Bill C-479 (Historical)

An Act to Bring Fairness for the Victims of Violent Offenders

An Act to amend the Corrections and Conditional Release Act (fairness for victims)

The purpose of this enactment is to amend Part II of the Corrections and Conditional Release Act in respect of the following matters:
(a) the parole review of offenders who are serving a sentence of at least two years for an offence involving violence;
(b) the attendance of victims and members of their family at parole review hearings;
(c) the consideration of victims’ statements by the National Parole Board when making a determination regarding the release of an offender;
(d) the manner of presentation of victims’ statements at a parole review hearing;
(e) the providing of information under consideration by the Board to a victim;
(f) the cancellation of a parole review hearing if an offender has repeatedly refused to attend, or waived his or her right to attend, previous hearings;
(g) the providing of transcripts of a parole review hearing to the victim and members of their family and the offender; and
(h) the notification of victims if an offender is to be released on temporary absence, parole or statutory release.

An Act to Bring Fairness for the Victims of Violent Offenders

[David Sweet, Conservative, Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Westdale, ON]

moved that Bill C-479, an act to amend the Corrections and Conditional Release Act (fairness for victims), be read the second time and referred to a committee.

Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to be standing here to speak to important amendments to the Corrections and Conditional Release Act that I proposed in Bill C-479, an act to bring fairness for the victims of violent offenders.

I would first like to thank the Minister of Public Safety and Senator Boisvenu for their public show of support this week for this legislation. I appreciate their commitment and I am encouraged by their ongoing leadership to help bring about the fairness we are seeking for victims.

Strengthening the voice of victims of violent crimes and the proposed increased time between parole hearings are two aspects of this bill that act on the changes that victims, their families and advocates like the Federal Ombudsman for Victims of Crime have urged for many years. It is time to bring these to fruition.

Let us be clear. We are talking about instances of violent crime. I do not think words can ever adequately describe the repulsiveness of these crimes. They are heinous, are often calculated and always senseless.

It is an honour for me to be speaking to this bill today. I do so on behalf of my constituents and, tragically, thousands of Canadians like them, as well as the sacred memory of their loved ones. From the time I was elected in 2006, I have had many constituents share their concerns about the imbalance between the victims and the perpetrators in our justice system. However, my dedication to pursue this kind of legislation was galvanized when my constituents asked me to attend a Parole Board hearing with them in 2010. They wanted their federal representative to see first-hand what the process was like and the voice given to the victims, primarily through the victim impact statement.

When I agreed to attend, I knew it would be an emotional experience. I was hoping it would also be an educational experience. It was for sure. However, I do not think I could ever have begun to prepare myself for the raw emotion in that room that day. As long as I live, I will never forget it. Before even uttering a word, my constituent started to weep. The memories of a crime committed over 30 years previously came flooding back and the tears were endless. It was a grisly triple murder: her sister, niece and nephew had been brutally murdered by her sister's husband. After killing his wife, this violent criminal suffocated his two young children, a six-year old and a five-year old. The murderer meticulously concealed the bodies in the waterways of Hamilton, Ontario.

My constituent wrote her first victim impact statement on the eve of the funeral. Over the years, she and her family insisted on attending the Parole Board hearings to ensure the voice of victims was heard. They felt an incredible burden, a duty as a family. It was the least they could do to honour the victims: their sister, their daughter, their grandchildren, their niece, their nephew.

What struck me like a ton of bricks was the re-victimization of having to deliver the statement over and over, year after year. It was so cruel, so frustrating and so unnecessary. I watched the family endure the same process again in 2011. Again, the triple murderer was denied parole.

This experience inspired Bill C-479. I set about talking to victims, advocates, law enforcement officials, lawyers and others to ask what could be done.

Beyond the whole issue of re-victimization, I discovered that provisions in the Corrections and Conditional Release Act that may have made sense in the 1970s no longer reflected modern technology and the respect and dignity our system ought to afford victims.

From the work my office and I have done in preparation for the introduction of this bill, and the experts we have consulted, this bill has a sound legal and constitutional foundation. I believe it will have broad support as well.

In tabling Bill C-479 in February, I proposed nine changes to the Corrections and Conditional Release Act. They include: extend mandatory review periods for parole whereby if a violent offender is denied parole, the Parole Board of Canada would have to review the case within five years, rather than the current two years; increase the period to within five years in which the Parole Board of Canada must review parole following the cancellation or termination of parole; emphasize that the Parole Board of Canada must take into consideration the victims and the needs of the victim's family to attend hearings and witness the proceedings; and, require that the Parole Board of Canada consider any victim impact statement presented by victims.

One would think that this is already the case, that it is a bit of a no-brainer. However, the bill is necessary to enshrine in law the victim's voice.

Other straightforward changes proposed in Bill C-479 to protect and support victims include requiring the Parole Board of Canada to provide the victim, if requested, with information about the offender's release on parole, statutory release or temporary absence, and to provide victims with information about their offender's correctional plan, including progress toward meeting its objectives.

This is one of the things that Constable Michael Sweet's family, after 30 years of silence, requested.

I would like to remind members of Michael Sweet's story so that they can understand the family's depth of feeling with regard to these changes.

In the early morning hours of March 14, 1980, brothers Craig and Jamie Munro entered what was then George's Bourbon St. Bistro in downtown Toronto for the purpose of committing a robbery.

Both men were high on drugs and armed with guns. At the time, Craig Munro was on mandatory supervision from a penitentiary sentence for a previous gun-related offence.

The brothers gathered all of the people inside into one place. However, one of the victims managed to successfully flee. Once out on the street, he flagged down a passing police cruiser.

Constable Sweet—who, by the way, is no relation to me—who was 30 at the time, entered the restaurant and was immediately shot twice.

Then began a 90-minute standoff between the Munro brothers, with their hostages, and police.

The police later stormed the restaurant, and both brothers were shot and captured.

During the standoff, Sweet was conscious and slowly bleeding to death. He begged his captors to let him go to the hospital. He had three young daughters and he wanted to be with them at home. While Sweet pleaded for his life, they laughed and taunted him.

All three men were transported to the hospital after the police broke in. Craig and Jamie made full recoveries; Sweet died a few hours later.

I should note that many of the changes I am proposing in Bill C-479 have been enacted by our Commonwealth colleagues, such as Australia, New Zealand and the U.K.

I believe one of the fundamental responsibilities of the state is to keep our citizens safe. Violent offenders have committed unspeakable crimes. Families have suffered losses that are forever.

I hope these changes will help bring a measure of comfort to my constituents and thousands of other Canadian families who have been victimized in this way, people who have had their loved ones taken during the prime of their lives and who have lived with that pain day after day. The last thing they need is another gut-wrenching re-victimization through a parole system.

In closing, please allow me to read a few public comments from people impacted directly by violent crime.

Quoted in The Toronto Star is what a victim had to say about extending the review period:

Families have already been victimized once. They shouldn't have to be victimized every two years. Having to face a loved one's killer and to read what he did to her and how her death has affected our lives is something nobody should ever have to do once, never mind twice. We are asking the federal government to increase the time to five years, for a parole review instead of two years.

She also said:

We're asking the federal government to increase the time to five years [for a parole review], instead of two years.

Writing about Clifford Olson, a journalist in the Vancouver Province noted a few years ago:

Olson, 70, who seems to take pleasure revictimizing the families of those he killed, is automatically eligible for parole every two years until the day he dies.

A victim in a Toronto murder case commented that as difficult as it was to write the victim impact statement, it was also frustrating that she was required to submit the statement 30 days in advance so that the convicted murderer could read it, because the victims are not allowed to see the murderer's material in advance to find out what he wants to say.

Finally, an editorial on March 2, 2012, in my own hometown newspaper, the Hamilton Spectator, stated:

But the PBC has a responsibility to victims of crime. For those victims, the parole board is virtually the only source of information about the status of the person who committed the crime against them. Some local victims of crime don't feel well-served by the board. That must change.

Bill C-479 would give the Parole Board of Canada the tools it needs to do just that.

I look forward to the discussion with all members of this House on Bill C-479, this act to bring fairness for victims of violent offenders.

[Françoise Boivin, NDP, Gatineau, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the hon. member for Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Westdale for introducing Bill C-479. This bill seems to address many of the recommendations made by the Federal Ombudsman for Victims of Crime.

The hon. member touched on the analysis he had done of his bill before introducing it. When it comes to private members' bills, more so than with government bills, I am always a bit concerned when they are introduced that they may not be consistent with the charter. Mind you, we should also be concerned about the bills introduced by the government, considering its approach to things.

I would like the hon. member to elaborate on the type of research he conducted or the analyses he had done of his bill, specifically with regard to the provision on the cancellation of a parole review hearing if an offender has repeatedly refused to attend previous hearings.

Did he really determine whether this was consistent with the charter, to see if there is a problem on that level? Is the hon. member reasonably sure about that?

[David Sweet, Conservative, Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Westdale, ON]

Mr. Speaker, all of us here in Parliament have access to the lawyers who are drafting these bills. I actually tabled a bill in the last Parliament that died on the order paper. We spent the last couple of years making sure that these bills were constitutionally sound, were legally sound and were reasonable, as well.

I believe that the member is talking about the vexatious habit of scheduling them and then cancelling them.

Again, I want to make sure members know that this just gives the Parole Board of Canada discretion. I think there are very good people on the Parole Board of Canada, and they need the tools to have that discretion. Whether it is the case the member asked about or a case of it being within five years, it does not mean that a review will not happen before then. It just means that they have up to five years to schedule such a review. It gives them the discretion. Many of them have great experience, which I have witnessed myself at a Parole Board hearing, and are able to determine what the best course of action is.

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

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague for introducing this bill and for being the kind of member of Parliament who stands up for his constituents and does not just talk about it. He really has put action to his words.

I want to follow up on my colleague's question on the issue of offenders cancelling their hearings. Could my colleague address how his bill would deal with that and what the problem has been? I think many Canadians do not know that offenders can cancel their parole hearings on very short notice and that it can have a horrible effect on victims. I wonder if my hon. colleague can explain that situation and why his bill is going to address that.

[David Sweet, Conservative, Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Westdale, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for the question. I half spoke to the answer.

When a victim is going to go to one of these Parole Board hearings, it is months of getting the emotional fortitude it is going to take to go there. People review their victim impact statements, often with the entire family that was affected. As they get ready to do this, sometimes it is communicated to them that the whole thing has been cancelled, which is another huge emotional trauma for them, only to be scheduled at a later date and cancelled again.

