Serge Ménard

[Firearms Registry, November 5th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, yesterday, the National Assembly adopted a third unanimous motion asking that the federal members maintain the firearms registry in its entirety. The Conservative bill, sponsored by the member for Portage—Lisgar, and supported by the Liberals and New Democrats, would dismantle the firearms registry system.

So that Quebec does not lose this important crime-fighting tool, will the government comply with the request of the Parti Québécois, which is calling for the transfer of the firearms registry to the Government of Quebec, with full compensation?

[Strengthening Canada's Corrections System Act, October 29th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, I disagree entirely.

Frankly, we do not put people with mental health problems in prison. Whom will they meet there? They are going to meet criminals. Is that the influence we want to see on people who are especially vulnerable? Prison is not the place to treat mental illness.

Some people have to be sentenced, though, for other reasons, when they commit serious crimes and are not sufficiently mentally ill to be acquitted. People with mental illnesses have to be punished, but we should never think that prison is an appropriate place to treat them. They should certainly be treated, but they will not be rehabilitated by sending them to prison.

There are two different provisions in the Criminal Code providing for suspended sentences and conditional sentences. In the case of suspended sentences, the judge decides to suspend the sentence under certain conditions, and if the accused abides by them, the judge is not entitled to pass sentence. In the case of conditional sentences, the judge says he is giving the offender 18 months but will release him into the community if he abides by the conditions, if he keeps his job, if he takes the addiction treatment he signed up for, and so forth. In these cases, the sentence is not served in prison.

In my view, the more we can avoid imprisoning people while ensuring public safety, the better. Some people are dangerous. Sometimes there are people with mental illnesses who are dangerous, although they are in the minority by the way. That is what we were told just this morning. I agree entirely that prison is not a hospital for the mentally ill. That is not the case and it never will be.

[Strengthening Canada's Corrections System Act, October 29th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member is absolutely right.

That is a fine objective. We could judge the government on how it plans to carry this through. It is true that we often rely too heavily on incarceration. It is difficult to prove that it is used too much or too little. Nonetheless, one thing is clear and that is that we are using it more. I believe we rank 85th on a list of 155 countries with respect to the incarceration rate worldwide. Our rate is quite similar to that of comparable societies such as Australia. However, we are far from being like the United States, which is the country with the highest incarceration rate in the world. Nonetheless, we incarcerate more than practically all the western European countries. We fill our prisons and make it more difficult to work with the offenders who need it the most.

A striking example of a major mistake the government wants us to make is the abolition of conditional sentences. In the sequence of sentences that judges can impose, simple release is the first. Then there are suspended sentences. Suspended sentences are difficult to enforce because when people are re-arrested, the judge is somewhere else. He cannot sentence the offender. When judges want offenders to go back to school, hold down a job, or go through addiction treatment as part of their rehabilitation, and still be afraid of being sent to prison, conditional sentences are perfect. That is what judges do, but they will not be able to any more.

There are other problems as well. Not only are there aboriginals but also people with mental illnesses. There are a lot of them. I know this is not the time to talk about it.

[Strengthening Canada's Corrections System Act, October 29th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, I admit that I have not given that much thought. To me it is important that the changes be made. It is one thing to draft legislation but quite another to enforce it.

We are currently examining correctional services in the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security. I asked the board members who appeared before the committee to ensure that early releases were earned. I asked them if they were able to verify whether such releases are earned. I think they acknowledged that they in fact could not.

By including these objectives in the legislation, I believe that we are making them clear. The hon. member is absolutely right, however, we do need proper regulations.

[Strengthening Canada's Corrections System Act, October 29th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, the bill that has been submitted for the consideration of the House is a very important one. In it, I will start by saying, we find proposals that I completely agree with, but others on which we have some doubts. One thing is certain, it has to be examined in committee. If this bill had not been introduced, I think that would have been a serious failing on the part of the government.

Overall, Bill C-43 gives victims a voice, seeks to hold inmates more accountable and makes the parole system less automatic. These three points have been part of Bloc Québécois policy for a long time. We even developed and released an action plan in this regard over two years ago.

