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.

Safe Streets and Communities Act

[Ryan Cleary, NDP, St. John's South—Mount Pearl, NL]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Random—Burin—St. George's raised some good points in her statement.

She spoke about the numbers that have been thrown about, including the figure of $13 billion for the implementation of several of the acts in the bill.

What does she think the impact will be on the Newfoundland and Labrador prison system which is already inadequate and bulging at the seams?

[Judy Foote, Liberal, Random—Burin—St. George's, NL]

Mr. Speaker, my hon. colleague and I both know of the situation in the prison in St. John's, which also houses federal prisoners. At this point, it cannot possibly house any more. There are two or three inmates sharing a cell. That is unhealthy under any circumstances.

We need to do more in the way of prevention to ensure we do not have to build megaprisons to house criminals. The way to do that is by focusing on prevention by putting the billions of dollars in funding that would be wasted on this crime agenda toward working with people in terms of prevention programs.

[Frank Valeriote, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the Conservative speakers on the bill have negatively characterized with disdain the fact that rehabilitation was introduced into one of the principles of sentencing about 40 years ago.

I would ask the hon. member to correlate that rehabilitation principle with the facts. Where have crime rates gone over the last 40 years?

[Judy Foote, Liberal, Random—Burin—St. George's, NL]

Mr. Speaker, since the previous governments, mainly Liberal, introduced the whole idea of dealing more effectively with crime, statistics have pointed to the fact that crime is decreasing.

Clearly, we have made the right decision to go down that path. The government is trying to fix something that is not broken.

[Larry Miller, Conservative, Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to participate in the second reading debate on Bill C-10, the Safe Streets and Communities Act. It is a bill that is very important to residents in my riding of Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound and certainly across Canada.

The June 2011 Speech from the Throne recognized the government's fundamental duty to protect the personal safety of all Canadians. Toward this end we have committed to reintroduce law and order legislation to combat crime, including protecting children from sex offenders, eliminating house arrest and pardons for serious crimes, and protecting the most vulnerable in society, our children.

Bill C-10 supports this commitment. It is a comprehensive package of law reforms that had been proposed in nine bills before the previous Parliament, but which died with the dissolution of that Parliament for the general election.

Part 1, clauses 2 to 9, of Bill C-10 includes reforms to support victims of terrorism. These were proposed in former Bill S-7, the Justice for Victims of Terrorism Act.

Part 2, clauses 10 to 51, proposes sentencing reforms to address child sexual exploitation, serious drug offences, and to eliminate the use of conditional sentences for serious, violent and property crimes. It incorporates reforms that were proposed in former Bills C-54, the Protecting Children from Sexual Predators Act, S-10, the Penalties for Organized Drug Crime Act and C-16, the Ending House Arrest for Property and Other Serious Crimes by Serious and Violent Offenders Act.

Part 3, clauses 52 to 166, includes post-sentencing reforms to increase offender accountability, eliminate pardons for serious crimes, and revise the criteria for determining international transfers of Canadian offenders. These reforms were proposed in former Bills C-39, the Ending Early Release for Criminals and Increasing Offender Accountability Act, C-23, the Eliminating Pardons for Serious Crimes Act, C-59, the Abolition of Early Parole Act and C-5, the Keeping Canadians Safe (International Transfer of Offenders) Act.

Part 4, clauses 167 to 204, proposes reforms to the Youth Criminal Justice Act to better protect Canadians from violent young offenders. These had been proposed in former Bill C-4, Sébastien's Law (Protecting the Public from Violent Young Offenders).

Part 5 of Bill C-10 proposes amendments to the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act to protect foreign workers against abuse and exploitation, including sexual exploitation and human trafficking. These amendments had been proposed in former Bill C-56, the Preventing the Trafficking, Abuse and Exploitation of Vulnerable Immigrants Act.

Many of these proposed reforms were debated and studied in the previous Parliament. I welcome their reintroduction in this new Parliament.

I will focus my remaining time on Bill C-10's proposal to better protect children against sexual exploitation.

As with its predecessor Bill C-54, the objectives of Bill C-10's child sexual exploitation reforms are twofold. First, they seek to ensure that for sentencing purposes all child sexual offences are treated severely and consistently. Second, they seek to protect children by preventing the commission of these offences. Bill C-10 does this by imposing stiffer and stronger penalties.

Bill C-10 proposes numerous amendments to enhance the penalties or sentences of imprisonment that are currently imposed for sexual offences involving child victims. It imposes new or higher mandatory minimum sentences of imprisonment as well as higher maximum penalties for certain offences.

