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.

Preventing Human Smugglers from Abusing Canada's Immigration System Act

[François Lapointe, NDP, Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am trying to figure out the question. I only heard a very long statement. I am surprised that the hon. member elaborated on the same issue as the first member from the governing party. I will give the same answer.

I would be prepared to discuss and support a bill that contained every possible means to attack someone who has defrauded people and put them in a container. However, I cannot support a bill that unfairly treats people who tried to flee an extremely difficult situation and suffered abuse. I invite the government to do the same thing it should have done with Bill C-10, in other words, something concrete to address this serious problem—

[François Lapointe, NDP, Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC]

Mr. Speaker, if the government were to introduce a bill that gives the RCMP and other law enforcement agencies greater power to catch people who engage in the trafficking of immigrants, in human trafficking, I would be the first to support it. I can see they are not really interested in my answer. Like Bill C-10, the vast majority of these documents have to do with denying status, with creating a designated foreign national status. If the government really wanted to solve this problem, it would introduce a bill to do so.

[François Lapointe, NDP, Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the American economy is stagnant. A large proportion of the small business owners I have met in the last month are facing the same problem: they have orders, but only for a month or two, when generally, at this time of year, they have orders for the next five, six, seven or eight months. Where I live, there are lumber yards with very productive sawmills that are not doing any stock rotation. This is very serious. We are on the eve of a possible recession. Local indicators like the analyses by the big banks remind us of this.

But what have we been doing in this House for two weeks? We have been piling up public safety bills. While people are about to be looking at a rising unemployment rate, we are talking to them about public safety. I do not see the logic in this, unless our Conservative friends have decided that having more inmates might make up for natural resources or opening plants. I cannot see what has prompted us to spend two weeks piling up public safety bills when we are in this kind of economic situation. None of my constituents are talking to me about public safety problems today. No one is telling me there have been more break-ins or whatever that would justify our Parliament spending weeks on public safety issues when there is a recession around the corner.

The bad news, as a result of this kind of behaviour, is that terrorism and crime may increase. If no clear action is taken to slow down or stop a potential recession, at a time when people, particularly young people, are unemployed, crime will increase. When developing countries hit an economic downturn and thousands of people earning low wages lose their jobs, more people may get involved with brutal ideologies and become potential terrorists. When the real solution, to avoid all these problems, is to find a way to stimulate the economy in the short term again, instead we are piling up public safety bills. This is absurd.

Something else is absurd. One of the reasons given by our friends in the government is that refugees arriving in groups by boat might cause a rise in terrorism in Canada. Let us think about that for a minute. Terrorist groups are well financed and unfortunately, in their own way, intelligent. Unfortunately, because they set about causing harm and destroying the democratic structures of developed countries or others that are less developed. Unfortunately, these are people who are well financed, organized and intelligent. They are going to spend months or years radicalizing young people, training them, and then they are going to put them in a boat for three months where they have a three in 10 chance of starving to death. They are going to bring them to a developing country as boat people in a container where their entire investment could literally die of starvation during transport. I would like to see a hint of a shadow of a study showing that refugees who arrive in groups by boat are more likely to be terrorists. I am convinced that a study that looked into this would show us the exact opposite. It is absurd and illogical.

Once again we are presented with a public safety bill, even though this is not what my constituents are talking to me about every day. They are talking to me about the declining numbers of jobs and orders to fill. And on top of that, we are still facing the same problem. The Canadian Bar Association, not the NDP, has reminded us that it did not support the earlier version of the bill.

According to representatives from the bar, this bill violates the provisions of the charter against arbitrary detention, it violates the guarantees in the charter for the prompt review of detentions and violates Canada's international obligations regarding the treatment of persons seeking protection.

This is not someone from the NDP saying so; it is the Canadian Bar Association. Once again, as with Bill C-10, it is clear that the government has no regard for the expertise of professionals in the field. Lawyers and judges have said that the current system is reliable and that we do not need even more public safety, as though there were cause for concern and as though we had been seeing widespread crime in Canada for years. That is untrue.

For my remaining time, I have a little exercise. Often enough, our colleagues from the party in power ask us whether we have read the bill. I have news for them: I do read the bills. Oh yes, I will sit down with the text of the bill and will ask questions that occur to me, even in the summary.

