Debates of May 17th, 2007

Criminal Code

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

Mr. Speaker, I sincerely tried to listen to and absorb the remarks of the hon. member. However, in the end I found his remarks to be partisan, simplistic and misleading in many respects. I am not saying everything he said is misleading, but simplistic to be sure. As a result, they are not credible and I will ask him a couple of things.

He said that the proposed new sentencing will cause gangs or criminals to reconsider if they really want to go ahead and do the crime. Has he ever been to one of these crime meetings where they sit down and consider if they really want to do the crime? Do they use a calculator? Do they have a lawyer come in and tell them what the sentencing might be if they are convicted? Do they have a chart on the wall and a road map that tells them exactly what the sentence will be?

I have not heard of these meetings, these deliberations, so maybe he could inform the House about where these meetings take place and what they consider. It is a revelation to me that criminals or potential criminals sit down and go through the deliberation about whether they will really do the crime and measure up what the penalty will be.

The second thing I want to ask the hon. member, and he is really being quite misleading, is this. He said, “The Liberal government, in 13 years, did absolutely nothing to address the issue of firearms crime”. I will not use the harsh words, but what he said is absolutely untrue and misleading. The member clearly omits to mention that the House, under a Liberal government, did enact additional penalties, mandatory minimum penalties of one year and four years for firearm crimes. That does not equal absolutely nothing.

The member should be careful about what he says. Could he answer those two questions, please?

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the member referred to my speech as partisan and simplistic. Quite frankly, that is exactly the kind of double-talk that Canadians have come to expect from the Liberal Party of Canada.

For years the Liberals have been promising to get tough on crime. What the hon. member does not explain is why, during the last election, they promised to impose tougher mandatory minimum sentences for gun crimes and now have done a complete flip-flop. That is embarrassing. Canadians expect more than that.

Am I being partisan? You bet, Mr. Speaker, I am being partisan. I am standing up for Canadians who deserve to be protected against gangs, drug criminals and those who use guns in committing crimes. They are not only targeting people who are involved in the drug trade, but are impacting innocent bystanders who are being killed and permanently maimed.

I ask the member to reconsider his position, as a party. The Liberal Party should come on side and do what is right for Canadians. I would be ashamed to be a Liberal today. I would be ashamed to stand up and say “We promised to get tough on these gun criminals, but today we are changing our minds and we hope Canadians forget about it”.

I encourage the member to re-evaluate his party's position on this issue. This is an issue that is critical to Canadians.

[Christian Ouellet, Bloc, Brome—Missisquoi, QC]

Mr. Speaker, at the time I thought the member for Abbotsford was speaking about prevention. I would like to point out to him that, just before, the Minister of Justice also spoke about prevention. He said that the Conservative government was very interested not only in being tough on crime, but also in establishing prevention programs.

When the minister said that, I wondered why current projects on the table and accepted by the provinces are subject to cuts when they get to the federal level? Cuts have been made to all prevention projects, even those that are inexpensive.

I believe that the member for Abbotsford provided the answer. He said that the government was providing $20 million for prevention. Imagine, $20 million in prevention for all of Canada. The Canada summer jobs program injected $95 million and now has been reduced to $85 million. It is a prevention program because it keeps young people busy, teaches them a trade, and gives them something to do.

The experts estimate that between $400 and $500 million are needed for a solid prevention program to be implemented in Canada. Yet, we are talking about only $20 million. What can we do with this amount? That is a pittance.

In view of their election promise—since that is what the Conservative Party always goes back to—I am asking the member for Abbotsford why he does not think he could support a bill that calls for prevention rather than repression.

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

Mr. Speaker, in fact, we do have a plan for prevention. I want to remind the hon. member that on January 23, 2006, Canadians elected a new Conservative government, certainly not a Bloc government and not a Liberal government. Why? One of the reasons was the Liberals were known to be soft on crime.

To specifically to address the member's question, I remind him, just from my own experience in British Columbia, that our Conservative government does take a balanced approach to the issue of crime in our country, ensuring that our youth are not enticed into a life of crime in the first place.

In fact, let me give him an example. We have taken action by giving almost $2 million to British Columbia's anti-gang initiative, which is called “Preventing Youth Gang Violence in British Columbia”. It is going to be implemented in Abbotsford, my hometown, as well as in Vancouver, Surrey, Richmond, Kamloops, and we hope to expand that in the future. It aims to reduce gang involvement through public forums that discuss issues that are relevant to the community, education and awareness campaigns, after school recreation programs, youth mentoring programs, intervention programs, parent education and youth outreach programs.

