Thank you, Chair.
Clause 64 is composed of two parts having to do with allowing the corrections service to impose a requirement that any offender who is on a “temporary absence, work release, parole, statutory release, or long-term supervision that restricts their…geographical area or requires them to be in a geographical area” wear a monitoring device. Also, there's a provision there that the offender “is to be given reasonable opportunities to make representations to the prescribed official in relation to the duration of the requirement”.
This is something new, and there are no requirements here other than that the demand may be made “in order to monitor their compliance with the condition of their temporary absence, work release, parole, statutory release…”. We know that statutory release is something that takes place automatically as a result of the nature of sentencing, so everybody ends up on statutory release. Sometimes people apply for parole and get that. The parole board could impose conditions, but this is allowing the corrections service itself to do that. That's something new.
I wonder if the word “may” here is actually going to lead to circumstances where, given the nature of technology, it's going to be ultimately required in every case, and that this is something, regardless of the nature of the offence, regardless of the propensity of the individual involved, regardless of circumstances....
What is the justification for this, I ask rhetorically? Why is this necessary and being made available for every single person, simply in order to monitor their compliance with a condition? It's a bit of a big-brother type of approach, rather than one that recognizes that these conditions of temporary release or temporary work releases or parole are part of the rehabilitative process, and depend on recognition by the service that these are privileges that are in the nature of a temporary absence, based on the condition that there's a rehabilitation plan—talked about earlier in this legislation—that is called for. There are, as Ms. Findlay pointed out earlier, some provisions here that support and emphasize rehabilitation.
My fear here is that this becomes another punitive approach that may come from a view that every single person who is subject to a sentence, of any kind, is going to have a monitoring device on them until the very last minute. There's an opportunity here to make representation, so I guess somebody can say “I want to make representation; I want to ask that I no longer be required to wear this bracelet”, or whatever the monitoring device happens to be.
There's obviously a significant stigma associated with that. It may become an automatic requirement in all circumstances, which would in this case be arbitrary and unnecessary. There doesn't appear to be any finding of necessity here. It ignores totally the notion we talked about earlier of the least restrictive method of dealing with prisoners. There's no notion of that there at all. It's just blanket approval of the service being permitted to make this demand on any person subject to a temporary absence, work release, or any other that requires a person, for example, not to leave a province. If someone is released to go to work, they're probably not permitted to take a bus to the nearest town.
This is designed to closely control individuals without any reference to it being necessary in order to meet the ends of justice. It's simply a further restriction placed on someone for what appears to be an arbitrary reason.
We would be opposed to that. Maybe some of my colleagues would like to add to my remarks. It's something that we oppose.