I call to order the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights, on this date, Thursday, November 23, 2006.

    We are continuing our discussion and debate on Bill C-10, an act to amend the Criminal Code—that is, minimum penalties for offences involving firearms.

    We certainly have the pleasure of being in the city of Toronto. I guess actually Mississauga would be more the area where the airport is, but at least in the area of Toronto. With us, of course, are several witnesses from this region, one being the chief of the Toronto Police Service, Chief William Blair.

    Just before I ask Chief Blair to sit at the table, we have one quick item of business that we would like to address. You have a copy of a motion before you, and I would turn to the Honourable Sue Barnes, MP, with the Liberal caucus, to make that motion.

    Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

    In deference to our witnesses, and not wishing to hold them up, I will place this motion, which I would have done if I had not been ill at the end of the two days of hearings we had on the court challenges program and the Law Commission. I'm not going to speak on this. I'm just asking for the vote. We'll take it that everybody, over those two days, had an opportunity to put their remarks on the record.

     This is for the reinstatement of the funding for the two programs at the 2005-06 level, and that the chair report the adoption of the motion to the House forthwith. I'll call for a recorded vote, and then that will be all, Mr. Chair, and we can get on with our business of the day.

    A recorded vote has been called for.

    (Motion agreed to: yeas 6; nays 4 [See Minutes of Proceedings])

    May I ask that you report this back to the House as soon as possible?

    It shall be reported back to the House.

    Thank you, Mr. Chair.

    Thank you, Ms. Barnes.

    Would Chief Blair come to the table?

    Chief Blair, the committee, of course, has been studying Bill C-10 and the concern over the issue of offences involving firearms. We've had some meetings already, but the debate certainly has not come to any conclusion at this point. We anticipate several more weeks of meetings and witnesses to be heard.

     It's our pleasure, certainly, to be in your city. There was unanimous agreement to attend here to get some first-hand information and make ourselves available to whoever would like to speak.

    With that, Chief, the floor is yours. Perhaps you could present, and then I know we will have a series of questions.

    Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

    Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. It is a great pleasure to be here. Just as a point of clarification, I am delighted to be able to welcome you to the city of Toronto. You're still in the city of Toronto, although you're right on the edge of our border.

    As has been indicated, and obviously by the way I'm dressed, I am the chief of the Toronto Police Service. It is my pleasure to come before you today to speak a little bit about our experience in Toronto as it pertains to gun violence.

    As I am sure you are all aware, in the past year in particular, but actually over the past three or four years, we have experienced a significant increase in the level of gun violence in our city. That culminated in what was characterized by the media last year as the year of the gun. It was a year that saw an increase in the number of gun-related homicides in excess of 85% in Toronto, a significant increase in the number of shooting occurrences, and, equally significant, great concern among our citizens about public safety on our streets.

    The violence that occurred last year is very much tied to the activities of gangs involved in a wide variety of criminal activities in our communities, most notably drug trafficking. Gangs have increasingly armed themselves with handguns over the past number of years and have been engaged in very public use of those handguns, endangering very many people in our city.

    Last year we had a number of very high-profile events in the city, which I am sure you're aware of, but let me recount some of them for you. In July 2005 there was a gun battle engaged in one of our housing communities in which a four-year-old child was injured. The child was shot four times while playing in his backyard. We had another incident where a young man attended the funeral of a friend and was shot down on the steps of the church in which the funeral was taking place.

    Perhaps the most widely publicized event, and the one that caused the greatest public concern in our city, was the Boxing Day shooting that occurred at Yonge and Gould last year at about 4:30 in the afternoon on a day when the people of Toronto frequently come down to that location and have historically attended there. Very few citizens in my city have not been down to Sam the Record Man, located at that corner, on Boxing Day.

    A number of individuals, about 12 to be precise, were engaged in a dispute over drug territories, and guns came out. There was an exchange of gunfire on the street, and when the smoke had cleared, seven people had been shot, one of them a 15-year-old innocent child who was shopping with her mother. She lay dead on the roadway.

    We have conducted a very exhaustive investigation and brought the people who we believe to be responsible for that crime to justice. They are currently before the courts. But the wounds that that event and others like it have inflicted upon our city and our communities remain. There is still a great concern about violence in our communities.

    You may have read that this year in Toronto we have mounted an effective response to some of the gun violence we have experienced. I am very proud of the fact that we have undertaken a strategy known as the Toronto anti-violence intervention strategy, in which we have dedicated hundreds of new police resources to the fight against violence. We have been very active in identifying, apprehending, and prosecuting the most violent of offenders, to remove them from our streets and make the communities in which they were preying safer. We've put uniformed officers in those areas that were experiencing violence, and we have had some success in suppressing some of that violence. We have not eliminated it.

    We've put a lot of people in jail. We've seized a great number of guns. We have worked very hard with our community partners in an attempt to restore a sense of safety and create opportunities and hope in those communities that had none, where people can now be safer and feel safer. As I indicated, we have had some success, but our success has been limited by the continued violence by a number of individuals.

    Even as recently as this week, we had another event where gunmen took out guns and sprayed bullets on Yonge Street, only blocks south of where Jane Creba was killed last year. Hours later, on the 401, three young gunmen fired upon police officers who were attempting to apprehend them after they had robbed a business premises earlier in the evening. The individuals responsible for that are now in custody.

     But we continue to see the use of guns in our community. I'm strongly of the opinion, having read the provisions proposed in Bill C-10.... I've spoken to my people, and we're looking very hard at what is happening in our city, and not only in our city, but in cities right across Canada. As the chair of the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police organized crime committee and of the Ontario Association of Chiefs of Police organized crime committee, I have had the opportunity to speak with my colleagues in every city and every jurisdiction in this country. What we are seeing, certainly across the province of Ontario, and what large urban centres across this country are experiencing, is an increase in gun violence, the availability of guns, and the willingness of criminals to use those guns to enforce their will upon communities to terrorize communities. And what we're seeing very often is even young people gaining access to guns, carrying guns, resolving disputes that used to be resolved with a punch in the nose but now are resulting in a spurt of gunfire, killing not only the protagonists involved, but innocent people in the vicinity. That remains a significant concern across this country. I am strongly of the opinion that in order to reduce this violence, we must accomplish many things. There is no simple answer to this. There is no one answer.

    Certainly we have a responsibility to apprehend the most violent offenders and to take them off the street. In addition to taking them off the street, they have to know that there are real consequences for their criminal conduct. The only reason to carry a loaded handgun in my town is to kill people. So when an individual chooses to take up a gun in the city of Toronto, they are putting all their fellow citizens at risk. They have to know that there is a strong likelihood that they will be caught, and that's my job. But they also have to know that when caught, there are real, serious, and certain consequences for those actions. Quite frankly, the certainty of those consequences is not currently available in our system, and our criminals are not being deterred.

    But I can also tell you, from experience, that this year we undertook a significant organized crime investigation in a neighbourhood known as Jamestown, not very far from where we are sitting now. It is a neighbourhood, a relatively small neighbourhood, that had 10 gun-related murders--murders committed with handguns--in 2005. We conducted a major investigation, and in May of this year we apprehended 106 members of the Jamestown Crew--gang members and organized crime members from that community. We kept most of the violent ones in custody. We managed to keep them in custody through the summer.

     Last year there were 10 murders in that community; this year there have been none. Last year there were over 45 shootings in that community; this year there were only a handful. The difference in that community has been extraordinary. And it's because the individuals who were preying on that community and committing so much violence have been incapacitated in their ability to terrorize that neighbourhood. Because they are in custody, they haven't been out on those streets to kill people and kill each other. And that neighbourhood is experiencing a significant renaissance.

    The other things we are attempting to do in that community--to make it safe, to create new opportunity, to create hope, to restore a community's confidence and its pride--can only take place when the bullets no longer fly around the neighbourhood. So by taking the most violent offenders off the street, and, most importantly, by keeping them off the street, we create an opportunity for the other positive things to happen so that our youth workers, our schools, our faith leaders, our community leaders, the business community, and all of us together can make a real difference in those communities. But it only works when the gunmen are gone.

    I am available, sir, to speak to any issues you may have.

    Thank you, Chief. We appreciate those comments.

    I'm going to begin with Ms. Barnes. I know there have been numerous questions about just how effective incarceration is when it comes to violent offenders. I know this will be a topic of much discussion.

    Go ahead, Ms. Barnes.

     Thank you very much.

    I'm very pleased to see that in this city, Chief Blair, you've been able to utilize some of the other pieces that are within your control as a police officer. I think that bodes well for the city of Toronto. I note that about 10% of the city budget--$794 million--is for policing in this city. Those are maybe just slightly out-of-date figures, but that's a substantial part of the city budget. But it seems that if you're bringing down the rates, it is well spent. I commend your officers.

    First of all, when you say there's no certainty of consequences, to what do you attribute the fact that there's no certainty of consequences? All these offences are in the Criminal Code right now and they all have maximum penalties. So when you say a statement like that, what do you directly attribute that to?

     First of all, let me begin even before we get to trial. We have had situations in Toronto where we have apprehended individuals with guns on our streets, loaded guns, and I have to tell you a little bit about doing that.

    I've done that before, and my people do it every single day. We seize guns every day off our streets, loaded guns. Just in the past 24 hours we've seized five handguns and a shotgun, in very dangerous circumstances. Those are life and death events for my folks. I think you really have to be there and experience that with your heart pounding and you can barely see.

    So when we do that and the individual is apprehended and sent to court, and within sometimes hours, rarely more than days, that same individual is released from custody and is back on the street—and these are actual events—and weeks later, we apprehend that same individual with a gun again and he's released again, and then a few weeks later, a third time, I think that undermines the confidence of my people, and it certainly undermines public confidence, in the determination of the criminal justice system to make our neighbourhoods safe.

    People are working very hard and are very dedicated, and what we see is very long delays in bringing these matters to trial. We now, in the city of Toronto, experience up to 13 remands before we can actually conclude one of these criminal matters, and so often these individuals are out in the community. When we are trying to restore a sense of safety in neighbourhoods, when we take the most violent gun offenders and lock them up and they're back days later, people who have cooperated with us and assisted us in our investigation are terrorized by their presence in the neighbourhood.

    So there is certainly a perception of a lack of consequences for those very serious offences, and the sentences that people have been receiving for carrying firearms are more reflective of the carrying of a loaded handgun in the city of Toronto as if it were a regulatory problem as opposed to a significant public safety problem.

    We're talking about the mandatory minimums; we're not talking about up to remands. But you did bring up one of the problems that we'll probably be addressing later, and that is the impact of Askov in delays. When you have higher mandatory minimums without the discretion, you're probably going to have more trials. We've been told that from the evidence.

    But I have only limited time, so one of the things I want to highlight to you is that under this bill as it's currently drafted...I'm going to give you the example a prosecutor gave to me, and I used it last spring and it still hasn't been adequately answered.

     An individual commits robbery, for example, at the corner store, while armed with a fully loaded long gun. This individual has a lengthy record, including numerous prior convictions for other firearms-related offences. Under proposed subparagraph 344(1)(a)(i), this individual faces a mandatory minimum of four years. I'm going to contrast that with another individual who commits a robbery but is armed with an unloaded handgun, not a long gun this time. This individual, unlike the other, is a first-time offender with no criminal record, and under proposed paragraph 344(1)(a), this person now faces a mandatory minimum sentence of five years. You could take that robbery and switch it in with sexual assault, kidnapping, hostage taking, or extortion, with the same result. We have a discrepancy of a year.

    Do you agree with those discrepancies? We're talking about an unloaded handgun, with a first-time offender getting a mandatory minimum of five years, versus a loaded long gun, with the offender, having a lengthy record, getting four years.

    Do you see any sense in this?

     First of all, I've worked in our holdup squad in the past, and I can't recall anybody committing robberies with an unloaded gun.

     That said, I think the real issue is the level of danger that both offences pose, and mandatory minimums should be in fact that. In circumstances that are more aggravated, and certainly in the case that you first describe, I would be strongly of the opinion that a four-year mandatory minimum would be the absolute base that one would start at, but I would expect, with all those aggravating factors that you've outlined, that a judge does and should have the discretion to impose a much more significant sentence for a person responsible for multiple offences who clearly poses a significant public safety risk.

    Thank you, Ms. Barnes.

    Mr. Ménard.

    Yesterday we heard testimony from the Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics. They told us that in Vancouver and Toronto, the rate of homicides with a firearm was the highest, 0.9 people per 100,000 inhabitants. The clerk could send you a copy of those statistics but I am sure you are quite familiar with them.

    I am interested in the effectiveness of legislative measures. There was no substantive study tabled before this committee showing that minimum sentences act as a deterrent. If they did, we would not be in the situation we find ourselves in because, if you recall, Bill C-68 was passed in 1995, and under that bill, 10 offences led to a minimum sentence of four years. But believing in minimum sentences doesn't mean that nothing should be done.

    With respect to street gangs, what do you think is currently lacking? Do you think there's something lacking in the Criminal Code, in the way investigations are carried out, or in our ability to catch people in the act?

    I was in the House when Bill C-95 was passed, whereby a new offence dealing with gang activity was created. The bill was subsequently amended because the chief of police said that the three “5” system — five offences committed over five years by five individuals — was not workable. The gang activity offence was therefore modified.

    Is something lacking in the Criminal Code with respect to street gangs? Should we be creating new offences or adding new rights? What would you suggest?

     With regard to our street gang problem, I'm gratified you mentioned that this is not a problem limited only to Toronto. As I'm sure you're aware, Montreal has experienced significant problems with street gangs and street gang violence, as have other cities in Canada, including Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, Winnipeg, and Halifax. I have spoken and met with the chiefs of all of these jurisdictions. All of them are very concerned, as are their communities, about safety in their communities and particularly the use of firearms.

    The proportion of murders committed with a gun has doubled in the past ten years in the city of Toronto. This is a very disturbing trend, particularly in light of what we have also seen taking place with street gangs, a very similar cultural issue, in our counterpart cities in the United States. One of the responses we have mounted effectively in Toronto is the use of section 467.1 of the Criminal Code in identifying and dealing with some of these street gangs. Some of them are in fact criminal enterprises, organized crime groups. We have mounted very significant, complex, and, I will confess, expensive and resource-intensive investigations in apprehending, dismantling, and disrupting those gangs. That section has been very effective.

