Justice Committee on May 11th, 2009

[Réal Ménard, Bloc, Hochelaga, QC]

Thank you, Ms. Beauchesne.

My next question is for Mr. Sterling.

I think that this testimony shows conclusively how ineffective this approach is. Ms. Beauchesne alluded to it in the case of the state of New York. I would like you to tell us clearly why in your opinion the mandatory minimum sentence strategy for drugs has been ineffective and unfruitful in the United States. I would like you to be very clear for the benefit of the committee and especially for the benefit of the government.

[Eric Sterling]

Thank you very much.

The essence of the ineffectiveness in the United States has been, I believe, that the quantities have distracted law enforcement from focusing on high-level traffickers, that the quantity thresholds—500 grams, 5,000 grams, 100 plants, 1,000 plants, 1,000 kilos—became the hurdles the prosecutors went for, rather than people who were dealing at levels of a million grams. When cocaine is being brought to the United States by the ton—that's one million grams—we almost never see those kinds of cases being brought. We're seeing cases at much lower levels. So law enforcement misinterpreted the mandatory minimums. The Congress set low levels, and that has resulted in this misallocation of resources, and high-level traffickers have largely escaped prosecution.

Many of these high-level traffickers, of course, are based in Colombia or in Mexico. In our system, the federal government is supposed to be the part of law enforcement that focuses on the most complex cases, but around the country most of the law enforcement effort at the federal level has been on low-level offenders, according to the very detailed analyses of the United States Sentencing Commission.

Does that answer your question, or did I miss something?

[Réal Ménard, Bloc, Hochelaga, QC]

No. I asked you one question and I thank you for having answered it.

Is my time up, Mr. Chairman? Fine. I will stop there.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Fast]

Thank you.

We'll move on to Ms. Davies. You have seven minutes.

[Libby Davies, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

First of all, thank you to the witnesses for coming and thank you to the witnesses on the videoconference.

Most people understand and know instinctively that compulsory or forced treatment for addiction or substance use, whether it's legal or not, is not something that can be legislated. Anyone who has tried to quit smoking or deal with an alcohol problem knows it's not something that is easy to deal with in a legislative manner, so I see the drug treatment courts in this bill as really being a concession to lead people to believe that somehow we're being more humane. There's lots of evidence to show that the drug treatment courts don't work, but I'm not going to dwell on that, because I think that's a topic for another debate.

I want to come back to what Mr. Sterling put forward. I think you said that we need to answer two questions: what they are going to cost, and whether they are effective. I've actually tried to get answers to that. At least we should have some idea of what we might expect here in Canada.

Do you have in the top of your head, or can you draw our attention to, information as to whether there is a way of estimating what the mandatory minimums have cost in the United States in terms of the cost to the judicial system and the cost to local communities? I don't know if there is any way you can speak about that.

Considering the effectiveness of mandatory minimums does raise the question of what criteria we apply in defining the effectiveness of a drug policy. Is it more people in jail? Some people may actually argue that having more people in jail is success, but if drug use is still going up in society, as statistics show is happening in Canada, it could be an argument that criminalization has not been an effective policy.

In terms of effectiveness, the second part is that I'd appreciate the comments of both Mr. Sterling and Mr. Alexander on what they see as an effective measure. What criteria should we be applying as we look at this issue of mandatory minimums?

[Eric Sterling]

Thank you, Madam.

With respect to effectiveness, your first goal should be to save lives. The drug policy and the laws that carry out the drug policy should be about saving lives. In the United States, since 1980, the death rate from the use of illegal drugs has more than tripled. All of our efforts have been ineffective at saving lives.

The second goal should be to prevent injuries, to prevent people from going to hospital. Hospital emergency room admissions went up by 50% since the mid-1990s.

The third goal should be to keep drugs out of the hands of children. We do a survey every year called Monitoring the Future. We ask high school seniors, tenth graders and eighth graders, to tell us how easy they believe it would be for them to get various illegal drugs. We've been asking these questions since the 1970s, and unfortunately there's very little change. The changes are marginal. In some cases there is absolutely no change at all. The drugs remain widely available to young people, in their perception, year after year.

The fourth measure of effectiveness is in the marketplace. The goal of enforcement is to raise the price and lower the purity. In the United States, the price has gone down steadily and the purity has gone up. So the hard and fast marketplace test shows that we have not succeeded, that these policies have not succeeded in hurting the ability of drug traffickers to bring their product to market.

With respect to the first question and costs, I did a little bit of research about what the costs are for the Federal Bureau of Prisons. When the legislation was developed in 1986, our Congressional Budget Office estimated increased costs of $1.2 million in the first year, going up to $27 million within five years. The actual expenditures for the Bureau of Prisons have skyrocketed. Now, these are not adjusted for inflation. In 1986, when we enacted the mandatory minimums, the Federal Bureau of Prisons' expenditure was $862 million. It went up to $994 million the next year. Two years later, it was $1.2 billion; 1989, $1.4 billion; 1990, $1.7 billion; 1991, $2.1 billion. The President's request for fiscal 2010 is over $6 billion, and a large part of this has been driven by the mandatory minimums and how long they are in the United States.

