Bill C-5

An Act to amend the Criminal Code and the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act

This enactment amends the Criminal Code and the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act to, among other things, repeal certain mandatory minimum penalties, allow for a greater use of conditional sentences and establish diversion measures for simple drug possession offences.

Criminal Code and Controlled Drugs and Substances Act

[Pam Damoff, Liberal, Oakville North—Burlington, ON]

The Conservative Party is wrong, and it is really sad that the Conservatives would actually say “hear, hear” to the fact that politicians know more about it than judges do.

The Conservatives implemented these reforms to be “tough on crime”, but what they really did was mean-spirited, further marginalizing indigenous peoples and Black and racialized Canadians. Their tough-on-crime measures have led to the explosion of the indigenous and Black prison population with no evidence that these measures actually reduce crime. It is past time to end these discriminatory sentencing provisions. Despite what the opposition says, we are not getting rid of these sentences but rather giving back to judges the discretion in sentencing. Where warranted, judges may even impose greater sentences than the mandatory minimum would have prescribed.

In 1999, indigenous peoples represented approximately 2% of the Canadian population but accounted for approximately 17% of admissions to provincial, territorial and federal custody. As of 2020, indigenous adults accounted for 5% of the Canadian population but represent 30% of federally incarcerated individuals, with indigenous women accounting for over 42% of all federally incarcerated women, with these numbers approaching 70% to 80% in some western provinces. Indigenous women are the fastest-growing prison population in Canada. They are now being transferred to Ontario because we are running out of room in women's prisons out west. I recently visited Grand Valley Institution for Women, where I met indigenous women who were separated from their families and communities. The solution is not to build more prisons but rather to prevent these women from entering the criminal justice system in the first place.

Black individuals represent 7.2% of the federally incarcerated population but only 3% of the Canadian population. We also know that Black people are also more likely to be admitted to federal custody for an offence punishable by a mandatory minimum sentence than other Canadians. In fact, 43% of all federally incarcerated offenders convicted of a drug offence punishable by mandatory minimum penalties were Black adults.

Thirty-nine per cent of Black people and 20% of indigenous peoples were federally incarcerated for offences carrying a mandatory minimum penalty. Repealing these penalties is expected to reduce the overall rates of incarceration of indigenous peoples and of Black Canadians.

Bill C-5's proposed reforms are informed by extensive consultations with a broad range of justice system stakeholders from across Canada. Prior to the introduction of the former Bill C-22, I held a round table with the Minister of Justice regarding mandatory minimum penalties and the impact on Black Canadians and indigenous peoples.

Organizations in my community, like the Canadian Caribbean Association of Halton and Advancement of Women Halton, made it clear that mandatory minimum sentences do not act as a deterrent for crime and cause many Black and indigenous peoples to be incarcerated. These consultations made a difference in the creation of the legislation. The president of the Canadian Caribbean Association of Halton, Andrew Tyrrell, let me know how important passing this bill would be for Black Canadians and was proud of his contribution.

The bill also responds to the calls for reform from various commissions and inquiries, such as the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls, and the Commission on Systemic Racism in the Ontario Criminal Justice System.

In the 42nd Parliament, when I was vice-chair of the status of women committee, we tabled a report on indigenous women in the criminal justice system and called for the repeal of mandatory minimum sentences. Many indigenous women enter the criminal justice system because of minor drug offences that come with mandatory minimum sentences. I visited the Edmonton Institution for Women and met two indigenous women who were in prison for drug offences that were subject to mandatory minimums. They had been living in poverty, and each had a partner who exerted coercive control that led them to crime. This bill would prevent indigenous women from being criminalized for poverty and abuse.

Now more than ever we need to implement the TRC's calls to action. We need to focus on restorative justice, affordable housing and social supports for indigenous women instead of criminalizing them. Bill C-5 is a step in that direction. The all-party Parliamentary Black Caucus, in its June 2020 statement, called for the review and repeal of mandatory minimums and the removal of limitations on conditional sentence orders.

The common theme in all these calls for reform is the recognition that the broad and indiscriminate use of mandatory minimums, and the Criminal Code's current restrictions on the use of conditional sentence orders, have had numerous negative impacts that have been disproportionately felt by indigenous peoples, Black Canadians and members of marginalized communities. They have also made our criminal justice system less effective and less efficient, which ultimately makes Canadians less safe.

I believe this bill would help to restore the public's confidence in the criminal justice system by providing much needed discretion to sentencing judges to impose sentences that respond to the particular circumstances of the offence and of the individual before the court. I want to highlight the story of my friend, Emily O'Brien. Emily was sent to federal prison after her partner coerced her to smuggle narcotics across the Canadian border. She was sentenced to Grand Valley Institution for Women on a mandatory minimum sentence. During her sentence, she noticed that prison did not prepare women for integrating back into society. Once she was released, she created her own business: a deluxe popcorn company called Comeback Snacks that not only makes delicious popcorn but has a mission to hire women who have been sentenced to prison so they will not re-enter the criminal justice system.

Emily's story is the exception to the rule. Most women who come out of the criminal justice system because of mandatory minimums come out worse. It should not be the sole responsibility of people such as Emily to tear down the stigma and provide women with opportunities after prison.

I have talked a lot about mandatory minimum penalties, but the bill would also lift many of the restrictions on the availability of conditional sentence orders in cases in which offenders do not pose a risk to the public safety. This would allow them to serve their sentences in the community under strict conditions, such as house arrest or curfew, while still being able to benefit from employment, educational opportunities, family, community and health-related support systems. I think most Canadians would agree that conditional sentences are appropriate sentencing tools and should be available to judges for appropriate cases. I would expect that they would be used in less serious cases, and I am confident that judges could make appropriate assessments as to their use.

Lastly, the bill would require police and prosecutors to consider alternatives to criminal charges for simple possession of drugs, such as a warning or diversion to an addiction treatment program. These measures are consistent with the government's approach to treating substance use and the opioid epidemic in Canada as health issues rather than criminal justice issues. I believe the government is on the right track with this bill, and I urge Parliament to support its swift passage.

[Pam Damoff, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Public Safety]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to congratulate you on assuming the chair. I think you are quite enjoying yourself there.

Bill C-5 is important legislation to provide greater flexibility to the criminal justice system and support appropriate and proportionate responses to crime. In doing so, the proposed changes would help to reduce the overall representation of indigenous peoples, Black Canadians and members of marginalized communities in the criminal justice system, including by repealing mandatory minimum sentencing laws that have shown to disproportionately impact these groups. The proposed reforms represent an important step in the government's continuing efforts to make our criminal justice system more equitable, accessible and effective.

Of course, law reform is only one way that we can do this but it is an important way and I applaud the Minister of Justice for his leadership. Systemic racism and discrimination are real problems in the criminal justice system and the consequences of leaving these problems unaddressed are significant.

The Conservative Party's sentencing reforms have posed the unconstitutional use of mandatory minimum penalties of imprisonment and additional restrictions on the availability of conditional sentence orders. These changes have limited judges' ability to impose proportionate sentences and to meaningfully consider the background or systemic factors. Everyone in this place believes Canada has one of the best judicial systems in the world.

We trust that our judges are best placed to interpret and administer the law. However, what the previous Conservative government did, by passing the number of mandatory minimum sentencing laws that it did, was take away a judge's discretion. The Conservatives' opposition to this bill today only further illustrates the belief that politicians know better than judges when it comes to administering the law.

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons (Senate)]

Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the member for Oakville North—Burlington. It is a great opportunity to rise today to speak to this very important piece of legislation, a piece of legislation that the Conservatives would have us believe is making the sky fall.

In reality, Bill C-5 would remove mandatory minimum sentencing requirements for only 14 of the 67 offences that currently have them. Of course, we have not heard that figure from the other side yet today. Those 14 that would be adjusted are based on data, facts and science, and an understanding that we trust our judges to make sentencing decisions and use their discretion in certain circumstances. I say there are only 14 because Conservatives would have us believe we are completely eliminating mandatory minimum sentencing, when in fact this would have an effect on 14 of those related to firearms and six with respect to drug offences.

I have said this before in questions and comments, and I will say it again now. This really comes down to a fundamental difference between Liberals and Conservatives. I understand and know this from the experiences I have had in the riding that I come from. In the immediate area of Kingston, we used to have seven penitentiaries before the Conservatives closed Kingston Penitentiary Now we have six. We have a great understanding of and community support for the role prisons can play in the rehabilitative process.

The basic premises, the ideas and the philosophies could not be any more starkly different between Conservatives and Liberals than they are on this particular issue. When it comes to Conservatives, the answer to people who break the law is very simple. They lock them up and throw away the key. That is the end of it. On this side of the House, we believe that there is a role for government to play in making sure individuals can be rehabilitated and reintegrated into society, so they can be productive members of that society.

