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

[Linda Duncan, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Mr. Speaker, as my colleagues stated earlier, many in the U.S. government, both at the state and the federal levels, are raising questions about the past policies of the U.S. government and are moving toward the kind of measures we are proposing which are to prevent crime.

Indeed, we need to reconsider the elected members making the decisions on what the appropriate sentence should be and instead rely on the judges and prosecutors who hear the details of each case.

[Niki Ashton, NDP, Churchill, MB]

Mr. Speaker, the excellent speech of my colleague from Edmonton—Strathcona brought forward what is truly one of the parts of this legislation which the government has failed to talk about, which is the impact on aboriginal people.

Certainly my colleague has explained this at length, but I would like to hear more about how this legislation leaves out people who are often the most negatively impacted as a result of the inequality that exists in our society. They often end up in the correctional system without the services, without prevention, and without the needed supports. Obviously it is a major gap and we hear nothing about this from the government. It has a fiduciary obligation to first nations and aboriginal peoples.

I would certainly like to hear from the member how the government is letting go of that obligation and leaving aboriginal people out in the cold.

[Linda Duncan, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Churchill has been strident in the House in speaking on behalf of the rights and interests of aboriginal communities, including those in her own riding. She spoke out stridently against cutting the healing centre funding. There is no substance to the apology to our aboriginal communities, our first nations, if we do not come forward with substantive programs.

Absolutely, I have been sitting in here today and have heard no mention whatsoever of the consideration to our aboriginal Canadians. We need to be, not only in sentencing, giving due consideration to their plight and the impact on them from residential schools, their poverty and so forth. Also, we need to know what the government will do to invest in providing additional programs to help make aboriginal Canadians part of our economy.

[David Wilks, Conservative, Kootenay—Columbia, BC]

Mr. Speaker, as I begin my statement today, I will say that, as a retired member of the RCMP, I am proud to be part of a government that is putting forth legislation to assist police officers across Canada in serious investigations. More so, I am extremely proud that we are putting the rights of victims of crime before that of the people who commit the crime.

I am very pleased today to have an opportunity to speak to the safe streets and communities act and also to talk a bit about the good work our government has been doing to keep our streets and communities safer for Canada's law-abiding families.

As we know, the legislation in this comprehensive bill, which encompasses nine bills that have been brought before Parliament at various times since 2007, is not new to Canadians. In fact, this legislation has already had 79 full hours of debate in this place and has been studied in committee for 123 hours. All together, that is more than eight straight days spent considering common sense legislation.

Furthermore, in the election this past spring, we were very clear that, if elected, a strong, stable, national, majority Conservative government would bring legislation before the House in this manner. I am pleased and proud that Canadians saw fit to give us a strong mandate to carry on with our work.

I am also hopeful that members of the opposition will do the right thing and help us pass this important legislation.

As several of my hon. colleagues have pointed out, since taking office our government has not wavered from our commitment to crack down on crime and continue working to put the safety and security of Canadians at the forefront of our law and order agenda.

Hon. members will know that our government told Canadians, when it was first elected, that we would do things differently than the previous Liberal government. In fact, we have taken action on a number of fronts.

We said we that would get tough on crime. We have delivered. We said that we would ensure that people convicted of serious gun crimes would be given serious sentences. We have delivered. We said that we would take action to give law enforcement the tools it needed to do its jobs. We have delivered. In fact, we have taken steps to augment police forces and to help in efforts to improve recruitment for law enforcement agencies. For example, in 2008, we committed $400 million for the police officer recruitment fund to assist provinces and territories in hiring additional police officers.

That is a significant federal contribution to provincial and municipal policing costs over a five year period, and it supports the efforts of these jurisdictions to recruit new police officers in order to target local crimes and make communities safer.

On the legislative side, we have passed legislation targeting gang violence and organized crime by addressing issues such as gang murders, drive-by shootings and additional protection for police officers.

We have passed legislation to end the shameful practice of giving two for one or even three for one credit for criminals in pre-sentencing custody. This change will help ensure that offenders serve sentences that truly reflect the severity of their crimes.

We have also passed legislation to help reform the pardon system, and Bill C-10 contains further measures to eliminate pardons for serious crimes including those who sexually abuse the most vulnerable citizens in society, our children.

As well, we have passed legislation to strengthen the National Sex Offender Registry and the National DNA Data Bank in order to better protect our children and other vulnerable members of our society from sexual predators. This change means that police officers can now use the Sex Offender Registry as an effective tool to investigate and, hopefully, prevent crimes.

We also recently passed legislation that eliminates accelerated parole review, ensuring that drug dealers and white collar fraudsters are no longer eligible for release on day parole after one-sixth of their sentence.

We also have ended the faint hope clause so that persons convicted of first degree murder serve their entire parole eligibility period in prison.

Clearly, our government has done a lot to help ensure that criminals are fully held to account for their actions and to keep our streets and communities safe.

Over the last three years, our government has done what it said it would do to keep Canadians safe in their homes and communities. We have done that because we said that we would help the victims of those crimes. I will talk a bit about that now.

