Okay, thank you.
I'll address a couple of concerns Mr. Garrison brought forward, and then I'll speak to the amendment. I think they're related.
First of all, we appreciate and understand that the opposition, while likely in agreement with stopping vexatious complaints, does not support this bill. We understand, as well, that this amendment wouldn't necessarily make them support the bill. On the government side, obviously, we're saying we support the bill; we want the intent of the bill to go forward, but we believe putting it into regulation, like the rest of the act, is more workable, and it's more of a logical step.
As for his concerns that there is no kind of a public process or oversight to the regulations, I would just reminder him that the regulations are all public. Again, they have to go through the committee on scrutiny of regulations. That's where they're looked at. They can be reviewed very closely there. As well, they can come back to this committee. I think that's important.
In keeping with that, we would disagree with the issue of mental health or education being enshrined in the legislation. Obviously, it's taken into account with every decision that is made. I know the commissioner testified that for every decision that is made for any reason concerning an inmate, mental health and those factors are taken into account, but I would not be supportive of that being enshrined in the legislation, really for the same reasons that we are making this amendment right now. We want to give the basic abilities within the legislation, but then be able to do the procedures in regulation, and these are details that might be better addressed in regulations.
There's just one more thing from Mr. Garrison, again on the six months versus one year. I want to make sure that everyone is aware that if this passes and if a commissioner says, “prohibit an offender from submitting any further complaint or grievance except by leave of the Commissioner”, the intent of that is not that the person could never put in a complaint within the next year. In fact, it's the opposite.
I'll just repeat this. The regulations would also articulate the process for granting leave to file a grievance—even within that one-year span—for example, where it's determined that the grievance is not an abuse of process and that consideration be given to life, liberty, and the security of the person.
So the intent would be, within those regulations, to make sure there's a clear and straightforward process so that there would still be an ability. As we talked about when we looked at this bill, even if someone had been designated a vexatious complainant, none of us wanted that to mean that person would never be able to make a complaint within that year, if there was a legitimate complaint to be made. So we want that, again, to be laid out in regulation, because that's the way the rest of the act has been laid out.
Unfortunately, we would not be able to support your amendment. We don't see that it should be in the legislation. But I hope that I possibly addressed some of your concerns.