Evidence of meeting #16 for Justice and Human Rights in the 40th Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was c-15.
A recording is available from Parliament.
4:15 p.m.
Liberal
Brian Murphy Liberal Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe, NB
I can't see it from here.
Could we get copies of that, Madam Clerk, eventually? I don't need them now.
4:15 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Ed Fast
Mr. Murphy, we have before us hard copies of presentations that were made by the first four witnesses. I am going to ask each of the witnesses, if you referred to studies or research that was done, could you get us copies of them? Especially Dr. Plecas, if you have some research you've done, or studies, could you table them with the clerk and we'll distribute them for you? We'll get it translated and then distribute it.
4:15 p.m.
Royal Canadian Mounted Police Research Chair and Director of the Centre for Criminal Justice Research, School of Criminology and Criminal Justice, University College of the Fraser Valley, As an Individual
I wasn't talking about studies that I've read. I'm talking about studies—
4:15 p.m.
Royal Canadian Mounted Police Research Chair and Director of the Centre for Criminal Justice Research, School of Criminology and Criminal Justice, University College of the Fraser Valley, As an Individual
Over and over and over again—
4:15 p.m.
Liberal
Brian Murphy Liberal Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe, NB
No, no. Just to make it clear, you referred to research that you did—
4:15 p.m.
Royal Canadian Mounted Police Research Chair and Director of the Centre for Criminal Justice Research, School of Criminology and Criminal Justice, University College of the Fraser Valley, As an Individual
Yes.
4:15 p.m.
Liberal
Brian Murphy Liberal Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe, NB
I thought you put your hand like this. I would love to have those studies because we'd all be better informed.
I'll just say in passing that I'll give you a chance to repeat your comment that judges are not following the law in sentencing procedure with respect to considering past convictions. You have said that quite blatantly. Would you like to say it again—
4:15 p.m.
Royal Canadian Mounted Police Research Chair and Director of the Centre for Criminal Justice Research, School of Criminology and Criminal Justice, University College of the Fraser Valley, As an Individual
Yes, I will say it again.
4:15 p.m.
Liberal
Brian Murphy Liberal Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe, NB
—so that we can send that to the Canadian Judicial Council and make sure that all chief justices across the country...? The members of the Canadian Bar Association, all the prosecutors who I know, and their associations, would probably like to know which judges aren't following the law with respect to sentencing.
4:20 p.m.
Royal Canadian Mounted Police Research Chair and Director of the Centre for Criminal Justice Research, School of Criminology and Criminal Justice, University College of the Fraser Valley, As an Individual
I would say it is certainly the norm that they are not following that. I know, for example, that the chief administrative judge in British Columbia, Hugh Stansfield, said that not only do they take it into account, it is taken into account as the most serious aggravating factor. What I'm telling you is when I go down to look at who comes before the courts, who gets arrested for one crime or another, and then go back to look at their criminal histories, we find consistently that, for example, on their fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth conviction for a like offence, they will get the same amount of time. And I'm ignoring the whole matter of what their prior offences are overall.
When I did that analysis, knowing that it would be criticized, I also ignored “two for one”. I did it in British Columbia. I ignored any kind of sentences that were done outside of British Columbia, and I also ignored the reality that a significant number of offenders, at least in British Columbia, don't even have their convictions recorded.
4:20 p.m.
Liberal
Brian Murphy Liberal Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe, NB
That may be the case in British Columbia. I'm not from there. I've known a lot of judges and lawyers and prosecutors, and what you said just is not part of my 23-year history, so enough of that.
I do want to talk about drug treatment courts because I think the saving grace of this bill is that it's one of these rare cases where even though people have said that mandatory minimums do not deter people from committing the crime, this is a unique situation where people have the option of avoiding a mandatory minimum after a conviction or in the process of being sentenced. It is a bit unique. In other words, the mandatory minimum on the books might serve to get more people into drug treatment courts.
The general question—and I heard some evidence to the contrary—is, do we feel that drug treatment courts work? Second, do we feel that this bill would steer more people to the drug treatment courts? One of the witnesses said it would. I hope we won't take all the time in the world answering that, but I'll start over here, if we could, on those two simple questions.
4:20 p.m.
Executive Director, Canadian Students for Sensible Drug Policy
Do drug treatment courts work? I guess it depends on how you evaluate success. In my opinion, a success of 10%.... The Canadian Centre on Substance Abuse claimed those standards of care are not acceptable at 10%. So I wouldn't say they are effective.
Another concern with that is, do they work to further criminalize more people before they have access to treatment? Yes, if that's the measure of your success. Would they steer more people to drug courts? Maybe. But in terms of coercion, which drug courts work on, and some people will go through them.... But like the Winnipeg drug court evaluation says, they are the better-advantaged people already. Other studies show that they're the people with less minor addictions, whether it's marijuana or alcohol. But, for example, in the Ottawa drug court, you're not allowed in with alcoholism. More people might be steered in, but it's not going to increase the success rates.
4:20 p.m.
Liberal
Brian Murphy Liberal Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe, NB
Just so that everybody has an opportunity....
Is that all right? How much time do we have?
4:20 p.m.
Liberal
Brian Murphy Liberal Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe, NB
I live in Moncton and there's no drug treatment court in Moncton, New Brunswick, so the issue about expanding and resources is a different issue. But with the two general principles--do they work and will there be more people steered there by this bill?
4:20 p.m.
