Debates of June 4th, 2009

Controlled Drugs and Substances Act

[Libby Davies, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Mr. Speaker, after listening to the Liberal member, I have to think that he has crossed the floor and gone over to the Conservative side because he is using the Conservative talking points. He is even using Republican talking points when it comes to drug policy. The Liberals say they went through the bill but I would seriously question that. If they did go through the bill, they came to the wrong conclusion.

What I find offensive is that Liberal members are really kind of playing the politics of fear. Right? They are talking about the schoolyard and talking about children. Nobody wants children to be in an environment where drugs are being sold.

The member knows full well that under the existing Controlled Drug and Substances Act possession for the purpose of trafficking is already a serious offence with a sentence of up to life imprisonment. Life imprisonment applies also to importing and exporting, and production for the purpose of trafficking. The member also knows that under the existing act there are already aggravating circumstances that include trafficking in or near a school.

Evidence shows that mandatory minimum sentences do not work. That is the question that Liberal members refuse to answer. Why is that?

[Brian Murphy, Liberal, Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe, NB]

Mr. Speaker, I thought that was precisely our point. Trafficking is a serious offence. I think the NDP is playing to an audience that believes that recreational drug use in the privacy of one's own home is an all right activity and should not be captured by new laws of Parliament.

I am not going to weigh into that debate. As Tip O'Neill, another Irish politician, said, “All politics is local”. If one is trafficking in drugs near my children's school in Moncton, that should be punished. A minimum sentence in that regard for a person who is selling drugs is not a bad thing. The member talks about fearmongering. She talks about playing a political game. She and her party are playing a political game. They are trying to downplay what trafficking means.

She said in her own remarks that it is a serious offence punishable by up to 14 years. If it is a serious offence, what objection can there be to putting someone away who is trying to corrupt our youth near a school ground or trying to make money for the organized crime units in this country? She also has to remember that her party opposed mandatory minimums when they were first implemented by a Liberal government in certain specific circumstances. These are some of the circumstances that the people of Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe and I can live with.

[Brent Rathgeber, Conservative, Edmonton—St. Albert, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank and commend the member for Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe for his great speech and for his support of this bill. I will be supporting his motion that this question be put. I would like to thank him for all the hard work he does on this committee, and I commend him and his party.

However, I have a couple of comments. In the 39th Parliament, his party and caucus did not support a very similar piece of legislation. I do commend them on becoming born-again crime fighters, but will the member be as passionate in caucus and convince his friends in the upper chamber to pass this bill swiftly? Will he be as passionate about this in caucus as he was today in the House?

[Brian Murphy, Liberal, Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe, NB]

Mr. Speaker, that is a nice way of sliding by the hard questions I asked of the government in my speech to do something about rehabilitation and treatment. There are all these laws. It is almost like the Minister of Justice is sending all these buns in a bakery production line to the Minister of Public Safety.

Are we going to be sure that the government is going to take care of the orders it already has with respect to the criminal justice system in terms of incarceration and treatment? We hear about treatment everywhere in terms of spreading out the distribution of the drug treatment courts.

I am a father of three young children. I have been practising law for 26 years. Goodness gracious. I do care about the safety of my community. I think it is something that combines all of us in our belief. We believe in the safety of our community. If this minor tool will make the school grounds of our country and my riding better, I am for it, but by no means should that member think that he is off the hook and that the Conservatives can ride off on some white horse, providing justice and safety in our communities.

By no means should he think that. He should get to work from the back row of his benches and persuade the guys on the upper bench that they should resource the elements that they have put into place already. They should read some literature on prevention and treatment, and get on with the game of actually having an anti-drug strategy instead of just having a 5 o'clock news conference.

[Carol Hughes, NDP, Algoma—Manitoulin—Kapuskasing, ON]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague just mentioned that he has been or was practising law for about 26 years. He should then know that Canada has extensive organized crime legislation already in place and that existing maximum penalties for serious drug offences already include life sentences.

I would ask him to maybe see if he can recall that maximum and minimum sentences do not actually solve the problem here. All they do is put more people in jails. By the way, our jail systems are already overcrowded at this point and now it is becoming a human rights issue. The fact of the matter is that there is not sufficient programming in place that deals with these offenders as soon as they enter the penal system. Maybe he would like to comment on that.

[Brian Murphy, Liberal, Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe, NB]

Mr. Speaker, clearly there is an issue with respect to capacity in our corrections facilities, but to look at criminal law and say, “Well, we better not punish something that is punishable because we have backlog” is not the right response.

The right response, and I hope we are united on this, is to push the government to give proper resources to provinces through transfers. As a result of the Minister of Finance's conversion to per capita financing for provinces, my own province has seen a cut of some $40 million in transfers, which will create a problem. It is time for us to do our work and get on the government with respect to those issues.

With respect to sentencing in general, I refer to section 718, which includes more than the principle of rehabilitation. It includes principles of denunciation and deterrence. They are there.

The difference between her party and that party and our party is that we believe in all the principles in section 718: rehabilitation, deterrence, denunciation and others.

