Justice Committee on Sept. 21st, 2006

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

So even though it's not probation, they do it. You may not get the data, but if you're looking at the public policy here, are we likely to get good feedback from those provincial or federal probation mechanisms on how the conditional sentence regimes are working?

I know we can go to Corrections Canada now and get a pretty good workup of what their offenders are doing or not doing--coming back. But with conditional sentencing, it's as if the offenders have all slipped off into the ether, and we might or might not have some reports from probation officers.

Am I right in perceiving that we don't have a lot of focus on the administration of the conditional sentence?

[Michael Martin]

On the practical effect, we've seen some of that in the return to custody with a breach. We see 30% in these jurisdictions being admitted to custody on breaches. As far as a conditional sentence is concerned, there's very clear direction that a direct return to custody, pending a decision by the court, is an outcome of a breach.

We have an upcoming report that will look more specifically at breaches. For Alberta, we should have some data that specifically looks at what kinds of conditions are being breached.

Finally, in terms of the administration, we released a report about three years ago--the last time I was before this committee--on conditional sentencing, in which we canvassed jurisdictions on specifically what their policies were on supervision of conditional sentences. That is publicly available data on how they view conditional sentencing from a supervision policy perspective.

[The Chair, Conservative, Art Hanger]

Thank you, Mr. Lee.

Mr. Thompson.

[Myron Thompson, Conservative, Wild Rose, AB]

Thank you.

Now that we've got all the lawyer questions out of the way, I'm going to be easy on you guys. I want to follow up a little more on Mr. Moore's statements.

On the constituencies and the people of Canada who expect to get their money's worth when they pay for a justice system, I think there's a lot of concern out there. That's why we have so many people joining various victims' groups. That's why we have to table so many petitions calling for harsher penalties and correcting these situations that have come up. But there are a couple of things in your charts that I'd just like to get straight in my own mind.

With reference to the chart on page 7, I want to give you a case here. James Peart was convicted of ten counts of indecently assaulting boys as young as eight over two decades, and he was given a conditional sentence of twenty months. Would that be under “other sexual offences” or “sexual assault”?

[Craig Grimes]

Indecent assault. That would have been an old Criminal Code offence that was probably prior to the new Criminal Code statute, RSC 1985, which came into force on December 12, 1988.

[Myron Thompson, Conservative, Wild Rose, AB]

No, this was in 2002.

[Craig Grimes]

Right, but it's based upon when the offence occurred.

[Myron Thompson, Conservative, Wild Rose, AB]

If his case had been a conditional sentence in 2003—I mean, it didn't happen then, but if that case had been at the same time that you did this chart, I want to know where he would fit. Would it be “other sexual offences” or “sexual assault”?

[Craig Grimes]

Right on. I'm trying to link up the charge of the offence. If I had the Criminal Code charge, I'd be able to put those two together for you, but I don't know. What I can do is I can look up indecent assault and find out where it fits within those two and I can get back to the committee.

[Myron Thompson, Conservative, Wild Rose, AB]

Okay.

You would have to do that if you were going to do this chart. Right? You'd have to see where it fits. Who determines whether it's “other sexual offences” or whether it's “sexual assault”? Who actually decides that when these stats are put together?

[Craig Grimes]

The way these data have been organized, it's based upon the UCR-2, which are the police scoring procedures. All of the statute sections, subsections, and paragraphs for chargeable sections are put into offence categories. So I can't find out that answer. I just don't have it with me.

[Myron Thompson, Conservative, Wild Rose, AB]

Quickly, on another conviction, Frederick Cole, 58, who was convicted of raping a young girl, was given a two-year sentence. Raping a young girl, I would assume from this chart, if that happened in this year, would be a “sexual assault”, not....

[Craig Grimes]

It would be a “sexual assault”. Rape was repealed as an offence, and it's now called sexual assault. If it was a rape offence, that would definitely be one of those old sexual offences.

[Myron Thompson, Conservative, Wild Rose, AB]

So those “sexual assault” categories here, the 307 cases of conditional sentencing, are very serious sexual assaults. Right?

[Craig Grimes]

Not all of them proceeded by way of indictment, so it's really difficult for me to determine the seriousness of the offence.

[Myron Thompson, Conservative, Wild Rose, AB]

Okay, I understand what you're saying, but if you look at the “other sexual offences”, there are 179 cases, and 307 cases of “sexual assault”. If you add those together, that's 486 cases of conditional sentencing with “other sexual offences” and “sexual assault”. Then I go to chart 12 and I see one-third of the conditional sentencing with regard to Bill C-9 in the same year, 2003-04 are “sexual assault”, 246 cases. Yet in chart 7 we're talking about 486 cases that received.... You have to explain to me exactly why there is that difference.

[Craig Grimes]

On chart 12, it's a person-based analysis. What that is, is the last case for each of those persons in 2003-04, whereas in chart 7 it looks at all cases, and each person may have multiple cases before the court. That's what's in those....

[Myron Thompson, Conservative, Wild Rose, AB]

That doesn't really make a lot of sense to the common Joe who wants to know why we are doing what we're doing and that it's because of.... I'd like to really clearly make them understand what we're talking about here in terms of sexual offences. I'm doing that mainly because I think there's another stat that I would like to see included in this, whether my colleagues agree or not. I would like to know how many sexual offences and sexual assault offences are committed against children and how many of those people received conditional sentencing, as opposed to sexual assaults against adults and conditional sentencing.

[Craig Grimes]

There are very few offences in the Criminal Code that specify young victims, so for sexual assault it could be any person who is assaulted. With the court data that I have available to me, it's not possible to determine the characteristics of the victim, unfortunately.

[Myron Thompson, Conservative, Wild Rose, AB]

And unfortunately for our justice system, the reports that keep coming out and the examples we keep getting--there are many examples--always seem to show that a big percentage of the cases are committed against an infant daughter or against a two-year-old son or against a five-year-old child in the backyard in the city of Calgary.

All of these cases that I have a record of received conditional sentencing. I think it's important to know why it is that there seems to be—and I could be wrong, but I'd like to know—an overabundance of conditional sentencing and probation with crimes against children, when it doesn't appear to be that way with adults. Is it possible to determine that type of stat?

[Craig Grimes]

I can't answer that question from these data, unfortunately.

[Myron Thompson, Conservative, Wild Rose, AB]

Well, the one thing that we can answer is that I think it's pretty ridiculous to see a guy go to jail for five years for poaching an elk and see a man get a two-year sentence for killing an infant baby. That's what troubles me. I don't know if Bill C-9 is going to correct these kinds of things, but that's what's being seen out there in the public.

I'd really like to see a little clearer stats. I'm starting to get a feeling that I understand a lot of it, but to be honest with you, I don't really understand most of it. It will probably take me a long time. But I'd like to get some real down-to-earth stats about what is actually going on in this country in regard to the treatment of victims. I get tired of hearing about what we're going to do to protect the criminal. To hell with the criminal. It's time to start looking at what kinds of stats we can get that will benefit the victims.

[The Chair, Conservative, Art Hanger]

Thank you, Mr. Thompson.

Mr. Murphy.

[Brian Murphy, Liberal, Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe, NB]

I cannot compete with the vigour and passion of that presentation, but throwing the criminal away for 47 days gets him back in the community, and that's what we're all about here. We're trying to prevent something happening again to a victim. That's what it's all about.

[Myron Thompson, Conservative, Wild Rose, AB]

We're not doing a very good job.