At the very beginning, it reads:

(a) authorize the Minister, in certain circumstances, to designate as an irregular arrival the arrival in Canada of a group of persons [all of a sudden they are no longer refugees, but a group of persons], the result of which is that some of the foreign nationals [a new label appears here: “foreign nationals”. Their status is no longer refugee, but “foreign national” as soon as they set foot here] in the group [specifically] become designated foreign nationals;

Basically, the government is doing away with the idea of refugees. Thirty years ago, when Southeast Asia was having problems, Laotians and others were arriving in Canada and were welcomed openly, particularly by Quebec families. These were people who needed help and now, all of a sudden, they are designated foreign nationals. Who decides whether a group is designated or not? The minister. Could it be any more arbitrary?

I noted some questions. For example, who decides who makes up a group? A little further on, we can see that a group can be more than 10 people but it can also be fewer than 10 people. If a mother who is already a Canadian citizen accompanies her son who is not and who, for humanitarian reasons, decides to stay in Canada after a trip, do they constitute a group?

I also noted this paragraph:

The officer may refuse to consider an application for permanent residence made under subsection (1) if

(a) the designated foreign national fails, without reasonable excuse, to comply...

I read the bill to see what constituted a reasonable excuse. Is there a definition? What constitutes a reasonable excuse? What does not? I looked. I turned the pages—all of the pages. I read the bill and I still did not find a definition for reasonable excuse. We are talking about human life and dignity. We are talking about people who, for the most part, are not primarily economic refugees. They are afraid that they will starve to death if they return to their country, or face an even worse situation in terms of human rights that involves a direct threat to their safety. Yet, we do not know what constitutes a reasonable excuse. An officer or minister can say whether the excuse is reasonable or whether it is not a good excuse and therefore unreasonable.

The Minister may, by order, having regard to the public interest [it is the minister who determines what the public interest is], designate as an irregular arrival the arrival in Canada of a group of persons if he or she...

A little further down it says:

...any investigations concerning persons in the group — cannot be conducted in a timely manner...

We are talking about an investigation being conducted in a timely manner for people who arrive by boat, starving to death, with only a few items of clothing. We are going to ask them to provide documentation in a timely manner? These people are starving to death and we are going to ask them to provide their documentation in, for example, two days or tell them that they did not provide it in a timely manner?

I would like to know how the government can violate human dignity in this manner.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I am glad to have the opportunity to enter into the debate on Bill C-4, Preventing Human Smugglers from Abusing Canada's Immigration System Act.

Let me begin by saying that immigration and refugee issues are top of mind for the people and the community I represent in the inner city of Winnipeg. We are happy to welcome many newcomers. Some came here voluntarily to better themselves, while some were forced to come here to flee persecution in other countries.

My area is a low-income part of Winnipeg and has the most affordable housing, so most new arrivals to the province of Manitoba actually land in my jurisdiction of Winnipeg Centre. It is both a pleasure and a challenge in that, as is the case with many members here, our MP offices become de facto immigration offices. New arrivals do not seem to be able to find the settlement services they need to integrate seamlessly through the immigration system. More often than not, it seems, they wind up in our offices in some level of crisis. Many need our services, and we are happy to be able to provide them when we can.

By way of prefacing my remarks, I should also recognize and pay tribute to the International Centre in Winnipeg, which offers settlement services to new arrivals, both immigrants and refugees.

On my own staff, Vân Nguyen is a woman of Vietnamese descent who was herself a refugee who arrived in Canada as one of the waves of what we called “boat people” at the time. Vân Nguyen worked for Immigration Canada for many years. I am proud to say she is now on my staff and provides necessary services to a great many new arrivals.

Speaking of boat people, I think this debate has become too narrow. As I have watched the debate develop and evolve in the House over the last number of days, we seem to be focusing on boat people as if there is some fear that we are going to be overrun by people landing on our shores in rusty boats and setting foot on our soil and therefore, by the same decision, cluttering up our immigration and refugee system with massive numbers of arrivals coming in this fashion.

That is not really true. I think the minister would be able to verify that a lot more arrivals land at Toronto Pearson International Airport and claim refugee status than arrive by washing up on our shores in boats.

I remember when I was the immigration critic for the NDP in a previous Parliament. It was around the time Chinese boat people were arriving on the west coast of British Columbia after being smuggled by snakeheads. It was a problem, granted, as there were hundreds of people at a time, and it cluttered and clogged our system.

The minister at the time, Elinor Caplan, actually took an all-party delegation of us to China, to the very place that these particular groups of economic migrants came from. They were not refugees seeking a better life in Canada, which we cannot fault them for, but by no means did they really meet the definition of refugees.

