Public Safety Committee on Feb. 13th, 2014

[The Vice-Chair, NDP, Randall Garrison]

I'd like to call the meeting to order. This is meeting 11 of the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security, Thursday, February 13. I'll be chairing the meeting today, as the chair is unavoidably away.

Before proceeding with the orders of the day, I'll turn to the parliamentary secretary.

[Roxanne James, Conservative, Scarborough Centre, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Because of the importance of this bill with respect to victims rights and giving victims a voice, I would actually move that this committee meeting be televised for today.

[The Vice-Chair, NDP, Randall Garrison]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Easter.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

I find this request of the parliamentary secretary really strange. In my view, all hearings, for that matter, should be televised, but when this committee debates just a simple motion, even to invite the minister to come to committee, the government members vote it in camera and disallow that information to be debated in public.

So I find this remarkably strange that when one of their own is on the stand, and they're talking about victims rights and so on, the parliamentary secretary comes forward and talks about.... It's not a government bill, but by the sound of the parliamentary secretary, it may be in a roundabout way.

In any event, I'm in favour of having the meeting public, but I would hope that the parliamentary secretary, the next time we debate a motion, will also see fit to have that meeting in public.

[The Vice-Chair, NDP, Randall Garrison]

Thank you, Mr. Easter.

Madame Doré Lefebvre.

[Rosane Doré Lefebvre, NDP, Alfred-Pellan, QC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I would like to echo what my colleague, Mr. Easter, just said. I agree that the committee meeting should be televised. It would be good for us to get into the habit of holding public meetings. Why not have all of our meetings televised? The issue of victims' rights is an extremely important one, and this meeting should be televised, as should future committee meetings.

[The Vice-Chair, NDP, Randall Garrison]

The parliamentary secretary, then Mr. Easter.

[Roxanne James, Conservative, Scarborough Centre, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'd like to thank the members opposite for agreeing with the motion that this meeting should be made public and televised.

We're not disagreeing on anything at this point, so I'd like to put this to a vote now, please, and get on with our witnesses.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

Mr. Chair, I have a comment.

[The Vice-Chair, NDP, Randall Garrison]

In the absence of a formal motion, I'm going to recognize Mr. Easter.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

My question is to the clerk of the committee.

We sometimes meet in this room, although not always. We often meet in other rooms. I'm just wondering where the direction came from to meet in this room, where cameras for television happen to be available. I'm just wondering how we got to this set-up, at this late time, to be in a room where television cameras are available.

Has a game been played here by members on the government side?

[The Clerk of the Committee, Mr. Leif-Erik Aune]

Thank you, sir.

When I came on as the committee clerk last week, I spoke with the chair about the rooms that were available for upcoming meetings. He asked me to book rooms in Centre Block whenever possible. As 237-C was available, we booked it at the request of the chair last week. It may have been already booked for this particular meeting, but it was a request that he made to me at the time. I just confirmed the availability, and we proceeded with that, sir.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

Okay. Thank you.

[The Vice-Chair, NDP, Randall Garrison]

Thank you very much, Mr. Clerk.

Mr. Norlock.

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

I have just one little intervention.

I can appreciate some of the things that Mr. Easter says, but sometimes you have to take the foil off around here. It's not always some kind of sneaky plan. As far as I know, although Mr. Easter has been here far longer than I, it is the tradition that sometimes the opposition asks for a certain meeting to be televised, and that happens. That has happened especially on this committee in the past.

If I remember correctly, we generally meet over in the other building. In the rooms we usually occupy, 268 and 3, they all have cameras available. Generally this committee has met where there is an ability to televise.

Let's just vote on this and put away the tinfoil.

[The Vice-Chair, NDP, Randall Garrison]

At this point, seeing no debate, I think we're ready. We have perhaps exhausted this question.

I'm advised by the clerk that the room is equipped and so, if the motion is carried, the meeting will be televised.

So at this point, all those in favour, please signify.

(Motion agreed to)

I believe it's unanimous.

At this point we will suspend for three minutes so the cameras may be arranged.

[The Vice-Chair (Mr. Randall Garrison), Conservative, David Sweet]

I call the committee back to order. I understand we are now televised and we will proceed with the order of the day, pursuant to the order of reference of Tuesday, December 10, 2013, Bill C-479, an act to amend the Corrections and Conditional Release Act (fairness for victims).

