Justice Committee on Nov. 22nd, 2011

[Brian Jean, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Athabasca, AB]

I'm troubled by this, Mr. Chair.

There are two things. The first is that there has been no amendment proposed by the NDP. Secondly, if I understand it correctly, the NDP's position is that if an offender is released and they breach a condition of their parole, a peace officer should not be allowed to arrest them without a warrant. I find that very troubling indeed. If somebody has committed an offence, a police officer knows they have committed an offence that is a breach of parole, and they have to go back to a judge and get a warrant...? I am troubled by the position of the NDP on this. It just does not make sense.

If they know that the person has committed a breach of the parole, they are not allowed to arrest them without a warrant? It's very troubling that they would take this position, firstly, and secondly, they haven't proposed any amendments before this. It makes me start to wonder whether there's something else going on besides the position of Mr. Harris on this particular clause. I wonder if maybe he could go into more detail as to why exactly he is against the position of a peace officer being able to arrest somebody who has obviously breached a condition.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dave MacKenzie]

Mr. Harris.

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

Arrest without warrant is an extraordinary power. If the position of the government was so obvious, why has it taken until 2011 for this to come forward as an obvious required amendment to the Criminal Code, or to the powers of arrest of a peace officer?

The concern here is that there could be conditions of parole that could be relatively minor. In some cases it could be as minor as a person who should refrain from alcohol use. For example, if somebody was seen sitting in a club with a beer bottle in front of them and a police officer decides he wants to arrest the person, he can go ahead and do so without a warrant because he may be somehow aware of the conditions of parole.

If someone is misbehaving on parole, the person who is responsible for that is the parole officer. Arresting someone without a warrant, you know, is a pretty.... There are not a lot of offences in which you can do that. There are many offences where you can't arrest someone; you can only issue an appearance notice, or you can issue a summons to appear.

If this were such a necessary power, it would already be there. We haven't seen examples as to why this power is actually necessary.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dave MacKenzie]

I really don't want to enter into your discussion, but I can tell that there are lawyers here and not police officers.

Mr. Woodworth.

[Stephen Woodworth, Conservative, Kitchener Centre, ON]

Thank you.

I'm going to give a possible speculation to our colleague across the way about why this hasn't been possible before. I think it's because in this day and age of electronic communication it's much more possible, even easy, for an officer to know through electronic databases what the specific terms of release are. That probably wouldn't have been the case even ten years ago. So I think it's essential for us to update our laws to match the technologies that are available.

The second point I'd like to make about this is that we recall that the purpose of parole release is, in a paramount way, to protect the public. Consequently, the conditions of parole are for the purpose of protecting the public. It's therefore necessary, in my view, to allow officers to protect the public by allowing them to arrest people who they find breaching terms that had been imposed for the purpose of protecting the public.

Finally, I will say that even if an officer arrests someone without a warrant, there are statutory means to allow the officer to release the individual who has been arrested, and that can be on an undertaking. In most cases it would only be in an exceptional case that an officer would necessarily hold someone for a bail hearing, but I suppose that would be in the officer's judgment.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dave MacKenzie]

Mr. Harris.

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

I hear you when you suggest that their means to know the details are probably electronic. In addition, the means to know and contact parole officers and advise them of a suspected violation are currently more available. But we often hear of the revolving door. This is a bit of a recipe for a revolving door.

If someone is committing an offence that breaches the peace, then the powers of the police officers are still there. The parole order is expected to be supervised by parole officers and not, in effect, to set up a separate set of criminal offences or criminal code for a particular individual. We have to recognize that parole supervision is in the hands of professionals who have in mind the dual purpose of the protection of the public and the rehabilitation of the offender. Parole is for that purpose. A parole officer is not necessarily going to yank someone's parole in every single circumstance no matter how slight the deviation from the conditions of parole may be.

The suggestion is that the supervision of parole should be left as much as possible in the hands of parole officers and that we shouldn't try to contribute to the revolving door. If someone is breaching the peace to the point of committing an offence, aside from the offence of breaching parole or a condition of release, then one would expect that the police would be the right persons to take action. But as to giving this power in situations where we're supervising an individual on parole—and we have the parole service and parole officers in place—I think no sufficient reason has been given for why the system in existence now, which is not broken, needs to be fixed in this way.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dave MacKenzie]

Thank you.

(Clause 92 agreed to)

I welcome Mr. Wilks to the committee.

[David Wilks, Conservative, Kootenay—Columbia, BC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dave MacKenzie]

He's a police officer.

The chair will just say that these discussions are mainly done from a legal perspective, which is appropriate, but not from a practical perspective. Parole officers tend not to be around at three o'clock in the morning. They're good people; they just don't work 24 hours a day.

(Clauses 93 to 96 inclusive agreed to)

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

I was just turning my page, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dave MacKenzie]

You have to be quick.

Did you want a minute for clause 97?

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

Yes, I'll speak to clause 97, then, instead of 96.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dave MacKenzie]

Okay, clause 97.