However, we went on a fact-finding mission to the very ports where these people were coming from. We even met some people who planned on joining the next wave that was on its way to Canada. We did not meet them in a rice paddy or some kind of peasant's hut; we met them in the revolving discotheque on the top of a high-rise in the village of Fuzhou, which turned out to be a city of five million people.

There are many types of people who seek to arrive here by non-conventional means. It is very hard to adjudicate and triage these people to determine who are legitimate refugees and who are economic migrants who were smuggled here by paying $50,000 to some snakehead, so I am sympathetic to the problem.

What I am critical of is the politics of fear that I believe are being employed as a modus operandi and as a theme, not just to deal with this particular issue but as a motif. It is almost a pattern or a hallmark of this government.

Bill C-10 is probably a good example, or analogous at least, in that in spite of overwhelming evidence that crime is actually being reduced in almost every category and is at its lowest level since 1973, the government of the day would have us believe that we are in such danger of being murdered in the night by some junkie that we have to vote for the Conservatives to protect us from the straw man that they have built up and that they are the only ones who can knock this straw man down.

That seems to be the tone of the debate that is developing here as we deal with refugees: that we are under such danger of being overwhelmed by these hordes of people trying to break through our system and jump the queue and by phony refugees claiming to be legitimate refugees that there is some emergency here and that draconian, drastic action is necessary.

Elinor Caplan took us to China to find out the root of the problem there. I use this as an example of a mature way of investigating and dealing with a problem, and that is what it was: it was not an emergency then, it was a problem, and it is not an emergency now. It is a problem that might be straining our immigration system.

On the same trip, we stopped in Sydney, Australia, and met with the minister of immigration of Australia, who had a much different way of dealing with it. The Australians had no 1985 Singh decision to guide them or inform their policies. They would just simply lock people up.

Everybody who arrived on their shores without any documentation would be held in a pen, essentially, until such time as they could determine what to do with them. More often than not, they put them on the first boat back where they came from, without a whole lot of consideration, I might add, as to what might befall those people at the other end.

That was under Johnny Howard in Australia. Immigration was a tough-love policy, and refugees were not treated with anywhere near the sensitivity we have toward our obligations under UN conventions regarding refugees.

I know the Singh decision has posed challenges for Canada. This notion, and the Supreme Court ruling, is that once people set foot on Canadian soil, they are essentially entitled to the due process of the immigration system in its entirety. They are not detained unless there is some justification to do so and are free to move freely through Canadian society until such time as their status can be determined.

I put it to the minister that there is a much bigger problem with undocumented refugees arriving at Pearson airport. They obviously had papers when they got on a plane. How is it that they do not have any papers when they get off the plane? People are not allowed to get on an airplane without documents. Did they tear them up in the washroom and flush them down the toilet, over the ocean on their way here? Because when they land, they do not seem to have any papers. They are undocumented. Then they are in the system, and then we know this takes years.

That is a problem. That is a legitimate problem.

However, that is not an emergency or a crisis either. It would be disingenuous to try to convince the Canadian people that there is some immigration crisis going on here where, as I say, massive waves of refugees are trying to break through and cut their way through the line.

We only have about, and the minister can correct me, 11,000 or so refugees a year. Or was it 25,000? I cannot remember. I would be happy to have this clarified.

Not enough of them come from refugee camps is what I am getting at. A majority of the refugees who come to Canada do not come to us through conventional channels of waiting in a UN-sponsored refugee camp until their turn comes up and then coming here as per the process. Most refugees do arrive in some unconventional means; they find their own way here. They flee the situation they are in and they arrive in Canada, and we have to deal with them.

However, it is disingenuous and it is, again, that politics of fear that would have us believe we are in some crisis situation that calls for and justifies legislation that has been called draconian.

[Françoise Boivin, NDP, Gatineau, QC]

Mr. Speaker, before I begin, I would like to congratulate and thank the hon. Liberal member who just spoke about Bill C-4. A large part of what she said is similar to what I wish to say.

To continue along that route, I would like to say that since May 2—the day I was elected to Parliament—and since we started sitting, I have been saddened by the fact that the legislation tabled by those on the other side sometimes contains good things, but more often than not, unfortunately, it simply divides those here. We can all support a bill that protects refugees against human trafficking; we can all work together to ensure that a pedophile never touches another child; we can all agree that someone who has committed a very serious crime should spend a long time in jail and should not easily receive a pardon, and so on.

