Public Safety Committee on Jan. 25th, 2021

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

We have quorum.

Colleagues, it's good to see you. Welcome back to the committee. Let's hope that 2021 is a big improvement over 2020.

Before I go through all the warnings about physical distancing, wearing a mask and all the rest of that stuff, I believe we are entirely virtual so I don't think we need to go into that.

To carry on the study that we commenced last year, we are welcoming to our 13th meeting two witnesses who are very familiar to this committee. I will call upon Commissioner Kelly or Ms. Oades to speak for seven minutes each, in whatever order they see fit. The Order Paper has Madam Kelly first and Ms. Oades second. They can introduce whoever is with them.

With that, Commissioner Kelly, you have seven minutes, please.

[Anne Kelly, Commissioner, Correctional Service of Canada]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'm joined today by Alain Tousignant, senior deputy commissioner.

I'd like to begin by extending, once again, my heartfelt condolences to the family, friends and communities affected by this terrible tragedy. No one wants to see this type of tragedy occur. I'm deeply saddened that it happened.

Public safety is our priority. It must be at the core of everything that we do and it must guide every decision that we make. We take this responsibility very seriously when it comes to supervising approximately 9,400 federal offenders in communities across the country, including 2,000 offenders in Quebec.

As I told the committee last year—I don't want to undermine in any way the seriousness of this tragic incident— it's extremely rare that an offender on day parole commits a violence offence of this nature. However, when it does happen, getting to the bottom of what happened is our top priority, as is the case here.

I would like to thank the board of investigation for contributing their expertise, objectivity and hard work to this process, especially during this public health pandemic. We have closely examined all of the board's findings and accept their five recommendations. We have developed an action plan to implement them in their entirety.

As I committed at my last appearance on this issue, we have provided this committee and the public with the board of investigation report, along with a summary of the findings as well as a management action plan detailing our concrete actions.

I first want to say that the community supervision strategy in this case was completely inappropriate. I want to be clear. The Correctional Service of Canada doesn't condone offenders seeking sexual services. In my 37 years with the service, I can firmly attest to the fact that this isn't something that we, as an organization, endorse in how we manage offenders. I've made this clear throughout my organization.

Immediately following the tragic incident, I ordered a nation-wide review of all community supervision strategies to ensure that they're sound, appropriate and consistent with the policies and that they serve to protect public safety.

In terms of community supervision, Quebec has had a direct supervision model for over 40 years, through which, under contract, community partners play an important role in the successful rehabilitation of offenders. They provide accommodation and support to offenders, while a small number of them, including Maison Painchaud, also directly supervise approximately 155 offenders on conditional release in the community.

We are taking steps to move to a single community supervision model for federal offenders in Canada. By March 31, 2021, the Maison Painchaud community residential facility will no longer supervise federal offenders. Although offenders will continue to be housed at the facility, CSC will take over all aspects of supervision for federal offenders in the community.

We will also review our other community residential facility contracts in Quebec, with a goal of returning all direct supervision responsibilities for federal offenders to CSC. As with Maison Painchaud, these community residential facilities will continue to house offenders.

Building safer communities is a complex process, and CSC cannot and does not work in isolation. While direct supervision responsibilities for federal offenders in Quebec will be returned to CSC, as is the case in the rest of the country, our community partners will continue to provide the services and support to offenders and their families that are a vital part of an offender's safe reintegration.

Our other key actions include strengthening our information collection procedures and policies. The Correctional Service of Canada is revising its policy to clearly specify the types of documents required for offenders with a history of serious offences. We're also putting in place a formal monitoring mechanism to check at regular intervals whether the requested documents have been obtained and to ensure a follow-up, if required.

In addition, the service's community supervision policy is being reviewed. A template is being developed to guide the re-assessment of an offender's risk. The tool will list specific elements, including collateral contacts, that must be discussed during case conferences involving parole officers and their supervisors.

The service will also be implementing new training on intimate partner violence. This training will complement existing training on spousal assault risk assessment and will be required for all parole officers and their supervisors to help them assess and manage the offenders' risk.