    One of the challenges we face is that when we conduct these investigations--perhaps you have read of this recently--it places tremendous pressure on the other aspects of the criminal justice system. It places tremendous pressure on the capacity of our courts and on the capacity of our own force to provide security for those courts. For example, we've been going through a preliminary hearing for one of our street gangs, a very violent street gang involved in several murders and many violent acts. Our costs for providing court security, the need for specialized facilities for those prosecutions, and the challenge for legal aid and other aspects of the system have been enormous.

    But we are attempting to use the tools available to us to provide an effective response so that we get the most violent offenders off the streets.

    A trial is currently under way in Montreal; we will see how it unfolds.

    With respect to sections 467 and 468 of the Criminal Code, do you think that the gang activity offence will enable you to dismantle street gangs? Do those sections reflect reality or, conversely, should the committee devote two or three meetings fully to street gangs?

    The RCMP told us that 7,000 individuals are members of street gangs in Canada. Do you think that the gang activity section is appropriate? Do you think any procedural difficulties exist because of the Stinchcombe ruling or because of the rules dealing with disclosure of evidence? What exactly are we talking about?

     Let me tell you something. First of all, with respect to street gangs in Canada, approximately 7,000 people have been identified as members of gangs. Not all those gangs would fit our definition of “organized crime”. Some of them are much more loosely organized. Individuals in those gangs and associated with those gangs may not be involved in organized criminal activity, and therefore there are limitations in using criminal enterprise legislation against such individuals. But what we are also seeing is that some of those individuals are choosing to arm themselves with guns. In so doing, they are placing themselves and others in our communities at great risk.

    One of the challenges we face in dealing effectively with these gangs is the intimidation of civilian witnesses, encouraging people to come forward to cooperate and support us in our investigations. When we apprehend an individual with a gun--and as I've indicated, there is no legitimate reason to carry a handgun. If you're not a police or security professional in the city of Toronto, the only reason to carry a loaded handgun in our streets is to kill people. When we apprehend those individuals for those offences who are in possession of those guns, we need to be able to intervene at that point. It is a significant and serious enough trigger that the individual represents an overwhelming threat to public safety, and the criminal justice system has to be able to deal effectively with that individual.

    The issue of criminal enterprise, the insidious nature of organized crime, the threat and challenges organized crime represents to all of our communities is one that the...I believe we've used the existing legislation effectively. As I've indicated, it places tremendous burdens on the criminal justice system, but it's a good tool, and we have used it to good effect in the community.

    There is another problem, and it is individuals who choose to take up handguns and to carry those guns—

    Why?

    Mr. Ménard, thank you.

    Mr. Comartin.

    Thank you, Mr. Chair.

    Thank you, Chief, for being here today.

    Chief, it was reported within the last two or three weeks that you released some statistics on the occasion of gun crimes in the city in 2006 showing a dramatic reduction in the number of murders committed with guns, and that the overall rate of murder in Toronto was down appreciably.

    I'm wondering, for the purpose of getting this on the record--I don't want to put words in your mouth, but I think you were attributing that to what you talked about today in your opening statement, to the specific efforts the police services put into specific communities in going after specific gangs. Is that fair? Is that the primary—

     Only partly, sir. I attribute the reduction in violence to a number of things, and I give full credit to our partners in communities, youth workers, the schools, our faith leaders, business leaders, community leaders everywhere, who have really made an effort to create opportunity and hope and some prosperity in marginalized communities in deterring young people from following in the footsteps of others. We've worked hard to take those violent offenders out of the community, but the work doesn't stop at that, and more needs to be done in those communities to make them safer and better places, and more hopeful places, and less likely to attract young people into criminal activity.

    We've worked hard, and I'm proud to say the police have mounted a fairly effective response, and others have worked hard as well. It's also important to acknowledge that there's no room for complacency here, and the work is not done. We have had successes in the past and we have seen something of the cyclical nature. It's important to step back a little bit from monthly successes or problems and look more generally at the larger trend, and not just in the city of Toronto.

    One of the things that has also taken place in your jurisdiction.... I have spoken to Chief Stannard in Windsor, and he has expressed concern to me that there has been some displacement of my gang problems. We've been well resourced and we've worked very hard on our gangs, and some of our gangsters are moving into other jurisdictions that are less well resourced and are perhaps more vulnerable to criminal activity. So what we're seeing is an increase in gang violence in other cities across Ontario. There is some suggestion that we have displaced it, and there's some merit to that. It's incumbent upon all of us in the criminal justice system to rise together to the challenge of gun violence in our communities, so that we don't displace it, we eliminate it.

    I want to come back to the displacement argument in a moment, but just to stay with the specific endeavours the police services have had here and the success with them. This is just straight dollars. Given the monetary cost that entails, can you sustain that effort for the next two or three years?

     Let me talk about the effort a little bit, if I may, sir.

    First of all, I moved about 200 people back into uniform, into communities. That's where I needed them. They're out there enforcing the laws and helping keep neighbourhoods safe. I'll sustain that. That's me deploying some existing resources.

    Both the City of Toronto and the Province of Ontario have provided us with funding to hire 250 additional police officers. I've done that and they're out there.

    They're in place now?

     By the end of this month, they will all be in place, but we've been working hard at getting that done all through this year.

    Additionally, I was provided with some resources through one-time grant funding from the Province of Ontario. I'm hoping to discuss that at a future date, but, in fairness, we have not had that discussion. That was tremendously important to us as well. It enabled us to do a number of things in anti-gang violence initiatives and anti-violence initiatives, and in particular to assemble some rapid deployment teams.

    I have three teams of eighteen officers that we can, through our intelligence and analysis, rapidly deploy in the neighbourhoods where violence is taking place or is likely to take place, and they're very visible. They're all uniformed. They do a lot of compliance work to make sure that those people who are violent and have been released into the community are in fact complying with the conditions of their release. In fact, one arrest in seven in the city of Toronto will be for non-compliance under these conditions. We have to work very hard to make sure that people are complying with those conditions.

    I can also tell you that this year in the city of Toronto we will arrest more people than we have ever arrested in the history of the Toronto police. We will lay more charges. We will show-cause more violent offenders. We've increased our work in virtually every area, and we've put a lot more people out there to do the work.

    Certain aspects of it are quite sustainable and others will always depend on the largesse of others to help us get it done. Quite frankly, enormous pressure is being brought to bear on those funding sources because a lot of other communities in Ontario are putting their hand up and saying, “We're having the same problem and we need the same help”, and I agree with them. I think they do need the help. That's why I make the statement, “When my partners are stronger, I am stronger”. It's an important statement.

    As well, we all need to rise together. And it's not just the police, by the way. There's an impact on crown attorneys, there's an impact on our court space, on court security, prison transportation, and the administration of the courts. There's an impact on our judges, and there's a significant impact as well on the legal aid system. So all aspects of the criminal justice system have to rise together to meet the challenge.

    Thank you, Mr. Comartin.

    Mr. Moore.

    Thank you, Mr. Chair.

    Thank you, Chief Blair, for being here with us.

    That's the theme of what we want to do. It's to be a partner. We know you are doing a great job here in Toronto, but there is a role, obviously, for us as people who draft amendments to the Criminal Code and are caretakers of the Criminal Code. We also have to pull our weight.

    I want to have you maybe expand a bit on a few comments that you made. First, you made the point about the continued violence of a number of individuals. When we look at the population of your city, Toronto, we're actually talking about a small number, percentage-wise, of individuals who are creating the problems, the headlines, and the escalation in violence. You also mentioned that there's no one answer, but with some of the work you're doing, the work we can do, and the work of other stakeholders in the community, together we can try to prevent what's going to happen.

    Could you comment a bit on where we are dealing with a relatively small number of people? I know it's a lot for your police force because you're dealing with a number of individuals, but when we look at the millions of people who live in Toronto, we're actually dealing with a small percentage who are causing the problem.

    How do you feel the escalating offences proposed in the bill—the five-year minimum on a first offence, seven on a second, and ten on a third—fit with targeting repeat offenders? You used an example that I think is pretty telling, in that in one community there had been ten murders one year, and when you finally were able to get those few individuals off the street, the next year there were no murders. That's what we are trying to do with this bill: get the people who are really causing the problem off the street.

    Could you comment a bit on maybe the escalating nature of these offences?

     First of all, Mr. Moore, I concur. I think it's important to maintain a perspective here. This is not youths out of control in our communities. The overwhelming majority of young people in our city are decent, law-abiding young people. They just want to live safely and get ahead.

    The activities we're talking about are limited to a relatively small number—perhaps no more than a thousand violent gang members. Even though we've identified significantly more people involved in gangs, they're involved in other criminal activity that the law is adequate to deal with, with respect to drug dealing, theft, and other types of crimes. But the truly violent are a relatively small number. In Jamestown, the community I spoke of earlier, we kept about 45 people in custody this summer and the level of violent crime in that community plummeted by over 50%.

    We had a similar experience, by the way, in Scarborough. There were a number of murders in 2003 and early 2004. In fact, the same spike that we experienced in 2005 occurred in that time period as well out in the southeast and northeast parts of Scarborough. Two gangs were responsible, the Galloway Boys and the Malvern Crew. We did very significant investigations targeting both individual groups. The group of the Galloway Boys was twelve individuals whom we apprehended and kept in custody. They've been through preliminary hearing, and I can't speak too publicly about the evidence against them, but the allegations are that they were involved in multiple murders and multiple shootings in that community.

    When we took those twelve individuals off the street—this number is extraordinary and I have to share it with you—violent crime in Scarborough, which is a community of over half a million people, dropped 40%. It's not that those individuals were responsible, but I think others took note and were deterred from their behaviours by the real consequences that those twelve and others faced, because we followed that up with a similar investigation in Malvern.

    Just taking them off the street isn't the whole job. I want to be very clear on that. We then went into those neighbourhoods in significant numbers, in uniform, to restore a sense of safety and to empower the people who live in those communities to take back their own communities and have the confidence and courage to come forward to provide real opportunities and good role models for the young people in those communities. It made a huge difference in those neighbourhoods.

    I actually live in that neighbourhood and I know the difference. Confidence was restored and a sense of safety was restored because the most violent individuals—a handful, but the most violent handful you could possibly imagine—were incarcerated. Once they were out of the community, the world changed for everybody; there was a 40% reduction, and it lasted for several months. A 40% reduction in violent crime in that community was hugely significant to those of us who live there. It improved the quality of life for everyone, because a dozen individuals were no longer able to prey on that community.

    Do I have a little more time?

    You have enough for a very quick question, Mr. Moore.

    That's an amazing stat, I have to say.

    The other question I have is on what you mentioned about the deterrent effect when others are facing consequences. I've heard the argument made in committee, in other people's testimony, that there is no deterrent effect when you see another individual facing consequences. Is it your submission that there is a deterrent effect if people in the community see other individuals facing serious consequences for their serious offences?

     I believe there is. A couple of things happen. When very serious violent criminals are arrested and taken out of the community and kept out of the community, I think young people who might be inclined to follow those role models might look for other role models in their communities, more positive role models--decent, honourable citizens--to follow.

    Some individuals who may think that's the way to make your reputation in the community might be deterred, but there's also a very important thing that happens. A community's sense of self and self-confidence and pride is restored when these individuals are removed and when we can create an environment where good things can start to happen. Young people don't have to be ashamed of the high school they go to or be concerned that when they go for a job and tell a potential employer what neighbourhood they come from, they won't be hired because they're deemed to be at-risk youths. In fact, those youths aren't risky at all, but they may come from risky circumstances. When we can reduce the risk of their circumstances, their opportunities increase. That has a very positive effect on communities and neighbourhoods, and it's a responsibility that we have to our citizens to make those neighbourhoods safer places.

    That's why I've committed so many uniformed resources. It's not just simply to effect arrests. I don't believe we should measure our success by the number of people we arrest or even how long we keep them in jail. I think the true measure of our success is the absence of crime and an improvement in the quality of life of all of our neighbourhoods.

     Thank you, Mr. Moore.

    Mr. Lee.

    Thank you.

    Chief Blair, thank you for attending today.

     Of course, Toronto isn't the only place in the country. There are lots of other cities and places with difficulties with crime. It is notable that the spike in firearm violence that occurred over the last year and a half appears to have conspicuously been reduced to the point where, the last time I checked earlier this month, the number of firearm homicides had dropped to 44% from last year. The woundings dropped 19% or 20% and the shootings were down 20%. So something right is happening under the existing law. Obviously, a big portion of it has to be attributed to the Toronto police.

    I will add something to your remarks. I live in 42 Division, just north of where you live, I think. And 42 Division includes Malvern, but not the Galloway region.

     The last time I spoke with Superintendent Ellis, he noted that, based on the serious crime index used by the force, 42 Division in north Scarborough had the lowest crime rate in all of the city of Toronto, including Rosedale. So that is a huge difference, which can only be attributed.... It wasn't the weather and it wasn't the diet; it was the police. So I want to give credit to the force and all of the creative ways they have found, using the existing law, to address spikes in crime or community crime.

    You mentioned bail as being at least a visual problem. It's perhaps part of the denunciation envelope. In other words, when people see someone who has been charged with a crime come out a couple of days later, pending a trial, maybe they get scared; maybe it doesn't look right. This bill doesn't address bail, but it does address, with some certainty, criminals off the street.

     Could you tell me what components of this bill appeal to you in terms of its ability to take people who can be identified as threats off the street?

     Mr. Lee, let me say, first of all, thank you for your comments, because I believe we have provided an effective policing response. And as I said, I like to give credit to my partners in this. The community partners we've had have been courageous and hard-working and have done a great job as well.

    The laws that we have used have not yet been tested in court. They haven't done their job. That part hasn't worked yet. We've worked our tails off in the past several months and none of this has come to trial. We've worked very hard using the existing laws to bring people before the courts, to keep people in custody, and when they get released, we're back on their door. We see them first thing in the morning and last thing at night to make sure they're complying with the conditions on which they were released.

