Bill C-25 (Historical)

Truth in Sentencing Act

An Act to amend the Criminal Code (limiting credit for time spent in pre-sentencing custody)

This enactment amends the Criminal Code to specify the extent to which a court may take into account time spent in custody by an offender before sentencing.

[Kevin Page]

For Bill C-25--this is the report that we were referring to today--as you said, sir, it's roughly $1 billion a year in terms of fiscal impact. Roughly $600 million of that is operations and maintenance, and most of the balance of that is capital.

[Geoff Regan, Liberal, Halifax West, NS]

So you listed six bills, if I recall correctly, and we know that just one of them was $1 billion.

You said you costed Bill C-25. How much was that? How much did you find was the unbudgeted cost?

[Siobhan Coady, Liberal, St. John's South—Mount Pearl, NL]

Thank you very much.

It concerns me when I hear that there's very little mention of Bill C-25and that you're concerned about those numbers. Certainly we'd like to have accurate numbers and have those things considered.

Did you consider as well in your analysis some of the load impact upon the courts? I'm thinking here of the demand on the justice system to now move very expeditiously and the costs we may have to incur because people will no longer want to be remanded waiting for sentencing but will want to have their court case moved up. Did you consider that load factor?

[Kevin Page]

One of the shortcomings, we feel, of the 2010-11 report on plans and priorities for Correctional Services Canada is just a lack of information as to what is included in the estimates for the department. There's very little mention of Bill C-25 in the 2010-11 report, so we have no information as to whether or not they've provided some provision for the impact of that bill, the Truth In Sentencing Act, in the estimates.

Having said that, there still is massive growth, as you've noted—an almost 13% annual increase. In 2011-12 and 2012-13 we're talking about a 23% increase in financial resources, and for those same two years a 25% increase in human resources, and—if you break it up with some of the components over the three years—as a planned spending for custody a 47% increase.

So we see a lot of money being set aside; however, when we do our estimates—and we've taken account of the fact that we're talking, as a result of the act, about an additional 3,800 head counts in the system—using data from Correctional Services Canada, we still feel that even with the significant growth of roughly 25% over the next two years, it's significantly short by roughly a billion dollars a year, which would effectively add almost another 25% growth to the overall reference level.

[Kevin Page, Parliamentary Budget Officer, Library of Parliament]

Thank you, sir.

I'd like to introduce my colleagues at the table. Dr. Mostafa Askari is the assistant parliamentary budget officer for economic and fiscal analysis. Mr. Sahir Khan is the assistant parliamentary budget officer for expenditure and revenue analysis. And two of our senior officers at the Parliamentary Budget Office are the principal authors of the reports we're talking about today. Peter Weltman, who works for Sahir Khan, is the principal author of the infrastructure study. Ashutosh Rajekar is the principal author of our study on sentencing reform.

Good morning, Mr. Chair, vice-chairs, and members of the committee. Thank you for inviting me and my colleagues to speak to you today regarding three issues: the budget 2010 departmental operating budget freeze; the PBO report on the Truth in Sentencing Act released in June 2010 by my office; and an update on the PBO report on the infrastructure stimulus fund.

In my presentation to this committee on April 12, 2010, regarding the budget 2010 freeze on governmental operations, I offered three key messages, which I believe are still relevant in the context of the committee study.

First, the fiscal context is challenging. Notwithstanding Canada's relatively strong fiscal performance when compared to some other countries, parliamentarians are facing two large fiscal waves. First will come large federal budgetary deficits caused by the economic downturn and the implementation of a deficit-finance stimulus package. This short-term wave will be followed soon after by growing costs for baby-boom retirees who will draw elderly benefits and health care services and by weaker budgetary revenues due to declining growth in labour supply.

Two, there is no fiscal consolidation without pain. To avoid large unsustainable budget deficits over the long term, parliamentarians may need to choose between higher taxes, changes to statutory transfer programs and less spending on direct program expenditures.

Three, there is both a strategic opportunity and need to strengthen the estimates review process. Recent improvements in expenditure management information and the implementation of strategic reviews help set the stage for new levels of fiscal transparency and involvement in a decision-support capacity of the Government Operations and Estimates Committee and indeed all standing committees that support the review of departmental activities.

With respect to the Correctional Service of Canada and the operating budget freeze, in budget 2010 the Government of Canada established a new fiscal anchor that targets the rate of growth in operating expenditures. As part of this new regime, departments will be required to reallocate internally to meet the 1.5% increase in annual wages for the public service in 2010-2011. In addition, for 2011-2012 and 2012-2013, operating budgets of departments will be frozen at 2010-2011 levels.

While the overall operating budgets of departments and agencies are expected to be generally flat in 2010-2011 compared to those of the previous year, there will be specific departments that will grow or shrink more than others. For instance, against the backdrop of stable operating spending, the Correctional Service of Canada is forecast to have average spending growth of 12.8% over the next two years. As noted in CSC's report on plans and priorities, this is linked primarily to increasing staff and capital spending in the custody program activity. All included, there will be over 4,100 new FTEs, full-time employees, over the next two years, which represents a 25% increase.

There are some considerations for parliamentarians with respect to the first item. In the view of the Parliamentary Budget Office, the budget 2010 operational restraint measures are not fully defined. From a fiscal vantage point, committee members need to know the risks related to achieving the proposed fiscal targets. Are the savings realizable or cashable? Are they dependent on reasonable levels of demand for programs or services? Are there potential downstream fiscal pressures resulting from cost deferrals related to an operational freeze? If new policies require a significant increase in expenditures in one department, will other departments need to compensate with a corresponding reduction in their reference levels?

From a service delivery vantage point, committee members need to know the risks and impacts related to service levels for Canadians from a speed-of-service, quality, or cost perspective. Are there risks and impacts to the longer-term service capacity of government related to changes in employment, processes, or capital levels? In our view, Parliament needs information and analysis in a structured and timely fashion in order to examine the risks and impact of restraint measures.

Our second item, the PBO report on the Truth in Sentencing Act, was in response to a request from the member of Parliament for Ajax—Pickering to determine the funding requirement and financial impact of the Truth in Sentencing Act on the correctional system across Canada. The PBO report does not make any comment on the policy merits of the legislation.

Briefly, the Truth in Sentencing Act amended the Criminal Code to limit the credit a judge may allow for any time spent in pre-sentence custody in order to reduce the punishment to be served at sentencing, commonly called credit for time served. In general, a judge may now allow a maximum credit of one day for each spent in pre-sentence custody. However, if and only if the circumstances justify it, a judge may allow a maximum credit of one and one-half days for each day spent in pre-sentence custody.

I have four key issues to highlight. One, the Truth in Sentencing Act will have a significant impact on the correctional system across Canada. Two, parliamentarians should be concerned about whether the fiscal framework and the budget fully reflect cost pressures arising out of this bill or legislation. Three, parliamentarians should be concerned about the lack of transparency to Parliament in the costing of the Truth in Sentencing Act by the Government of Canada. Four, parliamentarians should be concerned about the operational and cost impact on provincial and territorial jurisdictions.