First, with a great deal of this legislation, we are recognizing the harm done to victims in this country by serious violent crime. We are delivering tangible action to help make them part of the corrections process, as well as help them to seek redress for what they have suffered.

As we know, the repercussions of crime extend far beyond the act that the victim of crime will suffer at the time. The repercussions extend for years into the future, causing financial, emotional and even psychological impacts. As well, for the victims of crime, regardless of how long one works to try to come to terms with what has happened, the act of crime and the long-lasting impact it has on the victims will, invariably, last a lifetime. With that act of crime, the victims' life, as they know it, is effectively taken from them and replaced with one of ongoing distress, the effect of which could be multiplied by the changes in conditions for their attacker. That is why the safe streets and communities act includes provisions to ensure that victims are actively included in the corrections process.

For example, the safe streets and communities act would enshrine in law a victim's participation in Parole Board of Canada hearings. That means it would be formally recognized that a victim must be included and heard in the process by which an offender is considered for conditional release into the community.

Also included in the safe streets and communities act are provisions that would ensure victims are kept better informed about what is happening with the offender in the corrections system. These provisions would specifically deal with how offenders are behaving while they are incarcerated, whether they are adhering to their correctional plan and if they are being transferred to a lower security institution. By keeping victims better informed about the behaviour, movements and potential release of offenders, we would ensure that victims are more fully engaged in the overall corrections process.

It is not as a mere formality or acknowledgement of what they have suffered. Ensuring that victims are actively involved in the corrections process is essential for both their healing and well-being. It also demonstrates to offenders the true nature of the harm they have done to society, which is a necessary part of the rehabilitation process.

Another way that safe streets and communities act is standing up for victims is the provision that would allow victims to sue perpetrators and supporters of terrorism and hold them accountable for their actions. The legislation would create an action where the victim could sue, in a Canadian court, an individual or a listed state that was responsible for actions of terrorism by which that individual had been directly affected. This is something in which Canada is leading the way and a new way in which criminals and terrorists could be held accountable and no longer act with impunity outside the law.

We hope that the opposition will support this legislation as we work to deliver better tools to help victims seek redress from the crimes committed against them. As well, by bringing victims more formally into the corrections process, it is our aim to protect the rights of victims and continue to take action to put the safety and security of Canadians, including victims, at the forefront of the way that corrections is handled in our great country.

I will end my speech by calling on the NDP to support this important legislation and stop its pattern of putting the rights of criminals ahead of the rights of law-abiding citizens.

[Ève Péclet, NDP, La Pointe-de-l'Île, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to hear what the hon. member has to say about the fact that, at its annual meeting on August 13 and 14, 2011, the Canadian Bar Association adopted a resolution that states:

...WHEREAS mandatory minimum sentences remove judicial discretion from the sentencing process, precluding sentencing judges from balancing all the factors of the case and imposing a one-size-fits-all solution to dispositions;

...WHEREAS mandatory minimum sentences disproportionately impact already disadvantaged populations, including Aboriginal people;

I would like to add youth to that.

I would like the hon. member to comment on the resolution adopted by the Canadian Bar Association.

[David Wilks, Conservative, Kootenay—Columbia, BC]

Mr. Speaker, with regard to minimum sentencing, police officers across Canada have been looking forward to this legislation for a long time. They understand that there is a certain segment of society that requires incarceration and the bill would supply that to those people who need incarceration.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I will begin by citing a couple of quotes. The first quote comes from the Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism on May 27, 1998, when he stated:

I begin by condemning this government for allowing itself to trample on democracy and democratic deliberation....

He was referring to time allocation, among other things.

This quote on June 10, 2003 comes from the member for Edmonton Southwest, who said:

The purpose of the institution of Parliament is supposed to be a deliberative assembly. When we shut down debate, we eliminate the whole purpose for the institution in the first place.

What is the government doing here? It has taken a bunch of bills and put them into one, which we call Bill C-10, and now it is putting a time limitation that prevents members of Parliament from being able to talk on each and every, what should be, separate bills. What would those members have said back then about government action?

I would suggest that what is being forced upon the opposition today is most unfair and not very well principled when it comes to the democratic principles of the House of Commons.

[David Wilks, Conservative, Kootenay—Columbia, BC]

Mr. Speaker, as I said at the beginning of my speech, this legislation has already spent 79 full hours of debate in this place, not including today. It has been studied at committee for 123 hours for a total of 8 days. I believe that we have studied the bill long enough.

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

Mr. Speaker, the member for Kootenay—Columbia opened his remarks indicating support for the bill based on his experience as a retired RCMP officer. What specific measures in the bill would add to the police toolbox as they continue their fight against crime?

[David Wilks, Conservative, Kootenay—Columbia, BC]

Mr. Speaker, with regard to what will assist in this, certainly the sex offender registry data bank will help. Police officers across Canada would be able to follow where those people are if they should move. The DNA bank will also be very helpful for investigations should an offender commit a crime that needs to be determined at a later date. With DNA evidence, they can do that.

[Robert Aubin, NDP, Trois-Rivières, QC]

Mr. Speaker, once again, I heard my colleague call for the NDP to support this bill.

