Evidence of meeting #36 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 minimums.
A recording is available from Parliament.
5:20 p.m.
Liberal
The Vice-Chair Liberal Derek Lee
Okay. We'll go to Mr. Kramp, who probably has his own set of questions.
5:20 p.m.
Conservative
Daryl Kramp Conservative Prince Edward—Hastings, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Just referring to the information, I would be delighted to share it with you. The simplest point, of course, would be that it is available in the records of the minutes here, in the 38th Parliament before this justice committee. I think there were four or five different, separate studies that were put in that were conclusive, from their perspective. I probably have copies of those in my office, so I would be delighted to share them with you.
5:20 p.m.
General Counsel, Canadian Civil Liberties Association
I can envision a lengthy correspondence being precipitated.
5:20 p.m.
Conservative
Daryl Kramp Conservative Prince Edward—Hastings, ON
That would be fine.
I would like to dispel a perception from my guests, if there appeared to be a hostility toward your position versus the government's position of defending the rights of the victims among the Canadian population.
It goes through to what I perceive as minimum mandatory penalties serving a real purpose. The purpose was not for an incarcerating, “hang 'em high” kind of approach. There are two reasons that are absolutely clear and crystal, and they have been demonstrated to deliver results.
One of course is for those nefarious individuals, and there are some bad characters—and this is certainly not the entire population of criminals, because there are criminals by happenstance as well.... Those who are nefarious need to be put away for a longer period of time for the public safety and the public protection. This absolutely does guarantee that kind of public protection.
But the other main point—the main purpose—of minimum mandatory sentences is to act as an effective deterrent. This goes back to the point of presumption. While I recognize your point of presumption, and I think it is a very valid and good argument, my point would be this. Would it serve as that effective deterrent if it were presumptive rather than mandatory? I am asking for your opinion on that.
5:20 p.m.
General Counsel, Canadian Civil Liberties Association
I think the answer to that has to be sure it would, because you would know—assuming that potential criminals would know about it, and of course I have great doubts about whether they know any of this, but assuming they did—that the presumptive minimum signals to the judge that he or she is to apply that minimum unless there are special circumstances.
You see, you immediately envelop it, if you like, with the aura of something different.
5:20 p.m.
Conservative
Daryl Kramp Conservative Prince Edward—Hastings, ON
Fine, and I can recognize that. But on the other hand, from the criminal's perspective, all of a sudden it opens up that door to “maybe...”, “what if...?”, “where can I go with the legal argument on this?” It does not make it clearly defined, so it possibly does not serve as a deterrent under that form.
I can tell you, as a former police officer, many times on many occasions I have dealt with many people like this. To suggest that they are not aware of the law; to suggest that criminals don't care what kind of penalty they get...I don't buy that. I don't buy it for one moment.
There are many occasions when criminals would be very cautious as to what they do and how they will do it for fear of embracing—
5:20 p.m.
General Counsel, Canadian Civil Liberties Association
Mr. Kramp, there have been scientific surveys in which people were polled and asked, and they found that the overwhelming majority of the public did not know. The fact that you may have some anecdotal evidence here or there that somebody knew doesn't reply to the comprehensive surveys that were done that showed that hardly any of them knew.
5:25 p.m.
Conservative
Daryl Kramp Conservative Prince Edward—Hastings, ON
Thank you; you're making my argument. My argument can be that we haven't done it well, haven't done it properly. If we're going to impose minimum mandatories, it has to be done with a massive public awareness, public knowledge, so that it can effectively act as a deterrent. Otherwise it simply serves the purpose of protection.
5:25 p.m.
General Counsel, Canadian Civil Liberties Association
We at least have to give you full marks for an ingenious, if not a valid, argument.
5:25 p.m.
Executive Director, John Howard Society of Canada
May I speak to that?
Even when the penalties are well known, there is very little reason to believe there is deterrence. This is one point where I may disagree with my friend Alan Borovoy, and no doubt I'll pay for it afterwards, but I don't believe that whether there is an exemption or not will make the slightest bit of difference to whether it's a deterrent.
We are not talking about a circumstance where either there's a penalty or there's not a penalty. We're talking about variations in severe penalties.
