Justice Committee on June 5th, 2013

[Irwin Cotler, Liberal, Mount Royal, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I also want to commend the witnesses, particularly those who suffered as a result of these brutal acts, for coming here and testifying to us.

I'm going to begin with my first question to Mr. Fedoroff and, if time permits,

I also have a question for Ms. Gaston.

Mr. Fedoroff, in your brief to the committee, your association says that the recidivism rate for those found NCR is five to six times lower than for offenders found criminally responsible. What explains that discrepancy in the rates of reoffending? Are there measures that might be effective in reducing the recidivism rates even further?

[Dr. J. Paul Fedoroff]

There's a difference because people who are found NCR are people who have a mental illness, which is the reason they committed their offence. Mental illness is treatable, so when they are treated, their risk drops. In contrast, people who are not NCR are criminals who committed a crime intentionally, and of course we do not have treatment for criminality, so that explains the difference in the rates.

Of course, we're also working on decreasing recidivism rates. The way to do that, in my view, is to treat people more quickly and earlier on. Part of that involves education about the facts of mental illness and the fact that there is treatment.

One of the reasons the Canadian Psychiatric Association is objecting to this bill is that we're worried that resources are going to be turned into putting people into facilities where they won't get treatment, rather than diverting them to victims and increasing victim compensation, education, and treatment, as well as treatment of the mentally ill.

[Irwin Cotler, Liberal, Mount Royal, QC]

Is there any correlation between what has been called the “brutal nature” of the act committed by an NCR accused and the likelihood that they will reoffend?

[Dr. J. Paul Fedoroff]

No, there isn't. I gave you the analogy of a woman who, because of a delusion, thinks that she's giving people something to make them better, but it turns out to be poison. As you can see, the consequences of that delusion depend on many other factors, so deciding what to do with that person on the basis of what happened, of how many people took the poison, is really a wrong way to do it.

That's very different from a person who intentionally commits a crime in which what they did is an example of what they're willing to do. In the case of a person who commits a crime because they didn't know that what they were doing was wrong, the dangerousness has to do with whether they can still have the delusion, and not with the brutality of the actual act.

[Irwin Cotler, Liberal, Mount Royal, QC]

Ms. Gaston, the bill includes measures for non-communication orders between the accused and the families of victims. It also contains measures asking that the families of victims be better informed during the process. I think there is unanimous support for those measures. Would you like to suggest any other measures that might make the process a little less difficult for the families of victims?

[Dr. Isabelle Gaston]

Yes, there are some measures to consider. You see, when someone is released unconditionally, that person could basically come to live on my street, consume alcohol and go back to work. Do you understand? I think the non-communication order provides some distance.

If I knew where the person was going to live, I would perhaps limit my trips to that area.

You must understand that I am lucky that I don't stay angry. I was angry and I still am sometimes, but my anger does not last. I am not really sure how I would react if I came face to face with my aggressor without a judge, a lawyer or police officer. I have no idea. I dream about that and imagine what it would be like. Would I run? I think knowing where the person is, what stage the person is at, is part of the right to information. There is a need for transparency and we must know the truth. That would reassure us. Knowing that the person was biking or playing volleyball and broke their ankle, and, subsequently, started therapy does not reassure me. It is a little like that.

I have one more thing to add. Dr. Fedoroff talks about people with psychosis, but clause 16 is much broader. Even now we recognize disorders related to adaptation. I feel that there are personality disorders and many other things that could be assessed in the longer term.

[The Chair, Conservative, Mike Wallace]

Thank you very much for those questions and answers.

Our next questioner is Mr. Wilks from the Conservative Party.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and I thank the witnesses for being here today.

Ms. Gaston, you mentioned in your testimony an incident that occurred with your sister and her children on February 18 in a face-to-face meeting with your former husband. Could you elaborate on that from the perspective of how your sister felt and what this legislation potentially could do to limit access to family members, which would include your sister? It seems to me that this rarely happens, but it did happen, and I'd like to hear more about it.

