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

[Jinny Sims, NDP, Newton—North Delta, BC]

Madam Speaker, I thank the member for the information he shared with us. My experience as a councillor and teacher has taught me that when one is dealing with young offenders, prevention, rehabilitation and finding support for them goes a long way. All kinds of evidence show that when young people are incarcerated in prison, they come out on the other side as a more hardened criminals and lose the little fear they had when they went in.

[Dave MacKenzie, Conservative, Oxford, ON]

Madam Speaker, I have listened to my colleague across the floor talk about having been a teacher. Some of us on this side have been police officers for a long time. We certainly have dealt with the issues of which she speaks and we certainly have dealt with victims.

I listened as she blamed society for most of the ills of those people who had committed crimes. Quite frankly, I have not found many people in my life who blame society. It is generally the individual at whom they look. We have done a lot of things to help young people, but sometimes they have to help themselves.

I heard her complaining about people going to jail. Could she tell me who it is that goes to jail? It has been my experience that the people who go to jail are the people who committed crimes. Does she know somebody else?

[Jinny Sims, NDP, Newton—North Delta, BC]

Madam Speaker, I have spent some of time not only teaching in a regular school, but also working with juveniles who have been incarcerated in prison. My experience is that the people who have ended up in jail have committed crimes. I am not saying they were innocent when they went in there, but it is how we deal with people and at what level we deal with them. This legislation enforces mandatory sentencing. That is just plain wrong.

I would add one other point. I did not blame society for all the ills of whatever anybody has done. Absolutely, human beings make choices. However, we as a society cannot escape the fact that there are certain conditions, whether they be medical conditions that one is born with or societal issues, that lead to greater levels of crime.

Try working in an inner city school and see the pressures on the young kids. Try dealing with a young man who, at the age of 14 in order for his mother to make a living, has to go out in the evening to find customers for his mother who is a prostitute. They are living on the run and they cannot afford to stay in one place more than one night. Those kinds of conditions are created by communities.

[Kevin Sorenson, Conservative, Crowfoot, AB]

Madam Speaker, I have sat in the House today and enjoyed the speeches from all sides. Certainly it is a topic that gives the full sense of the word debate because there is a difference opinion here, and I can appreciate that.

It is my pleasure to rise and add my comments to the debate on Bill C-10, the Safe Streets and Communities Act. As other speakers before me have, I would like to break it down. It is an omnibus bill. We have heard that. It is nine different bills that have been moved together into this one that will help make our streets and our communities safer. I would also like to focus on the legislation that proposes to strengthen the sentences for those who commit sexual offences against children. I am pleased to hear that those from the other side of the House would like to see this brought forward as well.

Bill C-10 proposes to add mandatory minimum penalties to seven offences that do not currently impose mandatory minimum penalties, including incest, under section 155, Internet luring a child, section 172.1 and section 271, and sexual assault where the victim is under the age of 16 years. It also proposes higher mandatory minimum penalties for nine existing child specific sexual offences, including sexual interference, section 151, sexual exploitation and making and distributing as well as possessing child pornography.

As well, in building on what was originally proposed in the former Bill C-54, Bill C-10 proposes to increase the maximum penalty for four child sex offences with a corresponding increase in their mandatory minimum sentences to better reflect the particularly heinous nature of those offences.

First is bestiality involving a child, section 160, when proceeded on summary conviction, it increases the maximum penalty from six months to two years less a day and imposes a mandatory minimum of six months imprisonment. Former Bill C-54 had proposed a mandatory minimum penalty of 30 days.

The second one is making and distributing child pornography, section 163.1(2) and (3). When proceeded on summary conviction, it increases the maximum penalty from 18 months to two years less a day and increases the current mandatory minimum penalty from 90 days to 6 months.

Also, the other offence is the indictable offence of a parent or a guardian procuring sexual activity, section 170, increasing the minimum penalty from 6 months to 1 year and the maximum penalty from 5 to 10 years when the victim is under the age of 16 and from 45 days to 6 months and 2 years to 5 years respectively when the victim is between the ages of 16 and 17 years.

As I said earlier, Bill C-10 also seeks to criminalize preparatory conduct; that is, to criminalize conduct that child sex offenders engage in to facilitate their ultimate objective of actually sexually assaulting a child. It does so by proposing to enact two new offences.

