Bill C-9 (Historical)

An Act to amend the Criminal Code (conditional sentence of imprisonment)

This enactment amends section 742.1 of the Criminal Code to provide that a person convicted of a serious personal injury offence as defined in section 752 of that Act, a terrorism offence or a criminal organization offence prosecuted by way of indictment for which the maximum term of imprisonment is ten years or more is not eligible for a conditional sentence.

Criminal Code

[The Speaker, Peter Milliken]

Before question period the hon. member for St. Catharines had the floor. He has 14 minutes remaining in the time allotted for his remarks. I therefore invite the hon. member for St. Catharines to resume his speech.

[Rick Dykstra, Conservative, St. Catharines, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is certainly my honour to speak. I guess I was the bookend today on both ends of question period. I will continue my remarks on Bill C-9, an act to amend the Criminal Code on conditional sentence of imprisonment.

Even before this legislation was drafted, the Prime Minister determined that we needed to get out to communities across the country to talk first-hand with Canadians and hear what measures they would like implemented. Last summer we put together the task force on safe streets and healthy communities and several party members, including the current finance minister, travelled across the country speaking to police officers, crime victims, social agencies and many others connected with the justice system.

As a result, we decided we needed to open up the Criminal Code and make some real changes that we believe will have a significant impact on the criminal justice landscape of this country.

From a local perspective, Niagara Regional Police Chief Wendy Southall, once she had a chance to review the bill, offered this comment:

Obviously from a Niagara perspective, as well as an Ontario and Canadian Chiefs of Police perspective, we're all focused on the significant consequences that must await people who possess illegal firearms and use them in the commission of an offence. And I believe these legislative changes are certainly a step in the right direction. Coupling these changes with enhanced border security will definitely have an impact upon the safety of the people of the Niagara Region.

I agree with Police Chief Southall and so does this government. In order to achieve our goal of safer communities, there needs to be a four pillared approach that involves: stronger penalties for those committing violent crimes; long term crime prevention plans that target young people, especially those at risk; realistic and effective rehabilitation programs; and finally, recognition within the justice system of victims' rights. I would like to speak directly to each of these four points.

In terms of justice, Bill C-9 is very clear. Criminals have to understand there are going to be consequences for their actions and we are serious about sending them that message. If people commit a serious crime, rest assured they will do serious time.

Any criminals convicted of a serious crime, including violent and sexual offences, major drug offences, crimes against children, and impaired driving causing death or bodily harm will be required to serve their sentences in prison, not at home. In fact, any criminal convicted of a crime that has a maximum prison sentence of 10 years or more will be ineligible for a conditional sentence.

The second pillar is prevention. Prevention begins with sound economic policy and good social programs. Our budget includes $20 million, a commitment to invest in youth programs that target young people at risk of becoming involved with guns, gangs and drugs. Ideally, we need to put tools and textbooks in the hands of our young people, not guns and not gangs, tools that will help them realize they can grow up to lead successful and productive lives. That means working with parents and agencies in my community, such as RAFT or Niagara Child and Youth Services, Big Brothers Big Sisters, and the countless others who work with troubled young people who feel they have no real choice or no real opportunities.

Everyone in our community should share a strong focus when it comes to working with our youth. We all need to play a role and take the time to help build our youth, and help them become positive members of our society. Our justice minister has been asked to put together a council of individuals to advise him on how to make these investments.

The third pillar is rehabilitation and reintegration. Both are an important component of our justice system. Rehabilitation programs help contribute to a strong community by helping all members of our society make a positive contribution.

Our new government understands this and has made rehabilitation a key component of this strategy, but let me be clear: justice and rehabilitation are not one and the same. We firmly believe that those who commit criminal acts must pay their debt to society and their victims, but we must not forget that they may one day earn the opportunity to re-enter society. We all have a responsibility to provide effective programs to ensure that those who have served their time return to society with the tools they need to become productive citizens. We must make every effort to assist these people and prevent them from returning to the same circumstances that led them to commit a crime in the first place.

The fourth pillar of justice is the protection of victims' rights. Perhaps this is the most important aspect of our new government's plan to provide stronger rights for the victims of crime. Twenty-six million dollars has been set aside in the budget to implement programs and provide better services for victims of crime to give them a voice in a system that often considers them last, if at all.

New options and programs are being developed to ensure that the federal government can appropriately address the needs of victims. Funds for programs such as financial assistance for victims to attend National Parole Board hearings and for covering travel expenses will ensure that victims are not treated like criminals but respected in their time of need, not ignored but listened to, not embarrassed but embraced.

