Justice Committee on Oct. 18th, 2011

[The Chair, Conservative, Dave MacKenzie]

We will begin meeting number five of the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights, studying Bill C-10, an act to enact the Justice for Victims of Terrorism Act and to amend the State Immunity Act, the Criminal Code, the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act, the Corrections and Conditional Release Act, the Youth Criminal Justice Act, the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, and other acts.

We do have a panel here today for the first hour. So that everybody understands clearly, there will be only five minutes allowed for each organization for an opening address, and each side will have five minutes for questions and answers. To be fair to everyone, I will cut you off at five minutes.

I don't know if the panels have decided on how they wish to proceed and who the first presenter will be. If you have decided, please start by identifying yourselves and the organization you represent or if you are an individual.

[Dr. Anthony Doob, Professor, Centre of Criminology, University of Toronto, As an Individual]

I am Professor Doob, from the Centre of Criminology, University of Toronto.

For today's presentation I considered simply listing the many instances in which empirical evidence was apparently ignored in developing this bill. Instead, though, the main point I would like to make is that the process the government has chosen for examining Bill C-10 does not allow sufficient opportunity for Parliament to consider adequately ways to improve the bill.

I will give two illustrations. The first is carried over without change from the Penalties for Organized Drug Crime Act from the last Parliament.

To understand proposed subsection 41.(1) of this bill, one has to start with the definition of trafficking in drugs. Trafficking is much more than just selling. To traffic in drugs includes selling, administering, giving drugs, or offering to do any of these things. To be clear, sharing or even offering to share marijuana with a friend is trafficking. This is what the law now says.

To stop organized crime from renting homes and setting up marijuana grow-ops Bill C-10 would impose a nine-month minimum sentence on a student living in a rented apartment who grows a single marijuana plant so she can share marijuana with her boyfriend. If she owned the apartment, she would not face a mandatory minimum prison sentence as long as she grew no more than five plants. If she had six to 200 plants in a dwelling she owned, she'd be facing only a six-month mandatory minimum prison sentence.

Some might argue that no self-respecting prosecutor would prosecute a case in which a conviction for running a marijuana grow-op with one plant would automatically result in a minimum prison sentence of nine months. This argument is specious. If you were to pass this bill without change, you, the Parliament of Canada, would be saying that one or two marijuana plants grown in a rented apartment for sharing with one's friends was serious enough to warrant, automatically, a mandatory minimum prison sentence of nine months.

I find it hard to believe that in a sentencing system based on proportionality Parliament really wants to say this.

The Controlled Drugs and Substances Act states that the one purpose of any sentence in this act is “to contribute to the respect for the law and the maintenance of a just, peaceful and safe society while encouraging rehabilitation, and treatment in appropriate circumstances, of offenders and acknowledging the harm done to victims and to the community”. Anyone who looks carefully at many of Bill C-10's mandatory minimum sentencing provisions would have a hard time defending their appropriateness. A law purposefully made incoherent does not deserve respect.

A second example comes from a different part of the bill—the proposed changes to the Youth Criminal Justice Act. I should point out that in my view some of the provisions of that bill might be improvements—but even they need work.

However, proposed subsection 75.(1) of the bill could use some attention and debate. It would allow a judge to order the publication of the name of a youth found guilty of any violent offence. I find no valid purpose or need for this proposal, in part because publishing the name of a young offender is likely to increase the likelihood of future offending.

The provision applies to “violent' offences”, and the bill expands the meaning of “violence” far beyond what it is now, and far beyond what the word normally means.

If—in the face of the absence of evidence that supports the need for this change and in the face of evidence that it will increase crime—you still want to open up the issue of the publication of names of youths who have committed minor offences, then the test of when this can be done should explicitly make reference to the provisions allowing more limited sharing of information about the identity of the offender with specific people, which currently exists in the YCJA. Surely it should be necessary for the Attorney General to demonstrate that the existing opportunity for targeted disclosure would not be sufficient.

But there is one important point that needs to be made. Proposed subsection 75.(4) indicates that for the purposes of an appeal, the provision allowing the publication of the identity of the youth is part of the sentence.

This is a cruel and dishonest joke on the part of the government. The name will be published before the appeal can be filed. Experience in the past eight years has demonstrated that the government is either naive or dishonest in suggesting, as it does here, that this can be appealed.

