Richard Marceau

[Canadian Security Intelligence Service Act, November 27th, 1997]

moved for leave to introduce Bill C-293, an act to amend the Canadian Security Intelligence Service Act (Review Committee).

Madam Speaker, along the same lines as the preceding bill, this bill aims to ensure that the members of the security intelligence review committee are appointed by the government, obviously, but with the approval of each of the leaders of the parties with more than 12 members in this House and by resolution of the House of Commons.

(Motions deemed adopted, bill read the first time and printed)

[Corrections And Conditional Release Act, November 27th, 1997]

moved for leave to introduce Bill C-292, an act to amend the Corrections and Conditional Release Act.

Madam Speaker, the bill I am introducing with pride today is very simple. The aim is to take appointments to the National Parole Board out of the hands of the Prime Minister and his patronage and put them under the responsibility of the House of Commons so that they will be non partisan and better reflect a concern for impartiality and ability.

(Motions deemed adopted, bill read the first time and printed)

[Organized Crime, November 27th, 1997]

Madam Speaker, organized crime is a major problem in Quebec and Canada, but particularly in the Quebec City area, where my riding of Charlesbourg is located.

As my hon. colleague from the Reform Party mentioned earlier, there was another murder in my riding last week, in a family restaurant. As families were enjoying a quiet evening meal at the restaurant, they witnessed the cold-blooded murder of a man. This dramatic incident is but one example of the kind of violence biker gangs are responsible for in Quebec. It has reached such proportions that recently—two weeks ago I think—the Lloyds Insurance Company of London announced its intention to no longer insure bars in the Quebec City area. This shows how bad the situation is.

The party that has been asking this government to do something about biker gangs since 1995 is our party, the Bloc Quebecois. After the Bloc Quebecois put a great deal of pressure on the government in Ottawa on behalf of Quebeckers, the government started to act in April 1996, but that was not enough, because too many unfortunate incidents have occurred in the past year.

As I referred to a while ago, there is a very heavy concentration of biker gangs in Quebec. There are, of course, the Hell's Angels, but there is also the Rock Machine, which is apparently about to join forces with another biker gang, an international one this time, called the Bandidos.

It is very clear that the government does not have the desire to put all of the law enforcement resources necessary in place to deal with this problem.

In his speech, the minister claims that he has restored security in the border communities where the goods were crossing. As recently as this fall we witnessed the aborted raid at Kahnawake, where there were sizeable stocks of arms brought in from outside, and it was not the Quebec Minister of Public Security who was responsible for aborting the raid, either. This one very recent example can make us doubt the desire of this government to fight organized crime effectively.

One can also ask oneself the following question: Is the antigang legislation the government across the floor wants to see passed sufficient? Is it stringent enough? According to the Bloc Quebecois, even the definition of a criminal organization, referred to a moment ago by my hon. colleague from the Reform Party, still does not go far enough. Vagueness remains, and this could lead to challenges of the constitutional validity of this legislation.

The act also authorizes the seizure of goods that have been used by criminal organizations. Although it is a nice initiative, a look at the concrete facts points to some shortcomings. Consider the cases where the police moves in to make a seizure. Two weeks ago there was a raid at the Hell's Angels hideout in Saint-Nicolas, near Quebec City. When the police arrived at the bunker, they took it over, but there was almost nothing left.

Is there not a way to ensure that the police can act more quickly so that these seizure operations can really be effective against organized crime? This is a legitimate question.

Concerning Bill C-95, the Minister of Justice at the time said that the object was to hit the master minds behind these criminal organizations. But at that time, the bill was not at all that clear, and I remember a discussion between my colleague for Berthier—Montcalm and the minister. My colleague had difficulty finding in the bill what was meant by a master mind, and these people were not mentioned anywhere in the bill. So this is another weakness in the bill.

The minister also wants to give the police more flexibility to carry out investigations on money laundering. This is an excellent initiative, but we have to go further than that. We should also consider parole because, beyond these gang problems, there is for instance the Lagana case, where the lawyer succeeded in getting him paroled after he had served one sixth of the sentence. The minister will have to tighten up the law generally and also the Parole Act so as to prevent this type of criminal from going on parole so soon.

In this regard, I will be introducing in a few minutes a bill to amend the Corrections and Conditional Release Act so as to make it clearer. Its purpose will be to amend section 103 of that act so that appointments to the National Parole Board will stop being subject to the political patronage they are exposed to nowadays and will instead be made under supervision by the people, and through the people under the supervision of the elected members of this House. In this way, impartial people will be appointed and they will have the necessary background to deal with this type of problem.

