Public Safety Committee on March 27th, 2014

[Krista Gray-Donald]

I think that Ms. Hancox touched a little bit on what happens, in that the victim goes from someone who has been allowed limited but fully informed participation in the process to the point of being completely shut out, left in the dark, made to feel as if their input doesn't matter, but also as if they don't get to know what's going on.

Not only do they not get to know the rationale behind the decision, but when you attend a Parole Board hearing, you're given information not only about what's going on in the prison, but you might also get information as to the offender's state of mind when the crime was committed and various other pieces of information on the crime. They are then denied that information.

I would have to say that all of the victims we work with articulate that they need information, especially in the case of homicide. They don't know what their loved one's last minute was like. They don't know why this happened and they're denied that. It's a complete denial. It's not where they missed a hearing but they can get the decision sheets, as would be the case of the Parole Board hearing. They get nothing after a warden-approved ETA, so they are completely in the dark. It minimizes their needs and it doesn't allow them to satisfy their need for information.

[The Chair, Conservative, Daryl Kramp]

Thank you very much, Mr. Maguire.

We will go to Mr. Easter, please.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

I thank all witnesses.

Ms. Hancox, I think you've said that even people who have been taken from us have a voice, and that's good. Certainly, you've been your husband's voice, and you're to be commended for that.

I will admit that in Ms. Gray-Donald's presentation, there is a possibility.... I think in her presentation she said that CSC, Correctional Services, tends to release somebody in order to make them look good. I think you kind of half mentioned that in your last statement, where people working closely in an institution get to know them, build a relationship, and kind of hope everything will work out. I will say there is that danger when it's not the Parole Board.

In his presentation I think Mr. Head tabled some new information from what we have been currently dealing with. I'll quote the paragraph, “I would like to inform this committee that recently, since February 2014, CSC promulgated an internal case management policy which requires CSC's victim services unit to inform registered victims that they can submit an up-to-date statement for consideration, intended for the decision-maker, outlining any concerns they may have with respect to release destinations and special conditions, thus strengthening victim consideration in the decision-making process.”

Giving that new information, is that helpful or is it not? Do we have to go as far as this bill is suggesting? What's your view on that?

[Kim Hancox]

I am aware of the changes. I've read the changes that have been made. I think that notification is certainly a step in the right direction. The issue about submitting statements for review is that you have five days to submit a statement, as I understand. That's not a lot of time. I know that the victim service officers are now encouraging registered victims to keep their statements up to date in the file.

The problem with that is when you're called upon to create and prepare a victim impact statement, it is a very, very difficult task. No one wants to sit down and write one of these statements if they don't have to. That has been my experience and similar to other victims to whom I've spoken.

The other issue with just continually volunteering your statements to the offender is that you're sharing your own personal private information with the offender. That offender may never go before a hearing or anything, but they now have all this insight into your life. In my particular case, I will only provide a statement when I have to provide a statement. I do it very begrudgingly because I don't like sharing my personal information with these people.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

I don't want to interrupt but really, in all honesty, I think we have to be brutally honest here, I think we have a problem.

Even if the committee wants to pass this bill, in the evidence that the correctional officer has tabled before us, he has said that his office estimates that by April 2012, CSC had authorized more than 8,600 individual ETA permits, involving 180 life sentence offenders within three years of parole eligibility. If you break that down, in the last two years that's somewhere around 4,000 a year.

We had the Parole Board before us the other day. They couldn't give us the numbers.

A private member's bill that requires the expenditure of money would have to have a royal prerogative and it therefore would have to be a government bill.

I think we could be into a problem here even if we support this. The promoter of the bill couldn't give us the cost. Even if we, with the best of desires, want to pass this bill, we could run into a problem when it's reported back to the House, that it does not have royal prerogative. That is my suspicion as to what is going to happen.

What more needs to be done on what CSC is doing if the bill doesn't pass? It can't satisfy your concerns—which is the wrong word—but how can it be helpful?

[Kim Hancox]

Again, I come back to what I pointed out before. I think CSC obviously has an important role to play and the Parole Board has an important role to play.

I do see, though, that the two are operating independently of the criteria that's required to release an offender back into the community, for whatever reason.

Clearly, in my case, there are two offenders and in both the outcome has been the same. When the Parole Board has felt that this is what their recommendation is, after a thorough independent review of every bit of information they have, the CSC's opinion is very different. To me, that's where you have two schools of thought operating independently of one another, and that's where the problem lies. They both need to be on the same page.