I know this case has had a profound impact on our employees, especially those in Quebec. These situations are extremely rare, in large part because of the work our employees and our community partners do, day in, day out, to supervise offenders in the community. That being said, something went tragically wrong in this case, and we owe it to Canadians to follow due process and properly examine the circumstances specific to the employees directly involved in the supervision and oversight of this case. The disciplinary process will help determine if any additional accountability measures are required.

As commissioner of the Correctional Service of Canada, I am resolute in my commitment to working closely with our employees, community partners and unions to implement all of the recommendations as presented to us. I believe doing so will lead to important changes in how we supervise offenders and deliver on our mandate to keep our communities safe.

In closing, I would once again like to express my sympathies to the family and friends of Marylène Lévesque.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Thank you, Commissioner Kelly.

Ms. Oades, you have seven minutes. Go ahead, please.

[Jennifer Oades, Chairperson, Parole Board of Canada]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and members of the committee. I'm pleased to appear before you today. I'm joined by Sylvie Blanchet, our executive vice-chairperson.

I'd like to start by extending my deepest sympathies to the family and friends of Marylène Lévesque. I recognize how devastating this incident has been for them. My heart goes out to every one of them. What happened in Quebec City on January 22, 2020, is an absolute tragedy, and something that should never happen. For those of us who have devoted our professional careers to the field of parole, this is an outcome that we never wanted to see.

However, when an incident like this does happen, we take it very seriously.

The purpose of conditional release as per the law is to contribute to the maintenance of a just, peaceful and safe society by means of a decision on the timing and conditions of release that will best facilitate the rehabilitation of offenders and their reintegration into the community as law-abiding citizens.

The board is an independent decision-making body. We conduct approximately 16,000 reviews each year, which translates into about 23,000 decisions. In accordance with the law, board members may grant parole to an offender if, in their opinion, the offender will not, by reoffending, present an undue risk to society before the end of their sentence and—that's “and”, not “or”—the release of the offender will contribute to the protection of society by facilitating the offender's return to the community as a law-abiding citizen.

The law and Parole Board decisions are based on research that clearly shows that the gradual, managed and supervised release of offenders provides the best protection of society. The board's risk assessment framework is evidence-based and has been adopted in a number of other jurisdictions. In their decision-making, board members consider all relevant information from a wide range of sources from the police, victims, the courts, crown attorneys, mental health professionals, correctional authorities and private agencies. All of that information is used in assessing an offender's risk of reoffending and whether that risk can be safety managed in the community. Board members also refer to actuarial assessments and risk assessment tools in determining an offender's risk of reoffending. In all cases, the protection of the public is the paramount consideration.

Over the last three decades there has been continuous improvement in the public safety results that the board has achieved, reflecting the research that has continued to progress on risk assessment and the management of risk. In 1990 the success rate of offenders released by the board who had completed their sentence hovered around 70%. Today it's over 98%. Additionally, violent reoffending by offenders whom the board releases is extremely rare in that 99.9% of all offenders on day parole have not reoffended violently.

As much as we strive for excellence in our decision-making, unfortunately, predicting human behaviour is not, and likely never will be, an exact science. We recognize that when a serious incident occurs, we must seek answers and examine what happened so that we may identify necessary actions to prevent such incidents from reoccurring.

That is why, on February 3 of last year, the Parole Board and the Correctional Service of Canada convened a national joint board of investigation. It was chaired by two community members independent of the CSC and the Parole Board of Canada, both of whom are distinguished criminologists. The purpose of this investigation was to analyze the various aspects of the offender's release and supervision in the community and to make recommendations to prevent the recurrence of similar incidents.

As Commissioner Kelly has already outlined, the board of investigation made five recommendations to the Correctional Service of Canada. The board of investigation had no recommendations for the Parole Board of Canada; however, I would like to speak to some of their findings.