The Bloc Québécois believes that involving victims in the parole process will assist in their “healing” process and at the same time strengthen their confidence in the justice system as a whole. If it can restore the relationship between repentant offenders and victims of crime, I think we will have made very definite progress toward rehabilitation.

As well, promoting accountability, or instilling it in an offender, seems to us to be an important way of facilitating the offender’s reintegration into civil society. Without a feeling of accountability, how will they be able to hold a job or meet their obligations to their family, or honour their financial commitments, for instance to their landlord or public utilities companies?

While the Bloc is opposed to automatic prison sentences, minimum sentences or the elimination of alternative sentences, it is equally opposed to the principle of automatic release. In fact we have been calling for release to be based on merit for a long time.

I know, however, that criticism has been voiced, in particular in a report from the University of British Columbia. So we will make sure that the bill will in fact solve the problems it is intended to solve and not create new ones.

In a nutshell, that is why the Bloc Québécois supports Bill C-43 in principle. However, we have serious objections to make regarding some of the measures it contains.

On June 16, 2009, the Minister of Public Safety introduced Bill C-43, An Act to amend the Corrections and Conditional Release Act and the Criminal Code, in the House of Commons. The short title is the Strengthening Canada’s Corrections System Act.

Bill C-43 amends the Corrections and Conditional Release Act to achieve a number of objectives: first, to clarify that the protection of society is the paramount consideration for the Correctional Service of Canada in the corrections process and for the National Parole board and the provincial parole boards in the determination of all cases.

I would note that the paramount objective of all of the reforms made in the past was the protection of society. We are all in agreement on that. However, we have to agree on what method to use. We believe that when rehabilitation of offenders is possible it must in fact be pursued, and that this is the best way to protect society.

The bill also establishes the right of a victim to make a statement at parole hearings, a principle with which we also agree, and permits the Correctional Service and the National Parole Board to disclose to a victim the name and location of the institution to which the offender is transferred, the reason for a transfer, information about the offender’s participation in programs and convictions for serious disciplinary offences, and the reason for a temporary absence or hearing waiver.

Personally, I believe that this is also a good measure for several reasons. If a certain empathy for the victims can be elicited from the offender and if the offender knows that his victims will be informed of his progress or failures while incarcerated, I think it can have an impact on the offender.

Quite often, offenders committed crimes because they did not see the victims. Of course, there are exceptional cases where the offender has absolutely no empathy for others. They are considered psychopaths. However, experience has shown that the majority of those incarcerated are social misfits. The fact that they come to realize that they victimized someone, that they have to do something in an attempt to make restitution for their actions, when possible, and that the victims on occasion see them or are informed of their progress, could have an impact on the rehabilitation of those so inclined.

The bill states:

(b) provide that a correctional plan is to include the level of intervention by the Service in respect of the offender’s needs and the objectives for the offender’s behaviour, their participation in programs and the meeting of their court-ordered obligations;

(c) expand the range of disciplinary offences to include intimidation, false claims and throwing a bodily substance;

At one time, this would consist of spitting. But now inmates who know they have HIV or AIDS have even tried to throw blood on guards. Of course, this is unacceptable and requires swift action. It does not, however, preclude the resumption of the rehabilitation process.

Other objectives include:

(f) provide consistency as to which offenders are excluded from accelerated parole review [I will come back to this];

(g) provide for the automatic suspension of the parole or statutory release of offenders who receive a new custodial sentence and require the National Parole Board to review their case within a prescribed period; and

(h) authorize a peace officer to arrest without warrant an offender for a breach of a condition of their conditional release.

We will discuss this further when we study the bill in detail. Thus far, it has been up to parole officers monitoring offenders in the community to issue warrants, which sometimes enables them, in the case of minor offences, to issue a severe warning rather than immediately interrupt parole.

