Justice Committee on March 9th, 2015

[Suzanne Brisebois]

Our board members undergo rigorous training as part of their induction, both at national office and in the regions. They're trained on various aspects of the legislation, our policies, our procedures, risk assessment, and the various actuarial tools, so they undergo a very rigorous training period.

[Sean Casey, Liberal, Charlottetown, PE]

We've heard that the primary motivation for this private member's bill is the trauma associated with victims' families having to come back before the Parole Board every two years. What has been your experience with respect to the families of those who have had someone murdered, abducted, and sexually assaulted? What's been your experience, in terms of those families having to appear and reappear before the board?

[Suzanne Brisebois]

I don't have any personal experience dealing with those types of victims, but I think generally we can comprehend how difficult it can be for victims, who are at a hearing, to listen to the offender speak about the offences and to have to listen to aspects of the offence that have been very traumatic for them.

[Sean Casey, Liberal, Charlottetown, PE]

So you can't point us to any statistics or even any anecdotes of families in the position that is the subject of this legislation.

[Suzanne Brisebois]

I know of victims who have had some serious experiences, cases where family members have been murdered, but I wouldn't be able to specifically relate their personal experience, no.

[Sean Casey, Liberal, Charlottetown, PE]

Thank you.

Mr. Head, you also mentioned in your opening statement that you would require more in-depth study to see what the real impact would be in terms of numbers. Can you help us in terms of the number of offenders who would be affected by this legislation?

[Don Head]

This requires us to go back and do a full file review. The way this legislation is crafted, it's abduction and sexual assault and murder. Those events may have occurred in the cases of some individuals who have been sentenced to life imprisonment, but through the normal court processes, the abductions and sexual assaults may have been dropped, and the trial would have dealt just with the murder. Our best guess at this point in time in terms of those three events, each one of them having conviction—we just very quickly went back over the last five years—is between three and five individuals, so about one a year.

[Sean Casey, Liberal, Charlottetown, PE]

That's for the last three to five years.

[Don Head]

Yes, for the last three to five years that we looked at. We'd have to do a much more in-depth file review to get you the exact number. We have just over 4,800 individuals serving first- and second-degree life sentences, and to be honest, I just haven't subjected my staff to doing a complete file review.

[Sean Casey, Liberal, Charlottetown, PE]

Okay. You also mentioned in your opening statements that there are two main areas that would be potentially impacted within the correctional system, one being the accommodation and the other being the programs, I guess.

Have those changes already started? Have you started to put the measures in place, with respect to long-term accommodations?

[Don Head]

Yes, as you may be aware, we undertook construction projects over the last number of years and we added 2,752 cells to the overall inventory. When we take into account the closure of Kingston Penitentiary and Leclerc Institution, it actually left us a net of 1,752 cells. Our population, since March of 2010, has gone up by about 800. So if I was able to put everybody in a single bed, I have enough flexibility, more than what our initial projections are here. But part of the problem for us to project going forward here is that we'd have to guess as to how judges would act, and at this point we have no basis for making that determination.

My best answer to you at this point in time is that, from an accommodation perspective, we would be able to manage what we would see in the foreseeable future.

[The Chair, Conservative, Mike Wallace]

Make this your last question, Mr. Casey.

[Sean Casey, Liberal, Charlottetown, PE]

You reference full use of available beds, but I think I heard in your last answer that all of the cells are full, if not all of the beds. What is the situation with respect to capacity and/or overcrowding in the prison system today?

[Don Head]

With the last of the new units opening up over the next two months, I will be back down to the normal levels of double-bunking that we had in 2010. So that's around 8% to 9%, and that's really not because I'm short of cells. It's that I have to manage a number of individuals who are incompatible with others, and I can't have them in the same range or the same institution. That's been the pattern of double-bunking that we've had for the last 10 to 15 years.

[The Chair, Conservative, Mike Wallace]

Thank you for those questions and answers.

Our next questioner, from the Conservative party, is Monsieur Goguen.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you for your testimony. It's very helpful.

