Public Safety Committee on Feb. 15th, 2011

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

I call the meeting to order.

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to meeting number 55 of the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security. Today is Tuesday, February 15, 2011.

This is our second meeting today. We also met bright and early this morning, and the intentions are that we'll go here for probably four hours.

As your chair, I want to commend the members of this committee and the members of our staff. They are working hard and with dedication to get things done on behalf of all Canadians.

Tonight we are considering Bill C-59, An Act to amend the Corrections and Conditional Release Act (accelerated parole review) and to make consequential amendments to other Acts. We are planning on making considerable progress on this bill tonight. Our committee members will also want to thank the many witnesses who are here with us this evening, and I would add that most Canadians will be very pleased to know that this great group of witnesses appeared on very short notice. Each one of you responded positively, and our committee appreciates this and wants to thank you.

We will have ample time to hear from each witness who wants to speak and to ask questions of you as well.

My understanding, unless our clerk has told you differently in the invitation, is that we're going to try to keep the opening statements to somewhere between five and seven minutes, so please be concise. You'll find that the chair is actually a little lenient, so if you go a little over, it's not an indictable offence, but we don't want it to drag on too long.

Go ahead, Mr. Holland.

[Mark Holland, Liberal, Ajax—Pickering, ON]

Mr. Chair, we have quite a number of witnesses. Could we divide the time we allotted for witnesses into two sections so that we could take one group at a time? Some people can't even get around the table. It's going to become rather unruly to have everybody up there and to pose questions to all of them. I think it's just too much. I was wondering if we could do it in two sections.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

I've tried to allow everyone at the table just to get through the rounds of questions. If we start dividing it into two, one of the issues is where the officials will fit in. If we're going to split it at all, one argument would be that the officials should be the first round, and we don't have a lot of government officials. One official is actually waiting just for clause-by-clause consideration; she will hold off for that, and Mr. Sapers, the correctional investigator, would be by himself, so if we started splitting it, we would have three panels.

For that reason, I just asked Mr. Sapers about it. It's not usually the way it is done and I know it has inconvenienced him, but he appears willing to be at the table and to present, so the choice isn't necessarily between one and two. It may be between one and three.

[Mark Holland, Liberal, Ajax—Pickering, ON]

My preference would be to split it into two sections. I don't follow why it can't be done. There may be a need to have department officials along with a couple of other people in the first and second rounds, but in the interest of expediency, let's make a decision and move forward.

It's a suggestion. If you want to canvass the will of the committee, I'm certainly okay with that approach.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

I think there is a difficulty with that approach. If everybody makes their presentations, we get a good sense of where we want to go; I can give a little extra time on some of the questions if you want, but if you go through the first round and then somebody says something in the second round that makes you realize you would have appreciated having a few of the others there, it becomes an issue.

Unless I'm being challenged on this, I would prefer to continue in this way. It's the prerogative of the chair, so I think we'll just continue in this manner.

Appearing as individuals are Pierre Gravel, Jackie Naltchayan--excuse me if I mess up on some of these names--and Ali Reza Pedram. From the Association des avocats et avocates en droit carcéral du Québec, we have Steven Fineberg, president, and Jacinthe Lanctôt, vice-president. From the Office of the Correctional Investigator, we have Howard Sapers, correctional investigator, and Ivan Zinger, executive director and general counsel.

From the Canadian Association of Elizabeth Fry Societies, we have Kim Pate, executive director, and from the Department of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness, we have Mary Campbell, director general of the corrections and criminal justice directorate. She has actually stepped back and will join us on clause-by-clause consideration.

From the John Howard Society of Canada, we have Ed McIsaac, director of policy. Some of these people are sitting off to the side. From the Church Council on Justice and Corrections, we have Lorraine Berzins, community chair of justice, and Richard Haughian, the vice-president.

We welcome you.

Go ahead, Mr. Davies.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Mr. Chair, you've twice referred to Mary Campbell as someone who's here for clause-by-clause. I want to clarify that she is here as a witness; she's listed on the witness list, so she is available for us to ask her questions as well.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

It is my understanding that she will not have an opening statement. She is available for questions.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

We appreciate that, Ms. Campbell.

I think we'll proceed by going right down the middle to the right, and then we'll come back to the middle and around, if that suits.

