Bill C-37 (Historical)

Increasing Offenders' Accountability for Victims Act

An Act to amend the Criminal Code

This enactment amends the Criminal Code to change the rules concerning victim surcharges.

Increasing Offenders' Accountability for Victims Act

[Jim Flaherty, Conservative, Whitby—Oshawa, ON]

moved that Bill C-37, An Act to amend the Criminal Code, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

[Kerry-Lynne Findlay, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to participate in the debate at second reading of Bill C-37, the Increasing Offenders' Accountability for Victims Act, concerning victim surcharges.

Bill C-37 would make offenders more accountable by doubling victim surcharges for offenders and by ensuring that surcharges are applied automatically in all cases.

Clearly, the Conservative government is keeping its promises with respect to the concerns of victims of crime.

I am pleased to be here today to speak on Bill C-37, Increasing Offenders' Accountability for Victims Act. The bill would make convicted offenders more accountable to victims of crime by doubling the victim surcharge that offenders must pay and ensure that the surcharge is automatically applied in all cases.

The underlying philosophy of the federal victim surcharge in subsection 737(7) of the Criminal Code is that the surcharge is imposed for the purpose of providing assistance to victims of offences. As I will explain, surcharge revenues fund a wide variety of programs and services to assist victims of crime.

Our government, in its electoral platform, committed to amending the Criminal Code to double the victim surcharge and make it mandatory in every case, without exception. The Speech from the Throne reiterated this commitment.

The victim surcharge was first enacted in 1989, and at that time it was called a victim fine surcharge. The surcharge was set as a maximum amount, and in many cases very low amounts were imposed. Research was conducted by the Department of Justice in the early 1990s in British Columbia and Ontario to review the impact of the new surcharge provisions at the time. The research reports revealed that in many cases the imposition of the surcharge was ignored or forgotten, particularly where the disposition was something other than a fine. In situations were a jail term was imposed, judges often relied on the undue hardship provision to waive imposition.

In addition, the imposition of the surcharge where a term of imprisonment or other non-fine disposition was imposed was criticized as disproportionate to the gravity of the offence. Another reason cited explaining the lack of acceptance of the surcharge included the perception that surcharge revenue would be deposited into general revenues with no guarantee that existing services for victims would be expanded or new services developed.

In summary, the low revenue from the federal surcharge was attributed to a few key factors, including lack of awareness, concerns regarding the use of surcharge revenue and some lack of clarity in the amount set out in the code.

In 1998, the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights tabled a report entitled, “Victims' Rights - A voice, not a veto”, following its review of the victim's role in the criminal justice system. The committee noted the problems with the original surcharge provisions, including the inadvertent failure of judges to impose the surcharge and non-aggressive enforcement and collection initiatives. The report affirmed that additional resources were needed to provide adequate victim services across the country and that increasing the victim surcharge would be a reasonable way to generate more revenue, particularly given that the maximum surcharge amounts had not increased since 1989.

In 2000, two amendments were made to the surcharge provision. The surcharge became a fixed amount and became automatic unless the judge ordered a waiver because of undue hardship to the offender. The term “fine” was also dropped to avoid the interpretation that it was only applied in addition to fines.

In 2006, the Department of Justice published the “Federal Victim Surcharge in New Brunswick: An Operational Review”. The objective of this research project was to develop a better understanding of the challenges and possible solutions to the federal victim surcharge regime in the province of New Brunswick, to identify challenges that are present in the current process and to generate possible solutions to circumvent impediments in maximizing the effectiveness of this process.

Despite the fact that imposition of the surcharge is supposed to be automatic unless the offender can convince the sentencing judge that it would cause undue hardship, the victim surcharge is not being applied in cases even where the offender would have the ability to pay. The research has shown that the victim surcharge is not being applied in all appropriate cases for several reasons, including, as previously noted, a presumption that an offender who is sentenced to jail time will not have the means to pay, and a lack of awareness of how the money from the victim surcharge is used. Under the current victim surcharge regime, offenders who are not able to pay the victim surcharge without incurring hardship are simply exempted from making the payment. This bill would address many of these issues.

The amount of the victim surcharge has not been increased since 2000. The new proposed surcharge would be 30% of any fine imposed on the offender. Where no fine is imposed, the surcharge would be $100 for offences punishable by summary conviction and $200 for offences punishable by indictment. In addition, the judge would retain the discretion to impose an increased surcharge where the circumstances warrant and the offender has the ability to pay.

As the surcharge money is used by the provincial or territorial government where the crime occurred to help fund their services to victims of crime, raising the victim surcharge amounts will benefit victims of crime in general and make offenders more accountable.

As I noted earlier, under the current law, sentencing judges have discretion to waive the victim surcharge when it can be demonstrated that its payment will cause undue hardship to the offender, or his or her dependents. This bill would remove the waiver option to ensure that the victim surcharge is applied in all cases, without exception.

Because failure to pay a surcharge could ultimately result in an offender being incarcerated, the Criminal Code would also be amended to allow offenders who are unable to pay the surcharge to participate, where such programs exist, in a provincial fine option program. This would allow an offender to satisfy the payment of the surcharge by earning credits for work performed in the province or territory where the crime was committed.

The surcharge amendments will result in an increase in services and assistance in all provinces and territories for victims of crime. All of the money paid to the victim surcharge is collected and retained by the provincial and territorial governments. The surcharge is put into a provincial or territorial fund, usually called a victims fund. The money is used to help fund programs, services and assistance to victims of crime in the province or territory where the crime occurred.

Most provinces and territories have also enacted their own legislation to impose a surcharge on provincial and territorial offences. Revenue from such provincial or territorial surcharges is also deposited in a special victims fund along with the federal surcharge revenue and is used to provide services directly to victims.

The imposition of a provincial or territorial surcharge is automatic. In other words, it is added to the fine imposed for the provincial or territorial offence. Payment is usually enforced by the non-renewal of licences. For example, a parking ticket will include the surcharge amount, and the payer is obligated to pay the whole amount or risk not having their driver's licence or other permits renewed or issued.

As I noted earlier, raising awareness among criminal justice system personnel about the benefits of the surcharge is challenging. It is often regarded as simply another tax to raise money for unknown benefits. The Criminal Code clearly requires that the revenue be used to provide assistance to victims of crime. Provincial and territorial victim legislation has the same requirement for surcharge revenue.

If anyone doubts the need for victim services and the need for this revenue to be used to support such services, let me spend a few moments providing some concrete examples of how this revenue can be and is used. Surcharge revenue may be used to provide direct services to victims of crime, such as information on the criminal justice system and court processes, referrals for counselling to assist victims in dealing with the trauma of being victimized, court preparation, court support for vulnerable persons, assistance in preparing victim impact statements, victim notification of offender release from provincial institutions, victim notification of reviews and outcomes in cases where the accused has been found not criminally responsible, and compensation programs for victims of crime.

I could provide a coast-to-coast view of victim services, but the following examples will provide a good sample.

New Brunswick has victim service coordinators in 15 offices, who are responsible for direct service programs. The New Brunswick victim services program offers a court-based victim/witness assistance and court-support program. Coordinators assist victims of crime through the provision of a number of services, including providing direct support in crisis situations, completing safety assessments for domestic violence cases, liaising with police and other community agencies providing victim services to ensure a continuum of care and, since 2007, specialized victim services for the pilot domestic violence court. Surcharge revenues also provide funding for the New Brunswick trauma counselling program, which is available to assist victims of crime in dealing with the therapeutic needs arising from the criminal offence or the trauma of disclosure that often impedes victims from testifying in court. The New Brunswick court-support program is another example of programs funded by provincial and federal surcharges.

In Ontario, surcharge revenue funds a wide range of services provided to victims of crime. There are 39 sexual assault and rape crisis centres, including centres that provide French-language services. They provide a 24-hour crisis and support line; group and one-on-one counselling; accompaniment to hospital, court or police; information and referral services; and public awareness sessions. The Ontario victim crisis assistance and referral services provide short-term assistance on a 24/7 basis to victims at the scene of a crime and make referrals to community services for longer-term assistance. With the consent of the victim, the police can call a highly trained team of volunteers to the scene. More than 50 victim crisis assistance and referral services sites are located throughout Ontario to deliver the victim quick response program. Surcharge revenues help to fund the Ontario victim support line, which provides a province-wide, toll-free information line in English and French. Surcharge revenues also fund the Ontario child witness project, which provides specialized preparation and support to child victims and/or witnesses and their caregivers. They work closely with the victim/witness assistance programs in their communities.

Revenue from the surcharge is put to good use in Saskatchewan where the Victim Services Branch directly delivers several programs including: the victims compensation program to provide payment for reasonable expenses resulting from violent crimes; the restitution program to increase the amount of restitution collected from adult offenders and paid to victims in a timely manner; and victim/witness service programs to assist children and other vulnerable witnesses who are required to testify in court. The surcharge revenue also makes it possible for the Saskatchewan Victim Services Branch to support community agencies and municipal police services to assist victims of crime. For example, there are 18 police-based victim service programs to provide support, information and referrals to victims of crime and tragedy. There are six aboriginal resource officer programs that work with local police-based victim services programs to assist aboriginal victims and their families. There are seven aboriginal family violence programs, and there are eight "children who witness violence" programs, which work to assist children and help prevent them from entering the cycle of violence as victims and offenders.

These examples demonstrate concretely how surcharge revenue is used by provinces and territories to fund victim services and why it is so important.

While the goal of this bill is to ensure the accountability of offenders to victims by strengthening the victim surcharge provisions in order to provide more resources for victim services, the reality is that some offenders will never be able to pay the surcharge. In light of this, members may question how the goals of the surcharge can be accomplished.

Allowing offenders who are not able to pay the victim surcharge to participate in fine option programs is consistent with the goals of this legislation, because working off the surcharge would remind offenders of the harm that their actions have done to their particular victim, to all victims of crime and to the larger community. The fine option program within each province or territory determines the rate at which credits are earned for the work performed by the offender. For example, if the provincial or territorial fine option program determines that one hour of work equals $10, the offender would need to work 10 hours to pay a $100 surcharge penalty or 20 hours to pay a $200 surcharge penalty.

In Manitoba, for instance, the fine option program provides that a person who has been fined can register at a local community resource centre and will be assigned community work. Centres are located throughout the province and at several sites in Winnipeg. They determine the number of hours of work needed at the Manitoba minimum wage rate to pay the fine and assign and monitor the work to its completion. Work may include repairs or maintenance to churches, schools, halls, seniors residences, parks and other community sites. Failure to complete the assigned task would result in a warrant being issued.

The introduction of the bill builds on the government's previous actions to ensure that victims of crime have a greater voice in the criminal justice system and more access to available services.

In 2007, the government announced the federal victims strategy and committed $52 million over four years to respond to the needs of victims of crime. This funding was renewed at $13 million per year in 2011.

We created the Office of the Federal Ombudsman for Victims of Crime to provide victims with information regarding programs and services available from federal organizations and statutes. The office works to ensure the needs and concerns of victims are taken into account by federal corrections institutions and identifies important issues and trends that may negatively impact victims of crime.

In her recent special report, “Shifting the Conversation”, the Federal Ombudsman for Victims of Crime recommended that payment of the victim surcharge be made automatic. Other victims advocates have made that same recommendation.

Our government has a strong track record of responding to the legitimate concerns of victims. These responses have included a range of criminal law reforms to improve public safety and make offenders more accountable.

For example, the Safe Streets and Communities Act includes important changes strongly supported by victims of crime, such as increasing penalties for sexual offences against children, as well as creating two new offences aimed at conduct that could facilitate or enable the commission of a sexual offence against a child; imposing tougher sentences for serious drug offences; eliminating the use of conditional sentences or house arrest for serious and violent crimes; enshrining a victim's right to participate in parole hearings and enhancing inmate accountability, responsibility and management under the Corrections and Conditional Release Act; extending the ineligibility periods for applications for record suspension, previously called a pardon, to five years for summary conviction offences and to ten years for indictable offences; and allowing victims of terrorism to sue perpetrators and supporters of terrorism, including listed foreign states, for loss or damage that occurred as a result of an act of terrorism committed anywhere in the world.

These changes reflect concerns we have heard from victims and victims' advocates and, indeed, from Canadians of all walks of life.

When our government came to power in 2006, we told Canadians that we would work hard to make our streets and communities safer by addressing the needs of victims. We sought to ensure that victims voices were heard. We wanted to increase offender accountability. I am very proud of the progress this government has made in improving how victims participate in the corrections and criminal justice system in a meaningful way.

The amendments to the Criminal Code proposed in the bill continue that important work. The victim surcharge would directly benefit victims of crime and make offenders more accountable for their actions.

I urge all honourable members of the House to support this bill because we have to make opportunities available to victims of crime in order to support their recovery.

I urge all members of this House to support the bill and to refer it to the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights for study.

[Françoise Boivin, NDP, Gatineau, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the member for her speech.

I have two questions. Were the provinces and territories consulted before this bill was drafted? Can the government provide assurances that the money from these surcharges will really go to the victims' groups that need it?

[Kerry-Lynne Findlay, Conservative, Delta—Richmond East, BC]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague asks a good question and one that gets right to the point of what I have been talking about today.

As my colleague knows, we have ongoing dialogue with the provinces and territories on justice issues. As I mentioned in my speech, there are actually territorial and provincial surcharges that are levied along with federal ones. The difference is that provincial and territorial ones are automatic. The federal ones have not actually been implemented, as was originally perceived.

We are looking forward to this going ahead and have this be a more certain element of the justice system to help victims.

[Sean Casey, Liberal, Charlottetown, PE]

Mr. Speaker, the parliamentary secretary talked about some excellent programs across Canada that victims of crime surcharges help fund. She did not pretend for a second, and fairly so, that these programs are completely funded by the revenue that is generated by victims of crime surcharges or the increased revenue that would be generated as a result of this.

Given the repeated downloads from the federal government on to the provinces, not just in the justice field but in other areas, does the parliamentary secretary not think there is a real risk that the increase in victim surcharges will simply free up money for the provinces, money that they are now putting into these programs, and put it toward something else where the government has caused their costs to go up with respect to the administration of justice in the respective provinces?

[Kerry-Lynne Findlay, Conservative, Delta—Richmond East, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I reject the assumption underlying that question that we have raised those costs. We are talking about bringing into force of a mandatory and automatic victim surcharge that will not go into general revenue. One of the problems I highlighted is of people wondering what it is really for, does it go into general revenue or does it really go to help those who need it most.

These are victim surcharges. They are meant to hold offenders accountable, meant for them to think on what they have done in terms of hurting the life in some way of their victims and to go directly to their services, many of which I detailed.

[Pierre Nantel, NDP, Longueuil—Pierre-Boucher, QC]

Mr. Speaker, members of the New Democratic Party care about victims and believe that they should be the priority. However, we wonder whether imposing this measure and removing judges' power to waive these surcharges suggests a certain lack of confidence.

[Kerry-Lynne Findlay, Conservative, Delta—Richmond East, BC]

Mr. Speaker, as I set out in my speech, there have been several studies done to understand why the victim surcharge machine, which has been in place for some time, does not seem to raise the revenue needed for the victims and the services they need in an adequate way. Those studies, both in the provinces, like New Brunswick specifically, but also federally through the Department of Justice, have shown that the idea of an offender not having to pay the surcharge perhaps because they could not afford it seems to have been lost. Even where offenders can afford it, it is often not imposed.

Yes, we are trying to build consistency across the country in terms of the imposition of these victim surcharges to benefit victims or, if someone cannot afford, then he or she can work toward the work credits to help the community in a more general way.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to pick up on the issue of consistency. The member made reference to the Manitoba fines option program. Across Canada there is a wide variety of different programs to assist victims. I and many others would argue that there is a stronger role for the national government to look at these programs for some commonality or best practices where what is working well in one area might work well in another area of the country.

What role does the member believe the government has to play in demonstrating leadership and ensuring that there are services being provided that have some equality among the provinces?

[Kerry-Lynne Findlay, Conservative, Delta—Richmond East, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it is our experience that victims are in great need. Sometimes the effects of criminality will last a lifetime. There are many different types of programs that can be of assistance. All of these programs that are available are doing good work and we want to ensure they are properly funded both from territorial and provincial surcharges as well as federal. Our government created the Office of the Federal Ombudsman for Victims of Crime precisely to look at what victims need in Canada and what we can do to provide the services hey need on a national basis.

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

Mr. Speaker, it certainly is important to provide support for victims. There are many programs that I have advocated for in the past.

A victim surcharge makes sense, but I worry about the removal of judges' discretion to waive this surcharge when they can see that the person before them would suffer undue harm. The current legislation which is being changed says that where there is undue hardship on the person being convicted or on their dependents or family, for which I think there will be more sympathy, in that case the judge would have the discretion to say that he or she would not apply the surcharge.

That is the question I would ask my friend. Even if there is community service made available, what happens to dependents of that convicted criminal in cases where the payments to the victims would mean that the family would face undue hardship?

[Kerry-Lynne Findlay, Conservative, Delta—Richmond East, BC]

Mr. Speaker, that is the whole idea behind the fine option program. Where a judge has the discretion to determine that there is undue hardship on offenders or their depends, if a judge finds that to be the case, then the offenders will be given the opportunity to work for credits to benefit the community in order to substitute for payment.

There is an amount established. The amount equals a certain number of hours that would be put into that community service, and that is for the benefit of all.

I think that answers my friend's question, that this is contemplated. If the judge feels the offenders can afford the fine, the surcharge will be imposed. If they cannot, then there is that other option.

[Françoise Boivin, NDP, Gatineau, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am going to speak about section 737 of the Criminal Code.

First, I would like to welcome everyone. I hope that we are all returning with the attitude needed to try to work together, particularly on bills such as Bill C-37 to amend the Criminal Code, entitled the Increasing Offenders' Accountability for Victims Act.

We are at second reading and we have to determine whether we will vote to send the bill to the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights for more in-depth study.

I hope that everyone has come back with a good attitude because I still believe that this is doable and that we are here to try once again to ensure that the best bill possible comes out of this chamber, regardless of the party to which we belong. I will always say the same thing in all of my speeches.

What is Bill C-37? I really enjoyed my colleague's speech. In fact, I would like to tell her publicly just how much I enjoyed working with her this summer on the work pertaining to the Supreme Court appointments. This showed me that we are capable of working in a non-partisan way when we want to. I hope that we can do the same with regard to Bill C-37, which proposes to amend the provisions of the Criminal Code on victim surcharges. It seems like a good thing when we say it like that. It seems simple. It seems to say that no one can be against motherhood and apple pie.

I can say right away that the members of the New Democratic Party will support this bill at second reading so that it can go to committee.

The parliamentary secretary explained in her speech that the purpose of a victim surcharge is to help victims. That seems like a good thing, but it is important to understand that this is an additional sanction imposed when an offender who has been found guilty is sentenced. In theory, no one can be against such action because the person who committed the crime is paying the price for doing so.

When this was added to the Criminal Code, there were some jurisprudential debates. At the time, it was said that this was a little-used punishment, that it might not fall under federal jurisdiction, and that it was a hidden tax, because this surcharge was designed to be used to fund victims' assistance programs. The courts ruled that this clearly fell under federal jurisdiction. However, it is seen as an additional punishment. That must obviously be clear in people's minds.

The surcharge is collected and kept by provincial and territorial governments. It serves to fund programs and services for victims of crime in the province or territory where the crime was committed. Once again, I do not think that anyone would necessarily disagree with that.

Some colleagues asked the parliamentary secretary some questions. When we learned that the government would introduce this bill, we conducted a study and it was obviously a question that immediately came to mind. Organizations that support victims of crimes and the Federal Ombudsman for Victims of Crime clearly explained that there is a huge need for funding. Many individuals have spoken publicly about how victims are often forgotten.

I would like to make an aside, simply because, in light of an answer that the Minister of State for Small Business and Tourism gave today in this House, I am not even sure that the government that introduced Bill C-37 is sufficiently concerned about the opinions of victims. The government announced in this House that it was appealing the decision rendered by Justice Blanchard in Quebec last week regarding the long gun registry, a tool supported by victims' groups, not only in Quebec, but across Canada.

It does not seem as though the government is listening to victims, in all cases, but when it comes to having more financial resources, the message was received.

My main concern is that, once again, research has shown that not all of the money reaches victims' associations. I will be able to expand on this position before the committee, if the bill passes second reading.

This is one of the NDP's concerns. We believe that being there for victims, tackling crime and rehabilitating criminals really mean something. These are not simply idle expressions, said just to make the headlines or simply to look good for a five-minute media scrum. These are important factors, because this is what is truly needed and what must be done.

Unfortunately, this government seems to react to media attention. My colleague from Longueuil—Pierre-Boucher asked a question that touches on a crucial point regarding Bill C-37: the lack of confidence this government has in the Canadian judiciary. I am absolutely amazed by this every time. We have heard about certain isolated cases during call-in radio shows, for instance. I have taken part in call-ins; I used to host a radio program and a television program. We have all read stories in the newspaper about people who served part of their sentence, were released from prison and then committed another crime. However, what the story does not relate is that for every one such person, a hundred others behaved appropriately, and the sentences were appropriate.

We need to strike a balance between the desire for immediate results and measures that can have a real impact. Will surcharges achieve the desired goal, which is to help the victims of crime? I hope to find answers to these questions during the committee's examination.

It must be understood that the bill amends the provisions pertaining to the amount of the surcharge, which, under subsection 737(2), would increase from 15% to 30% of any fine imposed on offenders. If no fine is imposed, the surcharge would increase from $50 to $100 in the case of an offence punishable by summary conviction and from $100 to $200 for an offence punishable by indictment.

There is another aspect, which concerns the discretion of the judge. When a judge is considering a criminal case, he does not do as he pleases. He must consider certain rules, principles and concepts before making a decision. The government cannot be constantly implying that judges are simple puppets who make decisions without thinking. I do not believe that. I have a legal background. I have been involved in many cases and I have seen how seriously judges take cases every day. They try to deliver justice in a fair and balanced way by considering that every case is unique.

That is often the problem with the Conservatives. They take a one-size-fits-all approach without considering that every case is unique.

We have to be realistic. I will give the example provided by a lawyer to support one point of view. A young man commits a Criminal Code offence. He pleads guilty to drawing graffiti here and there. He will be automatically ordered to pay a surcharge. If convicted of 12 counts of the offence, he will have to pay 12 times the surcharge. Will he be able to do so? The member for Delta—Richmond East, whom I greatly respect, seems to be saying that he can work if he is unable to pay.

The problem is that the provincial-territorial program does not apply across Canada. That is one more problem with Bill C-37. We cannot simply rely on the discretion given to the judge under subsection 737(5) because it will be removed or repealed by Bill C-37. People are claiming that this is not serious and that people who cannot pay will have to work so that they can pay the amount. But this will not necessarily be the case everywhere.

The other point that is often raised is this: in some areas of the country, aboriginals are often hauled before the courts and are unable to pay. There will be some imbalance in that respect. Some people are saying that it is not serious because "if you commit the crime, then you pay for the crime”. Perhaps, but if we believe in a balanced approach, one that punishes and ensures that the person will not reoffend, rehabilitation must come into play.

I do not want to see people so hardened by prison that they become a threat to public safety. We cannot keep people in prison for life when the offences they committed are not as serious as murder, say. We have to understand that these people will leave prison one day. What condition and what mood will they leave in?

If, as was done this summer, you increase the number of inmates per cell for a few weeks—the inmates are serving a minimum sentence because the judges do not have a choice anymore—that gives you some idea of the type of society that is being created.

The government claims to be in favour of law and order and public safety, two things that go together. But for law and order to reign, we need laws that hold up.

Now, Parliament is passing laws that are being challenged one after another before the courts. These laws reverse positions and thwart the work done by the committees. What is more, the committee members clearly told the government that some provisions made no sense. And measures are now being taken that are making people feel insecure.

A person who receives a fine or sentence of imprisonment and who has a debt of $2,000 will have further debt upon leaving prison.

By the way—often the right hand does not know what the left hand is doing—this week, another bill will make an appearance: Bill C-350. I encourage the members of the House to assess the impact of Bill C-350 in relation to that of Bill C-37. Bill C-350 will prioritize fine payments and criminals' taking responsibility and ensure that this surcharge is the third priority.

Sometimes it is not the criminal that is in one hell of a mess—if you will pardon my language—but the criminal's family. All of these aspects need to be considered. I encourage the members opposite to study the bill closely.

We all agree on helping the associations that help the victims themselves, that have always asked us for our help. Among others, I am thinking of CALAS, the Centre d'aide et de lutte contre les agressions sexuelles de l'Outaouais, which is doing extraordinary work in my community.

Every time I talk to the directors of these organizations, they always say the same thing, which is that there needs to be greater awareness. They are performing miracles with very little.

Victims always say that, no matter how much they are paid, they will never be in the position they were in before the crime was committed. We can forget that. The rest is pure nonsense and is just for the cameras, which is unfortunate. If the government really believed in helping the victims, it would walk the talk and ensure that the victims have the support they need.

Sometimes, it is not just about money. Sometimes, resources have to be available to the victims so that they can receive the services they need.

I urge hon. members to support the bill at second reading, but to be realistic. We need to get serious answers to a lot of questions before we can give our final seal of approval to this bill. We need an answer to the following question: what is being done in the provinces and territories where there are no programs that give the option of working instead of paying the surcharge? We need to make sure that the money is really going to the victims, that it is not floating around somewhere or that it is not being used for something else.

Another hon. member pointed out the issue with costs. The government does not admit it, but legal associations—be it the Canadian Bar Association or the Barreau du Québec—from coast to coast will tell you that there are justice issues. A society must have a justice system that holds up; a society is founded on justice. Yet we see what this country needs in terms of legal aid and our society does not seem to be concerned. In terms of prisons, we are talking about increasing the number of inmates, closing some prisons and building others. There is something illogical about this, which raises concern when we are faced with these types of bills.

We will need to get some serious answers. My hope is that the committee will be able to work with a view to getting answers to those questions to be able to come back here and say to the rest of the hon. members that yes, the bill can get the seal of approval, that yes, it is a good bill for victims and that it will fulfill the purpose for which it was designed. It will not try, once again, to divide us by saying that they support victims and we support criminals. That is absolutely not the case.

So we will vote in favour of the bill, hoping that the committee will do the serious work that it is mandated to do.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to pick up on the member's last comment indicating that the NDP is looking at voting in favour of the bill. I listened to her concerns regarding the bill. Are we to take it that it is actually the principle of the bill that NDP members support, or do they support the bill going to committee at this stage?

[Françoise Boivin, NDP, Gatineau, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would say it is a bit of both in the sense that we ran and have always run on behalf of victims in Canada.

We have always said we wanted to be there for victims, and it is a question of finding how we can better be there for them. In itself it is not a bad idea that the bill is based on the fact that it is supposed to be money to help victims and associations for victims.

That being said, we also want to make sure, before we give our final seal of approval, that we get the answers to all the questions we have, and there are serious questions on Bill C-37. For example, are we sure the money would go to victims? Would the discretion be removed that judges used to have when somebody has an incapacity to pay the surcharge? Also, if there is a province or territory that does not have these programs, what do we do? Would it be fair for these people? Is it just? We have a few questions that I hope will be answered in committee.

[Christine Moore, NDP, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Mr. Speaker, could the hon. member clarify something for me? I apologize for my ignorance, but I am not sure about something.

Is the victim surcharge based on a person's income? Take for example someone who earns $1 million a year. Will that person receive a higher fine—because they have a higher income to pay it—than someone who makes $10,000 a year?

I would greatly appreciate it if the hon. member could clarify that for me.

[Françoise Boivin, NDP, Gatineau, QC]

Mr. Speaker, that is a good question. The idea is that the surcharge is the same for everyone. Having said that, a section in the Criminal Code allows a judge to impose a higher surcharge on someone deemed to be able to pay it. In that case, it would be possible to impose a higher surcharge. It is the same surcharge, but it is already set out in the Criminal Code.

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

Mr. Speaker, I will trust the hon. member, because I know that she is a lawyer. I am sure that she knows these crime issues inside out.

Is the government relying on studies or statistics showing that surcharges imposed on criminals reduce the crime rate? I am trying to establish a link. We all have a common goal here: to reduce crime and to ensure that our criminal justice system works well.

In practical terms, what are the arguments or the facts that support the government's measures?

[Françoise Boivin, NDP, Gatineau, QC]

That is a good question, Mr. Speaker, and we will be sure to ask it during the committee meetings.

Honestly, I did not hear in the speech of the hon. member opposite, the member for Delta—Richmond East who spoke on behalf of the government, that the government used major statistics to conclude that imposing a surcharge would reduce crime. I will not justify the government's position on that. Personally, I do not think that it will have a compelling effect on criminals. Having to pay a surcharge will not prevent them from committing a crime. I do think that a minimum sentence will make a criminal stop and think before he commits a crime that he will have to serve a minimum prison sentence.

The purpose of the bill is to find ways to get more money to help the victims of criminal offences, which is what the federal ombudsman for victims of crime has always been after. The NDP has always been at the forefront in this respect. Now, surcharges will help fund these programs and that is what they should be used for. It remains to be seen if that, in fact, will be the case.

[Pierre Nantel, NDP, Longueuil—Pierre-Boucher, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask my colleague a question about the statement by the member for Delta—Richmond East. I was somewhat struck by her statement that the idea of withdrawing the discretionary power of judges was based on the fact that supporting figures show that we have not managed to accumulate the basic funds required to help victims.

I find it somewhat convoluted to take away the discretionary power from judges for the sake of money. That money could come from elsewhere, could it not?

[Françoise Boivin, NDP, Gatineau, QC]

Mr. Speaker, that is quite right, it could come from elsewhere. Quite often, organizations or victims do not turn to the surcharge program alone.

I found the answer very strange and interesting at the same time, and it certainly warrants further study in committee. The Conservative government seems to interfere wherever there is discretion, whether in sentencing or in the matter of surcharges. Discretion must take into account the factors mentioned. The same thing applies to discretion used in imposing a surcharge. Judges did not impose a surcharge based on whether or not they liked the person. It did not work like that. The judge had to hear all the arguments proving that the offender could not pay. He would not base that decision on a yes or no answer. Furthermore, he had to put his decision in writing.

If we want to examine this in depth, I am sure that we could look at all the sentences where the judges set aside the surcharge based on subsection 737(5) and stated their reasons in writing under subsection 737(6). It would be interesting to see what reasons the court gave in support of the decision.

If we want to do serious work in committee, we could approach it intelligently in order to determine whether the only reason the Conservatives want to eliminate discretion is to ensure that the money is paid to the program and can be distributed to the victims. We shall see.

[Pierre Jacob, NDP, Brome—Missisquoi, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask my colleague if she believes that the provinces and the territories were consulted before this bill was drafted and why consultation is important.

[Françoise Boivin, NDP, Gatineau, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague very much for the question because it is exactly the same question, word for word, that I asked the member for Delta—Richmond East to which I am not sure I received an answer. The government tells me it is still consulting. From what I have heard from the ministers of justice of the provinces and territories that I have spoken to, whether on this subject or on other things, I am not convinced that the lines of communication are quite so open. I am not convinced that in Quebec, where the party in power before the last election was federalist, the lines were really open. There are still a lot of answers to be given and a lot of questions to be asked.

[Sean Casey, Liberal, Charlottetown, PE]

Mr. Speaker, as you know, I am a relatively new member here, representing the people of Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, which also happens to be the birthplace of Canada. I believe we live in one of the best countries in the world, and yet, something is wrong in Canada today.

Today we are speaking on a bill that would increase fines given to convicted criminals, the so-called “victims of crime surcharge”. As with many of the crime bills tabled in the House of Commons, it is a bill that on its face seems easy to accept. However, it is not acceptable. The politicization of the Criminal Code is in full swing, and I suppose that is the point in this day and age.

In today's Conservative Canada we now have a permanent political campaign. What was once thought of as an American political trait has now been imported into Canada. No longer will we have a justice system that is just and fair; the Conservative approach is not balanced or proportional. We now find ourselves in a situation where good public policy is traded for political marketing.

However, today I want to speak about poverty in Canada. I want to speak about the widening gap between those of us who have and those who have not. I want to speak about the intersection between poverty and crime.

As I mentioned previously, we know crime rates, particularly rates of serious crimes, have come down over the past several decades. Those facts are not in dispute among those who respect and value evidence. It is therefore a massive moral failure on our part to de-link crime from poverty.

Allow me to take a few moments to explain what I mean.

Poverty is a very serious social, economic and political problem in Canada. It is a problem that calls for us to take action that is worthy of our country and our strong moral tradition.

As Canadians, we are all concerned, as we also are about the fact that poverty persists in Canada. Poverty, and the widening income gap, are a serious threat to social cohesion in Canada. Combating and eradicating poverty calls for an effective approach to be taken, to make Canada a better, more egalitarian and more just society.

Let us compare this with what we see in Canada today. These days, politics dominates everything. Division and extreme partisanship are the watchword in our political discourse now. We have a government that sees only one solution when it encounters a complex social problem like poverty and its links with crime: put more people in prison.

Those of us who respect the past know that history has lessons to teach us. In the past, when Canada encountered a serious, nation-wide problem, we did what Canadians often do: we investigated the facts and looked for the truth. We were not afraid of the facts, because we used them to shape public policy, not vice versa.

Poverty is one of those problems, and it should transcend political and jurisdictional divisions.

I will give a few examples of Canadians coming together to tackle tough issues. When Canadians faced and confronted terrorism in the Air India bombing, we acted. We established an inquiry led by the hon. member for Toronto Centre. We sought answers, reasons, remedies and solutions, and we sought to bring closure to those families affected by that tragedy.

When we as a country began struggling in the 1980s with implications of new and emerging technology on reproduction, we struck a royal commission to assess the moral, ethical and legislative implications of those new technologies.

When Canadians were confronted with the tainted blood scandal that affected to many Canadians, we struck an inquiry to discover what happened and find remedies and solutions.

When Canadians were confronted with the decision to have economic ties with the United States, we created a free trade inquiry called the Macdonald Royal Commission. We did so to get the facts, to hear from people and to use those facts to guide our decisions.

In times past, we confronted great challenges, not with slogans and silly appellations for parliamentary bills but by deploying our best and brightest in search of facts that would lead to meaningful and realistic solutions.

The growing gap between those who have and those who have not, the persistence of poverty and its relation to crime are real and present dangers to social cohesiveness in Canada.