    As I've indicated, almost one arrest in seven that we make in the city is because they're not complying with those conditions. Fully 68% of the people we arrested for firearms offences last year were out on bail. So we keep working hard at that.

    The part that you say...the effectiveness of these laws. We haven't seen that they're effective yet. Quite frankly, they haven't done anything because we haven't had a trial on any of these matters. We're still before the courts.

    We're hoping that we can have an effective response from the criminal justice system at the back end, that sentencing will be effective. So we've worked very hard, and I think on our part of the job we've done our very best and we've had a positive effect. If we keep on arresting them and bringing them to court, and if there are not real consequences for those conducts, then they'll be back on our streets.

    Keeping them in custody so far this summer has proven that when these individuals are incapacitated from their ability to be in the community, from carrying guns and shooting each other and shooting innocent people, when we have them in jail and they're incapacitated from that, our streets are safer. It remains to be seen, after we get to trial and they're convicted, whether the criminal justice system is prepared to keep them in custody and continue to keep our communities safe. If it's not, and if they come back out, we'll keep working hard to do our part.

    These people will be prosecuted under the existing laws and not under this new bill. But what I take from your remarks is that the part of this bill you like is its potential ability to incapacitate the serious repeat firearm offender and keep the person off the street, post-conviction.

     Mr. Lee, I believe a rational person would be deterred by two things: first of all, the likelihood of being caught; and when caught, suffering with real consequences for their actions. I think both of those things would deter a rational person.

    I haven't seen sufficient evidence, and I don't think there has been sufficient study, to say with absolute certainty that everyone will be deterred, but I can tell you that when they're in jail, and when they don't have a gun and they're not walking around our neighbourhoods, nobody is getting shot by that individual.

    It has also been my experience that we didn't lock up every bad guy in Malvern, in Galloway, or in Jamestown, but a lot of the other people who might have been predisposed to take up a gun, when all of their colleagues and friends were in custody, I think made different choices. That's my belief, and I think our neighbourhoods were made safer as a result.

    Thank you, Mr. Lee.

    Mr. Thompson.

    Thank you, Chief. I really appreciate the successes you've had and the hard work you're doing.

    I'm finding in my area out in Alberta, mostly in the rural area, that the RCMP are the main enforcers, but I do have a lot of conversations with the police officers of Calgary and other towns and cities. One thing that is happening in Alberta, of course, is that we're having a fairly good economic boom, and opportunities for jobs are quite high. The number of resignations from police forces is on the rise because they're taking these better-paying jobs.

    When I talked to some of these people, their response was that it wasn't about the money. They said they liked what they were doing as a police officer, but when they dropped people off at the remand centre in the city, because the rural area didn't have a place to keep them, and then drove back to their hometown to do the work and these characters beat them back there, that got very discouraging.

    When they stick their necks out, put their lives on the line, day after day, to apprehend and arrest these people, and they beat the officers back to their hometown because of bail or the “soft approach”, for lack of a better term, I think the sentencing factor is an extremely important thing in the minds of police officers who are out there putting their lives on the line. Is this not true?

     Well, certainly there is some frustration expressed by our people, but I can also tell you, sir, in my experience in Toronto, people are working hard. They're doing dangerous work, but they're doing it well. I think there's a pride that comes with doing your job well, and my people feel that pride.

    There is some frustration when we see these individuals back out on the street, and it's one of the reasons we work so hard to ensure that they are complying with the conditions they're released on and so often are bringing them back in before the courts because they're not complying with their conditions.

    I had a situation I had to deal with last year where an individual was involved in a gunfight with the police, where he actually fired on the police, and four days later he was released into the custody of his mother. Within a week, we got him again with a gun. My people were looking at me and saying, “How often do we have to do this? This is dangerous. We want to go home to our families and we're being put at risk by the system.”

    I think some of those concerns are corrected through the administration of justice, and that's fine, but at the end of the day, with all of this work, I think all communities, not just police officers, but the citizens of our city, certainly have expressed to me—and I've been in every community and every day go out in the city—that they don't want everybody in jail, but they want the dangerous, violent offenders in jail, the people who put everyone at risk, the people who engage in gunfights in which four-year-olds get shot or innocent children get shot down on the street. They want those individuals out of their community. They want to be protected from them, and until we can do that for them, I don't think we can expect people to be courageous enough to step forward and help us in our investigations as often as we would hope they would do it. We have to provide them with some assurance that the whole system will work for them and that our first responsibility is to protect our citizens.

    We have to act sometimes. Individuals may have to suffer the consequences of the choices they make, so that, for the greater good, we can provide a safe community for everyone.

    A few years back, my colleague Mr. Hanger and I were in the city of Toronto. We did a ride-along for a couple of nights. At that time, there was a significant number of gang wars. It was pointed out to us by the officers we were with.

    We also made a trip to the border and saw a number of trucks blow through the lines and boats going across the water. I'd ask, “What's on those boats?” They'd say, “If it's like this, it's probably cigarettes; and if it's like that, it's probably whiskey; and if it's like this, it could be guns.” There's not much policing in the sense of what's going on at the borders. How significant a problem is the smuggling of these items in the city of Toronto?

     We have interesting discussions about the sources of guns, and we work hard at all sources. Our investigations in 2003 and 2004 indicated an even split, with half being smuggled across the border and half being stolen from legitimate gun owners here in Ontario and elsewhere in Canada.

    We've worked very hard to raise public consciousness about the problem with insecure firearms in our communities. I think there has been an improvement. What I think we're seeing now, in our latest work this year, is that close to 80% of the firearms we're seizing have in fact been smuggled across the border. So that's shifting a little bit. I think it is reflective of some good work that has been done here to improve the quality of security of firearms, but it is a challenge.

    You raised the issue of the border. I am a member of the Major Cities Chiefs Association, which is an organization of the large police services across North America. I have been at two national forums conducted by the United States, in Washington and in Boston, on the issue of gun violence. The whole issue of gun violence is being described by the chiefs of the large cities in the United States as a gathering storm. What is happening in the urban centres of virtually every jurisdiction in America is a significant increase in violence, in particular gun violence, which is attributed to a great extent to gangs.

    We are not the United States. We have different laws and a different society. But the cultural influences that give rise to much of this gang activity impact on our youth as well, so I think there is a great forewarning there. It was indicated today that we saw a bit of spike and then the numbers came down, but a very strong trend is emerging across North America in terms of an increase in gun violence and an increase in gang activity in all communities. We're seeing a serious and worrying increase in youth violence in those cities.

    So we have not experienced the same level of violence, but I think there are lessons to be learned there.

    On a point of order, Mr. Chair, you've heard me speak several times about the gang activities in prisons. I am wondering if it would be possible for the chief to provide us with the names of gangs. I would like to have that list for a comparison with the gang activities in penitentiaries.

    This is kind of for my own personal use, but it might be interesting for other members as well.

    Chief, is there some information that can be compiled in that regard?

     We have compiled lists. We have 73 identified gangs in the city of Toronto.

     I believe CISC, Criminal Intelligence Service Canada, provided you with information on street gangs operating in Canada. I believe the names of our gangs were listed on that material. If you don't have it, we'll provide it to you, sir.

    I would like to get that soon.

    We will attempt to look for it. If we are unable to find it, we will be in contact.

    Mr. Murphy.

    Thank you, Mr. Chair.

    When I lived in Toronto in the 1980s, my roommate was a member of the Toronto police force. We never got broken into, probably because he was a member of the police force--or because we had no possessions of any real merit, I don't know which. But this goes to my point about police officers, community members, business community leaders, as you mentioned, and teachers, etc., being the fabric that creates public safety, and I am very happy to hear you say this, if that is a model for all of Canada. I also want to congratulate you on your good work.

    We have gone a little off topic with respect to a strict examination of Bill C-10, so with the chair's permission and the committee's willingness, I might ask you about what I think is really the rub of the issue here, and that's gun control, for handguns, long guns, big guns, little guns, I don't care which. It may unify us to hear you say that guns of any sort are very dangerous for a community, whether it be Toronto, Moncton, Riverview, Edmonton, Red Deer, or wherever.

    I have two questions, very political.

    One, do you see any merit in scrapping completely the long gun registry?

    Two, perhaps in a blue sky statement, what, other than the provisions in the Criminal Code regarding restricted weapons and so on--the licensing and the regulatory scheme, frankly, that you alluded to in your remarks--would be the perfect gun control scheme that could be enacted by a federal government that would help you in your job and make communities safer?

     Like my colleagues in the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police and the Ontario Association of Chiefs of Police, I believe there is value in the gun registry. It provides important information to the police that enables us to do our jobs a little more safely, and it enables us to keep our communities safer.

     I spend a lot of time working with my American colleagues on gun control issues, and when I tell them that we have such a registry in this country, they are astounded and quite envious that information is available to law enforcement. But as I have acknowledged previously, the truth is that unfortunately gangsters in my town don't register their handguns. So the problem I'm having with my gangsters killing each other with their handguns is not addressed adequately by a registry. But the registry still has value. Just because it doesn't have value for that problem does not mean it doesn't have value to the police. That's my position on the registry.

    This is a vast country, and there are many jurisdictions and circumstances where it's not a problem of public safety for individuals to own firearms. Certainly for the farmer in Saskatchewan or the bear hunter in northern Ontario, I have no concerns about responsible gun ownership, as long as those firearms are lawfully obtained, properly registered, and safely secured. That's not an issue for us. I believe that what will help us keep our community safe are laws that enable us when we apprehend individuals in the criminal possession of a firearm.

    In Toronto my problem is overwhelmingly one of handguns, but criminal possession of any firearm or crimes committed with firearms are more dangerous than with other weapons. That's because of the radius of harm that those weapons can bring into a community. In a large urban centre, if somebody pulls out a gun on Yonge Street and blasts away, it is almost inevitable that innocent people will be caught in the crossfire.

    We will do the work of apprehending those individuals and taking those guns off the street, but in my ideal scenario, there are real consequences for those actions. Individuals who might be predisposed to getting guns would be deterred from making that choice and endangering everyone else because they will know that they will get caught, and when caught there will be real consequences.

    We've done everything we can in Toronto to deal with the first part of that. We've done everything we can to make sure they know they will get caught. We are starting to achieve some success in that regard, but in order for that to be effective, they also have to know that when they are caught there will be certain and serious consequences for their conduct. I don't believe right now that is the perception among our gangsters and people who would endanger others. I think it seriously undermines our efforts to maintain public confidence.

    In order for a police service to do their job, we have to maintain two things in our relationship with the public. First is trust that we will do the right things for the right reasons. Second is confidence that we can competently address issues of public safety. Only if we do those things can we maintain a high degree of public confidence. Without them we can't do our jobs.

    I believe those in the public trust us and know we're doing our very best, but I do not believe they are fully confident in the entire criminal justice system to deal effectively with these individuals. I think we need to be able to provide them with assurances that there will be real consequences, these guys will be caught, and our communities will be protected from individuals who would take up guns, blast away, and put so many people at risk.

    Thank you, Mr. Murphy.

    Very quickly, Mr. Brown.

    First of all, there is now a reverse onus, a change in release today. Some of you spoke about the changes in or challenges with bill breaches. On the 68% figure you mentioned, Bill C-35 hopefully will alleviate that for the work you and your force do.

    On the education of the offender, there has been some contention that this won't actually register if you have minimum penalties for those who commit crimes. What is your assessment of the criminal population? Does this deterrence effect work? Is there a level of sophistication among criminals about the potential consequences?

     I would think there is. I've been dealing with such people all of my adult life, and they're not fools. They make choices, real choices, and I think do so provided with the right information about the consequences of their action. We have to create an impression that we really mean it.

    One of the things we did this year.... Let me give you an example of deterrence. Every year we have a Caribana Festival in Toronto. Historically, in the downtown core on that weekend we have experienced significant violence. Last year, in 2005, we put close to 600 police officers in the downtown core, but it was not well publicized. We had 22 violent events that weekend, and one person was killed. The person who was killed was killed within a proximity of about 30 feet of 50 police officers. The guy just took out his gun and shot another guy to death right in front of the police, and he was apprehended within seconds. I'm not sure that individual could ever be deterred. He was mad.

    But this year we took a different approach. We publicized very extensively that we would be there in vast numbers, precisely the same numbers as the year before. We put up video cameras in that location and we put up signs everywhere saying there were video cameras in those locations. We weren't sneaking up on anybody; we let them know that the likelihood of getting caught was significantly increased, and that there were a lot of police officers there, and that we would be enforcing the laws vigorously in that location.

    We had that event this year. Whereas in 2005 there were 22 violent events, in 2006 there were none.

    Chief, there are two new offences listed in this legislation—one, robbery where firearms are stolen, and another, break and entry and then stealing or intending to steal a firearm—and a separate offence of using a firearm or an imitation firearm in the commission of other offences.

    Could you offer some opinion to the committee on the merits of creating those new offences?

     The theft of firearms has had some devastating consequences in my community. In 2003, there was a break and enter at 31 Gilder Drive in Toronto. It was an apartment. A gang broke into that apartment and stole 30 handguns from it.

    Nine of those handguns were subsequently used in murders in the city, from a single break and enter. Those guns went into the criminal element, into a certain gang. It tipped the balance of power between gangs, and a war broke out. By the time we were done, there were a dozen killed, and several dozen people had been shot.

    So we need to have consequences for individuals who do not store their firearms securely. But I think there have to be greater consequences.... This is not merely a theft; this is a crime that results in death and destruction and incredible consequences and trauma for our neighbourhoods. So I believe there should be serious consequences for those actions.

    Thank you, Mr. Brown.

    I'd like to ask one question before you leave, Chief. You spoke of arresting people with charges of firearms offences against them and their being out on the street. Do the police have power to arrest without warrant for any parole violation, or probation order, or bail restriction?

     No, sir.

