This bill was last introduced in the 41st Parliament, 2nd Session, which ended in August 2015.
Peter MacKay Conservative
This bill has received Royal Assent and is now law.
This is from the published bill.
This enactment amends the Criminal Code to
(a) increase mandatory minimum penalties and maximum penalties for certain sexual offences against children;
(b) increase maximum penalties for violations of prohibition orders, probation orders and peace bonds;
(c) clarify and codify the rules regarding the imposition of consecutive and concurrent sentences;
(d) require courts to impose, in certain cases, consecutive sentences on offenders who commit sexual offences against children; and
(e) ensure that a court that imposes a sentence must take into consideration evidence that the offence in question was committed while the offender was subject to a conditional sentence order or released on parole, statutory release or unescorted temporary absence.
It amends the Canada Evidence Act to ensure that spouses of the accused are competent and compellable witnesses for the prosecution in child pornography cases.
It also amends the Sex Offender Information Registration Act to increase the reporting obligations of sex offenders who travel outside Canada.
It enacts the High Risk Child Sex Offender Database Act to establish a publicly accessible database that contains information — that a police service or other public authority has previously made accessible to the public — with respect to persons who are found guilty of sexual offences against children and who pose a high risk of committing crimes of a sexual nature.
Finally, it makes consequential amendments to other Acts.
All sorts of information on this bill is available at LEGISinfo, an excellent resource from the Library of Parliament. You can also read the full text of the bill.
Jamie Nicholls NDP Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC
Mr. Speaker, I asked my colleague this question earlier.
Even though these measures have been taken, the incidence of abuse has gone up by 6% over the past five years. I believe that is the figure. Could my hon. colleague explain why the measures taken so far have not worked?
Robert Goguen Conservative Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe, NB
Mr. Speaker, an increase in offences against children is certainly all the more reason to send serious messages about the heinous nature of these crimes and how they are totally unacceptable to Parliament and the people of Canada.
The measures we have taken are designed to protect the public and certainly to protect our most vulnerable citizens: children. The face of crime is rapidly changing. There are more and more crimes being done on the Internet. We have to double down to make sure that children are protected.
Keeping repeat child offenders in jail, where they cannot reoffend, is a measure the Canadian public accepts as a valid way of protecting people from such heinous crimes.
Kevin Lamoureux Liberal Winnipeg North, MB
Mr. Speaker, here is a question I have posed to opposition members. I would love to have the hon. member provide a detailed answer, as time allows.
We have a conflict here in the sense that we have legislation with which the Prime Minister's office is trying to send the strong message that we want tougher penalties for child predators, which is the short title of the bill. This implies that the Prime Minister wants to see action on the file.
Yet when it comes to fighting cyberexploitation, we have seen chronic underspending by the government to allow law enforcement officers to ensure that there is some justice brought to those individuals being exploited and to assist victims of this exploitation.
What I am referring to is the $2 million underspent by the RCMP, which is supposed to deal with this issue. Can the member explain why the government encourages underspending in areas of this nature, when we know full well that this is an important issue for Canadians?
Robert Goguen Conservative Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe, NB
Mr. Speaker, when it comes to the question of protecting the Canadian public, every nickel finds a spot, whether it finds its way into the budget of the RCMP or finds it way into a $10-million grant to child protection agencies and centres, such as cybertip.ca or NeedHelpNow.ca.
Fighting child offences is not just a matter of handcuffs and pistols. It is a matter of a total panoply of programs to help combat them, whether it be against cyberbullying, whether it be tips to prevent cyberbullying, or whether it be boots on the ground. Our government is committed to giving all the resources necessary to protect our most vulnerable children. It is not necessarily with the RCMP, with pistols and handcuffs, that this is accomplished. It is a full scope. It is all the elements that are needed to protect the Canadian public.
François Lapointe NDP Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC
Mr. Speaker, more and more people are coming forward with reports of abuse they have suffered at the hands of their abusers. This is bad news, generally, however, there is reason for hope: society no longer tolerates this kind of behaviour. Together, we are trying to address the problem head-on and solve it as much as possible. There is some bad news, however: the RCMP's budget has been cut by $10 million. That money should have been used to tackle this problem.
