Justice Committee on Nov. 3rd, 2011

[The Chair, Conservative, Dave MacKenzie]

We'll call the meeting to order. We're a little bit late. This is meeting number 10 of the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights, and we're studying Bill C-10.

I have spoken to the newest members of the panel. Some of you have already been here before and, as you know, there is an opportunity for an opening address. I will let you know when you have one minute left.

If you would prefer to start, go ahead.

[Pierre Mallette, National President, Union of Canadian Correctional Officers]

Good morning. My name is Pierre Mallette. I am national president of the Union of Canadian Correctional Officers.

We want to thank committee members for inviting us here today. We will be taking advantage of this opportunity to indicate to you the various aspects of Bill C-10 that are of concern to us.

The first aspect is the possibility of introducing measures that take into account an inmate's engagement. Paragraph (4)(c) proposed under clause 54 of Bill C-10, which concerns the Corrections and Conditional Release Act, eliminates the reference to the least restrictive measure and replaces it with the terms "necessary and proportionate". Paragraph (4)(d) proposed under clause 54 of the bill concerns elimination of the notion of privileges. Clause 61 concerns elimination of the notion of privileges in segregation. Clause 55 of the bill enables the commissioner to introduce incentives based on the inmate's level of engagement.

Taken together, these measures should permit a form of management of the inmate population more consistent with the objectives of the protection of society, staff members and inmates.

While these proposed amendments are welcome, they must nevertheless be introduced together with the necessary resources. A very small percentage of the inmate population currently has access to programs.

As for the incentives proposed under clause 55, we will have to see what they look like before offering an opinion on their effectiveness. However, we are prepared to work on this file with the commissioner of the Correctional Service of Canada because we feel this is an opportunity to better carry out the mandate the public has given us.

The second aspect concerns staff who are victims of crime and whose immediate families have been victims of crime. Clause 57 of the bill introduces new protections for crime victims.

However, staff who are victims of crime committed by inmates are excluded from the reasoning underlying these new provisions. Allow me to explain. There is currently nothing preventing an inmate from being incarcerated at the institution where his victim works. The bill also does not provide for staff members to be forewarned of the transfer of their attackers to their place of work. In actual fact, they often learn of such transfers when they come face to face with their attackers.

Consequently, we ask that the bill be amended so that inmates who have attacked staff members are automatically and immediately transferred to another penitentiary and are never transferred to the institution where their victims work, unless the latter consent to such a transfer. In addition, to really reflect the situation of correctional system staff, we would like these amendments to be extended to include staff whose immediate families have been victims of crime committed by CSC's clientele. For these situations, we believe it would be appropriate to ensure the protection of staff members.

The third aspect concerns the taking of blood samples. We welcome the proposed addition to section 40 of the Corrections and Conditional Release Act, which concerns disciplinary offences, of a paragraph concerning the throwing of bodily substances toward another person. However, we would have liked the bill to include an obligation for an inmate who does such a thing to provide a blood sample. It should be recalled that this was the gist of recommendation 11 of the Sampson Report.

The fourth aspect concerns an inmate's malicious accusation of a staff member. With regard to the proposed amendments to section 40 of the Corrections and Conditional Release Act, the Union of Canadian Correctional Officers proposes that false accusations against staff members be added to the list of disciplinary offences. This addition could help deter an inmate wishing to intimidate a staff member or take revenge on that staff member by undermining his reputation through malicious accusations.

Lastly, the fifth aspect concerns the double-bunking situation that already prevails at a number of our penitentiaries. CSC plans to add 3,700 inmates by 2014, in addition to the increase resulting from the proposed legislation. If one believes that forecast, there will be a shortage of approximately 1,400 cells. Despite the planned construction, it seems clear to us that the correctional system is headed toward an acute double-bunking situation.

However, in our view, double-bunking results in increased risk. Higher tension leads to greater risk of assault and suicide. There will be an increase in the victimization of certain inmates who are at the mercy of predatory cellmates. It will be more difficult to identify an offender who is making brew or moonshine or stocking drugs, weapons and contraband, and the result will be a decline in the efficiency of the disciplinary system.

The rise in the number of inmates that may result from passage of this bill is a serious concern for us. On this potentially tough issue, we believe it is essential to emphasize that it will be important to put the necessary resources in place in advance. Those measures may be sufficient programs, disciplinary systems, tight population management and the addition of necessary staff and infrastructure.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dave MacKenzie]

Thank you. You had 10 seconds left.