The first new offence would prohibit anyone from providing sexually explicit material to a young person for the purpose of facilitating the commission of a sexual offence against that young person. Many sex offenders do this with a view to grooming their victims, for example, to lower their victim's sexual inhibitions with a view to making it easier to sexually exploit them a little later on. Currently, this conduct is only criminalized if the offender provides the child with material that constitutes child pornography.

Bill C-10 defines “sexually explicit material” as a representation that shows either a person engaged in explicit sexual activity or that shows the person's genital organs and does it in a way to lessen the child's resolve to fight against it. Although this is a new definition and a new offence, the definition incorporates terminology that is already used in the child pornography offence. Section 163.1 includes both aspects of this definition and the voyeurism offence incorporates both aspects of the definition.

The proposed new offence would also impose a mandatory minimum penalty consistent with those proposed elsewhere in the bill.

The second offence proposed by Bill C-10 will prohibit anyone from using telecommunications to agree or make arrangements with another person to commit a sexual offence against a child. It is modelled on the existing “luring a child” offence in section 172.1 of the Criminal Code, which prohibits using a computer system to communicate directly with a child for the purpose of facilitating the commission of a sexual offence against that child.

However, as the luring offence only applies if the communication is with the specific child victim, this new offences closes the gap where the communication is between two other persons to facilitate the commission of a sexual offence against the child, in effect, where perhaps two adults come together on purpose to victimize a young child. This new offence would also impose a mandatory minimum penalty consistent with those proposed elsewhere in the bill.

These two new offences would also be added to schedule 1 of the Criminal Records Act to ensure that persons convicted of these new offences would be ineligible to apply for a record suspension or pardon, as it is currently called, for the same period of time as for the other child sex offences.

Last, Bill C-10 proposes reforms to prevent child sex offenders from engaging in conduct or practices that can facilitate their sexual offending.

Currently a court can impose a condition on convicted child sex offenders, a prohibition order under section 161, or on suspected child sex offenders, a recognizance or peace bond under section 810.1, prohibiting them from engaging in specified conduct that would facilitate their commission of one of the enumerated child sex offences or even the abduction offences.

For example, these conditions can prohibit an offender from attending places that are normally frequented by children. The example that has been given many times is the offender who shows up on school grounds or shows up on a playground.

Also, an offender can be prohibited from obtaining a paid or volunteer position involving a position of trust or authority over children. That might be as a provider of day care or as a provider of education, some of those different examples.

Bill C-10 proposes to expand the list of offences for which these conditions may be imposed to include the four child procuring prostitution offences in section 212: subsection 212(1), procuring; 212(2), living on the avails of prostitution of a person under the age of 18; aggravated offence in relation to living on the avails of prostitution of a person under the age of 18 years; and subsection 212(4), prostitution of a person under the age of 18.

Bill C-10 also proposes to require the court to consider imposing two new conditions: prohibiting the offender from having any unsupervised access to a young person; and prohibiting the offender from having any unsupervised use of the Internet.

These types of conditions, to put it plainly, just make sense. If we prevent the offender from having the opportunity or the tools to commit a child sex offence, then we prevent new children from becoming victims.

I would also note that these preventive measures would be added to the existing provisions in sections 161 and 810.1, with the result that they will be subject to the same checks and balances that currently exist for these provisions, such as, for example, enabling the offender or the Crown to apply to vary the conditions where a court is satisfied that it is desirable due to a change in circumstances.

I have heard a little today that we are pushing the bill through. There have been over 200 speeches given on different sections of the bill in the previous Parliament and even the speeches today. I would urge the opposition to jump on board to support these measures that would help keep our community safe and our streets.

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

Madam Speaker, like many of his colleagues, the hon. member who just spoke focused on pedophilia almost exclusively. I would like to say that if we are talking about distributing pornography to minors, I agree we need to be very strict on that. If we are talking about imposing harsher sentences for sexual abuse of minors, I support that too. I have three children. You have mixed up this aspect of the law, which is extremely important to any father, with other things that do not have to do with the same kind of crime. In addition, you refuse to split up the bill.

[The Deputy Speaker, Denise Savoie]

Order, please. I ask all members to address their comments to the Chair.

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

How can you justify refusing to split up this bill to make it possible for a father to vote in favour of this without having to vote against other principles?

[Kevin Sorenson, Conservative, Crowfoot, AB]

Madam Speaker, I appreciate that the member is the father of three children and that he cares about these types of bills.

