Bill C-10 (Historical)

Safe Streets and Communities Act

An Act to enact the Justice for Victims of Terrorism Act and to amend the State Immunity Act, the Criminal Code, the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act, the Corrections and Conditional Release Act, the Youth Criminal Justice Act, the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act and other Acts

Part 1 of this enactment creates, in order to deter terrorism, a cause of action that allows victims of terrorism to sue perpetrators of terrorism and their supporters. It also amends the State Immunity Act to prevent a listed foreign state from claiming immunity from the jurisdiction of Canadian courts in respect of actions that relate to its support of terrorism.
Part 2 amends the Criminal Code to
(a) increase or impose mandatory minimum penalties, and increase maximum penalties, for certain sexual offences with respect to children;
(b) create offences of making sexually explicit material available to a child and of agreeing or arranging to commit a sexual offence against a child;
(c) expand the list of specified conditions that may be added to prohibition and recognizance orders to include prohibitions concerning contact with a person under the age of 16 and use of the Internet or any other digital network;
(d) expand the list of enumerated offences that may give rise to such orders and prohibitions; and
(e) 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.
It also amends the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act to provide for minimum penalties for serious drug offences, to increase the maximum penalty for cannabis (marijuana) production and to reschedule certain substances from Schedule III to that Act to Schedule I.
Part 3 amends the Corrections and Conditional Release Act to
(a) clarify that the protection of society is the paramount consideration for the Correctional Service of Canada in the corrections process and for the National Parole Board and the provincial parole boards in the determination of all cases;
(b) establish the right of a victim to make a statement at parole hearings and permit the disclosure to a victim of certain information about the offender;
(c) provide for the automatic suspension of the parole or statutory release of offenders who receive a new custodial sentence and require the National Parole Board to review their case within a prescribed period; and
(d) rename the National Parole Board as the Parole Board of Canada.
It also amends the Criminal Records Act to substitute the term “record suspension” for the term “pardon”. It extends the ineligibility periods for applications for a record suspension and makes certain offences ineligible for a record suspension. It also requires the National Parole Board to submit an annual report that includes the number of applications for record suspensions and the number of record suspensions ordered.
Lastly, it amends the International Transfer of Offenders Act to provide that one of the purposes of that Act is to enhance public safety and to modify the list of factors that the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness may consider in deciding whether to consent to the transfer of a Canadian offender.
Part 4 amends the sentencing and general principles of the Youth Criminal Justice Act, as well as its provisions relating to judicial interim release, adult and youth sentences, publication bans, and placement in youth custody facilities. It defines the terms “violent offence” and “serious offence”, amends the definition “serious violent offence” and repeals the definition “presumptive offence”. It also requires police forces to keep records of extrajudicial measures used to deal with young persons.
Part 5 amends the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act to allow officers to refuse to authorize foreign nationals to work in Canada in cases where to give authorization would be contrary to public policy considerations that are specified in instructions given by the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration.
The enactment also makes related and consequential amendments to other Acts.

Report Stage

[Ted Hsu, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Madam Speaker, I have another example of how every time we try to increase punishments we end up disproportionately punishing disadvantaged groups in society.

For example, if we look at what has happened in the last couple of years when we got rid of the two for one credit for time spent in remand, this disproportionately affected aboriginal people. If we look at the last couple of years, the average sentence lengths for aboriginal people have increased from about 1,200 to 1,280, whereas the average sentence lengths for everyone else have not changed much at all.

That is an example of where a change in the law to increase the length of prison sentences has tended to disproportionately affect disadvantage groups. Aboriginal prisoners get longer sentences now compared to a couple of years ago. That is not true of everybody else. Therefore, they are being discriminated against.

[Megan Leslie, NDP, Halifax, NS]

Madam Speaker, I completely agree with the member. This is about racialization and poverty. This is about criminalization of race.

I had the opportunity at home to visit a youth program for young people who were in conflict with the law. A number of youth that were in the room came from racialized communities.

There was a young man who said to me, “You know, growing up my uncle sold rock on the corner and my friends did and my dad did, and that is all I have ever known, so what will I do when I become an adult? That's what I did. I sold rock on the corner”. He said, “I didn't know that I could get a job, that I could build a resume, that I could apply. I didn't have the skills”.

