Debates of Dec. 13th, 2021

Criminal Code and Controlled Drugs and Substances Act

[Warren Steinley, Conservative, Regina—Lewvan, SK]

Madam Speaker, I am sorry to indulge this debate with some common sense.

I was going to say that if it is a relic of the past to say that people should go to prison when they commit the offence of sexual assault, trafficking in persons and kidnapping, I will be proud to represent that common sense for as long as I am allowed to be in this House. Would the member for Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes agree with those comments?

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke, BC]

Madam Speaker, I expect this is not just a point of order, but perhaps a question of privilege. For a member to stand up and completely distort and say that I had said something that I most certainly did not say in the debate affects my ability to do my job as a member of Parliament. It becomes part of the official record.

What I said was that the Conservatives were arguing about the concept of mandatory minimum sentences. I did not say people should not be subject to penalties under the Criminal Code. I said they should not be subject to mandatory minimum sentences, which have been demonstrated not to work, to be ineffective and to result in the overincarceration of indigenous people and Black Canadians.

The member is completely distorting my remarks for his own political purposes, and I consider that a violation of my privilege as a member of Parliament.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

I appreciate the hon. member's setting the record straight. I want to again remind members to be very judicious in their comments and their words in the debate. This is a very passionate and very sensitive bill that we are discussing at this point. Again, I just reiterate the fact that we need to make sure we are not attacking individuals and we are speaking to what is in the bill and not what is not in the bill.

The hon. member for Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes.

[Michael Barrett, Conservative, Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, ON]

Madam Speaker, with respect to the comments on the elimination of mandatory prison time for people who have committed serious offences, it is contrary to ensuring we have accountability when these crimes are committed. Again, I remind people these are not folks who are accused of committing crimes, these are people who have been convicted of committing criminal offences such as discharging a firearm with intent, weapons trafficking, extortion with a firearm or robbery with a firearm.

Surely we can all agree one should go to jail for those offences, but it does not seem we have an agreement on that in this place. I heard from a previous member that this is an argument of decades past. I do not think so. I want to ensure the folks who live in my community know that anyone who commits those offences will be held fully accountable, and that includes time in prison.

[Adam van Koeverden, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Health and to the Minister of Sport]

Madam Speaker, on the topic of sticking to what this bill is about and what this bill is not about, I have a very simple question for my colleague, with whom I share a floor in our office.

If we can we agree things need to change in order to get better and we can agree this is about helping people get better and helping society heal, can we not agree the system, as it currently stands, is overreliant on incarceration, is overreliant on penalties rather than helping people get better, and that we should be relying more on various methods by which people are reconstituted into society and brought back in so they can develop and redevelop as people, or is it all just about punishment?

[Michael Barrett, Conservative, Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, ON]

Madam Speaker, I think we do agree that Canadians who are suffering from addiction should be getting treatment, and if the crime is simple possession, there are currently directives in place and the discretion can be exercised to divert those individuals from the criminal justice system to help them get help. That is entirely appropriate. We absolutely need to help people who are suffering from the scourge of addiction, and this bill is not about that. It does codify the discretion currently in place, but I would much prefer we have a conversation about helping people who need help instead of relaxing important accountability measures in place for people who commit serious crimes.

[Rhéal Fortin, Bloc, Rivière-du-Nord, QC]

Madam Speaker, Bill C‑5 is important. It was introduced during the previous Parliament when it was known as Bill C‑22. The two bills are substantially the same, with some minor differences. What really makes Bill C‑5 different from Bill C‑22 is context. Society is in a completely different place now.

In my mind, Bill C‑5 might be better off being split up. The debate over diversion and the debate over minimum penalties are two completely different debates. People could be very much in favour of one and against the other. If we want to be able to work effectively on this bill, all members of the House need an opportunity to speak to each of the aspects of the bill. We should be able to agree with one aspect and disagree with the other.

That said, the Bloc Québécois has historically been in favour of decriminalization. We believe that rehabilitation is an essential step to eliminating crime in a society. We can never completely eliminate crime, of course, but rehabilitation would at least help make our society better and more in line with our values.

The Bloc Québécois believes in rehabilitation. This can be seen particularly in Quebec's young offenders legislation, which facilitates diversion. For example, young people who have broken the law are asked to do community work, to engage in activities with various organizations.

I know of a case where a young man who shoplifted and vandalized the wall of a convenience store had to meet with the store owner, clean up the wall and do some work for the store. They ended up fully reconciled. While the young man and the convenience store owner may not have become great friends, they developed a relationship that was probably conducive, if not essential, to the young man's rehabilitation. There are other positive experiences and cases like that one. That is why the Bloc Québécois believes that diversion has a role to play and it has historically agreed with this principle.