We support the bill in question, but as legislators, how can we consider increasing penalties if, while society is trying hard to eradicate the problem, police forces have fewer resources to tackle it? It does not make any sense.
How can my colleague across the aisle justify such a thing?
Robert Goguen Conservative Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe, NB
Mr. Speaker, as I said earlier, fighting this kind of offence requires a multi-faceted approach. The RCMP is not alone in fighting this. I would remind the House that we have brought in legislation that involves Internet service providers. In fact, when ISPs identify a problem of cyberbullying, they are obligated to report the source of abuse to the RCMP. We are certainly putting more resources into tackling this problem, but police forces are not the only ones working on it; members of the community and companies are also working on it. There is a wide range of possible solutions. The RCMP is not the only solution to this serious problem.
John Barlow Conservative Macleod, AB
Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the parliamentary secretary for sharing his time with me today.
I am pleased to have the opportunity to participate in today's debate on Bill C-26, the tougher penalties for child predators act. Today I am going to focus the bulk of my remarks on the part of Bill C-26 that creates higher penalties for breaches of supervision orders. However, I want to devote a few moments on the other key features of this initiative.
I am a father of three children, and as such, it is important to me to highlight the end goal of Bill C-26: deterring child predators and focusing on the seriousness of child sexual offences. One way we can achieve that is through higher mandatory minimum penalties and higher maximums.
However, one of the reasons I am supporting Bill C-26 is that the amendments also clarify and codify the use of consecutive sentences in child sexual abuse cases. This would ensure not only consistency in application of the law but also justice for each life devastated by an offender's sexual abuse.
The amendments to supervision orders in this bill are yet another facet of this criminal law initiative that would strengthen the protection of children from sexual predators.
Supervision orders empower judges to impose conditions on child sexual offenders or persons who might commit child sexual offences. There are various orders a court can use to ensure the supervision of the offender in the community. These orders include probation orders, peace bonds, and prohibition orders. It is important to understand how each of these orders operates to fully grasp how they would achieve the underlying objective of Bill C-26. The underlying objective is to protect children from sexual predators.
First, probation orders can be imposed where offenders are sentenced to less than two years of imprisonment. They can also be stand-alone orders, and in all cases, they have a maximum duration of three years. These orders can vary substantially in scope. For instance, some conditions, such as keeping the peace, are mandatory, whereas other conditions are left to the discretion of a judge. These conditions can also include requiring the offender to be under house arrest except for predetermined absences, such as employment. These optional conditions must be reasonable, clear, and most importantly, certain. These conditions aim to protect society by preventing recidivism and facilitating the offender's successful rehabilitation and safe re-insertion into the community.
Peace bonds, on the other hand, can be used where there is a reasonable fear that a person will commit a child sexual offence. In fact, section 810.1 of the Criminal Code allows any person, under reasonable grounds, to lay information before a provincial court judge based on a fear that an individual will commit a certain sexual offence against a young person under 14 years of age. A court will order a person to enter into a peace bond if it is convinced, on a balance of probabilities, that the informant's fear is reasonably grounded. Peace bonds can encompass a variety of conditions, including prohibiting an offender from communicating on a computer with young people or attending public places where children could reasonably be expected to be present.
Lastly, prohibition orders allow courts to prohibit the offender from having contact with children where there exists an evidentiary basis for concluding that the offender poses a risk to young children. This prohibition may take different forms, such as a ban from specified places where children are present, restriction on employment involving a position of trust or authority over children, and access to the Internet.
The Criminal Code requires a judge to consider such orders in every case involving an enumerated offence, and they can last for the offender's lifetime.
Maximum penalties for breaches of probation orders, peace bonds, and prohibition orders, referred to collectively as supervision orders, would be increased under Bill C-26. This would ensure that those who violate conditions imposed by the courts to protect children would be held accountable.
Bill C-26 would raise the maximum penalty for breaches of all supervision orders from two to four years on indictment. In addition, it would increase the maximum penalty for breaching prohibition and peace bonds from six months to 18 months on summary conviction. The proposed new maximums would ensure that offenders who breached these supervision orders were liable to the same penalties, regardless of the type of order, according to whether the breach was a prosecuted indictment or a summary conviction.
