Bill C-27 (39th Parliament, 1st Session) Committee on June 6th, 2007

[Patricia Davidson, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

When we're looking at this legislation, and you have made several comments on it and you've referred several times to the reverse onus portions of it and so on, can you think of any previous cases in which this proposed legislation would have been beneficial in managing dangerous offenders and would have helped the police?

[Tony Cannavino]

There are some cases I could suggest. There was the Brassard case and the Bégin case, and we could go on and on. I mentioned the Karla Homolka case also. When you're dealing with those people, you're talking about really dangerous offenders--violent. They are people who have committed more than one crime. You don't see somebody who has committed one crime being designated a dangerous offender. In my career of 35 years I have never witnessed a case like that. You are targeting those people who are a big threat.

In the Brassard case I mentioned, he was declared a psychopath with a 100% chance of repeating, and he wasn't designated a dangerous offender. Those cases are sad.

[Patricia Davidson, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

Could you comment also on the extension of the time for filing a psychiatric assessment? Is that going to help in some of the cases. Is it going to have an impact?

[Tony Cannavino]

In those cases--and I'm always referring to the review of CSC, because it is important also--anything that could be in place that would help us or help Corrections or communities if this person were going to repeat, or if this person went through treatment and is okay now.... Any tools that are added are for the sake of the community. That's why, for us, those are things that are very important in the tool box.

[The Acting Chair, Liberal, Brian Murphy]

Thank you.

Now we'll turn to the second round of five minutes, beginning with Mr. Easter.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

Thank you.

Welcome, fellows. It's been a long while since I've seen you.

One of the difficulties with this kind of bill, especially with reverse onus, is maybe that we're going down a slippery slope where the balance between civil liberties and justice becomes skewed. I can understand where you folks are coming from, and I agree that dangerous offenders have to be kept off the street. Ms. Davidson raised the question of community safety.

With these changes, is it your expectation that more dangerous offenders would be kept off the street? What's your view on that? Would more be kept off the street?

I'll come to my second question when you answer that one.

[Tony Cannavino]

You talked about a slippery slope. The ones we're really targeting here—I'm trying to be careful with the words I use--are the dangerous offenders, the people who have been sentenced three times for violent crimes. We're not talking about shoplifters. I don't think it's a good thing to shoplift, but it's not those people we're focusing on. We're focusing on dangerous offenders, on sexual offenders. You know which ones they are. That's why we're not afraid that it's a slippery slope. We're really targeting those people.

And we have to find a way to keep them in. I was at a hearing a week and a half ago, and people had to go and testify there to try to convince the parole board to keep that killer inside. One of them had to go through five weeks of therapy, five days a week, just to be able to attend a hearing that lasted not even an hour. The criminal didn't even present himself at the hearing. He didn't think it was useful for him to be there, to attend that hearing.

They are bizarre people, they are dangerous to our society, and I'm not at all afraid that we're on a slippery slope, not at all.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

I understand that side of the coin. I've been at a number of parole board hearings.

With these changes, in your example of that individual having to go to therapy for a number of weeks and all the mental and indeed financial strain on some folks to come to those hearings, will this approach lessen that impact on those individuals, and if so, how?

[Tony Cannavino]

Well, in these cases, with these people, you wouldn't have what happened with Clermont Bégin. He never went through any programs. He served his sentence and said, “Okay, bye-bye, I'm out.” Everybody says that this guy is going to repeat.

You would have people go to those hearings and understand how important it would be to go there to keep him there, no matter if it's 10 years, 15 years, 20 years. Why? Because there's no limit. If you are a designated dangerous offender, then there is no limit to your sentence. If you go into therapy and into those programs to try to improve yourself or to seek help, and it works, you will get out; if not, you won't play the system anymore.

So that would make a huge difference there. It wouldn't be the way it is, actually, where the burden is so high for crown attorneys.... And why should it still be for crown attorneys after you have three sentences for violent crimes? Why would it again be up to crown attorneys when it should be up to you, as a violent criminal, to prove that you're not a danger to society?

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

But in terms of arguing why reverse onus is justified, Tony, can you be a little more specific on the individuals who may have to appear to plead their case against the dangerous offender? I think we need the arguments on how it lessens the strain on them personally, how it lessens the strain on the system as a whole, and how in fact it better keeps dangerous offenders off the streets.

So can you be a little more specific?