The Youth Criminal Justice Act allows the publication of names of youths who are given adult sentences. The imposition of an adult sentence can be appealed but the names of those receiving adult sentences are typically published immediately after the sentence has been imposed and before any appeal can be filed. In other words, the safeguard to a youth of an appeal is already eliminated.

The remedy is simple. If you are going to include this provision, then the section must be changed such that the publication cannot take place until all appeals have taken place or the period for filing the appeal has passed.

This bill deals with a number of important issues. There is no need to rush to judgment on these matters. I would urge you to reconsider your course of action and allow a serious examination of each of the separate issues contained in Bill C-10.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dave MacKenzie]

Thank you.

Ms. O'Sullivan.

[Susan O'Sullivan, Federal Ombudsman for Victims of Crime, Office of the Federal Ombudsman for Victims of Crime]

Sue O'Sullivan, Federal Ombudsman for Victims of Crime.

Good morning, Mr. Chair and members of the committee. Thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today on this important bill.

Bill C-10 is a substantial piece of legislation with many aspects and issues for discussion.

Given our limited time today, and the role of my office in providing a voice to victims of crime, I would like to focus on providing you with points for consideration in relation to part 3 of Bill C-10, specifically with respect to the changes to the Corrections and Conditional Release Act that apply to victims of crime. I will focus solely on those aspects of this bill as they have direct effect on the treatment of victims of crime within the Canadian criminal justice system.

I would like to begin by commending the government for moving forward with the changes proposed on behalf of victims of crime to enhance the CCRA. We have spoken to a number of victims and victim advocates who have fought for these changes for years and who are extremely pleased to see them come to fruition. The proposed amendments to the CCRA are a positive step forward and I'm heartened to see the momentum building for real change for victims of crime in Canada. That being said, there is still much more work to be done and further changes to be made in order to truly address a broader scope of victims' concerns. The office has been pushing for many of these and further changes on behalf of victims since it opened its doors in 2007. In fact, these proposed changes were the subject of the office's second special report, “Toward a Greater Respect for Victims in the Corrections and Conditional Release Act”, which I have provided to all members for reference. I strongly encourage all members to carefully review the report and would be happy to follow up if there are any questions.

From my perspective, there are three main amendments that relate directly to the treatment of victims of crime: providing victims with the right to present a statement at parole hearings; removing an offender's right to cancel a parole hearing within 14 days of the scheduled hearing; and increasing the scope of information provided to victims.

With respect to the right to present a statement at parole hearings, moving to enshrine this right is extremely important. In the current system, the imbalance between offenders' and victims' rights is stark and unjust. Providing victims with more actual legislated rights will help to address this. However, while this is a long-awaited and crucial change for victims, there is a very important element missing. Victims are still are not being granted the right to attend the hearing. If victims are denied attendance, the right to present a statement in person becomes moot. We believe that victims, barring any security threats or concerns, should have the right to attend a parole hearing and that this right must be enshrined in law, as opposed to simply in policy.

With respect to the second change, the emotional toll of preparing to attend a parole hearing for a victim can be huge, let alone the time required for travel, logistics, and more. The ability for an offender to cancel a hearing, even hours prior, permits a lack of consideration for the victim that is simply unacceptable. Providing a period of 14 days' prior notice allows victims some security in knowing that the offender cannot cancel at the last minute and helps to begin to incorporate some element of consideration for the victims' needs. This change was one that our office recommended in its report, and we fully support it.

Finally, with respect to the last point, it is time we acknowledged that victims are not bystanders in the criminal justice process. They deserve to be kept informed and to be able to plan for their own safety. Victims want more information about the offender who harmed them in order to understand what steps they've taken to rehabilitate themselves--or, conversely, what risk they might still pose. The types of information added through this bill are very much in line with the kind of information victims have told our office they want. However, the amendment only goes as far as to make this information available at the discretion of CSC or PBC. We feel that victims should have a right to this information, full stop. In a system where victims have no recourse if they are denied, this type of information should be given in all cases and should not be at the discretion of CSC or PBC. I would also add one more item to this list: that victims also be provided with an updated photo, upon request, of the offender at the time of his or her release.