    For a parole violation, it really requires intervention of the parole authority. We bring that information to their attention. It sometimes requires us to go back a second time. If we catch somebody in violation of parole conditions, we notify the parole authority, who then may take out a warrant for that individual. Then we go back and find him again. There are some real limitations on what we can do.

    We have proven very effective, by the way, in enforcing conditional release conditions: curfews, non-associations, residency requirements. Those things have been very effective tools for us in maintaining some control over offenders in the community. Our ability to control people who are on probation and parole is somewhat more limited. But it requires us to form better partnerships with the parole and probation authorities, and we're trying to do that.

    But if the police were given that authority, it would be a much more effective tool.

     I think it could be valuable, yes.

    Okay. Thank you very much, Chief. Your presence here was very much appreciated.

    Also Mr. Clarke, thank you for testifying. I think you gave us quite a riveting statement on the issue of gun violence in the city—and the region, actually. It's very much appreciated. Thank you.

     I am very grateful for the opportunity to be here today and the opportunity to answer your questions.

    I can tell you, on behalf of the members of my service, my communities, my colleagues across the country, that we are grateful for the time all of you are putting into this. It's a very important question for us. It's a very important issue in our communities. It has a huge impact on people's perception of their safety. We are grateful for the thoughtful work that's going on by everyone on this matter.

     We appreciate it. Thank you.

    I would like to call the Hon. Michael Bryant, Attorney General for the Province of Ontario, to the table.

    Good morning, Minister.

    Generally, Minister, we haven't had too many politicians sitting at our table, and we appreciate your persistence in calling. Your testimony will be valuable for us to hear, from a provincial perspective. The committee agreed to have you present, and we appreciate your effort here.

    I would ask you to begin your presentation, if you're prepared, and we'll get to the questions immediately after.

     Thank you, Chair. I appreciate the opportunity to address the committee.

    I'm sure the justice committee is very aware of the role the provincial Attorney General and his or her agents play in our criminal justice system. But just as confirmation, I guess, for those who torture themselves by reading Hansard for a committee, the provincial Attorney General is responsible for prosecuting the Criminal Code. So that's everything from shoplifting to murder.

    As you know, federal crown attorneys are responsible for drug crimes, under the Narcotics Act, and other offences. But within the rubric of organized crime--in guns and gang crime--it is the provinces that are responsible for most of the prosecutions involving guns and gangs, unless there specifically end up being drug crime charges.

    In the province of Ontario, unlike in the provinces of Quebec and British Columbia, for example, there is a distinction between who lays the charges and who prosecutes the charges. In B.C. and Quebec, the charges are laid by crown attorneys. Here in Ontario, charges are laid by the police, and then the provincial agents of the Attorney General decide whether to prosecute based on whether there is a reasonable prospect of conviction and if it's in the public interest.

    In Ontario, there are 900 crown attorneys--900 prosecutors--who address 500,000 charges every year. As such, the Criminal Law Division in the Province of Ontario has a considerable amount of experience, and I will say that they have developed a considerable amount of expertise. They have had the opportunity to work with officials in the federal Department of Justice under different governments and are obviously more than happy to work with the Department of Justice under this government, and have done so.

    There's a role for the province and the municipality and the federal government in the fight against gun crime. It is not solely the job of one level of government. I will quickly go through a few things the province is doing, and then if you'll permit me, Chair, I'll spend the bulk of my time talking about the bill—issues around amendments, issues around why have mandatory, and some examples--and then I'll happily take your questions.

    The province's approach to guns and gangs--Ontario's approach, the McGuinty government's approach--is that we have to do everything. It is not simply a matter of crackdowns alone or prevention alone or deterrents alone or denunciation alone. It is the whole package. So for the first time in Ontario, we established a guns and gangs task force that involved both police and prosecutors working together, literally, in the same building and on the same floor.

    A few months after I had the honour and opportunity of being sworn in, for the first time, a crown prosecutor, a crown attorney for the Province of Ontario, left his offices and moved into the offices of Chief Blair. The purpose of that, and the purpose of having prosecutors and police working together is this. As you heard from Chief Blair, there are thousands and thousands, sometimes over 100,000, wiretaps, often in many different languages. Usually most of the evidence involved in guns and gangs cases involves electronic surveillance. The disclosure requirements established by the Supreme Court of Canada and pursuant to our charter require timely disclosure. The search and seizure powers and the sophistication of some of the gangs, who understand very well what the laws are, has led to Ontario's approach to what we call organized justice.

     We want to be one step ahead of organized crime, not just traditional organized crime, but organized crime in the form of the street gangs we see, literally franchised operations with recruitment practices and a level of sophistication with some of them--as Chief Blair said, not all of them, but a level of sophistication--that allows them to do their best, unfortunately, to try to organize themselves around both the federal-provincial division of responsibilities and also around the Criminal Code and the justice system itself. Thus, we have organized justice. We have a crown attorney working with our police officers from day one of an investigation right through to the end. That assists in terms of timely disclosure. That assists in terms of ensuring all aspects of the investigation, and ultimately the evidence will be usable and positive before the courts, etc.

    It's expanded. We now have more than 60 prosecutors in the guns and gangs task force. We've established an operations centre that will be operational in January that puts everybody in the same room, all levels, RCMP, provincial policing and municipal policing, as well as enforcement. There's room for federal prosecutors. Obviously, there will be Ontario crown attorneys and the technology and the wiretapping experts. There's no substitute for being able to walk down the hall and talk to your colleagues, instead of having them across town or in some cases across the province.

    Third, we entered into an agreement with other provinces, Quebec and Manitoba--Ontario did so simply because of geographic proximity--to have the provinces collaborate on guns and gangs operations. Obviously, these are international and national efforts for some organized crime. The prosecution effort involves work from literally 10 or more police forces, different municipal police forces, several provinces, sometimes several countries. We have collaboration between provinces now. It has existed over the years, but it has never been formal or formalized. There has never been a real push to collaborate to get one step ahead of organized crime and, for example, to share expert evidence. So if an expert is being used in one province for a gun crime, and we know that person is there and is in Manitoba and we know how that went, we may be able to use that expert in the province of Ontario. There's no reason why that can't expand across the country.

    Our government fast-tracked an additional 1,000 police officers, and we also established major crimes courts, courts geared toward these relatively new prosecutions that involve dozens and dozens and sometimes over 100 accused. That involves particular security requirements. As you can imagine, that means we have to keep the witnesses apart from the accused. We have to protect victims' rights, thus the special victims unit within the operations centre. As I said, electronic surveillance dominates these trials, and therefore we have to have courts that can accommodate that, thus the establishment of these major crimes courts.

    Next, again, I said we have to do everything. We use our provincial legislation, civil legislation, to seize and in some cases forfeit property that's used for unlawful activities. Yesterday we announced the seizure of a crack house in Hamilton, not the first, but the second crack house we've seized in Hamilton using the provincial civil legislation.

    Last is prevention. We have to do it all. So the premier established a challenge fund, an up to $45 million challenge fund to prevent, to reach out to communities, to provide opportunities to communities, so people don't have to choose between a gang and doing nothing, but rather have community activities they can turn to.

    Enough of telling you what I do for a living; let me get into your bill. Thanks for your indulgence.

    Ontario supports Bill C-10. Ontario, at least since the McGuinty government has been in office, has been calling for increased mandatory minimum sentences. I have written to the previous justice minister and the current justice minister, attended federal-provincial-territorial justice ministers meetings, and attempted to forge a consensus among justice ministers. We achieved that in Whitehorse, which I'll speak about in just a moment.

     We support mandatory minimum sentences.

    I am encouraged by the federal government's commitment to move the justice system forward.

     We view mandatory minimum sentences as part of a larger package, as I've just discussed in terms of what the province's role is. This is not the only change that Parliament ought to address and of course is addressing.

     I don't know what time it is, but I think it may be at this very second that the Prime Minister, the premier, and the mayor are making an announcement on bail reform.

    As I say, under the McGuinty government, Ontario has been pursuing the fight for zero tolerance on gun crimes. We are very committed to doing that, to doing all we can to fight gun violence.

    In November 2005, at the federal-provincial-territorial justice ministers meeting in Whitehorse, Ontario, we worked with the other justice ministers and with the federal minister to establish a national consensus, which was achieved at that time, that sentences for gun-related offences should carry increased mandatory minimums.

     At that meeting, Ontario proposed, among other things, two new offences, which we are pleased form part of the proposed bill that we're here to discuss. The creation of the charges of breaking and entering to steal a firearm and robbery to steal a firearm would, if passed, officially recognize two crimes that unfortunately have become all too common in this world of gun and gang culture.

    I said I support the bill. I also understand that committees have work to do, and one of the things committees consider is the specifics in the amendments. So I'd like to speak to that for just a moment.

     Ontario is concerned about the application of mandatory minimum sentences, about how they are used. It has been upheld by the Supreme Court of Canada that minimum sentences have an inflationary effect, as Madam Justice Arbour upheld in Morrisey. Namely, I would argue that minimum sentences are the floor, they're not the ceiling, but the bill, prima facie, does not reflect that right now. So I would submit that a statement of principle to the effect that mandatory minimum jail sentences are minimums and not maximums would be helpful in ensuring that the courts do not use a mandatory minimum as the tariff, because if it's used as a tariff, then it will not be a minimum; it will be used as a maximum.

     A statement of principle to that effect would be helpful in clarifying that for the courts, and obviously if the Department of Justice or this committee wishes Ontario officials to provide some more specific language around that, we would be happy to assist on that front.

    The bill ought to address, in my submission, a number of sentencing issues.

    First, the bill could better toughen the prohibition period for possession of firearms and ammunition.

    Secondly, we would recommend that the bill provide sentencing judges with the power to increase the period of parole ineligibility for any sentence involving a firearm-related offence.

    Thirdly, we would recommend that the bill deal with section 92 of the Criminal Code, the possession of a firearm--knowing its possession is unauthorized--to provide for a mandatory minimum jail sentence for a first offence.

    Fourthly, we would recommend that the bill provide a mandatory minimum jail sentence under section 94 for those found guilty of illegally possessing a firearm while in a car.

    On those two offences, and I understand that they are not entirely without controversy, the idea is this. If you get into a car and you have a firearm, you need to know that if you get pulled over, you're going to go to jail. I can only imagine the danger posed to police officers pulling over somebody who has a firearm in that car. Not having a mandatory minimum sentence, I would argue, does not (a) send the right message and (b) does not denounce that offence to the extent that it ought to be denounced.

    The same argument, I would argue, should be applied to the possession of a firearm, knowing that its possession is unauthorized, to provide for a mandatory minimum jail sentence for a first offence. Again, it's if you are in public and you have a firearm and you know it is unauthorized. We are not talking about the hunter here. We're talking about the person in public with a firearm knowing it's an unauthorized firearm. You need to know, when you decide to walk out of your house or apartment, or wherever you were where you got that gun, that if you get caught, you're going to go to a jail.

     I think that's entirely consistent with the principles and the spirit behind this bill. It would be a significant denunciation of those gang members who have weapons on them and who know that they are unauthorized.

    I also want to speak to the issue of resources, to reiterate what has been said at the federal-provincial-territorial justice ministers meeting. As you know, we already have increased the number of prosecutors in the province of Ontario, entirely funded by the treasury in the province. We have also appointed more justices to the Ontario Court of Justice than in any other three-year period in the history of the province. There have been more than 60 additions to the Ontario Court of Justice in the last three years--60, six zero. We've done that to enhance the ability of the criminal justice system. We've added 1,000 new police officers as well and have established the provincial operations centre. These are part of a $51 million expansion of the criminal justice system announced last January by the premier, Chief Blair, and the commissioner for the OPP. It is the single largest expansion, in one fell swoop, of the criminal justice system the province has ever seen. So I would submit that we're doing our part in the province of Ontario.

    Obviously, accused persons, under this bill, will be facing increased penalties. That's going to have an impact on the justice system; it always has. In the past, the federal government has assisted the provinces in funding federal legislative initiatives, especially when the bill carried the type of anticipated pressure that this one carries. The submission was made by all the provincial and territorial justice ministers to the federal justice ministers at the last federal-provincial-territorial meeting last autumn in Newfoundland. I would argue the precedent of the federal government assisting the provinces with federal legislative initiatives that has applied in the past should apply in this case.

    Let me get into mandatory minimum sentences and why. In my respectful submission, the debate over mandatory minimum sentences is a false debate. We have mandatory minimum sentences in Canada. We already have them. And we already have them for gun crimes. The question is, which offences? And where there are mandatory minimum sentences already, what should the increases be?

     The purpose is to incapacitate persons who have been convicted of gun crimes, persons who have proven themselves to be dangerous. They have the most dangerous weapon imaginable to the public--a firearm, a gun--and they ought to be incapacitated.

     Denunciation is, obviously, another purpose.

     Deterrence has been spoken to already by the chief, and I would echo his remarks. Deterrence applies to some; it doesn't apply to others. If deterrence was the sole purpose of the mandatory minimum for murder, you could make the argument that some people are not going to be deterred by the sentence. Of course, it applies to some but not to others. The reason we have the sentence we do for murder is, in part, because of denunciation by Parliament. So it should apply with respect to gun crimes.

    I want to give a few examples of—

    Excuse me, Minister.

    Am I up, Mr. Chair?

    Actually you are. But during the line of questioning that will follow, you will have an opportunity to provide some of those examples.

     I'm going to allow the committee to question now, and if you see fit—

     I know how it works. Thanks, Mr. Chair.

    Excellent.

    Ms. Barnes.

     Thank you very much

    Welcome to the committee.

    I recall that in November of last year the former Minister of Justice came to Toronto. I think you were at that announcement, and you were very supportive of the bill at that time.

    Just for those who were not present, breaking and entering with an intent to steal a firearm and robbery with intent to steal a firearm were part of that piece of legislation. Our government certainly was in favour of those bills.

     Also, as you said, Minister, there are already 42 mandatory minimums in the Criminal Code, give or take one or two.

     I was part of putting some of the evidence surrounding guns. I was part of getting that in during my term in Parliament.

