Evidence of meeting #107 for Justice and Human Rights in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was inquiries.

A recording is available from Parliament.

On the agenda

MPs speaking

Also speaking

Tony Clement  Parry Sound—Muskoka, CPC
Arif Virani  Parkdale—High Park, Lib.
Laurelly Dale  Criminal Defense Counsel, Dale Law Professional Corporation, As an Individual
Michael Spratt  Criminal Lawyer, Abergel Goldstein and Partners, As an Individual
Rosellen Sullivan  Canadian Council of Criminal Defence Lawyers
Richard Fowler  Canadian Council of Criminal Defence Lawyers
Lisa Silver  Assistant Professor, Faculty of Law, University of Calgary, As an Individual
Daniel Brown  Lawyer, Daniel Brown Law, As an Individual
Howard Chow  Deputy Chief Constable, Vancouver Police Department, Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police
Rachel Huntsman  Legal Counsel, Royal Newfoundland Constabulary, Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police
Daisy Kler  Transition House Worker, Vancouver Rape Relief and Women's Shelter
Kathryn Smithen  Barrister and Solicitor, Child and Family Advocacy Services, Smithen Law, As an Individual
Elizabeth Sheehy  Professor, Faculty of Law, University of Ottawa, As an Individual
Joy Smith  Founder and President, Joy Smith Foundation Inc.
Maria Mourani  Criminologist and Sociologist, President of Mouranie-Criminologie, As an Individual
Marie-Eve Sylvestre  Full Professor, Faculty of Law, Civil Law Section, University of Ottawa, As an Individual
Megan Walker  Executive Director, London Abused Women's Centre

September 24th, 2018 / 5:01 p.m.

Daniel Brown Lawyer, Daniel Brown Law, As an Individual

Thank you.

5:01 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Anthony Housefather

From the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police, we're joined by Mr. Howard Chow, deputy chief constable of the Vancouver Police Department.

5:01 p.m.

Howard Chow Deputy Chief Constable, Vancouver Police Department, Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police

Thank you.

5:01 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Anthony Housefather

We have Ms. Rachel Huntsman, legal counsel of the Royal Newfoundland Constabulary. Welcome.

5:01 p.m.

Rachel Huntsman Legal Counsel, Royal Newfoundland Constabulary, Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police

Thank you.

5:01 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Anthony Housefather

We're going to go in the order of the agenda. We're going to start with Ms. Silver.

5:01 p.m.

Assistant Professor, Faculty of Law, University of Calgary, As an Individual

Lisa Silver

Thank you very much.

Mr. Chair and honourable members of the standing committee, thank you for giving me this opportunity to comment on the proposed amendments to the preliminary inquiry sections of the Criminal Code. It is a privilege to be here to speak about an issue that carries the weight of historical discourse and has engaged far greater minds than mine. The question of abolishing the preliminary inquiry has echoed through these halls and the courts of our nations and has indeed engaged the public's interest as well.

How do I come to speak to this matter? I am by trade a criminal defence lawyer, and I've been so from my early days of law school in the mid-1980s. I've conducted preliminary inquiries, I've argued about them as appellate counsel, and I've written about them now as a law professor. Indeed, I've been rather vocal about the preliminary inquiry and these proposed changes. I hope my brief and this opening statement will shed some light on why I believe the preliminary inquiry, albeit in perhaps a different structural format, is worth saving.

I will open with a personal story. It's a story I often repeat to my students when asked which case most significantly impacted me in my early career. The day after being called to the bar in 1989, I received a case from one of the lawyers sharing space with the law firm with which I was employed.

The preliminary inquiry was only two days away. The client, who was detained in custody, was charged with an attempted break and enter with the intent to commit an indictable offence. The maximum punishment for the full offence—because it involved a dwelling house—would have been life imprisonment, but as an attempt, it was punishable by 14 years, still a serious term of imprisonment.

As an aside, under the new proposed amendments, such a preliminary inquiry would not be possible.

It was a rather pathetic and all too familiar story. The client was found loitering in front of a house on the sidewalks of Rosedale—this was in Toronto—holding a pointy and frayed stick. He appeared to be intoxicated. The police were called, and upon investigation of the nearby home, it appeared that the front door lock was freshly scratched with bits of paint that appeared to be derived from his pointed stick.

Appearances, however, may be deceiving. Upon review of the file, I recommended to the client that we argue against committal at the preliminary inquiry. Needless to say, the judge agreed, and the client was discharged and immediately released.