It is painful enough for the victims to have to endure this process. They do this because they have a duty to the victim who was either killed or dealt with violently in some other way. They should not be re-victimized because someone wants to use the system in a way it was never intended to be used. The system is really a rehabilitative process for the convict and for ensuring the security of Canadian citizens.

[Françoise Boivin, NDP, Gatineau, QC]

Mr. Speaker, again, I want to thank the hon. member for Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Westdale for introducing Bill C-479, which the NDP will support at second reading. I must admit that we will support it without much reservation.

Not only does the bill talk about helping victims, but, in practical terms, it will achieve the desired effect. Sometimes in the House, we hear grand speeches, great oratorical rhetoric from the government benches. It gives the public the impression that the government is doing something, when in fact it is not. It does a little bit here and there, but does not necessarily achieve what we are looking for.

That cannot be said about this bill. Of course, we have to take a good look at it, because I rarely write a blank cheque, especially not when it comes to the Conservative government's bills. I would like for us to study the bills in committee, go over them in greater detail, and ensure that we come back to the House at third reading with bills that make sense.

We think it is safe to say that the bill is legal and consistent with the charter and the Constitution. Regardless of the political side of the matter, it achieves the desired effect and even if it does not achieve the desired political effect, it makes sense.

The bill finally truly addresses the issue of victims. Anyone who has practised law and who has been inside Canada's courthouses from coast to coast has noticed some very specific things, above and beyond the money that the justice system costs and the financial burden that many victims face.

According to the government, Bill C-37, with regard to the surcharge, will solve almost all of victims' financial problems. However, when we dig a little deeper, we realize that, once again, this is only a drop in the bucket when it comes to what victims need. What do victims tell us on a regular basis? What does the Federal Ombudsman for Victims of Crime tell us? What recommendations did she make at the time?

In her 2010 report, among others, she recommended that the federal government shift the burden of responsibility to provide information to victims under the Corrections and Conditional Release Act from victims to the Correctional Service of Canada and the National Parole Board.

The member opposite's bill addresses part of that recommendation. It responds to the recommendation to give victims the right to attend National Parole Board hearings through the use of available technologies such as video conferencing.

It also responds to the recommendation to take into account the needs of victims when it comes to the timing, frequency and scheduling of parole hearings. However, these are not the only things that the ombudsman asked the federal government to do.

The Minister of Justice is on a tour of Canada to try to talk to victims. I thought that he had done this quite awhile ago and that he had a good idea of victims' needs. I can give him some suggestions that could be included in a possible charter.

Clearly, this type of bill could set out fundamental principles that show the respect that Canadians and the Government of Canada have for victims' needs, including during court cases and trials.

The problems are not limited to parole. They are sometimes related to the trials themselves, which can often seem to go on forever. We can implement all the measures we like under Bill C-479, Bill C-489 or any other bill, but if we do not resolve the problems related to accessing justice and awaiting trial, then victims will remain victims for a long time yet.

Not only are they victimized during sentencing and at parole hearings, for instance, but they are also victimized in the very process of reaching a verdict. This is a fundamental problem.

Often they are not even fully aware of what is going on. Sentences are negotiated between Crown attorneys and defence lawyers. Victims—who may have been summoned three, four, five or even 10 times during some exceptionally long trials—could find themselves back at square one. On top of that, they are told they have to appear before the parole board, which also takes time, and they are asked to stand in front of the person who victimized them. Thus, they are victimized all over again.

With government bills, whether they come from the back benches, the government itself or the Senate, a piecemeal approach is often taken, when a comprehensive approach is required. It always breaks my heart a little, because I have so much respect for our justice system. I also have a very hard time seeing how the public perceives its judicial system. Yes, it definitely has some flaws, but we are trying to correct them. Basically, every time we correct just one little thing, we open up a new Pandora's box and create imbalances. That is the problem.

In the context of Bill C-479, I do not think it is unreasonable to ask my colleague to clarify these changes, like the one to revisit parole reviews for offenders serving a sentence of less than two years.

We need to keep in mind that these are vile offences, as he said. When it comes to violent offences, some victims and their families may prefer not to attend parole hearings. Some victims, for example rape victims, should not be called to appear at all, not even through videoconference. Some of them need to completely close themselves off from that part of their lives. We need to be very respectful of that, while giving those who want to speak the opportunity to do so, since that is what some people need. They want to face their aggressor. For them, it is a way to get over the events of their past.

There is so much we can do to support victims if we really want to and if we go beyond talking. I believe that words revictimize these people, because words seem to promise solutions to their problems. In the end, however, five or 10 years later, they will realize that nothing has changed.

As for the surcharges suggested in the bill, they are peanuts. They will only add a few tens of millions of dollars to our coffers. Let us look at the numbers. I did not come up with them; Senator Boisvenu did. He enjoys showing up everywhere to remind us of these numbers, and rightly so.

In 2003 alone, crime cost $70 billion. Victims assumed 70% of the cost of crime, or $47 billion.

Professor Irvin Waller appeared before the committee when we were studying Bill C-37, which the government bragged about at length as the solution, the way to do the right thing for victims. The government set aside about $16 million in the budget for victims.

Professor Waller said that it did not mean much. The government should work with the provinces and fund a study on the remaining gaps between services and needs. All these things have been recommended. All the government has to do is decide to act.

I think victims deserve a little more respect from their government. The government should move from words to action. It should do more than just pretend and hold press conferences for the fun of it. We need to try to find lasting solutions that get to the heart of the issue of justice system accessibility, first and foremost. We need to ensure that trials take place much more quickly than they are now.

Some provinces, including Alberta, think the answer is more judges. Let us make that happen. We need to, if we believe in a system of justice, law and order that works and that respects victims.

I thank my colleague opposite for his bill. The NDP will study it carefully in committee, and we will be proud to support it at second reading.

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

Mr. Speaker, as a rule we must analyze legislation such as Bill C-479 through the prism of the important overriding objective of ensuring the long-term public safety of Canadian society, and that means being smart about crime. We must also measure such legislation against the criterion of whether it harms or helps victims or, if neutral, whether more could be done to support victims.

It is worth mentioning, and it has been mentioned before in the debate today, that private members' bills do not obtain charter scrutiny as do bills that originate in the Department of Justice; although doubts have recently been planted that even government bills may not be benefiting from rigorous vetting through the prism of adherence to charter principles.

Liberals support sending Bill C-479 to committee precisely to better understand how it meets the above criteria.

Bill C-479 would make changes to specific aspects of the conditional release system in Canada. However, first it might be wise to briefly enumerate the kinds of conditional release available in this country. They are escorted and unescorted temporary absences, day parole, full parole and statutory release with supervision.

The bill deals more specifically with full parole for violent offenders, namely, for crimes cited under schedule 1 of the Criminal Code. In Canada, once an offender has served one-third of his or her sentence or seven years, whichever is less, he or she becomes eligible to apply for parole. Generally the offender's parole request is considered at a parole hearing before the Parole Board of Canada.

The bill, as I understand it, would not change the modalities and rules governing the initial parole request but rather the consequences that flow from being denied parole, which itself is seen as an indicator that the offender has not made progress toward rehabilitation.

Currently, as I understand the system, an offender, even after being denied parole, can reapply for parole on an annual basis. However, the Parole Board is not obliged upon review of the case to grant the hearing for as long as two years after the initial parole refusal.

The goal of the bill is to spare victims and their families the nightmare of attending repeated parole hearings. It is no secret that there are offenders who definitely are not on the road to rehabilitation but who wish to trigger repeated parole hearings for no other reason than to torment victims. I believe it is at these types of offenders that the bill is aimed.

Offenders serving time for schedule 1 offences, the most serious and often violent offences, whose parole is refused because they are not progressing under their rehabilitation plan would no longer automatically be eligible for a hearing two years after their initial parole refusal, as at present; rather, under the bill, the Parole Board of Canada would be permitted to deny a hearing for as long as five years after the offender was initially denied parole, even if he or she applied annually.

The bill attempts to clarify and reinforce victims' rights in other ways. I understand the member has developed the bill as a result of attending a parole hearing for an offender who was serving a sentence for multiple murders. This must have been a life-changing experience for the member, and there are no doubt elements of the bill rooted in the wisdom gained from that experience.

Bill C-479 would codify a number of existing practices that assist victims in various ways. Bill C-479 adds a declaration that every effort must be made to allow victims or victims' families to attend parole hearings. Currently the Corrections and Conditional Release Act does not contain a provision dealing with attendance by victims; they have to apply. However, I should mention that they are rarely, if ever, refused attendance at a hearing, as far as I understand.

Bill C-479 would also allow victims or their families to view a hearing via a one-way closed circuit connection, should they not be permitted to attend or they would prefer viewing from a distance where they would not need to be in the same room as the offender. Currently in a parole hearing victims may present a statement describing the harm done to them or loss suffered by them as a result of the offence, although this is not a right in law, as I understand it.

If they are not in attendance, the statement may be presented by way of audiotape or videotape, accompanied by a written copy of the statement. The bill seeks to entrench the consideration of victim impact statements in the Corrections and Conditional Release Act. The bill would also allow the victim impact statement to be submitted in writing only, rather than the current prescribed formats of videotape or audiotape accompanied by a written statement.

The bill would also give victims the legislated right to access certain information about the offender. As I understand it, victims would be able to register to receive information automatically. Certain on-request information would be automatically provided if the bill is passed, such as the conditions attached to the conditional release. Also, the information that victims could request would include information relating to the offender's treatment plan and progress toward the plan's objective.

Finally, it would be mandatory for the victim or family to be notified at least 14 days in advance of their offender receiving any form of conditional release, as well as being informed of the offender's destination upon release.

This bill appears to have many positive aspects, and I look forward, as do my other colleagues no doubt, to examining the bill in committee and also to examining the way the parole system works. It is very complicated, complex and technical. This would be an opportunity to better understand that system and to understand how it could be made fairer for victims. It looks like this bill would go a long way toward that.

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

Mr. Speaker, I welcome the opportunity today to rise and speak in support of private member's Bill C-479, which was brought forward by my colleague, the member for Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Westdale.

I want to thank and commend my colleague for his strong commitment to placing the needs, rights and interests of victims ahead of criminals and for introducing this bill that would further strengthen victims' rights in this country. The bill includes measures that are in keeping with our government's strong commitment to support victims of crime and ensure that they have a strong voice in the justice system.

While we have made some very good progress over the past seven years to meet these commitments, we know that more work needs to be done. That is why the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada recently outlined the next phase of the Government of Canada's plan for safe streets and communities.

Through this plan, our government will take further action in the following areas:

We will tackle crime by holding offenders accountable for their actions. This includes bringing forward legislation to further toughen penalties for child sexual offences and to better understand the risks posed by known child sex offenders.

