Bill C-293 (Historical)

An Act to amend the Corrections and Conditional Release Act (vexatious complainants)

This enactment amends the Corrections and Conditional Release Act to allow the Commissioner to prohibit an offender from submitting any further complaint or grievance, except by leave of the Commissioner, when the offender has persistently filed complaints or grievances that are vexatious, frivolous or not made in good faith.

Corrections and Conditional Release Act

[The Acting Speaker, Bruce Stanton]

I appreciate the interventions by hon. members. I will just say quickly that it is true that members are asked to keep their comments pertinent to the subject at hand. However, the House certainly affords members the opportunity to explore these ideas and I am sure the member for Charlottetown will be getting around to how this ties together.

The hon. member for Charlottetown.

[Sean Casey, Liberal, Charlottetown, PE]

Mr. Speaker, the people in my riding, and in ridings across this country, are worried about jobs. In my province, my constituents are worried about raw sewage in the harbour. Islanders have been trying since 2006 to convince the Conservative government to lay an electricity cable across the Northumberland Strait so that people in my province will have a safe and secure energy supply. These are important issues.

The Conservative member presents a bill about frivolous complaints made by Canadians who are incarcerated. What is frivolous is the constant propaganda emanating from the Conservatives that seeks to create a climate of fear. It is really amazing how narrow, how meanspirited, and how angry a government we have. Does it strike members as very strange and wrong that it seems just about every member of the Conservative backbench has their own crime bill? One would think crime was rampant, even though we know that the crime rate is declining.

In just this past month we have had no less than eight Conservative private members' bills on the order paper that deal with crime or public safety. Are the Conservative members incapable of thinking of anything else to speak about except crime? Do they lie awake at night dreaming and conjuring up ways to create fear in Canadians? It is crime propaganda 24/7 with these guys, and it has to stop.

Crime is not rampant. What is rampant is poverty and unemployment. It really is a disgrace to any sense of fairness and justice, and respect for the intelligence of Canadians that each day members of the Conservative caucus stand in the House and attack other elected members of Parliament, all but accusing them of supporting pedophiles, rapists or drug dealers. This is all because we continue to state our view that their crime agenda runs contrary to the evidence or facts.

We have a government that is systematically tearing apart the very fabric of Canada, all the while wrapping itself in the very flag it denigrates--

[The Acting Speaker, Bruce Stanton]

The hon. member for Selkirk--Interlake is rising on a point of order.

[James Bezan, Conservative, Selkirk—Interlake, MB]

Mr. Speaker, the member for Charlottetown is not at all even close to the discussion on the bill at hand, namely, vexatious complaints by prisoners to the Correctional Service Canada. He needs to get on track. He is making broad statements that have absolutely no relevance, or founding in truth for that matter.

I think he needs to be called to order to make sure he is being relevant to the debate at hand.

[The Acting Speaker, Bruce Stanton]

It is very true that members are given a lot of latitude to explore the topics that pertain to the question in front of them. It is important that the member for Charlottetown begin to bring some of these ideas together and see how they might pertain to the question in front of us.

The hon. member for Charlottetown.

[Sean Casey, Liberal, Charlottetown, PE]

Mr. Speaker, I only wish that the government had the same zeal to combat poverty and other social inequities.

I have read the bill and I want to say to the member directly that any attempt to withhold any constitutional protections to any Canadians will be met with great opposition. We will not be bullied any more with suggestions that we care about criminals and not victims. It is simply not true.

Any effort to limit the rights of any Canadian, regardless of how we might find the reasons for their incarceration deplorable, will be objected to. We cannot allow Conservative fear to erode fundamental rights and natural justice.

I realize that these concepts do not play well with the right wingers over there. For them, it is lock them up, shut them up, and throw away the key.

Any prisoner convicted and serving time is an individual who is there for a reason and he or she should be there, given that a decision was rendered by a judge or jury after a due process. However, it does not mean that once incarcerated his or her fundamental rights as a human being are expunged, as much as the Conservatives would like to think so.

If a prisoner has a legitimate complaint, one that is serious, if he or she is mistreated or abused, then there should be no law that would prevent him or her from seeking a remedy.

