44th Parl. 1st Sess.
December 13, 2021 11:00AM
Madam Speaker, I rise to speak to Bill C-5, an act to amend the Criminal Code and the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act.
In the six years that I have been a member of Parliament, I have never seen a greater disconnect between how a bill has been advertised and what is in the substance of the bill. The Liberals today have been doing a good job of patting themselves on the back, touting Bill C-5 as landmark progressive legislation. The bill has been advertised as legislation that addresses systemic racism. The Liberals claim that it would help address Black, indigenous and marginalized groups that are caught up in Canada's criminal justice system. They claim that the bill would help persons who are suffering from drug addictions to stay out of jail and get the help they need. If, in fact, the substance of the bill did what the the Liberals have advertised the bill to be, it would be a supportable bill and it would be a laudable bill. The problem is that the bill would do none of those things. Simply put, Bill C-5 is not as advertised.
Let us unpack that for a moment and in that regard, let us look at the issue and the claim that the bill supposedly would help persons suffering from addictions.
I could not agree more that it is important to help persons suffering from addictions to get treatment, to rehabilitate so they can become happy and contributing members of society again. I certainly agree that when it comes to minor possession, it is not appropriate in most circumstances to prosecute. Indeed, it historically has been rare for persons found with minor possession of drugs to be prosecuted solely on that minor possession.
Today, those prosecutions do not happen because of a directive issued by the Public Prosecution Service of Canada, which provides that in cases of minor possession, prosecutions shall not proceed except where there are public safety concerns. This bill would not change that. It is true that the bill would codify that in law, and that is fine. It is probably the only reasonable aspect of the bill. However, it would not change the status quo, namely that today in Canada persons are not charged and are not prosecuted for minor possession. The question then becomes this. What exactly would the bill do for persons who are suffering from issues of addictions?
When one actually reads the text of the bill, one would be surprised that the Liberal solution to helping persons suffering with addictions is to help criminals who prey on persons suffering from addictions. The bill would roll back sentences for some very serious drug offences. It would roll back mandatory sentencing for drug trafficking and it would roll back sentencing for the serious crime of importing and exporting drugs.
Any reasonable person can distinguish, very clearly, between drug trafficking and importing and exporting drugs compared to that of a vulnerable person who might be suffering from mental health issues or other issues who happens to be caught with a small amount of drugs. There is a world of difference, and yet for such marginalized people, the bill would do nothing to help them, but it would help drug dealers and drug pushers. Remarkably, one of the offences that is rolled back in the bill is with respect to producers, manufacturers of schedule 1 drugs, including hard drugs, such as cocaine and heroin as well as fentanyl and crystal meth.
We have an opioid crisis in Canada today. Every day, approximately 20 Canadians lose their lives to an opioid overdose. It has increased by 88% since the onset of COVID, 7,000 Canadians a year. The Liberal government's solution is to roll back mandatory sentencing for the very people who are putting this poison on our streets, endangering lives and killing 20 Canadians a day.
If I were someone who was suffering with a drug addiction issue and that was a solution the Liberal government had to help me, I would tell it that I did not need its help, that I did not want its help because it would be completely counterproductive. It is completely the opposite of what the government claims the bill is about. When it comes to supporting persons who are suffering from drug addictions, simply put, Bill C-5 is not as advertised.
What about the claim that the bill would tackle systemic racism, that it would really help Black, indigenous and marginalized groups of Canadians? I know the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice spent some time on that topic this morning. There is absolutely nothing concrete in the bill to tackle systemic racism. There is absolutely nothing in the bill for Black, indigenous and other marginalized groups of Canadians.
What there is in this bill is the rolling back of some very serious firearms offences. What kinds of offences? We are talking about robbery with a firearm, extortion with a firearm, weapons trafficking, discharging a firearm with the intent to injure, using a firearm in the commission of a crime and many other serious offences that the bill would roll back. How does that help address systemic racism? How does that help Black, indigenous and other marginalized Canadians? The answer is that it would do nothing.