As well, we have introduced Bill C-54, not criminally responsible reform act, which would better protect the public from accused persons who have been found not criminally responsible on account of mental disorder. Such legislation would ensure that public safety is the paramount consideration in these cases.

We also moved ahead with further measures to enhance the rights of victims by introducing legislation to implement a victims' bill of rights. This legislation would serve to further enhance the government's commitment to victims of crime by entrenching their rights into law at the federal level.

I want to again thank my colleague, because he mentioned this important piece. It is one thing to talk about victims' rights, but they need to be enshrined in federal law. My colleague's bill will move forward on this as will what our government is doing to support victims of crime.

Finally, we will increase the efficiency of our justice system by looking at measures to make our justice system more efficient through the “Economics of Policing” study.

Members may recall that the hon. member for Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Westdale introduced a similar bill in 2011. He has been very committed to this cause and continues to be.

Since 2011, we have passed into law the Safe Streets and Communities Act, which included these important measures to enhance the participation of victims in the justice system and to increase offender accountability. As such, Bill C-479 proposes some important changes to the Corrections and Conditional Release Act, also known as the CCRA.

I will now look at how Bill C-479 would amend the CCRA. First, private member's Bill C-479 proposes to extend mandatory review periods for parole. For example, if a violent offender is denied parole, the Parole Board of Canada would then be obligated to review the case within five years rather than the current two years. Again, we have heard today the impact that would have on victims. Rather than having to come back every two years and relive the horror and tragedy of what they or their families went through, the bill would extend that period to five years.

The bill also proposes to hold detention reviews every two years rather than annually. Again, this considers the rights and interests of victims and what they go through when they are unfortunately re-victimized every time they have to go through this. This would not only affect offenders who are not ready to be released into the community at their statutory release date, at two-thirds of the sentence, but would also put victims' interests into the equation.

The second set of changes to the CCRA proposed in Bill C-479 relates to the attendance of victims and members of their families at parole review hearings.

There is no magic formula for healing from the traumatic experience of violent crime. There is no single set of counselling, time or things that can happen after one is victimized. There is no magic formula that can fix the pain and tragedy victims have gone through. Each victim, each family member, is affected differently and will cope in a unique way. With this in mind, Bill C-479 proposes to give more weight to the needs of victims in the justice system.

Specifically, Bill C-479 proposes that if victims are denied the opportunity to observe the hearings in person, they could follow the hearings by teleconference or one-way closed-circuit feed, again another way that the government and the Parole Board could show victims that their voices matter. Currently, there can be distance and time and it can be very difficult for victims to attend hearings, yet they want to see it or be a part of it. This bill would give them the opportunity to follow hearings by teleconference or one-way closed-circuit feed.

The bill would provide useful tools. However, we need to strike a balance between theory and practice. Therefore, there are some minor amendments to make it easier to implement this and we expect amendments would be required for this part of the bill.

Currently, the Corrections and Conditional Release Act gives victims the right to certain basic information about offenders and criminals. At the same time, it gives the Parole Board of Canada and Correctional Service Canada discretion to provide additional information if the interests of the victims clearly outweigh the privacy concerns for the offenders.

Bill C-479 proposes to expand the rights of victims ahead of the rights of criminals in order for information to be shared about offenders. Specifically, it would make the release of certain information mandatory rather than discretionary. This information would include the date, if any, when an offender would be released on either unescorted or escorted temporary absences. As well, a victim would be informed of any of the conditions attached to an offender's unescorted temporary absence, parole or statutory release and the reasons for any unescorted temporary absences. In addition, a victim would be informed of the destination of an offender when released on unescorted temporary absence or parole or statutory release. Again, one would assume this has already taken place, but it has not, and those are some of the provisions that the bill would provide.

Obviously, it is important for victims to have all this information well in advance of an offender's temporary release. Bill C-479 proposes that the chairperson of the Parole Board of Canada discloses this information at least 14 days before an offender is released. The bill would further provide victims with information about offenders' correctional plans, including progress toward meeting their objectives and providing transcripts of parole hearings, if they are produced. Should the bill be referred to committee, we would again seek to move certain amendments to ensure that any necessary public safety safeguards would be in place for the sharing of this information.

Again, I would like to commend my colleague for his strong commitment to victims and for introducing this bill to further strengthen the rights of victims. The changes proposed in Bill C-479 bring greater fairness to the justice system for victims. This is in keeping with our government's commitments and I am proud to indicate that we will be supporting this important legislation.

[Pierre Jacob, NDP, Brome—Missisquoi, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to Bill C-479, introduced by the member opposite. The NDP stands behind initiatives that promote fairness for victims of crime, as well as their families and their communities, which are often collateral victims.

We will study this bill at length in committee to ensure that it meets their needs.

This bill amends Part II of the Corrections and Conditional Release Act. Bill C-479 seems to respond to some of the recommendations that the Federal Ombudsman for Victims of Crime made in 2010.

In her report, the ombudsman suggests that we adopt some of the principles set out in the Youth Criminal Justice Act. The Declaration of Principle in the YCJA states that:

3(1)(d)(ii) victims should be treated with courtesy, compassion and respect for their dignity and privacy and should suffer the minimum degree of inconvenience as a result of their involvement with the youth criminal justice system,

(iii) victims should be provided with information about the proceedings and given an opportunity to participate and be heard,

The ombudsman found that the Corrections and Conditional Release Act must reflect the same principles. It remains to be seen, during our study in committee, whether Bill C-479 makes this law consistent with these principles in an effective and balanced manner.

The Corrections and Conditional Release Act was enacted in 1992. It was the first federal statute governing corrections and conditional release that officially recognized the victims. Bill C-479 seems to respond to two things the ombudsman considered.

I would like to address the first aspect of the question. In her report, the ombudsman pointed out that victims do not automatically receive information on offenders during the release process. In order to access that information, victims have to figure out for themselves how to get the information and how to register with the National Parole Board. Just imagine how very difficult it must be for a victim who has been severely traumatized to navigate through this red tape.

The ombudsman indicated that the registered victim-to-offender ratio is still quite low. There are over 20,000 offenders currently in federal custody, approximately 70% of which are serving sentences for violent crimes. Yet just over 6,000 victims are registered to receive information on fewer than 4,000 offenders.

It is impossible to determine whether the victims who are not registered chose not to be or whether they were simply unaware of their rights. Representatives from the parole system and the ombudsman think one of the primary obstacles of getting victims to sign up is that there is a lack of information.

The National Parole Board should take the initiative to give them this information and should automatically communicate with victims to inform them of their right to receive information. The proposed amendment in Bill C-479 would make it mandatory to provide transcripts of a parole review hearing to victims and members of their family and the offenders, and to provide victims with the information under consideration by the board during the offender's review.

I would like to talk about the second important aspect. In her report, the ombudsman pointed out that we must take the concerns of victims into account during decisions pertaining to the release and supervision of an offender.

Many victims have expressed concerns about an offender being released on parole when they live in the area. In some cases, this fear prevents victims from asking for information because they fear reprisals should the offender become aware that the victim is interested in the case.

Furthermore, according to the ombudsman, victims want to know that the information they provide will be considered. In light of that, Bill C-479 is designed to make it easier for victims or their family members to attend parole review hearings and for their statements to be taken into consideration in decisions regarding the offender's release.

The amendment to the act would also ensure that victims are informed if an offender is to be released on temporary absence, parole or statutory release.

Bill C-479 would also allow for the cancellation of a parole review hearing if an offender has repeatedly refused to attend, or waived his or her right to attend, previous hearings.

We are sensitive to victims' concerns. We will examine Bill C-479 carefully to ensure that it addresses the demands made by the ombudsman for victims of crime.

However, we have some concerns. First, we want to ensure that the bill does not in any way violate the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

Can my colleague opposite confirm that he has done his homework and that he has verified that Bill C-479 complies with the charter and the Constitution?

Second, Bill C-479 should have been a government bill. I wonder why the Conservatives are using a private member's bill to push the government's agenda, which has always been focused on victims' rights.

Why did the Minister of Justice not introduce Bill C-479 himself? Why did the member for Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Westdale take up this cause?

Third, private members' bills must assess and cost the changes they propose. They must assess the impact on the provinces and territories, especially with respect to parole boards. They must also provide proper compensation, if required.

Did my colleague opposite consult the provinces when drafting this bill? Can he tell what the bill will cost? Which level of government will pay these additional costs?

In closing, if our concerns are addressed in committee, and if there is clear proof that the bill respects the victim and judicial independence, I will be pleased to throw my full support behind this bill.

For that reason, we support the bill at second reading and its referral to committee for more in-depth study.

[Rick Norlock, Conservative, Northumberland—Quinte West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I welcome the opportunity to continue the debate on Bill C-479, an act to bring fairness for the victims of violent offenders, a bill which I support, with amendments proposed by the government.

Let me begin by commending the hon. member for Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Westdale for his tenacity in fighting for the rights of victims. The predecessor to this bill was introduced into the House of Commons during the previous Parliament and was debated for an hour prior to dissolution, yet the hon. member has held fast to his vision and deserves our admiration and respect for his hard work in bringing the bill forward.

Today's debate is an opportunity to reflect on the traumatic impact of violent crime on its victims and what our government is doing to support our victims and what more we can do.

I will not pretend to fully understand the harm that violent crime inflicts on a victim. Only those who have survived such a terrible experience have the right to speak of it. However, I have met with victims of crime and I have seen the toll of emotional trauma and the desire for meaningful participation in the justice system. They spoke because they needed to be heard. Giving voice to their experience empowers them because they are determined to gain control over their lives.

Our government is listening. Our government is committed to keeping our streets and communities safe and supporting victims, which includes strengthening legislation, protecting victims rights, tackling crime and ensuring fair and efficient justice. All of these will have a positive impact on the victims of crime and their families.

When our government was elected in 2006, we pledged to Canadians that we would work hard to address the needs of victims of crime and their families. I am proud to say that we have made significant progress. The National Office for Victims, Public Safety Canada is helping victims gain a greater voice in the corrections and conditional release process. It is helping victims get access to the information and services they might need.

Apart from the physical and emotional trauma of violent crime, victims may also carry a financial burden. Worries about money adds stress to families at the worst possible time. That is why, last November, our government announced a new income support program to ease the financial burden on parents who were struggling to cope with the death or disappearance of a child.

