Joe Comartin

[Judges Act, June 20th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, Bill C-17 poses a significant problem for the government and for Parliament. It challenges one of our fundamental institutions. It challenges the independence of our judiciary, which is one of the significant pillars of our democracy.

We need to put the bill in the context of where our judiciary stands, both nationally and internationally. Its reputation certainly has no superiors and very few peers.

I have had the opportunity to travel to other countries, mostly within the Commonwealth. It is interesting how often I hear extremely favourable comments about our judiciary, how it has, for instance, reached out to any number of countries which are trying to develop their judges and their judicial system. Our judges have helped them to do that.

We have a model that has no superiors, which I can see in the whole world, and very few peers. However, it is a model that is under attack. Our judges are under attack. We have seen that in a number of ways from the government and from some commentators in the media. When we put it in that context, we are going after a very fundamental thing for our judges, and that is their compensation package.

Back in 1999, we developed, I believe in good faith with our judges, under the direction of the Supreme Court, a methodology as to how to deal fairly and equitably with judicial compensation. What we did was build in a system that was very akin to binding arbitration in the labour context. Binding arbitration basically says that both parties submit their positions to a neutral, in this case, commission of three members and allow it to decide what is fair and equitable to both parties. That is what we have done.

When the report came down from the McLennan commission, there were very specific recommendations, as was required, as to what the compensation should be. It was based on reasons that are set out in the commission's report, which the government has seen. It analyzed the status of our judiciary. Some of the tests were what they would be paid if they were practising in private practice, the ability of the government to meet the recommended compensation levels, the status of the judiciary in the country and, to some degree, internationally and a number of other points. It was a reasoned, detailed report. It met all the requirements of the statutory framework.

What happened? It was reported to the House. The former government sat on it, in effect. It came through with a bill in the spring of 2005, just a little over a year ago, but the government did nothing to press it forward. Then we had a change in government.

The new government has a fundamental attitude that is very disrespectful of our judges. Quite frankly, ignorance pervades the Conservative Party with regard to our judiciary in terms of understanding its status, the importance of judicial independence and the importance of maintaining our judiciary at the high calibre, as we have seen over the last good number of decades, at least since the second world war, if not before.

What did the Conservatives do? Shortly after coming to government, they looked at the report again and determined that there was no way those elite judges, sitting in the Supreme Court, or in our Superior Courts or in our Federal Court, were deserving of the compensation recommended by the independent commission.

The Conservatives proceeded to slash the compensation through Bill C-27. The government had the hypocrisy to challenge the reasons on two basis. One was on the government's ability to pay, which is an absolute joke. For the periods of time that we are talking about, the Government of Canada had surpluses of $10 billion and $12 billion. The new government is now trying to convince the Canadian people, and perhaps at some point they will have to convince a judge, that this is a reasonable argument. I think the facts belie the credibility underlying that argument.

The second attack on the commission's report was that it had not properly taken into account what judges were being paid both in smaller communities and in our larger cities. Again, if the government had analyzed the report to any degree of accuracy, it would have realized that the commission had looked very specifically at the issues of compensation at a lower level for those lawyers practising in smaller communities versus those in larger communities. The commission analyzed it, came to its conclusions and made its recommendations, all of which was its responsibility, all of which was within the criteria and its mandate.

Looking for excuses to justify their disrespect for our judiciary, the Conservative tried to latch on to what are very specious arguments. It comes down to this. If the government does not begin to appreciate the significance of the independence of our judiciary, our judiciary will be undermined. If, in some cases very personal attacks on some of the judges continue, our model will be threatened and will be undermined.

With all the passion I can muster, I urge the government to take this opportunity to grasp this. There is an opportunity for the government to rehabilitate itself in the eyes of the public and in the eyes of our judiciary. There is an opportunity for the government to convince our judiciary that it respects the principle of its independence and that it is a fundamental pillar of democracy in any country.

Last week I was with the Minister of Public Safety in Moscow. One of the reasons I went with him was to deal with issues around terrorism. While I was there, I had the opportunity to meet with their judiciary and with some of the human rights groups. It was stark the difference between that country and ours in terms of the protection and security that an independent judiciary can provide.

