Bill C-43 (Historical)

Strengthening Canada's Corrections System Act

An Act to amend the Corrections and Conditional Release Act and the Criminal Code

This enactment amends the Corrections and Conditional Release Act to
(a) clarify that the protection of society is the paramount consideration for the Correctional Service of Canada in the corrections process and for the National Parole Board and the provincial parole boards in the determination of all cases;
(b) provide that a correctional plan is to include the level of intervention by the Service in respect of the offender’s needs and the objectives for the offender’s behaviour, their participation in programs and the meeting of their court-ordered obligations;
(c) expand the range of disciplinary offences to include intimidation, false claims and throwing a bodily substance;
(d) establish the right of a victim to make a statement at parole hearings;
(e) permit the disclosure to a victim of the name and location of the institution to which the offender is transferred, the reason for a transfer, information about the offender’s participation in programs and convictions for serious disciplinary offences and the reason for a temporary absence or a hearing waiver;
(f) provide consistency as to which offenders are excluded from accelerated parole review;
(g) provide for the automatic suspension of the parole or statutory release of offenders who receive a new custodial sentence and require the National Parole Board to review their case within a prescribed period; and
(h) authorize a peace officer to arrest without warrant an offender for a breach of a condition of their conditional release.
This enactment also makes a consequential amendment to the Criminal Code.

Strengthening Canada's Corrections System Act

[Serge Ménard, Bloc, Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I disagree entirely.

Frankly, we do not put people with mental health problems in prison. Whom will they meet there? They are going to meet criminals. Is that the influence we want to see on people who are especially vulnerable? Prison is not the place to treat mental illness.

Some people have to be sentenced, though, for other reasons, when they commit serious crimes and are not sufficiently mentally ill to be acquitted. People with mental illnesses have to be punished, but we should never think that prison is an appropriate place to treat them. They should certainly be treated, but they will not be rehabilitated by sending them to prison.

There are two different provisions in the Criminal Code providing for suspended sentences and conditional sentences. In the case of suspended sentences, the judge decides to suspend the sentence under certain conditions, and if the accused abides by them, the judge is not entitled to pass sentence. In the case of conditional sentences, the judge says he is giving the offender 18 months but will release him into the community if he abides by the conditions, if he keeps his job, if he takes the addiction treatment he signed up for, and so forth. In these cases, the sentence is not served in prison.

In my view, the more we can avoid imprisoning people while ensuring public safety, the better. Some people are dangerous. Sometimes there are people with mental illnesses who are dangerous, although they are in the minority by the way. That is what we were told just this morning. I agree entirely that prison is not a hospital for the mentally ill. That is not the case and it never will be.

[Jim Maloway, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased today to speak to Bill C-43, An Act to amend the Corrections and Conditional Release Act and the Criminal Code.

For a long time, New Democrats have supported getting smart on crime. On a daily basis, the Conservatives talk about tough on crime, but we find that their tough on crime approach at the end of the day does not get the results that even they would want to get out of it.

When we talk about smart on crime, we can look at situations, for example, in the ways we want to keep our communities safe. We only have to look at my home province of Manitoba to see that we had an increasing problem with car theft in our jurisdiction and ended up getting smart on crime, rather than tough on crime, by bringing in an immobilizer program for automobiles, which reduced the rate of car thefts by a substantial amount over the last couple years. We set up a group within the police department to target car thieves, monitor them, chase them and get them off streets and into custody at every possible opportunity. Working together, we have ended up with very good results to the point where on a one day basis this spring we managed to have zero car thefts in Manitoba. To my way of thinking, this is being smart on crime.

We have to take the ideology out of the system. If the Conservatives were being smart on crime, they would look to Manitoba for the auto theft results. They would look to Sweden and western Europe for other types of results.

I encourage the Conservatives to scan the globe and find jurisdictions where certain programs work and try to adopt those, as opposed to looking at, from an ideological basis, the United States and basically adopting its system from the 1980s, from the Ronald Reagan days. Ronald Reagan built private prisons, making many private individuals rich and warehousing prisoners.

That would all be fine if there was some proof that it worked. However, at the end of the day, the incarceration rate in the United States exploded, which I believe is perhaps 700 plus people per 100,000 population. In Canada I think it is 170. I have not seen the statistics for a couple of days now, but I know I am reasonably close. In Sweden the stats are only 80 per 100,000. Those are stark differences between the three jurisdictions. Clearly, if the Conservatives believe, and I think they should, in best practices, they should seek out exactly those best practices.

On that basis, how can the Conservatives possibly conclude that following an American style system is the way to go when the results are exactly the opposite of what they are looking for? In fact, there is a situation in California in which the governor has been releasing people because the state cannot afford to house them. The prisons are overflowing. The crime rate is going up.

The country is not any safer because of it. In fact, the cost to house the prisoners, based on the stats I had the other day, range from anywhere between $50,000 per prisoner per year to $70,000. What do we get for that money? We get a criminal who becomes a better criminal in prison because it is a crime school as opposed to the conditional sentences, which we determine cost only $1,000 versus $50,000 to $70,000. The recurrence rate for reoffenders was almost half. Therefore, people who were on conditional sentences were reoffending at a rate of 11% I believe. People who actually went to prison were reoffending at a rate of 30%.