I could not give you estimates about what the costs have been to the States, but as you take people out of the community and put them in prison, they're unable to support their families. One out of nine American men has a felony conviction, which means their ability to buy cars made in North America is reduced, their ability to buy houses made of lumber harvested in North America is reduced, their ability to buy furniture made from wood harvested in North America is reduced. They are a drag on our economy and they're a drag on the global economy, because they can't work, they can't get jobs, they can't support their families, they can't participate in the economy.

This is a cost that no other society in the world endures, by penalizing so many people.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Fast]

Thank you. We're out of time for Ms. Davies.

[Eric Sterling]

I'm terribly sorry.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Fast]

We'll move on to Mr. Norlock.

[Rick Norlock, Conservative, Northumberland—Quinte West, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to the witnesses, both here and on video conference, for their input.

I'll start with my questioning of Chief White. I've been reading your 2008 activity report. I'm just going to read a couple of excerpts and then I'm going to ask you to expand on them.

Under the heading “A Safer Tomorrow”, you say: “Policing is not limited to enforcing the law, but also preventing crime and assisting victims of crime. The Ottawa Police Service strives to protect the vulnerable in our community.” Then you go into the various aspects, such as education, diversion, restorative justice, particularly for youth, and you talk about working with the province for residential drug and alcohol treatment facilities. Then you go on to say: “It will also assist in reducing crime--studies have shown that drug addicts will commit up to eight crimes a day to support their habits.”

Then over on “Tackling Quality of Life Issues on Ottawa's Streets”, you say, “After seeing the street level drug problem firsthand”, you understood that “substance abuse was the main contributing factor to many downtown crime-related issues”. You went on to say, “The situation required a more effective, consistent and targeted policing plan”, and then you talked about your response to that.

Then a little further down on the same page, “Responding to Youth Violence, Anti-gang Strategy”, you say: “In the last few years, there are more youth gangs appearing in the suburbs. Children as young as 10 are being recruited by gangs and more females are getting involved in what has traditionally been the domain of males.” You go on to speak about that.

If I were to suggest to you that targeting specific areas of enforcement, prevention, etc., is the right thing to do, then I would suggest to you that the law we're talking about, Bill C-15, is not just an overall blanket drug strategy, it's actually targeted to specific areas, such as people who deal in drugs with a weapon or violence, people who deal in drugs, heroin, or methamphetamines, and it says specifically to youth, or dealing drugs near schools, in places frequented by youth. It talks about marijuana, but it says large marijuana growing operations of at least--that's the minimum--500 plants. Then, of course, cannabis production, and then of course the last one, which is most troubling, especially to young women: tougher penalties for trafficking in GHB and the common date-rape drugs.

I wonder if you wouldn't mind tying all those together and telling me how Bill C-15 fits into your strategy.

[Chief Vernon White]

Yes, thank you very much.

I'll do the first piece, if you don't mind, on how we see it as a crime prevention tool, and then I'm going to refer to Staff Sergeant Gauthier, if that's okay.

When I first came here, I did refer to a drug treatment centre as the greatest crime prevention tool we could build. We have over 400 young people between 13 and 17 on a waiting list for treatment today in the city of Ottawa, and only one provincially run drug treatment centre for 13- to 17-year-olds. So we tried to bring everybody from both sides of the street, to be fair, with the Liberals in the middle, to one location so that we could have this discussion about why a drug treatment centre, from a policing perspective on crime prevention, from a health perspective on dealing with young people with addictions, was going to work for all of us.

I think we were successful in the fact that the province announced two drug treatment centres, one for francophones in the east end and one for anglophones in the west end of the city. Both will be up and running by year-end, I hope.

From our perspective, we were seeing increased street-level crimes in only one location in the city, exactly the same location where we've seen increased crack cocaine use since 2005, in particular in that section of the city, six blocks from here. From our perspective, as well, we felt that if we attacked the drug trafficking in those areas, specifically street-level trafficking, to be fair, we could also start making it a safer environment for those who live there, and give some of the people who need treatment an opportunity.

People will ask why we focused on 13- to 17-year-olds. Because 70% of 13- to 17-year-olds will not use drugs for five years after residential treatment, we felt it was an opportunity to turn the tap off rather than focusing specifically on the street now, where we have hundreds if not thousands of drug-addicted people living on the streets, either permanently or temporarily, in the city. We were targeting, and we are trying to make a difference from that perspective.

I'm going to let Staff Sergeant Gauthier talk about the drug issue in the city, if that's okay.