The Conservatives only believe in denunciation and deterrence, and it seems that the NDP only believes in rehabilitation.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I would ask the member if he could enlighten the House about the intent of proposed section 8, which requires that notice be given before an accused enters a plea with regard to the imposition of a mandatory minimum.

This is an out. This is passing off the decision of Parliament to impose a mandatory minimum to the crown attorney and to the courts. We either have to decide, I would think, that we want to have these punitive measures in place or that we really want to just say the court should have the discretion.

[Brian Murphy, Liberal, Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe, NB]

Mr. Speaker, that is a very good question. It is a very tough question, perhaps.

The member is probably getting even with me for the fact that I made some ageist remark about schools and his hair, and I want to apologize for that.

Clearly, he is on the right point. We struggle with it every day at justice. As to whether there is an attack on judicial discretion posed by much of what the Conservative government brings forward, in many cases, there is. There is such little respect for the judiciary over there.

Also, judges do not have a voice or an opportunity to come to the justice committee, to Parliament and so on, but they would tell you if given a chance that they do like clear direction in legislation. Ninety percent of the appeal court decisions are tied up with questions about legislation that was not carefully drafted, or thought of, or clear.

It seems me in this case that there is clear indication that the judge must do certain things in certain circumstances. There is a devolution of some discretion to prosecutors in some cases. They are very much a part of the system as well and have not been heard from too much in this whole debate.

[Réal Ménard, Bloc, Hochelaga, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to make a friendly remark before addressing the actual substance of Bill C-15, which is extremely important because it will implement the Conservative government's anti-drug strategy.

When I was first elected to this House, people said that when the Liberals were in power, they governed like the Conservatives, and when they were in opposition, they behaved like the NDP. Today, listening to my colleague talk about Bill C-15, I learned that Conservative policies haunt the Liberals, whether they form the government or the opposition.

That being said, this is an extremely important bill that is very disappointing. First of all, we have been hearing a lot of rhetoric from certain members suggesting that, if we seek some sort of alternative to minimum sentences and misguided crackdowns, it means we are going easy on organized crime in our communities. This kind of insinuation makes it extremely difficult to properly debate the issue.

The Bloc Québécois is against minimum sentences. We have maintained that position from the beginning of our existence, and I will explain why. We oppose such sentences, unlike certain parties who say they are against them but voted in favour of Bill C-268. I imagine my NDP colleague will want to explain that when he gets a chance to speak, which will be soon.

We are opposed to minimum sentences and I will explain why. We do not, however, need any lectures about the need for vigilance against organized crime. I myself was the first member to introduce an anti-gang bill in this House, at a time when bombs were going off in Montreal, there were gang wars going on, and yet the elected representatives and officials of the government of the day were saying that there was no need for any new legislation and that organized crime could be broken up using the provisions on conspiracy.

That said, the Bloc Québécois is also responsible for the successful abolition of the $1000 bill, which was obviously a favourite of major organized crime syndicates. The former Bloc member for Charlesbourg, Richard Marceau, was the one who, in the dying days of the Martin regime, convinced the government to pass legislation reversing the burden of proof in connection with the proceeds of crime. I myself put forward a motion in the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights that would be instrumental in cracking down on the most criminal groups, one of whom of course is the Hells Angels.

So we have an impressive record that is clear evidence of our commitment, our vigilance and our desire to always foil organized crime and to keep our legislation up to date, since it is well known that organized crime is a constantly evolving phenomenon.

The government's problem is its ideological stubbornness, which is so deeply rooted that it sees everything in black and white. The Liberals, unfortunately, are no different in this respect.

Of course, when it is a matter of major drug trafficking networks, no one in this House would object to tough penalties. I am in favour of them and so, I am sure, are all my colleagues. If an individual gets involved in major organized crime and is involved in drug imports or exports, this has harmful effects on the legitimate economy of our communities and on the members of the community who get involved with these substances. We agree that the penalties need to be as tough as possible.

We do, however, believe that in the administration of these penalties there is a certain phenomenon at play. A judge assesses the context, and then has total freedom to reach his decision after having heard and absorbed all of the evidence, heard the witnesses, and of course examined the text of the law. That phenomenon is called judicial discretion.

The problem with this government is that, for basically ideological reasons, it has embraced mandatory minimum sentences. When the Minister of Justice appeared before the committee, my colleague from Vancouver and I asked him, notwithstanding the fact that mandatory minimum sentences were part of the Conservative election platform, whether anyone from his department had assessed their impact. In other words, is there a correlation between including mandatory minimum sentences in the Criminal Code and the deterrent effect sought and eventually observed? The answer is no. And yet, since becoming Minister of Justice, like his predecessor, he has been unable to provide studies that show conclusive evidence in support of mandatory minimum sentences.

