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Decentralized Democracy

House Hansard - 219

44th Parl. 1st Sess.
September 18, 2023 11:00AM
Context: House Hansard - 219 - Sep/18/23
Mr. Randall Garrison
  • Sep/18/23 1:41:09 p.m.
  • Watch
  • Re: Bill C-48 
Mr. Speaker, once again, the member is mixing bail with all kinds of other questions in criminal justice and the Criminal Code. What I do have to say, and I want to emphasize it once again, is that while there are a few cases, and they are not very numerous, of repeat violent offenders reoffending, they are serious and we need to act and take care to make sure those do not happen again. Bill C-48 addresses those. The police associations across the country say that it does. Premiers are satisfied that it does. I am not sure why the Conservative Party is not satisfied that it would deal with that problem.
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Context: House Hansard - 219 - Sep/18/23
Mr. Randall Garrison
  • Sep/18/23 1:43:31 p.m.
  • Watch
  • Re: Bill C-48 
Mr. Speaker, I want to address something that the member said, which is that Bill C-48 would result in more people being in pretrial detention. Precisely because it allows the option of community-based bail supervision, the opposite would be the case. This bill would actually result in fewer people being detained before their trials. That is the important aspect that New Democrats argued for and convinced the government to include in this bill. If we are interested in public safety, as I said, yes, we need to deal with repeat violent offenders. We also need to deal with recidivism. The way one deals with recidivism is to keep people out of jail, keep them in their employment, keep them with their families and provide them the supports they need to be productive citizens in this country.
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Context: House Hansard - 219 - Sep/18/23
Mr. Randall Garrison
  • Sep/18/23 5:24:09 p.m.
  • Watch
  • Re: Bill C-48 
Madam Speaker, my question to the hon. member is about how we deal with repeat offenders. One of the proposals in the bill is to make the option of community-based bail supervision available in all cases for the judge to select. That means that people could get bail who would otherwise end up in detention before trial. What we really need is the commitment of resources from the federal government to get that program under way, because it is far cheaper than detaining people and has much better outcomes, in terms of public safety. Is the member prepared to commit the government to support community-based bail supervision?
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Context: House Hansard - 219 - Sep/18/23
Mr. Randall Garrison (Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke, NDP)
  • Sep/18/23 5:56:17 p.m.
  • Watch
  • Re: Bill C-48 
Madam Speaker, my question for the member for Thornhill has to do with solving the large number of repeat offenders who are not involved in violent crime. I wonder if she would agree with me that part of the solution for most of the people who cause most of those cases the Conservatives like to talk about is to get people into substance abuse treatment and mental health programs and lift them out of poverty so they can truly become more productive members of our Canadian society. Instead, the Conservatives have been arguing against a lot of the decriminalization of drugs that would lead to better treatment programs. Which is it for the Conservatives? Are we going to put money into resources and treatment so we can reduce this incidence of crime in our local communities?
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