Over the course of this project, PBO encountered a number of challenges. Other than the initial communication between PBO and the Correctional Service of Canada, which is available on PBO's website, the PBO was unable to secure a single meeting with CSC officials in spite of repeated requests. Moreover, the PBO was unable to verify the government's own estimates, assumptions, or methodology for the various figures presented publicly. Much of the data used for the PBO report was sourced from the annual surveys by the Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics, Statistics Canada, and provincial and territorial correctional departments themselves.

Put simply, the bill directly results in longer stays for sentenced inmates and increases the inflow of sentenced inmates into the correctional system. This in turn results in increased daily head counts resulting from an increase in the average time spent by inmates in sentenced custody. The increase in daily head counts results in a significant impact on operating and maintenance costs, annual life cycle capital costs, and the cost of constructing or expanding correctional facilities.

PBO has used two approaches to estimate the impact of Bill C-25, one being a simple financial model and the second being a probabilistic simulation model. The PBO's efforts also involved an independent peer review panel comprising domain experts across corrections, justice, facility and capital management, and statistics and financial modelling.

Using statistical data for fiscal year 2007-08 as the sample case, the PBO estimated the impact on the federal corrections system had Bill C-25 been enacted in fiscal year 2007-08.

About 8,600 inmates were admitted to federally sentenced custody and spent an average of about 560 days in custody (1.5 years) prior to being sent on parole, community supervision, statutory release, etc. These inmates had already spent on average about 160 days in remanded custody prior to entering federal sentenced custody.

Bill C-25, if enacted in fiscal year 2007-08, would have added about 160 days to the average stay, increasing it to about 720 days (close to 2 years); and this would have resulted in an average increase of about 3,800 inmates.

Based on CSC's estimates reports to Parliament, the average annual operation and maintenance (O&M) cost per inmate in federal custody amounted to $147,000.

Therefore, Bill C-25 would have resulted in an extra $620 million per year in O&M and capital expenditure assuming a status-quo occupancy ratio of 90%.

Given that CSC had only about 14,800 cells to house federal inmates, assuming the same status-quo occupancy ratio of 90% would have resulted in the expenditure of $1.8 billion over five years on the construction of new facilities or expansion of existing facilities, or about $360 million per year.

This would have resulted in an increase of $620 million plus $360 million amounting to almost $1 billion in expenditures.

If CSC chose not to expand existing facilities or construct new facilities, this would still require an additional expenditure of $620 million for O&M.

The projected total funding requirements for CSC, federal level, from the second financial model are presented in table 3 in the annex to this statement. It includes the increased funding requirement to implement the Truth in Sentencing Act.

CSC's latest reports on plans and priorities show the department's annual reference level at about $2.5 billion for 2010-11, $2.9 billion for 2011-12, and $3.1 billion for 2012-13. When compared to PBO's projections for the same fiscal years, it appears that there's a gap of about $1 billion annually as to what the PBO projects to be the requirement, and what is shown as CSC's annual reference level.

However, if only the O&M components--operations and maintenance--of PBO's projections are compared with CSC's annual reference level, then they appear to fall in the same ballpark. This could be interpreted to mean that CSC would possibly choose to house--double-bunk--multiple inmates within the same cell and not invest in any new facility constructions or expansions.

Thus, should the Government of Canada choose not to build or expand correctional facilities, the increased funding requirement, based on O&M and recapitalization for the increased inmate population, will nevertheless have to be incurred. It must, however, be noted that the increased annual reference level for CSC does not clarify as to whether or not results of any of the new and/or proposed justice legislation, including Bill C-25, are included.

Here are some considerations for parliamentarians.

When parliamentarians debated and subsequently voted on Bill C-25, the financial impact was not made available to senators and members of Parliament. Parliamentarians may wish to request the cost estimate for the Truth in Sentencing Act, including key assumptions, sensitivity analysis, capital budgeting model, methodology, and data sources.

Parliamentarians may wish to request the same type of financial information and analysis as part of their deliberations and debate on subsequent pieces of legislation, which would support the scrutiny of the government's estimates, as well as provide a better understanding of the impacts and risks on the fiscal framework.

With respect to PBO's update on the infrastructure stimulus fund, the third and final item, PBO has provided a performance update in accordance with the third round of claim and progress reports received under the infrastructure stimulus fund as of March 31, 2010. The third round included 3,486 claims for 2,902 different projects representing 74% of all infrastructure stimulus fund projects.

PBO analysis has identified a noticeable delay in project start and end dates against the original projections. This trend highlights potential risks to the infrastructure stimulus fund program outcomes, including projects not being completed at the March 31, 2011 deadline, and a potential lapse of program spending authorities.

PBO developed a high-level forecasting model to predict potential outcomes of the infrastructure stimulus funding program. In the best-case scenario, all projects are expected to be completed by the program deadline. A mid-case baseline scenario results in 936 projects not being completed by deadline, with a potential federal lapse of $293 million. In the worst-case scenario, 1,814 projects would not be completed, and the potential federal lapse would amount to $500 million.

Members of my staff met with Infrastructure Canada officials, who expressed their disagreement with some of the methodology used to forecast these lapsed figures. I welcome these interventions. I believe it creates an environment for debate and discussion.

In the fall of 2010, upon the release of the fourth round of CPR by Infrastructure Canada, PBO will provide a subsequent performance update that will include an update of the forecasted lapse analysis. PBO will also publish findings with our survey of infrastructure stimulus funding project recipients undertaken over the summer.

Here are some considerations for parliamentarians on the third item.

The claims data sets PBO has received from Infrastructure Canada include data inconsistencies that affect the relevance and accuracy of PBO performance analysis. Coupled with the fact that a significant number of projects have not yet submitted progress reports, it is impossible to draw authoritative conclusions about the program performance at this time.

Parliamentary monitoring and program performance would be better served by a more consistent reporting regime with appropriate incentives to ensure timely and accurate progress reporting.

Thank you for time and patience as I work through these three complex issues. I would be pleased to answer questions from committee members.

[Megan Leslie, NDP, Halifax, NS]

Thank you.

Unfortunately, we don't actually have a lot of that kind of evidence before us here.

Mr. Chair, could we get the Barreau's submissions in 2008, a letter concerning Bill C-25? Is it possible to have that made available to the committee and be part of the record?

[Megan Leslie, NDP, Halifax, NS]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you all for your testimony. It's very much appreciated, and I'm very much on the same page as all of you with a lot of what you said.

First, to the Barreau du Québec, I see in your submission--the electronic version has hyperlinks, and unfortunately I didn't click on the hyperlink for one of your footnotes--you talk about your Bill C-25submissions:

We note also Parliament's desire to include in section 3 of the Act the notions of denunciation and deterrence. Serious studies have shown that using sentencing as a disincentive has no effect on criminality.

Then you referred to your Bill C-25 submission from 2008.

I'm assuming there would be a detailed list of studies in that document about denunciation and deterrence not working.