While I am encouraged to see these changes being made, there is much more work to be done. Victims need more information, they need to be able to participate in a meaningful way in the criminal justice process, and they need to have tangible supports in place to assist them in the aftermath of a crime. There are further tangible, practical changes to the CCRA that would have a direct and meaningful impact on victims. I would encourage members to consider including these as amendments to Bill C-10 moving forward. These are listed in your information package with reference to the specific sections to be amended and include: ensuring that victims have the right to face their offender by providing them with the presumptive right to attend a parole hearing, unless there is justification to believe their presence will be disruptive or will threaten the security of the institution or individuals; providing victims with advance notification regarding all offender transfers between institutions, where possible, not just those transfers where an offender is moved from a maximum to a minimum; providing victims the right to receive up-to-date information about the progress and programming of the offender who harmed them and ensuring they receive it well in advance of having to prepare any victim statement for a parole hearing; providing victims with the choice of attending or observing parole hearing proceedings in person, by video conference, by teleconference, or by reviewing recordings of the proceedings at a later date.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dave MacKenzie]

Thank you.

Mrs. Rosenfeldt.

[Sharon Rosenfeldt, President, Victims of Violence]

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Sharon Rosenfeldt, and I'm president of the organization Victims of Violence. It's a nationally registered organization that has been in existence since 1984—for 27 years.

I've taken out a bit of my presentation because this is five minutes. I'll just begin.

Although I can't speak on behalf of all victims of crime, I can speak on behalf of myself, our organization, and the victims we represent. I can tell you of the strong support that exists across Canada for the government's crime agenda and for the recently announced comprehensive crime legislation, the Safe Streets and Communities Act, specifically as it relates to serious and violent crime.

Opponents of this legislation have stated that because crime rates are going down this new bill does not really have a valid purpose. Why should we get tough on crime when crime is at its lowest point since 1973?

While it is true that overall crime rates are going down, the level of crime severity is not decreasing at such a rate, according to police-reported crime statistics from 2007. This means that while overall crime rates are steadily decreasing, crime rates for serious and violent crimes are not following that trend to the same extent. That is exactly why the Safe Streets and Communities Act is a necessary piece of legislation—this act addresses crimes which are serious and/or violent in nature.

Another issue that has been raised in relation to the content of this bill is that the use of mandatory minimum penalties will result in more trials because accused will not want to plead guilty to a crime for which there is a mandatory minimum penalty. There are concerns that the provinces will not be able to afford the cost of an increased number of trials and they will not want to put money into victim services if cases are being tossed out for lengthy delays.

There are a few issues with these arguments. First, the backlog that would incur from a higher number of trials is necessary to ensure that offenders are tried for the crimes they have committed, not lesser ones that do not truly reflect the crimes they have allegedly committed. This would do much to increase victim satisfaction with the criminal justice system.

Secondly, as an example, there will be an increase to a total of 16 offences related to child exploitation in which mandatory minimum penalties would apply. The opportunity for an offender to plead guilty to an offence that doesn't carry a mandatory minimum penalty would in fact be greatly reduced.

I fail to see how one can argue over the introduction of mandatory minimum penalities in the case of sexual crimes against children. One has to only consider the case of a man convicted of sodomizing and molesting his stepdaughter for more than two years, who received only a 23-month sentence because the judge said that he spared her virginity. Is this justice?

In theory, the total number of offences in which these new penalties would apply is not great, as they only apply to serious and/or violent offences related to crimes against children, organized crime, and violent acts committed by youths—crimes which make up only a small percentage of all the crimes committed. For example, one in five police-reported crimes are considered violent, and three in ten instances of victimization that were reported in the 2009 General Social Survey, GSS, were of a violent nature. These may represent only a small percentage of crimes; however, they represent the most grave and serious offences and, as such, should be sentenced accordingly.

I understand the bill will require that more people be put in prison for longer periods of time, and that as a result money will need to be spent to expand prison facilities—money that some have argued can be better spent elsewhere. However, this is a necessary cost for the protection of society and the detention of serious repeat and/or violent offenders.

It is worrisome that so many people have focused on the cost of crime, particularly as it relates to offenders and prisons, without considering the cost that crime has on victims. The cost of violent and serious crime not only consists of taxpayers' dollars but the loss of human life, of family, loss of law and order, and loss of faith in the criminal justice system.

In 2008 the Department of Justice released a report that estimated the tangible cost of crime, including police, court, corrections, and health care, was approximately $31.4 billion, while the intangible costs—the pain and suffering and loss of life costs—were over double that, at $68.2 billion.

When I hear opposition about the cost of the government's crime legislation, it upsets me greatly. As the mother of a murdered child, this is an issue that has directly affected me. If the criminal justice system had worked in the manner the federal government is now implementing, the way it was supposed to 30 years ago, my son Daryn would not have died.

