Evidence of meeting #20 for Justice and Human Rights in the 39th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was community.
A recording is available from Parliament.
5:45 p.m.
Liberal
Sue Barnes Liberal London West, ON
Were you consulted? Was your organization consulted on this bill?
5:45 p.m.
Liberal
Sue Barnes Liberal London West, ON
On other criminal law bills in past years, were you consulted on all or most?
5:45 p.m.
Honourary Chair, Canadian Council of Criminal Defence Lawyers
Yes, we were asked for input and in many cases we were asked to attend meetings in Ottawa or Toronto on various legislation that was on the way.
5:45 p.m.
Liberal
Sue Barnes Liberal London West, ON
I want to get to some of the drug issues. What's the difference in the courtroom between a conditional sentence treatment order and any other, say, a probation? What's the difference in process?
5:45 p.m.
Executive, Canadian Council of Criminal Defence Lawyers
The difference in process in terms of what's going to happen as a result of the sentence?
5:45 p.m.
Liberal
Sue Barnes Liberal London West, ON
I want to know whether it's mandatory or by consent. What's the difference in, say, tacking on a drug treatment order to probation versus getting it under a conditional sentence?
5:45 p.m.
Honourary Chair, Canadian Council of Criminal Defence Lawyers
It's an order of the court. The person is in jail, so it amounts to jail. If they don't follow the order, then they get punished. It's as simple as that. So it's the same as if they were in jail and then got caught with drugs—they go into segregation. So there's no difference. They have no choice. They must follow the order.
That's not true on probation, where they have to agree to it.
5:50 p.m.
Liberal
Sue Barnes Liberal London West, ON
So there is a major difference between the conditional sentence drug treatment order and any of the other drug....
What about the probation officers?
5:50 p.m.
President, Probation Officers Association of Ontario
It's a matter of terminology in respect of how they want to structure the order and the term on the specific order, whether it's conditional sentencing or a probation order.
5:50 p.m.
Past President, Probation Officers Association of Ontario
You would use the word ''treatment'' and order the conditional sentence. Many of the probation orders have treatment. They call for counselling or programming, and they don't need the offender's consent to order those on probation. To actually order a treatment program with conditional sentence, they don't need their consent. With probation, they would if they put the word ''treatment''.
If we had a child sex offender with a conditional sentence and probation, often they're going to go to the same facility and receive the same treatment. It's a matter of the nature of the problem and the language they use in the order.
5:50 p.m.
Liberal
Sue Barnes Liberal London West, ON
The sentencing principles are in this section in Bill C-9. Mr. Roberts, could you tell us whether you feel that the way Bill C-9 is currently drafted is compatible with the sentencing principles that have not been changed in the code?
5:50 p.m.
Assistant Director, Reader in Criminal Justice, Centre for Criminology, Oxford University, As an Individual
It's incompatible in the sense that it's not consistent with the fundamental principle of proportionality, which, as I say, has these two branches. This bill would remove the ability to establish the culpability of the offender. It's prejudged by the parliamentary committee that's reviewing it.
October 16th, 2006 / 5:50 p.m.
Liberal
Sue Barnes Liberal London West, ON
I want to take your comments a little further. This bill was sent to this committee after second reading. That means that we can't introduce another concept into the way the paragraph...because it's a one-paragraph bill affecting some 160-odd parts of the code.
But in Bill C-70, we did. I want to make sure that you're clear that this was affecting criminal organization offences, which would capture some large drug operations, the serious personal injury offences in section 752 of the Criminal Code, and terrorist activity.
I know you've answered directly to Bill C-70, but I'm asking you about the limitation on a smaller group. It effectively takes out the property crimes and some of the other lesser crimes. It drastically drops this list. Would you think those are the right areas? If there were a wish by Parliament to take away some of the things the probation officers are telling us about, would this be the place you would go?
5:50 p.m.
Assistant Director, Reader in Criminal Justice, Centre for Criminology, Oxford University, As an Individual
Yes, it would be, but I think you need to take a look at the research on public opinion. It's all very well to say communities don't like this or communities don't like that, I've had tonnes of letters, blah blah blah. Take a look at the research—and the Department of Justice conducted a lot of it. What you find is substantial public support for conditional sentencing, except for these very serious personal injury offences, sexual offences in particular, on which the public is clearly strongly opposed.
5:50 p.m.
Liberal
Sue Barnes Liberal London West, ON
In fact, probably all that research was done under the prior government and was consulted at that time. Is that correct?
5:50 p.m.
Assistant Director, Reader in Criminal Justice, Centre for Criminology, Oxford University, As an Individual
It was done under the previous government.
5:50 p.m.
Bloc
Marc Lemay Bloc Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC
This is a very interesting debate. Firstly, I wish to thank you for being here. For 25 years, I practised as a defence lawyer, and spent the last 15 years working in criminal law exclusively. Between 1996 and 2004, the year that I was elected, I acquired much experience with conditional sentences of imprisonment.
I have a question for the Probation Officers Association of Ontario. Do you work with both probationers who have received a prison sentence and those who have been handed down a sentence by the provincial court? Do you deal with both sets of probationers?
5:50 p.m.
Past President, Probation Officers Association of Ontario
Anyone who is sentenced to a term of two years less a day remains in the provincial system. That includes everyone on probation and all conditional sentences. There is no federal probation, so we have provincial probation, we have conditional sentencing, and then we have provincial parole.
5:55 p.m.
Bloc
Marc Lemay Bloc Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC
Excellent.
Therefore, I assume that you have the figures. We work a lot with figures. Do you have them? If so, how many failures concerning conditional sentences occurred since 1996? Within the probation system, we know that if a person does not carry out his present sentence for whatever reason, he must return before the courts. Do you have those statistics?
5:55 p.m.
Past President, Probation Officers Association of Ontario
Are you talking about breaches?
5:55 p.m.
President, Probation Officers Association of Ontario
On breaches—this is in Ontario—half result in no custody at all before the courts, in approximately 30% they terminate the conditional sentence, and the balance get some custody.
5:55 p.m.
Past President, Probation Officers Association of Ontario
The Ontario Ministry of Community Safety and Correctional Services is the keeper of the statistics and could probably provide them from back then. We do have some of the statistics here, but we don't have them, for example, from 1996 until now. We don't have the numbers of every breach here, but the ministry would have that information.
Was that your question?