We cannot afford to stand aside and do what we are doing, which is little. We cannot dismissively say that poverty is a provincial matter, as the Prime Minister said in 1995, while at the same time suggest with one eye closed that the only solution to the consequence of poverty is to incarcerate more people. It is immoral to give any credibility to that approach. In fact, we should consider a royal commission on poverty in Canada.

It is astonishing to me that with all of our successes, for all of our difficulties, for all of our wealth, for all of our modernity, a country with a first world economy and a country whose heart is as big as the land it inhabits, is still a place where poverty exists and at levels that are unworthy of us all. It requires us to be bold, to do what is right and to bring all Canadians together to fight poverty.

With the greatest respect to my colleagues on the other side, it is not right or just for any prime minister from any political party to suggest, as our current Prime Minister has, that poverty is a provincial problem, end of story. That is not who we are. That is not the Canadian way.

The world is big and yet we are more and more connected and interdependent than in any other period in history. This is not only true of the world but here in Canada. We can ill-afford to put ourselves in jurisdictional straitjackets and say that it is someone else's issue. Poverty is a problem that we all have a responsibility to combat.

I will now address the link between poverty and crime. I believe poverty is the engine that drives crime in Canada. Poverty limits hope, poverty limits an individual's full potential and poverty at its core ghettoizes communities. It is poverty that forces women who, in attempting to raise a child with no money or no hope, to turn to prostitution. It is poverty that causes a young man who comes from nothing to turn to drugs to find solace and to escape reality. Poverty is a vicious circle and one that must be broken.

All of us here today have our own story but we are here today not only because of our own doing but with the help and support of family, friends and our communities. However, our stories are so much different than the millions of Canadians confined to a state of poverty that in most instances goes back generations. We cannot turn a blind eye to poverty and say that it is not our problem.

The 18-year-old who woke up this morning and who has lived a life of abuse, has mental health issues, comes from a broken family and whose life has been wrapped up in poverty will not be making plans as many of us will here today deciding on which restaurant we will go to this evening. That 18-year-old does not have that choice.

It is they, the poor, the marginalized, those on the periphery of success and opportunity, who see the world not as we see it but something quite different. It is poverty that is the engine that is driving crime.

In a recent article in one of our leading newspapers, anti-poverty advocate and Conservative senator Hugh Segal said the following:

While all those Canadians who live beneath the poverty line are by no means associated with criminal activity, almost all those in Canada’s prisons come from beneath the poverty line. Less than 10 per cent of Canadians live beneath the poverty line but almost 100 per cent of our prison inmates come from that 10 per cent. There is no political ideology, on the right or left, that would make the case that people living in poverty belong in jail.

Can we honestly say with unburdened hearts that the only solution to these difficult and complex issues is to find more ways to put them in jail. Is that the best we can do? Is that what Canada has become?

Yet, today, we are contemplating a bill that would increase monetary penalties and remove the ability of a convicted criminal to seek relief from those financial penalties. Why? It is because for most of them they simply do not have the money. The vast majority of people convicted of a crime in Canada can trace their circumstances to poverty. Under this bill, they would be required to pay even more, even though they can ill-afford to do so.

We should never condone or excuse criminal behaviour but we should also be open to explaining it. Again, it is poverty that drives crime.

How can we, as parliamentarians claiming a conscience, stand idly by when we know that aboriginals, who make up just 4% of our population, represent 20% of our prison population? That percentage would increase with the new crime measures imposed by the government. It is the lifting of people out of poverty that will further reduce crime rates.

I will take a few moments to highlight some statistics. If I am unable to convince colleagues of the social justice implications here, perhaps I can convince people that it makes economic sense to lift people out of the cycle of poverty.

The cost of poverty to Canada has been estimated at $72 billion to $86 billion per year, or about 5% to 6% of GDP. Almost 900,000 Canadians used food banks each month in 2010 and 38% of them were children. Three point one million households pay more than 30% of their income on housing, making them housing insecure. There are 150,000 to 300,000 visible homeless.

A recent study found a 21-year difference in life expectancy between some of the poorest neighbourhoods and the wealthiest neighbourhoods in some parts of Canada.

Poverty costs Canada's health care system $7.6 billion per year, according to the Ontario Association of Food Banks.

One in three, or 33%, of low-income children had at least one parent who worked full time through the year in 2008 and still lived in poverty.

In 2010, 59% of Canadian workers lived paycheque to paycheque and indicated that they would be in financial difficulty if their cheque were delayed by a week.

In 2009, per capita household debt in Canada was $41,740, which is two and a half times higher than it was in 1989.

In 2009, the average annual income, $6.6 million, of Canada's best paid CEOs was 155 times higher than the average worker's income.

A third of all income growth in Canada over the two past decades has gone to the richest 1% of Canadians, with 3.8% of households controlling 67% of total household wealth.

Those are staggering numbers. The correlation between poverty and crime is not fiction and it is not a Liberal idea.

A recent study conducted by the Toronto Star and referenced by Conservative Senator Segal found the following: More than 70% of those who enter prisons have not completed high school; 70% of offenders entering prisons have unstable job histories; and four of every five arrive with serious substance abuse problems. Sending more people to prison, appearing tough on crime, or enacting legislation that is punitive at its core will not solve the problem of crime in Canada. Poverty is at the root of crime in Canada.

I will close with this compelling quote, again from Conservative Senator Segal. He said:

In a modern, competitive and compassionate society like ours, these numbers are unacceptable. If Canadians want to wage an effective war on crime we must first reshape the debate. If crime abatement is the goal, it is time for all Canadians and their governments to become tough on poverty. By doing so, the outcomes we all want — safer communities and diminishing prison populations — will follow.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Barry Devolin]

Before we go to questions and comments, 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 Algoma—Manitoulin—Kapuskasing, Health; the hon. member for Manicouagan, Aboriginal Affairs.

[Robert Sopuck, Conservative, Dauphin—Swan River—Marquette, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I listened with great interest to my hon. friend's comments and, with all due respect, I found them very insulting to Canadians who live on low incomes. It is almost as if people who have low incomes are automatically guaranteed to commit crimes, which is appalling.

In my constituency, there are many low-income constituents, people who get along very well on what we would consider low incomes and yet the crime rate in my constituency is very low. Why is that? I would argue that those people have the right values.

What role does my hon. friend think people's values play, regardless of their incomes, in terms of their propensity to commit crimes? How important does he think an individual's values are?

[Sean Casey, Liberal, Charlottetown, PE]

Mr. Speaker, there is no question that one's values are at the very core of what makes up a person. However, a question of that nature, once again, absolutely and unequivocally ignores the evidence. The evidence is indisputable that poverty drives crime and that our prisons are overrepresented with people who have low incomes.

Quite frankly, if people live in poverty, the odds are stacked against them. This bill would not help but exacerbate that.

[Anne-Marie Day, NDP, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the NDP supports families and victims of violence. In the past, many of us have worked with victims of violence who have gone to groups. It is important to increase funding to help those people. We are 100% for that approach.

Obviously, removing judicial discretion poses a problem. The problem, as rightly stated before, is this: if you are caught speeding—which has nothing to do with the problem at hand—you receive the same fine, whether you earn $300 a week working in a convenience store or $1 million a year. A judge with discretionary power would be able to step in.

The hon. member for Charlottetown has done a fine job of demonstrating that the poorest are affected. We know that, in our prisons, we often find the poorest in society, because they have a lot of problems, such as dropping out of school. The poorest members in our society will get higher penalties, because judges will no longer have the discretionary power to reduce the penalty.

Does the hon. member not think that the cycle of poverty will become bigger and that those people will be trapped in a vicious circle from which they will not be able to escape?

[Sean Casey, Liberal, Charlottetown, PE]

Mr. Speaker, I agree with the hon. member. It is true that this bill will make poverty problems in our society bigger. It will not reduce the crime rate, and the cycle of poverty will continue.

I am in complete agreement with the premise of the question. I share the hon. member's concerns with respect to the removal of judicial discretion. There are fine people appointed as judges in this country and they should be allowed to do their jobs. This bill would remove an element of judicial discretion that is critical in assessing the individual circumstances of each offender and would only serve to worsen the circumstances of those most vulnerable.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I want to compliment the hon. member for his thoughtful speech. It bore some echoes to a couple of town halls that I held in my riding in the last few months. What are called the Danzig shootings happened in my riding and I had a couple of town halls. I canvassed the area three times and started to get a feel for the concerns of the constituents.

First, they bitterly resented outsiders coming in and their community being labelled a crime community.

The second thing they mentioned speaks to the issue that the hon. member raised, namely jobs and opportunities. There is a lot of regrettable unemployment in this particular area with people who have time on their hands.

The third thing they said was that they wanted a police relationship, not just a police presence, and therein lies a huge difference.

The fourth thing they said was that they did not need any more laws, but they did need evidence. The police and the community agreed that the laws were fine. What they needed was the evidence to prosecute fully, within the meaning of that phrase, under the Criminal Code.

Without my having had any direct conversation with him, his speech eerily relates to and reflects what I heard at community hall meetings this summer.

[Sean Casey, Liberal, Charlottetown, PE]

I have a couple of points arising from that, Mr. Speaker. On Prince Edward Island there is an institution called the Addictions Research Centre, and one of its roles is to examine and study the link between addictions and crime. That is something that would provide evidence and research to that point. The government has decided to close it.

The other point I want to make with regard to evidence is that under this scheme, in order for the revenues generated from the victims of crime surcharge to fund programs, it is necessary for the crimes to be reported, for them to be prosecuted and for there to be successful conviction and collection.

If the government were serious about funding programs for victims of crime, it would not make them contingent on all of those things but would fund them outright.

[Chris Charlton, NDP, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I welcome the comments by the member for Charlottetown. I could not agree more that the government's record on poverty reduction has truly been a national disgrace.

I can tell by the way he framed his comments that he is quite sincere about wanting to join in the fight against poverty in a passionate and serious way. I will not hold it against him, since he is new to the House, that the Liberal government itself did not have a particularly good record over its 13 years in office in dealing with the very issues he outlines as now being the problem.

There was no national child care policy. There was the gutting of the national housing strategy and the theft of the now up to $54 billion out of the EI fund. There was no living wage policy, and in essence the Liberal government at the time laid its deficit on the backs of the most vulnerable. I would suggest that maybe for purposes of debate this afternoon, we actually stick to the bill that is before us, which is Bill C-37.

Yes, there is indeed a link between crime and poverty, but by removing the discretionary power of the judge to increase the surcharge, are we not in some cases making this measure excessively punitive? It speaks to what he was saying, because I think it is particularly true in cases for low income offenders or offenders who suffer from mental illnesses.

[Sean Casey, Liberal, Charlottetown, PE]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the slack being offered to me as a result of my juniority.

As the hon. member went through the list of perceived wrongs of previous Liberal governments, the one that did stick out for me, not because I was here because I was not, was the national child care policy. I remember working very hard on the leadership campaign of Ken Dryden, who introduced a national child care policy. While I cannot speak to that long list, and I am sure I will not be allowed to do so, I do have a distinct recollection of that.

With regard to the direct question, the member absolutely does make a point. The suggestion in the bill that the undue hardship defence be eliminated is quite simply wrong-headed, and judges should be trusted to exercise their discretion based on the evidence they hear in the courtroom, and that defence should continue to be available.

I would also point out that it seems as though the justification for the removal of that is that there is a fine option program and defenders could be allowed to work it off. A fine option program does not exist in all provinces, so it will be available to some but not to all.

[Robert Goguen, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to take part in the second reading debate on Bill C-37, the Increasing Offenders’ Accountability for Victims Act, which concerns victim surcharges.

As hon. members are aware, the government is determined to help victims of crime and make offenders accountable for the harm they have caused victims and law-abiding citizens.

Bill C-37 would help make offenders accountable by doubling the amount of the victim surcharge to be paid by offenders and making sure that the surcharge is imposed automatically in all cases.

The government is continuing to deliver on its promises regarding the concerns of victims of crime. In our electoral platform, we made a commitment to make amendments to the Criminal Code that would double the amount of victim surcharges and make their imposition mandatory in all cases, without exception. The government reaffirmed this commitment in the Speech from the Throne, and we have done exactly what we promised to do.

Victim surcharges form part of an offender’s sentence and they are consistent with the sentencing principles in the Criminal Code. They provide reparations for the harm done to victims and to the community and promote a sense of responsibility in offenders.

The amount of the victim surcharge has not increased since the year 2000. Moreover, we know that the surcharge is not imposed in all appropriate cases. This is unacceptable, and our government is determined to make offenders accountable to their victims.

The bill aims to remedy these shortcomings in a number of ways. First, it proposes doubling the amount of the federal victim surcharge by making it 30% of the fine imposed on the offender for the offence. If no fine is imposed, the surcharge will be $100 in the case of an offence punishable by summary conviction and $200 in the case of an offence punishable by indictment.

I would like to underscore the fact that the sentencing judge also has the discretionary authority to impose an even higher surcharge if circumstances warrant and if the offender has the means to pay it.

Second, the bill removes the discretionary authority of the sentencing judge to waive payment of the victim surcharge if it constitutes undue hardship for the offender or his or her dependents. However, the bill allows offenders to pay the surcharge under fine option programs in provinces and territories where such a program exists.

Fine option programs for adult offenders have been set up in all territories and in all but three provinces. Fine option programs for young offenders exist in two territories and in all but four of the provinces. This type of program enables offenders to pay their fine by working at the minimum wage.

In her most recent report entitled “Shifting the Conversation”, the Federal Ombudsman for Victims of Crime recommends that the victim surcharge be mandatory in all cases, without exception. Other victims’ rights advocates have made the same recommendation.

The proposed amendments to the Criminal Code would make it possible to ensure that all convicted offenders are given a sentence that makes them accountable to the victims of crime and the members of communities.

As hon. members are no doubt aware, provincial and territorial services providing assistance to victims are partly funded by money coming from federal victim surcharges. The amount that is collected and held by provincial and territorial governments is used to defray the costs of the program and to provide the victims of crime with support services in the province or territory where the crime was committed. The federal government receives no money from federal victim surcharges.

The introduction of this bill builds on previous actions by the government to ensure that victims have a stronger voice in the criminal justice system and that they have better access to the available services.

In fact, doubling the victim surcharge is intended to complement the other measures taken by the government to help the victims of crime.

In budget 2011, the government renewed the annual $13 million funding for the federal victims strategy. In budget 2012, the government made a commitment to grant additional funding to the victims fund. On April 23, the Minister of Justice announced an additional $7 million over five years for the victims fund.

The federal victims fund now amounts to some $11.6 million a year that goes to provincial and territorial governments, to victims support agencies and to other partners in order to provide support for services, projects and initiatives that promote access to justice and a greater awareness of the services available to the victims of crime and their families.

Under the victims fund, the following activities and projects, to name just a few, will be carried out in Canada: in Newfoundland and Labrador, it will be easier for victims to attend sentencing hearings and to present victims’ impact statements.

The courtrooms will also be adapted for children in order to help the most vulnerable victims and witnesses to crime when they take part in legal proceedings.

In New Brunswick, the parents of child victims of sexual assault will have access to better services; public legal education and information resources will be updated and widely distributed in order to help children and other vulnerable victims; and access to services for adults who were sexually assaulted in childhood will be improved.

In Saskatchewan, law enforcement personnel will receive training that will enable them to recognize the victims of hate crimes and provide them with assistance; and the province’s courtrooms will be endowed with devices making it easier for children and other vulnerable witnesses to provide evidence.

In Yukon, victims who live in rural areas will have better access to assistance providers in communities served by circuit courts.

In Alberta, access to assistance services by victims living in remote rural areas will be improved.

In Prince Edward Island, the protocol for dealing with sexual assault of children will be updated and the officers working directly with children and young victims will be given training. Solid relationships will be established with the child advocacy centre at the Izaak Walton Killam health centre in Nova Scotia in order to improve support for child victims and their families.

Public legal education and information material will be drafted and published in 18 languages in the various communities in Manitoba.

Specialized training to deal with the trauma and crime victimization that is specific to Nunavut will be developed and distributed and new ways will be sought to help the victims of crime in the community.

In Ontario, victims of crime in remote communities will have better access to a wide range of specialized services.

These are only a few examples of the excellent work being done throughout Canada to provide assistance to the victims and improve their experience with the criminal justice system.

In addition to the funding granted by the victims fund, the money from victims surcharges will also make it possible to help provinces and territories provide services to the victims under their jurisdiction. This is an excellent example of federal, provincial and territorial co-operation on issues of very great importance to all levels of government.

I would also like to draw the members' attention to the 2012 National Victims of Crime Awareness Week that was held from April 22 to 28 this year. This year's theme was "Moving Forward" and it focused on the devastating impact of crime on the lives of victims and their need to be treated with compassion and respect for their dignity.

The theme also underlined the work accomplished by the various levels of government as well as by the dedicated professionals and volunteers who provide services to the victims to help them move forward and rebuild their lives.

The federal victims fund provides funding to victims' services organizations in all provinces and territories in order to hold more than 160 important events during National Victims of Crime Awareness Week.

I hope the honourable members were able to take part in the activities that were held in their riding in support of the important work being carried out by victims' services organizations and to see first-hand the courage and resilience of victims of crime.

I urge all members in this House to support this bill, because we must help the victims of crime in every way possible in the hopes of facilitating their recovery.

[Christine Moore, NDP, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to begin by thanking my colleague for his speech. I would also like to emphasize that, as my colleague from Gatineau stated earlier, the NDP will support this bill at second reading so that it can go to committee because there are still a lot of unanswered questions about it. I hope that the committee's work will give us a chance to get those answers.

I would like to ask my colleague a question about the judge's discretionary power to waive the surcharge for a particular individual if the judge believes that it would cause harm to the individual and if the judge knows the individual is truly incapable of paying it. Currently, the judge can use his or her discretionary power, but this bill will eliminate that option.

The purpose of this bill is to make more money available to help victims. When a judge is forced to levy a small surcharge from a very poor person, the court will have to try to collect that money. Might it cost more than the amount of the surcharge itself to collect the surcharge that the judge had no choice but to impose? If so, this will not make more money available to victims.

[Robert Goguen, Conservative, Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe, NB]

Mr. Speaker, that is a very good question, but I cannot answer it since the circumstances of each case are different. Will it cost more or not? I would be speculating if I tried to answer that. For a long time now, the focus has been on the offenders and on trying to rehabilitate them. This bill focuses on helping victims. Will this solve all of our social problems? Definitely not, but this is an attempt to help victims. Unfortunately, no system is perfect.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I am disappointed that the member would stand up on a couple of counts. One is to articulate his opinion and thoughts on the legislation, knowing full well that there is not unanimous support for this bill. There is a lot of concern in regard to the way in which the government wants to approach the issue of victims across Canada, and how we can compensate and provide good-quality victim assistance programs. The answer goes beyond just inserting levies on fines. There needs to be a commitment from the government, one, to demonstrate leadership across the country and, two, to ensure that there is ongoing sustainable funding that actually originates from the government general revenues. This is something that needs to be debated inside this chamber, and it leads me to the second point, which is why it is that the government is moving so quickly to try to limit debate inside the chamber by moving a motion to call the question. What is the hurry? Why does the government not recognize the value of allowing for members of Parliament to contribute to the debate on this important bill even prior to going to committee?

[Robert Goguen, Conservative, Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe, NB]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for that question. Victims have waited a long time for their go at having fair compensation for acts that are imposed upon them and for which they are not responsible. The cost of crime has been evaluated at $99.6 billion and the victims bear 83% of that. This is an attempt to help these victims who basically have not asked for what has been inflicted upon them.

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

Mr. Speaker, as an hon. member said, we want to fund programs for victims. It is a very legitimate objective and we support it. But now, the government claims that if offenders do not have the financial ability to pay, they can register for a program in provinces that have one. First, if the surcharge is doubled, demand for existing programs will increase. In provinces and territories that do not have a program, one will have to be created. So the provinces will have to spend money once again.

In a few years, will we have to triple the surcharge to again fund programs that will have to be created or for which demand is too high?

[Robert Goguen, Conservative, Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe, NB]

Mr. Speaker, saying that it would be tripled, doubled or cut in half would be speculation. We do not have the data to be able to answer that question.

What I know is that we will have to continue to work with the best practices in all the provinces, particularly those that do not have a system where offenders can work. We must not forget the work those people do. Usually, they do community work, and their work goes back into the community, so it is beneficial for everyone.

[Anne-Marie Day, NDP, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

Mr. Speaker, there is very little in this bill that the opposition cannot support. The bill aims to intervene to help criminals change their behaviour. It also proposes ways to help victims and groups that support victims.

Our party will support this bill, but why not make an even greater effort and discuss this a little longer in order to come up with something that we could all totally agree on?

[Robert Goguen, Conservative, Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe, NB]

Mr. Speaker, as you know, there is no shortage of debate in the House. Clearly, in this case, victims have waited long enough for compensation and for their concerns to be addressed.

In other contexts, we can continue to work not only for victims, but also on other aspects of crime, such as poverty.

[Christine Moore, NDP, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Mr. Speaker, thank you for the opportunity to ask another question.

I would like to come back to my first question, in which I asked if it will not eventually be more costly to try to recuperate money and if, in the end, none of that money will be passed on to victims anyway. The hon. member replied that every case is unique and that this would merely be speculation.

So, yes, every case is unique and one must take the time needed to examine each individual situation and make a logical, thorough decision. Judges have developed the skills needed to be able to make a ruling based on the logic of each situation and based on the individual case.

Why, then, would we play around with the discretionary power of judges, when even the government acknowledges that each case is unique?

[Robert Goguen, Conservative, Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe, NB]

Mr. Speaker, the Criminal Code concerns public order and, ultimately, it is parliamentarians who establish the parameters of public order. For first degree murder, there is a mandatory 25 year sentence. In a different context, parliamentarians set the priorities to be imposed on judges. They still have a great deal of leeway in other areas.

This government has responded to Canadians' request to provide protection for victims. That is what this bill is all about.

[Robert Chisholm, NDP, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I am certainly interested to see this bill and proposal come forward. As we have indicated, we will support moving it forward to committee for further review.

I do not think there is any question in the minds of most Canadians that the NDP supports the victims of crimes and their families. We certainly respect the recommendations of the ombudsman for victims of crime, and I have some knowledge of this issue from the time I was in Nova Scotia. The services that are provided to the victims of crime are extremely timely and important if properly administered.

I want to say to the parliamentary secretary that I am somewhat concerned. I know this is an extremely important issue and one we need to move forward on, but I am concerned with the closure motion that was introduced. There are concerns here with the further infringement on the latitude of judges and with other possible implications of the fines on offenders. We need to make sure we strike the right balance, get this done and get it done right so that it does not come back here in a year or two in order to correct a problem caused as a result of haste.

[Robert Goguen, Conservative, Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe, NB]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member's concerns are noted.

[Glenn Thibeault, NDP, Sudbury, ON]

Mr. Speaker, before I start I believe it is my duty to inform you that I will be sharing my time with the member for Laurier—Sainte-Marie.

With that, I would also like to welcome everyone back from a long summer, where we hopefully had some time to sit back, rest with our family, recharge the batteries and of course help our constituents at the same time.

This afternoon I will be speaking to Bill C-37, which proposes to amend section 737 of Canada's Criminal Code in order to double the amount offenders must pay when they receive their sentence, while making the surcharge mandatory for all offenders.

First let me begin my comments by going through some of the history of victim surcharges before I proceed into why New Democrats believe this legislation merits passage at second reading and closer scrutiny at the justice committee, where I am hopeful all the necessary changes will be agreed to by all parties.

A victim surcharge is an additional sanction imposed at the time of sentencing to offenders found guilty of a crime. It is collected by provincial and territorial governments and used to provide programs and services for victims of crime in the province or territory where that crime was committed.

Specifically, Bill C-37 proposes to first amend the provisions of the Criminal Code relating to the amount of the victim surcharge, to double the amount. Under this proposal, the surcharge would be equivalent to 30% of any fine imposed on the offender or when no fine is imposed would be $100 for summary conviction offences and $200 for indictable offences.

The bill also removes the ability of a court to waive the victim surcharge if the offender can show that paying the surcharge would result in undue hardship to his or her dependents, for example. This is an important aspect of the bill, which deserves to be studied further as there are certainly cases where the imposition of the victim surcharge could indeed cause unnecessary hardship, while removing the ability of the judiciary to apply discretion is a troubling trend we are seeing across all the justice bills that the government has introduced.

Although judges' discretionary powers have been removed in terms of waiving the surcharge, under this bill as it is currently proposed judges would retain the discretionary power to increase the victim surcharge if they believe that circumstances so warrant and that the offender is able to pay. Therefore, on one hand, the bill removes the discretionary power of judges, while keeping some discretionary powers intact.

From my perspective, maintaining the discretionary power of the judiciary under both circumstances would seem to make sense as indeed there are many extenuating circumstances in which forcing an offender to pay the surcharge would have an unnecessarily harsh effect. When I mention this, I am particularly concerned about offenders who have a clear history of mental illness and may be unable to pay that surcharge. This is one aspect of the bill that has raised alarm bells for important organizations, like the Elizabeth Fry Society and the John Howard Society. This underscores the need for more intensive study of the component when the bill reaches the justice committee.

One positive aspect of the bill, which seems to offer respite for individuals as mentioned above, is the inclusion of a mechanism that allows offenders who are unable to pay the surcharge the opportunity to participate in a provincial fine option program, where these programs are in place. They allow offenders to pay their fines by earning work credits in the province or territory where the crime was committed. Ensuring that these programs are in place in all 13 jurisdictions across Canada seems necessary to ensure that it is possible to apply this provision equally and fairly to offenders, regardless of the province where they reside.

Another important piece of this proposal, which to my mind needs to be mentioned, is the fact that increasing the victim surcharge will have a direct impact on providing services to victims who would therefore directly benefit from increased victim surcharges. This is important to note because I have heard from victims within my community of Sudbury who have had difficulty accessing these services. An increase in the funding, which these programs receive, would certainly address some of the shortfalls that have been brought to my attention by both victims themselves and victims rights groups within my riding.

Let me sum up some of the remarks by mentioning the economic impact that crime has on communities right across our great country and how increasing the victim surcharge might act as a meaningful deterrent, particularly in cases of vandalism. According to statistics collected in 2003, crime costs Canadians around $70 billion on an annual basis. Of this, $47 billion was assumed by the victims, representing a total of 70%. We have heard some other statistics, such as 83%, and I am sure there are a few others other there, but it is still too high.

One local example of this economic impact should serve as an excellent example of why exploring the idea of increasing the surcharge is, in fact, beneficial, especially in cases involving small businesses forced to deal with senseless vandalism. Back in June in my great riding of Sudbury, the owners of Azian Cuisine were forced to pay out over $6,000 in cleanup costs, for a second time, to remove targeted graffiti, which has become a major problem for business owners across my riding.

Although increasing the victim surcharge would not directly address targeted acts of vandalism like this, if perpetrators of these crimes were aware that there was a mandatory monetary penalty in addition to any fines waiting for them, it may act as a deterrent against committing these acts in the future. It is also my hope that with increased moneys for victim programs, the provinces may in fact establish programs to assist small business owners, like those at Azian Cuisine in Sudbury, who are forced to deal with repeated acts of vandalism against their businesses.

Let me be clear. The NDP staunchly supports victims of crime and their families and respects the recommendations of the Ombudsman for Victims of Crime, and any assertions otherwise are utterly false.

With that being said, we continue to have concerns about this bill, which merits further study, discussion and witness testimony in committee, particularly regarding the decreased discretionary powers of judges to decide if paying a surcharge would cause undue hardship. We in the NDP believe in the importance of the discretionary powers of judges, and the autonomy of judges is restricted within this bill.

While the withdrawal of the undue hardship clause and the provisions seeking to double the surcharge amount could be problematic for low-income offenders, this is offset by the fact that this bill provides people with the option of paying their fines by working for the provincial fine option program. I support having this balance studied further in committee hearings in order to ensure that it is indeed appropriate, especially for provinces and territories where this program is not yet in place.

With that, I look forward to questions.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, as I indicated earlier, I was somewhat surprised at what seems to be, in principle, the support that the official opposition has decided to give this particular bill. My question is in regard to the whole issue of sustainable funding for victims. This is something that we, within the Liberal Party, are very strong advocates for. We understand and appreciate the importance of victim programs. We would have liked to see the government being more proactive in trying to build a stronger system throughout Canada that has a little more consistency within the different provinces. Many provinces have different types of services, and some of those services would benefit if they were more universally applied across the country.

My questions for the member are, first, to what degree does he believe that the Government of Canada itself has an obligation through, for example, general revenues to make a commitment to support victims of crime. Second, does he believe that there needs to be more leadership in Ottawa in working with different levels of government to try to find out where we can look for best practices in providing services for victims? I like to think that we all want to do what we can to support victims.

[Glenn Thibeault, NDP, Sudbury, ON]

Mr. Speaker, there was a lot of talk initially about what the Liberals were or were not supporting. They had 13 years to make sure that victims actually had services and they did not do anything. Now we have a government that is not doing as much as we would like to see on this side of the House. Therefore, New Democrats are preparing for 2015, when we become government, to actually stand up for victims.

That being said, one of the things he spoke about in his points was what we are going to see from the provinces. Those are concerns that we in the NDP have. We have some concerns that the government did not consult with the provinces and territories. That is something we would like to see, so we can question the government at the committee level to find out how much consultation was done with the provinces and territories to ensure that they are on board with this.

[Fin Donnelly, NDP, New Westminster—Coquitlam, BC]

Mr. Speaker, while we do understand that there needs to be victim surcharges or victim redress and that we need to address these issues, we also recognize that there needs to be ample discussion with the relevant parties on what is appropriate, whether they are the provinces, the territories, the judiciary or others involved.

One of the issues that we have is with causing undue hardship on those who are least likely to be able to pay. When we look at who is in the system, who is in jails across the country, we often find it is those who either have a mental issue, an addiction or some problem, or who suffer from low income.

I am wondering if the member could comment on whether this bill addresses what I would say is the fundamental or root cause of why these people are in the system in the first place, and how we could appropriately address how to get those folks reintroduced into society in a meaningful way.

[Glenn Thibeault, NDP, Sudbury, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I agree that we need to be able to find programs and ways to ensure that those who have offended do not reoffend. I think that is one of the things that we hear from victims groups and victims all the time: “We need compensation and we would like to see offenders serve their time, but we want to ensure that they do not come back and reoffend”.

That is one of the things that we have been talking about here in the House. Right now we have taken away the discretionary powers of the judges. To be able to say that an offender can pay x amount or cannot pay x amount should be in the judge's hands. If we put undue hardship on someone who has a mental illness or who has no money, are we making it easier for them to come out and feel like they could be part of society or are we making it more difficult for them?

What we need to do is ensure that this surcharge can be applied correctly and leave that in the hands of the judges. Right now this bill is not doing that, and that is why we want to study this more at committee.

[Hélène Laverdière, NDP, Laurier—Sainte-Marie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I will be voting for this bill at second reading, because it is a bill that is worth examining in greater depth.

It is really worth examining this bill in greater depth because the basic idea seems to be a good one. The idea of doing more to help victims is a principle we can all agree on. That said, the bill as it now stands has a number of flaws, or gives rise to a number of questions. That is why I think it really calls for detailed and in-depth study in committee.

The biggest problem is perhaps that it limits judges’ power to waive the surcharge in certain cases. Unfortunately, I do not know whether the committee will be able to explore that issue thoroughly. This power is already provided in section 737. In some cases, when a judge believes it may cause undue hardship to the person or their dependants, the judge may grant an exemption to the surcharge.

There are two aspects to this problem. There is a problem that is one of principle. Once again, they are trying to stop judges from judging. A law cannot cover every specific case. That is why we have judges, and why we call them judges: because they are capable of demonstrating judgment, and in certain specific situations, of saying that it would perhaps be better to do something else. That is why we appoint the cream of our law societies and our lawyers to the bench.

Obviously, however, this government is trying, with bill after bill, to limit the powers of judges, as if this government somehow did not trust the judicial branch. So it is a fundamental problem, a problem of principle, that we are seeing in numerous cases. It is also a practical problem, because it means there are potentially people whom it would be appropriate to exempt from the surcharge, not just for them, but also for their families, their dependants.

We know the rule is that support has to be paid first and all that, but we are not always talking about support payments. We are often talking about people who live in very difficult and distressing socio-economic conditions, for whom it would present enormous problems to pay the surcharge. I will not offer a specific example. That is precisely why we have judges, to judge, and this is what they would be able to decide.

The second problem this bill raises relates to the provision that the money from the surcharge must be used by the provinces to fund services to victims of crime. Again, the basic principle seems to be a good one. I applaud the idea of helping victims of crime, but again, this idea raises a problem we could almost call philosophical.

Last week, in my riding in Montreal, Denis Blanchette was killed. I went to the vigil and to Mr. Blanchette’s funeral. Unquestionably, his close family are the primary victims. I want to take this opportunity to express my sincere condolences to them. However, there is also the entire artistic community, and the entire city of Montreal. Someone wrote on my Facebook page that one person was killed, but eight million were wounded. The victims are a very broad group. That is why we need social solidarity. But I am on a different track, one that is much more technical and specific, in this case.

The goal is to give money to victim assistance services. One of the problems is that the programs are not always at the same level in the provinces and territories. They are not uniform. How will we be able to develop a degree of synergy, or uniformity, in these services? Are they going to start telling a province that because it does not have the program they would like it to have, they are not giving it any money?

How will it work? The question may seem a little superficial, but it is particularly important in that we do not even know whether the provinces and territories have been consulted in this process. The expression that fits well here is that they are putting the cart before the horse. The first step might be to consult the provinces, to see how things can be arranged, together, and then put a system in place after that. The system should provide assurances that the money from the surcharge will truly go to victims and victims’ groups. That aspect is not very clear. An essential step has been skipped, and I hope the committee will be able to deal with that before the bill comes back to us for third reading.

There is also the issue of the lack of funding to help victims and victims' groups, which a number of my colleagues have raised today. This is one way of increasing funding, but are there others? Have the possible avenues been compared? This is the kind of thing we need to think about beforehand, rather than after the fact. There again, let us hope that the committee will do its job.

So that the committee can do its job, I will support this bill at second reading, despite all the flaws mentioned. I think it is very important to help victims. However, I cannot pass up the opportunity to say that, although it is important to help victims, it is just as important, if not more so, to prevent people from becoming victims.

This is called prevention, which requires long-term measures. But the government does not seem to understand much about long-term measures and prevention. It is prevention and education. As one of my hon. colleagues mentioned, it is also the fight against poverty, which is a major factor in the development of criminal behaviour.