Even as we are helping victims of crime, we are working hard to prevent these crimes from happening in the first place. In our high speed culture it has never been easier for young people to go astray. If we can address the risk factors early, we may well prevent young people from falling in with the wrong crowd. One of the strategy's programs, for example, is the youth gang prevention fund. On the one hand, the fund helps communities develop programs to help youth at risk to make better choices and avoid criminal behaviour. On the other hand, it works with families that have been victimized. I am proud to note that in 2011 alone, our government funded 138 community-based crime prevention programs through this strategy. All told, these programs reached 16,000 youth at risk.

I have highlighted our government's support for victims of violent crime and our efforts to reduce the chance of violent crime occurring in the first place. We are also helping victims at the legislative level. Over the past seven years, our government has introduced and passed compelling and comprehensive changes to our legislation, changes that support crime prevention, that give police the tools they need to fight crime and increase offender accountability.

The centrepiece of our approach is the Safe Streets and Communities Act, which received royal assent last March. As part of the significant overhaul of our justice system, the act provided greater support for victims of crime. Victims are entitled to be kept better informed about the behaviour and management of offenders. An act of violence can touch many people. That is why the Safe Streets and Communities Act expanded the definition of a registered victim. This definition now includes the guardians and caregivers of dependents of victims who are deceased, ill or otherwise incapacitated.

Our government has tilted the justice system back to where it should be. Through our steady approach, we are strengthening legislation, protecting the rights of victims, tackling crime and ensuring justice is fair and efficient.

Private member's Bill C-479 would complement our drive toward making the justice system work better for victims of offenders. It proposes changes to the Corrections and Conditional Release Act that would complement the Safe Streets and Communities Act by: modifying parole and detention of review dates; facilitate victims observing hearings; and expanding the rights of victims to have access to information about the offender.

As we have heard, our government will seek to move minor amendments should the bill be referred to a committee for study.

I believe private member's Bill C-479 is important legislation that would support the rights of victims. I urge all hon. members to join me in supporting the bill before us today.

[Sylvain Chicoine, NDP, Châteauguay—Saint-Constant, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to use these four minutes to speak to this bill we will be supporting.

I am always interested in speaking on issues related to public safety and victims' rights.

Today we are debating an important bill that seems to follow up on recommendations from the Office of the Federal Ombudsman for Victims of Crime, which tabled a report in 2010 in an effort to move towards greater respect for victims in the Corrections and Conditional Release Act.

The recommendations contained in that report seem to be reflected in this bill. One recommendation was to shift the burden of responsibility to provide information to victims under the Corrections and Conditional Release Act from victims to the Correctional Service of Canada and the National Parole Board.

Another recommendation was to give victims the right to attend National Parole Board hearings through the use of available technologies such as video conferencing.

In addition, it was recommended that victims be given a stronger voice in the timing, frequency and scheduling of parole hearings.

We support the initiatives set out in this bill, which promote fairness for victims. We will study the bill in detail to ensure that it addresses as many of their needs as possible.

I find it curious that this government often uses backbenchers to introduce these types of bills, instead of having the department do it, which is how it should be done. During this Parliament, we have noticed that a large number of public safety and justice bills have been introduced by backbenchers, which is not customary.

In 2007, the Office of the Federal Ombudsman for Victims of Crime organized a round table where participants identified the fact that the Corrections and Conditional Release Act did not contain any provisions on how victims of crime should be treated. This law dictates how offenders should be treated, but it does not include any provisions about how victims should be treated.

One participant remarked that the Corrections and Conditional Release Act embodies the principles that govern the treatment of offenders—that is, decisions concerning offenders must be clear and fair—but there is no law that sets out principles for the treatment of victims. The participants suggested that the same principles should apply to victims.

The observations of the round table participants corresponded to the findings of the National Consultation with Victims of Crime conducted by the Solicitor General of Canada in 2001. The Corrections and Conditional Release Act only mentions the release of information to victims and communications with them.

In her report, the ombudsman for victims of crime indicated that, in order to ensure that victims have legitimate rights within correctional and conditional release systems, the laws must clearly indicate how they are to be treated, and these laws must be applied.

That is what the hon. member wanted to do by introducing this bill, and I thank him for this initiative, which I still think should have gone through the Department of Public Safety. Still, it is an important step toward defending victims' rights, and we thank him for that.

I will support his bill at second reading.

[The Deputy Speaker, NDP, Joe Comartin]

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

It being 2:22 p.m., the House stands adjourned until Tuesday, May 21, 2013, at 11 a.m., pursuant to the order adopted earlier today and Standing Order 28(2).

(The House adjourned at 2:22 p.m.)

[David Sweet, Conservative, Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Westdale, ON]

moved that Bill C-479, An Act to amend the Corrections and Conditional Release Act (fairness for victims), be read the second time and referred to a committee.

Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to be standing here to speak once again to the important amendments to the Corrections and Conditional Release Act proposed in Bill C-479.

First, I would like to acknowledge the Minister of Justice and the Minister of Public Safety for their ongoing leadership on victims' rights. The ministers held consultations in every province and territory with victims of crime and their advocates over the summer months. While these consultations were held to discuss the government's intention to introduce a victim's bill of rights, the input gathered is relevant today because one of the things that came across loud and clear is that victims of crime want increased participation in the criminal justice system. That is what Bill C-479 is all about and I am proud that this bill would build on the good work of the ministers and this government since 2006.

In a nutshell, there are two key components to the fairness for victims of violent crime act that I am proposing. The first is strengthening the voice of victims of violent crime and providing additional support to victims in the parole process. The second is to modify parole and detention review dates giving the Parole Board of Canada the option of increasing the time between parole hearings for violent offenders. Both of these purposes work to act on the change that victims, their families and advocates like the Federal Ombudsman for Victims of Crime have urged for many years. It is about time to bring these to fruition.

I want to be clear from the outset, just as we were when we discussed this bill last spring, that we are talking about instances of violent crime. As I have said many times before, I do not think words can ever adequately describe the repulsiveness of these crimes. They are heinous, often calculated and always senseless.

I would like to point again to two statistics from the Sampson report of December 2007, which underscored the alarming trend on violent crime. This report, named after former Ontario minister of corrections, Rob Sampson, cited changing offender profiles. Nearly 60% are now serving sentences of less than three years and have a history of violence. One in six now have known gang and/or organized crime affiliations.

The reason that it is such an honour to be speaking to this bill today is because I do so on behalf of my constituents and, tragically, thousands of Canadians like them and the sacred memory of their loved ones. As I have noted previously in the House, Bill C-479 is the product of an unforgettable experience that constituents of mine allowed me to observe in the summer of 2010. That is when a well-respected couple in my community contacted me and explained what it had been going through for many years at the national Parole Board hearings. After listening to many troubling experiences, I wanted to see first hand what the process was like and, fortunately, the couple also felt it was a good idea for me to witness the hearing and the voice given to victims primarily through the victim impact statement.

When I agreed to attend, I had no doubt it would be a very emotional experience. I was hoping it would also be an educational experience, and it sure was. However, I do not think I could have ever begun to prepare myself for the raw emotion in the room that day, let alone put myself in the shoes of the victim, who had to go through this gut-wrenching experience every time the offender reapplied under the current process, not because the victim was compelled by law but rather by love and justice.

I am certain many of my colleagues have never experienced a national Parole Board hearing, so please allow me to recount the story for them and for the members who were not present at the last debate on Bill C-479.

On the day of the first hearing I attended in the summer of 2010, once in session and the formalities were over, the sister of the deceased victim, my constituent, was asked by the representatives of the Parole Board of Canada to give her prepared statement. She tried hard to be composed, but before even uttering a word my constituent started weeping. The memories of a crime committed over 30 years previous came flooding back and the tears did not stop, understandable due to what the family had endured and still lives with to this very day.

It was a grizzly triple murder. Her sister, niece and nephew had been violently murdered by her sister's husband. After killing his wife, this violent criminal suffocated his two young children, a six-year-old boy and a five-year-old girl. The murderer meticulously concealed the bodies in the waterways around Hamilton, Ontario. The son's body has never been found, nor has his father, the perpetrator, ever offered information on the whereabouts of his remains.

My constituent wrote her first victim impact statement on the eve of the funeral, yet, too often over the years, she and her parents had to attend a Parole Board hearing to ensure that the voices of victims were heard. As with other victims and their families, they felt an incredible burden, a duty as a family. It was the least they could do to honour their daughter, sister, grandchildren, niece, and nephew.

While the evidence for a conviction was very clear and the Parole Board has upheld that, the offender still denies the crime to this very day.

Unfortunately, our federal parole process makes the revictimization of my constituents a frequent occurrence. I watched the family endure the same process again in 2011. Again the triple murderer was denied parole. They were victimized once again this summer with another Parole Board hearing for their sister's killer in Gravenhurst, Ontario, on July 10. I attended with my constituents once again, and I can assure all members of the House that the emotion was no less raw, no less painful this summer than at previous hearings.

My constituent asked the same question of the violent offender in her statement. She asks this question at every hearing: “Why did you kill our family and what did you do with your son?”

She received no response. The offender sat stone-faced. He felt no remorse. This was something that the Parole Board noted carefully in its decision to deny full parole this past July.

However, he may reapply for parole again next year, and we will go through the same set of victim impact statements and the tears and emotion from the family that accompany them.

These circumstances underscore, better than any words could ever do, the intent of my bill when it comes to victim impact statements and the modification of the parole review process.

While these experiences inspired Bill C-479, in researching this bill I discovered in talking to victims' advocates, law enforcement officials, and legal experts that while the provisions in the Corrections and Conditional Release Act may have made sense in 1970s, they no longer reflect modern technology and the respect and dignity our system ought to afford victims today.

From the work my office and I have done in preparation for the introduction of this bill—and, by the way, I give staff thanks for all the hard work that they have done on—and from the experts we consulted, I know this bill has a sound legal and constitutional foundation. I believe it has broad support.

In tabling Bill C-479 last February, I proposed nine changes to the Corrections and Conditional Release Act to better protect and support victims of violent offenders.

This bill would extend mandatory review periods for parole. This means that if an offender convicted of a more serious violent offence is denied parole, the Parole Board would have to review the case within five years rather than the current two years.

In cases of cancellation or termination of parole for an offender who is serving at least two years for an offence involving violence, it would increase the period in which the Parole Board must review parole to within four years.

It would require that the Parole Board take into consideration the need for the victims and the victim's family to attend a hearing and observe the proceedings. It would require that the Parole Board consider any victim impact statement presented by victims.

It would require the Parole Board, if requested, to provide victims with information about the offender's release on parole, statutory release, or temporary absence, as well as provide victims with information about the offender's correctional plan, including progress toward meeting its objectives.

