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

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

Mr. Speaker, if my insurance goes up because someone steals the member's car, that is part of the cost of crime in his calculations. That is interesting.

The member talked about the anti-terrorism legislation. The biggest criticism is with regard to the state list. We know, for example, that the Americans took Libya off the state list when they were rebuilding their relationship with Libya.

Is that not a problem with our bill, too, that the state list depends on the politics of the government of the day?

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

Mr. Speaker, I enjoy working with the hon. member on the justice committee.

As the hon. member knows, the issue of listing the states is complicated. There has to be a balance between the evidence of terrorism and what it will do to international relations with respect to those countries.

The remedy is that the list will be reviewed every two years by two ministers, the Minister of Public Safety and the Minister of Foreign Affairs. This will ensure that the list is updated periodically, to make sure that it adequately reflects the risk of certain states in their promotion of terrorism.

[Linda Duncan, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I rise to speak to Bill C-10, which is described as the safe streets and communities bill. I am rising today in my role as the critic for aboriginal affairs and northern development.

A number of members speaking to this bill have raised concerns that this approach does not fully respond to the concerns that have been raised over the decades by the courts, corrections officers, legal experts, corrections experts, and by the aboriginal community itself.

The aboriginal community in Canada is less than 3% to 4% of the total population, yet tenfold more aboriginal Canadians are incarcerated. As National Chief Shawn Atleo has pointed out, aboriginal youth are more likely to be incarcerated than to graduate from high school.

The number of aboriginal women prisoners is growing and is more than the number of other Canadian women prisoners. Of the women in maximum security, 46% are aboriginal. There has been a 20% increase in the incarceration of aboriginal women just in the last five years.

I will give examples at the provincial level. In Saskatchewan provincial jails, 87% are aboriginal. In Manitoba, 83% are aboriginal. In Alberta, 54% are aboriginal. This is absolutely reprehensible. Surely this should have raised a red flag with the government. In coming forward with these proposals to address crime, to reduce crime and consider victims, surely the government should have considered this. However, that is not apparent on the face of the bill or in the debate.

Why is there a higher rate of aboriginals incarcerated? The reasons I mentioned have been reiterated in countless studies, court decisions, determinations by coroners, and so forth. The Auditor General has raised concerns about this and about the discriminatory treatment of aboriginals in more than 30 reports over a decade.

The coroner's report on the sad rate of suicide at Pikangikum raised the broader issues of concern as to why there are suicides and why there is a high rate of crime within the aboriginal communities.

The reasons have been stated decade after decade as discrimination against aboriginals in education, housing, sanitation, poverty, opportunities to engage in the economy. This has resulted in despair, gang membership, domestic disputes and intoxication-related crimes.

The cost of Bill C-10 for Canadian aboriginal communities will be far greater than just the price of expanding jails. The price to the aboriginal community will be an increasing loss of opportunity for aboriginal youth to have community supports, to continue their education, to participate in the economy, and to have the support of their families to become contributing members of society.

A good number of the witnesses on this bill raised the particular concern of the blanket policy of minimum sentences. Many legal experts testified on the government bill in the last Parliament and the current bill. They stated that the threat of minimum sentences will have a negligible deterrent effect for the majority of aboriginal offenders. Why? Because the majority of offences are related to: addictions; violence associated with intoxication; interpersonal violence; a sense of hopelessness; the legacy and impacts of residential schools; and adoptions away from their community. They also have been the unwitting victims of committing the crime or victims of the crime related to street life.

The experts are telling us that minimum sentences will do nothing to address the root causes of aboriginal offences. If the very purpose of the bill, as the government professes, is to deter further crime and to avoid further victimization, then clearly if the majority of people in our prisons are aboriginals, there is a problem. Where is the analysis of whether or not these measures will genuinely deter aboriginal criminals and reduce their crime rate?

The only predictable result of these measures would be the increased percentage of aboriginals in our jails, the increased probability of denied pardons, as they are currently called, and the increased number of aboriginals outside the economy. The government speaks all the time of the need to get our aboriginals engaged in the economy; this would have the opposite effect.

The Supreme Court of Canada has made very strong observations through its decades of experience in hearing cases involving aboriginal offenders. It raised very serious concerns about the overrepresentation of aboriginals in Canadian courts and the inability of the current court system to address the question of aboriginal offenders.

