Bill C-23 (Historical)

Eliminating Pardons for Serious Crimes Act

An Act to amend the Criminal Records Act and to make consequential amendments to other Acts

This enactment amends the Criminal Records Act to substitute the term “record suspension” for the term “pardon”. It extends the ineligibility periods for applications for a record suspension. It also makes certain offences ineligible for a record suspension and enables the National Parole Board to consider additional factors when deciding whether to order a record suspension.

Business of the House

[Jay Hill, Conservative, Prince George—Peace River, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am also well aware of the rules, and the rules for the Thursday question require a very succinct question about the upcoming agenda of the government, and the government House leader is supposed to be bound by those same rules as I understand them. On this side of the House at least, we always want to respect the rules of the House of Commons.

To be very brief in my response, I think I have answered that question repeatedly. We will not allow our political staff to be dragged before standing committees where the opposition coalition holds a majority of members and be subjected to the type of abuse we have seen. On behalf of those staff, I would point out that anyone who wants to research this issue can find it in the Hansard of the standing committees. Many of those meetings were televised. Members can see the type of abuse that opposition members of Parliament subjected those staff members to. Many of these staff members are very young people, oftentimes in their mid to late twenties. To be subjected to that type of abuse is completely shameful. It is intolerable and unacceptable. Our ministers will assume their responsibilities yet again and will be appearing at committees when there are questions to be asked of their departments and their staff. So I hope I have put that to rest.

On another issue I have raised a couple of times in question period, when it has come up, is the absolute hypocrisy of the Liberal Party in asking these types of questions of staff members and yet filibustering the government operations committee to prevent their own member of Parliament, the MP for Scarborough—Rouge River, from testifying and answering valid questions about his connection with a law firm that advertised on its website that the member could make “valuable contributions to [its] clients includ[ing] acting for foreign and offshore organizations in obtaining operating licenses, securing regulatory and governmental approvals for mergers and acquisitions, reviewing policies and conduct of Canadian Security Intelligence Services”—I repeat, “Security Intelligence Services”, Mr. Speaker—[and] advising bodies on international issues regarding cross border tax collection”. And it goes on and on about the services the member could provide in the form of lobbying. Yet the member was prevented from testifying today by the Liberal members on that committee, who wanted to filibuster.

This is a member of Parliament and it is the same standing committee that is supposedly looking into the alleged lobbying issues of a former member of Parliament, who has appeared at that committee and testified. At least he had the courage to do that, which is more than the member for Scarborough—Rouge River has done.

On the issue we are supposed to be discussing, the agenda looking forward to the next week of the House of Commons, today we will resume the debate on the report stage motions on Bill C-9, Jobs and Economic Growth Act. As we heard in question period, that is the much anticipated budget bill of the government.

This evening in committee of the whole, we will consider the estimates for the Department of National Defence.

Tomorrow will be an allotted day.

Next week, if necessary, we will continue the debate on Bill C-9, followed by debate on Bill C-23, Eliminating Pardons for Serious Crimes Act. We will have as backup bills, Bill C-10, Constitution Act, 2010 (Senate term limits) and Bill S-2, Protecting Victims From Sex Offenders Act.

As I mentioned in reply to the Thursday question last week, Monday, May 31 has been designated as the day to consider the main estimates of the Department of Natural Resources in committee of the whole.

Finally, Tuesday, June 1, shall be an allotted day.

Criminal Records Act Review

[Jim Maloway, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise to speak to this motion, put forward by the hon. member for Surrey North.

At the outset, I have watched her career and that of her late husband for a number of years. I have always been very sympathetic to his concerns and goals in getting justice for victims in Canada.

The motion states:

That the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security be instructed to undertake a review of the Criminal Records Act and report to the House within three months on how it could be strengthened to ensure that the National Parole Board puts the public's safety first in all its decisions.

Quite honestly, that is the way we should proceed. We support her motion. We were a bit surprised the government jumped the gun and came forward will Bill C-23 on this issue and did not let the process properly take its course, which is debate on what is a very good motion on her part. I think her motion may, in fact, get unanimous support in the House.

If that were to happen, then what are we supposed to do with the bill? We have a bill on the agenda. Now we will pass a motion saying what we should have done in the first place. Clearly, the government does not really know what it is doing with its legislative agenda. It has come forward with a bill that essentially undercuts its own member.