I believe that we should have a stronger voice and an accountable justice system in Canada and not worry about the cost. How do you put a price tag on our pain as victims or on our children's lives?

[The Chair, Conservative, Dave MacKenzie]

Thank you, Mrs. Rosenfeldt.

[Eric Gottardi, Vice-Chair, National Criminal Justice Section, Canadian Bar Association]

Thank you for the invitation to appear before you on Bill C-10.

I speak on behalf of the Canadian Bar Association, which, as many of you know, is a national association of over 37,000 lawyers, notaries, law students, and academics. Our mandate includes seeking improvements in the law and in the administration of justice. Our national criminal justice section represents a balance of crown prosecutors and defence lawyers from across Canada, and the positions we will present to you today represent our consensus on Bill C-10.

I practise criminal law in Vancouver as both a defence lawyer and a crown prosecutor. With me today is Professor Michael Jackson, a member of the section's committee on imprisonment and release, and one of Canada's most prominent experts on prison law.

I am afraid I must begin by expressing our disappointment that we have been given a mere five minutes to address such a complicated and important piece of legislation. This is entirely insufficient to provide meaningful feedback on these proposals that represent a significant shift in Canada's criminal justice and penal policy.

We also object to the process of lumping these profound changes into one bill, as many of them have received no previous committee review and will get little attention in the midst of nine important proposals. It is, in our respectful view, undemocratic.

In addition to our concerns about process, we believe that the substance of this legislation will ultimately be self-defeating and counter-productive if the goal is to enhance public safety.

The bill takes a flawed approach to dealing with offenders at all stages of their interaction with the criminal justice system, from arrest, through to trial, to their placement in and treatment by correctional institutions, and to their inevitable reintegration back into society. It represents a profound shift in orientation from a system that prioritizes public safety through individualized sentencing, rehabilitation, and reintegration, to one that puts punishment and vengeance first.

The measures contained in Bill C-10 will see more Canadian youth incarcerated while waiting for their trials. They will see more matters go to trial due to the harsh and unavoidable jail sentences associated with many offences, and they will see fewer reformed or rehabilitated offenders leave our correctional institutions and try to reintegrate into society.

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

Members of the committee, I've appeared before this committee on the CCRA for almost 30 years. I appeared in 1992, when legislation was introduced.

The CCRA is the legislative architecture of imprisonment for those serving from two years to life imprisonment in Canada. It was self-consciously based upon the principles of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the rule of law. It involved the most extensive consultation with not just the Canadian Bar Association, but with many others involved in the criminal justice process.

Central to the CCRA was the principle enshrined in the charter that justifiable limits must be demonstrably made in accordance with principles of proportionality and rationality, and not be arbitrary. One of those principles is that state authority must be exercised in the least restrictive manner consistent with public safety, staff safety, and offenders. That principle is enshrined in the CCRA.

In 2000 a committee of this House reviewed the CCRA, as required under its provisions after the first five years of operation. Like the original consultation process, it was extensive. It travelled across the country and heard submissions. It had extensive hearings and made recommendations.

The process this committee is engaged upon has none of those hallmarks of extensive consultation, deliberation, and accountability. In lieu of this, the government and the Correctional Service of Canada places before you “A Roadmap to Strengthening Public Safety”, a document prepared in 2007, hastily convened, and even more expeditiously executed.

This road map ignores 150 years of correctional history. It pays no attention to previous recommendations or royal commissions. In its 200 pages there is not a single reference to the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, or to decisions of the Supreme Court. It is legally illiterate, and yet it is the brainchild of the amendments that you have before you and upon which you are asked to hear.

I want to very quickly deal with just two of the many provisions we have commented on in our submission. The legislation, the amendments—

[The Chair, Conservative, Dave MacKenzie]

Mr. Jackson, I'm sorry, your time is up.

Mr. Harris.

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

It's difficult to start without commenting on the process, which doesn't allow the completion of this presentation, but we do have a full brief, sir, and I want to read it.

I'd like to first ask a question of Professor Doob. We all want to see safer communities; that's in the title of the bill. But I'm rather disturbed by what I hear when I see evidence such as that if you incarcerate more young people who are convicted of a crime, which we already do more than any other industrialized country, statistics show that you actually increase the likelihood of further criminal involvement for those youth. If you try youth as adults, the American Justice Department and even the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta find that doing so will make them more likely, not less likely, to reoffend.

