David Lametti Liberal
This bill has received Royal Assent and is, or will soon become, law.
This is from the published bill. The Library of Parliament has also written a full legislative summary of the bill.
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.
All sorts of information on this bill is available at LEGISinfo, an excellent resource from the Library of Parliament. You can also read the full text of the bill.
The Assistant Deputy Speaker Carol Hughes
There are five motions in amendment standing on the Notice Paper for the report stage of Bill C-5.
Motions Nos. 1 to 5 will be grouped for debate and voted upon according to the voting pattern available at the table.
The mover of the motion as well as the two members who had submitted an identical notice have indicated to the Chair that they do not wish to proceed with Motion No. 1.
The House proceeded to the consideration of Bill C-5, An Act to amend the Criminal Code and the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act, as reported (with amendment) from the committee.
Justin Trudeau LiberalPrime Minister
Mr. Speaker, the legislative measures set out in Bill C-5 do nothing to stop police from charging people or prosecutors from pursuing convictions. What these measures do is ensure that criminals face serious penalties while addressing the overrepresentation of Black Canadians and indigenous peoples in the criminal justice system.
I know Anie Samson, the former mayor of my borough, very well, and I can safely say that she is also concerned about the plight of Black and indigenous youth who find themselves unfairly caught up in our criminal justice system.
Pierre Paul-Hus Conservative Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC
Mr. Speaker, Anie Samson, the former vice-chair of the City of Montreal's executive committee and now the head of public safety, said, “There is concern about the fate of our criminals in prison, when at the same time there are hundreds of families mourning the loss of a loved one.”
If the Liberals continue with their reckless strategy, even massive injections of money from the provinces to crack down on guns will be ineffective. If Bill C‑5 is passed, Canadian communities will no doubt see an increase in violence.
Will the Prime Minister take responsibility for that?
Raquel Dancho Conservative Kildonan—St. Paul, MB
Mr. Speaker, the reality is that the Prime Minister's Bill C-5 will severely threaten the safety of families, children, mothers and vulnerable communities, because Bill C-5 would allow criminals who commit serious and deadly gun crimes to serve house arrest rather than go to jail, meaning these dangerous criminals will be kept in the communities they have terrorized, which will disproportionately impact Black and indigenous communities. It is sick.
Why is the Prime Minister prioritizing dangerous criminals with guns over the safety of our communities?
Raquel Dancho Conservative Kildonan—St. Paul, MB
Mr. Speaker, gun violence has gone up significantly over the past seven years of the Liberal government. That is a fact. It is also fact that most guns used in violent crime are smuggled in from the United States. Gun smugglers and gun traffickers are responsible for the murder of innocent Canadians in our cities, such as Toronto, Montreal, Regina and Edmonton.
Why is the Liberal Prime Minister removing mandatory jail time for people who smuggle guns into Canada under Bill C-5? Why is he letting them off the hook?
Arif Virani Liberal Parkdale—High Park, ON
I would echo the sentiments that were expressed by Senator Harder with respect to the need to get down to doing some more concrete work and doing it expeditiously. I reiterate that it would be extremely prudent to Canadians, to the people we represent, to wrap up that work prior to the inquiry's concluding its work. I think that is what Canadians expect of us. I would reiterate exactly what Ms. Bendayan just expressed in terms of repeated efforts on her part and the part of others on our side of the House to make sure we are doing just that.
I would reiterate, going back to the reason for the cancellation of the previous meeting and a comment by Mr. Brock that something that happened at the justice committee was as a result of efforts by Liberals to prevent an adjournment of a meeting. That meeting was dealing with a bill called Bill C-5, which is a bill that many are familiar with in this committee room, and many Canadians should be familiar with. We would not adjourn proceedings at that committee in order to prolong committee deliberations under a bill that needed to be addressed, in what it represents in terms of curing mandatory minimum penalties that disproportionately affect black and indigenous men, predominantly, in this country.
That is why that committee meeting dragged on, preventing this committee meeting from happening last week and preventing this work from occurring.
Thank you.
Raquel Dancho Conservative Kildonan—St. Paul, MB
Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister is misleading Canadians. Bill C-5 and the other measures by the Liberal government are failing to keep our communities safe. They are putting them at risk. If they wanted to stop gun violence, they would put more resources to border agents to stop gun smuggling. They would put more resources to police to stop violent criminals with guns. They would put more resources to anti-gang community groups to divert youth from a life of crime.
That is how we stop gun violence, not useless gun bans or bills like Bill C-21 that will do nothing to stop gun violence in this country. Is that not right?
Raquel Dancho Conservative Kildonan—St. Paul, MB
Mr. Speaker, the fact is that violent gun crime has only gone up under the Prime Minister. Actually, it has gone up significantly since he has formed office, and the data proves this. He has failed to keep Canadians safe from gun violence in cities such as Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver and Winnipeg. At the same time, he has been weak on violent crime and soft on criminals by allowing them to avoid jail time with bills like Bill C-5.
When will the Prime Minister drop his failed approach, stop putting our communities at risk and go after dangerous criminals with guns?
