SoVote

Dec/13/21 12:32:10 p.m.
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Re: Bill C-5

Madam Speaker, I agree with my colleague that diversion and reduced minimum sentences are important. I am not going to repeat what I said, but my point is that the bill needs to reflect our current situation. With all due respect to my colleague, Quebeckers and Canadians are calling on us to act now to curb arms trafficking and to get weapons off our streets. This is the government's responsibility. It is what we need to be working on, and I am appealing to the government's sense of justice.

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Mr. Randall Garrison (Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke, NDP)

Dec/13/21 12:32:49 p.m.
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Re: Bill C-5

Madam Speaker, let me start by thanking the voters of Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke for sending me back to the House once again, this time for a fourth mandate. In particular, I would like to thank my partner for more than 20 years, Teddy Pardede, for his constant and enduring personal and political support. My role as an MP is now taking up more than half our relationship and I will never be able to repay him. As I said during the campaign, I very much wanted to come back to the House to be able to deal with unfinished business from the last Parliament. Indeed, there were lots of things we made progress on that were cut short by the early and unnecessary election. That is why I was pleased to see the quick passage of the ban on conversion therapy, Bill C-4, unanimously no less, both here and in the other place. There are other examples of bills on which this House had held hearings, had achieved a broad consensus on moving forward and is now able to do so. Those include my Bill C-202, to make coercive and controlling behaviour and intimate partner relationships a criminal offence and Bill C-206, which would remove self-harm from the military code of conduct as a disciplinary offence and instead make sure that self-harm is treated as the mental health challenge that it truly is. I hope we can find a way to move forward on both of those bills that were left undone in the last Parliament. Today, here we are debating Bill C-5. I am frankly surprised to be up on Bill C-5 so soon because its predecessor was not one of those bills which had been to hearings and it was not of those bills where we had lots of discussions about how to come to a consensus on what needed to be done. Normally, I would be glad to see the House moving quickly to get stuff done that sat on the back burner for far too long. That would be especially true of the issue of systemic racism in the justice system and it would be even more true of the opioid crisis on our streets today. However, Bill C-5 is a virtual carbon copy, to date myself with an archaic phrase, of Bill C-22, which the government introduced at the eleventh hour in the last Parliament. At that time, we New Democrats clearly told the government we found Bill C-22 to be weak sauce. After its introduction, there were only very limited discussions before Bill C-22 was reintroduced in this session as Bill C-5. In those brief talks I made it clear that New Democrats wanted to see a bill with a few more teeth. We have a crisis of over-incarceration, we have a crisis of opioids on our streets, and the bill is not strong enough. I am not sure how happy I am to be rushing forward on a bill that remains a half measure, especially when it is not even very clear what it is a half measure of. Here is the first and most important question I have for the government about Bill C-5: Is this a bill to address systemic racism in the Canadian justice system? If so, why is its focus so limited? We know mandatory minimum sentences are one of the causes of the over-incarceration of racialized Canadians and indigenous people. Then why does the bill restrict itself to only removing mandatory minimums for some offences, namely personal possession of drugs and some firearms offences? We have years of experience now with mandatory minimums. We know they do nothing to reduce crime. We know that they only result in the incarceration of people who have no place in the prison system. As the over-involvement in the justice system is a real problem for indigenous and racialized Canadians every day, I still have my doubts of some of the provisions in Bill C-5, like introducing those diversion programs instead of more fundamental reforms. In the absence of tackling the thorny question of reform of the RCMP, again I still have some doubts about increasing police discretion in drug cases as Bill C-5 proposes. If Bill C-5 is actually about racism in our justice system, then there is surely much more it could do. I will return to this question later in my remarks. If Bill C-5 is not about tackling the broad issues of systemic racism in the criminal justice system, then is it really about something else? In fact, the heavy focus on removing mandatory minimums for drug crimes might lead us to believe that Bill C-5 is actually about the opioid crisis. If that is the case, then once again, it makes it hard for me to be excited about quick action on the half measures to confront the opioid crisis that we have in the bill, especially when we have known for so long what is needed. As an elected official, I first spoke in favour of decriminalization of personal possession of all drugs more than a decade ago as a city councillor in Esquimalt. At the time, I argued that decriminalization provided the most effective path, along with safe injection sites, to tackle the emerging problem of deaths from drug overdoses in my community. Even then, I was able to point to early signs of success in Portugal where decriminalization was adopted in 2001. Since then, Portugal has seen an 80% reduction in overdose deaths. It has seen the proportion of people who use drugs fall from 52% to 6% when it comes to new HIV and AIDS diagnoses. It has seen a decrease of incarcerations for drug offences by over 40%. Instead, in Canada over the last decade, we have seen so many preventable deaths and now this problem has accelerated into a full-blown crisis across the country. Last month the Province of British Columbia announced a record number of people had died so far this year from overdoses. There were 201 deaths in the month of October alone, the highest ever in a single month. Think of all the families we are talking about, all 201 families affected