Bill C-54 (Historical)

Not Criminally Responsible Reform Act

An Act to amend the Criminal Code and the National Defence Act (mental disorder)

This enactment amends the mental disorder regime in the Criminal Code and the National Defence Act to specify that the paramount consideration in the decision-making process is the safety of the public and to create a scheme for finding that certain persons who have been found not criminally responsible on account of mental disorder are high-risk accused. It also enhances the involvement of victims in the regime and makes procedural and technical amendments.

Third Reading

[Philip Toone, NDP, Gaspésie—Îles-de-la-Madeleine, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I listened closely to my colleague's very pertinent speech.

She raised some points that deserve further attention. The bill clearly has flaws, and it can be improved.

She mentioned a number of times that the existing resources for victims are insufficient. In its day, the Liberal government made massive cuts to social services.

Does she feel that there is a lot of catching up to do because of those Liberal Party cuts to social services? It is quite obvious that the Conservative government bought into the Liberal Party's ideas and has simply cut, cut, cut. Now we are left with good intentions but very few resources to implement them.

Does she feel that the Liberal Party made a serious mistake in the 1990s by cutting as much as it did?

[Hedy Fry, Liberal, Vancouver Centre, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it is interesting that even with something as very serious and as heart-rending as this bill is trying to address, the hon. member from the New Democratic Party would try to score cheap political points on the backs of people's pain. That is unacceptable.

The bottom line is that the past system was working quite well, with a need for certain changes. In fact, if members were to read The Globe and Mail, they would read that the Rt. Hon. Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin said that she thought the system was working quite well with regard to this problem.

What we were talking about was looking at the needs that we could now address. The former minister of justice, my colleague from Mount Royal, brought forward a bill that everybody in the House supported because it was broadly based, it had consulted and it was not a partisan bill. It was a bill that sought to get the right things done in the House.

[Erin O'Toole, Conservative, Durham, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the member particularly in the way she was able to tie her passion tonight with her first speech in the House for a while.

As a lawyer, I am disappointed by her remarks and by the Canadian Bar Association's position on this because there really are a number of people clouding the issue here. This is not about moral blameworthiness. These people are not criminally responsible for a reason.

The bill would specifically address the re-release or the review of these people who were deemed to be in this high risk class and would really rebalance the equilibrium. Our justice system is built on pillars, whether it is sentencing or throughout rehabilitation and deterrents, punishment in some cases, but in rehabilitation and public safety. The very courts that will accept an offender as not criminally responsible are certainly equipped to then reassess, and that is what this bill would do.

Why does the member not trust the same courts that will allow somebody to avoid some of the criminal sanctions due to mental illness and, at the same time, not recognize those same courts in the process for parole?

[Hedy Fry, Liberal, Vancouver Centre, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member speaks of his expertise as a lawyer. I am not a lawyer, but I will speak of my expertise as a physician.

This bill will harm people who are mentally ill. I have had many mentally ill patients. As an MP, I deal with people in my community who are mentally ill, and they are terrified that anybody would know they are because of the prejudices of various systems against people who are mentally ill.

If we can have early diagnosis before people commit violent crimes, when they become mentally ill and they have the NCR, we are suggesting that the bill is not putting that in place. There is a lot of work being done in Dalhousie and across the country on the effects of early diagnosis.

We are talking about of legislation can put into place good public policy. Legislation is not just a piece of paper.

The important thing to remember is that the recidivism rate is low. If we keep people in an institution for longer than they need, we run the huge risk of creating violence and problems within that system. We heard from Dr. Simpson on this issue.

Why do we not want to listen to the physicians and the mental health advocates who are speaking to this issue and only wanting to look at it through one small, narrow lens? I do not understand it at all.

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is my honour this evening to speak to Bill C-54. It is also my honour to be the chair of the justice committee, which has recently dealt with the discussion on this piece of legislation.

