Bill C-10 (Historical)

Tackling Contraband Tobacco Act

An Act to amend the Criminal Code (trafficking in contraband tobacco)

This enactment amends the Criminal Code to create a new offence of trafficking in contraband tobacco and to provide for minimum penalties of imprisonment for repeat offenders.

[Deputy Commissioner Rick Barnum, Executive Director, National Coalition Against Contraband Tobacco]

Thank you, sir.

Good afternoon, committee.

My name is Rick Barnum, and I am the recently appointed executive director of the National Coalition Against Contraband Tobacco.

I most recently served as deputy commissioner of the Ontario Provincial Police and had an over 30-year career in law enforcement. During my career, I spent most of my time combatting organized crime. I saw first-hand how lucrative the contraband tobacco trade can actually be.

The Criminal Intelligence Service of Canada estimates that contraband tobacco and cannabis have a cost of over $12 billion in health care, lost productivity, criminal justice and other direct costs.

The RCMP estimates that there are over 175 criminal gangs involved in the illicit trade of contraband tobacco. These gangs make millions of dollars a day off contraband tobacco, which they use to fund their other illicit activities, including illegal firearms, drugs such as fentanyl, and human trafficking.

To combat this important funding source for organized crime groups, in 2014 the government passed Bill C-10, which introduced a Criminal Code offence for the trafficking of contraband tobacco and also a mandatory minimum penalty for the same offence. Both of these tools have been used by law enforcement across Canada since that time to dissuade individuals from participating in the contraband tobacco trade.

Prior to this, many of those charged and found guilty under provincial tobacco tax laws would simply be fined, but the fines would never actually get paid. The Criminal Code offence and penalties associated with this offence have made trafficking of contraband tobacco less attractive for some people.

However, Bill C-5 proposes to eliminate the mandatory minimum penalty for the trafficking of contraband tobacco while keeping the Criminal Code offence. By eliminating the mandatory minimum penalty, the government is removing a tool used by law enforcement to dissuade possible contraband tobacco traffickers.

The government of late has also helped to fuel the contraband tobacco trade by continuous increases in tax on tobacco. History shows us, as was also reported by the Parliamentary Budget Officer, that tax increases without action against contraband tobacco result in a larger black market that directly funds criminal gangs. This is why, after removing one of the law enforcement tools, the government must add another.

First, the contraband tobacco trade continues to grow across Canada without concerted federal action. Illegal cigarettes, manufactured mostly in Ontario, can be found from British Columbia to Newfoundland. To curb the illicit trade, we recommend that the government create a contraband tobacco enforcement team within the RCMP that would help to coordinate enforcement across the provinces. Provinces like Quebec have seen great successes in such a model, in which municipal and regional law enforcement have been coordinated.

Second, further increased taxation on tobacco without action against contraband tobacco will only help to further grow the illicit trade. We recommend that the government resume a prudent approach toward tobacco taxation until contraband tobacco is addressed across the entire country.

Lastly, Ontario continues to be the epicentre of contraband tobacco in Canada. One in three cigarettes purchased in the province is purchased illegally. Criminal gangs make millions of dollars every day from this illicit trade.

To address this core issue, we recommend that the government partner with Ontario in taking action against contraband tobacco. By supporting law enforcement through countrywide coordination and a prudent taxation approach, the government can begin to effectively address Canada's growing contraband tobacco problem. With the removal of one law enforcement tool, the government must add another.

We hope we can count on your support in taking action against contraband tobacco and also against organized crime.

Thank you for your time. I'll be happy to take any questions.

Record Suspension Program

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I want to begin by wishing my wife a happy anniversary and thank her for seven great years. All of us in the House who are married can really appreciate the significant sacrifices our spouses make to make it possible for us to be here and do this important work. In many ways, they make greater sacrifices than we do.

I want to thank the member for Saint John—Rothesay for putting this motion forward. I had the pleasure of being in his riding last week talking to people there. I do not know if he will appreciate the fact that I visited his riding, but it is certainly a beautiful riding. I had a chance to talk to a number of not-for-profit organizations that are involved in important work on some of the issues he spoke about in his speech, including poverty alleviation.

I want to say, somewhat parenthetically, and it is very important, that much of the work being done in Saint John--Rothesay, in New Brunswick, and throughout the country around rehabilitation and poverty alleviation is done by independent civil society not-for-profit organizations. The most important work is often not done by government. It is done by these external organizations.

There is a big impact in New Brunswick because of the Canada summer jobs policy change made by the government. I met with groups who were specifically involved in the issues the member spoke about, issues around poverty, for example. They are concerned about the fact that as charitable organizations, they have a much harder time accessing those resources. A lot of those dollars are now going to for-profit companies instead of to not-for-profit organizations that might have a statement of faith or a conviction that excludes them from participating.