[Staff Sergeant Pierre Gauthier, Staff Sergeant, Drug Unit, Ottawa Police Service]

I'm the manager of the drug section at the Ottawa Police Service. I wanted to tell you that because we're mandated with the enforcement of controlled drugs. We're also mandated to investigate laboratories within the city of Ottawa. We work in conjunction with other police services, including the RCMP and the OPP.

As we do this enforcement, we regularly run into children who are involved in the trafficking of drugs. They're involved in supporting criminal groups who are involved in the trafficking of drugs. We also regularly deal with children who are using drugs within the city of Ottawa.

This legislation addresses three important points. The first one is the firearms—weapons. We deal with the seizure of firearms on a regular basis as we execute search warrants within the city. On Friday we executed a search warrant within the old city of Orleans, and as is now a common practice of the drug unit, we found readily available firearms within the residence. These firearms were a few feet away from the suspects.

As well, the drug dealers and the organized crime groups are involved in recruiting young children. They have been doing that for a long time, but more now than ever. We deal with gangs, and the gangs are involved with using the services of persons from the age of 12 to 17 years old to traffic their drugs on the street and within schools. There are particular groups that focus on using children, because they realize that it's easy to do.

[Rick Norlock, Conservative, Northumberland—Quinte West, ON]

You are saying it's just because it's easy to do. But is it because of any difference in the treatment of youths as opposed to adults?

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Fast]

Unfortunately, our time is short. You can answer that question in the next go around.

[S/Sgt Pierre Gauthier]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Fast]

We'll move on to Mr. Dosanjh. You have five minutes.

[Ujjal Dosanjh, Liberal, Vancouver South, BC]

Thank you.

I'm going to ask one question, and if there's time left over, my colleague will continue.

Mr. Sterling, I have a question for you. You mentioned in the context of a certain population base and the laws in the United States that the prison population went up by 100,000 people charged and convicted of drug offences. I want to know what the population base was and what length of time it took to reach that increase in prison population.

[Eric Sterling]

The prison population was 36,000 in 1986. It's 203,000 now. We're talking only about the federal prison population; we're not talking about the prison population in the 50 states. These are the totals for all federal crimes. The current drug offender population exclusively right now is more than 100,000. I apologize that I cannot tell you exactly how high it was in 1986. My hunch is that it would have been on the order of 10,000 to 15,000 and no more.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Fast]

Mr. Murphy.

[Brian Murphy, Liberal, Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe, NB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Sterling, culturally it's hard for me to go against the instincts of the late, great Tip O'Neill, but from what you've said, does it seem that one of the major flaws with the mandatory minimum system as applied in the United States was that the mandatory minimums were for such a long period?

I remember that three and a half years ago, when we started this whole debate about mandatory minimums, the opposition was successful in ratcheting down some proposed mandatory minimums. Frankly, compared to those of the United States, our mandatory minimums, which had been passed here before the Conservative government got in, are far less than the minimums you mentioned in some cases of seven and ten years. Would you say that's one of the major flaws, that you're keeping many more offenders in for a far longer time, costing all that much more?

[Eric Sterling]

Yes, Mr. Murphy, you're absolutely correct. The very long periods in the American law are counter-productive, because the lesson gets learned pretty quickly, and the many years after the lesson is learned are wasted years. One of the first points I made in my testimony earlier today was to commend you for making the proposed periods of time in your mandatory minimums much shorter than those in the American system.

The inherent failure is to think that handcuffing judges is the way to go. Is there a study that shows that judges in Canada have been egregiously lenient? Do you have studies that look at judges across the country in the application of their drug sentences? We have broken that data down on a district-by-district basis. The sentencing commission could tell you exactly how long a sentence is that a judge has imposed, and they have this data now going back for more than 20 years.

One of the questions you need to ask is whether the case has been made that the sentences are wrong, rather than rely on polling data in which the public says, “I think the sentences are too long, because I recall hearing about some case that seemed like an outrage to me.” You have thousands and thousands of cases being brought by judges all over your country, and certainly news media can always find at least one a week to object to.

The message that mandatory minimums sends to judges is that we really don't trust you, we don't respect you, we don't think you can look at all of the facts of the case and do what you're supposed to do, which is to do justice.

Similarly, a mandatory minimum says to the prosecutor, we don't think you can convince the judge which cases deserve long sentences and which do not.

I think those messages are very insulting and ultimately undermine the respect that your judges and your courts deserve.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Fast]

Thank you, Mr. Sterling.

We'll move on now to Monsieur Lemay, for five minutes.

[Marc Lemay, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

My question is for Ms. Beauchesne, Mr. Alexander and Mr. Sterling. I would like you to answer by yes or no.

Have you seen, either throughout your long careers, your research or your analyses, reports or studies that prove the benefit of mandatory minimum sentences?

Ms. Beauchesne?

[Prof. Line Beauchesne]

No.

[Marc Lemay, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Mr. Alexander?