I want to thank the committee for its work. We had extended hours. We invited a number of witnesses from all sides of the debate on this particular issue. The committee worked very well together and very hard at hearing everyone out. We had a number of interruptions with bells and a number of other votes that happened within, but we were able to get through the presentations in a very respectful way as a committee. We heard from all sides, whether they were victims, victims' family members, those representing the mental health side of the equation, such as associations, legal opinion and health care workers in the mental health area. It was a very good discussion.

I also want to thank our clerk, Jean-François Pagé, who did a fabulous job on very short notice, making arrangements for very balanced panels for us to see. Also, the analysts and the legislative clerks helped us.

I also want to thank the leader of the Green Party who joined us at committee with a number of amendments. It does not happen that often. It is some sort of a new process for committees to have independents sit at the table with us when we go through legislation and contribute to the discussion on amendments that they bring forward. I appreciate that.

I do appreciate the professionalism of the committee in dealing with a number of amendments. I believe there were 52 or 54 amendments in front of us. We did accept amendments. One came from the government side, one from the New Democratic side and one from a Liberal member. They were accepted and in fact there was some crossover between the two opposition parties.

Let me take just a few minutes to review exactly what Bill C-54 actually would do. There is lots of rhetoric about what the bill would do; we heard some of it this evening. I want to be as factual, as clear and as precise as possible on the changes to the NCR regime that now exists. These would be amendments to an existing not criminally responsible regime, which we think are needed to make our system better. It is not to change, to stigmatize, as we have heard from others tonight. It is actually to improve the justice system.

There is nothing wrong with improvements to the justice system. There is nothing wrong with improvements to any system. That is why we are here as legislators. We look at what is happening. We see what is actually happening on the ground after we make laws. Sometimes we do not get it completely right. Sometimes, over time, things change and we need to make changes. That is all we would be doing. We would be making some amendments to this to deal with a few high-risk accused situations.

Bill C-54 would create a new application process to obtain a finding from a court that an NCR accused is a high-risk accused. The high-risk accused finding would result in the disposition requiring detention of the accused in a hospital until the court revokes the findings.

Let us be clear about this. There is an NCR regime at present. A court can find someone not criminally responsible at present, or NCR. They do not go to jail. That is what NCR is about. They need help. They have a mental issue through no fault of their own. Based on the evidence that is provided, a court can make a judgment that this individual is not criminally responsible for the actions he or she has taken. Some of them can be very horrific, some at a different level, but it is still their mental capacity that has been the issue.

Do they go to jail? What the previous speaker said, that the system would send them back to sort of rot in jail longer, is not the case. In the present regime, someone who is designated NCR gets help. He or she gets hospitalized, basically.

At present, there is a review board to see how they have done. It is an annual review. The victims would have to come and listen to the progress the individual has made, and a review board would decide whether the individual needs to continue treatment. It is not punishment, it is treatment.

All we are doing is, first, saying that in some very specific situations, some NCR-designated individuals are of high risk, both to themselves and to the public. We are defining a different and added category in this piece of legislation. Would it apply to everyone who is designated NCR? Absolutely not. That is not what it is designed for. That is not how we expect it to be used. There was some discussion about a burden on the courts system. That would not be a result. There would be very few cases in Canada annually. In fact, I hope it would never be used, to be honest. It would be great if the high-risk designation in NCR were never required. However, it may be required and we need to have the legislation in place to provide that designation for a court to determine.

The application would have been made by the prosecutor before an absolute discharge could be ordered. That means that the government prosecution would have to decide whether someone really is high risk, so there is a burden of proof in terms of whether the individual is high risk before a prosecutor could bring it forward.

The high-risk accused finding would only be available in cases involving serious personal injury offences that resulted in a verdict of NCR. Therefore, they need to know that the person has been found NCR already. As well, it is what we call an “incident”, not a crime that leads to jail, because these people need hospitalization. The incident would have to be an offence that involved serious personal injury and the accused would be 18 years of age or more. Therefore, it would not be used for children or young offenders, it would be for adults. We need to ensure that everybody understands that.