Furthermore, fines for breaching probation would increase from $2,000 to $5,000. The supervisory aspect of these orders helps to rehabilitate offenders, but, more importantly, ensures the maintenance of a just, peaceful, and safe society.
According to Statistics Canada, a number of studies with a follow-up period of 15 years noted that the average rate of recidivism among sex offenders is about 24%. However, alarmingly, the highest rate for recidivism found in this review was 35.5% for a sample of offenders who sexually offended against children. These offenders were followed for a 23-year period. The source of that information is the Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics in a study called “Police-reported sexual offences against children and youth in Canada, 2012”, which was released on May 28, 2014.
It is, therefore, absolutely crucial that serious breaches of these conditions be denounced and deterred. One way that Bill C-26 would protect children is by ensuring that once child sexual offenders are released into the community, a breach of their conditions will result in serious consequences commensurate with the objective that these types of orders are designed to fulfill—namely, the protection of the most vulnerable members of our communities, our children.
For instance, a key component of the sentencing reform in Bill C-26 would ensure that any evidence that an offence was committed while the offender was subject to a conditional sentence, on parole, or while on statutory release would be an aggravating factor in their sentencing. Treating such instances as aggravating factors is necessary to denounce, deter, and punish offenders who deliberately persist in reoffending even after they have been placed under varying forms of supervision.
Such amendments are also necessary to protect the community when rehabilitative and reintegration efforts are clearly not working for these offenders. Increased penalties for those who violate conditions imposed by the courts to protect children would serve two very important functions: first, they would hold offenders accountable; second, they would prevent future harm to vulnerable children. This is especially true in the context of child sexual offences, where breaches of supervision orders may indicate a risk that the offender will re-victimize children. Thus, increasing the minimum and maximum penalties for breach of supervision orders is an important tool that courts can use in appropriate circumstances. Not only would these measures dissuade offenders from committing offences, but they would also separate child sexual predators from society before they commit repeat offences.
Breaching a supervision order is not a trivial offence. For instance, persons subject to probation and prohibition orders have already been processed through the criminal justice system and released on conditions that are intimately intertwined with the alleged or previous offences committed. As such, breaching these orders is serious, because it is concrete acknowledgement of a refusal by that offender to be rehabilitated. We must send a clear message. Such breaches require a clear, proportionate, and dissuasive response.
It is important to remember that these supervision orders have not been imposed in a vacuum. Combined, the amendments in Bill C-26 would send a clear message. We will not allow offenders to commit crimes with impunity while being under community supervision, especially when such breaches put children at risk. Additionally, they would achieve consistency in punishment for all heinous sexual offences against children.
These features of Bill C-26 are important and necessary. As a result, I urge all hon. members of the House to support this bill and its swift passage.
Francine Raynault NDP Joliette, QC
Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his speech. I have a quick question for him.
The government wants to amend the Canada Evidence Act to ensure that the spouses of the accused would be competent and compellable witnesses for the prosecution in child pornography cases. Why?
John Barlow Conservative Macleod, AB
Mr. Speaker, it is a very good question. Right now, under the Canada Evidence Act, common-law partners or spouses are not asked or not allowed to testify against their spouse, but in this case, we are adding child pornography to the list of exemptions. The main reason for that, especially because of the emergence of online child pornography, is that it is really difficult to come to a conviction beyond reasonable doubt without the support of the spouse. There is a legitimate question there in terms of who is responsible for pornographic images on a home computer without having a spouse there to testify against the person who is charged.
We want them to have that ability so that when computers within the household are shared pieces technology, the spouse would be able to testify against the person who is charged.
Kevin Lamoureux Liberal Winnipeg North, MB
Mr. Speaker, again I want to emphasize that over the last number of years we have seen significant growth in child exploitation through cyberspace or the Internet. The Government of Canada, in working with other levels of government and different stakeholders, does have a strong leadership role to play on this issue. When I say that, it means more than just legislation; it also means budgetary measures.