I know she did not draft this motion in one day and throw it in. She spent a lot of effort on the motion, as we all do as private members. When we go through the process for a private member's bill or a private member's motion, we spend a considerable amount of time talking to our legal sources and other members in the House to come up with the exact wording of that bill or motion.

I do not think it is fair to her to be undercut by her own government. The proper way to do it would be to debate her motion today, which is what we are doing, to pass that motion and to proceed with the study for which she has asked. Out of that process, if the government wants to introduce a bill, then that is the right way to show proper respect to her and the House as well.

The member from the Liberal Party pointed out, and I am aware of it as well, that a review of the pardon system was asked for in 2006 by the government in response to the Clark Noble case. The minister at the time, who is still a minister in the government, immediately said that it would review the pardon system. That was four years ago.

Four years go by and nothing has happened. All of a sudden, as a result of a news story, the government is now jumping to the bill stage. Once again, the government is consistent with its approach on all these crimes bills. It does not have a concerted plan. It jumps around from day to day in a totally confused manner. It does not follow best practices. Therefore, its whole tough on crime agenda is somewhat discredited by the public at this stage. The public wants to see something happen. The proper way to deal with the issue is the way the member is proceeding.

As background, the Criminal Records Act sets out the conditions which must be met in order for an individual to qualify for a pardon. An individual convicted of a summary offence must wait three years after the full completion of his or her sentence, including parole and other supervised or conditional releases, before applying for a pardon. An individual convicted of an indictable offence must wait five years after the full completion of his or her sentence, including parole and other supervised or conditional releases, before applying for a pardon.

Upon application for a pardon, the National Parole Board must be satisfied that the individual has, under the period of those three or five years, been of good conduct and not convicted of any further offence.

A very high percentage of pardon applications received by the board are in fact granted. If the individual meets the criteria of good conduct and has not reoffended, the board has a limited degree of discretion in evaluating the application.

Once a pardon is granted, the individual criminal record is sealed. It is not subject to a criminal record search and it is not required to be disclosed on applications for employment.

Individuals convicted of an offence that is on a prescribed list of sex offences are eligible for pardon under the same process as other offenders. However, if they seek paid or voluntary employment in a position that involves working with children or vulnerable persons, they can be asked to consent to a search of police records that would reveal a pardoned conviction for an offence on this prescribed list.

The board may revoke a pardon if an individual is subsequently convicted of a summary offence, if it finds out that the individual is of no longer of good conduct or if it finds out that the individual made knowingly false statements or concealed information in his or her pardon application. A pardon is automatically revoked if an individual is subsequently convicted of an indictable offence or the board finds out that the individual was not eligible for a pardon at the time it was granted.

The pardon system, as I have indicated, was reviewed in 2006 by the National Parole Board, on the instructions of then public safety minister and in response to media coverage of the pardon of a former sex offender. There were some minor changes to the process but, substantially, it has remained the same for the last four years.

As I had indicated, we will support the motion. We want to see a review of the pardon system. As the Liberal member pointed out, by doing a review, we will have a more calm and sober environment in which to explore these issues and the government will have the ability to hear from experts in the area. That is one very important point to the legislative process.

We, unlike any other group in this society, are in a privileged position. When we make laws that affect other people and have long-term downstream effects, we have the ability to get expert legal advice. We have the ability to listen to experts in the area. We do not want to make mistakes that potentially will have negative consequences and stop us from doing what we really want to do, what we really want to accomplish by the initiative.

The last thing we want to do is embark on an initiative that ends up producing some result that we were not trying to get in the first place. We want a system that is fair to victims. We support a review of the pardon system. We support the possibility of lengthening the time period for certain crimes. The goal should strike a balance between protecting the public. That is what we are really interested in doing here. We want to protect the public and we want to look out for the rights of victims, unlike what the government did. The government hired a victims' rights advocate and then fired the same person three years later because it did not like what he had to say.

[Robert Carrier, Bloc, Alfred-Pellan, QC]

Mr. Speaker, to begin, I will read the motion by the member for Surrey North that is before us:

That the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security be instructed to undertake a review of the Criminal Records Act and report to the House within three months on how it could be strengthened to ensure that the National Parole Board puts the public’s safety first in all its decisions.

