Justice Committee on March 30th, 2010

[Rick Norlock, Conservative, Northumberland—Quinte West, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to the witnesses for coming today.

I just want to speak to the two police representatives from municipal policing.

Inspector Poole, you mentioned changes to the YCJA. The changes that have been made were specific to violent repeat offenders. I wonder if you would comment on those changes, or proposed changes, and then follow through with the services that may be available.

On the second part of it, I would ask Chief Weighill to weigh in on some of the issues surrounding what you do when.... You say that you have nowhere to turn these young people over to, but this morning we had not quite as many ladies here as the number of gentlemen now, but they provide services, and we've been to other places in Canada where there are places and there are entities within the community that actually do take care of, or assist parents with, wayward kids.

So perhaps you would just expand, Inspector Poole, on what you meant by that. Were you referring to repeat violent offenders when you mentioned the young offenders?

[Insp Jim Poole]

I'm trying to think back to which portion it was.

[Rick Norlock, Conservative, Northumberland—Quinte West, ON]

You mentioned the problems associated with it.

[Insp Jim Poole]

Just in regard to the YCJA, and I guess it's....

In the realm of the stolen auto world, there were lots of kids who were going in and then being released, breaching, and continuously breaching, and going back in. It was just basically a revolving door in terms of how much time they might be going back in for.

Even under the electronic monitoring process that they have here in Manitoba, with the bracelets, there have been a number of people who are called “cut and runs”. A number of different times that has occurred with the same individuals, yet it keeps happening. So there are things like that. I guess that's what I was getting at in particular regarding the stolen auto side of things.

We don't have those types of programs so much for the street gang members. Right now we're hoping...and our province is taking a stance on the breaches being significant, and they're opposing bail as vehemently as they can, with the adult side of things, that we're dealing with under this program of GRASP.

[Rick Norlock, Conservative, Northumberland—Quinte West, ON]

Thank you.

Chief Weighill.

[Chief Clive Weighill]

I'd like to comment on the serious repeat offenders. That is a problem, I think, for all the policing agencies. I think it's a problem for the courts as well, because we do have some youth or young adults, unfortunately, who do need an intervention, because they just will not stop the activity that they're in. Those are people who are past the remedial actions that I talked about earlier.

In relation to your question about having had other people here who said they did a lot of programming, yes, there is some programming that's happening within the communities, but a lot of it's run through community-based organizations such as the John Howard Society, the Elizabeth Fry Society, and some of those agencies, who spend, I would hazard a guess, 60% of their time trying to get their funding every year so they can keep going. I think any community-based organization that you talk to would tell you that's one of the pitfalls.

It's hard for the police to partner with a lot of agencies that don't know if they're going to have funding again the next year. It doesn't bring good credibility when you're trying to do mediation with some victims along that line.

So I think we need some real good, solid government programming that we know is going to be in place that we can count on every time and try to achieve some results here.

[Rick Norlock, Conservative, Northumberland—Quinte West, ON]

Thank you very much.

Warden Bonnefoy, you mentioned that your institution, Stony Mountain, is medium security.

In my riding, we have Warkworth, which is a medium-security institution. Thank goodness we have the Pathways program that started there, and it's actually functioning very well.

I wonder if you could explore that further, because in another committee that I sit on, the public safety and national security committee, we talk about the programs available for folks who are in institutions.

Of course, in Warkworth we have everything from cabinetry-making to repair of large military vehicles; they will be finishing up on their 200th very shortly.

What other programs do you have available for people to earn a living once they get out? Of course, we know being able to provide for yourself and your family is a great part of it. So could you tell us what services you provide, on top of education, that help provide people with a living after incarceration?

[Robert Bonnefoy]

Starting with Pathways, in and of itself, we have a holistic healing approach. We have elders dedicated to that particular unit, elders' helpers, aboriginal liaison officers, and aboriginal correctional programs officers. We have nine aboriginal-specific programs we're running.

Then, throughout the institution, as you said, there's the focus on GED, our educational component. We do a lot of vocational certificates, vocational training, and try to give people work skills to prepare them upon their release to garner meaningful employment.

