Thank you very much.
Good afternoon. My name is Sharon Rosenfeldt, and I'm president of Victims of Violence.
Victims of Violence is a national organization that was started 26 years ago by my late husband Gary, me, and a number of other individuals who had a loved one murdered. We found there were not any services for people like us in our situation. We were all thrust into a justice system we did not understand. The organization grew and grew due to other individuals contacting us from across Canada looking for answers in their particular set of circumstances regarding their victimization. We did not have those answers, but we did our utmost to help them find out, and most of the time it resulted in changes having to be made to legislation, mostly to the Criminal Code.
Needless to say, criminal justice issues are many and for the most part very complex. A significant observation we found was that the issues we were addressing and asking to have changed were always controversial and sometimes emotional, simply because they are usually affecting the lives of human beings—the lives of the offenders and the lives of the innocent victims of crime.
On behalf of our membership, I would like to thank you for this opportunity to present to this committee on the importance of Bill C-23B and on motion 514. Our presentation will not be long, since we are appearing here today in support of the proposed amendments to the Criminal Records Act as well as in support to motion 514.
The original Bill C-23 was split in two, and Bill C-23A has already been passed and received royal assent on June 29 of this year. However, there are some changes or amendments in the new Bill C-23A that follow into the Bill C-23B, and thus our organization would like to comment on just a few of the proposed changes.
Clause 3 will substitute the term “record suspension” for the term “pardon”. The amendments will rename the term “pardon” as “record suspension”. The term “pardon” will no longer be used. We agree with this amendment. We believe the law was not put in place as an act of forgiveness, as the term pardon seems to suggest, but rather put in place as a way of helping individuals with a criminal record reduce the stigma associated with a criminal record. The new term or name is now clear as to the intent of this law. We agree with Mr. Bill Siksay, NDP member of Parliament for Burnaby—Douglas, who, during debate in the House of Commons, said that he thinks “this is a very significant action in the bill”. He said he knows “there has been some opinion and debate already that it may be an inconsequential change”, but he believes “it is an extremely serious change in the legislation and in our overall perspective of what the pardon system is about”.
Clause 4 in motion 514: the current wording of section 2.1 of the Criminal Records Act states that the National Parole Board “has exclusive jurisdiction to grant or refuse to grant or to revoke a pardon”. Clause 4 of this bill will amend this section to specify that the board will also have “absolute discretion to order, refuse to order or revoke a record suspension”. This change of wording places a greater emphasis on the decision-making role of the board and the fact that the grant of a record suspension is not automatic. This discretion as to whether a record suspension is merited rests with the board. Our organization agrees with that. We feel the National Parole Board needs these changes since it seems they have been somewhat hampered by the wording of the current legislation, and thus it appears that the pardon system has become a rubber stamp.
While there may be a case for review of the Criminal Records Act, and we agree that the pardon system needs looking into, we agree with an Edmonton journalist who said there should not be a rush to judgment without scrutiny. We agree and thus we are in full support of member of Parliament for Surrey North Dona Cadman's motion 514. Motion 514 states:
That the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security be instructed to undertake a review of the Criminal Records Act and report to the House within three months on how it could be strengthened to ensure that the National Parole Board puts the public’s safety first in all its decisions.
Pardons were looked at in 2006, and there were a couple of important amendments made at that time. However, we think this issue now deserves time and attention, which we believe motion 514 may bring. Motion 514 is good, in that it may end an era of mere automatic forgiveness.
Regarding clause 9, the head of the National Parole Board has stated that the pardon system has a dual benefit: to assist the individual with a criminal record in moving forward in his or her rehabilitation, and to enhance the safety of communities by motivating the individual to remain crime-free and maintain good conduct.
Increasing the time a criminal must be of good behaviour is just common sense. The old system prior to Bill C-23A that permitted pardons for serious offences after five years did not provide a long enough waiting period to determine if a person has shed his or her old ways. Longer wait times will be more meaningful and would ensure a commitment to obeying the law in the long term.
Continuing on clause 9, we believe that pardons may not be appropriate for some offenders. In the last two years since sexual offences have been tracked as a separate category, 1,530 of all offences pardoned fit into this category, including offences such as sexual assault, sexual interference, rape, incest, child pornography, and gross indecency.
The changes should take into consideration the fact that some people have committed acts that should not be forgiven. The current Criminal Records Act does not distinguish between indictable offences of varying severity and outrageousness. No crime is considered unpardonable.
In a recent Maclean's magazine article, the writer cited the Minister of Public Safety, Vic Toews, as saying, “Pedophiles are especially difficult to rehabilitate, if ever”. The minister seemed to imply that the government might extend wait times for pardons in particularly outrageous offences, which I believe has already been done. The reporter further quoted Minister Toews as saying, “I think there is a distinction to be made between a break and enter and a rape”.
The reporter then wrote on his own part that “This is precisely the sort of political question we elect, and expect, legislators to settle. It may well be time, after 40 years of criminological experience and social change, for them to get involved with fine-tuning the system.”
We agree wholeheartedly.
Furthermore, we do think it is unrealistic to place the onus on offenders to show why a suspended record would contribute to their rehabilitation, or to refuse to grant this privilege to those who have been convicted of more than three serious indictable offences, or who have sexually assaulted children.
Lastly, Victims of Violence is of the view that the proposed new amendments to the Criminal Records Act do not go far enough and should not be limited just to children; rather, they should include all victims of crime who have been harmed and hurt by sex offenders.
Thank you.