The pardon system has been criticized recently, and the Bloc Québécois has said it is open to studying this issue. We feel that the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security is a very good forum for examining this issue.

The Bloc Québécois feels that public safety should be the top priority of the justice system. We feel that the best way to protect public safety and put victims first is to reduce the number of crimes and victims as much as possible. The way to do that is with prison sentences, of course, but also by rehabilitating offenders who can be rehabilitated.

In closing, I wonder what my colleague is trying to achieve by proposing that the Criminal Records Act be studied when her government this week introduced Bill C-23, An Act to amend the Criminal Records Act and to make consequential amendments to other Acts.

This bill would amend the Criminal Records Act to substitute the term “record suspension” for the term “pardon”. It would also extend the ineligibility periods for applications for a record suspension. It would make certain offences ineligible for a record suspension and enable the National Parole Board to consider additional factors when deciding whether to order a record suspension.

Given that the government has clearly already decided how it wants to amend the Criminal Records Act, I cannot understand how the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security could conduct a review of the act—even though that is a worthwhile thing to do—without duplicating a debate that has already taken place. Because of the three-month timeframe proposed in the motion, there is a good chance the House will have completed its own review of Bill C-23 and sent it to the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security for study.

[Andrew Kania, Liberal, Brampton West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, in terms of my friend's speech, she essentially focused on Bill C-23 but we are here today with respect to her Motion No. 514. I also will speak to Bill C-23 but I will read her motion first. It reads:

That the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security be instructed to undertake a review of the Criminal Records Act and report to the House within three months on how it could be strengthened to ensure that the National Parole Board puts the public's safety first in all its decisions.

There is one thing I do not think my friend mentioned, but I actually did speak with her beforehand and she was agreeable that the three months should be three months of sitting days. I just wanted to clarify that that is what we are discussing, not just any three months.

In terms of the motion, I support it.

I am on the public safety and national security committee, and the reason I wanted to clarify that it should be three months of sitting days is because there is just no way we could do it otherwise. Right now we are involved with a discussion of Bill C-391 on the gun registry, and we have far too many witnesses that we are going through, various victims' rights groups, police officers and mental health persons, all of whom want to come and testify to try to keep the gun registry. So there is just no way that we could do that in the short period of time that we have.

The motion is a good motion but it needs to be compared and contrasted to the reaction of the Prime Minister and the Minister of Public Safety once the Graham James story came out. When this story came out, there was an immediate reactive decision to overhaul the Criminal Records Act because of the story. My problem with the immediate reaction that they had was that there was no thorough and thoughtful suggestion or review of the pardon system whatsoever. It was just an immediate reaction to this news story.

I actually compliment my friend for putting something forward that is more thoughtful and thorough in terms of what she would like to see accomplished. I compliment her for standing up to what has occurred in her own party, because by her motion, she is actually recognizing that we need a full and proper discussion, not simply an immediate statute because of a news story.

In terms of the Bill C-23, it is important to remember that this issue was raised first in 2006 by the Conservative government because there was another news story with respect to convicted sex offender, Clark Noble. At that time, the public safety minister indicated that the government would review the need for possible changes to the pardon system because of the 2006 news story. Why were the changes that it is currently proposing not made or introduced back in 2006 in response to the first news story? If the changes had been made at that time properly, we would not be facing this exact situation with the new news story with respect to Graham James.

When my friend speaks of the law and order agenda and how the Conservatives are trying to solve a problem, to be honest about this, there must be recognition that this problem was already recognized in 2006 and ignored by the Conservative government. I applaud my friend for trying to fix the problem now that was ignored back in 2006.

In terms of Bill C-23, any pardon system must operate in the best interests of public safety, 100%, but that also means we have to figure out what that is, and that means having a proper study. I personally welcome the opportunity at the public safety committee to do that.

My friend went through what Bill C-23 seeks to accomplish in terms of changes. I will not repeat it but I will reiterate that based on all of these suggested changes, if they were so urgent and so important, why did we not hear about any of these in 2006 when this first review took place after the other news story? It was ignored. Who is at fault for this?

I want to point out some things in an article by Dan Gardner of the Ottawa Citizen.

