Hon. Marc Gold (Government Representative in the Senate): Again, I’m not sure it’s accurate to describe the work that was done as censoring government documents. Be that as it may, I don’t have the details of the work that was done. I will certainly make inquiries and report back.

Hon. Marc Gold (Government Representative in the Senate): Senator, thank you for your question. The Cannabis Act established a new control framework for cannabis, and was designed to better protect public health, public safety and minimize harms associated with cannabis use. As you properly point out, the act requires a legislative review to start within three years after coming into force and a report to be tabled in both houses of Parliament within 18 months after the review begins. The government remains committed to putting into place a credible, evidence-driven process for the legislative review which will assess the progress made towards achieving the objectives of the act.

Hon. Donald Neil Plett (Leader of the Opposition): Honourable senators, my question is for the government leader in the Senate. On Friday morning, Canadians who had waited overnight in front of Service Canada office in Laval in the hopes of obtaining their passports were expelled from the premises when the police were called in to disperse the crowd. This is not service; this is shameful.

Yesterday, Brian Lilley reported the surge in passport applications that has completely overwhelmed this Trudeau government is actually just 55% of what the government processed before the pandemic — an average of 75,000 per week now versus 90,000 to 98,000 per week then.

Leader, what is your government’s response to this report? Is this correct? If no one who processes passports was laid off, as Minister Gould has said, then why can your government not keep up with the demand?

Hon. Marc Gold (Government Representative in the Senate): Thank you for the question and for underlining the very troubling situation that affects so many Canadians waiting for their passport renewals.

I don’t know whether all details are correct. I do know that the government has invested significantly to engage additional personnel to support and supplement the current working staff to address this problem. The challenge is a serious one, and the government is working hard to address it.

I’m advised that the focus is on ensuring that anyone who has travel planned within 25 business days are given priority for service and, although there is no question that processing times are longer than prior to the pandemic and longer than they should reasonably be, 72% of applications are being processed within the service standards.

Senator Gold: I think it’s the position of the government that health labels on beef, pork or any other matter help Canadians make informed decisions. Canadians will, I expect — as will folks around the world — continue to purchase ground beef. Canada produces high-quality beef that is enjoyed in this country and elsewhere, and it’s the expectation of the government that this will continue to be the case.

Senator Plett: Leader, how is it possible that Putin’s illegal invasion of Ukraine is justification for 35% fertilizer tariffs on our own Canadian farmers but not serious enough to prevent Minister Joly’s office from sending a representative to a lavish party at the Russian embassy? Does this make sense to you, leader?

Senator Gold: Thank you for your question. Again, if I understand how the law operates in practice, if the threshold is met — whatever the threshold is that ultimately is passed into law — that would give the officers at the border the right to search. Of course, if the material that is found contravenes a law, appropriate steps will be taken. Presumably, material that is otherwise not in contravention of any law will be treated with the same and appropriate respect that personal property is and should be treated with under our laws.

Hon. Mobina S. B. Jaffer: Senator Gold, will you answer a question?

Hon. Julie Miville-Dechêne: Would Senator Dawson take a question?

Senator Dawson: Certainly.

Hon. Donna Dasko: Would Senator Dawson take another question?

Senator Dawson: Yes, madam.

Senator Dasko: Will you take a supplementary question, senator?

Senator Dawson: Yes, Senator Dasko.

Senator Batters: Senator Gold, since you did reference that particular mandatory minimum being used for pepper spray in your speech, could you please get us that number and provide it to this chamber when you have it?

Hon. Paula Simons: Would the Government Representative in the Senate take one more question?

Senator Pate: Senator Gold, would it be possible to provide that information? My last discussions with officials from the Department of Justice indicated that a full 34% of all Charter challenges they are dealing with have to do with mandatory minimum penalties, and they hope that this will have a significant impact but they cannot produce figures to shore up that hope. Would it be possible for you produce those figures for us, please?

Hon. Dan Christmas: Thank you, Senator Gold, for your remarks. I appreciate the many examples of individuals who could benefit from the removal of mandatory minimums.

Senator Gold, my question is similar to other senators’. If these mandatory minimum sentences were removed, do we have any projections or studies as to what the anticipated reduction of federal incarceration rates will be for Indigenous people as a result of this bill?