by the loss of loved ones in a single month in a single province. This is a crisis. Numbers released by the B.C. Coroners Service show a death toll in the first 10 months of 2021 in British Columbia being 1,782, surpassing the 1,765 deaths recorded in all of 2020. B.C.'s chief coroner, Lisa Lapointe, was direct in her assessment of the situation in B.C., a situation no different than any other jurisdiction. “Simply put, we are failing,” she said. With six people dying every single day in British Columbia, the status quo cannot be accepted. That is why recognizing the stark reality of the opioid crisis, the City of Vancouver, the Province of British Columbia and now the City of Toronto have all three applied to the Minister of Health for an emergency exemption from the provisions of the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act that criminalizes personal possession of small quantities of illegal drugs. They are asking that we recognize that criminalization only adds more harm to the toll addiction takes on its victims. Where are the Liberals on decriminalization of so-called “hard” drugs, either as a temporary exemption or permanent strategy to shift our response to addiction from punishment to health care? One might be surprised to learn that decriminalization is the official policy of the Liberal Party, endorsed more than three years ago at its 2018 convention in Halifax. Perhaps some will be even more surprised to learn that the government was advised to move on decriminalization of personal possession of drugs before the last election. The previous Minister of Health appointed a commission of experts to advise on drug policies well before that election. Don MacPherson, executive director of the Canadian Drug Policy Coalition at Simon Fraser, was part of the task force that simply said that charging people with simple possession and seizing their drugs makes no sense. In a CBC Radio interview, MacPherson said, “There's mountains of evidence that show it's a bad thing. It's harmful, it hurts people and there is not really an upside to it.” He continued saying, “So the task force...came fairly quickly to the conclusion that the federal government should immediately start work on putting forward a plan to decriminalize simple possession of drugs across the board.” The task force submitted that report before the election and has since followed up with the new Minister of Health and the new Minister of Mental Health and Addictions, but MacPherson reports they have yet to hear anything back. Since we returned to Parliament last month, MPs have been increasingly vocal in raising their concerns about the opioid crisis. Certainly, my leader of the New Democratic Party, the member for Burnaby South, has repeatedly called on the government to commit to moving quickly on decriminalization. This call has come from all parties and all parts of the country, urban and rural. Last August, during the election campaign, even the Conservative leader added his voice to those calling for shifting our approach from punishment to treatment as the way to respond to the opioid crisis, though he did not go quite as far as decriminalization. Last week, the new member for Yukon, who was previously the Territories' medical health officer before running for the Liberal Party, rose in this Commons to acknowledge that the Yukon has the highest rate of opioid deaths in the country. The new Green MP, the member for Kitchener Centre, made a moving statement in this House on the scourge of opioid deaths in his community. Indeed, when the new cabinet was appointed, we saw the appointment of the first Minister of Mental Health and Addictions at the federal level, which many of us took as encouragement and acknowledgement of the urgency and seriousness of the opioid crisis. Therefore, when we know the severity of the problem and we know the solutions, it surely becomes incumbent upon all of us in the House to ensure that we act. Therefore, where is that action? It is not in Bill C-5. Unfortunately, when it comes to the three emergency decriminalization applications from Vancouver, B.C., and Toronto, we have no indication that things are moving quickly. Under the leadership of Mayor Kennedy Stewart, a former member of the House, Vancouver submitted its preliminary application for an exemption on March 3, and its final application June 1. British Columbia's application was submitted November 1 and Toronto's December 1. It is not like the government has been taken surprise by these requests, yet all the Minister of Mental Health and Addictions is reported to have said is, “We are looking at these proposals very, very seriously.” At the same time, the minister refused to set a timeline for a decision on these applications. Instead, the minister veered off into an argument that decriminalization alone would not solve the opioid crisis, as if anyone ever thought decriminalization by itself was a solution to addiction rather than an important measure of harm reduction. The minister said that other options were being considered, including establishing a safe supply of opioids to give injection drug users an alternative to the increasingly toxic fentanyl now on the streets. She indicated the federal government was also looking at setting up more safe injection sites and making more counselling available. Yes, that it is all good, but there is no need to wait on decriminalization while putting together a more complete package. What was especially disappointing to hear was the minister in one interview referring to these ideas as “innovative”. She should know that these are not new ideas, but rather tried and true harm reduction strategies with a track record of nothing but success. When it comes to the temporary decriminalization applications, the B.C. minister of mental health and addictions, Sheila Malcolmson, also a former member of this House, told reporters last week that Health Canada staff had identified no barriers to speedy processing and approval of B.C.'s decriminalization application. Where are we? On the one hand, we see no real sense of urgency on the short-term exemption applications and, on the other hand, that leaves us with Bill C-5, which reflects none of that necessary urgency to move toward permanent and complete decriminalization of personal possession of drugs. The narrow scope of Bill C-5, as drafted, certainly means that, for technical reasons, we cannot likely add decriminalization through amendments at the committee stage. That brings me back to