Do we have a balanced approach to this? Yes. It is not all about getting tough on crime. That is part of it as is Bill C-10. However, we are also addressing the underlying causes of crime.

[Penny Priddy, NDP, Surrey North, BC]

Mr. Speaker, given that the purpose is over time to ensure that we have fewer people facing the criminal system and in the position of being incarcerated and given that we know what happens in the early years is the single biggest determinant about whether youth and then adults will be involved in crime, other than the $100 a month for families, could the member tell me why slashing child care programs and programs that support parents to do a good job at raising their children will be of assistance in this way?

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I have appreciated getting to know the member over this past year and a half, another colleague from British Columbia, although we sometimes share different perspectives.

I remind her that it is not only the universal child care benefit that our government has delivered. We have delivered many other family friendly initiatives such as the $500 sports tax credit for families. We have also delivered just recently the family tax credit, which provides an extra incentive for families to take the money and apply it to the children rather than paying it to the tax man.

I want to also mention that the focus of Bill C-10 is not just deterrence. In fact, in my mind deterrence is probably the least of it. For me, it is important that we get the violent offenders out of society so our police can focus in on some of the underlying petty crime that our youth tend to get into. By allowing them to focus their efforts on the criminals who perhaps are on the cusp of becoming lifetime criminals, we are going to do an excellent job of moving forward, ensuring that our youth are encouraged to be upright, responsible citizens.

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

Mr. Speaker, as I begin my remarks I thought I should refer to the remarks made by the Minister of Justice who spoke earlier. He clearly was speaking in an effort to articulate good politics as opposed to good public policy. What the minister was articulating was in part lousy public policy but, from his point of view, good politics.

He said that the government wanted to send a message. I think he meant the government was trying to send a message to criminals on the assumption that we have in every case identified who those criminals are. He wants to send a message to criminals, but really what the Minister of Justice and the government are trying to do is send a political message to Canadians. It is political. It is not good public policy. The whole exercise smacks of politics and not public policy.

My colleague from Yukon mentioned a list of witnesses who appeared before the justice committee, the vast majority of whom had good public policy reasons not to agree with the mandatory minimum sentencing regime proposed in this bill.

One of the assumptions underlying mandatory or harsh sentencing is that it will deter. There is a sense that the higher the sentence, the higher the deterrence. There may be some logic in that, but statistics, sociologists and criminologists now consistently tell us that it is not the severity or length of the sentence which deters, it is the prospect of being caught that is the major component of deterrence in society.

Whether it is a potential life sentence or a two day sentence, the person who may or may not commit a premeditated crime is thinking more about the prospect of getting away with it as opposed to what sentence might be imposed later. It is false logic to presume that by increasing sentencing or imposing a mandatory minimum sentence there will be a direct linkage into the mind of a potential criminal.

By the same token, my party and I readily accept that there are envelopes within the Criminal Code, components of activity where society needs to denounce the criminal activity in a way that requires the use of a mandatory minimum.

I will point out for the sake of reference that the Criminal Code was amended relatively recently, just in the last three or four years, to impose one year mandatory minimums for firearm offences and a four year mandatory minimum sentence for a robbery with a firearm. I believe that is section 344. We also have mandatory minimums for drunk driving, particularly on a second offence. If someone reoffends, the offender will do time. Parliament, government and Canadians accept the existence of mandatory minimum penalties.

The false logic underlying this bill, however, is that by creating and delivering a whole raft of mandatory minimum penalties, it will cause a direct response and a reduction in crime. This is not the way it works. I do not think any credible witness at the committee that reviewed this bill was prepared to accept that if we bump all these sentences into mandatory minimums, the crime rate is going to drop. There might have been a feel good part in putting criminals away.

I will quote the Minister of Justice. I found it hard to believe, but the Minister of Justice said that the criminals will have time to think about it in jail. The question raised by the member from the Bloc Québécois was whether or not the potential offender might have thought about it before he or she committed the offence. The minister's logic was the person would have time to think about it afterward. That is like the horse going out the barn door; once the act is done, it is done. There is no deterrence there. I regretted that logic and I regretted the fact that the minister did not want to address the logic pattern that was introduced by the member from the Bloc.

The minister was also, in my view, trying to send a message and another example of that messaging is a quite inappropriate use of the term “house arrest”. House arrest actually has nothing to do with the bill that we are debating. Bill C-10 deals with mandatory minimum penalties. The minister was referring to Bill C-9, the bill dealing with conditional sentences. Purely for the sake of a twisted messaging, the Minister of Justice, the Attorney General of Canada, resorted to a street term that is not used in the Criminal Code and he referred to the concept of house arrest.