Consider the fact that these things can happen in communities where there is a lot of crime. In many cases, offenders resent the police for monitoring them too closely. We heard that a lot in Saint-Michel over the past year. We are more aware of it. This also sounds like what we were hearing in the United States in high-crime areas where there are serious street gang problems and where communities have taken action against their activity. Excessive police intervention for minor infractions may not be the best way to foster an environment that preserves the public peace and conditions that deter the spread of crime.

The Corrections and Conditional Release Act provides the legal framework for the correctional system. It was enacted in 1992, replacing a previous act. In December 2007, the Correctional Service Canada Independent Review Panel released its final report containing recommendations for the government, but a University of British Columbia study questioned the committee's objectivity. The committee was ask to review the CSC's operational priorities, strategies and business plans. It produced 109 recommendations in five key areas that basically correspond to the objectives I discussed earlier.

The government officially followed up on the recommendations in the 2008 budget, by investing $478.8 million over five years to implement the new vision for the federal corrections system and some key recommendations made in the report.

I think that was money well spent. It is much better than increasing reliance upon incarceration, which is extremely expensive. That $478 million is worth five times as much—$2.5 billion—if it is put towards reducing crime.

The government committed to taking a new approach to the corrections system, making protecting society the main priority when it comes to the corrections system and conditional release.

Everyone is in favour of what is right, but we must understand that rehabilitating criminals is one of the best ways to protect society. If incarceration teaches criminals how to commit more crimes without being caught, or teaches them that the community is unfair, there will be no way to achieve those objectives. Members on both sides of this House must do more than give the benefit of the doubt; they must make it clear that, even if we have different opinions, we all want to reduce crime and protect society.

This bill includes reforms in four main areas: enhancing sharing of information with victims—we completely agree with this; enhancing offender responsibility and accountability—we agree with this as well, because taking responsibility is an important part of rehabilitation; strengthening the management of offenders and their reintegration—we must think about this, but we must see if this aspect is properly addressed by the bill before us; and, modernizing disciplinary actions—I believe these must be updated.

With respect to enhancing sharing of information with victims, the bill would clearly recognize the interests of victims of crime and the role they play in the correctional and conditional release process. Victims and victims’ advocates have voiced dissatisfaction with the current provisions and have called for enhancements.

Therefore, a victim’s right to attend National Parole Board hearings will be enshrined in law. I agree completely with this, and for reasons that the Conservatives did not even think of. It would be good for the person applying for parole to know that the victims will be present. It is good for that individual to know that he or she hurt someone. Unless that person is a psychopath who has absolutely no empathy for others, this recognition plays an important role in the rehabilitation process.

So the legislation will be amended to expand the information that may be disclosed to victims by CSC and the National Parole Board. This will include: providing information on the reasons for offender transfers with, whenever possible, advance notice of transfers to minimum security institutions; disclosing information on offender program participation and any convictions for serious disciplinary offences; sharing the reasons for a temporary absence from a correctional facility; and, providing guardians and caregivers of dependents of victims who are deceased, ill or otherwise incapacitated with the same information that victims themselves can receive.

When offenders withdraw their participation 14 days or less before a hearing date, the Board may proceed with a review and decisions of their case. Victims will also be able to request information on the reasons for a waiver of a parole hearing.

I think it is good that offenders will be notified that victims will know all of this. If offenders think this might have an influence on their NPB hearing, perhaps it will help them take a step in the right direction, to demonstrate that they have changed their behaviour and that they understand how their crimes affected their victims.

We must not think just about repression, but also about offender accountability. Our main objective in the correctional system, knowing that these people are going to be released, is to make reasonable efforts to get them to change their behaviour. The best way to protect public safety is to ensure that when offenders leave prison, they are rehabilitated and less likely to reoffend.

The other important measure is designed to increase offender accountability. This is the start of rehabilitation. The offender and the correctional services share responsibility for rehabilitating the offender and reintegrating him into society as a law-abiding citizen. The Corrections and Conditional Release Act will be amended to include the responsibilities of offenders, who will have more incentive to behave in a way that shows respect for people and property.