As legal and correctional experts have testified, aboriginal overrepresentation speaks to the failure of the Canadian criminal justice system to address the root causes of aboriginal offending. The point they make is not that no aboriginal should ever be jailed, but rather that due consideration should be made to any evidence of an inequitable effect of any laws or policies on aboriginal Canadians, and that when such an effect is found, those policies should be adjusted.

A year ago, the government finally signed on to the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and thereby committed to removing any discriminatory policies and practices and laws that would discriminate against aboriginal Canadians. There is no evidence of that kind of due consideration in the bill that the government has brought forward. There is no evidence that it has given consideration to experts' testimony and submissions made on this aspect of their bill. Study after study, including royal commission reports, judicial inquiries, reports by Correctional Services, coroners' reports, Auditor General reports and recommendations in decisions at all levels of court have urged action on overrepresentation of aboriginals in Canadian prisons.

More aboriginals would be removed from the influence and support of their families and communities. We only need to look at the effect of these measures on the community of Nunavut. Those who are automatically incarcerated under the minimum sentence would be moved a long distance from their community. There has been evidence brought forward that the prisons are already overcrowded, but they would be moved to communities far from their community, thus removing any potential for family or community support or rehabilitation.

In the last Parliament and in this Parliament, we have heard about the cuts over time to community support programs. There have been cuts to the healing centres and to rehabilitation, and closure of the prison farms.

Nowhere is this mistaken path more evident than in the case of the Samson band in Alberta. The Samson band had come to the federal government begging for support to build a centre for its youth so that the youth would be diverted away from increasing engagement in gang violence. There have been sad cases over the last several years of children and community members being killed. The band undertook the effort to do a major review with the RCMP, community leaders and leaders outside the community. The top recommendation was to build a centre and put the programs in place to get the kids off the street and divert them from crime. Instead, very close to them is a prison; that is simply where the youth will continue to be diverted, and crime will continue in their community.

We even had the United Church of Canada calling for greater attention to the discriminatory effect of this law on aboriginal Canadians.

Therefore I call upon the government to rethink and to give consideration. The federal government has unilateral responsibility for first nations Canadians, and I believe it is incumbent upon the government to give closer consideration the discriminatory effect its measures will have on aboriginal Canadians.

[Bruce Hyer, NDP, Thunder Bay—Superior North, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I have been reviewing some of the costs that we are coming to now. A single new low-security cell will cost a quarter of a million dollars, a single new medium-security cell almost half a million dollars and a high-security cell $600,000. The total annual cost per woman inmate is $343,000, and for a male it almost $225,000. This is at a time when we could be investing in children.

As you may know, Mr. Speaker, and as I know the hon. member from Edmonton knows, we are spending less than half on each aboriginal student in Canada. Certainly that is true in Ontario.

Does this make any sense when, for a small investment in education and a small investment in feeding programs in the schools, we could be preventing future costs of such magnitude?

[Linda Duncan, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the hon. member for his astute question.

We heard only today in the House, during question period, the reply by the Minister of Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development when concerns were raised about the slow pace of response to the crisis in Attawapiskat. His response was that he is concerned that despite the spending a lot of money in this community, the problems have not been solved.

The amount of money that the minister raised pales in comparison to the money being spent on the imprisonment of our aboriginal population. It pales in comparison to the moneys we are spending on the education of our aboriginal youth.

As the national leader of the Assembly of First Nations has pointed out, if we do not turn the corner, we are still going to be incarcerating more youth and we are going to be graduating them from high school.

I will share the quote from the Supreme Court of Canada in the Gladue case:

These findings cry out for recognition of the magnitude and gravity of the problem, and for responses to alleviate it. The figures are stark and reflect what may fairly be termed a crisis in the Canadian criminal justice system. The drastic overrepresentation of aboriginal peoples within both the Canadian prison population and the criminal justice system reveals a sad and pressing social problem.

[Sean Casey, Liberal, Charlottetown, PE]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for her presentation and for focusing on the impact on our aboriginal communities.

It strikes me that when the only implement in the tool box is a sledgehammer, everything starts to look like a rock.

I would seek the hon. member's comments on a more sophisticated approach to reforming our criminal justice system, as opposed to the one before us in the bill, and in particular with respect to the misplaced emphasis on retribution versus crime prevention and a focus on the root causes of crime.

[Linda Duncan, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Mr. Speaker, the member's question basically sums up the concerns that have been raised on this side of the House.

Canada has been renowned for having a justice system that tries to balance the scales. What is more important is that if the government is, as it professes to be, concerned about the victims of crime, then surely our focus should be on the prevention of crime and the prevention of victimization of youth.

