C-10 Hearings 2012 02 02
About 11 people were watching the Senate hearings today, mostly civil servants I suspect. Just a handful of us observers. The atmosphere was very civilized. You can see that most senators have a position and some have a particular issue to resolve. It seems that all of them are taking the process seriously and I was impressed with the knowledge of some of the senators of the fine points of the issues.
The presentation by the Hon. Daniel Shewchuk, Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Nunavit caught the essence of most of our issues. He wrote an excellent brief on the impact of C-10 on Nunavit communities. There were three main issues: He was concerned about the mandatory minimums, especially for drug offences. He wanted to retain the opportunity to involve the victims and community in the sentencing process as was culturally appropriate -- when warranted. He was concerned that Nunavit had no opportunity to provide feedback and help reduce the impact on his territory. He was concerned that Nunavit would be disproportionately affected financially because of its great distances, the facts that their facilities are already overflowing, and the great difficulty of conducting trials in Nunavit because of distance and weather. The brief was an appeal for prevention over incareration.
I have realized that the difficulties we are having with these bills is due to certain specific tensions. The reason the government has put in mandatory minimums is because, over time, even though technically the judges had the right to give a more severe sentence when warranted, in practice, there were so many lenient precedents that judges were no longer ever giving more severe sentences. The police report they are spending their time chasing down the same people over and over who reoffend without serious consequences. On the other hand, it is not clear with the current wording of the bill whether Section 7:18 2E that requires (according to the Supreme Court decision R. vs Gladue) consideration for Aboriginal people of their situation, circumstances, and culture) would still be in effect and might be able to override a mandatory minimum sentence. An amendment could clarify this and give back judicial discretion and diversion process for aboriginal peoples when warranted.
The government makes clear, and police agree, that this bill is focused at organized crime and serious criminals, not simple people with addiction problems. The police say they would never put resources into catching someone growing 6 pot plants. On the other hand, the way the law is written, they could go after a small producer if they wanted to. They say the only people who will be charged under this bill are traffickers, but the bill is written so that if someone has been charged before in the last 10 years they will be subject to a mandatory minimum sentence (unless they agree to take a drug treatment program.)
I think there is a real difference between big cities and small rural communities. In the small communities, especially up North, in a culture built on sharing, probably every person could be found to be a trafficker at some point or another. It is not so simple to separate out the trafficker from the community. The problem with the current wording is that it will catch some people who are not organized crime or even serious traffickers in its net.
It seems clear that no one I have heard so far is concerned about putting 2 new laws in place to deal with sexual predators. One makes it an offense to give sexually explicit material to children. One makes it an offense for 2 adults to conspire to seduce a child (on the internet) -- if I have understood it correctly. Most people seem to agree that mandatory jail time for such people is a good idea.
The senators wanted to learn a lot more about the specific conditions and statistics of the types of inuit offenders and what was happening to them.
Tom Stamatakis from the Canadian Police Association basically agrees with the intent of C-10. He says they need it to deal with organized crime. He is hopeful if he didn't have to chase down the same traffickers over and over again that they might be able to put more police resources into education and prevention. He also believes the ability to arrest without warrant anyone who is on parole or a conditional sentence and who is in violation of that is important. He says it is difficult and time consuming to get a warrant. Here the Canadian Bar Association disagrees. He also appreciates the additional judicial discretion given to hold a young person in detention while awaiting trial. The most frustrating cases are young people who steal cars and joy ride without a license, often putting the public in direct danger. When they get out they do it again the next night. He also reports police need more budget all across the country.
Apparently C-10 will not affect the possibility of drug treatment courts such as we are trying in Vancouver. This diversion would take place before any criminal charge is made. It would be a prosecutor's decision????
Senator Joyal brought up a report that suggests when there is an escalation of enforcement there is a corresponding escalation of violence. Tom Stamatakis dismissed that. He doesn't believe the gang wars in Vancouver have anything to do with the level of enforcement.
Senator Boisvenu brought up concerns about the potency of today's Marijuana and the damage being done to children as young as 9 years old. Current statistics tell us they are starting that young. In my own education I learned that a child's brain is much more severely affected than a youth's and a youth's is much more severely affected than an adult. I agree we need a lot of health education in the schools to teach children the impact of damaging their brains so young.
Tom Stamatakis said he did not believe we would solve the problem by legalization. He looked to the continued trafficking of tobacco, alcohol, and prescription drugs as proof that legalizing drugs would not take this source of income away from organized crime. We would have to set standards of quality and controls and these would drive up the price. The standards would have lower intoxication values than the black market stuff. He also said in Canada we don't have a war on drugs. That is an American thing. Here we are seriously trying to stop gangs and organized crime. That is our focus. We don't normally charge users.
Senator Fraser quoted a report by the Department of Justice on grow-ops, taken from prosecution case files. Apparently 10% of the files were for 10 plants or less. Only 5% had proven direct connection to organized crime. Apparently there are a lot of people in the grow-op business. This seems to contradict the statements by the police they are only going after organized crime. Tom Stamatakis said a large percentage of pot grown in Canada is for export to the USA.
I am guessing that the smaller finds have been investigated because of complaints in the neighbourhood. Anyone growing pot in a small town is likely to draw attention. Or even in a city, will draw a lot of visitors if they are selling it.
It certainly is complex. The challenge is always to find the balance and to leave some room for discretion for particular circumstances. The other challenge is to have good facilities for holding people with professional services for rehabilitation, diversion, integration, andexcellent prevention programs to make sure people don't get in trouble with the law in the first place.
Mostly, we need a culture shift around drugs. People are using drugs to escape all their problems when what we need is people who are awake and feeling empowered to tackle those problems in society.
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