It is outrageous, beyond shameful, that the government has used vulnerable Canadians, marginalized Canadians, as cover for the real objective of the bill, which is to pursue a Liberal ideological agenda of going soft on criminals. It is also ironic because we heard, during the very recent federal election campaign, a lot of rhetoric from the Liberals about how firearms posed a significant threat to public safety and the security of our communities. Then, within three and a half weeks of the House reconvening following the election, what does the government do? It introduces legislation not to get tough on firearms offences, but to help people who use firearms and put the lives of people at risk to stay out of jail and in the community.
It is hardly a surprise given the record of the government. In the last Parliament, my former Conservative colleague, Bob Saroya, introduced a private member's bill, Bill C-238. That bill would have increased penalties for persons who were convicted of knowingly being in possession of a smuggled firearm. Why was that an important bill? If the government were serious about tackling firearms crime, it would recognize that 80% of firearms offences in Canada are committed with a smuggled firearm. It would logically follow that a bill like Bill C-238 would be welcome, but instead, one by one, the Liberals, with the help of the NDP, voted to defeat that bill.
It shows that when it comes to actually coming up with solutions to tackle firearms crime, the government is just simply AWOL. However, when it comes to firearms, I have to give it some credit, perhaps backhanded credit, for being consistent. The Liberals have been consistently tough on firearms, tough on law-abiding firearms owners. That is when they really get tough. However, when it comes to people who commit crimes with firearms, it is a whole different story. The Liberals in that case are more interested in giving criminals a free pass. It really highlights what a misplaced set of priorities the government has.
We hear a lot of rhetoric over there about evidence-based decision-making. Going after law-abiding firearms owners while at the same time rolling back sentences for people who commit crimes with firearms is ideological decision-making, not evidence-based decision-making.
Again, when it comes to helping marginalized and disadvantaged Canadians, Bill C-5 is simply not as advertised.
The Minister of Justice, in the press release he issued announcing the introduction of Bill C-5, was noted as saying that serious criminals should face serious punishment and be separated from our communities. I could not agree more with the Minister of Justice with respect to his comment. However, consistent with a bill that is not as advertised, when one opens up Bill C-5, one learns that it does exactly the opposite of what the minister claims to be concerned about. He says that we should keep serious criminals out of our communities, but the bill drastically opens up conditional sentencing orders for serious crimes, including kidnapping, kidnapping a minor, human trafficking, arson for a fraudulent purpose and aggravated assault with a weapon. What this bill means is that those convicted of these serious offences may not have to spend a single day in jail. Instead, they will have an opportunity to serve their sentence in the community and maybe even next door to their victim.
The minister talks about the fact that serious criminals should face serious punishment, but does he not consider arsonists, kidnappers and persons convicted of sexual assault to be serious criminals? I challenge him to say that, because I think any reasonable person would say that such criminals are serious criminals. They pose a threat to public safety and they should be doing time behind bars, not out on the streets.
Despite all the ways the government has tried to sell this bill, what is completely lacking is any support for marginalized Canadians. This bill does nothing to provide training, counselling or other supports. We on this side of the House strongly believe in reducing recidivism. It was, in fact, a Conservative member of Parliament, the hon. member for Tobique—Mactaquac, who introduced Bill C-228 in the last Parliament, a framework to reduce recidivism. Bill C-5 offers nothing in that regard.
In closing, Bill C-5 puts the rights of criminals first and the rights of victims last. It endangers public safety while doing nothing to help marginalized and vulnerable Canadians. If the Liberals were honest and advertised this bill truthfully, they would advertise it as the soft-on-crime, do-no-time bill. This bill needs to be defeated.
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- Dec/13/21 5:21:00 p.m.
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- Re: Bill C-5
Mr. Speaker, I want to put some facts on the table. With respect to addressing the issues of systemic racism, in 2018 and 2019 I had the opportunity to go to many communities across Canada, and one thing that came up over and over again as we developed the national anti-racism strategy was the impact of mandatory minimum penalties on racialized communities, particularly indigenous and Black communities. If we look at many of the court decisions that have resulted in this bill, we see court after court striking down many of the mandatory minimum penalty provisions in the Criminal Code.
That is why we are here today. We are responding to the facts of systemic racism within the criminal justice system. It is a very important step in ensuring that everyone is able to get justice, particularly those who are racialized and who have been impacted disproportionately by the overall criminal justice system.