Not only are mandatory minimum sentences an illusory ideology, but they also have an adverse effect on the administration of justice. In what way? Justice Paradis, a former judge from Vancouver who does not speak one word of French, told us that when he was on the bench and had to hear cases, minimum mandatory sentences made him uncomfortable. He also told us that when attorneys have to lay charges involving a mandatory minimum sentence that will tie the judge's hands, they prefer to choose other charges.

It was not the Bloc or the member for Hochelaga or our NDP colleagues who said that, but a retired judge who appeared before the committee.

I hope that we will eventually see the day when the Conservative government does away with its ideological dogma. Why not provide police officers with more tools? Every time our party has had the chance, it has supported putting more police officers in communities, broadening electronic surveillance and giving police forces more sophisticated investigative mandates. We agree that we need to fight organized crime and that we need a number of tools to do it. But we will not win by instituting mandatory minimum sentences.

The bill before us addresses trafficking. One kind of trafficking that is easy to condemn involves networks of people who import and export drugs. Often, seizures produce tens of kilos of cocaine and other controlled substances. The people involved are linked to organized crime, such as the Hells Angels and other similar groups seeking to profit from illegal activity and corrupt our society. But if four students get together to celebrate the end of classes and one of them has a joint that he or she passes on to another, according to the letter of the law, that constitutes a drug trafficking violation.

That can set in motion a mandatory minimum sentencing mechanism. For example, with respect to drug trafficking, thanks to God and the members who supported the amendment, the committee managed to get rid of the mandatory minimum sentence for trafficking in controlled substances if the person charged is in possession of fewer than five plants. A six-month minimum sentence still applies if the person is in possession of between 5 and 201 plants. Clearly, that is excessive. Those of us who are against mandatory minimum sentencing agree that just because three students have a little marijuana, that mechanism does not necessarily have to apply. That does not mean that we are inviting our fellow citizens to use marijuana. The Bloc Québécois is not suggesting that marijuana is part of Canada's food guide.

We know it is a drug, it can create dependency, and this is not desirable in a person’s life. Of course, we hope, and we sincerely call for there to be awareness campaigns to prevent any kind of drug use. However, the prohibition route is really not the one we should be going down.

In fact, in that committee, when we considered Bill C-15, we also heard from law enforcement officials from the United States, and in particular Washington, who offered the example of New York. When we look at the American example, the results we see are striking. In terms of the administration of justice, the United States was the first to go down the mandatory minimum sentence road. But the states that have adopted mandatory minimum sentences are not the states that have won the war on drugs. There is no correlation between mandatory minimum sentences and winning the war on drugs. So as a society, we do better to put our efforts into awareness when we are dealing with something like trafficking in small quantities.

We should remember that on the last day of the Paul Martin government, this Parliament failed to adopt an alternative approach to penalties for marijuana offences. Once again, I would repeat that I have never smoked either cigarettes or marijuana, and that is not something I feel a need for in my life. But as a society, should we be putting offences relating to cannabis and marijuana and offences involving trafficking in large quantities, engaged in by groups like the Hells Angels, on the same plane in the offence scheme? That is where the bill makes no sense. We would have liked to see this distinction made.

For example, on the last day of the Paul Martin government, the Bloc Québécois had introduced this itself in this Chamber, and it was the member for Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie who led the charge. And lead it he did. He is a very active member and he is much loved by his constituents. He is the green conscience of our party, and the connection between his green conscience and all the battles he leads can be seen.

So when we are looking at small quantities of marijuana, we would have hoped to see an offence scheme adopted that favoured fines over criminal penalties. In fact, in a few days, we will be tabling a report by the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights about driving while intoxicated. Without disclosing the recommendations, which are confidential, I can say that our committee will be proposing a somewhat less enforcement-oriented approach than is now contained in the Criminal Code.

It is too bad this government did not heed the alarm sounded by extremely knowledgeable witnesses such as Line Beauchesne, a professor of criminology at the University of Ottawa. She reminded us that since the mid-19th century, the federal government has taken a prohibitionist approach. The government thought that the sanctions in the Criminal Code would deter people. That prohibitionist logic has not worked.

Obviously, that does not mean that I hope we legalize drugs and make them widely available. That means that we have to take different approaches to this problem. It is not as though we had a bill that increased the maximum penalties, for example. We have never had a problem with increasing maximum penalties. The government should have gone after major traffickers. Drug imports and exports are worth billions of dollars.

In 2001, the Auditor General determined that even with the whole existing repressive approach, the whole arsenal and all the money for the police—we are talking about millions of dollars—law enforcement authorities were able to seize less than 10% of the drugs on the Canadian market.

We are in favour of going after the major trafficking networks connected with the Hells Angels. That is why I want to mention a motion I have introduced in the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights. I hope that before long, we will be living in a society where membership in the Hells Angels will be an offence in and of itself. I hope that there will be a list. The Bloc Québécois is waging this battle, and I want to acknowledge that we are supported by government members, the Liberals and the NDP.

We will not really address the drug problem with mandatory minimum penalties. The Hells Angels and other criminal groups—there are 38 in Canada—make a living from selling drugs. But if we succeeded in getting rid of these groups, would we not be solving part of the problem?

