Official Hansard
Mr. Speaker, first of all, mandatory minimum sentences have already been ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court of Canada, so I think it would be a real shame to try to rerun that failed script. We share the concerns about the issue of hate and preventing people from committing mischief against religious property. I believe I can say that all members of Parliament share that value. We do not want to live in a society where people commit mischief just to make a point. That said, there are different ways of tackling this issue of hate. What the Conservatives are proposing—and, with all due respect, I believe this is an argument I have heard rather frequently since I joined the House nearly 11 years ago—is the idea that the more people we can put behind bars, the safer society will be. It is a valid point, and one that can be defended, but that is not the kind of society I want to live in. I maintain, again respectfully, that it is not the sort of society the vast majority of people wish to live in either. The Bloc Québécois believes that we need to give our judges some judicial discretion. We have faith in our judges. They are not perfect. They are human and sometimes make mistakes, just like the rest of us, but they generally have a good head on their shoulders, good judgment and a lot of experience. They are able to assess every situation on its merits. Trying to force them to follow a certain criteria or framework that they cannot deviate from is a bit like having them supervised or putting them under parliamentary supervision, as I said earlier when talking to my colleague. It is one thing for Parliament to determine that a given situation constitutes a crime and to set out a maximum sentence, but minimum punishments are another matter. We are telling our judges that they cannot impose a lighter punishment than the one that has been set out. I think that is deplorable. Such parliamentary control over judicial sentencing is a dangerous tool that should be reserved for genuinely exceptional cases. I asked my colleague the following question: In this case, is she able to identify judges or courts that are so defective that we need to supervise them in that way? I did not get an answer to that question, but I do not think there are any such judges or courts. Earlier, I said that mistakes can happen. Judges are only human and can make mistakes. If a judge from the Quebec Superior Court, the Court of Quebec or any other provincial or other court makes a mistake, there are courts of appeal that can review that decision. If the litigants feel that the court of appeal also made a mistake, they can appeal to the Supreme Court, which is home to the country’s greatest legal minds. There are safeguards in place. Judges cannot hand down any punishment in any way they like without running the risk of having their decision appealed and overturned. The problem I have with minimum sentences is when people suggest, as some are suggesting here, that they should be imposed for pretty much every offence. Personally, I believe that sentences should be tailored to the circumstances, that we should trust the courts and our judges, who have, for the most part, been carefully selected. I will not repeat the criticisms I have already shared on several occasions regarding the judicial appointment process, which, in my view, needs improvement. Generally speaking, however, we can trust judges to adapt sentences with a view to building a better society, one where the principles of rehabilitation can be applied, for example, along with monetary or other types of compensation that will benefit society and contribute to the rehabilitation of offenders. We need balanced principles. These people decide what is or is not a crime, but they also decide not to send everyone who commits mischief to prison, but to rehabilitate them instead. I knew a young man who once graffitied the wall of a convenience store. Fortunately, the police arrested him, but his punishment was not to appear before a judge or go to jail. He had to clean off his graffiti and do a number of hours of community service for the store owner. They became friends. The young man did a lot for the convenience store owner because he realized that his graffiti, while not as bad as detonating a bomb, had caused damage and a lot of inconvenience, and that was something he had to realize. This young person was rehabilitated. I get that a convenience store and a place of worship are two different things. I understand that, but the principle is the same. Sometimes, I agree that a crime against a place of worship deserves a serious sentence, and in other cases, it deserves a sentence better suited to the circumstances. The only way to adjust these sentences is to let our judges use their discretion on a case-by-case basis. To no one’s great surprise, the Bloc Québécois will be voting against this bill, which, I would add, is unnecessary, given that section 430 of the Criminal Code already includes sentencing provisions for mischief. There are even specific provisions in subsection 430(4.1) that deal with mischief motivated by hate. If someone commits mischief inadvertently, to have a bit of fun or because they like to show off is one thing. If someone commits mischief because they harbour hatred toward a religious community or another group, that is something else entirely. That does happen, and there are provisions in the Criminal Code that our judges take into account, so that is reassuring. Before I conclude, I would like to say that we need some degree of consistency in the House. We pass a great many laws on various topics. We are not going to start contradicting ourselves from one law to the next. It would be counterproductive and harmful to society as a whole. However, our Conservative colleagues waged an all-out battle against Bill C-9, which was intended to combat hate. Why this all-out battle? It was largely because the Bloc Québécois had proposed an amendment seeking to ban what was known as the so-called religious exemption defence. Incitement to hatred was recognized as an offence under the Criminal Code unless someone did so based on a belief in a religious text, in which case they would be exempt from this charge both for incitement to hatred and for incitement to anti-Semitism. We said this should be removed from the Criminal Code. Our Conservative colleagues fought hard, arguing that it should remain in the Criminal Code, that people should have the right to incite hatred if their actions were based on a religious text. It made my hair stand on end, but that is what happened. For the sake of consistency, do our Conservative colleagues believe that someone who commits mischief against religious property would have a valid defence against that charge if they based their actions on a religious text that is part of their faith? I cannot say that I have figured out the answer to that, because the two positions are at odds with one another. I am very keen to hear a Conservative MP reconcile these two ideas and tell us how they deal with it. Is it acceptable for someone to commit mischief against religious property based on a religious text that is part of their faith?