the question of what is Bill C-5 really about. It seems that in the government's mind, this must be a bill primarily about tackling systemic racism in our justice system. If that is the goal of the bill, is there enough there to support? Clearly removing mandatory minimums for drug offences would be a step forward. Even better would be removing mandatory minimums for all but the most serious violent offences. That is not there, not in Bill C-5. The frustration with the ineffectiveness of mandatory minimums has gone so far as to see a provincial court judge in Campbell River last week substituting probation for a mandatory jail sentence for a woman convicted of dealing fentanyl to support her own addiction. The judge said that she could see no positive impact of a jail sentence in that case. Not only does Bill C-5 fail to address cases like the Campbell River case, but as well Bill C-5 is missing other elements that would help right the wrongs caused by systemic racism in the justice system. Let us make no mistake about how serious this problem is. Correctional investigator Ivan Zinger reported in 2020 that while indigenous people made up 4.9% of the total population of Canada, they made up just over 30% of the people in Canadian prisons. Approximately 3.5% of Canadians identified as Black in the last census, yet Black Canadians make up more than 7% of those in prison. When we look at indigenous and racialized women, the figures are even more stark. Zinger reported that Black women made up just over 9% of women incarcerated and indigenous women made up a shocking 42% of the population in women's prisons. This is the result of mandatory minimums. The injustice does not end with incarceration as then there is the legacy of a criminal record. Not only have indigenous and racialized Canadians been disproportionately targeted for investigation, prosecution, diversion, fining and imprisonment, the most marginalized among us then end up stuck with criminal records, criminal records that make getting a job almost impossible, criminal records that often restrict access to affordable housing. Bill C-5 lacks any provision for automatic expungement of criminal records for drug possession, something for which the NDP has been calling for more than two years. Automatic expungement is clearly what is needed after seeing the failure of the government's program for expedited pardons for marijuana convictions, a program that has granted pardons for less than 500 people of the estimated 10,000 eligible in the two years it has been operating. We need something better; we need automatic expungement of these records. Again, the narrow drafting of Bill C-5 means, for technical reasons, we likely cannot add those elements we really need to tackle racial injustice to the bill. Certainly we cannot add expungement. It is likely we cannot even add additional offences where mandatory minimums now apply to the removal list. Therefore, I have a question for the government, one I had already been exploring with it before we rushed into this debate. Is there not a way we can make this bill do more to address both racial injustice and the opioid crisis? The New Democrats are ready to talk, but we probably need to do so before we reach the conclusion of this second reading debate. There is one possibility I will put forward right now to get the ball rolling, and I have to credit the work of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which put forth the following recommendation in call to action 32 more than six years ago. This call to action states: We call upon the federal government to amend the Criminal Code to allow trial judges, upon giving reasons, to depart from mandatory minimum sentences and restrictions on the use of conditional sentences. This proposal would allow judges to ignore mandatory minimums where there are good reasons to do so, including the good reason that mandatory minimum sentences are, in and of themselves, most often unjust. This call to action to restore discretion to judges over sentencing for offences where mandatory minimums have been imposed is clearly doable, it is just not in Bill C-5. A way to put this call to action into legislation has been provided in what is now Bill S-213. Again, it is probably not possible to add restoring discretion for judges when it comes to mandatory minimums to Bill C-5 in committee, because this idea is far beyond the scope of the existing bill. What I am asking of the government is whether we can think about using the relatively rare process of sending Bill C-5 to committee before the vote at second reading. This would allow the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights to alter the scope of the bill and to add missing provisions like the TRC call to action 32 to Bill C-5, and to add expungement to it. That would put some teeth in this bill. Sending Bill C-5 to committee before a second reading vote would require a motion from the minister, and he has that opportunity later today when he speaks. Let me conclude with this offer to work with the government on Bill C-5. This is renewing the offer New Democrats made when the bill was originally introduced in the last Parliament. I make this offer pointing to the progress we were able to make on bills like Bill C-4 and Bill C-3, when we were able to work together on common goals and purposes. If sending Bill C-5 to committee before a second reading vote is not the way forward in the government's view, then let us work together to find other ways to strengthen the bill. Am I optimistic about the chances of Bill C-5 proceeding? With the bill as it stands, can the government actually convince the New Democrats that there is enough in Bill C-5 to justify proceeding quickly or even proceeding at all? As I have said, I have good ideas about how we can ensure that is true. I know there are misgivings in other parties about certain provisions of the bill, but I also know that no one in the House is unaware of the systemic racism in our justice system and its impact on racialized and indigenous Canadians. As well, I know no one in the House wants to turn a blind eye to the suffering imposed on families by the opioid crisis. I also know we will not get a lot of opportunities to address systemic racism in the justice system in this minority Parliament and will not get many, if any, other opportunities anytime soon to respond effectively to the opioid crisis. Let us not waste the opportunity we have before us now with Bill C-5 to do one, the other or both—