I will perhaps talk a bit later about section 38, which I myself wrote when I reformed the correctional system in Quebec. It is a very difficult thing to do if one is not a legislative drafter and cannot spend all one's time drafting laws. I found that out pretty quickly when I was a minister, and here as well. But I was determined to write section 38 of the Act respecting the Québec correctional system.

I would like to talk about Quebec's crime reduction model, whereby an offender can earn remission time by showing respect. I wanted section 38 to be posted in every cell. I can still remember the circumstances under which I wrote it. I was with my driver, who was a former prison guard, and I wanted that section to be written so that inmates would understand. What it said essentially was that inmates could be released before the end of their sentence by showing respect to prison staff and other inmates. The section also said that inmates could earn remission by participating in the rehabilitation program proposed for them and complying with prison rules.

The idea of respect is fundamental, and I am very glad that the government included it in this bill.

We could go on at length about this bill. In general, we agree with the objectives set out. We agree with the methods chosen in many areas. However, there are some we could talk about more when we examine the bill in committee. I hope that the government will understand that our proposals will be for the purpose of improving the bill and finding the best way to achieve what we all want and that is to protect society by rehabilitating offenders.

[Technical Assistance for Law Enforcement in the 21st Century Act, October 27th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, I think it is a great idea that a clause would force us to review this provision in five years. I think it is a good thing, both from the point of view of police officers who do not want to fall behind criminal organizations and their use of technology, and from the point of view of people who defend individual rights and who want to ensure that no undue restrictions are being made on those individual rights. It is a good idea. I have not thought a lot about the form it will take, but I think that there have been previous models we could look to, like the Anti-Terrorism Act.

[Technical Assistance for Law Enforcement in the 21st Century Act, October 27th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, we have here a bill that complements the one we debated this week, namely Bill C-46. In fact, together, bills C-46 and C-47 seem to make up former Bill C-74, introduced by the Liberals in 2004.

This bill is in fact designed to provide police with capabilities to intercept electronic communications, using modern means of communication. As long as there is agreement on the fact that telephone interception greatly contributed to the dismantling of criminal networks and the gathering of evidence with respect to numerous conspiracies, and that it made it possible to apprehend offenders and sentence them for the right amount of time, short of making the argument that all telephone interception ought to be abolished, I do not think that anyone can seriously object to modernizing police capabilities for intercepting communications using modern technologies such as the Internet and electronic means.

People started talking about the Convention on Cybercrime in 1995. Canada met with European nations, Japan and South Africa, among others. These meetings led to an agreement in 2001, which is a significant date. The agreement was signed soon after the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the twin towers of the World Trade Centre in New York. Long before that, we had seen plenty of evidence here at home that exceptional investigative powers were critical to fighting organized crime.

Just last week, the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights met with witnesses in Montreal and Halifax as part of its study of major criminal organizations. In both cities, police officers said much the same thing about how difficult it is for them to conduct electronic surveillance of organized crime groups. Among other things, they said that cell phones are so cheap, people can buy one, make a few calls, and then throw it away, sometimes on the same day it was purchased, then switch to a new one. It takes a long time for police officers to get the legal warrants they need, and in the meantime, they cannot monitor transactions between the gangs and cartels they are trying to catch.

Bloc members support effective measures to fight crime, but they completely disagree with the current government's policies on incarceration because excessive incarceration and mandatory minimum sentences have already been tried in places like the United States. These measures have produced terrible results in the United States, which has the highest incarceration rate in the world. Some 25% of all prisoners in the world are in American prisons, yet this approach has not put a dent in the crime rate. Naturally, we oppose such measures.

We would not want Canada and Quebec to take the same route, which leads to increasingly violent crime and results in a portion of the population whose lives have been broken by excessive sentences and who are discouraged from getting an education or taking training to get a job. We do not want that in Canada. We know that that is what will happen. That is not what the government is announcing. That is not what it talked about.