To determine a finding of high-risk accused, the court would have to be satisfied that there is a substantial likelihood that the accused would use violence that could endanger the life or safety of the public. The safety of the public would become paramount in this high-risk category. I would suggest that also safety of oneself would also have some consideration. At committee, we did hear it stated that, based upon actual court cases in the past, public safety is a priority. All this legislation would do is codify that and put it in the legislation, not just by jurisprudence of what has happened in different court cases.

The court could also make the high-risk accused finding if it were of the opinion that the acts that constitute the offence were of such a brutal nature they would indicate a grave risk of harm to another person. Therefore, an individual is found NCR and based on the evidence the court has determined that the individual needs hospitalization and needs help with the mental illness that has caused this serious offence. It is not just any serious offence, but one of a brutal nature that would cause the court to look at whether the high-risk category should apply. The court would consider all relevant evidence, including the nature and the circumstances of the offence, any relevant pattern of repetitive behaviour, the accused's current mental condition, the past and expected course of treatment and the accused's willingness to follow treatment, as well as expert opinions.

We heard in the last speech about the committee not accepting the amendment on medical experts. Based upon the input we got on that amendment, we had a full discussion on that amendment. Experts from the ministry of justice were there. They indicated that by putting medical experts as an amendment it may limit who we could ask on this and that not everyone who may have expertise on determining some of these criteria would be a licensed medical individual. There could be others involved, from a social services point of view, from other areas, who would be able to help in determining some of these circumstances and the nature of the offence, the pattern or premise, who may not have a medical designation. That is why we wanted to leave it open, so that all expert opinions could be sought. They would still have to be experts. We would not just be asking anyone.

If the court makes the high-risk accused finding, a disposition requiring detention of the accused in a hospital must be made. I think that is an important thing to indicate.

We are not talking about removing the hospitalization aspects and sending people to jail because they are high risk. It is determining that they go to a hospital that would handle their NCR issue if the offence were brutal in nature and that there were a high risk it may reoccur or that they could hurt themselves, so it is still a hospitalization. This does not remove that aspect of NCR and send them to jail but give them help.

No conditions permitting absences from the hospital would be authorized unless a structured plan was prepared to address the risk to the public, and only with an authorized escort.

If we were to go down my street in Burlington, Tuck Drive, and told people that, at present, somebody who has committed a brutal offence and has been found NCR, within the year, without a structured plan, would be able to go on an unescorted release, I would say the people on my street would be shocked that is what the law is at present.

All this is saying is that for those who are found NCR and then high risk, there would be a structured plan to address the public aspects and authorized escorted release. That is not saying they would not get to go out in public. We would try to help them with their plan to be reintegrated, but not on their own at that particular time as a high-risk NCR individual. They would have to be escorted so we could review what they were doing.

I think that is common sense. I do not think the public would be upset that those escorted absences were only a decision-making process and could impose a non-communication, non-attendance condition in order to ensure their own safety.

It just makes sense to me that we would have that ability, that condition in this bill, and it is surprising that it does not exist at present.

I want to talk briefly about what the bill does not do. Bill C-54 does not seek to punish individuals who have been found by the courts to be not criminally responsible on account of their mental disorder. It is not jail time. We want to make sure that is there.

I can tell members the witnesses we heard from were all excellent witnesses. They all brought an expertise to the table, whether a victim or an individual representing the legal field or the mental health field. However, when questioned on the specifics of the wording of the bill, of the different clauses, it was interesting to see that this is what they thought could happen but it was not actually the wording of the bill.

Nothing in Bill C-54 would affect the access of mentally disordered accused persons to mental health treatment. There is no prohibition to their getting help. With this bill, accused persons would still be NCR. They would get a high-risk designation and they would still be hospitalized. The government would be there to help them overcome the mental illness that caused the serious and brutal actions to take place. The government wants them to get better and to be integrated back into society. We have a responsibility as a government to make sure that high-risk individuals get the treatment they need.

Bill C-54 does not seek to stigmatize the mentally ill. The bill does not suggest that mentally ill people commit crimes or are dangerous. The bill does not say that. People came to see me in my office. I agree that the messaging from all of us here is that the support in this bill does not suggest that we are stigmatizing mental illness.

