Public Safety Committee on May 10th, 2012

[Rosane Doré Lefebvre, NDP, Alfred-Pellan, QC]

All right.

I want to come back to the new ombudsman's appearance before our committee. She also talked about a program in the United States, whereby the offender, when he starts his sentence, is involved in the working out of a plan to repay his debts.

Do you think that kind of plan could be part of a rehabilitation program?

[Steve Sullivan]

I think it could be. In Bill C-10 there is, I think, more of an emphasis on encouraging offenders, as part of their correctional plan, to repay restitution orders and victim fine surcharges and those kinds of things.

I know that the Province of Saskatchewan has a program whereby the province provides assistance to victims, not in federal prisons, but just overall, in getting offenders to repay restitution orders. There is a lot of innovative work being done in North America and abroad that I think promotes restitution going to the victims, which can increase their satisfaction with the process but also can encourage offenders to take responsibility.

One of the benefits of restorative justice programs, and what we know from programs in which victims and offenders have a dialogue, is that restitution is much more likely to be paid. Offenders understand the harm they have done. They often have to face the person they've hurt, and they appreciate what it actually is that they are paying for, and that it's not going just to the government, but to the actual person. That has a profound effect on offenders.

[Rosane Doré Lefebvre, NDP, Alfred-Pellan, QC]

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you, Mr. Sullivan.

We will move back to Mr. Leef, please, for five minutes.

[Ryan Leef, Conservative, Yukon, YT]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to both witnesses.

Mr. Anderson, thanks very much for your testimony so far. I think you have done a commendable job of dealing with some questions that would be challenging and of providing some examples that certainly test what I think a lot of people would initially see as unnecessarily differentiating victim groups.

I must say that when you addressed Mr. Scarpaleggia's question, you articulated quite well the differences. Prior to hearing that, I myself would have been asking the exact same question and waiting to hear a reasonable response to it. I think you did a great job on that.

The question I have is this. We know that the spirit and the intention of the bill are really to provide restitution and support for victims. One of the categories in the bill is for families—family and child support. You could speak better on this topic than any one of us in the room, I'm certain, but undoubtedly, the criminality that goes on within first nations and aboriginal communities, largely contained within your own communities.... When you have an offender enter a federal institution—and now we enter the question about residential school settlements—and they are awarded that settlement, and then their family is left behind within the community, I guess the intention of the bill is to make sure that they don't become any more victimized than they already are.

Arguably, families with a mother who is left with the children are victims as well. Even if they're not victims of the actual crime, they are victims in the sense that they have lost, let's say, a father figure. While the person is in jail, they've lost a traditional leader, or somebody who can teach them the cultural traditional ways of life. We know that often, along with this, come financial burdens that just create more and more victimization.

This is an open-ended question to you, really. How would you address it within your community if we had a federal inmate who received that settlement but then maintained protection of it while families needed it and wanted it? They're your community members as well. They're as much victims of the crime and of the residential school system as well.

I guess what I'm really asking for is just some feedback, if you have a way to articulate it as eloquently as you did on the other questions, on how we reconcile that issue. Because I think that's the true spirit of the bill. Without creating offence to anyone in general, it's just to provide necessary protection and support for all of the parties involved in this.

[Michael Anderson]

There's a number of ideas there. I appreciate and thank you for your comments and for describing it as an open-ended question.

The safety and security of our families are uppermost in the minds of our communities, particularly as it is a reflection of the customary law that has flowed down through and before the time of signing and entering into treaties. Some of the things that weigh heavily on our minds in looking at this pattern of impacts, from the Indian residential school system to colonization post-treaty and so forth, are reflected in harsh statistics.

For example, 88% of aboriginal persons in Stoney Mountain Penitentiary were children in care at some time, in the child and family system. That's an enormous burden that it places on families, communities, and care providers to recognize that once persons find themselves diverted in that direction in life, in many respects their life becomes, to some extent, derailed.

It takes an enormous amount of effort to bring persons back into the standards and to reconcile them with their own community. We're faced with that. We see these linkages between persons who were abused as children in the residential school system and have become abusers of members of their own family, and we're grappling with that.

So when we say that it's a community-driven preventative and restorative justice approach, an enormous amount of weight is placed on integrating the effects of all of those elements and on creating a community that provides for safety and security. When we say that it's a core vision that our communities should be the safest place for our citizens to live, then we must overcome all of these challenges and resolve all of these disconnects between the ordinary and customary flow of life and the circumstances that are happening. We must resolve this enormous disproportionality of aboriginal offenders and the enormous disproportionality of persons in the penal system who were themselves in care as children and so forth.

So we would agree with protection of the family being a priority, but the distribution of any proceeds received by an offender in prison should be arranged for between them and their family. That's an important resource for the family.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you, Mr. Anderson and Mr. Leef.