I brought this up after the speech by the member for Portage—Lisgar. She took great exception, saying that Conservatives believe wholeheartedly in the idea of making sure that criminals, or potential criminals in this case, do not get to the place of breaking the law before we have to start dealing with them.

I would ask her to explain to me why Conservatives spent more money on building megaprisons during their time in power than they did on housing. That should say something. Conservatives built megaprisons at various locations, all the while claiming that they really wanted to ensure people had the opportunity to become rehabilitated. Then why were they focusing so much on building more capacity to house individuals than they were on such a fundamental need as housing? That is what this really comes down to.

It is a philosophical difference of opinion on the role corrections plays in our society. We know exactly where the Conservatives stand on this. I know it is frustrating and hard to hear this, which is why some of them have been heckling me, but it is the truth. Sometimes the truth does hurt. It is the reality of the situation. There is nothing wrong with having that philosophical ideal, but they need to stand by it and say that it is what they believe in. All of their actions have only ever been to support that.

Again, I know this from my time in municipal politics in Kingston. There was a great program that helped rehabilitate individuals in prisons, and these programs were the prison farms. We had those throughout the country. However, the Conservatives came along and decided to get rid of them.

This one is even better. The main rationale of the Conservatives for getting rid of the prison farms was that inmates were not becoming farmers once they were out of prison. The Conservatives were completely unable to realize the value of what inmates were receiving through these programs, which were able to rehabilitate people. There were stories of inmates who had been in and out of prison their whole lives and then got into the prison farming program, and it completely changed who they were. They would then get out of prison and, yes, they may not have decided to become farmers, but they were completely changed individuals in how they approached life.

The fact that Conservatives chose to get rid of the prison farm program was so offensive, not only to those who had been through the program, or the guards who had seen how effective it was, but also to the general community. We had people protesting in Kingston for five years in a row. Every Monday, there would be protests on Bath Road right in front of Collins Bay Institution, protesting what the previous Conservative government had done when it closed prison farms.

The protesters knew that those programs offered meaningful opportunity for people to become rehabilitated, which brings me back to my point about the philosophical differences between the Conservatives and the Liberals. It comes down to whether we believe we have an opportunity and, more importantly, an obligation to help rehabilitate people so they can become productive members of society or whether we just lock them up and throw away the key, which is exactly what the Conservatives would like to do.

I want to talk very briefly about one last point, and that is the issue around the percentages of people who are being incarcerated, which has been brought up a number of times today.

We have to agree that when Black people represent only 3% of people in our country but 7% of people in our prisons or, even more staggering, when indigenous people represent only 5% of people in our country but 30% of people in prisons, we have a really big problem with systemic racism, and we need to address that. We need to look for opportunities.

We need to empower people who have the ability to impact lives, such as judges, to have the ability to set people off on a different course, one that could be beneficial to their life experiences and influence who they ultimately become. That is what this bill is, in my opinion. This bill is about empowering individuals, specifically the judges, to whom we have given the authority to cast judgment on those who break the law. We need to give them the ability to make sure that, if there is an opportunity to change a life, they can actually do that.

This is something that has been brought up by previous speakers today. It was also a call to action in the Truth and Reconciliation Commission's report. As was indicated so eloquently by one of my NDP colleagues, this is something that has not had the impact Conservatives, and possibly Liberals back in the day, had intended when they brought mandatory minimum sentencing legislation in at the time. We have an opportunity now to correct that, fix it and to put ourselves on the right path in terms of genuinely looking for ways to rehabilitate people so that they can be reintroduced into society and become productive members of that society.

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

Mr. Speaker, if Bill C-5 is implemented as currently written and applied evenly regardless of race, how would this help marginalized felons? Who do the lower penalties for illicit drug possession and crimes involving firearms really benefit?

[Michael Cooper, Conservative, St. Albert—Edmonton, AB]

Madam Speaker, I rise to speak to Bill C-5, an act to amend the Criminal Code and the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act.

In the six years that I have been a member of Parliament, I have never seen a greater disconnect between how a bill has been advertised and what is in the substance of the bill. The Liberals today have been doing a good job of patting themselves on the back, touting Bill C-5 as landmark progressive legislation. The bill has been advertised as legislation that addresses systemic racism. The Liberals claim that it would help address Black, indigenous and marginalized groups that are caught up in Canada's criminal justice system. They claim that the bill would help persons who are suffering from drug addictions to stay out of jail and get the help they need. If, in fact, the substance of the bill did what the the Liberals have advertised the bill to be, it would be a supportable bill and it would be a laudable bill. The problem is that the bill would do none of those things. Simply put, Bill C-5 is not as advertised.

Let us unpack that for a moment and in that regard, let us look at the issue and the claim that the bill supposedly would help persons suffering from addictions.

I could not agree more that it is important to help persons suffering from addictions to get treatment, to rehabilitate so they can become happy and contributing members of society again. I certainly agree that when it comes to minor possession, it is not appropriate in most circumstances to prosecute. Indeed, it historically has been rare for persons found with minor possession of drugs to be prosecuted solely on that minor possession.

Today, those prosecutions do not happen because of a directive issued by the Public Prosecution Service of Canada, which provides that in cases of minor possession, prosecutions shall not proceed except where there are public safety concerns. This bill would not change that. It is true that the bill would codify that in law, and that is fine. It is probably the only reasonable aspect of the bill. However, it would not change the status quo, namely that today in Canada persons are not charged and are not prosecuted for minor possession. The question then becomes this. What exactly would the bill do for persons who are suffering from issues of addictions?

When one actually reads the text of the bill, one would be surprised that the Liberal solution to helping persons suffering with addictions is to help criminals who prey on persons suffering from addictions. The bill would roll back sentences for some very serious drug offences. It would roll back mandatory sentencing for drug trafficking and it would roll back sentencing for the serious crime of importing and exporting drugs.

Any reasonable person can distinguish, very clearly, between drug trafficking and importing and exporting drugs compared to that of a vulnerable person who might be suffering from mental health issues or other issues who happens to be caught with a small amount of drugs. There is a world of difference, and yet for such marginalized people, the bill would do nothing to help them, but it would help drug dealers and drug pushers. Remarkably, one of the offences that is rolled back in the bill is with respect to producers, manufacturers of schedule 1 drugs, including hard drugs, such as cocaine and heroin as well as fentanyl and crystal meth.

We have an opioid crisis in Canada today. Every day, approximately 20 Canadians lose their lives to an opioid overdose. It has increased by 88% since the onset of COVID, 7,000 Canadians a year. The Liberal government's solution is to roll back mandatory sentencing for the very people who are putting this poison on our streets, endangering lives and killing 20 Canadians a day.

If I were someone who was suffering with a drug addiction issue and that was a solution the Liberal government had to help me, I would tell it that I did not need its help, that I did not want its help because it would be completely counterproductive. It is completely the opposite of what the government claims the bill is about. When it comes to supporting persons who are suffering from drug addictions, simply put, Bill C-5 is not as advertised.

What about the claim that the bill would tackle systemic racism, that it would really help Black, indigenous and marginalized groups of Canadians? I know the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice spent some time on that topic this morning. There is absolutely nothing concrete in the bill to tackle systemic racism. There is absolutely nothing in the bill for Black, indigenous and other marginalized groups of Canadians.

What there is in this bill is the rolling back of some very serious firearms offences. What kinds of offences? We are talking about robbery with a firearm, extortion with a firearm, weapons trafficking, discharging a firearm with the intent to injure, using a firearm in the commission of a crime and many other serious offences that the bill would roll back. How does that help address systemic racism? How does that help Black, indigenous and other marginalized Canadians? The answer is that it would do nothing.

It is outrageous, beyond shameful, that the government has used vulnerable Canadians, marginalized Canadians, as cover for the real objective of the bill, which is to pursue a Liberal ideological agenda of going soft on criminals. It is also ironic because we heard, during the very recent federal election campaign, a lot of rhetoric from the Liberals about how firearms posed a significant threat to public safety and the security of our communities. Then, within three and a half weeks of the House reconvening following the election, what does the government do? It introduces legislation not to get tough on firearms offences, but to help people who use firearms and put the lives of people at risk to stay out of jail and in the community.

It is hardly a surprise given the record of the government. In the last Parliament, my former Conservative colleague, Bob Saroya, introduced a private member's bill, Bill C-238. That bill would have increased penalties for persons who were convicted of knowingly being in possession of a smuggled firearm. Why was that an important bill? If the government were serious about tackling firearms crime, it would recognize that 80% of firearms offences in Canada are committed with a smuggled firearm. It would logically follow that a bill like Bill C-238 would be welcome, but instead, one by one, the Liberals, with the help of the NDP, voted to defeat that bill.

