Justice Committee on Nov. 22nd, 2011

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

I'm delighted to hear that, Mr. Jean. At least the public has access to it. But I guess it's like the administrative segregation areas we were talking about earlier: if they're not available, people don't have a chance to have access to them. Unfortunately in this case, a lot of people watch things through television. If they can only hear the audio, they either don't look at a blank screen or they find other ways of doing it. But it's unfortunate. Nevertheless, we are where we are and we shall continue.

I want to speak in favour of clause 68. It's a very interesting clause, which might come as a bit of a surprise to the public and also to some of us legislators, to say that there's a possibility that people actually would want to stay in prison longer than their sentence. It sounds a bit ironic, but once one thinks about it, it's easy to understand why. There could be a variety of reasons.

I'll read the clause out. It says:

At the request of a person who...is entitled to be released from a penitentiary on parole or statutory release, the institutional head may allow them to stay temporarily in the penitentiary in order to assist their rehabilitation, but the temporary stay may not extend beyond the expiration of their sentence.

Now, if someone is on parole, they're usually out before the end of their sentence. Statutory release is before the end of their actual sentence. That means they'd be on the street. Some people may not have any place to go immediately. If they have a place to go in three weeks but not today, they might be on the street for three weeks.

Some inmate might be in a situation in which they are in immediate preparation for some significant event, such as a graduate education exam that allows you to get your grade 11 without going to grade 11—you can write an exam and you study inside the penitentiary as you're doing this qualification. Next week or the week after, you don't want to be out on the street in a situation in which you might not have the resources or systems to finish that, and it may be eminently desirable to stay in the penitentiary for another week or ten days to conduct a particular examination or qualification that would assist in your rehabilitation.

Despite the irony of this particular provision, it is actually something that can be of substantial assistance to an inmate in his or her course of rehabilitation. So we wish to support it wholeheartedly and would expect fully that the institutional head would take the reasons into consideration, “in order”, as it says here, “to assist their rehabilitation”. It is at their request that this takes place.

I think it's a positive thing.

Those are my remarks.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dave MacKenzie]

Thank you.

(Clause 68 agreed to)

I call clause 69.

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

I want to speak to that, sir.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dave MacKenzie]

I've already called the vote.

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

You have?

[The Chair, Conservative, Dave MacKenzie]

Sorry. I waited.

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

Did you wait?

[The Chair, Conservative, Dave MacKenzie]

I waited.

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

You waited for people to raise their hands.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dave MacKenzie]

I looked for you. I expected you would have.... But I've called the vote and it's carried.

Were you opposed to the...?

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

I am opposed to clause 69. I was just trying to find it here.

The clause started off with the French version, and then there were a number of other sections that I wished to speak to briefly.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dave MacKenzie]

But I've called the vote.

[An hon. member]

A point of order, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dave MacKenzie]

Yes, I've got it.

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

So we're down to that now? Are we going to be--

[The Chair, Conservative, Dave MacKenzie]

Sorry. We're moving on to clause 70.

(On clause 70)

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

Okay, then, I'll speak to clause 70 for ten minutes.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dave MacKenzie]

You go ahead.

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

And I'll say whatever I feel.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dave MacKenzie]

It's up to you.

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

I know that we do have some rules here, but I was assuming that we'd have some flexibility as well.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dave MacKenzie]

That's why I was waiting for you.

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

I didn't realize you were calling for people to have something to say.

The definitions here in clause 70 have to do with authority being granted to the offender by the board, to allow a provincial parole board.... The whole issue of day parole is spelled out there. The definitions are changed considerably.

We do object to those changes, because they effectively devolve the decision-making about these things from the minister setting rules, just as in clause 69. There's a whole series of rule-making being granted to the institutions themselves.

We're opposed to that. We want to see the minister take responsibility for these matters. These ought not to be devolved in the way they are in these clauses.

I just want it on the record that we're opposed to clause 69 and clause 70 for those reasons.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dave MacKenzie]

Thank you.

(Clause 70 agreed to)

(On clause 71)

[The Chair, Conservative, Dave MacKenzie]

We have some amendments on clause 71. Mr. Cotler has some amendments.

My understanding is that if Liberal amendment 28 is defeated, then Liberal-29 should not be moved. As well, if Liberal amendment 30 is adopted, NDP-27 cannot be moved, because they're amending the same line.

Mr. Cotler.