Mr. Speaker, I am grateful for the opportunity to speak today to private member's bill, Bill C‑220, an act to amend the Criminal Code with regard to immigration status in sentencing, introduced by the member for Calgary Nose Hill.
This bill raises fundamental questions about our justice system, such as the individualization of sentences, proportionality, parity and, above all, the key role the judiciary plays in determining fair sentences that are tailored to the circumstances of each case. It also touches on the delicate but very real intersection between our criminal justice system and our immigration system.
However, far from improving this system, Bill C‑220 weakens it. It seeks to take away some of the critically important discretion judges have and to overturn, without justification or evidence, the Supreme Court of Canada's unanimous jurisprudence. This should be of concern to us all.
According to the Conservative member who introduced this bill, the courts give preferential treatment or overly lenient sentences to non-citizens when they consider the consequences of immigration, such as the loss of the right to appeal or the possibility of removal from Canada.
The facts do not support this claim. No study, no analysis and no attorney general, either federal or provincial, has indicated that the courts are misusing the existing jurisprudence. When very minor sentence reductions occur, such as a one-day reduction, they are rare, transparent and entirely subject to appeal. The bill therefore proposes a heavy-handed and rigid solution to a problem that simply does not exist.
The bill creates a new section 718.202 in the Criminal Code that would explicitly prohibit judges from considering any immigration-related consequences when sentencing someone who is not a Canadian citizen. In other words, even if a sentence of six months, rather than five months and 29 days, automatically triggers the loss of the right to appeal a deportation order, the court would be legally obligated to ignore the very real impact and serious consequences this would have.
Citizens serve their sentence and return to their community. Permanent residents and people who came to Canada when they were children could be sent back to a country they do not know. Judges would be forced to pretend as though this reality does not exist. That is not justice, it is not proportionate and it is certainly not what our Constitution requires.
In 2013, under a Conservative government, the Supreme Court of Canada clearly stated that some of the very real consequences of sentencing include consequences related to immigration status and, as such, they can be considered by the courts. The court made two key points on the matter. Yes, a judge can take into account immigration-related consequences to ensure that the sentence, as a whole, remains proportional to the crime committed. The court also said that, no, those consequences cannot outweigh the seriousness of the offence or the moral responsibility of the accused, no matter what Conservatives say. The framework we have is balanced, reasonable and constitutional, and it has been working for over a decade. However, today, the Conservatives are proposing to abolish that jurisprudence. They were in power when that decision was made. They had two years to do something about it, if they thought it was really a problem, but they did not do so.
The member for Calgary Nose Hill and the Leader of the Opposition, who was the member for Carleton at the time, were government members then. However, they did nothing at the time. That tells us that what they are trying to do today is not to correct an injustice, but to recycle a punitive policy that, at the time, had already been subject to constitutional challenges on a number of occasions.
Anyone familiar with criminal law knows that. Sentencing is based on a fundamental principle: individualization. Two people who commit the same crime will not necessarily have the same history, vulnerabilities or family responsibilities, nor face the same consequences. The courts already take a wide range of collateral consequences into account for all Canadians, not just for immigrants. Collateral consequences can include the loss of a job, the risk of homelessness, a lengthy family separation, mental health impacts and, in some cases, the inability to pursue an education. Why, then, single out only one category of consequences—immigration consequences—and prohibit judges from considering them?
This inconsistency clearly shows that Bill C‑220 is not founded on legal logic, but on political logic. In reality, the effects of a criminal sentence vary widely depending on the immigration status of the person convicted.
The Immigration and Refugee Protection Act states that a sentence of six months or more means an automatic loss of the right to appeal a deportation order, and a sentence of more than six months or an offence punishable by 10 years means that it is possible to be deemed inadmissible on the grounds of a serious crime.
Those consequences are not part of the Criminal Code. They are the result of a parallel administrative regime created by Parliament. Prohibiting judges from considering those consequences means accepting or even institutionalizing the fact that two people convicted of the same offence will experience fundamentally different consequences. Yes, a two-tier justice system, that is what our Conservative colleague wants to set up with Bill C‑220, and it is the opposition's bill that would create that injustice, not the courts.
Our government opposes Bill C‑220, particularly because it is ill-conceived, because it is not based on evidence, because it violates the principle of proportionality, parity and fundamental justice, and because it would undermine judicial independence, a pillar of the rule of law.
When someone proposes measures to amend the Criminal Code, when they say they want to improve public safety, they need to approach it seriously in the House. They need to ensure that the proposed measures truly respect our Constitution. That is not the case here. Bill C-220 and other private members' bills introduced by colleagues from the official opposition would be struck down by the courts. This is simply a waste of time, a waste of resources and results in disappointment for Canadians.
On our side of the House, we understand that, and we make sure that we propose legislation that is truly tailored to the situations we are dealing with. We also ensure the proposed legislation is constitutional. For example, I am thinking of Bill C-14, which proposes a major overhaul of the Canadian bail and sentencing system. This bill proposes more than 80 amendments to the Criminal Code that are, I repeat, in line with our Constitution. We want to make it more difficult for criminals, particularly violent repeat offenders, to obtain bail and ensure that sentences are truly proportional to the crimes committed. We are very serious about safety in our communities. I invite my colleagues to support us in our legislative work on Bill C-14.
Other initiatives that come to mind are Bill C‑12, which aims to strengthen border security; Bill C‑9, which aims to combat hate crimes in our communities; and our commitment to better protect victims of intimate partner violence. There is also our strategy to combat fraud and financial crimes that typically impact vulnerable people such as seniors. Our government is serious. We are going to implement the first anti-fraud strategy, and we have allocated resources in the 2025 budget to support these initiatives.
I am also thinking of all the investments being made in the 2025 budget. This demonstrates how serious our new government is about public safety.
I am thinking of our border plan, the largest investment ever made Canada to ensure that our borders are secure. This is an important issue in my riding given that it has more than five border crossings. I am also thinking about our investments to increase the number of RCMP officers and CBSA agents. When we invest in public safety, we also understand that we must prevent crime upstream. That is why we are investing in housing, mental health and youth supports—to address the issue of petty crimes and property crimes before they even happen.
With Bill C‑14, we are strengthening actions against those who pose the greatest risks. In addition, with our budget, we are also investing in preventing crime from happening in the first place, and that is very important.
Bill C‑220 will not make Canadians safer. It will not build trust in the justice system. It will only lead to injustices, inconsistencies and predictable constitutional challenges. Our role is to build an effective, fair and evidence-based justice system, not to build one based on political slogans. However, the bill from the member for Calgary Nose Hill puts rhetoric ahead of sound, evidence-based policy. Justice must not be blind to the consequences of its own decisions. Bill C‑220 calls for exactly that, and for these reasons, I will be voting against the bill, and I am asking all my colleagues from all parties to vote against it.