The preliminary inquiry changed my client's life. It gave him hope. In fact, he ended up straightening out. He went back to school and became a youth worker in a young offender facility. I received a postcard from him when he ultimately went to Bosnia as part of the UN peacekeeping tour.

I wanted to share this story with you. I know I was asked here based on my academic credentials and writing in this area, but to me there is no clearer evidence of the importance of the preliminary inquiry as a tool for good than this particular story.

On the less emotional side of the equation, I'm certain you've already heard last week and today—I was listening—many good reasons demonstrating why the preliminary inquiry in its present format must be retained. My brief also outlines the historical significance of the preliminary inquiry as an essential protective shield against the power of the state.

It's more than procedural. We keep calling it a procedural matter, but it's more than that. It lies at the heart of the criminal justice system because, in my view, it is linked with the presumption of innocence and fair trial concepts. The preliminary inquiry calibrates the scales of justice in accordance with those fundamental principles and provides meaningful judicial oversight.

The power of the preliminary inquiry, as I've already alluded to, cannot be taken for granted or underestimated. I know there are questions regarding where the evidence comes from as to whether preliminary inquiries do cause delay, but certainly they do take court resources that are finite. We are, as has already discussed, having a crisis, so to speak, in our court system, as evidenced by those Jordan and Cody decisions.

In fact, as you've already heard, one of the suggestions from the Senate committee on that crisis recommended the termination or limitation of the preliminary inquiry. Bill C-75 has a more tempered vision of the Senate recommendation, but it still goes too far. The amendments do not provide the protection promised by the full operation of preliminary inquiries, and as outlined in my brief on page 5—and I think I have about eight different points there—they don't account for the many other ways the preliminary inquiry assists the proper functioning of the criminal justice system.

Keeping in mind all of these competing concerns and considering that we still have to create a solution to the problem that remains with our desire to provide a fair trial, we need a solution that may perhaps recalibrate, yet one that will maintain the scales of justice as writ large in our common law and charter. In my submission, the solution recommended in the amendments does not do this.

Instead, this honourable committee should consider a more practical and useful solution. It's a solution that lies within easy reach. It can be found in our civil system of justice—you've already heard about it today—in its procedures for civil questioning or discovery.

The discovery system for the most part lies outside of the court. It provides useful evidence for trial. It encourages resolution on the civil side as well. It's available to all superior court civil litigants, and it's predicated on full disclosure. By using that civil system, judicial resources and therefore court resources can be focused in a manner that stays true to the primary committal function of the preliminary inquiry, yet would permit the advancement of those vital ancillary purposes, be it preservation of evidence, building an evidential threshold case for a defence or engaging in resolution discussions.

Where there is a realistic committal issue, a preliminary can be heard by a judge. Where the matter involves one of the other viable purposes for a pretrial questioning, the matter can be heard in a less costly form outside of court in a conference room, where the matter can be recorded for future use at trial.

This recommendation provides a viable alternative to the amendments, it balances competing rights, it's mindful of court resources, and it's already in use.

I thank the chair and the other members of this committee for inviting me to make submissions on what is an integral part of our criminal justice system.

Thank you.

5:10 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Anthony Housefather

Thank you very much.

We will now hear Mr. Brown.

5:10 p.m.

Lawyer, Daniel Brown Law, As an Individual

Daniel Brown

Thank you.

Good afternoon, Mr. Chair and honourable members. Thank you for the opportunity to address you all on Bill C-75.

By way of background, I'm a criminal defence lawyer. I practise in Toronto, which is one of the busiest criminal court jurisdictions in all of Canada.

Delay is something that is always on the front of mind of all the justice participants in Toronto—the judges, the Crown attorneys, and the defence. Over the last decade and a half, I've had an opportunity to act as counsel on hundreds of cases, and I hope to speak to you today on my experiences with preliminary inquiries and how they act as ways to preserve efficiency and fairness in the justice system.

As I sat here listening to the last panel, and now to Professor Silver speaking at this one, I was worried. I felt like everyone was starting to steal my thunder. However, I actually take comfort in the fact that it seems as though there's a lot of consensus among all of our views. I take hope from the fact that I share my views with so many different qualified experts.

First and foremost, it's important to state again that a preliminary inquiry isn't a one-size-fits-all. It's something that acts and adapts to different types of cases and different types of situations. It's a tool that can be used in a number of different ways. In some cases, as you've heard, a preliminary inquiry acts as an essential screening tool to weed out weak cases before significant time and energy have been allocated to prosecuting them. When the Crown attorney can't prove that there's some evidence capable of supporting the allegations, some charges or even, as we've heard, the entire case may be dismissed by the preliminary inquiry judge.