At one point in one of the meetings I had with the human rights groups, I asked for their opinions on independent judiciaries. The five or six leaders who were present laughed at me. They laughed at the suggestion of an independent judiciary because they knew it did not exist in that country.

While I was preparing my speech for this evening, I could not help but think of them. I wondered if we would be faced with this at some point in the near future. Are our judges going to be treated as jokes? Unless the government changes its attitude toward them, we are clearly facing this as a risk.

[Children's Respiratory Health, June 20th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, last week Health Canada officials released preliminary results of an ongoing study on air pollution and children's respiratory health. The initial results from the Windsor children's respiratory health study seem to indicate what to date no other more detailed study has, that there is no link between traffic emissions and our children's health.

Numerous studies, including those conducted by the Commission for Environmental Cooperation and the United States National Center for Environmental Health, have concluded that there are in fact a variety of health related problems for children exposed to ground level air pollution. These studies have examined border areas in the U.S., Mexico and Canada where there are similar problems of truck traffic.

It has been clearly and scientifically demonstrated that children living in areas with high levels of truck traffic are at an increased risk of developing asthma, bronchitis and other respiratory problems.

Before we rush to conclude that truck traffic in the Windsor-Detroit area has no impact on our children's health, we should look carefully at the process of this study and wait for the full findings due out in the spring of 2007.

[International Bridges and Tunnels Act, June 19th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, there is a major problem at the border crossing in my area with regard to toxic substances that are permitted to cross the international border, particularly over the bridge, but to some degree in the tunnel as well.

I am wondering if the member could indicate whether this section and the amendment will require the government to consult either the province or the local municipal level of government. If toxic substances of some significant danger were to be transported across that bridge or through the tunnel, would that require consultation with the municipal or provincial levels of government?

[Committees of the House, June 19th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present, in both official languages, the first report of the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security. This report is with regard to the gun registry. It was supported at committee by all opposition parties.

[Trent-Severn Waterway, June 12th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, the motion brought before us encouraging the government to engage in an evaluation of the Trent-Severn Waterway is one that is certainly attractive to support and one that I would support.

I must admit that I am disturbed by the information that has come out this morning from my colleague from the Bloc with regard to the member for Simcoe North who has moved this private member's motion. There appears that there may be the potential for a conflict between his personal financial interests and the outcome of this evaluation. Presumably, if it is a positive evaluation of additional work required and money being spent by the federal government, he and his family might benefit. I think it might behoove him to follow the advice from our colleague from the Bloc and investigate the propriety of this, in terms of him moving the motion, with the Ethics Commissioner.

Having said that, with regard to the merits of the motion itself, this evaluation appears to be a very attractive approach. I have been on the Trent-Severn Waterway a number of times over the years, at a number of different locations, vacationing with my family, and one can see the potential there.

As I was doing some of the background research, I was disturbed at the reduction in the use of the waterway by private and recreational boaters. I think that fact alone would militate in favour of the evaluation being done.

It is an extremely important waterway, from the perspective of our historical heritage and culture. There are any number of sites along the waterway that teach us a fair amount about our first nations, our aboriginal population, and early European settlement and commercial developments that occurred in various spots along the waterway.

As I mentioned earlier, from my own experience as a tourist and from a recreational standpoint, there are some great advantages of the waterway if one is interested in that, whether one is fishing, boating, or just out for some time in quiet areas of parkland, all of which are along this substantial stretch of waterway. One can again see a real potential for further development. The comments we heard from the member for Mississauga South were interesting, from the standpoint of economic and environmental sustainability, the two going hand in hand.

From an environmental standpoint one could see that, where the human footprint has been applied to the natural environment, additional development could occur without that footprint being expanded whatsoever.

Within those limits, we would like to say it would be possible to do that, which would allow greater access by more tourists, more people engaging in recreational activity and the potential for additional commercial traffic along that waterway as well.

I believe, from minor assessments I have done, that it would be possible to expand services already in existence without expanding the human footprint and damaging the natural environment. That makes it very attractive.