How is this legislation, which ends up incarcerating more young people, going to help us make safer communities and decrease the likelihood of crime and victims if we are taking this approach?

Would you like to comment on that, Professor Doob?

[Dr. Anthony Doob]

The legislation won't make us safer. That's absolutely clear. What the legislation may do is increase youth crime. In part, we know that we have to incarcerate some youth. What we've learned since 2003 is that we can afford to reduce the number of people we incarcerate and we have no evidence of any increase in youth crime. What research shows is that by putting more youth or in fact adults into prison, especially for the first time, it's going to increase the likelihood that they reoffend. That is absolutely clear.

The question would be, how do we come to the right balance? The Youth Criminal Justice Act has been very effective in coming to that right balance in many ways. In certain ways it hasn't. We've been incarcerating large numbers of kids before they've been found guilty, and that has not decreased under the Youth Criminal Justice Act. In this bill we're creating additional crime.

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

Thank you.

Perhaps, Professor Jackson, you can deal with this question.

There was a story last night on television interviewing officials in Texas who indicated that the result of increased spending in Texas on prisons in fact had the opposite effect to reducing crime. In fact, it said if your goal is saving taxpayer dollars and making the community safer, it's the absolute wrong direction to go in. They were talking about drug offenders, and said that the more you did that the more you increased the level of crime in the community. Texas, for example, among other states, is going in a different direction totally.

Would you like to comment on that?

[Michael Jackson]

Yes, I would.

The evidence is overwhelming, not just in Texas, but in every jurisdiction where it's been studied, that putting more people in prison for longer periods of time has no salutary effect upon public safety and only a negative effect on offender reintegration. One of the reasons why the least restrictive measures principle is so important is exactly because of what Texas has learned. Imprisonment is extremely costly. The state, in expending valuable taxpayer resources, should use the least restrictive measures when it comes to the most costly form of corrections, incarceration. That's why the fact that the act eviscerates all language in the act to the least restrictive measures is so shocking. On what possible basis would the commissioner justify initiatives that cannot meet the least restrictive measures consistent with public safety and public accountability, including our money?

[The Chair, Conservative, Dave MacKenzie]

Mr. Goguen.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'd like to bring a bit of clarity to what Professor Doob was stating regarding the potential prosecution for one plant in a rented dwelling. Kudos to you for attention to detail. That's clearly a drafting error that will be corrected by the minister. This happened when the bill was amended some years ago by the NDP. The section wasn't properly changed to reflect that there should be more than five plants. It's clearly the minister's intent to rectify this mistake. It's a drafting error.

Professor, you'd recognize that in any one prosecution there are enormous costs, so the likelihood of prosecution and getting a conviction for trafficking for one plant would be highly unlikely, and that's certainly not a direction the government intends to take. Thank you for the clarification, but the mistake will be clarified and corrected. Thank you.

My question would be to Sue O'Sullivan. Thank you, Sue, for your important work as the federal ombudsman for victims of crime. We recognize that you have a responsibility to the victims and to the government. We respect the job that you do. We know it's a tough one in balancing the interests.

In your recent report, “Toward a Greater Respect for Victims in the Corrections and Conditional Release Act”, you recommended to strengthen Canada's corrections and conditional release system. Do you agree that conditional sentencing is inappropriate for those convicted of a serious crime--for example, murder, the sexual exploitation of children, and drug trafficking?

[Susan O'Sullivan]

On the issue of sentencing, for many victims the issue of sentencing is an extremely important issue and for others it's not.

What we want to focus on is addressing the opportunity this bill provides to allow this committee to even introduce amendments that will further enhance victims' rights under this legislation. Under the CCRA in its simplest form, victims are only allowed to have what the legislation allows CSC and the parole board to give them. There's a unique opportunity here for this committee to actually go further, to add some of the amendments that I highlighted today and that are encompassed in the reports, to even further address victims' rights and the treatment of victims within the criminal justice system.

Thank you.

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

Let's look at things from the victims' perspective. Many of the victims feel that their rights are being overlooked to the benefit of the accused and that the accused have greater rights. Do you feel that Bill C-10 properly addresses the concerns of victims? Do you have any specific measures that you support in this bill in that regard?