Granted, over the years there has been a lot of work that's happened to bring those two agencies together, but I think they still have a very fundamental difference of what is required of an offender before he or she is ready to be released, in whatever capacity, back into the community.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

Mr. Head, I find it astounding that if a warden is going to release somebody within that last three years, there doesn't absolutely have to be communication between the Parole Board and the head warden.

Is it all related to the court decision? Why isn't there more involvement at that level? If the Parole Board said no, you just have to question why, within a few months, the warden is releasing that individual.

[The Chair, Conservative, Daryl Kramp]

Very briefly, please.

[Don Head]

I think the short answer is the Parole Board's position is that if they have no authority any more, they don't want to be inundated with any additional information. That is the short answer.

[The Chair, Conservative, Daryl Kramp]

Fine, thank you very much, Mr. Head.

I thank all of our witnesses here today. Ms. Gray-Donald, Ms. Hancox, and Mr. Head, thank you very much. It's a highly challenging, difficult personal matter that you're dealing with and we're trying to come to grips with and provide solutions as best we can. Thank you very much for coming here today.

[Kim Hancox]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Daryl Kramp]

Our witnesses are dismissed.

We will suspend for four to five minutes while we welcome our next witnesses and arrange for teleconference facilities.

[The Chair, Conservative, Daryl Kramp]

Colleagues, we will resume the session.

We do not have hookup yet, but we expect to have hookup shortly by teleconference with Mr. Grabowsky from the Union of Canadian Correctional Officers. We will bring him in as we progress and as the hookup comes in, of course, but certainly we're not going to delay any further. We have the witnesses here before us.

In our second hour, we have Mr. McCormack, president of the Toronto Police Association.

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC]

Mr. Chair, on a point of order, we did have another witness scheduled for today. My understanding is that the Office of the Correctional Investigator made a request to appear on a separate panel and the request was denied. I'm asking the chair for an explanation of what happened.

Also, I just want to clarify for the record that since the Correctional Investigator's speaking notes were distributed, they will in fact be part of the evidence before the committee.

[The Chair, Conservative, Daryl Kramp]

The chair will give you a brief summation.

At the last meeting, we set out the order of witnesses and the witnesses that would be received, and it was duly passed at committee. The day before, yesterday, the chair was advised that one of the witnesses in this particular case insisted that they would appear only if they were alone and not in the company of another panellist or panellists, and as such, would have questions directed at them only.

The chair of course had no sense of direction that this was of course either passed in a motion and/or would be accepted by the committee, but I talked to the individuals at that particular point through the clerk and suggested that if I had unanimous consent to approve that request, they would be speaking only, alone, and subject only to 20 minutes only, only them, and that if there were a precedent for that, we would discuss it.

We checked with the clerk. The precedent was such that we've had.... Their argument was they were ombudsmen, of course, so therefore they felt they needed the independence, whereas in reality our minutes have shown that we've had a number of ombudsmen appear before the committee in the company of other witnesses at the particular times.

Knowing that I would need to have unanimous consent to do this, the chair asked for unanimous consent from the committee, from representatives of the various parties, to see if we had unanimous consent to proceed in that manner. Unanimous consent was not there to approve, and it was requested that they appear as had been ordered during the last meeting for our order of business. As such, they have declined to appear today, I understand, but of course they did present a brief. As you've suggested, this brief, of course, presented duly to this committee, is considered to be the full body of evidence in the committee and is accepted as such.

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Daryl Kramp]

Thank you very much.

With no further questions at this point, we will now get on.

Mr. McCormack, thank you very kindly for coming here again. You're becoming a face that we see here routinely on a number of issues. You're most welcome to appear before this committee with your depth of knowledge and certainly an understanding, and a practical understanding, of the realities that we face in this committee.

You have 10 minutes for an opening statement, sir.

[Mike McCormack, President, Toronto Police Association]

Thank you very much.

I notice that I'm sitting here alone. I hope it's not a Toronto thing. McCormack, party of one.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[Mike McCormack]

I appreciate the opportunity to get up here and have a discussion on this important legislation. As you mentioned, I've been here before. I have to say in my opening remarks that in the law enforcement community we are encouraged that the government is looking more towards what we feel are victims' rights and victims' roles in this type of legislation. I want to thank everybody for the opportunity to come up here. We feel that this is very important to maintain public confidence, and confidence from the law enforcement community.

Although my time is short, we heard from Ms. Hancox, and I'm going to reiterate some of the things she talked about, and why this is important to the law enforcement community, and important for public confidence. Again, being in a job that is one of the most regulated jobs in the country, law enforcement, with the most oversight, we know first-hand how important it is that not only the optics—

[The Chair, Conservative, Daryl Kramp]

The chair will just interrupt for one second, Mr. McCormack. We're just confirming that we have contact with our other witnesses.