Most Canadians would ask what is house arrest, does it have something to do with bail or prison? Anyway, if the minister wants to use these silly street terms instead of the proper terms, that is his business. He also referred to “sending the offender to camp”. What nonsense. We are hearing this from the Minister of Justice. Surely he could use terms that are properly in use in the Criminal Code instead of using street terms to try to send some subliminal message to the public.

Anyway, I thought that his use of the terms “house arrest” and “sending people to camp” was really a disingenuous and dishonest attempt to deprecate our current corrections procedures. I personally do not like that coming from a government minister, but that is his business and if he were here now, we would probably have a little debate on it. Having had an opportunity to address the minister's remarks on this bill, I will now get to some of my own.

[An hon. member]

Maybe you should.

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

Well, maybe I won't. The member does not like my remarks about the minister but this is a public forum.

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

That is shameful.

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

There is nothing shameful about this. This is a House of free speech.

In any event, I want to note that throughout the country there is a perception that there has been an increase in violent crime. In the statistical data if we look back into the 1960s and forward to the present, we can see an increase in crime. Many criminologists say it is actually an increase in reported crime. The criminal activity of the 1960s and early in the 1970s, was in fact arguably under reported so that our data was a little bit lower than it actually should have been. In any event, the trend line was there. We can see the material increase from the 1960s right up to 1992.

In 1992 things changed sociologically. I do not believe it was anything government did or did not do. We were in a bit of an economic recession at the time but we can see the trend line. After that point in time, all criminal activity starts to drop. I still accept that there is a perception in society, that people see a lot more crime. They are certainly getting a lot more media. We have more television, more newspapers and more Internet. If there is something happening out there in crime, people are going to hear about it and that may exacerbate the public policy problem.

I am not saying there is not any crime. There is a truckload of it and it is a social issue, but it is not increasing in the way that people are being led to believe that it is. In Toronto there was a sense that we had of a very serious firearm problem about two years ago. That was true. There was a clear spike and increase in the number of shootings and firearm incidents in Toronto. As I am going to point out a little later, that year 2005 turns out to be spike, a spike up and down. Things are actually quite different now.

However, in looking at crime statistics from across the country, I can see that not every city, not every urban area or every rural area is in the same position. There are cities in Canada that have crime rates almost double what they are in Toronto or Montreal. That may seem counterintuitive to many of us, but while big cities do have crime, small cities also have crime. In some cases the rates of crimes, not necessarily the raw incidents, are significantly higher than some of our other urban areas.

In these places across Canada, citizens definitely have an issue. I represent a Toronto area riding. It is impossible for me to speak about this issue without acknowledging that in various parts of the country, the north, the east, the west, the south, there are different takes, different perceptions of just how bad or how good or where the level of criminal activity is.

Before going on any further, on the sentencing that is currently in the Criminal Code, including the existing mandatory minimums that I mentioned earlier for firearms, my party in the last election campaign did undertake to increase the mandatory minimum penalties. The member opposite makes that point, but the increases that were proposed were an increase of the one year and four year penalties that were there.

What the government had proposed in Bill C-10 was a whole regime of increasing mandatory minimums, an escalating scheme of mandatory minimums that ran three, five, seven and up to 10 years. That is a much different kettle of fish than what the Liberal Party had proposed, of targeted, specific, reasonable mandatory minimum adjustments in the Criminal Code. Maybe we could put that debate to rest. Was it discussed in the election? It sure was, but I wanted to be clear about what my party had proposed.

We are not talking about creating a new offence. This bill does not create new offences. This bill does not create new sentences. All of that is already in the Criminal Code. What the bill does, and I could say only, is create a mandatory minimum sentence at the bottom end. Judges in this country are charged with sentencing and they can give the appropriate sentence and they do. Ninety-nine per cent of the time they give the right sentence. They can sentence to more than the mandatory minimum and sometimes they do, but it depends on a whole number of criteria set out in the Criminal Code. We legislated them here about 10 years ago.

In my view the criminal justice system from the point of view of the sentencing regime is working quite well. Once in a while there is an aberration. Once in a while there is a circumstance in a court and a judge and a set of facts that looks a little odd. A newspaper, a television station, a reporter will see it and think it looks strange, that a penalty looks a little stiff, or that a penalty looks a little light and it becomes a public issue, but those cases are far and few between. We just see a lot more of them now because we have a lot more media. If it is a story, it is a story.

