Justice Committee on Feb. 15th, 2007

[Rob Nicholson, Conservative, Niagara Falls, ON]

That's good to know.

I think you started off, and I may have missed the translation, by asking what is the rush for moving forward on this. It's not so much a rush as it is basically to get a piece of legislation in place that will help us to proclaim the previous legislation that was passed. As you know, because you were in Parliament, a bill was introduced to try to correct and bring into line some of the provisions from the old Bill C-13, but because of the election, we lost that.

In any case, it seems to me this is a well-thought-out bill. I think it has to be taken in the context of the technology and science in this area moving very quickly. I think most people would recognize this is a very important tool for our law enforcement community to have, and I think it works out well for the individuals who might be wrongly charged or wrongly convicted, so to that extent it has....

Now, in terms of the designations between primary and secondary offences, first of all, I can tell you that 172 new offences have been added. It's an attempt—and it's never a perfect attempt—to separate out the crimes or offences in terms of seriousness. It's never a perfect match, as I know from having tried to work with amendments to the Criminal Code over the years. Obviously within the primary designated offence list you have some of the most serious crimes in the Criminal Code, and there are two categories within that.

But again, it was an attempt basically to get a new law on the books without precluding a review. You'll notice in my later comments that I said, please, if you want to take this up and have a look at it, I would certainly welcome any improvements, because this is not the last word on DNA, I can tell you that. In coming forward with these amendments when the technology and science are changing so rapidly, we can appreciate that times change and that the bills have to change--just as when Bill C-13 originally came in, we knew it had to be changed.

So I certainly look forward to any input—

[Réal Ménard, Bloc, Hochelaga, QC]

That's not your last...

[Rob Nicholson, Conservative, Niagara Falls, ON]

I'm going to give Mr. Yost a bit of an opportunity to respond, if he wants to make any further comments with respect to that, to make sure the answer is complete for you.

[Réal Ménard, Bloc, Hochelaga, QC]

Do you mean that isn't your last justice measure?

[Greg Yost, Counsel, Criminal Law Policy Section, Department of Justice]

I'd simply like to clarify one point. The minister said that we were adding 172 offences; that's true, but they were added in the old bill, C-13. The present bill, C-18, adds no offences to the list that was previously adopted in Bill C-13.

[Réal Ménard, Bloc, Hochelaga, QC]

All right.

[Greg Yost]

Most of the 172 offences are punishable by indictment and carry prison terms of five years or more, like drug offences and so on.

So these offences would be added in Bill C-13, as amended by Bill C-18.

[Réal Ménard, Bloc, Hochelaga, QC]

Why is Internet luring a primary offence, whereas assault is a secondary offence?

[Greg Yost]

I admit it's a bit difficult to get a definitive answer. There are always problems when you have a list. This list was first prepared in 1995, when we had DNA warrants. It was a list of offences for which a warrant could be sought. The same list was then adopted, but it was divided in two. At the time, the thought was to put more serious offences on it, followed by the others. Every time the Criminal Code is amended, offences are added, but sometimes people completely forget to put them on the list, and so on.

Bill C-13 made it possible to clean things up. I could obviously talk at length to determine whether we should add them to this list or not.

[Réal Ménard, Bloc, Hochelaga, QC]

Do I still have some time? No.

[The Chair, Conservative, Art Hanger]

Mr. Comartin.

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

Sorry, Mr. Chair, I was just responding to an e-mail. One of the three hunger strikers has been released from custody and I just wanted to respond to that.

Mr. Minister, thank you for being here, as well as your assistants. I just want to get on the record my frustration at having to deal with DNA in the system this way. I think it was a gross error on the part of the former government to bring Bill C-13 forward, rather than bringing forward the review, because we ended up doing almost half the review, and practically every witness who came in front of us on Bill C-13 said we had to look at it more closely. Whether they were the chiefs of police, the police associations, the bar associations, the Privacy Commissioner--who has substantive concerns rather than process concerns--the witnesses at that time, without exception, were generally supportive of the system while expressing concerns about it, in terms of it not being broad enough, and in some cases in regard to some aspects of it being overreaching.

