Mr. Speaker, I am delighted to continue the debate on Bill C-35. I will share my time with my esteemed colleague from Joliette.
I have been a member of this House for three years now. It is widely recognized that the Conservatives have tabled many bills, often with commendable intentions. I had the honour of being a member of the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights for a few months, and we looked at a large number of private members' bills aimed at amending the Criminal Code and fixing other very specific aspects.
However, this piecemeal approach is distressing because it addresses few problems and causes several more. We are dealing with the Criminal Code in an improvised and isolated manner, when we should be looking at it as a whole, and in particular, we need to ensure that our initiatives will have a real impact and will truly solve the problems.
On several occasions, I have seen the government's obsession with imposing mandatory minimum sentences at all costs and restricting the ability of the courts to make decisions.
The very big problem is that the experts contradict the approach of the government and of certain backbench members once the bill is passed. The government is not reasonable and makes amendments to the Criminal Code or enacts new laws that are subsequently challenged. They fall before the courts under the weight of the facts, and the problem the government and my backbench colleagues thought they had solved remains intact. We can even wind up with legislative voids.
That is why the New Democratic Party will support Bill C-35 at second reading so that we can do some hard work in the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights. I am very proud to do that with all my colleagues. We will be able to examine the problems and offer constructive solutions to the Minister of Justice and to all committee members so that this bill can achieve its aims.
I do not mean to downplay the purpose of this bill, which is the subject here, quite to the contrary. It is my pleasure to have a brother-in-law who is a police officer in Montreal. He is a dog handler. I have met his work partners on numerous occasions and have observed that my brother-in-law, Danny, is completely devoted. He has developed a very profound attachment to the dogs he has trained, cares for, and works with every day.
It is quite remarkable to see how extensive a police dog’s training is. The dog carries out very specific missions and, in particular, is a huge asset to its handler, the police officer responsible for it, and to the entire unit to which the officer in question belongs. I have personally witnessed this, and I was very pleased to see it. I commend Danny and will be happy to have a good beer with him over the summer and to see him at work over his barbecue.
I am afraid the problem raised will absolutely not be corrected by introducing mandatory six-month minimums and penalties that may be added consecutively to other penalties imposed in court.
We must be careful not to give in to wishful thinking. We must not believe, in a closed-minded and ideological way, in the deterrent aspect of sentences that may be imposed. It is very important that prosecutors, judges and police officers have the tools they need to impose an appropriate sentence suited to the crime committed if the person is found guilty. Mandatory minimum sentences, on the other hand, remove the court’s leeway. They prevent our judges from assessing the situation as a whole and from exercising complete latitude to impose a particularly heavy sentence where there are aggravating factors or, on the contrary, a distinctly lighter sentence where circumstances so require.
This latitude is one of the fundamental elements of our system of justice. In Canada, we have a lot to be proud of. Having latitude ensures that the accused are not subject to potential injustices and allows them to avoid presumptions related to the circumstances, a condition or issues that we, as legislators, cannot completely provide for except by making multiple exceptions that will have no other effect than to make the law unwieldy and even lead us to dead ends or vacuums. These can be much more dangerous than more general rules that provide latitude, for both the prosecutor and the judge, to establish the sentence for an accused based on the situation.
This problem of reducing flexibility is something I have witnessed directly, both as a member of the House for the past three years, and in particular as a member of the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights for a considerable period of time. Reducing flexibility creates two problems. First, it creates a false sense of security amongst Canadians. That is particularly worrisome. We absolutely cannot allow citizens to wrongly believe that everything is solved and that they no longer have to worry about the possibility of certain crimes being committed. That is part of our responsibility.
Obviously, the other problem is believing that the government's approach solves everything and that crime will automatically be reduced. This has not been proven. On the contrary, some of my colleagues have explained in their previous speeches that the experience around the world, and especially in the southern part of the province, have shown the opposite.