It shows that when it comes to actually coming up with solutions to tackle firearms crime, the government is just simply AWOL. However, when it comes to firearms, I have to give it some credit, perhaps backhanded credit, for being consistent. The Liberals have been consistently tough on firearms, tough on law-abiding firearms owners. That is when they really get tough. However, when it comes to people who commit crimes with firearms, it is a whole different story. The Liberals in that case are more interested in giving criminals a free pass. It really highlights what a misplaced set of priorities the government has.

We hear a lot of rhetoric over there about evidence-based decision-making. Going after law-abiding firearms owners while at the same time rolling back sentences for people who commit crimes with firearms is ideological decision-making, not evidence-based decision-making.

Again, when it comes to helping marginalized and disadvantaged Canadians, Bill C-5 is simply not as advertised.

The Minister of Justice, in the press release he issued announcing the introduction of Bill C-5, was noted as saying that serious criminals should face serious punishment and be separated from our communities. I could not agree more with the Minister of Justice with respect to his comment. However, consistent with a bill that is not as advertised, when one opens up Bill C-5, one learns that it does exactly the opposite of what the minister claims to be concerned about. He says that we should keep serious criminals out of our communities, but the bill drastically opens up conditional sentencing orders for serious crimes, including kidnapping, kidnapping a minor, human trafficking, arson for a fraudulent purpose and aggravated assault with a weapon. What this bill means is that those convicted of these serious offences may not have to spend a single day in jail. Instead, they will have an opportunity to serve their sentence in the community and maybe even next door to their victim.

The minister talks about the fact that serious criminals should face serious punishment, but does he not consider arsonists, kidnappers and persons convicted of sexual assault to be serious criminals? I challenge him to say that, because I think any reasonable person would say that such criminals are serious criminals. They pose a threat to public safety and they should be doing time behind bars, not out on the streets.

Despite all the ways the government has tried to sell this bill, what is completely lacking is any support for marginalized Canadians. This bill does nothing to provide training, counselling or other supports. We on this side of the House strongly believe in reducing recidivism. It was, in fact, a Conservative member of Parliament, the hon. member for Tobique—Mactaquac, who introduced Bill C-228 in the last Parliament, a framework to reduce recidivism. Bill C-5 offers nothing in that regard.

In closing, Bill C-5 puts the rights of criminals first and the rights of victims last. It endangers public safety while doing nothing to help marginalized and vulnerable Canadians. If the Liberals were honest and advertised this bill truthfully, they would advertise it as the soft-on-crime, do-no-time bill. This bill needs to be defeated.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Madam Speaker, before I provide my comments on Bill C-5, I want to take a moment to congratulate the Bombers on their performance yesterday in the Grey Cup. I, along with hundreds of thousands of Canadians from coast to coast to coast, take in the annual festivities of the Grey Cup, which is a great Canadian tradition, and we are very proud in Winnipeg of how the Bombers performed. The coaching staff, players and administration all did an outstanding job, winning the Grey Cup for the second consecutive year, although there was a one-year pause in the CFL. I am very proud of the team, and I know I speak on behalf of all residents of Manitoba and Bomber fans in all regions of our country.

Having said that, I am often reminded there is a great divide between the Conservative Party and the Liberal Party when it comes to justice-related issues. I approach it with a bit of a different bias, having had an opportunity in different capacities to get a sense of young people's interactions with the law.

I was the chair of the Keewatin youth justice committee for a number of years in my local community and was also a justice critic. I had the good fortune of being an MLA for a number of years and had the opportunity to be a justice critic in the province of Manitoba.

I look at Bill C-5 as positive legislation that would make a difference. Back when I was the chair of the justice committee a gentleman by the name of Gary Kowalski, who was a colleague of mine and represented the Maples, opened my eyes to what justice committees were all about.

There are youth in all our communities who at times do things maybe they should not. They will fall on the other side of the law. In many of these cases, especially in the early nineties, often 16-year-olds or 14-year-olds would go to local stores, pick up something and decide not to pay for it. They were often first-time offenders. As opposed to having local police enforcement, in particular the Winnipeg police department, lay charges against those youths, they were provided the alternative of going before a youth justice committee. If the youths agreed to participate and fulfill the disposition of whatever the youth justice committee came up with, they would not be registered as having committed that criminal offence.

I was amazed when I found out about the group and wanted to know how we could get more people engaged and what sort of level of interest there would be. When I advertised it in the community of Inkster, which was the provincial area I represented at the time, no shortage of people were interested in being these quasi-judicial probation officers, because that is in fact what we were. We were honorary quasi-judicial probation officers.

At the first meeting, we probably had 40-plus residents. The average justice committee was under 20 people, so we had to decide who would be the most interested in moving forward. Some of the personalities on the committee were fairly hard: There were harsh individuals there. When we started to see young people come before the committee, even the harshest of them all had a much better appreciation and understanding. We would see youths who stole something from a store, and as a direct result they would have to do X, Y and Z and go through the courts.

One can talk about individual youths. One could also talk about the costs to society, such as court costs and so forth. I would argue that the cases we were receiving, at least in the first number of years, were best dealt with by our justice committee.

The committee was dealing with youth who were committing offences in the community. I believe that really had an impact. I remember a librarian at one of our local schools who got to know some of the youth. The dispositions that were typically given were for community service. Whenever we met with a 14-year-old or someone under the age of 18, and that was all of the time, we also had a parent come forward. It was amazing when we saw that 14-year-old without peer pressure, without his or her friends around, sitting in a chair with a guardian who was usually a mom or a dad. That young person would kind of shrink into the chair, head down, often breaking into tears. We got that sense of remorse. There was an appreciation of the terms of the crime committed and the circumstances around it.

We all knew what impact peer pressure can have on a young mind when going into a store with a friend. It does not make it right, but hopefully we could be a little more sympathetic as a community. I would argue that because we took that community approach, we said to our young people coming before us that we genuinely cared for them, and that they had fallen on the wrong side but we wanted to help them get on the right side. I know first-hand that some of the youth who went through our program ultimately ended up working in jobs and made reference to the positive impact of the dispositions given to them. There is an alternative.

When the Minister of Justice was talking, he said that the bill was all about low-risk offenders. However, listening to some of the rhetoric coming from the Conservative benches one would think that a cold-blooded murderer was going to be let go. The Conservatives seem to have this tough-on-crime mentality, whether it is better or healthier for our communities or not. I saw that in opposition and I am seeing it again today. The Conservative Party needs to better understand that people who become incarcerated, generally speaking, are going to be released some day. It is important that our justice system is there to protect the public. The issues of public safety and rehabilitation need to be factored in. The closer we get to doing everything right, the safer our communities will be.

For political purposes, for the three-inch headlines, Conservatives have a mentality that gives the impression that as a caucus they are tough on crime, that there is a consequence for crime, and that criminals are going to go to jail for a long time. That is the impression the Conservatives want to give. What is worse, they then try to give false impressions. Their first speaker, the critic, talked about how the Liberals were saying that if people committed certain crimes they would not have to go to jail: there would be no problem with it. The legislation would pass and people would not have to go to jail.

One of the fundamental differences between Liberals and the Conservative Party is that we have more faith in our judicial system and the independence of our judges. When judges have been appointed at the federal and provincial levels, especially in the last six years, we have been very diligent in ensuring that judicial appointments were done in a way that Canadians could be very proud of. We are saying that when a judge is appointed, that judge is in a far better position than any one of us to give a disposition in the best interests of the communities we represent and of the individual who committed a crime. That is what this legislation is really about, from my perspective.

Judges are well equipped to deal with low-risk offenders and the circumstances surrounding the offences, but if we listen to the Conservative rhetoric on the other side, one gets the impression that Liberals want these people to be set free: that we want to let them go. We are saying we have confidence in our judges. We are saying that we need to recognize that systemic racism is real, it is there and we need to do something.

The Conservative Party talks about truth and reconciliation and how important it is to the party. As a government over the last number of years, we have passed laws whether on language, children, the statutory holiday or more, all dealing with the calls to action. I keep my little book with me in the chamber that talks about the importance of truth and reconciliation. In fact, it has the 94 calls to action in it.

The member from the Green Party referred to call to action 32. I will read it. It states:

We call upon the federal government to amend the Criminal Code to allow trial judges, upon giving reasons, to depart from mandatory minimum sentences and restrictions on the use of conditional sentences.

The government has enacted a number of the calls to action by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. We are acting upon somewhere around 75% to 80% of the ones we are responsible for or have shared responsibility for. It is in progress. It is not like we can click our heels and they are all done. We recognize that. That is the reason we feel it is important to get this bill passed.

