Evidence of meeting #18 for Justice and Human Rights in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was section.
A recording is available from Parliament.
General Counsel and Director, Criminal Law Policy Section, Department of Justice
I'll have to get you the names of the lower court cases. I don't have those immediately with me. The Robertson case from the B.C. Court of Appeal was in 2020.
Conservative
Michael Cooper Conservative St. Albert—Edmonton, AB
Okay. You don't have the names of the other cases?
General Counsel and Director, Criminal Law Policy Section, Department of Justice
I don't have them with me.
Conservative
Michael Cooper Conservative St. Albert—Edmonton, AB
If you could provide them, that would be helpful.
Bloc
Rhéal Fortin Bloc Rivière-du-Nord, QC
Mr. Chair, what was just adopted on division? I did not understand.
Liberal
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Randeep Sarai
We're not getting the translation.
Can we just suspend for a minute or two?
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Randeep Sarai
We're going to resume again.
My understanding is that there was no translation services, so we're just going to do that vote again as Mr. Fortin could not hear the question.
Shall Conservative amendment 3 carry?
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Randeep Sarai
We'll have a recorded vote.
(Amendment negatived: nays 7; yeas 4 [See Minutes of Proceedings])
(Clause 5 agreed to: yeas 7; nays 4)
(On clause 6)
The first amendment is PV-1 from the Green Party.
It's deemed moved, according to the House order of a while ago.
Going with that, I'm going to allow Ms. May to say a few words.
Green
Elizabeth May Green Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I'd like to start, with all due respect and affection, by correcting you. This wasn't a House order. This was a committee motion that is a subterfuge that the Green Party objects to and has objected to since it was first used to deny us the rights we would ordinarily have at report stage. As a result of the motion, in identical language, passed in every committee every time we have an election, we now have—without proper process to change the ways in which the House of Commons works to address legislation—a bad habit, which I'm sure will soon be referred to as some kind of law, that members of Parliament who are either independent or members of parties that do not have recognized party status are required, on a very short timeline, to turn around amendments and bring them to committees without the right to vote on them, without the right to speak much on them and without the right to move them. This is why they're deemed moved, which puts me in an awkward circumstance.
I can see what's happening in this committee. I support Bill C-5, but it doesn't go far enough. We've looked at the Supreme Court decisions. We've looked at many court of appeal decisions all across the country. We know a number of things. I'll go back to when Bill C-10, the omnibus crime bill under Stephen Harper, went through Parliament. I was a member of Parliament. I fought very hard against it because there was absolutely no evidence that mandatory minimums worked to reduce crime rates. There was evidence to the contrary. The State of Texas was already removing its mandatory minimums, while our Parliament was charging ahead to bring them in.
Therefore, I support removing mandatory minimums. All of my amendments, and a few others that are to a slightly different point, seek to do more to remove mandatory minimums. They are expensive and inefficient. They pass the costs of incarceration onto provinces. There are many arguments as to why they don't make any sense. Of course, the arguments we've heard a few times mentioned today are that we see disproportionate incarceration of people of colour and of indigenous people at rates that are well known, so I won't repeat that evidence here.
I will just say that my first amendment, and I can deal with it but I want to also raise a larger point, Mr. Chair, which is that if I could, seeing the painful filibuster that we've seen in the last two and a half hours, I'd say let's just take all my amendments that are inadmissible—
Conservative
Larry Brock Conservative Brantford—Brant, ON
I have a point of order.
In reference to my friend's comments about a “painful filibuster”, I heartily disagree and I find that quite offensive. We have an obligation to provide some commentary with respect to the amendments. A filibuster, again from a rookie politician's point of view, is if I decided to open up my Criminal Code on page 1 and started reading all 1,400 pages. That's a filibuster. I didn't hear any points of order from anyone on this committee regarding relevancy. In my view, my points and my colleagues' points were all relevant with respect to the points that we were making.
I wanted to bring that to your attention because I find that language rather offensive.
Green
Elizabeth May Green Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC
I'd like to apologize from the bottom of my heart, Mr. Brock.
You're quite right that it didn't meet the definition of a filibuster, but it is a definite effort to slow down the review of this legislation. I had thought that since my first amendment came up under clause 6, it would be attended to relatively early in a two-hour committee hearing, and I'm not inexperienced.
You're quite right, Mr. Brock. It doesn't meet the definition of a filibuster, but since I've brought forward most of the amendments before the committee tonight, it does place me in something of a quandary, because I don't have the right to withdraw my amendments. They are deemed put forward by the committee. That is a committee motion that you yourselves adopted, unfortunately, and every committee has done so, right through the system of the Parliament of Canada, and it does mean that I must proceed to present each and every one of these unless we can find a solution.
I wanted to open with an offering that we know that a number of my amendments will be deemed to be inadmissible, and I would like to ask the committee.... From my point of view, there's no purpose in my speaking to inadmissible motions, so I don't intend to. I want to make that clear right now. We can skip over anything inadmissible.
Certainly the first amendment I have before us is admissible and does go to what we should be doing, which is, as in the Nur case, as Chief Justice McLachlin suggested, it would be better if Parliament got rid of all mandatory minimums and reviewed the use of mandatory minimums. She didn't go as far as to say to get rid of them, but to deal with them efficiently.... Bill C-5 removes some but not all, not even all of the mandatory minimums that have already been struck down by courts.