I know that the member's passion for these issues is genuine. I encourage him to look at what he can do and what the government can do to remove barriers to civil society organizations that are doing that work.

During a previous trip, when I was in Moncton, I was inspired to meet with people involved in Harvest House Atlantic. This is a great organization that works on rehabilitation and reintegration as well as with people who are struggling with substance abuse. This organization was founded by someone who had a previous involvement with crime. It is an organization that is no longer able to access the Canada summer jobs program as a result of the changes that have been made.

I want to make a point specifically about the process that has brought us to this discussion. The member has brought us a motion calling for the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security to undertake a study. This proposal has convened debate in the House of Commons about some important issues.

My suggestion would be that if he wanted to confront the issues he is talking about, he could have, at any point, put a motion before the committee to undertake that study. His party has a majority on that committee. It sounds like his party is going to support this motion, which means that the motion will pass and the committee will undertake the study.

The member had the opportunity to put this motion forward earlier in this Parliament, and perhaps the study would have brought forward proposals for legislative changes. He could have used this opportunity to propose substantive legislative changes. If he proposed legislative changes, even in a more speculative way, that legislation, were it to pass, would still go to committee for study. There would be the same opportunity for study, but it would be a study of specific legislative proposals on the system we have in place for record suspension.

I often wonder why the government members put forward motions for study instead of actual legislative initiatives. Because of the draw, not every MP in the House will have an opportunity to bring forward substantive legislation. When members have that channel, and there are issues they are hearing about from their constituents, and they have firm convictions, rather than saying we should study it more, there is value in actually putting legislative proposals forward so we can debate the merit of those legislative proposals.

As it is, when a motion comes to the House of Commons calling on us to instruct a committee to do a study on something, we are in a a difficult position. Not knowing what is currently on the committee's agenda, not knowing what studies have already been suggested and what studies are already in progress, we are asked, as members of Parliament, to rule on the agenda of a committee. I would argue that perhaps, generally speaking, it would be more appropriate for the committee itself to rule on its own agenda and for the committee itself to weigh whether record suspensions versus other issues that may currently be before the committee is the one that should be studied. Again, the motion could be put forward at committee without needing to use up a slot in terms of a private member's motion or bill draw.

As such, when people who are not part of a committee are asked to rule on something, it is a bit of a strange inversion of what should be the process for managing the business of committees, which are traditionally thought of as masters of their own domain.

It raises the question of why the member is putting forward something that is not meant to bring about specific changes and that he could have done another way in a forum where there could be a wider airing of discussion to have the motion. The motion could have happened and gone forward much more quickly.

That said, I want to make a few substantive comments on the content of the motion on the record suspension issue, and I suspect I will continue during the second hour of debate.

This motion proposes a study on the process of record suspension. There is no harm in principle with doing a study, but we are concerned about the direction the government may want to go in trying to use this study as a basis for subsequent changes that we may disagree with.

A previous bill proposed by a Conservative government, the Safe Streets and Communities Act, made certain changes with respect to record suspension. The goal of those changes was to institute a system of greater balance. Certainly we recognize the important role that record suspension plays in allowing people to move on from that phase of their life if there is clear indication of rehabilitation, but safeguards need to be in place to ensure an appropriate balance by facilitating the protection of society and facilitating rehabilitation.

Let us be clear about what rehabilitation is all about. It is not about giving the benefits of rehabilitation before a person has clearly established that they have gone through the process of rehabilitation. Rehabilitation is the process by which an individual takes responsibility for their life and chooses to pursue a different path than they have pursued in the past. In that sense, rehabilitation is associated with asking people to be responsible, to take responsibility for their actions. That is something that must be well and closely connected with what is happening in that case.

In pursuit of a greater balance with respect to the issue of record suspension, the previous Conservative government made a number of changes, such as disqualifying anyone with more than three convictions for indictable offences from ever being able to apply. Most Canadians would think that is reasonable. If someone has gone through a process and was thought to have been rehabilitated, yet has reoffended and has multiple cases of reoffending, then I would argue it is reasonable that the offence remain on their record.

There is a difference between removing a record for a one-time offence, maybe something a person did a long time ago, and removing the record of someone who has repeatedly been involved in a pattern of criminal activity. That is not to say that the person cannot be rehabilitated and it is not saying that person should not be able to access employment, but if there is a case of a repeat offence, the information should be out there, because if that person has shown a pattern in the past and maybe seemed to be rehabilitated, then we should be much more careful when it comes to how we manage that person's record.