Another amendment was passed in committee requiring parliamentarians to conduct a review. We will therefore have to review the legislation. I do not know what the composition of the House will be at that point, and I do not know whether I will have the pleasure of taking part. Still, we passed an amendment stipulating that, two years after the section comes into force, there is to be a detailed examination of this legislation and the effects of its application together with a cost-benefit analysis of mandatory minimum sentences by the committee of the House of Commons or of both Houses of Parliament, which Parliament designates for this purpose.

Obviously, this is increasingly common with bills. I recall our adopting such a provision for new reproductive technologies. I think parliamentarians adopted it when the set of regulations on tobacco was either passed or under consideration. It is one way for them to get feedback and verify a law's effectiveness. We could have objectives as lawmakers, but are these objectives met once the bill is passed? That, obviously, is a whole other matter.

We would have been more comfortable with the idea of aggravating circumstances rather than minimum sentences. The Criminal Code—as my colleagues no doubt know—provides in section 718 that a court may take into account a number of circumstances specific to a context and impose a harsher sentence.

We support, of course, the imposition of a harsher sentence when an offence is committed for the benefit or at the direction of a criminal organization. We agree that when an individual committing an offence uses or tries to use violence it should be considered an aggravating circumstance, as should the use of a firearm in the commission of an offence.

We obviously agree that when an offence is committed within a school, in school grounds or in a place frequented by young people it should be considered an aggravating circumstance.

We would, however, not have wanted these specific circumstances to culminate in a mandatory mechanism that leaves no room for legal discretion. I refer of course to mandatory minimum sentences. That seems a mistake to us.

Those are the comments I wanted to make on Bill C-15. We will not support it in the vote at third reading.

[Brent Rathgeber, Conservative, Edmonton—St. Albert, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for Hochelaga for his contribution to the justice committee.

We certainly disagree on this issue. I do respect, however, his statement regarding maximum sentences. He agrees with lengthy sentences for serious drug dealers, but he is opposed to minimum mandatory sentences. He reminded us of committee testimony from law enforcement officials from Washington, but I want to remind him of the May 11 testimony from Ottawa Staff Sergeant Pierre Gauthier, when he said:

In my opinion, organized crime is being targeted by this legislation. It's important that they get targeted. Organized crime is strong, it's out there, and it's recruiting people to do the dirty work for them. In organized crime there are always people at the top, and they're the ones who profit from all this. So we support this legislation because it targets them.

The member for Hochelaga has a great passion against organized crime. He has brought a motion that organized criminals be identified as such.

I want him to comment on the Ottawa staff sergeant's belief that this is a good bill and that it will target organized crime. Specifically, if he does not agree with minimum mandatory sentences, why does he believe the state can disrupt criminal enterprise and take the profit out of organized crime?

[Réal Ménard, Bloc, Hochelaga, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague. I too respect his contribution. He is one of the more moderate people on the committee. He is always under control, and I am sure the people around him appreciate his inner peace, which, I hope, survives all the ups and downs of life.

I do not deny that certain provisions of the bill could be very helpful to law enforcement agencies when they are trying, for example, to break up organized crime gangs involved in drug trafficking. We agree with the increase in the maximum and with this provision of the bill. What we are concerned about, though, is the elimination of judicial discretion and the unfortunate effects of minimum mandatory sentences. I have explained over and over in the House why they are harmful.

It is not true that such provisions were used for a few years to break up organized crime. There were no minimum mandatory sentences. The countries that have been most successful at fighting organized crime do not have these sentences in their legal arsenals. The hon. member is drawing an ideologically driven connection between effectiveness and minimum mandatory sentences. This connection is not supported by the scientific literature.

[Keith Martin, Liberal, Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I listened carefully to the member's excellent speech and I want to pull the two issues together.

The member from the Conservative Party brought up a concern that many people have, but it is based in many ways on convenient mythology. The reality is the status quo actually benefits organized crime. Prohibition benefits organized crime. Portugal decriminalized simple possession of a number of currently illegal drugs.

By all means, go after the top tiers of organized crime and throw the book at those criminals. However, the key to going after organized crime is going after its financial supports. The worst thing for organized crime would be if we ruined its market and one way to do that is to decriminalize simple possession, for example, of marijuana and allow people to have a couple of plants. It is presently illegal. What Portugal found was that drug use, organized crime, crime, harm and costs decreased.

Does my colleague not think that decriminalizing, at least to start, the simple possession of marijuana would destroy the financial underpinnings of organized crime, accomplishing the objectives we all have in the House?

[Réal Ménard, Bloc, Hochelaga, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I entirely agree with my colleague. I believe I recall him introducing a bill during the previous Parliament or the one before that.

The witnesses who were familiar with developments on the drug market told us there would be certain social advantages to decriminalizing small amounts of marijuana. First, it would reduce the burden on the courts because 60% of the drug-related infractions in Canada are related to cannabis. Second, there could be a different legal process, for example a fine rather than falling back on the criminal law. Finally, if we really want to deal with the drug market, we have to go after the top tiers primarily and not people whose drug use may pose no threat to society.