With respect to minimum penalties, the courts must be able to exercise their power freely and judiciously. The Bloc Québécois has always believed that minimum penalties are a hindrance, but that is not always the case. In some circumstances, minimum penalties can be a way of sending a clear message to offenders. We need to look at this aspect of the question. However, generally speaking, we do not think that minimum penalties contribute to a healthier society. On the contrary, we believe that they may have given rise to some highly regrettable situations.

I remember one case in the Lower St. Lawrence region of Quebec. An 18-year-old man had a 16- or 17-year-old girlfriend. Both families were aware of the relationship and approved of it. Everything was fine. However, for one reason or another, they found themselves in court, and the young man was found guilty of corrupting a minor. The judge said he hated to do it, because the situation did not warrant it, but he had no choice, because there was a minimum penalty in the Criminal Code, and he had to impose it. At the time, this caused an uproar and a certain amount of frustration in Quebec, and for good reason. I was one of the ones who felt that, in a situation like that, not only did the minimum penalty not help, but it hindered the judicious exercise of judicial power. For this reason, the Bloc Québécois has historically also been in favour of the abolishment of minimum penalties.

That being said, I am speaking from a historical point of view, but we are now in 2021. The situation is not the same as it was in 2020, 2019 or 2018. I could go back as far as 1867.

Circumstances are changing, and the law is changing. There is a reason we pass laws here in Parliament and in the legislative assemblies of Quebec and the provinces. We are continually passing laws because circumstances change, society evolves and, as a result, the laws must be adapted to fit our different realities.

What is the context surrounding Bill C-5?

I think that it is important to discuss it, because that is our job as legislators. We cannot simply pass a law that will apply to everyone without considering the consequences. We cannot pass a law until we evaluate the context in which a decision will be made concerning Bill C‑5. What is going on in Montreal in 2021?

On January 4, 2021, a 17-year-old boy was injured in a shooting in the Saint-Michel neighbourhood of Montreal. On January 31, 2021, a 25-year-old man suffered minor gunshot wounds in the Rivière-des-Prairies borough of Montreal. On February 7, 2021, 15-year-old Meriem Boundaoui died from a gunshot wound to the head in Montreal.

On July 5, 2021, 43-year-old Ernst Exantus was shot dead in Montreal North. He was known to police for his ties to organized crime. On July 26, 2021, a 22-year-old woman was injured by glass shards when her vehicle was shot at. On August 1, 2021, an 18-year-old man sustained gunshot wounds to his lower body during a dispute between groups. On August 2, 2021, three people were killed and two others were wounded in a shootout in the Rivière‑des‑Prairies borough of Montreal.

On September 1, 2021, once again in Rivière‑des‑Prairies, a man was shot during an attempted murder. On September 10, 2021, 35-year-old Patricia Sirois was in her vehicle with her two young children when she was shot dead by her neighbour, a 49-year-old man from Saint-Raymond. On the night of September 24 to 25, 2021, a 19-year-old woman was shot dead in her vehicle.

On September 26, 2021, once again in Rivière‑des‑Prairies, 33-year-old Yevgen Semenenko was found dead near a vehicle with bullet holes in it. On September 28, 2021, a man was shot as he was walking down the street in Mount Royal. On October 25, 2021, a 25-year-old man was shot and wounded in Montreal.

On November 14, 2021, in the Saint‑Michel neighbourhood of Montreal, 16-year-old Thomas Trudel was shot dead as he walked home. On December 2, 2021, in the Anjou borough, 20-year-old Hani Ouahdi was shot dead in a vehicle; a 17-year-old boy in the vehicle was also wounded. On the same day, in Coaticook, Quebec, 80-year-old Jeannine Perron-Ruel was shot dead by her 38-year-old neighbour. On December 3, 2021, in Montreal, a woman in her fifties was injured at home by a bullet that came through her window. On December 6, 2021, an 18-year-old man was shot and wounded in a Laval library.

I have just listed 18 incidents that took place in Quebec in 2021. Were there more? Probably. I found 18 after a quick search.

Were there others outside Quebec? Probably. I would be surprised if crimes of this sort and gunshot victims were found only in Quebec. There are undoubtedly others. In any case, in the past 11 months, there have been at least 18 incidents involving as many, if not more, gunshot victims.

On September 21, the mayor of Montreal asked the federal government to institute gun control measures.

On November 22, the City of Montreal reiterated its request, and the Quebec government said that it wanted to increase pressure on the federal government regarding gun control at the border and banning handguns.

Many debates have taken place in the House in recent weeks, and I have taken part in them. We demand that the government take responsibility, because Quebec and certain parts of Canada are turning into the wild west.

