Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I'm pleased to be joined at the table by Catherine Kane, the acting senior general counsel, criminal law policy section; and Douglas Hoover, counsel, criminal law policy section.
Mr. Chairman, I'm pleased to appear before your committee as it begins its review of Bill C-10, the Tackling Violent Crime Act.
This is the government's first piece of legislation in this session of Parliament. The Tackling Violent Crime Act underscores our commitment to safeguard Canadians in their homes and on their streets and in their communities. It is a confidence measure. Bill C-10 reflects the depth of this unwavering commitment by the Government of Canada.
As a confidence measure, Bill C-10 reflects the depth of this unwavering commitment.
Canadians are losing confidence in our criminal justice system. They want a justice system that has clear and strong laws that denounce and deter violent crime. They want a justice system that imposes penalties that adequately reflect the serious nature of these crimes and that rehabilitate offenders to prevent them from reoffending. Bill C-10 seeks to restore Canadians' confidence in our system by restoring their safety and security in their communities, and this is in fact what is reflected in the preamble to Bill C-2.
The proposed Tackling Violent Crime Act brings together five criminal law reform bills that we introduced in the previous session of Parliament. One of them, Bill C-10, imposed higher mandatory minimum penalties of imprisonment for eight specific offences involving the use of restricted or prohibited firearms or in connection with organized crime, which of course includes gangs, and also for offences that do not involve the actual use of a firearm--namely, firearm trafficking or smuggling--or the illegal possession of a restricted or prohibited firearm with ammunition. The Tackling Violent Crime Act reintroduces the former Bill C-10 as passed by the House of Commons.
It also includes one of my favourites, Bill C-22, which increased the age of consent for sexual activity from 14 to 16 years of age to protect young people against adult sexual predators. There is proposed, as I'm sure you are aware, a five-year close-in-age exception to prevent the criminalization of sexual activity between consenting teenagers. The Tackling Violent Crime Act reintroduces Bill C-22 as passed by the House of Commons.
It also includes Bill C-32, which addressed impaired driving by proposing the legislative framework for the drug recognition expert program and requiring participation in roadside and drug recognition expert sobriety testing; by simplifying the investigation and prosecution of impaired driving; and by proposing procedural and sentencing changes, including creating the new offences of being “over 80” and refusing to provide a breath sample where the person's operation of the vehicle has caused bodily harm or death. The Tackling Violent Crime Act reintroduces the former Bill C-32 as amended and reported back from the justice committee.
We also have Bill C-35, which imposes a reverse onus for bail for accused charged with any of eight serious offences committed with a firearm, with an indictable offence involving firearms or other regulated weapons if committed while under a weapons prohibition order, or with firearm trafficking or possession for the purpose of trafficking and firearm smuggling. The Tackling Violent Crime Act reintroduces the former Bill C-35 as passed by the House of Commons.
The Tackling Violent Crime Act also reintroduces reforms proposed by the former Bill C-27, addressing dangerous and repeat violent offenders, with additional improvements.
As I have noted, and with the exception of the dangerous offenders reforms, all of these reforms have been thoroughly debated, reviewed, and supported in the House of Commons.
These reforms included in Bill C-27 had not progressed to the same level of understanding and support in the previous session and now include additional improvements to address concerns that have been identified in the House of Commons as well as by my provincial and territorial counterparts. Let me take a moment to go through these reforms.
The Tackling Violent Crime Act retains all of the reforms previously proposed in Bill C-27 regarding peace bonds, which had been well received within the House of Commons and beyond. Accordingly, Bill C-10 proposes to double the maximum duration of these protective court orders from one to two years and to clarify that the court can impose a broad range of conditions to ensure public safety, including curfews, electronic monitoring, treatment, and drug and alcohol prohibitions.
I believe this particular provision will be well received across this country. Many people have complained for many years that by the time you get a one-year peace bond, it's too short a period of time, and that two years would be much more appropriate in terms of getting the bond and having it put in place.
Under this bill as well as under the former Bill C-27, crown prosecutors will still have to declare in open court whether or not they intend to bring a dangerous offender application where an individual is convicted for a third time of a serious offence.
We have retained some procedural enhancements to the dangerous offenders procedures, allowing for more flexibility regarding the filing of the necessary psychiatric assessments.
As in the former Bill C-27, an individual who is convicted of a third sufficiently violent or sexual offence is still presumed dangerous.
Bill C-10 also toughens the sentencing provision regarding whether a dangerous offender should receive an indeterminate or a less severe sentence. This amendment modifies Bill C-27's approach to make the courts impose a sentence that ensures public safety.
Finally, it includes a new provision that would allow a crown prosecutor to apply for a second dangerous offender sentencing hearing in the specific instance where an individual is convicted of breaching a condition of their long-term supervision order.
This second hearing targets individuals who were found by the original court to meet the dangerous offender criteria but were nonetheless able to satisfy the court that they could be managed under the lesser long-term offender sentence. If they show by their conduct, once released into the community, that they are not manageable and are convicted of the offence of breaching a condition of their supervision order, they would now be subject to another dangerous offender sentence hearing.
Importantly, this new proposal does not wait for the offender to commit yet another sexual assault or violent offence to bring the offender back for a second hearing for a dangerous offender sentence. Instead, it would be triggered simply by the offender's failure to comply with the conditions of his release contained in his long-term supervision order--for example, for failing to return to his residence before curfew or for consuming alcohol or drugs. Of course, this second hearing would also be triggered if the offender in fact did commit a further sexual or violent offence after his release into the community.
These new proposals directly respond to a serious problem identified by provincial and territorial attorneys general in recent months. Indeed, some of these issues have been flagged since about 2003. Since the 2003 judgment by the Supreme Court of Canada in the Johnson case, many violent offenders who meet the dangerous offender criteria have nonetheless managed to escape its indeterminate sentence on the basis that they could be managed; that is, the risk of harm that they pose to the community could be successfully managed in the community under a long-term offender sentence.
So we reviewed the dangerous offender cases since the 2003 Johnson case and identified 74 such violent offenders. We then looked at how these individuals fared once they were released into the community. To date, 28 of these 74 dangerous offenders have been released into the community. Of these 28, over 60% were subsequently detained for breaching the conditions of their long-term supervision and 10 were convicted of breaching a condition of their long-term supervision orders.
Bill C-10 will prevent dangerous offenders from escaping the dangerous offender indeterminate sentence in the first place and will enable us to more effectively deal with those who nonetheless receive the long-term offender sentence but then demonstrate an inability to abide by the conditions of their long-term offender supervision order.
Of course I have carefully considered the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the Canadian Bill of Rights in respect of the totality of these new dangerous offender reforms, and I am satisfied that they are fully constitutional. These measures have been carefully tailored to provide a prospective, targeted, and balanced response to the real and pressing problem posed by these dangerous offenders.
To sum up, Mr. Chairman, the Tackling Violent Crime Act proposes reforms that have already been supported by the House of Commons.
In the case of the new dangerous offender provisions, it proposes modifications that many have signalled an interest in supporting.
I appreciate the collaborative spirit this committee and members have shown thus far to enable the commencement of the review of Bill C-10, and it is my hope and that of all Canadians that this collaboration will continue to enable expeditious passage of this bill.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