I ask my friend opposite to comment on that.
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- Dec/13/21 5:22:21 p.m.
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- Re: Bill C-5
Mr. Speaker, the parliamentary secretary spoke about court decisions. Well, perhaps he should read the Hills decision from the Alberta Court of Appeal. That decision upheld as constitutional subsection 244.2(3) on the reckless discharge of a firearm. Notwithstanding that it has been upheld by the Alberta Court of Appeal, the federal government saw fit to include it among the mandatory sentences that it is repealing.
This is not about judicial decisions. It is about an ideological agenda from an ideological government that simply believes criminals ought to be given a free pass.
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- Dec/13/21 5:23:14 p.m.
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- Re: Bill C-5
Mr. Speaker, the speech by my neighbour from St. Albert—Edmonton was very interesting to me. I will agree with him on many points he made, particularly around the fact that the Liberals have not done enough to stop the illegal importation of guns into this country. However, I did not hear a lot of solution building from his comments today, nor proposals on what would be done if the Conservatives were to form government. When I look back, I see that the Harper government made cuts to the CBSA of almost $150 million. The member stood up today and talked about what the Conservatives would do to protect people from the illegal importation of guns, but when they were in government, they did not do anything. In fact, they made the situation much worse.
How can we trust that they would not make things worse if they were in government again?
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Mr. Speaker, I did put forward a recommendation. It was that we would support legislation like the bill introduced by my former colleague Bob Saroya, Bill C-238, to increase penalties for gun smugglers and those who are in knowing possession of smuggled firearms. Also, we have advocated for increasing funding for the CBSA. It is vital, and it was in our platform.
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- Dec/13/21 5:24:58 p.m.
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- Re: Bill C-5
Mr. Speaker, if Bill C-5 is implemented as currently written and applied evenly regardless of race, how would this help marginalized felons? Who do the lower penalties for illicit drug possession and crimes involving firearms really benefit?
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- Dec/13/21 5:25:29 p.m.
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- Re: Bill C-5
Mr. Speaker, the short answer is that it would help dangerous criminals. It would help drug pushers and drug dealers who are killing Canadians every single day.
By contrast, the hon. member for Tobique—Mactaquac introduced legislation that would help marginalized persons, with work on a framework to reduce recidivism and pilot projects to look at best practices to establish a Canadian strategy to reduce recidivism. That is a concrete measure that can make a difference in the lives of vulnerable persons who are caught up in the criminal justice system, unlike this soft-on-crime Liberal bill.
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- Dec/13/21 5:26:32 p.m.
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- Re: Bill C-5
Mr. Speaker, I listened closely to my colleague's speech and did not hear him talk much about border controls to stop illegal firearms, such as machine guns and handguns, from being brought across the border. There are some vulnerable areas that the government chooses not to control, for example, in some communities near Montreal.
Fewer guns and drugs could be a solution.
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- Dec/13/21 5:27:24 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the hon. member is absolutely right. There are significant problems along the Canada-U.S. border, problems that have been well identified and that the government has failed to solve.
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- Dec/13/21 5:27:48 p.m.
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- Re: Bill C-5
Mr. Speaker, I find it interesting that the member kept saying this bill is not as advertised, when during his speech, he kept saying that we would be rolling back sentencing. He used the term “roll back” so much that I almost thought his speech was a Walmart commercial.
Can the member explain to us why his speech was not as advertised? In reality, this is not about rolling back sentencing. It is about giving more power to judges to make decisions. The member would lead people to believe that we are actually reducing sentencing when that is not the case.
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- Dec/13/21 5:28:33 p.m.
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- Re: Bill C-5
Mr. Speaker, is the hon. member serious? Has he read the bill? It is quite obvious that this legislation does roll back sentencing. It eliminates a whole series of firearm and drug offences, which I detailed. Perhaps he should read the bill.
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- Dec/13/21 5:29:00 p.m.
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- Re: Bill C-5
Mr. Speaker, given the Supreme Court's recent decision in the last few years regarding the timing of trials, the Jordan decision, and considering information that we know, there is a high proportion of repeat offenders in Canada's criminal justice system.