The minister has 10 minutes because there's a difference in the number of witnesses for each side here.

Go ahead, Minister.

[Marie-Claude Blais, Minister of Justice and Consumer Affairs and Attorney General, Government of New Brunswick]

Thank you.

Good morning. I am pleased to be here in Ottawa today and honoured to have been invited to appear before the House of Commons Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights to offer our government's official response to Bill C-10, Safe Streets and Communities Act.

Without hesitation, we support the efforts to strengthen these laws aimed at protecting the victims of crime, protecting our children and giving a voice to victims. I certainly want to speak about the fact that we need to better protect our children. As a mother, this legislation truly speaks to me. Our children should feel safe, but people need to realize that when we talk about sexual exploitation and predators of children who are using the Internet to find their victims, we are not even safe in our own homes. This bill will help to better protect our children.

We have heard a lot about declining crime, but let me tell you that these types of crimes are increasingly sophisticated and we need to get serious about it. However, I'd like to turn the spotlight for a moment to those who I believe should be the real focus of this bill, the victims. As the abbreviated name for the bill implies, the act is aimed at making citizens in the cities and communities of our great country affected by these crimes feel safer. More importantly, the intent of the bill is to help and support the individuals who are victims of these crimes.

It should not come as a surprise that victims often feel that they are lost in the criminal justice system. Last month, I hosted a town hall meeting on the topic of access to justice and invited citizens to come and share their experiences with me. We had a number of individuals come forward to share stories of dealings with the justice system, and many victims and their families said they were frustrated with feeling powerless and voiceless.

The process by tradition and design is most often focused on the prosecution of the accused, with the impact the crime has had on the victim taking a backseat or secondary role. When I use the term "victim", I am including those individuals that are directly touched by the crime, but also the community that bears witness to the crime perpetrated on their streets, impacting family, friends and neighbours alike.

We'd like to believe the crimes this bill is targeting only happen in the bigger urban centres, but that is not the case. As I told a reporter in my home province during an interview on this crime bill, it happens in our own backyards. In fact, New Brunswick places third highest in the country for child exploitation. I believe strongly that crimes against children deserve strong sentencing. We believe the changes proposed in this crime bill will make it possible to achieve that objective.

Moving forward, as the bill becomes law and its different components come into effect, we have some practical issues that New Brunswick will need to address with our federal counterparts. Given our sole jurisdiction over the administration of justice, we will continue our efforts to seek federal recognition of additional costs that may fall upon the provinces with some of these initiatives.

There will be impacts on courts, prosecutors and legal aid as a result of increased penalties contained within the legislation. As a practising lawyer in New Brunswick for over a dozen years, I have dealt with individuals on both sides of the legal process. I understand the frustration of victims who feel the system does not adequately take into account their perspective or point of view.

I have also met individuals accused of crimes that would have been better served and supported with an approach other than our traditional criminal justice system. I truly believe that our province understands the need for early intervention work with youth and families to divert them from the justice system.

Police, prosecutors, lawyers and judges are not social workers or caseworkers, so we need to work closely with the other departments to find interdepartmental approaches to these complicated cases.

We need health, social development and justice working with community-based support groups to find solutions. Solutions are not always in the courtroom. I believe some solutions can be found through early intervention. The use of diversionary programs, which offer the right services to the right people at the right time, must be viewed as an option.

As for changes to the Youth Criminal Justice Act, our prosecution branch supports the changes and feels that this bill will give the tools required to effectively protect the public. As per the Nunn Commission of Inquiry in Nova Scotia, we feel that this goal of protection of the public is a must. To that point, I think from past experience and speaking with justice partners, there has been an inability to deal adequately with extremely dangerous behaviour. Police and prosecutors require tools to protect the public and this act provides them with those tools.

As a past member of the board of Portage Atlantic, I have seen the effects of drugs and the cost of this plague on society and our government. If some feel that there is no harm in casual consumption of drugs, I have seen quite the contrary. This has resulted in the destruction of families. Drugs have led to crimes being committed to feed their habit, and in some cases suicide. Yes there are dire consequences.

