Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I'm assuming other people got this letter from the Canadian Council of Criminal Defence Lawyers, from Mr. Trudell, seeking from this committee a decision not to proceed with Bill C-25 at this time. I'm not expecting that to happen, given the government's political engagement in the bill. But what it does highlight and what I would like to highlight is that this bill was prepared in circumstances where clearly--it's clear to me anyway--the government did not understand the implications of the bill.
We saw that most clearly put forward in terms of its implications, still with a number of unresolved issues to my mind, but very clearly from the evidence we heard from Professor Doob, that in fact it had all sorts of anomalous consequences, and that chart he prepared showed various examples. I believe most members of this committee certainly did not understand that. And I say that in all humility because I didn't fully understand them until I heard that presentation.
As well, I think this bill was prepared on the basis that defence counsel regularly advise, and the accused regularly accept the advice, that it is better to run out pretrial custody, by way of adjournments, so that you end up with a shorter sentence at the end. Again, both from the evidence we had from Professor Doob and from the lawyers, that clearly is not the case. In fact, the government could not point to any empirical study to show that that in fact was happening. It's a myth, quite frankly, that this is the reality. It's simply not happening. But the government didn't seem to appreciate that. And I say that in light of understanding that I believe most of the attorneys general and solicitors general from the provinces also believe that. But there isn't one empirical study that shows that, in fact, that is happening.
We also know--and we heard it from one of the prosecutors--that in fact the system is controlled by the judges. So adjournments are not given lightly. In most cases, the adjournments are being given around disclosure problems, not around defence lawyers trying to prolong pretrial custodial periods.
It's one of these bills that have come forward, and I don't believe it should be here. But I don't expect this committee to adjourn without proceeding with it, so I've brought these amendments forward because I think it at least resolves some of the major glaring problems with the bill as it's presently composed.
It was quite clear from Professor Doob's evidence--and we also heard it from Mr. Head from Correctional Service Canada--about the impact this will have on increased time in the federal prisons. We have no estimate. We don't know that and nobody on this committee knows it, but the reality is that the impact at the provincial level is going to be even more severe. But it was fairly clear from Mr. Head's evidence that at the federal level we are going to see an approximate 10% increase in the level of incarceration on an annual basis.
We do not have the ability to cope with that. We are way oversubscribed in terms of residential settings in the federal prison system. If that's a problem with the federal system, we can only imagine how much worse it's going to be at the provincial level if this bill goes through as presented.
What I'm proposing in the first amendment, which is to proposed subsection 719(3.1), is that the one day, being the standard that we're now going to impose with minor exceptions--which come in the next section--be increased to one and a half days. That would then become the standard.
I think Professor Doob was being as honest as he could with regard to this, and I think we've just heard it again from Mr. Daubney, that this is closer to what the reality is on average in the country, that it's closer to one and a half days for each day in pre-sentencing custody. So I think we need to bring that in line with the reality of what happens in most cases, and that's what the first NDP amendment would do.