Could the member comment on the potential issue that this legislation could lead to our justice system being overwhelmed by repeat offenders, basically exacerbating the situation in our trial system, which is quite overwhelmed?
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- Dec/13/21 5:29:35 p.m.
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- Re: Bill C-5
Mr. Speaker, it goes without saying that when we let dangerous offenders out to do house arrest rather than putting them behind bars where they belong, there is a greater risk they are going to commit other offences. This will contribute to perpetuating the backlog in the courts. I think the member is absolutely right and raises a valid point.
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- Dec/13/21 5:30:10 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, my colleague talked about the opioid crisis: the tragedy of hundreds of people dying every week and every month across this country, especially in British Columbia and in my riding. He talked about the need for a solution-based attitude toward this. If we listen to the experts, the Vancouver Police Department, the City of Vancouver and the Province of British Columbia, they are all calling for the decriminalization of small amounts and safe supply, which would keep people alive, get them into the right programs and get rid of the property crime that is associated with addictions.
Would the member agree with that, as the Conservative who ran in my riding during the election did?
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- Dec/13/21 5:31:01 p.m.
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- Re: Bill C-5
Mr. Speaker, in the last election, the Conservatives put forward a comprehensive plan to deal with mental health and addictions, including investing in drug treatment centres so that persons who are suffering from drug addictions can get the help they need and can be rehabilitated and re-enter society.
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- Dec/13/21 5:31:35 p.m.
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- Re: Bill C-5
Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the member for Oakville North—Burlington. It is a great opportunity to rise today to speak to this very important piece of legislation, a piece of legislation that the Conservatives would have us believe is making the sky fall.
In reality, Bill C-5 would remove mandatory minimum sentencing requirements for only 14 of the 67 offences that currently have them. Of course, we have not heard that figure from the other side yet today. Those 14 that would be adjusted are based on data, facts and science, and an understanding that we trust our judges to make sentencing decisions and use their discretion in certain circumstances. I say there are only 14 because Conservatives would have us believe we are completely eliminating mandatory minimum sentencing, when in fact this would have an effect on 14 of those related to firearms and six with respect to drug offences.
I have said this before in questions and comments, and I will say it again now. This really comes down to a fundamental difference between Liberals and Conservatives. I understand and know this from the experiences I have had in the riding that I come from. In the immediate area of Kingston, we used to have seven penitentiaries before the Conservatives closed Kingston Penitentiary Now we have six. We have a great understanding of and community support for the role prisons can play in the rehabilitative process.
The basic premises, the ideas and the philosophies could not be any more starkly different between Conservatives and Liberals than they are on this particular issue. When it comes to Conservatives, the answer to people who break the law is very simple. They lock them up and throw away the key. That is the end of it. On this side of the House, we believe that there is a role for government to play in making sure individuals can be rehabilitated and reintegrated into society, so they can be productive members of that society.
I brought this up after the speech by the member for Portage—Lisgar. She took great exception, saying that Conservatives believe wholeheartedly in the idea of making sure that criminals, or potential criminals in this case, do not get to the place of breaking the law before we have to start dealing with them.
I would ask her to explain to me why Conservatives spent more money on building megaprisons during their time in power than they did on housing. That should say something. Conservatives built megaprisons at various locations, all the while claiming that they really wanted to ensure people had the opportunity to become rehabilitated. Then why were they focusing so much on building more capacity to house individuals than they were on such a fundamental need as housing? That is what this really comes down to.
It is a philosophical difference of opinion on the role corrections plays in our society. We know exactly where the Conservatives stand on this. I know it is frustrating and hard to hear this, which is why some of them have been heckling me, but it is the truth. Sometimes the truth does hurt. It is the reality of the situation. There is nothing wrong with having that philosophical ideal, but they need to stand by it and say that it is what they believe in. All of their actions have only ever been to support that.
Again, I know this from my time in municipal politics in Kingston. There was a great program that helped rehabilitate individuals in prisons, and these programs were the prison farms. We had those throughout the country. However, the Conservatives came along and decided to get rid of them.