    Our police chief, just before he ended his comments, said it was the public's perception of safety. That is where the discussion comes in. The public wants to feel safe. You're talking about 500,000 charges every year in Ontario. If you multiply that by the rest of the country....

    What do people read about? They read about the extreme acts of violence in the papers. That skewers their perception of the magnitude of the problem. We know there is a divergence with our criminal justice statistics.

    I do want to correct something. The current Minister of Justice, when he was at committee the other day, talked about the Liberals wanting to double the mandatory minimums and misapplied that by saying from four to eight years. What we had in our bill were various other charges, where we were doubling the minimum one year to two years. I don't want that misperception to continue.

    There are some mandatory minimums that, with a carefully drafted bill, I think the Liberals would be able to support. The way this thing is drafted has some real problems.

    You were present, and you heard about the discrepancy between the long arm and the short gun. Those are ideological differences. There is no evidence to really back those up. We've not been presented with any evidence by the minister, or any documentation. What we're trying to do here is an evidence-based analogy. We are also constrained, quite rightly, by section 718 of the sentencing principles of the Criminal Code. There are six sentencing principles in the code, not just the two that seem to be mentioned all the time.

    For the record, we had $50 million for the gun violence and gang prevention funds. It was community-based. There was $1 million just in Toronto, just to top up these violence initiatives. Those were the holistic things we heard the chief talk about and be supportive of. We also know that you were involved in that as part of the government of the day.

    I'm going to get to the area that concerns me and that directly affects you. In the prisons, it will be the feds paying for the incarceration, but it does affect you as a provincial Attorney General, as the administrator of the courts of justice. The two areas are really of concern. They have been raised, and are continuing to be raised, even later today.

    One is the legal aid problem you're facing. You are already in a $10 million deficit here. When the people come to our committee and talk about this, we hear that only people who are facing incarceration are eligible. Yesterday, I read, as I'm sure others did, about the per person capping in Ontario.

    I'll tie that up, Minister, and then leave the rest of the time for the Askov situation. Mandatory minimums at the level we see in these bills are going to have an effect that will start at count one. You will not just see it at the third time, when somebody is facing some really...but all the way through. We're being told that you will have more trials. You have Askov problems already.

    It's not just “you”; I'm talking about the administration of justice, not you personally.

    I need you to address those, and I want to give you this opportunity to do that. I'd also like you to address the similar problem that you have on the gun registry.

     On legal aid, it used to be the case that legal aid funding was 50-50, federal-provincial. We have moved far away from that, and legal aid funding has become about 75% provincial, and in some cases 80% provincial and 20% federal. This was one of the three priorities that all provincial and territorial justice ministers conveyed to the federal government at the meeting last fall. The McGuinty government has increased legal aid funding by $25 million over the last three years, so we're doing our bit. That's a 10% increase. Legal Aid Ontario is a $350 million operation.

    We have said before that we need federal assistance. Certainly with the passage of this bill, that applies even more so. The federal justice minister is a former provincial attorney general who I know must be acutely aware that if you increase the pressure on the system, you're going to increase the need for legal aid. I think everybody knows that's not about being nice and fair; it's about fulfilling constitutional responsibilities. There is a minimum right to counsel. That requires a certain level of legal aid funding that must be fulfilled by governments.

    On pressures on the courts in Ontario, the Chief Justice of the Superior Court has said that we have an acute shortage of superior court judges in Ontario. During the period in which I've served as Attorney General, we've appointed more than 60 superior court judges to the Ontario Court of Justice. The Ontario Court of Justice and the Ontario Superior Court are about the same size. You haven't seen the same complement being addressed by the current government, and we support the chief justice's call for additional appointments to the Superior Court.

    On funding, I've already said it will put increased pressure on the system. I want to be clear that our cases are moving through the system right now at the appropriate speed. That isn't to say we don't need to do everything we can to ensure we don't have inordinate delays.

    Finally, you asked me about the gun registry. The McGuinty government does not support what the federal government is doing on the gun registry. As I said, we need to do everything, from prevention through to mandatory minimum sentences and post-incarceration. As Chief Blair said, there is a very positive contribution made to public safety by the registry. That's what the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police and the Ontario Association of Chiefs of Police say, and the Province of Ontario and the McGuinty government support that.

    It is a tool used in the provincial crown attorney's toolbox. Is it the magic solution? Of course not. Nobody ever said that. But when a provincial prosecutor looks at the evidence and the charges and makes an assessment, in some cases it is one more tool that can be used in the fight against gun crime--which isn't to take anything away from what Chief Blair said.

    I should stop there.

    Thank you, Minister.

    Mr. Ménard.

    I'm going to speak French.

    Okay, I'm ready.

    I know your province is bilingual.

    Thank you for coming.

    Your testimony certainly promotes your government and demonstrates your will to see the bill improved. There were times when balance was somewhat questionable, but that has been improved towards the end.

    The role of the legislator is to make decisions based on convincing and conclusive information. Since we began consideration of this bill two weeks ago, scientific studies undertaken in the States as well as in Canada have been tabled. The studies prove that there is no connection in terms of deterrent between mandatory minimum sentences and the rate of reoffending. This is the issue we have to decide on. Obviously, this does not mean that there should never be mandatory minimum sentences, and no one wishes to see individuals who have committed crimes with a firearm free to roam the streets.

    Before you took a position on the bill, in the brief presented to Cabinet, did you, in your capacity as attorney General have access to scientific data or to studies that contradicted this idea that mandatory minimum sentences are not a deterrent? Did you have access to scientific studies that you could share with us, or are we talking about impressions, rather than scientific evidence?

    I would appreciate it if you could give me a brief answer because I have two other questions to ask you.

     As I said before, there's more than one purpose, but I'd say that the number one purpose is denunciation of the offence. Perhaps I can best answer your question by giving you the example I wanted to give, if that's all right, and it's from the prosecutor's perspective.

    For example, an offender committed multiple firearms offences related to the importation of illegal firearms—23 illegal handguns that could cause an enormous amount of harm—from the U.S. into Canada. The MO to avoid detection was to hide the guns in the wheel of a car. They were brought from the United States and destined for distribution in Canada. That means 23 illegal guns were destined for Canada. The accused was participating in a scheme where they exported and trafficked marijuana into the U.S. and then used the proceeds to purchase guns, which they subsequently smuggled into Canada. The provincial crown attorney for Ontario asked for ten years. The sentence handed down by the court was two years less a day, plus two years probation.

     Under this bill, not only would the minimum go up, but I would argue that if we get the particular amendment that I spoke to before, it would have an inflationary effect. We base it upon the offences before us, not solely on the wide sociological evidence.

    I'm going to ask my second question, monsieur le ministre.

    Minister, do you think that there is a link between poverty and the potential to join a street gang? I was pleased to see that your government created a $95 million fund. I am not attempting to justify the existence of street gangs, but I would like to know if you think there is a connection between poverty, that is, groups that have historically been underprivileged, and the potential to engage in street gangs activity? What do you think about the balance that we have to maintain, as legislators, between repression and poverty alleviation? What are your thoughts on this?

    I agree. We have to have both prevention and the matters that we're discussing in this bill here. Yes. Absolutely. We have to look at everything. It's like the debate around our health care system. Is it just prevention or just treatment? It's everything. We need to prevent, but we also need to address, we need to denounce, and we need to incapacitate.

    Thank you, Mr. Bryant.

    Mr. Comartin.

    I would be a young offender.

    You are not young, Réal, not at all.

    Thank you, Mr. Bryant, for being here.

    I'm concerned about not only this bill, but the whole pile that is coming from this government, creating new offences and putting additional burdens on the criminal justice system, both at the judicial level and at the level of prosecution and legal aid.

    In particular, I'm concerned about what I see in Ontario getting very close to another Askov situation in terms of the length of delay we have and the backlog we have. Has your ministry done an assessment of how close we are to being challenged with the same kind of argument we faced in Askov?

    If you're asking me whether or not what happened under Attorney General Howard Hampton, where thousands and thousands of charges were thrown out at once, is going to happen again in Ontario in the foreseeable future, the answer is absolutely not. If the question is whether it's possible that of the 500,000 charges that are before the courts every year, there may be one that comes up that is subject to an Askov motion for delay, that may be the case.

    If you look over the last three years and if you look at the case flow right now, you'll see that matters are moving through the courts. That isn't to say we don't need that assistance from the federal government on the legal aid front. That is not to say we don't need the assistance to deal with the additional pressures that will come from these bills, as I've said already. But I want people to have confidence in the system. We work very closely with the chief justice and we work very closely with all of our partners in the justice system to ensure that matters are moving through the courts at the appropriate time.

    For the record, the backlog was created under the Peterson government and was faced by Mr. Hampton in his first few months of office after taking over.

    That was before our time.

    I was just thinking you may have had the same thing left over in your lap from the previous Conservative administration.

     I'd agree with that.

    With regard to an unintended consequence, I don't know if you've heard from the AG of Saskatchewan. He does have a concern about creating a mandatory minimum on B and E and the theft of a weapon. It's a fairly common crime in the northern part of his province, almost exclusively committed by members of the aboriginal community. The theft occurs oftentimes in cottages and camps, and the weapon is not being used for some other crime but simply for going out and hunting. At least, that's how he has recounted it to me.

    It's a problem of recognizing the importance and significance of that new offence for Ontario, particularly for the big cities, and probably for big cities in other provinces. But you end up with this other consequence where that particular sector of our national community is going to end up perhaps more seriously affected—I'm not saying targeted—by it than the gang member here in downtown Toronto.

    Do you have any suggestions as to how we might be able to take that into account?

    I'm not sure I can be helpful.

     I know the Attorney General of Saskatchewan, and we've spoken about a number of issues. We haven't spoken about that one. I don't know enough about the specifics on that. Obviously, this committee has to consider what applies to all Canadians in all parts of Canada. Is there a minimum level of behaviour that, no matter where you live, no matter the circumstances, ought to be the subject of criminal sanctions and sentence? I would submit that breaking and entering for the purpose of stealing a firearm meets that threshold, but I'll let the Saskatchewan Attorney General speak for himself.

    With regard to the bill, has your ministry engaged in an analysis of the risk of a charter challenge for the repeat offender mandatory minimum? Have you done an analysis of that, particularly around the whole issue of proportionality and the courts being pretty reluctant, at least historically, to allow for mandatory minimums at the top end?

    I'll be careful on this one.

    The Department of Justice has to make an assessment, and the Attorney General of Canada, as you know very well, in essence has to put his stamp of approval that a bill before the House is consistent with the charter. For reasons of solicitor-client privilege, we don't talk about what our constitutional assessment of the bill is. I'll just say that at this stage it really has to stay within the rubric of the federal attorney, and it's something that I understand the committee will speak to and no doubt hear about as well.

    Thank you, Mr. Comartin.

    Mr. Petit.

    Mr. Bryant, thank you for coming. You have made yourself readily available but I know that your position is very demanding. You are the attorney general of Ontario. Naturally, we also have an attorney general in Quebec. Earlier on, you referred to two or three items you would like to see amended in Bill C-10.

    First, could you send a hand written copy to the clerk of the committee of what you explained to us?

    You stated that there should be an amendment on mandatory minimum sentences. I am trying to quote you according to the translation of your remarks. You are saying that there should be minimum sentences, not maximum sentences. I hope that I understood the translation correctly. Could you expand on this? You are the first person to point us in that direction. I would like to better understand what you mean by that.

     On the submission of written materials, I have, as I'm sure may of you do, the dreadful habit of walking into a room with written materials and then departing from them from time to time. I will try to provide some written materials on the issue you spoke to me about.

    On the matter of mandatory minimums being floors but not ceilings, I gave the committee an example—one I'm not going to repeat here—of a very serious circumstance involving 23 illegal handguns that could kill a lot of people. The Crown sought ten years on that matter. The sentence that was provided was two years. Under the current bill, depending on which charge is applied, assuming that all the circumstances apply, the minimum moves up from two years to three years. But we would submit, if we were before the court, that three years would not be sufficient. Rather, a three-year mandatory minimum is an expression by Parliament that in fact this is a significant sentence that requires at least three years, and that in serious circumstances such as these, the mandatory minimum and the increase of the mandatory minimum ought to have an inflationary effect upon the sentence. That is pursuant to the Supreme Court of Canada decision by Justice Arbour in Morrisey.

    You mentioned earlier—and I am also referring to what was stated by Mr. Blair, the Chief of Police from the City of Toronto—that we need to send a signal, that Bill C-10 would send a good signal in terms of reducing—that is what everybody wants—crime, because the signal would be clear. One can't just talk about statistics. When I speak to my neighbours and they tell me they are afraid, they are not talking about statistics, they are talking about their fear. Fear cannot be measured.

    I would like to hear your opinion on this. Based on what you have read and what you have understood from Bill C-10—and you stated earlier that you support it—do you think that the Bill would send a clear signal to the public because young people would see the types of prison sentences being handed down and, rather than choose crime, would decide to do something other than hang out with crooks?

    Can you tell us, based on your experience, in your capacity as a lawyer and an attorney general, if you think Bill C-10 could have a deterrent effect on crime, in your own province as well as in Quebec, given that the Criminal Code applies to both?

    Yes, it will send a signal. It would send a stronger signal if we amended it to include some offences that dealt with, as I say, possession of a firearm in an unauthorized place and possession of a firearm in a motor vehicle. Further, it would be an error, in my respectable submission—take it for what it's worth—to look only at one purpose and only to look at deterrence. Denunciation and incapacitation would be primary reasons for justifying this bill, but I agree with Chief Blair. Not in all cases, but in some cases, it will act as a deterrent.

    Thank you, sir.

    Thank you, Mr. Petit.

    Mr. Bagnell.

    Thank you.

    Thank you for being here. What has been really wonderful about your testimony and the police chief's is that you've mentioned a whole array of things that need to be done. Sadly, and unfortunately, as parliamentarians, we're not doing anything new in almost all those areas. On the few things that we have proposed, the evidence that we've had in many weeks of committee meetings indicates that they won't necessarily work.

    I need a quick answer to this one. Do you have a rough estimate of what the attorneys general estimate these new provisions will cost the provinces?

