Sue Barnes

[An Act to amend Certain Acts in relation to DNA Identification, October 3rd, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today on Bill C-18, An Act to amend certain Acts in relation to DNA identification. Bill C-18 impacts the Criminal Code, the DNA Identification Act and the National Defence Act.

I, along with many in this chamber, was a member of the House when the DNA Identification Act was created in 1998. The act came into force on June 30, 2000.

Section 13 specifically provides that within five years of the coming into force of the act a review of the provisions and operations should be undertaken by a committee of the House, the Senate, or by both. This review has not yet taken place and the current Minister of Justice by letter earlier this year states that the review “should begin as soon as possible after this bill receives royal assent”.

I believe for many reasons that the review should happen as soon as possible. I would like to know from the minister if his assurance for the mandated review really means only after more of his so-called law and order bills come before the House or if the review can take place within the next year in a reasonable amount of time. Where exactly is the review on the list of priorities of the minority government?

In a letter which I believe was sent to all members of the justice committee, the minister identified various issues he wished to be discussed and they are important areas for discussion. Among them are: having only one list of designated offences; the scope of judicial discretion with respect to making an order; taking DNA under the Identification of Criminals Act; international sharing; the one I just mentioned moments ago, kinship analysis; volunteer samples; victim samples; and exoneration.

The current Minister of Justice whom we have just heard from has urged that the amendments in Bill C-18 are needed to give the benefits of changes made under the former government's Bill C-13 passed recently. Former Bill C-13 was adopted on May 19, 2005 and only some parts of Bill C-13 are currently in force.

For people who may have not been part of that legislative process, it may be useful to set out the purpose of the DNA Identification Act. Section 3 states:

The purpose of this Act is to establish a national DNA data bank to help law enforcement agencies identify persons alleged to have committed designated offences, including those committed before the coming into force of this Act.

The principles of the act are contained in section 4 and include:

(a) the protection of society and the administration of justice are well served by the early detection, arrest and conviction of offenders, which can be facilitated by the use of DNA profiles;

(b) the DNA profiles, as well as samples of bodily substances from which the profiles are derived, may be used only for law enforcement purposes in accordance with this Act, and not for any unauthorized purpose; and

(c) to protect the privacy of individuals with respect to personal information about themselves, safeguards must be placed on

(i) the use and communication of, and access to, DNA profiles and other information contained in the national DNA data bank, and

(ii) the use of, and access to, bodily substances that are transmitted to the Commissioner for the purposes of this Act.

The use of DNA analysis in solving crime has emerged as one of the most powerful tools that is currently available to law enforcement agencies for the administration of justice in our land. This has taken place in just over a decade. Actually it is remarkable. Its impact is akin to the introduction of fingerprint evidence in court over 100 years ago.

In the science of police investigation, DNA evidence is a major enhancement for the safety of Canadians. What is the value of DNA to public investigations? We should know that biological samples collected from a crime scene can either link a suspect to the scene or rule the suspect out as a donor of the DNA. Evidence from different crime scenes can be compared to link the same perpetrator to multiple offences, whether they occurred next door, across the country, or halfway around the world. It can also identify a victim through DNA from close relatives.

DNA is referred to often as the blueprint of life. It is a fundamental building block of a person's complete and entire genetic makeup. DNA is found in virtually every tissue in the human body. Experts tell us that the DNA in a person's blood is the same in the skin cells, the saliva, the hair and other bodily parts. Highly discriminating other than with respect to identical twins, it is a powerful tool for identification. Every person's DNA is unique to them, again with the exception of identical twins.

The DNA molecule itself can last significant environmental challenges. It is very stable. This enables the forensic experts to obtain new information from very old biological evidence, or establish important data from very badly degraded samples, which can occur when say a body is found or a crime scene is unearthed long after the fact of incidence.

The stability of the molecule and the fact we have very discriminating features of individual DNA and the accuracy of the analysis techniques that the current DNA people use make this a very efficient and strong human identification technology. It is a most vital component of most of our police investigations today of a very serious nature.

I should state that the national data bank respects the considerations, as it should, of the genetic privacy of individuals and follows strict guidelines as specified in the DNA Identification Act. The biological samples that are collected from convicted offenders and the resulting DNA profiles can only be used for law enforcement purposes. Thus, the National DNA Data Bank assists the law enforcement communities in solving crimes by linking crimes together where there are no suspects, by helping to identify suspects or conversely by eliminating suspects where there is no match between the crime scene DNA and the DNA profile in the national data bank. Further, it assists in determining whether a serial offender is involved.