It does not take a genius to figure it out. If prisoners are supervised for $1,200 or $1,300, per prisoner, and they have only half the chance of reoffending versus spending $50,000 to $70,000 on them and having them reoffend at twice the rate, is really not that hard to figure out.

Clearly the Conservatives have to take another look at this rather than embark on a system that is designed to bump up their polling numbers for a future election. They poll all this information on crime and know what the public likes to hear. When their polling numbers go up 10 points in a certain area, they incorporate that into a bill and fire it before the House. That is why we see all these crime bills coming before the House.

We want to take a smart and a cost-effective approach to crime. If we are to incarcerate people, we want to make certain that there are programs in the prisons to rehabilitate the offenders. What did the government do? It cut the amount of money that it used to put into these programs.

I enjoyed listening to the member for Ajax—Pickering, both today and the other day. He was a little off course on the bill, but he made an excellent presentation as to where we were right now, where we should go and how we should get there. We should not be adopting these ideological George Bush, Ronald Reagan-type approaches similar to the ones that were being looked at in Ontario. They will simply follow the program from an ideological point of view. They will develop private prisons and simply warehouse people with no regard to rehabilitation, basically turning out more dangerous criminals into society to reoffend.

The NDP supports establishing the rights of victims to make statements at parole hearings. Having been in the insurance business for the past 30 years, I have numerous examples of dealing with people who have been victimized, who have had their houses broken into. Then when the thieves are caught, they make an attempt to find out the resolution of their case.

Twenty years ago they would not get very far. They would be rebuffed by police forces and told that it was none of their business, that they should collect their money from the insurance company and not worry about it. They did not recognize that the people were deeply affected the criminals who broke into their property and violated them.

Therefore, over time we have developed more programs and rights for victims. We now have counselling for victims. Increasingly, over successive governments, from the Howard Pawley government in Manitoba in the 1980s through to the Conservative government of Gary Filmon to the government of Gary Doer for the NDP, we have seen a gradual progression of more initiatives to support the rights of victims. We applaud that. We have worked hard for that. We continue to support the rights of victims. What we have do is make certain the victims are not damaged by the events that have occurred to them.

The NDP stands up for marginalized, vulnerable people and certainly for victims in our society. In fact, crime rates are the highest in a lot of the constituencies that the NDP represents. We as MPs, more than any other MPs in the House perhaps, in many cases deal on a first-hand basis with crime in our communities. We have to deal with our constituents who phone us, who come and see us, people whom we know in our community, who are afraid and who are victimized by crime in the community.

The offenders themselves need to hear from the victims. They need to know the impact of their crimes. That is all part of the restorative justice initiatives, which we support in a big way. Victims need to have their voices heard. Otherwise they become victimized for the second time.

The other day one of our members from Halifax related a situation that he had dealt with in his constituency. One of his constituents was victimized by a crime and it was a traumatic experience. It has been a long time coming but we are happy to see that society is getting to the point where victims are getting justice.

We also support the right of victims to access information about the offenders. As I had indicated before, 20 years ago, when people tried to find out the status of a break and entry to their homes, they were left in the dark. They were told to mind their own business, that the justice system would take care of the problem. The victims would be left wondering what happened to the thief who broke in to their homes, while all the time thinking that perhaps the person was out on the street, and maybe he or she was by that point. Maybe the individual was looking to reoffend. The victims must not be left in the dark. They should be able to get every piece of information they can.

Today people are telling me they are getting information relayed to them by the police forces and being kept up to date as to the disposition of their cases. They know the person who had done the break and enter was caught, went to trial on a certain date and the sentence he or she was given.

Whether it is jail time or community service, we know victims are interested in seeing the offender improve. The victim has no interest in seeing the offender go to jail and come out a better criminal. Victims want to know the offenders are being rehabilitated. That is why they would be very disappointed if they knew the government was not properly funding the programs to rehabilitate the prisoners.

We also know that if an offender is rehabilitated, it is a very important step on the victim's road to healing and recovery. As long as the victim feels comfortable that at least honest efforts have been made to rehabilitate the person, he or she will feel better and have a healthy attitude toward the system.

What this boils down to is confidence in the system. We need to have a system that not only works and that not only is smart on crime, we also need to have a system in which the public has confidence.

What will happen if the Conservatives bring in their brave new world of private prisons, of locking up people and not providing rehabilitation services to the people? At the end of the day, these criminals will keep coming out of prison and committing more crimes and then the Conservatives will need to build more prisons. At the end of 20 years, we basically have déjà vu as it relates to California. We will have people in prison, the crime rate will be soaring, we will not be any safer, we will not be any better off and we will be doing what California is doing. The state is bankrupt and it is doing wholesale releasing. It is releasing people from prison because it cannot afford the cost of keeping prisons running.

The bill flows from the road map for corrections, which was released in 2007. The road map flowed from the work of Canada review panel of Correctional Services. The chair of the panel was Robert Sampson who, by the way, was the minister of privatization under Mike Harris, and, as minister of corrections, he advocated for the privatization of Ontario's prison system. That really is like putting a fox in charge of a henhouse.