Executive Director, John Howard Society of Canada
May I build on what Tara said a moment ago? It's early days in regard to our understanding of how well drug treatment courts work. To the best of my knowledge, we have not had a thoroughly methodologically sound evaluation of drug treatment courts that rises to peer-reviewed levels. What we have are indications of promise in some circumstances. But here's the larger problem. When we're talking about drug treatment courts and drug abusers, we are also talking about people with pre-existing mental and psychological conditions. One of the many problems with this bill is that it does not comprehend the context in which it proposes to punish people. It does not take into account the fact that some of these people have pre-existing psychological disorders that they use drugs to treat.
I'll return to some other aspects later, but I want to give Richard a chance to speak on this.
4:20 p.m.
Executive Director, Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network
Thank you.
Very briefly, the evidence on drug treatment courts, as the two previous speakers have suggested, is equivocal. There are any number of justice system actors in the U.S., where they have a much more extensive system of drug treatment courts, that are raising very serious questions about how those courts are structured and how they work and whether they actually have the benefits that are claimed.
I will share with the committee, by way of follow-up, some material that we prepared recently that reviewed the available evidence about drug treatment courts and showed that the outcome is equivocal.
The second thing I just wanted to say, though, is that even if you accepted for the moment that drug treatment courts were the way to go, and set aside the question of whether or not we should be spending money to use the criminal justice system to coerce people into treatment when we already know people don't have enough access to voluntary treatment, the way that Bill C-15 is written now casts the net so widely that many people would be excluded from being eligible for participation in drug treatment courts. We've given you some examples of that in our brief, so I won't elaborate on them here, but I think to some extent the gestures toward drug treatment courts in Bill C-15 are, to a certain degree, window dressing to try to make the rest of it more palatable, and it's just not.
4:25 p.m.
Bloc
Réal Ménard Bloc Hochelaga, QC
Thank you Mr. Chairman.
I'll start with a few questions for you, Mr. Elliott. I read your excellent brief while I was on the train. I don't think that the Bloc Québécois will be able to support this bill.
Let us take the example of two students sitting in front of or inside the Psychology Faculty at the University of Ottawa. Let us suppose that one of them passes a joint to the other, that both of them are occasional marijuana users, that they use marijuana three times a year, and that minors are nearby. I'm using the example of psychology students, but they could be political science students, history students or even students in administration—one should have an open mind and not discriminate.
Would I be mistaken in saying that if this bill were passed and these two students were brought before the courts, they could end up with a two-year prison sentence? Is that example a possible scenario? That is my first question.
In your brief you seem to say that despite the bill's intention to make drug treatment courts available to those who wish to use them, there are so many barriers and aggravating factors working against them that in the end, in fact, appearing before those drug treatment courts wouldn't actually be possible. I'd like you to tell us why.
I'll start with those two questions. I have others if time allows.
4:25 p.m.
Executive Director, Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network
Merci bien.
Indeed, the example you gave would result in a mandatory minimum prison term of two years for that particular person--that's one of the examples in our brief--if there are reasons to believe that people under the age of 18 regularly frequent the campus of the University of Ottawa, and it wouldn't be hard to show this. To answer your second question, it is precisely that factor, which is defined as an aggravating factor in Bill C-15, that would prevent that particular accused from being eligible for participating in a drug treatment court.
4:25 p.m.
Bloc
Réal Ménard Bloc Hochelaga, QC
Fine.
I would like to put a question to our other witness. I believe you are the RCMP research chair, if I understood correctly. I didn't quite understand what you were saying. You said that on average, the sentences that are handed down in common law courts result in prison terms of eight days or less. If this bill were passed, conditional sentences would not be relevant because the bill involves minimum sentences. Under the current law, for a judge to be able to consider conditional sentences, there cannot be minimum sentences. Therefore, we won't speak about conditional sentences because they do not apply in this case. However, I'm having considerable trouble in understanding the statistics that you provided and I'd like you to go into somewhat more detail, while being brief because I do have other questions.
4:25 p.m.
Royal Canadian Mounted Police Research Chair and Director of the Centre for Criminal Justice Research, School of Criminology and Criminal Justice, University College of the Fraser Valley, As an Individual
Yes. The statistic comes directly from Statistics Canada. It provides a comparison of the sentence lengths that were awarded by judges in the 2006-07 fiscal year versus a decade earlier. One of the analyses was on the matter of sentences of eight days or less. The analysis showed that, a decade ago, 14% of people given a prison sentence were given a sentence of eight days or less. That has since climbed to 27% of sentences.
4:30 p.m.
Bloc
Réal Ménard Bloc Hochelaga, QC
But are the eight-day sentences you are talking about firm prison sentences, prison sentences being served intermittently? What was the context? I don't understand. You seem to be giving us a statistic that makes no sense, that is meaningless. You are talking about judges handing down eight-day sentences, but in what context?
4:30 p.m.
Royal Canadian Mounted Police Research Chair and Director of the Centre for Criminal Justice Research, School of Criminology and Criminal Justice, University College of the Fraser Valley, As an Individual
It's more than that. I gave one part of the report. The rest of the report speaks to the same problem. If you look at sentences awarded for less than a year, you'll see that the percentage of instances where that occurs has increased significantly over the last decade.
There's an overriding message in that Statistics Canada report, which tells us that there has been erosion in sentence length over the last decade. It's that simple, regardless of how you look at it. There are fewer instances of longer sentences and many more instances of shorter sentences.