Currently, the Criminal Code has an inconsistent approach regarding penalties for sexual offences involving a child victim. For instance, there are 12 child-specific sexual offences that impose a mandatory minimum sentence of imprisonment, yet there are other child-specific offences that do not impose a minimum penalty.

Similarly, the general sexual offences that apply to both adult and child victims alike do not impose any mandatory minimum penalty where the victim is a child.

As the grandfather of two granddaughters, one six years old and the other three years old, this means a lot to me. The bill serves to strengthen the laws that protect our children and the vulnerable. There should be no question about supporting this bill.

Mandatory minimum penalties are exception In the Criminal Code of Canada. Generally, they have been imposed because Parliament has determined that the nature of a particular offence is sufficiently serious to include a sentence of imprisonment. That sentence was devised to best reflect the facts and circumstances of the case and does not get lost between the mandatory minimum period of time to the prescribed maximum penalty. Where mandatory minimum sentences are imposed, a conditional sentence of imprisonment is never appropriate for the offence.

Given this understanding of mandatory minimum sentences of imprisonment, the effect of imposing these in only some but not all sexual offences where the victim is a child suggests that some child sexual offences are more serious than others. It is ludicrous to suggest that some child victims have been less victimized than others. I cannot understand that thought process.

In my view, this contradicts a fundamental value of Canadian society, namely that all children are among our most vulnerable and that all are deserving of equal protection against all forms of child sexual abuse and exploitation. Therefore, I welcome the proposals of Bill C-10 to impose mandatory minimum sentences for seven sexual offences wherein the victim is a child and where currently mandatory minimum sentences are not imposed.

Bill C-10 also proposes to impose higher mandatory minimum sentences for nine offences that already carry a minimum sentence. These increases would ensure that the minimum sentence is not only in line with the offence in question but also is coherent with the minimum sentences imposed for other offences.

As well, Bill C-10 proposes to create two new offences to prevent the commission of a contact sexual offence against a child. Both of these offences would also impose mandatory minimum sentences.

I would also note that Bill C-10 proposes a few sentencing reforms that were not included in Bill C-54. These changes are entirely consistent with the overall sentencing objectives of former Bill C-54 and seek to better reflect the particularly heinous nature of these offences.

Finally, these changes would increase the maximum penalty and corresponding mandatory minimum sentences for four child sex offences. When proceeded on summary conviction, subsections 163.1(2), making child pornography, and 163.1(3), distribution, et cetera, of child pornography, propose to increase the maximum penalty from 18 months to 2 years less a day as well as increase the current minimum sentence from 90 days to 6 months.

In section 170, parent or guardian procuring sexual activity, the bill proposes to increase the minimum penalty from 6 months to 1 year and the maximum penalty from 5 years to 10 years where the victim is under the age of 16 years, and the minimum from 45 days to 6 months and the maximum from 2 years to 5 years respectively where the victim is 16 to 17 years old.

I hope that all hon. members will work with us to support the expeditious enactment of these much needed reforms.

In closing, as members of Parliament we all have a number of issues that come before us. In my seven years in this great place the one thing that I consistently hear from my constituents, especially those with children, young children and grandchildren, is the lack of rights for victims in this country. We worry more about the rights of criminals than victims, which is a sad case. The pendulum has swung too far one way. I am proud to be part of a government that would straighten that out.

I look forward to all hon. members in the House supporting Bill C-10.

[Brad Butt, Conservative, Mississauga—Streetsville, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am glad my friend from Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound mentioned his two young granddaughters.

I am the father of two daughters. One is 11 years old and the other is 7 years old. I am particularly concerned about the possibility of a sexual assault occurring because of those people on the street who take advantage of our children. Would the member highlight the areas of the bill that he believes would send them a message?

Sending a message to those people who would prey on innocent children is key. It would be a deterrent for them to know there are stiff penalties in place which their snazzy defence attorneys are unable to bargain or whittle down in a courtroom because the law is tough on that.

Does the member agree? Could he speak more on that particular part of the bill?

[Larry Miller, Conservative, Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is a privilege to welcome my colleague officially into the House. I enjoy working with him.

I am glad to hear his comments about his young family. While my family has grown up, I did mention my two granddaughters. It is very obvious that the member gets it when it comes to protecting the rights of young and innocent children and that is what a lot of the bill would do.

He talks about the message that the bill sends, that if people want to mess with our young children, the vulnerable, the next generation, and in my case it is not just the next generation but it is my pride and joy, there will be a price to pay. For too long the sentences were almost laughable.