We know people need help. We know that happens. As a government, we put together the mental health strategy, and the high-risk category does not apply to everyone who has a mental illness. It would apply to very few individuals. The new high-risk NCR accused finding does not create the presumption of dangerousness. Rather, it focuses on a relatively small group of NCR accused persons who qualify for the high-risk finding.

The other item that is important to understand is twofold. One, the review board still exists and the review board is still required to provide information on how individuals are progressing through their treatment. The review board change is simple. Right now it is every year that victims attend to hear how the perpetrators are doing. They are re-victimized over and over again. The bill would make it up to every three years. We are adding two years. The review board could make a decision of up to three years.

The only other major change, which was highlighted by a question from my colleague in the Conservatives, is that a judge would determine whether a person is high risk. I have faith in the court system, and if that happens, a judge would decide, based on the evidence, including the review board evidence, whether individuals have accomplished what they needed to do in that high-risk designation, at which point the NCR designation can be removed and people can be reintegrated into society.

Those are two of the changes. If a judge determines that someone is high risk and NCR, that judge has the ability, the authority and the responsibility to determine when those designations will be removed.

[Lysane Blanchette-Lamothe, NDP, Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the member for his speech.

I agree with many of the things he has said tonight, but I would like to ask him a question about costs.

How much does he think this bill will cost, more or less? I am talking about costs that will be passed on to the provinces, for example.

If he thinks there will be some cost to this, how high will it be, approximately? What resources does he intend to make available to those who will be paying for it?

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I have had the opportunity to be at the committee that she chairs. She does an excellent job as chair. I wanted to point that out.

I am guessing that there will be some costs. If it is a provincial court, the provincial court will bear those costs. If it is Federal Court, we will bear those costs. For the small number of people who I think will be designated high-risk NCR, I think the Canadian public would be more than willing to spend a few of their hard-earned tax dollars to make sure that the public is safe. There is a sense of safety in designating someone as high-risk NCR.

This is not about dollars and cents. This is about the security of mentally ill individuals, the public and the community, and rightly so. I did not even get to this part of the bill, but there is a section on protecting victims from being re-victimized. I do not think it is a tax issue. It is something that we need to do, something that this bill would do, and it is long overdue.

[Massimo Pacetti, Liberal, Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel, QC]

Mr. Speaker, that was not a bad speech for such a late hour. The member spoke on the bill and the justification for the bill, which was commendable.

One of the areas the member started to speak about is what the bill does not do. Some of the mental health experts who came before the committee said that prevention is the key and that if we could diagnose people who suffer from mental illness at an early stage, it would help.

Would investing more money in trying to prevent these crimes perhaps be the best way to protect victims, by stopping the crime from ever happening?

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I agree 100%.

If we could legislate away mental illness, I would do it tonight. I would probably get unanimous consent to do it, and we would do it.

However, it is not possible, and we do have to have a balanced approach on all topics, including mental health, crime and other health issues. If I could legislate away cancer, I would do that also by unanimous consent. I cannot do it. It does not happen. It will not work.

We have to have a balanced approach. Part of the balance in our view is, through Bill C-54, to make sure we have appropriate mental health help for those who have committed serious personal and brutal offences. In Bill C-54, we need to find a balance to help victims with the issues they are now going to face as victims of these mental health offences.

It is a balancing act. This is not the complete answer. I do understand that there are two sides to it. We have been investing in prevention as a government and we will continue to invest, but we also have to help those who have already committed those offences.

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

Mr. Speaker, in July 2008, just outside of Portage la Prairie, Tim McLean was brutally murdered on a bus by Vince Li, who was later deemed not criminally responsible.

As members can imagine, this is something that is very important in my riding of Portage—Lisgar and in the province of Manitoba, as well as for Canadians across the country.

