Madam Speaker, I am happy to rise virtually to speak to Bill C-5 at third reading, but I have to say that I look forward to the day when circumstances do not force me to give speeches through pinhole cameras, with all the technical problems that go with it.
I want to start today by talking about what Bill C-5 is and what it is not. I want to say clearly, as we approach third reading of this bill, that I am happy to speak in support of it because of what is actually in it.
Though modest, Bill C-5 is an important contribution to tackling the systemic racism in our justice system. All we have to do is take a brief look at the statistics, which show that despite no more involvement with drugs by certain communities and no more involvement in criminal activities, certain members of Canadian society, indigenous people and racialized Canadians, end up in prison far more often, far out of proportion to other Canadians.
The correctional investigator pointed out that indigenous people make up less than 5% of the population, but over 30% of the people in Canadian prisons. Canadians who identify as Black are about 3.5% of the population and over 7% of those who are in prison. The situation is worse when it comes to indigenous women and women who live in poverty. These women make up over 50% of the population in women's prisons. Again, if we look at Black Canadian women, they are about 3% of the population but make up over 9% of the inmates in correctional institutions. Clearly, we have a problem with systemic racism in our justice system.
Bill C-5 would also make a modest contribution to the fight against the toxic drug poisoning crisis in our country. Removing mandatory minimums for drug offences and increasing the ability of police and of judges to divert those who are struggling with addiction from prison to treatment will obviously help.
Is there more we can do on both systemic racism and the opioid crisis? Clearly there is.
Let me talk at the outset about what Bill C-5 does not do, because we have heard many outrageous claims, from the Conservatives in particular but sometimes also from the Bloc, about what the bill does. The bill does not in any way reduce sentences that judges will hand out for serious crimes. Removing mandatory minimums does exactly what it sounds like: It removes the minimum penalty for an offence, not the maximum, not the average, not the normal penalty, but the minimum.
The evidence we heard at committee, as well as the evidence in criminal justice, is quite clear. The mandatory minimums do not deter crimes. There are very few criminals who thumb through the Criminal Code to decide which offence offers them the best deal, obviously. We know from research what the real deterrent is, and that is getting caught. All criminals tend to think that they are the smartest in the bunch and will not get caught, but it is that fear of enforcement that is actually a deterrent to crime.
The evidence shows us that mandatory minimums, if anything, actually increase the likelihood of recidivism and that in fact their existence makes the public, if anything, less safe rather than more safe. We should pay no attention to those who tell us that Bill C-5 is soft on crime. Instead, let us look for a moment at what it actually does.
It removes 20 mandatory minimum penalties: 14 from the Criminal Code and six from the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act. There are many more mandatory minimum penalties that could be removed, but we heard from experts that these 20 will make a significant difference when it comes to the overrepresentation of racialized and indigenous people in our correction system.
New Democrats do support maintaining mandatory minimums for the most serious, violent crimes, where there is evidence that longer times of supervision may make a difference and may be necessary for public safety, but we acknowledge that all mandatory minimums can and do have disproportionate impacts on indigenous people and racialized Canadians.
That is why we attempted to amend Bill C-5 at committee to add a waiver restoring judicial discretion in offences with mandatory minimums when it would be manifestly unjust to apply those mandatory minimums. This is in line with the Gladue principles, which require judges to consider the circumstances of aboriginal people when it comes to sentencing. Unfortunately, in the laws that exist right now, the Gladue principles do not apply where there is a mandatory minimum.
I do have to point out that I think the member for Rivière-du-Nord, from the Bloc, misremembered what happened at committee. There were several attempts by several MPs and parties to add this kind of waiver to Bill C-5, but due to the narrow drafting of the bill, unfortunately, they were ruled out of order, outside the scope of the bill, so no one voted against adding this waiver.
Again, New Democrats do support adding a parallel provision to the Gladue principles requiring judges to take into account the circumstances when it comes to sentencing racialized Canadians as well. This kind of waiver would be a further improvement to our attempts to attack the systemic racism that exists in our justice system.
Again, what is actually there? There are 20 mandatory minimums, most of which specify terms of imprisonment of less than two years, that would be removed. What this means is that if there is a mandatory minimum of less than two years, generally not much time would end up being served. When we take into account time that may have been served before the trial process, and when we take into account provisions for earlier release for good behaviour, which is essential for maintaining discipline within our corrections system, then the time served under these mandatory minimums would be very, very short in most cases.
It also means that the time would be served in provincial institutions, and those provincial institutions generally do not have extensive rehabilitation programs, due to the short time most offenders spend there. Obviously, if people are in custody only for a few months, they cannot really complete an addictions treatment program. They cannot really get training that might allow them to get a better job when they leave the corrections system. They cannot even complete literacy training, which is often important for those who have come into the criminal justice system, in that very short period of time. There is not enough time spent in custody, under these mandatory minimums, to get any real help that would allow people to be rehabilitated back into society and make them less of a threat to public safety.
What there is under these mandatory minimums is a guarantee that the offenders would serve just enough time to lose their job, their housing and often the custody of their children. These are pretty heavy additional penalties that I do not think were ever intended for things like personal possession of drugs. It is just enough time to make it more likely that the offenders would return to the behaviour that got them into trouble in the first place, rather than become successfully reintegrated into their community.