They include the following: that the board members who made these decisions had the level of knowledge necessary to perform their tasks and met all of the board's training requirements; that our training plan for new board members is well structured and complete; that the board members correctly applied the law and clearly set out the reasons for the additional conditions they imposed in keeping with board policy; that the board members fully applied the risk assessment framework in accordance with policy in both the March and September decisions; that the board had at its disposal all the relevant and available information for sound decision-making; that board members were in compliance with the law and policy related to the decision-making; and that the September 2019 written decision did not fully reflect what occurred at the hearing, although this discrepancy was not identified as a factor in Ms. Levesque's death.

Importantly, the report acknowledges that the board members in this case explicitly prohibited the offender from visiting massage parlours for sexual purposes. While there are no recommendations for the board, as part of our ongoing commitment to continuous improvement and quality decision-making, the board has initiated refresher training sessions on decision writing.

In closing, I want to once again extend my sympathies to the family and friends of Marylène Levesque. I would like to say to them, to members of this committee and to the Canadian public that we take these incidents very seriously and that we are committed to the highest quality decision-making.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Thank you, Ms. Oades.

Colleagues, I'm proposing that we just merge the two hours and not separate them as we would normally do, that we have at least three rounds, and that we reserve some time at the end to discuss, presumably in camera, where we go from here.

With that, in the first round of six minutes each, we have Monsieur Paul-Hus, Mr. Lightbound, Madam Michaud and Mr. Harris.

Monsieur Paul-Hus, welcome back to the committee.

[Pierre Paul-Hus, Conservative, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

My first question is for you, Ms. Oades. It concerns the procedures. You touched on this issue in your presentation.

I want to know whether the Parole Board followed the rules in place. For example, the investigation report doesn't propose that any recommendations be made to the Parole Board. Yet two of your board members, Janie Fortin and Joseph Lainé, had the authority to suspend Mr. Gallese's day parole and to request a re-assessment. They chose to keep an offender on day parole even though they were informed that he had committed at least three criminal acts against vulnerable women clients.

Isn't this a breach of the policy manual?

[Jennifer Oades]

Thank you for that question.

I would like to say that the board did follow the rules, and the board of investigation found that they followed the rules. In their decision-making, they take all information into consideration, not just one incident, not just one particular...whether it be an actuarial assessment score. They take everything they have that's relevant, that's available, and they make their decisions that way. That's how we make our decisions.

[Pierre Paul-Hus, Conservative, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

My question is simple. You spoke in glowing terms about your procedures and the fact that everyone followed them. However, it has always been clear that, if Janie Fortin and Joseph Lainé had immediately suspended Eustachio Gallese's parole, Marylène Lévesque would still be alive today.

Did they have the authority to immediately suspend his parole?

[Jennifer Oades]

Yes, and they did discuss that at the hearing itself. The parole officer and Mr. Gallese were advised that his parole could be revoked, actually, at that hearing, but I would say that it's pure speculation, because all of the incidents that led up—

[Pierre Paul-Hus, Conservative, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

Pardon me, Ms. Oades, but I don't see any speculation. These are facts. This was part of their job.

Another factor wasn't identified, namely, the psychological assessment. Mr. Gallese's psychological assessment dated back to June 2017 during his re-assessment in fall 2019, over two years later.

Is this another failure on the part of the board members, who didn't request a more up-to-date assessment?

[Jennifer Oades]

I don't think that they would have been required to ask for an updated psychological assessment given the information that was provided at the time. All of the incidents, all of what happened after the parole hearing is when.... As the board of investigation has found, many of the indicators in terms of emotional dysregulation, etc., happened well after that September parole hearing.

[Pierre Paul-Hus, Conservative, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

A report released last week puts all the blame on Ms. Kelly's team. I must remind you that your board members were appointed on a political basis. We mustn't forget this. Even though the parliamentary secretary doesn't want to hear about it, these are the facts. The purpose of the motion passed in the House is to shed light on the circumstances and the purging of board members in 2017, which led to new appointments. Our point is that the board members in place lacked the necessary expertise and experience. The fact that they failed to immediately suspend Mr. Gallese's parole and failed to notice that the reports weren't up to date are two examples that demonstrate this.