I think most people around the committee have captured the essence of what this bill is: to stop victims from being revictimized, from living the trauma again and again of having to appear before the parole hearings, having lived the horror of the death of somebody close to them. While it's very good and fine to say that there are not very many instances of this happening, isn't one too many? That's a rhetorical question, but let me give you an example, the Clifford Olson example.

The case in question was Daryn Johnsrude, who was 16. He was murdered on April 21, 1981, by Clifford Olson. Olson applied for parole hearings in 1997, 2006, and 2010, and he was denied parole every time. Daryn had been brutally raped, tortured, and killed. He was one of the 11 murder victims of Clifford Olson. Three of the victims were boys and eight were girls. All were between the ages of 9 and 18. What was subsequently discovered was that Olson's tactic while in prison was to try to cause the victims' families as much suffering as he could by using the system to apply for parole and forcing the families to attend these very difficult hearings. Wouldn't you agree that the experience that Clifford Olson has put these people through is enough of an injustice to very much go to the side of victims, to stop them from being revictimized?

Even though it may be only three to five people, one's too many. What are your thoughts?

[The Chair, Conservative, Mike Wallace]

Who are you asking?

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

I'm asking both of them.

[Suzanne Brisebois]

I'm not in a position to comment on specific cases, but again, we can understand that victims can find hearings very difficult. We also have victims, though, who are interested in attending the hearings. Again, every victim is different, but I can't comment on the specific case you mentioned.

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

Go ahead, Mr. Head.

[Don Head]

There's no question, the way you framed the comment, that it is truly traumatizing and upsetting for any family member of the victim.

One of the things we try to do regardless, both the Parole Board of Canada and CSC, is to make sure we provide as much support as we can to the family members of victims. Even for those who choose to attend hearings, we make support staff available to help them through that. Even the ones who choose to come to those hearings, as you can well imagine, are retraumatized. They've chosen to come. They want to be a part of it. They want to have their voices heard. Between the Parole Board and CSC, we make sure we can provide the support so that those who choose to have their voices heard can continue to have their voices heard.

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

We're truly fortunate that there may be only three to five offenders to whom this applies, but my point is that, if this protects one victim, that's enough. That's one of the objectives of this government, to lean to the side of the victims.

Now, Mr. Head, you pointed out that you did some sort of an impact study on this—you don't have the complete impact—and you seem to indicate that the felons who would create these types of heinous crimes are felons who perhaps don't adapt as quickly to the rehabilitation process. I assume there's an enormous amount of time, as you said, used to try to stabilize their situation. I suppose, you know, when you're there for a long time there would be thoughts of suicide or otherwise. But there's some benefit to having a longer period of time to work toward their rehabilitation, is there not?

[Don Head]

Yes, there's no question, depending on the level of need of the individuals, that it gives us more time to work with them. I don't want to necessarily advocate that you should be always striving for the longest sentence possible, because there's enough research that says that itself can also be detrimental, depending on individuals, but there is no question. We need to look at how we stabilize those types of individuals and how we get them prepared for what the rest of their life is going to look like. We need to work on some of the problem areas that they bring into my institutions, based on their life experience, and we need to try in the best way possible to get them to lead a law-abiding life within the walls before they are even considered for release into the community.

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

You know, granted that each case is different, each case is particular to its facts, and certainly with the heinous nature of the crimes that this addresses, there's an important discretion given to the judge on this to impose a longer sentence. With that discretion in mind, doesn't this bill strike a balance between the victim's right of not having to go through the numerous hearings, being retraumatized, and the offender's potential of being rehabilitated over a longer period of time because of, basically, the nature of the offender? Does that not strike a balance in your mind, Mr. Head?

[Don Head]

I think one of the opportunities this bill presents is discretion at the judiciary level. In terms of consideration for amending the Criminal Code, the more you keep discretion in the hands of judges...I think it's a good thing. If you were to narrow it down and say it automatically has to be this, that would be even more detrimental from a rehabilitative perspective.