Hon. Claude Carignan (Acting Deputy Leader of the Opposition): Honourable senators, I rise at second reading of Bill C-5, An Act to amend the Criminal Code and the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act.

Bill C-5 includes the following measures, which I will address in order in my speech. First, it increases the number of offences for which a judge may sentence an offender to a term of imprisonment to be served in the community. As the legislative summary for the bill states, and I quote:

A conditional sentence is one where an offender is sentenced to a term of imprisonment of less than two years, to be served in the community subject to particular conditions. . . .

Second, Bill C-5 repeals a number of minimum sentences of imprisonment. Third, it proposes diversion measures for simple possession offences involving drugs other than cannabis.

One of the objectives of Bill C-5 is to comply with the Ontario Court of Appeal ruling in R. v. Sharma. That ruling declared paragraph 742.1(c) of the Criminal Code unconstitutional. That paragraph prohibits the use of imprisonment in the community for offences punishable by a maximum term of imprisonment of 14 years or more. It also found subparagraph 742.1(e)(ii) to be unconstitutional. This subparagraph prohibits imprisonment in the community for indictable offences punishable by a maximum term of imprisonment of up to 10 years and involving the importation, exportation, trafficking or production of drugs.

However, Bill C-5 goes further than the findings in the Sharma case, because it also proposes to allow imprisonment in the community for a range of offences that involve the use of a weapon or result in bodily harm, including the offences of sexual assault and criminal harassment.

There is a disconnect, or even a failed approach, in Minister Lametti’s decision to introduce Bill C-5 to comply with a ruling that is currently being appealed before the Supreme Court by federal prosecutors from the Public Prosecution Service of Canada.

I would point out that this case has been under consideration before the Supreme Court of Canada since March 23, so the court should be handing down its ruling in the next few months.

Either Minister Lametti’s decision to introduce Bill C-5 was premature, given that the Supreme Court could have handed down a ruling during our study of the bill that would have struck down the appeal court’s declaration of unconstitutionality, or the federal prosecutors filed an unnecessary and no doubt costly appeal to the Supreme Court at Canadian taxpayers’ expense.

I want to note that the previous version of Bill C-5 was Bill C-22, which died on the Order Paper because of the last election. During the study of Bill C-22, federal prosecutors sent a letter to the Supreme Court of Canada on March 8, 2021, asking the court to postpone the appeal hearing. In that letter, the federal prosecutors promised to drop the appeal if Bill C-22 came into force, since they felt that this would render the appeal moot.

After the election was called, the federal prosecutors decided to pursue their appeal after all. However, I note that their arguments in appeal contradict the need for the measures proposed by Minister Lametti in Bill C-5 regarding community-based sentences. I will come back to this later.

I remind senators that this bill proposes to give judges the discretion to impose community-based sentences, meaning offenders serve their sentence at home rather than in prison. Those sentences would be allowed even for offences that are practically the most serious in the Criminal Code, those punishable by a maximum term of imprisonment of 14 years or more.

To convince you, I will cite a few examples of criminal acts that are inherently dangerous but for which Bill C-5 would allow community-based sentences: manslaughter without the use of a firearm; hostage taking without the use of a firearm; trafficking of fentanyl or certain firearms; sexual assault with intent to wound, disfigure or endanger the life of an individual 16 years of age or older, provided that the assault is not committed with a firearm; robbery with a firearm, unless committed for the benefit of a criminal organization. I am of the opinion that there is no logic in allowing community-based sentences for such serious offences that pose such a danger to the safety of Canadians.

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My argument can be based on the federal prosecutor’s brief to the Supreme Court in their appeal proceedings of the Sharma decision, which I mentioned. Their brief provides a compelling review of excerpts from Hansard, supporting the idea that the government’s intention was always that community imprisonment be reserved for less serious Criminal Code offences. On this point, their brief quotes the following statement by former MP Robert Goguen, who spoke as parliamentary secretary to the Minister of Justice on September 21, 2011:

(2050)

This government is addressing the concerns of Canadians who no longer want to see conditional sentences used for serious crimes, whether they are violent crimes or property crimes.

[Translation]

In their brief, the prosecutors could have also cited another statement made by Mr. Goguen on the same day, and I quote:

Conditional sentencing came into effect in 1996, when the government wanted, among other things, to reduce excessive use of incarceration for less serious crimes. I repeat: less serious crimes. . . .

