Debates of June 9th, 2022

The House resumed consideration of the motion.

Bill C-5—Time Allocation Motion

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

Pursuant to Standing Order 67.1, there will now be a 30-minute question period. I invite hon. members who wish to ask questions to rise in their places or use the “raise hand” function so the Chair has some idea of the number of members who wish to participate in this question period.

I see that many people want to participate, so I will have to put fairly strict time limits on questions and comments.

The member for Barrie—Innisfil.

[John Brassard, Conservative, Barrie—Innisfil, ON]

Madam Speaker, once again we are privy to a front-row seat to the decline in democracy. Bill C-5, the soft-on-crime bill, has gone through committee, and there have been thousands and millions of dissenting voices on this bill. There have been advocates and stakeholders, and there have been police chiefs and police forces across Canada that have spoken against this bill, because it does diminish mandatory minimum sentences.

Just to give an example, Bill C-5 would eliminate a number of mandatory minimum sentences related to gun crimes, including robbery with a firearm, extortion with a firearm, and weapons trafficking excluding firearms and ammunition. This would only embolden criminals, make them more brazen, in our communities in Canada.

The Liberals have been aided and abetted in this time allocation, this motion of closure, by their puppy-dog partners in the NDP. They have pulled the choke collar on the New Democrats to get them to conform and sit and be good partners in this. This decline in democracy, this assault, will not make our communities safer and will threaten the lives of Canadians across the country.

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

I hear other voices that I have not recognized, and I would ask those individuals to please hold on to their thoughts quietly until they are recognized to speak.

The hon. government House leader.

[Mark Holland, Liberal, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Madam Speaker, I would say that we diminish democracy when we talk to fellow colleagues in the way the member opposite just did. To talk about working collaboratively as parliamentarians and to categorize it in the way the member did is disrespectful to this place.

We had a minority government that was elected in the last election, and there was an expectation that Canadians had of us that we would come together, work collaboratively, reach across the aisle and try to find common cause and common purpose, and that, even as we criticize each other and even as we are in different parties and often have different views, we would respectfully try to find middle ground.

I would suggest that out of the gates the Conservatives were doing that on Bill C-3 and on Bill C-4, but somewhere along the line that disappeared. Suddenly, collaboration of any kind, working together in any way, is seen as undemocratic. That is preposterous. Having votes in the House of Commons is not undemocratic. Moving legislation through the House of Commons is not undemocratic. It debases this institution to say that it is, and it particularly debases this institution when the Conservatives themselves use time allocation more than anybody else in any government that has ever been, so it is dishonest—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

I have to allow for other questions.

The hon. member for La Prairie.

[Alain Therrien, Bloc, La Prairie, QC]

Madam Speaker, I could talk about Bill C-5 and provide a detailed explanation as to why we should spend more time discussing it, but that is not even the issue anymore. It is as though we were starring in Groundhog Day, revisiting the same scenario over and over again. The government is bombarding us with gag orders day after day and limiting time for debate.

Members of Parliament are supposed to fine-tune the bills tabled by the government. On top of that, this is a minority government. It needs to be said: Quebeckers and Canadians gave this government a minority mandate so that members of Parliament can do their work properly, rein in the government when necessary, work together, and make the government understand that any bill can always be improved. However, that is not what we are seeing here today, and the Bloc Québécois can only deplore it.

I have a simple question. When will this never-ending string of gag orders stop?

[Mark Holland, Liberal, Ajax, ON]

Madam Speaker, there is no doubt we have had plenty of time for debate. We debated at second reading for several days, and the bill was in committee for nine days. Now we are here debating it at third reading and then the Senate will have time to debate it, so there has been a lot of time to debate and propose amendments. There comes a point when we have to vote and move into the action phase.

We see reducing the number of vulnerable people who come into the system having committed no serious crime as absolutely essential, along with reducing the number of indigenous and Black people in the system in general. That is our goal. We have spent a long time debating; now it is time to act.

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

Madam Speaker, there are very important things in Bill C-5 in the reduction of mandatory minimum sentences, which have terrible impacts on indigenous and racialized Canadians. However, I have to correct the record for the Conservatives and the Bloc members, who seem not to have paid attention to what happened in committee.

We did work collaboratively in committee, and government members accepted two amendments from the NDP, which have strengthened the bill. One of those amendments would get rid of criminal records for personal possession of drugs within two years, and the other strengthens the accountability mechanisms through record-keeping when police use their discretion to avoid charging people. Those are two important improvements in the bill.

When they talk about how Parliament is supposed to work, that is exactly how it worked in committee. We got a better bill, a stronger bill, and today I am going to support this motion for time allocation, because we have to get this done on behalf of those Canadians who suffer from the mandatory minimums that were introduced at one time by the Liberals but also, primarily, by the Conservatives.

[Mark Holland, Liberal, Ajax, ON]

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague opposite, and I completely agree with him that there were a number of amendments moved at committee that improved this bill. A number were moved by the NDP, which I think were very important, and there was one moved by the Conservatives, which was adopted. That is what Canadians expect: that, despite the fact that we have our differences and we come to this place with different ideas of how we can improve the country, improve the safety of the country and improve the condition of Canadians generally, we find ways to work together. That is exactly what happened with this bill.

