Evidence of meeting #15 for Justice and Human Rights in the 45th Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was c-14.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Team Lead and Senior Counsel, Criminal Law Policy Section, Department of Justice
—the estreatment process.
Conservative
Roman Baber Conservative York Centre, ON
That never happens, regrettably. Sureties are never actually prosecuted. It would be a quasi-civil proceeding to try to seize assets of a surety. I think there was an astonishing stat to the effect that in the province of Ontario, in the last couple of years, it has not happened once.
Team Lead and Senior Counsel, Criminal Law Policy Section, Department of Justice
We certainly are seized with the issue, along with the provinces and territories, and it's something that we are looking into right now. Every province operates differently in terms of estreatment, so we really need to engage all provinces and territories to come up with a solution for the Criminal Code.
Conservative
Roman Baber Conservative York Centre, ON
Ms. Moore, there was some conversation in this committee about the fact that a custodial sentence doesn't actually mean the time period that the custodial sentence implies. For instance, in the last couple of years, it is more prevalent to see courts giving two for one or three for one credit for time in custody before trial, especially if conditions in prison are not good.
As provinces are dropping the ball, we're seeing, by virtue of our sentencing scheme, that pretrial custody time eats significantly into custody time imposed by the court. I wonder why the legislation is silent on that.
Team Lead and Senior Counsel, Criminal Law Policy Section, Department of Justice
I'll turn to my colleague Joanna Wells to answer this question.
Thank you.
Joanna Wells Senior Counsel, Criminal Law Policy Section, Department of Justice
Thank you for the question.
I believe you're referring to credit for pre-sentence custody for offenders who are held pretrial. This comes down to the principle of parity in sentencing, which holds that individuals who are similarly situated, who commit similar offences in similar circumstances, should be treated the same, or as similarly as possible, and so courts are permitted to take into account the time they spend in prison before their trial and sentencing so that the ultimate time behind bars comes out to be about the same.
The Criminal Code provides for a 1.5:1 ratio—
Liberal
The Chair Liberal James Maloney
Thank you, Mr. Baber. That's all your time.
Mr. Chang, it's over to you for five minutes.
Liberal
Wade Chang Liberal Burnaby Central, BC
Thank you all for working so hard to protect Canadians.
My first question is as follows: Can any of the officials please explain how safeguards in Bill C-14 are designed to protect vulnerable individuals while still respecting personal autonomy?
Senior Counsel, Criminal Law Policy Section, Department of Justice
I can speak to that from a sentencing perspective to start out, if I don't step on my colleagues' toes.
Specifically with respect to the sentencing reforms, although the bill proposes signals to the judiciary that longer or stricter sentences should be imposed in particular cases, judicial discretion is still available and would allow judges to craft sentences that would be appropriate to, for example, respond to an offender who is more vulnerable or who has personal characteristics that may require a slightly different approach, so there's still that room in the bill for judicial discretion.
Liberal
Wade Chang Liberal Burnaby Central, BC
Can any of you please explain how the sentencing-related amendments in Bill C-14 operate in practice, and what tools they give judges when dealing with repeat or violent offenders?
Senior Counsel, Criminal Law Policy Section, Department of Justice
I'm happy to take that question. Thank you.
Bill C-14 has four general categories of sentencing provisions. It proposes consecutive sentencing provisions for certain types of offending, such as violent or organized crime-related auto theft, break and enter, and extortion and arson when committed together. The bill proposes that those sentences must be served consecutively, which, as I indicated, is a legislative signal of a longer penalty being imposed.
It also proposes aggravating factors, which are factors that a judge must consider on sentencing and that would signal that a longer sentence might be needed. For example, if you've committed an offence and in the previous five years you have a previous violent offence, the court must consider that as aggravating and take it into consideration at sentencing.
There are also some principles that the court must give primary consideration to: denunciation and deterrence in certain cases, for example, for organized crime-related offences or second and subsequent offences of motor vehicle theft.
Those factors all together are meant to send a very strong signal to judges when imposing sentences that conduct falling into those categories should be treated more seriously.
The fourth category is the proposals that would limit the availability of conditional sentence orders, in particular to prevent their imposition in cases of sexual assault and sexual offending.
Those are the four categories of sentencing proposals.
Liberal
Wade Chang Liberal Burnaby Central, BC
Thank you.
From your perspective, can you explain why Bill C-14 has been described as practical, responsible legislation rather than a political slogan?
