44th Parl. 1st Sess.
December 15, 2021 02:00PM
- Dec/15/21 3:35:54 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I rise to table a petition on behalf of Canadians who are concerned about the 21-year campaign of gross human rights violations perpetrated by the Chinese Communist regime against Falun Gong practitioners, including the killing of practitioners on a mass scale for their vital organs to fuel the Communist regime's organ transplant trade.
The petitioners call on the government to impose forthwith Magnitsky-style sanctions on those responsible for these gross human rights violations, including former president Jiang Zemin.
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Madam Speaker, I rise to table a petition also in support of Bill S-223.
This bill seeks to combat forced organ harvesting and trafficking. It would make it a criminal offence for a person to go abroad and receive an organ taken without the consent of the person giving the organ. This bill has passed in the Senate unanimously three times, and MPs from multiple parties have been putting forward a form of this bill for over 13 years. This bill passed unanimously in the House of Commons in 2019 in exactly the same form. Petitioners hope that this Parliament is the one that finally gets this done.
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- Dec/15/21 3:37:34 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, like many of my colleagues, I am bringing forward a petition brought to the House by Canadians across Canada that deals with international trafficking in human organs.
Specifically, as mentioned by my colleague for Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, it would amend the Criminal Code and the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act to prohibit Canadians from travelling abroad to acquire human organs removed without consent, or as a result of a financial transaction, and to render inadmissible to Canada any and all permanent residents or foreign nationals who had participated in this abhorrent trade in human organs.
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Madam Speaker, I am rising today to present a petition in support of Bill S-223. This bill has been before the Senate and it has passed three times. It has been before the House before and was passed unanimously by the House. It would make it a criminal offence for a person to go abroad and receive an organ taken without consent of the person giving that organ.
Petitioners are rightly disappointed that we have not yet gotten this bill passed in that 13-year time frame. It is time to get this bill done. It is the right thing to do.
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Madam Speaker, I am honoured to rise and present this petition, as some of my colleagues have, in support of Bill S-223. It includes some signatures from Hamilton and Toronto. As we have heard, Bill S-223 seeks to combat the abhorrent practice of forced organ harvesting and trafficking, and make it a criminal offence. We have heard that this has been passed by the Senate three times unanimously and also been entertained in the House by multiple parties over the years, including being unanimously passed in 2019 in exactly the same form. The petitioners are hoping that this Parliament is the one that finally gets it done.
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Madam Speaker, I also have the honour to rise today and present a petition in support of Bill S-223. The petitioners are excited about this bill because they want to see forced organ harvesting and trafficking stopped. This bill would make it a criminal offence to do that. It has passed the Senate unanimously three times before, and this bill has been put forward for over 13 years. The petitioners and I hope that this Parliament is the one that finally passes this bill.
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Madam Speaker, I rise to present a petition signed by a number of citizens from my home province of British Columbia who are deeply concerned about the abhorrent practice of forced organ harvesting and trafficking. They are encouraging this Parliament to pass Bill S-223, which has been presented here before. It is time to get the job done.
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- Dec/15/21 3:41:07 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I have 16 petitions to table today and I wonder if there would be unanimous consent of the House to extend the time allowed for petitions. I know the NDP House leader is very much looking forward to hearing all 16 of them.
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- Dec/15/21 3:41:26 p.m.
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Is there unanimous consent?
Some hon. members: No.
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Madam Speaker, I look forward to seeing Bill S-223, and would ask that all questions be allowed to stand at this time.
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- Dec/15/21 3:41:46 p.m.
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Is it agreed?
Some hon. members: Agreed.
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- Dec/15/21 3:42:06 p.m.
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If a member of a recognized party present in the House wishes to request a recorded division or that the motion be adopted on division, I would invite them to rise and indicate it to the Chair.
The hon. chief opposition whip.
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- Dec/15/21 3:42:06 p.m.
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moved that a ways and means motion to implement certain provisions of the economic and fiscal update tabled in Parliament on December 14, 2021, and other measures be concurred in.
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- Dec/15/21 3:42:41 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I would request a recorded division.
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- Dec/15/21 3:42:45 p.m.
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- Dec/15/21 4:27:26 p.m.
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I declare the motion carried.
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- Dec/15/21 4:27:58 p.m.
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- Re: Bill C-8
moved that Bill C-8, An Act to implement certain provisions of the economic and fiscal update tabled in Parliament on December 14, 2021 and other measures, be read the first time and printed.
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- Dec/15/21 4:28:41 p.m.
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- Re: Bill C-5
Mr. Speaker, before I begin, I would like to take a moment to recognize the passing of bell hooks today. She was a trail-blazing Black feminist author who brought the intersectionality of race, gender and class into the public consciousness, and really helped shape the conversations that we continue to have today. My condolences go out to her family and to countless people across the world, especially the Black women she touched through her writing. May she rest in power.
The conversation on Bill C-5 is one that I have been having a lot throughout my life, since my university days when I was studying criminology and throughout law school when I was studying the justice system. In the past six years, as a member and the chair of the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights, the question and purpose behind what our justice system is meant to do and what our prison system is meant to do really help guide guide the moral framework of communities and societies.