By statute, the national data bank, which is located here in Ottawa, is responsible for two principal indices. The first is a convicted offenders index, which is an electronic index that has been developed from DNA profiles, collected from offenders convicted by designated primary and secondary offences identified in section 487.04 of the Criminal Code. I believe, as of mid-May 2006, the convicted offender index had nearly 100,000 entries.

The second is the crime scene index, which is a separate electronic index composed of DNA profiles obtained from crime scene investigations of the same designated offences addressed under the act. Thus we have several thousands, as the minister said, of the DNA samples from convicted offenders, which are included in the National DNA Data Bank along with the samples from various crime scenes across the country.

Large numbers of police officers from every province and territory jurisdiction in Canada have been the recipients of specific and proper training on how to collect and forward the DNA samples, which are then sent to the data bank in Ottawa for the proper analysis.

We know that the National DNA Data Bank has recorded over 5,200 crime scene to offender matches and more than 750 crime scene to crime scene matches. As everyone should appreciate, this developing science has to be managed very appropriately and properly to safeguard people's constitutional rights.

We have had, though, over the last number of years continuous consultations with provinces and territories and the public at large. They all have been instrumental in developing the amending legislation over the last couple of bills. Again, under the former Liberal government in Bill C-13, changes were made to improve the public safety and the approach of the bill continued to respect the constitutionally protected rights of individuals and their privacy interests. This is the problematic challenge area of concern for many.

When the bill was before committee the last time, the Privacy Commissioner was there expressing some concerns. It is right that these types of debates happen. That is why it is totally necessary we have the overall review and, hopefully, that will not be delayed.

Under the act, we currently have both primary and secondary designated offences. The primary designated offences are considered the most serious criminal offences. They are, for example, sexual offences, murder and manslaughter. The significant but relatively less serious offences would come under the threshold of secondary designated offences in the act. Two examples that have been shown would be assault and arson.

For people to understand the practical difference, a judge who convicts a person of a primary designated offence is required to make an order for the collection of the DNA sample from the offender, unless the offender can convince the court otherwise, under a specific section, subsection 487.051(2) of the Criminal Code. It is usually mandatory unless there are strict criteria.

With a secondary designated offence, and this is the difference, a DNA sample collection order may be granted if the court, upon application of the Crown, is satisfied that it is in the best interests of justice to do so. It should be noted that if a person was convicted or discharged of any designated offence after June 30 of the year 2000, but the act was committed before that date, then the same criteria for granting an order under the secondary designated offence would apply.

Bill C-13 moved a number of previously listed secondary designated offences and the new offence of Internet luring of a child to the primary list. Also Bill C-13 proposed additions to the list of secondary designated offences. Examples of certain offences that moved to the primary list included child pornography and robbery.

Bill C-13 also made changes to the National Defence Act to ensure that the military justice system would remain consistent with the civilian justice system.

The former Liberal government also introduced Bill C-72 in November 2005, less than a year ago. That bill had a series of amendments to help implement the DNA data bank references that were endorsed by Parliament under Bill C-13, which I have just discussed. These technical amendments were to clarify definitions and procedures for obtaining a DNA data bank order and for sharing information. There was a provision to help DNA data bank orders to be carried out, even when, for logistical reasons, it may not have been possible to take the sample at the precise time as set out in the original order.

Bill C-72, which also died when the government fell last year, would have also simplified the procedure to destroy samples taken from those convicted of an offence not intended to be included in the DNA data bank. This is a whole specialized area. There is a lot of concern about whether samples ever really get destroyed or whether we just do not do the matching any more and we lose the ability to match properly.

Among other issues, Bill C-72 was to allow for hearings by video to reduce costs and security associated with two party and greater numbers of offenders eligible for a retroactive sampling as a result of Bill C-13. Therefore, Bill C-72 essentially picked up on some of the issues identified by the stakeholders during the consultations on the implementation of Bill C-13 and also from the committee debate. It was intended to have the technical amendment made under Bill C-72 come into force before the coming into force of the unproclaimed provision of Bill C-13 in order to increase the efficiency of the data bank system and reduce costs.