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The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Carol Hughes)

Dec/13/21 12:53:01 p.m.
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I am afraid the hon. member has run out of time. Questions and comments, the hon. member for Humber River—Black Creek.

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Hon. Judy A. Sgro (Humber River—Black Creek, Lib.)

Dec/13/21 12:53:14 p.m.
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Re: Bill C-5

Madam Speaker, it is critically important to hear from many of us, as we try to deal with some of the issues facing society today. The numbers speak for themselves, no matter what we want to think otherwise. The numbers clearly indicate that the governments of the day have to take some action. They are asking for that action, and I would hope our government will respond in a very quick fashion. Given that we now have a Minister of Mental Health and Addictions, does the hon. member recognize that this is another step in the right direction to accomplish the goals that many of us in the House want to see?

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Mr. Randall Garrison

Dec/13/21 12:54:09 p.m.
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Re: Bill C-5

Madam Speaker, as I said in my speech, the creation of the Minister of Mental Health and Addictions at the federal level is encouraging. Now the minister has to actually take actions. Since March, the government has had a proposal from the City of Vancouver for a temporary exemption to the criminalization of personal possession of small amounts of drugs. When will the minister act on that application?

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Mr. Frank Caputo (Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, CPC)

Dec/13/21 12:54:41 p.m.
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Re: Bill C-5

Madam Speaker, it is always a pleasure to rise on behalf of the citizens of Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo. One thing that seemed to be missing from my colleague's eloquent words was victims. Frequently victims are racialized people, disproportionately, in fact, and that has to be stated when we are discussing this. I also thought I heard my hon. colleague say that he was in favour of repealing all mandatory minimums. Would that go for sexual offences against children, including those under section 164.1 of the Criminal Code, which involves production and distribution of child sex abuse material?

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Mr. Randall Garrison

Dec/13/21 12:55:26 p.m.
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Re: Bill C-5

Madam Speaker, I am going to speak very carefully here. In no way did the member hear me say “removing all mandatory minimums.” I said, very clearly, except for “the most serious violent offences.” I always take offence in the chamber when members rise and accuse me, an adult survivor of child abuse, of being weak when it comes to offences against children. I have this personal experience and I am happy to speak about it publicly, because the more the victims of this abuse speak out, the more effective we can be at helping them go on with their lives.

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Mr. Denis Trudel (Longueuil—Saint-Hubert, BQ)

Dec/13/21 12:56:13 p.m.
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Re: Bill C-5

Madam Speaker, I want to echo what my colleague from Rivière-du-Nord said earlier. Violent gun crimes have been on the rise, and someone was even shot in a library in Laval not too long ago. However, the bill that the government has introduced includes a provision to repeal minimum penalties for certain firearm possession crimes. This is a rather strange time for the government to propose that. What does my colleague think?

