Evidence of meeting #41 for Public Safety and National Security in the 40th Parliament, 2nd session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was mackenzie.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Dave MacKenzie Conservative Oxford, ON
Mr. Chair, we will oppose it because it's not necessary. Parliament can review bills at any time, and typically this is a two-year review being done at the fifth year, so it's just not necessary to have it in there.
Conservative
Bloc
Serge Ménard Bloc Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC
I am not sure that I understood what Mr. MacKenzie said. Personally, I think that the points raised by Mr. Davies are important. It is true that we are imposing a lot of obligations, namely on people who are fairly irresponsible. And that group includes people who are there because of mental illness. I am not sure whether they are the most capable of reporting every time they leave the province, change their vehicle and so forth.
It would be a good idea to review the situation after two years to see if there were any cases that warranted reviewing the legislation. I have always believed that this type of legislation is better than systematically imposing minimum prison terms, which is absolutely pointless. A bill such as this makes it possible to undertake prevention, monitoring and so on.
The fact remains that the bill is somewhat complex. It would be prudent to see if certain judges, when imposing these conditions, indicated in their rulings that they found it unnecessary or if they realized that it imposed an additional burden that was impossible to discharge in absolute terms on people who were not very intelligent, people with insufficient knowledge. It would be interesting to see if certain prosecutors decide not to prosecute in the case of minimal violations.
I think it is new to impose so many obligations on people who are certainly dangerous. When they have sufficient awareness and intelligence, it does not really bother me if their lives are somewhat hindered by such obligations.
What worries me, however, is the lack of realism at times of some people regarding these obligations we are imposing, namely those with mental illnesses. Therefore, I think it is a good idea to review the legislation in two years to see if any amendments are necessary.
Conservative
NDP
Don Davies NDP Vancouver Kingsway, BC
I have one quick response.
I hear Mr. MacKenzie's point, and it's a fair one. I suppose Parliament can always review a bill. But two things strike me. One is that this bill, when it was originally passed, contained a requirement for statutory review, so it clearly is done. That's why we're here.
The second thing is that we may or may not undertake a review in two years. This would make it clear that this committee would have to come back and review these things. I would just emphasize again that these are two very significant changes to the original framework of the act. I don't see any harm in parliamentarians reviewing our own work to see how it works in practice. I'm mindful of the fact that it took five years before. I don't know why that happened. I wasn't here. I think we should keep to our calendar, but because it's such a focus-limited inquiry, for those two aspects we should easily be able to do it in two years and do it quite quickly.
Those are my final remarks.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Garry Breitkreuz
Are there any other comments?
(Amendment negatived)
(Clauses 60 to 62 inclusive agreed to)
Shall the schedule as amended carry?
Conservative
Conservative
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Garry Breitkreuz
I would like to thank the committee.
We have completed this bill. I shall report it to the House.
Bloc
Conservative
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Garry Breitkreuz
That will be done to accommodate the amendments.
We'll suspend for a minute to move in camera to deal with the draft report.
[Proceedings continue in camera]