It certainly would be preferable to find a way.... As was noted by the court, it's better for Parliament to deal with this than to sit back and simply wait for the courts to handle them in a piecemeal way. The finding, of course—which I will quote from because I think it's central to this—is that after reviewing at least 50 years of research on mandatory minimums, as the Supreme Court of Canada did in Nur, they found, “Empirical evidence suggests that mandatory minimum sentences do not, in fact, deter crimes....”
If we turn to Statistics Canada, we can find that from 2003—which was the peak of any crime rate in Canada—and 2020, crime rates in Canada dropped by 30% and violent crimes dropped by 23%. The discussion that's happened today in committee would lead anyone to think that we had a terrible crime wave.
Any crime is unacceptable, any violent crime, and I wish we were doing more for victims. We do not have good legislation. We do not have a good framework. We do not have good supports for victims of crime, and we should, but in the context of mandatory minimums, all we are doing is removing the discretion that a judge would use on an individual case and potentially even giving a higher and more punishing sentence, if that's what you're looking for.
If we're looking for a criminal justice system that is affordable, one that's fair and effective and reduces crime rates, this isn't it, and that's why my first amendment calls for removing the provisions that impose mandatory minimums in cases where we have.... Basically, it's the provisions on trafficking in a firearm. Bill C-5 deals with only subsection 99(3), and my amendment would add subsections 99(2) and 99(3) so that we would be more efficient in improving our criminal justice system by removing more mandatory minimums.
With that, that's the longest submission I will make. I know that under the rules you've adopted, we're to make short submissions, but I wanted to take an overarching approach this time, because we do support Bill C-5. We just don't think it goes far enough.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Randeep Sarai
Thank you, Ms. May.
Before I go to you, Mr. Moore, I'm going to suspend for one or two minutes. I think there are some staffing changes for room services, so we'll suspend for one or two minutes.
Thank you.
Now we are resuming. Mr. Moore has the floor.
We are discussing Green Party amendment 1. It's Ms. May's amendment.
Conservative
Rob Moore Conservative Fundy Royal, NB
Thank you, Mr. Chair and Ms. May.
There is irony in saying there's some kind of shock at the pace we're moving. Conservatives submitted 15 amendments to this bill, the Bloc six, the Liberals three and the NDP three. That's a reasonable number of amendments for a bill we've all been very vested in over the last couple of months. The Greens brought in 45 amendments to this bill, so I find it passing strange that someone would make a commentary about the pace at which we're going when they brought in 45 amendments.
I am interested in hearing about some of these Green amendments. I find it absolutely shocking to see, in print, the idea that even.... The Liberals, clearly, and the NDP have said, “You know what? We don't like mandatory minimums for all offences.” I'd love to hear an explanation as to why sexual exploitation, incest, bestiality, making child pornography, parent or guardian procuring sexual activity, making sexually explicit material available to a child, luring a child.... These are all the absolutely disgusting offences for which the Green Party is saying we should have no mandatory minimum. It's outrageous to dump all of these amendments and basically gut the Criminal Code.
I don't know how many committee members have taken the opportunity to look at all the Green amendments, and I don't blame you if you haven't seen them all. There are 44 more of them. They apply to trafficking a person under 18, obtaining sexual services for consideration from a person under 18, procuring a person under 18. Is there a common theme? Almost all of them deal with Canadian children being victimized in the most awful way. The Green Party wants to remove the mandatory minimums.
I think these amendments are, frankly, disgusting. I really do. I think Canadians would be appalled. I was appalled when I saw them in print. It made me want to gag when I saw the types of offences for which they're saying, “Nope. If the judge wants to say you can walk out of here free, you can walk out free.” I think it's appalling.
That is my commentary on the Green Party amendments as a whole.
On this one specifically, you know what? There's a reason that there's a mandatory minimum penalty for weapons trafficking with a firearm. There's weapons trafficking that could involve other illegal weapons, such as switchblades or other knives. This is weapons trafficking with a firearm. It's the kind of stuff we're dealing with and invested in. It's irresponsible to dump the gutting of the entire Criminal Code on our committee.
Those are my comments on that, for now.
Green
Elizabeth May Green Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC
I have a point of order.
I'm sorry, Mr. Chair, but I object to being mischaracterized as “gutting the Criminal Code”.
Green
Elizabeth May Green Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC
Those offences are offences that would remain in the Criminal Code. We're objecting to the use of the inefficient, expensive and counterproductive measures called mandatory minimums. All of the offences my colleague finds appalling make me sick, too. They are disgusting offences, and anyone found guilty should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.
Green
Elizabeth May Green Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC
I prefer to leave it to a judge or the discretion of the judiciary looking at individual circumstances, and not using blanket approaches, which have been proven not to work.
I object to being put on the record, in any way, shape or form, calling for “gutting the Criminal Code”. Those are offences that will remain in the Criminal Code. Let's hope they are fully prosecuted and that the punishment fits the crime. When you use a blanket cookie cutter and just say “mandatory minimum”, you do not have a punishment fitting the crime. You reduce the discretion and ability of the prosecuting attorney to get the right sentence. You end up having some people going to jail who aren't guilty, because they're so fearful of a mandatory minimum they'll plead out even though they have not committed the crime.
I'm sorry, Mr. Chair, but I also want to put on the record that due to previous commitments and my not realizing this committee would run late, my colleague, the honourable member for Kitchener Centre, Mike Morrice, is going to take over, so I withdraw at this point, but I wanted it recognized by the committee before I left that it is acceptable for the member for Kitchener Centre to replace me on the committee.