I don't wish to upset you, but I think this committee needs to hear what happened on February 18.

[Dr. Isabelle Gaston]

What happened is that in the morning on that day—

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

You can go to French if you want.

[Dr. Isabelle Gaston]

You want me to speak in French?

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

Sure, yes.

[Dr. Isabelle Gaston]

Okay.

Four years less two days before my children were murdered, my sister and her daughter, who just had a baby, went shopping in Montreal, at the Rockland Centre. I did not include the baby in my description, but her baby was with them as well. We heard in the media that Mr. Turcotte was somewhere else, in L'Épiphanie, outside Montreal.

My sister told me that she was about two metres behind her daughter and the baby stroller when they came face to face with him. They were so close to Mr. Turcotte that the stroller could have hit him. They looked at each other and then my niece started screaming: “Criminal! Criminal! Criminal!”. All the security officers came. He turned away and my sister followed him. She said something to him and they had a short conversation. You can understand that, after that incident, we lived under stress for four, five or six days. I wondered how that was possible and whether he had followed her. Those are the types of questions that go through our heads. In moments like that, we have no idea what to do or who to turn to.

To answer the question, I think that, if a minimum contact distance were set and we were told where the person is, we would feel safer. That morning, I turned down the invitation to go shopping. I could have very well been there. That is not very reassuring, especially since, according to the board, he still poses a major risk.

This bill would ensure that the individual is released only when it is established that he or she is no longer a threat to society. That would really change everything.

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

Thank you very much.

Being a retired police officer, my sympathy leans far more toward the victims than to those who commit the crime, and it is a crime. There may be a basis for the courts to determine NCR, but having seen, as you have, some horrific things, it certainly is a hard pill to swallow. Let's put it that way.

Carol, you hit the nail on the head a couple of times. You said that the rights of the accused should not supersede those of the victim. I completely agree with you. You also said that there needs to be some way of watching the patient after release. That seems to be a critical part of your testimony and that seems concerning.

My question for you is twofold. When Mr. Li was released, what was your initial reaction? On top of that, would you have any recommendations with regard to whether, after release, a patient should be under some form of supervision, either mandatory or whatever the case may be?

[Carol de Delley]

Vince Li has not been released. He is still in a psychiatric facility in Manitoba. However, he has just been granted unsupervised grounds passes. These are grounds that are not fenced. Also, he has been granted escorted passes within the community of Selkirk where he is detained, as well as in the city of Winnipeg, now including the surrounding beaches. This means that families who are spending time at the beach on a Sunday could actually run into him. Mine could too. I have a place at the beach. That's very disconcerting to me.

I have received information from people involved in many other NCR cases. Because I've been so vocal, they've all been sending me their cases, their information, and their experience. In many of these cases, the offenders and victims have come face to face. These people are living in the same communities. It's a very frightening thing.

In one particular case, when a woman ran into her daughter's killer, she was thrown right back. It retraumatized her. She began drinking heavily, lost her job, lost her income. She's tried to kill herself three times now. I question how many more victims one offender creates.

As far as recommendations go, I don't think I'm qualified to make recommendations as to how these people should be handled after the fact. Clearly, what's in place is not adequate. If you think of what is in place in a very major centre and how it can't keep up, then what about rural areas? What about way up north where the resources and programs and the individuals that you would want these people reporting to don't exist?

There's much work to be done there. I don't have all the answers, and I've never claimed to have all the answers. I'm a grieving parent or trying to be one. I'm trying to bring this to the attention of the powers that be so that something can be rectified.

[The Chair, Conservative, Mike Wallace]

Thank you for all of those questions and answers.

Mr. Marston, you have five minutes.

[Wayne Marston, NDP, Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

This is going to be one of the tougher ones for me. I can really relate to both of your stories. I suffer from post-traumatic stress syndrome myself from an incident at a car accident scene, so I relate to that.