I would ask the member if he would not agree that while legislation is one thing, it is equally important to make sure that we have the right resources in the right places. The government's decision not to allow the RCMP to spend its full budgets in this area, some $2 million annually, will do very little in fighting the cybersex exploitation and child exploitation that is taking place. If the RCMP is not spending that $2 million, then it is not doing what is necessary to track down some of these issues in a very real, tangible way, thereby sparing victims and ensuring that there is more justice given to those who are perpetrating this terrible crime.
John Barlow Conservative Macleod, AB
Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my hon. colleague for Winnipeg North for that question. I am really glad that he asked it. However, I think the way in which he spun the question was interesting.
The member said that the government did not allow the RCMP to spend its allotted budget, which is absolutely not true. There was $10 million sent back over the five years, but there are reasons for that, and I would like to talk about that briefly.
I had the opportunity to work with Sheldon Kennedy at the Child Advocacy Centre in Calgary. He built that program. I was able to tour the facility when it was opened and meet with many of the RCMP officers who are working as part of the team at the CAC in Calgary.
They spoke about some of the issues they are facing and how traumatic and extremely difficult this line of work is. It is something they are passionate about, certainly, but it is also something that I think any law enforcement officer would have a great deal of difficulty doing for more than a couple of years. One of the issues they talked about was the high rate of turnover as part of that job.
I was able to speak to many of those RCMP officers about the traumatic pictures they were seeing and having to sit down with these children who were brought to the CAC to discuss the issues they had gone through. The stories were horrific. Because of that, we are seeing a high turnover among the RCMP in this industry.
Therefore, a great deal of those RCMP dollars went unspent. It was not because we did not allow the RCMP to spend that money, but because of human resources issues. The RCMP just could not fill those child advocacy roles and carry out the cyberjustice activities we were looking to do.
However, we have looked at other ways. We have given $10 million to child advocacy centres across the country. We found other ways to use those dollars. I think it is important to clarify the difference.
Jasbir Sandhu NDP Surrey North, BC
Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles.
It is a honour to speak to Bill C-26, which amends a number of acts that deal with sexual offences against children. I would like to speak as a father, as an uncle, and hopefully someday as a grandfather.
I have two children. Any time the subject of child exploitation comes up, I think all parents across Canada would have zero tolerance for any sort of child exploitation that occurs in our society.
The bill is a good step in the right direction; however, a number of amendments and a number of recommendations from expert witnesses and stakeholders introduced at committee provided very good evidence to amend the bill. As usual, the Conservatives failed to entertain any of them.
That said, when I and all my colleagues talk about our children, there is no doubt that whether one is on this side of the aisle or the other side, every single member of the House is dead set against child exploitation. Not only that, in the last number of years the House has brought in a number of initiatives that have tightened the laws regarding child sexual exploitation, and we were happy to support those initiatives.
Members will remember Bill C-10, an omnibus crime bill introduced by the Conservatives. We actually wanted to fast-track the sections that dealt with child exploitation. One side of the story is to bring in legislation to ensure that our children are safe, and as parliamentarians we should be doing that. I am very proud of the record of the NDP, the official opposition, in supporting initiatives that enhance the safety of our children.
It is one thing to be tough on crime, but we cannot be soft on community safety. That is the record of the Conservative government. The Conservatives have been soft on community safety. If we really want protection, laws alone will not provide it. We need to provide additional resources. Money must be invested into communities to ensure that service providers, other stakeholders, and law enforcement agencies have the tools and resources to ensure that our children are safe from predators. Earlier the member talked about the money that was unspent, and I will talk about that in a second.
I want to quote Steve Sullivan at the committee. He is the former federal ombudsman for victims of crime and he would certainly know something about resources in the community. He wrote:
...the federal government recently announced it was cutting the measly $650,000 in funding Corrections Canada provides. [The Circle of Support and Accountability program] also receives funding from the National Crime Prevention Centre; that's also set to end this fall. In total, the program costs $2.2 million a year.
He went on:
Like most community-based victim services, [Circles of Support and Accountability] is a fairly cheap program. It has 700 volunteers across the country; they meet with offenders after their release, help them find jobs and places to live, meet with them regularly for coffee. They support offenders as they settle into normal lives, ones that don't involve new victims. They hold them accountable.