We'd like to welcome our first witness today, Mr. David Sweet, MP for Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Westdale.

Mr. Sweet will have 10 minutes for his opening statement.

Please proceed.

[David Sweet, Conservative, Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Westdale, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Colleagues, Madam Ombudsman, ladies and gentlemen, it's an honour to be here today before this committee to talk about the important amendments to the Corrections and Conditional Release Act that I proposed in Bill C-479.

First, I'd like to acknowledge the honourable parliamentary secretary, MP Roxanne James, and those honourable members of this committee who rose to speak to Bill C-479 during the second reading in the House of Commons. I sincerely appreciate your commitment to victims and the comments you made during debate, and I have taken them to heart.

Mr. Chair, let me also recognize the good work of our professionals in our correctional system. They deserve our gratitude, particularly those at the Parole Board of Canada, who work hard and make extraordinarily difficult decisions to keep our communities safe.

Speaking of professionals, I'd like to thank and acknowledge Sue O'Sullivan, the Federal Ombudsman for Victims of Crime, who will speak to the committee after me today. I am grateful for her advice and wisdom in crafting this bill. Her work in the police services as deputy chief and in the community working with victims has been a tremendous asset to her current role—an asset to all Canadians and to me in the development of this bill.

I'd also like to make special note of my former legislative assistant, Stephan Rose, who's here today. He took the day off his present job. He spent multiple hours helping me with this bill and deserves public commendation for his investment into helping victims in Canada.

Mr. Chairman, I'd like to start off today—just as I have at every opportunity in the House of Commons to speak to this act to bring fairness for victims of violent offenders—by talking about the reasons I brought this bill forward. I know you may have heard it before, so I'll spare you all the details. However, for the record, it's what focused my efforts and instilled in me the passion for this bill.

Over the years since my election in 2006, I had a number of people call, email, and come to see me face to face about the imbalance in our justice system as it pertains to the treatment and rights of offenders versus those of victims. This became a policy concern of mine, which began conversations with my colleagues and ministers on what could be done.

However, none of my previous conversations so focused my efforts as did an unforgettable experience in the summer of 2010. Constituents from Ancaster, Ontario, the community in which I live, invited me to attend a hearing of the Parole Board of Canada with them. The matter at hand was the case of Jon Rallo, an offender who is the brother-in-law of my constituents, and the murderer of her sister, her niece, and her nephew. This well-regarded couple known for their generosity in the community wanted their federal representative to see first-hand what they had to go through on an annual or biennial basis for far too long, to see the extent of the voice they had been given primarily through the victim impact statement in that meeting. They wanted their federal representative to see all the aspects, raw as they are, of a parole board hearing. I can tell you, Mr. Chairman, the anguish of my constituent reading her victim impact statement was something one could not imagine without being present to experience such an event.

Every time Mr. Rallo has reapplied for parole under the current process, my constituents have been there. I joined them again in 2011 and again last summer, in 2013, at the federal penal institution at Gravenhurst, Ontario, where the most recent parole board hearing for Mr. Rallo took place. The hearings are never easy. Each time my constituent tried very hard to be composed, inevitably, before uttering a word, she'd start weeping as the memories of a crime committed over 30 years before always came flooding back. It was a grizzly triple murder: her sister, her niece, and her nephew had been murdered by her sister's husband, Mr. Rallo, violently and viciously. After killing his wife, this violent criminal suffocated his two young children, a six-year-old boy and a five-year-old girl. To this day, his son's body has never been recovered.

At each Parole Board of Canada hearing, my constituent would ask the same question of Mr. Rallo. Why did you kill your family, and what did you do with your son? She has yet to get a response. Despite being convicted on evidence that was very substantive and clear, Mr. Rallo does not feel any remorse, nor has he admitted any culpability. Each time, he has sat stone-faced through the victim impact statement.

Mr. Chairman, despite the obvious pain of my constituent, her husband, and her parents, they feel an overwhelming duty as a family to attend each hearing. They must do so to honour the memory of their daughter, sister, grandchildren, niece, and nephew.

Mr. Chairman, I believe they're an appropriate representation of every family that deals with a similar situation here in Canada. I can attest today that, having been robbed of their loved ones, certainly all victims I have spoken to have shared similar trauma, pain, and feelings of helplessness, as well as a steadfast feeling of duty.