That was a change that was made as part of Bill C-10. I think it brought greater balance and that it was reasonable. I think many Canadians would support this idea and would recognize the need for record suspension in certain cases as well as the need for balance to protect public safety.

Another change the previous Conservative government made was to forever disqualify convicted child sex offenders from being able to apply. Again, when someone is involved in a serious offence that puts a child at risk, it is reasonable for that record to be available in an ongoing way so that, for instance, an employer who might choose to hire someone who had a past event but who gave every indication of rehabilitation would still be extra careful about having that person around vulnerable people.

Having that record out there is reasonable when we are talking about child sexual offences. We do not know whether the member for Saint John—Rothesay agrees with those changes or not. He was quite critical of changes that we made and he has a motion for an open-ended study. The implication is that there was something wrong with what was done under Bill C-10. Again, the cases I have identified are relatively reasonable.

The change in terminology from “pardon” to “record suspension” is very reasonable, because it preserves the sense that there is still a record of that offence; it is just a question of whether or not that record is public.

I clearly have some concerns about the motion. I do not think the member is necessarily going about it in the most effective way. We should be very careful about the direction the member is asking us to go.

Justice for Animals in Service Act (Quanto's Law)

[Alexandrine Latendresse, NDP, Louis-Saint-Laurent, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Gaspésie—Îles-de-la-Madeleine for his question. That is one of the most important points, something that everyone needs to remember every time we introduce this kind of bill dealing with the criminal justice system. Basically, I have a problem with mandatory minimums because they take away the discretionary power of our courtrooms and courts of justice. It is really a problem. In a case like this one, it is even more problematic because we really get the impression that the Conservatives just want to prove that they are tough on crime, without really looking at the real consequences of this kind of measure for our communities and the provinces.

My colleague raised an excellent point: these people will be sent to provincial jails, and the provinces are not necessarily willing or able to receive a lot more people. This is not the first time we have seen the Conservatives introduce bills like this one, bills that amend the Criminal Code and that have serious repercussions on the provinces. They passed an omnibus bill at the beginning of their term, Bill C-10, which did exactly that, and which involved huge costs for all the provinces of this country, although the Conservatives dismissed that without a second thought.

I truly think that introducing mandatory minimum sentences in this bill is problematic, even though at the end of the day we all agree on the essence of the bill.

Tougher Penalties for Child Predators Act

[Sylvain Chicoine, NDP, Châteauguay—Saint-Constant, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to speak to Bill C-26.

Like most members on this side of the House, I am a bit concerned. We will support this bill at second reading, but I would like my colleagues across the way to keep an open mind so that we can study the bill calmly and ensure that it does what it claims to do.

This bill is entitled An Act to amend the Criminal Code, the Canada Evidence Act and the Sex Offender Information Registration Act, to enact the High Risk Child Sex Offender Database Act and to make consequential amendments to other Acts. It is commonly referred to by the Conservatives as the tougher penalties for child predators act.

The Conservatives always try to make themselves look good by saying that they are against child sex offenders and depicting the members from the other parties as defending the offenders. I would say that everyone in the House is against child predators. It is often the government's approach to things that we disagree on.

This bill was introduced over a year ago with much fanfare. We soon realized that the cases mentioned in the many press conferences held by the Minister of Justice and the Prime Minister were more than 10 years old. The government is using certain cases that are already quite old. This is yet another bill that will essentially increase the existing mandatory minimum penalties. In recent years, this government has amended a lot of laws by adding mandatory minimums.

Furthermore, Bill C-26 increases the maximum penalties for violations of prohibition orders, probation orders and peace bonds. It clarifies and codifies the rules regarding the imposition of consecutive and concurrent sentences. I should point out that there is currently a case before the Supreme Court regarding the lawfulness of consecutive sentences. In the short or medium term, a lot of the decisions made here could be looked at from a whole other perspective. That is why we need to examine this bill calmly in order to eventually achieve what the government claims to want to do, which is to reduce the number of crimes committed against children.

The bill will require courts to impose, in certain cases, consecutive sentences on offenders who commit sexual offences against children. It will ensure that a court that imposes a sentence must take into consideration evidence that the offence in question was committed while the offender was subject to a conditional sentence order or released on parole, statutory release or unescorted temporary absence.

What is more, the bill will amend the Canada Evidence Act to ensure that spouses of the accused are competent and compellable witnesses for the prosecution in child pornography cases. It also amends the Sex Offender Information Registration Act to increase the reporting obligations of sex offenders who travel outside Canada.

What is new about this bill is that it enacts the high risk child sex offender database act to establish a publicly accessible database that contains information—that a police service or other public authority has previously made accessible to the public—with respect to persons who are found guilty of sexual offences against children and who pose a high risk of committing crimes of a sexual nature. It also makes consequential amendments to other acts.

