Yes.
Evidence of meeting #4 for Justice and Human Rights in the 41st Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site.) The winning word was victim.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Evidence of meeting #4 for Justice and Human Rights in the 41st Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site.) The winning word was victim.
A recording is available from Parliament.
9:40 a.m.
Federal Ombudsman for Victims of Crime, Office of the Federal Ombudsman for Victims of Crime
Yes.
9:40 a.m.
Conservative
Kyle Seeback Conservative Brampton West, ON
Because my understanding is that we might amend that to say they can put it on the record, which is effectively oral reasons, I think you would prefer that it stay as written reasons.
9:45 a.m.
Federal Ombudsman for Victims of Crime, Office of the Federal Ombudsman for Victims of Crime
For CCRA, yes, because how would they get the wardens. They don't have access to that.
9:45 a.m.
Conservative
Kyle Seeback Conservative Brampton West, ON
Exactly.
There is one other thing I want to move to very quickly. When I review section 161 and the proposed amendments to it—and Michael, you would know, section 161 dealing with “Order of prohibition”—my review of the legislation is that there's no requirement for a judge to give any reason why they are not going to impose those conditions. We've put that in the other sections, but we didn't put that in section 161. So if a judge chooses not to impose a geographic condition under section 161, they don't have to refer to it at all, as this legislation is currently drafted.
To my mind we should be asking for a similar thing, that a judge at least put that on the record to show that they turned their mind to that geographic restriction. This would address some of the concerns we heard from people on Tuesday. They said, “It happened. It wasn't considered and no one talked about it. How's that possible?” Would you be supportive of requiring a judge to at least put on the record why that was not imposed?
9:45 a.m.
Member and Defence Counsel, Criminal Lawyers' Association
Let's put it this way: I wouldn't be opposed to it. I don't think it adds very much because, in my experience, if a prosecutor asks for a condition and if the judge is considering these conditions, as they must, reasons are given. At least in the cases I've personally experienced and—
9:45 a.m.
Conservative
Kyle Seeback Conservative Brampton West, ON
Right. We know of at least one case where it wasn't though.
9:45 a.m.
Member and Defence Counsel, Criminal Lawyers' Association
Yes, and it would be very interesting to see why not, to order the transcript and see what was said about it and see what the prosecutor said about it. In my experience, prosecutors are very diligent about making sure—
9:45 a.m.
Conservative
Kyle Seeback Conservative Brampton West, ON
I agree. My wife's a crown attorney: they're very diligent.
9:45 a.m.
Voices
Oh, oh!
9:45 a.m.
Voices
Oh, oh!
9:45 a.m.
Federal Ombudsman for Victims of Crime, Office of the Federal Ombudsman for Victims of Crime
I think anything that provides victims with more information about why decisions are made is a good thing. Particularly if Mr. Spratt is saying they do that on a regular basis anyway, having it on record and available to victims makes sense.
9:45 a.m.
Conservative
Kyle Seeback Conservative Brampton West, ON
If they do it anyway, then what's the problem with having to give an oral reason? That's my view, sort of. It's about making sure that it happens. If they do it anyway 99% of the time, let's get it to 100%.
9:45 a.m.
Member and Defence Counsel, Criminal Lawyers' Association
Yes, and that's always good. It always has to be counterbalanced against the weightiness—
9:45 a.m.
Member and Defence Counsel, Criminal Lawyers' Association
—both in terms of content and the actual weight of the Criminal Code. We're all expected to know the laws. The more we put in there that we may not need to put in there, the more difficult it is for that principle we all accept to actually be true.
9:45 a.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Mike Wallace
Thank you very much for those questions and those answers.
Just before we suspend and switch over from the Department of Justice and our clerks who need to come here, can I get a motion to approve the actual budget that paid for the flights for those who came here to be witnesses?
(Motion agreed to)
Thank you very much.
With that we will suspend for two minutes.
9:50 a.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Mike Wallace
We're back in session.
I welcome Mr. Douglas Hoover, the counsel for the criminal law policy section of the Department of Justice. Good morning, and thank you for joining us.
We have our clerks here to help us through the clause-by-clause piece. We are going to do clause by clause, as a number of parties indicated that they're interested in doing so today.
(On Clause 1)
We need somebody to move the first amendment to clause 1. There's a government amendment, G-1.
Just for the information of all committee members, we have checked and all of the amendments—I think there are six of them in front of us—are admissible. So none of them are going to be ruled out of order.
Who would like to speak to the amendment?
9:50 a.m.
Conservative
Robert Goguen Conservative Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe, NB
I believe everyone's received copies of the amendments in both French and English. Am I correct? So I don't propose to reread the amendment, but I propose to give the reasoning. Is that okay?
9:50 a.m.
Conservative
Robert Goguen Conservative Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe, NB
You don't want to hear me talk when I don't have to, right?
9:50 a.m.
Conservative
Robert Goguen Conservative Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe, NB
Exactly.
In clause 1, the first change in this amendment would add the words “or any other distance specified” of the victim “or of any other place specified” immediately after the words “two kilometres” in proposed paragraph 161(1)(a.1) of clause 1.
This amendment would still require courts to consider the geographical restriction of two kilometres, but would allow the courts to impose greater or lesser geographic restriction where it is reasonable to do so. For instance, it may be inappropriate to impose a two kilometre prohibition where an offender lives in a small town. Such a restriction would effectively prohibit offenders in such cases from returning to their homes. In other cases a greater geographic restriction than two kilometres may be appropriate. Now this somewhat addresses the concern of one of our witnesses, who I think was on track.
The second proposed change to this condition would amend proposed paragraph 161(1)(a.1) of clause 1 to delete the reference to the requirements that the offender knew or ought to have known that the victim is or could reasonably be expected to be present unless a parent or guardian is also present.
That's troublesome from an enforcement point of view and from an informational point of view. As introduced, this part of clause 1 would make the enforcement difficult, because it does not provide the offender with a realistic ability in many cases to comply with the condition. Alleged breaches would be difficult to prosecute, and it does not provide sufficient certainty to ensure the victim will be protected by the conditions.
The second new condition that Bill C-489 proposes to add to section 161 is prohibiting the offender from being in a private vehicle with a child under 16 years of age without the parent or guardian.
In essence, the government proposes to delete this, given that paragraph 161(1)(c) of the Criminal Code—which recently came into force in August 2010 with Bill C-10—already addressed this issue to prohibit any unsupervised acts with a child under 16 years of age. It's already addressed, so it's not necessary.