Debates of April 30th, 2007

[The Deputy Speaker, NDP, Bill Blaikie]

Order, please. It is my duty to interrupt the proceedings and put forthwith every question necessary to dispose of the motion now before the House.

The question is on the motion. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

No.

[The Deputy Speaker, NDP, Bill Blaikie]

All those in favour of the motion will please say yea.

[Some hon. members]

Yea.

[The Deputy Speaker, NDP, Bill Blaikie]

All those opposed will please say nay.

[Some hon. members]

Nay.

[The Deputy Speaker, NDP, Bill Blaikie]

In my opinion the yeas have it.

And five or more members having risen:

Call in the members.

The hon. government whip.

[Jay Hill, Conservative, Prince George—Peace River, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I would ask that the vote be deferred until the end of government orders tomorrow.

[The Deputy Speaker, NDP, Bill Blaikie]

The vote is deferred until the end of government orders tomorrow pursuant to the request of the government whip.

The House will now resume with the remaining business under routine proceedings. We were under the rubric of motions.

Citizenship and Immigration

[James Bezan, Conservative, Selkirk—Interlake, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to present today a petition from about 50 of my constituents who are concerned about the Raza-Kausar family, who right now are seeking refuge and sanctuary in the Crescent Fort Rouge United Church in Winnipeg. the petitioners would like to see the family's citizenship issue resolved.

Visitor Visas

[Judy Wasylycia-Leis, NDP, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to table another petition signed by numerous individuals from Winnipeg, Manitoba, particularly from my constituency, who are concerned about the visa restrictions for people coming from Poland to Canada.

They have asked for this country to seriously address this issue and consider the value of lifting these visa restrictions so that people may come here more freely, recognizing in fact that there are good relations between our two countries, that there is a strong record of respect between our two nations, and that in fact there is no longer a need for the visitor visa program in order to come to this country.

Official Development Assistance

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise today to present this petition on behalf of constituents of the Windsor and Essex county area. This petition calls upon the Minister of Finance and draws to his attention the fact that there are hundreds of thousands of individuals and organizations that support the make poverty history campaign, requiring more and better aid, debt cancellation, trade justice, and poverty reduction in Canada and abroad. They are asking the federal budget to be in line with that statement and to improve Canada's relationship with development and poverty across international boundaries as well as at home.

Questions on the Order Paper

[Tom Lukiwski, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons and Minister for Democratic Reform]

Mr. Speaker, Question No. 110 will be answered today.

Question No. 110

[Ken Boshcoff, Liberal, Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON]

With respect to the cut in funding announced in September 2006 for the Youth Employment Strategy (YES): (a) what was the 2005-2006 fiscal budget for YES; (b) what dollar amount was spent on each program and project offered by YES in 2005-2006; (c) what is the total dollar amount of funding cut to YES; (d) what is the new budget for each YES program and project; and (e) by providing a description of each program and project affected by the cuts, what will be the specific result of this cut in funding in terms of lost employment opportunities available through each program?

[Monte Solberg, Conservative, Minister of Human Resources and Social Development]

Mr. Speaker, Canada’s new government is committed to youth and improving opportunities for youth and all Canadians. Under the new government, employment for all Canadians is at a 30 year high. Our government is also supporting youth employment through Advantage Canada and our investments of $1,000 per year for apprentices in the first two years of a red seal trade, the apprenticeship job creation tax credit for employers, and the tool tax deduction for tradespeople. Budget 2007 also provides an additional $105 million over five years to help aboriginal youth and others receive skills training and secure sustainable jobs, $500 million per year to help address a gap in labour market programming for those who do not qualify for training through employment insurance, as well as a new working income tax benefit to help an estimated 1.2 million low income Canadians.

In 2005-06, HRSDC had a total budget of $230.9 million for the three components of the youth employment strategy, YES; $106.7 million was spent in skills link, $6.2 million in career focus and $92.9 million in the summer work experience program. There is a very high volume of projects, over 30,000, under YES. A report detailing the amount spent on each project is therefore not attached.

Canada summer jobs, CSJ, is a new initiative of the summer work experience program. CSJ provides wage subsidies to help Canadian employers of not for profit, public sector, and smaller private sector organizations with 50 or fewer employees create career related summer jobs for students between the ages of 15 and 30 at the start of employment. One hundred per cent of the funding for not for profit has been preserved out of recognition of the valuable experience that these organizations provide.

The initiative is specifically designed to help students who are having trouble finding summer jobs because of where they live and/or other barriers. CSJ is focused on three key priorities: creating jobs that would not otherwise be created; helping students who need it the most; and providing high quality work experiences to students. CSJ will help employers create high quality, career related summer jobs for students. It takes into consideration Canada’s current strong labour market conditions.

In 2007-08, the Government of Canada will invest $85.9 million in this new initiative.

The budgets for skills link, funding activities for youth at risk, and for career focus are not affected by this announcement.

Questions on the Order Paper

[Tom Lukiwski, Conservative, Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre, SK]

Furthermore, Mr. Speaker, I ask that all remaining questions be allowed to stand.

[The Deputy Speaker, NDP, Bill Blaikie]

Is that agreed?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

The House resumed consideration of Bill C-10, An Act to amend the Criminal Code (minimum penalties for offences involving firearms) and to make a consequential amendment to another Act, as reported (with amendment) from the committee, and of Motions Nos. 1 to 20.

Criminal Code

[The Deputy Speaker, NDP, Bill Blaikie]

I believe when the House was last debating this matter the hon. member for Scarborough--Rouge River had eight minutes left in his ten minutes.