He was in this program and he looked me in the eye and said, “If there were more programs like this for people like me when I needed them, I wouldn't have gone to jail because I would have gotten a legit job so that I could support my girlfriend and my daughter”. He said that. This is a young man who was in one of these programs who said, “I didn't know what to do other than sell drugs”.

It is not rocket science to figure out how to solve a problem like that.

[Joy Smith, Conservative, Kildonan—St. Paul, MB]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to have this opportunity to join the debate today on Bill C-10.

Canada's immigration system plays an important role in meeting the needs of our economy. That is because immigrants bring with them the skills that our economy needs.

The temporary foreign worker program helps employers fill short-term needs when suitable Canadian candidates are not available. A common misconception is that temporary workers are only hired to fill low skilled positions. However, if we look closely at the numbers, we find that the majority enter the workforce in professional, managerial or trade occupations.

In 2010 more than 67,500 temporary foreign workers were issued work permits.

[The Deputy Speaker, Denise Savoie]

Order, please. The hon. member for Nanaimo--Cowichan is rising on a point of order.

[Jean Crowder, NDP, Nanaimo—Cowichan, BC]

Madam Speaker, I just want to clarify. We are talking about Bill C-10, the omnibus crime bill, are we not?

[The Deputy Speaker, Denise Savoie]

We are indeed debating Bill C-10. I am sure the hon. member for Kildonan--St. Paul will come to her point.

[Joy Smith, Conservative, Kildonan—St. Paul, MB]

Madam Speaker, indeed, we are talking about Bill C-10, and we are talking about the temporary foreign worker program around Bill C-10.

In 2010 more than 67,500 temporary foreign workers were issued work permits for high skilled occupations. Among these, more than 21,000 work permits were issued to workers under international agreements, such as the North American free trade agreement. With regard to lower skilled occupations, just over 50,600, just over one-quarter, were admitted to fill vacancies in positions which included live-in caregivers and seasonal agricultural workers.

Given the diversity of fields for which temporary foreign workers are hired, their importance to the Canadian economy cannot be overstated. We know that many workers take great risks in leaving their homes to travel to Canada to work, and for that they should be rewarded, not punished.

Some temporary foreign workers may have weak language skills and very little money. They may have no family or friends in Canada. They may also fear the police and government. With no one to turn to, this can make them more vulnerable to abuse than other workers.

For those people who are applying to enter our country as temporary foreign workers, Canada represents a new start, but some of these workers' hopes for a new future are extinguished by those who seek to manipulate their vulnerable situation.

Canadians gave us a strong mandate to keep our streets and communities safe by getting tough on crime. This includes preventing crime and exploitation of vulnerable people, both locally and nationally. We made a campaign commitment and we are ready to honour that commitment.

Unfortunately, the opposition does not feel the same way. I guess that is why I was just interrupted. Instead, it has chosen to delay this bill and delay the protection of vulnerable people at home and abroad. The opposition should stop its shameful delay of this bill and help our government prevent human smuggling and the exploitation of vulnerable foreign workers. That is where Bill C-10 comes in.

By introducing the safe streets and communities act, our government is sending a clear message that we will not let the valuable be exploited. That is why we have introduced changes to ensure that the temporary foreign worker program continues to meet short-term labour shortages while strengthening protections for these workers.

Employers seeking to hire temporary foreign workers, including live-in caregivers, are now assessed against compliance with program requirements before authorization to hire them can be granted. What this means is that employers found to have violated workers' rights will be refused authorization. There was a clear need for clear regulations to better protect workers from poor treatment by employers who would mistreat them.

Bill C-10 will help us to further protect vulnerable foreign workers. That is because this legislation grants immigration officers the authority to deny work permits to those who are at risk of humiliating and degrading treatment, including sexual exploitation. For example, while exotic dancing is a legal occupation in Canada, there are reports linking the exotic dancing industry with abuse and exploitation of its employees.

As the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration has said, there is a lot of evidence that many exotic dancers being brought in to work on temporary work permits are being managed by organized crime. These women are then exploited through coerced activity in the sex trade. The ability to deny work permits to vulnerable workers would enable the government to protect applicants by keeping them out of these types of situations.