    No, I don't have it in front of me, which is not to say the ministry could not put estimates together.

     Could you endeavour to get us something?

    I will look into it. I don't want to commit to getting something to the committee, but I will certainly look into it.

    Thank you.

    Although, as the police chief and people mentioned, there are perceptions, we have to make our decisions, as Mr. Ménard said, on facts based on evidence. A lot of the evidence the committee has received is that these things just won't work. George Pataki from New York has backed away from minimum sentences as too expensive and as not working.

    As you said, we have minimum sentences already. But we haven't been able to get a witness who can give us any details on how, if at all, they work—not the stats people—and I don't think you've yet given us one evidence-based reason why they would work. One case gone wrong out of 500,000 charges is not enough. I wonder whether your researchers could provide to us or table a document on how these might have been effective.

    I'll say again, I believe that Parliament ought to denounce these offences, which doesn't speak to deterrence. I believe that incapacitating somebody who engages in a gun crime is necessary and important and in the public interest. I think, with respect, common sense dictates that spending time in jail is a deterrent, although, as the chief said, it doesn't apply to everybody.

    I'm here to say, on behalf of 900 prosecutors, that there are instances in which the prosecutor is before the court seeking a higher custodial sentence than is currently under the Criminal Code. There are instances where in fact that is not the appropriate custodial sentence, in the independent discretion of that crown attorney. That's not a political judgment; that's his or her expertise, that the sentence ought to be higher.

    The courts will interpret the law as they see it, and it doesn't lie in the mouth, I think, of parliamentarians to criticize judges, but rather to make amendments to the laws so that the judges then interpret them. It's from that perspective that crown attorneys have shared with me, in cases such as one that I provided you, that we need an increase in some of these sentences. That's their experience. I think you heard the experience of the chief of police as well.

    I'd like to get one more question in. Thank you, though—although I don't think that provided any more research-based evidence.

    I can tell you're a very astute attorney general, so you'd know the law very completely. I'm wondering about your opinion on this.

    It is suggested that some of these bills, including this one, offend the principles of sentencing, as was already talked about—proportionality, aboriginal peoples, reducing the discretion of judges. Nothing of these is reducing the maximums; they're all there still. Judges can give the same maximums with all these bills. I just wonder whether you have any views as an attorney general on this question of offending the principles of sentencing and decreasing judicial discretion.

    Well, one person's reduction of discretion is another person's clarification. The purpose of this is for Parliament to say, as it does with other Criminal Code offences, “Here is what Parliament believes ought to be the mandatory minimum.” I would argue an amendment ought to be made so that it would be clarified that it's not the maximum.

    As to specific provisions, sexual assault with a firearm moves from four years to five years for the first offence. Is that proportionate? Well, certainly I assume the Department of Justice has said it is consistent with the charter. I would say that moving from four years to five years is proportionate.

    So I think, to be fair to the committee, it's going to depend on the offence. It's difficult for me to generalize on every single provision of the bill. There will be debate around some provisions. That's one of the reasons why committee work is tough work, and I thank you for doing it.

    Mr. Bagnell, thank you.

    Mr. Brown.

    I think it's great that we have support from the Ontario government for this very important initiative. As I was doing research for this meeting, looking for opinions from the Ontario government, I read a quote. I just want to make sure that this is an aberration from the Ontario government and that it wouldn't reflect your opinions. There was a quote from Monty Kwinter, who is the community safety minister, who said: "I don't think you need tougher laws - with gun-related crimes, the laws are there....” Would that be an aberration? That was in the Toronto Sun on August 5.

     I get to go to question period in about three hours, where, as I think the government knows, it's question period and not always answer period. So this is a good dress rehearsal, and I appreciate it, Mr. Brown.

     The McGuinty Government of Ontario, which includes Ministers Kwinter and Bryant, support the changes that are embodied in this bill, that we need mandatory minimum sentences increased and that we need new mandatory minimums. That's certainly the position that Minister Kwinter and I have taken in all three federal-provincial-territorial justice minister meetings that we've had.

     I'm sure that fully answers your question.

    Voices: Oh, oh!

    Mr. Moore.

    Thank you for being here today as a witness. We appreciate it.

    We heard some testimony that a good number of the firearms that are used in offences in Ontario, specifically Toronto, are smuggled, so we know there's work to be done there. A good number of them are stolen.

    Referring to what Mr. Comartin said, this bill does strike a good balance in that the government feels that if someone breaks into someone's cottage in a rural area and steals their hunting rifle, that is also a serious offence. I think this strikes a good balance between Canada's urban and rural realities.

    There are two new provisions, robbery where a firearm is stolen and breaking and entering and stealing or intending to steal a firearm. We've heard evidence that this is a problem. Could you talk a bit about that aspect of the bill? To be clear, we've dealt with minimum sentences before. We have minimum sentences in the code. It was raised by Ms. Barnes that in the last election all parties represented here were calling for increased minimum sentences. We've introduced those sentences. They're proportional, we feel. They increase on subsequent offences.

    I would like you to comment on those two offences. I'd like to hear how you feel for Ontario. I mean, whether it is rural Saskatchewan or Ontario, the Criminal Code applies everywhere, including Ontario. Breaking into anyone's home and stealing a firearm is I think equally serious whether you're in rural Canada or in urban Canada. I'd like your comment on that, but also on the proportionality that we feel we've built into this bill by increasing sentences on subsequent offences. As Chief Blair testified, there's a certain relatively small number of people who are committing these offences. When you focus on those individuals and you take them off the streets, there is a corresponding decrease in the crime that's committed in that area.

     Would you comment on those two things, the incremental aspect and also the new provisions?

    On the matter of Saskatchewan, I guess it's important that I confirm that I don't want to speak to that.

    You don't have to speak directly about Saskatchewan at all.

    I know how much I'd love it if the Saskatchewan Attorney General spoke to something about Ontario.

    I will bring that up with him, actually, but individually for Ontario, I'd like your comment on the offence of break and enter into someone's dwelling place and stealing a firearm.

    We proposed these new offences and they received the support of former Justice Minister Cotler and Prime Minister Martin, and they were embodied in Bill C-82 and they're embodied in this bill. The reason why we brought them forward, as you probably have heard, is that there's a mix of sources for the illegal gun trade. It's smuggling, it's breaking and entering, stealing, robbery of domestic guns. Often, the illegal guns begin as legal guns in somebody's home and then they're stolen.

    What precisely the statistics are...at one point the Coalition for Gun Control had the numbers out at about 50-50. In any event, whether it's 50-50 or 60-40, the point is that we must choke off the supply of illegal guns into the gun trade. One way of doing that is at the border. Another way of doing that is to ensure that there are sentences in the Criminal Code to match a pattern of behaviour that is increasingly taking place. In Ontario, increasingly our prosecutors were facing facts and evidence that suggested an increasing number of people were having guns enter into the illegal gun trade by way of breaking and enter for the purpose of stealing firearms and by way of robbery involving a firearm.

     Thank you, Mr. Moore.

    Mr. Bryant, in your experience as Attorney General, have you run into any situations where for gun offences there has been conditional sentencing, or house arrest as a sentence?

    I am certainly very aware of the changes to conditional sentences that are before Parliament right now. We've spoken to that before as well, and we've been encouraging changes to the conditional sentencing regime.

    That didn't quite answer my question, but fair enough.

    I am going to bring this session to a close, Minister. We really appreciate your appearing, taking the time out. I think your testimony has been invaluable here. We really appreciate it.

    Mr. Chair, I want to thank members of the committee. I understand the job that the official opposition and opposition parties have to do, because I have done that, and I understand the job that government members have to do, because I'm doing that.

    I thank you, Chair, for the way you run your hearings.

    Very good, sir.

    I will call to the table our next two witnesses, Peter Rosenthal and John Muise.

    Professor Rosenthal, I see you're with the Department of Mathematics.

    I don't believe that was the reason I was invited.

    The Chair: That's very true.

    Prof. Peter Rosenthal: I promise you, I won't give you a mathematics lecture.

    I really appreciate the fact that you're here. I know that you do have something to offer, and we're certainly waiting for that presentation.

    The same goes for you as well, Mr. Muise. I am going to ask Mr. Rosenthal to present first, and then perhaps you would follow behind.

    I know you're under time restraints, Professor, so we'll certainly accommodate you as best we can. Please begin.

     Thank you very much. Thank you.

    I'm not sure who decided to invite me here, but I know it was not because of anything I did in mathematics. I am also a practising lawyer with Roach, Schwartz and Associates in Toronto, and I'm also an adjunct professor of law at the University of Toronto Faculty of Law. So I do have a more direct interest in these matters than the other title might suggest.

    I should like to make some general points you might find useful in considering this bill. One point I should like to start with is that, in general, criminal law should be certain, if possible, and shouldn't be changed very often unless there's good reason to change. But there should be a really good reason, if you're going to change the criminal law, and I don't see the reasons that have motivated this bill as being good.

    One of you was asking Attorney General Bryant about the evidence to support the need for this bill, and I would hope you would all continue to ask that question very loudly, because what is the reason for this bill? Well, the bill itself has some “whereases”--and hopefully those would speak to the matter--and the “whereases” indicate that Canadians are entitled to live their lives in peace, freedom, and security. Nobody is going to argue with that.

    They also indicate that gun crime is on an increase. That should be a matter of some evidence. That should be looked at. Maybe it's true, but it should be looked at. Different kinds of crimes do rise and fall from time to time.

    Then the bill indicates that we want to promote the values of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. That's nice, but then it says:

AND WHEREAS these measures include legislation to impose higher minimum penalties on those who commit serious or repeat offences involving firearms;

    There seems to me to be a disconnect. You need a couple of other “whereases” if you want to justify that conclusion, such as “Whereas there's been a problem in sentencing with respect to firearms offences....” Is there any evidence of that? Don't judges regard firearms offences as very serious already? Is there any evidence that suggests they don't impose serious enough penalties for that?

    And then you would expect some evidence that more serious penalties tend to deter crime, and we know that most of the studies by criminologists are in the opposite direction. People don't think about the penalty as they're committing a crime. They think about the possibility of being caught, and the possibility of being caught does deter crime, but they don't think if it's only six months now, they'll do it, but if you pass this and it's amended to one year, they won't do it. Nobody thinks like that when they're committing crimes, and the studies show that.

    So what is happening here? When this bill was introduced in May, the Minister of Justice talked about tackling crime and restoring confidence in the justice system and so on. It seems there are some political issues here, and many people believe it's popular to promote the idea of harsher penalties and so on. There is some question about that. That's even been studied. There's a study that suggests maybe it's not as popular as some of you may think. It seems that politicians in all parties seem to think that.

    So I would ask you to look at the reasons here, and look at some evidence, before you change things. There is a problem with mandatory minimum sentences because they do interfere with the discretion to be proportionate. How much they interfere depends on how high the minimum is and the nature of it and so on. But with any mandatory minimum sentence, as the Latimer case showed us all, for example, even with respect to murder, there are possible problems in particular cases. As to how serious, it depends upon the circumstances. But you shouldn't just do it without some good reason to do it. As everyone is aware, we have a Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and that limits the ability of Parliament to impose punishment. It has to be consistent with the charter. Section 12 of the charter prohibits cruel and unusual punishment, and, as you all know, it has been considered with respect to minimum sentences, and sometimes it has been held to be cruel and unusual and sometimes not.

    But what the Supreme Court says is...of course, the Supreme Court defers to Parliament, to some large extent. So the only way they will interfere with a law like this, strike it down, is if they hold that it's grossly disproportionate. That's what the cases say, Morrisey and Latimer and so on. If the sentence is grossly disproportionate, then it is cruel and unusual punishment and it should be struck down. Do you want sentences that are just disproportionate, not grossly disproportionate? Why do you want disproportionate sentences? That's what you are introducing if you have minimums. You will, in some cases, at least, be introducing disproportionate sentences. If they're found to be grossly disproportionate, they will be struck down. Who knows how these provisions you have in Bill C-10 will fare in the courts. Nobody, I don't think, can give you any assurance as to what's going to happen. How they fare will depend on particular cases, on the particular facts of those cases, and so on.

    One thing you can be sure of is that there's going to be an awful lot of charter litigation about this. There will be an awful lot of it. There will be a lot of time, energy, and money spent.

     You know, it is easy to design a hypothetical case where this would be grossly disproportionate. A little while ago you were talking about cottage break-ins. Some kid of otherwise good character, a 19-year-old young man, breaks into a cottage, urged by his friends. They grab a bag and run away, and in the bag is a shotgun. Will that kid have a mandatory minimum sentence of one year? That's going to be grossly disproportionate if it's as good a kid as the one I'm thinking of. Then that kid will, if he has the funds to do it, fight it, and there will be charter cases and so on. But why do it? Why enact it in the first place? Shouldn't a judge in that case be able to say to the kid, “You're going to be given a conditional sentence”? Why not? Do you want to put that kid in jail for a year, really? Do you really want to do that?

    As I said, there are a number of studies that show that the severity of punishment doesn't deter crime. We have a distinguished criminologist at the University of Toronto named Anthony Doob, for example. I'm sure that those of you who care about these things know his name. He had such a study in the year 2003, consistent with many other studies.

     If you want to deal with the causes of crime, deal with them. And there are things to deal with. There are situations in which many 19- or 20-year-old kids in Toronto, for example, see it as a better future for themselves to join a gang and sell drugs than to try to get a decent job, because they don't see the prospects of decent jobs and they see the prospect of that gang right around the corner.

    There could be larger studies about these issues that might really result in reduced crime. In particular, the whole question of drugs is something that should be looked at. I would urge you.... It's not part of this bill, but it is part of this bill in a way, because a large number of firearms offences are in connection with drugs. We all know that in movies in the thirties gangsters were shooting it out with respect to the prohibition of liquor. A lot of the shootouts in Toronto are with respect to gangs fighting over turf for drugs, for selling drugs. I would suggest that if you really want to cut down on some of this crime, look in other directions.