I want to ask my hon. colleague if he could talk a little about what this bill would do for victims and for their families. I am thinking of Tim's mom, Carol de Delley, who I have talked to many times. She has worked tirelessly. She is not only dealing with her horrendous grief, which never ends, for what her son had to endure and how her son died, but is also going through all of the fallout from it, with Vince Li going through different appeal processes and now being given passes.

I wonder if my colleague could talk very specifically about victims, and how this bill can help support them while not assigning blame to somebody who has been deemed not criminally responsible.

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

Mr. Speaker, there are a number of things in this legislation for victims, including one of the amendments that was brought forward by the New Democratic Party, which we unanimously accepted.

The amendment included a notification, if a victim asked to be notified, of where someone with a high-risk NCR designation would be living afterwards.

There is notification of when that discharge would happen. There are non-communication changes so that victims do not have to run into or have communication with someone who has a high-risk designation. We are ensuring the safety of victims.

One area I heard mentioned over and over again as I was chairing the justice committee was the review board. Every year victims go and listen to the review board's recommendations. They listen to the discussion and the evidence. They have to relive their victimization. They have to relive the serious offence that happened to them or their family.

This legislation allows for a longer-term period of healing for those victimized families.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the chance to rise to thank the hon. member for Burlington again for the very collegial way in which he navigated the committee hearings on the bill, and also for the fact that, rather unusually, two opposition amendments were accepted. Again, I thank the member for allowing me to speak at the committee.

I still, as members may imagine, have grave concerns about the direction of this bill, and I would like to ask the hon. member for Burlington a question.

Does he have any theories as to why it was that a bill of this importance, dealing with the not criminally responsible regime, was brought to the floor of the House and developed by the Department of Justice without any consultation at all with the not criminally responsible review boards?

Mr. Schneider, who testified last week to this issue, said that the review boards were not consulted at all. I think this may be a case of the Conservative administration thinking that if something is not broken, it is going to fix it until it is.

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for attending those meetings and for bringing forward amendments. I also thank her for her professionalism at committee.

The fact is that the minister came to committee and talked about consultation. There was consultation across this country with every provincial government of every stripe, and the discussion was that we needed to move forward on this high-risk designation.

We as a Conservative government like to take action. We like to move forward. We like to make decisions on what we should be doing and address whatever problem comes to our attention. In this case, there have been a number of issues across this country with respect to those who have been found NCR committing brutal, serious, personal criminal offences. We consulted with the provinces and with those in the business of prosecuting those offences. We asked what solutions they would like to see come forward in terms of changes to the legislation. Consultation was done, as the minister put forward, and that is why this bill is here today. We heard over and over again from victims at committee that we should pass this legislation as soon as possible.

[Guy Caron, NDP, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I rise before the House for the second time this evening, this time, to speak to Bill C-54.

Bill C-54 is important. It is the latest bill on the Conservative government's crime agenda. Based on the controversial example of Dr. Guy Turcotte in Quebec, the government thinks it is better to impose its ideological measures.

The profound, collective feeling of injustice triggered by the murder of his two children was a completely normal, healthy reaction. Indeed, he made us question the essence of justice and the future of our society and prompted us to ask other important questions of that sort. As parliamentarians, it is our duty to ask whether such a case, which fortunately, is very unusual, requires us to question where the justice system is going.

I would like to quote a senator who was talking about one of her bills dealing with this issue. I think this quotation is quite relevant:

Even though there may be the odd case that concerns us all, Canada has recognized mental health experts and a proven judicial system. Anger and pain should not dictate our courts. Nor should they dictate our laws. It is a mistake to go down this path because instead of building a peaceful society we would create an unstable, harder, less tolerant one. We would fall into a vicious cycle of repression and violence, precisely into which the [Prime Minister's] Conservatives—and Senator Boisvenu—seek to lead us....We are talking about sick people. Punishment will not cure them. Prison does not cure.

That was Senator Hervieux-Payette, and those were her words regarding her own Bill S-214. I am quite certain that she will not mind if I draw a parallel with the current situation.