We understand from the government's arguments that the only reason it is pursuing its policies is because they are popular with voters. Last week, it was appalling to hear them explain what had been the benefits of conditional sentences, which allowed judges to avoid sending an offender to crime school for a first offence, but instead to let the offender continue holding a job and therefore have stability in order to live an honest life, get an education for that purpose and, in the case of drug problems, go through addiction treatment under threat of serving time in prison if the offender did not attend treatment. Now, the government wants to eliminate this tool that judges had.

I may be getting a little off track. I have already talked quite a bit about Bill C-46. We support this bill. Why is it being introduced now? Certainly not because the opposition obstructed the government. When measures are introduced that help fight crime or will reduce the crime rate, the Bloc supports them. But we oppose measures than will have no effect on the crime rate. In this case, these are necessary measures.

However, these bills still have to be looked at carefully. Some things are needed to combat major criminal organizations. But most of the population, which is made up of honest people, is worried and would not want Canada to become a society where the government can easily look into all aspects of their personal lives. Honest people expect some parts of their private lives to remain confidential.

We need solid guidelines for accessing the information that can be obtained by intercepting all communications that involve modern information technology, such as computers and the Internet.

I believe that most citizens are honest and law abiding, as the Conservatives have said so often. However, I wonder if the Prime Minister falls into that category of law abiding citizens. I know of one law—we are all familiar with it—that he broke, the one concerning fixed election dates. He called the last election.

In my opinion, we must be very careful and realize that the majority of Canadians believe that they have the right to a private life and that the state should not have access to all their communications for frivolous reasons. I believe that the bill was designed with this in mind. However, that does not mean that it is perfect.

We are surprised, and we will certainly want to discuss this, by the complexity of this bill, which must be studied in detail. What is striking is the amount of information that can be obtained without a legal warrant and solely on the basis of suspicions or with a warrant obtained solely on the basis of suspicions. When electronic surveillance was permitted, legal warrants were required and there had to be reasonable grounds for believing that information could be obtained to prove an offence had taken place or even to prevent certain criminal activities from occurring. Furthermore, other means of investigation had to have been attempted without providing results.

We seem to have readily accepted it now that electronic surveillance has proved its worth in police investigations and given many results that have pleased citizens. I can personally say that had we not had the means to conduct electronic surveillance, we would never have broken up the Hells Angels in Quebec, as we did in 2001 after three years of hard work. I think that citizens appreciate what we accomplished.

There no longer seems to be a reluctance to use electronic surveillance. In this regard, I think that police forces that come before the committee should be prepared. I am not saying from the outset, in the four categories of measures to obtain certain warrants, that it is always necessary to prove that other means of investigation would be impossible to undertake or not very useful. However, I am saying that at least once they must shoulder the burden of proof.

It should be noted that can be obtained without a court order is more or less what I would call the telephone book of IP addresses. Furthermore, it took me a while to understand the purpose of these IP addresses, despite the fact that I consider myself rather computer savvy. I was also glad to learn what they do. My understanding is that they help safeguard access to my computer in a way. Of course, I would be very worried to hear that other people can find out these IP numbers without my authorization. Yes, it is more complicated, but really, it is nearly the same as the phone book. However, in the case of the phone book, we can ask for an unlisted number.

I also noted another important point that must definitely stay in the bill. Access to this information is limited to certain people, either police officers or national security officials, and those individuals must answer to someone in their organization. They must keep records regarding requests and the information they are seeking, and they must be able to justify them.

When an individual police officer needs to quickly access this kind of information, he or she must bring it to a superior officer. All of these records are kept in police organizations and security organizations. In addition— something that is very important for us—a copy must be sent to the Privacy Commissioner, which gives me greater confidence. At least there will be one public official whose primary desire is not to unduly increase police powers. Furthermore, based on the positions that these organizations generally take, there is no doubt that they really are dedicated to their duty to protect privacy. I find that reassuring. I also think an in-depth study is needed, which should include the views of two people in particular, Chantal Bernier and Jennifer Stoddart. The name of Ms. Stoddart's organization escapes me at the moment.

