This bill is from the 42nd Parliament, 1st session, which ended in September 2019.
Majid Jowhari Liberal
Introduced as a private member’s bill. (These don’t often become law.)
Second reading (Senate), as of April 30, 2019
(This bill did not become law.)
This is from the published bill.
This enactment amends the Criminal Code to require that a presentence report contain information on any aspect of the offender’s mental condition that is relevant for sentencing purposes.
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.
Bill numbers are reused for different bills each new session. Perhaps you were looking for one of these other C-375s:
Julie Dabrusin Liberal Toronto—Danforth, ON
Madam Speaker, on a point of order. I have to say I am a little confused as to how this ties in. We are talking about another bill here entirely. I am a little confused.
Criminal CodePrivate Members' Business
The Assistant Deputy Speaker Carol Hughes
Once again, I will remind the member for Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek that the wording of the bill deals specifically with “any aspect of the offender’s mental condition that is relevant for sentencing purposes, as well as any mental health services or support available to the offender.”
Subsection 721(3) of the Criminal Code would be amended by the addition of that wording. If the member could redirect her speech towards the bill that is before the House, which specifically deals with this, it would be greatly appreciated.
Kelly Block Conservative Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK
Madam Speaker, it is important that we understand the pattern of the current government's introduction of government bills or private members' bills, particularly justice bills. The fact is that the bills the government introduces tend to undermine the rights of victims and overly represent the rights of criminals.
I believe that the private member's bill before us today, Bill C-375 falls into that category. I am simply trying to demonstrate how Bill C-375 fits into the pattern that I was outlining earlier. It is not a well thought-out bill due to the changing nature of psychological research. The bill includes all mental health disorders. This is a mistake. It would provide prisoners with an incentive to claim they have a mental health condition, some of which are difficult to verify.
While I do have deep respect for the mental health workers in our justice system, their ability to meet their current responsibilities is already stretched. I believe that the requirements of Bill C-375 would further slow an already glacial process. I believe that would also result in an unequal application of the law, and weaker sentences for many offenders.
As I was saying earlier, my greatest concern about this bill is that it continues the Liberal pattern of prioritizing criminals over victims. For example, in my province of Saskatchewan, we were shocked to hear that Terri-Lynne McClintic, the woman who murdered eight-year-old Tori Stafford, was being housed in a healing lodge in the province instead of being held behind bars where she deserves to be.
Healing lodges are meant to help reintegrate offenders into the community, not to be housing for child killers. Tori Stafford's father begged the Prime Minister to send Ms. McClintic back to prison. The lead investigator denounced her transfer. The Nekaneet First Nation that runs the lodge is very concerned about that transfer. However, the Liberals refuse to act and send her back where she belongs.
The Liberal government ignores the rights of victims and coddles criminals. Canadians deserve better than a government that treats victims like criminals, and criminals like family. Therefore, I will be voting against this motion.
Alistair MacGregor NDP Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC
Madam Speaker, I had my opening remarks prepared, but after listening to the previous speech, it is important to clarify a few things.
What the member for Richmond Hill is attempting to do is amend a very specific section of the Criminal Code. That is well within the rights of the federal level of government. It is very separate from victims services. As we all know, victims services fall under the provincial jurisdiction. The administration of justice in Canada falls to the provincial governments. We have a very limited jurisdiction in amending criminal law, so it is important to state that clear fact.
Furthermore, when people get to the pre-sentence stage, they are no longer suspects, they are now offenders; they have been found guilty. Given the huge amount of evidence that exists regarding mental health issues in Canada's prisons and given the previous member's own stated support for mental health supports, I do not see why we should not tackle this issue. This is not putting the rights of offenders over the rights of victims. Those are completely separate issues. A judge is the expert of the case and has heard all of the facts. This is about giving that person, who is in a decision-making stage, even more facts to make the correct and appropriate decision.
I was at the justice committee. I heard the testimony from numerous witnesses who work in the criminal justice system. They support this piece of legislation going through. It is important to hold up facts, to back up our deliberations with those facts, and not to go down some rabbit hole talking about support for offenders over the rights of victims.