We want the government to set up a special task force. Illegal firearms are flooding into Canada via the St. Lawrence River through the Akwesasne reserve, which borders the U.S. and the St. Lawrence. Quebec and Cornwall, Ontario, are just across the river.

We need a special task force. Currently, we can do little to prevent arms trafficking because there are too many jurisdictions involved. We need a special joint task force made up of U.S. agents, peacekeepers, the Ontario Provincial Police, the Sûreté du Québec and the RCMP to fight these crimes effectively. It could be funded by an investment from the federal government. For example, we could have five boats patrolling this part of the St. Lawrence 24-7. I can guarantee that the problem would be solved within a year. There would be no more firearms crossing the border there. They might cross elsewhere, but we will fight them where they are.

We need to take concrete action. We demand investments in the fight against arms trafficking and the creation of a joint task force. A bill against organized crime could be tabled, like the one I introduced in the House in 2016 during the 42nd Parliament. Unfortunately, the bill was rejected for reasons that, in my opinion, were not justified, but I will not reopen a debate from the past. Maybe the bill could be reintroduced, because organized crime, arms trafficking and the government's complacency on gun control are causing immense harm and putting Quebeckers in an unsafe and vulnerable position. We cannot let that happen, not in 2021.

I read out a list of 18 incidents. I explained that cities in Quebec and the provinces are demanding that the government take action. What did the government do? The latest incident I mentioned happened on December 6, when the 18-year-old man was shot and wounded in a library. A library seems like the ideal place to find peace and harmony, yet this young man was shot and wounded in a library on December 6. While we have been debating the topic for weeks, on December 7, the day after that particular shooting, the Liberal government chose to table Bill C-5, the bill we are considering today, for first reading. This bill aims to divert certain offences away from the justice system and to abolish certain minimum penalties, including for offences involving the possession and use of firearms and the commission of certain other crimes.

As I said, the Bloc Québécois has historically been in favour of abolishing mandatory minimum penalties. However, I am starting to seriously wonder about the Liberal government's timing. If the Liberals were tabling Bill C-5 and creating a joint task force; if they were proposing to deploy river patrols starting Monday to put an end to the arms trafficking; if they were investing in the creation of a special unit to patrol the entire border of Quebec and the other Canadian provinces to fight arms trafficking; if they were adopting a bill like the one proposed by the Bloc Québécois in 2015 to create a list of criminal organizations and treat members of these organizations in the same manner as members of listed terrorist organizations, so that if someone in organized crime is caught with a firearm, he gets his comeuppance; if that were what they were proposing, I would feel less uneasy voting in favour of Bill C‑5.

Right now, I am feeling very uneasy about the government's timing and its complacency in the face of an almost unheard-of situation that is threatening not only people's quality of life and ability to thrive, but the very survival of our youth on the streets of Montreal.

Once again, we are not in the wild west. This is not the 1600s or 1700s, when cowboys rode around with guns, shot at each other for no reason and were summarily hanged because a trial was too much trouble. It is 2021. I think that we should be able to agree on the importance of keeping our teenagers and the entire population safe, and we should not have to discuss it. We need to do something about it.

Once the government has done something about that, then we can talk about diversion programs. In fact, we could talk about it at the same time; we could talk about it now. With respect to minimum penalties, we need to abolish many of them. The Supreme Court itself has said so, and far be it from me to go against it. I think that it is entirely justified: some need to be abolished, and others need to remain in place.

Bill C‑5 warrants a good, solid discussion in committee. We need to review the details of this bill, but the government needs to step up, for goodness' sake. We cannot tell citizens that we are going to do away with minimum sentences when there are people going around with guns, yet nothing is being done to stop gun trafficking and people keep getting shot at week after week on the streets of Montreal. That would be absurd. If the government is serious and really wants to get tough on crime, then we would be talking about diversion programs because we want to rehabilitate young people, and we would be talking about doing away with minimum sentences because we want judges to be able to do their job effectively and judiciously. Most importantly, the government needs to get tough on crime by taking responsibility and putting an end to firearms trafficking and the gun violence we have been seeing over this past year.

We will take responsibility and work effectively in the public interest. I am here for one thing. I want to represent my constituents and Quebeckers, and I will not keep silent on this issue.

[Gary Anandasangaree, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada]

Madam Speaker, I fully appreciate the concerns outlined by the member opposite.

The 18 specific incidents that the member refers to will not be impacted in any way by the repeal proposed in Bill C-5. We fully recognize the concerns respecting guns, not just in Quebec but also in Ontario and other places, and we will take decisive action in that regard as per our platform.

