Evidence of meeting #14 for Public Safety and National Security in the 41st Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was chair.
A recording is available from Parliament.
NDP
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Daryl Kramp
Okay, if you wish, we will go to our analyst first and then we will go down to that.
If there is any contribution that our analyst could make to the discussion, please feel comfortable. If not, we will go to our witnesses.
Okay, we will defer to our witnesses on the question that Mr. Garrison has put forward.
Director, Corrections Policy, Department of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness
The only suggestion we could potentially offer would be to instead say, in French, “sécurité de la publique”. That would be roughly, in my estimation, the equivalent of the English. But again, I'm not a jurilinguist.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Daryl Kramp
Thank you very much for that suggestion.
On a point of order, we have Mr. Richards.
Conservative
Blake Richards Conservative Wild Rose, AB
My understanding is that when we are going through clause-by-clause examination, at the completion of the process there is usually a motion brought forward, as one of the standard motions, that authorizes the chair and the clerk to make those necessary adjustments to wording to ensure the grammatical changes required to deal with translational issues.
We could certainly just flag this for that point in time to make sure that it's dealt with properly.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Daryl Kramp
The chair has been advised that we can't do that, for the simple reason that this could, depending on the interpretation of it, be a substantive amendment. It must therefore be discussed now in order to deal with it, because it's not simply a translation issue but could be an actual interpretation issue, between “public safety” and “safety of the public”.
So the chair is still going to need to have some direction on where you wish to go.
Yes, Mr. Richards.
Conservative
Blake Richards Conservative Wild Rose, AB
Just to follow up on that, if we determine as a committee that we are in fact saying that the English version is the version we are agreeing to as a committee, would that not allow the translation issue to be addressed later? It wouldn't be substantive, if we're saying that the English version is the version we intend to live by.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Daryl Kramp
The chair agrees with you but needs some direction here. Are we talking about a simple translation issue, or are we talking about different interpretations of the meaning? Mr. Garrison has raised both points, and Madame Doré raised the point about translation.
Mr. Garrison based his subamendment on interpretation of the meaning. So we're both talking on the same subamendment, but the chair has to have a sense of direction.
Mr. Garrison, could we bring this to a close?
NDP
Randall Garrison NDP Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC
My subamendment as proposed is a substantive change.
NDP
Randall Garrison NDP Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC
If we don't wish to make a substantive change and we vote it down, I would agree that.... Whichever way we go, it becomes a translation problem to make the French match the English, since we're agreeing on the English version. We're not disputing that; we just want to make sure that at the end they match.
Conservative
Blake Richards Conservative Wild Rose, AB
Chair, let me add further that I think what's being suggested here is that we need to make a decision first on whether we're going to accept the subamendment being offered by Mr. Garrison. Then depending upon which version we choose, whether it's the subamendment or the original amendment proposed by Ms. James...once that is determined, then the translation could be done based on the motion that will be passed later to allow for it.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Daryl Kramp
The chair was just trying to get us to the point at which we could have a vote on the subamendment.
We're all ready for a vote on the subamendment.
(Subamendment negatived)
We will now go back to the amendment as proposed by Ms. James.
(Amendment agreed to [See Minutes of Proceedings])
Our next amendment is put forward by the government. It has reference number 6437855 and amends page 5 of the bill.
Ms. James.
Conservative
Roxanne James Conservative Scarborough Centre, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
We move to amend clause 6 by replacing lines 12 to 14 on page 5 with the text that is in front of you.
Basically it makes a couple of minor changes. The word “must” is being replaced with “shall”, and we're adding into the text “where practical”.
The reason for this is that the board does not necessarily know 14 days in advance where the offender is going to be released. The bill required that the information be disclosed, based on the 14-day mandatory notice period here. The government is amending it to ensure that wherever that information is not available, it obviously can't be disclosed.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Daryl Kramp
Thank you for the explanation.
(Amendment agreed to [See Minutes of Proceedings] )
(Clause 6 as amended agreed to)
(On clause 7)
Now we will go to clause 7.
We have an amendment proposed by Mr. Easter, reference number 6430531.
Mr. Easter, you have the floor.
Liberal
Wayne Easter Liberal Malpeque, PE
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
It is to proposed section 144.1. Basically it's to ensure that not only a transcript of the hearing is made available, but that any recording of the hearing be made available to those who are eligible to receive that documentation. It doesn't restrict it to just the transcript; it broadens it.
Conservative
NDP
Randall Garrison NDP Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I have a question that perhaps our witnesses can help us with.
I know that when a transcript is prepared, those sections that have information that might not be available to the public are withheld in the transcript. I have a question about how this works when we're dealing with a recording. If we end up making legislation indicating that a recording must be made available, what are the provisions for making sure that the recording doesn't contain that information?
Director, Corrections Policy, Department of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness
I don't want to speak for the parole board, but my guess would be that much as they would redact the sections out of a transcript, they would do the same vetting process for an audio recording, ensuring that the tape is manipulated in such a way that those sections would be edited out before it is finalized. It would be the same vetting process.
NDP
Randall Garrison NDP Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC
As a follow-up question, then—I know you're not the parole board, and we had hoped to have them here—the parole board doesn't at this point release recordings, so would they, as I guess, have to establish some kind of process for doing this?
Director, Corrections Policy, Department of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness
Yes.
NDP
Randall Garrison NDP Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC
It comes back to the problem of our not having the parole board here to talk about resources and those kinds of things.