On a personal note, I have a friend who recently was subjected to a crime and she accessed victims services in the province of British Columbia. I can say, with pride, that she found those services to work very well. She found the judge in her case and all of the support staff were there every single step of the way. Therefore, for the Conservatives to suggest that victims do not have rights in this country is factually incorrect, given the experiences of my personal friend. She found herself supported every step of the way by the justice system in British Columbia. I just wanted to read that into the record.
I want to thank the member for Richmond Hill because the other key difference here is that this is not a government bill. This is from a Liberal backbencher who has taken the right that we all have in this place to take an issue that is important to a member's local community, which his or her constituents or Canadians within the wider region have identified as an issue, and to bring it forward. The member has identified this as an important piece, so we need to respect that. This is not a government bill masquerading as a private member's piece of legislation.
The very specific section of the Criminal Code that Bill C-375 addresses is section 721. There are some differences in the wording of this legislation, from second reading to the stage it is in now. That is because the justice committee did its due diligence and it listened to the testimony. I agree with the member for Richmond Hill that the language was tightened up to take account of some of that testimony. We had three meetings at the justice committee on this particular bill. I was present for two of them, where I got to listen to most of the witness testimony.
I thank the hon. member for Victoria, who serves as our party's justice critic and has done an admirable job at that committee for us. We attempted to move an amendment at the committee stage. It was not agreed to, but through all of the deliberations that went on, the bill that is now before the House has taken into account a lot of the improvements that were mentioned.
Pre-sentence reports already do exist. In section 721 of the Criminal Code, in paragraph 721(3)(a), pre-sentence reports already require that, “[an] offender’s age, maturity, character, behaviour, attitude and willingness to make amends” be included in a pre-sentence report.
Therefore, it is key that we now include a new section 8.1, which reads, “any aspect of the offender’s mental condition that is relevant for sentencing purposes, as well as any mental health services or support available to the offender”. We do not want to house with the general population someone who has an obvious mental health issue. That would not serve the general population well, and it certainly would not serve that particular person well.
A lot of attention has been paid to mental health lately. At the justice committee last year we were engaged in a groundbreaking study on mental health support for jurors, because jurors are often dragooned into service from of their normal family lives. I was there when we were listening to jurors who partook in the Paul Bernardo trial. They had to watch all of the videos and hear all of the audio tapes. After the trial was done and they had delivered their verdict, they were simply given a handshake, a pat on the back, released back to their family lives and expected to go on normally. Therefore, I really hope that the Department of Justice listens to the recommendations in that report.
We are also making landmark strides in mental health with respect to first responders, our veterans, Canadians Forces personnel, and now in the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food we are tackling the issue with respect to farmers. I think the conversation is headed in the right direction, and I am glad to see that this particular private member's bill is continuing along in that vein.
We had testimony at committee from the Probation Officers Association of Ontario. These are people who are working every single day in the correctional system. We had the director from the Canadian Association of Elizabeth Fry Societies there, as well as the executive director of the John Howard Society. We also had some testimony from the defence counsel of the Canadian Council of Criminal Defence Lawyers. These are people who are intimately involved with the justice system, understand it very well and understand where the shortcomings are.
However, Dean Embry from the Canadian Council of Criminal Defence Lawyers did have reservations about the bill. In his testimony, he was quite concerned about some of its privacy implications. His concerns were taken into account and that is why we see the language tightened up.
Providing information about an individual's mental health in a pre-sentence report allows the judge to make a more informed decision about an appropriate sentence. However, this measure is not intended to result in the disclosure of one's mental condition. Also, I think it is very important to note that it is not about perpetuating stigma or the false perception that those with mental health disorders are dangerous. It is simply designed to assist the individual to obtain care and receive an appropriate sentence.
It is also important, because privacy concerns were raised, that the pre-sentence reports are distributed only to members with a vested interest in the case. They include the judge, counsel for the defence and the prosecution, the parole officer, the individual and, in some cases, the institution where the sentence will be served.
