That being said, I don't think we need to make any weather of that.
The point is that when you're dealing with something like trafficking.... Trafficking could be anything, from the things we're talking about here, with big operations, the mafia, Mexico, the cartels, and all of that, or it could be.... Unfortunately, the definition of “trafficking” is very modest. A group of 20-year-olds sharing an ounce, rolling up joints and sharing them, that's trafficking.
The problem is that we're not dealing with.... And trafficking attracts life imprisonment as a sentence. There's no distinction here, unfortunately. That's why we believe the approach that's being taken is wrong. We understand that individual police officers, some police organizations, and you, sir, as an experienced police officer, have this strong feeling. But the evidence of what's happened in other countries is pretty clear. I'll give just two quotes. I know there are lots.
The Toronto Star, for example.... You may not like the The Toronto Star, but The Toronto Star article in December of 2007 talked about mandatory sentencing, not about drugs in particular. It says that even though “American courts mete out sentences that are double that of British and three times that of Canadian courts, the U.S. violent crime rate is higher” than in those two countries.
The point being made is that higher sentences, longer sentences, don't necessarily lead to a safer society. That's what we're talking about here. The example of the U.S. is one that I talked about earlier and that we heard evidence on as well.
The Calgary Herald—a little bit close to home for Mr. Rathgeber—in a May 15, 2010, editorial called “Reefer madness” and subtitled “Automatic jail for six pot plants is too harsh” noted that
Despite 25 years of harsh mandatory minimums, disproportionate numbers of the poor, the young, minorities and the drug addicted have been thrown in U.S. jails with no impact on the drug business itself, which has flourished.
That underscores the concerns we have that we're going down the road others have gone on. We're going to have people.... The complexities of the drug trade, we understand that. There are people at the top who are making the organized efforts, and they're the ones who are benefiting. The ones who are at the bottom, at the lower level, are the ones who are likely to be picked up by these mandatory minimums. They are the ones who are going to end up in the jails. I'm not saying they shouldn't go to jail for what they do. What I'm saying is that they're the ones who are going to actually be the low-hanging fruit, if you will, and the criminal element is not going to be attracted by this.
We're not interested, in any way, in supporting or promoting the drug trade. The matters that Ms. Findlay talked about, the destruction of houses through grow ops of the nature you have in B.C.... I have every sympathy for anybody whose house or property is victim to that, or the fires that.... These are all horrific things.
The question is, when these matters come before the courts, they're not given $500 fines and told to walk away. I'm satisfied that the sentences that would be given in a situation like that would reflect the seriousness of the events.
Yes, we need some consistency in sentencing. That's exactly what the Alberta court was doing in the case Mr. Brent Rathgeber referred to.
We do have a difference of opinion. I'm quite happy to acknowledge that. But I don't want anyone to get the impression that we're singling out marijuana as being separate.
We have a whole series of amendments here. We are opposing all of the mandatory minimums here because we are convinced, based on the evidence of other countries, based on the experts we have.... We'll be making a series of amendments—and we hope we get to them soon—on an individual basis, although I know Mr. Cotler wants to speak on the generalities, that will replace the mandatory minimums with the life sentences that are there, and we would expect the courts to respond to the courts of appeal, to appropriately deal with sentences.
What we don't want to see is an arbitrary situation where an individual, a 19-year-old, is in a situation of a very minor nature and is treated in the same way or under the same laws and the same rules and is caught up in something that's really designed for something else.
So that's the aim of our changes here, and we will be seeking to remove all of the mandatory minimums even for the other offences, as well as the marijuana ones.