Victims are the ones whose rights are too often discarded in our efforts to make sure that criminals' rights are protected. It is time for victims of crime to know that they matter too. In fact, they matter most.

In closing, I will acknowledge that even the toughest laws are not going to prevent all crimes, but our new legislation is based upon similar measures enacted in the state of Virginia in 1997, measures that provided positive results. Through 1998 in Richmond, the capital of Virginia, a city with one of the highest murder rates in the United States, homicides dropped by 40%. In fact, following the implementation of measures like those we have in front of the House today, the homicide rate in 1998 was the lowest in a decade. I can only hope that these measures have a similar impact on our communities.

In my community, for example, the Niagara area, a crime is committed with a gun every 36 hours. In 2005 there were 3,246 violent crimes committed in the Niagara area, with an unprecedented 14 homicides. This cannot and will not continue. I want nothing more for my community and for all Canadians than I want for my own family, a city where we can all feel safe and a country where we can all be safe to walk the streets. I do not understand why others would not want that for their communities and for their own families.

As I have outlined, getting tough on crime is a four-pillared approach that involves justice, prevention, rehabilitation and, finally, victims' rights. This approach is not necessarily new and it is not big on spin. It is a straightforward approach to fixing what is wrong in our country, our society and our communities. Bill C-9 sets out to do that. It puts the right focus on conditional sentencing and ensures that when a serious crime is committed there will be consequences. Those consequences, respectfully, do not include a penalty that consists of a weekend at home.

[Brian Murphy, Liberal, Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe, NB]

Mr. Speaker, it is difficult to speak about Bill C-9 without also talking about Bill C-10. They are the twins of Conservative legislation in the area of justice.

I have two questions for my friend. I thank him again for his very thoughtful and thorough speech on the subject. I join with him, obviously, in wanting safe communities across this country. These two questions do not necessarily come from comments he made today or comments that he has ever made, but comments that have been made by his government. They go to respect for judges.

I have the greatest of respect for judges. Judges, parole officers, rehabilitation consultants, prosecutors, defence lawyers and legal aid specialists are in the trenches of our criminal justice system. I cannot believe that the government canvassed their entire thoughts on this project before tabling this legislation.

I want to ask this question of my friend, the hon. member, in light of comments made publicly about judges, Liberal judges, and comments made by one member, and not necessarily retracted by the Prime Minister, about the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Canada. Does this bill, with its companion bill, give enough respect to judges who are in the trenches? Does it give them enough discretion to understand that there might be a bad apple who can be rehabilitated, that every criminal is somebody's son or daughter, wife or husband?

Second, in light of the fact that both bills encompass a prospect that there will be more incarceration--and we know this is a likelihood because the Minister of Finance has put away some money for prison funding--has there been some thought given to the increased need for legal aid?

My friend will know that legal aid is now achievable, really, only if one's personal liberty is in peril. In most provinces across this country, there is only enough legal aid funding to fund those whose liberty is in jeopardy. If the bills, in tandem, contemplate less liberty for those accused, is there room for or has thought been given to increased legal aid funding across this country, which every law society in this country has been asking for, by the way?

[Rick Dykstra, Conservative, St. Catharines, ON]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague's comments and questions are thoughtful. First and foremost, I am not going to speak this afternoon about comments made by one person. If we did that in this House, in fact, we would be here for a whole lot longer than 26 or 27 weeks out of the year. I think what we do in this chamber is speak directly to the commitment that we make prior to an election. The government of the day has to try to ensure that it keeps those commitments once it has made them.

The foundation of the bills that the hon. member speaks about, both Bill C-9 and Bill C-10, did not come to the House on the basis that right after the election they were important to do or they might be done or they perhaps should be introduced. They were built on the foundation of the Minister of Finance's tour prior to the election, a tour on what safe streets and our communities should be built on.

The input we received from across the country allowed us to prepare the foundation for what these two bills would be built on. Then we included the foundation of those bills in our platform so that the people of this country would know that when we went out to talk about safe streets, justice and prevention, this would be built upon that foundation.

On January 23, the election happened. We set forth one of the first two pieces of legislation to be moved, Bill C-9 and Bill C-10, and specifically the one we are dealing with today, ensuring that serious criminal activity having anything to do with a minimum sentence of 10 years would look toward and be specific to ensuring that it would not be house arrest but would be significant jail time. I think we have addressed that from start to finish.

With respect to the second part of the question, the hon. member who asked the question was not able to ensure that he directed the question in such a way that it spoke to the fact that the provincial governments are responsible for legal aid, in fact. They are responsible to carrying that out. It is not the federal government that carries out that responsibility. However, I will say to the hon. member across that I think his comment and his question were well put and that on this side of the House we supported legal aid prior to these two pieces of legislation and we will be supporting legal aid after their implementation.

