Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise on behalf of the law-abiding Canadians in the compassionate riding of Algonquin—Renfrew—Pembroke and speak to Bill C-238. This private member's bill proposes to allow community organizations to seek restitution for drug crimes or human trafficking crimes. Making criminals pay for the consequences of their crimes has an undeniably popular appeal.
The member for Sudbury's intentions with the bill may be honourable, but they are certainly misguided. It is an overused cliché to say that all good intentions lead to the fiery pits of damnation. Sometimes good intentions just lead to an endless bureaucratic maze. At other times those good intentions lead nowhere at all. Those two options are juxtaposed in the bill. Either it would never be used because the legal hurdles are too high, or it would be used but the accumulated costs would outweigh the benefits. My colleagues with actual lived experience in courtrooms explained how the wording of the bill makes it unlikely the bill would be of any use.
First, the expenses incurred would have to be directly linked to the criminal offence. A convicted drug trafficker cannot be ordered to pay for all overdose costs. The organization would need to show that the specific individual who overdosed purchased a specific dose from a specific trafficker. Second, the organization would have to prove the marginal cost to treat that overdose. Most organizations get naloxone kits from the provinces for free. Given the nature of the work that many of these organizations do, it just might be impossible to disentangle the routine expenses from the marginal expenses resulting from a criminal offence.
The bill lists the types of expenses an organization could claim. Not included on the list is the cost of accountants to ascertain the eligible expenses. One example of an expense perfectly highlights the problem with the bill: “expenses to implement or strengthen security measures, including expenses for security services and equipment”. This expense makes no sense, especially since the bill would limit restitution to cases of drug trafficking and human smuggling.
We could follow the lead of the Supreme Court and create a hypothetical case to highlight the absurdity, or we could look at the tragic events surrounding the death of Karolina Huebner-Makurat, a 44-year-old mother of two who was killed by a stray bullet on July 7, 2023, while walking near the South Riverdale Community Health Centre in Toronto. The shooting occurred during a fight between drug dealers outside the supervised consumption site located within the health centre. An employee of the health centre aided one of the drug dealers in fleeing the police.
If this bill had been law, and if the Crown had brought additional trafficking charges against the killers, the health centre would have been allowed to seek restitution for any strengthened security measures. Any security measures taken after the fact, such as installing a security camera, cannot be attributed to a specific crime. The crime has already happened. The camera cannot undo the crime. It may have been the impetus, but it is not the direct cause. The camera may reduce the likelihood of another crime, but that means it cannot reasonably be assigned to the initial crime.
The criminal act would also have to be so unusual or so impactful that it resulted in a permanent degradation of the security environment. While the murder of Karolina would certainly qualify as an example, murder is not on the list of crimes covered by the bill.
The South Riverdale Community Health Centre staff were well aware that drug trafficking was occurring outside. The organization had a long history of ignoring community concerns about the criminal activity centred around a safe consumption site. The organization acted as a magnet for traffickers. An employee of the organization fell in love with a drug trafficker and helped him hide from the police.
Measures taken after the fact are not driven by the last criminal acts but are intended to avoid liability for the consequences of any subsequent criminal acts. Proving that a specific criminal act resulted in a specific marginal expense to an organization is so onerous that it likely would never be pursued. If this bill were passed and never used, that would be the best case scenario. If it were used, it could have only one result: It would lengthen the sentencing hearings and further tie up scarce resources in the courts. Defence attorneys would have economists and accountants on speed-dial to contest every expense.
While drug traffickers are having their charges dropped because the cases take too long, the worst thing we could do is add to the delays by passing ill-considered laws. I doubt it is the intention of the member for Sudbury to add further delays to the criminal justice system, but that would be the impact.
At best, this bill is useless. At worst, it will help criminals get off scot-free.
As I said in the beginning, the motivations seem to be coming from a good place. The member for Sudbury wants to make criminals pay for the harms they cause. I think that is something all Canadians can get behind. There should be some way to connect the harm caused to an organization by the person or people causing the harm.
For example, when the government decided it would copy the playbook used by opioid makers and flooded our streets with narcotics, it caused harm. Giving out free hydromorphone like candy had the predictable result of creating new drug addicts. This bill would seek to help community organizations impacted by the surge in drug addiction, yet it is the government's harm production policy that is at the root of many of the problems those same organizations are experiencing.
Since crime rates peaked in the 1970s, they have been on a steady, 50-year decline. The year that mandatory minimums for gun possession were repealed was the last year we saw a decline in crime. The Liberal government saw those same statistics and proceeded to knowingly repeal mandatory minimum sentences for the very crimes this bill would cover. Again, those crimes are drug trafficking and human trafficking. We know the Liberal government is quite literally trafficking in hydromorphone.
The damage the Liberals have done to our immigration and asylum system was also a boon to human traffickers. Ending the visa requirement for Mexico was essentially a two-for-one deal. The cartels would fill up their drug mules, fly them to Canada, unload the drugs and then smuggle the people across the U.S. border. After Justin's “all are welcome to Canada” tweet, the RCMP had to set up welcome centres for all humans smuggled across the border at Roxham Road.
The additional costs being borne by community organizations on the front lines are directly tied to 11 long years of Liberal policies. This bill is like trying to put a band-aid on a machete wound, and the Liberals are the ones wielding the weapon.
I do not blame the member for Sudbury for bringing forward this kind of band-aid bill. She is following the Prime Minister's lead.
The Major Projects Office is another band-aid for the Liberal impact assessment machete.
The Liberals prefer band-aids over doing the hard work and announcements over results. They prefer these types of performative bills. Making criminals pay has popular appeal, but this bill is the wrong approach.
As my colleagues have pointed out, Canada already has mechanisms for victims of crime to seek restitution. If a criminal burns down a safe supply clinic, the Crown attorney can seek restitution for the organization, yet only 1.6% of criminal cases involve a restitution order. Of those, few are ever successfully collected.
There is a reason why drug dealers are more likely to live in their parents' basements: Crime does not pay. Drug pushers and human smugglers belong in jail. While the Liberals prefer that dealers and modern slave runners serve their sentences from home, they still cannot work.
This bill would try to squeeze water from a rock. It is clear that the member for Sudbury has heard from many of the same types of community organizations that I hear from in Renfrew County. They are under increasing financial pressure. Homeless shelters are filled with international students who now claim to be refugees, treatment centres are overrun, our food banks are overwhelmed and businesses are forced to close public washrooms due to rampant drug use.
It was not like this before the Liberals were in power. This is the inevitable and predictable result of Liberal bad policies, including free opioids and open borders with no security checks. The Liberals have spent the cupboard bare, and now they are firing public servants while handing billions to Brookfield.
Canadians and the community organizations they support are being squeezed by a Liberal vice of bad policies and out-of-control spending. Now all they can come up with is this policy that would shake spare change loose from drug dealers.
If the member really cared about the community, she would urge her caucus to cancel the Brookfield clean electricity investment tax credit and put the money toward drug addiction treatment.
Canadians deserve better than Liberal band-aids because they do not stick.