We support Bill C-10 as it relates to imposing mandatory minimum sentencing in circumstances where it involves the selling of drugs to the youth, in or near a school or in areas frequented by youth. We also support the willingness of the federal government to permit exemptions for drug treatment.

In closing, I wish to reiterate our support for this bill. We truly appreciate the opportunity to appear today before the committee to speak to this important piece of legislation.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dave MacKenzie]

Thank you, Minister.

Mr. Jackson.

[Michael Jackson, Member, Committee on Imprisonment and Release, National Criminal Justice Section, Canadian Bar Association]

Chairman, thank you for inviting the Canadian Bar Association back to speak to you again about part 3 of the bill dealing with the CCRA amendments.

The CBA is a national association of over 37,000 lawyers, notaries, law students, and academics, and our mandate includes seeking improvement in the law and the administration of justice.

The CBA national criminal justice section consists of a balance of prosecutors and defence lawyers from all parts of Canada. I'm a member of the committee on imprisonment and release. Our members have years of experience in practising within our prison walls.

The main theme of the CBA's recommendations on part 3 of the bill is the importance of protecting human rights as an integral part of correctional legislation. The overarching human right to dignity does not stop at the prison door and, as the Supreme Court has made clear, the charter applies with full force to those imprisoned.

Human rights are not something to balance against prison discipline and control or prison accountability. Rather, they are something through which prison discipline and control must be exercised in a professional manner. Promoting and respecting human rights is not about being soft--it is about being decent. It is also about how best to achieve public safety both inside and outside prison walls.

The modern recognition of the importance of respect for human rights in prisons can be traced to a 1977 report of this House in its inquiry into the penitentiary system in Canada. It was the violence that erupted deep from inside Canada's maximum security penitentiaries in riots and hostage-takings that led to the work of the committee.

It was the documentation of abuse of power and the inhumane conditions of confinement that gave rise to that House committee's clarion call that the rule of law must run inside Canadian penitentiaries and that justice was a personal human right and an essential precondition for reformation for offenders.

It is these principles, reinforced by the charter and the Supreme Court, that underpin the legal obligations of CSC to respect human rights found in the current CCRA.

In these few minutes I can't touch on more than just one of our many recommendations in our written submission.

Broadly, our concerns are that the amendments undermine the protective umbrella of law to prevent abuse of authority; distort the respective responsibilities of the judiciary and the correctional authorities; and legitimate, under the language of benign words, more oppressive regimes.

I'm just going to deal with the one point, which I think this committee can come to grips with.

Bill C-10 would exorcize all references to the constitutional standard of the “least restrictive measures” in the CCRA.

For example, paragraph 4(d), one of the principles, now reads “that the Service use the least restrictive measures consistent with” public safety and the safety of staff and offenders. This standard traces its judicial heritage to the pre-charter Supreme Court decision in Solosky and, as many of you know, the post-charter decisions reflected in the Oakes case, which sets out the test for providing reasonable limits to a Charter right.

The proposed amendment to section 4 would read that “the Service uses measures that are consistent with the protection of society, staff members and offenders and that are limited to only what is necessary and proportionate to...the purposes of this Act”.

Not bad, but not good enough as a constitutional standard. The Oakes test and the Supreme Court have made it clear that in limiting rights what must be done is that the limitation must impair the right as little as possible, consistent with the purposes. The amendment, by taking out the words “least restrictive measures”, takes out that vital component of the constitutional standard.

It's just three words: “least restrictive measures”. The CBA proposed amendment is that you reinstate those three words. So using the existing language of the amendment, it would read that “the Service uses the least restrictive measures that are consistent with the protection of society, staff members and offenders and that are limited to only what is necessary and proportionate to...the purposes of this Act”.

Giving the waning respect for human rights in prisons, it is vital that these words be reinstated and that the constitutional standard of restraint be reinvigorated.

This committee is very busy, but you do not have to work mightily to make this amendment. It just requires adding “the least restrictive measures”, a standard, well-respected, and well-rehearsed part of other federal and provincial legislation and, for the last 20 years, part of the correctional landscape of this country.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dave MacKenzie]

Thank you.

Mr. Harris, you have five minutes.

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I want to thank our witnesses for their presentations this morning.

Thank you, Mr. Jackson, for your presentation. Perhaps I'll take that to our other witnesses from the Correctional Service.