Addressing the absolutely terrible overrepresentation of indigenous people and Black individuals is something that is at the core of this bill, but really it is taking a lesson from what has not worked elsewhere: longer sentences, removing judicial discretion, and removing the opportunity to look at the individual circumstances of a case when we are dealing with somebody who does not represent a threat to community safety. When we are looking at first-time offenders when they are having that first intersection with their life turning down a dark path, we should make sure that we inject ourselves at that point, look at their circumstances and find a more positive way to redirect them. That is the right way to go. We have seen that in jurisdiction after jurisdiction that has tried the approach the Conservatives are pushing, it has failed. It has failed to increase public safety, and it actually makes things a lot worse.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Madam Speaker, I very much support Bill C-5. I agree with everything the hon. government House leader has just said about the importance of criminal justice actually being effective in deterring crime and not resulting in the disproportionate convictions of people of colour and indigenous people in this country, which is clear on the record.

My concern is about using time allocation. It is true that it was started under the previous Conservative government, but I have to say that it has been pursued with a vengeance by the current Liberal government. I do not see any difference in how frequently time allocation is being used. My concern is, as it is with everything in this place, that those things that start as bad habits quickly become rules. We are essentially saying time after time that parliamentary debate and our Standing Orders for how legislation proceeds through this place are just inconvenient and slow things down.

I am not without sympathy for the government's point of view, because of the obstruction from other parties, but I will say this. I do not think we have an election looming. The Liberal-NDP confidence and supply agreement does not suggest that if we do not get this bill through before the end of June we will have a terrible calamity in getting the bill to the Senate.

I would ask the hon. House leader to reconsider the routine use of shutting down debate in this place.

[Mark Holland, Liberal, Ajax, ON]

Madam Speaker, to my hon. colleague, I will say that it is certainly not my preference. When we started, we actually had a really good beginning, I think, working with the Conservative opposition on Bill C-3 and on Bill C-4, where ideas came forward. We were able to work together and we were able to find middle ground. Then there was a change. All of a sudden, with Bill C-8 as an example, it took over four months. Consistently, we were told “just a couple more speakers, just a bit more time”. Four months disappeared, and an enormous amount of House time was used.

At a certain point in time, I had to come to the realization that there was no earnest effort to move things through the House, that the interest was in obstruction. We saw that in Bill C-14. Bill C-14 is a bill that the Conservatives support. Even though they support it, they were moving amendments to hear their own members, shutting down the House, moving concurrence motions and using them to obstruct. I am left with one of two choices: get nothing passed or use time allocation. As they obstruct, on the one hand they block any legislation from moving forward and not even allow that as an option; on the other hand, they criticize the only tool we have to actually get legislation done, a tool they used with great frequency.

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

Madam Speaker, to the government House leader, conditional sentence orders are a very important tool to ensure that those who pose no risk to society are able to have alternatives to spending time in jail.

I wonder if my colleague can outline how that is going to impact incarceration, particularly of indigenous and Black Canadians. I would note that prior to the many of the mandatory minimum penalties that came in, there were about 11,000 conditional sentence orders that were imposed. Right now, we are hovering around the 6,000 mark, so almost 5,000 Canadians a year spend time unnecessarily in detention and, as a result, face an increased risk of reoffending because of the system they are in.

[Mark Holland, Liberal, Ajax, ON]

Madam Speaker, it was Newt Gingrich in the United States who started the movement on increasing the amount of time in incarceration. He called it the greatest mistake of his career. After reflection and seeing how disastrous it was in the United States, he said that policy was the biggest mistake of his political life. When we take a look at the United States, the United Kingdom or Australia, we see that in every instance where a policy has been pursued to increase incarceration, it has not led to lower crime rates. It has led to higher rates of recidivism, more problems and more crime.

We need to move outside of the talking points and actually think about what is happening. As the question posed by my hon. colleague, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice, has indicated, when we have first-time offenders, low-risk offenders, rather than have them in prison, where they learn to be professional criminals and where they are in an environment that is not conducive to their rehabilitation, if we can divert them and redirect them to a different path, that is what augments and improves community safety.

[Rob Moore, Conservative, Fundy Royal, NB]

Madam Speaker, the hon. member keeps perpetuating the same myth. He mentioned Newt Gingrich and former prime minister Stephen Harper. The mandatory minimums that would be eliminated in Bill C-5, and it is important for Canadians to know this, are not from a Conservative government. They are from a Liberal government. I do not know why Liberals cannot accept that part of their past.

The mandatory minimums for extortion with a firearm, discharging a firearm with intent, and robbery with a firearm were introduced by Liberal governments. I know the hon. member served with former Liberal MP and parliamentary secretary for justice Marlene Jennings. He knows her. She said, “It was a Liberal government that brought in mandatory minimum sentencing for gun-related crimes. This is a whole category of them, where currently it is a minimum of one year. There is a second category of designated offences where it currently is four years. Liberals sought to increase the one year to two years and the four years to five years at committee.”