However, all of these bills before us simply divide us: we are either for or against human trafficking, for or against the government. And we must not try to make any changes. I call this government the “photo-op government”—splashy headlines in the paper, big in-your-face news to show that the government is working for us. But, really, none of this is going to have the desired effect.

We must not forget that a similar bill, Bill C-49, was introduced during the last parliament. And that is one issue I have with us as politicians—it seems that things only get moving once an event is picked up by the media. If it is not in the news, we do not talk about it or deal with it. This bill was drafted following a media event.

I just got out of a meeting that I had to cut short with women who are part of the Sisters In Spirit, which has lost its funding. These are mothers who have lost a child, whose children have disappeared, and we are not taking care of them. They are not asking for the moon. They are asking for peanuts so that they can continue their searches. But unfortunately, that does not make the headlines in the Globe and Mail or the Toronto Star. However, big ships like the MV Ocean Lady and the MV Sun Sea that arrived on the shores of British Columbia in 2009 and 2010 made the news. It was in our face. Everyone said that something had to be done and that a bill needed to be introduced, but they did not take the consequences into consideration, nor did they ensure that the bill would achieve the desired effect.

That is the problem in general with this government. Of course it was shocking to watch the news and see 500 Tamils arriving, as well as the MV Ocean Lady, which had 76 on board. I had a television show and I remember people talking to us about it. It was terrible. Rumours were swirling all around. It is incredible, but I am still responding to people who ask me how it is possible that, in Canada, a refugee makes more money than a retired Canadian. I wonder how they come up with that. Then I realize that people have been misled for years and years. In fact, some people in Canada honestly believe that every refugee arriving here in Canada receives around $1,900 a month. Come on. A person would receive $1,900 just for arriving in Canada as a refugee? We would give refugees that much while our seniors and many other people are having a hard time making ends meet? It almost makes you want to go to another country just to come back as a refugee.

That is not the reality for refugees. Refugees are people who leave their countries because their lives are in danger. These are not people who decide to come to Canada on vacation. They come here for their safety and because we have a reputation—poor us—as a supposedly welcoming, fair and open country that encourages differences and wants people to have more. Canada is a country that ensures that the people who come here are not starving, although I sometimes have doubts about this when I see the number of children living below the poverty line and the number of seniors who are abused or who cannot make ends meet.

As a legislator and with my background as a lawyer, I wonder about the purpose of this bill. The government wants to wipe out human trafficking and we all agree with that. Let them stop claiming otherwise. No one is in favour of human trafficking. I do not think any of my colleagues would support human trafficking. Would anyone in the House support it? If so, I would ask them to please raise their hands. Why? Because we definitely disagree. Do we want someone who is not a real refugee, someone whose life is not in danger, who does not meet the criteria of the existing legislation, to come to Canada to take advantage of our extremely generous system? We do not want that either. I would ask you, Mr. Speaker, to ask those in favour of that to raise their hands. No one wants that.

The government said that it was concerned that many of these people had ties to the Tamil Tigers, a group on the list of terrorist organizations. I said to myself that our friends opposite were introducing their next buzzword: terrorist. This word scares everyone. Anyone who reads the bill will think that the government is protecting their safety, ensuring that people with ties to terrorists do not sneak into our country under the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act.

Why is nothing done when people arrive in great numbers at airports? Is there anything more dramatic than watching refugees arriving by boat on television? But that is not the case for refugees who arrive at an airport chock full of passengers from all over. Someone told me that thousands of refugees arrive at Canadian airports. The number of refugees who arrive by boat is smaller. This bill, once again, attempts to mask the reality and give a false impression. It gives even great powers to the Minister of Immigration under the guise of public safety.

What struck me when they introduced Bill C-4, the former Bill C-49—this is not the first time that our Conservative friends have tried to introduce such a bill—is that it was introduced by the Minister of Public Safety. Why? Because they are trying to send a message that our security is at stake, that terrorists are streaming into Canada. I do not say this flippantly, as though I could not care less about terrorism.That is not at all the case. But let us call a spade a spade, and identify the true terrorists. The trouble is that, in real life, when you cry wolf too often, people stop believing and will not pay attention when there is a real terrorist threat. That worries me. They are trying to portray all refugees as potential terrorists. Unfortunately, that is more or less the general impression.

