Justice committee  To my knowledge, no, that was not the case.

Justice committee  I'm sorry, I did not submit a brief, so I don't know what text you're referring to.

Justice committee  The document I brought in today was not translated, so I don't know which document you're referring to.

Justice committee  That is why I was a bit confused.

Justice committee  I'm sorry, could you repeat it?

Justice committee  Not really. I don't have any comments on that because I think it's a question of opinion. I don't deal with opinions; I deal in facts.

Justice committee  To my recollection, when it was introduced in 1976 it was introduced in the context of the government deciding to withdraw the death penalty from the books. In the discussions that occurred in the House of Commons in those days, there was a compromise that with the withdrawal of the death penalty, there was the inclusion of the 25-year minimum, which was considered in some cases to be maybe too much.

Justice committee  Well, I would say it's very difficult to predict with certainty. However, one could suspect that if someone is without hope for 25 years and therefore has less incentive to maintain acceptable behaviour, the changes could increase the level of violence in the institutions.

Justice committee  I don't see a problem per se. My colleague from the John Howard Society remarked, if you will allow me to quote what he said to this committee, that “What we appear to have here is a proposed solution in search of a problem”. That's basically our position also.

Justice committee  Not recently. I haven't spoken to any prison guards recently, no.

Justice committee  Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I can guarantee you that this will take less than 10 minutes. I don't intend to overwhelm you with statistics, which you most certainly already have, and I will keep my comments brief. First of all, on behalf of the Association des services de réhabilitation sociale du Québec and its 60 member community organizations, I would like to thank you for your invitation to share our views on Bill S-6.

Justice committee  Out of all of the cases of workers monitoring conditional sentences in the community, we see no indication of individuals similar to those who are frightening people at the Pierre-Elliott-Trudeau International Airport. If there were some, and there is no indication of that, we could consider the matter, but there is no evidence to show that these people are under conditional sentences.

Justice committee  I'll let Mr. Cusson answer.

Justice committee  That's why we like multifactorial systems, because reality is not simple. Reality includes all sorts of factors, and dangerousness is not defined by just one factor; that is, the offence. Dangerousness is defined by all sorts of other factors that have to be taken into account and have to be evaluated by lawyers, crown prosecutors, judges, professionals, police officers, and what not.

Justice committee  Yes. I'd like to make a comment concerning supervision. I take exception to the fact that it's considered a joke. In preparation for this appearance today, yesterday we met with two front line workers who work with conditional releasees to verify, at least empirically, some of the things we thought we saw in reality.