In one of the comments on this bill earlier today there was a scenario that I found very compelling at the committee. It relates to sentencing in the rural areas, in the north, the west and the east of the country, but generally in the north. We have to remember that before someone is actually sentenced, there has to be an investigation, the person is charged, convicted in a trial and then is sentenced.

A witness at the committee made this point in a very compelling way. When there is a conviction in a northern community for an offence, even if a violent one, the only prospect for rehabilitation and reintegration of an offender from those northern communities is if he or she is able to be in that community.

It is just not possible to take offenders from a northern community, yank them out, send them to some place in the south and hope that they can rehabilitate or reintegrate. They are not from the south. They are citizens of our north.

Instituting a mandatory minimum regime of sentences over two years essentially ensures a federal sentence. All sentences over two years are served in federal penitentiaries. Sentences under two years are served in provincial penitentiaries. By imposing mandatory minimums way beyond the two years, this type of sentencing would remove individuals from their northern communities and place them in a federal penitentiary, which could be a thousand miles away or two thousand miles away, but not even close to their communities.

It is generally accepted that prisons are simply warehouses for offenders, where young people actually learn better how to become criminals. Prisons are not the best location. I accept that we need them to protect society, at least as a clearing house, but the witness from the north said that the existence of these new sentencing regimes with mandatory minimums greater than two years would make it virtually impossible to rehabilitate and reintegrate offenders from those northern communities. In other words, we are creating lost causes before we even begin.

Members may ask me what I would propose for someone who has committed a serious crime and needs to do serious time. The criminal justice system has already provided for that with a regime of sentencing options and a skilled judge who will make the decision on what an appropriate sentence for that convicted offender will be, taking into consideration all aspects of the case, including the circumstances of the victim, previous criminal record, propensity to reoffend and prospects for rehabilitation. That is what we ask our judges to do. The escalating sentencing regime contained in this bill would, practically speaking, remove all of those options from a sentencing judge. If the bill passes, that will be the case. I regret that but that is the way it is.

In the remarks of my friend opposite, he referred to the spike this year in Toronto of gun crimes. I am pleased to report that while in 2005-06 the incidents of shootings were at about 87 and 81, this year the number of shootings to date is at 60, which is a drop of over 25%. The reason for that is good policing. However, I do not have time to go into the details. One shooting is too many but if we have a huge city with a few million people, we will have incidents, and I am saying that there has been a 25% drop. The perceived increase in these firearm incidents is not there, and these decreases have occurred under current laws. I just wanted to get that on the record. I give a lot of credit to the Toronto police and their new policing methods.

[Daniel Petit, Conservative, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak today on Bill C-10.

I will point out to my colleague that in the province of Quebec—my province—there is a body, namely the Société de l'assurance automobile du Québec, which has an obligation to protect citizens and in particular to make recommendations to the federal government, since we are responsible for the Criminal Code, on harsher sentences for alcohol-related offences.

My response to my colleague's theory is as follows. When I started practising law, the fine for someone who had consumed alcohol was only $300. We subsequently created three different levels with different penalties for each of the first three offences. This is called the progressive system. If we had heeded my colleague at that time, today there would be but a single $300 offence, and everybody would be fine with that. The criminals would be protected but the victims left out.

I would like to ask a question of my colleague, my fellow committee member, whom I appreciate for his good advice on procedural matters. Even if his party is opposed to the bill, I know very well that his fellow citizens will agree with us, because the people of Canada do want to see victims protected before criminals.

Why does my colleague not agree with imposing progressive penalties for criminal acts, particularly in these specific cases where extremely serious offences are involved? We are not talking about minor situations, but extremely serious ones. We have been doing that same thing for over 20 years, and the most clear example of this is section 259 of the Criminal Code which, as my colleague is well aware, sets progressive sanctions for criminal acts.

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

Mr. Speaker, I did say in my remarks that I support, as does my party, the existence of mandatory minimum penalties for drunk driving offences. Those penalties, of course, start off with a mandatory fine and then the offender will do time after a second offence. The person will not do seven years, but the person will do a few weeks, although I do not recall exactly how many weeks. The point is that with the mandatory minimum the offender will do time. There is an escalator for a third offence and the offender will do more time. However, we are talking about doing time as opposed to doing years and years of time.

The reason I would object to the escalating three, five, seven and ten-year type escalation is that the three, five, seven and ten years have never been shown to provide any more public safety. If it is necessary to keep the individual in jail because the person is a very violent offender, then the judge should impose a lengthy sentence of that nature.

However, I object to the automatic, structured, built-in, no exception mandatory minimum in the bill running up to seven years.

