Public Safety Committee on March 24th, 2011

[Maria Mourani, Bloc, Ahuntsic, QC]

When you talk about the likelihood of reoffending, is it based on harm reduction? It does not necessarily mean that the individual has not committed other offenses. After having read several studies on reoffending, I have to say, pardon the expression, that it is pure junk.

Not reoffending does not mean that the individual has not reoffended. It only means that his level of harm has decreased. If a pedophile who raped a young girl is now limiting himself to fondling without penetration, that is considered a success.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you, Madam Mourani.

Mr. Marshall.

[Dr. William Marshall]

Well, I wouldn't be happy. You must be reading different literature than I am. I've never read a study that counted a reduction in harm as an index of success. All studies that I know of, and these I would guess--

[Maria Mourani, Bloc, Ahuntsic, QC]

I have read several of those studies and I could send them to you. In them, the rate of reoffending is assessed on the basis of...

[Dr. William Marshall]

I'd be grateful if you'd send them to me.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Madam Mourani, again, we'll try to get the questions going through the chair so we don't have this back and forth.

We'll give Mr. Marshall some time to conclude his statements. Go ahead, Mr. Marshall.

[Dr. William Marshall]

All of the acceptable studies in the literature index the reoffence rate according to several things. One is whether he was convicted of another offence. Was he charged with another offence, but the offence was withdrawn? Did he break conditions of parole? All of those we count as a reoffence. That's over-counting reoffending. Still, in this large-scale study, we have 5.2% recidivism in the treated group and 18% recidivism in the untreated group.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you very much, Mr. Marshall.

Mr. Davies.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

As we know, there are two major parts to the bill before us. There's a proposal that would bar Canadians from getting a pardon if they commit more than three indictable offences. I think we've heard from every witness...including the minister, who said that's an arbitrary figure that needs to be re-examined.

The other aspect of this bill is that it would also bar any Canadian convicted of a long list of sex offences against children from ever being eligible for a pardon. I think we have to say at the outset that talking about sex offences against children involves a level of protectiveness and, dare I say, even repugnance and disgust, which I think are common to everybody. Also, it brings up in us a very strong desire to protect our children. I think that's understandable.

I think as parliamentarians we need to try to make wise policy that will aid in that objective, so I want to address these comments to the two people who have been spending their lives, I guess, addressing this.

Does the prospect of obtaining a pardon, in your experience, aid in the rehabilitation of a person convicted of a sex offence against a child to the point where that person will never offend again? Is that part of the rehabilitation process? Does it play a role or not?

[Randall Fletcher]

I think where it plays a role is actually more in interfering with the process of rehabilitation. As I mentioned earlier, even just being able to get gainful employment...the people I see have tremendous difficulty getting any type of a job upon release from incarceration. Over time, if there are people who know them well, who can see the whole person rather than just the offence and see how they've changed, they may get a job. With other people, it could be a lifetime process, or at least it could go until they get a pardon, when they can actually fill out an application and where it says, “Do you have a criminal record?”, they don't have to report that.

So I think it's more that it interferes with that.

The other thing is the motivation. As I said earlier, it sends a very strong message that there's nothing you can ever do that will make anyone believe you have changed. That's a very, very discouraging kind of message. The whole business of labelling theory says that if you call people something often enough and you define them a certain way, they begin to believe that themselves. If you believe you can't change, you stop trying to change.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Mr. Marshall, did you want to respond to that?

[Dr. William Marshall]

I just think it's part of the motivation that drives these men to engage fully in the process of rehabilitating themselves. I think that's very important, but I think, as Mr. Fletcher said, the very important thing is that part of the rehabilitation is being able to find a place in society where you can function well and meet the same kinds of goals the rest of us meet.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

What I think all of us on this committee are grappling with is this. If we pass a law that prohibits people who have committed any one of those offences in that long list of sexual offences against children from getting a pardon, is that a good public policy because it makes society know forever that those people committed that offence? Or is that bad public policy?

I noticed a sentence of yours, Mr. Marshall. You said, “...no sensible community would give pardons to all sex offenders”. I think we all agree with that. So my question is whether a sensible community would deny pardons to every sex offender. That's the corollary question that came to my mind.

[Dr. William Marshall]

No, I would think that's just as much of an error as giving pardons to all of them. These people vary remarkably in the kinds of things they do to children, in their molestation, but also in the frequency and in their potential for rehabilitation. We need to offer people encouragement to engage in an effective process of rehabilitation, really.

I know better than anybody in this room, possibly with the exception of Mr. Fletcher, what sexual offenders, child molesters, do to children. Right? I've been doing this for 42 years. I find it really repugnant, so I'm not soft on these people at all, but we have to have a system that will motivate them to engage in a process of rehabilitation and give them the opportunity to succeed in that process.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Right. We know that nobody would every give Paul Bernardo a pardon. Nobody would ever give Karla Homolka a pardon. I'm wondering if there is any person who has committed a sex offence...for instance, let's say exposure, because I think exposure is one of the crimes listed, exposing yourself to a child. It sort of runs the gamut from that all the way to full blown-out rape of a child. I want to ask this. Is there anybody convicted of those offences who you think can be cured? This is a question we all have. I've heard people say they can never be cured, and I'm wondering if that is correct or not, in your experience.