[David Griffin]

I guess the context we've tried to present in our brief is that if we look at the current situation and the characteristics of the dangerous offender population in the system right now, there's a high number of offenders that have been convicted. In many cases these are people who are coming into the system as young people, as young offenders, and then continuing. We have a statistic, which the Library of Parliament presented, that 45% of them had at least 15 criminal convictions for serious offences before they were declared dangerous offenders.

The criterion that is being established for the reverse onus now will, we hope, generate more applications to consider these individuals for dangerous offender status and will put some onus on an accused person in those situations, with that serious criminal past, to demonstrate why in fact they should be released back into the community, given their serious criminal record. But at the end of the day, the judge will still have the discretion, whether or not the criterion has been met, to declare that person a dangerous offender. And it's certainly my understanding that this bill does not change that criterion, in terms of what the characteristics are to be evaluated, before that designation would be granted, and the assessment process will still require the same experts to evaluate that person as well.

From our perspective, should it generate a higher level of applications for more serious offenders? We hope so. Will it place different criteria in place on which the judge is going to evaluate them? No. Certainly, from our perspective, the characteristics and the risks that are to be assessed during the process would remain the same.

[The Acting Chair, Liberal, Brian Murphy]

Thank you. We'll stop it there.

Mr. Moore, five minutes.

[Rob Moore, Conservative, Fundy Royal, NB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you both for being here today.

It was interesting yesterday on this bill. We had a presentation made by a criminal defence lawyer. He used a case scenario that we thought was pretty far-fetched, involving someone who had, on a scale of major to minor, a sexual assault that would have been at the more minor end of the scale, but it somehow led to dangerous offender designation for someone who no one thinks should be designated a dangerous offender.

What I've heard from you today and what I think we should all know around this table is that when we're talking about a dangerous offender, we're talking about the absolute worst of the worst when it comes to criminals. They are those who would prey on their fellow Canadians, prey on innocent Canadians, and in many cases prey on vulnerable Canadians. There's a real public interest that's been recognized with regard to these people for most of the last century, which is that in some cases the protection of society has to be paramount.

There are significant safeguards in place that continue to exist under these changes. What these changes simply do is that on that third designated offence, which is one of the most serious offences, the onus will then shift to the offender to prove, after they're already convicted, why they shouldn't be designated a dangerous offender.

I'd like you to comment a bit on that. It is such a high threshold that we heard yesterday that there are some individuals who really should have been designated--and I'd like your comment on this--and that any objective person would say they should have been a dangerous offender. They should have had that designation, and society should be protected, but because of everything that has to go into that and the hurdles that have to be leapt, it just doesn't happen. This is saying we recognize that, and those most serious individuals on that third offence will have to show why they shouldn't be designated dangerous offenders. I'd like you to comment on that.

Also, some of your figures say that 98% of dangerous offenders are classified to be at high risk to reoffend. As soon as we introduce a bill, so often all the focus goes on the offender--on protecting the rights of the offender, the rights of the accused--and we spend a small amount of time on the victims. For every criminal act, there's a victim somewhere. According to your statistics, 98% of dangerous offenders are classified to be at high risk to reoffend.

I did ask this question yesterday to witnesses. My second question is to ask you to give us a bit of a flavour of the type of people we're talking about--maybe what they think about human life, what they think about their fellow Canadians--and some of the things they've done, or the disregard they may have for the safety of society, and why this designation is needed for those most serious cases.

[David Griffin]

In terms of the first point that was made by the witness yesterday—and I haven't seen that testimony—certainly there are safeguards in the process, including the right for the person who has been perhaps wrongfully designated a dangerous offender to appeal that decision. So there is an ability to appeal the court's decision if in fact the offender believes himself or herself to have been wrongfully designated.

We have heard time and time again of cases where there's a reluctance to take the case forward because the threshold is seen as being very high. Really, this bill doesn't change the threshold. There's nothing in it that says we're going to lower the threshold to put more people in jail; it simply says we're going to lower the threshold in making those applications, encouraging an application's being considered after three serious convictions.

The statistics in our brief have simply been regurgitated from the Library of Parliament material already provided to Parliament about this, but they certainly paint a picture of psychopaths, of people with serious sexual abuse issues, and people who are generally victimizing women and children, and—of course, there are lots of generalizations here—in many instances, people who are considered to be at the far end of the scale or spectrum of potential for rehabilitation.