We know that even at the worst moments of war, when we think of the great wars, there were international rules as to how we treated prisoners and evil people who did great harm or damage, and for good reason. It is called the Geneva Convention. We do not want a system that disregards the essential dignity of all human life, regardless of the deplorable nature of his or her crime.

We will review the bill, we will scrutinize it, and we will ensure that it meets the test of the charter, a document that many on the other side, deep down, oppose. However, we will do our job to ensure that the intention of the bill is not to stomp out legitimate complaints of prisoners.

In closing, I really do find all this crime propaganda troubling. I really wish the members across the way would look at themselves in the mirror and see how angry they appear.

[Candice Bergen, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Public Safety]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to support, with amendments, Bill C-293, which was brought forward by the member for Scarborough Centre. I would like to begin by commending and congratulating my colleague for introducing legislation that would help the Correctional Service Canada meet its legal obligations to resolve inmate grievances in the most effective way possible. Our Conservative government supports this important bill and to that end we will introduce some minor amendments to strengthen the bill at committee stage.

Canadians find it utterly unacceptable that offenders can make it their hobby to file frivolous grievances on the taxpayers' dime, while they are supposed to be engaged in rehabilitation. Let me be clear. All offenders have the right to a fair and expeditious complaint and grievance process. This process is to be made available to every offender without negative consequences. However, that is not to say that offenders should have carte blanche to submit endless and needless paperwork.

The system is set up in a four-level process, from a complaint at the institutional level to a grievance at the national level. Bill C-293 would not change those rights. All offenders will continue to have complete access to a fair and expeditious grievance process. The issue at hand is that there are certain offenders who take advantage of their rights to a fair grievance procedure by clogging up the complaints system with hundreds of frivolous or vexatious complaints and grievances each year.

What do I mean by complaints that are deemed frivolous, vexatious or not made in good faith? These are complaints that are submitted with no serious purpose, complaints that are submitted for the sole purpose of harassing officials or to simply cause a disruption. In some instances, offenders will submit the same frivolous or vexatious complaint over and over again, just because they can. We know there are a handful of offenders in our federal prisons right now that account for 15% of all complaints and grievances filed in one year. Some submit as many as 500 to 600 complaints per year.

In light of the volume of grievances that are not made in good faith or are frivolous or vexatious in nature, it is not surprising that this creates a huge challenge for corrections officers to address the legitimate complaints of other offenders.

While there is already a system in place to manage offenders who submit high volumes of grievances, it does not address the root of the problem, that of making offenders accountable for their actions. The bill before us would right this wrong and it would ensure that offenders would not be abusing the benefits afforded to them through a fair complaint process. It proposes several things.

First and foremost, Bill C-293 proposes to give the commissioner of the CSC the authority to designate an offender as a vexatious complainant. In practice, this means that the commissioner will have the power to determine, based on a thorough review of the offender's history of complaints, that he or she is deserving of the label a vexatious complainant. This is similar to the process already in place for litigants who abuse our court system.

The bill also proposes that once offenders have been designated as vexatious complainants, they are then obligated to provide additional material to CSC to back up each complaint that they submit. It will allow CSC to refuse to review a grievance that is frivolous, vexatious, or not made in good faith unless the grievance would result in irreparable, significant or adverse consequences to the offender.

The bill is a positive step toward our goal of rebalancing the grievance system and to reducing the burden imposed by offenders who abuse that system. However, our government believes that we should go a step further to put more emphasis on offender accountability. To that end, when the bill proceeds to committee stage, we will propose key amendments that will ensure that offenders who are designated vexatious complainants are no longer able to create delays in the grievance system and affect other offenders access to the process.

Bill C-293 makes an important change by allowing the commissioner of CSC to designate some offenders as vexatious complainants. However, as it currently stands, these offenders would still be able to continue further grievances without first seeking permission from CSC. Furthermore, asking vexatious complainants to provide additional material in support of their grievance would only add to CSC's administrative burden.