This one is even better. The main rationale of the Conservatives for getting rid of the prison farms was that inmates were not becoming farmers once they were out of prison. The Conservatives were completely unable to realize the value of what inmates were receiving through these programs, which were able to rehabilitate people. There were stories of inmates who had been in and out of prison their whole lives and then got into the prison farming program, and it completely changed who they were. They would then get out of prison and, yes, they may not have decided to become farmers, but they were completely changed individuals in how they approached life.
The fact that Conservatives chose to get rid of the prison farm program was so offensive, not only to those who had been through the program, or the guards who had seen how effective it was, but also to the general community. We had people protesting in Kingston for five years in a row. Every Monday, there would be protests on Bath Road right in front of Collins Bay Institution, protesting what the previous Conservative government had done when it closed prison farms.
The protesters knew that those programs offered meaningful opportunity for people to become rehabilitated, which brings me back to my point about the philosophical differences between the Conservatives and the Liberals. It comes down to whether we believe we have an opportunity and, more importantly, an obligation to help rehabilitate people so they can become productive members of society or whether we just lock them up and throw away the key, which is exactly what the Conservatives would like to do.
I want to talk very briefly about one last point, and that is the issue around the percentages of people who are being incarcerated, which has been brought up a number of times today.
We have to agree that when Black people represent only 3% of people in our country but 7% of people in our prisons or, even more staggering, when indigenous people represent only 5% of people in our country but 30% of people in prisons, we have a really big problem with systemic racism, and we need to address that. We need to look for opportunities.
We need to empower people who have the ability to impact lives, such as judges, to have the ability to set people off on a different course, one that could be beneficial to their life experiences and influence who they ultimately become. That is what this bill is, in my opinion. This bill is about empowering individuals, specifically the judges, to whom we have given the authority to cast judgment on those who break the law. We need to give them the ability to make sure that, if there is an opportunity to change a life, they can actually do that.
This is something that has been brought up by previous speakers today. It was also a call to action in the Truth and Reconciliation Commission's report. As was indicated so eloquently by one of my NDP colleagues, this is something that has not had the impact Conservatives, and possibly Liberals back in the day, had intended when they brought mandatory minimum sentencing legislation in at the time. We have an opportunity now to correct that, fix it and to put ourselves on the right path in terms of genuinely looking for ways to rehabilitate people so that they can be reintroduced into society and become productive members of that society.
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- Dec/13/21 5:41:23 p.m.
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- Re: Bill C-5
Mr. Speaker, it is always a pleasure to rise on behalf of the residents of Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo. The hon. member for Kingston and the Islands said that the Conservatives essentially want to lock people up and throw away the key. I would respectfully depart from that analysis and say we are seeking sentences that promote a just sanction, which is right in the Criminal Code.
That was my first point. My second point is that, if the point of rehabilitation and empowerment is the one that is trying to be made, the rehabilitation and empowerment can come when we elect to prosecute someone summarily, in which there is no mandatory minimum, or by indictment.
At the end of the day, would the member support an amendment that would allow for exceptional circumstances so that a just sanction could be levied of imprisonment in a mandatory minimum, or where there is an exceptional circumstance, as we are hearing about so many times today?
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- Dec/13/21 5:42:39 p.m.
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- Re: Bill C-5
Mr. Speaker, when it comes to amendments, I will not comment right now in advance of the committee being able to do the work to study it. We have members on that committee who can study that and look into it. I think that is not just good practice, but probably the best way for me to proceed on this.
I understand the member was a former prosecutor. Does he not have faith in the judges, who he used to stand before, to make the decisions that affect the lives of the individuals he brought forward to be prosecuted? Does he not believe that those judges can actually make the decisions we would empower them to make?
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- Dec/13/21 5:43:31 p.m.
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- Re: Bill C-5
Mr. Speaker, I do not know if my hon. colleague was here earlier, but the opposition House leader read statistics in her speech on gun violence. In fact, she tried to blame Liberals for an increase in violence. However, it is actually under the very legislation Conservatives enacted on mandatory minimums that we saw an increase in crime rates.
Could the member speak about—
Some hon. members: Oh, oh!
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- Dec/13/21 5:44:12 p.m.
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- Re: Bill C-5
Order. Let us get the question done. Let us get the answer done. Then we will have another couple of questions and another couple of answers.
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