In conclusion, many other efforts have to be made in the fight against organized crime. The government must act and it must act quickly to reassure the public, which is frightened. They have reasons to be frightened when violence reaches people in a family restaurant in a quiet and prosperous suburb. The government must come to realize that its laws and its commitment to deal with this issue are not clear.

One reality that the government does not seem to recognize is the fact that biker gangs, to take only this example of organized criminal groups, are growing, and that every day there are more and more people joining these gangs.

The Bloc Quebecois doubts that the government is willing to commit the necessary resources to the fight against organized crime, and we expect initiatives that are much more concrete than those that the minister is proposing today.

[Inmate Security Rating, November 21st, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, in the same letter, the minister said that there was a level of danger and risk attached to working in Quebec's penal institutions.

How can the Solicitor General justify the fact that, in Donnacona, from December to March, outer towers may be unmanned after 8 p.m., which means there will be no supervision outside?

[Inmate Security Rating, November 21st, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Solicitor General.

On October 31, 1997, in a letter to the president of the Conseil des travailleurs et des travailleuses du Québec, Quebec's Solicitor General Jacques Chamberland indicated that a new inmate security rating scale was under development.

Since we know that a process to review security ratings was initiated more than two years ago, can the minister tell us when the new policy will come into effect?

[Access To Information Act, October 31st, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, you caught me somewhat off guard, because I was expecting my Liberal colleague to speak. I am pleased to start.

The motion before the House today is quite interesting. It concerns one of Canada's principles, namely, democracy. A simple principle of democracy provides that the electorate through its elected representatives must control the expenditures of the government. This is fundamental to democracy.

In the same vein, if taxpayers' money is spent, taxpayers are entitled to know how it was spent. This too is part of democratic control of government. It is a very simple matter, it is a matter of transparency.

We all know the role opinion polls play in our society. They play an important, some say too important, role. The fact is, their role is important because they provide not only qualitative information but quantitative information on very specific subjects. The government uses them to direct its policy, because all governments are influenced by opinion polls.

If what the government is trying to achieve through these polls is to give direction to this policy, the information collected should be shared with all elected representatives, who need to be “enlightened” too, because while the government must do a good job, the elected members of this House must be as “enlightened” as the government team across the way in order to perform their duties as parliamentarians.

This issue ties in with the problem of national unity, for we know what this government does with the polls it commissions in Quebec. It uses them to identify the fears and concerns of Quebeckers. Not only was Quebec taxpayers' money used to identify their fears, but it was also used to develop Plan B and to turn the information gathered against the same Quebeckers whose money was used to pay for these polls. That is utterly unacceptable.>These poll results are used to add fuel to the scare campaign and pervert the democratic process.

We will recall that, two years ago yesterday, a referendum was held in Quebec. There were passionate, serious, yet healthy discussions around the issue. I think that, with a 93% rate of participation in this referendum, we were a model of democracy to the world. We are proud of this. We are often accused of acting outraged. Well, we are boasting now, and with good reason.

What has happened since the Quebec referendum? There was the federal government's scare campaign and Plan B. There was the diversion of democracy toward unelected officials. They said the sky was going to fall if Quebeckers ever took their destiny into their own hands.

It is perfectly normal for Quebeckers to know what they are paying for. Quebeckers ought to know that the taxes they pay are used against their best interests. In a democracy, elected representatives should, as a minimum, monitor government expenditures and know what the government does with public funds.

If the government decides to spend millions of dollars on polls which are sometimes totally ludicrous, it should be pointed out in the House to show that, fortunately, ridicule never killed anyone, otherwise there would not be many government members left.

The bottom line is that the government is using Quebeckers' own money to finance its fearmongering campaigns.

This is why the Bloc Quebecois will strongly and passionately support the motion tabled by the Reform member.

[Criminal Code, October 31st, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, don't worry, I will not take anywhere near the 25 minutes I have left. I will continue the debate from where I left off before the brief interruption.

After a brief overview of the key clauses in the bill in question, Bill C-16, it is now important to state that we have certain reservations about the bill in question.

It will, first of all, be necessary to discuss the “discretionary” powers assigned to peace officers in relation to the reasonable and probable grounds to believe. There is a need for a thorough discussion of this aspect.

We also want to listen—we do not want to be rushed by the government—and we want to give both sides a chance to be heard. As I said a while ago, but it bears repeating now, this is a fundamental debate on the balance between individual rights and freedoms on the one hand and the powers of the state on the other. It is a debate that needs to be carried out in a leisurely and thorough manner. We want to hear the proponents of both sides, those in favour of this bill and those opposed to it, with the reasons for their positions. It will also be very important to hear from the men and women who will have to put this bill into application, or in other words from the police officers across Canada.