It is a methodology of opposition members to find that one little area that they support and say that we should just separate that one.

This bill was brought forward. I can guarantee that we will move forward on this quickly. All the nine bills that are in Bill C-10 are bills that we campaigned on. They are bills that the voters across this country recognized our party as standing strong for.

I would encourage members to support the entire bill, a good bill that would make our streets and communities safer.

[Carol Hughes, NDP, Algoma—Manitoulin—Kapuskasing, ON]

Madam Speaker, I have a couple of questions for the member.

I have a letter here that was written to the Prime Minister by Jane Wright in Providence Bay. She states:

There are adequate measures presently in place to keep in prison the few who are truly dangerous. Your crime bill will further disadvantage young aboriginals and the mentally ill....

Does the member think that we should be stocking our prisons with aboriginals and the mentally ill as opposed to providing rehabilitative and proper services for them?

[Kevin Sorenson, Conservative, Crowfoot, AB]

Madam Speaker, I think our prisons should be full of those who have committed crimes against our society and who have been found guilty in a court of law. I think our prisons should be a place where we can try to rehabilitate people, but we should hold them, incarcerate them and tell them that the penalty for crime is prison in some cases.

The mandatory minimums that we are bringing forward, generally speaking, are on indictable offences where the Canadian public has said that they do not want them doing house arrest and that they do not believe those people should be living out their time in their homes while their victims are sometimes completely victimized.

We realize that there is a high percentage of aboriginals in our penitentiaries, and, yes, that must be addressed as well, but in many case there are many aboriginal victims who are standing right there while the offender is the locked in prison.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Madam Speaker, the member spoke on one aspect of Bill C-10. Other members will take another aspect of Bill C-10.

The point is that the government has taken a bunch of bills that should have been, in essence, separate bills and tied them into an omnibus bill.

The member made reference to the fact that this was an election issue. The government could probably take 30 or 40 election issues and say that now that it has a majority, that it has the most seats, it wants all of those bills to be included in an omnibus bill.

The concern, in part, that we have is—

[The Deputy Speaker, Denise Savoie]

Order, please. I would like to give the hon. member for Crowfoot the opportunity to respond. He has 30 seconds.

[Kevin Sorenson, Conservative, Crowfoot, AB]

Madam Speaker, 10 or 11 years ago when I was elected, I was actually surprised. During the election campaign, the Liberals would talk about law and order but then, as soon as soon as they were elected, we would never see any law and order bills coming forward in this House.

I would tell the fairly new member over there that there have been over 200 speeches made in this place in debate dealing with different aspects of this bill. The Liberals tried to stall it here in the House. They tried to stall in the committees. They tried to stall it in the Senate.

Now the member is saying that if they are given a little more time for debate—

[The Deputy Speaker, Denise Savoie]

Resuming debate. The hon. member for Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup has the floor, but I will have to interrupt him.

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

Madam Speaker, what we have here is a huge mistake that could potentially cost the Canadian treasury $5 billion. The repressive measures that were taken throughout the United States did not help lower the crime rate. In some cases, there was even an increase in serious crimes. The government wants to invest $5 billion of public funds in a solution that will worsen the problem. And that does not include the hundreds of millions of dollars that the provinces will have to spend to expand prisons and meet the demand that will be created, for no good reason, by the current government.

The current government is boasting that it has a majority, but it is forgetting to keep in mind that approximately six out of ten Canadians did not vote for extreme right-wing values, such as being tough on crime. So the government wants to drop $5 billion without even having a clear majority that agrees with the basic principle.

I want to come back to the so-called contempt for victims the bleeding hearts on the left here have, according to our Conservative friends across the way. There is a dynamic that escapes me. They are applying tough on crime policies, but there is ample evidence over a number of decades from a number of places in North America that such policies do not reduce crime. It does not work. There may even be an increase. I want to know how increasing the number of victims is a form of respect for victims.

Can we tell the woman who, statistically speaking, will be abused—and would not have been with a policy that reduced the crime rate—that she can take comfort in the fact that the person who abused her will spend an extra six months in prison thanks to the bill the Conservative government passed two years beforehand? Is that how we show respect for victims, by creating the necessary conditions to produce more victims in the coming decades?

We are entering a spiral of crime. This reminds me of A Clockwork Orange, a movie that was extremely popular a very long time ago, in which—