Another message that it sends very strongly to victims is that while we cannot right what was done to them, we certainly can make offenders do the time for the crime.

[Judy Sgro, Liberal, York West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the comments my hon. colleague makes are interesting. However, flipping through the Quorum before us today, 97% of the articles in it question the viability of Bill C-10, condemning it, talking about how we will only add more victims of crime and increase costs. Money that should go into crime prevention will go to putting more people in jail.

The member should read Quorum. There is no support for Bill C-10 as far as the general public is concerned, yet the member continues to say he is representing more so than the rest of us in the House.

[Larry Miller, Conservative, Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I have worked with my colleague in the House and while we sit on opposite sides, I have a lot of respect for her.

I have not read Quorum yet, but I think the point she was trying to make to me was that it was unbelievable that there were still people out there who had written to our national papers, basically sticking up for criminals instead of victims. Like her, I find it very shocking.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, along the same vein, has my colleague seen an article by Newt Gingrich in The Washington Post. He cites that the Americans 30 years of tough on crime legislation has been a catastrophic failure. He cites recent empirical evidence for the state of Texas where in 2007 it decided that building more prisons rather than opting for prevention was a mistake and it has changed that now, saving $2 billion. That money has been put into drug courts, which deal with substance abuse as a medical instead of a criminal problem, and into several crime prevention measures instead of punitive measures to make its streets safer. Because of that, its crime rates have dropped by 10% in that short period of time. Is he aware of that?

[Larry Miller, Conservative, Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I have not seen that article. However, my priority here, and I think it is that of all of us in this great House, should be on doing what is right for Canada. The member talks about things we can do to deter criminals instead of locking them up.

I want to make mention of a first-ever program that the Minister of Justice put in my riding of Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound about three years ago. Equine and partner training is for young people who got involved in drugs, not because they were bad kids but because they got mixed up with the wrong people. It is a great program and I mention it as one example of the kinds of things we will continue to do.

[Libby Davies, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Mr. Speaker, there is possibly one thing we agree on, and that is the Conservatives have branded and wrapped themselves in a cloak of crime and punishment. As a result, they are blind to the evidence, the costs and the fact that we have the lowest crime rate since 1973.

The Conservatives are blind to building safe and healthy communities. They are blind to the horrendous experience of the U.S. in its war on drugs regime, which now is slowly repealed, including the repeal of mandatory minimum sentencing, as my colleague from Winnipeg Centre just pointed out, because of its catastrophic failure on people and society overall. The Conservatives are blind to the evidence in Canada and to the real impact these bills would have on the lives of people and communities overall.

Added to that, the Conservative members are blind to parliamentary democracy. With this bill and the steady stream of other bills that we have seen, they are only interested in manipulating people, creating fear and division and creating a them and us scenario. I believe, from the bottom of my heart, the omnibus bill before us today is offensive. It is politically motivated and would have enormous negative impacts.

I was involved in some of these bills previously, particularly the drug crime bill, which I will go into.

Listening to the debate, I find it astounding to hear how the Conservatives are completely divorced from the reality of what is going on. They cannot recognize that we have the lowest crime rate since 1973. They cannot comprehend or deal with the fact that federal and provincial prisons are skyrocketing and prisoners are double and even triple bunking, resulting, in part, from bills like the Truth in Sentencing Act, which was passed in the last Parliament.

I wish the Conservatives had the courage to bring forward a truth in prison costs bill because maybe then we would have a better handle on what is really going on here.

The fact is these nine bills have no relevancy together. They have been politically put together in one bill to ram them through the House in 100 days.

That defies the reality of the 2010-11 annual report that just came out from the Public Prosecution Service of Canada. It shows us that almost three-quarters, or 72%, of all cases handled by federal prosecutors last year involved drug cases, about 58,000 cases. Of those cases, only about 2% were complex, meaning that the vast majority of them were actually straightforward in terms of the impact of some of these bills and the kind of law enforcement approach that the Conservative government has taken.

The Conservatives also hid the real costs of this bill and all the bills in the package from Canadians during the election. We know that the real costs will be billions of dollars both in terms of the provincial cost in prisons and the federal costs.

I have heard so many times that the Conservatives are trying to bring in the bill on mandatory minimum sentencing for drug crimes as a bill that will be tough on organized crime and big traffickers. We heard the Minister of Justice say that again today, as he has so many times.

The reality is that mandatory minimums do not deter organized crime. Instead, they almost exclusively affect small dealers, street level traffickers and non-violent offenders, while leaving the door wide open for organized crime to step in and fill the void created by the sweeps at the lower end. Even the Canadian Justice Department, in its report of 2002, concluded that mandatory minimum sentences were the least effective in relation to drug offences.

