Public Safety Committee on March 4th, 2014

[The Chair, Conservative, Daryl Kramp]

I'll ask our committee to pay a fair bit of attention to our witnesses again. We're going to have a little bit of a run-by on this.

There is a bit of confusion here. We have already passed clause 5, and if clause 5 is deemed to be repeated, we would have to have unanimous consent to remove clause 5, if its matter is already basically enacted in another clause.

I'm not sure whether this is the explanation our witnesses are trying to bring to us, but....

There is plenty of room for questions, but let's go to our witnesses once more for an explanation.

Take your time through it, and we'll pay attention.

[Daryl Churney]

Sure.

Clause 7, in the bill as it was introduced, makes an amendment to CCRA—proposed section 144.1—to introduce the concept of providing a transcript to the victim when he or she requests it.

In proposing the amendment that was made to clause 5, the government did a couple of things. One was to amend the wording of it to provide some more parameters around the information that can be released, but it also moved this provision out of section 144 and put it into section 140 of the act.

The reason the government did that is that section 144 of the CCRA deals with the parole board's obligation to maintain a decision registry from which people can make applications to get copies of the PBC decisions. The rationale for moving it into section 140 is that one part of section 140 deals with victim participation in parole hearings. The thinking was that if we're going to provide victims with the transcripts, they should more or less follow the same kind of reasoning that is outlined in section 140 concerning the ways in which victims can participate in parole hearings, so that you're dealing with the same set of rules, as it were.

That was the rationale for moving it up into section 140 out of section 144.

[The Chair, Conservative, Daryl Kramp]

Okay, that's fine.

Do you have a copy of the amendments before you to clauses 5 and 7, because you're using “140” and “144”. I'm wondering whether for clarity we need some association between the amendments and the bill.

Yes, Mrs. James.

[Roxanne James, Conservative, Scarborough Centre, ON]

Thank you.

I'd like to thank you for bringing this to the committee's attention. I see exactly where, as you're said, it is included in the motion that we put forward, which amended clause 5, where we've expanded on the definition and the textual information supporting it.

To clarify, are you suggesting or letting us know that we should be actually removing proposed section 144.1 as another, further amendment?

[Daryl Churney]

Yes, I am.

[Roxanne James, Conservative, Scarborough Centre, ON]

Okay.

You mean as it's shown here in the copy that we have.

[Daryl Churney]

That's right, as it's shown on page 5 of the bill.

[Roxanne James, Conservative, Scarborough Centre, ON]

By removing it from this particular area, it has no impact.... I realize that it doesn't match the amendment that we added, which has more text behind it, but I want to clarify that removing proposed section 144.1 is not going to have an impact on anything else that follows after.

[Daryl Churney]

No.

[Roxanne James, Conservative, Scarborough Centre, ON]

Okay.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Daryl Kramp]

Mr. Easter.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

There is a slight difference in section 144.1 as compared with the government amendment that we carried under clause 5. Both certainly say “the Board free of charge to the victim, a member of the victim’s family”. But proposed section 144.1 also includes “or the offender”, and I don't believe “or the offender” is in the government amendment that we've carried.

Is it?

[Roxanne James, Conservative, Scarborough Centre, ON]

It's amendment number 4, not 5.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

Oh, okay.

No, amendment 4 is the one I'm looking at, Roxanne.

Is it in 5?

[Roxanne James, Conservative, Scarborough Centre, ON]

No. It's talking about the amendment that we made to clause 5, but it's our government amendment number 4.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

Yes, but what I'm saying, and maybe the witnesses can tell me if I'm right or wrong....

It is there? Okay; “provide a copy to” is in there. I didn't see that.

Thanks.

[The Chair, Conservative, Daryl Kramp]

The clarification is there. We've heard from our witnesses, and we need unanimous consent to go back and make the necessary changes.

Do we have that consent?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Chair, Conservative, Daryl Kramp]

(On clause 7)

Are the clerk and analyst comfortable with that?

[A voice]

Perhaps you can call that question again.

[The Chair, Conservative, Daryl Kramp]

Okay.

Shall clause 7 now carry?

(Clause 7 negatived)

Thank you.

Colleagues, we're very close to completion.

Yes, Mr. Easter.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

I have a point of order, Mr. Chair, that I want to make.

I expressed my concern earlier in the meeting at the haste we've proceeded with here. We didn't have time to go through the transcripts and prepare amendments based on what witnesses have said.

I had an extensive conversation on the weekend with Sue O'Sullivan, who is the Federal Ombudsman for Victims of Crime. I asked her to provide a summary of her recommendations if we had the time to include them in the bill. If we were to look at her recommendations and get drafters to draft them as amendments...but I don't expect that this will happen. It would take unanimous consent.

At the very least, though, what I'd like to do is this. She did put some work in this, and provided me with seven recommendations that certainly should at least be considered in a victims rights bill that we may get from the government at some point in time.

I'd just like to circulate these to the committee for future consideration. I expect we're too late on this bill at this point in time, but I'd certainly like to circulate them. They're in both official languages.

I'll give them to the clerk, if that's possible.

[The Chair, Conservative, Daryl Kramp]

You're certainly free to circulate whatever you wish to the committee, but first of all, of course, we'll close off this bill. Obviously your thoughts will not be relevant to the passage of this bill at this time, although certainly, given the source of your information, the committee can evaluate the recommendations.

Shall the short title carry?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Chair, Conservative, Daryl Kramp]

Shall the title carry?