However, in the years following the creation of this type of sentencing, there has been a complete lack of consistency when it comes to determining when conditional sentencing is appropriate.

At the time, many court decisions gave a conditional sentence for serious and violent crimes. This contributed to the public’s loss of faith in the justice system. Clearly, many people, and some provinces and territories, wondered whether the limits on conditional sentencing set out in the Criminal Code were sufficient.

The problem that Mr. Goguen described in 2011 is one that I believe will recur if Bill C-5 is passed. It is one of the major reasons I oppose this bill. By allowing the courts to sentence offenders who have committed an inherently serious and dangerous offence to serve their time at home instead of in a provincial jail, I am concerned that this bill will trivialize these crimes. I am concerned that it will be more difficult to protect the public from the people committing these offences and that, consequently, Canadians’ confidence in the criminal justice system will be undermined over the coming years.

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I share the same concern about another important measure in the bill, namely repealing a series of minimum prison sentences. For example, it proposes to abolish several minimum sentences for the offences of using, importing and trafficking firearms. What a bad time for the federal government to propose these measures, which would reduce the severity of sentences imposed by judges at a time when there is a striking increase in gun‑related crime, particularly in Montreal. It is therefore not surprising that the Government of Quebec has officially expressed its serious concerns to Ministers Lametti and Mendicino regarding this bill.

[Translation]

Quebec’s ministers of justice and public safety wrote a letter to their federal counterparts on May 4, 2022, in which they asked the federal government to remove the repeal of minimum sentences for gun crimes from the bill:

Taken together, the amendments in Bill C-5 will impact Quebec’s responsibilities with respect to the administration of justice and policing matters on its territory.

Repealing mandatory minimum sentences for certain gun-related offences could contradict initiatives that the Government of Quebec adopted recently to tackle gun violence. We believe that the approach in Bill C-5 also contradicts actions that your government has taken to combat this kind of violence.

We note that the situation in Quebec is unprecedented. In Montreal, offences involving firearms and other weapons have increased markedly over the past year.

Clearly, the federal government’s actions must be consistent with provincial and territorial realities. Quebec is therefore requesting that the bill not repeal mandatory minimum sentences for the gun-related offences identified therein.

On another note, the bill proposes diversion measures for individuals who commit the offence of simple drug possession.

I recognize the importance of the spirit of the principles set out in the law to justify diversion measures. For example, the bill sets out the following principle:

It also states:

That said, I’m opposed to the rather vague nature of the existing wording in the bill regarding the application of the diversion measures. For instance, the bill states that:

A peace officer shall . . . consider whether it would be preferable . . . to refer the individual to a program or to an agency or other service provider in the community that may assist the individual.

What does “other service provider in the community that may assist the individual” mean, and what kind of assistance does that refer to? Does that mean a drug treatment centre offering several months of closed therapy? If so, how is a police officer who arrests a heavily drug-intoxicated person in the street at 3 a.m., in a remote region, supposed to find a therapy centre that is prepared to immediately assess the person and admit them for therapy, assuming the person agrees? If this is the kind of diversion measure that Bill C-5 is intended to allow, I can well imagine that it will be very difficult to enforce, particularly in remote communities that too often lack access to substance abuse prevention and treatment resources.

I’m also wondering whether the diversion measures proposed in Bill C-5 take precedence over the diversion measures that are currently allowed under the Youth Criminal Justice Act for those under 18. This question is worth asking, considering that the text of Bill C-5 does not provide for any incorporation by reference of the two acts.

As a final point, I am concerned that Bill C-5 does not require the provincial government to select and authorize the community or therapeutic organizations or the type of services that will be offered as diversion measures. In my view, the province’s agreement is essential in order to prevent the federal government from interfering in provincial jurisdictions in the areas of health care and social services under the guise of its jurisdiction over criminal law. The language used in the principles set out in Bill C-5 shows, in my view, that the diversion measures in the bill seek primarily to achieve objectives that promote health and not solely criminal law objectives.

For all these reasons, I urge you to vote against this bill. Thank you.

Senator Gold: Sure, one more.

Senator McCallum: Can a personal laptop be considered intellectual property, and not a good?

Some Hon. Senators: Hear, hear.

(On motion of Senator Duncan, debate adjourned.)

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