I thank you for your presentation, Mr. Mallette. I know you have a very difficult job to do, and I think that if this legislation passes, your job will become even more difficult.

Perhaps I can put to you what Mr. Jackson just said as a professor who has studied this issue for many, many years and is seeking to ensure a balance between the rights of offenders and, as he said, the protection of the public and the safety of people like yourself who do your job.

We've seen reports by the Correctional Investigator about the consequences of segregation, for example, and some of the very difficult issues you face daily. You face the issue of the safety of your officers as an important matter that concerns your members, and rightly so.

Why would you...? I think you did support the notion of removing “least restrictive measures” as a part of the standard. Why is that necessary? It does clearly state now that whatever measures are taken, whatever they are, they must be consistent with the safety of your members, with the safety of officers. I just wonder whether you feel that it's really necessary to change that balance. I mean, if the balance is there for good constitutional reasons that seem to me.... You know, I've been practising law for 30 years, but I'll put on my common sense hat for a moment and ask, what's wrong with saying, okay, you don't put someone in a chokehold if holding him by the arm will work?

I'm not saying that you do that, but if you say “let's remove the standard” so that it doesn't matter what you do, if you leave that out, instead of saying as we say right now that we want to do something that's least restrictive, that's consistent with public safety, that's consistent with the protection and safety of officers, and consistent with the safety of the offender...is there something really wrong with that?

I say this as a union supporter and a guy who represented unions for many years. I'm appealing to common sense, I guess, or looking for a reason why you'd want to do that.

[Pierre Mallette]

Thank you for the question.

First it must be understood that we of the Union of Canadian Correctional Officers have to work with inmate populations every day. When we agree on the proposed amendment to paragraph 4(d)... There are programs called operational regimes that we've been trying to introduce since 2002. In those programs, there are some inmates who engage in their correctional plans and others who don't.

We have been trying to introduce programs for 10 years because the public's safety also depends on inmates' safety. We sincerely believe that a large number of inmates have a chance of rehabilitating, a chance to return to society. At the same time, however, some inmates are not prepared to rehabilitate immediately. Here I'm talking about criminal gangs, people who don't help other inmates rehabilitate, who put pressure on them, people who take control of the institution.

Under the current wording of the act, we have to take the least restrictive measure. Consequently, we have to treat all inmates equally.

Let's consider the commissioner's directive and the following example. There are inmate committees in the penitentiaries to represent inmates. Some inmates handle inmate grievances. I believe these are important work instruments for inmates. I believe they have a right to be represented in order to assert their rights. However, do all inmates have the same vision of rehabilitation? No. Are all inmates prepared to engage in their correctional program? No. Some inmates don't help other inmates. Some inmates, through their actions, undermine the rehabilitation of certain other inmates. Here I'm talking about criminal gangs, people who aren't prepared to get involved in the programs provided.

The tools that inmates have to defend themselves are the inmate committees, the inmate grievance officers. There's currently another scourge. Unfortunately, these positions of trust are often occupied by inmates who aren't the most legalistic, who don't want to take care of other inmates. These are privileged positions. Despite Commissioner's Directive 568-3, the inmates who occupy these positions often come from criminal backgrounds.

So when we say that the amendment will enable us to come up with programs, operational regimes, it must be understood that some inmates engage in their plans and others do not. All inmates are currently entitled to receive all the services without having to make the effort to obtain them. I would like to be living in an ideal world and tell you today that all inmates are prepared to rehabilitate now. No. Some inmates currently undermine the rehabilitation of other inmates.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dave MacKenzie]

Thank you.

Mr. Goguen.

[Robert Goguen, Conservative, Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe, NB]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

First of all, I want to thank the witnesses for being here today. I know you all have busy schedules. So we very much appreciate your being here.

It's critically important to the process.

My question is for Minister Blais.

With regard to the Youth Criminal Justice Act, Quebec's justice minister, Jean-Marc Fournier, testified before us last Tuesday. He said that the amendments proposed in Bill C-10 are based on the punishment rather than the rehabilitation of young offenders.

Our government has heard from victims groups and from Canadians who have confirmed that these amendments are necessary in order to address the problem of violent young offenders and repeat offenders. These offenders represent approximately 5% of young offenders in the judicial system and pose a genuine threat to public safety.

What is your position on this matter? Do you believe that Bill C-10 will have a negative effect on the rehabilitation and reintegration of young offenders?