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Mr. Randall Garrison

Dec/13/21 12:56:54 p.m.
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Re: Bill C-5

Madam Speaker, I spent 20 years teaching criminal justice before I came to the House. The literature, professionally, was already clear that mandatory minimums did nothing to deter crime. No one who is about to commit a crime gets out his or her Criminal Code, looks up what the penalty will be and makes a decision on whether to commit that crime based on whether there is a mandatory minimum. It is simply an absurd view. However, as I stated in a previous question, we have had more than a decade of experience with mandatory minimums in our country, especially on firearms, and they have done nothing to deter firearms crime. There are many other ways to tackle this crime; mandatory minimums make no contribution.

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Mr. Alistair MacGregor (Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, NDP)

Dec/13/21 12:57:36 p.m.
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Re: Bill C-5

Madam Speaker, early this year in the previous Parliament, the Standing Committee on Public Safety released a report on systemic racism in policing in Canada. When I look at the new additions to the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act that Bill C-5 would make, such as the declaration of principles, the warnings and referrals section, it gives me a bit of a pause. We can look at the experiences of indigenous and racialized Canadians with police forces. Through this bill, we would be now making it entirely dependent on the judgment of police officers as to whether they would issue a warning or referral or whether that declaration of principles would guide them in the interaction. Could my colleague comment further on that approach and the problems that might be inherent in it?

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Mr. Randall Garrison

Dec/13/21 12:58:36 p.m.
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Re: Bill C-5

Madam Speaker, that is an important question, and I did raise the issue in my speech. Given the history of systemic racism in policing, I am a bit concerned about who will actually benefit from the warnings and referrals section and whether only more mainstream and less marginalized Canadians will benefit from it. Perhaps, instead, racialized and indigenous Canadians will continue to be over-involved in the justice system for things that are actually a reflection of poverty and addiction instead of an intent to commit crime.

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Mr. Mike Morrice (Kitchener Centre, GP)

Dec/13/21 12:59:15 p.m.
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Re: Bill C-5

Madam Speaker, I thank the hon. member for his years of advocacy around decriminalizing illicit drugs and for the decision to include a mention of call to action 32 from the TRC in his speech this morning. I wonder if the hon. member is willing to comment further on to the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls. To cite the report at page 644, “Mandatory minimum sentences are especially harsh for Indigenous women, girls, and 2SLGBTQQIA people.... This leads to higher incarceration rates.” Would the hon. member be open to sharing his views on this?

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Mr. Randall Garrison

Dec/13/21 12:59:57 p.m.
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Re: Bill C-5

Madam Speaker, the hon. member re-emphasized a point I was trying to make in my speech. We have known for a long time that the main impact of mandatory minimums falls very heavily on indigenous women. When we look at the figures, with more than 40% of the women incarcerated in this country being indigenous, we see there is something seriously wrong with our system, and not just with our justice system, but with our social system as a whole. The missing and murdered indigenous women and girls inquiry and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission called our attention to this and called for action. We have the chance to take actions now by strengthening Bill C-5. I very much hope that we can have those discussions at committee, but that would require the minister to refer this bill to committee before a second reading vote.

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Mr. Adam van Koeverden (Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Health and to the Minister of Sport, Lib.)

Dec/13/21 1:00:51 p.m.
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Re: Bill C-5

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague from Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke for his expertise and decades of advocacy on issues of social justice and others like it. I also want to acknowledge that he is an expert on the subject matter. He mentioned that we were rushing into debate a bit. I tend to agree with that, but I also agree with him about the urgency of this matter and the importance of correcting the wrongs of the past. I have here a list of the mandatory minimum penalties that would be repealed and the ones that would not be repealed. I also want to thank him for his bravery in speaking out on the aforementioned issues. I would like to read an excerpt from another colleague, the member for Beaches—East York, who has worked hard on bills relating to these matters. He said the bill would “require police and prosecutors to consider alternative measures—including diverting individuals to addiction treatment programs, giving a warning or taking no further action—instead of laying charges or prosecuting individuals for simple possession”. I agree that the bill would address systemic racism in our judicial system, but I also agree that it would not fix everything. In closing, I want to express interest and enthusiasm in collaborating with the member on this bill, because I think of all of us here in this place, he has some expertise that we will all benefit from.

