Bill C-26 (Historical)

Tougher Penalties for Child Predators Act

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

This enactment amends the Criminal Code to
(a) increase mandatory minimum penalties and maximum penalties for certain sexual offences against children;
(b) increase maximum penalties for violations of prohibition orders, probation orders and peace bonds;
(c) clarify and codify the rules regarding the imposition of consecutive and concurrent sentences;
(d) require courts to impose, in certain cases, consecutive sentences on offenders who commit sexual offences against children; and
(e) 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.
It amends 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.
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.
Finally, it makes consequential amendments to other Acts.

Tougher Penalties for Child Predators Act

[Mike Sullivan, NDP, York South—Weston, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the tough-on-crime agenda of the Conservative government belies the fact that it is not smart on crime. We on this side of the House want to be smart on crime. We want to prevent crime before it happens instead of merely announcing that we are going to punish people for longer.

I, as a Canadian, would rather that there were fewer crimes against children than more, but the evidence is there in front of us, and the minister agrees, that sexual crimes against children have gone up. As Statistics Canada reports, it is one of the very few crimes in the entire ambit of crimes against Canadians that has actually gone up in the past few years. The overall rate of crime is going down generally, but somehow, we have it wrong, and I mean “we”, because we are all parliamentarians. We have not successfully managed to find a way to treat the crimes in such a way as to prevent their happening in the first place or to prevent the recidivism that goes on when these criminals are eventually released.

[Peter Julian, NDP, Burnaby—New Westminster, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am happy to rise to speak in favour of Bill C-26. As members know, the NDP will be supporting this bill at second reading to send it to committee. We believe that legislation can play an important role in preventing child sexual abuse, as it can help to deal with and counter crimes in a whole range of areas. However, where we disagree with the Conservatives is that this is all that it does. I will be pointing out in the 10 minutes I have that a number of other actions that the Conservative government has taken actually contribute to a rise in certain criminal rates.

Legislation can certainly help to deal with it in part, but when the resources are no longer available, there can be a counter effect. As the justice minister has admitted to, the government, which has been in power now for almost a decade, in this case has put in place a range of things that have tragically contributed to an increase in the rate of sexual offences against children.

New Democrats will be supporting the bill going to committee. As we always do, we will be bringing forward reasoned amendments, after listening to witnesses who come before committee, to make sure that the bill is as good as it can possibly be. That is our responsibility as parliamentarians. We would all agree on that.

This bill is important, and we hope that the government will consider amendments at the committee stage. We certainly hope that government will take a very thoughtful approach on this bill. This is an extremely important issue, one that all Canadians feel parliamentarians should be working together on to achieve and resolve, which is lowering the rates of child sexual abuse in Canada. There is no doubt about that.

To do that, the government can offer legislation, which is what it has done. New Democrats have responded by saying we will support this legislation going to committee, and now it is back to the government side to accept the amendments that will be offered. New Democrats work very hard in committee. We thoroughly examine the evidence and bring forward the best possible amendments. However, tragically, we have seen in case after case that the government has refused those amendments. It has simply said that it is not going to accept any amendments on bills.

As a result, so far this year, we have seen that half a dozen pieces of legislation have been rejected by the courts. If the Conservative government had accepted the amendments offered by the NDP, the legislation would not have been recalled. However, because the government has an “our way or the highway” attitude on so many pieces of legislation, the courts have said that legislation does not hold water and cannot undergo the careful scrutiny that courts require.

New Democrats hope that this will not be the case on Bill C-26. Since we are supporting it going to committee, we hope that the government will say it will look at the reasoned amendments that can make a difference to improving this bill.

However, it is not just a bill and not just legislation that will lower the rates of child sexual abuse in this country. The rise of 6% over the last couple of years is a very disturbing trend.

What are the other decisions that the government has made that may have contributed to that rise? I mentioned earlier, in speaking with my colleague from York South—Weston, about the ending of the National Crime Prevention Centre, a centre that did good work across the country in seeking to achieve a lowering of the crime rate. That is something that has happened over the last few years, and I have risen in the House before to speak to it. It is a slashing of funding. There have been tens of millions of dollars that have been taken out of crime prevention funding. This is wrong-headed, for the simple reason that for every dollar invested in crime prevention programs—and other countries have seen this, the Scandinavian countries, and countries in Europe—we save $6 in policing costs, courts costs, and incarceration costs.