As I have said previously in the House, this last point is one of the changes requested by Constable Michael Sweet's family after 30 years of silence. In essence it is the Constable Michael Sweet amendment.

I would like to remind members of Michael Sweet's story so they can understand the family's depth of feeling with regard to these changes.

In the early morning hours of March 14, 1980, brothers Craig and Jamie Munro entered into what was George's Bourbon St. Bistro in downtown Toronto for the purpose of committing a robbery. Both men were high on drugs and armed with guns. At the time, Craig Munro was on mandatory supervision from a penitentiary sentence for a previous gun-related offence.

The brothers gathered all the people inside in one place. However, one of the victims managed to successfully flee. Once out on the street, he flagged down a passing police cruiser. Constable Sweet, who is no relation to me, aged 30 at the time, entered the restaurant and was immediately shot twice. Then began a 90-minute stand-off between the Munro brothers with their hostages, and the police. The police later stormed the restaurant and both brothers were shot and captured.

During the stand-off, Sweet was conscious and slowly bleeding to death. He begged his captors to let him go to the hospital. He had three young daughters and he wanted to see them again at home. While Sweet pleaded for his life, they laughed and taunted him. All three men were transported to the hospital after the police broke in. Craig and Jamie made full recoveries. Constable Sweet died a few hours later of gunshot wounds.

Just like the case of my constituents, the story does not need to end there. Let us make the changes proposed in Bill C-479, changes that have been requested by families, because these two cases I have talked about today are just two of thousands of sad cases. Violent offenders have committed unspeakable crimes. Families have suffered losses that are forever. These victims, these families and our communities should be confident that these offenders are positively progressing toward rehabilitation, and if not, that the Parole Board of Canada has the tools to delay their release.

We can act to respect victims and their families with the changes I am proposing in Bill C-479, changes that have been enacted by other jurisdictions such as California, New Zealand and the U.K.

In closing, please allow me to read into the record once again this paragraph from a March 2, 2012 editorial from my hometown newspaper, The Hamilton Spectator. It states:

...the [Parole Board of Canada]...has a responsibility to victims of crime. For those victims, the parole board is virtually the only source of information about the status of the person who committed the crime against them. ...some local victims...don’t feel well-served by the board. That must change.

That is why I have brought Bill C-479, an act to bring fairness for the victims of violent offenders, to the House. I certainly look forward to discussion on the bill with all members. This would give the Parole Board of Canada the tools that it needs to serve victims better in this country.

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the member for Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Westdale for his very moving presentation on the bill, and also to say that we do appreciate his motivations for bringing the bill forward, and I will be saying some more in my own remarks in a few minutes about our support for the bill.

I have one question for the member. Given the throne speech this week, and the announcement by the government that it will be introducing a comprehensive victims' bill of rights, was he personally consulted about the preparation of that bill of rights? Will there be any problem with trying to proceed with his private member's bill at the same time we are having a government bill come forward that deals with many of the same issues?

[David Sweet, Conservative, Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Westdale, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I do not see any conflict at all with the victims' bill of rights that will be coming up. I believe that these changes are ones that are not only for victims' families, but as I mentioned before, the federal victims' ombudsman has been very clear that these changes are necessary. I think it will only enhance what I believe will be the outcome of the victims' bill of rights.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the comments that the member has put on the record. The member made reference to a couple of other countries and maybe he could provide a bit more clarity on that. In terms of how often they review parole for these types of crimes, does he actually have some factual numbers that he would be able to share with us at this time?

[David Sweet, Conservative, Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Westdale, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I would certainly be glad to share those very specific numbers from those other jurisdictions when we move to committee and we get into more of the details of the bill. I have no problem with that.

It is important to note that the measures in the bill would simply give the tools to the Parole Board of Canada so that it has the option to delay a review. In no way, shape or form would it give it any obligation to do that. It could still act in the timeframes that it acts within right now.

As well, the bill would allow the victims to have confidence that their right to give a victim impact statement and to be considered is enshrined in law. It is not simply policy, and it is not going to change. It would give victims the opportunity to engage in modern technology, as I have, as I mentioned in my speech about attending in Gravenhurst, Ontario. In that particular case, the family members wanted to do that, but in cases where they are not able or they do not desire to travel across the country to whatever institution is holding the Parole Board hearing, they would have the option of using technology.

[Christine Moore, NDP, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to know whether my colleague has any qualitative studies. For example, say the period is five years. An inmate with a seven-year sentence can have his first hearing after three and a half years. If parole is denied, it would be five years before the next hearing, which means that this person will not have another one before his statutory release.

Does my colleague have any information about that? Would that affect the motivation and behaviour of inmates and would it affect the prison environment? Does the member know of any studies that could enlighten us on this issue?

[David Sweet, Conservative, Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Westdale, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the member would certainly have access as freely as I do to the results of the printed material that I mentioned from the federal victims ombudsman.

I would like to reiterate the fact that this is not obligating the Parole Board of Canada to any kind of extended process of hearing. What it does is give it the tools to monitor the behaviour of the particular inmate when looking at the case.

The experiences I have had with the Parole Board of Canada officials on the hearings that I have attended have been extraordinarily professional. I am impressed with the work they do. I have tabled this bill to give them more tools to do their job even better and to have more discretion with it as well.

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak in favour of Bill C-479 at second reading. I look forward to discussing the bill further in the public safety committee. We look forward to the bill going to committee, as there is much in the bill that members from both sides of the House can support.

Despite the extreme rhetoric we sometimes hear from the government, let me restate the obvious: no one party in the House has a monopoly on the concern for victims. We do have a difference with the government on how best to serve victims and how best to make sure there are fewer victims of crime in the future, instead of taking stories ripped from sensational headlines and then suggesting what look like simple fixes without any consideration of the actual evidence underlying those headlines or of the unintended consequences of those seemingly simple solutions. This is an approach that we reject. I am not accusing the member for Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Westdale of having done that in this case, but it is something we see too often on the other side.

What we do understand in the NDP is the importance of utilizing our correction system to prevent additional Canadians becoming victims in the future. Clearly, what Canada needs is a properly funded correction system where offenders receive the treatment they need, whether for addictions or mental illness or some other problem, and where they can also access training and education opportunities necessary for their successful reintegration into our communities. If not, offenders will find themselves back in the same circumstances as before and, therefore, are likely to reoffend, creating even more new victims in the future.

Conservatives often focus on the understandable feelings of some victims that the justice system ought to be more punitive and ought to provide a greater sense of retribution, or they focus on those victims who believe that toughness is the solution for crime. However, in doing so they miss the more fundamental feeling expressed by nearly all victims. The one concern that all victims have in common is that no one else should have to go through what they have gone through. That is the central and common concern of every victim, whether it is expressed through surveys or testimony that has been given at the public safety committee.

For New Democrats, and I believe for most Canadians, there is a concern that we not lose the balance in our justice system between the need for punishment and the common good of increased public safety that we can achieve through rehabilitation. That balance is placed in jeopardy when we fail to fully consider the consequences of reforms like those suggested in Bill C-479. That is why we look forward to further study and analysis in committee.

However, that balance is placed in even greater jeopardy by the government's penny-wise and pound foolish approach to public safety budgets. The consequences of this failure of the Conservative government to adequately resource the correction system will unfortunately be seen down the road in additional victims.

Therefore, we in the NDP are supporting sending Bill C-479 to committee, but with some reservations. This is primarily because there are many provisions here that are of clear benefit to victims and indeed have already become part of normal practice in the corrections and parole system. We agree it is a good idea to entrench these rights for victims by placing them in legislation. Among these are the right for victims or family members to be present at parole hearings. I appreciate the member for Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Westdale suggesting that technology has made some new improvements possible in this area.

We also believe that entrenching in law the necessity of consideration of victims' statements in the Parole Board of Canada's decisions regarding release is an important victim right. We also believe that entrenching the right to various manners of presenting input to the Parole Board, again reflecting new technology, is an important thing to put in legislation. The right for victims to know the information that has been considered by the Parole Board in its review of offenders is also something we can support entrenching in legislation. We can also support the obligation to provide transcripts of parole hearings to victims and their families, not just to offenders as happens now. Finally, we can support ensuring the right to be notified when an offender is going to be out of custody, on parole, on temporary absence or on statutory release. That right to a notice is certainly something that is very important to be legislated and not just part of current practice.

We have some serious concerns about some other sections of the bill that may have unintended consequences. I am not questioning here the good intentions of the member for Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Westdale, nor reflecting on the moving testimony from victims of crime in his riding that he just provided to us. However, given the importance of parole in providing structure and supervised transitions back into society and the importance of using the parole system and things like temporary absence to allow corrections to test the readiness for release of offenders in a structured and controlled situation, we will be asking some serious questions at committee about some provisions of the bill.

Others share our concerns about the unintended consequences on our parole system that might result from Bill C-479. We look forward to hearing from those people or groups, which include the John Howard Society, the Elizabeth Fry Society, and even the former victims' ombudsman. They have all expressed publicly this fear of some unintended consequences; again, none of them is questioning the good intentions of the mover of the bill.

If the consequence of some of the provisions Bill C-479 is to deny access to parole, which is so necessary for safe release back into our communities, this consequence would place the public in what is ultimately a much more dangerous situation: a situation in which offenders are being released without any supervision and without any testing of their readiness for release.

For these reasons, and out of these concerns, we will likely be asking for amendments to the bill.

We also wonder, as I mentioned in the question to the hon. member, how this bill would relate to the new victims' rights bill that the government announced again in this week's throne speech, and we will once again be asking questions about the unintended consequences of this pattern we have seen in the House of Commons of amending the corrections act and the Criminal Code piecemeal through various private members' bills. It makes it very difficult to predict the consequences of all these individual pieces of legislation that are being introduced.

With respect to the hon. member, I wonder how we know at this point whether there are contradictions between his bill and the victims' rights bill. Certainly on this side we cannot know, because we have not seen the text of that bill. I hope he has; I hope he was fully consulted and I hope that there are no contradictions.

However, when we have multiple pieces of legislation before the House of Commons amending the Criminal Code and amending the corrections act at the same time, it becomes very difficult to deal with.

Once again, I would like to restate our support for strengthening victims' rights in our justice system and to once again say I do look forward to discussing the bill in committee.

I want to go back to the point that I raised at the beginning—that is, this difference between New Democrats' approach to crime and corrections and the government's approach to crime and corrections.

On our side of the House, we have been emphasizing again and again that we have to properly fund the corrections system if we want to prevent there being future victims of crime in our society.