(On clause 97)

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

This has to do with the rights in relation to parole boards and the conduct of parole hearings. Clause 97 deals with waiver and postponement of hearings, which is important. It refers back to an earlier provision of that section. We believe there should be the right to postponement, but the problem has been, I think, that victims have complained that individuals are cancelling hearings without notice. It's a problem that has been brought forward by victims. They want to have rights in relation to parole hearings, including allowing for victim statements for parole hearings, as was part of clause 96, which we supported. So we support these changes.

We also support, of course, the right of offenders to have a proper opportunity to have their parole hearing taking place when they have the information that they need. So there has to be a balance here. I think it's the point of both clauses 96 and 97 that offenders who seek parole have a right to do it. I think we need to remember that some of these concerns about parole hearings and how offenders are affected by that came about as a result of a couple of very high-profile and frankly outrageous abuses of the system by one or two individuals. Clifford Olson comes to mind as really provoking the families of his homicide victims by abusing the system.

Now Mr. Olson is dead. I don't know of any other examples like Mr. Olson's behaviour in terms of jerking around the parole system. Perhaps members opposite do. But I do know that victims' groups are rightfully terribly concerned that families of victims of horrendous crimes, such as those committed by Mr. Olson, have every right to be disturbed by a law that allows this to happen.

[Brian Jean, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Athabasca, AB]

A point of order, Mr. Chair.

I wasn't sure if Mr. Harris recognizes that this is actually a technical amendment, in that if the board receives information late--for instance, an hour before the board is to convene or three days before the board is to convene--and the information is such that it's too late in receiving it to be able to go over it and assess it properly, the board, which is seized with the opportunity to adjourn the proceedings, would actually have to convene and adjourn the proceedings.

Instead, now the board is able to delegate that authority to someone, probably the clerk, as we do here, and that clerk can make that decision based upon the lateness of those documents or whatever that evidence might be. So really it's a technical amendment to assign the ability of the board to someone else, to save taxpayers' money and also for the accused to be able to answer completely the new information that is brought forward. So really it's a technical amendment only.

I was very happy to see that Mr. Harris and the NDP supported clause 96 for the rights of victims at parole hearings. I just wanted to clarify with him that this is actually a technical amendment.

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

Thank you, Mr. Jean, for your intervention.

As I was saying, the parole provisions of our law need to achieve that balance so potential parolees have an opportunity to have their application for parole considered properly. Whatever technical means and changes that need to happen to allow that to happen smoothly at the least expense to the taxpayer are something we support. We also support victims who want to have their opportunity to make statements at parole hearings.

We have to be clear that the abuse of this parole system is extremely limited. We have to recognize how horrendous certain individuals are who have made it a career while in prison to abuse that system and to abuse the families of victims. As monstrous as it is, it is extremely rare. We ought not to limit other people's opportunities for consideration for rehabilitation because one or two individuals happen to take it upon themselves to abuse this. As victims have said, they revictimize those whose families have already suffered the most horrendous crimes. That ought not to be the yardstick by which all other activity in relation to parole is taken.

We support this technical change, as we supported clause 96, because we believe that victims have an important role if they wish to participate in hearings for parole. We've seen examples of it across the country, including in my province of Newfoundland and Labrador.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dave MacKenzie]

Thank you, Mr. Harris.

(Clauses 97 to 99 inclusive agreed to)

(On clause 100)

On clause 100, Mr. Harris.

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

Again, we support both clause 100 and clause 101. This involves the creation of an appeal division for the parole board. There's an earlier provision about access to parole, and if parole is denied you have to wait a certain period of time to reapply. We agree with that. We also think that if someone has a decision that they feel was made in error they would have the right of appeal. Clauses 100 and 101 allow for an appeal division within the parole board, so if the initial decision is unfavourable to either side there is a right of appeal by the minister or by the individual--I believe the appeal is to both--to allow for reconsideration of a parole decision.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dave MacKenzie]

Thank you, Mr. Harris.

(Clauses 100 and 101 agreed to)

We'll suspend for a short while, perhaps half an hour, and return to this room at one o'clock.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dave MacKenzie]

I call the meeting back to order.

We'll suspend at 1:45 , because we are a little distance off the Hill, and the buses are not necessarily waiting for us out front. We'll go from now until 1:45 p.m.

We're at clause 102.

Mr. Harris.

(On clause 102)

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

I have a question on clause 102. I don't have the two provisions here.

Can we get a technical explanation for this? There appears to be some technical change here that gives statutory release the same meaning in one section as in another. Can someone explain why this is necessary and what the effect of it is?

[Daryl Churney]

The words “statutory release” had not previously appeared in part 3, which covers the correctional investigator. It's just to make part 3 of the act, which deals with OCI, the correctional investigator, consistent with part 2. It's a technical amendment to add in the words “statutory release”, to make sure that this is in part 3 of the act as well.

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

That would allow the correctional investigator to consider elements of statutory release. Is that the purpose?

[Daryl Churney]

Yes. It is to make sure his authority covers all components of folks who are in the correctional system; not just parole, but also statutory release.