We propose to amend this to allow the commissioner of the CSC to order that a vexatious complainant no longer be allowed to submit any complaints or grievances without first receiving the permission of the warden. In effect, that would stop the complaint at the institutional level, rather than allow the possibility of having every new grievance submitted by the vexatious complainant land on the commissioner's desk.

Second, the current bill states that the commissioner of the CSC must conduct a review and a reassessment of the offender's vexatious status every six months. We believe this would prove unwieldy and cumbersome to the commissioner who would be forced to review the offender's status twice a year. Our amendment would change this to make the review annual, which is a much more reasonable timeframe.

Third, Bill C-293 stipulates that the commissioner of CSC must carry out each decision personally as it does not allow for this power to be delegated. Surely it is only reasonable to give the commissioner of the CSC the authority to designate someone to take on this responsibility when needed.

Together, these amendment would help strengthen the bill and would ensure that offenders would be held accountable for their actions, including facing a consequence for their behaviour that is both disruptive and disrespectful.

Our government has been very clear. We are committed to move ahead with measures that will create a correctional system that actually corrects criminal behaviour. We make no apologies for ensuring that offenders are held accountable for their actions. That includes both the offences that landed them in prison and the actions they take while serving their sentence. It is particularly troubling to hear stories of offenders who, instead of focusing on their own rehabilitation, are abusing the system by lodging frivolous or vexatious complaints and grievances.

Our government is fully supportive of providing the appropriate rehabilitative measures to offenders. We are also committed to putting measures in place to increase offender accountability and ensure that offenders are playing a full role in their rehabilitation.

What we will not tolerate is a small group of offenders being allowed to bog down our corrections system by piling on complaint after complaint, sometimes to the level of 500 to 600 complaints per year, for no other reason than they are wanting to abuse the system. This is unacceptable. It must change and I am very glad that my colleague has brought the bill forward to make changes in this area.

Over the past several years, the Correctional Service Canada has been working hard to address the challenges that our institutions face when dealing with offenders who clog up the system with a high volume of grievances that are of no consequence to the rights, health or safety of that offender.

We believe that, as amended, Bill C-293 will go a long way toward helping address these issues to reduce administrative workload and to ensure that all legitimate offender grievances can be dealt with in a fair and expeditious manner. Therefore, I call on all members of the House to support this very important bill.

[Linda Duncan, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I find Bill C-293 both puzzling and troubling. Contrary to what the previous member suggested, the bill does not right a wrong. If enacted, it will pave the way potentially for far greater wrongs. I need only quote from the renowned Justice Louise Arbour, who said, in dealing with previous concerns regarding the treatment of prisoners:

One must resist the temptation to trivialize the infringement of prisoners' rights as either an insignificant infringement of rights, or as an infringement of the rights of people who do not deserve any better. When a right has been granted by law, it is no less important that such right be respected because the person entitled to it is a prisoner.

One would presume that these amendments came forward in response to the recommendations of the federal Correctional Investigator. The federal Correctional Investigator came forward with strong recommendations as a result of the very tragic case of Ashley Smith.

What were the facts in the case of Ashley Smith? Fourteen-year-old Ashley Smith was put in prison because she threw crab apples at a postman and she was shunted from institution to institution. Because it appeared she was under stress and had some mental health problems, she was violating certain rules in the prison. As a result, she went from solitary confinement, then to prison and to another prison. In the end, the sad case of Ashley Smith was that the prison officer sat and watched her die from self-strangulation. As a result of the tragic death of this young women and the failure of the prison guards to protect her interests, there were a number of investigations.

One of the investigations was by the federal Correctional Investigator. One thing he found was that her final grievance remained in the prison grievance box two and a half months after her death. Today we hear that there are inappropriate administrative duties on prison officers. There actually are corrections officer rules that require that box be emptied every day.

What was the nature of Ashley's complaints filed as grievances? The Correctional Investigator quoted a number of them, which I do not have time to go into. However, in his report the investigator found that there was improper designation of her grievances. They were found to be insignificant when he found that they were in fact serious. There was a failure to provide written responses as required by the prison directives. There was a failure to discuss her complaints with her and the responses were prepared well after she was transferred to other institutions. All of her complaints were responded to in an inappropriate way and not compliant with corrections policy.