All right. Ms. Pate, please.

[Kim Pate, Executive Director, Canadian Association of Elizabeth Fry Societies]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Thank you for the invitation, and thank you for the recognition of the challenges of it being such short notice.

I appear on behalf of the Canadian Association of Elizabeth Fry Societies. I bring regrets that because of the notice I'm unable to appear with one of my board members; they are from across the country.

As many of the committee members are aware, we represent 26 members from across the country who provide services predominantly to women and girls who have been marginalized, victimized, criminalized, and who have been institutionalized.

It's in that capacity that I offer our comments. I will be very brief.

I wish to recognize that our organization does not support this bill. When you look at the reintegration potential that Corrections recognizes women have, that certainly our organization recognizes, it's a very high potential for reintegration.

In fact this bill will impact many women. According to Corrections' own research, 61.6% of those who are eligible for APR, accelerated parole review, are women. That will significantly impact the release because many of them are eligible very quickly and they have very few issues once they're released into the community. Their reintegration potential is high, very few are breached, and when they are breached they tend to be breached on conditions as opposed to any new offences.

We have a very low breach rate, a very high reintegration rate, and a very good success on the use of accelerated parole with women. And, as one of my colleagues in Corrections said to me today, if this bill goes through, we'll probably need at least several more prisons fairly quickly to incarcerate the women who will be held for longer periods of time.

Thank you. Those are our comments.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you, Ms. Pate.

Mr. McIsaac.

[Ed McIsaac, Director of Policy, John Howard Society of Canada]

I thank the committee on behalf of the John Howard Society of Canada for the opportunity to appear with respect to Bill C-59.

The John Howard Society, for those of you who do not know, is a non-profit organization whose mission is the promotion of effective, just, humane responses to the causes and consequences of crime. The society has 65 front-line offices across the country delivering programs and services to support the safe reintegration of offenders into our respective communities.

The John Howard Society does not support the abolition of accelerated parole review. I have left with the clerk a copy of our position paper on presumptive gradual release, which I hope will be of assistance to the committee during their review of this legislation.

The protection of society is best served through the timely supervised reintegration of offenders back into our communities, not through the extension of periods of incarceration. The provisions of APR were introduced to assist the timely conditional release of first-time non-violent federal offenders. The available data indicates that approximately 900 offenders a year benefit from this timely supervised release and that over 80% successfully complete their period of supervision in the community.

In terms of public safety, it appears counterproductive to be contemplating the abolition of conditional release provisions that have assisted in the timely release of so many offenders. It as well appears counterproductive, with a penitentiary system that is overcrowded, to be taking a decision that will significantly increase the prison population and further limit access to correctional programming.

I urge the committee, through its deliberations, to consider the impact of abolishing accelerated parole review--the impact on both first-time non-violent federal offenders as well as the correctional process as a whole.

I thank you for your time. I look forward to your questions.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you very much, Mr. McIsaac.

We'll now go to Ms. Berzins.

[Lorraine Berzins, Community Chair of Justice, Church Council on Justice and Corrections]

Mr. Haughian will go first.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

All right.

Go ahead, sir.

[Dr. Richard Haughian, Vice-President, Church Council on Justice and Corrections]

Mr. Chair and honourable members, thank you for this opportunity to appear before you.

The Church Council on Justice and Corrections is a national faith-based coalition of 11 founding churches, incorporated in 1972. We promote community responsibility for justice, with an emphasis on addressing the needs of victims and offenders, mutual respect, healing, individual accountability, and crime prevention.

In December 2010, the CCJC sent a letter to the Prime Minister of Canada expressing concern about the federal laws that are resulting in the building of new prisons. Bill C-59 is one of the bills about which we have concerns.

Ms. Lorraine Berzins, CCJC's community chair of justice, will speak to our concerns.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Ms. Berzins, go ahead.

[Lorraine Berzins]

Good evening.

I'd like to say first off that we are very concerned about and not happy with the impact this bill is going to have in terms of going in the direction of putting more people in prison for a longer time and all the implications that has for our society, not only in terms of financial costs, but also in terms of social costs. However, we really do understand the public sentiment that is feeding this bill.