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate my colleague's comments but I was somewhat disturbed with his approach to Bill C-10. He has acknowledged that the perception among Canadians is that we have a crime problem and, quite frankly, I concur with that perception. I believe there is statistical evidence to support that.

What really jumped out at me was his statement that “the sentencing regime is working quite well”. In other words, business as usual, no change is required and even though Canadians misunderstand, everything is okay.

I do not know whether he has spoken to victims. He may have but I would be surprised if he had. I have. Has he spoken to police officers? I have spoken to police officers in Abbotsford and they do not concur with the assessment that the system is fine and working well. It is a revolving door justice system right now and rank and file police officers will tell him that.

The member then accused the minister of having twisted messaging, subliminal messaging and of twisting the facts. That is disrespectful language toward a member of this House of Commons who has been a lawyer for many years, has served as crown counsel, as attorney general in Manitoba and is now serving as justice minister here. He should not make such demeaning references to what is an attempt to protect Canadians.

If Canadians have the perception that our justice system is not serving their needs for safety and security, how is it that the member can justify taking the approach that everything is okay and that the current sentencing scheme is actually acceptable?

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

Mr. Speaker, I did not say that everything was A-okay. I said that the current sentencing regime in the Criminal Code was generally working all right. However, there has never been a time in the history of the human race when there has not been a problem with crime, let us say, ever since Cain killed Abel. There also has never been a time when we have not found the need to alter the Criminal Code. We are always adjusting. I have been here for 19 years and I can hardly recall a year when there was not a Criminal Code amendment on the order paper somewhere. There are 15 of them now.

The point is that it is one thing to respond to public perception that there is a problem but it is another thing to analyze it from a public policy point of view to see exactly what the problem is and what the best response is. A whole bunch of knee-jerking, increase the sentencing and get tough on crime things, without dealing with the public policy issue in detail and with precision is not my way of doing things.

If a problem is seen, I really do want to address it. If a weak sentence in a particular case or systemically is a problem for society, if we saw one place where we, as a society, had to really firm up, like we did with drunk driving and with firearm offences three years ago, and as we might need to do in other things in society, I am prepared to do that.

What I do not support is the approach in the current bill that simply lists about 20 different things and says that we will now impose an escalating three, five, seven, ten-year thing where we know statistically, based on corrections' social science, there is no payback unless we need to keep an offender in because he or she is a danger.

[Libby Davies, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Mr. Speaker, although I did not hear the full debate and just caught the last comments of the member, I share a number of his concerns about an over-reliance on the Criminal Code to fix problems around crime instead of having a balanced approach around crime prevention and building healthy communities.

From the point of view of minimum mandatory sentences, I would remind the member that it was the former Liberal government that, I believe, had brought in about 60 such new offences in terms of minimum mandatories.

Our justice critic has made it very clear that where we can use it in a very specific way, and the issue of drunk driving would be one of those instances, it can be very effective. However, in actual fact we already have a history, as a result of the previous government, of using minimum mandatory sentences.

I believe that in the last election the then Liberal leader made a commitment that he would double the minimum mandatory sentences for this particular offence that would go actually beyond where the current bill is. It would have been a doubling of the sentence and would have taken us beyond where we are now. I just wanted to remind the member of that in terms of the history.

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

Mr. Speaker, the reference to doubling the mandatory minimums was with respect to the now existing one year mandatory minimums, which were applied to quite a broad spectrum of firearm offences and which exist in the code now.

It is one thing to double one year to two years or two years less a day. There is one offence--

[Libby Davies, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

No, it is four to eight.

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

Mr. Speaker, I hope the member is not suggesting that there is a whole bunch of four year mandatory minimum sentences in the code, because there is only one. It is section 344 and it is robbery with a firearm. Robbery with a firearm currently has a four year mandatory minimum.

All the other offences to which the hon. member has made reference are the one year mandatory minimums which currently exist in the code and which the Liberal Party in the last election said it would double. Making a one a two or two years less a day is a far cry and much different from three, five, seven and 10. That is the difference. That is a huge difference.

[Myron Thompson, Conservative, Wild Rose, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I do not know how much time I have, but I will not be taking up a lot of time. I will start and see where we end up.

I was listening to the debate on the monitor in my office for the entire morning and trying to get a lot of things done, but I could not help but come over and try to get involved with the debate to some degree because there are a few things that I would like to point out.

Just very recently we heard a speech from the member for Abbotsford that was what I considered to be a talk that was coming from the hearts, the souls and the minds of ordinary people in his riding. A lot of ordinary people are out there wondering what is going on and what is happening.

