Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
My first amendment would keep the legislation as it is in the current legislation, which is that it requires that the minister consider certain factors. The current act says the minister “shall” consider, and then enumerates a number of factors. The proposed amendment in Bill C-5 would change that “shall” to “may consider the following factors”, which, in my opinion, is an inappropriate alteration.
At the very least, I think what we want to do when we consider something as important as a Canadian's right to enter their country to serve their sentence in Canada as opposed to another country is to require that any minister of any party direct their minds to certain factors. I think it's our job as parliamentarians to itemize a reasonable set of what those factors should be.
I don't think it's too much to ask that any minister, when faced with an application by a Canadian citizen who is incarcerated abroad, at the very least be compelled to address their mind to a set of factors that I think we would want that minister to address their mind to.
By saying “may”, we're removing any legal requirement for the minister to address any of the following factors. Some of these factors are as we'll see; I won't get into them in too much detail, but one of them is whether the offender's return would constitute a threat to the security of Canada. I don't want that to “maybe” be a consideration; I want that to be a mandatory consideration by the minister.
The next factor would be whether the minister thinks that the offender's return to Canada would endanger public safety, including the safety of any person who is a victim, or the safety of any member of the offender's family, or the safety of any child, in the case of an offender who has been convicted of a sexual offence. I don't want that to be an optional consideration by the minister. That should be a mandatory consideration of the minister.
There's nothing in this bill that says the minister has to take an inordinate amount of time to consider these things, but the minister must, in my view, spend at least some time addressing their mind to whether those factors are in play or not when we consider whether an application for transfer should occur.
I know that we want to get this bill through today, so I won't speak for a long time on this, but in my respectful submission, the legislation's language as it currently reads, which requires the minister to consider factors, I think is appropriate. I would urge my colleagues on this committee to retain that language by changing the “may” back to “shall consider the following factors”.