Because of that, and because of demonstrated repeat behaviour and unsuccessful attempts to rehabilitate those offenders, a determination is made that the person should no longer be returned to the community because of that concern. There is still a process in place, though, that even once the designation has been made, after seven years it has to be reviewed every two years.

So there are checks and balances all through the system. From our perspective, there are people living in our communities—and in some cases, their lives perhaps didn't start out on the easiest path—who unfortunately present a risk so serious to others that their liberty has to be curtailed.

[The Acting Chair, Liberal, Brian Murphy]

That's it. Thank you, Mr. Moore.

Ms. Freeman will ask the last question.

[Carole Freeman, Bloc, Châteauguay—Saint-Constant, QC]

Welcome, Mr. Cannavino and Mr. Griffin. Thank you for being here.

It is not without some surprise that you will discover that the Bloc is not completely in favour of this bill. The reversal of the onus of proof is for us quite worrisome, especially since three offences would automatically trigger reverse onus.

At present, there are some 384 dangerous offenders who have been documented. Of this number, 20.3% are Aboriginal. Therefore, out of a total of 384, there are approximately 80 Aboriginals. How do you envisage the future of these aboriginal inmates as dangerous offenders?

This will continue. They will commit three offences and they will automatically be incarcerated as dangerous offenders. We know full well that Aboriginals are over-represented in our penitentiaries. Do you not believe that this group will be even more a victim of discrimination, in one way or another? How will these people be able to defend themselves?

[Tony Cannavino]

Madam Freeman, I do not believe that these people are what we could call a target clientele. Those people who are incarcerated and who are dangerous criminals are not people who have committed three offences. These are people who have been imprisoned for three serious crimes. Three offences is one thing: these offences could be just about anything. We are talking about three jail terms for violent crimes or serious sexual offences. These are the people we are talking about. Be they Aboriginal, Italian or Portuguese, if they are dangerous criminals, to my mind, there is no distinction based on race, nationality or anything else. These are people who have committed serious crimes and who are a serious threat to the public.

I have some difficulty following the Bloc's reasoning, despite the fact that I very much enjoy discussing things with you. We are targeting violent and dangerous criminals. We are not talking about kleptomaniacs. A kleptomaniac is not going to be designated as a dangerous offender.

[Carole Freeman, Bloc, Châteauguay—Saint-Constant, QC]

Mr. Cannavino, we are targeting dangerous offenders, but we are also targeting a fundamental principle of justice: reverse onus.

[Tony Cannavino]

Madam, these are people who have committed crimes. These are people who, in general, are assessed and determined to be psychopaths and whose risk of reoffending is at 100%. These are the people that we want to keep behind bars.

The principles of philosophical rights and of the Charter are all fine and dandy, but it nevertheless remains that they are also aimed at protecting citizens. I do not want to expend my energy protecting dangerous criminals who could not care less about the lives of their fellow citizens. These are predators that we set free among the public. I want to do my utmost to keep these people in prison.

If these people, after having committed a violent crime, get therapy and try to better themselves, heal themselves, then that is something different. However, when these people play the system, do not even participate in the therapy programs, do their time and then cannot even be kept in prison, it is revolting for citizens.

I understand the principles and I am in full agreement with them. This will not affect someone who has made a mistake, who has gone through hard times such that he or she has committed a crime. We are talking about three convictions, in other words about a person who has been three times convicted of a violent crime. This is serious. And we are not talking about three crimes, but perhaps three series of crimes.

[Carole Freeman, Bloc, Châteauguay—Saint-Constant, QC]

We understand.

[Tony Cannavino]

I know that you understand, but I wish to make this distinction. The principle for me, Madam Freeman, is that we must pay attention to the citizens, who are the victims.

[Carole Freeman, Bloc, Châteauguay—Saint-Constant, QC]

There is nevertheless a principle in law that...

[Tony Cannavino]

Yes, I am not denying that. On the contrary, we believe that that is important. However, we must protect citizens against predators, serial killers, incorrigible repeat offenders. These people must be kept in prison and we must find ways to do this. This is one means of accomplishing this. I know that even the Ministère de la Sécurité publique of Québec has attempted to find a solution in order to keep people like Clermont Bégin behind bars, in order for them to be treated differently, for them to be designated differently. Why? Because the public is defenceless. The Crown does not have the tools needed to keep these people in prison.

[Carole Freeman, Bloc, Châteauguay—Saint-Constant, QC]

Do I have time to ask another question?

[The Acting Chair, Liberal, Brian Murphy]

You have 10 seconds left.