[Catherine Latimer]

Perhaps I can clarify a bit my previous answer.

The difference between deterrence and denunciation that was in Bill C-25 and what is in this provision is that the notion of general deterrence is not part of this set of provisions; instead, it is just specific deterrence. The intention is that providing a fair and proportionate penalty for the young person will help the young person understand that they ought not to be committing such offences in the future. So it's intended to serve as a marker and a specific deterrent for that young person.

[Catherine Latimer]

Deterrence and denunciation were also included, as you may recall, in the government's Bill C-25, which was introduced a session ago. It is part of the notion that it is important that young people be held accountable.

You're correct, in that deterrence and denunciation have previously been sentencing principles that are found in the Criminal Code, and now they are also going to be in the Youth Criminal Justice Act. The way it is intended to work is that in assessing what a fair and proportionate penalty or sentence is for the young person, based on the seriousness of the offence and the degree of responsibility of the young person, the court is entitled to look at deterrence and denunciation as sentencing principles in that context.

Sébastien's Law (protecting the public from violent young offenders)

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, that was precisely what I was thinking when I got this letter from the Defence for Children International-Canada dated April 26, 2010. What the member describes is plausible but there is other evidence.

The government seems to rely more heavily on slogans than it does on delivery of solutions to some of the problems. It is why so many of the justice bills have not gone through the full cycle of the legislative process. They have died on the order paper for a variety of reasons, are reintroduced, sometimes in omnibus bills, sometimes not, and sometimes not even reintroduced, just like Bill C-25 in the last Parliament on young offenders. We are two years into this Parliament and now the bill finally comes up. Does that reflect the priority of the government with regard to the youth criminal justice system?

There is a very good possibility that this bill will not be dealt with at all stages simply because the summer is coming and it seems like it is a good time to call an election.

Justice

[Vic Toews, Conservative, Minister of Public Safety]

Mr. Speaker, one of the biggest proponents of Bill C-25, ending the two-for-one credit, was the NDP justice minister in Manitoba. I would suggest that the member listen to the NDP justice minister in Manitoba because at least that is one New Democrat who actually cares about victims, unlike the caucus over on the other side.

Sébastien's Law (Protecting the Public from Violent Young Offenders)

[Geoff Regan, Liberal, Halifax West, NS]

Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure to join in the debate today on Bill C-4, a bill to amend the Youth Criminal Justice Act. This is certainly an issue which is of concern and interest across Canada.

One thing that concerns me, though, is that when we hear the Conservatives talk about young people, most of the time it is about putting them in jail. My experience with many young people in my riding of Halifax West is very different and very positive. I think most people in this chamber would recognize that most of their experiences with youth have been positive, I hope.

For instance, I recently attended the Bedford Lions Speak Out in my riding where seven or eight high school students spoke extremely well, which made it difficult for the judges. I was not a judge but I was asked to ask questions of the students after they had made their speeches to help make it a little more challenging for them. These were young leaders in the community who offered arguments and advocated that other young people should be more involved in the community and in volunteerism. These were terrific young people.

My son is a Scout and I went with his Scout troop on a winter camping trip on one of the coldest Saturday nights of February. It has been a mild winter but it was about minus 20° that night, if I recall correctly. I spent a couple of hours on the Saturday morning with them, helping them set up and taking some pictures of them. I was glad not to have to stay too much longer because it was cold. Sure, I was concerned about my son, but he was well-equipped, very happy and enjoyed it thoroughly. There again was a group of young people doing good things.

The Scout movement is involved in setting goals. My son wants to be a chief Scout, for example, which is an important goal and there are steps one works at toward that. That is the kind of activity in which we want to see young people involved. We should want to see more encouragement of that kind of activity. They have positive role models involved, which is very important because it is so often lacking which is why young people get involved in criminal activities. This is part of the heart of the problem. We need to examine the reasons why young people sometime get into trouble. They often do not have mentors or positive role models. They often have terrible home lives because they are living in poverty. We need to examine that.

In terms of other positive examples, I recently attended the launch of the Girls Soar Physical Activity Week. We saw some terrific young people from a school in my riding. In fact, I saw a young runner from the riding of Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, my colleague's riding, who is on the national team and is a tremendous young role model.

There are so many examples of young people doing good things, I would like to see the Conservative government thinking about them a little more and thinking about how we get more young people to be like that. We need to deal with the issues of youth crime in a way that says that part of the solution here is to recognize the causes of these crimes and what is behind these problems, and then try to address them more effectively.

People in my province have and have had a great interest in this issue for some years, particularly following, which I know my colleague from West Nova will recall, the tragic death of a well-liked teacher named Theresa McEvoy. Justice Merlin Nunn was appointed by the provincial government to do a study and he did an excellent examination into the situation that led to her death by a young offender, 16-year-old Archie Billard. It was a very sad case but Justice Nunn did an excellent job and his report was highly regarded across the province.

It is important to look at the history of this situation. Before the Youth Criminal Justice Act, Canada at one time had one of the highest rates of incarceration of young people in the world. We should consider whether that will really work and whether that is really the answer. The government wants to incarcerate more and more people and wants to have more prisons at great expense but is not willing to put the money into things that will reduce poverty, and that is the concern.

The idea of the Youth Criminal Justice Act, in many parts, was to deal appropriately with young people, to deal with people who were not violent offenders in a way that is appropriate. There is no question that, as Justice Nunn recommended, there needs to be some changes to the act.

This is very important, which is why I brought forward a bill. I had great assistance from the lawyer for the McEvoy family, Hugh Wright, a lawyer in Halifax who kindly worked hard and drafted the bill that I introduced to try to implement the recommendations of Justice Nunn.

I am pleased to see in this bill some of the elements of what I was proposing, but I do not see others. I see other elements that were not at all recommended by Justice Nunn, which concern me. I want to talk about this issue, because it seems to me that the government has chosen to cherry-pick from the Nunn report the kinds of things that suited its own ideology and reject those that did not. It is a bit like its attitude toward evidence generally, and I will talk about that some more.

The Nunn report has been out for several years now, and it is curious to me that it has taken so long for the government to come forward with a response to it. We had Bill C-25 introduced in the last Parliament, but the government did nothing to move it forward. That is so often the case with so many of its so-called tough on crime bills. It talked about them a lot, but it did not actually take action to move those bills forward. It would not even introduce them sometimes for debate, which is curious and bizarre to me.

By the way, if this bill passes second reading and does go to committee, I hope that Justice Nunn will be asked to appear at committee to give his expert advice. I think he is very knowledgeable and has done a very thorough review.

There are some good things in this bill. There are numerous amendments to the act and the youth justice regime as a whole, including changes to the general sentencing principles of the Youth Criminal Justice Act. Other amendments include changes to the definitions of terms such as “violent offence” and provisions relating to publication bans and repeat offenders.