I entirely agree, therefore, with my colleague from Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca.

[Libby Davies, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the member for Hochelaga for his very good participation at the committee and here in debate in the House. I am very glad that the Bloc looked at this legislation from an objective, rational, intelligent point of view and came to the same conclusion that we did, that there is no evidence to show that mandatory minimum sentences work for drug crimes.

In fact, the member made a very important point during his speech and reminded us of the Auditor General's report. I think it was in 1998 or 1999, or in fact when we sat on the special legislative committee on the non-medical use of drugs, and her report came out at the same time that showed that 90% of federal funds are used on enforcement.

One of the conclusions of that committee's report, as I am sure the member will remember, was to have a comprehensive approach to drug policy. We talked about prevention, treatment, harm reduction and enforcement, the so-called four-pillar approach that the report adopted.

It seems to me that the bill is going in an exactly opposite direction. I would like to ask the member what he sees as the impacts of this bill, if it is passed, in terms of an increasing prison population, particularly at the provincial level and certainly in Quebec.

[Réal Ménard, Bloc, Hochelaga, QC]

Mr. Speaker, every time we use the criminal law to deal with drugs, especially in regard to the lower links in the chain, there will obviously be an increase in the provincial prison populations, given that the sentences are less than two years. These prisons have obviously reached their limits beyond which they cannot function.

I sat on the same committee as my colleague from the NDP and remember very well that this was not the approach we recommended in our report to the legislative committee. I am very sorry that the government did not listen to our recommendations.

[Rick Norlock, Conservative, Northumberland—Quinte West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, my question is this: I would have a hard time going to my constituents and telling them that we do not want increased penalties, a two-year mandatory prison sentence for people dealing drugs such as cocaine, heroin and methamphetamines to youth or for dealing those drugs near a school or a place normally frequented by youth.

I do not know how I could go to the constituents in Northumberland—Quinte West and tell them that it is not a good idea. It is beyond the pale.

That is just one. I could go through the others, but since Speaker has asked for a short question, that is what it is.

[Réal Ménard, Bloc, Hochelaga, QC]

Mr. Speaker, in cases where an individual is trafficking large quantities of cocaine, my colleague will have no problem convincing me that tougher sentences are needed, and we have no problem with maximum sentences. However, if six young people are sitting on the University of Ottawa campus and smoking marijuana, we might find that unfortunate, and socially speaking, we might want to see a campaign to discourage them, but I am not convinced that those six young people should be sent to prison for six months.

I find it unfortunate that this bill does not differentiate between two situations that should not be equated to one another.

[Libby Davies, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise in the House today to debate the final stage of Bill C-15, which I am sorry we are doing. I am very disappointed that the Liberal members moved a motion to prevent any further extension of the debate. They have obviously done that very consciously because they, like the Conservatives, want to see this bill go through. They do not want to deal with any of the controversy around this bill, so that is very disappointing. Nevertheless here we are at third reading and I do have some comments to make about the bill, why it is seriously flawed and why we are opposing it.

I want to begin by saying that, as the Conservative member mentioned, I represent a riding, Vancouver East, where we have had a very serious drug problem. When I first was elected in 1997, I think the first issue I dealt with was that so many people were dying from overdoses that were entirely preventable.

The rate was alarming. It was higher than heart attacks, strokes, cancer or accidental deaths. It was from drug use and it was because people were buying substances on the black market, such as heroin, crack and various cocktails, and people did not know what they were taking. Sometimes something would hit the streets and it would be deadly, and we would have seven people dying over several days. It was one of the first issues I dealt with and it became literally a life and death issue that I felt compelled, as a newly elected member of Parliament, to deal with.

When I look back 12 years ago, at that time it would have been very easy to take this traditional response to substance use problems in our society, to say that we have to crack down, we have to get tougher and we have to have tougher laws. As I began talking with people in my own community, when I began speaking with doctors and health experts, when I began talking with drug users themselves who rarely get heard because they are very vilified and demonized in our society, I began to realize that the whole regime of our drug laws, the enforcement and the way it happens, is actually, in many cases, more harmful than the drugs themselves.

Criminalizing drug users continually and pushing people to the margins of society where they can get very little help and where they are outside the health care system was actually creating a worse situation in terms of the individual health of drug users, where we had a skyrocketing rate of HIV, AIDS and hepatitis C. It was the worst in the western world. It was an epidemic in the downtown east side, but it was also affecting the whole community in terms of crime and a lack of feeling safe. It really affected the overall health of the community.

It was at that point that I began to realize that the approach we had traditionally taken in Canada, which was very similar to that in the United States, was a failure. Many of us began to look further, to what was happening in Europe, to see where very different strategies had been tried in dealing with substance use, where there were, for example, safe injections sites and a much broader continuum of dealing with drug use as a health issue and focusing on that. There was enforcement as well, but it was primarily focused on it being a health issue.