For me, Mr. Chairman, this underscores so resoundingly that our federal parole process—unwittingly, I believe—makes the revictimization of victims and their families an all too frequent occurrence. Determined to help strengthen the voice of victims and modify the parole process, I talked to victim's advocates, law enforcement officials, and legal experts in researching this bill. It was a common theme that the provisions in the Corrections and Conditional Release Act that may have made sense in the past—it was established in 1992—no longer affect Canadian society today, in particular in offering respect and dignity to victims.

In developing a well-researched and well-thought-out bill, I spoke numerous times to the Federal Ombudsman for Victims of Crime. When her report came out last June, entitled “Meeting the needs of victims of crime in Canada”, I took an extensive look at it. Her recommendations on the rights of victims to have good communication throughout the system, the use of technology for victim statements presented at parole board hearings, and ensuring that the parole process is more accommodating to victims' needs, are reflected in Bill C-479. I will defer to her expertise to make these parallels more clearly.

However, it wasn't her expertise alone that underpinned this bill. My office and I spent a lot of time speaking with legal experts, and we believe this bill has a sound legal and constitutional foundation. It has brought support to the modernization of nine provisions in the Corrections and Conditional Release Act.

This is reflected from a look at what other jurisdictions are doing as well. The Victims' Rights Act of New Zealand, instituted in 2002, has been a model for the world. Under the corresponding provisions of New Zealand's Parole Act 2002, rights of victims are also enshrined, much as is being proposed in Bill C-479. Similarly, the basis of the act is support and respect for victims.

In 2009, the New Zealand Ministry of Justice launched an extensive public consultation to further enhance its victim support within the justice system. Mr. Chair, that's why I was very happy that the parliamentary secretary and the minister did this just last summer.

I won't list every area of commonality. However, one of the areas they looked at is echoed in Bill C-479, which is the modernization that I proposed to reflect the use of technology, through video conference and links to oral statements delivered in regional offices via telecom. This is expressly addressed to ensure that victims have a strong voice in the process, but also to mitigate the revictimization of victims and their families. The victims of crime reform bill, introduced to the Parliament of New Zealand, includes this provision.

Mr. Chairman, the New Zealand victims of crime reform bill that was passed by the New Zealand Parliament in 2013 included improvements to their victim notification system, which are also reflective of provisions in Bill C-479 to Canadian victims' increased access to information about how offenders are progressing with their correctional plans and pertinent documents.

However, our Kiwi friends aren't the only ones looking at this issue. The report by the Office of the Federal Ombudsman for Victims of Crime looked at U.S. legislation at the federal and state level, the U.K. code of practice, and 2012 European directives on victims support and protection were also studied.

I raise these, not to suggest that we in Canada should be followers rather than an international leader on victims' rights, especially when it comes to victims of violent offenders, but because they illustrate that this is a debate taking place around the world in other commonwealth and allied countries. Our efforts here today are timely and appropriate.

Mr. Chairman, colleagues, it's imperative to understand that this bill is targeted at helping victims have a more clear voice within our justice system as well as giving the Parole Board of Canada more tools to deal with offenders. However, this is not regarding just any offenders. Please keep in mind that when we discuss this bill and the new latitude we're giving to the Parole Board of Canada that these are offenders who have caused grievous physical harm; maimed someone for life; or were attempting to murder, or did murder, victims or a victim. I'm talking primarily—not entirely exclusively, but primarily—about the likes of the Clifford Olsons, and his devastatingly painful victim count; the David Shearings, who killed an entire family; the David Dobsons, who savagely killed Darlene Prioriello; and the Munro brothers, who shot, held, and killed Constable Michael Sweet.

The parole board should have the capability to extend reviews in the kinds of cases where heinous crimes are committed and parole is either a faint option or a very distant one. Certainly, Mr. Chairman, after the Parole Board of Canada grants parole and the offender breaches parole or outright reoffends, they should have more discretion than they presently have now.

This is not just a matter of victim fairness, but of overall public safety as well.

Mr. Chairman, for me this is where it comes full circle. When we look at the facts and the previous experience of countless victims, we can look at the precedents and at what other countries are doing, and we can debate the language in the clauses of the bill, but ultimately when we're talking about victims of violent crime, we're talking about people. Victims are not a number, nor are they a burden to our system. The justice system is daunting enough, and victims should never feel they're just a cog in the process. It's very personal. It's very emotional.