This has been a somewhat dry and truncated history of the legislation, but it puts us where we are today with the sections.

Bill C-18, introduced by the government based on the work of the former government, is supposed to represent a reincarnation of Bill C-72. Upon looking at the bill, amended forms, which were not ready for Bill C-72, have now been included in Bill C-18. As mentioned previously, we are now further behind the overall review of the legislation. We are again being asked by the Minister of Justice to do the technical amendments before the broader policy and review.

Bill C-18 has some substantive provisions also. I am not going to go through all of them today, that is what we have committee for, but I will give an example. It will make it an offence to fail to appear for DNA sampling. This is similar to the situation in the code where we have an offence for failing to show up for fingerprinting. This seems entirely logical to me. It also proposes to add attempted murder and conspiracy to commit murder to the offences covered by the retroactive provisions.

Also, there are simple, or not so simple, procedural changes in Bill C-18. Examples of these amendments include allowing a DNA order to be made within 90 days after the sentence is pronounced and allowing the law enforcement agency authorized to take a DNA sample to authorize another law enforcement agency to do it on its behalf when the offender has moved or been incarcerated outside of the jurisdiction. This would save time and money. As opposed to moving the offender back and forth, we would do the sampling in another jurisdiction, as long as all the orders had been properly made.

These are practical amendments that would assist in an efficient process and rectify some of the on the ground problems that are being experienced by people who have to deal with the various systems, from the justice system courthouse, all the way to the analysis here at the data bank.

For the most part, Bill C-18 is an enhanced version of previous government bills. Since we have last had the occasion to discuss DNA legislation, the Supreme Court of Canada, in R. v. Rogers, has held, among other things, that the collection of DNA samples for data bank purposes from designated class of offenders is reasonable, reasonable as an infringement in our constitutional sense of the word.

In conclusion, I believe it is very appropriate to send the bill to committee for careful consideration. I will restate that I also think it is very appropriate that the House, our Parliament and some of the committees consider a full review so we can have a proper discussion about further emerging areas that need to be addressed, not only those outlined in the Minister of Justice's letters, but maybe some of the concerns of some of the other stakeholders. I think that would be a useful thing to do.

[An Act to amend Certain Acts in relation to DNA Identification, October 3rd, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, the minister would know that a lot of people in this country who have family members who are missing are very concerned about the identification of these persons. I know there are some challenges with respect to using the DNA identification process. In fact, there are current private members' bills that raise the situation. I would think that most of us are very empathetic to people whose relatives are missing.

Would the Minister of Justice take this opportunity to go over some of the issues and challenges that would be addressed with a missing persons matching situation?

[Privilege, October 3rd, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, I rise to support this privilege motion today.

The minority Conservative government has made drastic cuts and has given notice to the Law Commission of Canada which will, for all practical purposes, eliminate the working of this independent federal law reform agency.

The Law Commission of Canada was established on July 1, 1997, under an act of the Parliament of Canada entitled the Law Commission of Canada Act, which was assented to on the May 29, 1996. This act provides that the commission is an independent departmental corporation that is accountable to the Parliament of Canada through the Minister of Justice. This is explicitly set out in sections 2 and 6 of the act.

Under section 7, the act further requires the appointment of a president and four other commissioners. Subsections 11(1) and 11(2) provide that the president and the commissioners shall be remunerated. That requires funds.

Under subsection 15(1) we see that an “executive director of the Commission, and such other officers and employees as are necessary for the proper conduct of the work of the Commission, shall be appointed in accordance with the Public Service Employment Act”.

Subsection 18(1) established a council consisting of not less than 12 and not more than 24 members, called the Law Commission of Canada Advisory Council.

Section 19 went further and stated that the council “shall advise the Commission on the Commission's strategic directions and long-term program of studies”.

The duties are stated in subsection 5(1):

The Commission shall

(a) consult with the Minister of Justice with respect to the annual program of studies that it proposes to undertake; ...and

(c) submit to the Minister any report that it has initiated itself or on the request of the Minister.

Therefore, both options are available to this group.

Section 23 requires that “the President shall submit to the Minister of Justice an annual report of the activities of the Commission in that year”.

Section 24 requires that the “Minister of Justice shall cause a copy of any report of the Commission to be tabled in each House of Parliament”.