Europe had, for example, a heroin medication program for chronic users, where instead of people having to buy their heroin on the black market, they could actually get a prescription and go through rehabilitation. There are tons of studies on this to show that what happened in Europe over many years had a very different impact than what was happening in the United States and Canada.

I became very convinced that the so-called war on drugs and emphasizing a law enforcement approach was really a very failed strategy. As the member for Hochelaga pointed out, this was very much reinforced by the Auditor General's report in 1998 or 1999, which showed that 90% of federal costs on drug policy were actually spent on enforcement, to no effect. She questioned what the value was and what kind of rationale was behind these policies.

I thought for a while that we were making progress in this Parliament when we adopted the four-pillar approach. It began in Vancouver, led by big city mayors. It began with the former mayor of Vancouver, Philip Owen.

It was continued by the successive mayor, Larry Campbell. It was a municipal grassroots approach. It began in the local community because we needed a different approach to drug policies in this country. So the four-pillar approach, based on prevention, treatment, harm reduction and enforcement, was adopted, and it was beginning to move across the country.

I thought we really were beginning to make some progress and people were beginning to want to have an honest debate about drug policies and recognize that prohibition itself is an issue that we need to examine and take on, and that prohibition, just as we saw in the 1930s with alcohol, where it fueled organized crime, where it fueled increased violence that had an impact on innocent civilians, is exactly what we are seeing today in these gang wars that are taking place in Vancouver.

Then a Conservative government was elected and we embarked on this mad journey of a crime agenda that is so closely associated with what we have seen in the United States that I find it frightening. To me, it is not based on any sound public policy analysis. It is not based on any evidence. It is based on some sort of ideology and plays on people's fear, because there is fear about drug use.

All of us as parents worry about what happens to our kids when they are in school and whether they are being lured by dealers. These are all fears that we have about safety in our community, but what I find really difficult, because it is so politicized now and so politically motivated, is to lure people with the idea that by bringing in tougher and tougher laws that we are somehow solving the problem.

That is the problem with the bill. It is based on the premise that mandatory minimum sentences for drug crimes will improve the situation that we see in our local communities, that it will help our kids, that it will help drug users, that it will help deal with big kingpins, the big traffickers, the dealers that people worry about.

I believe we have a responsibility as members of Parliament to actually examine that question and to ask ourselves, is that the right direction? Is that the right route to take?

I began with the Minister of Justice and asked him to please show us the evidence that mandatory minimums work, because everything I had seen coming out of the United States was telling us that they do not work. In fact, many of the states are now repealing, have repealed or are about to repeal their mandatory minimums.

So I thought, if we have a Conservative government that wants to take us down this road, at least let us see the evidence that the government has that it will work. Let us see the evidence and the estimates of what it would cost the judicial system. How many more people would it put in jail? What would be the cost to the provincial and territorial system?

However, the minister could not answer that. All he could say was that Canadians had told him that they wanted this to happen.

I felt very dissatisfied by that answer. I thought it was a very pathetic answer, and it really exposed the lack of analysis and substance that brought this bill forward.

In committee, we heard from some pretty remarkable witnesses. We heard from 16 witnesses, 13 of whom were strongly opposed to the bill and to mandatory minimums. In fact, the executive director of the John Howard Society forwarded the committee information about 35 studies, and he actually produced 17 of them, that showed that mandatory minimum sentences do not work in this area. We had overwhelming evidence showing that this is a very failed approach.

I feel that we are at a point now where it is just pretty awful that the bill will go through. I have been listening to the Liberal members, scratching my head and wondering, what on earth are they thinking? Why are they trying to fool us? Why are they trying to fool the Canadian public that by somehow lining up with the Conservatives on the bill they are doing the right thing?

I know there are individual members there who probably do not agree with this bill. We just heard from the member for Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca who did introduce a bill on decriminalization of marijuana, which I very much support.

The bill is going in the complete opposite direction. I do not know how the member, or other members who I know have a similar view can, in any good conscience, can support this.

We know from the experience in the United States, contrary to what the Conservatives tell us, the bill is not levelled at the big kingpins. It is levelled at the low level dealers. It is levelled at the users who also deal because that is part of the cycle.

The idea that minimum sentences would be a deterrence to these folks is completely false. We have so much evidence to show that they are no deterrence at all. All minimum sentences will do is put more people in jail, people who already deal with substance use issues and need medical and social support, treatment and rehabilitation, and good housing.

We have to figure out why people become addicted and how to help them out of that. The government cannot just throw out a bill and give a six month sentence to one person and a three year sentence to another. People will be thrown into a system and will come out even worse.

The Canadian HIV-AIDS legal network recently produced a report about the lack of accessibility to harm reduction practices in our prison system, whether it is needle exchange or health support, which is truly shocking. People are being put into an environment and coming out much worse than when they went in.

The bill is completely harmful in its consequences. I really believe that it should be defeated, and that is why, from day one, the NDP made it clear that we thought it should be defeated.

I want to deal with some of the issues that have been brought forward.