Ms. Bernier's agency handles privacy protection. I believe that we should certainly listen to them. We should also certainly listen to volunteer agencies such as the Commission des droits et libertés de la personne du Québec that have done so much to help achieve a balance between investigation methods and the protection of individual rights.

That is the role the Bloc Québécois has taken on in these circumstances. We want to modernize measures that can truly have an impact on crime. We are prepared to support them. However, we believe there needs to be a balance.

The Conservatives keep proposing minimum sentences and are always pushing their tough on crime policy, which, in their case, has become a stupid on crime policy. We agree that something has to be done, but we believe that there has to be a balance in protecting individual freedoms. Protecting individual freedoms is the foundation of the societies we are proud of and want to uphold. It is the foundation of democratic societies.

I believe that Kofi Annan was thinking along the same lines when he said that the terrorists will have won if they force democratic societies to unduly increase the powers of the state. That is what I noticed when we studied the Anti-terrorism Act in detail. I am not saying the Act was not justified, on the contrary, but there was no way to show the government, not even with concrete examples, that some of the provisions of that legislation were unjustified.

Fortunately, we managed to convince the person who was Liberal leader for a short period of time, the hon. member for Saint-Laurent—Cartierville. When he refused to renew the sunset clauses, I heard him repeating the same arguments we used to show that these measures were not necessary.

The purpose of Bill C-47 is to allow police forces to adapt their investigative techniques to contemporary technological realities such as the widespread use of cellphones or the Internet. Making police work easier without unduly infringing on fundamental rights is one of the routes the Bloc Québécois has always preferred for fighting crime.

The government can count on us not to obstruct this bill. We hope it will pass, but that it will be improved by the criticism we will make and that it will strike a better balance between the tools police need to fight modern criminal organizations and the privacy Quebeckers and Canadians are entitled to and want to enjoy for a long time to come.

[Investigative Powers for the 21st Century Act, October 26th, 2009]

Madam Speaker, that is certainly the type of solution legislators come up with. We think that such matters can be solved with laws. However, I doubt that those working in the computer field and ISP providers are qualified to spend long hours poring over these sites.

That is why I have always called for reporting sites, among other things. Such sites are useful not only in cases of pornography but also in those involving potential killers. I am thinking of the horrible events at Dawson College, in Montreal, where young Anastasia was murdered. In the days that followed, some people contacted the police to report a certain site. The police arrested three or four people.

I truly believe that people know that they are doing something illegal. We could draft another bill to tell them that it is illegal, but we have to provide the tools to deal with them. I believe the best way is to use hackers, those who like to go from one site to another on the Internet. They have to be informed that they can contact the police if they stumble across a child pornography site or the site of a gun-crazed maniac, which could foreshadow a massacre. Although I have been told by the Sûreté du Québec that they have officers to respond to such complaints, I have never known the government do this with the RCMP or other forces.

Our objective is to identify the best solutions. At times, it may be legislation, but quite often it is also the enforcement of the legislation, the actual police work.

[Investigative Powers for the 21st Century Act, October 26th, 2009]

Madam Speaker, there are two perspectives to consider. The first is the public perspective and the second is the family perspective. Of course parents have to be aware of what their children and teenagers are looking at. They may not always succeed, but I think that families should talk about what their kids are learning.

The public perspective is similar. Early on, crimes committed via the Internet were never punished because they were never discovered. That is why we need surveillance measures. I myself have often proposed setting up on-line reporting sites for people to report child pornography. We need measures like that, but that is not really what we are talking about here. We are talking about the fact that law enforcement personnel need to be able to get inside these new technologies to track the criminals who use them and possibly prevent crimes.

[Investigative Powers for the 21st Century Act, October 26th, 2009]

Madam Speaker, the bill we are studying has a title that does not at all describe what it is about. It has various objectives that all have to do not so much with cybercrime, because it likely would have been given that sort of name, but with the use of not only computers, but virtual means of communication to help the police fight criminals who use these means.