We know that people with mental illness are overrepresented in the criminal justice system, and there are statistics on that. There was a report in 2012 showing that 36% of federal offenders were identified at admission as requiring psychiatric or psychological follow-up. Additionally, 45% of male inmates and 69% of female inmates received institutional mental health care services.
To conclude, we should be giving a judge as much information as possible to make an appropriate sentence for someone who has already been found guilty. Giving a pre-sentencing report, I think, is in everyone's interest. We should be giving a judge the widest amount of discretion possible to take in all of the facts of the case to make an appropriate sentence.
I thank the member for Richmond Hill for bringing this proposed legislation forward. I congratulate him for the bill's making it to this stage, and I look forward to offering my support when the House votes on the matter.
Lloyd Longfield Liberal Guelph, ON
Madam Speaker, I rise today in support of Bill C-375. The bill would amend the Criminal Code to require all pre-sentence reports to include information on the mental health of the offender.
I would like to thank the hon. member for Richmond Hill for bringing the bill forward for debate and for his hard work on the mental health caucus.
In the 19th century, Russian novelist Dostoevsky once said, “The degree of civilization in a society can be judged by entering its prisons.” His meaning is clear. The administration of justice reflects the values of society.
The first MP to take a stand on this self-evident truth was also the first woman to sit in the House, Agnes Macphail. In 1935, after making a personal visit to Kingston Penitentiary, Agnes Macphail realized that the administrative system was not designed to reform prisoners, but simply to punish and separate inmates from society. Her most challenging proposal for reform was to end military and political appointments to penitentiary administration and to appoint instead superintendents with penology training and medical doctors with psychological training.
While her series of reforms brought meaningful change to our penitentiary system, there is still much work we need to do.
If mental health policies have been slow to develop in Canada, it is fair to say that this issue is especially present in our prison system. According to the Office of the Correctional Investigator, 16.9% of male inmates have mood disorders, half suffer from alcohol and drug abuse and 16% have borderline personality disorder. Our government is seized with addressing this inequity.
Bill C-375 identifies an important gap in our justice system. It is already common place in many jurisdictions for offenders to provide information about their mental health through a probation officer. The practical result of this bill would be to signal to a sentencing judge that this information would be a relevant consideration at the time of sentencing.
Mental illness affects nearly all Canadians at some point in their lives, either personally or through a family member, friend or colleague. An estimated 20% of Canadians will personally experience a mental health illness in their lifetime. The number of individuals with mental health issues who have become involved in the criminal justice system has increased over the past several decades.
What we have in place is simply not working.
The stated goals of the bill are consistent with the mandate given by the Prime Minister to the Minister of Justice, which asks her to address gaps in services to those with mental illness throughout the criminal justice system. I think that most Guelphites, as well as most Canadians, would agree that the issue of mental illness could be better managed in the criminal justice system.
A number of factors have been cited as contributing to the increasing numbers of individuals with mental illness in the criminal justice system. Some of these include a lack of sufficient community resources, including housing, income and mental health services. They all connect.
Individuals with mental illness are more likely to be arrested, detained, incarcerated and more likely to be disciplined rather than treated while incarcerated. Once they have been released from the criminal justice system, they are also more likely to be arrested and detained again. Further, there is a high rate of substance abuse among individuals with mental illness, resulting in more complex needs.
It is an area where we must continue to work together with our provincial and territorial counterparts, as well as community stakeholders, to ensure that meaningful progress is made.
I want to be clear that improving the mental health responses of the criminal justice system is not about letting offenders off easy. On the contrary, it is consistent with our government's stated commitment to a criminal justice system that keeps communities safe, respects victims and holds offenders to account.
In particular, addressing mental health is one of the critical ways that we can divert offenders from the so-called revolving door of incarceration to both improve chances of successful reintegration and also to make more efficient use of scarce resources. These outcomes, and not simply punitive measures, should drive our decision-making tonight. As a result, every step we take to improve outcomes for those with mental illness is a step worthy of careful consideration by parliamentarians.