Despite the heightened duty of vigilance due to her condition of confinement, there was a failure to observe her basic human rights. This was a tragic and avoidable death and the investigator made a number of recommendations. He recommended, contrary to what the hon. member has tabled, the following:

I recommend that all grievances related to the conditions of confinement or treatment in segregation be referred as a priority to the institutional head and be immediately addressed.

I recommend, once again, that the Correctional Service immediately commission an external review of its operations and policies in the area of inmate grievances to ensure fair and expeditious resolution of offenders' complaints and grievances at all levels of the process.

What do we find in the bill here? How does this bill respond to what the Correctional Investigator found? He found that corrections institutions were failing immeasurably in honouring the basic right of considering the grievances. This bill has the opposite effect.

This bill, contrary to due process, gives complete discretion to the regional deputy commissioner or the commissioner or any delegate. In other words, it could be totally within the discretion of any corrections officer to designate somebody as a vexatious prisoner. There are no criteria, there is no process, and in fact the commissioner, or the person making the designation, does not even have to inform the prisoner in writing until after the designation is made.

There is some reference to having a conversation with the prisoner about the process. This is a complete violation of due process. We live in a country of due process. That is how we are made. That is why we are honoured to be a member of the United Nations: we operate by the rule of law and due process. That means we follow basic principles.

This bill violates all of those principles.

Then the prisoner is going to be denied, potentially for a whole year, even the opportunity to raise any kind of grievance. Again, let us remember that we are including the rising numbers of prisoners who are suffering from mental health issues, as documented by the corrections investigator and a number of officials. As a result, there is a high probability that in this process, anybody in the prison could designate somebody with a significant mental health issue, and they will be silenced.

What is the solution? What is the redress for this prisoner? Well, the prisoner can go to court--this from the very government that criticizes us all the time over the possibility that we might table bills that might be litigious. This is the very government that castigated me for daring to table an environmental bill of rights that would simply have allowed Canadians the right to go to court if the government failed to be transparent, open and participatory.

As for the right to go to court, these are prisoners who have been denied the ability to even file a grievance, and we are supposed to believe that they are going to be given access to the courts. As my colleague on this side of the House suggested after the bill was first presented, why is there not a more reasonable mechanism? Why is there not an independent mediator within the prison system, who could come in the same way that many independent people do to make sure prisoners are being treated appropriately? Why not consider some other kind of mechanism?

I hope the member who tabled this bill will give serious consideration, if her bill proceeds, to sending it to committee to be measurably amended, so that at least the government, if it sides with this bill, will show that it is siding with due process of law and human rights.

[The Acting Speaker, Bruce Stanton]

As she may wish, the hon. member for Edmonton—Strathcona will have two minutes remaining when the House next resumes debate on the motion.

The time provided for the consideration of private members' business has now expired, and the order is dropped to the bottom of the order of precedence on the order paper.

The House resumed from December 1, 2011, consideration of the motion that Bill C-293, An Act to amend the Corrections and Conditional Release Act (vexatious complainants), be read the second time and referred to a committee.

[Francis Scarpaleggia, Liberal, Lac-Saint-Louis, QC]

Mr. Speaker, thank you for dispersing the crowd around me so that I could give my second reading speech on Bill C-293. I would like to take this opportunity to say that the Liberal Party will support this bill at second reading. In other words, we will send it to committee so that it can be studied in more detail, mainly because this bill raises some questions for us.

However, before I debate or consider the content of the bill, I would also like to take the opportunity to pay tribute to the staff of the Correctional Service of Canada, who are devoted to their mission. Every day, they carry out a task that is not always easy, to say the least, in a very professional manner and in good faith. It is a difficult task. They sometimes have to manage diverse populations within the same correctional institution. They work hard and carry out their duty to the best of their abilities.

A few weeks ago, a number of members of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security and I had the opportunity to visit two penitentiaries in Kingston—the Collins Bay and Joyceville prisons. We saw that the correctional staff is very concerned about the success and progress of the prisoners and is very proud of the correctional programs.

