Mr. Speaker, I am honoured to participate in this debate on Bill C-42. This is a bill that proposes to eliminate the use of conditional sentencing for virtually all serious crimes.
What is more, this bill allows our Conservative government to finish a job that, sadly, the opposition parties had prevented us from finishing during the previous Parliament. I note that at least one of those parties has now flipped on the issue. It is actually supporting our bill this time around when it opposed it in the previous Parliament.
It would surprise Canadians to know that, under current conditional sentencing practices, serious criminals are allowed to serve their sentences in the comfort of their homes, in front of their big screen TVs and in front of their computers rather than in a prison. That is why these sentences are often referred to as house arrest.
Canada's Criminal Code allows for house arrest to be imposed when a number of conditions are met, including the following: The crime is not punishable by a mandatory minimum sentence; the court sentences the offender to less than two years in prison; the court is convinced that having the criminal serve the sentence in his own home and community would not endanger the safety of that community, and the court is satisfied that the conditional sentence would be consistent with the fundamental purposes and principles of sentencing, one of which, incidentally, is deterrence and denunciation.
There is one additional proviso. The offence must meet the following criteria. It must not be a terrorism offence. It cannot be a crime that is committed on behalf of or as part of a criminal organization or enterprise. Additionally, and I want members to listen very carefully to this, it must not be a serious personal injury offence as defined in the Criminal Code.
That is where the rub lies. The term “serious personal injury offence” is very narrowly defined in the Code. What is more, there are many other crimes that, though not involving direct physical injury to the person, hurt and damage people in very serious and often life-altering ways. These are crimes that are very clearly not legitimate for issuing a sentence that would be served at home, but in fact do qualify for house arrest under our present law. Canadians are rightly angry with such a state of affairs.
Let me give some examples. Although arson does not necessarily involve direct physical injury to another person, it is a very serious offence that most right-thinking Canadians would agree should attract prison time. Imagine a family losing all of their earthly possessions and being unable to return to their home for many months, if ever. Yet, under the current law, the arsonist gets to go back to the comfort of his own home.
Imagine sexual predators attempting to prey on and lure our vulnerable children over the Internet for sexual purposes. Should those offenders not serve some hard time in jail rather than enjoying the comforts of house arrest? Of course they should, yet many of them do in fact spend their sentences at home.
I just responded to a statement made by the member for Vancouver Kingsway and he responded that there is no proof that these offenders are actually serving their time at home. In fact, if he looks at the case law and sentences, those convicted of luring children are actually spending their sentences in the comfort of their homes.
It goes on. What about those drug lords and traffickers who get rich by selling misery, violence and ultimately death to our children? Why should they be able to qualify, as the law presently provides, to serve their punishment back in the comfort of a home often purchased from the proceeds of crime?
Canadians demand more. With Bill C-42, our Conservative government is further restricting the use of conditional sentences and ending the use of house arrests for all indictable offences for which the maximum term of imprisonment is 14 years or more, regardless of whether serious personal injury is involved. The same will apply to indictable offences for which the maximum prison term is 10 years, where these offences involve the use of a weapon, result in bodily harm or involve the importation, exportation, trafficking or production of drugs.
What is more, Canadians will be pleased to hear that Bill C-42 would finally eliminate the use of house arrest for the following crimes: criminal harassment; sexual assault; kidnapping; human trafficking; theft over $5,000; breaking and entering a place other than a dwelling place; being unlawfully in a dwelling house with intent; arson for fraudulent purpose; and, as I mentioned earlier, luring a child over the Internet for sexual purposes.
I am well aware that some of my colleagues in the House might remind me that our government amended the conditional sentencing regime in Canada once before. That was in December 2007. However, the sad truth is that during the last Parliament, the Liberals, the NDP and the Bloc used the notion of serious personal injury to water down our Conservative government's efforts to limit conditional sentences. In so doing, the Liberals and the NDP again reinforced the public's perception that they are truly soft on crime.
The opposition parties felt that serious crimes such as robbery should continue to qualify for conditional sentences since they are not defined as a serious personal injury offence. This is all the more surprising to me given that the offence of robbery under section 343 of the Criminal Code includes elements of violence.