I'm going to go to Mr. Rousseau.

Mr. Rousseau, you're going to have only two or three minutes.

[Jean Rousseau, NDP, Compton—Stanstead, QC]

It's okay, Kevin—I mean “Mr. Chair”. Sorry.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Kevin is fine.

[Jean Rousseau, NDP, Compton—Stanstead, QC]

Mr. Sullivan, the core principle of the bill is to make offenders more accountable. Do you think this bill will really have an impact? Most of the time, offenders could not care less about the money they owe. Do you think victims view this bill as a solution to their problems in this respect? Did many victims tell you that such a bill was necessary?

[Steve Sullivan]

I think the impact will be small simply because there are very few offenders in the federal system who have restitution orders or victim fine surcharge orders from the courts.

Certainly, we've heard frustration from victims about offenders not being ordered to pay restitution. Restitution goes to the victim, and victim fine surcharges go to the provinces, so there's frustration that offenders aren't paying. But that's probably more of an issue for guys who get provincial sentences, because often those are for property crimes, and relatively small numbers of them go to federal prisons.

So this wouldn't be an issue that I would think.... Certainly, most victims I've heard from say that their guy is in the federal system and has a restitution order and is not paying, so they want something done about it. Because it also requires him to somehow be getting an award from someone else. So I think all those dots to be crossed are pretty small.

[Jean Rousseau, NDP, Compton—Stanstead, QC]

Mr. Anderson, you spoke a lot about reconciliation, versus rehabilitation. We know that the main objective of the bill is to make inmates more accountable. Could you elaborate about this concept of reconciliation, as it is implemented in your communities?

[Michael Anderson]

Yes, using a Cree term, it's Kwayaskonikiwin. It means achieving balance. It means setting things right.

When there's a disturbance in a person's life or in the community, the restorative justice programs and the community justice persons in our communities feel that it's extremely important to set things right by reconciling the act of an individual, the acts that have affected an individual, and certainly the relationship between the victim and offender.

So rehabilitation in an ordinary sense may be part of that, but the standard or the vision—the objective—is to truly reconcile the actions of an individual and set balance—

[Jean Rousseau, NDP, Compton—Stanstead, QC]

Excusez-moi, monsieur—

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Mr. Rousseau, please be very quick.

[Jean Rousseau, NDP, Compton—Stanstead, QC]

Do you think the core principle of this bill will help you in your situation?

[Michael Anderson]

The things we are looking for in terms of restorative and reconciliatory justice systems are not set out in this bill. If there were amendments to the bill that created restorative justice processes and community-driven preventive measures as a primary mechanism of addressing the relationship between offenders and victims, then it might, but the current bill doesn't address those items.

[Jean Rousseau, NDP, Compton—Stanstead, QC]

Thank you very much, sir.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you very much, Mr. Rousseau.

I want to thank Mr. Anderson and Mr. Sullivan for appearing today before our committee. We very much appreciate your testimony. Thank you for being here.

Committee members, I'm going to suspend for a few moments and allow our guests to exit. We do have a request that we deal with some committee business, and the analysts have also asked that we deal with a very small issue on a report.

We're going to suspend and go in camera after we allow our guests to exit.

Thank you.

[Proceedings continue in camera]

[Public proceedings resume]

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Folks, we'll call this meeting back to order. This meeting is public. We are proceeding in the second hour this afternoon to look at the clause-by-clause of the bill that we have been studying for the last little while, Bill C-350.

We have a number of amendments before us.

(On clause 1)

The first amendment is NDP-1, on clause 1, and I will call on Mr. Garrison to speak to that amendment.

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC]

In essence, this bill is about trying to ensure that offenders are more responsible and accountable. We have supported that in principle. Our purpose in suggesting this amendment is to actually address that directly in the bill, in the purpose of the bill.

The wording of clause 1 on page 1 looks a bit odd because the “re” appears on a different line in the bill, but it is there. So this still says “responsibility”. It says: “responsibility of offenders by ensuring that they play an active role in addressing their obligations...”. This would mean that, in practice, Corrections would simply have to give people an opportunity to take the obligation themselves, before the obligatory parts came forward.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

All right. There may be some questions in regard to this that would come out of the amendment.

Ms. Hoeppner.

[Candice Bergen, Conservative, Portage—Lisgar, MB]

I'll speak very briefly to the amendment.

Again, I do appreciate the spirit of that amendment. I would say that it might be a little bit problematic if we're saying that CSC ensures that they play an “active role”. I think there could be problems in regard to what exactly is the definition of an “active role”. In terms of legislation, I think it could create more problems than it solves, but I do appreciate what the opposition is trying to bring forward.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

All right. Is there any further debate? Are there any other questions on that amendment?

Mr. Garrison.

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC]

May I just ask this? If the word “active” were removed, would you accept the amendment?