Senior General Counsel and Director General, Criminal Law Policy Section, Department of Justice
I would pick up on what Minister Fraser said. A lot of the reforms that are reflected in the bill are the result of long-standing, meaningful and direct conversations with those responsible for administering the criminal justice system. There are changes that reflect the things they believe are needed to ensure that the bail system is working more effectively and that our sentencing laws are more prescriptive in situations of repeat violent offending.
Liberal
Wade Chang Liberal Burnaby Central, BC
This is my final question.
Bill C-14 expands reverse onus for serious violent offences involving weapons, repeat offending and intimate partner violence. Can you clearly outline which offences are captured?
Team Lead and Senior Counsel, Criminal Law Policy Section, Department of Justice
Sure, thank you.
There are a number of offences that would be the subject of a reverse onus as a result of Bill C-14.
I'll start at the top of the list: assault, aggravated assault, sexual assault and aggravated sexual assault involving choking, and those offences are in sections 266, 268, 271 and 273; violent car theft and organized crime-related car theft, both of which have a maximum penalty of 14 years of imprisonment; extortion involving violence; break and enter of a dwelling; trafficking in persons; trafficking in persons under the age of 18; and human smuggling offences under sections 117 and 118 of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act.
There's also reverse onus in section 523 with respect to accused persons convicted, but not yet sentenced, of a criminal offence where the Crown is seeking to revoke bail, and there's the existing reverse onus that's targeting repeat and violent offending, which was enacted by former Bill C-48. It would be expanded. The Bill C-48 reverse onus was narrowly tailored to capture those who are charged with a violent offence involving a weapon if they have a conviction for a similar offence from the last five years. This bill would ensure that the past conviction dates back to 10 years, because there was a concern that it was too narrow to capture those who were serving a longer sentence and who might just be released on bail and not be captured by the reverse onus. The bill would expand that reverse onus to ensure that it captures relevant convictions in the last 10 years.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal James Maloney
Thank you, Mr. Chang.
Mr. Fortin, we'll go to you, sir, for two and a half minutes.
Bloc
Rhéal Fortin Bloc Rivière-du-Nord, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
My question is for whoever can answer it.
Bill C‑14 adds the concept of random or unprovoked violence. I'd like to know how that concept will factor into deciding whether to keep someone in custody and determining the appropriate sentence.
I imagine that, in a case of random violence, someone goes somewhere in an unpremeditated way and attacks everyone.
I'm not sure I understand the distinction, since the crime is basically the same.
How do you see that?
Team Lead and Senior Counsel, Criminal Law Policy Section, Department of Justice
The bill adds this idea of unprovoked or random violence to the factors the court has to consider during bail hearings. It really addresses Canadians' concerns about stranger attacks. For example, people may be afraid to ride a bus because they don't know if they're going to be attacked. That came up a lot in Winnipeg.
In terms of bail, it's just important to ensure that the court is aware that this could pose a danger to the public.
Bloc
Rhéal Fortin Bloc Rivière-du-Nord, QC
If I understand correctly, when we say that the judge or court will have to take this into consideration, the idea is that if the acts of violence were random and unprovoked, there's a greater danger to public safety.
Is that what you're saying?
Team Lead and Senior Counsel, Criminal Law Policy Section, Department of Justice
If I may, I'm going to answer in English to clarify my point.
Frequently, when courts are trying to determine the risk assessment of who's going to reoffend while on bail, they will look at the past criminal record, because convictions are a good indicator of future behaviour. But in some cases, there could be random violent attacks where the accused doesn't have a prior conviction. There was a concern that some bail courts were not giving weight to the fact that this person might be a danger: There's no pattern here. This person hasn't had a criminal conviction before. This person can be safely released.
The concern with random violent attacks is that it's an indication of unpredictable behaviour. The idea is to just ensure that courts are aware of that concern.
Liberal
Conservative
Andrew Lawton Conservative Elgin—St. Thomas—London South, ON
Thank you very much to all our officials for being here on Bill C-14. It's long overdue that we get to try to fix some of the problems with the broken Liberal bail system. I appreciate your assistance in this.
Let me ask you this, Ms. Moore. You said earlier that nobody can be automatically denied bail. Did I understand you correctly on that?
Team Lead and Senior Counsel, Criminal Law Policy Section, Department of Justice
That's under the charter, according to the charter jurisprudence.