One part of the bill that members on this side of the House fought very hard to have separated out of it and expedited in the last Parliament is the sexual exploitation of children. I notice that Senator Patrick Brazeau has authored a piece talking about the fact that nowhere is the devastation of sexual exploitation more pervasive than among aboriginal children and that they represent as much as 90% of those being exploited. Senator Brazeau is calling for programs to deal with this and to prevent the sexual exploitation.

Surely that makes sense. Surely we need to pool our resources and move towards addressing this critical discrimination of the victims being aboriginal children.

[The Acting Speaker, Bruce Stanton]

It is my duty pursuant to Standing Order 38 to inform the House that the questions to be raised tonight at the time of adjournment are as follows: the hon. member for Beauharnois—Salaberry, Health; the hon. member for Halifax, The Environment; and the hon. member for Cardigan, Fisheries and Oceans.

The House resumed consideration 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, as reported (with amendments) from the committee, and of the motions in Group No. 1.

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

Mr. Speaker, it is my privilege to speak in favour of Bill C-10, the safe streets and communities act, during this report stage. I am particularly pleased to support the amendments that would strengthen this important bill.

Before speaking to the proposed amendments, I would like to put them into a larger context.

After 20 years of police work and working within the justice system, I often hear great frustration with our justice system. Even when violent criminals are put behind bars, they never seem to complete their sentences, and before we know it, they are back on the street committing crimes. Meanwhile, the rights of the victims are overlooked and forgotten.

There is something wrong with that picture. Canadians know it, and so does our government.

When we first took office, we identified greater safety and security for Canadians as a priority. For the past six years, we have moved decisively on our law and order agenda. We have invested substantial resources to help law enforcement agencies do their jobs better. We have passed laws to ensure that offenders do serious time for serious crime. We have supported crime prevention to help keep youth away from gangs, drugs and violence. We have pursued these efforts with one overarching goal: to make our streets and communities safer.

I am proud to say that Bill C-10 is a natural extension of these efforts. The proposed legislation before the House would go a long way toward protecting the most vulnerable of our society, as well as victims of terrorism. It would hold offenders and supporters of terrorism more accountable for their actions.

Let me highlight exactly how it would do that.

First, the bill would continue the work begun with the serious time for serious crime act. To that end, it would establish or increase mandatory minimums and increase maximum sentences for various serious offences, particularly those related to children and youth. Offenders convicted of child exploitation would no longer be eligible for a conditional sentence or house arrest, and drug dealers involved with organized crime who target youth could also expect harsher sentences.

As well, we not willing to wait until a crime is committed before taking action. Police would be given the tools to be proactive rather than reactive. The bill would require judges to consider putting limits on suspected or convicted child sex offenders. It would empower police to arrest, without a warrant, offenders who are in breach of the conditions of release. In other words, the bill would put the rights of victims ahead of the rights of offenders, which is where they should be.

In the same vein, Bill C-10 introduces new measures both to increase the accountability of offenders and to strengthen the voices of victims.

Under the new legislation, offenders would be required to have a correctional plan that laid out clear expectations of behaviour. This would include, for example, a requirement to meet court-ordered obligations to repay victims or to pay child support.

The legislation also introduces new penalties for inmates who display disrespectful or intimidating behaviour, whether it is directed at staff or at other inmates.

The bill would also make an important change in exchanging the word “pardon” for the phrase “record suspension”. We want to send a clear message that closing off a criminal record from the public eye does not forgive the offence. The offences committed by these individuals can often scar victims for a lifetime, and we believe it is important to recognize that fact.

What is more, we would make it impossible for certain offenders to apply for a record suspension. In the government's view, anyone convicted of a sexual offence related to a minor does not deserve a record suspension.

In the interests of public safety, child molesters, even after release, should carry the history of their offence with them for all time, not as an extra punishment but to protect the safety of the most vulnerable in society, our children.

By the same token, the bill would allow the minister to refuse an offender's transfer from a foreign prison back to Canada if there was any risk to the public and, in particular, to the safety of a child. Offenders should serve the time in the country in which they were convicted.

Victims are generally kept in the dark about an offender's life in prison. They do not know whether offenders are taking part in rehabilitation programs, if they have been absent from institutions temporarily, or if they are being transferred to a minimum security facility. Victims deserve more, plain and simple. Therefore, Bill C-10 would give them the right to take part in conditional release board meetings, and to be in the loop about the behaviour and handling of offenders.