The NDP has always had a zero tolerance policy when it comes to sexual offences against children, despite what the Conservatives would have people believe. One of the tactics they used to colour people's opinions with omnibus Bill C-10 was to refuse to split the bill since we disagreed with some of its provisions. Because we planned to vote against that bill, the Conservatives said that we were voting against a bill that goes after sexual predators. They wanted to make it look like we were defending these individuals, which is completely ridiculous.

It seems that it did not work because the provisions of Bill C-10 to implement several mandatory minimum sentences do not seem to have had the desired effect. I would like to hear the minister tell us, in committee, how these new mandatory minimum sentences will succeed this time when they failed in the past.

That is one of the serious concerns that I have about this file. Many Conservative bills do nothing but increase mandatory minimum sentences while claiming to solve the problem of a particular type of crime, and this does not have the desired effect.

Every time we debate this we ask the Conservatives to back up their statements. Is it because the sentences are not tough enough? If there is an increase in crime, is it because of the sentence or because of anything related to the services? We are given very few clear answers to these questions.

Canada now has 34 million inhabitants. Let us take a look at some sexual crime statistics. In 2008, 241 people were accused of sexual interference; in 2009, there were 574; in 2010, there were 818; in 2011, there were 918; and in 2012, there were 916. The number keeps going up. Still, this is probably the least serious sexual crime in the Criminal Code compared to sexual assault on a child, for example.

For invitation to sexual touching, there were 56 cases in 2008, and that number rose to 206 in 2012. For sexual exploitation, there were 17 cases in 2008, and that went up to 49. It was fairly stable from 2010 to 2012. Of course, we do not yet have any statistics about making sexually explicit material available to a child because that new offence was created in 2012. Luring a child using a computer rose from 54 cases in 2008 to 127 in 2012.

We must not lose sight of the fact that all of these statistics are from years under the Conservative reign. During that time, we have, on many occasions, instituted or increased mandatory minimum sentences. According to these statistics, that approach has not deterred criminals.

Scientists have shown that mandatory minimum sentences do not deter criminals from committing crimes. I agree with criminologists that the likelihood of getting caught is what deters people from committing crimes, not the remote possibility of being sentenced to 10, 15 or 20 years. That does not deter criminals. It is clear that mandatory minimum sentences have had no effect in this area either.

Moreover, RCMP personnel strength keeps dropping. Commissioner Paulson mentioned recently in committee that he has had to shut down large squads that fight organized crime and assign the staff to other positions. That is completely ridiculous. The government is also not giving the RCMP any additional resources to establish this new data bank that it wants to create. It makes no sense. The RCMP will once again be forced to make cuts to other squads in order to get it done.

We have been raising the problem of updating criminal records for years now. We are not moving in the right direction. Let us give the RCMP the power to carry out its mission and stop moving in a direction that is doing nothing to deter criminals.

[Jamie Nicholls, NDP, Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to say that I am splitting my time with the member for Laval—Les Îles.

The stats are troubling. One out of three girls and one out of six boys will be sexually abused before the age of 18. These statistics mean that right now in Canada there are five million girls who have been sexually abused and 2.8 million boys. That number is too high. That is a statistic that should trouble everyone in Canada.

That is part of the reason why we are supporting Bill C-26 going forward, but we do not believe that the bill goes far enough and I will explain why. Some 95% of child sexual abuse victims know their perpetrator in some way, a statistic from the Badgley commission in the eighties, and 68% are abused by a family member, someone within their family: stepfather, father or an uncle. When we think of these statistics, the problem becomes much more complex.

I am the father of a 10-year-old girl. I have another daughter on the way. She is due to be born in June. These statistics are troubling to me as a father. It is something that is always on my mind. It is always a worry that one day something might happen to my daughter.

New Democrats have zero tolerance for child sexual abuse. I would like to think that zero tolerance for child sexual abuse does not mean that we only get the predator after the perpetrator has abused the child, because that, in effect, is what the bill is addressing. For everything that is addressed in the bill, the sexual abuse has already happened. My hope as a father is that we could get rid of child sexual abuse before it happens, before any child in this country is abused.

There is nothing in Bill C-26 that will stop a child from being abused. I will explain why. The reason is that once the police put a predator in jail, the predator has abused a child. Once a perpetrator's name is in a database, the perpetrator has abused a child already. The abuse has already happened.

My question to my colleague, who may or may not be listening to me speaking about this, is that we have to find the solution to stopping sexual abuse before it happens. We have to reduce this problem that is in our country.