    This legislation is going to lead to enormous costs. There's this hearing and its cost. There will be a huge amount of charter litigation emanating from this over the years. There's going to be a problem with guilty pleas. No lawyer is going to plead someone guilty to a charge like this if he's facing a minimum of three years, a minimum of five years. There will be many more trials and many fewer guilty pleas.

    Then there's a particular peculiarity about the way the bill is structured that's going to lead to a real mess, too. For consecutive offences, as you know, you get higher penalties in various ways here, right? But “consecutive” is defined in terms of when you're convicted. It's not in terms of when you committed the offence. So if somebody committed two different offences like this, they'll be jockeying as to which one should be tried first, because some of them have more serious penalties as a second offence than others. That's even discussed in the legislative backgrounder here. They give an example.

    You should think about it. Do you really want to put that mess into the Criminal Code?

     This means, for example, that if an individual illegally imported a firearm and subsequently committed breaking and entering to steal a firearm but was convicted on the break and enter charge first, the second offence would be importation. As a result, the individual would receive a minimum sentence of five years, whereas if he was convicted of the other one first, it would be a minimum sentence of three years. Suppose he commits these offences within a couple of weeks of each other—that happens in real life from time to time—it's creating a real mess with that whole definition. That's just one of a number of issues that are going to play themselves out day to day in the courts if this bill is enacted as it is.

    I really think you should go back to the drawing board and have some serious study about all these issues. There's no immediate urgency. You don't have to pass it this week. The only reason to pass it this week, or next week, or this year is for political reasons. If you want to look at this in a serious way, you need some serious study of the consequences of minimum sentences and other possibilities for reducing the use of firearms.

    Those would be my submissions to you. They are quite different from any of the positions of any of the political parties, but I hope you all would consider them to whatever extent it may be useful.

    Thank you, Mr. Rosenthal.

    Mr. Muise.

    Thank you, Mr. Hanger, members of the committee.

    My name is John Muise. I'm a retired 30-year veteran of the Toronto Police Service, as I think you know, and I'm here as the director of public safety for the Canadian Centre for Abuse Awareness. We certainly welcome the opportunity and appreciate the invite to speak about Bill C-10.

     I would add, too, that our organization is a not-for-profit charitable organization and we do not take government funding.

    Previously, our organization toured 10 sites around Ontario and spoke to 150 front-line criminal justice professionals, crime victims, and survivors. They told us a lot of things that they felt were wrong with the criminal justice system, but, in general terms, a recurring theme was with respect to the kinds of sentences handed down in courtrooms, and specifically the lack of proportionality with respect to violent crimes.

    We suspect that if we did the same kind of round table discussions in other provinces across the country, the concerns would be identical.

    I should also add that I've provided a brief to the committee.

    Mr. Ménard, my apologies. I just completed the brief recently. I wish it was ready for translation right away, but I'm a one-man band, so I work to deadline, like many people.

    Canadian law has always recognized that persons who repeatedly commit offences merit lengthier custodial sentences. In addition, Parliament has mandated by statute that repeat offenders receive lengthier sentences than first-time offenders. Mandatory minimums are nothing new. These principles are reflected in a number of mandatory minimum sentences for both first time and repeat offenders for a variety of crimes.

    Certainly we know also that from a constitutional perspective, the Supreme Court of Canada, in Regina v. Morrisey 2000, has ruled in favour of the current mandatory minimum of four years for a conviction involving a firearm and commented—

    I'm sorry to interrupt you just for a moment. Just slow down a little, because the interpreters can't quite keep up to your rapid way of presenting.

    Sorry.

    No problem.

     The Supreme Court of Canada ruled in favour of the current mandatory minimum of four years for a conviction involving a firearm and commented specifically on the wanton and reckless disregard displayed as a result of the use of a firearm by the offender.

    In addition, it is important to note that for those offences where the mandatory minimum sentences increased on the second, third, and subsequent offences, in terms of this bill it is only in relation to the specific offences included in the proposed legislation. So this government bill does not include any other crimes. It is about a continuation of the unlawful possession and use of firearms. In other words, it is about those offenders, particularly repeat offenders, who make the choice to possess, acquire, and use firearms illegally.

    If indeed our culture here in Canada is about the proper licensing, storage, and possession of firearms, surely the same strict standards should be brought to bear on those who choose to brandish firearms for a criminal purpose. If you want to safeguard Canadians, we would suggest that you can't have one without the other.

    Although we suspect that commentators on the other side of this debate feel otherwise, we would go so far as to say that, if crafted appropriately—and we think this bill is—mandatory minimum sentences of imprisonment are generally consistent with the fundamental principle that a sentence must be proportionate to the gravity of the offence and the degree of responsibility of the offender.

    Sections 718 and 718.1 of the Criminal Code—you talked about them earlier—set out the principles of sentencing that must be followed by the court. The court is allowed significant latitude when deciding how to balance what are often very disparate principles. Although many judges know intuitively what the balance is, over the years Parliament, from time to time, has weighed in with a variety of sentencing, parole, and post-sentence order amendments in response to concerns expressed by the community about public safety and justice in particular.

    It is entirely appropriate for Parliament to provide specific statutory direction ultimately to the court. Most recently, it has done so with respect to mandatory minimum sentences for certain offences committed against children, in Bill C-2, and previously for certain serious firearm offences. The community expresses its revulsion to certain kinds of crimes, usually violent ones, and if parliamentarians are listening, they respond in an appropriate way. We think this enhancement of the current mandatory minimum sentence provisions is precisely that.

    What about the impact of mandatory minimum sentences on crime? As the legislative summary from the Library of Parliament that was made available makes clear, the studies to date have mixed results in terms of the impact of mandatory minimum sentences and increased rates of incarceration and the deterrent effect and impact on recidivism rates. Lies, damn lies, and statistics, as they say.

    Rather than focus on whether these proposed amendments have a deterrent effect or not—and I would echo Chief Blair and Attorney General Bryant's comments on the deterrent impact—it is our position that targeting the most violent repeat offenders, and that's what people are who use firearms or possess firearms for an unlawful purpose, and locking them up for sustained periods of time will have a direct effect on the crime rate. It is an undeniable reality that a disproportionately small number of offenders are responsible for a disproportionately large number of offences. This axiom applies to repeat offenders who use firearms in the commission of their crimes.

    Although they didn't get it entirely correct south of the border—California's “three strikes and you're out” law for felonies, including pizza theft, comes to mind—a precipitous drop greater than the drop in Canada over the same time period in the violent crime rate south of the 49th parallel went hand in hand with a crackdown on violent crime. A variety of studies done by American criminologists, including Marvell and Moody, and Kovandzic, confirm a reduction in homicides and violent crime rates.

     It's about incapacitation. How many robberies with a firearm can you do when you are behind bars? If the right offenders are targeted, which we believe this bill does, it works.

    Is violent crime on the rise in Canada? When it comes to statistics about the rates of crime, there's no denying that a whole lot of cherry-picking goes on, and it happens on both sides. Even the criminologists, lawyers, law professors, and other academics who are quick to remind you about sticking to the facts and getting it right are sometimes guilty of relying on short-term or year-to-year increases or decreases to make their cases. This is both misleading and inappropriate; some would call it downright dishonest.

     I believe the committee clerk has given you a page from Juristat. In the middle column, check the violent crime rate. As you all know, it's calculated on the basis of 100,000 population. Dating back to 1962, it shows an increase from 221 per 100,000 in 1962, to 1,084 in 1992, levelling off since then to slightly under 1,000 for the past nine years. I would suggest to you that this is an extraordinary increase by any measure, and the levelling off that has taken place over the last dozen years still has us light years away from those good old days in the sixties.

     Although the CCA did not have access to corresponding long-term tables for firearm offences, we are confident that they would mirror or exceed the general violent crime rate. We encourage the committee to obtain the same long-term table from the justice ministry for firearm-related offences. In addition, violent crime as a proportion of the overall crime rate is up over that same time period.

    On gun play in Toronto over the past 30 years--I know Chief Blair spoke about much of this--my experience is anecdotal, but I want to share it with you. We suspect the same things that occur in Toronto are occurring in other urban jurisdictions across the country. I had a very unique perspective as a law enforcement officer on the Toronto Police Service, starting in 1976 until I retired this year. In those early years it was exceedingly rare, even in the busiest downtown divisions, that offenders arrested were in possession of illegal handguns or semi-automatic weapons. Even the most organized narcotics and drug traffickers did not carry or possess these kinds of firearms. I know because I worked in the drug squad, made hundreds of buys, and kicked in hundreds of doors from 1982 to 1986. We rarely seized a handgun. Uniformed, plain-clothes, and undercover officers rarely confronted these kinds of weapons.

    That changed in the late eighties and coincided with the crack trade--free-based cocaine--and continued into the early 1990s and onwards with the proliferation of American-style street gangs, usually arranged along ethnic lines, that now commit crimes in support of territory and profit. The results are in full view in our housing projects and on our crowded downtown streets. There are drive-by shootings and shots fired because of perceived disrespect--something that, as Chief Blair indicated, was usually handled in the past with a punch in the nose. There are brutal and often random home invasions. No self-respecting crack dealer will leave home without his trusty Glock pistol or 9 mm handgun, and whole communities are marginalized and living in fear.

    We have a new vocabulary of violent and brutal crime, and the violent crime statistic that I provided from Juristat reflects that reality. It's not Andy of Mayberry and it's not Leave it to Beaver any more.

    What about the amendments? I think this is the important work the committee is doing.

    Mr. Muise, how much more time do you need to conclude?

     About two minutes.

    Okay, very good.

     Our review of the amendments suggests the following conditions and principles are in play that ensure that these amendments are constitutionally viable. The ability to proceed summarily continues to exist for those offences where this option was already in place. The escalation of the minimum sentence occurs only where the offender has previous convictions for just these firearm-related crimes. We believe the sentence escalation is proportional and appropriate. Where an offender has not committed one of the listed offences for a period of 10 years, the escalating structure of sentencing for repeat offences is no longer applicable. Finally, the same incredibly generous parole laws, including automatic statutory release at the completion of two-thirds of a sentence--except for the tiniest minority of dangerous inmates--is still in place.

    Our suggestions for specific changes to the proposed amendments are as follows. As the legislative summary points out, it is unclear why manslaughter and criminal negligence causing death are not treated the same way as the other eight most serious firearm offences. As the summary indicates, this is “particularly so, given that previous convictions for these two offences count for sentencing on the remaining eight”. It's our recommendation that those two offences are included in that most serious list for the up to 10 years.

    In addition, building on what Ms. Barnes said, we are also unclear why a regular firearm has not been included along with the restricted or prohibited weapon in terms of the five-year sentence. We suggest you amend that same section and just include the regular firearm with restricted and prohibited, making them all five years along with the organized crime one. Just fix it there; it's already at four, so make it five.

    Moving to the two new offences, the creation of new offences where other appropriate offences already exist is something that I often view with skepticism. Much like the practice of increasing maximum sentences, they often are measures designed to give the impression of getting tough on crime. More often than not, nothing could be further from the truth.

    In the case of these two new offences, like Chief Blair and Mr. Bryant, we support them. We know the end result of these thefts, these break and enters, and these robberies. In light of the fact that they include escalating mandatory minimum sentences, we think those are appropriate additions. For that reason we support their inclusion.

    The best way to put all of these in perspective is to take one of these proposed sections and illustrate how it might work in the real world. An offender shoots somebody with a handgun and is convicted of attempted murder because he almost kills him. The minimum mandatory sentence is five years, which he receives. He gets out of jail and commits the same offence again, or one of the other nine most serious of crimes, again committed with a firearm. So he almost kills somebody again. This time the minimum is seven years. He gets out of jail and does the same thing. Remember, it still has to be the same crime or one of the other nine most serious crimes. This time the minimum is 10 years.

    Against the backdrop of our excessively generous parole laws and these kinds of offenders, who almost certainly have lengthy criminal records with other convictions, are these sentences really out of whack in terms of the gravity of the offence? We ask you to reflect on that.

    Finally, we are encouraged by the comments of the member for Winnipeg Centre, Mr. Patrick Martin, who has seen his community ravaged by gun crime and who recognizes that this public safety legislation will help tackle this growing problem.

    In addition, we are heartened by the public policy statements of at least two of the three opposition parties calling for enhanced mandatory minimum sentences in the lead-up to the last election. We trust that those views have not changed since then.

    We encourage you to consider the two minor amendments we have recommended with respect to the most serious section. With or without these two amendments, the CCAA supports speedy passage of this legislation, and we look forward to all-party support to get this bill through the House of Commons and the Senate.

    Thank you.

    Thanks very much to both of you for your presentations.

    I'm going to go to questions now, starting with Mr. Murphy.

     Thank you, Mr. Chair.

    I'm very impressed with the evidence today from everyone. I know everyone feels very strongly about their submissions.

    In balancing it all, however, it seems to me some of the most compelling evidence came from the chief of police who used the example of Jamestown—I'm not from here, so I don't know where that would be—and how basically he forced the service to crack down on a problem with the tools they had, which led me to believe the existing laws, policies, and deployment of resources appeared to work in that case. He sort of unravelled that ball of yarn by saying we've made the charges, but we don't know if they're going to stick. To me, that is a bit anecdotal, despite the fact that he said the crime rate is down in specific instances. It remains to be seen, with all due respect to the chief.

    I was also struck with this call for evidence-based conclusions, and Mr. Rosenthal made the point—I could hoist him by his own petard and ask where he gets the statement that people don't think of the penalty just when they get caught. But I don't want to waste my time with that, because I'm sure he has the studies to back it up and will give us those. I do thank you for coaching me towards this evidence-based thing.

    The thrust to my question is—because, Mr. Muise, you made a number of comments—am I right that your evidence comes from your 30 years of experience at the Toronto Police Service, the front-line discussions you recently had with 150 people who are part of the criminal justice system, including victims, and the various studies you referred to? You gave a lot of anecdotal evidence. You gave a lot of opinionated, heartfelt evidence.

    Can you tell me about this 150 people round table thing you had?

     Sure. Thank you.

    Is there a sheet that says these were the participants, or that sort of—?

     Yes.