I wasn't quite clear, frankly, about your concluding comments and whether you were suggesting we send the review to the public safety committee. That doesn't help me a lot, because I'm on that committee too.

Have you considered the other possibility of having the justice committee set up a separate subcommittee just to do this? I'm not sure about the corporate history on this and whether it makes sense to send it to another committee. Perhaps they could look back on the evidence that was taken and the witnesses who testified.

But what I want to say to you clearly, and maybe to the committee as a whole, is that we have to get that review under way. And I have to say that if you stopped sending us so many crime bills, we might be able to do it. That was partisan on my part, Mr. Minister, so I don't expect you to respond to that.

Do you have a concrete proposal as to how we can get the full review done as quickly as possible—and thoroughly?

[Rob Nicholson, Conservative, Niagara Falls, ON]

I guess you've raised a couple of points. You've asked me about the rationale for Bill C-13 and the way it was introduced, and I'm obviously not in a position to comment on that, and I suppose anything I had to say on it would be somewhat suspect since I wasn't a part of that particular government. But I will say, and I think it's fair to say, there was a belief that the technology and science were developing so quickly that the previous government wanted to have something that would update the provisions with respect to DNA. I believe that was the rationale. Again, I'm not here as, and I guess you're not expecting me to be, a spokesperson for how it was done.

But we do have it now, and there were some technical problems with it that the previous Parliament attempted to address. Of course, it died on the order paper, which also killed the opportunity, quite frankly, for the review you just mentioned.

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

Mr. Minister, may I just interrupt?

Pardon my frustration, but maybe my fear is that we are just repeating the same thing again. Six months from now, after having passed Bill C-18, are you going to back here and say, sorry, we have all sorts of technical problems because the technology is evolving and we have all these additional amendments to tidy it up, and we're going to have to do that. I have to tell you, I don't have any strong assurances up to this point that that is not going to be the scenario.

[Rob Nicholson, Conservative, Niagara Falls, ON]

All I can tell you is this, Mr. Comartin. I think this is a good piece of legislation that helps repair some of the technical glitches in the old Bill C-13, so I think it's an improvement to the system. But in answer to Mr. Ménard's question, I believe, this is not the last word on this subject, and I don't think anybody should be under any illusions about that. Just as we revised a number of times the wiretap provisions in the Criminal Code in the late eighties and early nineties when we had to respond to changes both in technology and court decisions and had to move on them, I don't think this is the last word on the subject.

Now, whether I will be back here in another six months asking you for other technical amendments, it certainly is not my intention today and not what I would propose and not what I would want to do, quite frankly.

With respect to the last half of your comments and your question with respect to a review, I'm open to suggestions from you. I see the rationale and the importance of a review, and I would be pleased to respond to any thoughts you might have in that regard. As you pointed out, whether this went to the public safety committee or to a subcommittee of the justice committee, you'll probably end up on the committee one way or the other. So your workload isn't going to be lightened either way, but that being said, I'm open to suggestions on that, and I would be pleased to have any comments from this committee, or from any other member, for that matter.

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

Mr. Minister, you raised the issue of cost and the overload that not only the national lab is facing but also I think more specifically that the provincial labs are facing. Are there any plans by the government to provide additional resources?

I'm looking at that from three perspectives: funds directly to those labs; additional training for the police, because we know we may need that for the judiciary as well; and then, in the education field, actually training more forensic technicians who can do the work in the labs.

[Rob Nicholson, Conservative, Niagara Falls, ON]

I think it was reasonable and appropriate, Mr. Chairman, for me to raise that particular issue. Without trying to evade your question, it actually comes within the purview of my colleague, the Minister of Public Safety. I'm sure he is aware of the concerns that you or perhaps other committee members have in that regard.

[The Chair, Conservative, Art Hanger]

Thank you, Mr. Comartin.

Mr. Brown.

[Patrick Brown, Conservative, Barrie, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Hanger.

Thank you, Minister, for coming to our committee again. You've certainly been generous with your time and your frequent visits.

I agree with your assessment that this is good legislation. I think any time we have justice legislation we look at how it makes law enforcement and crown attorneys more efficient and effective.