[Marie-Claude Blais]

I know that young offenders are a very hot topic in this bill. There has to be a change of culture, of mentality. We mustn't believe that our law courts will be a source of solutions for mental health problems, behavioural problems related to health problems, educational problems or social status problems.

For us in New Brunswick, Bill C-10 won't mean that we do less rehabilitation with young offenders or that we put less energy into our programs. I believe we have to work hand in hand. Our departments have to decompartmentalize and work together to ensure early identification of youths who have problems. We have to seek out these youths when they are young and identify them in order to lead them along a very different path from the one we still see.

There is a lot of talk about prosecuting young offenders. Some behaviour shouldn't lead to court. Before it goes to court, some behaviour should be identified, and those youths should get a chance to change their behaviour in society. We mustn't believe that prosecutors and judges will find solutions for young offenders. I believe we have to change the culture. We have to look for solutions on the outside; we have to identify youths at an early age.

I remember a time when there was a community that supported youths. There were community police officers, whose presence was more widespread, to support young people. In my riding, for example, we work with boys and girls clubs to try to guide certain youths along another path. So I think it's important to put some energy into this aspect.

I can tell you that I have heard our prosecutors say that we need the tools to deal with certain youths who unfortunately are violent in our society and that the new bill will give them those tools.

[Robert Goguen, Conservative, Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe, NB]

Thank you.

Minister, there is a kind of health court in New Brunswick. Do you believe that court could play a role in this kind of triage system, or should the sorting first be done by provincial government authorities?

[Marie-Claude Blais]

New Brunswick is currently developing a whole series of mental health services. It's a series of services that are at the grassroots level. We want to go and find the young people concerned. The Department of Justice is working with the Department of Social Development and with the Department of Health to establish committee in which our deputy ministers work together to identify services that will help address these kinds of problems directly. We hope to be able to divert from the criminal system so that we can deal with those who have mental health problems. Our government has invested money and energy in this really different approach, in which we must all try to work together to breakdown the silos.

Having personally acted as defence counsel for young offenders, I know that some 15 individuals are meeting around a table, and the department of justice does not know what the department of education or the department of health have done. We have to talk to each other. There has to be a change in culture. We've started, and I hope we're successful.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dave MacKenzie]

Thank you.

Mr. Cotler.

[Irwin Cotler, Liberal, Mount Royal, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Goguen has put the question I would have put to the minister, so I'll just add a question now for Mr. Jackson.

You mentioned in your presentation that the CCRA “exorcizes” the term “least restrictive measures”. My questions are, why do you think the term has been exorcized and does this have anything to do with the CSC independent review panel and their roadmap report?

The final thing I would ask is, does the elimination of this term make the legislation constitutionally suspect? Or can one argue that the legislation still maintains the principle of proportionality and that this principle of proportionality may be said to incorporate, perhaps, the notion of least restrictive measures?

[Michael Jackson]

Thank you for that question.

The change in wording has everything to do with “A Roadmap to Strengthening Public Safety”, the report of the panel that was given to the minister in 2007. I was very blunt last time I was here: I described the document as being “legally illiterate”, by which I meant that in its 200 pages it never once referred to any legal analysis, or to any reference to any decision of the Supreme Court of Canada or any other court, in all the years of the interpretation of the CCRA.

What the roadmap did say was that this principle of the least restrictive measures has been given too much space by CSC and by the courts and that what they recommended was that the standard in the CCRA should be amended so that, instead of “the least restrictive measures”, the wording would be “all appropriate measures”, and I pointed out in a critique of this, as did others, that this is not a standard. That's not a constitutional restraint on the exercise of coercive authority. It's a management tool.

“Appropriate measures”: who can best judge that except a correctional administrator? It's not a standard to be used by legislators, by courts, or by the Correctional Investigator when they inquire as to whether or not correctional authority--the very difficult job of exercising correctional authority, and I make no mistake, it's a very difficult job--is done in accordance with the rule of law and all least restrictive measures.

Now, to their credit, the Department of Justice, when they saw that recommendation, recognized that you can't change the language to that, so what they came up with was the language you have in the bill, “necessary and proportionate”. That is constitutional language. It's two parts of the tri-part Oakes test, and what we're recommending.... And it's true, Mr. Cotler, I think a court likely would...certainly I would argue at a court that “least restrictive measures” is an integral part of proportionality, but why remove it when it's already there in the legislation?

