Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I would like to make a motion that the committee, through you, Mr. Chair, write a letter to the Minister of Justice, Jody Wilson-Raybould, and the Minister of Public Safety, Ralph Goodale. I'll read for you the draft letter that I have here:
The Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights...carefully considered Senate Public Bill S-217. Upon division, the Committee is reporting the Bill back to the House recommending that the House not further proceed with the Bill. Members of the Committee thank the sponsor of the Bill in the Senate, Bob Runciman and our colleague House sponsor Michael Cooper. We are united in our appreciation of the intent of the Bill, which is to ensure that bail courts have the appropriate information and that tragic, senseless deaths like that of Constable David Wynn are prevented. However, the majority of our Committee does not believe that Bill S-217 achieves this objective. Having heard from witnesses including those who are charged with keeping Canadians safe, we have concluded that the Bill has the potential to have the opposite effect. Based on testimony, we are concerned that the Bill may have the effect of: 1) Augmenting the burden of proof that prosecutors would need to meet at bail hearings leading to more defendants being released on bail not less1; and 2) Creating mini-trials at bail hearings, further slowing down an already clogged justice system potentially leading to more charges being stayed under the Jordan decision234567. In either case, more dangerous offenders could be released. As such, although we applaud the intent behind the Bill, we are unable to support it. Notwithstanding the foregoing, we were pleased to have considered the Bill. We acknowledge the hard work being done by the Minister of Justice to improve the criminal justice system, including her commitment to introduce comprehensive legislation on bail reform. We equally acknowledge the work of the Minister of Public Safety on bringing the Canadian Police Information Centre (CPIC) records up to date. It is in that vein that we would like submit a number of recommendations that we would ask you to consider in your ongoing reviews. 1) We appreciate that the Minister of Public Safety and his department are working hard to improve the CPIC records system and applaud the advances in this regard made by both the current and previous governments. We would like to encourage the Minister to continue to put adequate resources into updating these records so that there is no backlog allowing the Court and its officers to have the best possible information about each defendant. 2) As part of your ongoing review of the criminal justice system we strongly support streamlining the bail provisions in the Criminal Code in order to make them less complex and to eliminate inconsistencies. As part of that undertaking we would ask you to consider how best to ensure that the courts always receive information related to the accused's criminal history and outstanding charges without prolonging the bail process or imposing a higher burden on the prosecution. As the administration of justice is a shared responsibility, we recommend that you work with your provincial and territorial counterparts where necessary to implement appropriate reforms. Thanks very much for your consideration of our suggestions.
That is the letter. I have a copy of it to circulate for colleagues. It's in English. I would of course suggest that if the letter is to be sent out it be done in both official languages.