    I don't want to overwhelm the committee, and I want to stick to Bill C-10. Let me start by saying my evidence is informed by 30 years as a police officer. It's informed by the round tables that were done as part of our “Martin's Hope” report.

    I'm going to give you a copy of the report, because I have a couple of copies, in which the names of the 150 front-line criminal justice professionals, crime victims, and survivors—except for some of the victims' first names because they didn't want to be identified—are included in the back of the report.

    In fairness to me, I might add that it was also informed by some evidence-based information. Juristat didn't pop out of my fertile imagination. I think it's as factual as it gets, and it's over the course of 40 years. I challenge anybody to suggest that this is not the proper way to look at the evidence.

    It's there, and I want to get onto another question.

     As you said, violent crime is on the decrease. More importantly, you said that if gun control is important, those who do things with guns should be dealt with importantly or heavily.

     Correct.

    Those weren't your words, but I'm paraphrasing.

     Yes.

    You heard the chief, and perhaps the Attorney General mentioned it too, that in the toolbox they have the long gun registry, which they don't feel should be scrapped. I'll ask you to agree with that, if you would, but more importantly, guns.

    You made it clear when you were first on the force in the 1980s--and, incidentally, when I lived here, it was obviously a very pure place--that there wasn't as much gun involvement. Now it's very prevalent. It seems to me that the theme here is guns, guns, guns. What are they going to do about gun control? I asked the chief this, and he moved on to.... We don't think this is the worst bill that ever came down the road, but it's certainly not a cure for the gun epidemic, by any stretch. Nobody says it is.

    On a blue sky day, what's the gun control cure?

    Let me start by saying that like the chief and Minister Bryant, I agree that when dealing with any crime, including gun crime, there's a range of responses across the continuum. Clearly, one of them is legislation, and that's what we're talking about today. Obviously I support this legislation. I supported Bill C-9, the conditional sentencing legislation, as it was previously written, and I'm not happy with the result.

    But having said that, I also support proper and lawful storage. I like the fact that people have safes in their homes where they keep their guns. We recognize legal gun ownership. I like the emphasis on those things.

    Do I support either registration or licensing, or some form of a way of telling us, as a community, and particularly as police officers? Absolutely. I was a police officer for 30 years, and access to that information is good. I leave that to Parliament to sort out what that looks like, whether it's a registration system or a licensing system. As long as that information is accessible to the police, I would support that.

    Because you've asked the question and I feel I need to answer in its totality, do I support spending $1 billion on a system that doesn't return $1 billion in terms of public safety, no. If there is something Parliament can come up with that is more cost efficient and still allows for some sort of registration or licensing, I would support that. Ultimately I do support some form of that.

    I hope that answers your questions.

    Thank you.

    Sorry, Mr. Murphy, your time is up.

    Mr. Ménard.

    Thank you very much.

    I'm going to speak in French.

    I was glad to hear from professor Rosenthal, who I did not know previously. Your testimony has brought two things to mind. The first is that the Supreme Court allowed mandatory minimum sentences across the board, except in the Smith decision. The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms came into effect in 1982, the decision in Smith was handed down in 1987 at which point, in order for a sentence to be overturned under section 12 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, two criteria must be met. First, the sentence must violate the principle of human dignity, and second, it must be grossly disproportionate. When defining a grossly disproportionate sentence the following factors are taken into consideration: the effect of the sentence, the offender's character and the circumstances in which the crime was committed.

    Court challenges are not really what scares me. I don't think the sentences will be overturned because in Morrissey, Gold, Latimer and many other decisions, the court has very much deferred to parliamentarians. The problem is that I do not believe mandatory minimum sentences are effective. The government has not managed to table a single study proving a link between deterrents and a repeat offence.

    Let's think about this logically. In 1995, a bill was adopted. The legislation set out 10 mandatory minimum sentences for offences committed with a firearm. Since then, either offences committed with firearms have increased, or they have decreased. Which ever the case may be, this has something to do with the legislation enacted in 1995. The Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics told us yesterday that, generally speaking, the number of crimes committed with a firearm has not increased in Canada. Moreover, this assertion is back up by the statistics.

    If you look at the statistics on violent crimes, it is clear that, both absolutely and relatively speaking, they have dropped in number, with the exception of two places in Canada, where the number of crimes with a firearm has increased: Toronto and Vancouver. Should this be of concern? Yes, it should, and that is why, earlier, I tried to find out from the chief of police and the solicitor general what they think can be done to address very specific situations. It would be fabulous if we could tell ourselves, as legislators, that a quick fix solution exists, namely an increase in mandatory minimum sentences. But that is not the solution. At any rate, it is not clear, on the basis of the scientific data, that that is the solution.

    What we do need to look at, is how we intend to work, for example, in dealing with street gangs. Clearly, the whole street gang phenomenon is a matter for concern. It is also a matter of concern in Montreal. But why do young people join street gangs? It may have something to do with poverty, desperation, and also the fact that some young people are quite simply a lost cause. Nor are we naive.

    I would like to hear what you have to say on this issue. Mr. Rosenthal,I would be very happy for you to react, but I think this is particularly an issue for John. Do you have any statistics which would suggest that mandatory minimum sentencing is a deterrent? Any answer must be based on somewhat empirical research; and must not be based on an impression or one's intuition. You can't pass legislation that way, otherwise we would be reinstating the death penalty. The death penalty is the best way to eradicate offenders. So, when you say mandatory minimum sentencing is the best way of controlling offenders, it is a spurious argument.

     Thank you, Mr. Ménard.

    I'm not here asking to bring capital punishment back. You did make one point about the crime rate being down. I think categorically that's absolutely not true. I think violent crime is way up, and again--let me finish--I would encourage the committee to get the data that speaks specifically to firearms offences, which is similar to this data, the data over 40 years that shows the rise in the rate of violent crime. I think you'll find the same thing with firearms.

    In addition, to repeat what I said in my presentation, the studies.... Interestingly enough, the Library of Parliament and Statistics Canada don't seem to have much time for the studies south of the border, but criminologists south of the border.... And I agree about the deterrent effect; I agree with Mr. Bryant and I agree with Chief Blair that there's a deterrent effect on some and not on others. This is about incapacitation, and what the studies tell us, in my estimation, is that where you identify, particularly if you get it right, that small number of offenders who commit a disproportionate number of serious crimes--and I would suggest that the people who put firearms in their hands, by and large, are those people--and incapacitate them for as long a period as possible, the end result will be a reduction in the crime rate. I think that's what happened in the main south of the border in terms of the precipitous drop in violent crime.

    Mr. Rosenthal wishes to speak briefly, not me.

    I will permit Mr. Rosenthal to speak, yes.

    Thank you.

    Thank you.

    I should like to take up something that Mr. Ménard has indicated. He pointed out that in Toronto and Vancouver there were increases in gun crimes and in the other areas there were decreases. That alone should prove that the mandatory minimums had nothing to do with it. There are other factors at play here, and if you deal with mandatory minimums as if that's the solution, then you don't look for the true solutions, which involve looking at what's really going on.

    Thank you, Mr. Rosenthal.

    Mr. Comartin.

    I'll pass, Mr. Chair.

    Okay.

    Mr. Thompson.

     I thank you both for being here today.

     Mr. Muise, there is occasionally some reference in terms of the victims from some of the witnesses who come forward. I hear so many witnesses come before the committee...you'd swear that when it comes to crime, there's only one person involved and that's the criminal. I really get sick and tired of this nonsense about, “Well, we have to make sure there's not cruel and unusual punishment when it comes to the criminal. We have to be careful how we treat these birds because that could be, under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, cruel and unusual.”

    Yet, Mr. Muise, I remember an 18-year-old boy who was in grade 12 attacking a 15-year-old girl in the school I was in. He sexually assaulted her--seriously. The courts, in their wisdom, decided it would be better if this 18-year-old continued his schooling and got his education, and they gave him a conditional sentence. I think it was extremely cruel and unusual punishment for that 15-year-old girl to allow that 18-year-old boy back into that school.

    An apple dumpling gang, as we called them in the rural area, robbed the Bank of Montreal. A 17-year-old and two 19-year-olds decided it would be a good idea to get their hands on some guns. They got some handguns somewhere. In my hometown of 2,500 people, they held up the Bank of Montreal. It was very well planned, by the way. They had two girlfriends who set a big fire on the edges of town to get our small police force to attend to this, along with the fire department.

    There were four tellers and a couple of people who dealt with credit and so on--six to seven people, including the manager--who were absolutely terrorized for at least 15 minutes before these young people, who were shaking like a leaf because it was the first time they had ever done such a thing, managed to get out of there with quite a bit of money. They had stockings over their heads; they were really playing the role.

    Can you imagine, Mr. Muise, what the view of the public in that small town was when about six weeks later these three guys were walking around the streets of that community? There was no thought about the cruel and unusual punishment for the victims of these kinds of people. There was no thought at all.

    I would gather from some of the witnesses I've heard that it would be wise to let the 18-year-old finish his school and that we shouldn't punish these young people too hard when it's the first time. I really get tired of that.

    So, thank you, Mr. Muise, for referring to the victims of crime as often as you do.

    I was surprised to hear even a mention of consecutive sentences. I've been trying to look for consecutive sentencing in this country for a long time. It seems to me if you murder 11 people, maybe you ought to get 11 life sentences to be served consecutively, not concurrently.

    One day I went into court, and do you know what? I saw two people get a consecutive sentence and it almost shocked me. Twice they had smuggled grain across the border to the United States and twice they were sentenced, and it was consecutive: “We'll teach those farmers to sell their own products twice. Serve it consecutively.”

    You see, the whole attitude out there on these kinds of events.... I know they are small in number, but it has brought on a huge public outcry. More and more, when these events take place, like on Boxing Day in Toronto, there is an increase, there's a public outcry. And there's not one of us here who didn't get elected with the intent to come here to try to fix it. It's every one of us. It doesn't matter.

    An hon. member: That's right.

    Mr. Myron Thompson: In reference to the campaigning during the election, you only need to look at Bill C-9 to see if there has been any change in attitude, and I think you will concur that there certainly has been.

     I appreciate you. I just want to say how much I appreciate people who speak out strongly for victims. That is no reflection on what the witness of the other party.... I'm not reflecting on it in that sense. I know the gentleman is probably close to my age and has been around this country for a long time and has a lot of heartfelt thoughts for victims of crime. I'm sure he does, especially if he has grandchildren, etc. We all want to protect them.

     I want to thank Mr. Muise for addressing this thing from the point of view that there's a public outcry to start protecting victims in this country, and I applaud you. And, yes, I'll charge expenses for that speech.

    Thank you.

    Thank you, Mr. Thompson.

    Mr. Bagnell.

    Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you both for coming. It's fascinating.

    Mr. Muise, my colleague would like to know how your organization is funded.

     As I indicated in the introduction, generous individuals and corporations kick in. Much of our time is spent raising money, and that's how we're funded. It's as simple as that.

    The only time we've ever accepted government funding is for a project, a one-off project, but no, we do not accept government funding.

    If all you folks said you would pitch in and give us money to keep our operation up and running, we'd respectfully turn it down. We'd be grateful for the offer and we'd appreciate it, but we would turn it down.

    That's how we're funded. And I'd be happy to speak to you afterwards if you want more information, if you know anybody who would like to give us a donation. Staying above water is always an issue for us.

    Is there a list of your funders? Is it public?

    I don't have a list. but certainly I could provide that information, I suspect. I don't know. It's something I would have to speak to the executive director about, but we certainly talk about our funders all the time publicly, so I could probably name several of them right now, if you'd like.

    No, that's good. I have a main question I'd like to get to, actually.

    In our work over here, we're really trying to speak for the victims and people who are not yet victims, to make sure the perpetrators haven't reoffended again. The vast majority of evidence is that there's not a deterrent function, but the one element that I think Mr. Muise brought up, and certainly the chief of police and the Attorney General, that might be a rationale—not necessarily data, but it might be a rationale—is incapacitation. I'd like to talk to Mr. Rosenthal about this.

    The evidence also shows that people who are incarcerated as opposed to the various other options--a longer incarceration quite often makes them less safe when they come out of prison. In that all of these people will be coming out, this is going to be short-term gain for long-term pain, and society will actually be less safe because of this type of extra incarceration and lack of other more productive alternatives for judges. Could you comment on that?

    Yes, the question of incapacitation is raised, as it was a while ago here, that if someone is in custody, he's not going to be committing crimes, at least outside the prison. He might do it in prison, but he won't be committing crimes outside. Well, how much effect is this bill going to have on that?

    Mr. Muise talked about the worst offenders. Aren't the worst ones already getting much more than the minimum sentences anyway? So how much effect will there be? Yes, there may be one or two people who will spend a couple more months in custody than they otherwise would, who are among the worst offenders and are therefore going to be incapacitated when maybe they would have done something, but that will be an infinitesimal fraction of the effect of this bill.

    I agree with you on that, but over and above that, the person who will be at large in society for a lot longer than they'll be in prison for those extra years will be more dangerous to society in total.

    Absolutely. I want to agree with you on that aspect, too, but I wanted to make the other point about incapacitation. Even per se is a very, very minuscule matter and shouldn't really be considered. Certainly, the evidence is that the longer you spend in prison, the more you learn about how to be a criminal, to some large extent, and the people who are kept in longer come out worse, unfortunately.

    Now, if you want to talk about solving crime, why don't you talk about those issues? There are some real problems there that could be tackled by Parliament, if you didn't do window-dressing kinds of things like this that don't really solve the problems. That would be my submission to you.

    So even if we have significant incarceration and stop a lot of crime for a couple of years, they'll be coming out into the public and be far more dangerous. For instance, the stats we got on discretionary sentences say that it could be 47 days in jail for an average offence, where it would be 700 days in treatment through the others. So you'd have all that time to work on the person, to rehabilitate. Obviously, jails haven't worked for centuries. We know that. People are going to reoffend. So for a longer portion of their life, they will be more dangerous to society.

     Absolutely. I completely agree with you and would urge that you look at those kinds of questions as to how you can really rehabilitate people.