Justin Trudeau LiberalPrime Minister
Mr. Speaker, it is absolutely true that we moved forward to present legislation that, once passed, will make it no longer legal to buy, sell, transfer or import handguns anywhere in Canada. At the same time, Bill C-5 would not stop police from charging people with gun offences or prosecutors from pursuing convictions. What it would do is make sure that criminals face serious penalties, while addressing the overrepresentation of Black Canadians and indigenous people in the criminal justice system.
Candice Bergen ConservativeLeader of the Opposition
Mr. Speaker, yesterday, we saw the Liberals engage in a game of smoke and mirrors. On one hand, they are banning handguns. On the other hand, they are pushing through Bill C-5, which tells criminals not to worry; if they are convicted of a gun crime, they can just hang out at home for their sentence. This is not keeping communities safe and it is not reassuring to moms and dads who are worried about their kids.
Will the Prime Minister get serious about keeping vulnerable communities safe, scrap Bill C-5 and legislate tough penalties for gun criminals?
Anju Dhillon Liberal Dorval—Lachine—LaSalle, QC
Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present, in both official languages, the second report of the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights in relation to Bill C-5, an act to amend the Criminal Code and the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act. The committee has studied the bill and has decided to report the bill back to the House with amendments.
Rob Moore Conservative Fundy Royal, NB
On amendment 15, this would require—and this exists in a lot of Criminal Code legislation—a review of the legislation on the third anniversary of the day on which it comes into force. This would allow us as parliamentarians to have an understanding of the impact on our communities of the passage of Bill C-5, should it pass.
Randall Garrison NDP Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke, BC
Yes, thank you, Mr. Chair.
Bill C-5 addresses the problem of over-incarceration of indigenous people, Black Canadians and other racialized Canadians in some modest steps, I would say. Over-incarceration carries with it another obstacle for those who have been incarcerated to reconnect with their community, their family, employment and housing. That's because, once you've been incarcerated, of course you come out with a criminal record.
Criminal records quite often have large effects on child custody cases and access to social housing—access to any housing, as landlords quite often insist on criminal record checks. Perhaps most importantly, criminal records can make it very difficult to get re-employed. All those things make it hard for those who have already been incarcerated to reform and get back in contact with their community.
What this amendment essentially proposes is an automatic removal of all criminal records for personal possession of drugs that have taken place in the past. This would take place within two years. The second thing it does is ensure that future records for convictions for personal possession that result in a record would be removed two years after the completion of the sentence.
It does so without requiring an application process. We all know that application processes for pardons or suspension of records, as they're called, are quite often very difficult to get and quite often very expensive. Even more importantly, lots of times people don't even know that they need to have a criminal record removed. Landlords certainly don't phone people back and say, “Oh, by the way, you didn't get the place because you have a criminal record.” Employers quite rarely say, “Well, I chose someone else because you have a criminal record”, so people may not even be aware of the ways in which they're being disadvantaged by criminal records.
Remember, this is only for personal possession of drugs, not for trafficking or involving violence. This would remove those records.
There are other things I personally would rather see. We know that Bill C-216, a private member's bill calling for the decriminalization of all personal possession of drugs, had its second hour of debate in the House today. We don't know the fate of that bill. We will be voting on that as a House, as a whole, when we come back.
What we have today is an opportunity to do something more than just reduce the mandatory minimum penalties, and that is to contribute to the reintegration and rehabilitation of people who have been imprisoned for personal possession, by making sure that those criminal records don't affect their families, housing or employment. I'm urging members to support this amendment, which takes this bill a little bit farther in attempting to repair the damage from the over-incarceration that indigenous people, Black Canadians, other racialized Canadians and many poor Canadians have already suffered as a result of incarceration for personal possession of drugs.
The bill reduces mandatory minimums. This would take away some of the stigma that goes along with that by removing those criminal records.
Thank you.
Randall Garrison NDP Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke, BC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Once again, this is simply a division of the original NDP-2 into two separate parts so that (a) was in the one we just previously defeated, and (b) is in this one.
The concern that we've heard quite often in this committee and that I've heard quite often in both my previous times on the public safety committee is that, in our criminal justice system, discretion is important. We have discretion for prosecutors and for police that already exists, but we don't have any way to monitor how that discretion is used. If one of the major purposes of Bill C-5 is to make sure that we're combatting racial injustice and the disproportionate incarceration of indigenous people, Black Canadians, other racialized people and, in fact, poorer Canadians as well, then we need some mechanism to find out how that discretion is being used.
The bill as it stands doesn't require keeping records, so my amendment says that records shall be kept so that we can use them for research purposes and for accountability purposes in seeing how the discretionary power that police will have, which will be greatly increased here, is used and make sure that the discretion doesn't always go simply to the most privileged in our society.
At the same time, there is always concern that, if we're trying to divert people and we're creating a record, this will somehow be used against people in the future, so my amendment in the second part says that it does not, in fact, include any information that would identify individuals to whom the warnings or referrals relate, unless that information is necessary for public safety.
In other words, my intent there is, yes, you can use it in the case in which they were being diverted because you need that for public safety to carry out the conditions, but, no, you can't use it in future legal proceedings. That's why there are two pieces to this, requiring police to keep records and then allowing that those records can be used for research and accountability but not in future court proceedings.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.