Instructions would potentially address not only high risk work settings, but also characteristics that would make foreign workers particularly vulnerable to abuse and exploitation. For example, the minister might be aware of evidence suggesting that massage parlours are settings of high risk for the sexual exploitation of workers. At the same time, other characteristics might make some workers more vulnerable than others. Women workers might be at more risk than men. Also evidence might demonstrate that registered massage therapists are less likely to be victimized than those with no qualifications.

The instructions would not target specific work permit applicants directly, rather they would apply to applicants of a particular occupation or a group of applicants who can be identified as vulnerable to abuse or exploitation. As I said, ministerial instructions would be based on objective evidence that clearly outlined an identified risk of abuse or exploitation. Ministerial instructions would also be published in the annual report to Parliament and in the Canada Gazette.

Given these parameters, it is very clear that these amendments stand on the principles of openness and accountability.

I want to assure the House that the legislation includes many checks and balances to ensure that the ministerial instructions are applied objectively. Immigration officers would need to apply the instructions issued by the minister on a case-by-case basis and each application for a work permit would be assessed on its own merits. Any decision to refuse a permit would need to be supported by evidence that showed a risk of humiliating or degrading treatment. Also, any decision by an immigration officer to refuse a work permit in Canada would require the concurrence of a second immigration officer. Should individuals be refused, it would be possible that they would be granted a work permit if they applied to come to Canada to work in another occupation or a different situation that would not pose the same risk.

Without these amendments, Citizenship and Immigration Canada would have no discretionary authority to deny a work permit to someone who met all the requirements to enter Canada, even if the immigration officers believed there was a strong possibility of exploitation and abuse. It would be highly irresponsible for the Conservative government to continue to admit temporary foreign workers to work in such abusive situations.

As the government, it is our responsibility to ensure that people who come to Canada can pursue their new lives without fear for their safety. Bill C-10 would help us protect vulnerable foreign workers so they could achieve their dream of a new future. That is why, in the beginning of my speech, I had to go over the premise of foreign workers and why it was so important to protect these most vulnerable people, especially when they would be in professions or situations that could lead to very strong exploitation, especially, sexual exploitation and forced labour.

[Françoise Boivin, NDP, Gatineau, QC]

Madam Speaker, I appreciated the speech of the member opposite.

Certainly, everyone is against the exploitation of foreign workers; however, the problem with the bill as it stands is that many of its provisions are too vague and leave a lot of things to the discretion of officers. This is what experts from both the Canadian Bar Association and the Barreau du Québec have said. A review of the officer's decision is then conducted by another officer. We, on this side of the House, in our great wisdom, proposed that the review be conducted by an arbitrator or someone who is more independent than a person working in the same unit. And I am not even mentioning the broad discretionary authority given to the minister.

I would like the hon. member to try to reassure us because, given that the Conservatives have rejected all the amendments, we are left with a bit of a bad taste in our mouths; it seems that the provisions, as they now stand, will not resolve the problem.

[Joy Smith, Conservative, Kildonan—St. Paul, MB]

Madam Speaker, rest assured Bill C-10 and the foreign worker piece would address an issue that is really hitting our country hard. At the present time, workers at the border, the border people, when they know someone is vulnerable, have no tools to use to prevent these people from coming in and being exploited. They are highly trained. It is not done very quickly. It is done very carefully, with two of the officers in consultation to make this happen. Therefore, this will protect our vulnerable workers.

[Alexandre Boulerice, NDP, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

Madam Speaker, I thank the Conservative member for her speech.

I am particularly touched by the fact that she is concerned about the exploitation of workers. Since I have over 10 years of experience working in human rights and the union movement, the topics of abuse and harsh treatment by employers worry me and worry the entire NDP caucus. We are very sensitive to these issues.

This also highlights one of the problems with the omnibus Bill C-10. This omnibus bill has become a sort of an indigestible mess, because it tries to address too many issues and topics that are not at all related. We are forced to take it all and swallow it whole. That is one of our problems with this bill.

I would like my colleague to explain why the Conservatives are saying that we need more prisons, when it has no studies to support this claim and when serious crime is on the decline.