One of the things raised in question period earlier in the House today is the ongoing failure of the government to properly fund mental health programs in our corrections institutions. The Correctional Investigator's recommendations in 2008 were not followed up on until 2010 by the minister and not even put in force until 2011. Now we have a new Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness who is faced with the situation of the Corrections Commissioner appearing at the inquest for Ashley Smith and openly saying that he does not have the resources to address problems of mental illness in the prison system.

Therefore, one of the things we will be asking the new Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness about when we get the opportunity is what he is going to do about this crisis in mental health treatment in our prisons, a crisis that has been brought to the attention of the government again and again since 2008. The most recent report from the Corrections Investigator focused on the plight of aboriginal women with mental illness in our corrections system, the lack of programs appropriate to their needs, and the lack of support for those programs within the corrections system.

I am emphasizing that instead of the government's tough-on-crime agenda, which seems to make sense only if we look at the surface of things, we have to have a much deeper understanding of the causes of crime and a much larger commitment to addressing the needs of those who are in the corrections system in order to make sure they do not reoffend.

We hear from the other side that we are interested in coddling prisoners. That is not what this is about. It is about taking a hard-headed approach to the what the real causes of crime are in this country and what the real solutions are to the problems faced by victims.

I would urge the government to pay more attention to the corrections system and the needs of those people who are in that system, not because we like the people in the system, although some of them are there for reasons their may not be their own responsibility because of addictions or mental illness.

In any case, we have to pay more attention to those needs, and we have to stop introducing legislation that increases mandatory minimum penalties, because those take away the discretion of judges to keep some of those people with mental illness and addiction problems out of the correction system.

Having done that, the government has created for itself a dilemma. It has increased the prison population. It has increased the number of people with those special needs in the prison system. Therefore, it has to provide the resources for that system.

To come back to the bill, we will be supporting the bill and having it sent to committee. We will be supporting many of the specific provisions of the bill that enhance victims' rights. We will want to take a good hard look at any unintended consequences for the parole system.

I thank the member once again for his speech today and for his introduction of this bill, and I look forward to dealing with it in committee.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I always enjoy the opportunity to stand in my place and express some concerns on the issue of crime, safety, and justice. In fact, I was the justice critic for the Manitoba Liberal Party for a number of years in the Manitoba legislature. I had the opportunity in that capacity to meet with a wide variety of stakeholders. Many of those stakeholders were different types of victims and victims groups.

Listening to the opening remarks on the bill, one of the things that came across is the fact that hideous crimes take place, sadly, far too often. Virtually every day throughout the year there is some sort of crime taking place, and a number of them are fairly hideous in nature.

It is hard for us to understand why people take extreme actions and cause so much harm, not only to an individual but to that individual's family, friends, and community. Often these crimes will have an impact that goes beyond the people he or she might actually know, as they have a profound negative impact on the community as a whole.

The member made reference to a couple of specific cases. Some cases came to my mind. I remember an individual who had a bullet put through his head. He was then wrapped in plastic and dropped at a landfill site in south Winnipeg. I remember a young lady who was thrown into a back lane dumpster. I remember another young lady who was dumped in north Winnipeg.

There are vicious, hideous crimes that happen. In talking to the public as a whole, we find that there is unanimous support for us to do what we can as legislators, whether here in Ottawa or in the provincial legislatures, to ensure that we minimize the impact these crimes have on people, whether it is the individual victim or the community itself.

I do not believe that we are doing enough to take a holistic approach. The member who spoke before me talked about how all victims will say that they do not want others to go through what they went through. They do not want these crimes to happen to anyone else.

To what degree are we taking the actions necessary to prevent some of these crimes from taking place in the first place? That is something I would not mind spending time on. However, for now, let us come back to the idea of victims and victims' rights. We believe that it is important to recognize the rights of the victims. This is not new. I believe that all political parties, and I can speak in terms of the Liberal Party, have been very strong on the issue of ensuring victims' rights.

I used to chair a justice committee, the Keewatin Youth Justice Committee. I can recall having a discussion with the Liberal minister at the time about how we wanted to move towards dealing with youth under the age of 12. As a justice committee, which was a quasi-judicial committee, we wanted to talk about ways to develop more victim participation.

Through discussions and by working with the province, we ultimately moved toward what we call restorative justice.

Restorative justice allows victims to be a part of the process to the degree in which they contribute in a tangible way to the disposition of the person who has caused the crime. There are many ways we can explore other potential opportunities, where we can ensure that victims are engaged and more involved in the system. I see that as a positive thing.

Today it is easy to use modern technology to ensure in good part that victims do not have to relive, on an annual basis, the tragedies that occurred by having to appear at a parole board hearing. There is great merit in looking at that.

After a crime the individual goes to jail and after a period of incarceration a parole hearing will come up. This legislation would not change that. From what I understand, this legislation would change how often after that first parole hearing another parole hearing would be held. My understanding is that this would be left to the discretion of the parole board.

It is important to recognize that we need to look at ways to improve the system. There appears to be some merit in regard to Bill C-479. Based on what we have heard and what we can see there likely will be a need for some amendments to be brought forward to make this a healthier bill, but there is some merit for it. That is why the Liberal Party will support the bill being passed at second reading and sent to committee. First and foremost, we are interested in the long-term safety of Canadian society. Along with that I would underline the importance of ensuring that victims of these crimes are factored into what is taking place when it comes to dispositions and parole. The vast majority of Canadians want that and would support that.

There is a difference between a private member's bill versus a government bill. We know the government is going to bring forward legislation. We do not know the details of the legislation and I suspect even the member might not know the details of the government bill so we will have to wait and see what actually comes out in it.

One of the things we do know with a government bill generally speaking more due diligence is done with respect to the Charter of Rights. The department has an obligation to ensure that it has been adequately and properly vetted from a charter perspective. I do not know to what degree this bill has been vetted, but we do look forward to the bill at committee where we will get a better sense from the presenters and from those individuals who have the expertise and some of our resource people in terms of whether it is charter compliant in issues of that nature.

It is absolutely critical that we move forward where we can in the area of justice. We want to recognize that victims have rights. We need to work with victims and society. I would really like the government to take a stronger leadership role with respect to preventing victims. The best way doing that vent in the future is to start investing more in better youth programming and better activities in our communities. That would hopefully prevent victims in the future.

[Roxanne James, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness, CPC]

Mr. Speaker, I welcome this opportunity to speak up for the rights of victims. Far too often, victims are not given a voice when it comes to our criminal justice system. Violent crimes place a heavy burden on individual victims, their families and our communities. Our Conservative government recognizes that for individual victims and their families, it is a burden that may never be completely erased.

We have heard the calls from victims and victims' rights groups in this country for a greater voice and a greater balance in the criminal justice system, and we have taken decisive action to support them. As part of our commitment to fighting crime, protecting Canadians and holding offenders accountable, we brought in the Safe Streets and Communities Act. Through this legislation, we have already made significant improvements to the way victims are informed of an offender's progress in the correctional system, as well as ensuring that the victims' concerns are taken into account at parole hearings. Our government has also provided more than $90 million to a number of initiatives that provide support to the victims of crime.

While we have made real progress in this area, we are taking action to accomplish even more. Early this year, in February, we announced our plan to bring forward legislation to develop a Canadian victims' bill of rights. We have been working diligently to better understand the various views of what rights should be recognized and protected for victims and their families. We have sought input from the public through online consultation processes. We have held in-person consultations with victims of crime and justice advocates from across the country. Input from all of these consultations will ultimately contribute to advancing victims' rights in our country.

I would now like to recognize my colleague, the hon. member for Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Westdale, for his dedication to bringing about meaningful changes in supporting victims. As part of this dedication, he has introduced Bill C-479, an act to bring fairness for the victims of violent offenders. I would also like to thank my colleague for bringing forward the bill, one that our Conservative government is very proud to support. The bill would help our government fulfill our commitments under our plan for safe streets and communities, including our promise to strengthen victims' rights.

Members of the House have heard heart-wrenching accounts about the impact of violent crimes on victims and their families. We have heard the bill's sponsor speak so passionately about one of his own constituents, who is one of these victims of violent crime. She is a woman who not only had to endure the pain caused by the murder of her sister, niece and nephew, but also the pain of revisiting those memories when delivering her victim impact statement at the offender's parole hearings. One cannot help but be moved by such accounts. Tragically, the experience of this particular constituent is but one of many relived every day by victims of all types of violent crime all over the country.

Our government is committed to supporting these victims. That is why I am honoured to rise today and lend my voice in support of Bill C-479. The bill's proposed changes to the Corrections and Conditional Release Act are important and would provide for a greater level of input from victims. In fact, some of the provisions the member has proposed in his bill are similar in spirit and scope to those of the Safe Streets and Communities Act. For example, the ability of victims to present statements is now enshrined in law, as is a necessity for the Parole Board of Canada to consider them. In this way, victims are being given an effective and permanent voice.

Bill C-479 contains a number of measures to help and support victims. First, in the case of offenders convicted of more serious violent crimes, it would increase the amount of time in which the Parole Board conducts a review of parole following a previous denial of parole. This change would mean that after these offenders are denied parole in a review of their case, it would be required every five years rather than the current two years. We believe that two years is simply too short a time period for some victims and their families to have to relive the events that brought them into contact with the criminal justice system.

Another important way the bill would support victims is by ensuring the parole process is more accommodating to their needs. The bill would ensure that victims are provided with additional information and the opportunity to be more involved in the parole process. The bill would recommit to the importance of enshrining that the needs of victims and victims' families are taken into consideration at parole review hearings. This is an essential element of the parole process that we are implementing, one that I would note is already enshrined in law, governing the Parole Board of Canada.

In support of this, the bill would also require that in instances where it is not possible, for various reasons, for a victim to attend a parole hearing, the proceedings would be made observable by an alternate means, such as by teleconference.

We have heard about the challenges for victims in the face of these parole hearings. To address these challenges, the bill would give the Parole Board the authority to cancel a review hearing to which the offender would otherwise be entitled if the offender had refused, without a valid reason, to attend or had waived review of a scheduled hearing on short notice more than once.

This bill will also require that victims be provided, at least 14 days in advance, with details such as the date, conditions, and location of the offender's release on parole, statutory release, or temporary absence. This is an important step being taken to ensure that victims and their families are kept informed and are aware.

Further, this bill will ensure that victims are provided information about the progress being made by the offender toward meeting the objectives of the offender's correctional plan. These measures will provide meaningful improvements in the lives of victims. These changes will further ensure that victims' voices are heard. These changes will bring us closer to a parole system that gives victims a greater voice in our criminal justice system.