The bill complements our government's progress in addressing mental illness issues. In budget 2017, as has previously been mentioned, the government committed $5 billion over the next five years to the provinces and territories to improve access to mental health services. In addition, to ensure that federally sentenced offenders with mental health needs receive proper care, budget 2017 also proposed to invest $57.8 million over five years starting in 2017-18, and $13.6 million every year thereafter to expand mental health care for all inmates in federal correctional facilities.
Last year, the hon member for Richmond Hill and I visited the Grand Valley Institution for Women in Kitchener, Ontario, not too far from my home. There we saw the complex needs of the inmates. We saw trauma, addictions and the effects of adverse childhood effects. We saw bright young women incarcerated who really wanted more access to educational resources so that they could have a better life once their term was finished.
We saw a lot of opportunities for improvement, but at the root we saw a lot of care that is needed in mental health and addictions. Our government has acknowledged the need for funding in this area and has set aside $20 million in budget 2018 for mental health care of women offenders.
If we are to address and reverse the stigma surrounding mental health, we cannot ignore parts of Canadian society such as prisons. Often enough, society tends to make an “other” of the people on its fringes: people in the criminal justice system, indigenous peoples and people struggling with mental health issues.
Particularly for those who come before the criminal justice system, assumptions about the person's past and motivations come quickly. The bill helps to prevent the kind of assumptions from taking the place of fact in Canadian courts.
Eighty years ago Agnes Macphail took up the struggle to reform Canada's prisons. Then as now, fairness and respect are the ultimate goals of our reforms.
Bill C-375 acknowledges and seeks to address the gap in Canada's legal system that is easily addressed in the legislation before us today.
Before I end, I would like to thank again the hon. member for Richmond Hill for bringing this to the floor for debate. We both come from business backgrounds and both sit on the industry committee together and why are we talking about mental health? It is simply the biggest issue that we are facing within our constituencies. I thank the member for bringing this forward. I encourage all our colleagues in the House to support this very important legislation.
Criminal CodePrivate Members' Business
October 31st, 2018 / 6:25 p.m.
Longueuil—Charles-LeMoyne Québec
Liberal
Sherry Romanado LiberalParliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Seniors
Madam Speaker, I am pleased to participate in the debate of private member's Bill C-375, an act to amend the Criminal Code (pre-sentence report). I would like to acknowledge the contributions of the members of the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights for their hard work in studying the bill.
The Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights recently completed its study of Bill C-375 and reported it back with one amendment that makes three changes to the proposed language of the bill. The bill, as amended by committee, has now been concurred in at report stage.
In my view, the committee's amendment clarifies the language in the bill and will ensure it better achieves its stated objectives.
Before I speak about the specific amendment, I would like to take a moment to speak about the bill itself. The bill seeks to amend the Criminal Code provisions relating to pre-sentence reports. Pre-sentence reports are ordered by the court and prepared by probation officers to help the court learn about the person to be sentenced and, in turn, to help the court discharge its responsibility to impose fit and appropriate sentences.
Currently, the Criminal Code specifies that a pre-sentence report should contain certain information about the offender, for example, age, maturity and character, unless the court orders otherwise. However, the Criminal Code is silent as to whether or not relevant mental health information should be included.
Bill C-375 proposes to amend section 721 of the Criminal Code to clarify that, wherever possible, a pre-sentence report should also include available mental health information about the offender.
During its review, the justice committee heard from several witnesses, each with an expertise in mental health and the criminal justice system and each bringing a different perspective to the table.
The Probation Officers Association of Ontario shared some very useful information with the committee about the collection and transmission of that information. The association noted that, if an offender has a mental health diagnosis, probation officers have to investigate and confirm the diagnosis through contact with mental health professionals where possible.
However, sometimes an offender's diagnosis is not confirmed or the offender does not disclose it to the probation officer. In such cases, information about mental health may come from collateral sources, such as family members, employers or professional counsellors. If necessary, probation officers include comments about observed or reported behaviours in the pre-sentence report.