Many government members would love to see the bill passed sooner as opposed to later, and we understand the Conservatives will have some concerns with regard to the legislation. I would challenge members of the Conservative Party in particular, as an opposition party, to talk to me about truth and reconciliation and call to action 32, and to tell us how and why they believe this legislation goes against it. I suggest the bill supports call to action 32. That is one of the reasons it is getting the support it is receiving, at least from the government and members of the Liberal caucus. When we talk about truth and reconciliation and establishing that relationship, which I know is so important to the Prime Minister of Canada, this is the type of legislation that will make a difference.

If members were listening to the Minister of Justice, he gave us some percentages, and so did the parliamentary secretary. I made a quick note. The parliamentary secretary said that the Black community makes up 3% of Canada's population, yet when we look at federal institutions, it makes up 7%. When we look at indigenous communities across Canada, which make up around 5% of the overall population of our country, they make up close to 30% of federal inmates. That is 30%, based on 5% of the population.

How can we not look at this call for action and react to it? Some of my colleagues across the way said that some of these minimum sentences were put in during other administrations, the odd one even referencing Liberal administrations. It is important to recognize that we have been in government for just over six years. How time goes by.

[Mike Morrice, Green, Kitchener Centre, ON]

Madam Speaker, congratulations to the member for Portage—Lisgar for her re-election.

I wanted to note that in Bill C-5, of the 73 mandatory minimum penalties, only 13 are repealed in full, 20 in full or in part and only 10 of the 28 that have been ruled unconstitutional are part of the bill. At a time when we know that sentencing judges would still be required to impose a sentence that is proportional to the degree of responsibility and seriousness of the offence and at a time when we know that the TRC call to action 32 has called for departing from mandatory minimums and that mandatory minimums contribute to systemic racism, could the member comment on her opposition to this particular bill?

[Sylvie Bérubé, Bloc, Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou, QC]

Madam Speaker, to follow up on what my colleague was saying about violence and the police, does she think that passing Bill C‑5 could jeopardize public safety in any way?

[Candice Bergen, Conservative, Portage—Lisgar, MB]

Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise in this House and speak to this bill. It is my first time rising to give a full speech since the last election. I was able to give a short statement a week and a half ago, but this is my first opportunity to give a full speech. I do want to say a big thanks to the people of Portage—Lisgar who voted for me, and those who did not vote for me, because I am here to represent all my constituents in Portage—Lisgar. This is the fifth time they have sent me to the House.

As I said in my previous statement, it was a difficult election, so I really appreciate the people who stood with me, those who worked and who volunteered. They volunteered in offices and with door knocking, and they donated. They were there for me.

I would like to express my sincere thanks to my campaign team. I specifically want to mention Deb, Colleen and Neal. Then there was Hank, Glenn and Brian, who were always there, and countless others who supported me. As I have a little time today, I also want to say a big thanks to my husband, Michael. This was his second election with me. When we met, he did not know that he would be entering the world of politics, but he is actually pretty good at door knocking. He is very efficient and he knows how to keep me moving through the doors. I appreciate his love and support as well.

Portage—Lisgar sent me to Ottawa to be their voice. It is so important that we, as MPs, stay connected to our riding and put our riding's needs, priorities, and ways of looking at our country and, indeed, of addressing problems that face our country first and foremost in all that we do. That has really been my endeavour since I was first elected back in 2008.

Madam Speaker, you would probably recall that as a new MP, and I think you were a fairly new MP at that time, too, I was able to bring forward a private member's bill to end what we believed was the wasteful and ineffective long gun registry. I have a funny story. Madam Speaker very much supported the long gun registry. We were on different sides of that issues.

In sending thank you letters to everyone in the chamber who supported my private member's bill, I accidentally sent one to Madam Speaker, who was understandably unhappy with me because she did not support it and did not want her constituents to think that she had. I am not sure if she recalls that. I see that she does, and I do as well. Hopefully she has forgiven me for that faux pas back then.

I did appreciate the support I got from people in the chamber. The interesting thing I learned during that entire endeavour was that members of Parliament sometimes say one thing in their riding and then something very different in the House of Commons. Madam Speaker was not one of those. She was consistent in her riding and in Ottawa. She supported the long gun registry.

However, there were MPs from the NDP side, and even a few from the Liberal side, who told their constituents they supported law-abiding Canadians and the ability of farmers, duck hunters, rural Canadians, indigenous Canadians and others to legally have firearms and not have to register them, but then they came to Ottawa and voted completely differently. They were what some would call two-faced in how they presented themselves in their riding and how they voted.

That was an interesting first lesson for me. The other thing I learned working on ending the long gun registry was how valuable stakeholders are in developing legislation. When I am talking about issues around crime, guns and how to combat crime, gun crime specifically, frontline police officers were some of the best resources for me. Certainly I talked the Ontario Federation of Anglers and Hunters a lot. I talked to the Shooting Federation of Canada. I talked to countless men and women who were involved in hunting and who used firearms on their farms.

I have to say, when I talked to frontline officers and asked them, again as a new MP, if we were to end the long gun registry, would we hurt the work they were trying to do as police officers. They overwhelmingly told me “No, the long gun registry does not help us”.

What they were having problems with, they told me, were criminals, gangsters and drug dealers on the street victimizing people, luring people into gang activity and using guns in the commission of a crime. They said they needed us, as the Conservative government, to get tough on those individuals. Needless to say, my private member's bill did not pass. It was defeated, but it really brought the issue to the forefront.

In 2011, we had an election and a number of the Liberal MPs who had been inconsistent in terms of where they stood on the long-gun registry lost their ridings and the Conservative Party won a majority government. We were then able, through a government bill, to end the long-gun registry and enact what we believed as a government was the best way to combat gun crime.

All of us in the House know that gun crime in Canada is a problem. Thankfully, we do not have the same degree of gun violence that the U.S. has, but the gun violence we are seeing in Canada is alarming, and it is only growing. It was something that we, as a Conservative government, recognized was a problem that had to be addressed.

The Conservative approach to gun crime was to, first of all, not spend time, energy, resources and police time targeting law-abiding Canadians. These are Canadians who legally own firearms, have licences to own their firearms and have gone through safety courses. We have very strong laws, and so we should, around the transport of firearms, background checks, storing firearms and using firearms.

Conservatives believe in that kind of regime. We believe that we should have strong legislation around who owns firearms and how those firearms are used. Conservatives supported that, but we did not believe we should be using all of our resources, political resources and the finances of the country to target law-abiding Canadians. Why would we? They are following the law. They are not using their firearms to commit crimes.

I remember when I was doing the work on this, an interesting statistic was, and I have said this before in the chamber, if someone has a licence to own a firearm, that person is 50% less likely to ever commit a crime with a gun. That statistic was valid back in 2009-10, and I would say it probably still is today. Those of us here who do not have a licence to own a firearm are actually 50% more likely to commit a crime with a gun. It is only logical that law-abiding Canadians trying to follow the rules and want to own firearms for the right reasons are going to keep following the law. Conservatives said not to focus on those people, not make life more difficult for those people, but make sure they follow the law and keep the rules strong.

If we look at criminals and criminal activity going on primarily in our major cities back in 2011, gun crime was on the rise in places such Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal, and even in places like Edmonton, Winnipeg and some of the smaller cities. The Conservative focus was to ensure that people who commit crimes with guns were put in jail.

Over the years, I see more and more that there is hope for many people who find themselves involved in criminal activity. Not all of them are horrible people for whom there is no hope. There is hope for people to change.

Once someone walks into a store with a gun, puts it against the head of somebody and says, “Give me all your money, or I'm going to shoot”, public safety then becomes a priority. The minister referred to somebody who had been drinking too much and did something they regretted. We need to help those people before they get to the point of committing these kinds of crimes. Once they have committed the crime, they need help, and many times the most help they are going to get is in a federal penitentiary. They will actually get more help if they get two years plus than they would in a provincial facility.

Let us help them before they get involved in a life of crime. At least, that is what the Conservatives believe. We proposed some great measures in this last election. Our leader and our party presented some really good, solid and practical solutions to helping people with addictions and mental health issues.

Helping people before they get involved in crime is really the way to do it. However, once they have committed a crime, and I will say it once again, protecting the public should become the government's top priority. That was the Conservatives' top priority. Let us not focus on law-abiding gun owners; let us focus on criminals.

I would now like to focus on the different approach taken by the Liberals since 2015 to combat gun violence. As the Conservatives, we had our approach, and when the Liberals were elected, they had their approach. Their approach is to get out the big hammer, come down hard on farmers and duck hunters, and throw the book at them because they are easy to go after.

I know not every Liberal in the House should be painted with the same brush, but it would appear the Liberal government wants to do the easy thing, which is a lot of great virtue signalling, but does not accomplish anything. Therefore, they go after what some would say is the low-hanging fruit, the law-abiding Canadians. That is who the Liberals go after.