In terms of the economic opportunities here, it begs the question and hopefully, if this evaluation does go ahead we would be looking for partners. Obviously, the province of Ontario is potentially a significant beneficiary here for the production of hydroelectric power if nothing else, but also the economic activity that would go on would benefit the residents of the province and would generate revenue for the province.

If the evaluation does go ahead, if we do an in-depth assessment both from an environmental standpoint and an economic standpoint, the province of Ontario would be invited to join in funding that and creating the mandate for that study along with Parks Canada or whatever department from the federal level would be involved.

In addition, clearly the private sector has a role to play here. It will, to a great extent, be the major beneficiary if there is further development, expansion and improvements along the waterway. That has certainly been the experience from what I have been able to read in New York State and what I have observed in both England and Scotland where they have done a significant amount of work to enhance the attractiveness of the use of their canal system.

In both those countries, the private sector, whether it be tourist lodges, boaters, or people who sell equipment for recreational purposes, all do benefit. Again, both in terms of designing the study, the assessment and paying for it, the private sector certainly has a role to play. I can see at the end of the day that all three, the province, the private sector and the federal government, would be involved designing the study, so that the mandate is clear, the scope of the study is clear, and that it covers all of the points that each one of those partners would be interested in having covered and also assisting in the funding of it.

I wish to comment regarding the point about hydroelectric power. When we consider what we are facing nationally in terms of energy shortages and looking for clean alternative fuels, there is an existing system that could be further developed with what would appear to be no additional damage to the natural environment. A substantial increase in megawatts would be produced from that system. It seems it is one of those we should be getting onto right away. Maybe that should be one of the early parts of the study, so if there are developments that could be conducted, if there are enhancements that could be made to the plants, we should be moving on that as quickly as possible.

It is interesting that one of the first plants that was developed privately back around 1910 is at Big Chute along the waterway. It was one of the first plants that was bought by Ontario Hydro, called the commission at that time. It was in effect one of the initiators of the grid that we have across the province of Ontario which for a long period of time has been a major source of economic activity.

It is interesting that Ontario Hydro started to acquire those private plants, one of the substantial ones at Big Chute. It is still there. It is still operating, from what I understand not at its peak efficiency and that enhancements would allow it to expand, as would be the case in a number of the smaller plants along the waterway. It would appear that we could double, perhaps triple, the amount of hydro that is created from the waterway if we modernized and expanded within the scope of not causing any environmental damage. That would be available to the communities on the waterway throughout the whole stretch.

Let me conclude by urging the mover of this motion to investigate my concern about the potential conflict. I would also urge the government to respond to the motion, not just by accepting it in its general format but by seriously studying the availability of funds and the wisdom of putting funds behind this type of study. It would have to be a substantial study to cover the whole waterway and to cover all of the issues that crop up. It would appear there is a very strong potential here for economic development, the betterment of the environment, and one that we should be pursuing as a government.

[Witness Protection Program Act, June 8th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to commend the member for Lévis—Bellechasse for the work he has put into this bill. I agree with the points he raised, but I also have some problems with it. I think that the current legislation offers the same protection to spouses as it does to witnesses. They would be treated the same way under the existing legislation, which is broad enough to cover them.

If we were to actually look at the definition in the existing law of both who is a witness and the criteria for those individuals to qualify as witnesses and qualify for the program, in a large number of cases the victims of domestic abuse would qualify.

I am thinking that at some point the proposed bill could be ruled out of order as not accomplishing its intent, although extremely well-meaning on the part of the member, to provide additional protection within our government infrastructure for victims of domestic abuse.

Having said that, I would suggest to the member that there are a number of other programs that would be better equipped and better designed, but underfunded, that could provide this kind of protection.

I have one final point with regard to my reservations on the proposed bill. I believe this would dramatically change things if we were to follow through on the principles enunciated by the member in his comments on the bill. I also wonder if it will survive the analysis, which I know the Speaker is making with regard to a number of bills, as to whether the bill needs a royal recommendation. My own analysis leads me to believe that it may very well need a royal recommendation and may not meet the criteria to go ahead.