I urge the committee, throughout the study of Bill C-479, to never lose sight of this point. Yes, let's study the bill. Yes, let's make sure it makes the modernizations to the Corrections and Conditional Release Act that are necessary.

Mr. Chairman and colleagues, I welcome any amendment that is well-intended and will strengthen the language and the principle of this bill, so yes, let's work together to strengthen it with amendments that are required, but let us never ever dishonour or diminish the experience of people most affected by the perpetrators of violent crime—the people who never asked to be in this unfortunate circumstance and who would give anything to turn the clock back. These are the victims and Bill C-479 is for them.

Merci beaucoup.

[The Vice-Chair, NDP, Randall Garrison]

Thank you very much, Mr. Sweet, and thank you for keeping quite closely to the time.

We'll now begin our first round of questions.

We'll turn to Ms. James for seven minutes.

[Roxanne James, Conservative, Scarborough Centre, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Sweet. I would like to thank you first of all for bringing this important legislation to committee and for standing up for the rights of victims. I congratulate you for getting your private member's bill to committee, as I know from experience how difficult that is. I have to commend you on the content of this bill.

In your speech, you talked about a particular offender, Jon Rallo. You mentioned that the crimes had taken place 30 years ago and that you had actually attended parole board hearings with the family members of the victims in 2010, 2011, and 2013.

That's three times in a very short period of time. What do you think this does to the victims and the victims' families?

[David Sweet, Conservative, Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Westdale, ON]

I would encourage all members, if they have not been to a parole board hearing, to attend a parole board hearing and experience it, because of the nature of it. You have the professionals from the parole board at the front of the room. In fact, I think the room is generally about one-quarter of the size of this one, so it's very intimate. Then you have the offender, who is facing the parole board officials, and then you have the family behind that.

The family has the right.... Like I said, you have to understand too that if this had happened to any of us—I don't know if anybody here has been victimized—you would certainly feel like you're the standard-bearer. You need to make sure their memory lasts on. They feel this compelling duty to be there, yet it's a feeling that's contrasted with this terrible thought that they're in the same room with the person who took away their loved one, or loved ones in the plural, particularly in Mr. Rallo's case.

You don't even need to participate in the hearing. You just need to be there to experience the pain and trauma. One of the things that a meeting brings home to you very clearly is that once someone is victimized to this degree, it changes their life forever. They're never the same person. They will feel this loss for the rest of their life.

[Roxanne James, Conservative, Scarborough Centre, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Sweet.

Leading up to a secondary question, the people who come into the parole board hearings, the families of the victims, must have an idea that the individual is not going to get a positive outcome at that parole board hearing, yet they show up time and time again.

In your opening remarks, you said, and I quote, “The parole board should have the capability to extend reviews in the kinds of cases”. You were referring to the most heinous, most violent, and most severe cases, and you went on to say that “parole is either a faint option or a very distant one.”

The Parole Board of Canada may realize that. The families who are coming there to provide their statements realize that. How is your bill going to put an end to this repetitiveness that's really I think unnecessary?

[David Sweet, Conservative, Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Westdale, ON]

Thanks for the question.

Maybe I should justify that statement up front. One of the things I witnessed at the Parole Board of Canada, being there over and over again, was a very high level of professionalism. I know that some people have publicly criticized the parole board, but these people are trained very well. Those on the review panel have access to tens of thousands, probably even hundreds of thousands, of case precedents. They know what to look for in regard to offenders when they're coming before the parole board in terms of what efforts they've made to rehabilitate, the kinds of ways they've communicated publicly in regard to those they've harmed, and so on. So they have a good idea, going forward, of the kinds of cases they're dealing with.

As for those who go into the parole board meeting, again, they have conflicted emotions as well. They're hoping against hope that the person stays there, depending on the feeling they have—i.e., if he has not taken the steps to rehabilitate, or if they're afraid for their own personal safety when the offender is released.

But they don't really know. They have no idea what the outcome will be at the parole board, or how the offender will testify. It really is like going into a very scary void for the family or the victims when they walk into the room and are presented with this very official procedure.

[Roxanne James, Conservative, Scarborough Centre, ON]

Thank you.

How much time do I have, Mr. Chair?

[The Vice-Chair, NDP, Randall Garrison]

You have a little less than two minutes.