[Yves Lessard, Bloc, Chambly—Borduas, QC]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for my hon. Conservative colleague.

First, in his speech, he talked a lot about law and order. He also said that all criminals should go to prison. Will he not acknowledge, along with the rest of us, that not all are equal in our society? That not all individuals are equal in being defended in the courts or in society either in how they are treated or in terms of their responsibility at the time they commit a crime? Will he not acknowledge that there is a marked difference between a hardened career criminal—a reoffender—and a person who makes a bad judgment call at some point in his life? If he compares the two, in the spirit of justice, can he see that though they have committed the same kind of crime, they should not receive the same sentence, and one of them should have the opportunity to redeem himself without going to crime school?

[Rick Dykstra, Conservative, St. Catharines, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to point out that I did not say Bill C-9 was a piece of legislation that would put everyone in jail. What I did say was that a criminal who commits a serious crime should not be walking the streets of our communities, our provinces and our country. Let us be clear that we are specifically talking about serious crimes. As I pointed out, those serious crimes are laid out very carefully in the bill and it is shown exactly what they are.

The hon. member makes a good point about dealing with the issue of what happens to a criminal or an individual who is actually looking toward a better life. I agree with the member that the purpose of that is rehabilitation and ensuring the opportunity happens so they can lead a life that is productive for themselves, their families and obviously their communities.

The other side of that, of course, is to ensure that at an early age we have the opportunity. That is why we have committed in the budget to ensure that prevention is a key part of the young person's life, so that, as I said, tools and textbooks, not guns, are in the hands of our children.

[Wayne Marston, NDP, Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I understand that through Bill C-9 and Bill C-10 we are going to have increased jail times and our prison population will increase. Considering the fact that in the province of Ontario the experiment in privatized jails has just been ended, can you reassure the House that the federal government will not go the way of privatizing our prison system?

[The Acting Speaker, Andrew Scheer]

I will remind the member for Hamilton East—Stoney Creek to address his comments through the Chair.

[Rick Dykstra, Conservative, St. Catharines, ON]

Mr. Speaker, while I appreciate the question, I do not think it needs a long answer. We have made a commitment in the budget to ensure that the facilities are there if there is an increase. Based on the legislation, judges will have what is laid out before them in terms of acting to ensure that serious crimes for which criminals are convicted will mean that criminals do time in jail, not at home on the weekends.

[Yves Lessard, Bloc, Chambly—Borduas, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak in the debate on Bill C-9. I consider it to be a very important bill. If we look at it more closely, it gives us an indication of the direction this government is intending to take in terms of the type of society we want to gradually build.

Before talking about Bill C-9, I think we must first look at what it is meant to be solving. Members from the Conservative Party should be telling us what the results of conditional sentences have been since 1996, or at least learning what they are first.

We are given cold, hard figures about the number of murders, armed robberies and other crimes, but nothing about the progress that has been achieved with conditional sentences.

But as one of my colleagues pointed this out this morning, since 1996, that is, between 1996 and 2003, recidivism has fallen 13% in Canada. The only year since 1996 when there was a slight rise was the 2% increase in 2004-05.

That was my first point, because I neglected to mention that I will be splitting my time with the member for Richmond—Arthabaska. I had promised to say that, but I forgot to when I started to speak. I will be splitting my time with him.

The second point that must be noted, and what the bill is also meant to be solving, relates to what prison terms lead to. In 10 years, we have cut prison terms back by 55,000, while at the same time, in my view, the Canadian judicial system operated very effectively.

The Conservatives therefore need to tell us why they want to dismantle all of this, and what they are trying to accomplish in doing it. Otherwise, it amounts to moving away from the kind of society we have been building in recent years, and moving toward something that looks much more like American justice and the direction taken by the United States in recent years.

I would point out that Bill C-9 adds dangerously to the list of offences for which a judge will no longer be able to impose a conditional sentence. The judge will be de facto required to operate on auto-pilot in the case of many prison sentences, several hundred, as we saw in the speech this morning, thereby adding thousands of prison terms.

Before 1996, there were no conditional sentences. We must therefore look back to the primary concern addressed by this 1996 measure, which the Bloc Québécois also approved at that time. It was to enable judges to assess mitigating circumstances.

Earlier, in a question, I indicated that we are not all equal in society. Let us look at our fate in terms of our social status or the vagaries of life or even our defence before the courts. Criminals can get off if they have good counsel. The same situation occurs when we are faced with a crisis or a crime. There are some people with a past, a career in crime, who have to be assessed on the basis of not only what they did at the time in question, but also what they did previously.

