Public Safety Committee on Feb. 3rd, 2011

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Oui. I gotcha.

Is there any debate on amendment NDP-7?

(Amendment agreed to on division)

[Maria Mourani, Bloc, Ahuntsic, QC]

Mr. Chairman, I would like to make an amendment.

Mr. President, Monsieur le Speaker....

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Just one moment, please, until we get our paperwork in order here.

Madame Mourani has an amendment that she would like to move at this stage. It's not in your package.

[Maria Mourani, Bloc, Ahuntsic, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

My amendment is actually very simple. It is to delete paragraph 10(1)(h), which reads as follows:

(h) whether the offender has refused to participate in a rehabilitation or reintegration program;

Can I give my rationale?

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Madame Mourani, do you have your amendment in writing? We need it in writing for our analysts.

So it's the removal of proposed paragraph 10(1)(h) from clause 3...?

[Maria Mourani, Bloc, Ahuntsic, QC]

Yes, that's it.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

All right. Continue.

[Maria Mourani, Bloc, Ahuntsic, QC]

The amendment is simply to delete proposed paragraph 10(1)(h). Actually, this is somewhat along the same lines as paragraph (i) that my colleagues will be moving an amendment to delete subsequently.

Allow me to explain. If a person is innocent, as you know, in some countries, the justice system, whether we like it or not, is somewhat deficient and even corrupt. I won't name any specific countries, but there are some legal systems where you never actually see a judge. What I mean is that we are not all the same around the world. Legal systems are not all the same, not always fair. Corruption can also become embedded in such systems.

When someone says they're innocent, that their trial wasn't fair but is nonetheless charged and convicted, and then refuses to acknowledge guilt or participate in programs—because they're innocent—are we going to prevent such individuals from being transferred, supposedly because they refused to participate in programs? That makes no sense in the context of risk analysis. Let's not forget that we're transferring an inmate from one institution to another; we're not transferring that person to the outside. That is my first point.

Also, Mr. Chairman, it's important to remember that laws are there to protect society. If those laws are discriminatory or improper, to the point where innocent people are put in jail, that's unacceptable. We must do everything we can to ensure that laws are as fair as possible. That is our role. That was my first point: innocence.

My second point is as follows. As you know, when an inmate is not transferred, for all kinds of reasons—and a number of witnesses made this point—we end up with individuals who have been convicted, have completed their sentence, have no interest in programs, are dangerous criminals but are not transferred back to Canada. The consequence of that is that we know absolutely nothing about these people. We have no control over them. It is to our advantage to transfer them, in order to be able to monitor them inside the institution. If some are not interested in participating in programs, we have legislation—the Corrections and Conditional Release Act—which already sets certain criteria. If an inmate refuses to participate in programs, too bad for him; he will simply have to “do his time” and stay in as long as possible. They can even be kept in jail. As you know, the provision that allows for an inmate to be kept in prison means that a dangerous offender who wants nothing to do with prison programs will simply serve his time right until the end.

So, strategically, is it better to leave a dangerous offender in prison abroad, in a country where, once he has completed his sentence, he will be back on the streets and may return Canada with no criminal record, as though nothing had happened; or, is it in our interests to have that person under our control, in prison? When the inmate gets out of prison, we can continue to monitor him by other means, such as probation and, if memory serves me, section 810, which refers to a recognizance to keep the peace, and so on.

On the one hand, it is beneficial for us to be able to monitor these dangerous offenders. On the other hand, we should not be passing a bill that will penalize innocent people. For obvious reasons, considering the fact that an offender may or may not have refused to participate in a rehabilitation program is not a meaningful criterion to apply to a transfer—all the more because some countries do not offer rehabilitation programs, and actually offer absolutely nothing, except perhaps a little torture here and there, if you see what I mean. It simply isn't true that correctional systems around the world are all the same, and the same applies to legal systems.

My final comment is that, if we want to be logical, we should remove proposed paragraph 10(1)(h). You will see that the other amendments to be moved by my colleagues will be based on the same philosophy—namely, culpability.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you very much.

Mr. MacKenzie.

[Dave MacKenzie, Conservative, Oxford, ON]

Mr. Chair, as a point of order, I would go back to my original argument that these kinds of things are outside of the scope of the committee. This takes away the intent of the bill, which was to give some guidance to the minister and to the officials who make these decisions.

When we start to scope out.... To take out things that the bill clearly intended as issues that the minister and the officials who advise him would look at, that's aside from the argument of whether or not it even makes sense in regard to what Ms. Mourani said. When you start to remove complete sections from the bill, I do believe that is outside the scope of this committee to start to do that kind of thing. I'd like a ruling from the chair on it.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Well, again, I guess you can challenge the chair on it. I've seen a clause-by-clause done whereby the whole bill was basically struck down and reported back and that's been ruled in.

There are times when it may change. Or it may not change. When you take a look at what the bill was, there is still a substantive amount that isn't even being amended compared to what's being brought forward. So on that basis, the spirit of changing one or two clauses or this.... I guess that's up to the committee to decide.

I have to rule that the presentation of the amendment is in order. You can challenge the chair on that if you wish, to be on record. I am told from the table that they are in order. In my experience, I have seen much more of a bill being taken away, or changed, or diminished, and it has been ruled in order. As much as we may like or dislike, or we may report back to Parliament on how it's been gutted...that would be up to somebody to do it. But as far as whether or not we should even deal with those goes....

