Public Safety Committee on June 18th, 2009

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

I'd like to bring this meeting to order.

This is the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security, meeting 30. We are today considering an act to amend the Criminal Code and other acts.

We have with us as witnesses, from the Department of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness, Ms. Mary Donaghy, Clifford Yumansky, and Agnès Levesque; from the Department of Justice, Mr. Douglas Hoover; and from the Department of National Defence, Mr. Glen Rippon and Alex Weatherston.

We welcome you all to the committee. Normally we allow witnesses an opening statement. In this case, I don't know if that's absolutely necessary. I think you're here mainly as a resource to answer any questions that members may have in regard to this, unless you have some pressing comment you'd like to make.

Go ahead.

[Mary Donaghy, Acting Assistant Deputy Minister, Community Safety and Partnerships Branch, Department of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

No, we did not come prepared with opening remarks this morning. We understood that members of the committee had some questions about the bill. As you know, we're here as resources to answer those questions.

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

Okay.

Is the committee ready to proceed with clause-by-clause, or do you have any comments or questions you want to ask the witnesses before us?

You have some comments and questions.

[An hon. member]

Oui.

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

Okay.

We'll begin with the Liberal Party.

Who would...?

[Mark Holland, Liberal, Ajax—Pickering, ON]

Mr. Chair, I think we'll split the time.

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

So we're going to go with seven minutes....

Okay. I thought maybe we could speed it up here, but it's up to you.

Go ahead.

[Mark Holland, Liberal, Ajax—Pickering, ON]

Thanks, Mr. Chair.

I wanted to start with a couple of the elements that were missing from what we were going to be recommending as a committee and what we heard from the witnesses.

One item that we had heard was the importance of vehicle information—licences, make, model, year—and ensuring that if somebody changes vehicles, they report that. That was noticeably absent from the report. I'm wondering why that was absent from the report. Perhaps you would give us an explanation of why it wasn't included and if there was a particular rationale for that. And if we would seek to include it, what would your recommendations be on how we would include it in the bill?

[Mary Donaghy]

Let me say, in terms of the discussions that went into the work preparing the bill, that of course the question of vehicle registration was one that was considered. There were a number of options, obviously, that the government looked at in coming to the final form of the bill. The decision was taken that at this time it would not be appropriate to proceed with amendments to the legislation that would include or allow for vehicle registration.

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

Go ahead, Robert.

[Rob Oliphant, Liberal, Don Valley West, ON]

Thank you.

I guess the most senior person here is an acting assistant deputy minister. Was the deputy minister unavailable to attend today?

We had asked for the minister, so I'm just wondering. We have an acting assistant deputy minister.

[Mary Donaghy]

Yes. I understand that the minister was not available this morning, and that neither the deputy nor the associate deputy was available this morning.

[Rob Oliphant, Liberal, Don Valley West, ON]

Okay.

Can you tell me whether the work of our committee—we worked for about two weeks on this piece of legislation—was considered by the department in your restructuring of this bill? We didn't issue our final report, but we had witnesses. There have been news accounts and there have been a number of statements made from sources from this committee. I'm just wondering whether that went into your work at all.

[Mary Donaghy]

Certainly some of the members or representatives of the department who were here at earlier discussions of the committee on the bill are here again today. I'll invite them to speak more directly to that question, but certainly all of the discussion, input, and advice forms part of the consideration in development of the bill.

I'll just invite my colleagues to add any additional comments that they want to make on that point, if you don't mind.

[Douglas Hoover, Counsel, Criminal Law Policy Section, Department of Justice]

I would only suggest that most, if not all, of the issues that we heard witnesses raise in front of committee, as well as questions asked by members, were issues that were common knowledge, based on prior consultations with provinces, police groups, victims groups. I don't think there were any real surprises in some of the directions that were being put forward to committee for suggestions. And we did not have the benefit of your report to see what the consensus was of the committee.

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

You're done?

[An hon. member]

[Inaudible--Editor]

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

Yes, you may.

[Andrew Kania, Liberal, Brampton West, ON]

So that you all understand—and Mr. MacKenzie knows this—I think this legislation should be as strong as possible, because we have horrible statistics about what happens, in particular to children who are kidnapped. I think we need to really beef this up. So I have questions in terms of that.

The first question is regarding foreign criminals who come back and are required to register. There's a provision in here saying they should only be required to register after this legislation comes into force. So the foreign criminals who are currently in Canada don't have to do anything. I'd like to know the rationale for that.

[Mary Donaghy]

Again, I'll invite one of my colleagues who's been more directly involved in the drafting to comment on this.

Certainly, the considerations had to do in part with the practicalities of ensuring that when these amendments are made to the act, they can be enforced and appropriately administered.

Agnès, do you want to comment on the specific question about the return of international offenders?

[Agnès Levesque, Counsel, Legal Services, Department of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness]

Well, I believe the question was more about the ones who serve their sentence abroad, or is it the ones....?

Maybe Mr. Hoover should respond.

[Douglas Hoover]

I would only suggest that it would be a policy choice. As officials, we take our instructions from the government of the day. It is at the discretion of the government of the day to direct whether or not this should be a prospective or a retroactive scheme. If there were a direction to explore retroactivity toward the international offenders coming into Canada, I think there would have to be careful charter analysis; clearly, there'd be issues raised. But we were not asked to consider that in this particular proposal.

[Andrew Kania, Liberal, Brampton West, ON]

So you were not asked to consider whether that was a possibility?

[Douglas Hoover]

All I can suggest again is that the directions I received for this proposal were for prospective use.

[Andrew Kania, Liberal, Brampton West, ON]

In terms of protecting Canadians and being tough on criminals and tough on crime, would you agree with me that it would actually be better to include such provisions?