Given the respect the Bloc Quebecois holds for privacy, given the duty the state has to respond to situations that require it to intervene in the private sphere of individuals in order to protect the public interest, and given as well that the action of the state is subordinate to the rules set out in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and more specifically section 8 in this case, given the importance of the amendments proposed to improve the administration of justice, given the Supreme Court judgment in the Feeney case, and the examination of precedents in the matter, and given that the amendments proposed seem—I use that word advisedly, as this will need verifying—to respond to the requirements of the jurisprudence, we in the Bloc Quebecois declare that we are in favour of Bill C-16. That is the end of my statement.

[Criminal Code, October 31st, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to start by saying that I am happy to hear my colleague from the Reform Party say that when there are vital issues a society must address, the decisions must be made by the democratically elected representatives of the people, and not by nine unelected individuals. I felt I have to point out this little fact.

We are discussing something that is very important, and that is the balance between, on the one hand, the authority of the state, in this case the powers that a society gives its police officers, and, on the other hand, the rights and freedoms of individuals.

I must say that I am somewhat disappointed that the government took so much time to introduce this bill, because the Supreme Court has set a deadline, which is November 22. When we are discussing such an important issue as the balance between individual rights and freedoms and the powers of the state, it seems to me that we should be doing so in a calm, collected, and comprehensive manner.

What is important here, and what the bill is trying to do—I will come back to this later—is to clarify the rules for police officers. Yesterday, a highly skilled crown attorney told me that this Supreme Court judgment, the Feeney case, had the effect of tying the hands of police officers because they no longer knew the rules governing their powers. The bill attempts to clarify these rules.

I wish to highlight the issues involved in this bill. The bill proposed by the Minister of Justice deals with an important value in our present society: respect for privacy. In fact, as the Supreme Court pointed out, arrests made in private dwellings must be carried out with respect for individual rights, and especially the right to be secure against unreasonable search or seizure, which is protected under section 8 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

The importance of the right to privacy and to protection of one's property is neither new nor unique. In fact, a British ruling in common law, which forms the basis of our criminal law dating back to 1604, almost 400 years ago, describes the importance of the right to privacy in the following manner: “A man's home is his castle”. The protection of privacy in our society dates back more than 400 years.

In this same judgment, called the Semayne case, a limit is imposed however on the concept of inviolable castles. In other words, it is not because an individual is in a house that the power of the state stops at the door. It goes on to say: “In all cases where the King is involved, the Sheriff can, if the doors are not open, use force to gain entry into the house in order to arrest the person or to execute the King's judicial instrument.”

So, even in those days, society recognized that an individual's rights and freedoms with respect to privacy could be curtailed when the public interest and safety demanded it. It therefore comes down to a question of balance, as I said in my introduction.

But if the state can give itself the authority to act in the sphere of individuals' private affairs, the intrusion must respect the rules laid down by law, whether that law be the common law, statutes or the charter. These standards were analyzed by the supreme court in the well known Feeney decision, which I will now look at.

What were the facts in this case? First of all, Mr. Feeney was suspected of murdering one Frank Boyle. After collecting evidence, the police went to Feeney's dwelling, knocked on the door and said “Police, open up”. There was no response. The police therefore entered Feeney's dwelling, went over to him and touched him to wake him up. Feeney was thus arrested without a warrant and evidence was seized. He was tried and found guilty of second degree murder. He appealed on the grounds of violation of section 8 of the charter, the section against unreasonable search or seizure, and section 10 which provides for the right to counsel.

What were the applicable laws? First of all, there was the common law, on which our criminal law is based. This is an issue with which our courts were already familiar. There was the Eccles case in 1975, which dealt with the right to make an arrest in a dwelling following forcible entry.

The supreme court at the time ruled as follows “Entry can be made against the will of the householder only if ( a ) there are reasonable and probable grounds for the belief that the person sought is within the premises and ( b ) proper announcement is made prior to entry”. This is the basic test in Canada, the first truly important ruling by the supreme court on this issue.

Then, eleven years later, in 1986, came the Landry case. The supreme court stipulated that the police may enter a dwelling without permission to make an arrest without a warrant if the conditions of Eccles and section 495 of the Criminal Code are met. That section reads as follows “A peace officer may arrest without warrant (a) a person who has committed an indictable offence or who, on reasonable grounds, he believes has committed or is about to commit an indictable offence—” That is what is called the objective criterion because what is stated is that there are reasonable grounds to believe. That is subjective.

In 1990, the supreme court came up with a more objective criterion and added a final condition. In order for an arrest without warrant to be legal, there must be reasonable and probable grounds to make that arrest. No longer is it just “reasonable grounds to believe”, what the police officer himself or herself thinks, but a reasonable person looking calmly at the situation would also have to agree to. There are, therefore, two criteria: subjective and objective.

