Mr. Speaker, I am going to share my time with the member for Surrey North.
Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to this bill. The increase in drug use and drug trafficking has become a very worrisome problem in many of our communities.
We have seen the increase in petty crime. We have seen the ravages among many young people created by the use of drugs. It concerns members of all parties. Where we may disagree is on the best approach in responding to that very real problem.
There is a confusion, it seems to me, between the notion of mandatory minimum sentences, and some people have equated it to minimum effectiveness. If someone is against mandatory minimum sentences, the Conservatives say the person is being soft on crime.
I would like to talk about mandatory minimum and quote some of the experts who believe that it is the least effective tool that we could use to deal with this particular problem. Not only experts believe it is the wrong way to go, but most Canadians also believe that drug addiction is an illness and it should be treated in that way.
In the time that I have, I would also like to speak to the kind of response the Conservative government is giving to the harm reduction approach.
The mandatory minimum is a bad idea in principle. In 2001 a justice department report concluded that mandatory minimum sentences are least effective in relation to drug offences. It said:
MMS [mandatory minimum sentences] do not appear to influence drug consumption or drug-related crime in any measurable way. A variety of research methods concludes that treatment-based approaches are more cost effective than lengthy prison terms. MMS [mandatory minimum sentences] are blunt instruments that fail to distinguish between low and high level as well as hardcore versus transient drug dealers.
That was a report by the justice department, not by the New Democratic Party.
These would be some of the consequences of adopting this kind of ill thought out, ideologically driven policy.
The Prime Minister would like us to believe that this approach is just being tough on organized crime and big time traffickers. The reality is that it will not deter organized crime. In fact, we presently have legislation with respect to organized crime with mandatory minimum sentences. We can see the great effect that has had in reducing the number of Hells Angels for example.
Frank Addario, president of the Criminal Lawyers Association of Ontario, noted that justice department research shows that mandatory minimum sentences do not deter offenders more than tailored proportionate sentences, and often result in lower conviction rates because judges are reluctant to convict someone for a minor transgression if they know the penalty is harsh.
Politicians have no business making preordained decisions on the future of people being brought before the courts. This belongs to the judges. A judge who has heard the case from start to finish should be the only person to decide what penalties are appropriate.
This reminds me somewhat of the Conservatives' attempts to meddle in nuclear safety. I do not know how much safer Canadians feel today after the Conservative government meddled with our nuclear energy regulator in Canada but I certainly do not feel safer. The issue of drug crimes should be in the purview of judges in Canada.
It is just too draconian to pass a law that ignores mitigating circumstances. For example, someone dealing in marijuana would go to jail for at least a year if he or she did so in support of organized crime. Organized crime, I am told, is defined as a money-making enterprise involving three or more people. That covers almost all marijuana dealers who are by definition organized if they have one supplier and one customer. Most of the changes in this law are like that.
We would all be concerned as parents to see children taking serious drugs, whether it be cocaine or crystal meth. My colleagues and I feel that the government's resources should go toward prevention. Rather than going toward making these kinds of draconian laws, the resources should go toward supporting the harm reduction approach, the four pillar approach that involves real enforcement. That is certainly needed. At the moment, without the other pieces of the four pillar approach, prevention, treatment, and housing, and I will come to that, the enforcement becomes a revolving door. The police are telling us that they are attempting to respond to a social problem.
I have some statistics on the amount of money that the government is spending on its drug policy. Of its drug policy, 73% is spent on enforcement, 14% on treatment. In Victoria, people who are trying to help drug addicts who want treatment just cannot provide it. It is just not available. There is no money for treatment. There are no treatment beds. There are no detox beds. This appears in report after report on the issue in Victoria. Across Canada 14% of the money goes toward treatment and 2.6% toward prevention. That is simply inadequate to address the very serious issues on our streets. While the federal government attempts to bring in these ideologically driven solutions, cities and municipalities are left to pick up the pieces and to deal with the lack of leadership by senior levels of government.
We see the ravages on our streets. We see the impacts among our young people. We very strongly need enforcement. More than anything I see all the social providers in my city scrambling for funding, whether it be to set up programs around mentorship to help young people avoid crime, or programs to support those people who want to find a way out, or to provide detox or treatment services. The money is not there to provide those services.
That is where the negligence is by senior levels of government.