In 1949 my mother strangled my sister to death. She was designated not criminally responsible. I didn't know it until I was 12 years old. She spent 10 years in hospital for treatment. I can recall spending a weekend with her when she was given one of her first releases. I can recall going to my father seeking reassurance, wondering whether I was safe.

It's a really hard balance when you talk about a sick person as opposed to a criminal. The act was certainly criminal, and in your cases, horrifically so, but it's still a sick person, and it's really troubling. Our duty here is to try to craft the best legislation to meet the needs of the community as well as the needs of others who are ill people.

I'm going to put my questions more to Dr. Fedoroff, but I wanted to say that you're right. There are people who feel many things that are similar.

Mr. Cotler spoke to you about reoffences. Do you have any statistics on the reoffences of people who have been designated?

[Dr. J. Paul Fedoroff]

I'm not prepared to go into details on that. I think you'll be hearing from the Mental Health Commission, which will have much better details on that. I can tell you that the reoffence rates for NCR accused are far lower than they are for people who are criminals who go through the criminal justice system.

[Wayne Marston, NDP, Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON]

The thing that strikes all of us is that a successful treatment is only as good as the commitment of the patient to that treatment. I think that's where a lot of the fear comes from. The belief is that they may be faking a lot of this and that when they get out, they'll still be at risk. There are so many things in the area of the expertise of the psychiatrist. That's why I was shocked to hear that your group had not been consulted on this. This is a critically important piece of legislation to meet the needs of the public and to address their concerns. That troubles me. I'm looking forward to hearing the rest of our witnesses.

Do you have any suggestions for additional tools that would be advantageous to treatment that could be put into legislation?

[Dr. J. Paul Fedoroff]

Yes. Bill C-54 will do absolutely nothing to reduce the risk of first-time offenders, who are the main offenders. It will do nothing in terms of reducing the risk of returning people who are NCR back into the community. In fact, it may increase the risk, because the bill makes it impossible to test somebody by giving them unescorted passes on grounds before giving them more greater levels of privileges. It's going to delay treatment and make it more difficult to be sure that the person isn't just saying something that we might want to hear.

As I said before, to address the larger issue, what we need is better education of the public and victims to understand that these people are very different, that your mother is very different from a criminal who may have committed the same crime. People with mental illness, by all the principles of jurisprudence, need to be dealt with differently because they don't understand what they are doing at the time.

[Wayne Marston, NDP, Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON]

There's the issue of stigmatization. In my mother's instance, we were from a small town in New Brunswick and she was never able to return. She passed away in her eighties, but she was never able to return to that community, and it wasn't anybody particularly who was being aggressive about it, but it was kind of an undercurrent.

I'm concerned that perhaps this bill might increase the stigmatization of people. We have to find that balance because the needs are real. Nobody is doubting the needs of the victims' families and all of that, but how do we balance that?

[Dr. J. Paul Fedoroff]

Well, you're right. Review boards, which by the way also were not consulted in the drafting of this bill, always take into account the dangerousness of the person, and protection of the public is one of its major issues. They always do that. To add another designation of high risk based on something which is not scientifically verified, and which is not dependent on the assessment by an entire team who know the person, who actually live with the person, seems to me to be dangerous and will add unnecessary stigma to a very marginalized group.

[The Chair, Conservative, Mike Wallace]

Thank you very much for those questions and answers.

Our final question for this panel will be from Mr. Seeback of the Conservative Party, only for three minutes.

[Kyle Seeback, Conservative, Brampton West, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Isabelle and Carol, I appreciate your testimony. I have limited time. I want to talk to Mr. Fedoroff because of some of the comments that he's made today. I wish I could ask you questions, but I don't have the time.

Mr. Fedoroff, have you read the actual amendments to the Criminal Code?

[Dr. J. Paul Fedoroff]

Yes.