44th Parl. 1st Sess.
June 1, 2022 02:00PM
- Jun/1/22 5:30:25 p.m.
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- Re: Bill C-5
Madam Speaker, I know there is a lot of shared ground here in the House of Commons on wanting to make communities safer. That is a goal we all share, but we share a difference of opinion on how best to do that. I am always disappointed when I hear the Conservatives implying that somehow mandatory minimums create safer communities, when all the research and all the evidence show that this is simply not true. I guess I am hoping the member could acknowledge that we have a difference of opinion about how best to protect communities. It is not that some of us care about communities more than others.
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- Jun/1/22 6:15:27 p.m.
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- Re: Bill C-5
Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for his work on the justice committee.
He and I obviously do not agree on Bill C-5, but one thing I hope he would agree with me on is the mandatory minimums being repealed in the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act.
The Liberal government likes to speak about simple possession. Mandatory minimums would be eliminated for the offences of trafficking, importing or exporting controlled drugs and substances or the production of schedule I or schedule II drugs, which are cocaine, heroin, fentanyl and crystal meth. Would he categorize those offences as “simple possession”?
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Mr. Speaker, that may sound like a tough question, but for me, as someone who has been a public advocate of decriminalizing all drugs for more than a decade, that is an easy question. I think all drugs should be decriminalized, and that is what we put forward in Bill C-216 today.
If we actually look at the statistics on the mandatory minimums that are applied by judges, we see that most of them are for things like simple possession or trafficking to support people's own drug habit. I am sorry that I do not have the statistic in front of me, but something like 61% are for those offences. They are not for the offences that the Conservatives have combed through the code to find and fearmonger on by saying that eliminating those mandatory minimums means that those serious crimes would not be punished by jail time. They would be.
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- Jun/1/22 6:17:51 p.m.
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- Re: Bill C-5
Mr. Speaker, I enjoy working with the member on the justice committee.
Of course I support all those measures he is talking about. The law on mandatory minimums is not the solution to everything, but it is a solution to systemic racism and it is a partial solution to the opioid crisis.
Do we need more measures to interdict the illegal importation of guns into our communities? Absolutely, I support those kinds of things, but the reason that this does not create public confidence is that some people are putting forward the myth that somehow eliminating mandatory minimum sentences makes our communities more dangerous. It does precisely the opposite.
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Mr. Speaker, I am thankful to my colleagues in the NDP for not standing up in this round.
I want to make this clear again. I was in this place when, under Stephen Harper, the omnibus crime bill, Bill C-10, was passed. At that time, we already knew that there was no evidence that mandatory minimums would reduce the crime rate. We were watching in the United States as they were being removed in Texas. We saw at the time that these would probably be struck down as unconstitutional, as they are being struck down. The Charter of Rights and Freedoms is being found to be violated by a number of these laws. What they do, at their essence, is not deter criminals. They do not make communities safer. There is no evidence that they make communities safer.
I would ask my hon. friend for Calgary Rocky Ridge if he is able to produce at this time, or cite for us, any study by reputable criminologists or any group that works with criminal defence, or anything from the Elizabeth Fry Society or the John Howard Society that would suggest that mandatory minimums make communities safer, because there is no evidence for that proposition.
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- Jun/1/22 6:33:03 p.m.
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- Re: Bill C-5
Mr. Speaker, the member launches straight into an attack on the previous Conservative government while ignoring that almost all of the mandatory floor sentences being repealed in this bill were not passed under the Harper government. They came from earlier governments. Successive governments, Conservative and Liberal, with different prime ministers, have, over a very long period of time, created these minimums. Most of them predate the Harper government. It was disappointing to hear her use this as an opportunity just to make a dig at the previous government, when this is something that has been ongoing for many years.
The hon. member disagrees that there should be mandatory minimum sentences. I can agree with her. I can agree with many people who have spoken about the futility, and the blunt instrument that prison can be, but for the most serious crimes there needs to be a floor.
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