I do want to emphasize that we will work with the member and the Bloc Québécois to ensure we address all the important measures in the bill that would allow for off-ramps, that would allow for people who are charged with minor offences to receive the help they need, but also the discretion of the judges to ensure people are rehabilitated.

[Rhéal Fortin, Bloc, Rivière-du-Nord, QC]

Madam Speaker, I would not want to suggest that my colleague opposite is not speaking in good faith, but I am sick and tired of hearing that. They always say they are going to take things into consideration. I am not talking about what is going to happen next week, next month or next year. I am talking about what is happening now, today, Monday, December 13, 2021. This is the situation facing our society now. Does the government want to work with society as it is, or does it want to make promises about what it will do someday when society is different? If what the government is saying is that it will take action at some point and is taking things into consideration, then when the time comes, any action will probably be too late because the situation will have evolved.

What is the government going to do now?

[Frank Caputo, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

Madam Speaker, it is always a pleasure to rise on behalf of the citizens of Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo.

My hon. colleague noted the necessity for a balanced approach. The hon. parliamentary secretary mentioned the term “systemic racism”. My question is a general one.

If the issue is one of systemic racism, why are we repealing all mandatory minimums? Why would the government not simply put what we call a safety valve or an exceptional circumstances provision in the legislation, so people who are the targeted outlaws, the people who are committing violent crimes, could be put in jail, and those who fit into that one category or classification could be dealt with as the government proposes? Would my colleague support that?

[Rhéal Fortin, Bloc, Rivière-du-Nord, QC]

Madam Speaker, that subject does concern me. I must admit that I always feel a little uneasy when I hear government members tell us that they are going to abolish minimum sentences to help the Black community or the indigenous community. Let us think about that for a moment. The Criminal Code applies to everyone, and everyone should be treated the same, regardless of their skin colour, race, religion or background.

Accordingly, if we think the Black community is being treated unfairly in the justice system, let us fix that problem. I personally think that, generally speaking, the courts are relatively fair. If that is not the case, then we need to train the court officials and police officers who work in the field to ensure that everyone is treated fairly.

I think it is crucial that everyone be treated the same. I do not think the Criminal Code should apply differently to anyone based on the colour of their skin, whether it is white, black, red or yellow.

[Alistair MacGregor, NDP, Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC]

Madam Speaker, the issues the member for Rivière-du-Nord has spoken about is a topic that the public safety committee now will be seized with, and I look forward to commencing our study on that.

Listening to the previous speech from the Conservatives, one would be forgiven for thinking that we were doing away with sentences for all time. I liked how member spoke about judicial discretion. It is incredibly important for people who are listening to this debate to understand that, while the Criminal Code is very much reactive legislation and it happens after the fact, there is a very important section in it, section 718.2, which allows judges to increase or reduce a sentence based on aggravating factors. Not every case that comes before them is exactly the same, which is precisely why there is a problem with mandatory minimums.

Could the member expand on that existing section of the Criminal Code, which does give judges the freedom to increase the severity of a sentence if there are certain aggravating factors at play? We should all have some trust in our judges across Canada, that they are the best equipped people to lay such a sentence down.

[Rhéal Fortin, Bloc, Rivière-du-Nord, QC]

Madam Speaker, that is a good point that we could debate for hours. Let us just say that the Bloc Québécois trusts the justice system. We think that judges generally do outstanding work and, as my colleague was saying, their work is essential when it comes time to tailor a sentence to a specific situation.

Even though every bill we pass applies to everyone in all circumstances, there are situations where we wish the law were different, and that is normal. That is why I think it is essential to give judges the power to adapt a sentence based on how the evidence was presented in court.

My colleague is right to raise that point, and I think that is what should be done. Again, if issues are raised with the fairness of judges' decisions, I think the solution might lie in educating and training the courts.

I personally trust the justice system and believe that we need to give the courts the freedom to tailor sentencing to the situation at hand.

[Xavier Barsalou-Duval, Bloc, Pierre-Boucher—Les Patriotes—Verchères, QC]

Madam Speaker, I first want to congratulate my colleague from Rivière-du-Nord for his very clear and very informative speech on the Bloc Québécois's position. Above all, he demonstrated that we are open to debating Bill C-5.

However, the problem is that nothing is happening right now, and we would like to know why. The situation is urgent, because people are being killed every day in Montreal and even elsewhere in Quebec. It seems that the government is just twiddling its thumbs while all this is happening, because it is not responding, even when called upon to do so by various levels of government and by our party.

As a former section president of the Quebec bar and now the Bloc Québécois's justice critic, I would like my colleague to explain the government's failure to take action.

[Rhéal Fortin, Bloc, Rivière-du-Nord, QC]

Madam Speaker, I am aware of my colleague's concerns about the administration of justice and I think he is right to raise them.