It is affordable housing. When a child has an appropriate place to play or study, there is much less risk that that child will drop out or end up on the street, and the probability that the child will associate with criminal groups drops accordingly. It is health and, obviously, gun control. In fact, it is solidarity in communities, mutual support, not everyone for themselves. It is investing in people and in a healthier society.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I would ask the member a question with regard to this whole sense of co-operation.

When the parliamentary secretary stood, she talked about how in different provinces there were all sorts of different types of programs being provided. I would argue that ultimately the federal government should have a stronger role to play in trying to provide more consistency across Canada.

We might have a program in the province of Quebec that works well or a program in Manitoba that works well. We need strong leadership coming from Ottawa. If we really want to try to assist our victims of crime, then one of the things we can do in Ottawa is show strong leadership for all the provinces.

Would she not agree that would be a benefit for victims of crime?

[Hélène Laverdière, NDP, Laurier—Sainte-Marie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I personally believe that the first step is really dialogue. It really is important to sit down with the provinces, talk and discuss the various experiences, listen to what the provinces and territories have to say and listen to what civil society, which often works in this area, has to say.

True leadership—I am personally and firmly convinced—is being able to listen. Unfortunately, we are dealing with a government that is not naturally inclined to listen. Listening is not its strong point.

[Marjolaine Boutin-Sweet, NDP, Hochelaga, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I have a comment for my colleague rather than a question.

I completely agree with everything she said. I think that prevention is very important; however, it is not something that the other side of the House considers very often.

I also wanted to say that I found it very regrettable to hear the comments made earlier by a Conservative member who was twisting the words of a Liberal member out of sheer partisanship.

I completely approve of my colleague's comments.

[Hélène Laverdière, NDP, Laurier—Sainte-Marie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I share my colleague's regret about some of the comments that have been made.

In my opinion, saying that poverty is a factor that has a significant impact on crime is not an attack on people who are in more difficult socio-economic circumstances. In actual fact, it recognizes an objective and scientifically proven reality. Once again, this is not one of the current government's strong suits.

[Pierre Nantel, NDP, Longueuil—Pierre-Boucher, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to congratulate my colleague on her speech. I think she hit the nail on the head with regard to many of the precursors of the problem.

I would like to ask her how optimistic and confident she is about the democratic co-operation that will take place during the meetings of the committee that will examine this bill.

[Hélène Laverdière, NDP, Laurier—Sainte-Marie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, my dream is that we will sit down and discuss real issues to enhance the well-being of all Canadians and to help our country progress. Clearly, the things I have experienced since coming to the House of Commons do not make me very optimistic, but I am going to continue to dream.

[Fin Donnelly, NDP, New Westminster—Coquitlam, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the member talked earlier about the root causes, the reasons why some people found themselves in the system and needing assistance. This bill addresses victims' surcharges moving from 15% to 30%. It looks at increasing funding to deal with programs that would assist people who find themselves incarcerated.

A comment was made about low income. When we look at the facts across the country and who is in our jails, we will find people of that economic status are overrepresented. About 70% or more of the individuals in jail are either low income or have some kind of addiction, whether it is a mental health problem or substance abuse. That means they need to be addressed.

Could my hon. colleague comment on whether this bill addresses that need?

[Hélène Laverdière, NDP, Laurier—Sainte-Marie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the bill does not address that issue at all. In fact, the government does not address the issue at all. The main point is that it is good to help victims or groups of victims, but the first thing we should do is prevent crime, prevent there being victims to begin with.

We talk about socio-economic factors. I was also talking about housing. I visited social housing in my riding this summer. The kids do not have a playground, so what do they do? They end up on the street and with nothing to do, they think of getting into mischief. A lot of us could have fallen into that category if we had been in the same situation.

Those are the root causes and they are multiple and they are complex. They are not easy to deal with but it has to be done.

[Niki Ashton, NDP, Churchill, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with my colleague from Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot.

Along with my colleagues, many of us have said that we encourage this bill to be the source of great discussion and deliberation at committee. Therefore, our side of the House will ensure it goes in that direction. However, we have pointed to some very serious issues that are in the bill but are also recurring issues in the bills the government has put forward with respect to crime.

One of those main issues we have is the way the bill could allow for decreased discretionary power on the part of our judges. We know that judges do critical work, not only as part of our justice system but really as part of our society. Their side of work is one of those key pillars on which Canadian society and Canadian democracy are built. Unfortunately, that is something the Conservative government has tried to chip away at, the work that judges do, that important part around discretionary power that they have bestowed upon them and use with great care and sensitivity day in and day out.

The other piece we do not support is the increased pressure, the hardship that this legislation would put on so many victims, people who have already fallen through the cracks of society, who are among the poorest of the poor, who in so many cases have lived a life of poverty and immense challenge financially. The bill would do nothing to address that reality which so many people face in the justice system.

I also want to speak to the extent to which this and so much legislation put forward by the government when it comes to crime really points to the hypocrisy in its tough on crime agenda. Where we can see that best is in a constituency like the one I have the honour of representing. Just last week, the chief and council of Lac Brochet along with the Manitoba Keewatinowi Okimakanak and the Denesuline First Nation in northern Manitoba came together and talked about the atrocious conditions people who were arrested in their community faced simply because the community had nowhere to put them. This is because the RCMP has closed the one holding cell that exists in the community and will only allow it to open if somebody with proper training can manage it.

The kicker is that there used to be a program funded by the federal government to ensure that people from Lac Brochet and northern communities could have the training to police their communities and to ensure that people who were apprehended would be in a safe space. The federal government has cut that funding. This program no longer exists for training and the end result is people have been taken to the arena of the community, have been chained to a door on the floor of that arena and treated with the kind of ignorance and offence that we cannot imagine in Canada. That is because this community has said it wants to ensure the public safety of individuals, it wants to ensure these people are away in a place where they will not harm anybody and themselves and the federal government is nowhere at the table to ensure they have a dignified way of doing so. Unfortunately, the government has turned around and absolved itself from any responsibility when that is not the case.

We are dealing with yet another bill where the government is claiming to want to do something to ensure our communities are safer and that victims are protected, but when communities in northern Canada want to do that very same thing, they do not have the support from the federal government to do so.

On the topic of prevention, the bill talks about fining criminals, but where is the money to make sure we do not have criminals to deal with or to reduce the number of people who end up falling through the cracks into a life of crime or on the other side of the tracks?

In communities like those I represent, and I will speak to The Pas, gang prevention funding has come to an end. A very successful program in the inner city run by The Pas Family Resource Centre has been told that its funding will not be renewed and it has no ability to service children above six years old to prevent them from joining a gang.

Is this the response that the federal government truly wants to show to a community that has struggled with gang violence in recent years? Are we going to wait for a shooting to happen, a death or another young person to be thrown into jail before that gang prevention money comes back to that organization?

Why is the federal government shutting out organizations like The Pas Family Resource Centre? Why is the federal government saying no to communities like Lac Brochet that want to prevent more criminals coming into our system? Why is the federal government not working especially with aboriginal communities that are often the source of so many people falling through the cracks, especially in northern Canada, and ending up in our correctional system?

If only that kind of passion for eliminating crime was infused into prevention, rehabilitation and supporting safer communities, then we could see a genuine approach to dealing with crime. Rather, there are half-baked bills like the one we have here and the rhetoric we see in the media where leaders in aboriginal communities have said that public safety and victims' rights are the very things they are concerned about, but when it is about partnering with the federal government, it is nowhere to be found.

I also want to point out that when we are looking ahead to try to truly deal with preventing and cutting down crime in our country we are in the best position to do that by looking at the evidence, listening to the advocate organizations that are on the ground and to the victim organizations that are on the front line, such as Elizabeth Fry or the John Howard Society. We should be listening to correctional workers who are increasingly concerned about what legislation like Bill C-10 would mean. We should be listening to the concerns of people who work with victims and to what the people within the justice system are saying.

Let us follow their lead. Let us follow the evidence-based research that indicates prevention and rehabilitation are the way to go. That is where the investments need to be made in order to truly cut down and eliminate crime and, at the end of the day, make our communities safer.

[Pierre Jacob, NDP, Brome—Missisquoi, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask my colleague a question.

I want to begin by saying that I agree with supporting this bill at second reading so that the committee can improve it. It could certainly use a lot of improving. I also want to say that the NDP recognizes the importance of supporting judges' discretionary powers. The NDP also supports victims of crime and their families. However, I also agree with my colleague when she says that true prevention means improving quality of life within the social fabric of the community involved.

I would like to ask my esteemed colleague how we can improve quality of life in communities instead of imposing surcharges. What impact would that have on prevention and on victims? True prevention means preventing people from becoming victims.

[Niki Ashton, NDP, Churchill, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his question.

Clearly, investing in prevention will result in lower crime rates. Research proves that. We know that when the government stops investing in programs for youth, in education and in opportunities for young people, for example, the crime rate goes up. Unfortunately, this government keeps talking about its crime reduction strategy, but its actions belie that message. Those are the outcomes Canadians want but are not getting from this government.

[Robert Sopuck, Conservative, Dauphin—Swan River—Marquette, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I listened with jaw-dropping amazement to the comments from the member for Churchill as she blamed the federal government for every ill in Manitoba. I hate to break it to her, but there is an NDP government in Manitoba right now that is responsible for the high crime rate that is in Manitoba right now. Winnipeg is the violent crime capital of Canada. If the NDP government cared about victims, cared about citizens, it would do something about it. The NDP government of Manitoba is implementing the policies that the gang across the way would want to implement. We have seen what the results are.

I would like her to comment on the Manitoba government, a government with which she has some familiarity. I would like her to comment on the abysmal failure of the NDP policies in Manitoba in curbing and controlling violent crime.

[Niki Ashton, NDP, Churchill, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I might be bursting the member's balloon but the reality is that first nations are under federal jurisdiction, so when I talk about Lac Brochet, it is actually the federal government that is not at the table to help the community.

Let us be clear about the level of government that he is a part of and the fact that it is nowhere to be seen when it comes to working with first nations to ensure their communities are safer. Actually, he might know from the first nations he represents, who face very similar challenges to the ones I represent, that unfortunately the federal government is not part of the solution. What we are seeing as a result of legislation from his government is an expected increased incarceration rate for the aboriginal people he represents and I represent, something that is unacceptable in a country like Canada in the year 2012.

[Christine Moore, NDP, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to know what my colleague thinks. When a surcharge is imposed without taking into account the circumstances a judge could invoke in deciding to waive it, and when there are children involved, are those children not being victimized by a system that does not allow judges any discretion?

[Niki Ashton, NDP, Churchill, MB]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague has raised an excellent point. This brings us to one of the NDP's major concerns, the attack on judicial discretion. It is an attack against the very essence of the legal system and against the respect Canadians must have for the very foundation of our democratic system.

It is the Conservatives' preferred target and we are against this attack.

[Marie-Claude Morin, NDP, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to this bill, which we support at second reading. Obviously, we cannot be against virtue or against the victims, even though the members opposite claim that we are. We care about communities, Canadians and victims. We also care about the families of victims, and the families of criminals, which are sometimes blameless.

We will support this bill at second reading so that it can be studied in committee and because we still have questions about it. Some changes are required in order for it to be acceptable.

I will provide some context. First, Bill C-37 would amend provisions of the Criminal Code and double the amount of the surcharge. The surcharge would total 30% of any fine that is imposed on the offender, or $100 if no fine is imposed. The fine would be $100 for offences punishable by summary conviction and $200 for offences punishable by indictment.

Is that really a solution for the victims? I am not absolutely sure about that. Instead of taxing people even more, other things could be done. In addition, this bill eliminates the court's ability to waive the surcharge if the offender proves that it would create hardship for himself or his family. It is worrisome because the power of judges is being eroded. Judges are there to judge; what more can I say.

Rulings will always be given on a case-by-case basis, and that is why we have judges. As my colleague from Laurier—Sainte-Marie stated, judges are the elite of our lawyers. They are brilliant and capable of making appropriate rulings, and we can trust them. If all their powers are taken away, as the government seems to enjoy doing, then it is difficult for them to do good work in specific situations. I am especially worried about this. We are taking away judges' powers and we are not proceeding on a case-by-case basis.

I would like to list a few stakeholders that share our position. The Elizabeth Fry Societies are concerned about the impact of additional fines on the disadvantaged aboriginals who do not have the means to pay. Once again, it will be the criminal's family that will become a victim. I side with society and do not think that we want to make the children, brothers and sisters, and parents of the criminals pay. This is no way to do things. It is something that can happen, but it is not what we want. The government should not aggravate things.

The John Howard Society does not necessarily have a problem with the fines, but it is afraid that, under this system, the fines will sometimes be disproportionate to the crimes. We are dealing here with a wide range of crimes. It would be worthwhile to move ahead more gradually.

The Office of the Federal Ombudsman for Victims of Crime has long fought for better funding of services for victims of crime. Is this how we are going to do it? I am not convinced.

I have a few interesting statistics. In 2003, crime cost about $70 billion. That is a big number. Victims took about $47 billion of that, or 70%.

That is another major problem. A 2004 study estimated the pain and suffering of victims at $36 billion—another major problem.

A significant number of eligible victims do not claim compensation, often because they do not even know that they are entitled to it. We are talking about costs and amounts, but victims are not necessarily well compensated. Is it really by going after small amounts here and there that we will be able to adequately compensate those individuals?

I have a hard time putting myself in the shoes of a victim, because I have never been a victim of crime or anything else. I am really lucky, knock on wood. I hope that this does not happen to me or my family. I do not think that an amount of money would fix things. It is more about getting help. Money can sometimes help in seeking assistance, but it would be better if we came up with a more helpful measure for victims.

I have a few quick questions for the government. Perhaps I might get an answer. Bill C-37 overlaps with another private member's bill, Bill C-350, which also seeks to increase offenders' accountability. How will those bills overlap? Will they complement each other? I do not know. I am just wondering.

With the removal of the discretionary power of judges to waive the surcharge, does this measure not become excessively punitive in some cases? I am referring to low-income offenders or people with mental health problems. We know those people exist. I am not saying this to minimize the suffering of victims, but we have to think about offenders with mental health problems.

I am wondering once again how we will ensure that the money really goes to victims' groups that really need it. I also feel that the government should consult with organizations working with victims on the ground. I think that would be very useful. In my riding, for instance, we have the sexual assault centre CAVAS that does an outstanding job with little money. The hon. members opposite must surely have similar organizations in their ridings. It might be worthwhile to go talk to those groups that work on the ground in our communities to see how we can fix all this.

In conclusion, I would like to come back to what my colleague from Laurier—Sainte-Marie was saying earlier. When we talk about crime, we need to think about prevention, first and foremost, which comes before punishment. Education and fighting poverty are also important. Wealthier societies have less crime. Wealth does not solve all problems, but it can help considerably. I would be remiss if I did not mention affordable housing, since that is an important issue for me. When people have suitable housing and can eat three meals a day, that helps reduce crime rates significantly. So why not make that our first priority?

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

Mr. Speaker, I was with the RCMP for just over 20 years. Part of the member's statement was that paying the surcharge may cause undue harm to the accused or the family of the accused. I am a little taken aback by that. The way I look at it is that if offenders do not want to pay the victim surcharge, maybe they should not commit crimes. That might be a fairly simple way of dealing with this.

Is the member saying that those convicted of crimes should not be accountable to the victims of crime with a victim surcharge?

[Marie-Claude Morin, NDP, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have the opportunity to answer this question, because I really do not appreciate it when people try to put words in my mouth.

No, I do not believe that criminals have absolutely no accountability to victims. That is not at all what I said. I simply said that perhaps there are other solutions to consider before imposing a surcharge on offenders and taking away judges' discretionary powers. That is what I said. I want to make this clear to the member.

I simply cannot agree with a philosophy that tends to adversely affect offenders' families, as the gentleman mentioned, or with a philosophy that makes someone else pay for their parents', their brother's or sister's mistakes. This only makes victims out of the family members of people who commit crimes or break the law. They are the ones who end up paying, not the criminals themselves.

[Denis Blanchette, NDP, Louis-Hébert, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for her speech.

All afternoon, I have listened to debates and questions. I am asking myself a question about this bill. Does this bill really help victims? Does it not, rather, seek to take a little more revenge on those who have committed crimes?

My question for my colleague is this. Will this bill really help victims or is there not a better way to help them?

[Marie-Claude Morin, NDP, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

Mr. Speaker, that is a very interesting question. If this bill helps victims, then that is a good thing. However, in my opinion, this is not the ultimate solution. This bill might create a small budgetary surplus for some victims organizations, but I do not think that anything special can be done for victims with $100.

In my opinion, the government is using victims to seek revenge on offenders and criminals. Yet, in the end, victims do not have much to gain.

I cannot emphasize this enough: we need to fight poverty; we need to focus on prevention; we need to provide housing for the homeless; we need to make sure that people have enough to eat. I believe that these types of solutions are the ones that will really help to combat crime.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, the Conservative member made a comment giving the impression that this victim surcharge could prevent crimes from happening.

Is the member as convinced as I am that having a victim surcharge will not actually prevent crimes from happening? I do not think we will have criminals worrying that they will need to pay an extra surcharge if they commit a crime.

With very little imagination we could come up with a lot of programs that would be effective in preventing crimes from taking place but this is not one of them. Is that a fair assessment?

[Marie-Claude Morin, NDP, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am not in the shoes of an offender, but I think that someone who commits mischief is not even thinking about the likelihood of being fined in the future. I do not think that a $100 fine is going to dissuade anyone from committing any type of crime.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

Before I give the floor to the member for Abitibi—Témiscamingue, I will remind her that the period for government orders will end around 6:30 p.m. and I will have to interrupt her at that time.

The hon. member for Abitibi—Témiscamingue.

[Christine Moore, NDP, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to be able to speak to this bill. I will share my time with the member for Laval—Les Îles tomorrow, unfortunately.

Over the course of the debates, I have had some questions about some of the answers I have received. The first question has to do with victim fine surcharges. I asked whether there were any adjustments in relation to income. For the same crime, does someone with a much higher income pay a much higher surcharge? The answer was that it was possible, but not mandatory. That is a general question I have about the surcharge.

Take, for example, someone who caused an accident while driving drunk. Say that he injured someone; therefore, there would be victims of this crime. If the driver earns a seven-figure income, compared to someone who struggles to earn an income of more than four figures, we would have to explore the possibilities in committee. We must be logical. If we want to hold offenders accountable, then we must ensure that the punishments are consistent. The surcharge that someone with a lower income pays must not be the equivalent of the cost of a pack of gum for someone with a higher income. The committee must examine that, and I hope that people will be able to delve into that aspect a little deeper.

I also have questions about discretionary powers for judges. As I explained, I am a little concerned about that. For example, a judge could use his discretionary power to say that it would cause harm, that it is obvious that the person does not have money and that if he has to pay a surcharge, it would cause harm. The judge could say that. That it would not cause harm to the individual in question, but to his children. The judge knows that if he imposes this surcharge, the person would not be able to pay it or would be forced to go without, and in the end, it might be the children who would not eat that week. Judges have the ability to reflect and to question. I do not think they do it as a rule. They can do so in situations where it is very much appropriate. I am concerned about this discretionary power being eliminated.

We need to be logical about this. If the court imposes a $100 surcharge and it costs $350 to have the bailiff or someone else collect that money, that is a $250 loss. Could that $250 not be given directly to victims? That would be much simpler. More money would go to victims instead of having the court pay $350 to collect $100. In the end, victims could end up with nothing.

That is another aspect the committee will have to take a very close look at to ensure that the system is efficient. It would not make sense to remove judges' discretionary power while leaving victims empty-handed.

I would like to raise one final point about this bill. The Elizabeth Fry Society has expressed concerns about the impact of surcharges on poor aboriginals who cannot pay. I am a nurse, and I often work with these people. I spend a lot of time in my communities. In many cases, the children of adults offenders will bear the brunt of these surcharges. They may not eat that week. I would like the committee members to take some time to think about that.

Mr. Speaker, thank you for giving me the opportunity to express these concerns. I hope that the committee will discuss them.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

The hon. member for Abitibi—Témiscamingue will have five minutes to complete her speech and five minutes for questions and comments when the House resumes debate on this motion.

The House resumed from September 17 consideration of the motion that Bill C-37, An Act to amend the Criminal Code, be read the second time and referred to a committee, and of the motion that this question be now put.

[François Pilon, NDP, Laval—Les Îles, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise in the House today, first of all, to wish all members from all political parties a warm welcome back for the fall 2012 session.

More importantly, I rise here today to speak to Bill C-37, An Act to amend the Criminal Code. This bill proposes changes to the provisions of section 737 of the Criminal Code on victim surcharges. The change would double the amount offenders must pay when they receive their sentence, while, more importantly, making the surcharge mandatory for all offenders.

First of all, it is important to explain exactly what a victim surcharge is. It is an additional sanction imposed when an offender who has been found guilty is sentenced. The surcharge is collected and kept by provincial and territorial governments and serves to fund programs and services for victims of crime in the province or territory where the crime was committed.

Bill C-37 proposes to double the amount of the victim surcharge from 15% to 30% of any fine imposed on the offender. The amount would also double for offenders who are not fined. Therefore, the surcharge for an offence punishable by summary conviction would increase from $50 to $100, and for an offence punishable by indictment, from $100 to $200.

Bill C-37 also eliminates the possibility of having a court waive the surcharge if the offender proves that it causes, or would cause, undue hardship. However, judges would have the option, or the discretion, to order the payment of a higher surcharge if they believed it was warranted under the circumstances and if the offender had the means to pay the victim surcharge.

In cases where offenders are unable to pay the surcharge, under Bill C-37 they may be able to participate in a provincial fine option program, where such programs exist.

This type of program would allow offenders to pay off their fines by earning credits for work done in the province or territory where the criminal offence was committed. That is a summary of Bill C-37.

Now, what is the NDP position on this bill? As you certainly are aware, the NDP supported several of the recommendations of the Federal Ombudsman for Victims of Crime, especially the recommendation that gave rise to Bill C-37. We obviously support better funding for programs for victims of crime.

However, we have some reservations. Some minor changes are needed to improve this bill. That is why we are supporting the bill in order to be able to discuss these amendments in committee.

What are these changes? We mainly have concerns about reducing the discretion of judges to the point that they would no longer be able to decide if payment of a victim surcharge would constitute undue hardship. We are strong supporters of the discretion of the Canadian judiciary and we believe that their autonomy is being curtailed by this bill.

The other major reservation concerns the fine option program mentioned earlier in my speech. Eliminating the paragraph on “undue hardship” and introducing a provision to double the amount of the surcharge will inevitably result in more offenders using the program in question.

There are no objections to this in the provinces where this type of program exists. However, in the provinces where this type of program does not exist, this would create a much more complicated situation. There would be an imbalance that would prevent the provisions of the bill from being equal across the country.

We think that we should discuss solutions, programs and appropriate measures in committee to create some uniformity, which would make this bill applicable with the same measures, same justifications and, in particular, same rules across the country, instead of having to proceed on a case by case basis.

A number of Canadian organizations agree with us and we believe that hearing from them in committee or, at the very least, bringing their opinions into the debate, would only benefit the bill. Among the organizations that have expressed concerns is the Elizabeth Fry Society, which is concerned about the effect of additional surcharges on low-income Aboriginals, who will certainly not have the means to pay them. There is also the John Howard Society, which is not bothered by the monetary penalties, but which is concerned that with this system, the surcharges will be disproportionate to the crimes committed.

In conclusion, we will support this bill at second reading, so that it can be examined more carefully in committee. However, Bill C-37 needs a number of adjustments in order to be complete. A number of people have questions, so we urge our colleagues to act in good faith when the bill gets to committee and, especially, for once, to listen to Canadians.

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

Mr. Speaker, I listened intently to the discussion on Bill C-37. Having worked in probation and parole services for about 13 years, I recognize the impact this has on those people with low incomes.

By removing the discretionary powers of the judges, could my colleague enlighten me on the concerns this would create with respect to low-income people, especially the fact that a majority of first nations people would actually be impacted by this as well? Could my colleague can enlighten me as to the impact this would have on those who have very little money to begin with?

[François Pilon, NDP, Laval—Les Îles, QC]

Mr. Speaker, if we take away the discretionary power of judges, surely the most disadvantaged will be the hardest hit, especially aboriginals because they very often do not have programs in their communities. In addition to having to pay the surcharge, which the judge cannot reduce, they will not be able to do community work. In the end, they will be the ones to pay the price. Where will they find the money? I have no idea.

[Raymond Côté, NDP, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the hon. member for Laval—Les Îles for his speech.

I am reminded of a conversation I had with a correctional officer. He interacted with inmates at a detention centre and said that they too have a future. When a surcharge is imposed on a convicted individual and that person's personal situation is not taken into account, are we not extinguishing hope? I would like to hear what my colleague has to say about that.

[François Pilon, NDP, Laval—Les Îles, QC]

Mr. Speaker, as I said before, for the individuals who must pay a fine when they do not have the means, imposing a surcharge is almost like criminalizing them, in some situations. Where will they find the money? We know very well that some of them will have to turn to petty theft to pay the fine.

[Anne Minh-Thu Quach, NDP, Beauharnois—Salaberry, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to congratulate my colleague.

I would like to ask him why it would be important to send this bill to committee to study the fact that not every province or territory necessarily has community work programs.

Why is it important to have standardized programs in this specific case?

[François Pilon, NDP, Laval—Les Îles, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for Beauharnois—Salaberry for her question.

In committee, territories or provinces where these programs do not exist could be discussed. The federal government could perhaps create the programs or give the provinces and territories money to create these programs. However, it would be up to them to decide how to proceed. What is important is that this be standardized across Canada.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, it is with pleasure that I rise to speak to Bill C-37. It is a bill that we in the Liberal Party are greatly concerned about, and we are a bit surprised by the amount of support the New Democratic Party has decided to give it.

It was interesting listening to the debates and to some of the questions and answers yesterday. I believe it is a fairly simple message that the government is trying to communicate with this particular bill, as it has done with other justice-type bills, and that is that the government wants to start getting tough on crime. It is a message that the government consistently states.

The first thing that comes to my mind is that just because the government said it does not necessarily make it true, and just because it is passing the type of legislation that it is passing, does not necessarily mean that our streets are going to be safer at the end of the day.

I think that if the Prime Minister really wants to get a sense of how the population feels about the issue of crime and safety, he would be best advised to start meeting and talking to people, maybe attend an actual town hall meeting. He should go out to some of our larger cities and smaller communities and get a sense of what people are thinking about in regard to crime.

I would like to make reference to the people I represent, the people of Winnipeg North. Crime is a very serious issue. My constituents want to feel safe in their communities. I would argue that they have a right to feel safe in their communities. I love my city. It is a great place to live, and I would recommend that all people visit, maybe spend a little bit and enjoy the beautiful city of Winnipeg. Having said that, there is a significant crime rate there. It is very real. It is tangible.

What the people I represent want to see is a government that is more inclined to prevent crime from happening. I do not believe the government is doing a good job on this. At the end of the day, there are initiatives that the government could take that would have a very real and tangible impact in terms of preventing crime.

Interestingly, the member for Kootenay—Columbia, in British Columbia, posed a question yesterday. I actually printed out the question. I just want to read a small part of it because it is so relevant to what I am trying to highlight here. The member stated:

The way I look at it is that if offenders do not want to pay the victim surcharge, maybe they should not commit crimes.

Even though I would ultimately argue that one of the biggest priorities of my constituents is to get the government to prevent crimes from taking place, I can assure everyone inside this Chamber that increasing a surcharge is not going to prevent any crimes from taking place. Whether it is in a remote area or an urban centre, it is not going to reduce the crime rate.

Anyone who tries to imply that is just wrong. No one is going to think, “If I have to pay x number of dollars more because of a surcharge the court is going to give me, I am not going to commit that crime”. I do not believe that would happen. It is not going to address that particular issue.

That is what this bill is all about, increasing the surcharge for individuals who commit a crime. There is nothing new about that. This is something that has been talked about. Legislation was brought in. I believe it was in the late 80s, possibly the early 90s, when it was decided that we should have some sort of surcharge or a financial penalty for those individuals who commit crime. It was the Chrétien government that went as far as to say it should be applied to individuals who commit crimes, but we have to enable a judge with the judicial discretion as to whether or not to apply the surcharge. That makes a whole lot of sense to me.

Not everyone is in the same position. Not everyone is able to facilitate the payment of a surcharge, and quite often it works at odds. I talked to a constituent yesterday about this particular bill, and what I was thinking of right offhand was someone who commits an illegal act in order to provide food on the table. I have had presentations on this. Many individuals are involved in the sex trade not because there is a desire to be there or a desire to feed their drug abuse and so forth, but because it is a source of income. Individuals who find themselves in that position and are ultimately fined are, at the end of the day, going to have to pay more for the food on their table.

Maybe there are other ways, such as social services, that we could be assisting people, but unfortunately that is not happening. Certain individuals within our communities do not have the luxury that many of us have in terms of disposable income in order to be able to pay the type of fines that might be levied. If the individuals do not pay the fine, they could end up being put in jail as a direct result. I would suggest that is not in society's best interest. Ultimately one could argue that there is always a way in which they could deal with it through working. Manitoba has the fine option program. Under the fine option program if an individual cannot pay a fine, there are certain places to go and work where minimum wage is paid in order to pay the fine. Not all jurisdictions have similar programs so that might not necessarily be an option for everyone.

The point is that the current system provides our judges with the opportunity to make an evaluation if someone who has committed a crime is able to convince the court that he or she is not in a position to pay the fine. That should suffice in this situation. It is not in the best interests of the public to assume that our judges do not know what they are doing when it comes to using the waiver they have in legislation. That waiver enables them to say to someone convicted of a crime that given their hardship or their circumstances there will be no surcharge. A judge has the expertise to make a good judgment on that issue. If the government lacks confidence in our judges then maybe it should be having discussions with ministers of justice across Canada on that particular issue. Nothing prevents the Crown from being able to raise the issue.

The government had other options as opposed to bringing in this particular legislation, taking the responsibility away from a judge and just arbitrarily making the decision to dramatically increase the surcharge on crimes or fines.

Ultimately the government would say that the reason for this legislation is to support victims. I am exceptionally sympathetic and I like to think that all my caucus colleagues understand and appreciate the need to support victims of crime in all of our communities. That issue does need to be addressed.

However, I do not believe that we should be totally reliant on a charge that is given to individuals who commit crimes to finance the programs necessary to assist victims of crime. There is a responsibility of government to be at the table through general revenues and more, in terms of supporting victims of crime. There are many different ways in which we can do that.

To deepen the reliance on a judge to penalize individuals, who may not be able to pay anyway, is not the best way to finance the programs that should be put in place to support victims of crime. Yes, it could supplement it. I do not know the percentages, but there is absolutely nothing wrong with surcharges supplementing programs. I am quite comfortable with that.

What I am not comfortable with is when the government gives the message that it is sympathetic to victims, but demonstrates that sympathy by taking away the responsibility of judges to use their discretion on whether or not there is a hardship case, and applying the surcharge to everyone. I do believe there could be circumstances that would justify a waiving and it would be inappropriate for the government to take that away. I believe that we have more confidence in the judicial system than the government does. I also believe that the government does have a role to play in standing up for the victims of crime, and there are different ways in which we can support that.

Over the years I have met with hundreds of individuals who have shared their stories with me as victims of crime. I myself have had the unfortunate incident of my home being broken into and property stolen. I felt that there was little support, for example, to provide information, and in many ways, that is what it is.

If someone breaks into my or my neighbour's house, I want to have an understanding of what happens next. Victim services could provide that type of education or a phone number that an individual could call if their home was broken into or there was an incident at their workplace or if they witnessed something and allegations were made. There is a wide variety of incidents and I have only mentioned the less severe ones.

I was present when a good friend received the news that one of her children was murdered in cold blood. I witnessed the impact it had on her. What type of services were there? She was a victim but she was not alone. There are a number of individuals out there with horror stories. I can appreciate the need for victim services.

I believe most, if not all, members of the House of Commons would recognize the importance of victim services and would encourage all governments to provide some form of those services. It is amazing that now with the Internet, people can go, for example, to the Manitoba department of justice and can access web pages that talk all about victim services. We have made some significant strides over the years.

However, at the end of the day, we really need to work toward, and the government needs to focus more attention on, preventing crimes from taking place. The emphasis of the government should be on that. This is a bill which I question the value of bringing forward because in government it is all about priorities. What are the priorities of the government when it comes to dealing with crime in our communities? Obviously, it has put this bill as a very high priority.

When I first was elected, it was during the by-election. The Conservatives, the New Democrats and Liberals all had a wonderful opportunity to go to Winnipeg North and get a sense of the important issues. Because it was a by-election, the individual caucuses would have been aware of what was happening in Winnipeg North and in the other two areas where there were by-elections and would have known that the number one issue was crime and safety.

I was very honoured and privileged that the people of Winnipeg North chose me, but I went right from the by-election into the chamber. One of the first things I raised was the government's cutback on gang initiatives, on alternatives to gang lives, on assisting refugees and others in not becoming attached to gangs and to be more productive citizens. I know how critically important it is that we provide those types of alternatives to gang lives.

As I made reference to earlier, when I was the justice critic, we had a huge problem with automobile thefts. During 2000, 2005 and 2006, 14,000 vehicles were stolen in the province of Manitoba. For months I argued that the issue had to be dealt with. We found out that a relatively small number of individuals were causing half the problem, roughly 300 individuals. A high-risk program was developed where these individuals were monitored and as a result automobile theft decreased by half, from 14,000 down to 7,000 over a couple of years, so there were fewer victims.

This is the type of thing governments need to demonstrate more. When I asked a question of the parliamentary secretary, I suggested that she should look at the national government's important leadership role in what happened in other provinces and bring provinces together to look at which programs worked well in the different provinces and get a consensus, more like best practices, and promote and encourage those good ideas in other jurisdictions.

Ottawa has a responsibility in preventing crime. The bill will not prevent a crime from taking place. The bill is not necessary in the sense that the judge has discretionary authority. It is already mandatory. In terms of the amount of the fine, we are open to that discussion. We will wait and see what happens at committee.

[Françoise Boivin, NDP, Gatineau, QC]

Mr. Speaker, before I address the hon. member for Winnipeg North, I would like to congratulate you on your appointment as Deputy Speaker. This is twice as nice for me because I am now the justice critic, and I find myself in this position because you trained me well. I will try to do my best. We will try not to be too annoying so that your job will be as pleasant as possible when you are in the chair.