Essentially, Bill C-375 would codify this standard practice to require the inclusion of mental health information in pre-sentence reports. All judges and criminal justice professionals would have access to that information and would take it into consideration at sentencing following criminal proceedings.
As I noted earlier, the justice committee amended the bill to reflect some of the expert testimony presented to it. The amendment resulted in three notable changes to the original language of the bill.
The first change to the language replaced the term “mental disorder” with “mental condition”. This responded to a concern that, as introduced, the wording in Bill C-375 was too narrow, as it would have required a specific diagnosis. The impact of this part of the amendment would be to broaden the wording of the bill, as introduced, to ensure that a pre-sentence report contained more general information about the mental condition of the offender that might be relevant for sentencing purposes, as well as any related behavioural challenges, and not solely a medical diagnosis.
The second change to the language will ensure that only the information about mental health with a direct relationship to the proceedings will be provided to protect the offender's privacy. This would address the concerns the committee heard about the presence in public records of information unrelated to the offence or sentence.
The third change to the language specified that information about “mental health services or support available to the offender” be included in a pre-sentence report. This broadens the language of the bill as introduced, which provided that the pre-sentence report should also include information about “mental health care programs”.
Broadening this language would ensure that the legislation would not unduly limit the treatment an offender could access. This amendment responded to three of the issues discussed by witnesses, and in my view, it is consistent with the purpose of the bill.
When the bill's sponsor, the member for Richmond Hill, appeared before the standing committee, he indicated that the purpose of Bill C-375 was to ensure that mental health information be considered during sentencing and that individuals with a history of mental illness be provided appropriate care and treatment in support of their rehabilitation.
I believe that the bill, with the amendment adopted at committee, strikes the appropriate balance between protecting the privacy interests of the accused and ensuring that the court has the appropriate information to make a fit sentence.
This bill would only signal that where mental health information was available to the probation officer, either from the accused directly or through collateral sources, that information would be relevant to sentencing and should be included in the pre-sentence report.
I believe the committee's amendment strengthens this bill and responds to the concerns raised before the committee. As such, I will be voting to adopt the bill, as amended, at third reading.
Majid Jowhari Liberal Richmond Hill, ON
Madam Speaker, this is the last time I will be standing in this House to provide remarks on this private member's bill.
I would like to once again thank all the members in the House for participating in this debate and helping me through this legislation. I would especially like to thank the hon. members from the NDP side and my colleagues from the Liberal side for providing positive feedback and support. I wish the member from the Conservative side had stayed for me to provide some remarks in response—
Criminal CodePrivate Members' Business
The Assistant Deputy Speaker Carol Hughes
I want to advise the member that he is not to indicate who is in the House or not in the House.
The hon. member for Richmond Hill.
Majid Jowhari Liberal Richmond Hill, ON
Madam Speaker, I would like to take this opportunity to provide a response to the Conservative member on the other side of the aisle. This legislation is not about specific cases mentioned. It is not about choosing one over another. It is about providing equal opportunity for those who are impacted. It is about justice and caring for those who are vulnerable. As such, the bill would provide judges with all the relevant information for a given case, and we respect their independence.
I have had the opportunity to discuss my private member's bill at length. I have made it clear that mental health issues are a profound strain on our correctional system and that these systemic issues can only be solved through recognition and treatment. I have walked through the bill's history, as many of our colleagues have, and the strong positive changes brought forward by the committee.
In short, the bill is a piece of common sense policy that would do real, quantifiable good across our corrections system, saving taxpayer money, protecting the vulnerable, freeing resources in our prisons and improving quality of life for those serving time.
I look forward to the discussions to follow on my private member's bill in the other place and to its eventual return. This has been a long journey and a long time coming.
Criminal CodePrivate Members' Business
The Assistant Deputy Speaker Carol Hughes
It being 6:38 p.m., the time provided for debate has expired.
The question is on the motion. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?
Criminal CodePrivate Members' Business
Criminal CodePrivate Members' Business