As I was saying, legislation has to reflect the social context. We have to ensure that legislation is adapted to that context when it is passed.

In the past year, no one in my riding has complained about how odious minimum sentences are and no one has talked to me about diversion programs. However, every week, people in my family, friends and constituents tell me that what is happening in Montreal makes no sense. They ask me what the hold up is, why we are not doing anything about the people who are getting shot to death. Some parents are no longer comfortable sending their kids to high school, because they believe it is no longer safe.

The Criminal Code is a federal responsibility. People are asking me to do something about this and I very much want to, but are my colleagues across the way equally concerned or are they just as out of touch as they seem? That is what I am wondering.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Madam Speaker, virtually all of us know that systemic racism is very real. If we take a look at the Truth and Reconciliation Commission's report, we see 94 calls to action. One of those calls is to take a look at the minimum sentences. It is believed and ultimately proven to be effective in dealing with things such as systemic barriers to have legislation of this nature.

I wonder if my colleague could provide this thoughts, as this is an important step towards truth and reconciliation and the calls to action.

[Rhéal Fortin, Bloc, Rivière-du-Nord, QC]

Madam Speaker, I agree with my colleague that diversion and reduced minimum sentences are important.

I am not going to repeat what I said, but my point is that the bill needs to reflect our current situation. With all due respect to my colleague, Quebeckers and Canadians are calling on us to act now to curb arms trafficking and to get weapons off our streets. This is the government's responsibility. It is what we need to be working on, and I am appealing to the government's sense of justice.

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke, BC]

Madam Speaker, let me start by thanking the voters of Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke for sending me back to the House once again, this time for a fourth mandate. In particular, I would like to thank my partner for more than 20 years, Teddy Pardede, for his constant and enduring personal and political support. My role as an MP is now taking up more than half our relationship and I will never be able to repay him.

As I said during the campaign, I very much wanted to come back to the House to be able to deal with unfinished business from the last Parliament. Indeed, there were lots of things we made progress on that were cut short by the early and unnecessary election. That is why I was pleased to see the quick passage of the ban on conversion therapy, Bill C-4, unanimously no less, both here and in the other place.

There are other examples of bills on which this House had held hearings, had achieved a broad consensus on moving forward and is now able to do so. Those include my Bill C-202, to make coercive and controlling behaviour and intimate partner relationships a criminal offence and Bill C-206, which would remove self-harm from the military code of conduct as a disciplinary offence and instead make sure that self-harm is treated as the mental health challenge that it truly is. I hope we can find a way to move forward on both of those bills that were left undone in the last Parliament.

Today, here we are debating Bill C-5. I am frankly surprised to be up on Bill C-5 so soon because its predecessor was not one of those bills which had been to hearings and it was not of those bills where we had lots of discussions about how to come to a consensus on what needed to be done. Normally, I would be glad to see the House moving quickly to get stuff done that sat on the back burner for far too long. That would be especially true of the issue of systemic racism in the justice system and it would be even more true of the opioid crisis on our streets today.

However, Bill C-5 is a virtual carbon copy, to date myself with an archaic phrase, of Bill C-22, which the government introduced at the eleventh hour in the last Parliament. At that time, we New Democrats clearly told the government we found Bill C-22 to be weak sauce. After its introduction, there were only very limited discussions before Bill C-22 was reintroduced in this session as Bill C-5. In those brief talks I made it clear that New Democrats wanted to see a bill with a few more teeth. We have a crisis of over-incarceration, we have a crisis of opioids on our streets, and the bill is not strong enough.

I am not sure how happy I am to be rushing forward on a bill that remains a half measure, especially when it is not even very clear what it is a half measure of. Here is the first and most important question I have for the government about Bill C-5: Is this a bill to address systemic racism in the Canadian justice system? If so, why is its focus so limited? We know mandatory minimum sentences are one of the causes of the over-incarceration of racialized Canadians and indigenous people. Then why does the bill restrict itself to only removing mandatory minimums for some offences, namely personal possession of drugs and some firearms offences?

We have years of experience now with mandatory minimums. We know they do nothing to reduce crime. We know that they only result in the incarceration of people who have no place in the prison system.

As the over-involvement in the justice system is a real problem for indigenous and racialized Canadians every day, I still have my doubts of some of the provisions in Bill C-5, like introducing those diversion programs instead of more fundamental reforms. In the absence of tackling the thorny question of reform of the RCMP, again I still have some doubts about increasing police discretion in drug cases as Bill C-5 proposes.