If we include the criteria in jurisprudence, we could summarize the rules of common law as follows. An arrest without warrant made after forced entry of private property is legal under common law if: (a) the police officer making the arrest has grounds to believe that the person sought is indeed present there; (b) a standard statement is made; (c) the police officer believes he or she has reasonable grounds for making the arrest; and (d) there are reasonable and probable grounds to make the arrest—the objective criterion.

There is not just common law, however. Now we have the charter of rights and freedoms. The right to privacy has become very important in Canada since the arrival of the charter. As I said earlier, section 8 is now enshrined in the Constitution through the charter. Legislation cannot therefore infringe this section in the same way as the protection offered by common law.

In Hunter, 1984, the supreme court decided that searches and seizures were permitted only with authorization, that is, a warrant, from an independent legal body, which had considered the reasonable grounds of the projected search or seizure.

If we look at the criteria in Hunter and the other cases relating to section 8 of the charter, we conclude the following. Under section 8 of the charter, searches conducted without warrant in areas where the occupant has a reasonable expectation of privacy are unreasonable. The party conducting the search must prove that it is reasonable. A reasonable search must meet the following conditions: (a) it must be permitted under the law; (b) the law must not unreasonable of itself and (c) it must be conducted in a reasonable manner.

The arrest in this particular case was illegal, because the conditions for making an arrest without warrant under section 495 of the Criminal Code were not met and because the police can make arrests without warrant in a private home only in exceptional circumstances.

What did the court say in Feeney at the time? “The police did not subjectively believe that there were reasonable and probable grounds for arresting the appellant before making forcible entry, without a warrant, into the house where he was sleeping. Besides the effect of the charter on the conditions required for arrest without a warrant in a residence, the absence of subjective belief in the existence of reasonable grounds indicated that the police could not have arrested the appellant legally under section 495 of the Criminal Code even if he had been in a public place”.

What effect did this have? It came as a bombshell as I said earlier. Police officers said “Wait a minute, what are we supposed to do now?” The government decided to introduce this bill to clarify the rules and help police officers do their work, which, let us not forget, is essential in our society.

Bill C-16 essentially introduces three changes. First, to enable peace officers to obtain judicial authorization to enter dwelling houses, and this follows on the heels, so to speak, of the jurisprudence in Hunter and Feeney. Second, to enable peace officers to enter dwelling houses without prior authorization in exigent circumstances and where provincial or federal legislation or common law authorize entry. Third, to amend the Interpretation Act.

The key clause of the bill states that a warrant to arrest or apprehend will authorize entry in a dwelling house by a peace officer if the judge or justice is satisfied that there are reasonable grounds to believe that the person named in the warrant for arrest is present in the dwelling house. This is the subjective criterion. The peace officer can execute the warrant only if he himself has grounds to believe that the persone to be apprehended is there.

Section 529.1 enables a judge or justice to issue a warrant to enter a dwelling house described in the warrant—note that it must be the dwelling house described—to carry out an arrest with or without an arrest warrant.

However, there are exigent circumstances, as mentioned by other members. When time is of the essence, it is not possible to go and to get a warrant.

Clause 529.3 of the bill allows a peace officer to enter a dwelling house without a warrant, if the conditions under section 529 or 529.1 exist, that is if he has reasonable grounds to do so, and if, by reason of exigent circumstances, it is necessary to do so. An attempt is made to define “exigent circumstances”:

a) reasonable grounds to suspect—”

—that entry into the dwelling-house is necessary to prevent imminent bodily harm or death to any person. Exigent circumstances also include circumstances in which there are reasonable grounds to believe—

—that evidence is present and that entry is necessary to prevent the imminent destruction of that evidence.

These are the exigent circumstances, as defined in the bill.

Clause 529.4 of Bill C-16 deals with the issue of omitting to make a prior announcement of the entry. In the Feeney case, the supreme court stated that a peace officer was required to announce himself before entering a dwelling-house. However, the Supreme Court also pointed out in the Eccles case that this obligation could be waived in case of an emergency. This is the case of battering a door down.

It could be argued that the exceptions listed in clause 529 reflect the case law. It is the case with regard to battering a door down.

I will stop here for now, because the House will now proceed to statements by members. I will resume after oral question period. Mr. Speaker, you may proceed, and I will resume later on.

[Public Service, October 30th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, I have a very simple question for the Prime Minister of Canada.

Can the Prime Minister tell us whether or not important jobs in the public service, such as that of penitentiary warden, are covered by a code of conduct?

[Supply, October 30th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, I would just like to say that I sympathize with the member, who was closely affected by someone who committed a crime by driving under the influence of alcohol. I sympathize with everyone who is a victim of such a crime. This is why we are saying a debate like this warrants very close examination.