Is the government outraged that I would dare claim that it is playing politics at the expense of victims? The government is constantly accusing the opposition of siding with pedophiles, murderers and other criminals of that ilk, so I would simply like to try a little experiment.

The government has made several public statements on this bill, as did Senator Boisvenu and the mother of the two murdered children, Isabelle Gaston, whose state of mind I cannot even begin to imagine. The following is an excerpt of the statements of Senator Boisvenu and the Minister of Canadian Heritage at the announcement of Guy Turcotte's release on parole:

We believe that Isabelle Gaston doesn't deserve to live in fear of her children's killer, and neither do other victims...

Such decision is clearly undermining Canadians’ confidence in our justice system.

That's why our Government will shortly introduce legislation to address Canadians’ concerns about high-risk accused persons found Not Criminally Responsible on account of mental disorder who may pose a threat to public safety if released.

Well, if the government is not engaging in petty politics, and if the bill does not apply in any way to Dr. Turcotte's case, why are the Conservatives promoting the bill by using an emotionally charged and high-profile case involving children?

It smacks of demagogy and is very dangerous when the government plays with Canadians’ feelings and keeps them in the dark. The Conservatives know full well that this legislation will give the government an opportunity to capitalize on Canadians’ empathy for Ms. Gaston, while at the same time never clearly pubically admitting that the legislation cannot, and will never, apply to Ms. Gaston even if Mr. Turcotte were to face a second trial. Moreover, when Ms. Gaston was questioned on a Quebec public affairs television program, she admitted to being unaware whether the legislation would even apply in her situation. To quote Ms. Gaston “As far as I am concerned, I do not know, it is perhaps too early to get a sense of whether it will have an impact on my situation—the process is ongoing.”

This proves that all Ms. Gaston really wants is for things to change, and for her children not to have died in vain, which is entirely admirable. However, I seriously doubt that a more rigid position and the criminalization of mental illness will resolve the problem.

I use the word criminalization because, in truth, government members do not really believe in rehabilitation—we realized this when Bill C-10 was adopted. After listening to Senator Boisvenu, the jury is out as to whether he even believes that people genuinely suffer from psychological distress or severe mental illness.

In fact, the senator even wants the government to review the definitions of a number of mental illnesses whereby individuals may be found not criminally responsible.

Why? Simply because Mr. Boisvenu does not think that the incidence of mental illness could have increased so significantly over the past 10 or 15 years.

Why did the number of people found not criminally responsible increase twenty times? I do not think that the incidence of mental illness has increased at such a rate over the past 10 or 15 years. We must find out why there has been such a drastic increase in the number of these cases.

My colleague, the member for Gatineau, our justice critic, explained this during her opening speech. She said:

It is true that the percentage has risen over the years. However, and this is what it does not say, before 1991, if I recall correctly, when the amendment was made to the Criminal Code, the term was changed from “not guilty by reason of insanity” to “not criminally responsible by reason of mental disorder”. At that point, summary conviction offences were also added, and this resulted in a lot of cases that had not been covered previously. Obviously that had an impact on the statistics. According to the government's responses, we are talking about a tiny percentage of cases where the individuals were found to be not criminally responsible.

To what point are mentally ill offenders dangerous?

This question was at the heart of an extensive study the Canadian government's Department of Public Safety conducted at the end of the 1990s. It recorded and analyzed more than 60 studies on this subject to properly identify the problems.

These studies looked at more than 15,000 offenders who had been released from prison or specialized hospitals and who were followed in their communities for a period of four to five-and-a-half years, on average. What were the findings?

When compared to offenders who do not have major psychological or psychiatric disorders, mentally disordered offenders are less likely to recidivate violently.

Second, mentally disordered offenders are not always actively psychotic. They may be in remission or their symptoms are being managed by medication.

The study also evaluated the relative importance of different risk factors. Many mental health professionals place considerable emphasis on “clinical” variables. Examples are length of hospitalization and type of mental disorder (e.g., schizophrenia, manic-depression). The meta-analysis found that these variables demonstrate very weak associations with violent re-offending. Much more potent predictors of violent recidivism are the factors typically found to predict violence among non-disordered offenders. Examples of these risk factors are criminal history, unemployment and family problems.

