Bill C-59 (Historical)

Abolition of Early Parole Act

An Act to amend the Corrections and Conditional Release Act (accelerated parole review) and to make consequential amendments to other Acts

This enactment amends the Corrections and Conditional Release Act to eliminate accelerated parole review and makes consequential amendments to other Acts.

[Maria Mourani, Bloc, Ahuntsic, QC]

What I gather from you, Mr. Head, is that in any event, with Bill C-59 day parole six months before a third of the person's sentence has been served would still apply, and the risk assessment is done globally, no longer based on re-offending for violent crime. That is what I understood from everything you said earlier.

[Vic Toews, Conservative, Provencher, MB]

If you're correct, as I understand it, the average sentence of a woman is much less than it is of a man, on average. Then the impact of Bill C-59 will be much less, given the way the calculations are done. On a count-to-count, individual-to-individual basis, on average it will not impact any more on women. If you're a woman who's been sentenced to ten years for a major fraud, it will impact the same way as it does on a man. There's no difference.

[Maria Mourani, Bloc, Ahuntsic, QC]

Thank you.

So, again, we see that the Liberal Party, and specifically its leader, Mr. Ignatieff, misled the public by saying that Bill C-59 would have a considerable impact on women. I now know this to be false. Similarly, the NDP seemed to be spreading this misinformation to the public.

Did you want to say anything to this, Mr. Minister?

[Don Head]

When the piece around Bill C-59 was included in C-39, we only looked at one slice of it. I'm not anticipating there's going to be a significant change. But as I mentioned earlier, we have not finalized the cost on C-59 because we're still finalizing the retrospective piece.

[Maria Mourani, Bloc, Ahuntsic, QC]

That would mean that for most women Bill C-59 will have very little impact, given that women have been given sentences of under three years.

[Andrew Kania, Liberal, Brampton West, ON]

Okay.

So we have these various things, in terms of Bill C-59, once again challenging the government to be tougher on crime and to help victims in a meaningful way. I think it would have been better if that had been there.

I just bring those to your attention.

Now, going back to—

[Andrew Kania, Liberal, Brampton West, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Minister, for being here.

I'd like to start off by saying that I feel just as strongly as you do, and as the government does, and as my colleagues on the other side do, about protecting victims and, as you would phrase it, being tough on crime. I have often challenged the government to be stronger in their legislation to protect Canadians, one example being the sex offender registry. I give you credit, as a government, for coming back and making amendments on that piece of legislation to actually make it tougher and more logical. So I give you my compliments on that.

The issue is members of Parliament have a responsibility to make sure that the legislation that goes through is logical and makes sense in comparison to the amount of money that the government asks the public, the taxpayer.... It's not my money, it's not your money, it's not the government's money. It's the taxpayers' money. So we have an obligation, all of us, to make sure that the legislation that goes through is logical and necessary, solving a problem, because we shouldn't have legislation passed just to do it. It should be addressing something and solving a problem, and we need to find out how much that will cost.

One example is Bill C-59. That's now gone through the House. We had victims testify in terms of the piece of legislation, and the victims obviously have no tolerance for persons like Earl Jones, Mr. Lacroix, and neither do I, and we all said that. We're happy that persons like that will not be able to get out early. So great. But for the victims who were here, I asked them questions about this and they agreed with me that they would have preferred if they had been before the committee discussing legislation that actually would have helped the victims, that the legislation as it was passed doesn't actually help victims. It would have been better if we had been here discussing things like increasing sentences. Rather than having the minimum they have now of 14 years, I believe, make it 20 years. Increase sentences. That was not before the committee, that was not subject to closure, and that would have been better, and they agreed.

We have victims here who have tax issues with CRA and they're paying taxes in circumstances where they never made money and in fact lost money. They would have preferred if we were here discussing how we can give them tax breaks.

So I encourage you to consider that to help them out. It's not fair that they have to pay taxes, in my view, on something they've lost money on through fraudsters.

The victims who were here agreed with me that it would have been preferable if we had been discussing mandatory restitution, so that when Mr. Jones eventually gets out he will not be able to walk away with this money. As you know, as a lawyer, as I do, there's no mandatory restitution right now. We're having a situation where people actually have to sue civilly, spend money on lawyers, go through the process. I don't know why that's logical in circumstances where the criminal justice system has a higher burden of proof.

We have other things like—

[Phil McColeman, Conservative, Brant, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

Minister, first of all, thank you for being here. This week we heard the Liberal critic on public safety passionately speak in response to Bill C-59 and advocate that we should keep white-collar criminals out of jail. He says he has compassion for the victims of these crimes; however, he does not believe criminals should be accountable to their victims.

The committee would be interested in knowing your response to this, and how keeping dangerous prisoners behind bars, not on streets, increases public safety.

[Dave MacKenzie, Conservative, Oxford, ON]

We are now a year and a half or more past that date, and now they seem to have problems with what was passed on June 8, 2009.

Another thing Mr. Davies doesn't seem to understand is that victims are also taxpayers. We had witnesses here on Bill C-59, and one of them was asked by Mr. Davies about the cost of the bill. The witness told this committee that the additional cost, whatever it was, was small compared with the cost that he and others are paying as a result of some of these criminal acts. He also related one of those costs in detail: two people he knew who had been victimized had committed suicide. Somehow, those costs get lost on the side.

When we look at these costs, and it's fair to look at them, there is also another cost to society that the victims suffer as a result of criminal acts. I don't know if we've ever heard the other side talk about that. Have you ever heard those questions?

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Mr. Minister, you do have the right to fulsome answers, but my question is on Bill C-59 and on telling us when the budgeting is.

Mr. Head just told us, the day after we voted, that Bill C-59 cost $40 million. Is it not a cabinet secret today?

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Minister Toews and Mr. Head, for being here.

Two days ago, when we were asking for the cost implications of Bill C-59, Ms. Campbell said it was a cabinet secret. So we couldn't know the cost of Bill C-59 before we voted on it.

Mr. Minister, you said that your government--and these are your words--is clear and up front, and you said that your projections are fiscally sound. Why won't your government tell parliamentarians how much your bill is going to cost before we vote on it at second and third reading and it passes in the House of Commons?

[Maria Mourani, Bloc, Ahuntsic, QC]

Per a year? Very well.

I have other questions for you, Mr. Head. I know that you have an excellent knowledge of the parole system and the length of sentences. Do you believe that Bill C-59 removes day parole six months before a third of the sentence has been served?

[Don Head]

The estimate for Bill C-59 prospectively was an ongoing cost of about $40 million a year.

[Don Head, Commissioner, Correctional Service of Canada]

I'll answer on behalf of the minister.

Because of the change in Bill C-59 in relation to the issue of retrospective, we are still finalizing the costing. That's a recent change, and it has required us to go back and revisit our assumptions. We hope to have that in the next few days, but as of this moment we don't have it.

[Maria Mourani, Bloc, Ahuntsic, QC]

Can you tell me how much Bill C-59 will cost?

We know that you have the precise figures. The day before yesterday, Ms. Campbell, who appeared before the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security, which was considering this bill, told us that she had the figures, which means you also have them.

How much will Bill C-59 cost?