This means exists.
On November 17, 2022, federal legislation (C-5) to amend the Criminal Code and the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act received the necessary royal assent for it to become law (Bill 15) and therefore be applicable to all Canadian provinces. Through this legislation, the Government of Canada has demonstrated its desire to address systemic inequalities, including the overrepresentation of Black people and First Nations, Inuit and Métis peoples and other marginalized people in the Canadian criminal justice system.
The adoption of this law is not trivial and it certainly marks a key moment in the evolution of our social policies. In fact, not only are the minimum penalties for drug offenses abolished, but the law now reminds us that the diversion measures it deals with are based on evidence. Above all, she reminds us that “problematic substance use must be approached primarily as a social and health issue”.
This is a posture that should be enough to move us away from the repressive approach that too many people have unnecessarily suffered for decades.
While we are currently witnessing a debate on the overloading of the judicial system in Quebec, this represents, in our opinion, avenues for tangible solutions that the Quebec government cannot ignore.
An essential means
Bill 15 therefore relies on the promotion of an approach that will no longer be solely judicial with regard to the simple possession of drugs. This law therefore entails amendments to the Criminal Code and to the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act (LRCDAS) so that the responses to the criminal offenses concerned are part of a real logic of harm reduction. This, without setting aside public safety objectives.
Although like many other Quebec and Canadian organizations1-2, we would have liked real decriminalization, the dejudicialization of the simple possession of drugs that this new law puts forward constitutes a means that is just as expected as it is essential, in order to eliminate the stigmatization of people who use them, to protect their health, their dignity and all of their rights. In her goal of harm reduction, she also considers families and the community.
The idea of diversion from the simple possession of drugs had already been gaining ground for some time in the country. As an example, let us recall here that in August 2020, the Public Prosecution Service of Canada published its new Guide to the Public Prosecution Service of Canada for prosecutors concerning the prosecution of simple possession offenses at the end of the LRCDS. It was already asking prosecutors to focus more on the more serious possession offences. This guidance was directed to federal prosecutors.
However, Quebec and New Brunswick do not have federal prosecutors. It was therefore up to the Departments of Justice of these provinces to give clear directions to their prosecutors based on the directives contained in this guide, which the Quebec Department of Justice refused to recognize and apply. Such an approach could already be used to solve the problem of the backlog in the Quebec judicial system.
The adoption of Bill 15 by the federal government has just changed the situation. It is no longer a question of whether or not a federal directive must be followed by a province such as Quebec, because, in the circumstances, we are talking about a law whose application must be uniform across the country. . No choice or whim.
Recall, as reported by The Press3, that more than 11,200 criminal cases including simple drug possession charges were opened in Quebec between January 2020 and September 2022 alone. The trend is down, however, with 4,530 cases in 2020, 3,912 in 2021 and 2,843 after nine months this year. Of these, 7,320 resulted in a conviction and 449 in an acquittal.
A solution to consider
In a report published in 20214, the National Institute of Public Health of Quebec is considering other alternative measures to criminalization applied internationally. These “are effective in terms of public safety” and “make it possible to mitigate certain misdeeds such as criminal recidivism and new contacts with the justice system. They “could constitute an addition to be considered in the Quebec context”. »
The Association of Addiction Stakeholders of Quebec (AIDQ) invites the Quebec Department of Justice and the Director of Criminal and Penal Prosecutions of Quebec to consider diversion as a solution to unclog the justice system in Quebec while promoting an approach beneficial for people who use drugs. We invite them to specify how they intend to apply Law 15.
The AIDQ also invites the Ministère de la Sécurité publique du Québec and the police services to specify how the police forces will apply their discretionary power in the context of this new law. How it is applied will be decisive if it is to create more benefits than negative consequences.
These future responses are at the heart of the deployment of the measures recommended by Law 15. They must demonstrate a firm commitment to achieving the objectives identified therein. It is time to apply the necessary means at our disposal to put health and human rights first. Public services and society can only come out winners. The facts and data available offer no other logical choice.