In addition to reducing the consumption of scarce court time and resources, this screening function can also reduce the amount of time people spend in custody for something they didn't do or something the Crown attorney simply can't prove they did. As others here have said, it would be a mistake to think that we can simply take the time allocated for a preliminary inquiry and just drop a trial into that time slot.

Preliminary inquiries are much more abbreviated hearings for a number of reasons.

First of all, judges don't make credibility findings at a preliminary inquiry. They must accept the witnesses' evidence at face value. Because of this, lawyers often focus the inquiry on questioning the most important witnesses or exploring legal issues they believe will assist them at trial instead of trying to prove to the judge the witness is not credible or reliable.

Our Criminal Code also equips prosecutors with tools to dispense with calling non-essential witnesses at a preliminary inquiry as long as that evidence meets the basic threshold of being credible or trustworthy. This explains why statistics show that most preliminary inquiries are completed in a day or two, because they are focused on discrete issues intended, in some cases, to demonstrate the strength or reveal the weakness of the Crown attorney's case.

In contrast, presenting a criminal case at trial is far more complex and may require the scheduling of weeks, if not months, of court time. Because of this, criminal trials often happen many months, if not a year or more, after a preliminary inquiry could have taken place.

It's simply good policy to have a mechanism such as the preliminary inquiry in place to screen out weak cases before significant time and resources are expended for their prosecution. This is especially true if accused individuals are remanded into custody pending the outcome of their criminal matter.

Even in cases when some charges aren't dismissed or when the entire case still goes forward to trial, the preliminary inquiry provides an opportunity to have fruitful discussions. As we've heard today, prosecutors may appreciate the significant weaknesses in their case, or as Ms. Dale spoke about in the last panel, defendants may see that there are no holes in the evidence against them and may opt to plead guilty, bringing an end to a prosecution before trial time is spent on it. Preliminary inquiries foster the resolution of trial matters.

It should also be considered whether or not both parties should be required, at the end of a preliminary inquiry, to have a mandatory meeting with the preliminary inquiry judge. We call them exit judicial pretrials. While they're somewhat rare and certainly not mandatory in Ontario, they can help foster additional resolution discussions because the judge, who's heard the witnesses testifying, can give some additional input that may help broker an agreement between the parties before the matter leaves that courthouse and goes to another venue.

In addition to screening and a resolution function, preliminary inquiries also play an important discovery function.

Now, there are some who will question the value of a preliminary inquiry in light of expanded disclosure obligations placed on the police and Crown. However, it must be said that disclosure can't act as a substitute for the discovery function of a focused preliminary inquiry, because while there is a constitutional right to disclosure, there's not a constitutional guarantee to an exhaustively thorough police investigation.

A police officer may simply interview a witness briefly, scribe their interview into a memo book and lay a criminal charge based solely on that information. There's no legal requirement that requires the officer to seek out other witnesses who may have witnessed the events, to collect social media evidence or text messages or to inquire whether or not there's been collusion between the witnesses. Requiring disclosure as an answer to discovery doesn't do it justice.

More importantly, of course, there's no ability to compel Crown witnesses to speak with the defence prior to a preliminary inquiry or outside of the court system. Defence lawyers who are trying to gain information or access to witnesses have no way of ensuring that they can hear that evidence before a case comes to trial.

Preliminary inquiries aren't just a tool for the defence. They can also assist the Crown attorneys, because any witness testimony elicited at a preliminary inquiry can be tendered at trial in the event that a witness later becomes unavailable to testify. We heard about that a little bit in the last panel.

This is especially true of vulnerable witnesses who may be very reluctant to come to court and testify in court, but who have already given their evidence in the preliminary inquiry. That prosecution can be saved by the Crown attorney by tendering the preliminary inquiry evidence, rather than having the case dismissed for a lack of evidence. A preliminary inquiry can also help prepare a Crown witness to testify, and to testify better at a trial by having testified once before at the preliminary inquiry.

There are a number of ways in which preliminary inquiries don't just assist the defence. They assist the Crown attorneys as well.

Preliminary inquiries also keep cases on track. They ensure accurately scheduled trials. They prevent late disclosure or late discovery of relevant medical or psychiatric evidence that can derail a trial and lead to lengthy trial adjournments. Studies have shown that lost trial time due to late disclosure is a significant contributor to the delay problem in Canada.