If Bill C-5 is actually about racism in our justice system, then there is surely much more it could do. I will return to this question later in my remarks. If Bill C-5 is not about tackling the broad issues of systemic racism in the criminal justice system, then is it really about something else? In fact, the heavy focus on removing mandatory minimums for drug crimes might lead us to believe that Bill C-5 is actually about the opioid crisis. If that is the case, then once again, it makes it hard for me to be excited about quick action on the half measures to confront the opioid crisis that we have in the bill, especially when we have known for so long what is needed.

As an elected official, I first spoke in favour of decriminalization of personal possession of all drugs more than a decade ago as a city councillor in Esquimalt. At the time, I argued that decriminalization provided the most effective path, along with safe injection sites, to tackle the emerging problem of deaths from drug overdoses in my community.

Even then, I was able to point to early signs of success in Portugal where decriminalization was adopted in 2001. Since then, Portugal has seen an 80% reduction in overdose deaths. It has seen the proportion of people who use drugs fall from 52% to 6% when it comes to new HIV and AIDS diagnoses. It has seen a decrease of incarcerations for drug offences by over 40%. Instead, in Canada over the last decade, we have seen so many preventable deaths and now this problem has accelerated into a full-blown crisis across the country.

Last month the Province of British Columbia announced a record number of people had died so far this year from overdoses. There were 201 deaths in the month of October alone, the highest ever in a single month. Think of all the families we are talking about, all 201 families affected by the loss of loved ones in a single month in a single province. This is a crisis.

Numbers released by the B.C. Coroners Service show a death toll in the first 10 months of 2021 in British Columbia being 1,782, surpassing the 1,765 deaths recorded in all of 2020. B.C.'s chief coroner, Lisa Lapointe, was direct in her assessment of the situation in B.C., a situation no different than any other jurisdiction. “Simply put, we are failing,” she said. With six people dying every single day in British Columbia, the status quo cannot be accepted.

That is why recognizing the stark reality of the opioid crisis, the City of Vancouver, the Province of British Columbia and now the City of Toronto have all three applied to the Minister of Health for an emergency exemption from the provisions of the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act that criminalizes personal possession of small quantities of illegal drugs. They are asking that we recognize that criminalization only adds more harm to the toll addiction takes on its victims.

Where are the Liberals on decriminalization of so-called “hard” drugs, either as a temporary exemption or permanent strategy to shift our response to addiction from punishment to health care? One might be surprised to learn that decriminalization is the official policy of the Liberal Party, endorsed more than three years ago at its 2018 convention in Halifax. Perhaps some will be even more surprised to learn that the government was advised to move on decriminalization of personal possession of drugs before the last election.

The previous Minister of Health appointed a commission of experts to advise on drug policies well before that election. Don MacPherson, executive director of the Canadian Drug Policy Coalition at Simon Fraser, was part of the task force that simply said that charging people with simple possession and seizing their drugs makes no sense.

In a CBC Radio interview, MacPherson said, “There's mountains of evidence that show it's a bad thing. It's harmful, it hurts people and there is not really an upside to it.” He continued saying, “So the task force...came fairly quickly to the conclusion that the federal government should immediately start work on putting forward a plan to decriminalize simple possession of drugs across the board.”

The task force submitted that report before the election and has since followed up with the new Minister of Health and the new Minister of Mental Health and Addictions, but MacPherson reports they have yet to hear anything back.

Since we returned to Parliament last month, MPs have been increasingly vocal in raising their concerns about the opioid crisis. Certainly, my leader of the New Democratic Party, the member for Burnaby South, has repeatedly called on the government to commit to moving quickly on decriminalization. This call has come from all parties and all parts of the country, urban and rural.

Last August, during the election campaign, even the Conservative leader added his voice to those calling for shifting our approach from punishment to treatment as the way to respond to the opioid crisis, though he did not go quite as far as decriminalization.

Last week, the new member for Yukon, who was previously the Territories' medical health officer before running for the Liberal Party, rose in this Commons to acknowledge that the Yukon has the highest rate of opioid deaths in the country. The new Green MP, the member for Kitchener Centre, made a moving statement in this House on the scourge of opioid deaths in his community.

Indeed, when the new cabinet was appointed, we saw the appointment of the first Minister of Mental Health and Addictions at the federal level, which many of us took as encouragement and acknowledgement of the urgency and seriousness of the opioid crisis.

Therefore, when we know the severity of the problem and we know the solutions, it surely becomes incumbent upon all of us in the House to ensure that we act. Therefore, where is that action? It is not in Bill C-5.

Unfortunately, when it comes to the three emergency decriminalization applications from Vancouver, B.C., and Toronto, we have no indication that things are moving quickly. Under the leadership of Mayor Kennedy Stewart, a former member of the House, Vancouver submitted its preliminary application for an exemption on March 3, and its final application June 1. British Columbia's application was submitted November 1 and Toronto's December 1. It is not like the government has been taken surprise by these requests, yet all the Minister of Mental Health and Addictions is reported to have said is, “We are looking at these proposals very, very seriously.”