In conclusion, I would like to note the support signalled by the hon. colleagues across the floor during the first hour of debate on this bill in this last session. So often we are used to seeing the Liberals and NDP members putting the rights of criminals before the rights of victims. It is encouraging at first reading and also today to see opposition parties come to their senses and realize the importance of putting victims first. With this bill we have an opportunity to see to it that victims are able to participate in a parole process that is more responsive to their needs.

At committee we intend to propose amendments to ensure that the bill may be implemented effectively. I believe that we can all agree that victims deserve to benefit from the provisions proposed in this bill. In every criminal offence, it is the victims who suffer most, and as such, it is the victims who deserve our greatest support.

I therefore call on all members of this House to offer their support for this very important legislation.

[Rosane Doré Lefebvre, NDP, Alfred-Pellan, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak today to Bill C-479.

Given that I am rising for the first time in the second session of the 41st Parliament, I would like to start by simply saying that I am very pleased to be back to defend the interests of the constituents of Alfred-Pellan and, at the same time, of all Canadians.

Mr. Speaker, allow me to greet you and your entire team, all my colleagues in the House and all the staff who tirelessly support us as we carry out our responsibilities as MPs. I would also like to welcome all the new pages. I hope they will enjoy this wonderful experience.

Today, I am pleased to say that the NDP will support Bill C-479 at second reading. I am certainly not in favour of rubber-stamping this Conservative bill. However, we do agree that it should be sent to committee, because it is based for the most part on the recommendations made by the former federal ombudsman for victims of crime, Steve Sullivan.

He wanted the victim's viewpoint to be given greater consideration in the criminal justice system, and the NDP agrees with that. The NDP's objective has always been to make our communities safe and to ensure that our children grow up in a world characterized by mutual respect and safe neighbourhoods. Putting in place a parole process that allows people to reintegrate into society in a manner that is fair and safe for everyone, in order to reduce victimization and recidivism, is one way to achieve that objective.

With regard to victims' rights in particular, the NDP wants to strengthen the victim's right to personal safety, establish a support fund for victims and invest in a special fund to help communities with high crime rates.

We support victims and their families, and we are working with them to ensure not only that legislative measures are taken to help them, but also that they receive appropriate services.

I would also like to say that we recognize the work and expertise of the main stakeholders. We consult them on an ongoing basis in order to develop well thought-out positions that include all affected sectors of our society.

The NDP also wants to change the rules to allow for stiffer sentences for violent crimes in accordance with the principle of judicial discretion. We therefore agree that this bill should be sent to committee for a more in-depth review.

Bill C-479 proposes changes to certain aspects of part II of the Corrections and Conditional Release Act. We believe that many of the changes proposed by the hon. member for Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Westdale are good.

For example, the bill has the tangible effect of allowing victims to attend parole hearings by videoconference or teleconference, which is particularly beneficial for victims with mobility issues. Many victims' groups have recommended that victims be given the right to attend hearings by videoconference. It is a practice that already exists but that should be more widely available.

We believe that victims and their families should feel as though they are an integral part of the corrections and parole system and, at the same time, offenders must have access to fair and equitable judicial services, such as probation, that will reduce recidivism and victimization rates.

The NDP believes that, in certain cases, victims have the right to attend board hearings, for example, when there is a good chance that the offender will return to live in the community where he committed his crime or when the victim asks that specific conditions, such as a publication ban, be placed on the offender's release.

I must also say that we have some reservations about this bill. First, Bill C-479 constitutes only a fraction of what our justice system needs to help victims. Unfortunately, the fact that this bill makes piecemeal changes to the system and comes from a private member shows that the Conservative government does not really take the fight against crime or helping victims seriously.

Second, almost all of the key stakeholders in this debate recognize how important a progressive release system is to public safety in our communities and the benefits that such a system brings.

We cannot shut offenders behind bars without readying them to rejoin society. It has been shown that that approach does not work and that it is a threat to public safety. Abandoning the benefits of gradual release back into society under the pretense of alleviating victims' suffering would only lead to an increase in the number of victims of crime in this country. We benefit from the gradual, supervised release of individuals who pose a risk.

That brings me to what I feel is the most controversial part of Bill C-479.

An offender who serves a sentence of less than five years might have only one chance at parole. If his first request is denied, it is quite possible that he will serve his entire sentence and be released without condition, which is a threat to public safety. That could result in a considerable increase in the number of victims. If the Conservative government is truly serious about helping victims and their families, it would offer services and reintegrate criminals into society in such a way as to prevent victimization.

I have no doubt that there are a number of stakeholders that will want to take part in the debate in committee, and I look forward to hearing their testimony.

To conclude, I would like to say a few words about the problems victims experience in our justice system. As my colleague from Gatineau pointed out to the House, these problems go well beyond parole.

The legal process may be long and complicated, especially for victims. Trial hearings can go on forever, there may be a long wait before the trial begins, and often victims are not informed of what is happening. It is difficult enough to be the victim of a crime, but feeling victimized by the legal system only adds to the suffering. In addition, as Professor Waller stated to the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights, the $16 million in funding allocated to victims in the last government budget was far from adequate. We should immediately begin working with the provinces to study these shortcomings.

I have the feeling that the Conservatives are not addressing the root of the problem, as they deal with small pieces of it through backbenchers' bills. I sincerely hope that the minister will shoulder his responsibilities and take meaningful action to assist crime victims, who are in dire need of help.

Lastly, I would add that many victims' associations have contacted me in recent weeks and a large number of them wanted to talk about Bill C-479. They had many questions about this bill. Several of these associations will be more than happy to come and discuss some of the issues in committee. Some of these issues are positive, such as those I previously talked about, while others are somewhat more negative, for example those relating to the mandatory five years.

[Christine Moore, NDP, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise to speak to Bill C-479, An Act to Bring Fairness for the Victims of Violent Offenders.

To begin, I would like to point out that this bill proposes measures for victims, among others. The bill extends mandatory review periods for parole. If an offender is denied parole, the Parole Board of Canada would then be obligated to review the case within five years rather than the current two years.

The bill gives the Parole Board of Canada up to five years to review parole following the cancellation or termination of parole for someone who, for example, is sent back to prison following bad behaviour. The bill also emphasizes that the Parole Board of Canada must take into consideration the needs of victims and their families to attend hearings and witness the proceedings.

Furthermore, it also requires that the Parole Board of Canada consider any victim impact statement presented by victims, as well as provide the victim, if requested, with information about the offender's release on parole, statutory release or temporary absence.

It also proposes that victims be given information pertaining to the offender’s correctional plan, including information regarding the offender’s progress towards meeting the objectives of the plan.

First, I would like to talk about the weakness of the Conservatives' approach in general, since they chose to address this issue using a piecemeal approach. They did so by mentioning victims' rights in a number of small private members' bills, such as Bill C-479, which is before us today, and Bill C-489.

In my opinion, we need to take a much more comprehensive approach in the form of a charter for the public and victims in order to better meet victims' needs overall. It would be much more effective to address the problem in a comprehensive rather than a piecemeal fashion.

It would be better to address this issue in a government bill than in a number of small private members' bills. That is one of the weaknesses of the Conservative government's approach to protecting victims and the bills that address that issue.

From an ethical standpoint, criminal sciences professor Robert Cario has said that it is important to take into account three fundamental rights when talking about fairness and effectiveness. These rights have a dual purpose: to protect the individual's dignity and human rights and to solidify the victim's position as a stakeholder in the criminal justice system. What we must do is acknowledge the victim's suffering, provide support for them and help them heal.

Sometimes, acknowledging the victim's suffering goes beyond the pain inflicted. It may be a matter of someone telling the victim that he understands the distress the victim is experiencing as a result of the crime. Sometimes, it could be a matter of the criminal truly understanding the extent to which he hurt a family. This can help victims feel that their suffering is acknowledged.

Since I am out of time, I will finish my speech during the next sitting.

[The Speaker, Conservative, Andrew Scheer]

The hon. member will have five minutes to finish her speech when this bill is before the House again.

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.

It being 2:30 p.m., the House stands adjourned until Monday, October 21 at 11 a.m., pursuant to Standing Order 24(1).

(The House adjourned at 2:30 p.m.)

The House resumed from October 18 consideration of the motion that Bill C-479, An Act to amend the Corrections and Conditional Release Act (fairness for victims), be read the second time and referred to a committee.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

Mr. Speaker, this is the second hour of debate on this legislation, which was introduced in the last session of Parliament. It is Bill C-479, the fairness for the victims of violent offenders act. I will support this legislation going to committee for consideration and, where necessary, for amendment. I want to underline the fact that Liberals want some amendments to this bill.

Again, the intent of this bill is to provide additional measures for victims of crime, in this case the ability to ensure that victims of violent crime have a greater legislated role in any parole actions related to offenders.

The major elements of the bill are that the bill would extend the period between parole reviews from two to five years for violent offenders who are not granted parole at first or subsequent reviews or whose parole has been revoked. This change would apply only to offenders incarcerated for violent crimes.

Ostensibly, this bill is aimed at relieving the victims of violent crimes or their families from having to attend frequent parole hearings. That is a good intent.

The bill does not alter the rules governing initial parole eligibility. The bill also contains uncontroversial changes that codify victims' rights already recognized and applied in the parole process.

However, the bill's evidentiary basis remains entirely unclear. The rationale for choosing a maximum interval of five years between parole hearings for those denied parole instead of, for example, four, as in the previous iteration of the bill, remains unclear. The impact of extending the maximum time between parole hearings on offender rehabilitation is also unclear. Study at committee would allow members to debate the bill's merits on the basis of evidence from expert testimony.

I would reiterate the concerns expressed by the member for Lac-Saint-Louis with respect to the constitutionality of the legislation. I note that the courts are now beginning to challenge the efficacy of the mandatory minimum sentencing and the manner in which the government has attempted to alter the Criminal Code and the Corrections and Conditional Release Act to support an ideological agenda based on public fear of criminal activity.

This is another in a long list of private members' bills coming forward from Conservative backbench members. They all may be great in terms of their intent, but these are members of the government, and this is the Criminal Code that we are dealing with. It is a complex, massive code. Coming forward with off-the-wall requests for legislation could jeopardize the very intent of what members want to do with this legislation.

I see members smiling on the other side. This is not a joking matter. We are talking about the Criminal Code of Canada. What is happening on that side of the House is that they are allowing Conservative members to come forward with little private members' bills from their own riding so they can cater to their own power base. Do they not realize that they could, in the process, have a court throw out the legislation and make a victim of the very person we do not want to make a victim? That is the possible consequence.