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Mr. Randall Garrison

Dec/13/21 1:02:13 p.m.
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Re: Bill C-5

Madam Speaker, I thank the member for his kind remarks and compliments. I think we have shown in this Parliament that when we put our minds to it, we can get things done. When I said we were rushing into the debate, I meant yes, we need to rush on this because of the urgency of the issues, but we should not rush into the debate before we have had a chance to have discussions about our common purpose here and what we can accomplish by working together. That is what I was referring to. We certainly need to have those talks and we need to have those talks soon.

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Mr. Ryan Turnbull (Whitby, Lib.)

Dec/13/21 1:02:49 p.m.
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Re: Bill C-5

Madam Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the member for Parkdale—High Park. I stand before the House as the member of Parliament for Whitby, but I grew up in Peel region. My father who was a homicide detective there for much of my upbringing and then moved to the National Parole Board. In terms of my life history, he spent most of his career catching individuals who were committing crimes in our community and making sure they were convicted of those crimes. He then spent the latter half of his career working toward reintegrating offenders successfully within society. Also, I spent seven years working with a local halfway house in Brampton, which definitely gives me a unique perspective on the bill we are debating today. It is a pleasure to speak on Bill C-5, an act to amend the Criminal Code and the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act. Today, I will be speaking to the issue of mandatory minimum penalties, MMPs for short, in the Criminal Code and the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act. The importance of equitable sentencing laws in the criminal justice system cannot be overstated. Indeed, imprisonment represents one of the most grave intrusions by the state into the lives of individuals. As such, sentencing laws must be carefully reviewed in order to ensure they reflect the values that Canadians hold dear. Unfortunately, there are inconsistencies within the current sentencing regime provided by the Criminal Code and the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act that have disproportionately impacted indigenous people, Black Canadians and members of marginalized communities right across Canada. This bill proposes to repeal the particular MMPs that have been shown to have the most significant impact on those communities, while ensuring that courts can continue to impose sentences for violent and serious crimes that respond to their seriousness and the harms caused. When considering the appropriate sanctions for an offender in a criminal case, a judge must effectively balance the principles of proportionality, parity and restraint. The principle of proportionality requires a sentence to reflect the gravity of the offence and the degree of responsibility of the offender, also taking into consideration some of the background circumstances within which the offender offended. The principle of parity requires sentences to be similar to those imposed on similar offenders in similar circumstances. Perhaps most important is the principle of restraint, which dictates that an offender should not be deprived of liberty if less restrictive sanctions may be appropriate in the circumstances. Balancing these principles is highly individualized and is a process that demands an assessment of all relevant factors, including the personal characteristics and life experiences of the individual standing before the court. However, when an offence carries a mandatory minimum penalty, the minimum punishment is prescribed by law. This removes a certain amount of discretion from judges, and it means they cannot impose sentences below the legislated minimum, even in cases where they find that a shorter period of imprisonment or no imprisonment at all would be an appropriate sentence given the circumstances of the offence. I will also add here that the Canadian Sentencing Commission recommended the abolition of all MMPs except for murder, and 90% of Canadians when surveyed agreed that judges should be given sentencing discretion. While proponents of MMPs often argue they ensure consistency and fairness in sentences for the same crime, the reality is that for some crimes they can and do yield unfair results that can have negative impacts on the justice system writ large, as well as on victims. MMPs can be inconsistent with the direction in the Criminal Code requiring judges to use imprisonment with restraint and to consider all available sanctions other than imprisonment that are reasonable in the circumstances for all offenders, with particular attention to the circumstances of indigenous offenders. Data shows that between 2007 and 2017, indigenous and Black individuals were more likely to be admitted to federal custody for an offence punishable by an MMP than were other Canadians. In fact, the proportion of indigenous adults admitted with an offence punishable by an MMP almost doubled between those years, from 14% to 26%. Similarly, in 2018-19, Black people represented 7.2% of the federal inmate population but only 3% of the Canadian population. Indigenous people and Black Canadians are particularly overrepresented for firearm and drug offences carrying mandatory minimum penalties. Specifically, Black Canadians comprised 43% of individuals convicted of importing and exporting drugs in 2016-17, while indigenous people comprised 40% of those admitted for a firearm-related offence that same year. To quote from the study, “Over the ten year study period, Black and other visible minority offenders were much more likely to be admitted with a conviction for an offence punishable by an MMP.” In response to this data, Bill C-5 proposes to repeal mandatory minimum penalties for all drug offences in the CDSA, as well as for one tobacco-related offence and 13 firearm-related offences in the Criminal Code. MMPs should remain for offences such as murder, sexual assault and all child sexual offences, and for certain offences involving restricted or prohibited firearms or where the offence involves a firearm and is linked to organized crime. While MMPs have been in place since the Criminal Code was first enacted, they were largely the exception until relatively recently. Over the last two decades, there was an increased reliance on MMPs to further denounce crimes, deter offenders and separate them from society. What is interesting here is that the evidence shows the contrary. In fact, there is really no deterrent effect provided by MMPs. No criminal stands in contemplation before committing an offence and considers the length of the sentence they will get, so MMPs do not deter future crime. One of the intentions behind support for MMPs in the first place was that they are supposed to deter crime, but that is actually false based on the evidence I have seen and based on my personal experience from working with ex-offenders. MMPs are also incredibly expensive and ineffective in general, and they increase the rate and volume of incarceration. Prosecutors can use the threat of mandatory minimum sentences as a bargaining chip. Harsher penalties increase defendants' incentive to go to trial because of higher stakes, which means they are less likely to plead guilty and instead go to trial. They clog up the justice system. They lead to charter challenges and, in essence, increased court costs. Also, longer, harsher sentences lead to the overcrowding of our prisons and increased prison costs. Overcrowding in prisons also contributes to congestion within the criminal justice system, which soaks up vast quantities of limited resources. This takes away resources that could otherwise be dedicated to release planning and reintegration efforts that actually reduce recidivism. Remember, recidivism is the rate at which offenders who are released reoffend, and in many cases it is a measure of success regarding the measures that are implemented. In addition, lengthier sentences actually increase the likelihood of reoffending. The evidence shows that recidivism actually goes up the longer people stay in prison. There are many reasons for that. There is more institutionalization, offenders are subject to greater stigmatization when released and they have a harder time finding work and reconciling with family members. I will end with a story. I worked with federal offenders to help reintegrate them into society. I did this for about seven years with St. Leonard's Place Peel. These offenders were out on statutory release under conditions, and many of them, with the right reintegration supports and programming in the community, were not reoffending. We had about a 92% to 96% effectiveness rate. We can see that in essence, the whole tough-on-crime agenda and approach seems to be an ideological narrative that is not based in facts and reality. I hope that all members of the House will support Bill C-5.