[Susan O'Sullivan]

Yes. First of all, this bill, as I highlighted in my testimony, addresses part 3 of the recommendations that are in our report, but I think there's much more work to be done. As I mentioned, I think we have a unique opportunity here to make committee amendments that would even further provide more information for victims. It is about more information about the offender, and it is about meaningful involvement in the process, and that they have some tangible supports in place. Under the CCRA, victims can only have what the legislation allows the organizations to give. Those are examples.

So the amendments that we've highlighted really are practical, and it's what we've heard from victims. An example might be the attending of parole hearings. As you can imagine, and Sharon has been to many, when you are there, the emotion and the impact and the reliving of what has happened to your loved one—you may not capture all that's in there. I think most Canadians would feel that if you wanted to attend the next day and to listen to the audiotape that was done, you would expect that you would be able to. In fact, you can't.

It really is about the practical: providing information to victims that they deserve to have. For example, a victim would want to know the kind of program, and if in fact the offender has gone through it. Have they made any efforts to address the issues? Or, conversely, if they have not, is the victim's safety considered upon the offender's release and, as we're well aware, whether offenders will come back into the community? Victims have to be considered in that. They have to be treated with respect and with dignity in the process.

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

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dave MacKenzie]

Mr. Cotler.

[Irwin Cotler, Liberal, Mount Royal, QC]

I have a question for Professor Doob and, if time permits, one for Professor Jackson.

In your opening remarks you mentioned that you considered listing the many instances of empirical evidence being apparently ignored in the development of this legislation. Could you give us some examples of that empirical evidence that this committee should be considering and that has been ignored?

[Dr. Anthony Doob]

Well, the most obvious is clearly, in various parts throughout the bill, the idea that mandatory minimum sentences are going to keep us safe. The evidence that harsher sentences generally and mandatory minimum sentences will keep us safe is clearly absent. The evidence would suggest that it is going to have no positive impact.

The second example is that in various ways the bill implies that incarceration is preferable to systems that attempt to reintegrate prisoners into society and that it ignores the fact that most prisoners are going to be back in our midst at the end of their sentences; this comes out in the Transfer of Offenders Act, in changes to the CCRA, and so on. It ignores the fact that one of the best things that can be done with people who are in prison is to have controlled re-entry into the community.

The third example I would give has to do with the preference in general for incarceration rather than punishment within the community. The bill in its broad form in a number of instances clearly moves toward a system wherein the presumption is in favour of imprisonment and the assumption is that prison will create safe communities and safe streets. This clearly is wrong.

[Irwin Cotler, Liberal, Mount Royal, QC]

I have a quick question for Professor Jackson. Because you had to conclude almost in mid-sentence, I'd like to invite you to complete your thought at that moment.

[Michael Jackson]

Perhaps I can do it, Mr. Cotler, with reference to the question you put to Mr. Doob about what empirical evidence is ignored in these amendments.

One of the themes of the amendments is to toughen up, in the name of accountability, prison conditions to counteract what is perversely and inappropriately referred to as a “Club Fed” atmosphere in federal prisons. I spent 40 years working in federal prisons. They are not Club Feds, and I challenge anyone who would say otherwise.

One of the examples of toughening up the conditions is the way in which the amendments state that they will modernize the regime of segregation. Segregation is the regime under which Ashley Smith died two years ago. It's the harshest, most draconian form of imprisonment known within the borders of Canada. It has been the subject of comment of many parliamentary committee reports.

Indeed, the five-year review of this committee recommended that administrative segregation, which can be indefinite, should never be imposed except through the order of an independent adjudicator, not a CSC official. Due to CSC recalcitrance, that recommendation has not been implemented. It has been repeated by the human rights committee, by the correctional investigator, in academic writings. Every body that has looked at this dispassionately has come up with this recommendation.

It is not in the amendments, and yet this is meant to be the modernization of the regime.

What is in the amendments is that if a prisoner is sentenced, as a punishment, to segregation, one of the sanctions that would now be allowed is to cut off any visits with the outside world—friends or families. CSC's own empirical evidence demonstrates that one of the most important elements of prisoner reintegration, one of the most important elements of ensuring that prisoners are not violent and are compliant with the correctional regime, is having contact with their loved ones.

Why would you do that? Why would you add that condition of confinement to an already rigorous regime? How does it contribute to public safety? How does adding the pains of imprisonment to an already hardened group of people make them better people, so that when they come back into our society they can be our neighbours and not our predators?