There has been a suggestion in the debate that if we do not support the bill, there will not be any enforcement. It has been suggested that the bill is about bringing in an enforcement regime and that what we have is not working. There is no evidence of that.

Bill C-15 proposes to amend the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act. In the current act, trafficking, as I pointed out earlier, is already subject to life imprisonment, so is importing and exporting and production for the purposes of trafficking.

There is already a whole set of aggravating circumstances contained in the CDSA similar to Bill C-15. The courts already have the legal tools to use aggravating circumstances, whether it is carried use, or threaten to use a weapon, or the use of violence, or being near a school ground, or a previous conviction or the use of the services of a person under the age of 18 years to commit or involve such a person in the commission of a designated substance offence. These already exist in the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act.

I come back to the fundamental question that has to be answered by the government. Why are the Conservatives introducing a regime of mandatory minimums when there is no evidence showing that they will work? In fact to the contrary, this will only make it worse.

The Conservative member for Edmonton—St. Albert said in committee, after we had heard from the John Howard Society and the Civil Liberties Association:

I suppose I will accept the representation made from the John Howard Society and the Civil Liberties Association that this bill is targeted to the so-called low-level distributor or low-level dealer. You may be correct that it may not be as effective as we would like in going after the kingpins. I may accept that.

Conservative members know what the bill is about. Even though they say publicly that this legislation goes after the big guys, that it will make us all safe, because the bill is so broad and because it will capture so many people, they know it will be low level distributors, many of whom are also users, who will be caught.

I would argue that is why the Conservatives included a small aspect in the bill around drug treatment courts. They want to give people the idea that at least there is some alternative regime to allow people to go through a drug treatment court.

The big kingpins, the big drug dealers are not going through drug treatment courts. They are the ones who negotiate their way out of anything. They are the ones who have the resources to do that. The people who go to the drug treatment courts are the poorest of the poor. They are the people who are visible on the street. This is very much a class issue as well.

Drug use exists at every level of society, whether it is lawyers or professionals, but the visibility of what we see is on the street. That is where the enforcement is being levelled and that is where people are being sent into these drug treatment courts.

The evidence of the drug treatment courts is very mixed. I have serious problems with them. If we believe people should get help, why would we wait until they are convicted and then ask them if they would like get some treatment? Part of treatment is to make an early intervention. If we wait until people are all the way through the justice system and then say that we will help them is a completely ridiculous way to organize a continuum of support and help required for people who face addiction issues.

The Liberals are very much hanging their hat on the drug treatment courts, saying that they are going to go after the drug treatment courts, that we need more of them. However, they are very controversial as to whether they are working.

I would also like to read into the record what the Minister of Public Safety said when he appeared before the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security back in April of this year. He said:

Why is it that we're having to convert our prison system into a mental health hospital system? Why is it that people are ending up in prisons who shouldn't be? The fundamental problem is this. Why are we not getting adequate health care to individuals? Why, when they have their first couple of encounters with the courts, do they still not get adequate health care?

Understanding how you get there is important, because by the time someone has had serious enough problems that they're in the federal penitentiary system, it's pretty hard to put the puzzle back together again. What we want to do is find ways to deal with it well before that happens, and that's better for society. It's better for the individuals involved; it's better for the taxpayers; it's better for our prison system....

There are so many contradictions. On the one hand, the minister himself is questioning why so many people are being sent into incarceration who really should not be there. On the other hand, we have this draconian bill.

I did call it radical. I believe mandatory minimum sentences are a radical approach that has been shown not to work. We will be sending more and more people into the justice system where they are not going to get the help they need and they are not even going to get the help they need from the drug treatment courts.

The bill will go through. I am very glad that at least the NDP was able to get through a couple of amendments, one of which was to have a review of the bill within two years. I hope there will be enough of us around, and I am sure there will be a strong NDP contingent here, to ensure the bill is reviewed. We will do it very objectively, and as the member for Windsor—Tecumseh says, if necessary, have it repealed. That is very important. We were glad we were able to get through one amendment to provide an exemption for one to five plants.

At the end of the day, this is probably the worst crime bill the Conservatives have brought forward. It has no evidence to support it. It is purely driven by a political agenda. It is going to hurt people. It is going to send more people into our prison system. It is not going to solve our substance use issues in local communities or nationally. It is going to drive us down the road where the U.S. went, which has been the most colossal failure that we could imagine, financially, politically and in terms of its justice system.

That is where we are headed with the bill. It is a huge mistake. I am very glad the NDP is voting against it. I appreciate that the Bloc is voting against it also, but I wish the other parties would too.

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I want to be very clear on what this bill is about. This is a tailored, targeted approach to the trafficking of drugs, which is plaguing our communities.

If people are selling drugs in areas frequented by children or selling drugs to children, they are going to get a mandatory minimum sentence. If there is violence involved in the trafficking, people are going to get mandatory jail time. If they are involved in organized crime and are selling drugs, they are going to get a mandatory minimum sentence under our bill. Canadians are asking for that.

