Bill C-2 (39th Parliament, 2nd Session) Committee on Nov. 1st, 2007

[The Chair, Conservative, Rick Dykstra]

Your point has been made, Madame Jennings, and it's not a point of order.

[Rob Moore, Conservative, Fundy Royal, NB]

I have a question.

There seems to be a hesitancy to hear.... I mean, we have advocates who will come to the defence of these types of individuals, but what sometimes becomes lost is the victims.

Mr. Muise, you work with victims, and you have for a long time. We appreciate your contribution in that way. It's tough to narrow it down, I know, but in terms of dangerous offenders, you mentioned the 85% sexual nature. Perhaps you could talk a bit about the victims of crime and how important it is that someone who has earned that indeterminate sentence does not victimize again. In the case of the balcony rapist, you have the offender but you also have the victims. In the case of the age of consent, we have the victim.

So could you speak a bit about the victims? Hopefully we can prevent future victims through this legislation.

[John Muise]

Thank you, Mr. Moore.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rick Dykstra]

If you could respond to that, Mr. Muise, we'll then wrap up, because we do need to have a couple of minutes to deal with some committee business. Thank you.

[John Muise]

Victims of serious violence, particularly sexual or child sexual in nature, carry that with them for the rest of their lives. They often end up hurting themselves or hurting others, or both. For many of them, particularly victims of child sexual abuse, it's a lifetime thing.

I can tell you that they also feel further victimization because of the justice system when they see it as not operating appropriately. I'll give you an example.

Gordon Stuckless was the offender in the case of Martin Kruze, the young man who committed suicide and in whose memory and honour the Canadian Centre for Abuse Awareness works. Two things happened there. One, the original judge gave a sentence of two years less a day. Four days later, Mr. Kruze jumped off the Bloor viaduct. It was the straw that broke the camel's back. The appeal court did change the sentence five years later, but that was too late for Martin.

Three and a half years into the five-year sentence, the many Maple Leaf Gardens survivors, dozens and dozens of them, found out that Gordon Stuckless was getting out at the end of two-thirds of his sentence. We attempted to intervene with the Correctional Service of Canada to convince the commissioner that there were several good reasons why they should gate Mr. Stuckless. In any event, they didn't, but they did put him on a shorter community corrections leash.

I will never forget the day when, in the tiny little CCAA office—it was one of my first contacts with the CCAA—all of these adult survivors of sexual abuse were in there wondering, trying to understand why Gordon Stuckless was out after serving three and a half years of his sentence. It was a continuing victimization. Many of these men will go on to commit suicide or hurt other people--

[The Chair, Conservative, Rick Dykstra]

Thank you, and sorry for interrupting.

I appreciate your presentations this morning and the time you spent responding to the questions. I'll allow you both to exit now while we do a little bit of committee business. Thank you very much.

I would ask everyone else to stay in their seats and allow for the cameras to shut down for about 30 seconds.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rick Dykstra]

I would ask committee members to come back to their chairs so that we can finish up.

You have in front of you a schedule of witnesses. These witnesses have been submitted as priority witnesses by each of the four parties.

Our goal and the clerk's goal is to ensure that during the next week that we're back, we have two witnesses from each of the parties represented here. Also, our goal is to have three witnesses at each of these meetings, for a total of nine witnesses at our next three meetings as of next week, so that we can then move into clause-by-clause.

If that's acceptable to folks, I would certainly appreciate a motion.

Monsieur Ménard.

[Réal Ménard, Bloc, Hochelaga, QC]

I'd simply like us to agree on certain things beforehand.

When the motion was drafted as part of the negotiations with our respective leaders, even though it wasn't specified in the text of the motion, I had understood that there was a gentlemen's agreement of sorts whereby the committee would devote 16 hours to hearing from witnesses before moving on to the clause-by-clause study stage. Of course, that's not counting organization meetings at which technical matters are discussed.

I don't wish to harp on procedure, but as I see it, if I discount the organization meeting and tally the hours that we will be devoting to witnesses when we return, that is the three two-hour meetings planned, that gives us a total of 11 hours devoted to witnesses.

As I see it, we should hear from a minimum of four, not three, witnesses per meeting. On occasion, the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights has even managed to squeeze in five witnesses. I must admit that it does seem we would be moving fairly quickly if we vote on a bill after devoting only 11 hours to testimony from witnesses. First, let's try to see what kind of information we need.