I would like to tell the hon. member for Winnipeg North that I really appreciated his speech on Bill C-37, which he delivered with deep conviction. I think we share many concerns because, as he said so well, it is not all black and it is not all white. With the Conservatives, beyond the headlines and the front page, it not always clear whether the measure that has been put down on paper will actually achieve the desired objectives. We can work on all that in committee.

Bill C-37 duplicates Bill C-350, which deals mainly with the order of collection of fines. This could affect Bill C-37. I am wondering whether the members of the Liberal Party considered this issue and whether we are going to be able to work on this in the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights if the bill is passed at second reading.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I am not as familiar with the other bill, but I am somewhat familiar with the way in which fines can have a profound impact in the size of the fine and a person's ability to pay the fine. We need to ensure that in all locations in Canada, where there are opportunities to have ideally a uniform approach to dealing with fine options and work toward that. We need to look at the bigger picture of where fines might come from and allow it to be funnelled in such a way that it is dealt with at one time as much as possible. By doing it that way through the courts or whoever might be ultimately responsible for the collecting of a fine, there is a standard procedure that allows for individuals to claim they do not have the financial means or maybe they can afford to pay a certain percentage and are prepared to work out some sort of a fine option where they would go to a community facility and work perhaps for the minimum wage instead of paying 100% of a fine.

I do not know how accurate I was in answering the member's specific question, but I do appreciate the thought on fines.

[Ryan Leef, Conservative, Yukon, YT]

Mr. Speaker, there is a lot of discussion around fines and whether the offenders would have to make application or why the offender would be predetermined to have a victim fine surcharge and that it should be up to the judge's discretion.

Judges are ultimately still deciding the fines and the fine amount. Fines are an alternative to jail, which is positive and allows offenders to remain in the community to contribute to their families and social and economic development. However, the point of accountability is that when a victim fine surcharge is assessed automatically, the offender still has the option of presenting undue hardships or mitigating circumstances where a judge could consider reducing the fine option or fine generally. To be accountable for that, it is up to the offender to present that case. It should not be up to the taxpayer or the crown and it should not be up to the victims or non-government organizations to present to the judge why a victim fine surcharge should be imposed. For accountability to work, it should be up to the offenders to present a case why they cannot manage the fine or how the fine should be managed so they can pay it and not the reverse.

Would my hon. colleague not agree with that being an important part of accountability?

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, in good part, that is in fact the way it works currently. If a criminal is told he or she will not go to jail but will have to pay off a $2,500 fine and the criminal can afford to do it, which many individuals would not be in a financial position to do, the judge has the discretion today to take that into consideration. If a person does not have the ability to pay a $2,500 or $5,000 fine, as opposed to putting the individual in jail, a judge has the discretion today to make a decision in that situation. Quite often, it will still include a fine and possibly something that would allow for an individual to work it off within the community. The bottom line is a judge has the discretionary authority to make the decision.

My understanding of the legislation that the government proposes to pass will take that discretion away from a judge. At the end of the day, that goes against what the member has just advocated for. If the member reads the legislation, he might be surprised at what the legislation actually proposes to do. It is taking authority away from judges. On the basis of his question, he seemed to think that the judge should have the authority.

[Raymond Côté, NDP, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

Mr. Speaker, let me congratulate you on your appointment as Deputy Speaker of the House. That shows how highly regarded you are in this House.

I would like to thank the hon. member for his very interesting speech. Actually, he has raised a number of questions that deserve to be addressed in the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights.

Getting back to our topic, I am going to refer to the title of the bill: Increasing Offenders' Accountability for Victims Act. In response to the question from the hon. member for Yukon, my colleague just talked about the loss of discretionary power. It is a major responsibility for judges to establish the preponderance of evidence and to paint the full picture when they have to make a ruling in a criminal case.

Could the hon. member for Winnipeg North comment on this loss of responsibility for judges, which is a bit ironic when we think about the goal of the bill, based on its title?

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I have had the opportunity to sit on a quasi-judicial body, a youth justice committee. When sitting on a youth justice committee and dealing with young offenders, one thing people like to do is have some discretion with regard to what sort of a disposition they want to give. There is no doubt more of that discretion is being taken away from judges. Generally speaking, our judges are fairly well educated. They have come to the table with a great deal of experience and it is a question of whether we trust judges to make good decisions.

We should work within the system to try to effect more positive change and maybe meet with the ministers of justice across the country to hear what they have to say. With teamwork in dealing with stakeholders, they could maybe achieve some of the things they are hoping to achieve.

[Mathieu Ravignat, NDP, Pontiac, QC]

Mr. Speaker, let me first say that I will be sharing my time with the hon. member for Beauport—Limoilou.

I would also like to congratulate you. I am very pleased to see you in the Speaker's chair. It must be a very interesting experience and a great challenge for you.

It is a pleasure to stand once again to support, in part, with some reservation, Bill C-37 on behalf of my constituents.

In any modern liberal democracy, the presence of a trustworthy legal system and judiciary is essential in maintaining the confidence of the population. It is the responsibility of all elected officials to respect the constitutional separation of powers between the executive, legislative and judiciary branches of good government. A fundamental respect must be had by members of the government and opposition alike for the legal system, its procedures, customs, practices and powers. This, of course, also includes respect for its magistrates and judges.

Recently, I had, in my functions as Treasury Board critic for the official opposition, a delegation from an African country that is just developing its democratic institutions, those institutions necessary to have good government for its citizens. Though we spoke primarily about how a government can be more accountable and transparent to its citizens with regard to the budgetary processes and presenting public accounts, our more general conversation underscored to me how fragile our democratic institutions can be and how much they depend on a just, equitable and fair legal system. It also underscored to me how fundamental culture dedicated to this respect is.

My hon. colleagues will no doubt agree a basic fundamental belief and respect for the rule of law is an essential characteristic of any democratic society, but at the same time this respect from the people must be earned. The reality is that it has taken several hundred years for us to develop our system. It was not perfect from the beginning and open to all sorts of machinations, corruption and elitism. No, respect of the population must be gained and it must be preserved.

Our legal system and those labouring in it must inspire confidence to be legitimate. Sadly, the reality is that many Canadians, particularly marginalized and racialized Canadians, do not view our legal system and its enforcement as legitimate. In fact, many communities across our country have a deep suspicion about the fairness of our legal system. There is no doubt if we were to ask a Jamaican in Toronto or an aboriginal person in Winnipeg or Vancouver how legitimate our legal system is, we would get a completely different opinion from that of someone on Bay Street or in Rockliffe Park. For too many Canadians, our legal system is simply there to protect the property of the most well-to-do in our society. It is up to us to prove that things can be different. This is our burden as legislators. It is also one of the reasons that I support this bill.

Though I doubt very much the government of high finance is motivated by such questions as fundamental equality before the law, we must take the good where we can find it. On one principle at least the government and I see eye to eye. At the core of the skepticism of many Canadians toward our judiciary system, the issue of appropriate punishment of criminals and just compensation for victims is at the core.

I will take a moment to tell Canadians who are watching now and who deeply care about this issue that this issue is by no means a monopoly of the Conservative Party of Canada. For decades, the New Democratic Party has been calling for greater respect and compensation for victims of crime. We have at every occasion possible supported well crafted legislation that helps the victims of crime and their families. We have respected and continue to respect the recommendations of the Federal Ombudsman for Victims of Crime.

The reality is that this is a non-partisan issue. It is not a left or right issue. Crime is wrong, from whatever political perspective we look at it, Conservative, Social Democrat or Liberal. We may disagree on the solutions in eliminating crime but the goal of reducing crime is shared by all of us. I will offer the hand of peace therefore and give credit where credit is due. I think of many of the bills on crime that the Conservative government has come forward with, this particular bill is well justified and constructed.

This bill is based on one of the Conservatives’ election promises in the last election, that they would double the amount paid to victims and make the surcharge mandatory in all cases, with no exceptions, in order to make offenders more accountable to victims of crime, which is not necessarily a bad thing.

The Office of the Federal Ombudsman for Victims of Crime has been fighting for better funding for victim services for a long time, and the facts support those recommendations. In 2003, for example, crime cost roughly $70 billion, $47 billion of which was the cost borne by victims. That represents 70%, which is far too much.

The effect of this is to create an image of our judicial system as not doing a good job of representing the interests of law-abiding citizens. As well, a 2004 study estimated the cost of the pain and suffering experienced by victims as being in the neighbourhood of $36 billion. In addition, many eligible victims do not even seek compensation, often because they do not know they are entitled to it, and that is completely unacceptable.

So the principle of better funding for victims is based on solid facts and a fundamental principle of justice. I recognize that, and I acknowledge it. But I still have a few reservations, so I cannot give this bill my unconditional support. We have a number of questions on this side, things that my colleagues on the government side may be able to reassure us about.

One has to do with respect for federal and provincial jurisdictions—a fundamental question in my province, Quebec. Technically, the surcharge money has to be used by the provinces to fund services for victims of crime. So will victims benefit directly from the increase in victim surcharges or not? Also, are the provincial fine option programs standardized? Not to my knowledge. So how will the government ensure that the money from this surcharge will really reach the victims’ groups that need it, particularly if their funding remains the same?

A second is that Bill C-37 overlaps with another private member’s bill, Bill C-350, which is also meant to make offenders accountable to victims. How are these bills going to affect each other? That is another question.

And third, and more fundamentally, is the reservation I have about the role of judges in our system. Judges are independent for excellent reasons. It is up to them to interpret the law justly and fairly. That is their burden to carry, not ours. This government seems to have trouble understanding that principle and respecting the important role that judges play in this country.

Is Bill C-37 an example of that lack of respect? Well, by taking away judges’ discretion to waive the surcharge, does this measure not fetter the good judgment of our judges? There are many situations in which punishment should be mitigated, and there are exceptional cases, in particular low-income offenders or offenders who have mental health problems.

Nonetheless, this bill has my conditional support, because, like my party, I support victims of crime and their families. I want to help build Canadians’ confidence in our judicial system.

[The Deputy Speaker, NDP, Joe Comartin]

Before we proceed to questions and comments, we will have an intervention from the government House leader.

The House resumed consideration of the motion that Bill C-37, An Act to amend the Criminal Code, be read the second time, and of the motion that this question be now put.

[Jean-François Larose, NDP, Repentigny, QC]

Mr. Speaker, congratulations on your appointment.

My question will be simple. My colleague mentioned that, in various sectors, we often tend to just slap a number on the back of each citizen and establish an excessively rigid system. This always leads to high costs and serious consequences. So we always end up giving discretionary power to various sectors. I think that this is essential for judges, given how a court works.

I myself have worked in the correctional sector, and I have seen how important it is for each case to be handled individually and just how important the human relationship is.

Could the hon. member comment further on the fact that we need to help judges, not hinder them?

[Mathieu Ravignat, NDP, Pontiac, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for his question.

What concerns me is the, shall we say, healthy relationship that must exist between a majority government and the judicial system. We need to ask ourselves why there is a separation between politics and law in Canada. There is a very good reason for that: we do not want to manipulate the judicial system. That is not what the government is there to do.

What concerns me, and we see it almost every day with every new justice-related bill, is that the government wants to impose minimum sentences and to tell judges how to interpret the law. That goes against the very principle of an independent judicial system.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I want to build on the comments or the line of questioning that I just witnessed from my colleagues with regard to the notion that so much of the legislation dealing with the criminal justice system that we have been dealing with in this 41st Parliament has really amounted to members of Parliament interfering with the discretionary judgment of the justice system, even up to and including prescribing sentences.

I am a carpenter by trade. I do not know enough about the criminal justice system to dictate what should be the sentence for certain crimes. That is why we appoint competent and capable people to the bench, so they can make that determination free of political interference.

While I am aware that the particular bill we have before us is perhaps not in that category, could the member speak to the folly associated with and perhaps, just as a precautionary tale for subsequent legislators, the danger of that kind of tampering and interference by political influences into the judiciary and the crossover of those three pillars of how we govern ourselves as a nation?

[Mathieu Ravignat, NDP, Pontiac, QC]

Mr. Speaker, here is the danger that justice is not done because what winds up happening is that instead of the peculiarities or particularities of a case that is in front of a judge being taken into consideration, what is taken into consideration is the opinion of a government on sentencing, an opinion which, of course, is backed by certain values. The whole point of the judiciary system is objectivity and independence.

If we impose upon our legal system the values of a particular political party, a particular lobby group or a particular interest group through this type of legislation, although I am not saying that is the case for Bill C-37 but it certainly was the case for certain parts of Bill C-10, then we are on a slippery slope indeed.

[Françoise Boivin, NDP, Gatineau, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like the hon. member for Pontiac to continue because I know that there is a very high unemployment rate and a lot of poverty in his constituency. This type of provision affecting discretion often has an even worse effect on the people who are least able to pay, such as people with mental health problems, for example.

How does he see this in his constituency?

[Mathieu Ravignat, NDP, Pontiac, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the hon. member for Gatineau for her question.

For some populations, such as the aboriginals in my riding or people in precarious financial situations, we have to take the socio-economic situation of the offenders into account. That is part of the solution for reducing crime in our country.

[Raymond Côté, NDP, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am very honoured to have the opportunity to rise in the House and speak to this government bill that seeks to amend the Criminal Code and increase offenders' accountability to victims. At least, that is what it says in the title, but it is a whole different story in practical terms. I hope that we will be able to look into that in the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights, on which I have the honour of sitting.

Let us get something straight from the start: the members of the New Democratic Party and all members in the House agree wholeheartedly to fully support victims of crime and their families. The question is figuring out what resources we are going to use to do so.

A bill is a perfectly valid tool to address some needs and to deal with these types of situations. Hon. members will agree that a bill alone, without the means for being implemented, is totally inadequate. I have said the same thing about other bills. I am going to continue to defend this position, over and over again.

We may ask ourselves what the goal of this bill is. From the outset, the title is somewhat misleading. It actually takes us down a path that might get us lost. This summer I took the opportunity to visit many organizations and to make appointments and go meet with them. One of the organizations I had the honour of meeting with, as a member of the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights, is the organization Autre Avenue, which has been operating in the greater Quebec City area for a long time to provide an alternative to the systematic referral to courts that some support.

L'Autre Avenue has been around for a few decades. It provides people in a dispute, such as a neighbourhood dispute, a way to find a basis of agreement. It is a very interesting option because it makes it possible to avoid a trial that is lengthy, costly and frustrating for both parties, even if justice is served. L'Autre Avenue has explored alternative options to prosecuting young offenders arrested for petty crime, which sometimes evolves into more significant problems. Think about the phenomenon of criminal gangs.

It is very interesting to note that L'Autre Avenue tried to explore the option of restorative justice without involving a judge. It was truly fascinating to hear about the successes and, especially, to what extent this met a need of the victims of crime. The crimes could range from a shopkeeper's broken window, a destroyed flower garden or a vandalized car belonging to a private citizen.

One of the interesting, if not fascinating, things that L'Autre Avenue noted was that the victims of crime did not systematically seek financial compensation. Above all, the victims did not want to be forgotten after the judicial process was over, or to lash out at the young offender.

Many people have said that they are happy simply to get information about the case they were involved in as victims and that they absolutely do not want to seek vengeance or get money. In many cases, simple apologies may be enough. But it is still something that is very important. Which brings us to the following question: does systematically giving fines or prison sentences, in the case of crimes, truly meet the needs of victims of crime? This is far from obvious to me, despite what the government claims. No doubt it is an option that we will look at and study in committee.

I have spoken a number of times in the House on another aspect, a serious concern, and I will continue to speak up about it in committee, as well. I am talking about restricting the power of judges to assess each case. It is a very important power, which reflects both the responsibility and the role of judges in our society.

Let me come back to the title of the bill. How are we going to promote offenders' accountability if we systematically and indiscriminately apply a sentence, a measure? Can we give the judge the freedom to make offenders accountable for their actions in other ways? This question is not being answered and it will certainly have to be studied because we really can offer very worthwhile options.

Let me come back to the fascinating meetings I had last year with Correctional Service of Canada officers. A correctional officer told me straight out that inmates also had a future, just like everyone else. There comes a time at the end of their sentence, when they must be released, get support, and reintegrate into society. They must certainly not be driven into situations that are so difficult for them that they will go back to a life of crime in order to make up for their exclusion and their inability to become ordinary law-abiding citizens. It is very important to keep that hope alive without threatening it with measures that are too drastic or too systematic. Therein lies one of my major concerns.

There is a great danger not only in terms of the amendments to the Criminal Code, but in terms of all the measures taken by this government. At the end of the day, do we want Canada to appeal only to rich and healthy people, or do we want this country to be a place for all of its citizens, regardless of their conditions, their origins or limitations, be they cultural, physical or intellectual? It is really important not to give up on any of our people; in other words, it is important to make sure that we do not commit more injustices than we think we are correcting. Committing so many injustices is counterproductive. That is one of the issues with this bill that we are going to have to examine.

Mr. Speaker, thank you very much for this opportunity.

[Ryan Leef, Conservative, Yukon, YT]

Mr. Speaker, the vein of my colleague's speech would lead everybody to believe that we would impose tremendous fines on offenders.

One of the changes we should tell Canadians about is really just upping one of the fines for a summary conviction from $50 to $100, which is still less than the average speeding ticket in this country. The other fine, for an indictable offence, which is a serious offence under the Criminal Code, is up from $100 to $200. The purpose of that, based on a judge's discretion or view of the case, is to make the offenders accountable for the actions they have taken and to contribute to the victims' programs, some of which end up benefiting offenders.

That is a positive step. Those kinds of measures help offenders work toward reparation for victims, who are continually forgotten by the NDP. The NDP members talk about how poor and underprivileged offenders are, as though there is no rich offender on the planet, and how they should not be accountable for anything they have done to Canadian victims.

[Raymond Côté, NDP, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the hon. member for Yukon for his question and comments. I would certainly not want the hon. member to think that we are against the surcharge system.

In fact, it is worth debating and looking at the effects and consequences of increasing the fine. We are completely open to looking into this issue.

But all the other measures in the bill that make the surcharges systematic and that limit the discretionary power of judges raise concern. In my view, that is a major concern because it goes back to a cookie-cutter approach where the same standard is applied to many different cases, which can be dangerous.

[Romeo Saganash, NDP, Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to take this opportunity to extend my heartfelt congratulations to you on your appointment. We are all thrilled to have you in the Chair.

I would first like to congratulate the hon. member for his excellent presentation. I know that he briefly touched on the matter of eliminating judicial discretion.

I would like him to elaborate a little further on this issue, because this feature is at the very foundation of our current justice system, meaning a fair and equitable system. Could he expand on this?

[Raymond Côté, NDP, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for his question. This is, in fact, something truly fundamental. I an going to take my colleague down another path.

I remember that when we were in committee studying the bill on wearing masks during demonstrations, we very amicably recommended amendments and justified them fully. In the case of this bill, as in other cases, the Conservative government is trying to impose minimum standards to restrict not just a tradition, but an entire system that has been around for practically thousands of years. We can go back to England and King John or even to the Roman Empire to see that these social and legal practices have been passed down to us and reflect social realities. So why go against that and make judges nothing more than technicians, if we want to engage in a little caricature?

This is of particular concern to me. It amounts to giving ourselves, as members of this House, greater authority than we should have, to the detriment of the independence of our justice system, ultimately.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, may I offer my congratulations to you on your election to the chair? I want to go a step further and say I speak for the whole House, I bet. Certainly anyone who has been around here any length of time would appreciate the values you bring to this position. Without an effective speaker or deputy speakers, this place cannot function, especially for us in opposition. We need our rights upheld. Yet the government has rights too. This is not about stifling the government's right to govern. I think you are the perfect choice to make that judgment, and you certainly have my respect and the respect of this entire House as you go about this difficult job.

In the short time I have been in the House today, I have been pleasantly surprised and pleased by the lack of “we care more about victims than you do” or “you are soft on crime”. There has been none of that rhetoric, at least not while I have been here. Maybe it happened before and it may happen as soon as I sit down, but so far I have not heard it, and it is a breath of fresh air for everyone, particularly Canadians who follow this place, to see that there really are some places where we can set aside partisanship and talk about ideas, constructive ideas and even constructive criticism. When we talk about our precious criminal justice system, is there anything more important to which we could possibly bring the notion of rolling up our sleeves as MPs and doing as good a job as we possibly can collectively?

I say to my colleagues, to government members, members of the third party and the independents that, if we can hold this kind tenor through most of our debates, we will actually increase the way all of us are viewed and the way politics is viewed because right now the slippery slope of politics being seen as dirty, underhanded and not positive is not healthy. But we are the ones who set the image people watch to make those determinations.

Our caucus will be supporting the bill going to committee. We are okay with the notion of increasing the victim surcharge. It was almost 20 years ago to the day that I became a provincial minister responsible for part of the justice system, so not only do I know how important this issue is in terms of identifying the rights of victims and the need for government to step in and be there for victims to the degree that it can, but it also made me very much aware of the respect Canada has around the world in terms of its criminal justice system.

It is not perfect, and there are headlines almost every day that remind us it is not perfect. It cannot be perfect because it has human beings involved. However, given how bad some criminal justice systems are—the word “justice” ought not even be in there—we should remind ourselves and take pride in the fact that we do have one of the finest, if not the finest, most respected, effective criminal justice systems in the world. Although we see in the newspaper where it fails, we do not see the literally hundreds and thousands of cases where the system does do what it is supposed to do, fairly and even-handedly.

One of our concerns is not with the doubling of the surcharge, because we believe it is an important concept. Again, 20 years ago I was part of a provincial government, and the parliamentary secretary referenced Ontario, New Brunswick and Saskatchewan as examples of provinces that have made this an issue and have made a success of it. However, everything needs increased money because costs go up, so we are good with that. It is the notion of taking away the discretionary powers, especially since they are already there. That really troubles me and will cause many Canadians to scratch their heads and not quite get it.

I am not a lawyer, but the government is proposing that, in addition to doubling the fines, the judge would retain the discretion to increase the surcharge, if he or she believed it was warranted and that the convicted person had the means to pay it and that it was the right thing to do. The government wants to leave that in there. It is not a question of really taking away discretion, because it is leaving it in there. It is just that the judges could only use discretion to increase it. The government is taking away the discretion that now exists for a judge to say, “It's one step beyond for me, in terms of applying a fair criminal justice system, to now add this surcharge and, therefore, I am going to exercise my rights to waive that”.

I do not have the time nor do I think I need to go through all of the examples where a rational ordinary person would look at a case and say that he or she deserved a break. Therefore, we think that ought to remain.

I am glad the bill is going to committee. I would hope witnesses will be brought in and we will go through it. If the government is right that we should change it, hopefully that will become self-explanatory as the meeting unfolds. However if not, I hope the government would be willing to stay open-minded on that issue, again in the spirit of the kind of debate and discussion we are having here now.

I know my time is rapidly expiring, so with those few remarks I shall conclude.

[Jean-François Larose, NDP, Repentigny, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I used to be a correctional officer and I wore the uniform for a good portion of my life. I had the opportunity on a number of occasions to see the victims, at the prisons. I do not need to be lectured on the emotional connection we may feel towards victims.

Having said that, we have to ask ourselves some major questions. There are two types of people who go to jail: those who have a lot of money and those who do not. Very few of them have a lot of money. I find it interesting that we are saying that the way to help victims is to give them some money. It is a step in the right direction, but I take issue with interfering in how judges do their work. You have to build a relationship of trust with victims.

I am a father and I know family members who have been victims. It is good to have compensation. From my experience as a correctional officer, I know that $200, $300 or $1,000 is no punishment for those who have the means and it is no solution for those who do not. People are in jail because they do not have the money to pay the government back. That does not get us any further ahead.

I have a suggestion. Instead of buying planes that cost billions of dollars, perhaps we should take some of that money and give it to victims. One thing is certain: if we want to take a positive step forward, we have to seek constructive solutions, not introduce flawed legislation. This may be a step forward, but there are still some gaps.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I will now fall back on the good will I hope I generated when I spoke to you earlier. I would ask you to recognize that I neglected to say at the beginning of my remarks that I will be splitting my time with the member for La Pointe-de-l'Île. I hope you will accept that now.

Let me just say that one of the unsung jobs in our country is that of a correctional officer. It just as difficult a job in its own way as those of police officers and people who put on other uniforms. It is not an easy place to work. It is not necessarily a fun place to work. I just want to tip my hat to all those who perform that function for us. It is not something we want to need, but we do, and let me just say that individuals like my hon. friend and others do commendable work for Canadians every day, while we are off doing other things, to make sure that sentences are carried out and that people are treated humanely. Again, that is why our criminal justice system stands out. It is so easy to be the other way, to be hard about it, to turn our mind to say, “Well, this is a clear case so we'll just lock the door and throw away the key”. That might feel good for a few moments, but that is not where the real world is.

To directly answer the member's question, I would hope the committee could take the time to explore other options beyond just a fine because, when a punishment is based on a fine, are the rich really being fined?

[Dominic LeBlanc, Liberal, Beauséjour, NB]

Mr. Speaker, let me begin, as many others have done, by congratulating you on your appointment as Deputy Speaker. I am very proud to see you in the Chair and I congratulate you.

In his remarks, my colleague from Hamilton Centre correctly referred to the tendency the government has to remove judicial discretion in much of Canada's criminal law.

From my perspective, victim surcharges are often very appropriate, and certainly supporting victims and initiatives that support victims of crime has a lot of merit in our justice system.

Does he agree that the knee-jerk reaction of the government is always to tie judges' hands by imposing mandatory minimum sentences, pretending that somehow that is getting tough on crime, often creating unintended consequences? Does he agree that the solution in the case of a judicial sentence that appears inappropriate or does not respect the principles of sentencing is to go to the court of appeal to seek to have that sentence changed instead of consistently taking away judicial discretion, as it is seeking to do in this bill?

[The Deputy Speaker, NDP, Joe Comartin]

In 30 seconds, the member for Hamilton Centre, please.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, that is not fair. It takes me that long to clear my throat.

Let me just quickly say that I agree with almost everything my friend said. I cannot answer the last part. That really is kind of a legal procedural question as to where its next step ought to be in the system.

However, let me just say that I do think, in this particular case, it is going to be very difficult for the government to argue that discretion should be removed in one part and yet remain in a piece of legislation where it is already there.

[The Deputy Speaker, NDP, Joe Comartin]

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 Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, Housing; the hon. member for Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, Housing; the hon. member for Terrebonne—Blainville, Youth.

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

Mr. Speaker, I would also like to tell you how proud I am to see you in front of the House today and to be making my first speech with you in the chair.

I am going to begin by saying that I am very pleased to be back here today. I would like to greet all my colleagues and just say to the people in my riding how happy I was to spend so much time with them this summer in La Pointe-de-l'Île. I will be back soon, on the weekend.

And now let us talk about Bill C-37. More than ever, Canadians need a government that thinks about their interests and is focused on enacting legislation to help them. I would very much like to add my voice to that of my colleague from Gatineau and say that regardless of our ideology and the party we belong to in the House of Commons, we are here to pass bills that will improve the situation of Canadians and make our society a better one for our children and for us all.

Working together is a fundamental principle for the team in the NDP. It would be nice to have a government that wants to listen to us and try to improve its own bills. That is how a parliament operates. There has to be co-operation among the parties. I would like to say that I am very disappointed in the attitude of the government members who have sat silent in their chairs for several days while the opposition extends a hand to work with them. But they refuse, if only to ask us questions, to rise in the House to show their interest. If this bill was so important to them, why do they sit silent in their chairs, staring stone-faced at their computers and their BlackBerrys? Why are they not even looking up to listen to what I am saying to them now?

I appeal to them today to do this. I am going to make a speech now, and I would like the government members to listen to me. Perhaps they will take some of my recommendations and go back to their leader’s office with them, to look at the bill again. It would be something for us today, to see the Conservative government, which has been in power for six years now, act like a government, listen to the opposition, and learn some lessons from it.

Let us move on to Bill C-37, the Increasing Offenders’ Accountability for Victims Act, which amends the Criminal Code. This is a fine example of a bill that calls for all-party participation. As my colleague said earlier, we have one of the best judicial systems in the world; it is recognized everywhere. It is important that this be said.

It will be my pleasure to table the articles I have read in a number of American criminal law journals, where even Republican senators and governors of Texas criticized the Conservative government, saying this was not the way to go. They tried it; they adopted the same policy as the Conservatives, and it cost them millions of dollars. Their prison population exploded and they were unable to handle the situation. The government of Texas is even in the process of revising its policy to try to imitate the policy that Canada has so valued for years.

This is my first question for the government: why does it want to destroy our criminal justice system, a system that every other country would like to have?

My second question is about the principle of doubling the surcharge. The principle of imposing a surcharge on an offender to fund justice programs such as crime victim assistance programs is an honourable one, and we are not disputing it.

However, the government should perhaps take another look at some of the provisions of the bill. For example, there is an order in which an offender’s debts are paid. Support payments come first, the money paid to victims under a restitution order second, and the surcharge third.

If a judge loses the discretion to determine whether a criminal has the ability to pay, someone is going to be sent into debt. I understand that the intention is to fund programs because we do not have enough funds, but could the government not reach into the billions of dollars in tax credits it gives companies to fund these programs, instead of sending more Canadians into debt?

My second question is for the government. Are offenders, who are Canadian citizens, born in Canada, with Canadian parents, considered to be Canadians? Are they in a different class? Is the government telling us that there are two classes of citizens now, one composed of victims and the other of offenders?

Forgive me; I know the Conservatives are probably outraged at my comments, but to my mind, victims are the priority. A victim is someone we should take care of, but it is the government that should look after that. We should not be shifting the burden onto other people, who have probably been the victims of their social situation, of their poverty. We can talk about aboriginal people. In some ridings, there are no rehabilitation programs and no money to combat poverty. They do not even have police or the chance to have a system like ours.

My third question is: are we creating another class of citizens? Are there Canadians that the Conservatives are willing to recognize as Canadians, and aboriginal people, victims and criminals? The government is dividing Canada, the better to rule it, so that people are confused about its policies. That is not what we need now. We need a government that lives up to its responsibilities today and helps not just victims, but also the people who may be victims of their social situation, of their poverty.

Some of my colleagues have said how widely poverty is recognized, internationally, as a causal factor in crime. If the government wants to lower the crime rate and make our streets safe, why not tackle the problem at the source and help the people who are living in extreme poverty? That would be a good lesson to learn for the people in the government sitting in front of their computers and reading who knows what articles making who knows what claims.

We are here to work together to help Canadians. I refuse to have the government tell me that victims, offenders, aboriginal people and women are not all in the same class. We have been hearing this same thing for six years. Aboriginal people, offenders, victims, women, whoever: they are all Canadians. They all deserve to have every one of the government members stand up for their interests. We are not here to judge; we are here to solve problems and make our society a better one. We are not here to divide people and create classes; we are here to unite people.

I can see some of the government members laughing at my speech. Apparently, they think that what I am telling them today is a laughing matter. They are laughing at my speech. I can hardly wait to see if any Conservatives will have the nerve to stand up and ask me a question, if only for the purpose of showing that they care about Canadians. I would be more than happy to answer.

I will close by pointing out that what the government is trying to do is download the burden to the provinces by telling them that if they do not have a program to help offenders pay the surcharge, they should come up with one because the federal government is not about to give them any money. I am ready for questions from my colleagues, particularly my government colleagues.

[Ryan Leef, Conservative, Yukon, YT]

Mr. Speaker, the record needs to be really clear. We have heard this rhetoric now a dozen times today, that members of the Conservative Party, the government side, are not standing up and commenting in debate.

If my hon. colleague, who I have tremendous respect for, would check Hansard, she will see that I spoke for 20 minutes yesterday and have been up multiple times today, as have other members of the party. Their rhetoric just needs to end. We are tired of hearing it. It does not serve any purpose.

What we have heard from members on the opposition side every time they lead debate is 5 to 10 minutes of discussion about lack of debate, and parliamentary process discussions and lessons on how to debate properly. They attacked a Liberal government of years past for its inaction. They have completely dodged the issue. We have had members of the opposition not even answer questions that have been asked.

I would urge the opposition members when they engage in debate to actually use good, common sense and debate the topic at hand and not spin this into some kind of parliamentary lesson or refuse to answer the questions. It is no wonder we are not engaging in fruitful debate; it is because they are not answering the questions. They have not done so at all today.

The opposition members are the ones pretending they have the high ground here and being holier than thou every time they get up to speak. Quite frankly, on behalf of all Conservatives, we are tired of it and I think most Canadians are tired of it too. I thank the opposition members for wasting everyone's time. We appreciate it.

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

Mr. Speaker, I will repeat what I said because some people did not hear me. I would like to tell my colleague that I have plenty of respect for him and that he is an excellent soccer player. I enjoy playing soccer with him.

However, I have to point out that the member did not ask me a question. How can he claim that members of my party do not want to answer questions when the government has not asked us any actual questions?

The ball is in his court: if the member is absolutely certain the government has information, we would sure like to see it. To date, the government has provided no facts, no studies, no research that would give us reason to support this legislation.

Is there a proven connection between imposing a surcharge on someone who is probably already living in poverty and lower crime rates?

If the government has information, please, do share. To date, no government member has provided any information that would answer the questions.

[Dominic LeBlanc, Liberal, Beauséjour, NB]

Mr. Speaker, I congratulate my colleague from La Pointe-de-l'Île on her speech. I agree that the government is often uninterested in parliamentary debates. However, it may be interested in the question I have for my colleague or my suggestion for her.

In her speech she referred to some of the failures of the Republican policy on criminal justice. I share her concerns about the fact that the government is basing programs, policies and bills on ones that have proven to be failures in certain U.S. states, such as California and Texas.

Could my colleague elaborate, for the benefit of everyone, on her concerns that the government seems to be inspired by policies that have failed in certain U.S. states?

What are her concerns for the future of the Canadian justice system in light of the Conservative government's blind faith in its American idols?

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

Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague from Beauséjour for the question.

I remember passing an article on to him regarding some Republican governors and senators who had shared their opinions with criminal law journals.

I would go even further and say that, for the Conservatives, national defence is a secret, criminal justice is an ideology, and poverty is an invention of the opposition. In fact, for the Conservatives, everything they believe is real, but they never want to share the facts with us. The Conservatives were found in contempt of Parliament, because they refused to hand over budgetary information in relation to their criminal justice policy.