Finally, section 25 requires that the “Minister of Justice shall cause a copy of the Minister’s response to any report of the Commission to be tabled in each House of Parliament”.

Mr. Speaker, the words of the statute are mandatory words, as you would know, stating “shall”, not “may”.

When the previous Progressive Conservative government, under Prime Minister Mulroney, ended the work of the predecessor Law Reform Commission, which was also constructed by a similar act of Parliament, the Law Reform Commission Act, it had to repeal the act and did so in 1993. The work of the Law Reform Commission was mandated by Parliament. Thus, we do have the precedent of having to end the work of the current Law Commission in the same manner.

This minority government cannot unilaterally decide that it will ignore statutes put in place by Parliament. These decisions serve parliamentarians. It is particularly appalling that the Minister of Justice is choosing to ignore the instruction of a law of this chamber which addresses the members of Parliament in both Houses.

Under section 3, we see that:

The purpose of the Commission is to study and keep under systematic review, in a manner that reflects the concepts and institutions of the common law and civil law systems, the law of Canada and its effects with a view to providing independent advice on improvements, modernization and reform that will ensure a just legal system that meets the changing needs of Canadian society....

Is this another case where the government, as in the case of the firearms registry, is trying to slash critical funding instead of coming back to this Parliament and these parliamentarians to debate and decide the future of the statutorily instituted Law Commission of Canada?

The Law Commission of Canada Act created Canada's internationally respected Law Commission. What the funding cuts to this commission that were announced last week accomplish is the virtual elimination of the commission. It has been advised that it is to cease operation within the next couple of months. Under what authority can the government do this?

This, I believe, is a contempt of this Parliament, of the members of this Parliament and, through us, of the public of Canada. We have a statute on the books that if Parliament is to be served by this commission, it has to have funds to operate. It cannot be a shell.

We cannot have a Minister of Justice in this country who sits and chooses to watch this happen. He is part of the cabinet that makes these decisions on funding cuts. He knows that this is a statute. Do other Canadians then follow the example and choose what statutes they should look to and which ones to ignore?

Mr. Speaker, I believe and I heartily hope that you will find there is a prima facie case of privilege. I believe this is even a contempt of this Parliament.

[Criminal Code, October 2nd, 2006]

It's your son-in-law.

[Criminal Code, October 2nd, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, last week in the House the government, when it dealt with a $13 billion surplus, made some cuts at the same time. We all know about many of these cuts.

One of the areas that I would like to pursue with that minister of the Crown is the cut that was made to training for police forces and enforcement officers across the country with respect to drug operations and the operation of motor vehicles. I think this cut is very problematic. I think Mothers Against Drunk Driving and others would be very concerned about it.

On the one hand we hear these lovely speeches, which have the rhetoric of saying that this is all about public safety. Yet on my chart of the government's meanspirited cuts is dollars for training law enforcement around driving.

We have a situation where we have a government that believes it is worthwhile to cut literacy, the law commission and museums. I have a children's museum in my riding that takes a lot of children off the street and puts them into activities. Now the government is cutting funding for children's museums on an urgency basis. I do not understand it and I do not think Canadians understand these cuts.

It is all well and good to talk about safety issues with words. We know the government wants to message to Canadians that it is so concerned. At the end of the day the reality is, and we all know it in this chamber, the included offences will probably still remain the charged offences under this thing. It is important that we discuss this and other sections of the bill at committee.

I have already stated and shown, as have my other colleagues from all the parties in the House, that this is not to belittle the seriousness of the issue, and it is serious. However, the government stands and talks about this and tries to capture itself as the only party that understands these issues. There are some anomalies here. I think Canadians now see that messaging and delivery are two different things. It is just like we heard in health. It is the same thing.

[Criminal Code, October 2nd, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, a number of bills targeting street racing have been placed before this House over the past few years.

Most Canadians will remember the work of a former member of Parliament, the late Chuck Cadman, on the subject. Mr. Cadman, a respected and respectful parliamentarian, submitted private members' legislation three times. The former Liberal government also introduced Bill C-65 to amend the Criminal Code regarding street racing. Mr. Cadman's private member's bill and the proposed legislation of the former government died on the order paper when on November 29 last year the government fell.