We would feel a little more relieved and happy over here if we could get those images of Mike Harris out of our minds once and for all. I hate to say that the process is tainted when the spectre of Mike Harris is brought into the equation but, unfortunately, that would be the case.

The road map does not engage in a careful evidence based review of Canada's correctional system. In fact, it cherry-picks statistics to give a distorted view of crime trends, it ignores the history of our prison system, it ignores the lessons that have been learned and it is designed to tell the government exactly what it wants to hear. That is a sad reflection and commentary on our system, and it is not peculiar to a Conservative government. It can happen in any government, whether it is a Liberal government or an NDP government. We see that happen so often with the civil service telling us what we want to hear. The private consultants we hire simply tailor their message back to us. After they find out what we want to hear, they come and tell us, for a big inflated price, what we want to here.

I want to point out that Correctional Service experts have challenged this road map. We do not really think this is a way to go.

I have one final point to make before we go to questions and answers. This is great politics from the Conservative point of view but I would point out some of the privileges the Conservatives are removing from the prisoners. They are removing mental health treatment, which we all say is vital for prisoners. They are removing literacy program and work programs. How does that in any way point to a positive development in our system?

[Brent Rathgeber, Conservative, Edmonton—St. Albert, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for Elmwood—Transcona for his interesting speech regarding a bill that would limit the use of conditional release.

If I heard him correctly, he cited a statistic stating that recidivism would double if we were to restrict access to conditional release. I was wondering, first, if he could source that statistic or that study or if he just made it up on the spot, and he used the word “”deterring”.

Second, he represents a part of Winnipeg, a city that has had some serious crime issues as of late. I am wondering what his constituents are telling him about the Conservatives' tough on crime safe street and safe community agenda.

[Jim Maloway, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Mr. Speaker, the statistics I used were used in a speech that is part of Hansard, which he can check to get the actual statistics, but I certainly did quote a reliable source. As a matter of fact, the source may have been Statistics Canada.

I am sure I will stand on another speech very soon and I will source that information for the member. However, he can simply check Hansard for those statistics. They are part of the Library of Parliament information regarding the bill. There is nothing improper with the statistics and he knows very well that is the case.

As far as the crime rate in Winnipeg is concerned, I have already explained for him how we are dealing with the auto theft problem in Winnipeg with the provision of immobilizers on cars and working with the police to develop a squad that chases the most serious car theft offenders. These are things that work and things that we have made work in Manitoba. He should start looking at having similar programs that work rather than chasing American style programs that do not work.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, in the summary of the bill it states that one of the objectives is to clarify that protection of society is the paramount consideration, et cetera, and the bill itself shows at clause 3.1 that, “The protection of society is the paramount consideration for the Service in the corrections process”.

It then goes on, under the title, “Purpose and Principles” for the Correctional Services, to lay out the various considerations that might be taken into account with regard to how the Correctional Services will deal with a certain principle. What is not here is the whole aspect of mental health of the offender, because there was a recent report that 39% of the people incarcerated in the province of Ontario suffer from mental health issues.

If the bill, as it exists and will be amended, starts to make a list of things that will be considered, something must be left out, otherwise it would say that it “takes into account all relevant considerations in dealing with offenders”.

Does the member believe the mental health state of an offender is appropriately taken into consideration in discharging the responsibilities at Correctional Service Canada?

[Jim Maloway, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Mr. Speaker, the member's question is extremely important. I suppose at committee we will need to ask questions to determine what the government's commitment is to mental health treatment. I am not surprised at the statistics the member cites, that 39% of inmates suffer from mental health conditions. Warehousing mental health patients in prisons and expecting they will come out and not reoffend after not giving them the type of treatment they need, is a terrible way to operate a prison sentence.

One of the top considerations of the government should be dealing with the whole area of mental health treatment for people who are incarcerated in the prison system.

[Glenn Thibeault, NDP, Sudbury, ON]

Mr. Speaker, although we are on opposing sides of the House, I absolutely agree with what the member said.

Bill C-43 takes the absolute wrong approach and does not promote public safety. At first glance, the changes proposed by Bill C-43 do not seem too harsh but the bill removes the least restrictive language and changes to the standard in the CCRA to measures that are limited to what is necessary and proportionate to the objective for which they are imposed.

This change opens the door to more severe treatment of offenders in the absence of any evidence that the least restrictive language is hindering the ability of the CSC to fulfill its mandate. I would like to hear the member's opinion on that and talk about how that will change the prison systems for the worse.

[Jim Maloway, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I think that has more to do with the Conservatives' tough on crime advertising program than anything else. It shows that they have signaled that they will follow the American system. They are fixated on the American system, a system that all statistics show does not work.

I challenge any of the government members to come up with statistics from California or Texas that prove that what they are doing actually works. I know they cannot do that because the people in Texas and in California are saying that their system does not work, that it is broken. Do they need to tell the Canadian Parliament not to follow their system, or can we not just figure that out for ourselves?