I would like to mention in passing that, in Canada, we have one of the best correctional programs in the world, to the point where other countries are implementing the programs that we have developed over the years. I am proud to be able to say, further to a question that I asked in committee to a representative of the Correctional Service of Canada, that many of the programs we export today were designed and implemented during Liberal governments.

I like to think that the Liberal Party's approach to justice was able to yield a positive return in this area.

The devotion of the employees working in prisons is clear, as is that of the administrative staff who work in office towers in Ottawa, where the department is headquartered.

Madam Speaker, I wish to say that it is difficult for me to address this issue because there is a lot of noise coming from the other side of the House. I understand of course, but perhaps you could help me in this regard.

[The Deputy Speaker, Denise Savoie]

Order. I would ask all members carrying on conversations to do so in the lobbies.

[Francis Scarpaleggia, Liberal, Lac-Saint-Louis, QC]

Madam Speaker, when we toured those two penitentiaries, we were studying drug use in prisons. During committee hearings and our visits to Joyceville and Collins Bay penitentiaries, we learned that relations between correctional officers and inmates are vitally important, even crucial, not just to ensure that the correctional environment is orderly, but also to help inmates follow their rehabilitation plan. In other words, I would not call it a friendship, but it is a relationship that provides support. By having good relations with the inmates, staff can help them and encourage them to follow their rehabilitation plans, as I mentioned.

For all intents and purposes, this bill addresses this relationship between the staff and inmates. It is very important that the bill be effective in encouraging good relationships and not hindering them. It is also very important that it be effective in terms of cost management. We know that if there are many complaints at a penitentiary, they are a burden on the administrative employees of the penitentiary. At a time of budget cuts, when there might be cuts to the penitentiaries' budgets, we have to ensure that the budget is managed very effectively. This bill, if I understand correctly, tries to make the complaints and grievance process more efficient within the penitentiaries. That in itself is a good thing.

However, it is very important that the bill not contribute to undermining the relationships that exist between the correctional staff and the inmates. In other words, if the bill causes the inmates any frustration, if they feel their complaints are not being heard, that can hinder this very important relationship between the staff and the inmates. We believe that the bill needs to be studied at length with that concern in mind.

We are concerned about the fact that the bill contains no definition of a vexatious or frivolous complaint. When terms are not clearly defined, in any field of endeavour, there is room for misinterpretation, for rules not to be properly applied or properly implemented. In this case, as I said, misunderstanding could interfere with orderly operations in the penitentiary.

The bill lacks a definition for a vexatious or frivolous complaint. What we are concerned about even more is that Correctional Service Canada itself, according to an audit of the current complaint process, recommended that a definition of a vexatious or frivolous complaint be provided. The bill does not do that.

We will have a lot of questions to ask in committee, but I truly look forward to addressing the matter again when the bill passes second reading.

[Jonathan Genest-Jourdain, NDP, Manicouagan, QC]

Madam Speaker, I am honoured to be the last member of my party to speak to this bill, which does not use overly accessible language. The administrative subtleties of the prison system are only rarely revealed to average Canadians. Indeed, there are those within the legal profession who specialize in this field. To illustrate the scope of my observations, I will draw on my experience in the legal aid office where I worked for two years.

I will pick up where I left off during my last intervention. In 2006, after I was called to the bar, I returned to the land of my ancestors and was hired by the legal aid office. I was assigned to the itinerant court. I was a criminal defence lawyer, and I represented Innu and Naskapi people in remote regions. The court travelled from place to place, and I represented people charged with criminal offences.

During my two and a half years in the legal aid office, I worked with another lawyer, Ms. Gaudreau, who worked exclusively on the complaints and grievances from inmates at the Port-Cartier institution. In my riding, there is a maximum security penitentiary 35 minutes away from Sept-Îles, and Ms. Gaudreau worked full time on those files. I had many conversations with Ms. Gaudreau over the years. I even went to the penitentiary several times to see how such cases were handled. Among other things, thanks to my time in that office, I saw that there were enough contentious claims from the penitentiary to make up the majority of a defence lawyer's, in this case, Ms. Gaudreau's, workload. The presence of a maximum security penitentiary in my riding also enabled me to deal directly with criminal files involving federal prisoners as part of my professional practice. There were not many of them, but there were some.