Then they have no problem being hard and very severe. Once the hammer comes down, somehow they do not care about how people feel or the stress law-abiding Canadians are being put under when they are made out to be criminals. Somehow compassion, common sense, justice and fairness are not words found in the vocabulary of the Liberal government when it talks about what it is going to do to law-abiding Canadians who own firearms.

The minute the government had the chance, it called an election. Then, when it got to this Parliament, the first thing it wanted to do was pass a bill to make life easier for the people who commit armed robbery with a gun and say it will help those people who are marginalized. However, people who are minorities are probably victimized even more by gun crime, so saying that it will help marginalized Canadians and reduce gun crime is insanity.

I want to go to my graph to talk about the evidence. This covers the reporting period from 2004 to 2020. It is entitled, “Shootings & Firearm Discharges in the City of Toronto”. I will not go through all of the years, because I do not have enough time, but I will say this. In 2014, we had a Conservative majority government with Conservative legislation and a Conservative approach to combatting gun crimes, and shootings and firearm discharges by year were at an all-time low of 177, although that sounds like a lot. At the start of 2016, all the way to 2020, it was as follows: in 2016, 407; in 2017, 392; in 2018, 427; in 2019, 492; and, in 2020, a whopping 462. The numbers have skyrocketed.

I will now turn to the number of persons killed and injured, the instances where peoples' lives have been impacted. Innocent people and children have been killed and injured, not while they were off hunting with grandpa or killing some rodents on the farm. In cities in our country, children and teenagers have been and are being killed by people who are committing crimes with illegal guns, which have, often times, been smuggled in and sold illegally, so I want to talk about the number of people who were killed and injured per year.

In 2012, there were 114 deaths and injuries. That is sad. In 2013, there were 119. In 2014, there were 76. We start to see the trend go down. By 2015, there were 125. It starts going up and then my graph is cut off. In 2017, there were 148. We have seen the numbers go up consistently under the Liberal government. The point of this is that the Liberal approach to combatting gun crime is not working. It is very disappointing to see that the Liberals are continuing the same pattern they started.

The bill that we are debating today is Bill C-5. It is basically a reintroduction of the previous bill, but it really does the same harm and damage. I think there could be some agreement and work we could do to help people struggling with addictions and mental health, but this approach is so backward. It just feels like what the Liberals do is always backward. When the minister said that if someone commits a crime with a long gun then there will not be mandatory minimum sentences; he was somehow trying to comfort Canadians. I think that is what I heard him say.

No, if a person commits a crime with a long gun, small gun, short gun, handgun or any gun, public safety and justice should be paramount in the government's policy and that person should go to jail. That is a bottom-line principle that the Conservatives believe. The Liberals somehow think that they can kind of twist it around, virtue signal here and soften it there. It is very hard to understand their logic.

Bill C-5 reduces mandatory minimum sentences for a number of drug offences. I am sure we will have a chance to talk about that, but the ones that I am concerned about are to do with gun violence in Canada and its massive increase.

A lot of what the Liberals are reducing in taking away of mandatory minimum sentences have to do with people literally committing crimes with guns, such as robbery. These crimes are just so serious. I do not think any of us can imagine getting held up. Imagine if a person is working in a store or at a local gas station and someone comes in with a gun and asks for all the money or they will shoot, and then the firearm is discharged.

People who commit these kinds of crimes are a danger to society for whatever reason. They may have a mental health issue. They may have an addiction. They need treatment for that, but the protection of the public should come before the treatment of the criminal. That is what Conservatives believe.

I want to tell colleagues what frontline officers are saying. I am going right to an individual who is a frontline officer dealing every day with very serious crimes. She said this:

“Criminals using illicit firearms in the commission of an offence is now a common occurrence. The violence I see is unprecedented. I see it firsthand. I often feel like I am working in a war zone with no end in sight. Recently I was mandated to be certified in tactical trauma care to help save the lives of gunshot victims in the critical minutes following a shooting until we can make the scene safe for paramedics. As a police officer, it is incredibly frustrating to see the revolving door of criminals in and out of jail. Violent offenders out on bail or receiving conditional sentences for the violent crimes they committed. Not to mention continuously breaching their conditions and being arrested again and again. How do I protect victims? Repealing mandatory minimum such as Firearms offences, Discharging a Firearm with Intent, Robbery with a firearm and Extortion with a firearm are incredibly serious offences that put the public at serious risk. Offenders need to stay in custody where they should receive meaningful rehabilitation. I am sickened to hear and sincerely hope that Bill C-5 will not proceed any further in the best interest, safety and well-being of Canadians.”

I respect the work that our police officers do. Let us listen to our frontline officers. Let us definitely help the people who need help, but when they cross the line and commit violent crimes, we have to protect Canadians first and foremost.

[David Lametti, Liberal, Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada]

Madam Speaker, I will pick up where I left off on Bill C-5.

This bill would accomplish important objectives by advancing a series of coordinating sentencing measures and policies in three broad areas. First, it would repeal mandatory minimum penalties for certain offences; second, it would increase the availability of conditional sentences without compromising public safety; and third, it would amend the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act to require police and prosecutors to consider diverting cases of simple drug possession away from courts at the earliest point of contact. I will address each of these important amendments in turn.

With Bill C-5, we are proposing to repeal the mandatory minimum sentences for 14 Criminal Code offences, 13 related to firearms and one related to tobacco. We are also repealing the mandatory minimum sentences for all offences under the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act. These offences are associated with the overrepresentation of indigenous people, Black Canadians and members of other marginalized communities in our prison system.

These reforms will also repeal the three- and five-year mandatory minimum penalties for illegal possession of a restricted or prohibited firearm and the one-year mandatory minimum penalty for drug trafficking struck down by the Supreme Court of Canada.

Our reasoning is simple. Sentences must be appropriate to the unique circumstances of the crime. All too often, a rigid approach to sentencing results in a grossly disproportionate outcome, particularly when the offence is broad in scope. It has been shown that mandatory minimums have not only failed to protect our communities, but also contributed to the overrepresentation of indigenous people, Black Canadians and members of marginalized communities in our prison system. That is especially true for drug- and firearm-related offences.

I want to pause here for a moment and let the numbers speak for themselves. Data from the Correctional Service of Canada from 2007-2017 reveals that 39% of Black people and 20% of indigenous people incarcerated in a federal institution between those years were there for offences carrying a mandatory minimum penalty. Further, during the same years, the proportion of indigenous offenders admitted to federal custody for an offence punishable by a mandatory minimum penalty almost doubled, from 14% to 26%. During this time frame, indigenous people also represented 40% of all federally incarcerated offenders admitted for a firearm-related offence.

Regrettably, the data does not get better when we look at the experience of Black Canadians and their interaction with the criminal justice system. From 2007-2017, nearly half, more specifically 43% of all federally incarcerated offenders convicted of importing or exporting a controlled substance or possessing controlled substances for exporting under the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act were Black adults.

These statistics are a sad testament to policies that focus on incarceration and the increased use of mandatory minimum sentences. Some would have us believe that mandatory minimums are the only way to fight crime. That is simply not true.

Mandatory minimum sentences have been around for decades because the previous Conservative government brought in a whole host of new ones without taking into account what kind of impact they were actually having. We know that a more nuanced approach is needed, and that is exactly what our government is doing.

The data show who is in prison and why. If the mandatory minimum sentences are repealed, as provided for in Bill C-5, people can still be given tough sentences. However, the courts will be able to take into account the unique circumstances of each offence and determine the most appropriate sentence, rather than being limited by the mandatory minimums.

I know that many people are concerned about the rise in gun violence we are seeing now. As a Montrealer, I want to say that I understand them, but I also want to be very clear: When it comes to firearms, serious crimes will continue to receive serious penalties.

The repeal of mandatory minimum sentences for some does not mean that public safety will be compromised. Bill C-5 gives the courts the flexibility to consider alternatives for low-risk offenders. By repealing mandatory minimum sentences, we are reducing these individuals' risk of reoffending and building a safer society.

For example, let us look at the Supreme Court of Canada's decision in R. v. Nur, which struck down mandatory minimum sentences but upheld a sentence above the prescribed minimum.

That is why the repeal of mandatory minimums in the bill is expected to reduce the overall incarceration rate for indigenous and Black Canadians.

Repealing mandatory minimum sentences ensures that an individual convicted of an offence receives a sentence that is proportionate to their degree of responsibility and the seriousness of the offence, taking individual factors into account. These factors could include an indigenous offender's experience with intergenerational trauma or residential schools, or a Black offender's experience with systemic racism.