I think it would be worthwhile for the House to hear some of the words that Justice Nunn wrote in his report on the McEvoy case, because they are important to knowing the background of this situation and what is happening in youth crime in Canada and what the response to it should be. He said:

[I]t is important to state that not one of the parties with standing took exception to the philosophy behind the act or to the majority of its provisions. Rather, they identified a number of sections causing concern and recommended changes.

He further said:

I can categorically state that the Youth Criminal Justice Act is legislation that provides an intelligent, modern, and advanced approach to dealing with youths involved in criminal activities. Canada is now far ahead of other countries in its treatment of youth in conflict with the law—

He went on to say:

This is not to say that there are not those who are opposed to the [Youth Criminal Justice Act], just as there were those opposed to the previous acts, the Juvenile Delinquents Act and the Young Offenders Act. Many of these critics believe that jail is the answer: “There they'll learn the errors of their ways.” These critics pay little attention to contrary evidence, nor do they understand that with young persons jail for the terms they recommend does not correct or rehabilitate, but rather often turns out a person whose behaviour is much worse than it was. Others espouse the vengeful adage “adult crime—adult time,” paying no attention to the fact that it is a youth crime and not an adult crime.

He continued:

Such an attitude is in direct conflict with modern approaches to treating criminal behaviour. Most of the adherents of these views refuse to accept that youth should be treated differently and separately from any adult system.

Nevertheless, they are entitled to the views and opinions they express. Unfortunately, in the present state of our youth criminal justice system, they are unable to make any contribution to reform even when some reform is not only reasonable but desirable.

He went on to say on page 230 of his report:

The witnesses and counsel for all parties in this inquiry have indicated full support for the aims and goals of the act while recognizing, at the same time, a need for a number of amendments to give flexibility to the courts in dealing with repeat offenders, primarily by opening a door to pre-trial custody and enlarging the gateways to custody.

He went on to say:

I cannot overestimate the importance of taking a balanced approach. Parts of the [Youth Criminal Justice Act] must be changed in order to create a workable and effective approach to handling repeat offenders in a manner based upon protection of the public as a primary concern, as well as providing a means to step in to halt unacceptable criminal behaviour in a timely manner. This is not an option. It is critical.

Here is the last quotation I will provide from him, from page 233 of his report:

[I] must make it absolutely clear and not open to question that all the witnesses I heard—police, prosecutors, defence counsel, and experts—agree with and support the aims and intent of the act. They accept it as a vast improvement over the previous legislation.

Thus I think it is important that as we examine this bill and examine what should be done to change the Youth Criminal Justice Act, we consider those thoughts and the need not just to change it but also to get it right. We need to be thoughtful about this. We need to provide a balanced approach and be smart on crime and on youth crime in this case.

I have serious concerns about this particular bill, which I hope will be addressed in committee, if in fact it gets to committee. These are sweeping changes to the act and some elements of the bill seem to favour punishment more than rehabilitation.

The government has done virtually nothing to ensure that youth do not get into the justice system in the first place, and that is a concern. What we have seen instead are cuts to anti-poverty programs and child care, and a lack of funding for aboriginal communities, as we would have had in the Kelowna accord, et cetera.

I also believe that youth must be treated differently from adults, and that is an important consideration. The Canadian justice system has recognized for decades that while their crimes may be similar, we need to treat youth differently from adults. The Conservative Party has never held that view.

It reminds me of the fact that children at age 14 have brains that are not fully developed; their brains are still developing and changing. I think anybody who has been a parent of a 13- or 14-year-old ought to be aware of it. Maybe some of us have forgotten that, but young people are terrific. My son is 13 and he is terrific, but there is no question that he is still growing and learning and that his thinking will change in the coming years. It is important to remember that when we think about how to deal with these situations.

In the past, the Conservatives and the Reformers before them have fought to reduce the barriers between youth and adult offenders. In fact, during the last election they said they wanted to put 14-year-olds into our prison system, institutions with hardened adult prisoners. Why would we put a 14-year-old in a prison, the same place as murderers, rapists and gang members, if our intention is not to make them better at crime and more hardened criminals?

There are weaknesses in this bill. Parts of it are poorly drafted. I suspect it may be the result of the fact this really comes from government ideology, as opposed to the bill being drafted by the department, because it usually produces very high quality legislation.

However, there are good provisions in it and I want to give credit where credit is due. For example, the bill would make it mandatory that no youth, regardless of their crime, would spend time in an adult institution. We need to see what the government will do to ensure that the provinces have the capacity to deal with this provision and be able to comply with it. I think we know the government recognizes that it could not get away with what it was suggesting in the last election, that is, putting young people in the same place as adult criminals. At any rate, I am pleased to see this has been modified and is an important provision in the bill.

Another example is the provision that allows courts in sentencing to lift a ban on publication of the accused or convicted person's name. I would hope this would happen rarely, not often, but I can personally see that this could be needed in exceptional cases and would be helpful in protecting the public. That is my own view.

Let me talk for a moment about some of the recommendations in particular that Justice Nunn made and how this bill responds to them. I think he made some 36 recommendations. Some of them related to the provincial justice system, the system for youth incarceration and so forth, and a certain number of them related to federal legislation. I am going to talk in particular about those that relate to the bill we are talking about today.

Recommendation 20 said:

The Province should advocate that the federal government amend the “Declaration of Principle” in section 3 of the Youth Criminal Justice Act to add a clause indicating that protection of the public is one of the primary goals of the act.

The government has certainly made the protection of the public a major part of this act now, but it has also gone far beyond what Justice Nunn recommended. My feeling is that what the government has done in this bill is in fact a rejection of the recommendation I just read. Justice Nunn made it very clear that it was important to be balanced in how this was done and he wanted this to be just one of the principles, because the other principles were still important. The government has made it the overriding principle, and that is a concern.

In recommendation 21, he said:

The Province should advocate that the federal government amend the definition of “violent offence” in section 39(1)(a) of the Youth Criminal Justice Act to include conduct that endangers or is likely to endanger the life or safety of another person.

I am pleased to see that the government has done this in section 3(c) of this bill.

In recommendation 22, Justice Nunn said:

The Province should advocate that the federal government amend section 39(1)(c) of the Youth Criminal Justice Act so that the requirement for a demonstrated “pattern of findings of guilt” is changed to “a pattern of offences,” or similar wording, with the goal that both a young person’s prior findings of guilt and pending charges are to be considered when determining the appropriateness of pre-trial detention.

In this case, in clause 8 of the bill, the government has resorted to the phrase “either extrajudicial sanctions or of findings of guilt or of both”. Instead of looking at what the pattern of offences was, it has talked about them quite differently with the terms, “extrajudicial sanctions”. It will be interesting to have a discussion about what that would mean.

Does it mean that if a police officer stops a young person and reprimands them or drives them home for some reason, or whatever, that would be an extrajudicial sanction? It is not clear to me, and I am a little concerned that this particular provision might be subject to a charter challenge, because it may bring in things where there has not been due process. Obviously, we should be careful of that because we want to have laws that are actually going to work and not be overturned by courts. Most of us would prefer that we designed these laws and determined what they should be here in Parliament.