That said, we do support measures to remove child sexual predators from general society to protect the children they may further abuse. We even went to the point during the debates on Bill C-10 to approach the House leader and the minister responsible to say that we would take all the measures for child sexual predators out of the omnibus legislation and fast-track them through the House right away, make them into law right away. Unfortunately, the other side did not accept that. We thought that the need to pass them was pressing and that is why we proposed that. We would agree with putting these predators away so that the abuse stops.

However, we have to start talking about real action and we have to back up this action with actual funding, because tough words will not solve the problem. We also have to keep an open mind when we discuss this, because child sexual abuse is a wicked problem. It does not have simple solutions.

The statistics I cited at the top of my speech should make members think. Often when abuse happens in a family, the child is unwilling to speak because it may be a father or a stepfather. In the children's minds, they are trying to protect their family in one way, and yet they are trying to protect themselves. It is a very confusing experience for a child.

The Child Molestation Research & Prevention Institute in the U.S. says:

Professionals - physicians and therapists - can never put an end to sexual abuse; neither can the police or the courts. Why? Because they come on the scene too late. By the time they get there, the children have already been molested.

Therefore, the question we should be asking is, how do we prevent child abuse? We need to have frank discussions. The member across mentioned education, but part of the education piece that needs to happen is how to talk within families about abuse. It should not just be talking about the predator being a stranger outside of the family who is somehow going to infiltrate the family to abuse the children. Often the abuser is within the family already. Therefore, we need the tools to have these frank discussions about issues of abuse and issues of consent. As I said, 95% of the people are known to the children and 68% are often a family member.

At the core, sending molesters to jail as a solution to child molestation will always fail our children because in order for a molester to be jailed children will be abused. This is again from the institute. It is the same with treatment. When people who perpetrate child sexual abuse are identified for treatment, they have often already abused the child.

The member across the way also said that what we think of child sexual predators is not always the case. It is not one ethnic group and not one social class. There was actually a study done. It was called the Abel and Harlow child molestation prevention study. It looked at 4,000 admitted child molesters, men from the ages of 18 to 20. They found the following statistics: 77% were married; 93% were religious, men of faith; 46% had college educations; and 65% had normal steady work. After stating that, what does a child sexual predator look like? Physically, it could look like many of the men in this chamber. It is not what we imagine it to be on the outside.

They look like normal men on the outside, but on the inside they have a disorder that has been identified under the DSM as pedophilia. Pedophilia is an awful mental disorder. We do not discuss attacking this disorder enough. Often pedophilia is identified in the teenage years in men. There are signs that appear that can be signals. If we flag them soon enough, we might be able to prevent sexual abuse from occurring. If we could identify in the teenage years the signs of this disorder, then we could actually attack it right at the root.

This is where we have to attack it because then we could actually prevent these men, and sometimes women, from actually committing the sexual abuse. We have to focus on the cause. We have to develop a prevention plan to prevent sexual abuse from ever happening.

Bill C-26 does a wonderful job of looking at what to do after someone has abused a child. We would put them in jail and put them in a database. However, we really need to take action on finding a way to prevent child abuse from ever happening in the first place.

The way we are going to do that is to have a frank discussion. We have to stop portraying this as a stranger that is going to perpetrate sexual abuse on a child. We know the statistics. There have been many studies done. We have to really put the resources toward the root of the problem and start having frank discussions within our families and with our neighbours about the roots of sexual abuse.

We need to start to put our energy into this, so that those seven million children in our country, that I cited as the next generation, will have even less abuse and eventually, hopefully, we can eradicate this problem from our society entirely.

Public Safety

[Rosane Doré Lefebvre, NDP, Alfred-Pellan, QC]

Mr. Speaker, this is not the first time the Conservatives have alienated the provinces by trying to impose flawed, unbalanced legislation. Just think of Bill C-10, the omnibus crime bill that the Conservative government imposed on Quebec, despite the fact that the bill would lead to overcrowded prisons and cost the provinces tens of millions of dollars.

When will the Conservatives stop imposing bills on the provinces that they want no part of, without even consulting them first?

Zero Tolerance for Barbaric Cultural Practices Act

[Tarik Brahmi, NDP, Saint-Jean, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I listened carefully to the speech given by my colleague from Halifax.

She mentioned the specific case of Denmark, and I thank her for that. Criminal provisions that are too broad generally have the opposite effect to what was intended and, as a result, it is no longer possible to enforce a decision or a law.

Under the Conservatives, we have become accustomed to this sort of thing, whether it was with Bill C-10, which criminalizes the possession of more than six marijuana plants, or with Bill C-36, which criminalizes the purchase of sexual services. The consequence is that the tougher the criminal sentences we impose through these laws, the less viable it becomes to implement them, and therefore the police are much less likely to enforce them.