Today we are talking about another variation on how we as a society will attempt to deal with this serious scourge on our streets, something that can and does end tragically for some individuals, both the participants and, even more tragically, the bystanders who are innocent.

Bill C-19, unlike both the prior government's Bill C-65 and Mr. Cadman's private member's Bill C-230, includes new street racing offences. Also differing from the former government's bill, Bill C-19 now includes a graduated increase in the length of the driving prohibitions for repeat offences.

In the first half of 2006 in Canada, 10 deaths can be attributed to street racing. More and more we have been alerted to the menace on our streets. Over the past year, street racing, with its deadly consequences, has affected communities across the country.

As many would realize, education is an important tool to help alert the public, especially younger Canadians, to the dangers of street racing. I do not believe that education of itself will be sufficient to effect the necessary change in this dangerous behaviour. I do believe, however, that education on this matter should continue to be used in schools and other media, such as movie theatre trailers, to counteract the increasing sensationalization of street racing now found in some video games and movies.

Not all street racing is a spontaneous event, though this is the type of thrill-seeking activity many would immediately think about when the words street racing are used. Some street races are spectator events, with people being alerted in advance and police lookouts. Therefore, I am not talking about the supervised venues where racers test vehicles on closed tracks. I would also say that it is not only young people who are engaged in street racing, although many of them are, unfortunately.

Bill C-19 and predecessor bills are attempts, using the Criminal Code, to further address the problem of street racing. Members may ask how this has been dealt with in the past. Obviously and unfortunately, street racing is not new. Most would understand that the provinces and territories are involved with their own legislation and statutes respecting the operation of motor vehicles and road safety, and some even have some street racing offences. However, the provincial legislation applies, for the most part, to the less serious offences.

This is in contrast to the federal Criminal Code's more serious offences of criminal negligence and dangerous operation of a motor vehicle. These Criminal Code sections have been successfully used to charge and prosecute serious street racing offenders in the past throughout Canada and may in fact continue to be the most efficient choice for prosecutors.

In Bill C-19, proposed clause 1, street racing is defined similarly to the previous bills:

“street racing” means operating a motor vehicle in a race with at least one other motor vehicle on a street, road, highway or other public place;--

Thus we see that two or more motor vehicles must be involved, not a lone vehicle speeding. Since motor vehicle is already defined in the Criminal Code, the definition in Bill C-19 would capture motorcycles, snowmobiles and all-terrain vehicles. If two or more of them were racing in public places, this would include, for instance, public lots, frozen public waterways, as well as streets, roads and highways that we normally would think about. Bill C-19 would create five new street racing offences which would all require the same fundamental elements in law: a criminal mind and a criminal act, mens rea, actus reus.

These are the same elements that are required to obtain convictions for the existing offences of dangerous operation of a motor vehicle and criminal negligence in the operation of a motor vehicle. Both the previous Bill C-65 and Bill C-230 were more focused on street racing as an aggravating circumstance to be taken into account in sentencing by the judge after conviction.

The five new offences created in Bill C-19 would require the same constituent elements as do dangerous operation and criminal negligence, in addition to the new element of street racing.

In other words, the five offences will apply if the offence can first be categorized as criminal negligence or dangerous operation. To clarify for those who still have difficulty with this, the five new sections are new subsection 249.4(1), dangerous operation of motor vehicle while street racing; new subsection 249.4(3), dangerous operation causing bodily harm; new subsection 249.4(4), dangerous operation causing death; new subsection 249.3, causing bodily harm by criminal negligence (street racing); and new subsection 249.2, causing death by criminal negligence (street racing).

Thus, one can easily see that we have a referencing of a new element to existing Criminal Code sections. Is this really a serious attempt to underscore the denouncement of street racing, as the Minister of Justice has just suggested, or is it, as some critics have stated, merely something to show that we are serious, the denunciation just by the statement?

Note that the offences that are needed are already in the Criminal Code. How difficult will it be to prosecute the new element of street racing on top of the two elements already required? Therefore, will it be used more to obtain conviction or be used to plea bargain on the included offences? Will the charges still be laid under the old offences despite the options now provided in this new bill, if passed?

These are important questions and some critics have gone so far as to say that this is a totally unnecessary or window dressing bill. However, I do think that the subject area is one that all Canadians are concerned about and the previous government was also acting in this area. I do not think that anyone believes street racing is a good idea, rather it is dangerous and a menace to public health and public safety. There is an appetite in the land to address the problem and stem the occurrences.