[Joy Smith, Conservative, Kildonan—St. Paul, MB]

Madam Speaker, in actual fact the legislation has been debated but not passed in previous sessions of Parliament. To reassure the member opposite, this piece was first introduced on May 16, 2007. It was tabled a second time on November 1, 2007, a third time on June 17, 2009, and a fourth time on November 19, 2010.

It is time that these bills are put together to get them through Parliament to protect not only vulnerable workers, but to ensure our Canadian citizens are safe.

[Bob Zimmer, Conservative, Prince George—Peace River, BC]

Madam Speaker, we have heard the opposition complain about us using time allocation for this argument. My colleague mentioned the urgency with which this needs to happen to help those people about whom she is concerned.

Could she explain why we want to get the bill through as soon as possible?

[Joy Smith, Conservative, Kildonan—St. Paul, MB]

Madam Speaker, the pieces of Bill C-10 have been debated over and over again in the House. The difference is everything has been put together in one bill. It is very urgent. Why? Because our Canadian citizens need to be protected. Not only that, but we have a responsibility for those coming across our borders from other countries. It is our responsibility to ensure people coming through our borders are safe. That is why the piece for our vulnerable workers is in the bill.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Madam Speaker, once again it is a privilege to rise to speak to this critical legislation before the House. I would say it is a pleasure, but considering the contents of the bill and what I think it will do not only to our country but to our community safety in Canada, I cannot, in all conscience, say that.

I will start by addressing the procedure by which the bill is being introduced in the House.

I have heard members on the opposite side continually try to justify ramming through the legislation. For Canadians watching, they should know that this is an omnibus bill. The government has packaged together nine separate pieces of legislation and thrown it into one bill before the House. As if that is not enough, the government has imposed limits on the ability of Parliament to examine the bills in detail by bringing in closure, which limits debate.

The members of the government have tried to justify this by saying that this has been debated in previous Parliaments. I will pause for a moment to say how fundamentally undemocratic that position is.

Each election Canadians go to the polls to elect a different Parliament. Many members in the House were not present in the previous Parliament. Citizens in their ridings elected members to come to the House because they were trusted to come here and examine the legislation, debate it, understand it and propose amendments.

For the government to deny those members that right, and by extension, to reject the choice of those Canadians who democratically chose those people to come here on their behalf is a fundamental rejection of the rights of Canadians to send a representative of their choice to Parliament. Those Canadians do not care what someone in a previous Parliament has said. Many of those members were defeated. Canadians care what current members in the House have to say about the legislation. The position of the government is fundamentally undemocratic.

I also want to point out what a turnaround this is from the old approach of the Conservatives on the invocation of closure. Through our research, we found dozens of references by the Prime Minister when he was in opposition on the use of closure by government, which he opposed.

This is what the former minister of public safety, Stockwell Day, said in the House:

A columnist wrote something interesting today. He wrote that in his view the decision to invoke closure on the bill represented in some ways the death of the true meaning of parliament. Parliament is the ability to gather together as elected representatives to talk, discuss, debate and hopefully do things that can enrich the lives and in this case the safety and security of Canadians. The federal Liberal government has failed Canadians.

Yet today the Conservatives stand in the House and say, “That's okay, we can ram through a bill that's going to fundamentally change our country and we don't need to debate it”. That is fundamentally wrong.

On the bill itself, our Parliament is poised to reshape Canada's criminal justice system in significant ways and, I would submit, Canada itself. With the omnibus so-called tough on criminals bill, we have a representation of the biggest change to our justice system in recent memory about to be undertaken and, once again, with very little debate.

I think we are all anticipating and participating in a watershed moment in Canadian history, and this matters. It matters for our safety and it matters for the kind of country we want Canada to be.

Surely one key test of a society is how we treat the most vulnerable and, even more important, sometimes how we treat the most despised. Justice policies offer a glimpse into the soul of a nation.

Without exception, I believe those of us who are charged with policy and practice care deeply about victims and their families. We want to prevent crime when we can, but we want to reduce the economic and human costs when we cannot.

I submit that policies and practices should be guided by the following three imperatives.

The first is public safety. In other words, what does the evidence tell us about what works to make our homes and streets safe?

The second is freedom. How do we ensure a measured response that protects our civil liberties, constrains the state and holds it accountable when our freedom is at stake?

