Evidence of meeting #35 for Justice and Human Rights in the 39th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was violent.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Art Hanger
That's not a problem.
Thank you, Mr. Ménard and Mr. Cannavino.
Mr. Thompson.
November 27th, 2006 / 4:35 p.m.
Conservative
Myron Thompson Conservative Wild Rose, AB
Thanks very much. I appreciate you people being here.
I'm going to ask four questions, and I hope to ask them quickly. There's a question for each one of you. If you just make a note of it, I'll go back to the first question and then we'll go from there.
To Professor Chartrand, you say that the legislation we're doing here to try to lock up more people is going to cause more jail time and is going to cost a lot more. Have you ever done any cost analysis of what crime costs when these people are left on the street and continue to commit crimes? Sometimes we can measure that in monetary things. The cost of crime should never be left out of any formula. Why is that not talked about by people like yourself?
Front door to back door--we know what happens when we go into the front door of a penitentiary and out the back door. You say they come out more dangerous. I would suggest to you, sir, that what happens inside the penitentiary should never be happening because of our lax laws. How in the world can you have a penitentiary where people are in debt because they don't pay their rent inside, or because they're drinking too much alcohol, or because drugs are overused, and they lay around an awful lot in these things? I've been to many of them and I've seen this. I think what takes place in that penitentiary could have a lot better effect on those coming out the back door than what we're doing today. You can comment on that.
Last is root causes. I don't even want to go there. Root causes is something we should all work on, but not through this committee. We're talking about people who have committed a crime, and now we have to deal with it. The root causes are something we all can engage in by some other method than through the justice committee.
To the police commission, I thank you so much for being here. I really appreciate hearing about the number of cases that have happened when they're on bail, probation, and parole. I understand that the authority you have as police officers for arresting without warrant when someone is obviously breaking parole does not exist. I'd like you to comment on how much effect you think that would have in curbing crime, as well as some of the sentencing that's taking place with Bill C-10.
Professor Lee, I really appreciate your charts. A lot of people, this committee included, don't seem to think that from 40 years ago there has been a significant increase in crime. I agree with you, sir. I'm so glad to see that chart; it is extremely significant. The silly decisions we've made over the years are a lot of the root cause for that thing going up.
They keep claiming alcohol is a root cause of crime. Well, I agree, but we're the society that said it's okay to keep bars open seven days a week and it's okay to keep them open till three o'clock in the morning. So they carry a bunch of knives or anything with them. “This is Canada; we have some freedoms we have to respect”, and all that nonsense. So we've asked for a lot of our own problems. I'd like your comment on that.
Mr. Stuesser, I too believe in the firm, fair, and fast—the three-F—system. We used to have it in the military. I thought that was one of the best systems. But I need a little more clarification. Are you suggesting that this Bill C-10 is okay, but we also need legislation for unintentional commissions of a crime? I think accidental shootings and self-defence are already covered in the code, but if that's not true, I'd like your comments on that.
Those are my questions, and if you take them in order, I'd like to hear your response.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Art Hanger
Mr. Thompson, I think you have one for each person there.
Mr. Chartrand, would you like to start, please?
Professor, College of Law, University of Saskatchewan, As an Individual
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I believe the honourable member of the committee, Mr. Thompson, has asked me two questions. I would like to address them properly so as to respond to the questions fully.
Mr. Chairman, I ask your assistance, please. Would you ask Mr. Thompson to elaborate what he meant when he said, “talked about by people like yourself”? What category is that, please, so that I can try to do my best to offer him that particular perspective?
Conservative
Professor, College of Law, University of Saskatchewan, As an Individual
I'm sorry, I'm unable to identify any—
Professor, College of Law, University of Saskatchewan, As an Individual
—any particular actual category there. It's totally abstract, who might oppose the bill, so I'll ignore—
Professor, College of Law, University of Saskatchewan, As an Individual
—that gratuitous comment and do my best to address the substantive questions, Mr. Chairman.
First of all, he asked if the cost of crime ought to be addressed and I say, definitely. And I mentioned in particular that the effect of these sentences would be felt disproportionately by the aboriginal people. I also want to point out that, statistically, aboriginal people are also the greatest victims of crime as well. That is very well known. But there's nothing there to counter what I said, because I merely suggested that minimum mandatory sentences increase the costs. The costs of crime are existing costs. If this does not reduce crime, those costs will not be reduced. There is no evidence that it does, therefore there's nothing to respond to.
In regard to the second question...rather, it's an assertion. He asked me to comment on it and I'm happy to do so. He said the root causes are to be addressed somewhere else, not in this particular committee. Thank you, Mr. Thompson, for confirming the meaning of the statement that I made in my presentation where I said, essentially, minimum mandatory sentencing, which is easy to legislate for political purposes, says let them go to hell because then you don't care what happens to them; that's for someone else.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Art Hanger
Mr. Chartrand, thank you. I would like some more dialogue on those comments, but we don't have time right now.
Mr. Cannavino.
David Griffin Executive Officer, Canadian Police Association
In relation to giving a police officer the ability to arrest a parolee who breaches his or her conditions, we have noticed two things. First of all, there's been an effort on the part of Corrections Canada to reduce the number of conditions they request when a parolee is released into the community, because it helps their recidivism rate if there are fewer breaches. Second, when police officers now come across somebody who is in breach of their parole, they have to report that back to the probation and parole authority. It's then up to the parole officer whether or not to take action on that breach.