At the same time, the minister refused to set a timeline for a decision on these applications. Instead, the minister veered off into an argument that decriminalization alone would not solve the opioid crisis, as if anyone ever thought decriminalization by itself was a solution to addiction rather than an important measure of harm reduction.

The minister said that other options were being considered, including establishing a safe supply of opioids to give injection drug users an alternative to the increasingly toxic fentanyl now on the streets. She indicated the federal government was also looking at setting up more safe injection sites and making more counselling available. Yes, that it is all good, but there is no need to wait on decriminalization while putting together a more complete package.

What was especially disappointing to hear was the minister in one interview referring to these ideas as “innovative”. She should know that these are not new ideas, but rather tried and true harm reduction strategies with a track record of nothing but success.

When it comes to the temporary decriminalization applications, the B.C. minister of mental health and addictions, Sheila Malcolmson, also a former member of this House, told reporters last week that Health Canada staff had identified no barriers to speedy processing and approval of B.C.'s decriminalization application.

Where are we? On the one hand, we see no real sense of urgency on the short-term exemption applications and, on the other hand, that leaves us with Bill C-5, which reflects none of that necessary urgency to move toward permanent and complete decriminalization of personal possession of drugs. The narrow scope of Bill C-5, as drafted, certainly means that, for technical reasons, we cannot likely add decriminalization through amendments at the committee stage.

That brings me back to the question of what is Bill C-5 really about. It seems that in the government's mind, this must be a bill primarily about tackling systemic racism in our justice system. If that is the goal of the bill, is there enough there to support?

Clearly removing mandatory minimums for drug offences would be a step forward. Even better would be removing mandatory minimums for all but the most serious violent offences. That is not there, not in Bill C-5. The frustration with the ineffectiveness of mandatory minimums has gone so far as to see a provincial court judge in Campbell River last week substituting probation for a mandatory jail sentence for a woman convicted of dealing fentanyl to support her own addiction. The judge said that she could see no positive impact of a jail sentence in that case.

Not only does Bill C-5 fail to address cases like the Campbell River case, but as well Bill C-5 is missing other elements that would help right the wrongs caused by systemic racism in the justice system. Let us make no mistake about how serious this problem is.

Correctional investigator Ivan Zinger reported in 2020 that while indigenous people made up 4.9% of the total population of Canada, they made up just over 30% of the people in Canadian prisons. Approximately 3.5% of Canadians identified as Black in the last census, yet Black Canadians make up more than 7% of those in prison.

When we look at indigenous and racialized women, the figures are even more stark. Zinger reported that Black women made up just over 9% of women incarcerated and indigenous women made up a shocking 42% of the population in women's prisons. This is the result of mandatory minimums.

The injustice does not end with incarceration as then there is the legacy of a criminal record. Not only have indigenous and racialized Canadians been disproportionately targeted for investigation, prosecution, diversion, fining and imprisonment, the most marginalized among us then end up stuck with criminal records, criminal records that make getting a job almost impossible, criminal records that often restrict access to affordable housing. Bill C-5 lacks any provision for automatic expungement of criminal records for drug possession, something for which the NDP has been calling for more than two years.

Automatic expungement is clearly what is needed after seeing the failure of the government's program for expedited pardons for marijuana convictions, a program that has granted pardons for less than 500 people of the estimated 10,000 eligible in the two years it has been operating. We need something better; we need automatic expungement of these records.

Again, the narrow drafting of Bill C-5 means, for technical reasons, we likely cannot add those elements we really need to tackle racial injustice to the bill. Certainly we cannot add expungement. It is likely we cannot even add additional offences where mandatory minimums now apply to the removal list.

Therefore, I have a question for the government, one I had already been exploring with it before we rushed into this debate. Is there not a way we can make this bill do more to address both racial injustice and the opioid crisis?

The New Democrats are ready to talk, but we probably need to do so before we reach the conclusion of this second reading debate. There is one possibility I will put forward right now to get the ball rolling, and I have to credit the work of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which put forth the following recommendation in call to action 32 more than six years ago. This call to action states:

We call upon the federal government to amend the Criminal Code to allow trial judges, upon giving reasons, to depart from mandatory minimum sentences and restrictions on the use of conditional sentences.

This proposal would allow judges to ignore mandatory minimums where there are good reasons to do so, including the good reason that mandatory minimum sentences are, in and of themselves, most often unjust. This call to action to restore discretion to judges over sentencing for offences where mandatory minimums have been imposed is clearly doable, it is just not in Bill C-5.

