Thank you for inviting me again. I appreciate having a second opportunity, and I appreciate what I have just heard.
I'm an immigration lawyer, and I come because I have a particular concern, as an immigration lawyer, with how this will affect my clients. But I want to make it clear that as a lawyer who deals with refugees, many of whom are victims of the most horrible types of crimes that you can possibly imagine, I certainly understand the perspective of the victims, and I think it's important that we do. But I also deal with many people who have committed crimes, and I can tell you that when we consider this legislation, we have to consider not only the impact on the victims but also the impact on the people who have committed the crimes. And we have to be sure that what we are doing in the end is going to enhance public safety.
I have some very serious concerns about this legislation, because I believe there are aspects of it that will not increase public safety at all. The first speaker talked about clause 4 of the bill and section 2.1 of the Criminal Records Act. The clause replaces the discretion of the parole board with absolute discretion. And it's clear--and we saw this happening last week in the other legislation--that there seems to be a desire to remove the judicial authorities from any review of decisions by the parole board, or the minister in the case of the transfer legislation. I think that's not appropriate.
In our constitutional system, the courts, the Parliament, and the executive all have an important role to play. And the courts have an important supervisory role in making sure that the National Parole Board, in this case, acts appropriately and that they take into account the proper considerations when they render their decisions. I don't agree that the current legislation doesn't give the parole board sufficient discretion. Making it an absolute discretion is an attempt to insulate the decisions from any kind of judicial review, and is contrary to the rule of law. That's the first concern I have.
When you consider rehabilitation and you consider the persons who have committed criminal offences--and I don't necessarily disagree with the second speaker--there may well be offences for which pardons should not be available. I would say they would have to be very exceptional, but clearly the types of offences that the previous speaker was talking about would probably fit that mould.
But generally speaking, my experience with offenders is that they need to have an incentive to reform. One of the most important incentives that I can offer my clients who come in and who are at risk of being deported is that if they get a pardon that will clear their record and it will make it easier for them to get a job and more difficult for them to be deported.
You have to understand that at the present time, because of the length of time that it takes to get a pardon, and because of the time between the commission of the crime and the sentencing, and then the serving of the sentence, if it's an indictable offence we have to wait five years. There is usually a one- or two-year period in which the person is waiting for his trial and has pleaded guilty. And then if you add on top of that the sentence, be it probation or a term of imprisonment or both, by the time the person is eligible to apply for the pardon, he's been free of any criminal activity for seven, eight, or nine years. And then the processing time for the pardon itself usually takes a year to two years on top of that. So by the time the pardon has been granted, in most cases you're probably talking about a minimum of eight to ten years between the commission of the offence and the granting of the pardon.
Personally, my experience over many years of dealing with many people confirms that if a person is able to have a clean record for that many years, the likelihood of reoffending is extremely small. I think all the statistical studies will support that.
So I don't see any support for increasing the period of time beyond the five-year time period that currently exists. On the other hand, if you do increase it, you're removing an important incentive that people who have committed offences have, that they look at as a goal in order to effect their rehabilitation. I think it would be a serious mistake to make a pardon something that is unattainable.
In consideration of what the previous speaker said, I don't disagree; I think this exercise is helpful, in the sense that I think many people took the pardon system for granted. I think it's important that we acknowledge that as a society we want to make sure that a person who gets a pardon is deserving of getting a pardon. I don't disagree with the idea that the National Parole Board should be encouraged to very carefully scrutinize applications, and I don't disagree that it shouldn't just be a rubber stamp.
Having said that, I think it's important that if we are going to engage in that type of policy and make the National Parole Board more accountable, encourage them to be more careful in their scrutinizing, we have to ensure we give the parole board sufficient resources to do that. Given the process we go through now—and some would argue there isn't an effective enough screening process—the lack of resources means the process takes far, far too long already.
The one other point I want to emphasize is that I think a criminal record is a very serious thing for many people. At least once a month I get people in my office, some very prominent people sometimes, who had a transgression 20 or 30 years ago. They were trying to get into the United States for some important board meeting and they were turned around at the border because now, with the information sharing, the U.S. authorities are discovering they have criminal records.
I don't think we can minimize the importance of having a balanced approach. On the one hand, we have to acknowledge the right of victims; on the other hand, we have to make sure we don't make obtaining a pardon so difficult that it penalizes people who have rehabilitated themselves.
I think it's really important to make pardons accessible. There are a lot of people who have blemishes on their record. The consequences today of a criminal record in a society where we have so much information sharing between countries.... I mean, I could tell you stories you wouldn't believe about the way information is shared. I saw a person yesterday who was pulled off a plane in Toronto based on information that was sent from London, and it turned out to be all misinformation.
The fact that people have criminal records and they have no effective way of clearing themselves is extremely significant, and it is a huge handicap in today's global village.