Again, there's pressure from the top down to not breach a parolee for not living up to their conditions because they don't want their statistics to show that the offenders are not rehabilitated. Certainly, we have concerns about that.
The value of a police officer being able to proceed with an arrest for a breach is that it takes that offender out of that situation, whether it's because they've been consuming drugs or alcohol while they're out on parole, which is a violation of their conditions.... Generally, the conditions that are imposed are intended to try to prevent the type of behaviour that leads this individual to commit crimes. So we would certainly support providing police officers with the authority to intervene in those situations when there's a higher level of risk.
Professor, Carleton University, As an Individual
Thank you for the question. I want to clarify that a little bit more. The reason I chose those statistics is because they are quite startling. As I think I mentioned, 1962 is really the mid-point of the baby boom generation, and the baby boom generation is the majority demographic group in our country. It's the dominant group. In fact, I think many of the people in this room are baby boomers, as I am. There are a lot of us, and we do remember the sixties and we do remember 1963, 1965, and 1968, when it was far less dangerous.
I grew up on a farm outside of Ottawa on the Franktown Road. I used to collect bottles. If you left a five-year-old, a six-year-old, or a seven-year-old now on a major highway to collect bottles, the parents would probably be charged with child neglect because it's much more dangerous. You can't do that today. I realize that's anecdotal, but the statistical data supports me from Juristat, which is the responsible—
Conservative
Professor of Law, Robson, Hall, University of Manitoba, As an Individual
I'll just make a couple of general observations.
If you're going to look for statistics to show that deterrence works, you're not going to find them, quite frankly. I think all the studies have indicated that maybe there might be minimal input. This issue isn't really for criminologists or sociologists, quite frankly. It's a political decision that, as part of, hopefully a whole package of things, can address this. This is but one bit.
I'm just being blunt on this because when I look at the literature that I've seen, I've not seen any conclusive studies that say deterrence works. In fact, if anything, the studies in the United States in particular have shown that it has not worked. But, in fairness, I think the United States went to excess in California or elsewhere. The legislation that you have here is far more surgical. You seem to be pointing at violent crimes and the use of firearms, and that's far more surgical than what we have in the United States.
You can bring in all the experts you want on this, and one will say, “Mr. Lee will say one thing, but we can bring ten other experts to say the other.” Where is that going to get you? It's the battle of the experts.
Firm, fair, and fast--I couldn't agree with you more. I come from Manitoba. We're a small province. You'd think we should be able to arrest a person, have the trial, and get that done within, say, three or four months. Do you know what the average time is from the time of arrest to trial in Manitoba? It's approximately a year or more. And we're a small province. That's terrible. And it's systemic, right? It's in the court system and the lawyers.
As a result of the delay, the judges have a very difficult decision to make. They have a person who has committed a violent offence. What do they do? Do they deny bail? That means he's going to be sitting in remand for a year, which is why judges will often release, as the legislation in fact provides. Then, of course, the person commits.... So if we could have speedier.... Now here's the reality. It's going to cost, and it's going to cost the Province of Manitoba a great deal because they're in charge of the administration of justice.
All I'm saying in terms of these things is that I quite agree with you.
On fairness, though, if you look across the common-law world where mandatory sentences have been in for quite awhile, do you know what they're doing? They're retreating. They've been moving a little bit more to some discretion because I think they recognized it was too blunt an instrument.
All I was saying in my presentation here is that I've identified two crimes in particular where I think real unfairness can occur, and I gave you the concrete examples. One is criminal negligence causing death and the other is manslaughter. They are not in Bill C-10. Bill C-10 is dealing with intentional crimes. All I'm saying is that I would like to see Parliament turn its mind to being firm and fair. Fair would be a discretion for those two crimes.
I'm a realist. I'm not here to say to you to have discretion everywhere. That's where I was coming from.
Liberal
Larry Bagnell Liberal Yukon, YT
Thank you.
My apologies to Mr. Chartrand and Brian. I'm not going to ask you questions. You were very eloquent, you've said the things a lot of other witnesses have said, and I agree entirely. It exacerbates the problem of a disproportionate number of aboriginal people without doing anything about it, and it offends the section of the Criminal Code on sentencing that allows some leeway to look at options.
It's great having all of you here. Thank you very much for coming.
Mr. Lee, your stuff was very interesting. Can you tell me how we came to have a professor from the business school as a witness today?
Professor, Carleton University, As an Individual
I'm a political scientist in a business school, for starters. I did my doctorate in political science. Canadian public policy was my major field and political philosophy was my minor field, something actually rather far away from the business school. I was asked by Professor Bruce Doern, of the School of Public Policy and Administration, to write an article on crime and punishment, because I've published before on public policy. That's why I got involved.
Liberal
Larry Bagnell Liberal Yukon, YT
So your background is that you wrote an article on crime and punishment.
Professor, Carleton University, As an Individual
No. He invited me because I've published other articles on public policy where I've looked at the literature. He knows I have a reputation for being highly empirical and looking up all the data on both sides.