I have a lot of respect for lawyers, I really do, but they seem to approach things with a totally different idea than a lot of us do. I say that simply because it is difficult to understand them when they begin their lingo. Their language becomes so legalistic that it is difficult to know exactly where they are at and their comeback always is that the problem with people like me, the member for Abbotsford and others is that we are just too simplistic. I have heard that term so many times that it just about drives me crazy.

It is a simplistic answer, they say, when what we are doing is expressing this in terms as best we can, as every member can, and I know that you are the same, Mr. Speaker. We listen to the people in our ridings. They are really fed up with some of the things that are happening in our justice system. They want a truly good justice system. It appears to have turned into more of a legal system, where we are constantly engaging in debates as to what this term means and what that term means, et cetera, such that we lose sight of some things, that is, the public is not happy with the way that the justice system is operating. That is it, pure and simple. The public is not pleased.

Members can check any poll, or if they like they can conduct their own in their own riding. Even the Liberal member who just spoke can do that in his own riding with just ordinary people out there. Members can forget about those ordinary people being simplistic. Members should just remember that they are the people who are thriving in this country, who are working and paying their taxes, and they want the services rendered by this government to be efficient and effective.

One of the best things we can do to answer a lot of their concerns is provide a system that will make society as safe as possible and will protect society as a whole. One of the most elemental duties that we have as members of Parliament is to come up with legislation that will do that. I think we all try hard to do that, even in our own way of thinking, which too often is referred to by too many people in this House as simplistic.

The day that I really started getting more concerned than I ever had in the past was the day I saw 14 farmers, and prior to that another two, hauled away from a court, in shackles and chains, and going off to jail to serve consecutive sentences. Consecutive sentences meant that for each crime they had to serve a specific amount of time before they began to serve the next one. The courts do not usually sentence people consecutively; they sentence them concurrently. Clifford Olson, for example, is serving a life sentence for the death of 11 people, but he is only serving one. He probably should be serving 11 life sentences.

These farmers were hauled off to jail. They were taken to jail in shackles and chains, in most cases in front of their wives and children. For what? For selling their own grain, their own product that they raised on their farms with their own hard-working hands. They broke the law because they went across the border and tried to sell their grain. Nobody is denying that it was a disobedient thing to do and nobody is denying that maybe there should have been some charges. That is not the question.

The question is this: how did the punishment fit the crime? How well did we do in that department? We had farmers who worked hard to raise their own crops and who, in a form of civil disobedience, made a move to try to make more money, more profit, for their farms, which are struggling all the time. How well did we do when the Liberal government in power at the time did nothing about the fact that all these people were hauled off to jail?

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

That's the Liberal way.

[Myron Thompson, Conservative, Wild Rose, AB]

That is the Liberal way. That is what I was thinking. This is not right. There is something wrong with that picture.

Of course, somebody might say that is a simplistic way of thinking, but it is not. The punishment should fit the crime. I see nothing wrong with that philosophy. Yet when we check on various other aspects of sentencing, we see that offenders actually receive house arrest or community service when they commit a violent offence. All of this was going on at the same time that those 14 farmers were hauled off to jail for selling their own grain. But that is probably simplistic talk.

Millions of Canadians are wondering when we are going to stop all this nonsense and start addressing crime. They want us to send out a strong, loud and clear message that it is not acceptable for criminals to hurt people or their property or do something that is against the law. It blows my mind that some members cannot grasp that concept.

Yet on one occasion a bunch of farmers were hauled off to jail in shackles and chains for selling their own grain. They were hauled off in front of their crying wives and kids. I was there and I saw it. I talked to the wives and the children after the event was over and those farmers were locked up and the doors were slammed shut. It was that day that I vowed we had to get some common sense into the minds of the people here in the House of Commons. We need to realize that this kind of activity is not right.

So we prepared legislation. We want to get tough on crime so we brought in minimum mandatory sentencing for the use of a gun in the commission of a crime. We are trying to send the message that it is not acceptable to use guns for the purpose of committing crimes. We are telling criminals that it is not going to be tolerated. We are going to get tougher. We are telling criminals that minimum mandatory sentences will be the result.

Is this going to deter criminals? As people say, it probably will not go through the minds of a lot of them. I do not disagree with that. That is not the point. The point is this: is the punishment going to fit the crime? Is it going to match up? Yes, we are starting to take serious action, particularly against people in cases of violence and who use guns in the commission of a crime.

There are a lot of examples out there. There is not a member in this House of Commons who cannot think of one particular instance where house arrest or community service was the punishment for a crime of violence. It is a shameful disgrace to this place. Unfortunately, many of the crimes I know of were crimes against children, the most vulnerable in our society, who are treated with the least respect.

