Public Safety Committee on Feb. 13th, 2014

[The Vice-Chair, NDP, Randall Garrison]

Thank you very much, Ms. O'Sullivan.

Now Mr. Richards, for seven minutes, please.

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Wild Rose, AB]

Thank you.

I appreciate your being here today to talk about this legislation. It was good to hear a little bit about your mandate as well. Certainly, ensuring victims' rights are put as the top priority in our justice system has been one of the things that I have focused on in my time here in Parliament over the last five years, and certainly in my personal charitable pursuits as well. I think it's important that the priority of victims is at the very top. I'm glad to see it in the mandate of your office and clearly hear it in your comments and in your commitment. I commend you for that.

[Sue O'Sullivan]

Thank you.

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Wild Rose, AB]

I do want, of course, to get to the bill at hand here. I appreciate that you've given a lot of thought to it and have suggested amendments that would be helpful. It's very much appreciated that you've taken the time to fully prepare in that way.

I have a couple of specific questions I'd like to ask. The first one really centres around the fact that these processes often are almost a further victimization for the victims of crime or for the families of victims of crime. I think that would be a fair way of putting it. It's a very difficult situation that they're put through. You've spoken to that, as others have, as did Mr. Sweet with his examples, so we don't need to go into that any further.

But what I would like to try to do for the committee, if you could help us with any information you might have in terms of statistics, is to try to quantify how many victims are further victimized each year by these kinds of processes. Are there any stats that you could share with us to give us a sense of how many families go through one of these situations—maybe on an annual basis or even per offender for various types of crimes? Are there any stats that would help to quantify the numbers that we're talking about here, families that are victimized in this way?

[Sue O'Sullivan]

Again, I'm not the Correctional Service Canada, but I think it's roughly in the nature of 17,000 who are in custody. I believe there are about 6,000 to 7,000 registered victims.

When you look at that, first of all we talk about information available to Canadians. If in fact you want the information that the legislation says you can have currently about an offender, you must register as a victim with the Parole Board of Canada or Correctional Service Canada. Unless somebody makes you aware of that, you wouldn't know it. Otherwise, you can't have access to any of this information.

What we also know is that some offenders will have more than one registered victim. To give you a concrete...the number of parole hearings a year. I don't have the exact number with me today and I apologize, but I can get that for you. What I can tell you is that within our mandate as the federal ombudsman, we do take complaints from victims across this country, and particularly in relation to the CCRA or issues around Correctional Service Canada and the parole board.

When you asked me how many exactly, we deal with certain victims who contact our office, or through different opportunities that I have when I'm out in different communities across the country to speak to victims about these issues. I always say I don't tell their story; I amplify their voice. Those are the issues that I'm bringing forward here, based on the input from the victims and the families that we speak to on a regular basis about issues that they've confronted.

I don't know if that answers your question.

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Wild Rose, AB]

Yes, that's helpful, and if there are other statistics or information you can provide, that'd be great.

[Sue O'Sullivan]

I can certainly get some.

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Wild Rose, AB]

But certainly in terms giving me a sense of how many registered victims there are, that does tell a pretty good story to this committee as to the number of people affected by these very tragic circumstances, which they have to relive over and over again with these hearings. It leads a little bit into the next question I have, which really centres around information. From everything I've heard from victims and from individuals like yourself, it seems as though the lack of information is one of the things that's most difficult and troublesome for victims and their families in these kinds of situations.

I wanted to know if you could comment a little bit on the clause in the bill that requires the 14-day notice for the victim to be able to receive information regarding parole conditions, location, and time of release. Even more importantly it requires an ongoing duty to disclose that information following the initial request, because often what can happen is that the victim or the family doesn't really know when, or how, or why to ask for that information. So it's difficult to know unless there's that ongoing duty to disclose. Could you maybe comment on that particular provision of the bill?

[Sue O'Sullivan]

You've raised some excellent points, because really people need to be informed at every stage of the process. We can never forget who's suffered the harm and the loss here. So of course they need to have information about when they're being released back into the community. I think it was referred to in one of our videos here where the victim has quite clearly said, here I am in an area where they've been released on a work release where I could have come across them, not knowing that.

It just makes sense that we have a system that's going to provide this information to victims and their families so that they are prepared for when the offenders come back to the community and they know what those conditions are. In many cases some offenders are released back into the same communities as victims, and some are very small communities. They may come across these people. You've raised some excellent points about the importance of them being informed.

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Wild Rose, AB]

It only seems like common sense to me that we would ensure victims have access to that information.