The bill deals with a number of subjects. It includes amendments to the Criminal Code and several other laws. It is a complicated bill, with 72 pages but only 45 clauses. It has many explanatory notes, and some clauses are several pages in length. Consequently, it is a very long bill, and it is very late in coming. Once again, God knows that it was not the opposition that delayed the government's bill. The current government bears full responsibility for the recent delays.

This bill originated with the convention on cybercrime that was signed in 2002 following lengthy negotiations that had begun in the 1990s. The convention was drafted by the Council of Europe with the active involvement of Canada, the United States, Japan and South Africa. It is clear that in the mid-1990s, countries were well aware that criminal organizations were making extensive use of the new means of communication. Telegraph, mail and long-distance calls were things of the past, because criminals were using modern means of communication. In addition, new types of crimes were being committed on the web.

Obviously, we think mainly of child pornography, but also of all kinds of fraud. The horrible consequences of identity or information theft were also talked about. Moreover, they came up again last week when a new bill was introduced. In 1995, it was already clear that developed countries needed to enter into agreements to help each other fight such crimes and prosecute major criminal organizations. Wiretapping was agreed to with some reluctance. As we will see a bit later, the guidelines for wiretapping were much better than the guidelines the government wants to give the police under this bill for using these new means of communication.

Nonetheless, without wiretapping today, I do not think we could have penetrated major organized crime groups the way we did with the Hells Angels and the way we do with the mafia, whose structure is more fluid. It would have been difficult to penetrate major organized crime groups in general without the use of wiretapping.

All these countries felt that the police needed updated methods, but with limits on how much police action was necessary.

We do not want the government to control the web, the way China does, since the web was originally designed as a tool for scientists to allow them to communicate freely amongst themselves. However, those who used it for unlawful purposes needed to be stopped and caught.

The convention on cybercrime had little impact until 2001. We all know what happened on September 11, 2001. People again began to take an interest in electronic technology as well as the need to fight organized criminals that might be operating in a number of different countries using modern communication devices.

The person who spoke before me said that this type of bill had already been introduced in 2005 and that this was not new. I have not yet compared the current bill to the one from 2005. On the face of it, there does not seem to be much difference except for some changes to account for the evolution of the technology over the past few years. Why did the government not introduce this sooner? However better late than never. Since the government is introducing this bill, it can count on our cooperation for a serious study of it.

A serious study. That means that we start with the conviction that this legislation is needed to fight modern criminal organizations that may use these technologies and to fight new types of crimes made possible by modern communications. But we must also ensure that we do no more than is necessary. We have to strike a balance. The government speaks a great deal about this balance with respect to the protection of personal information. They talk about the protection of fundamental rights; however, in this case, we are dealing more specifically with personal information. Unfortunately, in other legislation, this objective was reflected more in the government's speeches than in specific measures proposed, with the ever-present tendency of increasing powers.

Organizations that defend human rights, in this case the right to privacy and confidentiality of communications, have raised a number of points that must be examined when we study this bill. It is difficult work that, of necessity, will take some time. The bill itself is long and has many complex provisions. By the way, this may be just the thing for those who suffer from insomnia. This type of legislation can easily put you to sleep. Moreover, the impact of certain provisions on others is difficult to gauge.

We want to take the time to thoroughly study the bill, examine all aspects and hear from police organizations, among others, although I have the impression that the government has probably heard a lot about it from them. I, too, have heard many things from police forces. Organizations concerned with protecting human rights have also undertaken the arduous task of studying this bill. They must be heard. They must be given, as must we, the time to reflect and to ensure that this legislation really does strike a balance.

The provisions of this bill will make it possible to track an individual's movements wherever they go. The provisions will make it possible, on mere suspicion, to access all of an individual's online communications, or information about each time they use a computer or the Internet. Someone will be able to see what certain people do, what they like, what they read, what they want to read, who they are in contact with.

In fact, modern methods allow the government to go beyond the possibilities in futuristic novels that scared us so much, like 1984 or the many other novels that described a future filled with totalitarian regimes.