To this end, the government recognizes that restoring a sentencing court's ability to consider important sentencing principles is only one part of the equation. The other part is getting this important information before the sentencing court, so that it can account for all relative sentencing factors in imposing a fit sentence.

That is where program funding comes in. The government is providing $49.3 million over five years to support the application of Gladue principles and the integration of Gladue reporting writing in the justice system. This is critical to help address systemic barriers for indigenous peoples in the criminal justice system by ensuring that the background and systemic factors that bring them into contact with the justice system are taken into account at sentencing. It is also critical to help inform reasonable alternatives to sentencing for indigenous accused.

What is more, the government is making investments of $6.6 million per year over five years and $1.6 million in ongoing funding in support of the implementation of impact of race and cultural assessments, or IRCAs, which will ensure that a sentencing court can consider the disadvantage and systemic factors that contribute to racialized Canadians' interactions with the criminal justice system.

The government is also investing $21.5 million over five years to support access to legal information and advice for racialized Canadians. This would support organizations that provide free public legal education and information, as well as those that provide legal services and advice to racialized communities.

I want to be very clear about who we are targeting and not targeting with this bill. This bill is about low-risk offenders.

Bill C‑5 does not repeal mandatory minimum sentences for the most serious firearms offences, which of course include offences that result in people being injured, offences committed with a restricted or prohibited weapon and offences involving gangs or organized crime.

We are determined to crack down on the major crimes that make our cities and communities less safe. Let me reiterate: Serious crimes will continue to have serious consequences.

In its platform, our government committed to continuing to combat gender-based violence and fight gun crime with measures we had previously introduced, such as lifetime background checks to prevent those with a history of abuse against their spouse or partner from obtaining a firearms licence; red flag laws that would allow immediate removal of firearms if a person is a threat to themselves or others, particularly to their spouse or partner; increased maximum penalties for firearms trafficking and smuggling from 10 to 14 years of imprisonment; and enhancing the capacity of the RCMP and the CBSA to combat the illegal importation of firearms.

Bill C-5 would make our justice system more fair and more just for young, first-time or non-violent offenders by giving judges back the ability to impose a sentence that fits the crime and the offender. However, nothing in this bill would prevent a judge from imposing a serious sentence where it is warranted.

I would like to turn to the proposed changes in Bill C‑5 regarding the elimination of restrictions on conditional sentences. Bill C‑5 would allow for greater use of conditional sentences so that courts can impose community-based sentences of less than two years when the offender does not pose a threat to public safety. Here too the evidence is clear. Incarceration, especially for low-risk offenders, is associated with higher rates of recidivism. That is not my opinion; that is a fact.

It has also been proven that alternatives to incarceration, such as sentences served in the community, can have a significant positive impact and improve the likelihood of successful reintegration into the community, which also helps reduce the risk of recidivism. Once again, that is a fact, not an opinion.

It has also been proven that recidivism rates among offenders who receive conditional sentences are relatively low. This is according to a large body of research showing that tackling the root causes of delinquency can produce long-term benefits for the individual, improve the efficiency of the justice system and protect society as a whole. It is not hard to see why. Community-based sentencing is an option that eliminates the negative effects of incarceration, thereby promoting offender rehabilitation.

Restrictions enacted by the previous Conservative government in 2007 in former Bill C-9, an act to amend the Criminal Code, and in 2012 by former Bill C-10, the safe streets and communities act, made it much harder for a sentencing court to impose these sentences. These reforms made conditional sentences unavailable for all offences punishable by maximum terms of imprisonment of 14 years or more, as well as for some offences prosecuted by indictment and punishable by a maximum of 10 years imprisonment. These laws tied the courts' hands. These amendments to the conditional sentencing regime, coupled with the increased use of mandatory minimum penalties, have produced negative impacts on the criminal justice system as a whole.

This bill would increase the availability of conditional sentence orders when offenders do not pose a risk to public safety and are facing terms of imprisonment that are under two years or less, and where imposing such a sentence would be consistent with the purpose and principles of sentencing. CSOs would be available for all offences that do not carry a minimum mandatory penalty, including those repealed by this bill, with certain exceptions. Conditional sentences of imprisonment would not be available for the serious offences of advocating genocide, torture, attempted murder and any terrorism or criminal organization offences that are prosecuted by way of indictment and for which the maximum term of imprisonment is 10 years or more.

I will turn to the other important amendments being advanced in the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act shortly. Before I do, let me speak to the positive impacts that can be expected by repealing MMPs and making conditional sentences of imprisonment more widely available.

First of all, as I have already mentioned, we can expect an overall reduction in incarceration rates, particularly as they relate to the overrepresentation of indigenous people, Black Canadians and members of marginalized communities in federal correctional institutions.

Reducing the number of mandatory minimum sentences should also help our courts. In cases involving mandatory minimum sentences, the evidence demonstrates that trials take longer to complete, accused persons are less likely to plead guilty and there is a stark increase in successful charter challenges before Canadian courts.

This all causes delays in the criminal justice system, and we have to deal with them. The bill would improve that situation.

This brings me to the last set of important reforms proposed in Bill C-5. For the first time, we would enact a declaration of principles in the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act. It is intended to guide police and prosecutors in the exercise of their discretion to divert simple possession of drugs away from the criminal justice system at an early stage.

At the outset, I would like to thank the member for Beaches—East York for his private member's bill in the last Parliament and his leadership in this area. We agree that these changes to treat addiction as a health issue would improve the state of criminal justice in Canada and may well help save lives during the opioid crisis. These principles are consistent with and informed by the large body of research indicating that criminal sanctions imposed for simple possession of drugs can increase the stigma associated with drug use and are not consistent with established public health evidence.

These reforms reinforce the government's ongoing commitment to addressing the opioid crisis and recognize that substance use is a health issue, not a crime. Accordingly, it requires evidence-based interventions to address its causes rather than its effects, with measures such as education, treatment, detox, rehabilitation and social reintegration.

Police forces and Crown prosecutors will be required to consider alternatives to laying or pursuing criminal charges for individuals who are found in simple possession of controlled substances. Possible actions will include doing nothing, issuing a warning, or referring individuals to alternative measures, including treatment programs.

The reforms in this bill align with the August 2020 guideline of the director of public prosecutions. It tells prosecutors to pursue diversion for simple drug possession cases and instead focus on prosecutions for the most serious drug cases that raise public safety concerns. The proposed amendments also align with the advice given by the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police. They also reflect calls to action made by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, calls for justice from the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls and recent calls by the Parliamentary Black Caucus to address anti-Black racism and systemic bias and to make the criminal justice system more reflective of our diverse society.

Taken together, this package of reforms is an important reset of our approach to criminal justice. It would allow actors in the system, including police, the Crown and courts, to determine the right course of action for each individual before them. That could mean diversion to a treatment program for an offender who committed a crime in order to feed an addiction, or it could mean a long jail sentence for the drug trafficker who is profiting from selling those drugs to our most vulnerable citizens.

It is high time that Canada adopted an approach that works. Our justice system must be fair and equitable for indigenous people, Black Canadians and marginalized people, and it must be effective in punishing serious criminal offences and protecting our communities.

We have enough evidence now to know that reflexive and punitive justice policies do not work. They do not make our communities safer, they hurt people and the people they hurt most are indigenous, Black and marginalized Canadians.

Our government is set to turn the page on the failed policies of the past. Bill C-5 is an important step in that direction, and I urge all hon. members of the House to support its swift passage.

The House resumed consideration of the motion that Bill C-5, An Act to amend the Criminal Code and the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

[David Lametti, Liberal, Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada]

Madam Speaker, my thanks for the opportunity to begin my speech at second reading debate on C-5, an act to amend the Criminal Code and the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act.

Today, our government is taking an important step toward making our criminal justice system a more effective and fair justice system where decisions are based on facts. Most importantly, we are delivering on our promise to reintroduce former Bill C-22 within the first 100 days of our government.

Indigenous people, Black Canadians and members of marginalized communities are overrepresented, both as victims and as offenders in the criminal justice system. They face systemic racism and discrimination and are the collateral damage of law reforms that have not made us safer or the justice system more just.

Bill C-5 is an important part of our government's plan to address this unfortunate reality in our criminal justice system. It is also an important step in reorienting our criminal justice system so that it is both fairer and more effective, while ensuring public safety. This bill accomplishes these important objectives by advancing a series of coordinated sentencing measures and policies in three broad areas, which I will take up afterward.

[Alistair MacGregor, NDP, Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC]

Madam Speaker, I have been curious throughout today's debate on Bill C-5. Is it the position of the Conservative Party that its members do not have faith in the men and women of this country who serve as judges? The Conservatives do not seem to believe at all in judicial discretion. The problem with the Conservative approach is that they think that by supporting this bill, or supporting the idea that mandatory minimum sentences should be done away with, means that we somehow also believe that people should just walk away scot-free, when nothing could be further from the truth.