The member for Vancouver East referred to this legislation as frightening. The only thing that is frightening is the fact that the member for Vancouver East and her NDP colleagues are advocating for the legalization of these drugs. I also heard the Liberal member for Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca confirm that he also supports that. It is shocking that this would happen in the House.

Could the member for Vancouver East find it in her heart to reconsider her position on the bill and do something to protect the innocent children of our country?

[Libby Davies, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Mr. Speaker, that was a very emotional appeal from the chair of the justice committee. He is smiling now. My position and the position of our caucus is based on a very analytical understanding of what drug policy is about. It is not easy for us to take that up. He has pointed out the politics of this. It is so easy to appease people and tell them that if they are worried about drugs, we will get a tougher law. We have decided that we need to be honest about what is going on with drug policy in Canada. We do need to have an honest conversation with people in our local communities and let people know that just bringing in another law will not solve those drug problems.

To that extent, it is from my heart, if I can respond to the member in that way. I deal with those folks on the street every day. They are my constituents. The people dying from overdoses and the people who have been pushed to the margins of society are the ones who gave me the heart to bring this forward. They are the ones who are the victims of our drug policies.

We heard from some of them at committee. The bill will make it a lot worse for those people. They know it and they feel pretty scared about it.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, we are talking about an area that is coming out of the justice committee. We are dealing with penalties, but I think I heard the member lay out a bit of detail about a national drug strategy and how the government is going to lead in addressing the problems of drugs on all fronts, including rehabilitation, prevention, health, et cetera.

Could the member review again for the House the importance of the four pillars?

[Libby Davies, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I believe the member supports the four-pillar approach. I thought this well substantiated policy had been adopted. However, in the latest so-called anti-drug strategy that came from the Conservative government in September 2007, one of the pillars had been dropped, and that was harm reduction.

We know about the huge battle that has taken place in Vancouver to keep Insite, the safe-injection facility, open. In fact, the Conservatives have not been able to close it down because of the massive public support across the country. Insite and things like needle exchanges are part of the four-pillar approach. This has been well adopted across the country by many big cities and smaller communities.

It was adopted by the federal government, but that radically changed when the Conservatives were elected. They dropped harm reduction and are now hell-bent on the idea that they will eliminate any funding or support for any program that they deem to be under the category of harm reduction. Instead, they are now emphasizing an enforcement regime. That will hurt a lot of people who truly need medical and social support to deal with the addiction issues that they face.

The bill will not help those people. A four-pillar approach was a much more rational public policy to deal with substance use issues. Unfortunately, the bill is now taking us in the completely opposite direction.

[Marc Lemay, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to congratulate my colleague, who represents a very difficult riding in the Vancouver area, and has done a tremendous job on the whole issue of narcotics, drugs and diversion programs.

In a perfect world, I would tell her she is right. But since we live a world governed by the Conservatives, who lean to the right, if not the far right, we have a problem on our hands, and that problem is Bill C-15, as my colleague has made clear.

I have just one question for her. I know we are running out of time and I want her to have time to answer. I would like to know what impact this bill could have, not on the penitentiary—and I will come back to that in a moment, since that will have a different impact altogether—but on the provincial court and provincial detention centres in her riding in the Vancouver, British Columbia area.

What impact will this bill's enforcement have on the provincial court and the provincial detention centres?

[Libby Davies, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I wish I could provide some clear information to answer the member's question, because this is one of the questions we did pose to the minister. If the bill passes and a regime of mandatory minimums is enacted, we want to know the estimate of how many people would be convicted and would end up in the provincial system, which would be convictions of two years less a day. We need to know what the costs of that might be as well as the number of people convicted.

Our belief is that it will be very high based again on what we saw in the United States. We had evidence regarding that at the committee. As far as we know, there has been no work done by the government, or if the work has been done, the government certainly is not disclosing it.

My constituents and people in other places across Canada are going to be very fearful that because of these mandatory minimums when people get caught up in this net and they go through the court system, the first thing they are probably going to do is plead not guilty to try to get around the mandatory minimum. That is going to take up more court time, more lawyers' time. We are seeing the legal aid crisis, whether it is in Ontario or in British Columbia. This is only going to create more chaos in a system that is already overstressed.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I have a very short question for my friend. There are two aspects. One is around balance. We have talked a lot about the four pillar approach, but it seems that bills such as this one show the government only to be standing on one pillar out of the four.

Second, my understanding is it is the intention of all members in the House to reduce the misery and effects of organized crime. We see the ripple effects in my region of Skeena—Bulkley Valley. I asked the chair of the committee to produce one piece of evidence, one study, one report from a criminologist, a lawyer or an association anywhere which says that in order to get at the organized drug problem one should use the technique of mandatory minimum sentences that are proposed in the bill. All he could yell out at me was “logic”. Whose logic, his?

My colleague from Vancouver East is not an expert, unfortunately, on the misery of organized crime, but I wonder if she could speak to the lack of evidence that has been presented by the government and the Liberals to this point.