I would ask the committee to invite four witnesses to testify at each meeting. That's not so unusual. I will check with my leader and ask my Liberal colleagues and Mr. Comartin to do likewise, but it was my understanding that we had an agreement, not officially stated in the motion, to hear from witnesses for a total of 16 hours before proceeding to the clause-by-clause study stage.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rick Dykstra]

I certainly, as chair, cannot speak to the gentlemen's agreement that was put into place or how that was agreed to. I do have the motion in front of me that came from the House. I also have a general understanding that we had agreed that this committee would meet for a minimum of 16 hours. We did spend our first meeting going through routine motions. One part of that was to indicate the times and the dates that we would be meeting. We agreed to that by a motion.

I take into account what you're saying, Monsieur Ménard. I would suggest that if you would like to alter the schedule and add additional witnesses that you do so through a motion. I would consider it a procedural motion. I wouldn't consider it a significant motion. So if you would like to move a motion that we add additional witnesses and additional time, you're certainly free to do that, but in terms of adjusting the schedule as we have it now, it has been passed by motion and endorsed, so it would require you to move a further motion to add either additional hours or additional days, and of course that would include adding additional witnesses.

Moving back to our issue....

Madam Jennings.

[Marlene Jennings, Liberal, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine, QC]

Specifically on this issue, I understand that our committee did in fact discuss and agree to dates that the committee would meet, times that the committee would meet. We began preparing a witness list, but we also said that if needed, we would be prepared to increase the number of sittings or extend the sitting hours.

At this point in time, I'm not in a position to say that the actual dates and times we've agreed to are not sufficient. I think we'll know that only when we see which witnesses are available for the week we get back. If we need to increase the number of sittings or the number of hours that we will spend on hearing witnesses during the week of November 12, that's when we would have to act on it.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rick Dykstra]

Thank you.

Mr. Keddy.

[Gerald Keddy, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margaret's, NS]

Let me deal with our witness list.

Very quickly, I think we want to deal with the witness list, but I would appreciate if we could see a transcript of our original meeting at which the discussion occurred. To my recollection, there was no discussion of extending sittings. There was discussion about 16 hours of meetings, and at the end, I believe, we said we would sit into the night if it took longer in order to prepare the bill to go to the clerk and come back to the House. I believe that was the discussion.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rick Dykstra]

Certainly the transcripts are available, so we'll have a look at them.

[Derek Lee, Liberal, Scarborough—Rouge River, ON]

He has a transcript in his own office.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rick Dykstra]

Yes, he does.

Thank you, Mr. Lee.

If we can now get into the list of witnesses and complete that, that would be great. We can suspend until we get back.

Mr. Lee.

[Derek Lee, Liberal, Scarborough—Rouge River, ON]

All the witnesses are fine, but I have questions about two because they are solo names on the list, and they are unaffiliated.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rick Dykstra]

Yes, Mr. Lee.

Shawna Silzer is no longer on the list. I apologize. You can just cross her name off.

[Derek Lee, Liberal, Scarborough—Rouge River, ON]

Secondly, there is Joe Tarasofsky. Does he have an affiliation?

[Réal Ménard, Bloc, Hochelaga, QC]

He's a former justice, now retired, of the criminal division of the Quebec Court.

[Derek Lee, Liberal, Scarborough—Rouge River, ON]

All right.

That answers my questions. Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rick Dykstra]

I'm looking for a mover for this motion: that each party identify two or three priority witnesses and that panels of three or four witnesses be organized for each meeting.

[Réal Ménard, Bloc, Hochelaga, QC]

I so move.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rick Dykstra]

Thank you.

The motion has been moved by Monsieur Ménard.

[Réal Ménard, Bloc, Hochelaga, QC]

We have submitted names that do not appear on the witness list. Mr. Frémont's name and that of three other proposed witnesses do not appear on the list. In addition to Mr. Frémont, we had proposed Peter Hogg. Both of these individuals are constitutional experts. If we had to select a particular witness to hear from before we conclude our business, I would have to choose Ms. Sherman. This choice has been confirmed by the Bloc. Next on the list would be Mr. Tarasofsky, a retired judge. I don't know if he will agree to testify. I had also submitted the name of Mr. Frémont, a constitutional expert with the law faculty of the University of Montreal. I think these would be my three preferred choices.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rick Dykstra]

Thank you.

Mr. Comartin.