In recommendation 25, Justice Nunn said:

The Province should advocate that the federal government amend section 31(6) of the Youth Criminal Justice Act to remove the requirement of a new bail hearing for the young person before being placed in pre-trial custody if the designated “responsible person” is relieved of his or her obligations under a “responsible person undertaking.”

This is a very important recommendation at the heart of what Justice Nunn was talking about. It is not clear to me that this is in the bill. I have looked for a provision like this and have not seen it, but I hope we will have some answers from the government on that question of why we do not see an amendment to that section of the act in the bill as presented.

To me, this is at the heart of the matter because in the McEvoy case, the mother of the accused had agreed to look after and be responsible for the accused young person, but then at some point before his trial said she could not handle it any more and could not take responsibility. She wanted to be relieved of her responsibility.

There was no provision for that young person to then be held to their undertaking and be taken into custody. This is one the key things that Justice Nunn wanted to see changed. I am concerned that we do not see it in the bill. I raised this issue with the minister just before speaking here, and I hope he will be looking into it. I think he will perhaps be looking into it and at whether or not we need an amendment to the bill. I hope we will see that coming forward.

Recommendation 23 from Justice Nunn reads:

The Province should advocate that the federal government amend and simplify the statutory provisions relating to the pre-trial detention of young persons so that section 29 will stand on its own without interaction with other statutes or other provisions of the Youth Criminal Justice Act.

I am pleased to see that clause 4 of the bill appears to do this, though I only received the bill yesterday and only had a good look through it last night. These things take time to digest and we would like to look further at this and have some good discussion among colleagues on it. However, I am encouraged to see that it appears to be going in the right direction.

Recommendation 24 states:

The Province should advocate that the federal government amend section 31(5)(a) of the Youth Criminal Justice Act so that if the designated “responsible person” is relieved of his or her obligations under a “responsible person undertaking” the young person’s undertaking made under section 31(3)(b) nevertheless remains in full force and effect, particularly any requirement to keep the peace and be of good behaviour and other conditions imposed by a youth court judge.

Again, this is one of the issues I raised with the minister and I am pleased he has agreed to look into it.

I am gravely concerned about the provisions on denunciation and deterrence that are in the bill, because they are contrary to all the evidence. The fact is that we know that a 15-year-old generally thinks he or she is invincible and is not going to get caught. So these provisions do not really work.

[Joe Comartin, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the members of the Liberal Party who were kind enough to switch with me today because I need to get back to my riding for an event this evening.

Bill C-4 is a significant attempt to amend the Youth Criminal Justice Act and the NDP will be supporting it at second reading to send it to committee. However, having said that, we have some significant reservations about the bill in terms of the drafting of it. Frankly, I find it quite clumsy in some areas. Some amendments will be needed just to clean up the language. The other concern is that the wording seems to have two agendas, the one that is on the surface and then the one that is behind it. I will come back to that in a moment.

We need to set in context the bill. The major amendments in the bill coming into effect are not very old. They were made in 2003 when the bill was brought into effect. In my legal career, we have actually had four separate pieces of legislation dealing with youth who are in conflict with society, who have committed anywhere from fairly minor criminal offences to very serious ones, including murder.

As a society, we have been struggling since at least the 1960s to find that right balance between treating them as youth, different from adult criminals, but at the same time recognizing that they are not adults even though they may commit offences similar to adults.

That pattern goes back at least 100 years in this country, probably even a bit longer than that. The original young offenders bill, which was called the Juvenile Delinquents Act at that time, dates back to the early part of the 1900s. However, even prior to that, our criminal justice system accepted that there would be two systems: one for youth, the age being a variable one over the last 100 years; and a separate major one for adults. Our courts and our legislatures, both at the provincial and the federal levels, have recognized that for well over 100 years.

One of the concerns I have with this legislation, and perhaps this is where the hidden agenda may be, is that the government has repeatedly indicated in speeches and in its party platform that it wants to significantly alter the barrier between youth offenders and adult offenders. It became a major issue in the last election.

I want to acknowledge the role that the citizenry generally of the province of Quebec played in attacking the Conservative Party during that election on the proposals that were floated during that election of lowering the age to nothing so that any youth could be charged as an adult and sentenced as an adult. That provoked a serious negative response from the people of Quebec and I want to acknowledge the role and the leadership they provided in that regard.

The other point I want to make about the way we have treated youth crime historically in this country is that it has in fact varied quite dramatically across the provinces. Here, I want to acknowledge again that Quebec has been the most successful province, the most successful jurisdiction, in dealing with youth crime. It has the lowest rates of youth crime in the country. It has the most developed and sophisticated system in the country to deal with youth who are in conflict with the law and actively engaged in anti-social behaviour. Quebec does this better than anybody does in Canada, and I want to acknowledge that.

With regard to this particular bill, we need to set it in the context of it being really a direct outcropping, not so much of the ideology coming from the Conservatives, but of the push from the Nunn Commission of Inquiry in Nova Scotia and the McMurtry report on victim compensation in Ontario.

Justice Nunn, who was appointed to that special inquiry, certainly had the most detailed recommendations. He and his commission had seven specific recommendations that the government is claiming it has responded to.

I want to be very clear that Justice Nunn, both in the report and in any number of interviews he did afterwards, was very clear that the act, as is, is a good piece of legislation. It is a workable piece of legislation. The term he used constantly was that it needed to be tweaked. On the surface that is what it appears the government is doing here, but in a number of areas Bill C-4 has weaknesses. I want to address a few of those.

Before I do that, I again want to point out that we will be supporting this bill because it has at least two provisions in it that are badly needed.

One is that it makes it absolutely mandatory that no youth, no matter what crime they are accused of or convicted of and sentenced for, will spend time in an adult institution. That is a principle the province of Quebec has followed quite diligently. Other provinces have not, sometimes because of an ideological approach to punishment of youth, but more often because they simply do not have the facilities to incarcerate youth in a contained setting, especially in the rural and frontier areas of this country. The government has done nothing to assist the provinces in developing those institutional settings.

When the bill gets to committee, as I fully expect it will, this will be an issue that we will be raising with the Department of Justice and perhaps with the Correctional Service about what they are going to do to help the provinces meet the requirements of the statute not to incarcerate any youth in an adult prison. I do not believe they have done any planning for this.

As is so often the case with the government, especially with its crime bills, this bill provides no specific date when it will come into effect. I am afraid that what we are going to see because of this particular provision is the provinces sitting back, which happened in one of the prior incarnations of legislation on youth crime. I know that in the province of Ontario specifically we went almost a decade without being in compliance with the statute and that we were not providing the necessary facilities, even though we were the wealthiest province in the country at the time.

Hence, I am afraid we are going to have a piece of legislation passed in this House mandating that youth not be incarcerated in adult prisons and a number of the provinces will have no ability to comply with that. It is an issue that will need to be explored at committee. It is a good policy, a good paragraph in the legislation, but we must have the provinces in a position to be able to carry it out.