I would like to draw the attention of the member to section 718.2 of the Criminal Code, which gives judges the ability to either increase or reduce a sentence based on aggravating factors. Would the member not agree that we cannot have a black-and-white approach to every single case? I would rather put my trust in the person who is sitting on the bench who can look at an individual's circumstances and look at the particular severe aspects of the crime and then make the appropriate judgment in each individual case.

[Glen Motz, Conservative, Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner, AB]

Madam Speaker, before I begin today, I would like to first thank the fine people of Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner for putting their trust in me for the third time. It is an absolute honour and privilege to serve them in this capacity.

I thank my core campaign team, including our chair, Ryan Thorburn; volunteer coordinators, office managers, get-out-to-vote leaders, full-time encouragers, and basically the real bosses of the campaign, Sharlyn Wagner and Margo Dick; our IT go-to guy, Dean Grey; my financial wizard and agent, Dave Camphor; planning and printing logistics, Tim Seitz; volunteer care and event planning, Val Seitz; and all things signs, Alex Dumanowski and Gary Proctor. I thank them all so much for their dedication and hard work. They are a testament of what can be accomplished when people get together as a team. I will always be indebted to them.

I thank the many volunteers who door knocked, put up signs, helped in the office and volunteered with scrutineering on election day. None of this is possible without them, and I thank them very much.

I will turn my attention now to Bill C-5, which is the exact same bill, ironically, that was introduced as Bill C-22 in the last Parliament before the Prime Minister called his snap vanity election.

The Liberals would want Canadians to believe that Bill C-5 is simply about reducing minimum sentencing for simple drug possession, but that is not so. Most Canadians would be alarmed to learn that the Liberal bill, Bill C-5, is aimed at eliminating mandatory prison time for criminals who prey on our communities and victimize the vulnerable.

Bill C-5 proposes to eliminate mandatory prison time not for petty crimes but for things like drug trafficking and acts of violence. It would even allow violent criminals to serve their sentences on house arrest and not in prison, putting our communities at continued risk.

Over the last six years, Liberal legislation on crime and the criminal justice system has been largely out of touch with the realities of most Canadians, especially those impacted by crime. Canada's crime stats confirm that we are seeing rising crime rates all across this country, increased gang violence and shootings, increased organized crime activities, and increased drug trafficking, drug use and drug overdoses.

Let me focus for the next few minutes on examining several of the main areas of Bill C-5, those being the elimination of mandatory prison time for firearm offences, the elimination of mandatory prison time for drug dealers, the expansion of conditional sentences and the diversion for simple drug possession.

I try to look at this legislation through the lenses of having been in law enforcement for 35 years and of being a parliamentarian representing the constituents of my riding and their voices. Let us first of all look at the elimination of mandatory prison time for firearm offences.

In contrast to the Liberal spin on their being so-called tough on gun violence, which is what they have been feeding Canadians, there is the complete hypocrisy of Bill C-5, which proposed to eliminate several mandatory minimum sentences related to gun crimes, including serious gun crimes such as robbery with a firearm, extortion with a firearms, using a firearm in the commission of an offence, discharging a firearm with intent, which is Criminal Code language for shooting at someone, illegal possession of a prohibited or restricted firearm, importing or exporting an unauthorized firearm, discharging a firearm recklessly and other firearm offences such weapons trafficking, importing or exporting knowing the firearm is unauthorized, possession of a prohibited or restricted firearm with ammunition, possession of a weapon obtained by the commission of an offence in Canada and possession for the purpose of weapons trafficking.

What does this really all amount to? Because the Liberals believe the current laws are unfair, they would be eliminating mandatory prison time for criminals who commit such crimes as robbery with a firearm, drive-by shootings and unlawful possession of firearms. It is clearer than ever that the Liberals are more interested in protecting criminals than they are protecting our communities. If we think things are bad now, just wait for this legislation to take effect, should it pass in its current form. I am afraid the worst is yet to come.

Let us look at the second area of the bill, which is the elimination of mandatory prison time for drug dealers. At a time when we are experiencing the heartbreak of addiction and overdose deaths in our country, the Liberals' solution is to eliminate mandatory prison time for several offences in the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act, which specifically targets drug dealers and offences such as trafficking, or possession for the purpose of trafficking; importing or exporting, or possession for the purpose of importing or exporting; and production of a schedule 1 or schedule 2 substance, which are drugs such as fentanyl, crystal meth, heroin, cocaine, the very drugs that are wreaking havoc on our communities. How does that even make sense?

The Liberals are trying to spin it and say that Bill C-5 will help those who struggle with addictions. Come on, Canadians are not that naive or stupid. They know the Liberals are purposely failing to point out that the mandatory minimums they are eliminating are for drug dealers who specifically prey on those with addictions. This is not the solution. It would only make the current problems a lot worse.

The next area I want to look at in Bill C-5 is the expansion of conditional sentencing. The bill allows for greater use of conditional sentencing orders, such as house arrest, for a significant number of serious offences for which the offender faces a prison term of less than two years. Those offences now include sexual assault; kidnapping; criminal harassment; human trafficking; abduction of a person under the age of 14; assault causing bodily harm or assault with a weapon; assaulting a peace officer causing bodily harm, or assaulting a peace officer with a weapon; trafficking or importing schedule 3 drugs, which are hallucinogenic like LSD and psilocybin; and many other offences, such as prison breach, motor vehicle theft, theft over $5,000, breaking and entering a place other than a dwelling house, being in a dwelling house unlawfully, arson for a fraudulent purpose, causing bodily harm and criminal negligence.

What this all means is that criminals who prey on victims in their communities can now serve their sentence at home, many times in the same neighbourhood as their victim. Again, this clearly puts communities at risk. For years now we have heard whispers that the Liberal government was trying to empty out our prisons, expedite parole and reduce sentences. It now appears that those whispers are coming true. I wonder how conditional sentences will deter criminals who prey on our communities.

I also want to touch briefly on another aspect of Bill C-5, which is the diversion measures for simple drug possession. Again, the Liberals are trying to tell us, and are asking Canadians to believe, that the diversion section in Bill C-5 all of a sudden gives police and prosecutors the ability to use their discretion when determining for simple drug possession whether to lay charges, warn, or refer to support programs. It might come as a complete surprise to the Liberals, but that has been the case all along.

Police have been doing that. For decades they have been using their discretion whether to lay charges on someone for drug possession. In fact, Canada's Public Prosecution Service has previously issued a directive to prosecutors to avoid prosecuting simple drug possession unless there are major public safety concerns. Yes, I admit, Bill C-5 now does codify this approach, but it is unlikely to have any impact because this is already the practice when dealing with simple drug possession.

This legislation is out of touch with rising crime on our streets. It is out of touch with the needs of victims and communities battling gang violence. It is out of touch with law enforcement from across the country, who continue to report rising crime, increased violent crime and more gang shootings. This legislation is out of touch with our country's opioid epidemic. Crime has been increasing every year the Liberals have been in power, reversing a two-decade trend. This is the worst government on keeping Canadians safe in the last 20 years.

According to Stats Canada, the crime severity index has risen since 2015 from a 66.9 rating to a 79.5 rating in 2019, a 25% increase in serious crime. The violent crime index has increased from 70.7 in 2014 to 89.7 in 2019, which is also a 25% increase in the last five years.

Stats Canada also reports that rural crime and the rates of rural crime are increasing 23% faster than urban crime rates.

The Toronto Police Service has some of the best publicly available stats when it comes to the realities in its community. There has been an increase in shootings, gun homicides and injuries in each year of the last six years the Liberals have been in government. In comparison, let us first look at 2014, before the Liberals formed government, as the baseline for the Toronto numbers. In 2014, there were 177 shootings in Toronto alone, which resulted in 103 people killed or injured. Those are unacceptable numbers, but pale in comparison to the years that followed. In 2016, there were 393 shootings in Toronto, with 183 people killed or injured. In 2017, there were 367 shootings, with 180 people killed or injured. In 2018, Toronto again had 393 shootings, with 208 people killed or injured. In 2019, those numbers jumped to 492 shootings, with 284 people killed or injured. In 2020, there were 462 shootings, with 217 lives lost or injured. So far, in 2021, those numbers are continuing, at similarly unacceptable rates, with over 380 shootings and 198 people killed or injured.

I am sure Canadians are wondering how this bill will reduce shootings and people dying even by just one. What will removing mandatory minimum sentences on firearms offences such as the ones I have mentioned do for our communities? Safer communities should be the focus of the current government, but sadly they are not.

