Bill C-5

An Act to amend the Criminal Code and the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act

This enactment amends the Criminal Code and the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act to, among other things, repeal certain mandatory minimum penalties, allow for a greater use of conditional sentences and establish diversion measures for simple drug possession offences.

Criminal Code

[Michael Cooper, Conservative, St. Albert—Edmonton, AB]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member is absolutely right. There are significant problems along the Canada-U.S. border, problems that have been well identified and that the government has failed to solve.

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons (Senate)]

Mr. Speaker, I find it interesting that the member kept saying this bill is not as advertised, when during his speech, he kept saying that we would be rolling back sentencing. He used the term “roll back” so much that I almost thought his speech was a Walmart commercial.

Can the member explain to us why his speech was not as advertised? In reality, this is not about rolling back sentencing. It is about giving more power to judges to make decisions. The member would lead people to believe that we are actually reducing sentencing when that is not the case.

[Michael Cooper, Conservative, St. Albert—Edmonton, AB]

Mr. Speaker, is the hon. member serious? Has he read the bill? It is quite obvious that this legislation does roll back sentencing. It eliminates a whole series of firearm and drug offences, which I detailed. Perhaps he should read the bill.

[Dane Lloyd, Conservative, Sturgeon River—Parkland, AB]

Mr. Speaker, given the Supreme Court's recent decision in the last few years regarding the timing of trials, the Jordan decision, and considering information that we know, there is a high proportion of repeat offenders in Canada's criminal justice system.

Could the member comment on the potential issue that this legislation could lead to our justice system being overwhelmed by repeat offenders, basically exacerbating the situation in our trial system, which is quite overwhelmed?

[Michael Cooper, Conservative, St. Albert—Edmonton, AB]

Mr. Speaker, it goes without saying that when we let dangerous offenders out to do house arrest rather than putting them behind bars where they belong, there is a greater risk they are going to commit other offences. This will contribute to perpetuating the backlog in the courts. I think the member is absolutely right and raises a valid point.

[Richard Cannings, NDP, South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague talked about the opioid crisis: the tragedy of hundreds of people dying every week and every month across this country, especially in British Columbia and in my riding. He talked about the need for a solution-based attitude toward this. If we listen to the experts, the Vancouver Police Department, the City of Vancouver and the Province of British Columbia, they are all calling for the decriminalization of small amounts and safe supply, which would keep people alive, get them into the right programs and get rid of the property crime that is associated with addictions.

Would the member agree with that, as the Conservative who ran in my riding during the election did?

[Michael Cooper, Conservative, St. Albert—Edmonton, AB]

Mr. Speaker, in the last election, the Conservatives put forward a comprehensive plan to deal with mental health and addictions, including investing in drug treatment centres so that persons who are suffering from drug addictions can get the help they need and can be rehabilitated and re-enter society.

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons (Senate)]

Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the member for Oakville North—Burlington. It is a great opportunity to rise today to speak to this very important piece of legislation, a piece of legislation that the Conservatives would have us believe is making the sky fall.

In reality, Bill C-5 would remove mandatory minimum sentencing requirements for only 14 of the 67 offences that currently have them. Of course, we have not heard that figure from the other side yet today. Those 14 that would be adjusted are based on data, facts and science, and an understanding that we trust our judges to make sentencing decisions and use their discretion in certain circumstances. I say there are only 14 because Conservatives would have us believe we are completely eliminating mandatory minimum sentencing, when in fact this would have an effect on 14 of those related to firearms and six with respect to drug offences.

I have said this before in questions and comments, and I will say it again now. This really comes down to a fundamental difference between Liberals and Conservatives. I understand and know this from the experiences I have had in the riding that I come from. In the immediate area of Kingston, we used to have seven penitentiaries before the Conservatives closed Kingston Penitentiary Now we have six. We have a great understanding of and community support for the role prisons can play in the rehabilitative process.

The basic premises, the ideas and the philosophies could not be any more starkly different between Conservatives and Liberals than they are on this particular issue. When it comes to Conservatives, the answer to people who break the law is very simple. They lock them up and throw away the key. That is the end of it. On this side of the House, we believe that there is a role for government to play in making sure individuals can be rehabilitated and reintegrated into society, so they can be productive members of that society.

I brought this up after the speech by the member for Portage—Lisgar. She took great exception, saying that Conservatives believe wholeheartedly in the idea of making sure that criminals, or potential criminals in this case, do not get to the place of breaking the law before we have to start dealing with them.

I would ask her to explain to me why Conservatives spent more money on building megaprisons during their time in power than they did on housing. That should say something. Conservatives built megaprisons at various locations, all the while claiming that they really wanted to ensure people had the opportunity to become rehabilitated. Then why were they focusing so much on building more capacity to house individuals than they were on such a fundamental need as housing? That is what this really comes down to.