I can tell you, two weeks in jail is a pretty good deterrent from my perspective. I've spent enough time in prisons to know that I don't want to be there overnight. Two years is a good reason. Four years is a good reason. The loss of your life and your income in your community.... There are all sorts of good reasons not to commit crime.
5:25 p.m.
Conservative
Daryl Kramp Conservative Prince Edward—Hastings, ON
Okay, I understand your argument and where you're going with this, but might I just offer one thing—
5:25 p.m.
Liberal
The Vice-Chair Liberal Derek Lee
Mr. Kramp, the style here is sort of evolving into a debate, and it's a very interesting debate, but the format we usually try to stick to is the question and answer.
5:25 p.m.
Conservative
Daryl Kramp Conservative Prince Edward—Hastings, ON
Okay, my apologies. I'm not trying to be argumentative, by any means. I'm just trying to make a point.
5:25 p.m.
Liberal
The Vice-Chair Liberal Derek Lee
And I don't want to cast aspersions on anybody's style around here, because we all have different styles. Everything's been going fine; I'm just trying to keep us to the five-minute windows, and we're—
5:25 p.m.
Kramp
Could I have 30 seconds?
5:25 p.m.
Liberal
The Vice-Chair Liberal Derek Lee
No, we're at six minutes now. Out of that time I used up 30 seconds of your time.
I have indications from Mr. Bagnell and Mr. Moore, so given that we're pretty close to the end of our time period, I'm going to allow Mr. Bagnell to ask one question, and he will probably....
Well, you can make a point or ask a question, probably not both. The same holds for Mr. Moore.
Mr. Bagnell. I'll terminate this in about two minutes.
5:25 p.m.
Liberal
Larry Bagnell Liberal Yukon, YT
Thank you.
I would just like to say, so that you don't get the wrong impression about the police, that the Toronto policeman was very comprehensive. He talked about the root causes of crime on the front page of the Toronto paper, and all sorts of other things that need to be done.
And I'd be happy to get Mr. Kramp's evidence, but just for the record, we've not had any evidence to date to this committee except Levitt, which you have refuted, that suggests that they work at all; that there's any deterrent—any scientific evidence, which is what we have to base....
So the position the witnesses and the opposition are taking is much more protection for the victims, much more protection for society, based on the evidence to date, and I'll look forward to your refutation of Levitt. What we all want is safety for society.
Just to conclude, Mr. Stewart, you said that recidivism is not decreased by mandatory minimums; in fact, it could be increased. Therefore—all these people are going to get out—there is going to be a less safe society for victims, and for the rest of Canadians. That's a conclusion from all these hearings, and I just want to get your opinion on it.
5:25 p.m.
Executive Director, John Howard Society of Canada
To the degree to which there's evidence—it's not very strong evidence, but it is significant evidence—it would be reduced by....
Professor Paul Gendreau of St. Thomas University shows the degree to which there's a correlation. The correlation is that longer time spent in prison increases recidivism. The notion is that prison is a school for crime. It tends to reinforce anti-social values. It tends to disengage the person from community supports and responsibilities that actually support making them more likely to succeed.
But I could also say that we spent last week—“we” being those in criminal justice—at a major conference here in Ottawa sponsored by Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness Canada on what works with the reintegration of high-risk offenders. And we're talking about high risk here; we're not talking about the average federal prisoner, even.
I would just say that in the two days of that conference there was no one who ever suggested that sentencing was a solution. There's no one who ever suggested that imprisonment had achieved anything.
At the same time, there was all sorts of evidence presented, time and again, of studies and programs that had actually reduced reoffending by very serious offenders by 50%.
We have the potential to do things that make a real difference and have a real impact on real people. My whole argument is, we have to make a choice. Let's put our resources into the things for which there's solid evidence that something works.
5:30 p.m.
Liberal
The Vice-Chair Liberal Derek Lee
Okay, that's two and a half minutes.
I'll go to Mr. Moore for a question or a comment.
5:30 p.m.
Liberal
The Vice-Chair Liberal Derek Lee
Well, then, seeing no further, I want to thank the witnesses very much—Mr. Champagne, Mr. Stewart, Ms. Wood, and Mr. Borovoy—for your evidence here today. It's been very helpful to us in our deliberations. Thank you for attending.
Colleagues, we're adjourned into next week.