Any number of other programs, at both the provincial and federal levels, also are badly in need additional funding. We have heard from some members, including the member for Lévis--Bellechasse, about the existing residences and services that are available in their respective communities. The Windsor-Essex county area has a well-known safe house, Hiatus House, for women and children who are victims of domestic abuse and violence. This is a substantial institution but it lacks the funding to fully service its client base.

When we go back and look at the history of the transfer payments, we see that the funding shortages originally started with the Mulroney Conservative government back in the late 1980s and early 1990s. It continued under the Chrétien government and then under the former prime minister, the member for LaSalle-Émard.

If we were getting serious about dealing with the repercussions of domestic abuse and violence, we would be looking at this level of government to assist the provinces and local authorities in providing additional resources to deal with those repercussions, which basically means additional transfers from this level of government. It would mean replacing some of those social service dollars that were cut originally by the Mulroney government and then by the Liberal government, and which continue to this day.

In spite of some of the money that the government has put back, almost all of that money has been in the health field. Some of the money has gone toward education but little to none has been put back. The provinces have been struggling to find additional resources to offset that money and to meet with what one can only describe as a burgeoning need in this particular area.

I do not want in any way to demean the effort and the intent of the member, but a greater effort would be to pressure his government, his party, to move additional funds out of the federal coffers to the provinces for this particular need. There is a crying need for it, and there is no suggestion otherwise. He detailed that in some of his comments. I certainly can support him in that regard, but I have some serious difficulty as to whether the bill meets those needs to any significant degree.

At the present time the program costs in the range of $400,000 or $500,000 per witness. Given the number of domestic dispute victims in this country, there is absolutely no way the budget for the witness protection program will meet, other than probably less than 1%, the needs of victims of domestic abuse and violence. It is just not the right way to go. There are many better alternatives and a good deal of it comes down to funding.

I want to make one additional point. Rather than expend effort on dealing with the after-effects, we very much want to deal with prevention. It would be so much easier and cheaper if we could prevent domestic abuse and violence from occurring.

When we look at what happened through the 1990s in any number of provinces, because of problems at the federal level, the governments of the day cut money from them. Then, in some cases driven ideologically by some of the more right-wing provincial governments, a number of those programs that dealt directly with male violence in the domestic setting, counselling programs and prevention programs overall, were cut. A good number of the programs in my province of Ontario were cut completely because there was no funding for them. As a result we saw an upswing in the amount of violence that went on.

During that period of time, society was expressing its revulsion toward domestic violence. In popular culture, movies and TV programs, there was a great movement to express our abhorrence of domestic violence, whether that violence was toward the spouse or toward the children. At the same time, the social service programs that really could address the mindset that leads men, particularly or almost exclusively, to that kind of violence, were being cut right across the country. Again, some of it was ideologically driven, but most of it was simply that the provinces and the local authorities could not afford the programs.

Although I appreciate the intent that the member for Lévis—Bellechasse has shown in the bill, and quite frankly if it came to a vote we probably would be supporting it, I really doubt that if it ever got to the justice committee that the committee could adequately amend it to make it work. Our efforts need to be in other areas.

[Criminal Code, June 7th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the question from the member for London West, especially the last part of it, as I had run out of time and wanted to point out what I see as a real failure in this legislation.

During the election, I was at the funeral of a young woman police officer outside of Montreal. She was killed by a long gun. This legislation does not impose mandatory minimums for the use of long guns in such crimes. It does so for restricted weapons only. The minister has tried to explain this to members of my party and to me, but it makes no sense.

Let us take just this one statistic. Of all the police officers who have been killed in this country in the last 20 years, more than half of them were killed by long guns, not handguns. There is no question about the fact that in the last few years the use of handguns has gone up, but there is absolutely no explanation for or logic as to why we would not have that kind of provision in the bill extending to both, to the long guns as well, as opposed to just restricted weapons.

In terms of the proportionality argument, again I did not have time to get to this in my main address, but I have serious doubts about whether the 10 year mandatory minimum would survive a test in our courts under the charter. The courts have made it quite clear in a number of decisions up to this point, including all the way up to the Supreme Court, that they would tolerate seven year mandatory minimums in very limited cases. That seems to be the top end. Ten years is over the top.