They are worse than the Republicans, because at least the Republicans will co-operate with the Democrats. Since the Conservatives have a majority, they do not care what the opposition thinks or what Canadians think. The Conservatives seem to think that criminals, victims, women, families, children and aboriginal people are not Canadians and are second-class citizens. The Conservatives have chosen their cause: to defend their cronies. I can assure this House that their choice is not in the best interest of Canada or Canadians.

[Alex Atamanenko, NDP, British Columbia Southern Interior, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to say that I will be sharing my time with the member for Nanaimo—Cowichan. Before I begin, I also want to congratulate you. I am very glad that you are there. Your wisdom and experience in the House will serve you well as you guide all us members from all parties.

As you know, the NDP supports this bill at second reading so that it can be sent to committee. Bill C-37 amends provisions of the Criminal Code to double the amount of victim surcharges. The government is trying to take an existing surcharge and double it, to increase what victims will receive. We support the principle of this bill, and as I just said, we want it to be sent to committee.

In light of what my colleague just said about what goes on in committee, I hope that once this bill makes it to committee, the members from each party will listen to the witnesses and will consider their concerns and everything they have to say and use what they hear in order to amend the bill. I say that because, with this majority government, the Conservatives sometimes do not want to listen to what witnesses have to say and it becomes an exercise in futility. So I hope, since everyone more or less agrees on what this bill entails, that we will truly be able to study it and find the best solutions for victims.

I would like to give a little context. What does this mean? A victim surcharge is an additional sanction imposed during sentencing on an offender who is found guilty. It is collected and retained by provincial and territorial governments, and helps fund programs and services for victims of crime in the province or territory where the crime was committed. We are asking those responsible to financially support victims. That is fair and good. This bill seeks to increase how much money is raised.

First, Bill C-37 would amend Criminal Code provisions governing the amount of the victim surcharge, doubling it from 15% to 30% of any fine imposed on the offender. If no fine is imposed, the victim surcharge will be $100 instead of $50.

This bill also removes the court's ability to waive the victim surcharge if the offender demonstrates that it would cause him or his dependents undue hardship. Judges will still have the freedom to order a higher victim surcharge if they believe that doing so is justified under the circumstances and if the offender is able to pay. Also, Bill C-37 would make it possible for offenders who are unable to pay the surcharge to participate in a provincial fine option program.

All of the pieces are in place. For example, we supported several recommendations from the Federal Ombudsman for Victims of Crime, such as this one, and we are in favour of enhanced funding for programs for victims of crime. That being said, we have some concerns about this bill that should be reviewed in committee—the committee's study is very important—particularly with respect to removing judges' discretionary power to decide whether paying the surcharge would cause undue hardship.

The NDP believes that this bill restricts judicial discretionary power and independence.

Even though this does not have anything to do with the bill, I want to emphasize the fact that this Conservative bill would limit judges' power. That means that any decisions made would be political decisions instead of practical decisions made by judges every day of the week. That is one of our concerns. When the committee begins its study of this bill, I hope that it will give judges that discretionary power because they should have it.

That is something we want to talk about. We also want to talk about repealing the undue hardship clause and about the clause to double the amount of the surcharge, which could be a problem for low-income offenders.

For example, members have already pointed out that some offenders have no or low income. How will we solve that problem?

However, this is offset by the fact that the bill gives people the option of paying off their fine by working through the various fine option programs offered by several provinces. The balance provided in this bill needs to be examined further in committee hearings in order to ensure that the bill is indeed appropriate, particularly for the provinces and territories that do not yet have such programs in place.

The provinces' and territories' requirements must be taken into account. Even though this legislation is federal, given that it is administered in the provinces and territories, the wishes and requirements of provincial and territorial governments must be taken into account. I hope this aspect will be examined carefully at committee.

Some of the organizations that support our position include the Office of the Federal Ombudsman for Victims of Crime, Elizabeth Fry Societies and the John Howard Society.

It is perhaps worth mentioning that the Office of the Federal Ombudsman for Victims of Crime has been fighting for quite some time for better funding of services for victims of crime.

In 2003, crime cost about $70 billion. Victims paid for about $47 billion of that, or 70%. A 2004 study estimated the pain and suffering of victims at $36 billion. In addition, a significant number of eligible victims do not claim compensation, often because they do not even know that they are entitled to it.

Once the bill is enacted, it is essential that victims know that they are entitled to compensation. I will stop here. I am ready for questions.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to get the member's thoughts about taking away judges' discretion as to whether an individual is able to pay the type of fine that would be applied through this particular bill. Does the member believe that it is best to leave that discretion with the judicial system? In his opinion, is that in the best interests of our communities?

[Alex Atamanenko, NDP, British Columbia Southern Interior, BC]

Mr. Speaker, yes it is very important that we leave that discretion to judges. I also mentioned earlier in my speech that lately, with all this legislation, we have been slowly taking away this discretion.

It is interesting, Mr. Speaker, that you are in the chair now, that in your former capacity as justice critic how many times over the past years I have talked to you about this, and the message I got from you, an experienced lawyer and critic, is that it is very important that judges retain this discretion. If I retain anything from you in all our years of contact, it is that judges need to have this discretion.

[Ryan Leef, Conservative, Yukon, YT]

Mr. Speaker, we have heard a bit of discussion around the discretion being taken away from the judges. To be accurate, what is being presented is the victim fine surcharge being levied at 30% of the fine but the fine amount would still be determined by the judge and at the discretion of the judge. Is that the member's understanding of this legislation?

[Alex Atamanenko, NDP, British Columbia Southern Interior, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I wish the member for Yukon well over in that corner. He used to sit over here and now he cannot follow my lead on standing up for votes anymore.

Yes, that is how I understand it. However, the point I am trying to make is that it is important that we allow judges to retain that discretion and this should be discussed in committee. It is my hope that when the bill is polished and it becomes law, there will be this discretion for judges to ensure they have that final say in what happens to these folks.

[Françoise Boivin, NDP, Gatineau, QC]

Mr. Speaker, a big thank you to my colleague for his very thoughtful speech. My comments are for him. He pointed out some problems with this bill. We will vote in favour of the bill to send it to committee.

The member for Yukon repeated a few times that judges still had discretionary power. I would like to bring him back to that topic. With Bill C-37, judges will no longer have any discretion regarding the surcharge, as it was set out in subsection 737(5). This provision enabled a judge to not impose a surcharge if the offender had shown, for very specific reasons, that he would be unable to pay it.

Unless they have a completely different bill, that is what this bill will do. That is one of the fundamental questions we will ask in committee. I encourage the members opposite to reread their own bill. I would like to hear from the member who just spoke about this issue.

[Alex Atamanenko, NDP, British Columbia Southern Interior, BC]

Mr. Speaker, first, I thank my colleague for all of the work she has done on the justice file. It is not an easy file and I respect what she has to say about the nuances of these bills. I thank her for her comments. I have not carefully studied this bill. I am very happy that she had the opportunity to clarify this bill. I thank her very much.

[Jean Crowder, NDP, Nanaimo—Cowichan, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I want to add my congratulations to you for assuming the chair. I have been fortunate enough to work with you over the past eight years and I always appreciated the even-handedness and fairness you brought to the work we have done in the House.

I want to thank the member for British Columbia Southern Interior for splitting his time with me. He is a tough act to follow, but I have a couple of points I would like to make in addition to what he raised.

I also want to acknowledge the very good work that the member for Gatineau has done in providing us with the analysis on the bill.

As other members in the House have pointed out, Bill C-37 proposes to amend the provisions of the Criminal Code on victim surcharge, article 737, in order to double the amount that offenders must pay when they receive their sentence, and make that surcharge mandatory for all offenders.

As a number of other speakers in the House have pointed out, the bill also proposes to limit some of the discretion that judges have by removing the ability of a court to weigh the victim surcharge if the offender can show that paying the surcharge would result in undue hardship to either himself or herself or his or her dependants, which is the repeal of article 737(5). However, as others have pointed out, the judges would retain the discretionary power to increase the victim surcharge if they believed that circumstances so warranted and that the offender were able to pay. This is article 737(3).

I will focus on the particular aspect of limiting judicial discretion. Our critic from Gatineau has recommended that we send the bill to committee for further review and possible amendment. It is this section of the legislation that is troubling.

I am the aboriginal affairs critic for the NDP and I will focus on the impact on aboriginal offenders. I will be quoting from a report called “Good Intentions, Disappointing Results: A Progress Report on Federal. Aboriginal Corrections”. The reason I quote from that report is not only that it comes from the Office of the Correctional Investigator, but it has very good statistics about why we should be concerned about limiting judicial discretion in imposing this surcharge.

Most of us in the House recognize that First Nations, Métis and Inuit are some of the poorest of the poor in our country and they are seriously overrepresented in the correctional system at the federal level and also at the provincial and territorial level. Of course, my focus is on the federal level.

In the executive summary of this report it outlines some of the challenges for aboriginal offenders. It indicates:

A young and rapidly growing aboriginal population presents important challenges and opportunities for Canada. Should they not be taken up however, the impacts will be felt throughout the youth and criminal justice system, including corrections.

With the Aboriginal population much younger than the overall Canadian population and experiencing a higher growth rate, the problem of aboriginal over-representation in corrections continues to worsen rather than improve.

The offending circumstances of Aboriginal offenders are often related to substance abuse, intergenerational abuse and residential schools, low levels of education, employment and income, substandard housing and health care, among other factors. Aboriginal offenders tend to be younger; to be more likely to have served previous youth and/or adult sentences; to be incarcerated more often for a violent offence; to have higher risk ratings, to have higher need ratings, to be more inclined to have gang affiliations, and to have more health problems, including fetal alcohol spectrum disorder (FASD) and mental health issues.

The last part is particularly important in the context of the bill, because we have a population that first has had a history, and I have some other statistics, of reoffending. We would have First Nations, Métis and Inuit coming into the system and constantly being reassessed a surcharge.

We often have people coming into the system from severely disadvantaged backgrounds, so their ability to even pay this surcharge comes into question. The point around judicial discretion was that in the past, a judge could take into account some of these circumstances I just outlined.

The report goes on to talk about some of the statistics. It says that the aboriginal population is growing quickly, representing a greater percentage of the Canadian populace, increasing by 20.1% from 2001 to 2006. The aboriginal population is also much younger than the overall Canadian population. It says that in 2006, the median age of the total aboriginal population was 27 years, which was 13 years lower than the median age of non-aboriginals.

It says that Statistics Canada predicts that the aboriginal population aged zero to 14 will grow from 6% of all children in Canada, in 2001, to over 7.4%, in 2017. Similarly, by 2017, the population of aboriginal youth adults aged 20 to 29 years will have increased from 4.1% to 5.3%.

It goes on to say that with the aboriginal population much younger than the overall Canadian population and experiencing a higher growth rate, the problem of aboriginal overrepresentation in corrections continues to worsen rather than improve and that aboriginal overrepresentation has grown in recent years. Between 1998 and 2008, the federal aboriginal population increased by 19.7%. Moreover, the number of federally-incarcerated aboriginal women increased by a staggering 131% over this period.

In 2007 to 2008, it says that 17.3% of the total federal offender population was aboriginal, compared with being 4% of the Canadian adult population.

We can see from those numbers about this very serious overrepresentation of first nations, Métis and Inuit in the federal correctional system. It says that they represented 19.6% of those incarcerated and 13.6% of those on conditional release, or parole and for women, this overrepresentation is even more dramatic. Thirty-three per cent, that is one-third, of women in federal penitentiaries were aboriginal.

I have some other statistics if I can get to them and talk about the fact that many times aboriginal women are imprisoned because of domestic violence. They end up reacting to a situation where they are in very unsafe homes and then they end up in prison. By removing judicial discretion, we are penalizing these women further who often are the sole providers of their young children and so on.

It says that of those offenders admitted to federal jurisdiction in 2007-8, 49.4% of aboriginal offenders were under the age of 30, compared with 38.6% of non-aboriginal offenders and that the median age of aboriginal offenders in prison was 30 compared with the median of 33 for non-aboriginal offenders and so on.

Part of the reason that these statistics are important is not only do we have an overrepresentation in the correctional system, but we also have young offenders who often have not had an opportunity to establish themselves in their community. Therefore, they often have not got a strong track record of employment.

I heard a member say it was only $50.00. In many cases, for young aboriginal offenders, $50.00 is an enormous amount of money. Often times they are supporting young children at home as well because the birth rate is very high for our young aboriginal people.

I just want to reiterate the fact that I have been talking numbers and data, but we have to continue to look at the context.

I mentioned earlier the intergenerational trauma, residential school abuse, the ongoing poverty, lack of housing, lack of education, fetal alcohol spectrum disorder and so on. These are all really important issues to consider.

I had mentioned earlier that there were some interesting statistics, in terms of aboriginal people who were incarcerated and whether they were serving their first sentence in federal correctional system. In fact, the percentage of aboriginal people with no previous convictions between 2001 and 2006 ranged between 3% and 5%. Therefore, only 3% to 5% of the people admitted to the federal correctional system had no previous offences.

I talked about that revolving door and about the fact that people would continue to have to pay every time they were readmitted to a federal correctional system.

The final point I want to make is this. Were first nations, Métis and Inuit consulted in the development of this bill?

The Teslin Tlingit is one example of a first nation that has a self-governing agreement. It has a justice agreement in place. It has the authority under its self-government agreement around administrative of justice. Therefore, what would be the impact of limiting judicial discretion on some of the first nations that have these self-governing agreements? This has been answered anywhere. That is important when we continue to negotiate these self-government agreements and encourage first nations to take the authority, to take the ground on administering their own justice agreements.

I look forward to further conversations on this bill when it gets referred to committee and, hopefully, some of these issues will be remedied.

[Mathieu Ravignat, NDP, Pontiac, QC]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague's speech was very informative. What I think it underlines is the difference in visions between that side of the House and ours with regard to the importance of social determinants of crime. The other side of the House has a simplistic idea about choice and context in crime. Members on that side think somehow bigger sentences will solve crime. There has been long-standing literature that points to the opposite and that socio-economic determinants of crime need to be addressed.

My question is with regard to the discretionary power of judges and the link between that power and social determinants.

[Jean Crowder, NDP, Nanaimo—Cowichan, BC]

Mr. Speaker, we need an approach that looks at victims' rights, ensuring that victims are protected and have compensation and why people commit crimes in the first place.

There was a meeting earlier today in which someone was talking about fetal alcohol spectrum disorder. A question I posed to people in the correctional service was what kind of testing actually took place on people in prison who may have FASD, and there was no testing. We talk about social determinants of health. We talk about a significant percentage of the population that people suspect are in the federal penitentiary system. What programs and services are we offering in order to prevent people from getting into a life of crime? What are we doing to work with people and their families who may have FASD?

On this whole issue around social determinants and health, one would expect we would have a comprehensive approach that looks at preventing people from going to prison to begin with, dealing with them while they are in prison so they are rehabilitated when they come out the other end and also working with victims and their families to ensure they are adequately supported when a crime is committed.

[Joyce Murray, Liberal, Vancouver Quadra, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciated the words of my colleague from Nanaimo—Cowichan, who spoke very eloquently about the limiting of judicial discretion not being a principle that she supported and that aboriginal overrepresentation was something about which she was concerned. There is no evidence the bill would deter crime or reduce aboriginal overrepresentation. We heard her colleague make the point that this represented a different vision than the NDP Party's vision with respect to prevention and the social determinants of crime.

Given that the NDP is planning to send the bill to committee, which essentially means agreement to the principle of the bill, though some changes are being asked for, I would like to know from the member what the basic foundational principles are of the bill that she is in agreement with to allow her to vote for sending it to committee.

[Jean Crowder, NDP, Nanaimo—Cowichan, BC]

Mr. Speaker, recognizing it is important to look at how victims are impacted and how we can support victims and their families is the kind of principle of which New Democrats have spoken in support. We have encouraged the government to invest more in programs and services for victims and their families.

I suggest there are probably not many people in the House who, in some way or other, have not been touched by people who have been victims of crime, whether it was a break and enter or something far more serious. Our hearts go out to those families. We know the pain and suffering they have to go through in order to recover from whatever crimes have been committed against them. It is a very serious question.

This is not a black and white question. The question is how we support victims and their families and prevent people from going into the criminal justice system to begin with. If we bring those two things together, we will probably have a much more holistic approach to the criminal justice system.

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL]

Mr. Speaker, I join with others in congratulating you on your elevation to the chair as deputy speaker. It is appropriate, and I congratulate you and your party, the official opposition, for putting you there. For all of us, I guess it is overwhelming that you are up there for all the right reasons.

Today we are talking about Bill C-37. This debate has been going on now for a few months, and we have picked it up after the summer constituency break.

On April 24, the Minister of Justice introduced Bill C-37, an act to amend the Criminal Code, increasing offenders' accountability for victims act, in the House of Commons and it has been given first reading.

The summary, as handed out by the Library of Parliament, states that a victim surcharge is an additional penalty imposed on convicted offenders at the time of sentencing. Bill C-37 would amend the Criminal Code to change the rules concerning victim surcharges. The surcharge would be 30% of any fine imposed on the offender. Where no fine is imposed, the surcharge would be $100 for offences punishable by summary conviction and $200 for offences punishable by indictment. In addition, the judge would retain the discretion to impose an increased surcharge where the circumstances warrant and the offender has the ability to pay. Some of those I will touch on in just a few moments.

Let us talk about many aspects of this legislation. We have talked quite a bit about some of the root elements of crime in this House. A lot of people think we talk about the economy, but we have probably talked as much if not more about crime during the last three years, and I have voted for some of the bills proposed to us. I felt they were reasonable and that the amendments to the Criminal Code were justified for reasons and circumstances we have before us today.

However, in looking at the situation, the base root of all crime, poverty, is one of the major issues. My colleague from Charlottetown was quite eloquent in his speech yesterday and he brought some of these factors out. I would like to reiterate some of those factors because I believe they bear repeating.

In times past, we confronted great challenges, not with slogans and silly appellations for parliamentary bills but by deploying our best and brightest in search of facts that would lead to meaningful and realistic solutions.

The growing gap between those who have and those who have not, the persistence of poverty and its relation to crime are real and present danger to social cohesiveness in Canada.

We cannot afford to stand aside and do what we are doing, which is little.

He also came up with a recommendation that I support.

We cannot dismissively say that poverty is a provincial matter...

This is something that has been brought out quite a bit in the House, and I believe it to be right. Although some areas of concern, most notably health care, education and housing, are dealt with mostly by the province, that does not mean we cannot further a national dialogue on how we go about dealing with issues such as poverty.

In Newfoundland and Labrador, the current government has a poverty reduction strategy that is being held up as a solid example of how we can reduce elements of poverty within our society. It has been carried out over many years in Newfoundland. It started with a strategic social policy and now we have this poverty reduction strategy, which is a strong element in reducing poverty rates within the province of Newfoundland and Labrador.

Many elements brought out in this poverty reduction strategy deal with specific instances where people find themselves wrapped up in elements of crime and in front of courts and judges. In many cases, the judges are given discretion as to what to do. In some cases, some of the laws we have need to be reformed to give the right sentence to a particular crime.

When we take all these elements of reforming our laws, whether it is through the Criminal Code or others, we have to encapsulate it into the narrative, and the narrative is about poverty reduction. That is the first part of it.

The second part of it is aid to victims of crime. The element we are talking about here tries to address that. Principally, it was a good start, but we sort of went off the rails as we proceeded further. Some of the circumstances that brought the legislation forward may have been justified at the time, but the end results will dictate that it will not be the case. The main thrust of the bill will not be fulfilled in many cases just by imposing these particular fines or fees.

Therefore, as my hon. colleague from Charlottetown mentioned yesterday, we should strike a royal commission on poverty in Canada. Elements of that should include addressing causes of crime and how we address victims of crime, as well as those who perpetrate the crimes. This should be done through the lens of reducing poverty, such as the poverty reduction strategy we currently have in Newfoundland and Labrador.

With the greatest respect to my colleagues on the other side, it is not right or just for any prime minister from any political party to suggest, as our current Prime Minister does, that poverty is a provincial problem, end of story. That is a very strong argument to be made in this House because it furthers the dialogue. Certainly we cannot just extricate ourselves from a particular debate because it has to do with health care and health care is a provincial issue. As a matter of fact, we are the authors, and we certainly are the enforcers, of what is called the Canada Health Act. The same goes for child care as well as aspects of education, whether secondary or post-secondary.

We certainly can further the dialogue when it comes to these elements of provincial jurisdiction. For example, I have been a strong advocate for stronger sentences and stronger action to reduce human smuggling. We certainly have made attempts in the House to come down heavily on people who perpetrate the crime of human smuggling, and rightly so. However, let us look at the other aspect of human smuggling, the victims. We do not address that in the House. Why? It is because many people say it is provincial jurisdiction. It is, because of one of the elements that was brought in many years ago. The Conservative minister of the day said he would make it easier for victims of human trafficking from outside of Canada to remain in Canada to deal with their situation. However, unless we create a dialogue among the provinces and territories about health care providers, because they provide the ultimate care to victims of human trafficking, we become ineffective in dealing with victims of international human trafficking. The provinces would not recognize these people because they do not have a particular health card. We have to look at that element of aiding people who are victims of human trafficking, but it is not discussed and it should be, as another part of it.

I do not mean to derail from the topic we have right now, but I just wanted to point that out under the narrative of why we need to further a national dialogue that may place itself into provincial jurisdictions. That is a strong element that we should deal with in the House and I do not think we are doing it. The authors of this bill may have wanted it to be that way, but from the dialogue we are receiving in the House, and seeing the debate in the House, that is not happening.

Going back to poverty, that is the particular issue. Homelessness was talked about today. Many people would ask why we should deal with that, because the provinces do. We should all deal with it, to further that dialogue.

There are many causes, but the root cause of many of crimes do deal with poverty, and the numbers would dictate that. I will get to that in just a moment.

In a recent article in one of our leading newspapers, anti-poverty advocate and Conservative senator Hugh Segal said the following:

While all those Canadians who live beneath the poverty line are by no means associated with criminal activity, almost all those in Canada’s prisons come from beneath the poverty line. Less than 10 per cent of Canadians live beneath the poverty line but almost 100 per cent of our prison inmates come from that 10 per cent. There is no political ideology, on the right or left, that would make the case that people living in poverty belong in jail.

These are strong words from a Conservative senator with a vast amount of experience as a former clerk of the Privy Council and so on and so forth, and author of many articles about this and other issues that concern Canadians. I think these words are crystal clear and certainly his assertions are correct.

More than 70% of those who enter prisons have not completed high school; 70% of offenders entering prisons have unstable job histories. Four of every five arrive with serious substance abuse problems. Sending more people to prison, appearing tough on crime, or enacting legislation that is punitive at its core is not going to solve the problem of crime in Canada.

Again, the intentions are to look after the safety and security of victims, or certainly the well-being of victims in this particular case, and principally it may have started out that way. Some of the ideas put out there by some of the Conservative speakers made a lot of sense.

No one has any less compassion for a victim of crime than anyone else in this House. I do not think it is germane to this debate who has more or less compassion for a victim of crime. However, it has to be done effectively and it has to be done so that it counts.

In closing, I have one other quote from Senator Segal:

In a modern, competitive and compassionate society like ours, these numbers are unacceptable.

In this particular case there are many reasons why supporting these particular measures would not find be effective. Provincial and territorial victims services are funded in part by a federal victims surcharge under the proposed amendments to the Criminal Code. The surcharge would be 30% of any fine, and $100 on a summary conviction.

Currently offenders who can demonstrate undue hardship may request that the victim surcharge be waived. The proposed amendments to the Criminal Code would make a victim surcharge mandatory for all offenders. That is what the government is trying to do. However, the removal of the undue hardship defence signals a lack of concern for the particular situation of individual offenders and a lack of faith in judges or our justice system, as other speakers brought out.

Therefore, the effectiveness of this is called into question, despite the government's efforts to be true and certainly to rectify the situation for victims.

[The Deputy Speaker, NDP, Joe Comartin]

If the member wishes to complete his speech, he will have approximately seven minutes when the debate resumes.

It being 5:30 p.m., the House will now proceed to the consideration of private member's business as listed on today's order paper.

The House resumed from September 18 consideration of the motion that Bill C-37, An Act to amend the Criminal Code, be read the second time and referred to a committee, and of the motion that this question be now put.

[Libby Davies, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Mr. Speaker, first of all, I welcome you back after our recess over the summer. This is the first time I have had an opportunity to rise in the House and speak since we came back and I hope everyone had a good summer. I know that we were all busy in our ridings taking care of constituents and constituency business. I certainly was and it was very good to connect with people because we are so often here in Ottawa in the House. We are nevertheless glad to be back in the House debating various pieces of legislation again.

As was just pointed out, Bill C-37, proposes to amend the provisions of the Criminal Code on victim surcharges, namely section 737 in the Criminal Code. It would double the amount that offenders must pay when they are sentenced. It would also make the surcharge mandatory for all offenders.

By way of background, we know that a victim surcharge is an additional sanction imposed at the time of sentencing on offenders who are found guilty. It is collected by provincial and territorial governments and is used to provide programs and services for victims of crime in the province or territory where the crime was committed.

Obviously that is a very important service provided and I am sure we are all aware of situations where people or their family members have suffered as a result of their being a victim of crime. It is very important to have the support services and programs in place. This kind of program is something that is very important in our society.

We know that the bill being debated at second reading proposes to amend the provisions of the Criminal Code relating to the amount of the victim surcharge, which the bill would in fact double. The proposed surcharge would be about 30%, or higher than the current 15%, of any fine imposed on the offender. Where no fine is imposed, it would be $100, again representing a doubling because it is currently $50 for summary conviction offences, and $200 for indictable offences, from the current $100.

That sounds reasonable and is something that we have supported in principle. However, we do have some concerns about the bill that some of my colleagues who have spoken previously have put forward. I wish to put them on the record as well.

One of our concerns is that the bill removes the ability of the court to waive a victim surcharge if the offender can show that paying the surcharge would result in undue hardship to either himself or herself, or to his or her dependants. This is now contained in subsection 737(5) and would be repealed by the bill.

The second concern we have is that while on the one hand judges would retain the discretion they have to increase the victim surcharge if they believe the circumstances so warrant, on the other hand their discretion would be removed as to whether or not there was some undue hardship. This is quite problematic and part of a pattern that we have seen in many of the so-called law and order bills the Conservative government has brought forward. The thrust of these bills, and certainly this one is now another example of this theme, has been to undermine the discretion of the court system, and judges in particular.

We have a lot of concerns about the bill. We believe that it needs to be studied at committee, particularly with regard to the decreased discretionary power of a judge to decide if paying a surcharge would cause undue hardship. Why do we believe that? It is because we believe very much in the importance of discretionary powers of a judge and the autonomy of judges within our judicial system. That will be restricted by the bill.

The withdrawal of the undue hardship clause and the provision seeking to double the surcharge could be problematic for low-income offenders. It would not always be the case, but certainly there are situations and experiences where this would be a consideration.

Therefore, it seems very puzzling that we have a government that would bring forward yet another bill that would seek to restrict the scope and discretion of what our judicial system can take into account at the level of the decisions that judges make and what information they can look at.

That has a lot of consequences. When we look at this particular bill in the context of all of the other bills we have dealt with that also have the same kind of purpose in restricting judicial discretion, then we can see that we are fundamentally changing what our judicial system is about and how it operates. As legislators, members of Parliament representing our constituents across the country in so many diverse ridings, this is actually something that we should be concerned about. It is very easy to look at legislation one by one and say it is not a big deal, that maybe we could live with it. However, when we begin to add it up and we see the incremental changes in a more comprehensive way, we begin to realize that there are some fundamental changes taking place.

That is something that concerns us. We believe there should be proper analysis. We should look not just at this piece of legislation but at all kinds of legislation to see what those impacts on the judicial system are.

For example, the Elizabeth Fry Society is very concerned about the impact of these additional fines on, for example, aboriginal people and people who do not have the means to pay. The John Howard Society has also expressed concern that the fines could be disproportionate to the crimes committed. These are two very notable, hard-working, credible organizations in our society. They operate across the country. They know the system first-hand from the ground up. They deal with offenders as they come out of the system and are making a transition back into society. When we hear organizations like the Elizabeth Fry Society and the John Howard Society express their concerns based on their real experience in dealing with offenders in a community setting, this is something that we should take note of. It really worries me when Conservative members will just sweep that concern under the carpet and say it is of no consequence. Someone in this place has to take note of what the impacts and consequences are.

What I am trying to argue here is that the principle of sanctions against offenders is a good principle. It is something that we have supported. We have supported the ombudsperson's report on this matter. However, we have to look at the very fine details of this legislation and examine whether or not it has gone further than it needs to go and cause more negative impacts by removing the discretion we now have. This is something that we very much need to examine at the committee level.

Over the summer I had the pleasure of attending the Canadian Medical Association's general council meeting in Yellowknife in the Northwest Territories. We heard an extraordinary speaker, Sir Michael Marmot, one the world's renowned experts and researchers in the social determinants of health. He made a quite remarkable presentation to all of the doctors assembled there as members of the CMA. He spoke about how our society has moved so far away from establishing some of the basic foundations of a healthy society, like a decent income, a good education and proper housing. He was speaking about these matters as they related to the health of our society, not just in terms of our personal health but also our overall health. I wanted to bring this into the debate today because to me it is very pertinent to what we are looking at in Bill C-37.

Again, what really worries me about the government we have in power right now, which hopefully will not be there for too long, is its emphasis on punitive measures addressing issues after the fact. As Sir Michael Marmot said, we need to go upstream. We need to be developing much stronger foundations for healthy communities and healthy people, ensuring that people have proper education and decent incomes. The evidence is overwhelming that all of these things ensure that a society is more sustainable, not just in terms of the environment but also in social terms.

When we ignore those questions and focus so much on fixing everything with a new piece of legislation, or changing the Criminal Code and saying that somehow that is going to fix issues and problems in our society, we are under a terrible illusion. I know the members across the way in the Conservative government cannot look beyond that. They are very focused and driven by that simplistic approach. I am very glad to say that we on this side of the House in the NDP have a much more progressive, complex and intelligent analysis of what we need to do to make safe and healthy communities.

In speaking to this legislation today, I know we are going to hear a barrage of questions and comments, if we get to them, because if we dare to question any of the Conservatives' law and order provisions then we are said to be favouring the criminals. It is such a simplistic, ridiculous debate that they try to engage in. We do as much as we can on this side to resist that kind of ridiculous, absurd debate.

We are here to look at legislation based on its merit and its consequences for our society overall. That is a matter of balancing the rights of victims. This is something we believe strongly in. Victims have rights. They have the right to be supported. They have the right to know that a judicial system will work for them and that prosecutions will be dealt with in due diligence. However, we also have to ensure that our judicial system is balanced and ensure that discretion is there so that people are not penalized unfairly.

I represent a community that has many low-income people. Many of my constituents have been through the judicial system and have had horrible experiences. They would have been better out of prison. They would have been better with programs that might have focused on restorative justice. They would have been better in programs where there was attention paid to youth at risk, so that youth would not even get into the criminal justice system. However, yet again we see a government that has moved away from that kind of approach and has focused on the need for yet another law and punitive measure.

In conclusion, my colleagues and I have voiced our support at second reading for the principles in this bill. We have reservations and concerns and will take our responsibility to ensure that if this bill goes to committee, we will examine it clause by clause. We will look at it very carefully. We will propose amendments, I have no doubt. Our justice critic is very able in doing that. Our aim is to ensure that this bill becomes one that would not cause problems or unintended consequences.

I have been pleased to speak to this bill today. I look forward to its going to committee and the amendments that I know we in the NDP will propose to improve it.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

The hon. member for Vancouver East will have five and a half minutes remaining for her speech, should she wish it when the House returns to debate on the question, and then of course the usual 10 minutes for questions and comments.

The House resumed from September 19 consideration of the motion that Bill C-37, An Act to amend the Criminal Code, be read the second time and referred to committee, and of the motion that this question be now put.

[Djaouida Sellah, NDP, Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to participate in this debate on a very important bill, Bill C-37, the Increasing Offenders' Accountability for Victims Act. This bill would amend section 737 of the Criminal Code to increase victim surcharges. Specifically, it would double the amount of victim surcharges imposed on offenders from 15% to 30%, and if no fine is imposed, the surcharge will increase to $100 for offences punishable by summary conviction and to $200 for offences punishable by indictment.

I forgot to mention that I will be sharing my time with my colleague from Beaches—East York.

Back to BillC-37. It is important to note that, contrary to what the members opposite have said over and over again all over the place, the New Democratic Party cares about victims' interests. That said, let us talk specifically about Bill C-37.

First, what is a surcharge? It is an additional penalty imposed when a guilty offender is sentenced. The surcharge is collected and kept by the provincial and territorial governments to finance programs and services for victims of crime in the province or territory where the crime was committed.

This would be one way to increase funding for programs to assist victims of crime. The existing services cannot keep up with the demands of so many Canadians, and additional means would be most welcome.

According to the Federal Ombudsman for Victims of Crime, crime cost Canadians around $70 billion in 2003. Of this, $47 billion, or about 70%, was assumed by the victims themselves. Those numbers are huge.

What concerns me about this bill is the repeal of section 737.5 of the Criminal Code. This section allowed judges to waive the surcharge if they felt that imposing it would cause problems or undue hardship for the individual in question. I am deeply concerned about this. I am not convinced that we can anticipate every possible situation. I am very comfortable with the idea of giving judges the flexibility to determine if the surcharge will cause more harm than good to society. We have a strong criminal justice system and competent judges. We should let them do their jobs. They have been appointed because of their competence and their sound judgment, and we should let them use those skills.

I would like to take this opportunity to remind the House that the courts have already ruled on judicial independence. I recall one particular judgment of the Ontario Court of Appeal on minimum sentences that was handed down last February. The court ruled that some mandatory minimums could be considered cruel and unusual punishment and therefore were in violation of the Charter.

I am not suggesting that this is exactly the same thing, but it follows the same principle. We cannot possibly anticipate every situation, and we should give judges the flexibility they need to determine the best outcomes. I think it makes sense to maintain the discretionary power of the judiciary, especially since there are many extenuating circumstances in which forcing an offender to pay the surcharge would have an unnecessarily harsh effect.

I am particularly concerned about offenders who have a clear history of mental illness and who may be unable to pay that surcharge.

We must seriously examine the impact that this change will have on our justice system. I hope that, if the bill is passed at second reading, the Standing Committee on Justice will examine this issue seriously and thoroughly, and that the members of the committee will keep an open mind when listening to the witnesses.

