Justice Committee on Nov. 20th, 2006

[The Chair, Conservative, Art Hanger]

Mr. Thompson, unfortunately your time is up.

[Myron Thompson, Conservative, Wild Rose, AB]

This is the point I'm getting at, and I don't hear that.

[The Chair, Conservative, Art Hanger]

Ms. Parkes, you may have to pick that up on another answer.

Mr. Bagnell.

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Thank you.

I'll just summarize what Ms. Parkes just said.

Your reservation, right here, collaborates that, and it's that—unlike what Mr. Thompson said—the public is not in support of mandatory sentences. Once they know the situation in fact, if you look on page 14 of 19 of your submission, it's only 17% who were in favour. So we agree with that.

If you don't want to support 83% of the population, that's fine.

My next question is for the Elizabeth Fry Society. Northern Australia got out of mandatory sentences, or backed off, because it exacerbated the problem of already having a disproportionate number of aboriginal people in prisons. Do you think that if this particular bill went through it would exacerbate the problem we have of a disproportionate number of aboriginal people in prisons in Canada? And would it be even worse than the proportions we have now, or would it just exacerbate it at least equally?

[Kim Pate]

It's hard to know speculatively, but certainly, based on what's happening in the United States and Australia, we'd say it would at least exacerbate it with the continued prorate at what it is now, but also for African Canadian young people, particularly African Canadian young men. I think you are meeting soon with the African Canadian Legal Clinic. They are certainly much more versed in this than I am, and our organization is, but they have done some important research on how this will impact their communities as well. And I suggest, picking up on the Ontario Commission on Systemic Racism, that we're likely to see increased numbers of racialized African Canadian young people in particular, and young men in particular as well.

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Thank you.

Mr. Woods, normally I agree with Mr. Ménard, and maybe it's because he's so collegial, but I disagree with his comments on your testimony. I think you're one of the best witnesses we've ever had, because we very seldom have witnesses take both sides of a case. You gave me a number of very good reasons that I wasn't aware of against this bill when you spoke about the things that can happen, the problems that can happen, with increased incarceration. So I appreciate you for going into that depth.

You also mentioned the support of Elizabeth Fry for early intervention and crime prevention, as did Mr. Thompson and Mr. Harper. I hope you'll just encourage Mr. Harper to get the departments to start approving the crime prevention projects, because, as you said, those are good, and this summer they just all went on hold. I've been fighting to get some projects approved, and they're not approving any; they're all on hold...and that would help us all. We wouldn't have to do bills like this that don't necessarily work.

I was glad to also hear you talk about the root causes and how it's important to deal with those. The head of the Toronto police said that on the front page of the paper a couple of weeks ago too, that in terms of the problems with the murders in Toronto, it was the root causes that needed to be worked on. I wonder if you could elaborate on that. I think that's a very important point, actually, and I agree with you.

[C/Supt Michael Woods]

We broke down some of the root causes, but perhaps I can put it in perspective by making reference again to the crime reduction strategy. The police component of the crime reduction strategy in fact is hard-hitting enforcement of the law.

We identify victims, and we work with them so that they become more able to deal with their environment and minimize their victimization. We identify criminals, and that's where the partnership comes in, in working with Corrections Canada, and probation. We focus on the specific criminals, the prolific criminals who are committing most of the crimes. We focus on them until we catch them doing something else and put them back through the system.

We also focus on location. We identify high-risk locations, which could be as small as the front entrance of a mall, or an intersection, or a neighbourhood, and we focus there until we catch the bad guy and put him through the system. That's the hard line; that's the enforcement component, but that only cycles people through the system.

We also have to have a mechanism in place that will deal with the person at the root cause. I can give you a list of the root causes. The individual or family factors include early substance abuse; anti-social, hostile, or aggressive behaviour; social deprivation or isolation; family history of gang violence or involvement; parental neglect; issues with family structure; low academic achievement, dropout, or truancy; unemployment, under-employment, few employment prospects.

When we go to the socio-economic and community factors, we have social upheaval, poverty, income inequity, racism, and proliferation of gang culture.

There's another component as well, and that's the media. The media glorifies gang lifestyles and contributes to the adoption of linguistic codes and dress styles. You see it. It becomes popular. Your children may be wearing clothes that they see glorified in the community and in the media environment. All gang members are presented in some light, without recognizing diversity of membership, and there's a focus on violent actions of gang members. Quite frankly, the gang members in particular, who are young and often immature, revel in the focus they're getting from the media. So for all of those reasons, something has to be done at the fundamental level to deal with that.

The biggest innovation of the crime reduction strategy--and a lot of it we've done piecemeal for many years, and through a lot of partnerships we've worked together to do it--is a more focused comprehensive model. As I listed earlier, we have a lot of partners in the community who can help with the process. It has to be a committee at the community level to which the educators can direct problem children they identify before they've committed a crime and which can mitigate the circumstances of those children's environment.

If we don't intervene early, or we fail in our early intervention and things get to the courts because the child has committed an offence, now we're focusing on the location; we're focusing on the criminal; we're focusing on the victim. We get that person to court or we divert him. There has to be a structure to pick that up. What are we going to do with that--in some cases--14-year-old or 15-year-old, or that 25-year-old?

If we can start addressing some of the issues that put him in the environment in the first place--like poverty, like racism, like hopelessness--and if this committee can provide that, we're not going to catch everybody, we're not going to solve all the problems, but we may solve some of those. So we have them go through the process once and get them diverted back to an acceptable lifestyle, and we don't have to deal with them again.

That 3% who keep recycling and keep committing all the offences will continue to do that unless there's an intervention.

[The Chair, Conservative, Art Hanger]

Thank you, Mr. Woods. Thank you, Mr. Bagnell.

