugs and they identify or become suspicious that they have breached that, then they will insist the samples be given. If they are correct in their suspicions, those people will be charged.

It is the ability of the corrections officers to use that tool in their monitoring and supervision that makes their jobs a lot easier. That is not the only consideration, but the major consideration is it makes their jobs much more effective. The enforcement of the probation orders and the enforcement of the parole conditions are much easier if they know they have the ability to turn to the police and say that they are suspicious, that they believe the person whom they have been supervising has breached his or her conditions and that they want to use the provisions of Bill C-30 and take the sample. If the person has breached the condition, then the individual will be charged. This technique makes their jobs much more effective.

Again it begs this question. How many people out on probation, who were not caught quickly enough, who have deviated from the path they were supposed to following, get into more serious crimes? We do not know. I have had comments from other members who have worked in this area in the past and it has to be in the thousands. Therefore, a lot of crimes may have been prevented had this been in effect.

The bill will go through the House today. It will get to the Senate. Hopefully it will not play any of its delaying tactics and we will have this before the courts for use in the next few weeks.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for his explanation of the importance of the bill.

Under proposed subsection 732.1(12), the Governor in Council may make regulations specifically related to a number of sections; and subsection 732.1(8), where regulations are prescribed, I find very interesting. It says:

...subject to the regulations, the Attorney General of a province or the minister of justice of a territory shall, with respect to the province or territory,

(a) designate the persons or classes of persons that may take samples of bodily substances;

(b) designate the places or classes of places at which the samples are to be taken;

(c) specify the manner in which the samples are to be taken;

(d) specify the manner in which the samples are to be analyzed; (e) specify the manner in which the samples are to be stored, handled and destroyed;

The list goes on. It really begs the question about these sections with regard to how things may be done, that they would be imposed on provincial jurisdictions that already have in place methods of taking substances, approved through their own legislation, as well as trained and designated people. They have already done this, but federal legislation would now ask the entire country to conform to this.

It raises for me the question of what kind of costs would be involved to coordinate the entire country for these specific regulations and designations, what training would be required, and what codifications would have to be done.

It is a naive question on my part, but it would appear to me that this is one of the problems we have in our criminal justice system, that we tend to make the system more complicated and probably provide more latitude for appeals on various cases simply because of the intense detail to the smallest details that are given in legislation such as this.

[Joe Comartin, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague's question does highlight a valid concern, although I have to say, one that I do not think is applicable here.

I just want to confirm what we have seen so many times with this government, of doing the photo ops on crime bills and then dumping the responsibility and the cost onto the provinces, with no cost-sharing arrangements at all. We are seeing that repeatedly, especially with regard to the rates of incarceration and how many billions of dollars that will cost the provincial levels of government.

However, in this particular case, as I said earlier in my speech, we had been doing this; the samples were being taken up until 2004 or 2005. So the system was in place across the country. The laboratories to which the samples were sent were already on contract. Most of them are private. They are not government agencies. So that system was already there. It has been languishing, but it is still being used for other purposes, because we take samples in any number of other ways. But that forensic skill is certainly in the country. We have been spending less money on it at the provincial level because we have not been able to take the samples, because we have not been able to use them. So there will be an increase in cost, but it is costs that the provinces were running, up to about five years ago.

I will make one final point, though. It is, I believe, a benefit to people who are accused that we have national standards. I am assuming and I certainly would expect that those regulations would set those national standards. I have to assume as well that they may not have always been met in the past, so we will now have national standards, which will make it much easier for our prosecutors, when they take those samples into court, to convince a judge that they are valid, that they have been done properly because they have met the national standards, and the conviction will pretty well always flow from it.

[Niki Ashton, NDP, Churchill, MB]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague has provided an in-depth analysis of why this piece of legislation is so critical. I am familiar with this great work and how he has provided feedback on this incessant crime and punishment agenda from the government.

I would like to ask him what his thoughts are as to why such a useful and critical piece of legislation took so long to come forward from the government. What could possibly be going on when the government claims to be committed to cutting back on crime and the usual phrases it uses, but when it comes to actually bringing forward useful and effective legislation, we are just simply not seeing that? I would like to ask for his thoughts on that.

[Joe Comartin, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is difficult to say this, but there does not seem to be any other explanation. We have known for over five years, because it precedes the Supreme Court of Canada decision, and it was quite obvious what was going to happen when Shoker got to the Supreme Court of Canada from the Court of Appeal. So there was a lot of time for the government to do this.

However, there are no obvious victims. We cannot point to an obvious victim, because what is really being said is that if this law had been in effect, this person would not have been a victim. We cannot go and find that person because there is just no way of doing that. The Conservative Party needs those photo ops for the Minister of Justice or the Minister of Public Safety to trot out, and it just did not have them. So this one gets pushed down to the bottom, even though if we were to ask the police officer on the street or the corrections officer, they would have wanted this right near the top to be dealt with very rapidly.

This is the second time this bill has been before the House. We had the election and it was knocked off the order paper. We had prorogation twice and it was knocked off the order paper. However, other bills have gone ahead. We have had 50 or 60 crime bills in the five years. We did not need them, but this one was always pushed down, because again, the Conservatives did not have that photo op.

I want to be very clear on this. When the Conservative government had to make a decision over which bills they were going to proceed with, they did it on an individual basis. Of those 50 or 60 bills that we have had, including quite frankly some of the private members' bills from the Conservatives, we could have brought almost all of those into two or three omnibus bills. That would have used up a lot less time in this House and more effectively dealt with a number of issues that do exist within the Criminal Code and the criminal justice system. We could have used omnibus bills to do that.

This next bill that we have right after this debate, Bill S-6, is a classic example of that. There are at least three other bills that have either gone through or are coming that should have all been combined around this one issue, and we can just repeat that over and over again.

That would not have allowed the government have those photo ops. It has to have an individual bill on every section of the Criminal Code, at the rate the government is going. If we do not have that, then too bad, it is no longer a priority for the government and is just dropped.

[Dean Del Mastro, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Canadian Heritage]

Mr. Speaker, it is interesting. The member mentioned an omnibus bill. I seem to remember one that we had, protecting victims from violent crime. I remember the shrill of the NDP that we brought an omnibus bill on crime and how they opposed that.

The other thing the member spoke about was the provinces. I do not know if the member understands that people were gaming the provinces, for example, on pretrial custody. The provinces supported us putting an end to two-for-one and three-for-one credits in the provinces.

How many mandatory minimums can the member point out to this House whereby it would not put incarcerated offenders into the federal system as opposed to the provincial system? I would love to hear his list.

[Joe Comartin, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

Mr. Speaker, if the member knew what he was talking about, he would look at this. In fact, between 80% and 90% of the mandatory minimums that we have passed or are coming are two years or less. Those are all provincial incarcerations. We are going to increase the incarceration rate at the provincial level by 100%.