The other point I want to make, and I have to say that we have had some division over this in my caucus, is that there is a provision in the bill that will allow the courts who are sentencing individuals, particularly for serious offences, to lift the historically solid ban on any publication of the name of the accused or convicted person. That is one provision that we would expect to be used rarely.

While I am concerned about the criteria the government has built in as to when the judge would be able to do that, we can see this provision as necessary in exceptional cases, for the protection of society. I am thinking in particular of an accused person who has been convicted and sentenced as an adult, who has very severe psychological health problems and is not likely to be rehabilitated and who is, in the extreme, even a serial killer. That person should be identified to society, both in terms of the police knowing the individual and society more generally. Those will be rare cases. We may not even get one a year. However, I believe that for the protection of society, it is important that we analyze that, set proper criteria in place, and allow that discretion for our judges.

With regard to the negative parts of the bill where I see some hidden agenda items, I think it is necessary to go back to the last Parliament. Pretty late in that Parliament, in spite of all the other crime bills the government was introducing, some of which were silly quite frankly, and in spite of the fact it had been in power at that point for over three years and the Nunn report had come out, the government finally got around to drafting Bill C-25 and presenting it to the House. It was late in the 39th Parliament and that bill just sat and nothing happened to it. The bill included a provision that the Conservatives claimed was a denunciation, but it also had a very clear provision for general deterrence as a sentencing principle. That flies in the face of the hundred-plus years of our history in this jurisdiction of Canada, and generally in western democracies, of treating youth separately, recognizing that because of their lack of maturity, general deterrence does not work with them, generally speaking. It specifically is of no value when we are dealing with youth. That has been accepted in many courts and in all jurisdictions in the western democracies. However, what the Conservatives were trying to do was to introduce in that bill, very clearly, right up front, a general deterrence principle.

The government has backed off that in this bill. It has dropped that, I think, in part because of what happened in the last election in the province of Quebec. The government has maintained specific deterrents, that is, individual deterrents. I am not sure even those will survive a challenge in our courts. The Supreme Court of Canada, as recently as a few months ago and in a series of its decisions, made it very clear that the sentencing principles to be applied to youth who are in conflict with the law must take into account exclusively that they are youth, that courts cannot use principles of sentencing applicable in the adult setting. The Conservatives have recognized that and have limited the bill to specific deterrents, at least on the surface in one of the clauses.

However, when one looks at the amendments to the act overall, there are a number of other places where it would appear they are trying to get general deterrence in, if I could put it this way, through the back door. There is some really clumsy wording for what a judge does in determining whether a person should be tried as an adult, accepting of course the application from the Crown, and separate criteria as to whether they should be sentenced as an adult.

There is also wording in there that does not appear any place else in any youth justice act that we have had in the past, that does not appear in any parts of the Criminal Code, either currently or, as far as I know, historically. But it basically introduces moral culpability, and this may come out of a court decision that I think they may be taking out of context. It is introducing morality and asking the judges, in effect, to interpret that and to apply it on a day-to-day, case-by-case basis.

Knowing a lot of judges and judges who work extensively in the youth criminal justice system, I think this is going to pose a major problem of interpretation. I am not sure the legislation worded in this way will survive a challenge, because it is so vague. That is always a principle when looking at criminal law, including sentencing guidelines. Therefore, it is a major problem confronting us in dealing with this bill.

I want to address one other issue that came out of the Nunn Commission report and recommendations. The Nunn Commission arose as a result of a specific case in Nova Scotia. Justice Nunn was quite concerned about a limitation in the discretionary powers judges had around the issue of protection of society when sentencing an individual.

I do not want to sound trite here because it is a serious concern and one of the times when Commissioner Nunn said that tweaking was needed, but what the government has done here is not tweaking. I think it is just nothing: it is smoke and mirrors. Under the existing law the protection of society is a set of criteria for what a judge can take into account, and at the bottom of the full text of the paragraph in the bill, it talks about the protection of society. However, all I see the government doing here is moving that paragraph from the bottom to the top.

In the press releases and minister's press conferences, where he trots out one of the victim's family members, using them for photo-ops, he is forecasting and extolling the virtues of the bill, saying that it in fact addresses this issue. I have to say that I do not see that. This simply seem to be window dressing. The government has combined moving that clause from the bottom to the top with some new wording that I believe, if anything, when interpreted by our judges across the country, will further limit their discretion in taking into account the protection of society.

It is an example of what I said earlier about the bill, that is both clumsy and, in some cases, poorly drafted. I think there is some ideology behind this coming from the government rather than the officials in the Department of Justice, because this is not a bill of the quality I usually see coming from the Department of Justice. The department is usually quite good in drafting, if not excellent, but there are some problems here.

There are also a number of places where the government replaces sections. It takes sections out and repeals them and replaces them with others. From my reading of the bill, and this is another reason we will be looking at it very closely at committee, the government has in fact left gaps, and we are going to end up with the judiciary and prosecutors in this country not being able to prosecute and/or move to sentencing of adults, because the government has left gaps in the drafting of the bill. So we will be looking at that at committee.

To conclude, we are going to support the bill going to committee. We have serious reservations about parts of it and strong support for other parts. We will do what we can at committee to strengthen the bill and provide greater protection for people who are victims of youth crime.

[Michael B. Murphy, Attorney General, Minister of Justice and Consumer Affairs, Province of New Brunswick, Government of New Brunswick]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak in favour of Bill C-52 and to provide the committee with some information with regard to our government's position on it.

Before I touch on Bill C-52, I want to give you some background on our government's views with regard to our agenda on these matters and what has led us here today.

Part of my responsibility as Attorney General of New Brunswick is to support efforts that will increase the criminal justice system's efficiency and to promote reforms that will inspire a solid level of confidence in the system. I firmly believe that all law-abiding citizens have the right to live in a safe and secure community. They must be able to count on a criminal justice system that protects them against harm and the fear of harm. It is essential to maintain the public's confidence in our judicial system. They must be wholeheartedly convinced that the system protects them against harm and enables them to live free from the fear of becoming a victim of crime. They must have confidence that the system will deal appropriately with those who break the law.

Since I became Attorney General in June of this year--after three wonderful years as Minister of Health--I have supported many of the measures brought forward by Justice Minister Nicholson here in Ottawa. I believe the laws with regard to our criminal justice system must have meaningful and proportionate consequences for those who offend. There are very serious offences of a violent nature out there, but of course there are very serious offences of a non-violent nature that cause complete disruption to certain lives. Often those crimes are committed against our most vulnerable.

Just to give you some past record, we have in New Brunswick supported Bill C-25 in terms of losing the two-for-one remand. We believe remand lost its purpose with regard to the reason that there was a two-for-one credit.

We supported Bill C-15, with its mandatory minimum sentences for those involved in the production or trafficking of drugs, because it was to protect our most vulnerable, those being our children and those afflicted with drug use. I did see that close up as Minister of Health. That is a very sad picture across the country.

Of course, we're also pleased with Bill C-36, the faint hope clause, and the progress being taken towards passage.