Some organizations have already expressed their concern. I am thinking of the Elizabeth Fry Society, which is concerned about the impact that these additional fines will have on disadvantaged aboriginal people. The John Howard Society is worried that some fines will be disproportionate to the crimes committed, but does not have a problem with monetary penalties.

The idea of allowing people who cannot pay their surcharge to participate in a provincial fine option program strikes me as a worthwhile approach. However, the bill does not take into account whether such a program exists in the province or territory where the crime was committed. There is no other alternative if this type of program does not exist. I hope that the committee will take this into account and will find a solution for such cases.

Like many of my colleagues, I am also wondering about the link between this bill and the hon. member for Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry's Bill C-350, and the mutual impact they will have if they are passed. Time and time again in this chamber, we have seen the government use private members' business to pass more controversial measures.

In closing, I am very pleased to see that the government is concerned about the funding of victims programs. However, I have reservations about taking away from judges the power to choose not to impose the victim surcharge under certain specific circumstances that are currently set out in the act, particularly since they will have the flexibility to choose to impose a higher surcharge.

I hope that this will be seriously examined in committee if the bill is passed at second reading. We must not contribute to the vicious circle of poverty and crime but, rather, we must work to reduce crime in Canada in the short, medium and long term.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, when the member talked about the principle of the bill, she made reference to two things. One was the surcharge. There is a great deal of sympathy from the public as a whole that there be some form of surcharge that ultimately goes to assist victims of crime in one form or another. There are many different types of programs across the country. There seems to be a lot of merit and support in principle for that.

We would also suggest that there needs to be general funding that supports victims, possibly through general revenue.

The other principle of the bill, and it is a significant one, is the issue of judicial independence and allowing judges the discretion to determine what sort of surcharge would be applicable. That is, in essence, being wiped out with this particular bill.

It surprises a lot of people that the NDP seem to favour judicial independence being taken away or taken out of the court by allowing and supporting the bill to go to committee. The largest, most significant aspect of this legislation is that it is proposing to take away that judicial discretion.

Does the NDP not have concerns about taking away the judicial independence, and if so, why would it be voting in favour of the bill?

[Djaouida Sellah, NDP, Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for his questions. I think I have made it clear that we, in the NDP, are concerned about a judge's discretionary power. I think I said that we agreed that the government should think about the victims of crime. We are also as concerned as the members opposite about taking away judicial independence, but we are also concerned about taking away their discretionary power, which is why we were talking about exceptional cases. As I mentioned in my speech, the cases of people visibly affected by mental illness come under these exceptional situations.

[Sadia Groguhé, NDP, Saint-Lambert, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I congratulate my colleague on her speech.

She made the connection between poverty and criminal behaviour. Could she provide some more details on the surcharge provision, as well as on the link between poverty and criminal behaviour?

[Djaouida Sellah, NDP, Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert for her question. I know these are topics that concern us all. As for the connection between poverty and criminal behaviour, we know very well—and it has now been scientifically proven—that social factors play a very important role, both in the criminal behaviour and the health of individuals.

So we want to reduce criminal behaviour and, to do that, we need to backtrack and reduce the poverty that might be one of the factors at the root of criminal behaviour.

[Matthew Kellway, NDP, Beaches—East York, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am happy to stand this morning to speak to Bill C-37.

As our justice critic, the member for Gatineau, has made clear in her speech on this matter, we will be supporting this bill in order to send it on to committee. I am happy to move the bill out of this place for a couple of reasons.

First, it appears to trivialize an issue of real concern and significant cost, which is victim compensation. A 2003 study put the cost of crime in the vicinity of $70 billion. Seventy per cent of that cost is borne by the victims of crime, it concludes. Another study from 2004 assessed the pain and suffering of victims at $36 billion.

Now I come to these numbers somewhat skeptically. I am not quite sure of the methodology quantification for placing a price tag, in effect, on the kinds of losses, heartbreak, trauma and mental or physical anguish that victims of crime experience. Nevertheless, I would not dare suggest that they overstate the case.

Therefore, it is in that context and through that lens that I come to Bill C-37. What I see is a bill that purports to support victims by way of pennies on the dollar.

For example, where no fine is imposed, the bill would increase the surcharge from $50 to $100 for summary convictions and from $100 to $200 for indictable offences. If the goal is to provide real and meaningful compensation for victims, the bill on its face is a woeful and token effort. For all the world, it looks to me like a political marketing exercise, one that makes a mockery of victim rights and victim compensation.

However, let us let the committee look into this issue and answer some obvious and important questions: How much of this surcharge makes it to victims? How much of it goes to support bureaucracy, a special victim surcharge collection agency, if I may? What are the costs to the court system of administering fine option programs where they exist? These programs, on the face of it, would require significant administrative effort to operate.

I have another issue for the committee to study. How many of those who are found guilty of a crime can actually pay a victim surcharge? Interestingly, Conservative senator, Hugh Segal, had an oped published last year entitled “Tough on poverty, tough on crime”. He begins his oped by stating:

Debates about whether approaches to crime and corrections in Canada are too soft or too tough are ongoing and endemic.

While the partisan debate continues unabated, the real issue is why prisons disproportionately house our most vulnerable citizens.

While all those Canadians who live beneath the poverty line are by no means associated with criminal activity, almost all those in Canada’s prisons come from beneath the poverty line. Less than 10 per cent of Canadians live beneath the poverty line but almost 100 per cent of our prison inmates come from that 10 per cent.

Senator Segal's comments raise another question. Bill C-37 seeks to remove judicial discretion to waive the discharge. So, is the judiciary's predilection for waiving the surcharge an acknowledgement of the social fact noted by Senator Segal? Do judge's understand from their seat on the bench, confronted daily with courtroom reality, something that my colleagues, from their seats in the House exercising their ideological reflexes, fail to grasp? Do judge's perhaps recognize, as this legislation fails to do, that very often those subject to a victim surcharge have dependants, children, for example, whose circumstances are not at all advanced by the imposition of fines on those upon whom they depend?

We should put this question to the committee. Will crime victims meaningfully benefit from Bill C-37 or is this tokenism, cynical political marketing and/or just another ideological spasm? Or, is there a better way to deal with our collective responsibility to those who are victims of crime?

This leads me to the second reason I would like to see the bill move on to committee. It is so we can get on in the House with the crucial task of ensuring that we do all we can to prevent crime and limit the number of victims of crime.

On this side of the House, we recognize that we, in a meaningful way, must ensure that we treat victims of crime with compassion and generosity. That means being tough on crime by protecting the communities in which we live with a balanced, effective approach that includes prevention, policing and, more important, border security.

One of the issues that we need to address is gun violence. Toronto is not a dangerous place in which to live but this past summer gun violence in my city created many new victims, those who lost their lives, those who lost loved ones and those who will never again be able to feel safe in their own community.

We know that smuggled guns account for about half of all guns recovered in large Canadian cities. According to Toronto's police chief, Bill Blair, 70% of the guns seized by Toronto police are smuggled in from the United States and yet the Conservative government is recklessly cutting back on front line border security officers. Of the 325 jobs on the front line of border crossings across the country that will be cut, 60 are in the GTA and 72 in southern Ontario.

In 2011, CBSA officers in the southern Ontario region seized 128 firearms, including 106 handguns, as well as 191 prohibited weapons. In addition to the front line border cuts, every intelligence officer in Canada got an “affected” letter. These are the people who gather and develop information on how and where guns, drugs and other contraband are being smuggled into Canada and by whom. Dog handlers at marinas and airports are also being cut, further limiting CBSA's ability to interdict contraband. A huge percentage of the drugs smuggled through southern Ontario borders every year end up on the streets of Toronto, my city, fueling more gun crimes.

Another issue that needs to be dealt with is gang activity. There are an estimated 11,000 street gang members and associates in Canada today. Most of them are young, under the age of 30. The youth gang prevention fund was meant to support initiatives that target youth and gangs who are at risk of joining gangs in communities where youth gangs are an existing or emerging threat. This fund was set to expire in 2011 but we, the NDP, pushed successfully for its extension. That funding supported case management, parent support, community education and employment outreach for youth age 13 to 24 through the PIT program in Toronto. Funding, however, expired in 2012.

The youth gang prevention fund continues to fund the MY Region Park project, a project that works with community organizations, families and individuals to assess and understand issues related to gang activity and to design and implement appropriate interventions. The MY Region Park project is targeted at kids age 12 to 17. However, funding for this project is set to expire in 2013.

We should move Bill C-37 to committee so some critically important questions can be asked and answered there. We should also take the opportunity to prevent crime and prevent the creation of more victims of crime. We should reverse the cuts to the CBSA and ensure that we stem the smuggling of handguns onto the streets of our cities. We need to work with the provinces and municipalities to ensure that all jurisdictions are working hand in glove to develop and implement a comprehensive anti-gun smuggling strategy. We also need to take the opportunity to ensure that kids themselves do not become victims by way of getting recruited into gang activities before they even have a chance to contemplate a different and better future for themselves. We need to partner with municipalities to ensure that we establish successful programs that will steer kids to education and employment, not crime and violence. This is what it means to be tough on crime.

[Dick Harris, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I noticed that toward the end, and even throughout, the member was talking about new programs to stem the crime rate and steer young people into education and jobs. I would hope that when the NDP members, and perhaps that member, come to committee to discuss the bill they will not just once again bring in the mantra of “we need a program for this, we need a program for that”. If they have an idea for a program, and I hope they will, the way to do it is to bring that program, the cost of the program and a cost-benefit analysis of the program. That is the job they should be doing, rather than just arbitrarily asking for a program for this. They should come prepared with their request for a program to demonstrate the cost and the benefit of it.

[Matthew Kellway, NDP, Beaches—East York, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend for his question and his expression of hope for the New Democrats' participation on the committee. I do not sit on the justice committee but I trust that my colleagues who do will bring forward some very concrete proposals to deal with crime, assist victims in this country and compensate them properly.

I find it ironic that the member raises the issue about real programs. The very point of my speech is that what is being offered as a token gesture to victims of crime is something that will not help victims of crime as far as I can see. We will let the committee answer the serious and important questions about whether any of the surcharge makes it into the hands or pockets of victims of crime to assist them with their experiences, trauma and losses. We will also see if it makes sense to waive judicial discretion in terms of actually applying the surcharge.

I trust that my colleagues on the justice committee will be able to talk about the social circumstances that surround criminal behaviour and bring a little reality to the members of the government so they do not bring wasteful and token legislation into the House just as a matter of ideological reflex.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, it was not that long ago when former prime minister Jean Chrétien brought in legislation that dealt with the surcharge. There was an increase in the surcharge, the way in which it would actually be applied and so forth.

In most part, I think we will find favourable reaction to the surcharge ,but the principle of this bill is to take away the discretion of judges to apply that surcharge. That is the overriding concern in this legislation. I believe the New Democrats are sending a very strong mixed message. They are saying that, in principle, they support judges not having that discretion by voting in favour of the legislation. The New Democrats need to be clear on this particular point.

We in the Liberal Party do not support the government of the day taking away the discretion from judges to use common sense to get a better understanding of a situation before the surcharge is actually applied. We believe in the judicial discretion that is necessary in order to make this program work because we want victims in Canada treated appropriately and the funds for victims to be there.

Do the New Democrats support judicial independence and, if so, why are they voting in favour of this legislation?

[The Speaker, Conservative, Andrew Scheer]

The hon. member for Beaches—East York has 30 seconds.

[Matthew Kellway, NDP, Beaches—East York, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is unfortunate that I have just 30 seconds because I wanted to quote an article by a criminologist on the subject of ironies.

It is interesting that the member stands and talks about mixed messages because it was a Liberal government in 1994 that introduced the largest set of mandatory minimum penalties in Canadian history. If the Liberals want to talk today about mixed messages, then I would suggest that they look at their own history and efforts to limit judicial discretion.

[Hedy Fry, Liberal, Vancouver Centre, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I rise to speak to Bill C-37, another Conservative bill that shows just how out of touch the Conservatives are with reality when it comes to crime and justice.

The bill changes the rules concerning victim surcharges, which are the fees that are imposed on a person who is sentenced for a crime. This proposal doubles the amount of the fine and removes the discretion of a judge not to impose the fine if it would cause undue hardship. That is the prerogative of the judge. I will explain why this is a flawed idea and why I will be voting against this legislation at second reading.

There is no dispute that victims of crime need support and assistance. Often the victims of crime are not just the people we think of as being the ones involved in the incident. Their families and communities can also be affected tremendously by crime, especially in areas such as hate and bias crimes.

Support for victims, their families and the community must take multiple forms. Financial support alone does not heal. There must be services. Government must take an active role in providing those services through providing grants, public-private partnerships, and many other forms other than simply imposing a fine.

We oppose this increase to the victim surcharge because it ignores the reality of those who are being placed in prison, who are primarily the poor, racial minorities and aboriginal people. Those who steal for subsistence certainly do not have the money to pay such a fine, and the removal of a judge's discretion based on the ability of the offender to pay the fine is untenable. It does not take an expert to see the problem. Even Conservative Senator Hugh Segal said this:

Less than 10 per cent of Canadians live beneath the poverty line but almost 100 per cent of our prison inmates come from that 10 per cent. There is no political ideology, on the right or left, that would make the case that people living in poverty belong in jail.

This is precisely what the bill would do. Those who are living in poverty and commit a crime would be forced to stay in jail longer because of their inability to pay the fine. While the government is content to say they can work it off through a provincial program, the government fails to understand that not every province has equivalent programs. We would be creating further disparities depending on the province in which the offender lived.

Nobody in the Liberal Party is suggesting that criminals should not be held accountable for their actions. What we are saying is that it is the role of the judges to decide how criminals should be sentenced for their crimes. Judges should be trusted to do that. An independent judiciary is at the core of a democracy. To tamper with the independence of the judiciary, whether it is to impose decisions on judges or set mandatory minimums means that the government does not accept an independent judiciary.

The government seems to be convinced that locking away more people in jail is the solution to both poverty and crime. It is not surprising, however, because it also sees prison as the answer to mental health and homelessness.

The point is that not only are we continuing this vicious cycle of poverty and disadvantage rather than addressing it, but the whole model is flawed.

Let us look at the victim. Remember that the fine is supposed to be collected when someone is found guilty, but what about those instances when, for various reasons, a person is not found guilty or the case is thrown out because the police did not follow the right procedure? All of those things occur. What happens when the victim does not want to press charges, as in the case of rape, because the victim does not want to face the accused or does not want to go to court? Will the government step up to the bar, pardon the pun, and actually do something for the victim? If there is no fine imposed or if there is no one to pay the fine, what happens? This is not helping the victim at all. All these points give rise to situations where there is a victim of crime but no victim surcharge is being imposed.

What about the family of someone who is attacked by a stranger who was never caught? Should we not ensure that family is funded and has available services to help with the healing process? The mandatory imposition of a fine is laughable. At the same time, the government speaks of hate crimes being a victimless crime and therefore, no one needs assistance because there was no victim.

The point is that we must trust our judges to impose a fine where it is warranted. The language of the existing provision in the Criminal Code should be changed if it is inadequate, but judges should not be stripped of their discretion, doubling the fine and providing no way for some offenders to work it off.

As I said earlier, the provinces are not equal in their ability to meet the provisions that have been placed in the bill. For instance, in British Columbia a $100 surcharge would help, but in the north and in rural areas where more money is needed to sustain programs for victims, that $100 may not be enough.

The government is actually shirking its role. It does not want to play a role in helping the victims of crime. It wants to lay it all on the shoulders of the “offender” who may or may not be found.

The point is that the very arbitrariness of the increase is the flaw. A 100% surcharge gets something different in every province as victims do not all have the same needs. We need a consistent level of support for victims. The government cannot shirk that responsibility.

How was the fine calculated? It is not based on evidence. It is arbitrary. We could be back here to increase it in two years and again in five years as time moves along. Committed direct funding from the government is a way to help victims deal with the effects of crime. This dithering by the federal government does not cut it.

I want to speak about the aboriginal people who tend to be over-represented in our prison systems. Aboriginal people make up 17% of our prison population but only 2.7% of the Canadian population. In fact, some people say that aboriginal people make up 30% of the prison population. However, the Conservative government is not talking about aboriginal justice here. Where is its plan to assist aboriginal offenders? Where is its plan to combat the cycle of homelessness, poverty, lack of education, unemployment and discrimination? Where is its plan for culturally sensitive sentencing, or will the government continue with a one-size-fits-all approach like Bill C-37?

The government does not seem to care at all about a person's inability to pay or circumstances that drive someone to commit a crime. It does not seem to want to talk about the prevention of crime. It does not seem to want to talk about the rehabilitation of offenders and helping them integrate back into society. None of that is here. It is just about punishment, having offenders pay fines and not even allowing them to work it off if they cannot afford to pay the fines.

Where is the youth criminal justice strategy in here? We do not see any. What about the soccer fields and after-school programs that would prevent young people from getting into crime? Why are we treating youngsters like hardened criminals and locking them up in jail where they will only learn how to become better criminals with no hope of joining society again?

Crime is a complex puzzle. No one disputes that victims of crime need support and assistance, but this one-size-fits-all focus on punishment is not effective. It is flawed.

Taking away the judges' discretion is flawed. Interfering with the independent judiciary is non-democratic. In fact, the Conservative member for Kootenay—Columbia is saying that if offenders do not want to pay the victim surcharge, they should not commit crimes. That is a fairly simple way of dealing with things, assuming that criminals go on Google every day to find out what the Criminal Code says the sentence would be if they commit a crime. If punishment were a deterrent for crime, the jails in the United States would be empty, but they are not. People do not check and see what the Criminal Code says before they commit a crime. This is a misunderstanding that drives an ideology of mandatory minimums and throwing people in jail. As I said, it is as if the government thinks that criminals spend their time searching on Google to see what the Criminal Code has to say.

Deterrence is not achieved by this surcharge, nor does it help the victims. It is not achieved through mandatory minimums. True deterrence, although the Conservatives would never admit it, is about giving people options and providing them with the ability to start living reasonable lives, to get out of poverty, to get an education and to be rehabilitated.

The Liberals will not be supporting the bill.

[Lysane Blanchette-Lamothe, NDP, Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for her speech.

I would like to go back to a comment by one of her colleagues, a member of her party.

The member has a great deal of experience in the House. I am certain that she knows that just because a party supports a bill at second reading does not mean that it agrees with the bill in its entirety. The party wants the bill to be examined by a committee, which will hear from experts and have the opportunity to make minor and major amendments.

I am very surprised by the hypocritical comments to the effect that by supporting Bill C-37 the NDP opposes the discretionary power of judges. The NDP does not support this bill, but it does support referring it to committee.

I would like to give the member the opportunity to comment on the absurd remarks made by her colleague. Perhaps she has a concrete example of a bill introduced by the NDP that clearly undermines judicial discretion, but that would surprise me. The NDP believes that judicial discretion is important.

[Hedy Fry, Liberal, Vancouver Centre, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the member is right. I have been here for a long time and I have not seen in my time in Parliament a majority government that does not listen to witnesses at committee.

I think the hon. member knows in her own short experience that with this particular government, it does not matter what witnesses say and it does not matter what amendments are made, because amendments are not going to happen. To send the bill to committee and hope it will be changed is the ultimate in Pollyanna thinking. We know it will not happen. We know it has not happened with that majority government.

Let us just say no, put our cards on the table and say that we do not support it.

[Ted Hsu, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Mr. Speaker, while listening to the fine speech by my colleague from Vancouver Centre, I was reminded of an interview in Maclean's this summer of a professor of psychology, Dan Ariely. He stated:

Yet most of our attempts to overcome bad behaviour are about catching it after the fact, and exacting some kind of penalty. We think this will deter people from behaving badly, but it turns out to have no effect.

This is what psychologists who study crime are telling us. I would ask my hon. colleague from Vancouver Centre what relevance it has to this bill.

[Hedy Fry, Liberal, Vancouver Centre, BC]

Mr. Speaker, that is an excellent question.

As I touched on in the short time I had to speak against this bill, everything that we see on crime coming into this House from the government is about punishment. There is nothing about looking at the root causes of crime and ways of preventing crime.

We know what the root causes of crime are. Enough studies have done over the last 25 years. Even the United States is moving away from the idea of throwing people in jail, locking them up and throwing away the key and building more jails and filling them with people.

We need to understand what causes people to turn to crime. We need to look at populations that are the highest represented in jails and find out the reasons for that. We need to look at how to assist them to live different lives.

I talked about soccer fields, after-school programs, helping aboriginal people to get an education. I talked about looking at justice in culturally sensitive ways, looking at why people commit crime and preventing it at the outset. If we do catch people who have become criminals, let us look at how we can rehabilitate them. Let us look at how we really help victims, which is what this bill is about, and not simply put it on the shoulders of the offenders, especially if there is no offender.

The government is shirking its responsibility to help victims of crime by not putting forward its own solid and clear programs to help people who are victims of crime.

[Jean-François Larose, NDP, Repentigny, QC]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague's comments are quite astute. I do not understand the Liberals' position that the bill should not be sent to committee because we have a majority government. I do not believe that having a committee study a bill means that it will pass. It seems to me that there are other votes.

We have a democratic system where people believe that they have less and less representation and that they are being heard less and less. It is vital that the experts and the people be heard in committee to prove that the government is not listening to them. Canadians must always have a voice. Our position is that committees are essential in order for citizens to participate at any time.

What does my colleague have to say in that regard?

[Hedy Fry, Liberal, Vancouver Centre, BC]

Mr. Speaker, of course committees are essential. It was under a Liberal government in fact that we made a decision to send these to committees before they came back to the House for the final reading. We need to hear what people have to say.

I am speaking about the experience with this particular majority government. Even the past majority governments of Brian Mulroney did not treat committees as places where victims would be disrespected and not listened to.

In this House we saw a budget bill on which over 800 amendments were proposed and not one of them was accepted by the government at committee. Every one of them was denied. Then the government members stood in the House and high-fived each other every time they voted one down. This is a farce. Are we going to allow this farce to continue?

[Rosane Doré Lefebvre, NDP, Alfred-Pellan, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am happy to have the opportunity to address the hon. member on this side of the House and to ask her a question. From her comments and answers to questions, I gathered that this bill was unfortunately not going to do anything for victims.

I am not sure if she did some research to see who is in support of the bill, but the Federal Ombudsman for Victims of Crime does support it. As she probably knows, we all agree that it is important to help victims so that they have more rights. We need a better balanced justice system, and I am sure that the hon. member agrees with that. It would also be useful for the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights to look into this issue to figure things out.

But does she not feel that she went a bit too far by saying that the bill does not help victims at all? Should we not perhaps take the time to study the bill further in committee before jumping to these conclusions?

[Hedy Fry, Liberal, Vancouver Centre, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I think the hon. member might have been distracted for some time during my speech. I did not say that the bill would not help victims. I said that it was arbitrary in that it would be unequally applied because the $100 fine would not apply in some provinces where the cost to help the victims would be greater.

I also questioned what would happen if the offender was not found or if the person did not press charges. The victim would be left with no help whatsoever if we were to place the burden of help for victims solely on the offenders and not on government to provide appropriate services to help victims and to help the provinces where that would not cut it for the victims either.

This is an arbitrary throw-it-together $100 fine. What is the basis of that fine? Where is the evidence to say that $100 would work? Have our provinces been consulted?

This is not a reasonable way to deal with the problem of support for victims.

[Rosane Doré Lefebvre, NDP, Alfred-Pellan, QC]

Mr. Speaker, thank you for giving me the opportunity to rise again to ask the hon. member some questions.

As she was answering my question, I kept nodding my head, for the most part, because it is true that we need to look at victims of crime and the funding they receive. Are programs appropriate? What more can we do to help the victims and to better balance our Canadian justice system?

Does the hon. member not feel that this would be a good opportunity to open the door to some of the recommendations that experts could make in committee in order to better assist victims in Canada?

[Hedy Fry, Liberal, Vancouver Centre, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am not being frivolous when I say I think I answered that question at least three times.

I have said that we should go to committee to look at how we can modify the bill and make it better. With the majority Conservative government, this does not seem to occur.

I am on the health committee. I have watched witnesses come to committee and they have been disrespected by the Conservative members. I have watched proposals agreed upon by everybody to amend a bill thrown out completely.

All I am saying is this is a farce. Let us not allow this farce to occur over and over again. It is a waste of everybody's time until the current government learns how to respect the parliamentary process and its committees, especially when some decisions could lead to an outcome that would only create problems for victims and offenders, minority offenders like aboriginal people. Let us talk about doing this properly. Let us throw it out and come up with something new.

[Rosane Doré Lefebvre, NDP, Alfred-Pellan, QC]

Mr. Speaker, thank you for allowing me to speak to Bill C-37, An Act to amend the Criminal Code, which is at second reading in the House. First, I would like to say that the NDP is very pleased to support this bill at second reading so that it will be sent to committee.

Unlike what I just heard the Liberal member say on this side of the House, we are very interested in examining this bill more carefully. This is an excellent opportunity to open the debate on victims' rights in Canada. I was a bit sad to hear the member who just spoke say that her party did not support sending the bill to committee, calling the committees a farce. She was wondering why we would use committees, since they are useless and either way, the Conservatives will do whatever they want with this bill, that it does not go far enough, and so on. I agree, but in this case, are we supposed to block all of the bills and give up, saying that no matter what, this is a majority government, that there is no point because we will not be able to make amendments?

I am disappointed to hear such a thing. As my colleague said, I am still relatively new to the House, but I am familiar with this Conservative government. I sit on the Standing Committee on Public Safety, and all of the parties represented there agree on a number of things. For example, we succeeded in making amendments to a Conservative private member's bill, which we debated this week. We managed to flesh out the bill so that it better represents Canadian ideals.

I am very disappointed to hear the member suggest that committee work would be completely pointless, because the Conservatives have a majority. I do not believe that. On the contrary, I believe that progress in committee is possible. I agree with my colleague that it can be very difficult, but I think that most of the time, everyone is capable of being reasonable. We are all here to pass the best legislation in the interest of all Canadians. Why not take this opportunity to pass better legislation for the protection of victims and their rights, and ensure that victims have access to programs that are managed better financially?

I am not suggesting that Bill C-37 is perfect. I will come back to that point later in my speech. It is extremely important. A door is opening before us and we must take advantage of the opportunity. It is time to examine this bill in committee in order to come up with something better. I am almost certain that my colleagues across the way who are members of the Standing Committee on Justice also want to have a closer look at this in order to ensure that victims are properly represented.

I doubt there is any member here in this House who does not want to protect the rights of victims of crime. That is unthinkable; it would be in bad faith. All parties in this House, especially the NDP, want to explore this issue. We want to strike a balance in order to ensure that victims are well represented and supported. That is extremely important, and besides, who knows what could happen? Any member of the House could suddenly become a victim of crime or perhaps some already have been. This issue affects so many Canadians.

I will therefore support the bill at second reading so that it goes to committee. I hope that all my colleagues who sit on the Standing Committee on Justice will be fair in their discussions about this bill, so that it is a better bill when it returns to the House at third reading. I hope we get the answers to some questions we have about the bill.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank my colleagues from Gatineau and Toronto—Danforth for the great work they are doing in the Standing Committee on Justice to represent our position on criminal justice in Canada so well.

My colleague from Gatineau is our justice critic and my colleague from Toronto—Danforth is the deputy critic. Their research on Bill C-37, An Act to amend the Criminal Code was very thorough.

I was very interested in the type of recommendations they would make. I cannot say that I am an expert in justice issues; as a critic, I tend to address public safety issues. We are drawn to certain issues, but I found their explanations on what Bill C-37 could contain and where we could go with it to be very interesting. Furthermore, the bill touches on some of the recommendations made by the Federal Ombudsman for Victims of Crime.

I met with Ms. O'Sullivan several times in my work with the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security, and I also know that many of my colleagues who follow justice issues work closely with the Ombudsman.

What I liked about what the Federal Ombudsman for Victims of Crime had to say was that, while there is room for improvement with respect to protection of victims' rights and compensation for victims of crime, we must also ensure that our criminal justice system is balanced. I will come back to that later on.

What is the infamous Bill C-37, which is before us today, all about? I see three main elements. First, the bill would amend Criminal Code provisions to double the amount of the victim surcharge. Because I am not an expert in the area of justice, I did some research to learn more about these surcharges. Here is what I learned: under this bill, the surcharge would be 30% of any fine imposed on the offender. Currently in Canada, the surcharge is 15%. If no fine is imposed, the surcharge would be $100—it is currently $50—in the case of an offence punishable by summary conviction, and $200—it is currently $100—in the case of an offence punishable by indictment. All of the amounts will double. These funds are channeled directly to programs that help victims of crime.

Second, the bill would eliminate the court's discretion to waive the victim surcharge if the offender demonstrates that paying the surcharge would cause him or his dependants undue hardship. Judges will, however, retain the discretion to impose an increased surcharge if the offender has the ability to pay.

The third main element is that Bill C-37 would make it possible for an offender who is unable to pay the fine to participate in a provincial fine option program.

[The Speaker, Conservative, Andrew Scheer]

The hon. member for Alfred-Pellan will have 11 minutes left when the debate resumes. It being 11 o'clock, it is time to move on to members' statements.

The member for Edmonton—Mill Woods—Beaumont.

The House resumed consideration of the motion that Bill C-37, An Act to amend the Criminal Code, be read the second time and referred to a committee, and of the motion that this question be now put.

[The Speaker, Conservative, Andrew Scheer]

The hon. member for Alfred-Pellan has 11 minutes remaining.

[Rosane Doré Lefebvre, NDP, Alfred-Pellan, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to have this opportunity to continue the debate on BIll C-37.

Before I was interrupted for members' statements, I was trying to give some background information on Bill C-37.

I said I wanted to talk about three main points. I had reached my third point, which is this: if the offender in question is not able to pay the victim surcharge, Bill C-37 allows that individual the opportunity to participate in a provincial fine option program. I knew very little about such programs, so I consulted the Department of Justice website, where I found the following definition:

The federal victim surcharge (FVS) is a monetary penalty imposed on offenders convicted or discharged of a Criminal Code offence or an offence under the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act. The underlying purpose of the FVS is to provide a rational link between an offender's crime and his or her accountability to the victim, as well as provide financial support to victim services. Provincial and territorial governments are responsible for collecting the surcharge, which is used to provide programs, services and assistance to victims of crime within their jurisdictions.

What happens when offenders cannot pay the victim surcharge? Some territories and provinces have a fine option program that allows offenders to volunteer and help communities by giving their time. It seems like a very good idea, on paper. It is worth studying.

Participating in a fine option program is possible; however, my research shows that the program does not exist in every province and territory.

The first thing I would ask my colleagues on the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights is to determine what will happen in the provinces and territories where this program does not exist.

What will happen to offenders who cannot pay and who cannot participate in a fine option program?

What options will they have? Will a fine option program be established in every province and territory? I do not know how that could be done, because these programs are set up in provinces that have agreements with the federal government. We will have to see what can be done in that regard. That is one of the questions I have about this bill. It will be interesting to study it further in committee. It will also be very important to decide how to address this rather important problem with Bill C-37.

I am also concerned about what will happen with low-income offenders. Previously, there was the possibility of applying the undue hardship clause, but Bill C-37 will eliminate this option.

The Victims of Crime Research Digest points out that some provinces and territories have a fine option program that, as I mentioned earlier, may have some weaknesses. At present, the judge can decide whether or not the offender can pay the fine, which is good. Now, the government is thinking of eliminating judicial discretion. We should take a closer look at this because, in this case, judges working in the Canadian penal system will lose some of their powers.

Once again, I think that this is something that should be studied in greater depth. A number of experts should be invited to the committee to tackle the issue and explain to us what can be done.

Many people have ruled either in favour of or against this bill. There are also people who feel the same way we do about the bill. Earlier in my speech I mentioned the Office of the Federal Ombudsman for Victims of Crime. Sue O'Sullivan is the ombudsman and I have already met with her.

I have a great deal of respect for her and for the work that she does. I also have a great deal of respect for the information that she provides in committee, be it on justice matters or public safety. She has a very simple way of explaining the information and making it very accessible. She also has a very balanced take on our system. I very much respect her vision and her approach to her work.

In one of the last meetings of the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security in the previous parliamentary session, she talked about the need to balance our criminal justice system and our justice system in order to have the least number of victims. For instance, when we met with her, we talked about programs for offenders inside penitentiaries, as well as the importance of their reintegration into society to ensure that they do not reoffend. At the same time, she ensures that our correctional system works well so that Canada has fewer or no victims. I greatly appreciate this balanced approach. We therefore share her vision.

The Elizabeth Fry Society has raised a rather interesting point. The organization asked how this bill would serve disadvantaged aboriginals who, from the outset, do not have the means to pay.

This raised some concerns because, as we know, aboriginal people are already overrepresented in our Canadian prisons right now. The number of aboriginal people who were incarcerated in a federal penitentiary increased by 28.1% from 2000 to 2010, and it is expected that the current aboriginal baby boom will cause the number of aboriginal offenders to rise still further. This information can be found in a document published by Public Safety Canada. I believe that we also have to consider this issue. I once again urge my colleagues who sit on the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights to really pay close attention to what is said by the experts who come to speak about these issues. What will we do about these people?

Aboriginal poverty is nothing new, but it is a growing and worrisome problem. It has to be a concern. We know that, in addition to being overrepresented in our prisons, too many aboriginal people are living in poverty in Canada. The truly sad statistics speak for themselves. For example, among first nations, one in four children live in poverty, and over half of aboriginal people are unemployed.

Overcrowded housing is also twice as common among aboriginal families than among all other Canadian families. According to a recent government study, over half of Inuit families live in overcrowded homes. Sometimes up to 20 people are living in a three-bedroom home. This is clearly a problem.

I am going to try to conclude my remarks about Bill C-37 quite quickly. As I mentioned at the beginning of my speech, we will support this bill at second reading so that it is sent to committee. It is extremely important that we consider this issue. The door is open to offer more help to victims.

I hope that all my colleagues in this chamber will support this bill because it is important that we study it in committee. It is important to see what we can do to improve it. I hope that the government will be open to some amendments because, as I mentioned, this bill does have some small shortcomings, such as the fine option programs. What will we do about people who have low incomes?

What about the first nations, which are under-represented and whose members are, unfortunately, often poorer than the rest of the Canadian population?

I trust in our parliamentary system to examine this issue with all of the seriousness it deserves. I hope that we will be able to find a balance with Bill C-37 in order to better represent victims and to position them well in our penal system, in the Canadian legal system.