[Derek Lee, Liberal, Scarborough—Rouge River, ON]

Mr. Speaker, you are correct. I will try to use my eight minutes well.

When we were interrupted by question period and other valuable proceedings, I was referring to what I regard as misleading comments about the position of the official opposition Liberals here, but I will move on because the record has that.

The second part of it was that Liberals have accepted the need for mandatory minimum penalties in the Criminal Code and, as has already been pointed out by members on both sides of the House, the code is replete with examples. We have mandatory minimum sentencing for some drinking and driving offences. The mandatory minimum sentence for first degree murder is life in prison, a life sentence. These are all existing minimum mandatory sentences in the code.

However, the one thing that the opposition Liberals did not agree to as a party was the development or the creation of an escalating series of mandatory minimums, an escalating meat chart, so that a first offence would be three years, then it would be five years, then seven, then ten, whatever the various proposals were coming forward. This is not something that I agreed with. I still do not. There are some members here who apparently do. I have accepted the mandatory minimum sentence, but not the escalating series of mandatory minimums. That is an important distinction in some quarters.

I would point out that all of the sentencing alluded to in the mandatory minimum proposals is currently available to judges now. Judges are perfectly capable of sentencing a person convicted of the crimes involved in this bill to the types of sentences described in the mandatory minimums; it is just that they are not obliged to give the mandatory minimum. They can still give five years, seven years, ten years or whatever the sentencing range allows.

This bill would remove that judicial discretion and impose on judges the need to give a sentence of whatever was prescribed in this escalating series of penalties. It is important to keep this in mind: that we would actually be removing some of the discretionary aspects in sentencing.

I do not want the word “discretionary” to be taken too loosely here. Our judges fully take their responsibility seriously. They realize that the sentencing they impose is done in the context of community standards. I do not think there is any place in the country where that is not the case.

I would have to say that the bill is being driven in part by a degree of political pretence. There is a pretence out there that Canadian society is beset with crime, that crime is escalating, and that violent crime is taking over our communities.

It is true that television and the Internet are giving us access to a lot of this information. We are seeing a lot more of it, but data on crime shows the opposite. It shows that crime is reducing. I do not have to repeat too much of that. The data is out there. Since 1991, for reasons that sociologists have not ever been able to fully explain, our violent crime rates and our overall crime rates are decreasing and continue to do so.

Thus, there is a pretence that we have a crime problem. While we actually do have crime problems, we just do not have the escalating crime problem that some politicians are urging upon us.

The second thing that is being urged upon us is that a more severe sentence would actually deter but that has not been proven. What normally deters criminals is the prospect of getting caught. If they did not think they would get caught, they might be more likely to do the crime. I suppose there might be the odd exception to that little equation but I think sociologists are pretty clear on that as well.

I want to refer to the experience in Toronto over the last couple of years. One of the factual backgrounds that gave rise to the sense of considering increased sentencing was the uptick in the number of shootings and homicides in Toronto in 2005-06. As a result, Toronto's policing became a lot better.

As a result of those policing efforts, and I will need to allow room for the sociological impacts, crimes of this nature have dropped just as much as they spiked. I will deal with some of the data. From January through to the end of April 2005, 73 shootings; 75 shootings in 2006; and in 2007, 51 shootings, a drop of 33%., which is huge no matter how we look at it or what side of the House one sits on.

The point here is not that there was no crime. The point is that crime is not increasing. The attention that the increased shootings received in 2005-06 allows us to now look back on it as a spike. The data is showing that we are ending up with violent crime rates that are even less than before the spike. That would be consistent with the overall demographic trends of the last 15 years that are clearly out there. If anyone is in doubt, they should go to Juristat or Statistics Canada and look at the data. The most recent publication is there for all to see. Although it shows crime, it shows a reduction in crime. I still accept that crime is always a problem with a community and that one crime is too many.

It is easy to say that by passing a law in here that we will affect the incidence of crime. That may be politicians thinking they are a much too valuable part of the system. Just because we pass a law in here does not mean that it will produce a reduced crime impact. A lot more is involved in this than politicians passing laws.

The public needs to be educated, the police need to do their job, which they do admirably well across the country, and prosecutors need to do their job. A whole constellation of factors enter into crime rates, such as enforcement, sentencing, corrections, prosecutions and police enforcement.

However, I would say that just putting people in jail or threatening to is not the big answer. It costs $75,000 to $80,000 to keep somebody in a prison. Three good students could be put through medical school for that kind of money. These mandatory minimums will actually put people there, irrevocably, no choice. We will just keep throwing another $75,000 or $80,000 at this problem when the real problem is probably out on the street and needs to be addressed in ways other than just warehousing inmates.

Our American friends have learned this. Many states have taken steps to reverse the warehousing of inmates. They have some very serious problems there. We have always had a chance to do it right. We will have to see what the outcome of the vote is but--

[Tom Lukiwski, Conservative, Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I am sorry to interrupt my colleague but I rise on a point of order.

In light of the fact that the official opposition today brought concurrence down and interrupted debate on Bill C-10, one of the government's justice bills that we are trying to get passed as quickly as possible this week, I wonder, if you sought it, if you would find unanimous consent for the House to continue to sit for an additional three hours for the consideration of Bill C-10.

[The Deputy Speaker, NDP, Bill Blaikie]

Is it agreed?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

No.

[The Deputy Speaker, NDP, Bill Blaikie]

I do not detect unanimous consent for the parliamentary secretary's suggestion. In any event, it is 6:30 p.m.