I'd just like to say one other thing too. There is a problem here. The problem is that you discuss and deal with a bill three months before you move to clause-by-clause. So a lot of these very issues weren't brought out last week, and they weren't brought out three weeks ago. They were brought out the last time we discussed this bill; I don't have that date with me, but it has to have been November, or maybe even October.

So again, this is one of the reasons why we've had this discussion before. We deal with legislation and move it to clause-by-clause, and then we report back or we don't report back. But waiting three months and then re-debating.... Many of the debates we've had here today at the clause-by-clause stage are identical to the debates we had way back in October when we dealt with this.

That's just to make the point that, again, a lot of this legislation is being stalled and we aren't moving to clause-by-clause. And when do we come to it, it is being substantively changed--correct--but it's still in order.

Mr. MacKenzie.

[Dave MacKenzie, Conservative, Oxford, ON]

Mr. Chair, I won't challenge you because I know the numbers that are sitting at the table, and that would be fruitless, but I would like to address some of the comments made by Ms. Mourani.

If we took her argument to its extent, we would bring everybody back, whether they applied or not, so that they would get the benefits here. But if they're not going to accept rehabilitation, treatment, and whatever may be required where they are, why would we expect that if we brought them back here they'd receive the benefits in Canada? We don't re-judge the case. We don't say, “Well, because we think you were mistreated or because you were wrongly convicted, we'll overturn the conviction”. That's not what happens with this process.

One of the criteria that surely Canadians would expect is that if we're going to bring back a percentage of Canadians who are incarcerated abroad, then they will have accepted treatment in other places. It's not the only criterion, but it is one of the criteria that the officials would look at, I'm sure, when they would make their recommendations to the minister.

We can talk about the totalitarian regimes in other countries, but there are many democratically elected regimes in countries around the world where these folks are applying, such as Great Britain, the United States, and others. So we shouldn't say that's not a consideration; in fact, that should be one of the considerations.

If you're going to use the argument that they come back to Canada for rehabilitation and treatment, it's pretty tough to say to Canadians that we're not going to take into account the fact that they've refused those treatments in other communities before they're brought back here. Everyone who is incarcerated in another country has been in that situation of incarceration for a while. They were just sentenced yesterday and then applied to come back.... They have to serve a portion of their sentence. So if treatment is part of the situation in that country, surely we should consider that when we say whether or not we want to tell those folks to come back to Canada.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you, Mr. MacKenzie.

Seeing no other hands in the air, all in favour of Madame Mourani's amendment? That amendment would say that Bill C-5 be amended by deleting lines 30 to 32 on page 2, which is, I believe, paragraph (h).

(Amendment agreed to on division--[See Minutes of Proceedings])

That will be included as a Bloc amendment.

Now we'll proceed to amendment NDP-8.

Mr. Hyer.

[Bruce Hyer, NDP, Thunder Bay—Superior North, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

It is clear to me, although I'm new to this process, that the most glaring abuse of this clause might be, from time to time, that if someone is innocent, declares his or her innocence, and continues to declare that innocence, it could cause that person to be considered as in violation of this clause. I support the amendment to kill this clause.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

All right.

It is to kill the clause or amend it by deleting lines 33 to 37? Is that the complete clause?

[A voice]

No. It's just a section.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Okay. These lines read: “whether the offender has accepted responsibility for the offence for which they have been convicted, including by acknowledging the harm done to victims and to the community”. Your motion is to delete that. It's proposed paragraph 10(1)(i) in clause 3 of the bill.

Mr. Rathgeber.

[Brent Rathgeber, Conservative, Edmonton—St. Albert, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I suspect this amendment will carry, similar to all the rest of them, but I'd just like to point out, for the benefit of the committee and anybody who might be following this debate, that by killing proposed paragraph 10(1)(i) we'll be deleting any reference to the word “victims” in this legislation.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you, Mr. Rathgeber.

Is there anyone else on amendment NDP-8? Are we ready for the question?

(Amendment agreed to on division)

Amendment NDP-8 now has deleted lines 33 to 37 on page 3.

Amendment NDP-9 deletes lines 41 to 43.

Mr. Hyer.

[Bruce Hyer, NDP, Thunder Bay—Superior North, ON]

It's also clear to me that neither Canada nor the minister is in a position to assess objectively whether the offender did or did not cooperate in a reasonable manner with the law enforcement officer. I support the deletion of proposed paragraph 10(1)(k).

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you, Mr. Hyer.

Mr. MacKenzie.

[Dave MacKenzie, Conservative, Oxford, ON]

I'd just suggest to Mr. Hyer that, yes, in fact, Canada does have the ability to determine that. One of the things that occurs is an exchange of information between the country in which the person is held and Canada. The officials cannot make any recommendations to the minister if they don't have information at hand on what transpired while the individual was incarcerated in another country. It is a pretty simple situation, in that the officials, in fact, who provide that advice to the minister, do have access to that kind of information.

Your reason for removing it doesn't really seem to make sense to me. Again, it's a case of your trying to destroy the bill by taking away these issues that any minister, through his officials, would have to make some valid comments or decisions on.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you, Mr. MacKenzie.

Is there any other discussion on amendment NDP-9?

(Amendment negatived)

NDP-9 is defeated. Now we'll go to amendment NDP-10, which is that Bill C-5, in clause 3, be amended by deleting lines 44 to 45.

That has not been done yet, right?

Mr. Hyer, it's been discussed already, before your attendance here.

Is there anyone else on amendment NDP-9?

Mr. MacKenzie.

[Dave MacKenzie, Conservative, Oxford, ON]

Going back to our original discussions--

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

I'm sorry. It's NDP-10.