I leave this in your hands and I am ready for questions and comments from my colleagues.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, in the member's comments prior to question period, she seemed to take some exception as to why we would prevent the bill from going to committee.

We tried to explain that the principle of this bill is to take away judicial discretion, which is probably the most significant thing that the bill would do. Therefore, in principle, we in the Liberal Party do not like that. We want to support the victims of crime, and there are many things the government can do in order to do that, but the principle is judicial discretion, which would deal with many of the things she is talking about.

The NDP members seem to be saying that they have concerns about the bill but that they will still pass it to committee. The member's logical argument that she put forward prior to question period was that even though the NDP members are in opposition to this and have a lot of concerns about the bill, they will still pass it to committee. Given their position on this, could the member not use that argument for every bill? If that is the case, why would she ever vote against a bill going to committee?

[Rosane Doré Lefebvre, NDP, Alfred-Pellan, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I do not want to inflame the situation with my colleague, but I find his comment somewhat demagogic and partisan. That is rather sad in this situation.

A large part of this bill is extremely interesting and we are opening the door to a discussion that is essential for victims of crime in Canada. I agree with my colleague about the problem with judges' discretionary power to waive the victim surcharge, a power that judges had. That is something that will have to be examined in committee.

What I find even sadder when I hear these comments is seeing what little faith my colleague seems to have in our parliamentary system. In committee, we can really change things, even as members of the opposition. As I mentioned in my speech, before question period, the proof of this is in the bills we discussed in the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security, of which I am a member. Honestly, there are times when we do not really agree with the government, but we have some extremely interesting things to bring to the table. We see a shortcoming here, a hole in a bill and if we want to be sure that the bill works properly and that we create the best laws possible, then we have to work on fixing these holes.

Right now, we have something important that needs to be done. This bill is important. So yes, we have questions. However, I would like to remind members that the NDP's slogan during the last election campaign focused on working together with all parties. So this would be important to do, even in committee. We have an opportunity here to do so. Why would we pass it up?

[Sadia Groguhé, NDP, Saint-Lambert, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the hon. member for her remarks.

She mentioned provincial fine option programs. Could she tell us if she feels that this kind of option needs to be standardized?

[Rosane Doré Lefebvre, NDP, Alfred-Pellan, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for her very good question. I am not an expert in criminal justice, but I have done research into fine option programs. They seem to be really quite interesting and a good thing for people who cannot afford to pay the victim surcharge. In provinces where this is done, such as New Brunswick, or in the Northwest Territories, the program seems to work very well.

If it were possible, it would be good to do in all provinces. The people involved would be providing their time to the community and to people in need, especially when organizations are having difficulty finding volunteers.

My riding has three federal penitentiaries. There is the Leclerc Institution, a medium-security facility that is unfortunately scheduled to close in September 2013. There are also two minimum-security facilities whose inmates can leave and work in the community. They work in community organizations in and around Laval. This is greatly appreciated, not only by the people who work in those community organizations and by those who benefit from their work, but also by the inmates who give their time. They appreciate it because they do not feel judged. They are providing their time to the community. It is a way for them to feel valued; it helps them to properly reintegrate into society. If it were possible, a fine option program should be established all across Canada.

[Tyrone Benskin, NDP, Jeanne-Le Ber, QC]

Mr. Speaker, a few times today we have heard from our Liberal colleagues that we should basically throw our hands up in the air and accept that this is the way things work.

That may be true. Because of the Conservative majority we are hard-pressed to get things passed. I would ask my hon. colleague if it makes sense basically to throw our hands up in the air and say that if that is the way it is going to go, why even bother?

On our other side we are showing that even though we have issues with this, we are willing to sit down at the committee table to see how we can work through them. I think this is what our constituents want from us. They want us to work for them, even if we are running into a brick wall at times.

What would my hon. colleague have to say to that?

[Rosane Doré Lefebvre, NDP, Alfred-Pellan, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for Jeanne-Le Ber for his question. It is a very important one, especially in this Parliament where the Conservatives have a majority and we form the official opposition. That is the way things are. But I do not think that throwing in the towel is the right thing to do. We must not just say that, because it is not going to be passed the way we want, we are going to oppose it.

We are going to vote for the bill so that we can study it at second reading in committee. That is all we are doing at the moment. We feel there are problems with this bill. There are gaps in it and it should be improved. But there are good points that we should study and that experts will be able to discuss. We have the opportunity to do that.

Perhaps the time will come when we will throw in the towel. But I believe that, with frank discussion and by trying to work together, we can find solutions. The people who introduced this bill perhaps did not realize that there are gaps for some provinces and territories. That happened previously with a bill that was studied in our committee and everyone agreed to amend it. I do not see why we would not take the time to take a more in-depth look at Bill C-37 rather than saying that nothing will change anyway. At that point, we might as well vote against every bill if we are not going to study them in more depth. I feel that is grandstanding a little.

[Lysane Blanchette-Lamothe, NDP, Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to congratulate the hon. member on her speech. She said it in a number of ways: the NDP will not stop doing its job just because we are up against a government that is not prepared to work co-operatively. We will continue to do the work we have to do.

Does every bill deserve second reading? Not in my view. But this one does deserve second reading, if only for the fact that the federal victims' ombudsman supports legislation of this kind. The hon. member has suggested some very appropriate avenues of study in terms of the concerns that the bill raises.

But I would like her to tell us about her experience of other bills and the opportunity—or lack of opportunity—she has had to study concerns with a bill. I am thinking, for example, about Bill C-350, for which, if I am not mistaken, a number of limitations were placed on the appearance of witnesses and on the opportunity to study concerns.

[Rosane Doré Lefebvre, NDP, Alfred-Pellan, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I will try to give a quick answer but this is a question on which I would have liked to spend more time. My thanks to the hon. member for Pierrefonds—Dollard for opening the door. I hope that more hon. members will follow suit and will take this opportunity to discuss this in the House.

When we study bills in committee, hon. members work in good faith, although at times, a little less so. However, I believe sincerely in our parliamentary system and in the fact that we can go far if everyone works together. I know that that is difficult at times and that it is not possible to do so. We do not always agree, but there are times when we do. Why should we not try to work in the interests of all Canadians?

[Lysane Blanchette-Lamothe, NDP, Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC]

Mr. Speaker, this has been said before but I have to say it again: the NDP will support Bill C-37 at second reading.

Let me start by telling those who perhaps may not be aware that supporting a bill at second reading means referring it to committee so that it can be studied, so that its weaknesses can be identified and so that improvements can be made. It also allows us to hear from experts, from stakeholders and from partners in the field so that the dialogue on the matter is open. We all agree that assistance to victims is a subject that should be examined from every possible angle.

A door has opened here allowing us to come to grips with the current deficiencies in victim assistance. I agree that the door is only open a little. The bill does not have sufficient potential. If the bill is amended, improved and passed, it will not solve all the problems that victims face. But the door is still open a little and we would be acting in very bad faith if we did not jump on this opportunity to study victim assistance.

The NDP wants to study this bill in committee after second reading. The NDP will not stop doing its job on the pretext that it is dealing with a Conservative government that is not open to dialogue and to teamwork. We have seen a record number of time allocations and closure motions, as well as an amazing number of in camera sessions forced on committees. There are plenty of other examples of the things I am talking about. In spite of that, we are moving forward, we are continuing to work in good faith and we welcome open dialogue and sincere teamwork. There are already a number of avenues of study for this bill and we live in hope that the committee will be open to hearing them and taking them into consideration. The Federal Ombudsman for Victims of Crime says that this bill warrants special attention. We take seriously the opinion of experts and of partners in the field, and that is enough for us to turn our attention to it.

I would now like to stress an important point: the NDP is not prepared to pass a bill that would significantly reduce the discretionary power of judges. In our justice system, that power is significant. Judges must be able to match the penalty to the case before them. This is an aspect of Bill C-37 that concerns us.

This bill imposes amounts and a procedure, and we cannot pass it as is without asking more questions about how it limits judges' discretionary power. That is very important to us, and it must be taken seriously. We have to ask serious questions about this bill and about all bills that threaten to curtail judges' discretionary power.

I have another concern about this bill, and during the debate, I surmised that it is also a concern for several of my colleagues. I wonder if this bill takes into account all of the possibilities concerning surcharges imposed on offenders. This bill proposes a fine option. If the offender cannot pay the surcharge that is the subject of this bill, he has the option of participating in a provincial fine option program. Of course, this fine option program is administered at the provincial level.

It is important to ensure that anyone in any province or territory, in any region of the country who cannot pay a surcharge can choose the fine option program. We really have to make sure the option is available. At this point, the bill does not make that clear, and it is something that merits further study. Is this bill fair? Will all judges be in a position to offer a fine option program to offenders who cannot pay the surcharge? It is very important that we review this issue.

I would also like to talk about prevention. This is a subject that we care deeply about. We cannot have a conversation about fighting crime without talking about prevention. Failing to discuss eliminating the need to help victims in the first place shows a lack of vision and pure hypocrisy.

We have all seen Spider-Man and Batman. Some members of the House seem to think that they are living in that kind of fictional world. In the movies, superheroes prevent crime before it even happens. They prevent theft, murder and all kinds of terrible things, and then they turn the criminals over to the justice system, which decides how the criminals should be punished.

But I would like to make sure that everyone here knows that, unfortunately, we are not in a movie. There are no superheroes to stop the bullet before it hits its target and to make sure no one gets hurt. No, that is not how things work. If we truly want to prevent crime, we need to think about preventative solutions.

Money is not a cure-all. I am certain that everyone will agree with me on that. Even if an offender gives more money to the victims, that will not compensate them for the injuries and psychological trauma they have experienced. We cannot bring back someone who died as a result of crime. Money is not going to fix everything when crime is concerned, which is why crime needs to be prevented. If we really want to help victims, we will do something before they become victims. We will decrease the number of victims and not just increase victim compensation.

I would like this to be clear for everyone: I am not saying that we do not need to help victims, not at all. I just want to say that the two things go hand in hand. We need to help victims, but we also need to ensure that we have done everything we can to prevent people from becoming victims at all. This is vital and, unfortunately, I have not heard my Conservative colleagues speak much about it during this debate. I would really like to see an openness to these concerns for victims and for crime prevention.

I would like to give an example from my riding. The second-largest co-operative housing complex in Canada is in Pierrefonds—Dollard. The complex has a number of buildings that house a lot of people from all different cultures, but often they are people with low incomes. The crime rate in that area of my riding was alarming 10 or 15 years ago.

How did we manage to overcome the problem? By getting people involved. The area was turned into a co-operative to give people a sense of belonging to where they live. Awareness program were created in co-operation with the police. Police officers started going into the schools, not only to punish, but to engage in dialogue. They created programs, committees and assistance for families. And now women and children can walk through the streets in the evening and feel safe. Based on what I have heard from people who have lived there for years, this has not always been the case.

The evidence is there. Prevention programs are effective and can improve people's quality of life everywhere. These programs do not fall under federal jurisdiction, but nevertheless, the federal government must be prepared to support them to ensure their survival and their continued development, thereby making our streets safer and preventing crime, and in turn, preventing people from becoming victims.

In closing, I hope that constructive work can be done on this bill in order to improve assistance to victims and give them every little bit of support we can. I also hope everyone will bear in mind that a bill to help victims and a bill to support crime prevention programs go hand in hand.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, one of the things I appreciate about Bill C-37 is that it does show the difference between the Liberal Party and the joint attitude or approach of the Conservatives and the NDP.

Within the Liberal Party we do see how important it is for us to focus attention on the prevention of crime. We do see the value of judicial discretion as an important part of the whole crime file. As such, the primary principle of the bill is to take away the ability of a judge to use his or her discretion in applying a fine. We see that as a negative thing.

I am wondering if the member who just spoke for the New Democratic Party could explain why her party feels it is okay on that principle to allow it to ultimately pass through the House, because she will be voting in favour of it.

I heard the argument made that in committee they would make amendments and so forth. Surely to goodness she would acknowledge that as an opposition party, there are times that we vote in principle for a bill to go to committee, as all opposition parties have done in the past—

[The Deputy Speaker, NDP, Joe Comartin]

The hon. member for Pierrefonds—Dollard.

[Lysane Blanchette-Lamothe, NDP, Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member has been raising the same issue since the beginning of this debate and I get the impression that we simply do not have the same idea of the work that must be done in committee. It is possible that we do not agree in this regard and I respect that.

However, if the hon. member truly believes that the NDP is against allowing judges to use their discretion, I would like him to give me a good example of a bill that the NDP voted in favour of and that, in its final stages, destroyed the discretionary power of judges. I cannot remember any such bills that were supported by the NDP in their final stages. What the NDP is saying right now is that this bill should be examined because the Federal Ombudsman for Victims of Crime said that there is something worthwhile about it and that it should be given some attention.

The NDP does not just do at it pleases. It works with its partners and with experts, and that is why it remains open to dialogue. However, I have many examples to show that the Liberals have undermined the discretionary power of judges on a number of occasions, and I would be happy to speak to the hon. member about them at another time.

[Claude Gravelle, NDP, Nickel Belt, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to congratulate my colleague on her wonderful speech.

I have a short question to ask her. We know that the Conservatives are not used to co-operating with the other parties, but all we have heard this morning from the Liberal Party is that it has given up on the majority of the Conservatives and that it has adopted an underdog attitude.

I would like my colleague to comment on the Liberal's attitude compared to ours given that we want to work in committee to improve this bill.

[Lysane Blanchette-Lamothe, NDP, Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC]

Mr. Speaker, in my opinion not every bill should be passed at second reading in order to be studied in committee. I believe that we agree on that. However—and here we may not all agree—the purpose of this bill is to provide additional assistance for victims. Exactly how we are going to do that requires serious debate, and it is worth listening to what the experts have to say in that regard.

The NDP is not going to stand on ideology with this issue. We believe we will continue to have discussions and do the work to the end. If this bill is not amended and improved, the NDP will not support it, especially if it undermines judicial discretion. That much is clear. In spite of everything, we will continue to do our job in Parliament.

[Élaine Michaud, NDP, Portneuf—Jacques-Cartier, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise in this House for the first time since Parliament resumed, and I am also happy to see all my colleagues again after a very busy summer in my beautiful constituency of Portneuf—Jacques-Cartier.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to take a few moments to congratulate you on your appointment to this new position, something I have not yet had the opportunity to do. I see that you already seem at ease in the chair and I feel that you are going to fulfill your mandate with serene professionalism. Good luck throughout your tenure.

This afternoon, I would like to talk about Bill C-37, which seeks to amend the provisions of the Criminal Code dealing with victim surcharges. A victim surcharge is an additional sanction imposed by a judge when an accused is found guilty of a criminal act.

These surcharges are collected and kept by the provincial and territorial governments in order to fund programs and services provided to victims in the province or territory in which the offence was committed. Among other things, the bill proposes to double the amount that offenders have to pay when they are sentenced and to make the surcharge mandatory for all offenders without exception.

Bill C-37 is presently at second reading, as the hon. member for Pierrefonds—Dollard and other hon. members before her rightly pointed out. If it is passed at this stage, it will be referred to the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights for an in-depth study of each of its clauses. In a word, we are a long way from the final passage and implementation of the bill, which could be passed as is.

Today, I would like to state my position in favour of Bill C-37 at this stage of the legislative process, because I believe that the bill deserves serious and detailed study before it obtains royal assent and becomes part of the overall justice system.

A good number of hon. members before me have expressed the same desire to study the bill in depth in committee, because we are concerned about the lot of victims of crime across the country.

The NDP supports crime victims and their families and is in favour of better funding for programs and services that help those who have become victims of crime.

The Federal Ombudsman for Victims of Crime and a number of victims' organizations have already clearly stated that there is a huge need for more funding for victims' assistance programs. That is one of the reasons why the NDP is not prepared to dismiss this bill without even taking a look at it. We want to work with the other parties. If the Liberals decide to work with us, all the better. Otherwise, we are still opening the door to the Conservatives to develop a bill that will be able to satisfy the most people and address the specific needs of crime victims.

We want to ensure that everyone who works with crime victims has all the resources they need to provide the necessary services to victims. Although I support the spirit of Bill C-37, I still have a number of concerns. The Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights must examine this bill carefully and answer our questions before members of Parliament give their approval.

As I mentioned earlier, this bill proposes to double the amount of the surcharges imposed on offenders. The surcharge would be raised to 30% of the amount of the fine determined by the judge during sentencing—up from 15%. If no fine is imposed on the offender, the amount would be $100 in the case of an offence punishable by summary conviction and $200 in the case of an offence punishable by indictment.

Although this is an interesting proposal, we must consider that this provision in Bill C-37, which would double the amount of the surcharge, could quickly become a problem for low-income offenders. I am not saying that these individuals should not pay their debt to society. On the contrary, I completely agree with the principle of holding offenders accountable and making them contribute to compensation for victims.

However, I think that one of the primary goals of our prison system is to rehabilitate prisoners who will eventually be released into society so that they no longer represent a threat to public safety. We cannot simply lock people up and make them pay some money to try to make them accountable for their crimes.

This is not what is going to help rehabilitate criminals. They need to be given favourable conditions to do so. That inmates can accumulate a debt of up to several thousands of dollars before even getting out of prison is perhaps not the best way to facilitate their rehabilitation.

As for offenders who would not be able to pay the surcharge, Bill C-37 still provides the possibility of taking part in a provincial or territorial fine option program in the provinces and territories where this type of program exists. The fine option program lets offenders pay their debt by earning credits for work done in the province or territory where the offence was committed.

The problem here is that this type of program does not exist in all provinces and territories. So not all offenders would have the opportunity to participate in a fine option program and take care of their debt through some form of work. What happens in that case? What solution would enable these individuals to take care of their debt? This question needs an adequate answer before we can even think about making Bill C-37 a proper bill that applies across Canada.

We also need to ensure that the money for victims of crime is put to good use in all provinces and territories where there is no fine option program. The victims who live in those areas of the country also deserve to receive services, and this government has a responsibility to ensure that they get their fair share.

Another aspect of Bill C-37 that deserves to be studied in depth by the committee is the substantial loss of judges' discretion to determine whether paying the victim surcharge would cause undue hardship for the offender. At the moment, judges are not required to automatically impose this type of surcharge on all offenders if the offenders are able to demonstrate that paying the fine would cause undue hardship to them or to their dependants, be they spouses or children.

If Bill C-37 is passed in its present form, courts will no longer be able to waive the victim surcharge in specific cases. However, judges will still retain the discretionary power to impose a higher victim surcharge if circumstances warrant and if the offender has the means to pay it.

I heard a number of Liberal members, and one in particular, suggesting that the NDP is in favour of restricting the autonomy of judges to impose a victim surcharge on offenders at the time of sentencing, as currently proposed under Bill C-37. Let me just say that it is simply not true. The NDP believes that restricting the autonomy of judges poses a problem and should be reconsidered. We have to have confidence in our judiciary, not tie the hands of our judges the way the Conservative government has done by imposing minimum sentences for certain crimes. The NDP firmly believes that the autonomy of judges is essential to the proper functioning of our justice system and that it should be maintained. We have to let courts do their job.

There are and always will be specific cases and judges must be free to treat each case in its own right. They need to have the freedom to impose the appropriate sentence based on the individual circumstances of each offender. I hope that I have been clear enough so that I will not have to answer the typical question from the hon. member for Winnipeg North as to where the NDP stands on restricting the power of judges.

As members can see from what I have said, Bill C-37 to change the Criminal Code provisions on victim surcharges does have some problems, and warrants further debate and consideration. The NDP supports the recommendations of the Federal Ombudsman for Victims of Crime and believes that more funding is needed to provide adequate services to victims of crime. There are a few problems with Bill C-37 and a thorough examination at the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights is needed in order to come up with real solutions to those problems.

I believe that all members of all political stripes work in good faith. They come to the House with the best interests of Canadians at heart, and they work accordingly. This is the kind of attitude that will allow us to create a bill that is more equitable for everyone, that meets the needs of victims, that provides them with the programs and services they need, and that will make offenders more accountable.

It is for that reason, and that reason alone, that I will support Bill C-37 at second reading and vote to send it to committee. If it is not suitable after that, we can always change our minds.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I am starting to get it. The NDP members are saying that they believe they can change the principle of this legislation once it goes to committee, therefore it is okay if we pass the bill on to committee, and that is the reason they will vote for it going to committee.

I do not know how that would have worked for back-to-work legislation, the killing of the Canadian Wheat Board or many of the other pieces of legislation, such as the gun registry and so forth.

Having said that, if that principle does not change, based on what the previous speaker said, then I take it that the NDP will be joining the Liberals and voting against it at third reading.

Is that a fair assessment, that if the member cannot get the government to change that principle that you will in fact oppose it at third reading?

[The Deputy Speaker, NDP, Joe Comartin]

I would remind the member for Winnipeg North to address his comments to the Chair.

The hon. member for Portneuf—Jacques-Cartier

[Élaine Michaud, NDP, Portneuf—Jacques-Cartier, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to hear the question put a little differently. Finally a breath of fresh air in this House. I said that we are prepared to consider continuing to support this bill if we get what we need. We are here to work with others.

I cannot predict what will result from the committee's work. Consequently, it is very ill-advised to reply at this time and to say what our exact position will be. However, we will be there and we are open to working with others. Perhaps it is this defeatist attitude tinged with cynicism that led voters to relegate the Liberals to the rank of third party. They saw that the Liberal Party was not prepared to work with others, to find new solutions and to change things.

[Françoise Boivin, NDP, Gatineau, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Portneuf—Jacques-Cartier who gave an excellent speech on the issue and also gave a good answer to my colleague from Winnipeg North, who truly surprised me. I may perhaps ask my colleague for further clarification.

I have had many discussions with our colleague from Westmount—Ville-Marie at the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights. We tried, always in good faith to consider the government's objective from the government's viewpoint. And that has always been the approach of my colleague from Westmount—Ville-Marie and of the NDP. We try to be better informed after listening to the experts. It is the government that introduces these bills. We spend our time chastising the government for not listening to the experts. We will have an opportunity to do so.

The Federal Ombudsman for Victims of Crime has told us that we need to do something for the victims, and we would just simply close the door, as the member for Winnipeg North is implying? I must say, perhaps because I was not present during the debates at the beginning of the week, that it seems to me that the Liberal tone has changed. The Liberals' approach was slightly more pro victim at the beginning of the week. I do not know why they have hardened their stance.

[Élaine Michaud, NDP, Portneuf—Jacques-Cartier, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the hon. member for Gatineau for her question and for all the work she does in the area of justice. I think that she represents us and the NDP's positions on various files, including this one, very well. I hope that we will have the chance to hear more from the hon. member for Winnipeg North about this closed-minded attitude and about not wanting to help victims.

We are prepared to set aside certain ideological differences to work with the Conservatives and come up with a bill that will really satisfy everyone and meet the needs that have been clearly expressed by victims of crime, the Federal Ombudsman for Victims of Crime, and victims organizations.

It is completely illogical and even ridiculous to me to simply close the door on any opportunity to change things here. I believe that this is why Canadians across the country chose members of the NDP to represent them. They know that we are open-minded and that we want to make changes.

[Claude Gravelle, NDP, Nickel Belt, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I know that my colleague said in her speech that she had some concerns about this bill, which will be sent to committee. I would like her to explain what those concerns are and what will be done differently in committee.

[Élaine Michaud, NDP, Portneuf—Jacques-Cartier, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I know that I do not have a lot of time, but I want to quickly reiterate two key things.

First, there is the fact that the victim surcharge will be doubled for all offenders without exception. Sometimes, certain specific cases need to be considered separately. Second—and I think that this bears repeating for some of the members of the House—the NDP is opposed to restricting the autonomy and freedom of judges to determine whether a surcharge is necessary on a case by case basis.

[Sadia Groguhé, NDP, Saint-Lambert, QC]

Mr. Speaker, under section 737 of the Criminal Code, a judge may impose a victim surcharge on a person found guilty of a criminal offence. Specifically, this is an amount of money that accompanies any other punishment and is determined by the lower of the following amounts: 15% of any fine imposed, or, if no fine is imposed, $50 in the case of an offence punishable by summary conviction and $100 in the case of an offence punishable by indictment. Furthermore, the Criminal Code allows the judge the discretionary power not only to order an offender to pay an amount exceeding that amount “if the court...is satisfied that the offender is able to pay“, but also to make sure that the offender is able to pay the surcharge.

Our criminal legislation goes further in allowing the offender the opportunity to establish that the additional payment of the victim surcharge would cause undue hardship. The judge can then exempt the offender from the victim surcharge.

The victim surcharge is imposed in addition to any other punishment for an offender convicted or discharged of a Criminal Code offence or an offence under the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act. It is a sanction that is principally directed at the offender's assets. The money is paid to the provinces and territories so that they can fund assistance to victims of crime.

Given that the victim surcharge is a penalty, it must be effective and it must reflect the traditional objectives expected of penalties: to dissuade, to deter, to provide redress and reparation, and to rehabilitate. In other words, Canadian legislation has, in a way, assigned three classic functions to the penalties provided for in the Criminal Code: those functions are prevention, reparation and redress.

The NDP supports Bill C-37, the intent of which is to amend the provisions of the Criminal Code dealing with victim surcharges in order to double the amount that offenders will be required to pay when they are sentenced, and to make the surcharge mandatory for all offenders.

More specifically, under Bill C-37, the surcharge would increase to 30% of any fine imposed, or, if no fine is imposed, it would go from $50 to $100 for a summary conviction offence. It would also go from $100 to $200 in the case of an offence punishable by indictment.

Bill C-37 makes other amendments to the Criminal Code by repealing the provision that gives the court the flexibility to waive the victim surcharge if offenders establish that paying it would cause them or their dependents undue and unreasonable hardship.

The bill preserves the discretionary power that judges have under the current legislation to increase the amount of the victim surcharge if they believe that the circumstances warrant it and the offender has the ability to pay.

Bill C-37 takes into account the fact that some members of the community may not be able to pay the surcharge because of difficult social conditions, so it gives them an alternative: participating in a provincial fine option program, where such programs exist.

Fine option programs allow the offender to pay a fine by earning credits for work done in the province or territory where the crime was committed.

The purpose of the proposed increase set out in Bill C-37 is to have a more meaningful impact on the personal wealth of potential criminals by connecting their actions to the costs incurred by the government in helping victims cope with the consequences of the terrible acts they commit.

The NDP supported several of the recommendations made by the Federal Ombudsman for Victims of Crime, including this one, and is also in favour of enhanced funding for programs for victims of crime.

Indirectly, this bill will satisfy a number of the recommendations made by the Federal Ombudsman for Victims of Crime, who for years has been arguing in favour of an automatic surcharge and better funding for programs for victims of crime.

Crime puts a major strain on government resources. It also puts a strain on the limited resources of Canadian taxpayers.

In 2003, crime cost about $70 billion. Victims of crime bore $47 billion or 70% of that total cost.

In 2004, studies estimated the compensation paid to victims for pain and suffering at $36 billion. That amount does not include the compensation that a significant number of eligible victims do not claim because they are not familiar with the legislation.

On a number of occasions, the Elizabeth Fry Society has also expressed its deep concerns about the bill and about the impact of additional fines on disadvantaged people who cannot afford to pay.

The John Howard Society said that it does not necessarily have a problem with the fines, but that it is afraid that, under this system, fines might end up being disproportionate to the crimes.

The NDP is in favour of Bill C-37 as far as the benefits mentioned earlier go. However, they have some concerns about the bill and hope that the necessary improvements will be made once it is studied in committee.

In the meantime, I would like to talk about the proposal to remove judicial discretion under Bill C-37. That is unacceptable since the discretionary power is very much part of a judge's role. Removing it from judges means undermining the independent nature of the judiciary, which allows judges to hear all sides of the story and to take a stand based on what they know and according to their conscience.

Judges have sovereignty to weigh the facts before them and to make a ruling one way or another. We have a problem with removing judicial discretion when it comes to the surcharge.

The NDP recognizes the paramount importance of the autonomy of judges and will not be able to support the amendment that proposes to restrict judicial discretion. Judges must have that power to be able to perform their duties free from pressures of any kind.

We in the NDP also have some reservations about the proposal to remove the undue hardship clause, considering the negative impact this could have on low-income people. The same is true for the proposal to double the amount. For people who have low incomes, the bill should include a provision to allow judges to waive the surcharge. The law cannot blindly punish people. It must take into account the particular circumstances of the victim, otherwise it would be unfair.

The Conservatives and the NDP have different views of justice. This bill is based on one of the Conservatives' campaign promises in the last election, that they would double the amount paid to victims and make the surcharge mandatory in all cases, with no exceptions, in order to make offenders more accountable to victims of crime.

The NDP, which is appealing for a justice system that is more conscious of the specific needs of young offenders and the need to rehabilitate criminals, opposes any justice reforms that appear to be motivated by a law and order ideology and that do not take into account the specific circumstances of each offender.

I cannot conclude my speech without pointing out the overlap that exists between BIll C-37 and private member's Bill C-350, which also aims to make offenders more accountable to victims. How will these two bill affect one another?

The NDP supports victims of crime and their families and respects the recommendations of the Federal Ombudsman for Victims of Crime. Although we support the principle of Bill C-37, the NDP would like it to be debated further in order to improve it overall.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I do appreciate the fact that members of the New Democratic Party say that they support the Liberals' efforts and thoughts in regard to the importance of judicial discretion.

When I have asked why the NDP members would vote to send the bill to committee, the response has tended to be that that is where it should go. Even though Bill C-10, the Safe Streets and Communities Act, was strongly supported by provincial jurisdictions, including the NDP in Saskatchewan, the federal NDP voted against that bill going to committee. It is an issue of consistency and that is what I am looking to the member for. As the Liberals and the New Democrats voted against sending that bill to committee, it is a bit of a surprise that those members would not join us on this bill. Instead they have chosen to join the Conservatives in supporting this particular bill going to committee even though we seem to share the same concerns about judicial independence. I for one am a very strong advocate for listening to what the victims and others have to say.

If the government were to change the principle of the bill, then it would deserve the support of an opposition party. Would the member not agree?

[Sadia Groguhé, NDP, Saint-Lambert, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for the question.

I would simply like to remind the member that the NDP believes in democratic debate. We think that changes can be made in committee, because dialogue and discussion take place there and because debate is possible there, which is why we intend to support this bill, so it can go to committee.

[Tyrone Benskin, NDP, Jeanne-Le Ber, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I want to preface my question with, “Really?” Bill C-10 was Bill C-10 and Bill C-37 is Bill C-37. I am not sure where my hon. colleague is drawing the link that just because we stood up against Bill C-10 from the beginning, we should do the same thing for Bill C-37. There are elements in Bill C-37 that deserve being looked at in committee. There are elements in Bill C-37 that need to be changed, in particular the point on judicial discretion.

Could my hon. colleague enlighten us a little more on the importance of taking a good look at a bill, trying to change the things that do not work and enhancing the things that do work, which is what we are trying to do with Bill C-37?

[Sadia Groguhé, NDP, Saint-Lambert, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for the question.

Obviously, ensuring that democratic debate can continue in committee is very important to parliamentarians. We have opportunities to go back to certain things and propose amendments. These discussions are vital because they make it possible to influence in some way the changes made to legislation.

I believe that we must insist on the fact that democratic debate does not exclusive to the House. It occurs in our committees, and these meetings are needed in order to influence and propose amendments to proposed legislation.

[Françoise Boivin, NDP, Gatineau, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I very much appreciated my colleague's last comments, and her entire speech for that matter.

These bills make it possible to meet with groups who want to be heard by parliamentarians. In that context, would voting against the bill prevent a number of groups that represent victims from having a say on such an important matter?

[Sadia Groguhé, NDP, Saint-Lambert, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my college for his excellent question.

Obviously, hearing from witnesses is crucial and vital to a healthy democracy. It is important and necessary for committees to hear from as many groups as possible, or even from individuals, people who present their viewpoints and suggestions for improvements, which we, as parliamentarians, must consider. That is very important.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to take the opportunity to express my congratulations to you on your recent elevation to the Speaker's chair in the Deputy Speaker role. Your acknowledged expertise in Parliament, with winning the Maclean's/Dominion Institute Awards as Canada's “Most Knowledgeable” Parliamentarian three times in a row, puts you in a position of considerable support from the entire House for the work that you will do. I hope it all goes very successfully for you. I am sure you will work very well with our Speaker and the Acting Speakers to make the House more reasonable and acceptable to Canadians. I think that is the goal of all of us here. It is a wonderful goal and something for which we should be pushing very hard.

On Bill C-37, first, I would like to deal with the issue of why the NDP would support a bill that would ostensibly take away some discretion from judges and put it into the hands of legislation.

We have to look at the past six months in Parliament to see that many of the bills we wanted to discuss in committee were rammed through. We did not really spend much time on important legislation, legislation that will now have an impact.

Thinking back to Bill C-38, we heard from some witnesses who said that they were in favour of the provisions in the bill on the environment, but that it needed some changes. These people liked the legislation, but thought it required amendment to make the bill better. However, there were no amendments at all to that huge omnibus bill and it was rammed through Parliament. Every Canadian may feel the impact of legislation that is not properly constructed and given due attention.

In this Parliament, the ability to bring something like this forward to committee is an excellent opportunity. There are people who should be heard. Judges need to be heard.

Over previous years, judges have used their discretion quite often not to put a victim surcharge in place. We need to understand why those judges made that decision and why they judged that it was the correct thing to do. We need to understand what it was should that discretion over the victim surcharge be maintained. Upon hearing their opinion, we may get closer to what the bill can accomplish.

We talked a bit about the fine option program. That exists in the Northwest Territories, which I represent, and that program works very well. Not only does it provide low-income Canadians with an option to deal with the added financial responsibility after a criminal charge has been given to them, along with all the other problems it causes in their lives, but in the small communities I represent it really brings people back into the community. It allows them to show that they are willing to work with the community again, that they have attributes and a good side, which can be displayed with these fine option programs.

Over and over we see people under the fine options program taking care of seniors by cleaning their driveways, mowing their lawns or doing all kinds of nice work that brings them back into the community in a real fashion. There are other options that have people out on the land. There may be a variety of activities. They are not costed that well because the cost is not the important part of that program.

The important part of that program is the rehabilitation it provides. If this bill in any way encourages the other provinces and territories to take on a fine option program to match up with this, because the increased fines will be so difficult for many low income people to deal with, that may be a good outcome of the bill. It will encourage those other provinces and territories to get onside with the fine option program, something that works well.

