National Defence Committee on March 4th, 2013

[Col Michael R. Gibson]

Mr. Chair, the answer is that they wouldn't make an inquiry about the specific facts of the individual applicant. They would structure their question in an employment questionnaire on the basis of the criteria set out in the provision; that is to say, if they were asking about a military conviction, the question would have to be structured in such a way that it didn't cross that line. That's how you do not require them to know the facts of a particular applicant. You set out a general provision.

In respect of how one gains notice of that, of course the answer is the same as it would be for any other offence created through an act of Parliament, whether it's in the Criminal Code or any other act.

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

I'm just trying to think what the application would say: “Were you convicted of an offence under the following sections where you got a fine greater than a severe reprimand or a punishment greater than a severe reprimand or any other offence under the Code of Service Discipline?” Is that the kind of complication we'd have to see in an application form?

[Col Michael R. Gibson]

Mr. Chair, through you to Mr. Harris, one would look at the specifics of the provision. What would be prohibited would be use of an application form that required the applicant to disclose a conviction offence described in proposed subsection 249.27(1) of the act.

So if in presuming—

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

Would you leave it to the applicant to figure out what that meant?

[Col Michael R. Gibson]

No, it would not be the applicant. It would be the prospective employer, and it's confined, as you've noted, to the federal sector.

One presumes a sufficient degree of sophistication and availability of legal advice to employers in the public sector to be able to comply with the law. It's the same as what I said before about the current provision of the Contraventions Act or any other offence created by Parliament.

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

I don't think they have as complex a scheme as we're devising here in relation to that. Whether someone is convicted under the Criminal Code or another act of Parliament offence, normally that's the kind of provision you see in an application form. I just think there are complications, and the practicality of that particular section seems to me to be questionable, in terms of the difficulty in complying with it, particularly when we're looking at the two thresholds here, the listed offences, plus the requirement that the penalty itself be of a particular type.

It seems to me that would have to be included in the form itself, if someone were to devise an application form to ask that particular question of an individual. From a practical point of view, I don't know how useful clause 105 would be.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

Ms. Moore, you have the floor.

[Christine Moore, NDP, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Could we group clauses 106 to 108 together?

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

That's what I was thinking. Good idea. Clauses 106 to 108 are all linguistic for conformity.

(Clauses 106 to 108 inclusive agreed to)

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

Clauses 109 to 114 are transitional provisions. Can we deal with them in one group?

(Clauses 109 to 114 inclusive agreed to)

(Clauses 115 to 117 inclusive agreed to)

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

We will proceed to NDP-22, reference number 5995913.

Mr. Harris.

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

This particular amendment is a consequential amendment to the Criminal Records Act. As we know, clause 75 is by its own terms intended to be retroactive in its scope. We look at the numbers that have been suggested by the Judge Advocate General's office in terms of the number of convictions that have occurred in the last few years, upwards of 2,000, and it is suggested that about 94% of them would no longer have criminal records. This amendment would ensure that any reference to these offences would be removed from the automatic criminal records retrieval system. I guess that's code for CPIC.

By way of background, I would like to pass around a paper that was provided to us by way of explanation from the Library of Parliament.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

I'm going to stop you right there, Mr. Harris, before you start circulating papers. I'm going to rule this as inadmissible. As you guys know, chapter 16 of O'Brien and Bosc deals with the legislative process. At the bottom of page 766 and the top of page 767 is the issue of relevance as it refers to amendments to a bill. Since this is an amendment at second reading, this amendment that you're proposing is inadmissible, and I'll just quote:

...is inadmissible if it proposes to amend a statute that is not before the committee or a section of the parent Act, unless the latter is specifically amended by a clause of the bill.

Since you're quoting section 6.1 of the Criminal Records Act and it's not being amended by Bill C-15, your amendment is inadmissible. So, I'm ruling it out of order.

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

The Criminal Records Act itself—

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

It is, but not section 6.1.

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

—is being amended by this bill.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

Yes, but not section 6.1.

I've made a decision and I'm supported by the head of the table here on that decision, so we're ruling it inadmissible.

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

Well, that same argument can be made in relation to our amendment to clause 75.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

Clause 75, we can go back to that.

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

This was sort of a backup plan, I guess.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

That one is out of order.

We're going to continue on after clause 117 which is the Criminal Code.

We have clauses 118 all the way through to 135. I'm hoping we can group these together because these are all consequential amendments to conform Bill C-15 and the National Defence Act with all these other acts. Can we do that right up to 135? Then we'll come back to the stood clauses.

We'll let Mr. Harris quickly go through. They're all consequential amendments. They're all about conformity of Bill C-15, the National Defence Act, and all associated acts.

(Clauses 118 to 135 inclusive agreed to)

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

We stood two clauses that we need to come back to first.

(On clause 11)

Clause 11 was—

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

We resubmitted ours.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

You resubmitted amendment NDP-15.

We'll circulate the new and improved amendment NDP-15, which is an amendment to clause 11. That is reference number 5997131. The improved version is being circulated as we speak.

Mr. Harris, would you move that onto the floor?

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

I so move. There was a change in the reference to lines and sections here, so we've fixed the numbers.

I don't know where we had got to with respect to debating this.