Mr. Speaker, I am going to let the House in on a little secret. I will be voting against Bill C-10. The bill is one of the dumbest pieces of legislation ever to hit the floor of the House. It is absolutely dumb.
We must not tell anyone because the Conservatives actually think that they are being quite clever with this piece of legislation. The Conservatives think that they can somehow or another be tough on crime by introducing stupid legislation. This bill is stupid. It starts out at the beginning as a stupid bill and it will be a stupid bill after it is debated by the House.
I can hear the Conservatives all chirping here. The big game here is actually a political game. They want to show everyone who opposes the bill as being soft on crime and that the Conservatives are tough on crime, and somehow or another that will solve the problem.
I have noticed a pattern in the Conservative government. That party has a three step approach. The first step is to create a problem that does not exist. The second step is to propose a solution to a problem that does not exist. The third step is to pat themselves on the back and let everyone else pick up the pieces.
Let us look at step one. The first step is to create a non-existent problem. To listen to the Conservative propaganda machine, which would do credit to the communist party of Russia, crime is out of control in this country. The streets are unsafe. There is mayhem everywhere. We should avoid the downtown areas of our major cities. In fact, I sat in this chamber a few days ago where the Minister of Justice proposed that we should avoid downtown Toronto, downtown Vancouver and downtown Winnipeg.
Last Sunday my family and I ignored his advice. We went out and we wandered around downtown Toronto on a Sunday evening. It was a lovely evening and we had a lovely meal. We celebrated my daughter's 18th birthday and we talked to a whole bunch of people who were also in downtown Toronto ignoring the minister's advice.
In fact, there were thousands, if not tens of thousands of people in downtown Toronto apparently ignoring the minister's advice to avoid downtown Toronto. I realize that bashing Toronto is a favourite sport over on the other side. Frankly, the people of Toronto ignore the Conservative Party.
Perhaps the thousands of people who were with me and my family had actually read the Juristat statistics that are put out by Statistics Canada under the auspices of the Ministry of Justice. If the minister cares to read that material, he might find the following:
Following an increase in 2003, the national police-reported crime rate fell slightly (-1%) in 2004. Although most crimes declined in 2004, noticeable increases were seen in homicides and drug incidents.
The overall decrease in crime was largely driven by a 5% decline in Ontario.
Ontario of all places.
Most of this decline was due to large decreases in crime in Hamilton, Ottawa, St. Catharines-Niagara and Toronto census metropolitan areas. Ontario's crime was the lowest in the country for the second year in a row.
The total violent crime dropped by 2%.
In 2003 we reached a 36-year low in homicide rates. There was a 4% drop in robberies. Most property crimes declined. Break-ins were 4% lower than the year previous. Youth crime was down 4%.
I appreciate that members opposite do not actually like to deal with evidence. It interferes with their propaganda. Frankly, their game is to peddle fear. We had an example of this by the justice minister on the floor of the House who said to not go to the downtowns of our major cities because crime was rampant. Unfortunately, the facts do not support them. There is no evidence to support step one.
If that does not really matter, then we go to step two. Step two is to propose a solution to a non-existent problem. The big idea in the bill is minimum mandatories. Canada will be so much safer now that we have minimum mandatories.
I am sure that the entire criminal underclass is studying up on minimum mandatories as we speak so they can avoid the effects of this bill. I am sure some members feel, as I do, that this new standard of minimum mandatories has put deep fear into the hearts of our criminal underclass.
I do not pretend to be a criminal law lawyer, but I did a bit when I first started practice. One of the things that I noticed about criminals, as a general statement, is that they are not the brightest lot in the world. In fact, they are kind of dumb. The other thing I have noticed about criminals, generally in the time that I represented them and in the time I have watched colleagues represent them, is that not one of them ever thought he or she would ever get caught. They were not really appreciating the nature and consequences of their actions.
I am sure that this bill is just going to have a huge impact on that criminal underclass. They are going to say to themselves that they are not going to commit a robbery and not pack any heat because they will get a minimum mandatory sentence. Criminals do not think that way.
Equally interesting about the minister's speech was that he said there is no Canadian evidence to support his bill. It is an extraordinary thing for a Minister of Justice to deposit a bill on the floor of this House and then say he has no evidence to support it. To be fair to him, he did cite two American studies, both of which were ambiguous and are in a different legal environment and a different sentencing environment.
At the same time he also said that some of the states were actually going in the opposite direction and repealing their minimum mandatory sentences. Why? Because the evidence does not support the existence of minimum mandatories.
Step one would create a problem that does not exist. Step two proposes a solution to a non-existent problem. And step three, pat oneself on the back and let the others pick up the pieces.
Minimum mandatories by definition erode judicial consideration and discretion. Everybody on the opposite side of the House thinks that is a great idea. After the judges have listened to the evidence, listened to the arguments, heard the witnesses, made a finding of guilt, read and listened to the pre-admission sentencing reports, and heard from the victims and the victim impact statements, they will now be in a worse position to make a decision than those who never heard any of that.
This is going to lead to disproportionality of evidence. It will also lead to distortions in the way judges choose to sentence. If a minimum mandatory sentence were to shock the conscience, judges would accept pleas to lesser charges in order to achieve proportionality of sentence.
This bill tries to create a cookie-cutter approach to justice. The people who have had no access to what the judge has seen and heard will get to set the sentence. I do not know whether that makes any sense to other members in the House, but it certainly does not make any sense to me.
There are other consequences of this legislation that are equally perverse. My Liberal colleagues have outlined what is the most offensive issue of all of this and that is the creation of fear in the citizens of Canada. I go back again to the three steps I have mentioned already. Step one, create a problem that does not exist. Step two, propose a solution that does not address the problem. Step three, let others pick up the pieces.
I agree that the problem is fear. I have talked to a lot of constituents, particularly during the election, and there is fear out there. The Conservative Party fans that fear. Why? Because it is politically expedient and that party will not choose to confront fear with fact. Fear will always trump fact. This is really nasty politics and it is a disservice to Canadians.
In conclusion, the government is all about hysteria. Fear trumps facts. This is bad politics and it is a disservice to our Canadian electorate.