Justice Committee on Feb. 4th, 2015

[The Chair, Conservative, Mike Wallace]

Thank you very much for those questions and answers.

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

[Kyle Seeback, Conservative, Brampton West, ON]

I want to talk to you, Mr. Gilhooly, just for a moment.

You were talking about the proportionality principle. One of the things I see when I look at some of the changes is that not only are there minimums, but there are increased maximums as well. For example, sexual interference on indictment goes from 10 years to 14 years, and I could go down the list.

Do you think that by moving the goalposts on both ends you will be adjusting that principle? If you don't think so, then what do you think the solution is?

[Gregory Gilhooly]

Unfortunately, I don't think so, and a specific example comes right back to me again. Four plus four plus four is twelve, reduced to five. Four plus four plus four plus four, or ten plus ten plus ten, or whatever, comes back to five because the fundamental analysis as the Criminal Code is drafted looks to what is fair and reasonable and not unduly harsh to the perpetrator.

The additional problem is that you have the jurisprudence out there that sits in the common law setting that we have, and that's another set of goalposts that just do not move. You have the added problem that not only does the code itself bring you back on totality, but you have the jurisprudence that sits there as guidance as to what the goalposts really should be. So I have between four and ten, and I have between four and fifteen, and I have between four and life. You'd like to think you were moving a mindset for that tough case when you do identify the monster, but the reality is that all the defence lawyer does is revert to the Stuckless case or the Graham James case where they had the monster and here is what the monster got and all of these provisions in terms of how we sentence people apply. So you're back to the jurisprudence.

Greg's perfect bill would actually be a reference to the Supreme Court where the Supreme Court opined on a moved set of goalposts. That's not going to happen.

I would have dearly loved to be part of a process that was appealed to the Supreme Court where this issue could be addressed. Unfortunately, I think until the jurisprudence moves, there is no way out.

An interesting aspect would be the possibility of creating a new type of offender, the dangerous sexual offender, as actually a defined term and which was a new offence that would give courts the possibility of maybe thinking their way out. But that would only involve a creative judge who looked past the earlier jurisprudence, and you don't get a creative judge who looks past the jurisprudence until you get the societal education and understanding of the impact on the victim.

Again, I hearken back to the start of my presentation. To the extent that legislation like this is there, though it accomplishes nothing that would have helped in my case, it's provoking a discussion and focusing people on the issue of child sexual assault, the impact on victims, and it's a step forward. It may be in our lifetimes, who knows?

[Kyle Seeback, Conservative, Brampton West, ON]

I'll share the rest of my time with Mr. Wilks.

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

Thank you.

Susan or James, I wonder if you could pick up on this.

An individual is sentenced to federal penitentiary time and enters the federal penitentiary knowing that there are programs available to them, but they're not required to take them in a federal penitentiary setting. Under a provincial jail they are required to, if they're mandated.

How do you think it would look if it was mandated for those people to take those, for lack of a better word, courses in federal penitentiaries? Right now I could rattle off a lot of names of those, probably including Mr. James, who were offered but don't have to take them. So how do we make them mandatory?

[James Foord]

You're right. I don't think the existing legislation requires offenders in the federal context to necessarily comply. If they don't comply, they'll often be gated. That's true.

Picking up on Mr. Sullivan's point, just to add some colour to this, the context of jails, and penitentiaries in particular, is not particularly amenable to meaningful rehabilitation for the way in which someone is going to act in the community. We really need those resources in the community.

In addition to what I say our program offers as a necessity to reducing victims, ensuring more individuals take courses within the penitentiary setting is a good idea. I couldn't object to it. It would be unreasonable to object to it, but I don't think it's going to solve the whole problem.

[The Chair, Conservative, Mike Wallace]

Thank you very much.

Who would like the NDP's two minutes?

Madam Péclet.

[Ève Péclet, NDP, La Pointe-de-l'Île, QC]

Thank you very much to all the witnesses.

It's funny, because one of my colleagues asked a question in the House of Commons right before the Christmas break and she mentioned that a program.... I'm going to continue in French because the question was asked in French.

Unfortunately, cuts to the Department of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness have affected the intensive supervision program for offenders. I don't know if you're familiar with it, but it's for offenders who are considered dangerous or high-risk. By the way, it seems that we don't know what the definition is.

Furthermore, you know that the Criminal Code already provides for a National Sex offender Registry. I would like to know how creating a new registry can actually be useful to the police or to people who are responsible for ensuring the safety of victims and the community as a whole. How will they be able to operate if, unfortunately, the government continues to cut back or, as someone put it, pulls the rug out from under them?

Sharing information and cooperating with the police is good, but we know that they can't even update the screening and criminal records check programs, which has led to certain problems. What will they be able to do?

I would simply like to know what you think about these cuts. What kind of program would you recommend?

[The Chair, Conservative, Mike Wallace]

We'll give everyone a chance to answer, and then that will be the meeting.

Mr. Gilhooly, do you want to answer first?

[Gregory Gilhooly]

Again, I guess if there's a problem, it should be addressed, but I truly defer.... I don't mean to be dismissive of the question—I think it's a very good question—but to me it begs for only a theoretical answer because I don't know the issues at play.

I would truly look to the police force to see what they require in order to provide a safe outcome. My gut obviously says the more resources that are thrown at tracking dangerous people, the better, to the extent that the proposal is additive to what the police need.

[Steve Sullivan]

Yes, I'm not familiar with the program, so I'm not sure how it interacts with police. My guess is that if it's part of public safety, maybe it's with corrections and parole programs, so it's for guys who are on conditional release. For those people, I think the more resources you have to surveil or to ensure that someone is following the conditions, if they have conditions—we're talking about sex offenders—not to go to parks or schools and those kinds of things, I think the more information you have about that, the better.

I don't really know that I can say a lot about it, because I'm not familiar with the program and I'm not sure how police use it. But from a policing perspective—there are officers here—I think the more information the police have, the happier they are.

[The Chair, Conservative, Mike Wallace]

Is there anything from CoSA?

[James Foord]

I can't comment on that other than to finish by saying that I think everybody here agrees that funding is important both for victims and for making sure there are no more victims in the communities by addressing and connecting with people who might be potential offenders.

[The Chair, Conservative, Mike Wallace]

Thank you very much.

Thank you to our guests today.

That is the meeting. We will be having another couple of panels on Monday, not next week but the week after, and then we'll be going to clause-by-clause study. By the end of February, I believe, the bill will be back in the House of Commons.

Thank you for your input on this bill.

With that, we are adjourned until next Monday.