Justice Committee on Feb. 15th, 2007

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

I'm happy to move it in the wording proposed by Mr. Moore. It's on the record. It is that the human rights committee:

recommends that the government consider the advisability of:

In each of the clauses, you would have to remove the redundant reference to the government. The top of the motion already says, “that the government consider the advisability...”. Simply remove....

[The Clerk of the Committee, Ms. Diane Diotte]

That will be in the amendments of Mrs. Jennings and Monsieur Ménard?

[Réal Ménard, Bloc, Hochelaga, QC]

With the two amendments: deleting the words “$5 million” and adding the words “highly secure”.

[The Clerk]

I thought that was “exclusively”?

[Réal Ménard, Bloc, Hochelaga, QC]

Yes, excellent. That's fine with me.

[The Chair, Conservative, Art Hanger]

That would include, then, point 5 on your list of points?

[Réal Ménard, Bloc, Hochelaga, QC]

Yes.

[The Chair, Conservative, Art Hanger]

All right.

Go ahead, Mr. Comartin.

[Joe Comartin, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

Tell the people who are coming back to give us a response just to read today's exchange. I'll be satisfied with that.

[The Chair, Conservative, Art Hanger]

Go ahead, Monsieur Petit.

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

I'd like to raise the following problem with regard to the motion introduced by Mr. Ménard. I had occasion to read it because we had it before. Paragraph 3 states: “[...] train Crown prosecutors specializing in combating street gangs.”

We heard two specialist witnesses who were not Crown attorneys. One was a representative of Sûreté du Québec, whose name I don't remember, and the other was a representative of the Vancouver police.

We don't need attorneys to specialize. We need specialists who come from the inside and who are police officers. Attorneys are something else. They may specialize thanks to the government, which sends them to take special courses for that purpose. However, the important thing, and what I understood, is that the gentleman whose name I don't remember, the Francophone who spoke...

[Réal Ménard, Bloc, Hochelaga, QC]

Mr. Ouellette.

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

Mr. Ouellette and the other gentleman, from the Vancouver police, were police officers. They are experts; they're the ones who put the cases together.

So I think it's a bit limiting and that we wouldn't be doing an ideal job of achieving Mr. Ménard's goal, which is the protection of... I think we're limiting the problem too much. Personally, I would move an amendment to cover more than what's currently being provided.

[Réal Ménard, Bloc, Hochelaga, QC]

Mr. Chair, we mustn't confuse two things. These are Crown attorneys who are responsible for trials and who lay the charges. Mr. Ouellette was an expert witness because he was at Sûreté du Québec, but it's not him I'm talking about; he can have the information.

We won the battle against organized crime because attorneys general specialized. It's false to say that there are a lot of them right now. It's a problem.

It's one thing to have expert witnesses in the judicial system, but my motion concerns players in the judicial system such as Crown attorneys, those who lay the charges, build the cases and wind up in the courts.

I ask Mr. Petit not to confuse expert witnesses and Crown attorneys. Here we're talking about Crown attorneys.

[The Chair, Conservative, Art Hanger]

Thank you, Mr. Ménard. There's no question that we would have to consider both.

Mr. Moore is next.

[Rob Moore, Conservative, Fundy Royal, NB]

We started down this road, and I don't know if it reached any conclusion. Mr. Lee mentioned changing the wording. Rather than “...that the government amend”, it would be “amending”; “...that the government amend...” in number 2 would be “amending”; number 3 would be “making available”.

Do we have to go through word by word...? I support the two changes that were made. Ms. Jennings and Mr. Ménard suggested the one from $5 million, but now we've got quite a few amendments in here.

[The Chair, Conservative, Art Hanger]

Let's get this matter cleared up within the next five minutes.

On the amendment to this particular motion from Monsieur Ménard, let's get down to the bottom line. What is it going to be?

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

Mr. Chairman, the clerk can note what those changes are. I'm sure Monsieur Ménard won't mind.

[The Chair, Conservative, Art Hanger]

Mr. Moore has a question about that.

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

Yes, but I believe the clerk will bring back a motion. That's a procedure we could follow: she could bring back a motion to our next meeting. We could be through this in two minutes. Then we don't have to—

[The Chair, Conservative, Art Hanger]

Yes, that's fair enough. We could vote on it at the next meeting.

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

Okay, thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Art Hanger]

Following up on Mr. Comartin's suggestion, it might not hurt to have the criminal law policy section at the table when the motion comes forward.

So we'll look at this at our next meeting. We'll table this particular motion.

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

Peremptory.

[The Chair, Conservative, Art Hanger]

Toss it?

Mr. Bagnell.