News | A final speech on the Conservatives' crime bill

I think I will probably be the last speaker.

I would like to start by saying that like many of us, and certainly as was expressed by Senator Eggleton, I, too, enjoyed Senator Carignan's historical exposé, if I can say that. However, as he was speaking, I was reminded of a theory that is getting more and more credibility, and that is when you cannot explain why it is Mr. Harper seems to be doing something, you have to look and realize he is doing something that either the Liberals did not do or is changing something that the Liberals did. He is always reacting to the Liberals.

As Senator Carignan was speaking, I thought: There is the breakthrough; just tell the Prime Minister that Liberals actually supported mandatory minimums, and instantly this bill is done. Let us get the blues right now; get them over there.

On a more serious note, I wanted to address the question that was a heartfelt, powerful question asked by Senator Martin: What do you tell these families that have suffered such tremendous pain and anguish at the loss of their children as a result of this crime? What I would say is you tell them the truth. You tell them the evidence. You do not tell them something that will not work just to make them feel good for a brief period of time.

In fact, the one thing we know above all else about this legislation is that it will create more victims. What I believe absolutely in my heart of hearts is that many young people, 18 years old with six marijuana plants, will end up being incarcerated, and their lives will literally be ruined.

What I also know for sure is you do not mitigate one tragedy by creating other tragedies. There is a better way to do this. We can fix this problem if we use the data, the understanding that we have gained over the years, the experience elsewhere and make it work in a way that helps the families that Senator Martin is talking about in a serious way that is effective and will really and truly help their lives.

So much has been said, and I do not want to repeat it. I would like to just emphasize a couple of things that maybe have not been emphasized as much.

One of them is the question of victims. Clearly, a central theme in the argument that is made by the government is that this bill will help victims. I racked my brain to try to figure out how that is the case. It is true. I noticed if the Conservatives say something over and over again, you have to assume immediately that it is wrong. The less likely it is true, the more likely it is they will hammer it and hammer it and try to make it true. The fact is it will create more victims, not fewer victims, because everything that we know about crime now and about incarceration underlines that in its excess, if excessive and not done properly, then it will create better criminals who will do more crime and create more victims.

The second thing is it will actually create victims in victimless crimes. That 18-year-old with six marijuana plants who is making a mistake, as 18-year-olds perhaps do — does not have to sell it, does not even have to give it away — will go to jail for a year: black and white, fait accompli, no chance for any kind of consideration of circumstances. That 18-year-old will likely become a victim, inhibited in their ability to progress through their lives, to become doctors or lawyers or police people or to have professional lives they might otherwise have had, to contribute, if they were to get through that case and have a second chance. They will very much more likely be better criminals and their lives will in many respects possibly be ruined.

It will not help victims, thirdly, because there is no compensation for victims in this bill. There are no programs for victims in this bill. It will make more victims because there will be more crime, and it will make victims of what really and truly are victimless crimes.

Finally, there is a real irony in the value of the principle of victimhood that is embodied in this bill and in the government's approach to the crime agenda. In recent weeks we have seen the Internet snooping surveillance bill that the government is arguing will prevent Internet predators — it will allow the catching of Internet predators — thereby protecting young people and others who would otherwise be victims. Let us say it does not. Let us say these young people do become victims, some of them because they have been abused by predators. Ten or fifteen years later when they act out criminally as a result of that, there will be no ability to have any discretion or any consideration in what to do with these victims because they acted out as a result of what occurred to them, as horrible as it was.

Therefore, here we have a government that says it wants to protect victims, but once they are victims — and they act in a way that would follow from that, often — there is no compassion, no understanding, and no discretion for an ability to deal with them in ways that people with judgment and experience — namely judges — could apply to meet and accommodate the specific circumstances of that young person, once a victim and now victimized the second time.

I would also like to talk about a segment of very vulnerable people who will particularly be disproportionately disadvantaged by this legislation: That is the subset of women in this country. Senator Eggleton made the point that this bill will really and truly harm particularly vulnerable people.

There is evidence that this will inordinately and disproportionately affect women for a number of reasons. One is that women often are not involved in violent crimes and so there is much more leniency to deal with them. However, much of that leniency will be gone. It is true, also, of course, that Aboriginal women have special circumstances and they will be particularly disadvantaged by this.

It is interesting to note that, as of August 2010, there were 512 federally-sentenced women incarcerated in federal facilities. In addition, there were 567 women offenders under some form of community release supervision — conditional sentencing. That number will be reduced dramatically because conditional sentencing will be much less available. Therefore, the incarceration of women will increase. In fact, it has already increased; over the last 10 years, the number of women admitted to federal jurisdictions and institutions has been up almost 40 per cent.

However, what is very startling is that, over the last 10 years, the number of Aboriginal women incarcerated at the federal level has gone up by almost 90 per cent. This will accelerate as a result of this bill.

