Justice Committee on Sept. 25th, 2025

[Brian Sauvé]

The Province of Manitoba has been and is actually being pretty innovative, and I thank the premier for going down that road and doing difficult things in difficult times.

The electronic monitoring is interesting. It doesn't work in all scenarios, especially in Canada, where our 5G network is not necessarily adequate. I mean, if we're talking about the James Smith Cree first nation, maybe electronic monitoring is not great, but in the city of Regina or in the Lower Mainland of Vancouver, it might be. I think there are opportunities to leverage 2025 technology, or even going into 2027 technology. Does an electronic monitoring bracelet actually need a response by police should it set off an alarm and be outside of range, or can that just go automatically to the Crown and issue a warrant for an arrest, and the next police officer who comes across that person puts them in cuffs and sends them back? There are things we can do that don't necessarily burden the frontline police officers, if we're going to think about that.

[Anju Dhillon, Liberal, Dorval—Lachine—LaSalle, QC]

Thank you so much.

Mr. Stamatakis, I have two questions for you. You said that provinces are starting to rethink the way they provide corrections: Which provinces are those, and what programs are they providing? I think you can pick up on what Mr. Sauvé said.

[Tom Stamatakis]

First of all, I think technology is part of the answer. I think that's the future. We need to find ways to use technology to better assist not only the police but also communities, in terms of keeping them safer.

In terms of which provinces are doing things differently, I think Alberta is probably the leader in rethinking the approach. They're attaching therapeutic capacity to all of their corrections facilities, so that when they get someone into that facility and they're incarcerated for whatever reason, if there's an underlying drug addiction or mental health issue, they're actually being moved into the therapeutic wing of the corrections facility, where they can get support, treatment and even, potentially, training opportunities or whatever. That's how we disrupt the cycle of this constant offending. If all you do is arrest people, incarcerate them and do nothing, you're just kicking the problem down the road. You're going to release the person, they're going to come back and they're likely going to reoffend.

[Anju Dhillon, Liberal, Dorval—Lachine—LaSalle, QC]

You're talking about rehabilitative measures, and I agree with you. I think everybody here does. Just putting somebody back out without resolving the underlying issues is also an important factor. I appreciate your saying that as well. We're seeing—

[Tom Stamatakis]

It's both, though.

[Anju Dhillon, Liberal, Dorval—Lachine—LaSalle, QC]

Yes, of course.

[Tom Stamatakis]

Also, incarcerating disrupts the disorder and the crime. It's both.

[Anju Dhillon, Liberal, Dorval—Lachine—LaSalle, QC]

Absolutely. Yes. That's a global picture of everything.

I have a second question. Can you also talk about Crown resources? Many of the witnesses have said they don't have enough time to prepare for trials. Can you talk to us a bit about this—what you've observed?

[Tom Stamatakis]

That's a chronic problem. I've experienced it personally as a police witness on a file. You're just waiting. You may get an interview before the hearing, or you may not. That's something we hear consistently from our members all the time. It's a chronic issue.

We're here advocating on behalf of our members, but this is also a Crown resource, a public prosecution resource issue as well. They need more capacity; they need better tools, and they need to modernize their systems as well, so there's better capacity to exchange and share information, so that everybody in the process is making an informed decision.

[Anju Dhillon, Liberal, Dorval—Lachine—LaSalle, QC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Marc Miller]

Mr. Fortin, you have the floor for two and a half minutes.

[Rhéal Fortin, Bloc, Rivière-du-Nord, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I want to come back to the issue of criminal organizations.

Mr. Sauvé said that there were better solutions than creating a registry. However, isn't it cumbersome to prove that someone is a member of a criminal organization? Am I wrong? The first step is to establish that the organization in question is indeed a criminal organization. Then you have to prove that the individual is a member of that organization. Then you have to prove that they committed crimes for the benefit of the organization.

That is why such a registry could be useful. If the idea is good for effectively fighting terrorist organizations, it must also be good for fighting criminal organizations. In fact, and I say this with all due respect, criminal organizations may be doing more harm here in Canada than foreign terrorist organizations. The damage that Hells Angels, for example, can do in Canada is immense. Therefore, it seems to us that such a registry would be useful.

My question is long. I apologize. I have only two and a half minutes. We've already heard from Mr. Sauvé, so perhaps we could hear from Mr. Stamatakis on this.

If not with a registry, how can we reduce the time it takes to establish the necessary evidence? How can we be more effective in the fight against organized crime?

[Tom Stamatakis]

I'd echo Mr. Sauvé's earlier comments. We have systems in place right now. I agree with you that creating a record around a criminal organization's activity or the activity of an individual who is engaged in gang crime, organized crime, is important and a very useful tool, but let's not build a whole new system. Let's use the existing system. We have CPIC. With the right kind of investment, we can expand—

[Rhéal Fortin, Bloc, Rivière-du-Nord, QC]

However, you don't have a registry of criminal organizations. It doesn't exist. It exists for terrorist organizations, but not for criminal organizations.

Don't you think that tool should be used? It can take up to a week or two to prove, at a hearing, that Hells Angels are a criminal organization and not a motorcycle club. Isn't that important to you?

[Tom Stamatakis]

There's always going to be a challenge building the case, gathering the evidence and putting it together in a comprehensive file that can then be successfully prosecuted.

We're talking about resources. It's a question of how you most efficiently use the dollars that are available. Do we build a whole other system, or do we find a way to use the existing systems and add to them to make them more efficient and more effective? I agree with what you're suggesting, but I would hate to see us try to build a whole new system to capture that in Canada, because capturing that is different from capturing organizations that engage in terrorism.

[Rhéal Fortin, Bloc, Rivière-du-Nord, QC]

Mr. Stamatakis, I'm sorry to interrupt. I don't mean to be rude, but—

[The Chair, Liberal, Marc Miller]

Mr. Fortin, your time is up.

Mr. Lawton, you have five minutes.

[Andrew Lawton, Conservative, Elgin—St. Thomas—London South, ON]

Thank you very much.

Liberal Bill C-75, which enshrined in the Criminal Code the so-called principle of restraint, so that offenders have to be released at the earliest opportunity under the least onerous conditions, went into effect a little over six years ago.

How soon after that, Mr. Stamatakis, did you start to see the effects of increased bail on less onerous conditions?

[Tom Stamatakis]

This was an issue already. The effects were felt almost immediately for all the reasons we've described, and I don't want to repeat them.

We need a bifurcated system. I don't have an issue with the principle of restraint or the concept in Bill C-75 when it comes to a first-time offender with no history, but we need to find a way to treat the violent repeat offender differently.

[Andrew Lawton, Conservative, Elgin—St. Thomas—London South, ON]

For sure, but you're saying you can draw a direct line from that provision to the bail problems on the streets that your officers have to deal with.

[Tom Stamatakis]

Well, it's a little more complicated than that, because we also have an underlying problem in this country with drug addiction and substance abuse. We have a huge problem with a lack of support for people suffering from mental health issues.

In my view, anecdotally—based on feedback from members and the experiences I've had in the community where I live—there is a correlation.

[Andrew Lawton, Conservative, Elgin—St. Thomas—London South, ON]

I'll ask you, Mr. Campbell, on that drug question, when your officers encounter someone who is using drugs in public and you're laying a charge, what are federal prosecutors doing with those charges on simple possession?

[Tom Stamatakis]

Who is laying a charge for simple possession in this country?

[Andrew Lawton, Conservative, Elgin—St. Thomas—London South, ON]

Let me ask you, what do your officers do in a case like that, and why?

[Clayton Campbell]

Most of the time, they're not doing anything, and they move on to something else.