Last is justice. What is a just, proportionate and humane punishment when a citizen is found guilty of a crime? Of course the system must adapt to changing times and new knowledge, but rates of crime and violence have been falling for about three decades. That does not permit complacency, nor does it suggest the need for a fundamental change of direction.

I want to put some facts before the House. The police reported crime rate, which measures the overall volume of crime in this country, continued its long-term downward trend in 2010, declining 5% from 2009. At the same time, the crime severity index, which measures the severity of crime, fell 6%. The national crime rate has been falling steadily for the past 20 years and it is now at its lowest level since 1973.

In 2010 police reported 7,200 fewer violent incidents than in the previous year. Theft under $5,000, mischief and break-ins, relatively minor crimes, accounted for close to two-thirds of the almost $1.7 million non-violent offences.

Alberta and British Columbia, the province that I hail from, reported the largest declines in crime in 2010. It fell 6% in both provinces. The crime severity index decreased by 8% in Alberta and 7% in British Columbia.

Police reported that nearly 153,000 youth 12 to 17 years of age were accused of a crime in 2010. That is 15,000 fewer than in the previous year. The youth crime rate, which measures the overall volume of crime committed by youth, declined by 7%.

We know that aboriginals are historically and disproportionately represented in our federal prisons, particularly aboriginal women. We know that 80% of offenders in our federal system right now suffer from an addiction. We know that mental illness is at alarming proportions in our federal prisons. People who are brain damaged, suffering from fetal alcohol spectrum disorder, low cognition, poorly educated, the addicted, the mentally ill of every single type, are populating our prisons.

I said this in my last speech and I will say it here today. I have done something that I dare say 95% of members in the House have not done. I have walked through the doors of 25 federal institutions in this country. I have talked to correctional officers, to wardens, to prison psychologists and to inmates. I have sat across the table from people doing life sentences. I have canvassed a cross-section of people who actually know what they are talking about in the prison system in this country. I have seen what kind of services are, and most importantly, what kind of services are not offered in our federal system.

I can tell members that this bill puts together an approach to crime that not only is expensive, that not only will cost Canadian taxpayers billions of dollars, but it will not make a single iota of difference in terms of making our communities safer. The reason I say that is that it misses the mark.

Of course there are people who commit crimes and have to be locked away to protect the public. Of course there are some people in federal institutions who have to be locked up for their natural lives. However, the vast majority of people in our federal institutions are people who will be coming out. Over 90% of people in federal prisons today are going to come out.

What we need to do if we are truly interested in making sound policy in this country instead of playing to what I will call in a few minutes, junk politics, is to be making sure that we have adequate alcohol and drug treatment programs in prison, and we do not now. We need to make sure that we have vocational and occupational programs in our prisons, and we do not now. We need to make sure that we have adequate psychological, nursing and occupational therapy services in our prisons to deal with the real problems that our offenders are facing in prison, and we do not now.

The sum total of the bill is based on a concept that if we lock up more Canadians for longer periods of time in harsher conditions, it would make our country safer. I have stood in the House three times and challenged Conservative members opposite. I told them they have the resources of the Department of Justice and Public Safety Canada, that surely they have studied this issue.

Every society in the world suffers from crime. We have hundreds of examples to choose from. If we asked the Conservatives to name one country where this approach to crime has achieved a noticeable drop in crime, they would not be able to come up with one example.

Before we embark on a policy of spending billions of dollars, let us make sure that we can spend taxpayer dollars wisely and make sure it will actually make us safer. The bill does not do that.

[Gordon O'Connor, Conservative, Minister of State and Chief Government Whip]

Mr. Speaker, I believe that if you seek it you will find there is unanimous consent for the following motion. I move:

That, notwithstanding any Standing Order or usual practice of the House, at the conclusion of the debate at report stage, Bill C-10, An Act to enact the Justice for Victims of Terrorism Act and to amend the State Immunity Act, the Criminal Code, the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act, the Corrections and Conditional Release Act, the Youth Criminal Justice Act, the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act and other Acts, Motions Nos. 1, 5, 35, 41, 51, 53, 62, 64 and 78 be deemed put and recorded divisions be deemed requested and deferred pursuant to Standing Order 76.1(8).