Is the hon. member suggesting that Marlene Jennings does not know what she is talking about?

[Mark Holland, Liberal, Ajax, ON]

Madam Speaker, what I am suggesting is that science and evidence have borne out that giving judicial discretion improves community safety. What does that mean? It means that a judge can look at an individual situation and consider—

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

I am going to interrupt the member. I did not hear any blowback when the hon. member from the official opposition was asking a question. I would ask for the same respect when the government is answering a question. If individuals have other thoughts or views, then they should wait until they are recognized during questions and comments.

The hon. government House leader.

[Mark Holland, Liberal, Ajax, ON]

Madam Speaker, I did listen very respectfully to my hon. colleague's comment and the discussion. I believe that he and I want to make sure that community safety is improved in this country, that our neighbours are living in communities that are as safe as they can possibly be, and that we adopt policies for that. If we both agree that is our premise, then obviously what we need to do is look at the evidence. The evidence says that judges are allowed to look at an individual situation, which, by the way, means that they can actually give a sentence that is greater than the mandatory minimum, but it means they might give one less than that if they determine it is not in the best interests of public safety and rehabilitation to have that higher sentence.

What we have seen, particularly for vulnerable people, is that if they are incarcerated for a long period of time, the likelihood of them reoffending is much higher.

[Sébastien Lemire, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Madam Speaker, Bill C-5, in and of itself, is an interesting bill, but we get the feeling that it comes with a poison pill, which bothers me. Two bills that do not necessarily have anything to do with one another are being lumped together to get the less popular one passed.

As the government House leader, the member is responsible for the government's strategy.

Why is the government trying to hand us poison pills yet again? Why can we not have transparent debates in the best interests of Canadians on issues that affect them?

[Mark Holland, Liberal, Ajax, ON]

Madam Speaker, it is clear to me that this bill is extremely important to national security and public safety, in general, and I do not think it contains anything that is inappropriate. One of its objectives is to reduce the incarceration rates of indigenous people and vulnerable people. I think this bill has clear objectives and will work well for the country.

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Madam Speaker, I rise today to echo the calls from the Black Legal Action Centre, the Canadian Association of Elizabeth Fry Societies and the Women's Legal Education and Action Fund.

We know that there have been some incremental steps that are, by and large, due to some of the good amendments that we were able to put forward as New Democrats. In the Liberals' submission to the committee, they called for the removal of mandatory minimums that were deemed to be unconstitutional, the removal of the band of conditional sentencing for offences that had mandatory minimum penalties, and the fulfillment of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission's call to action 32 to allow a trial judge, upon giving reasons, to depart from the mandatory minimum sentence.

Finally, there are lots of conversations about these disproportional impacts on Canadians of African descent, yet the government still has not addressed an amendment to subsection 718.2(e) of the Criminal Code so that sentencing judges can have the information required to pass appropriate sentences on Black defendants.

When will the government finally get around to listening to communities and taking substantive steps, rather than incremental steps, toward justice within this country?

[Mark Holland, Liberal, Ajax, ON]

Madam Speaker, it certainly is an incredibly important matter. The Black Canadian justice strategy is being developed right now, and this is something that is being looked at. I encourage the member to continue to participate in that process as we take action to make sure that what we do in our criminal justice system actually achieves the objective of improving community safety and making sure we do not disproportionately affect vulnerable people.

One thing is really unfortunate. We all hate crime, obviously. We all abhor it. We see violence and we want it to be over and to end it. When we play games with that and when we give overly simplistic solutions, it does an incredible injustice to what has to be done. What has to be done is to make sure that in each and every situation we look at what is in the best interests of rehabilitation, reducing recidivism and making our communities safe.

That is what this bill does. It would allow judges to have discretion in those cases where community safety is not threatened. Where there are low-risk offenders or first-time offenders, there is the opportunity to have the discretion to make sure their lives get turned on to a positive path and that we do not overincarcerate, thereby having our prisons overrepresented by certain populations.

[Larry Brock, Conservative, Brantford—Brant, ON]

Madam Speaker, it is time to dispel a myth that has been percolating in the House for some time now, particularly from the Liberal government and supported by the NDP. It is this notion that conditional sentences are going to substantially decrease the overincarceration of marginalized offenders, particularly Black Canadians and indigenous offenders.

We heard at committee from two police chiefs. One was Chief Robert Davis, who is an indigenous police chief and the only indigenous police chief of a municipal police service. The other was Chief Darren Montour, who is an indigenous police chief on the Six Nations of the Grand River, which is the largest reservation in Canada. Both individuals, who have significant decades of policing, confirmed that conditional sentences do not work. They do not have the resources to monitor compliance. Working in the trenches, they are seeing prosecution after prosecution of offenders who continually repeat breaches of their conditional sentence orders.

How can the government indicate now that this is somehow going to decrease the overincarceration rate? We have empirical evidence, particularly in my riding but as well as from across the country, that it does not work.