Let us look at that formula. As a society, we had $100 million in crime prevention funding slashed by the current government, and yet for every dollar that was invested in crime prevention, we saved $6 as a society in policing costs, court costs, and incarceration costs. However, even more, the greater benefit is the fact that the crime is not committed in the first place. We are not only investing our money prudently, as a society, to reduce the crime rate, but we are also avoiding having the victims in the first place. That has to be the result that all members of Parliament share. Certainly on this side of the House, the NDP has been the foremost proponent of investing significantly in crime prevention programs. We see the benefit of not having the victims in the first place, and we see the benefit of investing that $1 to save $6 in policing, court, and incarceration costs.

For the government to slash crime prevention, as it has over the last few years, has been simply wrong-headed, and I believe we are seeing some of the results. There is a 6% rise in child sexual abuse when crime prevention is slashed. I believe there is a connection between those two things.

That is not all that has been slashed under the current government. The government side may say that it is a question of resources, but the reality is that we all know what the government is investing in heavily right now: tax cuts for the very wealthy in society. We believe that veterans deserve services, that costs to veterans should be paid, and that crime prevention should be invested in. Those are choices on the part of the government. We also make choices as a society. However, rather than investing billions of dollars in tax cuts for the very wealthy, we say that it makes a lot more sense to put that money into things like supporting services for veterans, as we saw earlier today, or putting crime prevention programs in place.

It is not just crime prevention; it is also addiction programs that have been slashed under the current government. That is another tragedy. The government is slashing both crime prevention and addiction treatment. At the same time, the Conservatives are asking why child sexual abuse rates are rising. However, that is not all. The community resources that are supposed to counter the abuse of children have largely been cut as part of the overall cuts to crime prevention programs.

As well, the whole issue around policing is something on which we disagree with the government. The government promised to put more police officers on the streets of the cities across the country, and the current government has manifestly failed in providing that kind of support. When I talk to my local police officers, a problem that they continually raise is the underfinancing of policing.

On that note, there is the issue of the public safety officer compensation fund, an NDP initiative that I brought forward in 2006. The Conservatives voted for it. It is now 2014, yet we still do not have a public safety officer compensation fund in place to support the families of fallen police officers and firefighters who die in the line of duty. The Conservatives voted for it before they became government, and they have now waited for eight years and have still not brought that in. On this side of the House, we say that is a shame. The public safety officer compensation fund needs to be put into place, and the families of fallen firefighters and fallen police officers need to be taken care of.

The record of the current government goes beyond the concern that the Conservatives seem to have expressed in bringing forward Bill C-26. They brought forward the bill, which we support, but they are not doing the other things that could do much more, along with the bill, to reduce the child sexual abuse rates in this country. The current government has put in a number of pieces of legislation on a wide variety of issues, and yet it is not having the impact that was obviously intended. That is because legislation is only a small part of how we combat crime, reduce crime rates, and put in place an effective crime prevention strategy.

We are going to be in an election in less than 11 months. In fact, the election date is already set for October 19, 2015. Canadians will be putting the current government aside and looking for a change of agenda in Ottawa. That is what the NDP offers. We will be investing in crime prevention programs. We will be investing in and keeping commitments around policing. We will be putting in place addiction treatment programs. We will be providing community resources to counter abuse of children. That is the kind of platform that people can get around, to ensure that we lower the rates of abuse against children.

[Erin O'Toole, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of International Trade]

Mr. Speaker, I listened intently to the wide-ranging remarks of the House leader of the New Democratic Party, which were often not on the child predators act that is before the House.

This shows the fundamental difference between that side of the House and this side. They cling to only one element of sentencing and criminal justice principles in Canada, which is rehabilitation. That is important, but as the Criminal Code also outlines, principles like deterrence, denunciation, and public safety are also very important to our criminal justice system. I find it shocking that those principles, particularly when we are dealing with crimes directed at children, would not be paramount to principles of rehabilitation and the sorts of things that are the traditional areas for the NDP in criminal justice.

When it comes to crimes against children, I would ask the House leader of the NDP whether it is not more important to ensure public safety, denunciation of the actions, and those elements of our sentencing and criminal justice system.

[Peter Julian, NDP, Burnaby—New Westminster, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the parliamentary secretary obviously did not listen to a single word that I said. This is why Canadians are so put off by the government. He did not listen to a single word. He has his talking points that respond to something that the Conservatives thought the NDP might say.

We have had a very thoughtful discussion and statements from this side of the House, yet the parliamentary secretary went back to his talking points rather than listening to what we have been saying.

What we have been saying, of course, is that legislation is a part of dealing with that, but if the Conservative government had actually taken effective measures, the child sexual abuse rate would be going down, not up.