When the Minister of Justice said in his opening speech on second reading that the objective of the proposed reforms was not to impose criminal penalties on individuals found by a court to be not criminally responsible on account of mental disorder, that was only half true, in fact.

In reality, Bill C-54 will divide the clientele into two types of cases: those who meet the criteria in Bill C-54 and those who do not meet those criteria, even though they have all been found not criminally responsible on account of mental disorder. This means that accused persons whose cases meet the criteria and who are found to be high-risk accused could be held in custody with no possibility of release by the review board as long as the court has not revoked the finding.

Why place people who are not criminally responsible outside the jurisdiction of the review boards that deal with mental disorders, quasi-judicial tribunals that are composed of psychiatrists, not judges? Only a court could find an accused to be “high-risk” and then revoke that finding, at present. Before revoking it, the court would seek the recommendation of the mental disorder review board, but the final decision would no longer be the board’s.

In Quebec, the mental disorder review board makes decisions concerning individuals who have been found unfit to stand trial or not criminally responsible on account of mental disorder.

As long as the accused is not discharged unconditionally or found fit to stand trial, a review must be held each year. With Bill C-54, that time will be extended to three years, and this could cause a number of problems, according to the experts with the Canadian Forensic Mental Health Network. It would prompt defence counsel to stop pleading not criminally responsible and opt for custodial prison sentences in the traditional prison system. In addition, individuals found not criminally responsible on account of mental disorder would not receive proper care, but they would still present a danger when they were released.

The study I referred to earlier also found that the similarities between risk factors for offenders with mental disorders and other offenders suggest that there is a point at which health care services and the criminal justice system could integrate their approaches in order to effectively manage offenders with mental disorders.

There are two specific areas where co-operation between the two systems is possible: risk assessment and rehabilitation of offenders. I am not citing that study to embarrass anyone, but simply to try to make the government members understand the consequences of deinstitutionalization, poverty and the criminalization of mental health problems. Prison does not cure people.

This bill, like so many others, was drafted without much thought to the consequences and without consultation, in order to make the public, and particularly the Conservative base, believe that this government is tough on crime. In reality, this bill would probably not apply to the case of Guy Turcotte.

Clause 12 of Bill C-54 adds a new section to the Criminal Code, section 672.64, which lists the conditions that must be met in order for a person to be considered high-risk:

672.64 (1) On application made by the prosecutor before any disposition to discharge an accused absolutely, the court may, at the conclusion of a hearing, find the accused to be a high-risk accused if the accused has been found not criminally responsible on account of mental disorder for a serious personal injury offence, as defined in subsection 672.81(1.3), the accused was 18 years of age or more at the time of the commission of the offence and

(a) the court is satisfied that there is a substantial likelihood that the accused will use violence that could endanger the life or safety of another person; or

(b) the court is of the opinion that the acts that constitute the offence were of such a brutal nature as to indicate a risk of grave physical or psychological harm to another person.

For Guy Turcotte to be declared an assumed high-risk accused, the judge has to be convinced, beyond a doubt, that he would likely seriously harm another person or could endanger the life of another person. Everyone agrees that the murders were both brutal and grotesque. I, too, have children. However, that is not what justice must decide. Rather, it should focus on whether or not there is a chance the accused will reoffend.

Given the decision made, the experts were obviously able to convince the judge that this was not the case. I am going to outline the five criteria that the judge must take into consideration—and he must take all of them into consideration—when determining whether the individual is a high-risk accused.

He must consider the nature and circumstances of the offence, any pattern of repetitive behaviour of which the offence forms a part, the accused’s current mental condition, the past and expected course of the accused’s treatment, including the accused’s willingness to follow treatment, and the opinions of experts who have examined the accused. If one must take into consideration all these criteria, the Turcotte case does not at all fit, given the experts' opinions, his mental condition and the treatments and therapies that he is following.