Because of the role preliminary inquiries play in the screening of weak cases—because they foster resolutions and because they prevent trials from going off the rails—it's my experience that preliminary inquiries don't contribute to delay or create inefficiencies in the justice system. The real question to ask is whether eliminating preliminary inquiries for most serious offences enhances fairness by protecting witnesses who may be required to testify twice in a criminal court proceeding.

While there may be some occasions where Crowns wish to protect vulnerable witnesses, our Criminal Code already offers a complete tool box to address those concerns. For example, as we've heard, where it's warranted, the Crown attorney can prefer a direct indictment and send a case immediately to trial without a preliminary inquiry. That can be done on a case-by-case basis. The Crown attorneys also have the ability to tender prior police statements under section 540 of the Criminal Code to avoid a vulnerable witness having to testify at a preliminary inquiry.

Our Criminal Code also contains a host of other provisions to protect vulnerable witnesses when they testify, including the ability to testify by closed-circuit television or from behind a screen, to order a court-appointed lawyer to cross-examine a vulnerable witness where the accused is self-represented, and to offer publication bans to protect the identities of some vulnerable witnesses. Again, all of this can be done on a case-by-case basis.

A flexible approach to preliminary inquiries, one that allows the inquiry to be tailored to the case at hand, will much better meet the objectives of fairness and efficiency and allow both the Crown and defence to benefit from some of the many advantages a preliminary inquiry has to offer. This approach is far superior to a wholesale elimination of the preliminary inquiry for most offences simply to protect vulnerable witnesses where other options already exist within the Criminal Code to achieve that goal.

I make the following three recommendations to the committee:

Number one is to maintain preliminary inquiries for all indictable offences.

Number two, as Professor Silver said, is to adopt reforms that allow the preliminary inquiry to be streamlined in appropriate cases without eliminating its appropriate discovery function. That's being mindful of some of the recommendations to amend section 537 of the Criminal Code to give preliminary inquiry judges more control and more power over the proceedings.

Number three is to study more substantial reforms that maintain the discovery function of the preliminary inquiry but offer flexibility, such as requiring permission for the court to hold a preliminary inquiry when it would be in the interests of justice to do so, or legislating for out-of-court discovery in cases where committal to stand trial is not an issue.

Thank you for having me. I look forward to your questions.

5:20 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Anthony Housefather

Thank you very much.

Now we'll go to the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police.

5:20 p.m.

Deputy Chief Constable, Vancouver Police Department, Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police

Howard Chow

Good afternoon.

I'm Deputy Chief Constable Howard Chow of the Vancouver Police Department. I'm joined by Rachel Huntsman, Q.C., legal counsel with the Royal Newfoundland Constabulary.

Distinguished members of this committee, on behalf of Chief Constable Adam Palmer, president of the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police, I'm pleased to be given the opportunity to speak before you today. I should clarify that because of scheduling conflicts last week, we're here to discuss issues with Bill C-75 that are broader than just the preliminary inquiries.

Overall, the CACP supports Bill C-75 and the clear intention by Parliament to modernize the criminal justice system and reduce court delays and judicial proceedings. In the interest of time, my comments will focus on amendments that the CACP views as having a direct impact on police powers and operations.

First, I'd like to discuss routine police evidence. This bill would amend the Criminal Code to allow police officers to provide evidence by way of affidavit, eliminating the necessity for them to attend court. While the CACP supports this amendment, our position is that the current definition is too broad and that a clarification of “routine police evidence” is required. The proposed amendment fails to delineate what type of police evidence would be acceptable, thereby potentially contributing to further inefficiencies through pretrial motions.

The next area of concern relates to the judicial referral hearings. While the CACP supports an option for police to divert an accused away from bail court for administrative justice offences, it is anticipated that the judicial referral hearing process will result in a lack of documentation of these same offences into CPIC. This lack of documentation means that police officers from other jurisdictions will be incapable of accessing the full criminal history of an offender. This is vital information for law enforcement when deciding whether to release a person and under what conditions.

As well, in 2008, the offence of failure to appear was added to the list of secondary designated offences. This information was provided to us by the National DNA Data Bank: They indicated they received upwards of 36,220 submissions under this section of the Criminal Code and that these submissions have yielded 1,157 matches to a DNA profile in a criminal index, including 55 homicides and 107 sexual assaults. The concern is that if an offender undergoes a judicial referral for a failure to appear instead of having a charge laid, there'll be no submission of the offender's DNA.