Instead of mandatory minimums, Bill C-5, and this is important, would grant additional access to conditional sentences, so judges may choose conditional sentences over those mandatory minimums right now. This means that judges may assign penalties like serving time on weekends or serving time under house arrest. This is important, because the Conservatives are again distorting what the bill would do. Judges are allowed to use conditional sentences only in those cases where the penalty being assigned is less than two years in custody. The kind of extreme examples the Conservatives are giving of things that would be subject to conditional sentences simply are not in this bill.
What a conditional sentence might do, if people serve time on weekends, is allow them to keep their job and be able to continue supporting their family. Time served under conditional sentence in house arrest might allow people to be the primary caregiver of their children and remain in the home so their kids do not go into custody. It could allow them to keep their family together. We have all seen the terrible impacts on both indigenous Canadians and racialized communities of kids ending up in care in a system that has just as many problems with systemic racism as our justice system does.
Again, Bill C-5 does nothing that would reduce the amount of time judges hand out for serious crimes, nothing at all. Judges' discretion and sentencing guidelines mean that serious crimes would continue to get serious time in custody even after Bill C-5 passes.
The third aspect of Bill C-5, the third major thing it would do that is actually in the bill, is that it would increase the ability of police and prosecutors to use warnings and diversions instead of charges when it comes to drug possession offences. The use of alternative measures, like warnings and referrals to counselling for low-level criminal offences, not only avoids wasting expensive court time and evades further delays in our court system, but there is the obvious connection made to diversion and avoiding future involvement in criminal activities. The obvious benefit of diversion is that it allows people to get drug treatment and get out of the addiction problems that led them into conflict with the criminal justice system.
All of these aspects of Bill C-5 would increase public safety and not, as opponents of the bill would have us believe, put public safety further at risk. No one denies that there are many crises in public safety we need to address, but what Bill C-5 does is create room in our criminal justice system to address the most serious crimes by taking the less serious crimes out of the justice system and allowing judges to apply penalties that would be the most appropriate, not just for the offender, but for making sure that offenders do not reoffend, thus helping defend or protect public safety in the community.
These three things, the elimination of 20 mandatory minimum penalties, increasing access to conditional sentences and increasing access to diversion, are why New Democrats said we would support the bill at second reading. Frankly, we were not that excited about this bill, because we had hoped the Liberals would be bolder when it came to tackling the problem of systemic racism in the criminal justice system. People may often hear that Parliament is dysfunctional and that we do not co-operate, but what we proved at the justice committee is that there can be co-operation to improve bills. At committee, we proposed four amendments, two of which were adopted, and I can say that personally I am now a lot more excited about the bill.
The first amendment adopted requires that records be kept on the use of discretion when it comes to diversion. That is important because keeping records on diversion will open up the use of police discretion to study and accountability. It will ensure that we can check that discretion is not just being used to favour those who are already the most privileged in society, but is being used fairly when it comes to indigenous people and racialized Canadians. The amendment also guarantees that warnings and diversions cannot be used in further court proceedings. That is an important factor in that it guarantees there is a real incentive to complete things like diversion.
The final amendment that was adopted tackles the question of criminal records for the personal possession of drugs. Bill C-5 would now guarantee that within two years all of these records will disappear, so that those who are often denied housing, employment, the ability to travel, bank loans and mortgages or the ability to volunteer with seniors or children will actually have those criminal records removed and be able to pursue rehabilitation into society that would allow them to make their way forward in life, just like other Canadians.
The Liberals previously set up a record suspension process for marijuana when it was legalized, but I have to point out that that process cleared the records of only 484 of the hundreds of thousands of people with records for simple possession. Bill C-5 will now clear them all. It will clear them all without an application process and without a fee.
Our amendment also dealt with future conditions for the personal possession of drugs, which is still possible after the government ensured the defeat of Bill C-216, the private member's bill of the member for Courtenay—Alberni, which would have decriminalized the personal possession of drugs completely. Since those convictions are still possible, what Bill C-5 now does, with our amendment, is guarantee that any new convictions will disappear from criminal records two years after the end of any sentence resulting from those convictions, and not result in a lifelong criminal record that has all those negative impacts I just talked about. This process, which the government is calling the “sequestering of records”, will make sure those criminal records do not show up in criminal record checks, and 250,000 Canadians will benefit directly.
Let us not listen to the naysayers who are trying to stir up public safety fears about Bill C-5. It is more than a little frustrating, when the bill will actually do so much more to help make our communities safer. It is frankly maddening to see opponents of this bill ignore its real impact in beginning to address the systemic racism that afflicts our justice system and makes the lives of so many indigenous and racialized Canadians that much harder.
Is this bill everything that community advocates hoped to see? No, it is not. The Liberals could have been bolder, as I said before, in addressing both systemic racism and the opioid crisis, but is Bill C-5 a significant step forward in addressing these concerns? I believe it is, and that is why New Democrats are happy to support Bill C-5 at third reading today.