What is also very telling with respect to women is their particular circumstances — women who offend and who are incarcerated. First of all, 77 per cent of women offenders have children; just over half have indicated some kind of experience with children's aid. In 2010, 86 per cent of women offenders reported histories of physical abuse; and 68 per cent reported a history of sexual abuse at some point in their lives. This has represented an increase of 19 and 15 per cent respectively over the last 20 years. Approximately 45 per cent of women offenders report having less than a high school education when they arrive in the penal system; 70 per cent of the women in the federal penal system have alcohol abuse issues; 78 per cent have drug abuse issues.

In addition to that, a recent study indicated that 29 per cent — almost a third of the women offenders — when they arrived at a prison institution had mental health problems; and 31 per cent in the system — other than that 29 per cent — have had mental health problems at some point in their lives leading up to that. In addition, just under half of the women in the system at any given time report having engaged in self-harming behaviour.

This underlines a series of very critical problems affecting this segment of women who are clearly vulnerable to offending and ending up in the system. None of the features of this bill will have anything to do with fixing that problem. People, women in particular, with problems like this — in this case in particular — will not, I am certain, and the evidence suggests strongly, be particularly inspired not to offend because of any kind of sentencing.

These problems are far deeper and need to be addressed. If you wanted to fix this problem, you would fix the problems that face women who are telling us, as they arrive in the system, that they have fundamental problems that have led to this and are in many respects beyond their control without some kind of help.

What is also very telling is that 80 per cent of incarcerated women were there for poverty-related crimes; 39 per cent of them were there because they failed to pay a fine. How will this be improved by incarcerating them through mandatory minimum sentences and by taking all discretion, or the better part of discretion, away from the judicial system that could in fact be able to help them and help those who will simply now increase their numbers?

It is interesting to note that many of them rely upon social assistance, when you think about them being involved in poverty-related crime. In Alberta, social assistance rates for a single-parent family have ranged as low as 52 per cent of the poverty line. It is 27 per cent below the poverty line, as well, in Newfoundland and Labrador.

These are the kinds of problems that need to be addressed, and they not addressed in a bill like this that embodies simplistic solutions that will not work for very complex problems.

Another feature of women in prisons is that 77 per cent of them have children. There is growing evidence that incarcerated women may be there with problems that would not make them the best mothers but, again, that is a much stronger argument for assisting them with programs to work on their problems that, one, would enhance their ability to be better mothers and, two, would keep them out of the system. However, the fact is that evidence is emerging that children of incarcerated mothers are infinitely more likely to begin to offend themselves, to feel alienated from society, and to have serious problems in their lives.

More women with children in prison simply means more children at risk, which means more young adults involved in criminal behaviour, and so the cycle continues.

I would finish by talking about one other thing, which is captured in a couple of quotes. I think it is obvious that underlying this bill is a sense of punishment, a sense of retribution. Intrinsic in that kind of approach is judgment — being judgmental, and I do not mean that in a good way — and of expressing some kind of anger or frustration. That, of course, usually skews good judgment.

Trinda L. Ernst, President of the Canadian Bar Association, said: "This bill emphasizes retribution above all else." Craig Jones, Executive Director of The John Howard Society, said: "This is not a crime agenda; it is a punishment agenda."

When I was studying and reading about this — and I will paraphrase this badly — I was reminded of a story of Nelson Mandela, one of the most elevated people on the planet. He got out of jail after 27 years of being incarcerated and absolutely treated unfairly for the most evil of conceivable reasons. He said by the time he got to the car, he had made a determination. He had been locked up behind walls for 27 years and would not allow anger and bitterness to keep him incarcerated for the rest of his life, so he through that away.

What I am saying is that it is, in some sense, a question of emphasis. Every major religion and culture has in it as one of its central value tenets a sense of forgiveness and compassion. They do, because it works and it reflects something in the human condition. It says what we all know in our heart of hearts: Retribution does not help the victim or the perpetrator, and retribution in no way enhances or creates health and healing.

Nelson Mandela got it right. What did he do? He was instrumental in creating the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which was inspired in its ability to create healing and to bring a society together. In fact, we have had that model here in this country — or are making efforts to do so — with the Aboriginal peoples and their problems. I think that should not be lost upon us at all.

What I feel in my heart of hearts about this bill, among many other things, is that it addresses an issue, yes, that needs to be addressed, but it addresses it in exactly the wrong way. It will make it worse, it will not make it better, and in the process of doing it, the way that it addresses it will make all of us lesser. It will not elevate us. It does not come from a place of compassion or forgiveness. It comes from another place, and it is not becoming, and it will not make this country or this society better. It will make it harsher, angrier and more frustrated and, as said by one of my colleagues, we will be back here in five or ten years and we will be fixing this, but think of the number of lives that will be irreversibly damaged because of the mistakes that will be made in 40 minutes when this bill is passed by this government.

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