Then we have a whole host of our core programming to address things like substance abuse, violence, and those types of things as well.

[Rick Norlock, Conservative, Northumberland—Quinte West, ON]

In terms of some of the vocational training, what I'm looking for is do they get a ticket? In other words, are they qualified in Manitoba to become a carpenter or a plumber, something like that?

[Robert Bonnefoy]

Yes, we do offer red seal certifications. We have done programs in the past, tickets for food preparation, for forklift operation. CORCAN is a big part of our mandate to provide those vocational skills and training for our offenders.

[Rick Norlock, Conservative, Northumberland—Quinte West, ON]

You mentioned you track them. In the tracking area, those that get their ticket and the red seal, do they tend to stay out?

[Robert Bonnefoy]

I'm not sure. I don't have that information at hand, I'm sorry.

[Rick Norlock, Conservative, Northumberland—Quinte West, ON]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Fast]

Thank you.

We'll go back to Mr. Murphy for a second round of five minutes.

[Brian Murphy, Liberal, Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe, NB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

We've talked about money. We understand that money makes this system work. We've talked about gangs and youth and intervention and all those things.

We've passed by the issue of guns. There was some evidence here today that was, to me, new, and worse, on the prevalence of guns.

Mr. Bazin, I think it was you who was talking about the proliferation of guns in the effecting of criminal activity.

So as a short snapper to the three police agencies represented here, is our problem with guns getting worse in your communities? Do the laws that exist--please don't talk about the long gun registry--help? There's a much older regime with respect to handguns under the Criminal Code, restricted weapons, etc. What could we do, legislatively or otherwise--and maybe the border is an issue--to help the situation with guns? That's unless it's okay and getting better.

We can start any way you want. Why don't we start from left to right; it's sort of our penchant here on this side.

[Insp Jim Poole]

I'll make just one comment and I'll let Nick have a say in here as well.

On some of the additional charges, whether it's an extra year on a firearms offence or something along those lines, I'm not sure that's really going to make the difference in somebody utilizing that weapon or that firearm in that specific incident. That's just a quick hit on that point.

Nick, do you have anything?

[Cst Nick Leone]

From an investigative point of view, I see the mandatory minimums for firearms offences as being a bonus. They may not be preventative in such a way that a gang member will go, “I could go to jail for four years if I'm caught with this handgun”, but what they will do is take that particular gang member off the street, unable to recommit any crimes during the time he's in custody. And that may seem obvious, but that's very important.

[Brian Murphy, Liberal, Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe, NB]

Is the amount and the effect of weapons in your city worse or the same?

[Cst Nick Leone]

Worse. And in terms of the type of firearms we're seeing, traditionally, because there are a lot of rural areas in Manitoba, we saw the sawed-off shotguns and the sawed-off rifles. Now we're seeing high-end or expensive semi-automatic pistols--

[Brian Murphy, Liberal, Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe, NB]

Where are they coming from?

[Cst Nick Leone]

British Columbia--but then further investigation through the ATF will show that they're coming from the United States.

[Brian Murphy, Liberal, Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe, NB]

Chief.

[Chief Clive Weighill]

Yes, there is definitively an increase in firearms in the city of Saskatoon. The weapons of choice are still baseball bats and knives, there's no doubt about that, but we're seeing a lot more weapons coming in--sawed-off shotguns, sawed-off 22s, and a lot of handguns.

A lot of the weapons luckily are so far being used only for intimidation. They carry them, they have them with them, and they use them to intimidate people right now. But we know what the next step's going to be. You can only intimidate for so long.

[Brian Murphy, Liberal, Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe, NB]

What can we do about it?

[Chief Clive Weighill]

I think along the lines we have now; we have good laws that restrict the weapons. It's a matter of the enforcement onus. It's to try to keep them off the street.

They're easy to get, because they come across borders easily. I don't know if we need more legislation or not. I can't think of anything we could write into law that would help us with that, because we are quite restrictive with our weapons.

I'm sorry, I haven't got an answer for you on that one.