Public Safety Committee on May 1st, 2019

[Ruby Sahota, Liberal, Brampton North, ON]

How would they be able to pick out...They would basically have to pick out all of those charges which could be for various different narcotics or different substances in schedule II and then go through all the court documents and police records. It would be quite extensive.

[Annamaria Enenajor]

Yes, that's correct. It would be very difficult for those prior to the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act, but schedule II of the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act is only cannabis.

[Ruby Sahota, Liberal, Brampton North, ON]

Is it only cannabis?

[Annamaria Enenajor]

It's cannabis, cannabinoid, cannabis derivatives, cannabidiol. It's the schedule of cannabis derivatives. There is a list of around 10, 11 or 12, and of those there may be only one that is presently not legal.

[Ruby Sahota, Liberal, Brampton North, ON]

So, that's what you meant by saying some people can still be helped. You're saying those that are coming after that change in the law are they the ones that we can automatically delete?

[Annamaria Enenajor]

Yes.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Thank you.

Mr. Motz, you have seven minutes.

[Glen Motz, Conservative, Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner, AB]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair, and thank you to both witnesses for being here today. I want to ask you both the same question.

Were either one of your organizations consulted in the drafting of this bill? I know your answer to my second question, were your objectives met in this bill? Obviously, they weren't. From the Police Association, you answered both. Were either of your groups consulted before the drafting of this bill?

[Tom Stamatakis]

Were we directly consulted? Not in an extensive way. We had some exchanges, but we didn't have a specific consultation with respect to this bill.

[Annamaria Enenajor]

I would say the same thing. We had an open line of communication with Mr. Goodale's office to the extent that we would send him information and ideas. His office would acknowledge the receipt, but we weren't consulted about the actual substance of the bill. The first time we saw it was when it was released to the public.

[Glen Motz, Conservative, Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner, AB]

Officials briefed us when they were here on Monday. There are about 250,000 individuals, according to the records that they relied upon, who might be eligible for this process. Do those figures align with what you have heard or believe to be a true and accurate number of Canadians who have a minor possession of marijuana as a criminal record?

[Annamaria Enenajor]

My understanding is that it is half that number that reflects people who have a previous cannabis conviction record or a previous criminal record for simple cannabis possession. You said something that might be the reason for that. You said there are about 250,000 people who would eligible. The number of people who are eligible for pardons, under this piece of legislation, is different from the number of people who have previous cannabis conviction records.

The eligibility pares down the number of people and it may be reasonable to suspect that one of the requirements for eligibility is that individuals have to have only simple cannabis possession records. You can imagine that a vast number of people who have simple cannabis possession also have another offence on their record, be it an administrative offence, a fine or another drug-related offence. That would automatically disqualify them. I can see that the number of people who might be able to benefit from this would be substantially less than the number of people who actually have simple cannabis possession on their records.

[Glen Motz, Conservative, Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner, AB]

Any comments from the Canadian Police Association, sir?

[Tom Stamatakis]

I couldn't comment specifically on the number, but that doesn't surprise me that the number would be relatively low. As I said in my remarks, in my experience police organizations have de-prioritized targeting people for simple possession, particularly cannabis, for quite some time.

[Glen Motz, Conservative, Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner, AB]

One of the other things the officials told us on Monday was that based on the 250,000, they anticipate there will be potentially up to only 10,000 individuals who would take advantage of this record suspension opportunity.

Are you hearing anything different on either part? Is that something you can speak to?

[Tom Stamatakis]

Anecdotally, it's not unusual in my experience that people don't pursue getting a pardon or having a record expunged. It's a step that people have to take, so it's not uncommon for me to come across people in my work who could apply for a pardon, or an expungement of some other record, but don't for whatever reason.

[Annamaria Enenajor]

I think that's correct.

It doesn't surprise me that the number is so low. I'm surprised because I hope it would have benefited more people, which is one of the reasons we are asking for it to be automatic. If it's just the push of a button, you don't have to go through the process.

There is a difficulty in getting people to take advantage of a scheme that's developed where there's a historical documentation provision requirement. It's quite difficult to get these documents. You have to physically go to the court; they may not have them there; they have to order them from storage and that's only one of maybe two, three, four or five documents that you have to obtain.

The process in itself could be a deterrent simply because it is too cumbersome and difficult to do. There is also the additional cost that may weed out people as well and make them think it's not worth it.

[Glen Motz, Conservative, Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner, AB]

We talked about that on Monday. There are the fingerprinting costs and the application for a record from the local police jurisdiction where that offence was committed and potentially other costs associated with that as well. It really doesn't make this a cost-neutral venture.

You mentioned, and it was talked about the last time briefly as well, the challenge of obtaining past records. We know in policing that sometimes these offences occurred in jurisdictions where the record-keeping was not as we would be accustomed to today, or in larger municipalities or organizations, and it's a problem.

Do you have solutions on how we might address that? We may not find them because they're in a box in the basement somewhere. They're not modernized or digitized, so how do we go about this?

[Annamaria Enenajor]

I agree it's very challenging, but that challenge can be turned on its head, I think, and that's what I was suggesting in my earlier remarks.

We don't have to focus on all the records. Why don't we focus on the ones that matter, the ones that impede people from getting jobs, volunteering or crossing the border? Nobody is going into the basement of a courthouse and using those documents to prevent someone from getting a job. The CPIC database is the impediment.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Mr. Motz, I'm going to have to owe you 11 seconds for the next round.

Mr. Dubé, you have seven minutes, please.

[Matthew Dubé, NDP, Beloeil—Chambly, QC]

Thank you very much.

First of all, I want to thank you both for being here.

I want to continue on this idea about CPIC that you mentioned in your testimony, and correct me if I'm not understanding this correctly. In other words, any time a potential landlord, employer or whoever is asking any question that requires some kind of background check, their verification would occur through CPIC, is that correct?

[Annamaria Enenajor]

That's my understanding of how it happens.

[Matthew Dubé, NDP, Beloeil—Chambly, QC]

Okay.

I just want to back up a little to the question about historical injustice, because this seems to have been the grounds on which the government is distinguishing between the injustices committed on the members of the LGBTQ community through Bill C-66, the individuals who would be affected by this legislation, and who have been affected by criminal records for simple possession.

The numbers you've cited in your brief, that I've cited and that many have cited about the disproportionate impact, are essentially government numbers, if I can phrase it that way. Is that correct?

[Annamaria Enenajor]

They are numbers that have been provided through either freedom of information requests and that have been processed by academics or Statistics Canada.

[Matthew Dubé, NDP, Beloeil—Chambly, QC]

So in other words, the government would be aware of that information when drafting this type of legislation.