What happened in 2006 was that the minister of public safety at the time studied the process, the policy and the facts and concluded that changes were warranted. For example, two Parole Board members, not one, would be involved in applications and, rather than relying on local police to bring forward information related to the applicant's conduct, the Parole Board would be required to get information the local police may have.

However, on the fundamental question, which is key for the Graham James news story that has now come out: Should sex offenders continue to be eligible for pardons?, the then minister of public safety considered the question and gave an affirmative answer. Why?

The current proposal in Bill C-23 suggests that sex offenders who have harmed children would not be eligible. I am in favour of that. I have actually spoken out many times against the Conservatives' law and order agenda saying that it was not tough enough. A lot of it is window dressing, in my respectful view. When the bill says that it would exclude sex offenders who have harmed children, I wonder why it is only children. What about all the other victims who have been hurt by sex offenders? Why is the government again ignoring all of those other victims?

When the Conservatives talk about a law and order agenda and about protecting victims, how are they doing it? They did not fix it in 2006 when they did study it and made some changes. Now all they are proposing deals with a sex offender who has harmed a child. What about all the other victims?

In order to come to a logical, reasoned analysis of what the best overall system is, because I do not want to prejudge it, there should be a proper study. That means experts, various persons interested in coming forward and victims groups appearing before the committee. I welcome that. The motion is good for that very reason. We need to have a thoughtful analysis so the Conservatives do not make another mistake like they made in 2006 when they made some changes but ignored some of the things that really mattered.

In terms of the 2006 story, there is an October 21, 2006 article by Timothy Appleby and Peter Cheney, called “[The Minister of Public Safety] calls for review after sex offender obtains pardon”, and it goes through this. The Conservatives did this the first time in 2006 but they did not get it right.

What happened because they did not get it right in 2006? I will describe exactly what happened because Canadians need to know. An article in the Globe and Mail by Daniel Leblanc dealing with criminal records states:

Nearly all the sex offenders who apply for pardons in Canada successfully wipe out their criminal records from public view, despite the Conservative government’s promise four years ago to make the system tougher.

Over the last two years, 1,554 sex offenders applied for a pardon with the National Parole Board; only 41 of them were rejected, leaving 1,513 without a trace of a criminal record, unless they apply to work with children or vulnerable individuals.

Because the government ignored this in 2006, 1,513 convicted sex offenders since that time have received these pardons. That was an intentional decision by the government.

I want to be fair. I want to quote somebody with respect to victims. Victims essentially say that Bill C-23 was a knee-jerk reaction. I would rather not see a knee-jerk reaction but rather a considered, thoughtful debate and evidence given before the public safety and national security committee. I intend to be strong on this but I also want to be reasoned and thoughtful with proper submissions.

I thank my friend across the way for having the courage to recognize that a problem has existed since 2006 when it was not fixed and for trying to fix it now.

Public Safety

[Dave MacKenzie, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Public Safety]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank that member for his hard work on this very important file.

On Tuesday, the Minister of Public Safety announced legislation to ensure that sexual offenders against children do not receive pardons. Canadians and victims advocates have been overwhelming in their support for this urgently needed legislation.

We call upon the Liberals, and in particular the member for Ajax—Pickering, to stop playing games and start listening to victims. We ask that they support the passage of Bill C-23 at all stages quickly.

Pardons for Serious Crimes

[Shelly Glover, Conservative, Saint Boniface, MB]

Mr. Speaker, our Conservative government is continuing to put public safety and the rights of victims before those of criminals. The pardon of Graham James illustrated that more must be done to safeguard the public and the integrity of the pardon system.

The current system of pardons implies that serious crimes are somehow forgiven and that the harm done by offenders somehow disappears.

Victims disagree. So does our government and we have acted.

Earlier today, the eliminating pardons for serious crimes act was tabled in this House. These changes would ensure that the National Parole Board has the tools and discretion it needs to ensure that public safety and compassion for victims are always placed first. Most important, no longer would those convicted of serious sexual offences against our children be excused by a pardon.

I call on all members of this House to support Bill C-23.

Eliminating pardons for serious crime act

[Gerry Ritz, Conservative, Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK]

moved for leave to introduce Bill C-23, An Act to amend the Criminal Records Act and to make consequential amendments to other Acts.

(Motions deemed adopted, bill read the first time and printed)