We are trying to bring forward a piece of legislation that will send a message that this House of Commons is not going to tolerate violent crimes. We are going to do our very best to make certain that criminals pay the price for their crimes, that they get a penalty they deserve.

Yes, at the same time, we have to work very hard with earlier programs and prevention activities. I was in a schoolhouse for 30 years and 90% of my time was spent trying to prevent kids from getting into trouble. However, they learned after a period of time, and they knew that once they crossed the line they were going to be held responsible for their actions. They knew that the punishment would not be pleasant. I was trying to send out a message that I did not tolerate the activity that took place and I wanted it to cease.

I find it really discouraging when we get a debate going in the House of Commons and the best argument I keep hearing is, “I listened to the speech by the fellow from Abbotsford and he was far too simplistic”. Good grief, he is talking the hearts and minds of the people in his riding who discuss these very issues day in and day out with every one of us.

I will be frank. I am pretty simplistic and I will be as simplistic as I can. I am sick and tired of this nonsense. I am really sick and tired of it. I have acquaintances, friends of mine, who have lost loved ones and have had no real closure because the perpetrator is going to be released on parole very soon who took the life of an individual. They do not understand why their loved one is gone forever and the perpetrator, who committed the most sadistic crimes of sexual assault and murder, is going to be released back into our society soon.

We can all rub our hands together and say we have done a wonderful job. I want us to think about that just a little, just start thinking about it a little more. Does the punishment fit the crime? If it does not, then let us do something about it.

I am proud of the Minister of Justice who brought this bill forward and wants to do something about it. None of us has any magic answers as to what we can do that will make it better, but we have to concentrate on all the possibilities.

In the meantime, when individuals cross the line and use a gun in the commission of a crime, the penalty will be stiff. It will be tough. If that does not work, we may have to make it tougher. We have to get a message out that this is not the society we want to live in.

If it takes a few million dollars more to build another penitentiary to keep people like that off the streets, then let us do it. What is wrong with that? I always thought keeping criminals behind bars was a wise thing to do.

There are small communities in rural Alberta that do not have police on every corner or do not have access to police. There are small businesses and little grocery or hardware stores in small towns where it would take a policeman half an hour to get to once a crime has been committed.

How do they live? They live behind bars. They have bars on every window and door. They are doing everything they can to protect their property and keep criminals from coming in. They unlock their doors, enter their businesses, slam their doors and work throughout the day behind bars because they are afraid of the people on the street running free. There must be too many of them because there are constant troubles of breaking and entering and destroying property. Hopefully, they do not run into any these people while they are at work because it could be dangerous.

I hope that people do not believe that I am being too simplistic. I have lots of friends and relatives who all work hard and pay their taxes. The least I can do for them while I am here, I hope, is to make certain that we have people in this place who are willing to decide that criminals are not a good thing in our society and we are going to do the very best we can do take care of it. Then we get into these legal matters and opinions which most of us, including me, do not understand when conversations are engaged in with witnesses in committee. When the Bar Association representatives have discussions with members who have law degrees, they lose me most times. I admit that.

I listened to one speech today about the expert witnesses who are against this bill. I do not know why they are considered to be expert witnesses when people who agree with the bill, like the police and many others, are not referred to as expert witnesses. In other words, if witnesses agree with that member's idea of what the bill should look like, then they are experts and if they do not, they must not be experts.

The police made a very good presentation in regard to their support for this bill and others associated with it. It made very good sense.

We certainly did not get into any legal wrangling because they would lose me, but we can converse and society as a whole can converse. I simply say “Wake up, folks, wake up”. The public out there is not satisfied with the way the justice system is working.

If people do not believe me, get on those little computers and newspapers and put out all kinds of polls and ask: “Folks in my riding, are you satisfied with the way our justice system operates, yes or no”? Then people will see how satisfied Canadians are.

Canadians are not satisfied. They are paying for something they are not satisfied with. I say let us work hard to give them something that they are paying for and that they will be satisfied with. I believe in satisfying the customer.

If that is too radical or too extreme for some members of the House, then that is too bad. That is the way it ought to be. That is the way people are telling me in my riding it ought to be. As long as I can stand on my two feet in this place I am going to expound that. That is the way it ought to be.

Wake up and do the right thing and support Bill C-10 to indicate to the public out there that we are taking crime a little more seriously. Let Canadians know that we are not being simplistic about it, but that we are sincere about it. If people think I am not sincere then give me a test.