I hosted a public affairs show on television and radio before I came here. In my practice as a lawyer, I still have frequent contact with the general public, at least in my region, the national capital region. I can say that people were automatically making the equation that a refugee is a terrorist. If someone is hiding, it is because they are running from something. People forget to consider that there is more to it.

The bill may contain some clauses that are worthy of being examined, but, as always, the government is using a sledgehammer to kill a fly. As a lawyer, my primary concern is that this will end up before the courts some day. I had the same concern about Bill C-10. If the government wanted to use its bills to make improvements, protect Canadians better, eliminate human trafficking and ensure that criminals receive punishments that suit their crimes, that would be good. The danger is that with bills like this, it is the opposite, and there will be never-ending cases before the courts. In the end, the answer will be that this violates existing treaties and the charter. The government had better not respond that it intends to abolish the charter one day. I do not think so. I think that Canadians are extremely happy with the charter. If a government adopts unconstitutional legislation, it will be contested.

At some point, the House will end up debating this issue again, since we will be back at square one and the problem of human trafficking will not have been resolved.

Senate Reform Act

[Kennedy Stewart, NDP, Burnaby—Douglas, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am very concerned about the bill.

First, it presents flimsy and minor changes designed to pander to a Conservative base. I am concerned that it will not have any real impact, and that if it does have any impact, as my colleague has pointed out, it is bound to be negative. Tie-ups between the House of Commons and the Senate are something we can ill afford at this time.

Second, it continues the trend of offloading to the provinces. There does not seem to be any provision in the bill to help provinces pay for elections. Just as in Bill C-10, there are basically no provisions to help provinces to absorb these additional costs that are being lowered onto them by the federal government.

Could the member opposite tell me how much it will cost British Columbians to hold these kinds of mostly meaningless elections?

Justice

[Ryan Leef, Conservative, Yukon, YT]

Mr. Speaker, on Monday morning, Corporal Kim MacKellar of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, serving in Yukon's small community of Haines Junction, was shot at while responding to a robbery at the town's grocery store. Store employee Frank Parent was pepper-sprayed and beaten by the assailants prior to the ensuing pursuit that resulted in the shooting.

The two accused are now charged with multiple offences, including attempted murder. One of the suspects was walking the streets while on a court-ordered condition and had a lengthy criminal history.

The NDP would have Canadians believe that the accused is the real victim. The NDP and the Liberals complain that the accused will be double-bunked and have no access to support in prison and would be further victimized.

Frank Parent and Corporal MacKellar are the victims, as is the community of Haines Junction.

This government makes no mistake about who the real victims are in cases like this. Our government has the resolve and commitment to see that necessary action to support victims of crime is protected in Bill C-10.

Our thoughts and prayers go out to Frank Parent and Corporal MacKellar for a speedy recovery.

Public Safety

[Parm Gill, Conservative, Brampton—Springdale, ON]

Mr. Speaker, our government received a strong mandate from the Canadian people and is now delivering on its promise to introduce the important Safe Streets and Communities Act.

People in my community of Brampton are worried about the deadly effects of drugs and gang violence. Cultural communities worry about their children being targeted by drug pushers and thugs. This is a growing concern.

That is why the cultural communities voted for their values in the last election. They voted for getting tough on crime and for safer streets.

I urge the Liberal and NDP parties to listen to the concerns of Canadians from communities most affected by crime, such as the South Asian community. Let us pass this bill. Let us get tough on crime. Let us get on with the work Canadians expect of us.

Lobbying Act

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I ask for unanimous consent to propose 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 respecting the transfer of prisoners and consisting of clause 135 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 Bill C-10B be reprinted; and that Bill C-10B be deemed to have been read the first time and 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.

We are moving this motion because we can take practical measures for the aspects of the bill that are supported by Canadians.

Justice

[Rob Nicholson, Conservative, Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada]

Mr. Speaker, we protect all victims in this country. We consult with victims across this country. We sit down with them. We hear what they have to say. The bill that is before Parliament right now, Bill C-10, reflects those concerns.

What I will do for the hon. member, because she should hear from those victims' groups as well, is ask those groups that when they come to Ottawa again to please spend a bit of time with the NDP and the Liberals so they will know the things that we know that we are legislating on.

Bill C-10--Time Allocation Motion

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

Madam Speaker, it is interesting to listen to the minister talk about all the debate and discussion that has taken place on this bill. Obviously, what has not taken place is the Conservatives have not listened to Canadians when they have talked about the impact Bill C-10 would have on Canadians from coast to coast to coast.