There are two areas you mentioned that perhaps you could expand upon. One is on DNA orders that were made to a particular geographic office or department. How has that been expanded? How was it before? How is that going to change? How is that going to make law enforcement more efficient?

For example, and I'm not sure how it was before, but would they have given a DNA order simply to the Peel region, and then other regions could have accessed it, or was it on a provincial basis?

[Greg Yost]

I'll take a shot at answering that. The original legislation required that the DNA be taken as soon as a sentence was pronounced, which rapidly turned out to be inefficient, ineffective, with police having to be around at all times. It simply could not be done.

Bill C-13 contains in it a provision to allow the judge to set a time and place for the hearing. One of the improvements that the committee of officials suggested, and which is now to be found in this bill--it was actually in Bill C-72 as well--is a right to issue a warrant for a person's arrest. We also have introduced a new provision in this Bill C-72, which will allow the police department that is authorized to do it to authorize any other police department to do it on their behalf. So if the Toronto police were authorized and the person was picked up in Vancouver, we don't have to bring him back to Ontario; they can authorize him over there. This, we think, will make it a lot easier to collect the DNA.

Normally the orders are made to peace officers of a province because that's where the provincial court judge has authority. Some have apparently been making it through just a specific police department, but this amendment will cover all of those problems.

[Patrick Brown, Conservative, Barrie, ON]

Minister, perhaps you could also let us know a bit about the new offences that were added to trigger retroactive orders, in terms of attempted murder and conspiracy to attempt murder, and how that will help the administration of justice to be more efficient?

[Rob Nicholson, Conservative, Niagara Falls, ON]

Again, thank you for the question.

There is a limited expansion of the retroactive scheme, as you mentioned, to include persons convicted of a single murder and also of a single sexual offence committed at different times. Additions to the list of primary offences include robbery, break and enter of a dwelling. We're trying to expand the regime that's in place.

There was probably a consensus that, as originally proposed and introduced, it was fairly narrow grounds upon which you would be able to obtain a DNA sample for a smaller range of offences. Mr. Yost just pointed out one of the other difficulties, that if you didn't get the DNA sample right there, you were out of luck.

I think there's a recognition, and I think this bill encapsulates that, as did indeed the bill that died on the order paper, quite frankly. There's a need to get more samples and expand them to a wider range of crimes, because this is an important crime-fighting tool. This is not something from Star Wars or something in the future; this works now for police officers and it's something they have to have. What we are doing basically in expanding the scope of this bill is responding to the advances in technology and to the recognized value of this particular process. Basically we're trying to keep up to date.

That is one of the challenges you have as a member of this committee, and quite frankly, that we have, that I have as a minister of Justice, to stay up to date on the technology. It changes all the time, and this is why I would expect this committee will always be a busy committee. It always has been a busy committee.

I will go back to my comments to Mr. Comartin. This won't be the last word on this. I'm quite sure that science, technology, and experience.... If we conduct a review, I would expect to get good input on that because that's what we're looking for. Anytime you move into a new area of science, and this is relatively new, and it's changing, we have to stay ahead of the curve, and this is what Canadians count on us to do.

[Patrick Brown, Conservative, Barrie, ON]

Thank you, Minister.

[The Chair, Conservative, Art Hanger]

Thank you, Mr. Brown.

Mr. Bagnell.

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Thank you for coming, Minister. I'm a big supporter of this legislation. I agree with Mr. Ménard that you're much more reasonable on this than on judges, but to your credit, you're much more reasonable on judges than the Prime Minister.

My question is related to resourcing. We had an exchange in the House the other day on the same topic with another bill. You indicated there had been no study, analysis, or provision for the resources required to carry out that bill. I was happy in your speech today that you made a suggestion as to how much. You made an estimate, and that's fair enough. No one is going to know exactly, but you made a good estimate as to what effect this might have on the DNA data bank.

My understanding is that the bank is already in a backlog. To start out, could you confirm the situation for the cases they're handling now? Is justice being denied because they can't keep up with the cases in a timely fashion, or is it working well?