Mr. Lemay.

[Marc Lemay, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Thank you.

I have listened carefully to the comments. Thank you for being here. I have fairly specific questions.

Mr. Woods, has the RCMP assessed the additional costs that would result from the implementation of Bill C-10?

[C/Supt Michael Woods]

No, not at all.

[Marc Lemay, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

What would you do if the bill took effect today? Your last paragraph states the following:

The major impact of this legislative reform will be at the Provincial/Territorial level in their administration of justice. Workload demands to support increased trials will impact on the resourcing levels of police agencies across Canada.

As you know, there will be many more trials. I concur with your statement that are going to be more trials, but how can you say there will be heavy demand for resources if you have not done any assessment of the potential cost of implementing a bill of this kind?

[C/Supt Michael Woods]

As you said, there will be more trials. When there are more trials, that means police officers will have to attend court to give evidence, and there will be more police officers in court than on the street. So if they're in court, those resources will be utilized on an hourly basis--

[Marc Lemay, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Yes, but my question, Mr. Woods, is more specific than that. I don’t doubt the translation is extraordinary, but have you done any assessments? There are going to be more trials. Representatives from the Correctional Service of Canada have told us they did assessments and it would cost them in the neighbourhood of a few million dollars. If the bill came into effect tomorrow morning, would you know how much more would it cost you in men? When I say “in men,” you understand that also means “in women” because I think you are beginning to have many police women. How much more would you need, approximately?

[C/Supt Michael Woods]

As I said, we haven't made that kind of assessment. We would have to study the environment to determine how much more it was going to cost.

[Marc Lemay, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Ms. Pate, thank you for your submission, which I appreciate very much. Let’s go to page 7 of your submission. You can use the English version, since you are more comfortable in English. I draw your attention to the third paragraph, on the Aboriginal issue, which concerns us a great deal. It says, and I quote

In addition, current trends portend the continued contributions of mandatory minimum penalties to the over-incarceration of racialized groups, especially Aboriginal people.

Can you explain to me what you mean by that statement? The good Minister of Justice, the extraordinary Vic Toews, has told us there will not be more Aboriginal people incarcerated. The proportion will not increase; it will probably be similar. According to you, there is going to be an increase in the number of Aboriginal people incarcerated. Can you explain that to me?

[Kim Pate]

I'm actually very surprised to hear that was the representation put forth, because the Correctional Service of Canada--not the Department of Justice--has projected that by 2017 the number of aboriginal young people in this country will exceed most other groups of--

[Marc Lemay, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Excuse me.

[The Chair, Conservative, Art Hanger]

Mr. Lemay, your time is up, but if you'll allow Ms. Pate to answer the question--

[Marc Lemay, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Mr. Chair, I have a point of order. I would like Ms. Pate to speak more slowly to allow sufficient time for the interpreters, because the figures she is giving us are very important. That’s all I wanted to ask.

[The Chair, Conservative, Art Hanger]

It shall be done.

[Kim Pate]

Okay. Pardon. Je m'excuse.

There are two major factors. I apologize if it's not clear enough in the brief from us. There is the Gladue decision that provided extra mechanisms that the Supreme Court of Canada said should be looked at and followed for aboriginal prisoners. Mandatory minimum sentences will not permit that. That's one.

Two, because of the changing demographics in this country, with increasing numbers of young aboriginal people--it's the population that is going up, particularly in the prairie provinces--to pick up on the submissions that were just made, the very important discussion of some of the precursors, such as the socio-economic status issues with people feeling disaffected, particularly young people having no ability to contribute and consider themselves part of the community, the existing racism, the ongoing issues that are plaguing many aboriginal communities in this country.... The Correctional Service of Canada has already estimated that those numbers of aboriginal young people in the system will continue to grow.

It used to be with youth justice over the past 15 or 20 years that when you entered the adult system your youth record didn't follow you. Now it does. We see that trajectory of young people progressing into the adult system much faster. It's not the 2% to 3% that Mr. Woods was talking about, but an overwhelming number of people who are there essentially for poverty-related offences.

[The Chair, Conservative, Art Hanger]

Thank you, Monsieur Lemay.

Monsieur Petit.

[Daniel Petit, Conservative, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

Thank you.

My question is for Kim Pate or Debra Parkes.

In your report, you explain that there are offences with minimum sentences, for example, for impaired driving. As far as I know, when someone is charged and found guilty of impaired driving and the judge applies the minimum sentence to a White person, an Aboriginal person, a Black person, a heterosexual, a homosexual, there is no discrimination. What would you answer?

[Debra Parkes]

I can respond to that. I apologize. My French is not very good, so I'll answer in English.

The idea that having a mandatory minimum sentence is “equality”--and I use that in quotes because it's a simplistic version of equality. You have to actually look at the circumstances that people are in. A mandatory minimum sentence doesn't allow any of those circumstances to be taken into account. When we're talking about sentencing, we're talking about proportionality and taking the circumstances of the individual and the offence into account. When you put in a blanket mandatory minimum sentence, you don't allow any of that to be taken into account. You don't have a substantively equal approach.

[Daniel Petit, Conservative, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

You are a lawyer, I believe. An alcohol level of 0.08 grams per decilitre of blood is the same for a person of the Black or White race or an Aboriginal person. Is there a difference according to the Criminal Code? It is a minimum sentence. If you exceed 0.08 grams per decilitre of blood, you are guilty. A bottle of alcohol is always the same, for a White person, a Black person, an Aboriginal person, as far as I know. Isn’t a minimum sentence, in fact, an equitable measure as far as sex, race, colour, etc.? Are you telling me that some groups drink more than others?