Justice Committee on Nov. 7th, 2006

[Garry Breitkreuz, Conservative, Yorkton—Melville, SK]

Right. Mr. Minister, on that point, the billion dollars on the gun registry, I read one study that pointed out that if we'd taken that billion dollars and put it into extra police on the street, we would have actually reduced crime substantially and saved many lives. There's no evidence that with the registry we've saved any lives.

I think that's a very key point, that we have to put in place cost-effective laws, so I appreciate your point.

[Vic Toews, Conservative, Provencher, MB]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Art Hanger]

Thank you, Mr. Breitkreuz.

Minister, I have a question I would like to pose. Given the fact that the legislation that is before us is very targeted, as you pointed out--and I think that's a very legitimate point to dwell on. You have gangs; you have firearms used by those gang members, but you have another sort of overarching issue. Those gangs exist for a reason. A lot of it is for their own personal gain. It's often quite organized. Of course, the other issue that overrides it all is the issue of drugs. Drugs are driving so much of what is happening. When we see the shootings on the street, innocent people are getting caught up in these shootings, and the gangs continue to exact their revenge upon one another so often.

What is your plan—and I know you alluded to this a couple of times in your presentation today—to deal with this drug issue that we have in this country? We don't have a national drug strategy that is broadly based and is effective, although there's money being placed into it. Where do you see this strategy going?

[Vic Toews, Conservative, Provencher, MB]

I've consulted broadly across the country on the issue, on the aspect of the drug strategy to do mainly with penalties. For example, in a place like Vancouver, we see one in thirteen individuals going to prison for actually trafficking in drugs. In the rest of British Columbia, generally it's one in seven. And it...circumstances change.

People have brought concerns to me on, for example, methamphetamine labs, and the dangers they cause to firefighters who arrive at an explosion, open up the door, and are overwhelmed by toxic fumes. These labs are fire hazards. As I understand it, in the greater Vancouver area one in eight house fires is caused by some kind of drug production lab. That's very dangerous for a neighbourhood.

I've toured these neighbourhoods, and they're not what one would consider to be low-end housing. We're talking about houses that cost half a million to a million dollars. And these individuals are simply given fines, most of them treating the fines as simply licences to do business. If a house burns down, it's a million dollars gone, but they find new houses quite quickly and set that up again.

On one street I went down in the Coquitlam area, eight out of the 25 houses on the street were marijuana grow ops or meth labs or MDMA labs. I'm not exactly sure what the distinction is, but I know they're all serious illegal drugs. The toxic sludge coming out of those houses--eight out of 25 on one street--into the sewage system, into the rivers, is staggering.

What the citizens have been calling for, what the police have been calling for, and what organizations have been calling for is mandatory minimum prison sentences in respect of certain types of drug offences. That's what they've been calling for.

In my department, along with Health Canada and others, we are developing this national drug strategy. Again, I want to emphasize that legislation is only one aspect of a national drug strategy. Some of the things that were brought to my attention--about treatment, about the need to cooperate with provincial authorities in terms of finding appropriate treatment beds and the like--are all part of a broader scheme.

So I can tell you that our departments are working on it and that we will be coming forward with an effective national drug strategy.

[The Chair, Conservative, Art Hanger]

With that, the money undoubtedly will be taken out of the trade, and there will be less gun activity on the street.

Thank you, Minister.

Mr. Bagnell, you have the last word. You have time for one question, two at the most.

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Thank you.

I have just one question, Mr. Minister. Without this law, judges could still impose, if they so chose, even severe penalties in these minimums. Given that, do you believe Canadian judges make wise decisions from the options they have of sentencing today?

[Vic Toews, Conservative, Provencher, MB]

Yes, I do, because the way the law is written....

For example, with conditional sentences, when I was a provincial justice minister in Manitoba, your government had promised that conditional sentences would never apply to serious or violent offences. It was a specific promise made by Allan Rock, repeated by Anne McLellan, that they wouldn't occur. So when people were dying, when there was impaired driving causing death and conditional sentences--which, because of the amendments you've put back into Bill C-9, will continue to occur--we took that up to the Supreme Court of Canada. The Supreme Court of Canada said that the penalty of conditional sentence was available. A judge was entitled to do that.

We took the position that, because of the way the law was drafted, we needed to correct it, to make good on the promise that your ministers had made before that it wouldn't apply in those kinds of situations.

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

But you just said that judges are making good decisions. So if they're making good decisions, they could make the decisions that this law will allow them to make on minimum sentences, and they don't need this law.

[Vic Toews, Conservative, Provencher, MB]

No, you misinterpreted. They make good decisions on the basis of the law as written. Judges apply the law. They don't make social policy. Parliament makes social policy. So from a social policy point of view, as a parliamentarian, I say that in respect of impaired driving causing death, there shouldn't be the availability of conditional sentences. And a judge, then, looking at the law, would say that there are no conditional sentences for impaired driving causing death. That is a social policy, then, put into law, which the judges apply. If the judges apply it, they're making good law. But you can't blame a judge by saying, “Oh, the judge gave him a conditional sentence when....”

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

He didn't have to choose the conditional sentence. You said he made a good choice with the conditional sentence. He could have put him in prison.

[Vic Toews, Conservative, Provencher, MB]

I didn't say he made a good choice.

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

You said they make good choices.

[Vic Toews, Conservative, Provencher, MB]

All I'm saying is that he was applying the law correctly.

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

You're saying they're making good choices.

[The Chair, Conservative, Art Hanger]

Thank you, Mr. Bagnell.

Thank you, Minister and department officials, for attending the meeting and informing us about Bill C-10.

The meeting is adjourned.