I hope that the government will understand that the reason we want to carefully examine this bill is not because we are defending the rights of criminals, as the government side keeps senselessly claiming. We are not defending the rights of criminals. We are defending the rights of all individuals, even when they have been accused of a crime.

I think that the Canadian public as a whole expects us to do this. About 20 or 25 years ago, I remember that some cases at the Supreme Court foresaw that technology could make it possible to monitor a person's life, which I almost thought sounded like something out of a fantasy novel. I must say that these judges, who were much older than I was at the time, had a vision of the future that seems to be coming true.

We will have to pay very close attention to the system that gives the police certain permissions—the system of warrants—and to the justifications that will have to be provided in order to penetrate an individual's personal life so deeply. We need to ask ourselves if it is really worth it.

Something like this worries me about the current government. I see that they still plan on reinstating some provisions. In the Anti-Terrorism Act, some provisions were deemed to be so drastic that they would be re-examined in five years. That was done. We suggested that they be abolished. The previous Parliament refused to reinstate them, but this government still wants to go back to it.

In other words, what concerns me is that when this government talks about a balance between individual rights and the necessary powers of state, it always thinks more about the powers of state. We should therefore be entitled to expect that there will be—and I hope there will this time—productive discussions, and that those who want to defend individual rights, those with questions about the scope of police powers, will not again be treated as though they are defending the rights of criminals, when that is not what we are trying to do.

Indeed, they need to clearly understand what we are trying to do. I think they really do understand, but they prefer to pretend that they do not. One thing is certain: as long as we continue seeing crime bills modelled on the American example in recent years, we will oppose them, because we know that that is not the right approach.

The member who spoke before me gave some figures that confirm the trends I have noticed.

It depends somewhat on what years we look at, but the trend is always the same. The United States currently has the highest incarceration rate in the world. It is a democratic country. Does it also have the lowest crime rates? Not at all. It also has one of the highest homicide rates, that is, three and a half times higher than Canada and, I might add, five times higher than Quebec. Quebec, like some of the maritime provinces, has focused more on rehabilitating young offenders, and its police officers also have a different attitude. Instead of always promoting force and the use of force, they have focused more on developing community police forces that are involved in their communities, that dedicate much of their resources and energy to prevention. I would not say they dedicate as much energy, because when you are the only one responsible for preventing crime, it takes a great deal of energy. Indeed, we note that these provinces have lower homicide rates that those who do not seem to care as much about prevention.

As long as the Conservatives keep on aping the Americans and introducing minimum sentences left, right and centre in bills, a model that does not work and that 22 states are currently backing away from, we will keep on raising objections.

Moreover, I know why they have introduced their “get tough on crime” provisions and minimum sentences. It is because such measures are popular, but the Conservatives should remember that there have been great leaders of the Conservative Party. The fact that I have questioned him harshly does not mean that I do not respect Brian Mulroney's great qualities and what he did. In his speech celebrating the 25th anniversary of his coming to power, he said something that struck me. He said that just because something is popular doesn't mean it is right. He said that government should not make policies just to please people, but that it had to have a vision that sometimes went beyond popular opinion. Politicians had to take measures that gave their vision life, because when one is in government, one knows things that ordinary people do not.

The Conservatives do not seem to realize that there is a science that allows us to measure the impact of criminal actions. That science is criminology. The government's only justification right now for proposing new legislation with minimum sentences is that it is listening to the people. The only thing that matters to them is their popularity.

I do not think that is the right approach. In matters of health we would not say we will take a certain measure because it is popular or, since most people do not believe in the vaccine, we will not have a vaccine. In health, we rely on science. Relying on science in matters of crime means relying on criminology. Criminology is not one of the hard sciences, no more than psychology. However, just because it is not a hard science does not mean it is not a science, that it does not have solutions to our problems, or that it cannot judge some solutions to be better than others.

As long as the Conservatives introduce legislation like this, which responds to a real need, they can count on our support and our help to improve it.