Mr. Grabowsky, are you on the line?

[Kevin Grabowsky, President, Union of Canadian Correctional Officers]

Yes, sir.

[The Chair, Conservative, Daryl Kramp]

Fine, thank you very much. We're just going to put you on hold, sir. We are listening to another witness right now. When your time comes up, we'll certainly get back to you. We ask you to just stand by.

Thank you very much.

Go ahead, Mr. McCormack.

[Mike McCormack]

As I was saying, we know first-hand that it is important not only for the optics but also for the transparency and for procedural fairness and for the public and the people in law enforcement to have that transparency and confidence in what the legislation is trying to provide.

From a personal perspective, being a member of the Toronto Police Association, and knowing Bill Hancox back in 55 Division, everybody was aware that in 1998 he was stabbed to death by two women, Elaine Cece and Mary Barbara Ann Taylor.We all heard that Bill was only 32 years of age. Both women were convicted of second-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison. We heard, as I said earlier, from his wife Kim, and he left behind his two-year-old daughter, Sandra. Kim was also eight months pregnant with their son Quinn at the time of Bill's death.

Ms. Cece is eligible for parole on September 5, 2014, and Mary Taylor is eligible for parole on August 6, 2016. Elaine Cece's application for personal development for escorted temporary absence was rejected by the Parole Board of Canada on June 25, 2010, because she had a low level of insight into the murder she had committed, had unhealthy inmate relationships, had a poor response to programs, and had a lack of understanding of her own violent behaviour.

In our submission, the Parole Board has a statutory obligation to ensure that the public is safe from violent offenders. This is precisely the obligation the Parole Board met when it denied Elaine Cece the escorted temporary absence she requested.

However, the following year the warden of Fraser Valley Institution for Women, and this is an important fact, without any requirement to notify the victims of Ms. Cece's brutal and senseless murder or the public at large, granted her three separate ETAs into the community.

Why was the warden able to do this? He was able to do this because Elaine Cece was within her three-year parole eligibility period.

Again, in our submission, this loophole, and that's what we'll call it, allows the offender and the warden to bypass the authority and the jurisdiction of the Parole Board. In our submission, this is unacceptable.

What happened over the preceding year to justify a different result? In the preceding year, did Elaine magically gain a unique insight into the murder that she had been unable to achieve in the preceding decade? Did she have an epiphany, experience some cathartic event triggering an understanding of her violent behaviour? We don't believe so.

How can Canadian citizens have confidence in our corrections and parole system if a warden has unilateral authority to undermine the decisions of the Parole Board? The Parole Board of Canada has a very specific and critically important statutory responsibility. The Parliament of Canada has mandated the Parole Board of Canada giving it the responsibility of protecting the public from dangerous offenders. The Parole Board is a very specialized, quasi-judicial tribunal with unique experience, knowledge, and expertise.

This specialized knowledge allows the Parole Board to discharge the very statutory responsibilities given to it by Parliament. The warden of a federal penitentiary does not possess the same specialized knowledge, expertise, or statutory responsibility. It follows that a warden ought not to be allowed to undermine the authority and jurisdiction of the Parole Board with respect to the most dangerous offenders in our prisons, namely those convicted of first- and second-degree murder and sentenced to a life of imprisonment.

We are not talking about shoplifters or people who have committed minor offences. As I just stated, we are talking about murderers: people with life sentences, not people with fixed sentences.

This distinction is a very important one. We understand that people with fixed sentences are eventually going to be released back into the community. We fully support the need to rehabilitate offenders to the greatest extent possible and to manage the risk to public safety through a parole system that reintegrates the offender into the community through a structured and controlled release program. We understand the need for a decompression period through structured parole.

But murderers are in an entirely different category. We should add dangerous sexual predators to the list also, but today we are addressing the issue of people who committed murder and are sentenced to life.

The 8,000 members of the Toronto Police Association whom I represent fully support Bill C-483. Except for medical emergencies, the jurisdiction and authority to protect the public from offenders convicted of first-degree and second-degree murder must remain within the exclusive jurisdiction of the Parole Board of Canada. Only the Parole Board can decide issues of release, whether that is by an ETA, a UTA, or parole itself.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Daryl Kramp]

Thank you very much, Mr. McCormack.

Mr. Grabowsky, we'd be pleased if you would make a presentation. You have up to 10 minutes for your comments, sir.