The recommendation we have made of combining that language with the proposed amendment is all three parts of the constitutional standard. It would be a model for human rights legislation everywhere and that's why we are recommending the reinstatement of those words.

But the final point, if I may, is that already--and this is very alarming to me and to others--the commissioner of corrections and other senior officials are telling CSC staff that this bill, in removing the least restrictive measures principle, is in fact in its place incorporating appropriate measures. That's not what the bill does, but it's the message that correctional staff are being given. It's alarming because it completely removes any sense of restraint on the exercise of authority. That's why we recommend that these three words be in fact reinstated into the legislation.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dave MacKenzie]

You have just over 30 seconds, Mr. Cotler.

[Irwin Cotler, Liberal, Mount Royal, QC]

Could you speak for 30 seconds on prison overcrowding in B.C., on the extent of overcrowding in prisons in British Columbia?

[Michael Jackson]

At the provincial level, it's reaching alarming proportions, particularly in remand. At the federal level, double-bunking is increasing. I think the Correctional Investigator is going to talk to you about this. It's predicted that double-bunking will go up to 30%. There is double-bunking, as the Correctional Investigator reported in his annual report, in some segregation cells, as anomalous as that may appear.

That's one of the great concerns that those of us who work inside prisons have. It's difficult enough--and my colleague from UCCO made that point--to manage existing prison populations with all these demands. To increase the burden by adding more prisoners without a lot more resources in programming--and only 1.8% of the multi-billion-dollar budget goes to programs--without massive increases, the problem will be aggravated.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dave MacKenzie]

Sorry, but we're out of time.

We'll go to Ms. Findlay.

[Kerry-Lynne Findlay, Conservative, Delta—Richmond East, BC]

Thank you.

Thanks to all of you for being here today and for your vigorous testimony. This helps us very much in what we're trying to do.

My question is for Ms. Blais.

I was intrigued by the town hall meeting you were talking about and the experience of victims you were interacting with and how powerless they felt. In other words, they were trying to expose the true impact of having to navigate their way through what is often a very complex justice system. I applaud your outreach in that regard. It echoes what we've been hearing from our constituents and from people across Canada as to the very real cost to them. This is some of what we're trying to address, although the opposition members have criticized the need to do so.

As with any new initiative, there is a cost. Our estimates have identified $78.6 million as the cost to implement Bill C-10. Of course, it's primarily aimed and targeted at those who would exploit our children and at drug traffickers.

I note that your confrère in Manitoba, Attorney General Andrew Swan, has said: “...public safety has a cost. We'll meet that cost.”

I am wondering what New Brunswick's position is on this.

[Marie-Claude Blais]

As you know, justice in our province is in charge of court administration, and the Department of Public Safety is in charge of the provincial side of imprisonment.

We're surely aware of the impact it is going to have financially. We don't deny that it will have an impact. We'll need to bring forward our problems if there are some. We'll need to sit down. We'll need to look at how we can be effective in the way we budget.

We've been doing that since we took power. We have been trying to do things differently, certainly, and we will continue to talk to the federal government about our needs and what this bill will cost us. We are not naive and will not pretend that this will not have an impact. We believe that it will have an impact.

We have been talking with the federal government about legal aid at various meetings. We will continue to talk to the federal government about the need to make sure that we succeed for victims in regard to this bill. Also, we see that, if need be, we will sit down at the table. It isn't different from how we do things right now. We certainly know that when legislation comes from the federal government, which we can't control, we sit down and talk to officials about what the needs are in New Brunswick.

We need to be cognizant of the fact that even though we're a small province, we have major issues. Child exploitation in our province is a major issue. I'm pretty sure that you've seen the news lately. In our small province, we have some of the worst cases of child exploitation. When you think about New Brunswick, you don't think about these things. For me, when our children are no longer safe in our own homes, we need to be serious about this. We need to act on this, and we intend to do so.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dave MacKenzie]

You have a minute and a half.

[Kerry-Lynne Findlay, Conservative, Delta—Richmond East, BC]

Am I correct, then--I think this is what you're saying, and I just want to make sure I understand--that there will be many opportunities, as you go along, for both provincial and territorial governments to dialogue with your federal counterparts on issues of the administration of justice?