Can my colleague elaborate on the fact that further criminalizing something we condemn, in this case forced marriage, will only serve to ensure that women will not try to escape that situation because the consequences would be too severe?

Public Safety

[Rosane Doré Lefebvre, NDP, Alfred-Pellan, QC]

Mr. Speaker, we have grown accustomed to this Conservative government ignoring Quebec's concerns on this type of issue.

Everyone here will remember Bill C-10, the omnibus crime bill. The Conservatives insisted on going ahead with it until they finally realized that they needed Quebec and the provinces to enforce their laws.

Rather than rushing to pass Bill C-51, will the Conservatives learn from the past and make sure to consult all of the stakeholders affected by this bill?

Tougher Penalties for Child Predators Act

[Sean Casey, Liberal, Charlottetown, PE]

Mr. Speaker, there actually is a program. It is called circles of support and accountability. It has has a 70% to 80% success rate.

My question relates to a comment made early in the speech where the hon. member said that the measures in Bill C-26 build on those taken in Bill C-10. He is right. In Bill C-10 there were several instances where mandatory minimum penalties were increased, and they were increased again in Bill C-26. What happened between the introduction of the mandatory minimums in Bill C-10 and the increase in those mandatory minimums in Bill C-26 was that the rates of these types of crimes went up.

I believe it was Albert Einstein who said the “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results”. Could the member explain why we are re-increasing mandatory minimums when the ones that were increased in Bill C-10 did not work?

[Carole Morency]

Sorry, but could I make one correction? I misspoke on Bill C-10 reforms and the child sexual offences penalties. I think I said they came into force in 2011. It was August 9, 2012. That was a mistake. Sorry.

[Carole Morency, Director General and Senior General Counsel, Criminal Law Policy Section, Department of Justice]

Thank you for the question.

As the minister just mentioned, the idea was to increase penalties, both minimum and maximum penalties.

The package, in terms of Bill C-26, also proposes some other related reforms looking at the implications of consecutive or concurrent sentences in these cases as well. As you've noted, with Bill C-10, the Safe Streets and Communities Act, those reforms came into force August 9, 2011, and yes it is a bit early to see the progress of some of those cases as they start to work through the criminal courts. We were seeing courts beginning to note, for example, even before Bill C-10 came into force, that Parliament was considering the importance of ensuring that the penalties in these cases, not just minimums but maximums, adequately reflect the serious nature of these cases, and that courts should be treating these more seriously.

So it is a bit of a combination of things. First, it's looking at how the courts are dealing with this. We're starting to see some of that, but it's certainly in its early days. Second, if you look at Bill C-26, there's a combined approach of trying to increase penalties overall; it's not just minimum penalties and the approach that Bill C-10 had.

The Economy

[Manon Perreault, Independent, Montcalm, QC]

Mr. Speaker, in addition to not adequately diversifying our sources of revenue, the government is downloading its financial responsibilities to the provinces. Passing Bill C-10 increased the inmate population in provincial prisons by 11%.

The legacy this Prime Minister's government is leaving us is disastrous: slashed public services, devastated environment, abandoned workers—the list is long.

Do the members of this tired government intend to right the ship before it is too late?

Tougher Penalties for Child Predators Act

[Pierre-Luc Dusseault, NDP, Sherbrooke, QC]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure for me to rise to debate Bill C-26, after my two colleagues, the first from Winnipeg-Centre and the second from Ottawa-Centre.

Bill C-26 was introduced by the Minister of Justice. Anyone who has been following the debate for the last few minutes will know that the bill deals with sexual predators who prey on children. It is entitled An Act to amend the Criminal Code, the Canada Evidence Act and the Sex Offender Information Registration Act, to enact the High Risk Child Sex Offender Database Act and to make consequential amendments to other Acts. That is a somewhat technical title.

The short title always reveals a great deal about the government’s intentions. Generally, when I examine a bill, I immediately look at the short title, which appears at the very beginning of the bill. In this case, the bill is called the tougher penalties for child predators act. I have often managed to discover the government’s hidden intentions in the short title, because it often says a great deal about the real purpose of a bill. There are sometimes very sensible bills that often have titles that are more normal or neutral or much closer to the long title. The government often holds press conferences about this type of bill where it claims to champion the issue in question.

Of course, the Conservatives regularly say that they are tough on crime, and this is obviously one of their trademarks. In this case, they drafted a bill and gave it the short title of the tougher penalties for child predators act. The Conservatives want to consolidate their image as being tough on crime. In reality, however, statistics, research, previous bills and results obtained since then indicate that the effects of Conservative legislation have perhaps not been what they were expecting.