On the other side of it, victims services in the Northwest Territories are probably in the millions of dollars a year. Yet, if we look at the total number of charges and convictions and the amount of money that is raised, we can see that this surcharge is only a small part of what society puts into victims services. It has to be.

It is really not about the money. It is about creating an atmosphere where people understand that what they have done has hurt others and they have an opportunity to remedy that through a financial contribution, which may take something off it, but there is also this fine option program where they actually have to interact with the community. The community understands they under a fine option and they understand they are working off some problem that they created. That is very useful for the justice system.

I do not want to see the provincial or territorial fine option program turn out to be something that does not deliver to the victims. Offenders could end up in the fine option program working off their time, but where is the money for the victims? Do they have to wait until the time is worked off? That might be an amendment we could look at to ensure that if victims' compensation is to be delivered that, it is done in a timely fashion to the victims who have an opportunity to get some services or support for whatever has beset them through the crime that has occurred. The victims should have some opportunity to get that as soon as possible.

There are some issues there that would require a careful look at this. The position of the judges needs to be understood more fully. Canadian judges, by and large, across the country represent a very large and significant volume of justice, understanding and experience with handling criminal cases. Canada has an enormous record of making criminals out of our citizens. The judges are there for all of that.

Bringing this bill forward and taking a look at what it actually means is the sensible thing to do right now. It is a good thing for Parliament to do as well. I do not want to go through the exercise we went through last June when the government rammed through the omnibus bill with no consideration of the finer points of any of those legislation changes. The sheer stupidity of that will play out in Canada for many years to come.

[The Deputy Speaker, NDP, Joe Comartin]

It being 1:30 p.m., the House will now proceed to the consideration of private members' business as listed on today's order paper.

The House resumed consideration of the motion that Bill C-37, An Act to amend the Criminal Code, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

[The Deputy Speaker, NDP, Joe Comartin]

We had three minutes left in questions and answers.

[Raymond Côté, NDP, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague from Vaudreuil-Soulanges for sharing his personal experience with us. It was very interesting and reminded me of an organization in Quebec City called L'Autre Avenue, which offers an alternative to the judicial process in some cases, such as in the case of a dispute between a minor offender, so to speak, and the victim, for instance. It is very interesting.

When I had the opportunity to meet the executive director, she told me that victims are not always looking for compensation nor do they necessarily want the offender to be convicted. They simply want to be informed of the process and to know that the offender is remorseful. This allows the police to avoid automatically prosecuting every individual they arrest. This also helps victims feel like an important part of the judicial system, because often, they feel forgotten.

I wonder if my colleague could share his thoughts on such alternative measures.

[Jamie Nicholls, NDP, Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC]

Mr. Speaker, it is important to look at what the Province of Quebec is doing for young offenders. Clearly, Quebec's approach is different. Every scientific study shows that Quebec's approach is producing positive results. Quebec's recidivism rate is lower than in the other provinces.

I suggest that the government take note of the fact that every province takes a different approach to dealing with young offenders and to look at Quebec as a positive example.

[Anne-Marie Day, NDP, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleagues, who contributed a well-informed and different point of view to fuel debate on Bill C-37, the Increasing Offenders’ Accountability for Victims Act.

Let us review the provisions of Bill C-37, which have been discussed at considerable length already. The bill proposes to amend provisions of the Criminal Code concerning victim surcharges in order to double the amount offenders must pay when they are sentenced. The bill also makes the surcharge mandatory for offenders.

This morning, we heard a moving account from the member for Vaudreuil Soulanges, and it made a deep impression on me. Unfortunately, in discussing this bill, we are also talking about victims. It cannot be avoided, because victims are the ones who are the most affected and who suffer the most from such events.

We heard the account by the member for Vaudreuil-Soulanges this morning, and I would like to add something else.

Yesterday evening, I was having supper with my family, who told me that bus drivers are often assaulted. Someone this happened to personally told me that a person had got on the bus and punched them in the face. The person in question was simply angry because the bus did not pull up to the stop quickly enough, which sometimes happens when a car is in the way, for example.

There have been several assaults of this kind in our province. Bus drivers are attacked at the end of their shift. These people feel powerless, as the member for Vaudreuil-Soulanges demonstrated clearly this morning.

People feel powerless when they are attacked, first of all because they do not expect things like that to happen to them. People also do not expect offenders to do things like that, because it is not part of our upbringing to be assaulted and to have to be on the defensive. People believe they live in a safe country.

This bill proposes to amend Criminal Code provisions in order to double the victim surcharge. Needless to say, we support this. The surcharge would increase to 30% from 15% of any fine imposed on the offender. Where no fine is imposed, the surcharge would be $100, up from $50, for summary conviction offences. It would increase from $100 to $200 for indictable offences. This section is somewhat complex, but in short, the fines are being doubled.

These amounts are significant. Particularly as those who receive them to assist victims are often community groups. In Quebec, they are called Centres d'aide aux victimes d'actes criminels, or CAVACs, and there are equivalent centres across Canada. They are often groups that intervene to provide assistance to victims.

People often do not know that such a system exists and that they can contact a CAVAC if they are victims of a crime.

The CAVACs are funded as follows. They receive funds that are generated in part by offenders, and contribute them towards the activities conducted by groups that provide assistance to victims of crime.

The NDP members will be supporting this bill, but they have reservations. They would like it to be re-examined in committee, simply because judges are not being allowed to impose sentences that may vary, as needed and depending on the person before them. Once again, this is something that comes up in many of the bills I have seen recently in the House.

Many offenders live in poverty. These are criminal groups or individuals with records. In some cases mental illness is involved, but not necessarily. For example, these people may be dropouts who have lived on the street with nothing and who systematically resist integrating into our society, because it does not suit their values. They want something different and they want to make their own laws.

We must intervene and educate them; this is important.

I would like to remind the House of something. In 2003, crime cost about $70 billion, $47 billion of which was borne by victims. That figure represents 70% of the total cost. A 2004 study estimated that the cost of the pain and suffering suffered by victims was in the region of $36 billion. It is truly important to understand the victims, and the NDP will continue to support families in this regard.

Many eligible victims very rarely seek compensation, one reason being that they do not know these services exist. The member for Vaudreuil—Soulanges said this again this morning. He did not know that there might be a system like that. The system also helps to reassure the victim and lets them know these measures exist and sometimes helps them cover various expenses. When a person is a victim of violence, they are scared, they do not take the same routes they used to, they are afraid to get on the bus or go out in a car, afraid of being accosted even when they are walking on the street, and so on. We have to offer these people services, and that has a social cost. Often, the victims do not even think of asking for anything.

Our concerns relate to the elimination of the judge’s discretion to decide whether paying a surcharge would cause undue hardship. In Quebec, and I imagine things are the same in the other provinces, although I have not checked, judges sometimes decide to require a person to do community service when they do not have the means to pay the surcharge in question. These surcharges are important, because they largely fund the assistance provided for victims. They may even cover up to 100%.

Sometimes, when a person is unable to pay the surcharge, they are required to perform community service. It must be open to the judge, at their discretion, to decide that the young person in question will have to approach a community group, and the group will have them do painting, wash windows, and so on. An entire system is in place to help the young person. I say “young person” because young people are often the ones on whom surcharges are imposed, in the case of petty crimes committed by gangs, for example, as the member for Vaudreuil—Soulanges described this morning.

It is important to retain community service. The measure would be too punitive it if were applied in its simple form. That is why we are asking that this bill be referred to committee. We will then be able to examine it and fix some of its flaws. We hope the surcharges will not be disproportionate to the offender’s ability to pay.

I will support this bill at this stage of the legislative process in the hope that the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights will take all the time it needs to examine it, meet with stakeholders and perhaps amend certain aspects that need to be reconsidered. This bill is good for families, but it could be even better and at the same time preserve the right, the power and the flexibility that are needed for making the best possible decisions.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, we have put a lot of emphasis on the importance of victims, and justifiably so. There are many victims of violence who are looking to the government to do what it can to ensure that there is some form of assistance available, either directly or indirectly.

We do not necessarily believe that it is just the surcharges that are there to support victims but also that the government has a role to play in terms of direct assistance.

I am wondering if my colleague could provide some thoughts on the importance of the government coming to the table to support victim support groups or victim services agencies?

[Anne-Marie Day, NDP, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

Mr. Speaker, that is an excellent question. Funding is often the lifeblood of community organizations that support victims. We have to really make an effort. Taxes and surcharges are not going to meet the needs of all these organizations.

My answer to the hon. member is quite simply this: yes, organizations that help victims of violence should receive direct funding.

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

Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask my colleague from Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles if she has noticed what seems to be a general trend. We see it again with this bill, which would eliminate judicial discretion. In a fair number of bills introduced by the Conservative government, the responsibility is shifting increasingly to those who administer the law. The latter will be reduced to establishing relationships, with charts and tables, instead of relying on their judgment. However, a judge—as the term suggests—can weigh the pros and cons, and take into account the circumstances of each situation.

[Anne-Marie Day, NDP, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague. The government has a strong tendency of taking away judicial discretion. That is what we have noticed in a number of their bills and here in the House. The NDP is calling on the government to restore judges' ability to choose and to have a certain flexibility when they hand down a sentence to an offender and in other situations. I would say that this is a dangerous trend. Judges are intelligent and capable of discernment and handing down a sentence that is commensurate with the crime in order to protect society.

[Mylène Freeman, NDP, Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am going to support Bill C-37 so that it can be referred to committee. This bill proposes amendments to the provisions of the Criminal Code on victim surcharges, including subsection 737, in order to double the amount that offenders have to pay when they are sentenced, and to make the surcharge mandatory for all offenders. The surcharge is imposed at the time of sentencing for guilty offenders. It is used to finance crime victims programs and services in the province or territory where the crime was committed.

The Criminal Code requires that a judge impose a victim surcharge in all cases, but the judge also has discretionary power to waive it if the offender can demonstrate that it would cause undue hardship to him or his dependants. If the court decides not to impose a federal surcharge, a rationale has to be provided for the decision and the reasons have to be entered into the court record of deliberations. I am in favour of enhanced funding for victims programs.

On the surcharge for victims, I have some statistics. On May 27, 2010, 729 victim service agencies in Canada reported serving nearly 9,500 clients on that day. It is worth noting that three-quarters of them were women. Of those victims who received services, 81% said that they had been a victim of a violent crime.

In 2009-10, the most frequent types of assistance provided directly by victim services providers in Quebec included court-related guidance or information, courtroom assistance, information about the process and structure of the criminal justice system, preparing victims or witnesses, and assistance in compensation claims.

It is clear that helping victims of crime is costly and that we need to devote more to those who are suffering after a violent crime or any crime that has been done to them or to their family.

Although I support the essence of this bill and I agree that a larger levy on victims' service is, in general, a good idea as it would help us contribute more to victims, I do have some concerns and I hope the committee will closely examine this bill. For instance, the provincial programs that would be funded by this increased surcharge are essential and they need the support. There are not enough victim support services in the provinces. People who are the victims of crime often require psychological and social support during and after the legal process. Therefore, I approve of this. It is quite appropriate that those who commit the crimes be forced to invest in the programming that would help heal, not only for specific victims but for those who are similarly in need.

I call attention to the fact that the most glaring example of an underserviced demographic of victims is the families of missing and murdered aboriginal women. Yesterday, Ottawa had a strong show of solidarity with the families who have lost daughters, mothers, sisters and wives to horrible violence and unsolved disappearances. A hard-working group called Families of Sisters in Spirit organized a massive vigil on Parliament Hill yesterday. Its message was very strong and clear. Hundreds of women who have been taken will not be forgotten and the families and allies will not rest until the government recognizes its responsibility to these victims and to aboriginal women across the country who remain in danger.

Some of the saddest stories we heard on the Hill yesterday were about cases where crimes were not thoroughly investigated for months and sometimes years and where the victims of crime had to take it upon themselves to investigate the disappearances of their own loved ones because they could not get access to the services they needed. One of the repercussions of this phenomenon of disproportionately unsolved murders is that the families were told that they could not receive the victim services until the cases were solved. If no one is solving the cases, then, unfortunately, these families are left to themselves entirely.

When it comes to aboriginal women, it is not just the victims of kidnapping and murder who badly need the victim services. It is for the families and communities that we really need to invest in prevention. An aboriginal woman is five times as likely as a non-aboriginal woman to be the victim of a violent crime. This is mostly due to extreme rates of poverty. Over 40% of aboriginal women are living below the poverty line. These women have a shameful lack of access to police services, legal services, shelter and psychiatrists, let alone provincial victim services.

We do need better and more effective victims' services. If we can do something in this House to increase those kinds of services to those who need it, we especially need to think about increased funding to first nations, Métis and Inuit communities for those both on and off reserve.

This bill would make it impossible for a court to order that no victim surcharge be imposed on an offender when it is demonstrated that the payment of such a surcharge would cause the offender—or his dependants—undue hardship. Currently, judges have discretionary power to order the payment of a higher surcharge or to waive such a surcharge.

We on this side of the House have one concern and that is the power of judicial discretion. This discretionary power allows judges to waive the surcharge for criminals to whom it would cause undue harm or cause undue harm to their families. This is important for people who have committed crimes and are very poor.

Poverty is often the root cause of crime and financially crippling a person on top of sentencing them could make rehabilitation impossible. It could also make it difficult for their children to properly integrate into society and so on. With respect to the withdrawal of the clause on undue hardship and the provision seeking to double the surcharge amount, this would be problematic for low income offenders.

I will share with the House some statistics about who a lot of these people are. Eighty per cent of all federally sentenced women report having been physically or sexually abused. This rises to 90% when we are talking about aboriginal women. Two-thirds of federally sentenced women are mothers and they are more likely than men to have primary child care responsibilities. There are about 25,000 children whose mothers are either in federal prisons or provincial jails, and that was as of last year. Separation from their children and the inability to deal with problems concerning them are major anxieties for women in prison. If poverty is a contributing factor, then we can imagine the situation facing these families.

Women who have been in prison also have much lower employment rates than men who have been incarcerated. Not only do women experience more poverty than men but most criminalized women have low levels of education, limited employment and economic records and usually live alone in extremely poor housing conditions. In the Prairie region, most of the women in prison are indigenous. They represent 85% of the female prison population.

As I said earlier, these are people who are living in poverty and do not have access to social services. They also lack access to health care and education.

The issue of judicial discretion needs to be examined more closely. If it is used often, we may need to look at more prevention. We may need to look at providing more help to those on the ground who are living in poverty and may end up becoming criminals in the future. We really do need to be concentrating more on prevention.

I will be voting to send the bill to committee in order to examine it further because I agree that we should be funding more services for victims.

[Philip Toone, NDP, Gaspésie—Îles-de-la-Madeleine, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague from Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel for her very informative comments, which were much appreciated.

I would like to point out that this bill would once and for all do away with the discretion judges currently have with respect to penalties, sentences and fines. Could the member comment a bit more on this matter?

[Mylène Freeman, NDP, Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC]

Mr. Speaker, this was a recommendation made to the government. It was found that judges were often using their discretionary power to waive the fee. We really need to look at why that is. Judges are human. They are going to see things differently. They are not always going to apply the law perfectly unless it is made mandatory.

If it is being invoked often, the problem is more likely because of the fact that a lot of people who live in poverty become criminals. We need to look at addressing that problem before we start taking away the discretionary power of judges, who are really trying to help. Many of those women are mothers with dependents. If they are unable to pay, then in a sense we are creating more victims.

[Djaouida Sellah, NDP, Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for her speech. She is a very brave and highly intelligent woman, and I found her remarks very relevant.

As we are all aware, this bill is an election promise made by the Conservatives during the last election. The Conservatives would like to show the world that they want to provide better protection to victims and families, but we know that everyone here is in favour of justice and safe communities.

There is something that worries me. In my colleague's opinion, what would be the repercussions of taking away judges' discretionary power to waive a surcharge, particularly for aboriginal people who do not have the means to pay these surcharges?

[Mylène Freeman, NDP, Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the hon. member for Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert for her very important question.

A bill like this one goes hand in hand with prevention. The federal government needs to understand that it is responsible for the first nations, the Inuit and aboriginals.

It seems as though the Conservatives do not understand that it is their responsibility to provide services to these communities.

We need to provide them with greater access to culturally relevant education.

Providing preventive measures would mean fewer victims in the future. As I was saying, this has to go hand in hand with more funding for the victims. There will always be victims, but I think there could be fewer. I also think the government should focus its efforts on prevention.

[Philip Toone, NDP, Gaspésie—Îles-de-la-Madeleine, QC]

Mr. Speaker, today, I would like to participate in the debate on this bill.

Clearly, this bill would benefit greatly from additional debate in committee. It is very important that all the points that are raised there be debated.

Once again, the Conservatives are trying to pass a bill that will take discretionary power away from judges. We have to ask ourselves why that is. What is the reasoning behind this? What impact will it have?

In court, during the testimony and sentencing, judges are in the best position to understand and to determine the proper sentence for the offence committed. Why is this not being taken into consideration? This bill takes away judges' discretion, and I am very concerned about that.

Canada's legal system allows a judge to clearly understand the testimony, the evidence and the circumstances. The burden is on him to impose a fair and equitable sentence. We in the House of Commons must not think that we know all the facts and that we are always right, when all of this should be assessed on a case-by-case basis.

We do not know the circumstances of the crime or the offender's ability to pay the fines. We thus do not know what sentence would be fair and equitable. Let us not forget that the purpose of a sentence should be rehabilitation; it should not encourage the offender to reoffend.

I will come back to that in a moment, but I would first like to share with the House what the Quebec justice minister has to say about fines on his website:

A fine is a sum of money that must be paid to the State by an offender within a time frame determined by the judge.

He then adds the following, and this is the part that seems important to me:

Before imposing a fine, the judge must be satisfied that the individual has the means to pay it.

This is not the first time in Canada's legal history or in our legal system that we have heard this said. In a legal system such as ours, the sentence must fit the crime. In the past, there were debtors' prisons, prisons for people who did not pay their debts. We can impose all the fines that we want on a homeless offender who does not have any money, but that will not change the fact that he does not have any and that he will never be able to afford to pay those fines.

We should not take away from a judge the power to waive a surcharge when he is fully aware that the offender does not have the means to pay that surcharge. The judge knows that because he is the judge of the facts and he is well informed.

Yet, that is what the bill will do. The judge will be fully aware that a fine will never be paid, but he will still have to impose it. It makes no sense. It is absolutely illogical that a judge who knows the facts should have to do that.

There a reason why we have our modern legal system. The trial judge looks at the facts and he is the one who has the responsibility of imposing a sentence, based on the offence and on the offender's ability to serve that sentence.

The sentence should also be an incentive to rehabilitate. I find it hard to believe that imposing a series of fines can lead to rehabilitation.

There is one thing we often hear and cannot ignore: jails are a place where offenders increase their ability to break the law, to remain offenders. Jails are crime schools. We should not feed jails like that. If we create this situation and the offender cannot pay his fine, what are we going to do? Are we just going to ignore the fact that a fine was imposed? No, we cannot do that. The fine exists and the offender must pay it. If he is unable to do so, he will be fined again and this will generate yet another legal process. We are imposing a burden that cannot be supported. It is important to understand that.

The current act already provides for a 15% surcharge on any fine imposed on the offender. If no fine is imposed, the surcharge is $50. That surcharge must be imposed because that is what the law says. Now, we want to increase the burden twofold, from 15% to 30% when a fine is imposed, and from $50 to $100 for offences punishable by summary conviction, when no fine is imposed.

Under the current act, the judge has a discretionary power. Section 737(5) of the Criminal Code reads as follows:

When the offender establishes to the satisfaction of the court that undue hardship to the offender or the dependants of the offender would result from payment of the victim surcharge, the court may, on application of the offender, make an order exempting the offender from the application of subsection (1).

As we can see, the lawmakers who wrote this legislation were wise enough to understand that, sometimes, one is not in a position to pay a surcharge. They even went a little further and said that the court must take into consideration the offender's ability to pay the surcharge. They also thought about a dependent: would imposing a surcharge harm this dependent? A dependent is usually a child, but it could be anyone.

I would point out that in international law and Canadian law, the needs of the child must always be given priority when a bill is drafted. And whenever judges have to interpret legislation, they have a duty, an obligation, to consider the impact it may have on a child. Looking at the bill that is before us, it may be that a judge will have no choice but to impose a surcharge, knowing not only that the burden is too heavy for the offender, but also that it might cause hardship for a dependent child of the offender. What this means is that it would be contrary not only to a number of Canadian laws, but also to international obligations.

It is incomprehensible that we could enact bills in Canada that might impose an unreasonable burden on a child who, clearly, does not have the means to pay a victim surcharge levied against the child's parents. We have to avoid, at all costs, imposing that kind of burden on a child who is an innocent party in the situation. And yet what we are doing is creating a situation that could cause hardship for a child. Frankly, and I will say it again, we would benefit from a longer and more thorough discussion in committee. That is why I will probably vote to send the bill to committee, but that does not mean it would not benefit from being amended.

I also want to note that the popular encyclopedia Wikipedia, which I often find to be an inspiring source, talks about surcharges and fines. This is what it says:

Fines are counter-productive if the offender commits more offences to get the money to pay the fine.

What that means is that there is little point in imposing fines when the person is not able to pay them, because that could actually encourage recidivism. A person who is not able to pay their fines has to get the money somewhere, or they will be charged with another offence. And again, that encourages recidivism. We are potentially creating a vicious circle. I hope that everyone will think carefully about this and there will be a good debate in committee.

[Guy Caron, NDP, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my riding neighbour for his speech on Bill C-37. I have a specific question to ask him. We talk a lot about judges' discretionary power, but I would like to address another matter Senator Boisvenu raised with respect to the bill, when he presented it to Canadians. According to his comments, increasing the victim surcharge will be a deterrent to crime.

Can my colleague comment on the statement the senator made when introducing the bill?

[Philip Toone, NDP, Gaspésie—Îles-de-la-Madeleine, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my riding neighbour, who represents a riding with a name that is too long to say today.

The surcharges and fines have a definite purpose. However, I do not believe that this purpose is properly reflected in the bill being studied, where surcharges are not used to rehabilitate, but to punish the offender. In that sense, it would be effective. The problem is that we must have a balanced judicial system. We must balance the desire to punish and the desire to prevent recidivism. The bill only deals with punishment, and there is nothing about rehabilitation.

[Mathieu Ravignat, NDP, Pontiac, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I listened carefully to what my colleague said in this debate, which is an important one because it concerns victims and crime. I heard him talk mainly about judicial discretion. What does he think is dangerous about tampering with judicial discretion?

[Philip Toone, NDP, Gaspésie—Îles-de-la-Madeleine, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague, whose riding name is much longer than that of my neighbour from Témiscouata, Les Basques and so on.

[Mathieu Ravignat, NDP, Pontiac, QC]

Pontiac is easy.

[Philip Toone, NDP, Gaspésie—Îles-de-la-Madeleine, QC]

Indeed, Pontiac is easier.

To answer the question, our legal system goes back hundreds of years. It has been well developed and is very pragmatic. There is a reason why we have trial judges who are familiar with cases. They know what went on; they hear testimony. It is up to them to come up with a sentence to fit the crime committed.

That is why appeal courts do not hear testimony. They make rulings on specific legal questions. In our system, the trial judge is the one familiar with the case. Neither the appeal court nor the Supreme Court, and certainly not the House of Commons, is familiar with every case.

Members of Parliament must not think that they know everything about everything. It would be quite a bill if it took every possible situation into account. If people truly wanted to work on such a bill, it would be a lifelong project and it would never be done. We must not think that we are that smart in the House. We do not know all the facts. The trial judge is the one who knows the facts, and it is up to him to impose an appropriate punishment.

[Sylvain Chicoine, NDP, Châteauguay—Saint-Constant, QC]

Mr. Speaker, it is always an honour for me to address the House.

On May 17, 2012, the government introduced Bill C-37, which amends the Criminal Code provisions on victim surcharges as currently set out in section 737.

I have listened to many of the speeches given by my colleagues on both sides of the House, but mainly on this side, since few government members have spoken about this bill. I trust the judgment of my hon. colleague from Gatineau, who was the first to say that we would be supporting this bill at second reading. I also respect her legal experience. For my part, I worked for quite some time as a special constable, for I have always had a special interest in saving lives and keeping the people in my community safe.

At the beginning of this Parliament, I was our party's public safety critic. I care deeply about the safety of my fellow citizens. Now while debating this bill, it is our duty as legislators to ensure that victims of crime have the support they need.

Many people here have pointed out the lack of funding for programs and services offered to victims, and like my colleague, I am very concerned about this. That is why I will vote in favour of this bill, for we in the NDP support many of the recommendations made by the ombudsman for victims of crime, many of which are addressed in this bill. Furthermore, we have always supported increased funding for programs and services offered to victims of crime.

Bill C-37 amends the Criminal Code sections dealing with victim surcharges. A victim surcharge is an additional penalty imposed on offenders at the time of sentencing after they have been convicted of an indictable offence. This bill doubles the amount of victim surcharges and makes them mandatory for all offenders.

The surcharge would be the equivalent of 30% of any fine imposed on the offender at sentencing. Currently, the surcharge is 15%. If a judge does not impose a fine with the sentence or if no fine applies, then the surcharge would be $100 for summary offences and $200 for indictable offences.

Judges will be able to impose a higher victim surcharge if circumstances warrant and if the offender has the means to pay it. This provision is interesting because it leaves room to adjust the fine, but especially because it gives judges discretionary power in cases where this might apply. These fines will be collected by the provincial and territorial governments and allotted to the programs and services for victims of crime. These fines are not supposed to end up in the consolidated fund of any province or territory. We must ensure that this will indeed be the case.

A number of my colleagues have also mentioned that the programs and services are severely underfunded and that the precarious finances of these organizations often jeopardize the success of their mission. Crimes have considerable socio-economic repercussions on victims, including funeral costs, the need for psychological counselling and lost revenue. There are many repercussions for the families of victims of crime.

The statistics say it all. In 2003, crime cost roughly $70 billion, $47 billion of which was assumed by the victims. In other words, the victims assumed 70% of the cost. In 2004, a study estimated that the pain and suffering of the victims was in the neighbourhood of $36 billion. That is huge and, unfortunately, the victim surcharge is not going to fully cover this cost, but it will help.

Did the government do its homework and use the best possible tool for maximizing the funding for these organizations? That remains to be seen, and I hope we can determine that when we study the bill in committee.

This bill could contribute to funding these organizations and if that is the case, then I am most pleased. If it also—although I have my doubts—helps make an offender accountable and prevents recidivism, then just like the government, I will be very happy. But make no mistake, this is not a magic solution. The provisions in Bill C-37 will not solve all the problems, but they will be another good tool to help provide funding to the organizations.

We should not, however, expect that the impact of this bill will be significant enough to dissuade a person from committing a crime, as some members mentioned in their remarks.

This is where policies and programs on crime prevention and offender accountability come into play. Since the beginning of this parliament, the Conservatives have introduced many justice bills involving mandatory minimum sentences. Yet, they have done very little in the way of crime prevention and offender rehabilitation.

That is why, when I was a member of the Standing Committee on Public Safety, I endorsed a balanced approach to crime and rehabilitation, as did my other colleagues. It is important to invest in prevention and rehabilitation in order to minimize the chances of people committing a first offence or reoffending. We must not focus all our efforts on punishment. The Conservative Party's vision of this concept is rather shameful.

For the Conservatives, punishment solves all problems. There are so many factors that lead to crime that we must take a multi-faceted approach to dealing with it. Poverty, unemployment, inadequate housing and low levels of education are all factors that contribute to a rise in crime. A preventive approach must address all these problems in order to achieve effective results.

It is also important to have intelligent corrections legislation and policies accompanied by rehabilitation programs that help to reduce recidivism. It is everyone's duty, as a community, to help victims of crime and to do everything possible to prevent people from becoming victims of crime.

The bill also contains provisions regarding offenders who are unable to pay the fine. Under Bill C-37, these people can participate in a provincial fine option program. These programs allow offenders to pay their debts by earning credits for work done in the province or territory where they committed their crime. I think this is a worthwhile approach because it could get offenders involved in their communities and make them feel accountable, which will greatly contribute to their rehabilitation.

However, the government will have to regulate these programs, since they must be fair and equitable, in light of the sentence, and must be standardized across Canada. I hope the government has done its homework, and we will be able to check that once the bill is sent to the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights. We must not blindly rush into this, since these programs do not currently exist in all the provinces and territories. What happens when a program does not exist? This is a legitimate question that my colleague raised during the first debate.

If a province must create a new program, it will require funding to do so, and once again, like with Bill C-10, the government may end up passing the bill on to the provinces. Has the government consulted the provinces about this? Will the provinces once again be on the hook for financing the government's crime agenda? I would like a clear answer to that question.

The bill will eliminate the court's ability to exempt the mandatory surcharge if undue hardship to the offender or the dependants of the offender would result from payment of the surcharge. I have some concerns about this provision. The bill indicates, in order of priority, the debts that the offender will have to pay, and support payments are at the top of the list.

In conclusion, like my colleagues, I have a number of concerns about Bill C-37, but I support the spirit of the bill and some provisions that deserve to be studied more carefully in committee. A number of the questions we asked the government have not yet been answered, and we think that they deserve to be discussed in committee. We must talk about the proposed elimination of the judge's discretionary power to decide whether paying a surcharge would cause undue hardship to the offender or dependants of the offender. I think that discretionary powers for judges are very important and that we must protect their autonomy.

[Anne-Marie Day, NDP, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the Conservatives this question, but they are not making any speeches. I am not quite sure why. I wonder if this is a new way for them to block the debate. We will see in the end.

I would like to ask the member a question, but I do not know if he will be able to respond. Perhaps the committee will respond. Will the money from the fines that are being doubled go straight to victims of crime and the groups that represent them? Does my colleague know the answer to that question?

[Sylvain Chicoine, NDP, Châteauguay—Saint-Constant, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for the question. Indeed, we have some concerns about that. We are wondering if all of the money that comes from these fines and increased surcharges will be completely turned over to victims' funds. There is no guarantee in this bill. Will all of that money be paid to organizations that help victims? This issue needs to be clarified.

I am sure we will have an opportunity to ask these questions when the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights examines this bill. For now, we will have to wait and see, for this is very important.

[Djaouida Sellah, NDP, Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, QC]

Mr. Speaker, Bill C-37 proposes to amend the Criminal Code provisions concerning victim surcharges in order to double the amount offenders must pay when sentenced, and to make the surcharge mandatory for all offenders. I have concerns about that. Therefore, I will be voting to send the bill to committee.

I have a concern about the surcharge. I would like my colleague, who gave a fine presentation, to tell me about the discrepancy that will arise between the nature of the crimes committed and the surcharge imposed.

[Sylvain Chicoine, NDP, Châteauguay—Saint-Constant, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for the excellent question. There are a number of reasons why we are concerned that judicial discretion to apply this victim surcharge is being eliminated.

The inmate population in certain provinces includes people who are from very poor and disadvantaged backgrounds. Will they be able to pay this mandatory surcharge? Will they be able to participate in a provincial program that allows them to work instead of paying the surcharge? Is such a program available in all provinces? According to what I was told, that is unfortunately not the case.

The minister does not seem to have confidence in judicial discretion because he wants to eliminate it. That is rather worrisome. The government is constantly trying to restrict the discretion that judges have when imposing sentences by introducing bills with minimum sentences. Once again, judicial discretion is being eliminated. The government wants to impose a victim surcharge that a poor offender may not be able to pay and that would cause him undue hardship.

[The Deputy Speaker, NDP, Joe Comartin]

Resuming debate. Is the House ready for the question?

[Some hon. members]

Question.

[The Deputy Speaker, NDP, Joe Comartin]

The question is on the motion that the question be now put. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

No.

[The Deputy Speaker, NDP, Joe Comartin]

All those in favour of the will please say yea.

[Some hon. members]

Yea.

[The Deputy Speaker, NDP, Joe Comartin]

All those opposed will please say nay.

[Some hon. members]

Nay.

[The Deputy Speaker, NDP, Joe Comartin]

In my opinion the nays have it.

And five or more members having risen:

[Gordon O'Connor, Conservative, Carleton—Mississippi Mills, ON]

Mr. Speaker, there have been discussions between the whips, and pursuant to Standing Order 45(7) I would ask that the recorded division on this motion be deferred to Tuesday, October 16, at the end of government orders.

[The Deputy Speaker, NDP, Joe Comartin]

Pursuant to Standing Order 45(7) the recorded division stands deferred until Tuesday, October 16, at the expiry of the time provided for government orders.

[Gordon O'Connor, Conservative, Carleton—Mississippi Mills, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I ask that we see the clock at 1:30.

[The Deputy Speaker, NDP, Joe Comartin]

Is there agreement to see the clock at 1:30?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Deputy Speaker, NDP, Joe Comartin]

The House will now proceed to the consideration of private members' business as listed on today's order paper.

The House resumed from October 5 consideration of the motion that bill C-37, An Act to amend the Criminal Code, be read the second time and referred to a committee, and of the motion that this question be now put.

[The Speaker, Conservative, Andrew Scheer]

The House will now proceed to the taking of the deferred recorded division on the previous question at the second reading stage of Bill C-37.

(The House divided on the motion which was agreed to on the following division:)

Vote #475

[The Speaker, Conservative, Andrew Scheer]

I declare the motion carried.

The next question is on the main motion.

[Gordon O'Connor, Conservative, Carleton—Mississippi Mills, ON]

Mr. Speaker, if you seek it I believe you would find agreement to apply the vote from the previous motion to the current motion, with the Conservatives voting yes.

[The Speaker, Conservative, Andrew Scheer]

Is it agreed?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[Nycole Turmel, NDP, Hull—Aylmer, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the NDP agrees to apply the vote and will vote yes.

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

Mr. Speaker, the Liberals agree to apply the vote and will be voting no.

[Louis Plamondon, Bloc, Bas-Richelieu—Nicolet—Bécancour, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the Bloc Québécois is in favour.

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

Mr. Speaker, I will be voting yes.

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

Mr. Speaker, the Green Party will be voting no.

[Peter Goldring, Independent, Edmonton East, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I will be voting yes.

(The House divided on the motion, which was agreed to on the following division:)

Vote #476

[The Speaker, Conservative, Andrew Scheer]

I declare the motion carried. Accordingly, the bill stands referred to the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights.

(Bill read the second time and referred to a committee)

[The Speaker, Conservative, Andrew Scheer]

It being 6:19 p.m., the House will now proceed to the consideration of private members' business as listed on today's order paper.