Next, the CACP supports the principle of restraint as it relates to indigenous and vulnerable populations. However, proposed section 493.2 places considerable onus on a police officer at the time of arrest to try to identify who falls within this classification of offender. A reality of policing is that arrests are often made in the middle of the night, with little known about the person's history and background. The CACP recommends amending the section to require that a police officer give particular attention to the circumstances of accused persons who appear to be indigenous and/or belong to a vulnerable population.

Further, the CACP recommends that a definition of “vulnerable population” be included in Bill C-75. Factors such as a person's ethnicity, economic status, drug dependency, age, mental health issues, or overall health are difficult to measure and assess out in the field. A clarification of what is defined as a “vulnerable person” would assist the police in meeting the requirements of this section.

I'd like now to address a significant concern for CACP, and that is the hybridization of indictable offences. This amendment will affect 85 Criminal Code offences, including a number of terrorism-related ones. Currently, these are classified as secondary offences under the Criminal Code. If the Crown proceeds by indictment and the offender is convicted of one of these offences, the Crown can request that the offender provide a DNA sample for submission to the National DNA Data Bank; however, if these 85 offences are hybridized and the Crown elects to proceed by summary conviction, the offence will no longer be deemed a secondary offence and a DNA order cannot be obtained.

The submission of DNA samples to the data bank is used by law enforcement to link crime scenes and match offenders to these crime scenes. Removing these indictable offences from potential inclusion into the data bank will have a direct and negative impact on police investigations.

Again, the numbers that follow were obtained by the data bank, and they demonstrate how submissions of these 85 indictable offences have assisted in matches to profiles for primary and secondary offences.

During the period between June 30, 2000, and February 21, 2018, during that 18-year period, the data bank received submissions for 52 of these 85 secondary offences, which resulted in 9,677 submissions to the NDDB. Of these 52 indictable offences, 22 led to 588 matches being made to a DNA profile in a criminal index, together with 221 matches to primary offences, which included 19 homicides and 24 sexual assaults.

We're proposing a solution to this, and that would be to list these 85 indictable offences as secondary or primary offences under section 487.04 of the Criminal Code, which will permit a DNA order to be made regardless of the Crown's election.

The final point I'd like to discuss is the Identification of Criminals Act, subsection 2(1). It provides that a person in lawful custody and charged with or convicted of an indictable offence may be fingerprinted or photographed. Under Bill C-75, the accused can still be compelled to appear under the terms of an appearance notice or undertaking for identification purposes. However, the case law has established that the appearance notice has to be confirmed by a judge or a justice before the person is considered to be formally charged with the offence.

A person who is under arrest and in lawful custody of the police cannot be fingerprinted or photographed until a charge is laid. The problem lies in the fact that once the Crown has elected to proceed by way of summary conviction, the offence is no longer deemed an indictable offence and the accused cannot be identified under the Identification of Criminals Act. This means that a significant number of charges will not be entered on CPIC, resulting in out-of-province police officers, Crowns, justices, and judges not knowing if the arrestee or accused has a pending case or a previous conviction.

The CACP is recommending that the Identification of Criminals Act be amended to allow for fingerprinting on arrest, with proper safeguards in place to protect the integrity of the process. CACP is also recommending that the ICA should be amended to allow fingerprinting for all Criminal Code offences, or at the very least to allow fingerprinting notwithstanding the Crown's election.

Finally, the CACP supports amendments that pertain to the leveraging of technology for the police community, while encouraging strong leadership and guidance in establishing appropriate standards related to the introduction and implementation of technology.

We are encouraged by the recommended amendments proposed by Bill C-75; however, we acknowledge that this will involve considerable training for front-line police officers.

Thank you for your time and work on this bill. We'd be happy to take any of your questions.

Thank you.

5:25 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Anthony Housefather

Thank you very much.

We'll now move to questions.

Mr. Cooper is first.

5:25 p.m.

Conservative

Michael Cooper Conservative St. Albert—Edmonton, AB

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair, and my thanks to the witnesses.

I want to discuss a little bit and probe around the issue of the reclassification of offences. However, before I do that, Mr. Chow, you made reference to the summary hearings related to the administration of justice offences and some of the issues regarding CPIC and the problems with that database and the fact that those problems will be exacerbated by those referral hearings.