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Mr. Warren Steinley (Regina—Lewvan, CPC)

Dec/13/21 1:12:47 p.m.
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Re: Bill C-5

Madam Speaker, I would like to talk about getting back to reality for a second for the member opposite. In 2015, 25% of the prison population was indigenous. Now it is 30%. Why has the Liberal government failed in reducing the percentage of indigenous inmates across Canadian penitentiaries?

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Mr. Ryan Turnbull

Dec/13/21 1:13:09 p.m.
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Re: Bill C-5

Madam Speaker, the overrepresentation of indigenous people in our prison system is a direct result of having mandatory minimum penalties entrenched in our Criminal Code. This is exactly what Bill C-5 would help to address, as it would repeal those mandatory minimum penalties. I think that there is much more we can do, but a lot of it has to do with the work our government is doing on reconciliation, with the largest amount of money in any federal budget dedicated to indigenous people.

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Mr. Mario Beaulieu (La Pointe-de-l'Île, BQ)

Dec/13/21 1:13:52 p.m.
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Re: Bill C-5

Madam Speaker, it has been said that this is not a good time to bring this bill forward, especially with respect to eliminating mandatory minimum sentences for firearms offences, such as discharging a firearm with intent or robbery or extortion with a firearm. What does my colleague think about that?

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Mr. Ryan Turnbull

Dec/13/21 1:14:28 p.m.
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Re: Bill C-5

Madam Speaker, in terms of the timing of this piece of legislation, there is no better time than now to deal with systemic racism within our justice system. It is long overdue. Evidence has been accumulating for decades on how ineffective mandatory minimum penalties are. In fact, they do nothing to deter gun crime. In essence, I am not really sure how to respond to the member opposite because, in my view, there is no better time than now.

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