The nature of the offence is the only criterion that might lead a judge to consider him dangerous. However, given his mental condition at the time, and based on what the judge took into consideration, the risk of reoffending is very low. According to the Conservatives' bill, Guy Turcotte would not be a high-risk accused.

The one thing I agree on is that victims should be at the centre of the process. The problem is that the bill says very little on this aspect.

In closing, I want to reiterate that the government must realize the importance of providing real support to victims of crime, including by following up on more than one recommendation of the report by the ombudsman for victims of crime. It must also understand the whole psychosocial structure surrounding prevention, the study of risk factors, research, health care and rehabilitation.

It is difficult because each case is unique, but experts have tools to try to have everyone make progress. Some are probably beyond redemption, but just like with the concept of high-risk accused or mental disorder, it is certainly not up to politicians, or even the legal profession to establish the foundations. It is up to psychiatrists and doctors.

While referring to the former cardiologist's case, the Minister of Canadian Heritage said that such decision obviously undermines Canadians' confidence in our justice system. However, the minister was not able to say how this desire to put victims at the centre of the process would translate into concrete measures.

That is another contradiction in the Conservatives' logic, and it is the reason why we presented a number of amendments in committee. In fact, one of those amendments was accepted, and it is one of the few that the Conservative government has accepted in any committee.

The amendment would inform victims, at their request, of the address of a person already found to be not criminally responsible for a crime so that the victim can avoid the area for his or her own well-being. It is one of the examples that showed that we do care about the victims. We want to improve this bill so that it reflects this concern.

One of the reasons why we will be supporting this bill is that we were able to have the Conservatives accept a second amendment that would require the government—no matter which party is in power in five years, that is in 2018—to have a committee study and re-examine the situation.

There are still many concerns about this bill, and I have pointed out a few of them. I think it is worthwhile examining them. There are other concerns that I did not have the time to address in my speech. They were brought up by experts, or in committee, and had to do with the possibility that this bill may be unconstitutional.

The validity of such measures is obviously based on the victims' rights, but also the rights of those deemed to be not criminally responsible for the acts committed. These laws must also be protected. In that sense, a contradiction could easily lead to interpretation of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The committee was informed of concerns by the media. That is why, five years after the bill becomes law, such a study would be pertinent.

In my speech, I made sure that I talked about the danger of politicizing cases like the Guy Turcotte case. I am certain that other members could cite similar cases that have occurred in their riding or region. These cases are very delicate and they affect us.

I already mentioned that I have children. Anyone who has young children will be emotional about a situation like that. It is the reason why such a delicate and sensitive situation must be handled by parliamentarians in the same manner, that is in a delicate and sensitive manner. These types of cases must not be used to promote a political agenda.

The reference made by the Minister of Canadian Heritage and Senator Boisvenu to what I just mentioned was the second speech made on the same bill. It was announced twice. The government must be very careful, because this kind of issue is very volatile. Again, the politicization of these cases has muddied the waters for the collective debate we should be holding on this issue. This makes it much more difficult to find our way.

In the future, for law and order bills on crime, I would like the government to be much more sensitive to the reactions it causes and the way they interfere with the debate when similar bills are introduced.

On this side of the House, we showed we were willing to work with the government. We will do so by voting for this bill, among other things. In addition, we demonstrated our co-operation by proposing and expediting the passage of Bill C-2, which allows for the group prosecution of biker gangs.

We will continue to work on this issue, but we need the government's co-operation in order to have a healthy and useful debate for Canadians.

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I found one of my hon. colleague's comments interesting. Maybe the member is not aware, so I would like to bring his to attention this. It was the discussion about medical experts and having them comment. The review panels at present are composed of three members, and one of them is a judge and not a medical expert. There was an amendment put forward that the committee did not accept because it would have limited the panel to medical experts only. However, the review panels already have judicial expertise on them.

Based on the presentation tonight, is the member recommending that those voices not be heard and that, for example, there would be changes to the review panels so they would consist of all medical experts and no longer have judicial representation on them?