I should also address the other elements that this bill has added to the debate. Bill C-19 adds, where street racing is proven, the mandatory driving prohibition minimum of one year whether or not bodily harm has been caused and where it was discretionary in all charges before.

The bill does propose higher maximum terms of imprisonment in three of the five street racing offences. The bill does not make any minimum terms of imprisonment. Currently, we know that conditional sentences have been utilized under section 742.1 of the Criminal Code. Judges are permitted and in fact encouraged to utilize, under the sentencing principles of the Criminal Code, less restrictive punishments than incarceration where other factors are not in play.

Case law has developed across Canada on point, going both ways I might add. I raise this because we are currently having a conditional sentencing bill which is now before the justice committee. If enacted as is, it would impact on Bill C-19 if it were passed as is. Essentially, there would be a consequential effect if the higher maximum penalties were passed in this Bill C-19, with the exception of dangerous driving not causing bodily harm or death. Unfortunately, mid-process this is speculative, but I do flag the potential now, as has the Minister of Justice.

It is not entirely clear the intention or message to the courts of how Bill C-19 has been set out. On a scale of seriousness, criminal negligence is considered higher than dangerous operation. The difference between the offences is the degree of carelessness or recklessness in the offence. This is one area that needs to be properly examined if this bill ends up in committee after a vote in this House, which I believe will end up happening.

Bill C-19 puts street racing that constitutes dangerous operation and street racing that constitutes criminal negligence on the same footing. Fine tuning is required here, as has been pointed out by some others. When we try to limit judicial discretion, as would appear to be the pattern of this new Conservative minority government, it creates other, perhaps wholly unintended, consequences. Many authorities, some would say, consider criminal negligence more serious than dangerous driving and we will look at this.

Bill C-19 also holds that when a person is convicted of street racing, the judge would prohibit the offender from driving. This is a mandatory order for a specific period of time. Also different from previous bills and the current Criminal Code is the introduction of a minimum period of one year in the case of each of the five street racing offences. This is driving prohibition.

Under Bill C-19, the maximum and minimum for driving prohibition orders would increase each time a subsequent street racing offence is committed.

Bill C-19 would provide a prohibition of driving orders of the same length or longer than periods now in the Criminal Code of Canada. Further, new subclause 259(3.4) proposes the creation of a mandatory life prohibition on driving. This would apply when the offender has two or more convictions of street racing where someone was injured or killed and one of the street races resulted in a death.

I should note that the driving prohibition order will come after the period of imprisonment. I should also note that the maximum and minimum for driving prohibition orders increase in a very similar fashion as the rules governing driving prohibition orders in cases of drinking and driving.

There is a lot to digest in the details of this bill. This is the initial stage of discussion. It is not the place for any of us to come to firm conclusions. There is obviously agreement that street racing needs to be dealt with by Parliament. The fact that there have been two different governments and continued private members' bills, underscores this to all of us.

Always it is a question of degree. Is one approach better or more practical than another? Can the officers on the ground, the judiciary and the system of justice be given better or more flexible laws for Parliament to utilize? Do some of the clauses in Bill C-19 go too far? What is most important is will this help with community safety? Those are the questions that need to be answered.

We should also examine whether there are some situations that are captured that were not intended. I have already heard from the Canadian Association of Rallysport with suggested amendments since it is concerned that this will negatively impact on its sport activity held across the country.

What about when roads are closed for major professional racing events which normally occur annually in cities like Toronto and Montreal? Would we need to consider specific exemptions or exceptions or do we rely on the charging officer's discretion and judgment, as has been done in the past? Do we really intend to capture racing snowmobiles not close together traversing a frozen lake, for example?

I would like to listen to the comments of other parliamentarians in the House. I believe we come here to do positive work for our electors. We can do the measured work required of us in a respectful manner I would hope.

I am personally inclined to send the bill to committee for further discussion but wish to hear from my colleagues. It is a bill that is not perfect and has some issues that need to be addressed. Not all of the provisions will help the situation and may in fact cause some confusion. The stages for amendments in this House and in the other House are available to us to clear up any of these ambiguities, whether they are real or just misunderstood. Also, we will have the benefit of our witnesses and, hopefully, some experts.

