Justice Committee on March 18th, 2013

[Parm Gill, Conservative, Brampton—Springdale, ON]

The six months came from looking at other similar legislation, similar laws we have in place, along with the advice I got from the legal experts, as I mentioned earlier. Balancing all of that, I was basically given the figure of six months.

[Hoang Mai, NDP, Brossard—La Prairie, QC]

What types of activities did you compare it to in terms of the six months?

[Parm Gill, Conservative, Brampton—Springdale, ON]

Well, other similar offences, such as criminal offences. I can't give you one off the top of my head, but when we looked at it and compared our notes and stuff.... I'm no lawyer by profession; it was the legal experts who gave me these.

[Hoang Mai, NDP, Brossard—La Prairie, QC]

Okay.

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Conservative, Mike Wallace]

Thank you, Mr. Mai.

Our final questioner for this afternoon is Mr. Goguen.

I think you're sharing your time with Mr. Wilks. Is that correct?

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

If we have time, I would very much like to do that.

[The Chair, Conservative, Mike Wallace]

Okay. You're the last questioner.

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

This is not a philosophical question. It's a question of construction and interpretation.

Clause 12 amends paragraph 486.2(5)(a) of the Criminal Code, aids in testimony, and your bill proposes to amend existing language in the French version.

Currently, the French version reads “une infraction grave présumée avoir été commise”. In English that's “presumed to have been committed”. The bill proposes to replace this language with “une infraction grave censément commise”, an offence supposedly or purportedly committed.

Censément is not used elsewhere in the Criminal Code to describe the alleged commission of an offence, whereas the phrase “présumée avoir été commise” is. Moreover, censément is not an appropriate concept with respect to criminal law offences. Principles of legislative drafting would dictate that the words “présumée avoir été commise” be maintained to ensure their consistency in use and meaning across the Criminal Code.

The question of the hour is, are you okay with this?

[Parm Gill, Conservative, Brampton—Springdale, ON]

I am absolutely fine with it.

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

I will now share my time.

[The Chair, Conservative, Mike Wallace]

Thank you, sir.

Thank you, Mr. Goguen.

Mr. Wilks, you have four minutes.

[David Wilks, Conservative, Kootenay—Columbia, BC]

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Gill, for your insights on this bill. I'd like first to say that recruitment has changed over the years. From my days as a police officer in my undercover work dealing with the Hells Angels, things have changed. I think that's what is missed in all of this. It's that the gangs we speak of today are much more immature and much more brazen than those such as the Hells Angels or the Bandidos, which try not to get involved or put themselves in light of criminal offences because they don't want to get caught.

The biggest thing I've noticed over the years is intimidation. Intimidation is normally used for one or two reasons. Someone else does the crime and the recruiter reaps the benefit, or the recruiter may elude jail time and let a younger person go to jail for them. Intimidation normally happens by harming family or friends. That's normally how it works, and it works very well.

I completely agree with you with regard to this.

I have one question. In the time you went across Canada on this bill, were you able to determine whether there was a rise in recruitment for females?

[Parm Gill, Conservative, Brampton—Springdale, ON]

That's a good question. To be honest with you, when I met with some of the current and former gang members, I did not come across a female gang member, nor did this question come up during my consultations with the different stakeholders, such as boards of education, police agencies, and others. I'm sure it's there, but it's honestly not something that came up or that I looked into.

[David Wilks, Conservative, Kootenay—Columbia, BC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Mike Wallace]

You have one more question.

[David Wilks, Conservative, Kootenay—Columbia, BC]

It's just a statement. When we dealt with bullying as it still goes on, we recognized that both males and females are not to be taken lightly when it comes to that, so it is of interest to me. It may be something you may want to look at later—

[Parm Gill, Conservative, Brampton—Springdale, ON]

Yes, absolutely.

[David Wilks, Conservative, Kootenay—Columbia, BC]

—with regard to females.

[The Chair, Conservative, Mike Wallace]

Thank you, Mr. Wilks.

Thank you, Mr. Gill, for coming here and talking about your bill.

For the committee's information, I have a reminder that we will continue this discussion next Monday. For the first hour, we will have two witnesses coming for sure. The Minister of Justice from Manitoba will be here, as will the vice-president of the Winnipeg Police Association. That is one from the Conservative list and one from an NDP list. If the Liberals have anybody they'd like to see here, we'll be happy to have them. Hopefully, we'll get done in the first hour, and we can go to clause-by-clause study.

For Wednesday of this week, I have a reminder to check the location. We're going to be in the Centre Block for Wednesday's meeting, with the minister for the first hour and the officials for the second hour, to deal with the main estimates.

Ms. Boivin.

[Françoise Boivin, NDP, Gatineau, QC]

I can't sit through this meeting without saying something.

I just want to translate what I said to our chair outside this room. I was a bit surprised to see that on Wednesday we have the minister because that was not what we had set as dates. I understand that he's making himself available.

I find it a bit weird that we'll have him the day before the actual budget. We'll have main estimates of a budget that will come down the next day. I'll say to him—and he's always very agreeable on that front—that he will probably have to come back, so I find it a bit sad for him to spend his time being grilled on the main estimates which might all be changed in the budget the next day. Anyway, so be it.

That's all I want to say. If we work on an agenda maybe it's nice to stick with it, and if there's a change—

[The Chair, Conservative, Mike Wallace]

We actually did not have anything scheduled. I'll take full responsibility. We did not have anything scheduled for Wednesday. We could have had Parm's piece, a continuation of today's piece, but the minister, based on our invitation for today, which he couldn't make, said he could make it on Wednesday. I took the initiative and invited him to come for the main estimates then. I'll take full responsibility for that, but from here on in, I'm happy to do it through a subcommittee on agenda.

Anyway, with that, thank you very much.

We are adjourned until Wednesday.