I have spoken up until now about keeping our streets and communities safer from crime, but there are other risks and other types of victims. I am speaking, of course, about terrorism and its victims. Just as victims of crime deserve a greater voice, so too do victims of terrorism acts. Bill C-10 would allow victims to seek redress in the courts against the perpetrators of terrorism and their supporters. It would set in place a rigorous process for the listing of state sponsors of terrorism by the Government of Canada.

Our government is determined to do everything in its power to protect Canadians and make our streets and communities safer for all. To achieve that goal, we want to make this legislation as strong as possible. I am proud that the government passed four amendments at the committee stage and has introduced another at report stage. I would like to add my support to the amendment proposed today and to the two passed by committee pertaining to public safety.

The initial legislation proposed that victims should be able to sue foreign states for supporting terrorism. The government has proposed today that victims should also be able to sue foreign states for having directly committed an act of terrorism. I am proud to support this proposed amendment. I am equally pleased to support the two amendments related to public safety passed by the committee. The first would help lighten the burden on victims of terrorism, while the second would allow a court to hear a matter based solely on the plaintiff's Canadian citizenship or permanent residency.

I want to add my thanks to the committee members for their good work. I must add that for all the hours I sat there, they did an unbelievable job on both sides. In recognition of the committee's close scrutiny of the bill, I urge all members to join me in supporting these amendments. Together, we can make our streets and communities safer for all Canadians.

[Bruce Hyer, NDP, Thunder Bay—Superior North, ON]

Mr. Speaker, in no less than six months I have bought 13 copies of the book The Spirit Level by Wilkinson. I have given them away and I will buy more because it is a scientific work that shows how in the 33 richest, most developed countries, the four best countries in the world with outcomes including crime are the Scandinavian countries. The U.S. is the worst with these parameters and Canada is sliding toward the American model.

My question for the member is this. Instead of investing, as the U.S. has foolishly done and is now starting to see the error of its ways, when are the Conservatives, and hopefully the member, going to invest in education, health care, treatment for mental addictions, and especially work toward reducing the growing gap in income in some of the worst developed countries in the world?

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

Mr. Speaker, as a former police officer, there are a number of programs that are instituted by not only the RCMP but countless provincial and municipal police organizations that work toward trying to keep youth out of the system. We are pretty successful at it, but there is that segment of society that we cannot control. For those people, there needs to be a movement toward incarceration. It is unfortunate that has to occur, but it is part of the process.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to pause for just a moment to thank the hon. member for Kootenay--Columbia for the non-partisan way he credited members on both sides of the committee. This bill has been so filled with rancour in the debate that that was a nice departure.

However, I do find it worrying that there is a lot rhetoric about how the bill supports victims, but there is very little in the bill that actually does support victims. I was taken with the evidence of the Ottawa Victim Services director, Steve Sullivan, who asked, “Where is the support here for women who have been victims of sexual violence”? Where is the support, the counselling, the help for victims who need funding to be able to manage when they have been assaulted and cannot get to work? Where is the tangible help for victims because I do not see it in this legislation?

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

Mr. Speaker, there are victim support groups throughout the provinces, and I will speak about British Columbia and specifically, my constituency of Kootenay--Columbia.

Victim support is part of the provincial court system that allows victims to go and seek redress for whatever type of requirement they need, whether it is for, as the member indicated, trying to get here and there to a doctor's appointment or to a counselling appointment. It provides opportunities for people to find programs that are available to help them move forward after the crime has been committed and the perpetrator has been dealt with.

I believe we are doing an excellent job with regard to crime prevention programs and support for victims of crime.

[Jeff Watson, Conservative, Essex, ON]

Mr. Speaker, for the benefit of those who are looking in on this particular debate today, there is some context to it. We talk about a balanced approach from the government with respect to how we deal with the criminal justice system. In budgets past we have made tremendous investments, multi-million dollar investments for that matter, in measures to prevent crime, to get to the at-risk youth. How did the opposition members vote on those? They opposed them, notwithstanding what they say today.

We have measures to put more front line police officers on the beat, working in the community to find those who are involved in crime and to work with community groups to keep people away from crime. How did they vote? They voted against it, notwithstanding what they say about prevention today.

Is not what we are dealing with today what the opposition has also stalled in previous Parliaments; that is, measures to rebalance the criminal justice system to deal with the public safety threats that are out there and it is reluctant to deal with? Would the member comment on that?