[Sue O'Sullivan]

Many victims would say they'd like to see more than 14 days, but I realize sometimes—

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Wild Rose, AB]

Certainly. But it just seems like common sense that the victim should have that information. It would be hard to imagine anyone opposing victims having access to that information to ensure they would not be victimized again.

If I still have a little bit of time, I'd like to touch on another subject. You did talk about it briefly in response to an earlier question from Mr. Payne, and you actually had some comments on it in your opening remarks as well in terms of some changes you'd like to see. You talked about the offender's correctional plan. I wanted to hear a little bit more about how important it is and why it's so important that the victim be made aware of the offender's correctional plan. Again, this goes to the information that needs to be there for victims to understand the situation. Can you tell us a little bit about why that's important?

[Sue O'Sullivan]

Thank you for that opportunity. If you look at the PPDO, you could think of a transcript from high school or university that says you took this course and completed it. Victims want more. They want to know what were the risks associated with this offender, what programming is being put in place to mitigate those risks, and whether they have really engaged towards their rehabilitation. That's why the correctional plan is so important.

The correctional plan is really a tool used by Correctional Service Canada, and that's why the modification or amendment that we're recommending is of course that the correctional plan would become, as you head toward the parole hearing, available to the parole board. But in terms of having that information available to victims and having a right to have that information earlier on, it would make sense that the modification, the amendment, be made so that section 26 and section 142 would be reflective. Again, the Parole Board of Canada and the CSC can only give a victim what the legislation allows them to.

[The Vice-Chair, NDP, Randall Garrison]

Thank you very much.

Now we'll turn Mr. Easter for seven minutes.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Ms. O'Sullivan, for a very good presentation with a lot of good suggestions.

You suggested a number of amendments. Have you or has anyone prepared any such amendments—we can go to the Library of Parliament and have some prepared for sure—that you think would tidy up the areas where you're suggesting amendments are needed?

[Sue O'Sullivan]

Just what I've prepared here verbally today, only those modifications. Thank you.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

That's fine.

I want to come back to the section that you didn't have time to complete and give you a little more time to expand on it. As I read it, there may be a problem in that some people could be released into society without supervision, and that would be a fairly substantial problem for public safety if people were released without supervision.

You do say that we should discuss this issue with the appropriate subject matter experts. Do you have any suggestions? I do think that is a concern, something that may have just been overlooked.

[Sue O'Sullivan]

My testimony, when I responded to questions, was in terms of the risks and effectiveness of parole. It's my general understanding that there are benefits to providing offenders with the opportunity to reintegrate in the community under supervision.

Having said that, our recommendation for people convicted of murder and people with indeterminate sentences is that it be increased to five years. What's been added with this piece of legislation is schedule I, which is mostly offences—like sexual assault against children, for example—that can carry lesser sentencing.

Again, offender management is not my area of expertise, but I will say this. Every victim I speak to says they don't want what happened to them to happen to anyone else, and they understand that offenders will be coming back into the community. So this is something from a victim's lens. They want to make sure offenders don't reoffend. Again, I would refer to maybe Correctional Service Canada or the Parole Board of Canada, who have that expertise with regard to offender management.

Did that answer your question?

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

Yes, thank you.

On the correctional plan not being provided to victims, what's the reason given at the moment for its not being provided? As Blake said, it only makes sense, both from the point of view of victims having the understanding that the proper rehabilitation is taking place and some of their issues are being dealt with, and for the offenders to be pleased about some of the progress they've made. What's the reason? Is it a privacy issue, or what is it? Do you know?

[Sue O'Sullivan]

There might be two reasons. The correctional plans that are made for offenders carry personal information such as personal health information. We're not recommending that people's private personal health information be given out. This is a conversation to have with Correctional Service Canada about what portions of that would be relative to victims. Obviously, I'm not here supporting that people's private health information be given out or information that could cause risk to someone's safety. These are the kinds of things that would have to be considered in what information in a correctional plan is released to a victim.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

You certainly would be in favour of releasing the broad details of correctional plans and what offenders are doing in terms of rehabilitating their lives to make them better people in society.

[Sue O'Sullivan]

Absolutely.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

That should be possible to work out.

[Sue O'Sullivan]

Yes, absolutely, and what the risks are, what efforts are made to mitigate, what kind of programming, whether they are engaged in that programming.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

The other area you mentioned and suggested amendment for was section 26 of the Corrections and Conditional Release Act, rather than just what the bill amends, which is section 142. Can you expand on that?