Mr. Speaker, today I am pleased and honoured to speak on behalf of my Bloc Québécois colleagues as we begin the debate on the second reading of Bill C-10 to substantially amend the Criminal Code. On behalf of the government, the Minister of Justice is asking the House to adopt this bill, which was introduced on May 4, that will make the law tougher by imposing minimum prison sentences for offences involving firearms.
According to the bill introduced by the minister, the Criminal Code will be amended to set out minimum prison sentences of five, seven or even ten years—depending on whether it is a repeat crime—for eight serious offences involving the use of a firearm. The prison sentence will be determined according to several factors, including whether the firearm in question is a restricted or prohibited weapon, or whether there is a link between the offence and a criminal organization. The bill also sets out minimum prison sentences of one to five years depending on whether it is a repeat offence linked to other gun crimes.
Finally the obsessive hard-line approach of the Conservatives, founded on their dominant law-and-order ideology, shall once again be manifested in the creation of two new offences: breaking and entering with intent to steal a firearm, and robbery to steal a firearm.
My colleagues and I have given the wording of the bill a very attentive reading and thorough analysis, and too many concerns came up which prevented us from simply taking a positive view of its principle, at this stage of its passage.
We are fundamentally opposed to the very approach of the Conservative government which, true to itself, is cultivating an obsession with security and proposing excessively populist solutions, guided by purely electoral ambitions and scornful of the possible solutions, and above all of concrete results. Not only are the solutions put forward by the Conservatives based on mistaken premises, but worse still, they are harmful, ineffective and will contribute nothing to the real improvement of citizen safety.
The wave of violence in the city of Toronto last year, together with the excessive media coverage it was given, was probably a major contributor to reinforcing the idea that the streets of our communities have become more dangerous than before. Repetitive media coverage of a tragedy and the attention that citizens develop to these horrifying images can probably distort the reality of a situation. That is precisely what the Conservatives are skilfully cultivating to create a veritable psychosis in the population.
In other words, the Conservatives are utilizing tragedies reported in the evening news to wage an insidious campaign of fear mongering and thereby promote their simplistic solutions, which, they hope, will find a select place in the collective unconscious under the false pretext of a resolute initiative to stamp our crime and violence.
The method is as old as the world, but the recent experience of the Bush administration south of the border demonstrates the limits of populist propaganda. Similarly, the Conservatives’ premise that the most effective way to battle crime and wipe out violent behaviour is to adopt tougher enforcement measures is singularly mistaken, and flies in the face of the most basic logic.
It is not the fear of serving a long and difficult prison sentence that will dissuade an individual from committing a crime, even a violent crime. This is purely and simply because the individual whose plan led him to commit such a serious offence as an armed crime, simply does not have the same state of mind or heightened awareness of the true seriousness of the act he is preparing to commit as would an honest citizen. Criminologists and other experts on individual criminal behaviour define this psychological state of mind as an unbalanced perception of invulnerability. The criminal mind is convinced of the fact that it is not running any risk of being caught.
From that perspective, the spectre or threat of a long prison term does not apply to the individual. It thus becomes totally illusory as a dissuasive factor.
This state of affairs applies equally to the likelihood of recidivism by an offender sentenced for a major crime. As I was saying, the state of mind and the predisposition to commit another violent crime is often seen by the individual as an unexplained failure of an act that went awry. So, bad luck and the unconscious assurance that next time he will not be caught. But there is more. The court's obligation to impose minimum sentences, especially in the case of offences involving firearms, implies as well a limitation of the means of preventing crime and the prospects for the rehabilitation of the individuals. This is because the judges hearing the case of an individual found guilty of crimes subject to the provisions of the bill before us will inevitably and needlessly have their hands tied by the requirement in the legislation to sentence the person to prison.
If we assume that judges are the individuals most familiar with the details and circumstances of a crime that was committed, since they must analyze the case and render a decision, their ability to determine the most appropriate sentence would thus be limited, in light of all of the facts that will have been submitted.
There is an old common law principle justice must not only be done, but also seen to be done. Thus, convicting someone to several years of prison will certainly please a certain portion of society and give them a false sense of security, but this will do nothing to resolve the causes of that individual's behaviour.
For a long time now, the Bloc Québécois has made it clear that we strongly advocate fighting crime using an approach based on the rehabilitation of offenders. The Bloc believes that the most efficient means of truly limiting the scourge of violence is by first attacking its origins. The Bloc Québécois supports a model of justice whose cornerstone rests on a individualized process that takes into account the unique nature of each case. The model proposes lasting, truly deterrent solutions that are based on rehabilitation.
Despite the Conservative Party's firm language, the government's approach is doomed to failure and will do nothing to address the situation. At best, we will imprison people who will brood about their frustrations for years and very likely form a desire for revenge against the system that punished them instead of helping them rehabilitate themselves.
Of course, there will always be certain people for whom the value system that guides society will never be anything more than another constraint to break free of. But individuals who are deemed to be beyond redemption are not released and remain incarcerated.
By increasing minimum sentences according to the number of previous convictions, the government is admitting that its proposal is ineffective. The minister is calling for even stricter sentences for repeat offenders because he understands that their initial prison term, without guidance, will serve no purpose and that the sentence, as strict as it may be, will not have the desired deterrent effect. Then there is the highly predictable impact that serving a long and difficult sentence in a penitentiary—a nightmarish prospect that offers no comfort—will have on someone convicted of a first offence.
Penitentiaries are often described as veritable crime schools. There is a good chance, then, that during a mandatory five-year minimum sentence, an individual who may not have been headed for a life of crime will have access to all the tools he needs to complete his criminal education, so to speak.
In conclusion, I would suggest that the government, and particularly the Departments of Justice and Public Safety, work to restore public confidence in the parole process if they really want to make sweeping reforms to the justice system.