A way to put this call to action into legislation has been provided in what is now Bill S-213. Again, it is probably not possible to add restoring discretion for judges when it comes to mandatory minimums to Bill C-5 in committee, because this idea is far beyond the scope of the existing bill.

What I am asking of the government is whether we can think about using the relatively rare process of sending Bill C-5 to committee before the vote at second reading. This would allow the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights to alter the scope of the bill and to add missing provisions like the TRC call to action 32 to Bill C-5, and to add expungement to it. That would put some teeth in this bill.

Sending Bill C-5 to committee before a second reading vote would require a motion from the minister, and he has that opportunity later today when he speaks.

Let me conclude with this offer to work with the government on Bill C-5. This is renewing the offer New Democrats made when the bill was originally introduced in the last Parliament. I make this offer pointing to the progress we were able to make on bills like Bill C-4 and Bill C-3, when we were able to work together on common goals and purposes.

If sending Bill C-5 to committee before a second reading vote is not the way forward in the government's view, then let us work together to find other ways to strengthen the bill.

Am I optimistic about the chances of Bill C-5 proceeding? With the bill as it stands, can the government actually convince the New Democrats that there is enough in Bill C-5 to justify proceeding quickly or even proceeding at all? As I have said, I have good ideas about how we can ensure that is true.

I know there are misgivings in other parties about certain provisions of the bill, but I also know that no one in the House is unaware of the systemic racism in our justice system and its impact on racialized and indigenous Canadians. As well, I know no one in the House wants to turn a blind eye to the suffering imposed on families by the opioid crisis.

I also know we will not get a lot of opportunities to address systemic racism in the justice system in this minority Parliament and will not get many, if any, other opportunities anytime soon to respond effectively to the opioid crisis. Let us not waste the opportunity we have before us now with Bill C-5 to do one, the other or both—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

I am afraid the hon. member has run out of time.

Questions and comments, the hon. member for Humber River—Black Creek.

[Judy Sgro, Liberal, Humber River—Black Creek, ON]

Madam Speaker, it is critically important to hear from many of us, as we try to deal with some of the issues facing society today. The numbers speak for themselves, no matter what we want to think otherwise. The numbers clearly indicate that the governments of the day have to take some action. They are asking for that action, and I would hope our government will respond in a very quick fashion.

Given that we now have a Minister of Mental Health and Addictions, does the hon. member recognize that this is another step in the right direction to accomplish the goals that many of us in the House want to see?

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke, BC]

Madam Speaker, as I said in my speech, the creation of the Minister of Mental Health and Addictions at the federal level is encouraging. Now the minister has to actually take actions. Since March, the government has had a proposal from the City of Vancouver for a temporary exemption to the criminalization of personal possession of small amounts of drugs. When will the minister act on that application?

[Frank Caputo, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

Madam Speaker, it is always a pleasure to rise on behalf of the citizens of Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo.

One thing that seemed to be missing from my colleague's eloquent words was victims. Frequently victims are racialized people, disproportionately, in fact, and that has to be stated when we are discussing this. I also thought I heard my hon. colleague say that he was in favour of repealing all mandatory minimums.

Would that go for sexual offences against children, including those under section 164.1 of the Criminal Code, which involves production and distribution of child sex abuse material?

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke, BC]

Madam Speaker, I am going to speak very carefully here.

In no way did the member hear me say “removing all mandatory minimums.” I said, very clearly, except for “the most serious violent offences.” I always take offence in the chamber when members rise and accuse me, an adult survivor of child abuse, of being weak when it comes to offences against children. I have this personal experience and I am happy to speak about it publicly, because the more the victims of this abuse speak out, the more effective we can be at helping them go on with their lives.

[Denis Trudel, Bloc, Longueuil—Saint-Hubert, QC]

Madam Speaker, I want to echo what my colleague from Rivière-du-Nord said earlier. Violent gun crimes have been on the rise, and someone was even shot in a library in Laval not too long ago. However, the bill that the government has introduced includes a provision to repeal minimum penalties for certain firearm possession crimes. This is a rather strange time for the government to propose that. What does my colleague think?

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke, BC]

Madam Speaker, I spent 20 years teaching criminal justice before I came to the House. The literature, professionally, was already clear that mandatory minimums did nothing to deter crime. No one who is about to commit a crime gets out his or her Criminal Code, looks up what the penalty will be and makes a decision on whether to commit that crime based on whether there is a mandatory minimum. It is simply an absurd view.

However, as I stated in a previous question, we have had more than a decade of experience with mandatory minimums in our country, especially on firearms, and they have done nothing to deter firearms crime. There are many other ways to tackle this crime; mandatory minimums make no contribution.