The Minister of Justice has never been able to offer a shred of evidence that mandatory minimums are a deterrence, that they work. He was grilled on this in committee the last time the bill went through the House. This is now the third time we have had the bill before us. The minister could not offer any evidence that mandatory minimums were effective or that they would deal with our complex drug issues. All the evidence is to the contrary. The evidence indicates that the bill would have many harmful effects, including increasing the prison population and changing Canada's drug strategy from a four pillar approach that includes enforcement, prevention, treatment and harm reduction.

We know the Conservatives changed that strategy in 2007. Again, they are totally focused on the proposition that somehow a new bill, a new offence, a stiffer penalty, a mandatory minimum would deal with some of these complex issues.

I have a letter that has three pages of organizations and individual experts who have all studied this legislation, particularly, as it applies to mandatory minimums. They all have come to the same conclusion. There is no evidence that the legislation is warranted and would actually assist our society overall.

I would point out, again, more evidence. The auditor general, when she audited drug enforcement a few years ago when we had a special committee on the non-medical use of drugs, produced a very significant report that called for an increased emphasis on prevention, treatment and rehabilitation. What became clear was something like 73% of federal funds were being spent on enforcement, 14% on treatment, 7% on research, 2.6% on prevention and 2.6% on harm reduction.

Even the auditor general, from a very neutral, independent standpoint, came to the conclusion that the so-called drug strategy was not working, that it was not effective and that it could not be shown to be transparent or actually assisting in terms of drug issues in local communities.

The drug bill, in particular, which the Conservatives tried to get through the Senate and through the House, is taking Canada in a completely wrong direction. It is a direction that is very expensive, it will have no effect on drug use itself and it will only increase the prison population, creating a new set of overpopulation that with it will come health and safety concerns and problems that then will manifest themselves within the prison system. Anybody who does not understand that, as I said at the beginning, is simply fooling themselves and is blind to the reality and the evidence that is now before us.

The Conservative government changed the drug strategy in 2007. As result, we have now been down this path similar to the U.S. experience. The Americans have begun to understand that even the most right-wing conservatives, as quoted by my colleague, in the U.S. recognize the massive failure of the course of incarcerating people, of relying on an enforcement approach and mandatory minimums. Surely, Canada has lessons to learn from this.

I want to say this loud and clear, and I am very glad that all my colleagues are speaking out on the bill. We feel the bill is offensive in the way it puts together nine significant bills that should be dealt with individually. In particular, there is no evidence that the drug bill will work. On the contrary, all the evidence indicates that it will be harmful and costly. It is the wrong direction for our country to take.

[Rod Bruinooge, Conservative, Winnipeg South, MB]

Mr. Speaker, this is my first opportunity to rise in this debate. I listened to the member for Vancouver East's presentation on this and some of her ideas. She spoke about drug crime and some of her concerns she had with the legislation.

We also have drug crime in Winnipeg. We have abuse of certain narcotics such as heroin, for instance.

Other than the fact that she does not think the legislation within this place is the right approach, would she recommend to the citizens of Winnipeg that we perhaps create an InSite facility in downtown Winnipeg and could she comment on that?

[Libby Davies, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I can only say that, to me, it is up to the people of Winnipeg to determine what they see as the solutions to the very difficult questions they are facing in their community. In Vancouver East, when we were dealing with very difficult drug overdoses, it was the local community, including the police, the board of trade, businesses, and health professionals, that determined that a safe facility for people to go to was actually part of the solution.

No one has ever suggested that such a solution be imposed anywhere else. It is up to the residents of his community to determine what those solutions are. Things that are grown locally and that come from the local experiences are the things that work best.

[Hedy Fry, Liberal, Vancouver Centre, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I want to congratulate the hon. member for an excellent presentation and I wanted to ask her a particular question.

There are nine different areas dealt with in this legislation, but nowhere does the legislation have anything to say about people with mental illnesses in prisons. We know that up to 20% of youth in prisons today have a mental illness, up to 29% of women in prisons today have a mental illness and 50% of Canadian offenders report substance abuse as a cause for their offence. Existing information tells us that most people who go to prison, especially those with mental illness, show extreme depression and hopelessness before they go into prison.

Does the member have a comment on the fact that we are actually warehousing the mentally ill in prisons today? This trend is going to increase with this kind of legislation, yet there is nothing to be done to deal with this medical problem and to find an appropriate way of dealing with it in prisons.