I know from the short briefings I have received from others that there was no wide consultation on the bill. I asked if there were formal studies but was told by officials that none had been done. I am also aware that on January 25, 2005, at the federal, provincial and territorial meetings of all justice ministers, they had agreed to study the matter of Criminal Code amendments affecting the theft of motor vehicles, as well as penalties for those who steal vehicles and drive recklessly.

Bill C-19 is before us now with a limited priority area of street racing and does not address these other issues. However, it is important that we all do our job, as I know we will, and I look forward to working on this bill with my colleagues.

[Court Challenges Program, September 28th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, this minority Conservative government struck a blow against human rights in Canada by cutting the court challenges program. This important program provides funding to help minority, women's and other disadvantaged groups to challenge laws that may violate their human rights under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

The cutting of the court challenges program as well as the cuts to Status of Women Canada shows that the government has no interest in advancing the rights of minorities and women.

This minority Conservative government had a $13 billion surplus, yet it chose to cut a $5.6 million program that helped disadvantaged people. This was not only meanspirited and petty, but it was an ideological cut.

Now, the only Canadians who will have access to the courts are those with deep pockets. The government is muzzling the voices of less advantaged Canadians who only seek to protect their rights under Canada's Constitution.

On behalf of all those Canadians, I call on the Conservative government to reinstate the court challenges program.

[Business of Supply, September 28th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, I think this is an important debate from a justice perspective also, because we have just seen the cutting of the court challenges program.

I know that the member for Beaches—East York was involved in an early court challenges program that helped the status of women in this country.

I know also that the Law Commission of Canada, something that was established by Parliament, has just been cut by this government. It is not a funding project. It is a statute of this Parliament, the law commission, and that justice minister and his supposedly accountable government are choosing to ignore a statute of Parliament. The government is eliminating something that can only be eliminated with another law from this Parliament.

The justice minister is supposed to be accountable. Here he has to respond to law commission reports, some of which are about senior women. He has a duty to do that. That is what the statute says. What does the government do? Cut it.

I want to ask this member how she feels about the cutting of both the law commission and also the court challenges program and how that affects women.

[Government Programs, September 27th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, the Canadian Bar Association yesterday condemned the government's meanspirited decision to abolish the court challenges program, which helps those who are less fortunate protect their charter rights. Clearly, the government believes that the rights guaranteed to all Canadians under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms should only apply to those with money.

My question is for the Prime Minister. What right will the government attack next? Is it going to be the Minister of Justice standing up for all Canadians or just those who are wealthy enough to afford the lawyers? Does the government not believe in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms?

[Judges Act, June 20th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, there were a couple of places in my remarks where I talked about the inability of judges to express themselves. One of those is when people read cases in a newspaper, the judges speak from their judgments and decisions. They do not explain their decisions afterward. They do not discuss them or give interviews or anything like that. Therefore, the work of judges is inside the law, based on the facts, and utilizing their discretion on the facts.

What the member is referring to, which was in another part of my speech, is the fact that there seems to be legislation coming forward that limits the ability of judges to exercise discretion, for instance, on conditional sentencing, or takes away the option of the judicial tool that is currently before them with certain offences that are listed. This will go to committee and we will deal with that through amendment, hopefully.

Specifically, the member talked about the mandatory minimums. Mandatory minimum sentences are where Parliament has provided in the Criminal Code a floor that it expects the judge in a case to start from in the sentencing. The floor is not a maximum. It is not a ceiling. It is a minimum.

Therefore, historically, mandatory minimums in the Criminal Code, and there are currently about 42 of them, have been used with restraint in both the volume inside the Criminal Code. However, in the courtrooms, judges have used that floor. They have the discretion, based on both extenuating circumstances and mitigating factors, to go up or down from that floor. That is how judges act in a courtroom. They use that discretion.

What these two bills do is limit the discretion. It is more like setting up a grid system. For x offence, there is a mandatory minimum. Some of the mandatory minimums in Bill C-10, for example, are 10 years and so the floor is supposed to be 10 years. Yet we know in this country that the Supreme Court of Canada, on certain offences, has ruled seven year mandatory minimums unconstitutional.

There is a real concern about those types of bills coming forward, but in Bill C-17 we should really focus on the judicial compensation and getting through this in an orderly and professional manner in the House without negative political interference.