I will turn to the Correctional Investigator's message in terms of how the government is really dealing with its tough-on-crime agenda. In the beginning of the report, he speaks of the time in 1973 when the first correctional investigator was appointed for federally sentenced inmates. It was a time when there was rioting in prisons. There were burnings and real trouble within the prison system.

He made a point in his report that I want to quote.

He stated:

Today, as my report makes clear, many of the same problems that were endemic to prison life in the early 1970s – crowding; too much time spent in cells; the curtailment of movement, association and contact with the outside world; lack of program capacity; the paucity of meaningful prison work or vocational skills training; and the polarization between inmates and custodial staff – continue to be features of contemporary correctional practice.

He is basically saying that what we are seeing under the government's justice, as it calls it, is moving back to a time that created riots in the prison system in the first place. That is not the answer to dealing with the justice system in a smart way.

With this specific bill, I would request, and will do so at committee, that the member present a list of experts and the evidence they provided, which he referenced in his remarks on May 10 of this year, as to his claim that “this bill has a sound legal and constitutional foundation”.

I will also be requesting that the member provide the evidence upon which this legislation was based. For example, upon what evidence did the member opposite base the determination that a period of five years between subsequent applications is justified? I trust that the member will provide that evidence at the committee.

I make note of the concern, given the recent case of Bill C-489, introduced by his colleague the member for Langley. In the course of second reading of that bill, the member gave the House the assurance that the bill was well drafted and was adequate. He did acknowledge that he was open to amendments, and indeed the elements of the bill were subsequently amended.

With regard to the amendments, there were six amendments to a bill with five clauses. Let me repeat that: six amendments to a five-clause bill. They were moved by members of the government on behalf of the Government of Canada. During this process, a representative of the Department of Justice was in attendance to ensure the amendments accorded with what even the government determined was the need to ratchet back on some of the extreme and likely challengeable features of the member's original bill.

It goes to my point. The government has all these backbenchers over there, but it is not bringing forward legislation in a comprehensive way on an issue as important as the Criminal Code of Canada. I believe we are getting 16 private members' bills on various subjects by members. As this bill clearly shows, it needed to be amended or the Department of Justice knew the bill would be thrown out by a court. The extent would be that it would create new victims as a result of the bill.

In the end, the bill was attempting to institute a mandatory minimum distance for offenders to have to maintain from the dwellings of the victims of specific crimes. It was amended in such a way as to add to the list of locations already in the Criminal Code from which a judge can currently apply a limitation on that of dwelling. We were told the whole intent and purpose of the legislation was so the judge could not use discretion, but the end result was that the ability of the judge to use discretion remains within the code.

In conclusion, we will support the bill going to committee. We will see if there will be amendments.

In closing, I want to underline that while we see some merit in this bill, we would prefer to see legislation from the government after they have talked in their caucus on various proposals in an all-encompassing way, in a way that fits legitimately within the Criminal Code of Canada. We do not want to see it add more risk to what a court might do in terms of challenging that legislation and throwing it out. It should be done in a comprehensive way, rather than these simple bills coming forward to play to the Conservative base.

[François Pilon, NDP, Laval—Les Îles, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am really pleased to speak to the bill we have before us today, Bill C-479, An Act to amend the Corrections and Conditional Release Act (fairness for victims).

This bill is based for the most part on the recommendation made by the former federal ombudsman for victims of crime and seeks to pay special attention to the perspective of victims in the criminal justice process.

Bill C-479 broadens the rights of victims under the Corrections and Conditional Release Act. It incorporates into law some of the elements that are already part of the current practice in parole hearings. Some of those elements are in fact consistent with the recommendations made by the former ombudsman in his special report.

Under this bill, victims would have more opportunities to attend parole hearings, and offenders would have considerably less access to reviews.

The NDP, however, is concerned that the bill adds five years to the interval between parole reviews for violent offenders.

This goes against the ombudsman's previous recommendations that this extension apply only to dangerous offenders and those serving a life sentence.

The people working with victims and those working with inmates agree that parole is an essential component of public safety. This change could prevent some offenders from having access to parole and, by extension, deny them the benefits of a supervised release in the community.

This amendment therefore would lead to a situation where many violent offenders would reach the end of their sentence without having had access to supervised release. They would then be out in the community for the first time, fully free and without any supervision at the end of their sentence.

On our side, we work tirelessly to improve the safety of the public. We believe that one way to achieve this goal is to implement a parole process that helps people reintegrate safely, and I emphasize the word “safely”, into the community to reduce victimization and the risk of reoffending.

We also support the victims and their families, and we want to work with them to ensure that in addition to taking legislative action to help them, we also provide them with the services they need.

Instead of focusing on the shortcomings of the Corrections and Conditional Release Act as a whole, this is yet another Conservative piecemeal bill that actually does very little to ensure the safety of our communities.

I will briefly run through the changes, or, more specifically, the amendments, proposed in Bill C-479: the parole review of offenders who are serving a sentence of at least two years for an offence involving violence; the attendance of victims and members of their family at parole review hearings; the consideration of victims’ statements by the National Parole Board when making a determination regarding the release of an offender; the manner of presentation of victims’ statements at a parole review hearing; the providing of information under consideration by the Board to a victim; the cancellation of a parole review hearing if an offender has repeatedly refused to attend, or waived his or her right to attend, previous hearings; the providing of transcripts of a parole review hearing to the victim and members of their family and the offender; and the notification of victims if an offender is to be released on temporary absence, parole or statutory release.

We think that this bill has several good points. That is why we will support it at second reading so that it can be sent to committee.

We also believe that it is appropriate for victims to attend parole board hearings, for example, when it is likely that the offender will return to live in the community where he committed the crime, or when a victim is asking for specific condition to be placed on the offender after release, such as a non-communication order. We also think that allowing victims to attend hearings via video conference or teleconference is a valid point in Bill C-479, especially for victims with mobility problems.

We also want victims and their families to feel that they are really involved the process. However, we must also ensure that offenders have access to appropriate services, whether in the correctional system or the parole system, such as supervised release, so that recidivism rates fall after offenders have served their full sentences.

We do see some weaknesses in Bill C-479, however, and it is important to point them out. For example, an offender who serves a sentence of less than five years might have only one chance at parole under Bill C-479. If his first application is denied, it is quite possible that he will serve his entire sentence without ever having been granted conditional release. This means that offenders will be released at the end of their sentences without any conditions, and more importantly, without the benefit of any rehabilitation or reintegration programs. It goes without saying that this poses a risk to public safety and that such a practice would likely result in higher recidivism rates and therefore an increase in the number of victims of crime.

Society would be better served by the gradual, supervised release of offenders who pose a risk. Such release helps offenders reintegrate into society safely and with the supervision they need to facilitate their reintegration, thereby reducing the likelihood that they will commit other criminal acts. If the Conservative government is truly serious about helping victims and their families, it will provide them with services and reintegrate criminals into society in such a way as to prevent the risk of victimization and recidivism.

In closing, the NDP's message to victims and their families is simple: we support greater victim involvement in the parole process. We also support many of the recommendations made by the former federal ombudsman for victims of crime, as well as his criticisms of Bill C-479.

We are working tirelessly on making our communities safer. Our plan goes beyond the Conservatives' simplistic ideology and really gets to the heart of the problem, rather than just scratching the surface. We want to help victims create a safer process that will reduce the risk of recidivism.

We hope the government will be receptive to the suggestions we will be making in committee.

The House resumed consideration of the motion that Bill C-479, An Act to amend the Corrections and Conditional Release Act (fairness for victims), be read the second time and referred to a committee.

[David Sweet, Conservative, Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Westdale, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is an honour in the House to speak to Bill C-479, an Act to bring fairness for the victims of violent offenders. I am dedicated and passionate about seeing this bill through because the changes it would bring about for victims and their families are overdue. Today marks one step closer in the legislative process in seeing these changes become a reality.

First, I would like to thank the hon. member for Scarborough Centre, who is also the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Public Safety, for her strong support the last time we debated Bill C-479 in the House. In her role, she has been a strong advocate for victims in her community and across the country, and I congratulate her on her work.

The parliamentary secretary, the Minister of Public Safety and the Minister of Justice were busy this past summer, hearing from victims across the country. We look forward to hearing more from them in the months ahead on the federal government's support for victims.

I am proud that Bill C-479 complements our government's work to support victims and their families from coast to coast to coast.

I would also like to thank and acknowledge the hon. members for Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, Winnipeg North, Alfred-Pellan and Abitibi—Témiscamingue for the support they offered in the House to bring this bill to committee. I appreciate their kind words on my intent in bringing forward this bill. While they have raised some points that will be further debated in committee, I have no doubt that their hearts are in the right place.

All of us on both sides of the House should desire to do everything we can to bring about fairness for victims and their families and act on some of the recommendations of the victims ombudsman. Contrary to the member for Malpeque's comments, this bill is not about the Criminal Code, but the Corrections and Conditional Release Act and victims' rights. This is all about that.

I offer special thanks to the Federal Ombudsman for Victims of Crime, Sue O'Sullivan, for meeting with me and my staff and for all of her advice and support in the development of this bill. Many of the provisions of Bill C-479 stem from the recommendations made by Ms. O'Sullivan and her office. I appreciate and respect the work that she and her team do on a daily basis to advocate for victims. It is tough, emotional and unrelenting work and they do it effectively, professionally and compassionately.

I have also heard from victims. To me, that is the ultimate litmus test of this bill. When they tell me that it will make a difference and that we are on the right track, I know that this makes sense.

Please allow me to conclude this debate at second reading where I began. That is by reiterating my intent in bringing forward this bill. As I have said at each stage of the process, it was an eye opening and heart-wrenching experience at a hearing of the National Parole Board of Canada in the summer of 2010 that led me to introduce this bill. Invited to observe as a guest of my constituents, I witnessed first hand how the system revictimized the people who had already suffered enough for a lifetime. Since that time, I have witnessed many more meetings, all just as gut-wrenching and painful.

Constable Michael Sweet's story and his family's reasonable request to have more information has profoundly affected me as well. Their point is well taken that their father and husband's life was taken from them publicly. The offenders were tried publicly, with all of the evidence being introduced publicly. Victims, their families and all Canadians should have some public assurance that those convicted of violent offences are doing what they can to be rehabilitated and become contributing citizens.

If an act to bring fairness for the victims of violent offenders eases the revictimization of just one family, it will be worth it, but I am convinced that it would do much more.

Merry Christmas. Joyeux Noël.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

The time provided for debate has expired. Accordingly the question is on the motion. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

Accordingly the bill stands referred to the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security.

(Motion agreed to, bill read the second time and referred to a committee)