Why is it going up? As I mentioned earlier, the Conservatives have cut and slashed crime prevention funding. They have not kept their funding commitments to police officers across the country. I hear about it often in my riding from police officers themselves. They have cut community resources to counter abuse of children. They have slashed addiction treatment. They have repeatedly taken actions that are not helpful to what should be our common goal.

I am sure that he shares the ultimate goal. I have no doubt that reducing child sexual abuse rates is something that all parliamentarians share. However, when the Conservatives then say, “All we need to do is this. We don't need to do anything else. We can slash crime prevention rates. We can opt not to keep our commitments to police officers. We can reduce resources available that counter sexual abuse of children—

[The Deputy Speaker, NDP, Joe Comartin]

Order, please. The member for Burnaby—New Westminster has more than exceeded his time for reply to that question.

The hon. member for Alfred—Pellan.

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

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to see that my colleague from Burnaby—New Westminster is passionate about this issue. Unfortunately, there are a number of things this bill does not address.

My colleague mentioned the Conservative government's chronic underfunding, which leads me to what happened at the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security during a study on social finance. The government's idea was to offload some of its responsibility for funding community organizations and relegating it to private organizations. It is ridiculous.

In committee, we heard from representatives of a very effective support agency that works with people who are at risk of reoffending in our communities. They gave us a good example of their work.

Among other things, they ensure that there is social support for the people who seriously reoffended in the past, including committing sexual offences against children. Funding helps the agency to reduce, even completely eliminate, the rate of recidivism. Unfortunately, the Conservative government decided to stop funding that agency.

Beyond the fact that the agencies working to prevent recidivism are underfunded, what does my colleague think of the government's decision to stop funding these agencies?

[Peter Julian, NDP, Burnaby—New Westminster, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Alfred-Pellan does excellent work in the House and I very much appreciate her question. She focused precisely on what I have been arguing for the past several minutes.

The Conservatives made cuts to all the programs that help reduce the rate of abuse against children in Canada. The bill is not really going to change much. The government must change the other measures it has taken and it should start by restoring funding for these programs.

[François Choquette, NDP, Drummond, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am rising in the House today to speak to Bill C-26, 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. As we can see, this bill affects a number of laws and amends many sections in those laws. It is rather complex and therefore it is vital that it be properly studied by experts in committee.

The NDP will support this bill at second reading stage so that it goes to committee. We hope that the Conservatives will be open-minded enough to listen to the testimony of experts and the many people—I hope—who will come and speak about the important subject of protection for our children and families. Consequently, I hope that the Conservatives will open their ears and are receptive to what they have to say.

I am a member of the Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development. I am not qualified to speak about the technical aspects of this file, but I do want to say that it is important to understand that this bill must be amended and improved in committee and that we must sit down with experts on the subject. My colleague from Alfred-Pellan, who does an excellent job, my colleague from Burnaby—New Westminster and other NDP members have clearly explained this.

We will study these proposals carefully. We hope to see measures that will protect our children in practical ways and make our communities safer, not measures that just sound good at news conferences. That is not the goal. We also know that our communities need more resources to deal with the sexual abuse of children. Increasing prison sentences is not enough. That is the direction we hope to take in our discussions. Of course, the devil is in the details. When it comes to the Conservatives' laws, it is important to listen to the experts in the field.

I am the member for Drummond, and I represent, to the best of my abilities, the people who voted for me and all the other residents of Drummond. It is very important to focus first and foremost on prevention, as other members who spoke before me also mentioned. Obviously, we need to prevent crime. That is very important. Many organizations and stakeholders in the greater Drummond area are doing excellent work. I would like to name a few to show what a dynamic community Drummond is, and to give members an idea of what the Conservative government could do to support these organizations.

CALACS La Passerelle de Drummondville was one of the first organizations to work on addressing sexual violence. It provides free and confidential assistance and outreach services. These services fall under three main categories, namely help and outreach, advocacy and prevention. I am mentioning this organization because it also does prevention work. It informs victims of the recourse available to them, helps them deal with the consequences of a recent or past assault, helps them take back control of their lives, and supports them in whatever steps they decide to take, whether it be medical, legal or some other type of action. This organization also visits schools—which is wonderful—to teach children and youth about verbal, psychological and sexual abuse. Boys often learn how to behave toward women and girls at a young age. It is all about prevention, learning and education. This Drummondville organization and its staff are doing excellent work. I am very proud of them and wanted to mention the contribution they make to my region.

CAVAC is another organization that is doing excellent work in Drummondville, in central Quebec. It provides assistance to victims of crime, their loved ones and even people who witnessed a crime, whether it is a break and enter or any other crime. The staff at the Centre-du-Québec CAVAC can help people cope with what they are going through and the physical, psychological and social effects. They can also help people seek compensation for damages.

