Justice Committee on Oct. 4th, 2017

[Mark Warawa, Conservative, Langley—Aldergrove, BC]

I'm thankful that there's recognition of the importance of mandatory minimums and their effect.

My concern and opposition to this amending motion is that it doesn't properly represent what I think Canadians believe are appropriate sentencing minimums. For the first offence of impaired driving causing death, it would be a mandatory minimum of $1,000, and the second offence, impaired driving causing death, would be at least 30 days. Am I understanding this right? Each subsequent offence of impaired driving causing death would be imprisonment of at least 120 days.

We know that you qualify for release at one-third of sentence, and this would be provincial time, so one-third of 30 days. On the second offence of impaired driving causing death, there would be at least 10 days in lock-up. The other 20 days would be under supervision.

I don't think this represents where Canadians are, and I don't think it represents what the Prime Minister indicated when he wrote a letter of support for the impaired driving legislation that was presented by the previous government. He indicated, in writing, that he would support that type of legislation, and this is nothing even close to it.

[The Chair, Liberal, Anthony Housefather]

Is there any further discussion?

Mr. Fraser, you're the mover, so you can close.

[Colin Fraser, Liberal, West Nova, NS]

The point of the amendment is to leave the state of the law the same as it is now with regard to mandatory minimum penalties so that there is consistency between the offences. I am in no way suggesting that these would be necessarily appropriate in most circumstances, but I think it's important to have consistency, and the way the bill was drafted didn't have these at all. I thought that was problematic, and that's why I'm moving this amendment. I believe the case law would show that, in almost all of these circumstances, these minimums will not be the actual sentence that's imposed.

On the reading of it, I thought it was important to have the general public know that these are the minimum consequences you would face for any impaired driving conviction.

[The Chair, Liberal, Anthony Housefather]

Mr. Nicholson.

[Rob Nicholson, Conservative, Niagara Falls, ON]

Mr. Cooper tried to do this by increasing these minimums that say, if you have three convictions of killing people while you were impaired, and you're subject to the mandatory of 120 days.... Talk about decreasing people's confidence in the criminal justice system. I appreciate these are the minimum sentences here, but you're saying.... What are they doing there, quite frankly, and why don't we triple this?

I'd like to have it go up 30 times, to tell you the truth, but that's another story.

[The Chair, Liberal, Anthony Housefather]

Mr. Fraser.

[Colin Fraser, Liberal, West Nova, NS]

I take the point. I guess, if it would be satisfactory to not have consistency among the different ones, we could delete it and not have the mandatory minimums at all, if that would be preferable, I suppose.

I don't know, in reading the case law that I have, that these are imposed where there's death, but in looking for consistency across the impaired driving convictions, it seemed odd to me that there would be mandatory minimums for offences causing bodily harm but not for death. It adds consistency to the code, at least in that respect.

I'm not suggesting these would necessarily be adequate sentences in almost any circumstance causing death, and I don't think the case law bears that out either, but the point is, if my friends would be more comfortable not having them at all to add consistency, then I'd be happy to withdraw it.

[The Chair, Liberal, Anthony Housefather]

Mr. Warawa.

[Mark Warawa, Conservative, Langley—Aldergrove, BC]

Chair, I don't think the point is not supporting consistency in the Criminal Code of Canada. We support that totally. This is an opportunity to point out that the consistency is supported. The mandatory minimums that are listed here, we feel, are grossly inadequate.

[The Chair, Liberal, Anthony Housefather]

Colleagues, can I get unanimous consent to continue as the bells ring, and just stop about 12 or 15 minutes before?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Chair, Liberal, Anthony Housefather]

Thank you.

We have had some good, robust debate on this one. We will move to a vote on the new amendment LIB-5.2.

(Amendment agreed to on division [See Minutes of Proceedings])

Next we move to amendment CPC-12, which is another one from Mr. Cooper.

Mr. Warawa.

[Mark Warawa, Conservative, Langley—Aldergrove, BC]

It is self-explanatory and so moved.

[Rob Nicholson, Conservative, Niagara Falls, ON]

Just for colleagues who are a little bit confused, several of the amendments seem repetitious, but what Mr. Cooper is doing is repeating in part 2 what he did in part 1 so that they all come into effect on the same date. That's why we're dealing with the same motion twice.

I guess there is no discussion, so all those in favour of amendment CPC-12?

(Amendment negatived on division [See Minutes of Proceedings])

[The Chair, Liberal, Anthony Housefather]

Next we move to amendment LIB-6.

[Rob Nicholson, Conservative, Niagara Falls, ON]

Ms. Khalid.

[Iqra Khalid, Liberal, Mississauga—Erin Mills, ON]

Amendment LIB-6 basically seeks to add when a prohibition order takes place, and it should take place on the day it is made. This is just so that we can keep track of when driving prohibition orders come into effect. Instead of once past the sentence, they should come on the day the order is made, basically.

[Rob Nicholson, Conservative, Niagara Falls, ON]

That makes sense.

[The Chair, Liberal, Anthony Housefather]

Yes.

Is there any discussion or debate about that?

(Amendment agreed to [See Minutes of Proceedings])

Next we move to LIB-7.

LIB-7 is also Ms. Khalid's.

[Iqra Khalid, Liberal, Mississauga—Erin Mills, ON]

LIB-7 I think is just fixing a drafting error.

The bill refers to proposed new subsection 320.14(1). The amendment is adding 320.14(1) to 320.14(3), which basically outlines the offences that are to be considered prior offences for the purpose of escalating the mandatory minimum penalties.

[The Chair, Liberal, Anthony Housefather]

Okay, are there any questions or discussion?

Ms. May.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

I just want to say how pleased I am to see a government party putting forward the willingness to fix drafting errors.

In the 41st Parliament—and no offence to my Conservative colleagues here—many times we pointed out drafting errors, but there was such a zeal to pass a bill unchanged from first reading to royal assent that drafting errors were left in place deliberately.

I want to thank the Liberal Party and Iqra for bringing forward amendments that fix drafting errors.

[The Chair, Liberal, Anthony Housefather]

Mr. Nicholson.

[Rob Nicholson, Conservative, Niagara Falls, ON]

I know we have to be very tolerant and accommodating to everybody, but I can say with assurances, that with the great representatives of the Department of Justice, at no time did we deliberately continue with any pieces or parts of legislation that were either inconsistent, wrong, or anything else.

I had the benefit, for seven years, of getting the very good advice of the Department of Justice here as to how to draft these things, and I want to thank them. They wanted to make sure that the legislation worked and that it was consistent with other pieces of legislation.

[The Chair, Liberal, Anthony Housefather]

We'll call this debate and outside the scope of the motion.