There is a sense of public outrage about certain kinds of offences that appear not to be resulting in a sufficient length of time in prison compared with what the sentence was pronounced to be. We understand that sense of disappointment, but it is such a shame that the solution you're proposing is going to affect a large number of others in ways that are going to be very destructive.

We wish you could propose a solution that would allow for exceptions to be made when the application of this would bring the administration of justice into public disrepute, for reasons of public sentiment around it, without affecting in such a rigid way all the others for whom it is really necessary.... It's just going in the same direction of how we use prison in this country, which is similar to how it's being used in the States. But the States have opened up to the fact that to use prison to send a message has been very, very counterproductive. We need it for public safety, in some instances, but there's a large number of non-violent offenders for whom we don't need it.

Also, there is the collateral damage it does, not only to the offenders who are in there and affected by that environment, but also to their families. The U.S. has actually documented this in a very specific way through their Pew foundation. They have documented the impact that it has socio-economically--and economically especially--on the offender, the offender's family, and the children of the offender, and for a very long time to come.

I think we thought we had the luxury of using prison to send a message, but we don't. We have to wake up to the fact that we don't. We now know, very much so, that programs in the community are more effective, they're much cheaper, and they can provide much better satisfaction to victims.

So I think if victims are asking for more imprisonment, it's often because the other needs they have are not being met. If you would just take a step back from this blind complacency of how we use prison...this is what some of the people in the States are saying now. When they're looking at the results for them, they're saying that it should bring sadness and shame upon us and that we have to wake up from this blind complacency, this sleep of complacency, with regard to how we use prison, with all its damaging effects.

I would really urge you to find a better way to meet the needs of your constituents and the victims of crime--something that is a much more satisfying process for them than just a little bit longer time in prison for offenders when they're not an imminent danger to the community.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you, Ms. Berzins.

We'll now move to Mr. Gravel.

[Pierre Gravel, Norbourg Victim, As an Individual]

Good evening.

I consider myself to be on the other side of the fence in relation to what has just been said, because I am one of the Norbourg victims. Fortunately the parties involved in this affair did not want to go to court, because the public would have found out just how badly some had behaved, and I speak from experience.

I am here tonight to send a clear message. It is completely wrong for a person who has been handed a 12-year sentence to be getting out of prison before the victims have even been considered by the court.

As victims, we want to send a very clear message to these crooks, whether they are white-collar criminals or any other kind of criminal, which is that there is a line you simply cannot cross in our society. At this point, that message is not getting out. I hope that with the bill has been tabled in the House of Commons, we will arrive at a situation where honest citizens who become victims will be properly protected, and that there will be fewer victims.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you. Merci, monsieur Gravel.

Ms. Naltchayan....

Madam Mourani.

[Maria Mourani, Bloc, Ahuntsic, QC]

Mr. Chairman, you forgot Mr. Pedram.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Oh, I'm sorry. We changed chairs.

Go ahead, Mr. Pedram.

[Ali Reza Pedram, As an Individual]

First of all, I would like to thank you for giving me this opportunity to be here.

I am also one of the victims of Mr. Leon Kordzian. He defrauded over 45 people, collecting money to give interest of 20% to 30%.

In my situation, when this gentleman approached us, he showed us some kind of security, a notary's paper, to show it was legal. We went to the notary, and he put his house up as collateral, as security, if we would invest this money. He was in real estate, and he wanted to build some houses for newlyweds, couples. He fooled us into investing money to build these kinds of houses for the newlyweds.

After a while, we found out that this was all a fake, a fraud. When we asked him to give back the money, he always had excuses: that he didn't have it, that his mother was sick, and all this propaganda. When I found out that this guy had been in this kind of scam for almost 10 years, we went to the police and we claimed what happened.

Thanks to Madam Mourani, through her great help, we went through the police and we got lots of good response. We brought him to justice. We are in the case right now. Hopefully, we're going to bring justice to show him that this kind of fraud is unacceptable, and we can nail him and show the other victims that we are here for them.

Mrs. Naltchayan and I represent 45 people here, 45 victims, as a matter of fact. This guy defrauded us out of over $1 million, including me. I am here to ask you to help us to stop this kind of scam by these kinds of people.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you very much, Mr. Pedram.

Now we'll go back to Ms. Naltchayan again.