[Criminal Code, June 7th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, I will limit my comments to deterrence as a general answer, but I will say this. Regarding the .357 Magnum, I cannot answer that question, nor could anyone else, without knowing all the facts. Is two and a half years enough? Is four years enough? Is six months enough? I do not know. That is one of the problems with mandatory minimums. If we do not have a full assessment of the case in front of us, if we do not have all the facts, we should not be making a judgment call.

On deterrence as a whole, we know it does not work. If someone is high on meth, do we really think that person is going to think about getting a month, six months, two years or 10 years? People do not think of it. For most crimes involving guns, very little thought goes into it. Oftentimes it is a quick reaction, or passion, or is driven by peer influence, especially with the gangs in the major cities.

The one exception, and it is why we think we should concentrate on this, is the organized crime bosses, mid-level or up. They are the ones who understand that if they are involved and convicted of an organized crime they are going to jail for a longer period of time because of these changes in the law.

If we do the same thing with regard to the importing and the smuggling of weapons, they are the ones we are going to go after. As for the mule who is carrying them across, it does not give us very much to catch that person. We have to get the people further up. They do understand. They do the analysis. It is a very small group of criminals. They are the ones we should be targeting because they are the only ones that this kind of legislation works against.

[Criminal Code, June 7th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, the member for Yukon obviously must have come in a bit late. I indicated at the beginning of my speech that our party would be supporting this bill to go to committee at second reading.

To answer his basic question about the root causes of crime, I have to say that the government in some respects is repeating--and again, because of its straight ideological approach on this issue--the mistakes that have been made at the provincial level in a number of provinces.

I think of the Mike Harris government in my home province. Immediately after he was elected for the first time, his government slashed social welfare spending. It slashed all sorts of programs, including a couple of programs that provided shelters for women and children who had been abused as a result of domestic violence. It was a wide sweep.

Quite frankly, to some degree what Ontario and Toronto in particular now are seeing are the consequences of that. The victims of those cuts were in their early adolescence. They were in their early teen years. In disproportionate numbers, they are committing those crimes on the streets of Toronto right now.

Let us go to the other major cities where the murder rate and the violent crime rate are so high, including your home city, Mr. Speaker, and Regina, Saskatoon, Calgary, Edmonton and Vancouver. Let us compare them to Montreal and Quebec City. We find that the juvenile crime rate, the young offender crime rate, is significantly higher in every one of those major cities and significantly lower in Montreal and Quebec City.

What happened? At the same time that the cuts came out in Ontario and from the Klein government in Alberta, the Province of Quebec did not cut. It stood up and in effect defended the use of legislation. It did not impose penalties. It put in place programs to head off those young people from getting into crime and drugs, and it worked.

[Criminal Code, June 7th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak to Bill C-10, a government bill that is allegedly designed to provide additional security to our population by introducing additional mandatory minimum sentences for a number of crimes, particularly those where guns are used in the commission of a crime.

In the last election my party was quite clear about the need for additional action on the part of all levels of government to try to eradicate the use of guns in our cities and towns from any illegal use whatsoever. My party will support the bill at second reading and then send it to committee. I have to make it very clear that we have severe reservations about the adequacy of the bill in combatting the specific problem of the use of illegal guns in crimes.

I want to credit the attorney general of Manitoba for giving what I thought was a very clear analysis of what is necessary to fight the use of weapons in the commission of crimes. Mr. Mackintosh drew a picture of a three-legged stool. I do not think I am putting words in Mr. Mackintosh's mouth, but he said there were three components to fighting this type of crime, the major one having programs in place to prevent the crime from ever happening.

I have practised law for a long time, including criminal and family law. I saw a lot of victims. I can say honestly that never ran across victims who, if given a choice between not having had the crime perpetrated on them, which oftentimes resulted in severe injuries, or sending the perpetrator to prison for a long time, would not choose prevention. They want these crimes to be prevented from ever happening. No matter what the penalty might be to the perpetrator, they will not get their health back. They do not recover psychologically from the trauma of the abuse.

Our number one priority for the governments, whether provincial or federal, should be to approach the issue of crime from a prevention standpoint.

