Mr. Speaker, I am going to resist getting into that pushing and shoving match which we just witnessed. I want to get to the issue of sentencing, as we debate Bill C-10.
As we all know, Bill C-10 bulks up the number of mandatory minimum sentences that would be in the Criminal Code. While there is room in every Criminal Code for some mandatory minimums, the easiest one is the sentence for first degree murder, which has a mandatory minimum sentence of life, at least in our country. Other countries have other penalties.
We are not really debating whether there should be a mandatory minimum sentence in place for any particular crime. We are debating the extent of those mandatory minimum sentences.
I used the term that the current bill bulks up. It really does bulk up or materially increases the number of mandatory minimum sentences that would be in the Criminal Code, if the bill passes, with particular reference to firearms offences. At the end of the last Parliament, an attempt was made to increase, by a small margin, the number of mandatory minimum sentences associated with the criminal use of firearms. In fact, the House passed a bill only within the last few years which did precisely that.
When I looked at the data, I came across what I thought was an interesting perspective on crime statistics. It has to do with how we look at crime statistics across the country. Although I have had many occasions to look at statistics over the years, I had not noticed any of this before. Members may or may not relate to this.
I represent a Toronto area riding. When I looked at the crime statistics for the Toronto area, the census metropolitan area called the CMA, the Toronto CMA was number 26 on a list of 27 Canadian metropolitan areas for crime. That means there are 25 other municipalities in Canada that have crime rates in excess of that in Toronto for the timeframe that ended with the year 2004. I thought that was peculiar. I would have thought the big cities would have had the highest crime rates. It turns out I am wrong.
Toronto was 26 on a list of 30 for criminal statistics kept by police forces across the country. Those are reliable statistics, too, but vary slightly from Statistics Canada. I will mention some of the places that were near the top of the list. This is not for the purpose of maligning these communities. A problem with crime in Canada is a problem for all Canadians as well as the communities involved. All five of the communities with the higher overall crime rates, Regina, Saskatoon, Abbotsford, Winnipeg and Vancouver, were all cities removed from the eastern part of Canada.
If I were an MP coming one of those communities, I would be telling the House that there is a relatively high crime rate in my community and that we have to do something about it. If I come from a community with a lower crime rate, I will say that there is a crime problem but we have to look at it in perspective. I had always been curious as to why there was a difference in perspectives among members of the House when it came to the current data.
Perhaps that is part of the explanation for communities that have higher crime rates. I am not talking marginally higher, I am talking double and triple the rates in some of the other eastern Canadian cities. If I were to be representing a high crime community, I would be pulling the chain a lot more firmly in terms of getting an appropriate response to dealing with those crime levels.
I want to point out that the sentencing regime, the sentencing used for both the cities with the lower crime rates and the cities with the higher crime rates is the same. Therefore, I do not think we can say it is the sentencing that is responsible for the higher crime rate.
We might also want to say that it is not the sentencing which is responsible for the lower crime rate. However, we are talking about material differences in crime rates, but the same sentencing regime.
We ought to look at the real crime data. I will ask members to look back 15 years or more to a report of a committee of the House, the justice committee. It was chaired by Dr. Bob Horner. At that time we looked at the crime rates in the United States of America. It had the highest imprisonment rate of all the countries where there was data on incarceration.
Looking back at our report, we said that if locking up all those who violated the law contributed to safer societies, then the United States should be the safest country in the world, which it was not. The U.S. Senate judiciary committee agreed. Using 1990 data, it said that the United States was a world leader in reported murder, rape and robbery rates. Yet it had the highest incarceration rate. The higher incarceration rates did not noticeably improve, in any way, the risk and crime rate levels in the United States.
At about the same time, it is true that the crime rates in Canada were relatively high. They had gone up, the prior 10 years leading up to 1991. Starting in 1991, the crime rates began to drop, and they have been dropping ever since in Canada, not because of the Horner report and not because of what Parliament did or did not do. Looking back, it probably had a lot to do with the sociological factors that caused crime.
I would love an opportunity to go into those today. I will not have a chance. I will simply make two or three points.
First, I believe enforcement is a major component of reducing crime. I think that has been proved in the community I come from. It is being proved now as police and prosecutors are learning how to do better enforce.
Second, crime prevention initiatives have payoffs, but it involves the long run. Factors that give rise to crime are poverty, physical and sexual abuse, illiteracy, low self esteem, inadequate housing, school failure, unemployment, inequality and dysfunctional families. These have all been identified as the root causes of crime. Increasing mandatory sentencing does not address any one of those at all.
That is with regret. That is why I am having difficulty with a wholesale entry in mandatory minimum penalties. I could accept that there would be a few serious crimes where society had an interest in increasing, the denunciation factor, the desire of Canadians to say that this offence is so serious that we have to attach a mandatory sentence, a one-off. However, the bill does not do that. It takes a whole file, a whole truckload of offences and creates mandatory minimums. I suggest that is not the way to go.
I encourage us to continue the debate here or at committee. Let us look at the sentencing principles contained in the Criminal Code. They are well enunciated. They were established by the House approximately 12 years ago. They are very good and they speak conceptually against the concept of mandatory minimums.