Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, it's a pleasure for me to appear before you here today in my capacity as the president of the Canadian Police Association to discuss Bill C-10, a comprehensive piece of legislation that takes some real and meaningful steps towards providing the tools necessary for police to pursue their goal of having safer communities.
For those of you who may not be familiar with the Canadian Police Association, we are the federal voice for over 41,000 front-line police personnel across Canada. Our membership includes police personnel serving in 160 police services across the country, from some of the smallest towns and villages to our largest municipal and provincial police services. They include members of the RCMP, railway police, and first nations police personnel.
To be absolutely clear, the CPA entirely supports the goals and methods contained within Bill C-10, from the enhanced sentencing rules for those who commit sexual offences against minors to the restrictions on conditional sentences for some of the most serious offences.These changes will go a long way toward ensuring that those criminals who are caught as the result of our investigations will face an appropriate punishment for their crimes.
There are a couple of areas of this legislation I would like to highlight in my brief remarks here today. First are the amendments to the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act contained in part 2 of Bill C-10.
Every day our members see the devastating effects drug traffickers and producers have in all of our communities. Those police officers are the ones who constantly have to arrest the same drug dealers and producers over and over again and stop them from poisoning our children and grandchildren and robbing them of their futures.
Whether these criminal organizations are in large urban centres, such as Vancouver, Toronto, Montreal, and Ottawa, or in smaller communities, such as Saint John and Gander, front-line police officers see on a daily basis how organized crime--and I do say organized crime--supplies dangerous and illegal drugs with not only disregard for the law but without consideration for the lives and families they destroy.
For a number of years, the Canadian Police Association has been advocating for a national drug strategy that incorporates a balanced approach to reducing the adverse effects associated with drug use. It would limit both the supply and the demand for illicit drugs and would enable an integrated approach to education, prevention, treatment, and enforcement. In our view, this legislation is critically important in addressing the enforcement component of this strategy.
Violent offenders are not deterred by our current sentencing, corrections, and parole policies. Chronic offenders understand the system and work it to their advantage. Criminal gangs have taken over our prisons and some neighbourhoods. We need stronger intervention that combines general deterrence, specific deterrence, denunciation, and reform.
Whether it's by keeping dealers and producers off the streets and out of business or by serving as a deterrent to potential dealers, Bill C-10 will help our members do their jobs and keep our communities safe.
In simple terms, if you keep these criminals in jail longer, you take away their opportunity to traffic in drugs.
There has been a considerable amount of debate about the use of minimum sentences and the frequency of repeat offenders. Make no mistake about it: repeat offenders are a serious problem. Police understand this intuitively, as we deal with these frequent flyers on a regular basis.
Statistics released by the Toronto Police homicide squad for 2005 demonstrate this point exactly. Among the 32 people facing murder or manslaughter charges for homicide in 2006, 14 were on bail at the time of the offence, 13 were on probation, and 17 were subject to firearms prohibition orders. The revolving-door justice system is failing to prevent further criminal activities by these repeat violent offenders.
As police officers, and more so as members of your communities, it concerns us that our youth and many adults have been getting the wrong message about drugs. The use of drugs has been trivialized by what people see on TV but also by misguided public policy. What they do not see at the beginning is that drugs will most probably take over their lives. The message to our youth should be clear: drugs are dangerous.
Another area I'd like to briefly highlight is the creation of two new offences created within this legislation. The first is making sexually explicit material available to a child, and the second is agreeing or arranging to commit a sexual offence against a child. I can't possibly stress...the need for us to keep our laws up to date, specifically with respect to new and evolving technologies, to give our police every opportunity to keep ahead of those who are abusing these technologies to commit the most horrible crimes against children.
Finally, I would like to offer specific mention of support for the provisions within the legislation that will, if passed, authorize a peace officer to arrest without warrant an offender who is on a conditional release for a breach of conditions. This commonsense change to the Corrections and Conditional Release Act is long overdue. In the past, even if we knew that someone was in breach of their conditions, we could not arrest them.
Before I finish, I would like to raise one concern on behalf of my members regarding Bill C-10. We've heard a lot about the legislation coming at some cost, and I want to remind all members of Parliament to be aware that police budgets across Canada are at their breaking point. In order to keep our communities safe, we require both the tools and the resources that are necessary to avoid the kind of service cuts that would put the gains we've made at an unnecessary risk.
Thank you very much. I'm happy to answer any questions.