My question is very simple. Would the member agree to split up the bill so that we can speak with one voice on issues on which we all agree, and then try to build bridges for issues on which we are divided?

[David Wilks, Conservative, Kootenay—Columbia, BC]

Mr. Speaker, as I said before, since 2007, a number of these bills have come before the House and they have all been debated at great length. We believe it is time now, with Bill C-10, to push these forward.

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

Mr. Speaker, I am rising for the second time on this bill. As we are aware, the motion that is currently before the House is the one from the third party in the House. It recommends that the bill deferred for an extended period of time for a number of reasons. With regard to that, it is an appropriate motion given the complexity of the bill, so it would be one that my party would be prepared to support.

It is obvious that the government will not to back off on this bill. Therefore, I would like to make a few other comments with regard to its approach, both what we have seen with the time allocation motion that it brought before and now passed in the House and the propensity for the Conservatives to further curtail debate in committee and perhaps when the bill comes back to the House at report stage and third reading. If this is any indication of the nature in which they will govern with a majority, it certainly strikes at the very foundation of the principles of democracy that the House is supposed to encompass. We will wait to see how the Conservatives will handle it at committee and when it comes back to the House, but I approach the bill in the way they have approached it, with a great deal of foreboding.

With regard to the contents of the history of the bill itself, in its various other incarnations, we have heard the statistics about the amount of debate that has taken place on this. The interesting part is a number of the recommendations that were passed with majority votes in committee and in the House have been ignored by the government. That certainly does not bode well for the democracy in our country.

In particular, I want to address the bill that dealt with the sexual abuse of children. That part of the bill, which we see encompassed in the larger bill today, had a great deal of debate. We took a good deal of evidence at the justice committee and it ultimately came out of the justice committee with only a couple of minor amendments. The bill basically created several new offences, which had support from all four parties at that time. In fact, two of the major new endeavours in that regard, around criminalizing the luring of children and the grooming of children for potential sexual victims, came out of NDP private member's bills over a number of years, which the government had latched onto and encompassed into what was Bill C-54 in the last Parliament.

We were quite supportive of that. The use of grooming techniques is well known. Psychologists and psychiatrists have taught us very clearly what to look for in that regard. Therefore, both the NDP private member's bill and the government bill took that into account and prohibited a number of types of conduct and imposed penalties if that conduct was deemed to have occurred and people were convicted of it.

We had concerns with that part of Bill C-54 in the sense that there were unintended consequences that I believed would occur with the mandatory minimums that the Conservatives imposed. We rarely have judges who are prepared to not sentence people who are convicted of these sexual abuses of children to time in prison. The difficulty I had with the bill was that a number of the mandatory minimums, taking away that discretion from the court as to how to best and perhaps more severely deal with the offenders, were being taken away and very rigid penalties were being imposed. I believe in some cases the result would be that we would see judges hesitating to impose more severe penalties because the mandatory minimums had now been set by the legislature.

However, we ultimately concluded, as a party, that we would allow this bill to go forward because of the new crimes that were being committed. This is really where we were going to make our children, our grandchildren, safer, by prohibiting that kind of conduct and allowing our police, prosecutors and judges to identify, convict and sentence on those types of offences.

We were quite supportive of that.

Also additional provisions were given to the judges in terms of the type of penalties they could impose, expanding them from beyond just the penalties that sentence them to prisons, but to also, when they came out, limiting access to the Internet, for instance. Only under supervised circumstances would they be able to have access to children. Those provisions were badly needed to expand the ability of our judges to control conduct after a person was released. Those were very good provisions, again, ones that we had suggested earlier on.

We are quite supportive of that kind of approach. Again, I have some reservation with regard to the mandatory minimums because they may have just the opposite consequence of what the government intends.

However, it is more important to get that law into place. Therefore, I ask for the unanimous consent of this House to move the following motion: That the provisions of 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 with respect to sexual offences against children, and consisting of clauses 10 to 31, 35 to 38 and 42-9, do compose Bill C-10B; that the remaining provisions in Bill C-10 do compose Bill C-10A; that the Law Clerk and Parliamentary Counsel be authorized to make any technical changes or corrections as may be necessary; that Bill C-10A and C-10B be reprinted; and that Bill C-10B be deemed to have been read the first time and be printed, deemed read the second time and referred to a committee of the whole, deemed reported without amendment and deemed read the third time and passed.

The effect of this is to get that part of the bill on sexual offences against children into legislation much faster so our police, prosecutors and judges can use it to protect our children, as opposed to having to wait for we do not know how many more months before Bill C-10, as a whole, comes back to the House for final debate and/or passage.

Our intent is entirely clear on this. We want this done now. We do not want to wait another number of months. The bill sat in the Senate for a while after it passed the House, a Senate that was controlled by the government. Then we had the election and it died. We do not want to waste any more time on this. We are quite supportive of getting this bill through today, tomorrow at the latest, and on to the Senate.

That is the intent of the motion, and I would seek unanimous consent of the House to pass it today.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

Does the hon. member have the unanimous consent of the House to move the motion?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

No.