NDP-29 takes on the first principle, I suppose, of what the government is trying to do here, which is unnecessarily punitive and contrary to the rehabilitation of someone who has been an offender. We already know, those of us who understand the pardon system, that the purpose of a pardon is to provide an opportunity for someone to get a new start. Having committed an offence they can rehabilitate themselves, demonstrate that they are now of good character, and be able to go forward. The idea is that an individual has made a mistake, has done something wrong but wants to be able to move forward, and there having been a proper evaluation of their circumstances, it allows them to have a situation where they can say yes, I did make a mistake but I was granted a pardon.
One of the oddities of this particular approach the government is taking here is that they've replaced the word “pardon” with a brand-new notion called “record suspension”. Now I practised law for 30 years. This is a strange and odd new notion. Since 1970 one could get a pardon from the parole board. That has a meaning out there in the public and in the minds of people who want to rehabilitate themselves. People who have obtained a pardon are very proud of the fact that they have applied for a pardon. They've been subject to the scrutiny and inquiries being made by the parole board, normally an investigation done by the RCMP, that results in the grant of a pardon. It doesn't mean they never had a record, but it means that the decision has been made that it's not.... In fact, under the human rights codes of the country it's not permitted to discriminate against someone who has committed an offence for which a pardon has been granted.
Now there still is, and this is going to cause some confusion, something called a pardon. That pardon is by virtue of the royal prerogative. In other words, Her Majesty the Queen, acting by the cabinet, can issue a pardon to someone by virtue of the royal prerogative. This has always been the case going back to the kings and queens of England. That's left in the legislation somehow or other to distinguish it as a result of this legislation from a pardon obtained by another legal process.
The other legal process is the one we have now. It assists the individual with a criminal record in moving forward in his or her rehabilitation and enhances the safety of communities by motivating the individual to remain crime free and to maintain good conduct. You know, it doesn't erase the conviction. The conviction can be used for the purposes that we would want it to be used for. It doesn't cancel legal obligations under the Criminal Code to register, for example, if someone has a firearms prohibition, or some sort of driving prohibition, or there are still exceptions with respect to the flagging of someone's name in the CPIC database. If there's a sexual offence, it doesn't remove any other legal obligation. Also the name, date of birth, and last known address of the person who has received a pardon or a discharge may be disclosed to a police force if a fingerprint identifying that person is found at the scene of a crime.
It doesn't remove the record entirely, but what it does is give that person a sense that they have been granted a pardon that allows them to assist in their rehabilitation.
We've heard a lot of information about this. This amendment is particularly devoted to the notion of changing “pardon” to “record suspension”. Howard Sapers, the correctional investigator, said to our committee, in respect of the use of the word “pardon” versus “record suspension”, that legal language is extremely important. It has to be clear. Simpler is better. The words have deep meanings to people when they're involved with criminal justice, and “pardon” does have a particular meaning that is useful.
Professor Michael Jackson, University of British Columbia professor, an expert on criminal justice, talked about what happens in terms of the impact on changes to the pardon. He talked about the kind of people who end up seeking pardons for the kind of offence that might be committed by children or grandchildren. Someone who's convicted of a summary conviction, for example, could be a person—these are his words—who gets a little drunk on a stag night or at a university celebration, punches someone, and is convicted of common assault, or it could be a conviction for a drug offence. There's an entire raft of things that some young people may commit in the immaturity of young adulthood that they would like to have removed.
The record suspension merely sounds like—and I say this as someone who's practised criminal law in the past. To the people, in the lingo of people on the street who know about these things, record suspension almost sounds like a suspended sentence. In fact, that's the implication of all this, that it's temporary, that it's conditional, that somehow we'll put it on this list for now but it's not really meaningful.
That's incredibly important. There doesn't appear to be any real argument in favour of it. It seems to be designed to increase the intensity of punishment here without offering any redemptive value. We often talk about rehabilitation, and that's pretty important, but a pardon gives us a notion of redemption as well, that even though you have committed a crime.... If you look at the stats, 96% of people who are granted a pardon never have that pardon revoked. I have some stats here on the kinds of offences that people are convicted of that receive pardons, and the vast majority of them are in relation to matters like impaired driving—simple summary conviction matters like drinking and driving, assault, theft, and drug-related crimes.