John Muise, who appeared before our committee last week, proposed that this committee create a mechanism to ensure that judicial referral entries appear on the right side of the criminal record, allowing for use when future decisions to release, refer, or detain are being made by police, courts and parole boards. Is that a recommendation that you would endorse?

5:30 p.m.

Deputy Chief Constable, Vancouver Police Department, Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police

Howard Chow

From our perspective, in terms of restraint conditions, opting for the least onerous is a position that we've taken and adopted at CACP. With the hybridization, there are going to be certain offences that will not allow us to capture those individuals in our CPIC data bank. That handcuffs us when offenders go across the country and end up in different jurisdictions where we don't have access to that information, which is crucial information when we're making decisions on whether and under what conditions we're releasing these offenders or holding them.

5:30 p.m.

Conservative

Michael Cooper Conservative St. Albert—Edmonton, AB

Some of the offences that the government is proposing to hybridize are very serious in nature. You pointed, for example, to terrorism-related offences. There's impaired driving causing bodily harm. There's kidnapping a minor. Maybe you could speak to that issue.

Another one is with respect to individuals who are subject to long-term supervision orders—very dangerous individuals. Right now, breaches of LTSO constitute an indictable offence. Under Bill C-75, that would be hybridized. Perhaps you could speak to that.

5:30 p.m.

Deputy Chief Constable, Vancouver Police Department, Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police

Howard Chow

Clearly there are some very serious offences. There are a number of terrorism-related offences that have fallen within those 85 indictable offences and will now, if the bill goes ahead, be considered hybridized.

The downgrading of these offences to a hybridized category also has an impact for our international partners and the message that it sends to them as well.

The more detailed submission that we provided will have the stats very well laid out. A big concern that we do have is in relation to the national DNA data bank and our inability to capture or make a submission for a DNA request following conviction. I think the proof is in the numbers. For those years for which they were able to provide us with statistics, we would not be able to match individuals to a crime scene because we would not have the data or the DNA matches in front of us.

5:30 p.m.

Conservative

Michael Cooper Conservative St. Albert—Edmonton, AB

What would your response be to the Minister's assertion that the hybridization of offences has nothing to do with sentencing? When you take a maximum of 10 years and you make it prosecutable by way of summary conviction, wherein the maximum would be two years less a day, that clearly has an impact upon sentencing. Wouldn't you agree?

5:30 p.m.

Deputy Chief Constable, Vancouver Police Department, Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police

Howard Chow

I think...I understand—

5:30 p.m.

Conservative

Michael Cooper Conservative St. Albert—Edmonton, AB

I realize it's not in every case that the maximum is going to be provided, but clearly it has an impact on sentencing when you're going from 10 years to two years less a day.

5:30 p.m.

Deputy Chief Constable, Vancouver Police Department, Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police

Howard Chow

In respect to that, I understand there are different perspectives and I understand the intent in terms of where they're going. I think that where the challenge is for us. The position of the CACP is that the difficulty will be in capturing that DNA request and putting in that submission. That's where it falls.

I know there were other panels that discussed what it's suggesting. The new proposal with Bill C-75 is that there may be fines that are eligible, but those are, again, eligible right now as well.

I don't know if I've quite answered your question.

5:30 p.m.

Conservative

Michael Cooper Conservative St. Albert—Edmonton, AB

No. That's fair enough. How much time do I have?

5:30 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Anthony Housefather

You have another minute.

5:30 p.m.

Conservative

Michael Cooper Conservative St. Albert—Edmonton, AB

I'll go to Professor Silver.

You talked about establishing procedures for civil questioning. I understand that this is taking place in the province of Quebec, at least in a limited capacity. The Barreau du Québec spoke to that when they appeared before us last week. Perhaps you could elaborate on what the experience has been in the province of Quebec.

5:30 p.m.

Assistant Professor, Faculty of Law, University of Calgary, As an Individual

Lisa Silver

I don't know what's been going on in Quebec, but I can tell you that it has been used in a limited way in Alberta in restoration hearings when there are proceeds of crime or there's a forfeiture hearing. The cross-examinations on any affidavits that are filed for that have been going through that civil questioning. It has been working.

It's also available in the criminal appeal rules, so when you appear before a court, if you have fresh evidence, if you do any of those applications that are by way of an affidavit, that's what's done. You go through the civil questioning rules.

I don't know what the experience is in Quebec, but it's certainly something that is not foreign to the criminal procedure and the criminal process.

5:35 p.m.

Conservative

Michael Cooper Conservative St. Albert—Edmonton, AB

Thank you.