Access to fair justice is a vital pillar of our due process. While we have made progress over the past six years, the fact remains that our justice system is not yet properly equipped to provide access to everyone. We see that in Black and indigenous communities and among people who struggle today to find a job, make a living and build a better life for themselves. It is because of their interaction with the justice system.
There are Canadians suffering from addiction and dying from overdoses or withdrawal because the law states that drug possession means jail time. This is not fair justice. Studies show us that mandatory minimums for lesser offences like this do not solve anything and often do more harm than good. They force first-time offenders into a cycle that prevents them from building a better life for themselves.
When people talk about the supposed success of these programs, they are bringing individual lives down to a statistic of those who are being imprisoned. They are too busy trying to appear tough on crime to stop and ask whether these policies are actually accomplishing anything productive and accomplishing what our justice system is meant to accomplish. The supposed success of the mandatory minimums they point to is the over-incarceration of people in Black and indigenous communities. As far as I am concerned, that makes them a failure.
It is time for a better approach. That is why I am pleased to participate—
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- Dec/15/21 4:31:48 p.m.
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I am sorry to interrupt the hon. member. I would ask members to have conversations outside the chamber, please.
The hon. member has the floor.
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- Dec/15/21 4:32:11 p.m.
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- Re: Bill C-5
Madam Speaker, I am really pleased to participate today in the continuing debate on Bill C-5, an act to amend the Criminal Code and the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act.
A great deal of time has already been spent describing the objectives of the bill, its proposed reforms and the expected impacts of it. I support these changes and really believe they will make a significant, positive contribution to our criminal justice system and contribute to efforts to address the disproportionate impacts that existing criminal laws have had on certain communities in Canada.
We know certain communities in Canada and in other countries are involved in the justice system at higher rates than others. In Canada, the over-incarceration of indigenous persons and Black Canadians is very well documented. Many of these reasons are systemic, including our laws on sentencing. It is clear the issue of over-incarceration must be addressed by revisiting our existing sentencing laws. That is exactly what Bill C-5 proposes to do.
Canada is not alone in recognizing the increased and indiscriminate use of mandatory minimum penalties, or MMPs, has proven to be a costly and ineffective approach to reducing crime. Indeed, many jurisdictions around the world are moving away from this approach to the criminal justice system. While MMPs can be a forceful expression of government policy in the area of criminal law, we know they do not deter crime and can result in unjust and inequitable outcomes, which contradicts the purpose of our justice system. The Supreme Court of Canada has very been clear about these issues.
Criminal justice policy is not developed in a vacuum. Evidence-based policy is informed by relevant research, including comparative studies from other countries. By examining a particular policy's successes and failures, we can develop reforms that build on what we know works and addresses what we know does not work.
For instance, while the United States, both at the federal and the state levels, has historically made great use of MMPs, in the last decade many states have moved toward reducing or eliminating mandatory sentences, with a particular focus on non-violent and drug-related charges. These trends reveal a shift motivated by, among other things, a need to address high levels of incarceration and the corresponding social and fiscal costs. This is being done by governments of all political stripes in the United States, and I encourage all parties in the House to recognize the true impacts of MMPs and work to continue to improve our justice system.
Some in the U.S. have termed the removal of MMPs as being a “smart on crime” movement. This approach recognizes the need to address high levels of incarceration of young Black and Hispanic Americans who are disproportionately negatively impacted by the use of mandatory minimum sentencing laws in the U.S., particularly, as I have noted, for non-violent, drug-related offences.
Some have also pointed out that mandatory minimum sentencing actually encourages cycles of crime and violence by subjecting non-violent offenders, who could otherwise be productive members of society, to the revolving door of the prison system.
Recently, the President of the United States indicated his intention to repeal MMPs at the federal level and provide states with incentives to repeal their mandatory minimums as well.
Other countries have made similar changes. For example, in 2014, France repealed certain MMPs, predominantly citing evidence showing the reconviction rate had more than doubled between 2001 and 2011, increasing from 4.9% to 12.1%.
When we examine the trends in like-minded countries, we can see a clear policy shift toward limiting the use of mandatory minimum penalties to the most serious of cases and restoring judicial discretion at sentencing.
While international comparisons cannot be the only lens through which we develop sentencing policy in Canada, particularly given our unique cultural traditions and diversity, such comparisons provide a useful backdrop to which we assess the adequacy of our own sentencing laws.
Currently, the Criminal Code and the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act provide MMPs for 73 offences, including for firearms offences, sexual offences, impaired driving, kidnapping, human trafficking, sex trade offences, murder, high treason and drug-related offences such as trafficking, import/export and production of certain drugs such as cocaine and heroin. Thirty offences have been amended in the last 15 years, almost entirely by the Harper government, to increase existing MMPs or to impose new ones.
Bill C-5 would reverse that trend and in so doing it would make the criminal justice system fairer and more equitable for all. It would repeal MMPs for 20 offences, including MMPs for all drug-related offences as well as for some firearms ones.
These reforms should not be viewed as a signal from Parliament that drug and firearms offences are not serious or are not noteworthy of important denunciatory sentences in appropriate cases. They can be very serious, and I have full confidence in our courts to impose those appropriate penalties.
I realize that I am running out of time, but I have a lot more to add to this. It is a very interesting debate and I look forward to this discussion continuing.
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