Since 2016, nearly 30,000 Canadians have died from opioid-related addiction and overdose. Why is the first action of the Liberal government to reduce sentences on drug trafficking? How does this help the tens of thousands battling addictions whose habits are being fed by the very drug dealers preying on the vulnerable this bill is meant to protect? Going after these drug dealers should be the priority of this place.

Canadians do not feel safe and nothing in this bill will help them be any safer in their homes and communities. In 2020, an Angus Reid survey found that 48% of Canadians felt crime was getting worse. Canadians are rightly tired of being afraid in their own neighbourhoods and homes. The top priority of any government should be the protection of its people. This bill does nothing to address those threats against Canadians; it only protects criminals from being held responsible for their crimes.

The bill really shows how far out of step the Liberal government is with the needs and concerns of everyday Canadians. A legal scholar recently suggested that when looking at legislation we should be asking what the problems are that we are trying solve and whether the proposed legislation would solve those problems. It is the kind of question that should be asked in this place every time the Criminal Code or any similar act is used to try and solve policy problems. I can say that after reviewing Bill C-5, I would assert that the legislation may actually contribute to the problems we are facing in this country, rather than trying to solve them. It does nothing to improve public safety.

Let us be clear. The problem the government should be trying to solve is gun violence committed by criminals and gangs using illegal firearms, mostly smuggled into this country and used to kill in communities across Canada. It should be trying to solve the addiction and drug problems we have and the overdose deaths plaguing our communities across this country, not catering to those who are contributing to the epidemic. It should hold criminals responsible for their violent crimes and drug dealing and focus on rehabilitation, not a revolving door of justice. However, the Liberal solution to these problems is a lazy, misguided approach that caters to criminals, ignores victims and does not protect Canadians.

[Arif Virani, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of International Trade]

Madam Speaker, I am rising to join this important debate on Bill C-5. I am speaking today from the unceded territory of the Algonquin and Anishinabe people in Canada's House of Commons.

This bill that is being debated today, and the changes it proposes to make to the Criminal Code of Canada, are critical to addressing systemic racism and systemic discrimination in the criminal justice system. Anyone who has been listening to this morning's debate knows quite clearly at this point that we are facing a very serious issue. That issue is the overrepresentation of Black and indigenous persons in our criminal justice system, primarily Black and indigenous men.

How did we get to this situation? We have prepared legislation, tabled it in the last Parliament and retabled it in this Parliament because we have fundamentally listened to experts I had the privilege to consult with in my capacity as parliamentary secretary to the minister of justice in the last Parliament. We have also listened to Canadians, among whom are my constituents in Parkdale—High Park. We have been seized with certain issues that relate to challenges not just with individual acts of discrimination, vis-à-vis one particular person or group of people, but rather norms and rules that embody our systems and our institutions. There is no more robust place to do the hard work and the heavy lifting that goes into addressing systemic racism than the criminal justice system of Canada.

We know that Canadians in every riding in this country were seized by the videos we saw of George Floyd. Things were also occurring here in Canada with respect to indigenous populations. We could talk about the response of law enforcement to the Mi'kmaq fishers on the east coast. We could talk about RCMP officers and the overuse of violent force with Inuit individuals in Canada's far north. These images, stories and issues really captivated our nation. That is why we are here today acting and mobilizing on that sentiment. We are here to listen to those voices and act upon them.

We have also consulted the statistics, and they are startling. In 2020, despite representing 5% of the Canadian adult population, indigenous adults accounted for 30% of federally incarcerated inmates. That is a sixfold increase. That is reprehensible. I think I heard that from across the way. Although Black individuals represent 3% of the Canadian population, in 2018-19 they represented 7.2% of the federal offender population. This was more than a twofold increase.

What I have heard from my constituents in Parkdale—High Park and from people right around this country is that we need to act. That is why we are taking action now, specifically as it relates to Black and indigenous persons and other persons of colour. There is a unanimous sense I have heard that there is a need to take action.

Today, we are talking about a bill that would do so in three areas. Before I touch on those, I want to outline two broad themes that underlie the points I am making today. The first point is that we need to tackle systemic racism. The second point is that on this side of the chamber, we are a government that believes in judicial discretion. That is fundamental because it will underpin what I am going to speak about.

First, Bill C-5 would repeal mandatory minimum penalties or imprisonment for certain, but not all, offences to address the disproportionate impact on indigenous and Black offenders as well as those struggling with substance abuse and addiction, as appropriately raised by the member for Vancouver East. Second, it would allow for greater use of conditional sentence orders, or CSOs in the legal parlance, when an offender faces a term of less than two years' imprisonment and does not pose a threat to public safety. Third, it would address issues dealing with drugs, opioids and addiction in this country by requiring police and prosecutors to consider measures other than laying charges or prosecution for simple possession of drugs, such as diverting individuals to addiction treatment programs.

In terms of the first category, we heard about mandatory minimum penalties ad nauseam during this morning's debate: why they exist and whether they are useful, etc. I rest on the side of the evidence. The evidence has shown us clearly that regardless of how they are imposed, who imposed them or how long they had been in place, mandatory minimums have only served to disproportionately impact men of colour in particular, but also indigenous women, by having them be overrepresented in our criminal justice system.

These are for crimes such as simple possession of narcotics, simple possession of a firearm, or a first-time offender using a firearm. More likely than not, people of colour are entrapped in the criminal justice system based on these charges, and more likely than not, because of the mandatory minimums they face jail time.

This is problematic because it eschews judicial discretion. We heard about this from the member for Whitby. He spoke about his family's experience, including his father's, and about what we need to do to ensure people are not sent down a certain path for the rest of their lives. The way we do that is by not putting people into a revolving-door situation of incarceration after incarceration where people are habituated to a life of criminality behind bars.

The way we do that is by ensuring there are other options available. One of those options is to give judges the tools they need to craft sentences that are appropriate for particular individuals. As a minor digression, that is what informs our motivation behind the impact of race and culture assessments, which we are also funding. We want to be able to look hard at accused individuals and understand their life circumstances, what got them to this place and how we can ensure they do not reappear in front of a court six months or six years from now on a repeat offence.

We want to get them out of a cycle of potential criminality and toward a cycle of productive life, contributing to our communities. By binding the hands of judges, we have seen exactly the opposite. The exact law and order methodology that is professed by members of the official opposition is turned on its head by this kind of blanket prohibition. All it does is produce more criminality, not less. That is why we are standing up against it.

Secondly, judges have spoken out against these types of penalties. Decision after decision rendered by courts as high as the Supreme Court of Canada has found these types of penalties unconstitutional. They violate the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. That is why we are taking action: We believe in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and adhering to it particularly when guided by the judiciary.

The impacts of these penalties have been legion. In terms of worsening over time, we know that in 1999 indigenous peoples represented approximately 2% of the adult population, but accounted for 17% of admissions to federal penitentiaries. By 2020, after a series of mandatory minimums were added to the Criminal Code by the previous Conservative government, 30% of the federal inmate population was indigenous. That is a trend in the wrong direction, and it is a trend we need to correct.

I do not want this bill to be mis-characterized. Canadians are watching, and I know it is not just our mothers and fathers who watch in the middle of the day. Other people watch the House of Commons in the middle of the day. They need to know that we are not purporting to get rid of mandatory minimum penalties for serious offenders. Mandatory minimums involving cases of firearms, and those who traffic, smuggle, commit repeated violent assault or murder using firearms, are not being targeted. We are targeting single, first-time offenders in low-level offences. That is who we do not want destined for lives of criminality.

The other serious issue that needs to be addressed concerns conditional sentencing orders. I want to emphasize that this is the old-fashioned notion of house arrest. It goes back to the point I made at the outset of my remarks today. If we want to ensure that individuals are not subjected or destined to lives of criminality, or lives interacting with the criminal justice system, one good way to ensure that is to ensure that they do not spend time behind bars for their first offence.

Instead, when they are not a significant threat to public safety and when they are not likely to reoffend, at that point in time we would subject them to a conditional sentence order. This would allow them to serve their sentence outside of incarceration, subject to certain restrictions. This is critical, because we need to ensure there is a penalty applied. However, by not having them placed behind bars, we do not subject people to lives of criminality.

We have seen that conditional sentence orders entrenched by Allan Rock, who was the Minister of Justice 26 years ago, were eroded over time by the previous Conservative government. We are trying to return to the status quo.

My last point is on drug diversion. This is critical. The reason we are doing this is simple: We are listening to the evidence in the city of Toronto and the city of Vancouver. We are listening to the Canadian chiefs of police who have advocated for this type of drug diversion, and we are listening to the director of public prosecutions. They have said that not having diversion clogs our system and renders it less effective in addressing the true cause of criminal behaviour.

These are important initiatives. They are threefold within this legislation. I hope all members will stand behind this important bill.