We even saw recently—I believe it was on Tuesday—an article in Le Devoir about the increase in the prison population in most provinces of Canada. An increase has been observed in the inmate population in provincial jails, even though our criminal laws have been greatly strengthened and sentences have been increased since 2006. One would think that the ultimate goal was to discourage criminals from committing crimes. That is the logic the Conservatives use. However, statistics show that that is not what is actually happening. In fact, since 2006, there has even been a 6% increase in sex crimes in Canada. Might we then determine that this is a conclusive result, given the numerous changes the Conservatives have made to the Criminal Code? Can we talk about a conclusive result? I would hope that the purpose is to reduce crime in Canada, and I agree with that.

It is thus a question of determining the best way of reducing crime. Is it to impose tougher penalties? Most, if not all, of the experts agree that this is not the solution. A few of my colleagues referred to this when they spoke, after wondering whether more severe penalties were really going to discourage criminals from committing crimes.

The member for Hochelaga put it well just now, when she asked my colleague from Ottawa Centre whether someone intending to commit one of the most revolting crimes, a crime against children, the most vulnerable members of society, thinks about how many years they are going to spend in prison if they are caught. I do not believe that is how they think.

I cannot get inside the heads of such people, because it is difficult to understand, but according to what I have heard, they generally think of themselves as invincible. They believe that they will never be caught, that they are above the law and that they are capable of getting around all the rules. I do not think they wonder which crime carries the lightest sentence before they commit it, whereas they quite obviously have problems with crime and behaviour.

There are experts who can answer such questions and understand how these criminals think. In the end, it comes back to what I was saying at the beginning. We have to find ways of preventing such crimes from being committed in the first place. People often talk about prevention rather than cure. In these cases, it is much better to find ways of preventing such crimes, instead of just seeking to punish them even more severely in the belief that this is the way to reduce crime in Canada.

These are two fundamentally different schools of thought. The Conservatives prefer harsher sentences to crime prevention. This is not the first time we have seen it. We saw it when considering Bill C-10, which was one of the omnibus bills that amended the Criminal Code. We saw what side they were on with respect to these issues. They more or less copied the U.S. model, which has failed to achieve the expected results, according to a number of studies.

The facts show that U.S. states that had the death penalty did not have lower crime rates. It is not because sentences are more severe—the death penalty being the most severe—that things are better. In the states where the death penalty is still in force, crime rates are not lower. This proves that we will not eliminate crime in Canada by legislating 25-year sentences or consecutive sentences to ensure that criminals never get out of prison. There are many other much more effective ways of eliminating crime. We should think about that.

We are going to support Bill C-26 so that it goes to committee in order to try to make amendments to it, but also to hear from experts on these matters. They will be able to give us more information about the best ways of reducing crime, among other things. After amendments have been made, we will likely support this bill.

Public Safety

[Françoise Boivin, NDP, Gatineau, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am tempted to ask the parliamentary secretary to put his money where his mouth is.

If the government is serious about the fight against crime, it has to work more with its main partners, the provinces. It has not been proven that Bill C-10 has had a significant impact on crime, but it is definitely having a major impact on the provinces' budgets.

Will the minister sit down with his provincial counterparts to share the cost, as Quebec in particular has been asking for? It is a matter of money, not of knowing how good they are.

Tougher Penalties for Child Predators Act

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

Mr. Speaker, I duly apologize. I am talking about the Conservative government's omnibus crime package, Bill C-10.

The executive director of the Washington-based Justice Policy Institute has said the following:

Republican governors and state legislators in such states of Texas, South Carolina, and Ohio are repealing mandatory minimum sentences, increasing opportunities for effective community supervision, and funding drug treatment because they know it will improve public safety and reduce taxpayer costs....

When the Conservatives start talking about facts on the ground, they should listen closely to the Americans, who have already used this type of policy, a policy that unfortunately did not work. Speaking of statistics in the United States, a lawyer who heads an anti-tax, civil rights group said the following:

We've seen a double-digit decline in the last few years in Texas, both in our prison incarceration rate and, most importantly in our crime rate.

According to that lawyer, since the state of Texas adopted a rehabilitation policy, its crime rate dropped dramatically.

According to him, and the FBI, the crime rate in Texas fell by 12.8% between 2005 and 2010. He commends Canada's criminal justice system and implores the Conservatives and the government not to fall into the vicious circle of repression, which did not work in the United States.

A number of states, including Florida, North Carolina, Ohio, and Texas are currently trying to imitate the Canadian system with the goal of reducing their crime rate. I just wanted to add that.