It is a philosophical difference of opinion on the role corrections plays in our society. We know exactly where the Conservatives stand on this. I know it is frustrating and hard to hear this, which is why some of them have been heckling me, but it is the truth. Sometimes the truth does hurt. It is the reality of the situation. There is nothing wrong with having that philosophical ideal, but they need to stand by it and say that it is what they believe in. All of their actions have only ever been to support that.

Again, I know this from my time in municipal politics in Kingston. There was a great program that helped rehabilitate individuals in prisons, and these programs were the prison farms. We had those throughout the country. However, the Conservatives came along and decided to get rid of them.

This one is even better. The main rationale of the Conservatives for getting rid of the prison farms was that inmates were not becoming farmers once they were out of prison. The Conservatives were completely unable to realize the value of what inmates were receiving through these programs, which were able to rehabilitate people. There were stories of inmates who had been in and out of prison their whole lives and then got into the prison farming program, and it completely changed who they were. They would then get out of prison and, yes, they may not have decided to become farmers, but they were completely changed individuals in how they approached life.

The fact that Conservatives chose to get rid of the prison farm program was so offensive, not only to those who had been through the program, or the guards who had seen how effective it was, but also to the general community. We had people protesting in Kingston for five years in a row. Every Monday, there would be protests on Bath Road right in front of Collins Bay Institution, protesting what the previous Conservative government had done when it closed prison farms.

The protesters knew that those programs offered meaningful opportunity for people to become rehabilitated, which brings me back to my point about the philosophical differences between the Conservatives and the Liberals. It comes down to whether we believe we have an opportunity and, more importantly, an obligation to help rehabilitate people so they can become productive members of society or whether we just lock them up and throw away the key, which is exactly what the Conservatives would like to do.

I want to talk very briefly about one last point, and that is the issue around the percentages of people who are being incarcerated, which has been brought up a number of times today.

We have to agree that when Black people represent only 3% of people in our country but 7% of people in our prisons or, even more staggering, when indigenous people represent only 5% of people in our country but 30% of people in prisons, we have a really big problem with systemic racism, and we need to address that. We need to look for opportunities.

We need to empower people who have the ability to impact lives, such as judges, to have the ability to set people off on a different course, one that could be beneficial to their life experiences and influence who they ultimately become. That is what this bill is, in my opinion. This bill is about empowering individuals, specifically the judges, to whom we have given the authority to cast judgment on those who break the law. We need to give them the ability to make sure that, if there is an opportunity to change a life, they can actually do that.

This is something that has been brought up by previous speakers today. It was also a call to action in the Truth and Reconciliation Commission's report. As was indicated so eloquently by one of my NDP colleagues, this is something that has not had the impact Conservatives, and possibly Liberals back in the day, had intended when they brought mandatory minimum sentencing legislation in at the time. We have an opportunity now to correct that, fix it and to put ourselves on the right path in terms of genuinely looking for ways to rehabilitate people so that they can be reintroduced into society and become productive members of that society.

[Frank Caputo, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it is always a pleasure to rise on behalf of the residents of Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo. The hon. member for Kingston and the Islands said that the Conservatives essentially want to lock people up and throw away the key. I would respectfully depart from that analysis and say we are seeking sentences that promote a just sanction, which is right in the Criminal Code.

That was my first point. My second point is that, if the point of rehabilitation and empowerment is the one that is trying to be made, the rehabilitation and empowerment can come when we elect to prosecute someone summarily, in which there is no mandatory minimum, or by indictment.

At the end of the day, would the member support an amendment that would allow for exceptional circumstances so that a just sanction could be levied of imprisonment in a mandatory minimum, or where there is an exceptional circumstance, as we are hearing about so many times today?

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Mr. Speaker, when it comes to amendments, I will not comment right now in advance of the committee being able to do the work to study it. We have members on that committee who can study that and look into it. I think that is not just good practice, but probably the best way for me to proceed on this.

I understand the member was a former prosecutor. Does he not have faith in the judges, who he used to stand before, to make the decisions that affect the lives of the individuals he brought forward to be prosecuted? Does he not believe that those judges can actually make the decisions we would empower them to make?

[Jennifer O'Connell, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs]

Mr. Speaker, I do not know if my hon. colleague was here earlier, but the opposition House leader read statistics in her speech on gun violence. In fact, she tried to blame Liberals for an increase in violence. However, it is actually under the very legislation Conservatives enacted on mandatory minimums that we saw an increase in crime rates.

Could the member speak about—

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[The Deputy Speaker, Chris d'Entremont]

Order. Let us get the question done. Let us get the answer done. Then we will have another couple of questions and another couple of answers.

[John Barlow, Conservative, Foothills, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. In the House, one of the most important aspects is that we are being honest and not telling falsehoods. What the member is leaning toward in her question is completely false. The legislation was brought in by a Liberal government under former prime minister—

[The Deputy Speaker, Chris d'Entremont]

I appreciate the debate, but the member for Pickering—Uxbridge has the floor and is asking a question.