PARLIAMENT HILL, Ottawa—The government tabled its omnibus crime bill in the House of Commons today, packaging together a mass of previous legislation that is attracting heated criticism.
The Safe Streets and Communities Act (Bill C-10) collects nine pieces of legislation that died on the order paper in the previous session of Parliament and aims to fast-track them into law.
Most of the bills packaged in the act strengthen sentences for a list of some of the most egregious offences, including sexually exploiting children, but the omnibus bill will also affect sentences for offences like fraud over $5,000 and small marijuana grow operations.
Another portion of the bill grants immigration officers leeway to deny work permits to exotic dancers and others who could become victims of exploitation or human trafficking in Canada.
The proposed act would also end house arrest or conditional sentences for property and some violent crimes and either eliminate or extend the ineligibility period for pardons for other crimes.
For Canadians sentenced overseas, the bill adds criteria the Minister of Public Safety could consider when deciding whether to allow them transfer back to Canada to serve their time.
One of the more unique bills packaged in the omnibus bill is the Justice for Victims of Terrorism Act and related amendments to the State Immunity Act , formerly Bill S-7, which would give terrorism victims the ability to sue perpetrators, including some foreign states, for crimes committed overseas.
The government is facing pointed questions over the cost of the new provisions, while some groups are concerned about the effectiveness of the legislation and its impact on marginalized populations.
In an event in Brampton Tuesday, Minister of Justice Rob Nicholson said he was proud to table the legislation but could not directly address costs. Instead he cited 500 pages of documents provided to Parliament and said that the real costs of crime are borne by victims.
“We campaigned on a promise to get tough on child sexual offenders, crack down on illegal drug trafficking, and improve the overall efficiency of our judicial system. Canadians gave us a strong mandate to bring forward these reforms,” he said in a statement released to the press.
Further Strain on Prison System
Critics of the bill are concerned that by packaging nine pieces of legislation together, the various provisions will get less scrutiny by Parliament. The government says the act re-introduces several reforms that were previously debated but never became law. Many of those bills saw little debate time however, and were left low on the governments legislative agenda.
Among the bill’s detractors is a small host of groups that came to Parliament Hill Tuesday to tell the press that the new bill was going in the wrong direction and could cost billions.
Catherine Latimer, executive director of the John Howard Society of Canada, says their group has concerns about the effectiveness of the bill and its impacts.
“We think it will endanger corrections workers and inmates,” she said.
The John Howard Society and other groups that work to rehabilitate released prisoners say the bill targets the most vulnerable members of society and will further strain a prison system already in crisis due to overcrowding.
California had to reduce overcrowding in prisons after U.S. courts ruled prison conditions amounted to cruel and unusual punishment. Canada has the protections against cruel and unusual punishment as well, Latimer noted.
She said they are also concerned about the unknown costs of the bill—costs that would be borne largely by the provinces.
“We are in a fragile economy when many taxpayers are carrying record levels of personal debt, and will be asked to endure significant reductions in public spending. And I think many Canadians are asking whether, in the face of reducing crime rates, expending huge resources on prison expansion is really in the best interest of Canadians.”
Costs have to be provided before a decision can be made on C-10, argues Kim Pate, executive director of the Canadian Association of Elizabeth Fry Societies which works to reduce the number of women in prison.
“The fact that the government fell on a contempt of Parliament reality, just at the moment when they were refusing to provide all the costs of all of the bills that were then being proposed is, I think, very important for all of us to remember.”
Pate wants an immediate amendment stating that until every province and the federal government has signed off that they can afford the real cost of the bill that it cannot be enacted.
Tougher on Native Women
“We as aboriginal people are only 3.8 percent of the total Canadian population, but I have been advised that the women who are actually within all these institutions, our women, that is the first Nations, Metis and Inuit, are 34 percent of the total.
“Of those 34 percent, over 90 percent have been subject to sexual violence and to all kinds of other violence, domestic and otherwise.”
Corbiere Lavell says those women are impoverished when they are released from prison and have few options to support themselves.
“There is nothing available for them. So they end up on the streets and then once again back into that same vicious circle. So we are really wondering what will be the benefit of this omnibus bill.”
Among the supporters is Canada Family Action (CFA), a Christian political action group.
“The creation of mandatory sentences is also crucial since too many judges were allowing the sex perverts back into the community with no jail time” said CFA president Brian Rushfeldt in a release.
But he was disappointed the legislation did not include changes to the “making” or “distribution” of the child porn section of the Criminal Code.
“The ‘makers’ of child porn are the rapists, assaulters, that really are the dangerous link in this horrendous crime. They must be removed to protect children and that would be justice for these young and innocent victims. The sentences for ‘making’ should be mandatory minimum 10 years (which is now the maximum and never used).”
The Canadian Centre for Child Protection also voiced support for the bill Tuesday, and said that two of the amendments to the Criminal Code would help police prevent child abuse.
“In today’s society, children and youth are connected to a technological world that allows unprecedented access to them, and this largely unsupervised playground has opened the doors for adults to take advantage of them,” Lianna McDonald, executive director of the Canadian Centre for Child Protection.
“These two new provisions are necessary and would greatly assist police in their efforts to charge individuals and better protect Canada’s children.”
Nicholson noted in his statement that organized crime and sexual exploitation of children were two categories of crime on the rise in Canada.
Some Changes Made
NDP Justice Critic Joe Comartin said that the government did take some criticism of previous bills into account, notably the youth offender bill, to make it more useful.
“It specifically targets that five or ten percent of the young offenders who are already seriously violent offenders.”
The changes will allow prosecutors and judges to keep some young offenders detained during pre-trial.
But overall, he said the government has ignored the criticism of various parts of the legislation. He was also critical of the government’s apparent unwillingness to cost the legislation.
Comartin said according to Justice Department estimates, just the portion of the bill dealing with drugs will result in another 3,000 to 5,000 people being incarcerated, with two-thirds going to provincial jails at a cost upwards of $80,000 a year.
“The provinces have identified this as a problem. They’ve already had an increase in their prison populations. They’ve been asking the federal government to assist them in building new facilities.”
Provinces have also been asking for more resources to prosecute those criminals—a discussion Comartin says the government has not been willing to enter into.
“That is going to be a major major problem because of the sheer numbers.”
While the question of the unknown costs of the legislation is likely to dog the debate to follow, Nicholson said there is another cost not being recognized.
“The way I look at it is this: those individuals who will be taken off the street are the individuals who should be off the street—people involved in organized crime, the people in the business of sexually exploiting children, those people. So there is a cost when these individuals are out on the street and so we are prepared to meet the costs of detaining those individuals.”
While estimates range widely over what the cost of the Conservatives’ tough-on-crime agenda will be, some put it at $8–$9 billion over five years.