This program has shown success. Here are some of the statistics that have come out. Circles of support and accountability numbers are impressive. One study found a 70% reduction in sexual offences recidivism for those who participated in circles of support and accountability compared to those who did not. Another study found an 83% reduction in child sexual offences recidivism.
This is the record of the government. If we are really concerned about ensuring safety for our children and safety in our community, why is the government cutting the very programs that have shown success in communities? They provided 700 volunteers. These are Canadian parents that are willing to volunteer their services to ensure that our communities remain safe, yet the government pulled the rug out from underneath this very successful program. We can create all the laws we want. We can say we are tough on crime, but it does not work if we are soft on community safety. That is the record of the government.
We had a couple of cases in Surrey, British Columbia. There was a young lady murdered by a sex offender who was known to the RCMP and who was on the list of those likely to reoffend. My heart goes out to the family. My heart goes out to the parents. What we did as a society, as a government, was let this happen in our community. Where was the support? How are we monitoring these people when they are released into the community?
If we know these people are likely to reoffend, why are they being dropped into the community without some sort of support, whether we provide resources to the RCMP or to the very front line workers who provide these services to monitor these individuals? We had programs in place where the recidivism rates for sexual offences were reduced by 83%, yet the government is cutting these very programs.
In fact, the mayor of the city of Surrey has called for more resources to ensure that once offenders are released, if they are released, that we have proper resources to ensure monitoring and ensuring there is support in place to ensure the safety of our children.
I often talk about this. Facts and research are not something Conservatives believe in because we know where they get their facts from. We have seen them pick their facts from Kijiji rather than relying on science or what works in the community. What works in the community are programs like circles of accountability and support.
I want to talk about the changes. I do not understand this as a parent. I do not understand as a member of Parliament. The government wants to enact a high-risk child sex offender database to establish a publicly accessible database that contains information that a police service or other public authority has previously made accessible to the public with respect to persons who are found guilty of sexual offences against children and who pose a high risk of committing crimes of a sexual nature.
If the offenders pose a high-risk of repeating crimes of a sexual nature, why are they being released into the community in the first place? That is how idiotic the government is.
If we are really concerned about ensuring the safety of our children, we need to provide resources. Bill C-26 does not provide any resources to ensure the safety of our communities.
Kevin Lamoureux Liberal Winnipeg North, MB
Mr. Speaker, I would like to provide a comment with respect to the whole issue of prevention, in particular, the circumstances that children who are living in our communities will often find themselves in. Quite often, we find dysfunctional families and within those families, we will see that a child is far more vulnerable to being exploited.
I believe that the Government of Canada, working with the provincial governments and other entities, can help develop and encourage programs that would give some of these high-risk children, who are living in communities, a better chance at being able to avoid being exploited.
We do not talk enough inside the House of Commons about the fact that there is so much more we could be doing by working with others and developing the programs necessary in order to provide a helping hand to children who are more susceptible to being exploited.
I wonder if the member might want to provide some comment on that aspect. It is not good to only bring in legislation dealing with one end, we also have to be responsible in dealing with the other end.
Jasbir Sandhu NDP Surrey North, BC
Mr. Speaker, certainly, we can do more. We had $10 million earmarked for the RCMP to deal with child exploitation which went unspent. The current government clawed it back to put it into general revenue. If we are really concerned about ensuring safety in our communities and the safety of our children, the least we can do is provide those funds to the various front line service providers that need these resources.
I have spoken with a number of RCMP officers and front line workers who deal with families and children. I can assure the House that there is lack of funding and commitment from the government to ensure that the safety of our children is put first and foremost.
Joy Smith Conservative Kildonan—St. Paul, MB
Mr. Speaker, I was not going to stand up because I will give a speech a little later, but I could not stay silent. My son is an RCMP officer. My son was in the ICE unit. The people who go into those units are special people because they have a lot to face. They have to look at videos of children being raped, hearing their screams and know that they have to find those children. There are not many officers who want to go into the ICE unit or those kinds of units because they have not been specially trained.
Therefore, the $10 million was not spent by the RCMP because they could not find the specialized people to deal with this unit. We can say many things in this House, but they have to be truthful and they have to reflect the realities of the day.