[Randall Fletcher]

I think the term “cure” is inappropriate here. If I can just speak to the whole business of the disease idea, certainly, pedophilia is not a disease in the sense that schizophrenia is, which is an organic process. People commit sexual offences against children because they choose to. It's a behavioural choice. People can be taught how to make better choices. They can learn that there are better ways of dealing with things, and that motivates them to make better choices.

So if the question is whether you can change people's behavioural choices, the answer is absolutely yes, and once those are changed and ingrained, they're changed forever.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Shouldn't we be safe, though? Shouldn't we just say, look, we can't take a chance when it comes to our children, so anybody who is convicted of these offences simply should not get a pardon, and that's just the most prudent, safe policy to take?

What would be your comment on that?

[Randall Fletcher]

I would have difficulty seeing how not granting a pardon would protect children.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

We'll now move to Mr. Norlock, please.

Mr. Norlock.

[Rick Norlock, Conservative, Northumberland—Quinte West, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and through you to the witnesses, welcome, and thank you very much for your testimony. It is indeed very helpful.

On the complaint that what we say and do at committee gets reported in the House and is hurtful, I have seen the very person who complained about that verbally eviscerate other people. I guess in this political realm, in the cut and thrust, we somewhat share in some of those exchanges. Some of us have had to apologize to the House, publicly and privately, and some of us have had to go through some legal pains.

I would agree with him that it demeans us all, and not just one of us. I have to share in that. I think the low opinion of politicians by the public is due to the actions we take because we care very much about our stand, and what we stand for has an effect. But we're here today to talk about Bill C-23B.

Chief Constable Lemcke, I shared a profession with you before this one. I listened to the other two witnesses, and while I don't disagree with them, I'm always reminded that people in the law and in health care practise their trades. I don't ever recall hiring a carpenter who practised carpentry. I always wanted to have an expert who knew what he was doing. I'm not being insulting here. I'm just saying that when you deal with human beings, there are no exact things that work for everybody.

This is a roundabout way of getting to you, Chief Constable. In my experience as a police officer, we deal with the bad guy--

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Mr. Chairman, I'm sorry, I have a point of order. It's after 10:30.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

We'll get the first round and then it will be done.

Go ahead, sir.

[Rick Norlock, Conservative, Northumberland—Quinte West, ON]

We deal with the person who committed the offence, either shortly thereafter or as close thereafter as is reasonable under the investigation. But who we deal with immediately thereafter generally is the victim. Because we are in smaller communities in this country, we tend to know what effect that has on not only the victim but the victim's family. Mothers and fathers divorce because they cannot withstand the pressures that have occurred because their child has been killed or sexually abused. I'm going to ask you to comment on that.

Something I am very familiar with is sexual abuse of boys. We only hear about one-third of them. Most of them aren't reported because boys don't like people to look at them knowing that somebody has abused them--nor do girls, but boys especially.

I wonder if you can tell us why you've given some of the responses you have, some of the reasons why you are before this committee, and your opinion on this, as it relates to your job.

[D/Chief Cst Warren Lemcke]

Thank you. I'll speak about victimization with regard to the bill.

I know this bill focuses on pardons or record suspensions for offenders, but when I hear the number of 535 people treated and that only 5% repeat, and 18% of those are untreated, the part that worries me—and I don't believe anybody is intentionally doing this—is that there is very little talk about the victims. That part concerns me.

Does a pardon help the victim of this crime? I don't think it does. I read some of the previous minutes when Sheldon Kennedy spoke here, and it doesn't.... I'm sure that victim lives with this....

People deal with crimes differently. Some will live with this horror forever. How does that pardon help them?

It's very nice that we talk about how it helps the offender, but how does it help the victim? When it comes to crimes against children, we should do everything, from beginning to end, to prevent these crimes from happening. We should be saying to people: “Canadians will not accept it. We will not tolerate this. We will treat this very harshly. If you do this, from day one the courts are going to treat you harshly. You are never going to get rid of your record. All of these bad things are going to happen to you if you do this, because we want to protect our children.” I think that is what we should be focusing on with the legislation.

I agree that people can rehabilitate. Maybe there are some pedophiles who can rehabilitate, but I also think it's more management of the issue they're dealing with. The part that scares me tremendously is that their record can be suspended. I know they will be flagged on CPIC, but there may be ways they can get into a position where they work with children again, and if one child is hurt, that's one too many.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you very much.

We appreciate all three of you being at our committee, and your expertise and opinions on this bill. I hope you will follow up with us. I'll just mention that if you received a question and you think further about it and you would like to submit a written response on it, the committee will gladly welcome that.

Thank you.

We're going to suspend for one minute and then we're going to move in camera. I would encourage all others to exit the room fairly quickly. We're going to have committee business for approximately 12 minutes.

[Proceedings continue in camera]