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—