Justice Committee on April 22nd, 2010

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Fast]

No further questions? All right.

I think we're ready to go to clause-by-clause consideration.

(On clause 1)

The government has an amendment, which hasn't actually formally been moved.

Mr. Woodworth.

[Stephen Woodworth, Conservative, Kitchener Centre, ON]

I move that clause 1 of Bill C-475 be amended by replacing line 15 on page 1 with the following, in English: “than ten years.” En français:

“a term of not more than ten years“.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Fast]

You have before you the proposed amendment. Is there any discussion, any debate?

(Amendment negatived)

We'll move to the main clause.

[Bob Dechert, Conservative, Mississauga—Erindale, ON]

I'm sorry, there is a second amendment.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Fast]

But it's to clause 3. We're on clause 1.

(Clauses 1 and 2 agreed to)

There's a government amendment, new clause 3, G-2.

Mr. Dechert.

[Bob Dechert, Conservative, Mississauga—Erindale, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I move that Bill C-475 be amended by adding after line 7 on page 2 the following new clause:

COMING INTO FORCE 3. Section 1 comes into force 90 days after the day on which this Act receives royal assent.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Fast]

Thank you.

(Amendment agreed to)

We move on then to the title. Shall the title pass?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Fast]

Shall the bill as amended pass?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Fast]

Shall the chair report the bill as amended to the House?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Fast]

Thank you.

We actually need a reprint. Shall the committee order a reprint of the bill as amended for the use of the House at report stage?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Fast]

Thank you very much. We have completed clause-by-clause.

Members, as you may have noticed, we did send out an e-mail saying that if we had extra time--which we do--perhaps we could spend a little more time on the organized crime study. I've had some discussion with the analysts and have asked if there is anything missing that we should have dealt with. They advised that there are a couple of things they wanted to bring to our attention.

Perhaps, Robin, you could just highlight some of the areas for which we might still want to bring in some witnesses.

[Robin MacKay, Committee Researcher]

One aspect of the report that we haven't really heard about is the international side of organized crime, and I have put in the suggested witnesses. For example, we could hear from CSIS. They have a transnational criminal activity unit that deals with transnational crime, as the name implies. That might be a good start.

A second aspect we heard some testimony about was firearms. The guns seem to come from the United States, according to the testimony we heard. It might benefit the committee to hear from someone like the Department of Homeland Security in the United States on how they work with Canadian officials to try to combat the trade in illegal firearms.

Third, I had suggested a couple of European witnesses, namely the Serious Organised Crime Agency of the United Kingdom and the Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention. There is no magic to those two suggestions; it's just that I've read their reports, which seem to be quite comprehensive. They deal with many of the issues that have been raised here in Canada, such as dealing with guns, illegal gambling, and drug offences.

Interestingly, Sweden also talks about obstruction of justice as an organized crime element. We heard a little bit about that with the witness protection program from the RCMP, which is trying to combat threats made to potential witnesses in organized crime prosecutions.

The only other aspect that I had raised was legal aid. We've heard a little bit from Mr. LeSage about mega-trials, which are very lengthy and very expensive. Legal aid is often called upon to fund the defence of those accused in mega-trials. They seem to be buckling under the strain. So we might want to hear from Legal Aid Ontario or legal aid in Quebec--it doesn't really matter, necessarily--who have had experience with mega-trials, on how they fund the defence in those cases.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Fast]

Thank you.

Ms. Leslie.

[Megan Leslie, NDP, Halifax, NS]

Thank you.

Mr. MacKay, I just have one question. Can you repeat the name of the U.K. organization?

[Robin MacKay]

It's called the Serious Organised Crime Agency. SOCA is the acronym. They produce a report called “The United Kingdom Threat Assessment of Organised Crime.” They do that every year.

They break it into five main headings that they deal with: “Criminals and their Businesses”, “Firearms”, “Drugs”, “Organised Immigration Crime”, and “Fraud.”

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Fast]

Presumably we could actually have them up here by teleconference on relatively short notice.

The only two bills that I know of, which would typically be referred to this committee, are the amendments to the Youth Criminal Justice Act. I believe today the minister tabled some legislation on conditional sentences. We haven't debated that in the House yet, so we may have some room.

Again, I'm in your hands. We could probably do this on relatively short notice and by teleconference.

[Alexandra Mendes, Liberal, Brossard—La Prairie, QC]

Would we do the teleconferencing on Tuesday and legal aid on Thursday, or something like that?

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Fast]

What's your wish?

The suggestions that have been made include CSIS, the United Kingdom Serious Organised Crime Agency, the Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention, Homeland Security, and Legal Aid. Those are five potential witnesses.

Is there general agreement to try to schedule them over the next two meetings?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Fast]

All right. I'll have the clerk get in touch with those agencies and we'll go from there.

Mr. Ménard.

[Serge Ménard, Bloc, Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC]

We all understand that we need more than one witness from each country, Sweden and England, and that we want to hear them speak about different aspects of organized crime, like firearms, drugs, money laundering.