In New Brunswick we have taken some steps to make our communities safer. Last week we partnered with the Child and Youth Advocate in his request that there be a law in New Brunswick for consumer protection. This stems from the report that there ought to be a law protecting children's online privacy in the 21st century. We partnered with them for a working group that includes the Child and Youth Advocate's office and the Department of Justice. We also put on that working group a member of the opposition in New Brunswick, because we do not believe--I am sure members of this committee will agree--that this is in any way, shape, or form a partisan issue.

The working group will come forward with legislation in the spring of 2010. We hope to bring that into the Legislature next fall. We believe this will complement Bill C-58, which, as you know, is the federal bill that will require mandatory reporting by Internet providers when it comes to child pornography.

For that reason, I have asked the officials in my department to form a working group with representatives of the Child and Youth Advocate's Office to study possible amendments to our province's legislation that would allow us to achieve these goals. The working group will be submitting its report to me in the spring of 2010.

With respect to the bill under consideration, Bill C-52, we're pleased that this is a bit of a crackdown on white-collar crime, because white-collar crime is committed most often at the expense of the life savings of our most vulnerable. These victims are, by and large, the elderly, those who sometimes do not have the wherewithal to see some of the red flags that are there, but we know one thing: all of these victims are individuals who worked their entire lives for what savings they have. Those savings may be $15,000, $50,000, $300,000, or possibly $1 million, but it means absolutely everything to them, so I want to make three points with regard to Bill C-52.

First of all, the New Brunswick Securities Commission has been active and effective in taking steps to protect investors from unfair, improper, and fraudulent practices, and I'm confident that Bill C-52 will complement the work of the securities commission in New Brunswick by providing for a minimum two-year sentence for fraud exceeding, cumulatively or in a single instance, $1 million. It will send a very clear message to those who believe they can perpetrate this crime.

On this first point, though, I'd like to say that while there is an inclusion of additional aggravating factors that can be applied in sentencing, I'm going to urge this committee to consider a figure below $1 million, and I will get into a story very shortly. Suffice it to say that $20,000, $30,000, or $50,000 means absolutely everything to a person who's worked all his or her life. The person gets it and starts to use it at the age of 65 and plans to use it very sparingly between ages 65 and 85 to make ends meet. When they lose that money because of a fraud, it is just as devastating to them as the loss of several hundreds of thousands of dollars or a million dollars.

The second point I want to make with regard to Bill C-52 is that the bill will require judges to consider restitution. In New Brunswick we have a provincial proceeds of crime unit that's been very successful, but we are also bringing forward a civil forfeiture act in January that I think will complement Bill C-52 and our proceeds of crime unit. The civil forfeiture bill in January will allow the Department of Justice, through its lawyers, to sue individuals who have used their property--whether it's their home office, their computer, their small office building, their big office building, or whatever--essentially as a tool of crime. They will sue for that property.

We have, in this country and in New Brunswick, seen far too many times someone who was sentenced to six months--or a year and a half, or even two and a half years--go back to the very large home or office building or whatever property the person had that had been used to perpetrate the crime. The civil forfeiture act that we envisage in New Brunswick will be in compliance with the same civil forfeiture act that's been tested before the Supreme Court of Canada and found valid. The civil forfeiture act under a different name in Ontario and British Columbia has been very successful; 99% of the time the defendants walk away, because they don't want to sign an affidavit outlining that they have a $20,000 income and $1 million in assets. They were told, I think it was in Ontario, that they had three years to be self-sufficient, and in fact that was attained after 18 months. As you know, it is on a balance of probabilities, which is somewhat easier in that sense than the “beyond a reasonable doubt” onus.

Lastly, I want to point out that if we are to succeed in the fight against securities fraud, it is crucial to be able to count on sufficient resources to provide the expertise required in the complex fields of investigation and detection. Canada's other orders of government have said that federal assistance is essential for improving their detection and law enforcement capabilities, and I echo their arguments. Increased probability of detection can be a key deterrent to crime.

Look, ten minutes is not a lot of time. It usually takes one of the Murphys ten minutes just to clear our throats.

Suffice it to say, I would think there is no magic in this $1 million figure. I think this Bill C-52 is a very good bill, and I applaud the government for bringing it forward. At the same time, you know, if you have 30 acts against individuals who lost on average $30,000, that can be just as devastating to that family or to many families as a bullet would be to any of those victims.

I think it has been a long time that we have been looking at the rights of the offender. We've certainly considered and we respect the charter, and we respect the principles of the Criminal Code of Canada, but there is no reason why we should not be theming within our federal acts, and our provincial acts, the rights of the victims of crime. I think all of these bills—federal and provincial—should consider that.

It is because we want to set the record straight.

We want to bring the pendulum back so that the people in the communities across this country know those acts are designed to protect them on deterrence and punishment, and on restitution. The restitution aspect can be accomplished in some part by Bill C-52 but also considerably enhanced by a civil forfeiture act's being brought forward in all the provincial legislatures.

I'm asking the committee to consider a figure below $1 million. I'm certainly fine with the two-year minimum sentence, but I do believe we have to consider that there is just no magic in that. There are an awful lot of people who can tell you a story where their lives have been ruined and their extended families' lives have been ruined on figures of $30,000, $40,000, or $100,000.

I'll conclude by saying this. There was a gentleman who came to my office about two months ago, and he had been defrauded of a figure many times smaller than $1 million. He was embarrassed. He was 75 years old. He was crying. He didn't know what to do, and the fact was that all I could tell him was that there would be an investigation by the securities commission with regard to fraudulent practices and that the prosecutors would deal with this and would look at the statute. I would have liked to tell this individual that there was a minimum sentence of two years for something such as that, but I couldn't. I would have liked to tell him that there would be a minimum sentence of two years for the amount he had been defrauded, which was every bit as powerful to his family as a bullet right through any member of his family.

Sometimes it takes the visuals, and sometimes it takes the story and the face of a victim before you to understand the significance of the crime. While we have acts of violence that are looked after by the Criminal Code of Canada, the repercussions of acts of white-collar crime against our vulnerable can be every bit as devastating as the violent act.

Thank you.

[Kim Pate, Executive Director, Canadian Association of Elizabeth Fry Societies]

I want to thank you for inviting us here. I also want to bring regrets from my president, Lucie Joncas, who had hoped to attend, but I think it's in part a reflection of the volume of what's coming before us that she was not able to.

One of the things I'd like to start with was also one of the questions posed to the Correctional Service of Canada in the last session. One of the reasons that women are the fastest-growing prison population also relates to this increase in more federally sentenced women serving shorter sentences, and it is in fact going to get worse, I would suggest, especially with the recent passage of Bill C-25.

One of the reasons we're seeing this is that with the cutbacks to social services, health care, and educational services in the community, those who are most marginalized and most dependent on those services are more likely to fall through the cracks and end up being criminalized and ultimately institutionalized, as there are fewer options, fewer places to go to for services, fewer places to get the assistance they require. We're actually seeing individuals coming in and asking for sentences under the real and well-intentioned assumption or belief--by crown counsel, by defence counsel, by the individuals themselves--that they'll actually be able to access more programs and services in the federal system.