The second leg on that three-legged stool is enforcement. Criminologists will tell us that one of the greatest ways to prevent crime is for individuals to know they will be caught. That means in high crime areas, in particular, we need to step up enforcement and put more police officers on the street. They should not be put in offices or in a lot of cases even in cars. They are needed on the street.

Provincial governments suffered significant cuts to their transfer payments by the Conservative government of Mr. Mulroney, the Liberal government of Mr. Chrétien and the member for LaSalle—Émard and the current government. They are still trying to recover from those cuts.

The provinces had to cut all sorts of services, including any that would have required the augmenting of police services at the provincial level. They passed a number of those cuts on down to the municipal level where most of the law enforcement in this country takes place.

We need to have more police officers on the street. It is interesting to see that in the government's budget this spring, although the government blew its horn about hiring 1,000 new RCMP officers, the budget does not address street crime at all for at least a number of years. We are probably short about 1,500 RCMP officers right now. We can only train, educate and prepare RCMP officers at the rate of about 1,200 a year. It is quite some distance before that will have any impact at all.

Where the real impact could be felt and be felt very quickly would be to move money to the provinces, which the government did not do in the budget, and allow the provinces to spend the money on enforcement by hiring more police officers and putting them on the street, particularly into areas where there are high crime rates.

The third and, I have to say, the least important leg on that stool is the legislative one. I call it the denunciatory factor. It is society saying that they condemn serious crimes and proposing harsher penalties to convey that message. When that is done we must be very careful because in order for it to be effective we can only do it when there is a serious crisis and it is tailored to that crisis. We have two reasonably good experiences of this in Canada. One is the experience we have had with impaired driving.

If we go back 20 years and look at the attitudes of the legislature, the courts and, yes, even the police and society generally, we were much more permissive about impaired driving as a result of alcohol or drug consumption and I think even more callous about the consequences.

However, about 20 years ago we began to change. Over that period of time what did we do? We introduced the mandatory minimum penalties for impaired driving but, more important , groups such as MADD, our police forces and a number of non-profit agencies came together and spent money to convince society of the negative consequences. It did have an impact, as did, to a small degree, the additional penalties that we brought to bear.

We had similar success with domestic violence. Most provinces over a period of about 20 years began to compel their prosecutors and police officers to treat domestic violence seriously, to lay charges and not withdraw charges, and to take control of the situation. By any standard that has had an effect.

Corresponding with that, although it was not in the form of mandatory minimum, there was a change in attitude by the judiciary to impose more severe sentences. Together, that combined campaign had the desired effect of reducing the rate of domestic violence. We certainly have not cured it but it has had an impact.

I believe we can learn from those experiences when we look at the crisis that faces us with regard to gun crimes. We know the abuse of weapons is particularly concentrated in our major cities. The first thing we need to do is to do an analysis of why we have the problem and it needs to be concentrated in our major cities. For instance, the murder rate in our major cities runs anywhere from 200% to 400% higher than in the country as a whole for our suburban and rural areas.

The second thing we need to look at is the nature of the crime. In the case of Canada, what has changed over the last five or six years? We have had an increase in the number of guns, handguns in particular, but rapid fire guns. These are all restricted or illegal guns. They would never be registered as legal guns. Those guns are being smuggled into Canada in much higher numbers. We are getting this information from both our federal and provincial police forces.

The increase in volume is particularly severe because organized crime, biker gangs in particular, have taken control of it. It is estimated to be running anywhere from a 100% to a 1,000% increase in guns coming into Canada illegally.

The RCMP tells us that the increase in guns has come about because organized crime gangs are smuggling drugs, marijuana in particular, from Canada into the United States. The organized crime gangs made a business decision, if I can put it that way, that it did not make sense to send the container to the U.S. full and then bring it back empty. About five or six years ago they began to fill those containers with illegal weapons, brought them back into our cities and sold them on the streets of our major cities. Smuggling at the organized crime level has had a very serious impact.

We need to look at the legislation and ask whether it responds to the crisis we are faced with. Does it target in a limited fashion where the real problem is? Does it draw too broad a scope? Is it driven, as I believe in terms of the specific provisions, more by ideology than by an evidenced-based approach?