The CAVAC in Drummondville has an excellent team that provides amazing support to the public. The team is made up of a criminologist and three forensic social workers, and we are proud to have them there. They are able to provide excellent follow-up for victims. It is important to be there to support them.

Another important organization is Commun Accord, which focuses on alternative justice. Traditional justice is not needed in all cases, and that is where Commun Accord comes in. Its mission is to foster the development and practice of alternative justice and educational activities to promote harmonious relationships within the community. This is another organization that focuses on education and prevention among young people and the general public.

We can certainly look at how to bring people to justice, but we also need to look at prevention and education. The Conservative government does not do that at all, unfortunately. All it cares about is its criminalization policy.

I would like to mention another organization, since there are so many in Drummondville. La Rose des Vents conducts prevention and awareness activities in schools and the community in order to demystify and condemn violence and show how it affects both the victim and the aggressor. The workers answer people's questions, tear down prejudices and support caregivers. They also try to identify victims before it is too late.

That is another important organization that works very hard and stresses the need to break the taboos surrounding sexual violence, for example. There is currently a campaign encouraging people to talk about incest and break that taboo. We need to support these organizations, which do incredible work in our communities. I am proud of these organizations, the workers and all of the volunteers.

I would be remiss if I did not mention one last Drummondville organization and highlight the diversity and significant contributions of these organizations. L'Envolée des mères is a new organization that started up in Drummondville in early 2014. It is an 18-unit housing project that will give young single moms and their children access to housing, support, employment and education, and to a nearby day care centre. This support will help young moms with all kinds of problems who want to take control of their lives.

I am proud to say that l'Envolée des mères asked me for a personal donation and I was delighted to oblige. It was my pleasure. One of those units will be named after Jack Layton, and I am very happy to support it for young mothers. Social housing was a priority for Jack Layton.

I am very pleased that one of the units will be named after Jack Layton thanks to my personal donation and my contribution to the community. I made a small contribution to that community, and I am very proud of that. I would like to thank all of the organizations in Drummondville for the hard work they do in the name of prevention and education.

[Rob Clarke, Conservative, Desnethé—Missinippi—Churchill River, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I heard from my colleague across the floor that it is all about provincial program funding for rehabilitation. To put it simply, I come from an RCMP background where we had to study, know, and enforce the Criminal Code. In Parliament, and as parliamentarians, we create laws that go into the Criminal Code to protect young children. I have had to investigate many sexual assaults. It is not pleasant to see young children who have become vulnerable to the predators on the Internet who are going after them. It is great that my colleagues want to support this going to committee stage, but what they should be doing is supporting it throughout by unanimous consent. This is a good bill for all the kids out there. For once, let us do something right. Will my colleagues support it unanimously?

[François Choquette, NDP, Drummond, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague. I am sure he has seen some pretty nasty things, since he has had to investigate crimes of a sexual nature. I completely agree that we will be supporting this bill at second reading to send it to committee.

Why send it to committee? As I said at the beginning of my speech, this bill amends many sections of existing laws. I am not an expert in criminal matters, far from it. I therefore do not want to pass judgment on the fundamental principles of this bill. However, I do want the experts to have a chance to do so. It is important that the bill go to committee so that the experts can analyze it.

The member is quite right; it is important to take action once an offence has been committed so it does not happen again, but prevention and education are also important to stop crime before it happens.

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

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague from Drummond. I was especially touched by what he said regarding community involvement in dealing with these issues. He also told us about the excellent work being done by community organizations in Drummondville. That is so important.

This brings me to a question I had about the community aspect of the reintegration of offenders after they have served their sentence.

What does my colleague think that offenders need in order to reintegrate into society? Does he agree with the approach taken by this government, which has been making cuts to the very important funding needed by communities to support reintegration?

[François Choquette, NDP, Drummond, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Alfred-Pellan who is doing excellent work on her files. I listened to her speech earlier, and she has a very good grasp of this issue.

Of course, we need to do this one step at a time. We must first ensure that prevention and education are being offered in our communities and in our schools, and then make laws after that. I definitely understand the need to have strict laws. However, once offenders have served their sentences, they must be reintegrated. It is therefore important that they have proper support from the time they enter the correctional system. There needs to be training and programs in place that facilitate social reintegration and follow-up. This will help keep people safe. Indeed, that is what we are talking about here—keeping our children and our families safe.

I fully support the position of my colleague from Alfred-Pellan, who knows this file very well.

[The Deputy Speaker, NDP, Joe Comartin]

The question is on the motion. 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 motion will please say yea.