Our federal prison system is likely the best in the world. We say that without necessarily having a great deal of pride in that right now, because it is not very good at this stage. In fact, there are many deficits, and I'd like to speak to some of those. Some of them have already been spoken to. You have copies, I'm sure, of the recent report of the correctional investigator that was tabled by the Minister of Public Safety last week. I'm also aware that you're familiar with the reports into the death of Ashley Smith and other Office of the Correctional Investigator reports.

I was just at the RPC in Saskatchewan yesterday, the regional psychiatric centre, about which you heard. It's always interesting to me to hear the descriptions of these institutions from the perspective of those who have a responsibility to uphold the work that they do as part of the Correctional Service of Canada, and to uphold the policy. I would suggest to you, though, that the reality belies the representations that you heard, not because there aren't well-intentioned people--there are very many good people working within the corrections system--but increasingly because they are unable to actually talk about what's really happening in the system.

When I was in the regional psychiatric centre, I saw women in what was described to you as intensive psychiatric care. Intensive psychiatric care is essentially segregation, with chemical restraints in addition to the mechanical restraints and the uses of force that you've heard about and seen chronicled in various reports. I was looking into the treatment that was used with people like Ashley Smith. You'll pardon me, but I'm using that example because there have been so many publicly discussed descriptions of her treatment that it probably will generate some images that you're able to link this to.

The only difference I saw in the treatment of the women compared to the last time I was there was that women are now less likely to be in security gowns unless they're actively suicidal. If they're self-harming, they may instead be in institutional sweats. When you're visiting that institution, that's what you'll likely see, if indeed you meet with the women there--and some of them are interested in meeting with you; you need to know that.

Also, although we are repeatedly advised that the prisoners there are treated as patients, when I was at the courthouse where the corrections supervisor who has been charged with assaulting Ashley Smith is facing those charges and is now on trial as I speak, successive staff talked about the fact that even for nursing staff and mental health staff within a psychiatric hospital that is also duly designated as a penitentiary, the priority issue is security, not the treatment needs of the individuals who are there.

Even though that is not the law and is not the policy, it is the perception of the staff who were testifying, who presumably were also prepared for that testimony. To them, in fact, the priority issue is security. When you look at issues of mental health as you're going around the institutions, I would suggest that you ask questions of all of those programs you heard about. They are very good programs, and some of them are excellent programs, but ask how often they are offered and how many people have been through those programs recently. Are they operating currently? How many people in the last year have been through those programs? What is the duration of those programs? How long have they been fully staffed?

A benefit of this committee is in fact that there has been an increase in resources going into those areas over the past few months. It's a credit to all of you that you're doing this work, because in fact there are individuals who are benefiting.

There are individual women who have been released, and I'll talk a bit about some of those cases in a minute. They were also alluded to by the previous speaker.

I also want to say that I disagree, however, with the notion that we need to improve the mental health strategies within the prisons, for the very reason I just spoke about. I think it will be very difficult to improve mental health services in the prisons. The women's prisons have the best mental health resources in the country, and yet in the special living environments—or they may be called something else now—the mental health units that were just described to you are essentially for those who have intellectual disabilities or less severe mental health issues.

The women with the most significant mental health issues, as I sit here today, are still the women who are in segregation units, are still the women who are self-harming and are experiencing the response to their self-harm as punitive responses, whether or not that's the intention of staff. I agree that in fact for many staff it is not their intention; however, that's how it's experienced by the individual women. And if they try to speak out or grieve those situations using the mechanisms available, they are often encouraged to remove the grievances or not follow through on them. You just need to look at the reports into Ashley Smith's death to have an excellent chronicling of how this occurs and how those responses are systematically not an effective way to deal with either individual issues or systemic issues.

I also want to ensure that you are aware that, as we try to raise some of these issues, we have some very real difficulty in being able to gain access. We are in discussions right now. We have been denied access to segregation units. Concerning the very areas we have documented over the years with the correctional investigator and others, or have asked the correctional investigator to examine after we have identified issues in set areas, whether it be concerning the Prison for Women in 1994, or Ashley Smith recently, or other women now who are in those areas, one of the responses has been that we may not be allowed access any more.

We have been denied access; it is unclear right now what the official position is. The last letter I have from the Commissioner of Corrections said that we were not permitted to go into segregation units. Since that time, in discussions with the commissioner we've been advised that it will be at the warden's discretion. I've been allowed into one of the units and not allowed into another.

So I encourage you also to ask those questions—of who is monitoring what's happening—and as you're examining this issue, to really focus on the recommendations made by Louise Arbour, by the Human Rights Commission, by the Office of the Correctional Investigator, and by Corrections Canada's own task force on the use of segregation, which recommended limits to the use of segregation and changes to the classification. Even though there's a new classification scheme, it is still predominantly the needs of women—and of men, I would suggest—that are translated into risk factors that allow them to be classified as requiring higher security, allow them to be kept in segregation.

And I can't stress sufficiently the need for external oversight of corrections. Even though the Privacy Commissioner has ruled that we should have access to the records of Ashley Smith, we still don't have them, so I can't tell you some of the things that I'm pretty certain existed and happened, based on what she told me and what other prisoners told me and what staff have told me.

I also want to reiterate something that I have said to a number of you in other committees and other contexts, which is that we are increasingly being asked by the Correctional Service of Canada itself—not officially, but by corrections staff—to take on these issues in courts and with human rights complaints in various other venues, because people are feeling impotent within. People feel that they can't speak out about the very real issues of the limits being placed upon them.

There are examples of very positive things that have happened. I was going to give you a list of 15 women whose cases.... I won't do that, because I see the chair shaking his head.

I will tell you about the one alluded to by Ms. Van Allen, the deputy commissioner for women. She talked about the very good progress that has happened with a woman who was released recently after being in segregation. Let me tell you, that was one of the examples of people coming to us asking us to push at every level we could to have this woman out. I'm very pleased that Corrections Canada and the National Parole Board saw fit to release this woman. I'm very pleased to tell you that I've now seen her three times in the community. She's doing very well; she's in her own place; she's working; she's blossoming. People from Corrections whom I introduced her to last week, when I was at a conference and invited her to come and have lunch with us, did not recognize her, three months after she was out of that segregation cell. That should tell you something about the difference in her mental health, just being free. I use “free” loosely, because she's under supervision; but being in the community, having some support, having a place to live, having something to do, and having community support around her.

Let me also tell you—I have yet to have this confirmed, although I've requested the information—that it cost, I'm told, $2 million to keep that woman in the conditions she was in in prison, just for overtime, and there is something on the order of $10,000 per year being spent on that kind of support in the community.

I would strongly urge that when you're looking at these issues you examine ways in which the resources can be developed in the community, not within the prison, so that individuals can go into the community for those services. From day one of a sentence, for health reasons people can go into the community and access services.

I understand that we need to move to questions now. I look forward to those questions.