Let me answer those questions. It does draw too broad a scope. Including the number of crimes where the government is imposing mandatory minimums, one has to suggest, would not be targeted well enough.

We had a proposal in our platform in the last election to specifically target the smuggling, importing and exporting of illegal weapons. We presently have a mandatory minimum of one year on most of those offences, if not all of them. We were proposing in our platform to increase that to four years. We are now targeting directly the biker gangs and that conduct of smuggling weapons into this country illegally.

The legislation is not targeted enough. It is so broad that the denunciatory factor gets lost. It is also limited, not only in that section but in others where the government has imposed mandatory minimums or is proposing to impose mandatory minimums where it will not have any impact whatsoever.

As parliamentarians and legislators, we must be careful in our approach to this issue. We can approach it ideologically by ignoring the facts and the evidence. We can make ourselves feel good and convince the country that we are doing something meaningful but that does not protect our society or individuals. We need to know that what we are doing will work but the bill does not take us there.

The bill has some real risks, which I will address fairly quickly, the first one being the effect of mandatory minimums, especially used in this scope.

We must appreciate that the Criminal Code already has mandatory minimums for about 60 to 70 crimes. The present bill would add about 20 to 30 more. We would be approaching close to 100 crimes involving mandatory minimums. All the studies I have seen tell us and should tell this legislature that if we do not target it or use it selectively it loses its impact. We are very close and, in fact, I think we have crossed over that line.

What the NDP would support in a very limited scope of mandatory minimums is really minuscule compared to what is proposed in the legislation.

Let us talk about the problems with mandatory minimums. It shifts the role that has traditionally been played by the judge in determining what is an appropriate sentence to the prosecutor. The prosecutor, by determining what charges will be laid and pushing for convictions, will determine the length of a sentence.

However, because of the cost, a great number of our prosecutors are caught. Even if they want to pursue more severe penalties, they know the defence lawyers and the accused will hold the process up by seeking a long trial and the crown attorneys have limited resources. They can afford to take only so many 20-day to 60-day trials.

Our system functions on the basis that somewhere between 90% and 95% of all criminal charges will be dealt with by way of guilty pleas. If that balance is upset, the costs are driven up dramatically. The crowns know that, the defence lawyers know that and most hardened accused know it. The process ends up with the lawyers plea bargaining so that the serious crime is not the one for which criminals plead guilty. The penalty imposed is less than what might have been imposed under a system where there were no mandatory minimums. Therefore, the extensive use of mandatory minimums is self-defeating. We end up with fewer convictions and lower penalties.

We need to look at how we use incarceration. I argue that the way we have to do that analysis is to look at societies that are similar to ours but which have lower crimes rates. We need to look at how they deal with their criminal law and the rate of incarceration.

We should do an evidence-based analysis and forget the ideology, the feel good thing of, “Yes, I am out here. I am real macho. I am going to get tough on crime and send all these people to jail”. We hear that from the Prime Minister and the Minister of Justice. However, if they really understood the system they would get off the macho trail and just look at what actually works.

We would look at other countries, such as those in western Europe which, overall, have significantly lower crime rates than Canada, both for murder and serious violent crime, and they have lower incarceration rates. Canada's incarceration rate, according to the last figures in 2002, was at about 116 per 100,000 population. In western Europe, Australia and New Zealand the average runs from a low of about 60 up to the high 90s. All the countries we would like to compare ourselves to, and we do regularly on all sorts of other social programs, have an incarceration rate that is 20% lower than ours and, in some cases, as much as 50% lower.

The one country in our close allies that is the exception is the United States. Its ratio of incarceration is 702 per 100,000, almost seven times higher than ours, with a corresponding crime rate that is four, six and eight times higher than it is in Canada in spite of some of the figures we hear from the government party.

At committee, the NDP will be moving significant amendments to the bill to bring it into line with what we had promised to do during the election. We will be calling for support, although I am not really expecting any from the government, but from the opposition parties to get the bill into shape where in fact it would protect Canadians and obtains results for them.