In our opinion, people who have run into difficulty in their lives or slipped off the straight and narrow must not be treated the same way.

I would like to give an example here. I could provide dozens of them. I had occasion to work quite a bit with volunteer centres, the resources to which judges directed individuals to serve their sentence in the community. I will speak of two young people, today aged 24 and 25. They were 9 or 10 when tragedy occurred. Their parents were killed in front of them. I do not have to tell you that these children remained troubled.

They are now young adults. One of them committed an offence that is considered serious here, forgery. With Bill C-9, this person would automatically have been sent to prison. And yet, this person had what it takes to succeed in life. Under the Criminal Code, it was a major offence. Had this person been sent to crime school, their life would have been very different. However, this young person was directed to a community resource and went there for over a year, while under house arrest. At that community resource, the young person was considered very valuable and someone who contributed a lot. In addition, it was felt that this person had developed the potential to succeed in life.

I could give more examples, but I will stop there since the sister of that person ended up in a similar situation. Why send these two people automatically to prison? Simply because their case fell under a small provision of Bill C-9 and the only school that could bring them in line was the school of crime? Today these two people have succeeded after suffering the same type of hardship.

In this House, if we look back on our careers we will see moments in life, to varying degrees, when we strayed from the straight and narrow.

In the list of crimes for which judges will no longer have the authority to hand down conditional sentences we find theft over $5,000, credit card fraud—a crime usually committed by someone who has not killed anyone—theft from mail, disguise with intent, false prospectus and forgery. The two people I was talking about committed forgery; they did not hurt anyone. They did commit a crime that is punishable by law, since they went after people who had other rights in their society.

The justice in conditional sentencing is intended to ensure that we have restorative justice and that the offender participates in righting the wrong that has been committed.

Since this morning I have listened closely to the arguments from the Conservatives to justify Bill C-9. None of these arguments highlight the principles we have just described here, namely to ensure that we end up with restorative justice and not repressive justice.

[Wayne Marston, NDP, Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON]

Mr. Speaker, back in the 1960s, a neighbour of mine, a young man who came from an abusive home, stole seven cars in one evening. He hot-wired them and drove them three miles out of town into a snowbank. He then returned to the police station and made it clear that he had done this. He went before a magistrate who allowed him to repay the damages. The young man went on to complete his high school education. He is now a very productive and valued member of our community.

Do you see measures contained in the bill that would prevent a magistrate or a justice from applying that kind of good common sense?

[The Acting Speaker, Andrew Scheer]

I again ask the member for Hamilton East—Stoney Creek to address questions and comments through the Chair.

The hon. member for Chambly—Borduas.

[Yves Lessard, Bloc, Chambly—Borduas, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the answer to my friend's question is obviously yes. Bill C-9 does target that part of the current act that allows a judge to impose a conditional sentence on someone who otherwise would have been sentenced to prison. This in no way eliminates the responsibility to serve the prison sentence if the person does not abide by the conditions that the judge imposes.

Let us take the example of the young man the member mentioned. If he did not follow the judge's order that he repay the people he had wronged, he would be arrested and his punishment would be more severe. Since he had not complied with the terms of his conditional sentence, he would be obliged to serve his full prison term.

Clearly, then, Bill C-9 would prevent the judge from having that freedom.

[Christian Ouellet, Bloc, Brome—Missisquoi, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the hon. member for Chambly—Borduas this question:

When he talks about the kind of society that the government wants to create, is he talking only about American justice and American society? I would like him to explain, if he can, why he does not consider this way of changing society as worthwhile. Why would it not necessarily be worthwhile to change society when we greatly admire the Americans in a number of areas?

I would like the hon. member to tell us why we should not move toward American-style justice.

[Yves Lessard, Bloc, Chambly—Borduas, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague from Brome—Mississquoi for his question. I recognize his interest in social justice. I know that he works very hard in his riding in that regard.

What we have here is a dynamic where law and order are advocated. Certainly, we must have laws and also order, but they must be in the context of and have a specific objective for society. That is where I see the potential for a gap or a significant breakdown. This approach to the law leads us away from social justice.

A sense of justice contains elements of sharing, support and acknowledgement of others, of where they are in their life's journey and their actual place in society. My colleague is quite justified in making a comparison to what is happening in the United States. What is happening there is not comparable. The crime rate is much higher. In addition, these types of measures do not give the results expected.

When we examine the changes in our own country—prior to 1996, and over the last ten years, when the possibility of conditional sentences has meant that 55,000 fewer offenders have gone to prison—we see that the rate of recidivism has decreased by 13%.

This is major and my colleague is quite right in putting his question in that way.