Experts have experienced the mandatory minimum sentencing system. They tried it and they are telling us, Canadians, that it does not work. They are asking us not to follow their example because our costs will increase and our communities will not be as safe. They are asking us to keep using our current system because they have started using it and it works.

As my colleagues, including our justice critic, the hon. member for Gatineau, said, we will support Bill C-26.

Everyone here agrees that sexual offences against children are horrible and I know that we must crack down on them.

However, as the hon. member for Gatineau said in her speech, the minister told us in committee that there has been a 6% increase in sexual assaults against children since his party adopted minimum sentences for these kinds of offences. This creates a dilemma. Does introducing or increasing mandatory minimum penalties really work?

According to the statistics the minister presented in committee, there has indeed been an increase of 6%. I will not draw any conclusions because we do not yet have enough information to determine the actual effectiveness of these kinds of sentences. It would be nice if the minister could appear before our committee again and present any studies that have been conducted and explain the conclusions that can be drawn from the use of these new minimum penalties.

In my view, we do not yet have enough information to determine what kind of policies we should be implementing. Furthermore, American states that did introduce a system of mandatory minimum penalties are telling us not to make the same mistake they made.

I look forward to discussing this bill with the minister and with experts, to see exactly what we should be doing to prevent sex offences against our children.

The federal government has announced that it is going to abolish the Corrections Canada program, which will save about $650,000. That is a pittance. It is a drop in the bucket compared to the billions poured into the judicial system every year. Furthermore, there is proof that the program works and that it decreases the rate of recidivism by up to 70%.

I realize that criminals must be held responsible for their actions. That is a fundamental principle. However, victims in our communities do not go to jail. They need to feel that they are supported by government programs. However, the government wants to abolish the program that makes our communities safer, as people have told us.

We cannot embrace the Conservative agenda, which consists of putting people in jail and not considering anything else. What will we do when these people are released? Will we simply leave them to their own devices?

The hon. member for Gatineau told us about someone in her riding who was released from prison, was left to fend for himself and was then re-arrested by the police. What do we do with these people? They need support, not just for their own sake, but also to ensure the safety of their community and our children. It is not right to say that we will protect our children by sending people to jail. Perhaps we will protect them for a while, but children grow, get older and remain in the community.

So what do we do in order to protect them not just for five years, but for 10, 15 and 20 years? I would like to point out that under the Convention on the Rights of the Child, a person is a child until the age of eighteen. Children are entitled to be protected by their government until they are eighteen years old. Then they become adults. Adults are also entitled to be protected by their government, but we are currently debating sexual offences against minors. Why then abolish programs that work?

I would also like to talk about the problem with the registry. This bill would give the minister the discretionary power to make regulations on who is considered a high-risk offender. We know very well that giving a minister discretionary powers without any oversight body is never a good thing, since this power can be abused. This poses a problem: what are the regulations? How will the minister make them, and will he have to report to parliamentarians?

We are not just talking about a registry here. We are also talking about enabling parliamentarians to do their job. If the minister gives himself discretionary powers without any transparency, I have some concerns.

It is also important to ask whether the minister consulted the provinces. Even though it is Parliament's role to enact criminal legislation and amend the Criminal Code, the provinces are often responsible for enforcing this legislation and administering criminal justice.

Did the minister consult the provinces? Does the minister understand what the provinces will be forced to adopt or dismantle? The provinces will have to adapt. How will the minister consult the provinces and support them in lowering the rate of sex offences against children?

We are legislating here, but the provinces are the ones that will suffer the consequences. Once again, the government is shirking its responsibility to the provinces. We often hear that prisons are full. My colleague from Gatineau just asked the parliamentary secretary a question. We are short of criminal lawyers, crown prosecutors and judges.

The criminal justice system works as a whole. It is not just about crime and punishment. There are lawyers, social workers, victims' assistance workers and judges. This system needs to be coherent, and if we do not ensure that the system is coherent, then we have missed the boat.

I would like to talk about another problem. Once again, by asking the minister a question about the RCMP's resources, my colleague from Gatineau was able to discover that the RCMP was having a great deal of difficulty updating criminal records. People are often outraged to learn that a criminal is being set free even though he is a repeat offender. Criminal records are not updated on a continual basis because the RCMP is having hard time staying on top of that task. How are crown prosecutors, lawyers and judges supposed to be able to do their jobs if the RCMP does not have enough resources?

How can the government implement a predator registry if the RCMP cannot even keep offenders' criminal records up to date? That does not make sense. The police, lawyers and judges will not be able to do their jobs.

I hope that we will pass the best bill to protect our children and ensure that people know that they can count on their government to put an end to sexual offences against children once and for all and protect their communities.