The Canadian Bar Association has said there is a real problem with Bill C-10. It has concerns about the mandatory minimum sentences and overreliance on incarceration, constraints on judges’ discretion to ensure a fair result in each case, and the bill’s impact on specific, already disadvantaged groups.

Yet the minister stands and says that we have had enough debate and enough discussion.

The government is closing debate on the bill at a time when Canadians know full well what is needed. They know what the risks to their safety are. They know that more is needed in terms of prevention.

The minister should start listening to the experts, like those at the Canadian Bar Association.

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

moved:

That, in relation to 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, not more than two further sitting days shall be allotted to the consideration of the second reading stage of the bill; and

That, 15 minutes before the expiry of the time provided for government orders on the second day allotted to the consideration of the second reading stage of the said bill, any proceedings before the House shall be interrupted, if required for the purpose of this order, and, in turn, every question necessary for the disposal of the said stage of the bill shall be put forthwith and successively, without further debate or amendment.

Bill C-10--Notice of time allocation motion

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, I have a point of order relating to Bill C-10.

Bill C-10, Safe Streets and Communities Act contains nine bills that have been before the House for much of the last five years. In fact, it has been 7,242 days since those bills were first introduced, if we combine them all. That is almost 20 years. There have been 187 speeches in this place and debate on 31 different sitting days.

I would have hoped that by now the opposition would allow members of the House to actually vote on that. It appears the opposition is looking to further delay and obstruct this bill.

Our government did get a strong mandate from Canadians to implement these policies from the last election. We committed to passing that bill within 100 sitting days. It is with this in mind.

Therefore, I would like to advise that an agreement could not be reached under the provisions of Standing Order 78(1) or 78(2) with respect to the second reading stage 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.

Under the provisions of Standing Order 78(3), I give notice that a minister of the Crown will propose at the next sitting a motion to allot a specific number of days or hours for the consideration and disposal of proceedings at the said stage.

Safe Streets and Communities Act

[Russ Hiebert, Conservative, South Surrey—White Rock—Cloverdale, BC]

Mr. Speaker, yesterday, the Liberals were up to their old tricks by once again obstructing our measures to get tough on crime.

Our government's Safe Streets and Communities Act would increase sentences for child sex offenders, end the use of house arrest for serious and violent crimes and increase penalties for drug dealers who specifically target our children.

Victims, police and Canadians are clear. It is time we put the rights of victims ahead of the rights of criminals and ensure that all criminals are held accountable.

Would the Minister of Justice please tell the House why all members should support Bill C-10?

Business of the House

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, as the opposition House leader quite astutely noted, our priority is the economy. We saw that already with successes this spring when we introduced a budget that was adopted by the House. We introduced a budget implementation bill with measures like an increase to the old age security payments, which was also adopted by the House. We continue to pursue that economic agenda.

Our other priority is also related to having a sound economy, and that is having safe communities and safe streets by combatting crime. As members know, there is a strong linkage between severe crime and harm to the economy. We obviously want to change that, and this is why we have moved in that direction. That is what we have been debating this week, primarily.

In the next week, our government will continue to move forward with important bills that Canadians elected us to implement. Today we will continue debate on Bill C-10, the Safe Streets and Communities Act. We will continue to debate that next week until it is dealt with.

I would like to take this opportunity to remind the House just how long the measures in the safe streets and communities bill have been before this House and the other place. When we tally up all the days since those bills have been introduced, it has been a combined total of 2,700 days since their first introductions. That is almost 20 years of elapsed time that those bills have been before the House in one form or another.

We have already had over 180 speeches given in the House on those bills, important law and order proposals as they are. Unfortunately, right now we are no longer actually debating the safe streets and communities bill; we are technically debating an opposition motion to delay and obstruct our efforts to tackle crime and get that bill passed.

I urge all members to put aside their parliamentary maneuvers designed to delay and obstruct and give all members the opportunity to vote, once and for all, on the important measures included in the bill.

Tomorrow, we will be debating Bill C-4, the Preventing Human Smugglers from Abusing Canada's Immigration System Act.

As the Prime Minister stated earlier in the week, the government will be introducing a motion to extend our involvement in the UN-sanctioned NATO-led mission in Libya. I will be scheduling that debate for Monday.

Next Thursday, September 29, will be the first allotted day.