In addition, there was a large aboriginal presence in the Port-Cartier correctional institution. Accordingly, holistic aboriginal programming is offered at this institution. This holistic program includes a healing process borrowed from traditional Innu and Naskapi ways of life, a process that focuses on the principles of reintegration into one's home community.

In September 2011, the last time I toured my riding, I was asked to meet with the director of the Port-Cartier penitentiary, who wanted to talk to me about continuing this holistic program at his institution. We discussed the various measures that had been proposed over the years. The program has been in place for several years now. There is an area on the penitentiary's grounds where inmates who identify as aboriginal can go to get back to their roots. These inmates receive regular visits from elders and can have innu mitshu, that is, traditional food, inside the institution. The goal of all this is to help them reintegrate into their communities after they have served their sentences.

A Statistics Canada publication from July 2009 highlights the higher proportion of aboriginal federal inmates who need help in areas like social interaction, attitude, employment and community functioning compared to non-aboriginal inmates.

As for social reintegration factors, problems and contentious issues in communities and on reserves are often resolved using aggression and methods that are outdated by today's standards. All the measures that come under the complaints and grievances hearing process incorporate this new aspect of communication and rethinking the adversarial process that is common in our society in 2012.

No examination of the complaints and grievances process that is part of the dynamic framework unique to the prison population can ignore the large proportion of inmates who do not have a high school diploma or a job. This situation results in many comprehension difficulties—problems understanding the subtleties of the complaints and grievances process available to inmates who want to appeal an administrative decision by the institution.

Given the long sentences served by prisoners in federal penitentiaries, it is conceivable for their everyday lives to be regulated, as in a type of micro-society. Guarantees offered to all Canadians, such as access to the justice system, may be modified so that they respond to the prisoners' situation.

This is where the complaints and grievances process comes into play; hearings are held for these cases based on an internal arrangement that promotes interaction between administrative authorities, staff and prisoners. A number of reports have established the importance of appointing a grievance coordinator within the prison's administration and increasing the resources allocated to the informal resolution of complaints.

This reasoning thus invites us to identify, develop and implement alternative methods for resolving contentious issues internally. The bill before us presents measures that are at the opposite end of the spectrum from the desired flexibility necessary in communications between prisoners and the authorities.

The internal complaints process offered to prisoners is, in and of itself, part of the rehabilitation process. I spoke about holistic procedures or measures. This is somewhat the same. It is rehabilitation. It is basically a healing process. Other than the purely clerical aspect of how complaints are lodged, the adversarial system that allows prisoners to lodge complaints and grievances gives them the opportunity to voice their concerns and ensures that the parties are able to discuss the facts and possible methods of resolution. This is thus an alternative method for resolving conflicts that is available and beneficial to prisoners. This principle of fairness allows prisoners or their lawyers, such as Ms. Gaudreau whom I mentioned, to present the facts and receive advice, at public expense if necessary—since, as I was saying, legal aid covers this type of case—in order to handle each case properly.

Just the simple possibility of designating inmates as “vexatious complainants” gives rise to many legitimate concerns, including concerns about the commissioner's discretion. It should be noted that no specific definition is found in the bill for vexatious or multiple complaints. What is more, labelling inmates as “vexatious complainants” will only fuel their sense of oppression, will not enhance the quality of relationships, and will even reinforce the adversarial nature of the relationship between the administration and inmates.

Having the Commissioner of the Correctional Service apply arbitrary rules to assess the pertinence of complaints will only unleash or increase hostile reactions, and undermine the relationship between the inmate population and the administration. According to my understanding of the situation, the complaints and grievances process provides an outlet of sorts for the tension often associated with the tumultuous life of inmates, especially in maximum security institutions. Often it involves the offenders in special protection. Just having access to this resource and having an opportunity to be heard and to make their case is a step towards rehabilitation. It is part of the journey that ultimately enables an individual to reintegrate into society and be an asset there. I submit this respectfully.

[The Deputy Speaker, Denise Savoie]

Seeing no one rising on debate, I will recognize the hon. member for Scarborough Centre for her right of reply.