I do not know if I have any time left, but I do not think I need to say any more. I have just about said all I want to say and all I can say. For the love of me, I cannot understand what goes through the minds of individuals who simply say that the punishment fitting the crime is not right.

I will revert once again to that day that I saw farmers hauled off in shackles and chains for selling grain. I do not think there was a person in the entire public society of Canada that cheered that day, not one. “Yes, we are going to teach those farmers a lesson”.

They say it is not a deterrent to do these other things, but they certainly thought that would be a deterrent. It is not about deterrents. It is about punishment fitting the crime, letting society know as a whole that it is not acceptable to hurt people in this country, that it is not acceptable to destroy their property or steal from them. It is a wrong thing to do. It is a very wrong thing to do and we are going to take tough action.

I am thankful that we have a minister sitting in that seat that wants to do just that. I thank the House for the time. I did not intend to speak today, but I could not resist after hearing many of the things that I heard this morning.

I hope people will give this bill a second thought before they react to the bill with such negativism and criticism that says we are too simplistic because we mean what we say and we are going to get the job done. It has not been done for years. Now is the time to get it done.

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

Mr. Speaker, I would never second-guess the hon. member in articulating on behalf of his constituents, or for that matter, any MP here. That is what we are here to do. I have worked with the member on the justice committee. We do not always agree, but most of the time we do and it has been a good run over a number of years.

However, I wanted to ask two questions. The first one is really a comment. In the matter involving the grain farmers who were ultimately jailed, as I recall it, I believe they were fined by the court. When they came back to court, not having paid their fines, not because they could not afford to but because they refused in protest to pay the fines, I believe the court had no alternative but to resort to either imprisonment or contempt. The court resorted to the short jailing. So the member is correct. It happened, but the sequence involved more than just selling grain and going to jail. It was more complex than that.

Does the member not think that in this House from time to time we are forced by reason of the federal jurisdiction to focus on only two things when it comes to response to criminal activity? The only thing we can do federally is write the Criminal Code and from time to time set the sentencing range. That is all we get to do.

With criminal activity there has to be an offence, an investigation, it may need police intelligence gathering, a charge, a conviction, and a sentence, but we only write the law and deal with the sentencing. The provinces and the cities do the policing, the investigation, and the prosecution is done by the provinces. So, we actually may be kind of frustrated from time to time that we do not have a greater role on the ground in the components.

Does the member not think that out of frustration from time to time we federally may tend to overemphasize our role in that whole complex thing with just the law and the sentencing?

[Myron Thompson, Conservative, Wild Rose, AB]

Mr. Speaker, first of all, I want to comment once again with regard to the farmers. It is strange that such things as house arrest, community service or those kinds of penalties did not enter the minds of the court. It was jail. The farmers did not comply. Jail.

I am talking about the punishment fitting the crime. They did not pay a fine. Jail. I guess the Liberals do not get the picture. It is not the idea of how much more was involved in it. That was the event that took place. Did the punishment fit the crime? The answer in Canadian society was no, not even close. Unfortunately, the answer is also no in society when we ask if the punishment fits the crime in so many of our violent crimes that take place. The answer is still no.

As legislators, we write the laws and what is wrong with providing sentences that we believe, from our discussions with our constituents, are more in line with the thinking of society as a whole which pays for a system that it wants to work on its behalf. We must write laws that make it possible.

We have many laws. Sometimes I do not think we need to write any more laws. I look at the maximum penalties on some of these charges and my goodness, when is the last time we ever had a maximum penalty issued in Canada? So, I guess the judges need a little nudging from minimum penalties to nudge them toward a little more severity in their sentencing.

[Robert Carrier, Bloc, Alfred-Pellan, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I listened carefully to what my colleague from Wild Rose had to say. I can assure him that I do not think anyone tolerates crime. I understand that he is impatient and fed up with the crimes being committed.

I do not feel that the solution proposed in the bill is the right one. For example, in the United States, more criminals are incarcerated and the crime rate is much higher than it is here. It has been proven that the homicide rate is three times higher in the United States than in Canada. Maximum or additional prison time does not have the desired results. I do not believe that anyone here thinks that people in big cities such as New York or Chicago feel safer because more people are put in jail.

Instead, I would direct my colleague to the budget cuts the government is making to get to the source of the problem. The summer career placement program was cut by $10 million this year. The are not consulting those who live in the communities, and decisions are made by civil servants who are not necessarily aware of the needs. Young people absolutely need these jobs. The government's budget cuts could leave these kids with nothing to do, and perhaps they will become criminals.

I would like to know what my colleague thinks about that. Should the government not get to the source of the problem, rather than further punishing the criminals?