Also, page 110 of the report talks about non-compliance. It refers to a significant disparity between the decision shared verbally with the offender at the hearing and the written decision with regard to the permissions granted to Mr. Gallese by the case management team.

The Parole Board's legal mandate requires transparency in its work.

Isn't there a lack of transparency here?

[Jennifer Oades]

Absolutely, there is no lack of transparency. We have a decision registry that is open to all Canadians if they want to access any written decisions.

What the board investigation found was that there was disparity between what happened in the hearing and the accuracy of how that was portrayed in the written decision. It lacked some of the.... It should have included more or it should have reflected that more accurately, but it had nothing to do with the events that followed. They did find that.

That was a board of investigation finding. That's not my finding. The board of investigation found that they applied the risk assessment framework correctly, that they complied with the law and that they complied with all other policies, except for accurately reflecting in the written decision what was clearly evident in the hearing itself.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Thank you, Mr. Paul-Hus.

Mr. Lightbound, you have six minutes, please.

[Joël Lightbound, Liberal, Louis-Hébert, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I want to thank Commissioner Kelly and Chairperson Oades for joining us today.

First, I want to express my sympathies—

[Shannon Stubbs, Conservative, Lakeland, AB]

I have a point of order, Mr. Chair.

Before our colleague proceeds, since he is the parliamentary secretary to the public safety minister, I just want to clarify whether or not he has had any role with the department or the agencies on this report. I know, rightly or wrongly, there have been questions raised about the independence of the report, given that it has been undertaken by the Parole Board and Correctional Service Canada themselves. I think real independence as well as the perception of independence is crucial to our work here on this committee. It is crucial to the victims' families, to Canadians at large and, of course, to everybody involved in this system in order to have confidence in the process.

I just wonder if there is any conflict of interest here, real or perceived, and whether he wants to take that into consideration before he proceeds with questions—or perhaps he could clarify.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

I don't know whether you are asking me for a ruling on this, but if it were up to me, the ruling would be that the member sits here as a member of the committee but also as a parliamentary secretary. His position is known to everyone. If there are some who perceive that to be a conflict of interest, so be it. However, it's not as if it were anything other than a public position as both parliamentary secretary and member of Parliament. I think it is up to members to declare their own conflicts of interest. Since the member hasn't declared any conflict of interest, and I'll give the member an opportunity to speak for himself, on the face of it, I don't see that as a valid objection to a member asking questions.

Mr. Lightbound, do you wish to respond to Ms. Stubbs? If not, we can continue.

[Joël Lightbound, Liberal, Louis-Hébert, QC]

I want to reassure my colleague that I had no direct or indirect involvement in the work of the board of investigation, which was co-chaired by two independent criminologists from both the Correctional Service and the Parole Board. However, I read the report, and I hope that all committee members did so as well.

As the chair clearly stated, my role as parliamentary secretary is known to everyone. However, I had no involvement in the development of the report. Moreover, the two external co-chairs were always free to speak out publicly if they had any concerns or questions over the course of their study and investigation.

First, I want to echo what the commissioner and the chairperson said. We must think of the victim's family and friends. This focus must guide our committee's proceedings today, beyond partisan considerations. I find it unfortunate that some politicians are trying to exploit a tragedy of this nature for political purposes. Our committee must shed light on what happened in January 2020 to Marylène Lévesque. The system clearly failed, and it mustn't happen again.

My questions are mainly for Commissioner Kelly.

The report refers to some confusion regarding the roles and responsibilities of the clinical workers at Maison Painchaud and the parole officers.

Can you explain how there could have been confusion regarding the roles and responsibilities of these two groups? As you said, this model has been used in Quebec for 40 years.

Clinical workers provided direct supervision. Why was there confusion regarding roles? The board of investigation recommended that the model no longer be used and that supervision activities be centralized within the Correctional Service. How will this practice prevent this type of confusion in the future?

[Anne Kelly]

Thank you for your question.

Clinical workers in community residential facilities generally perform the same duties and have the same responsibilities as parole officers. However, the Correctional Service retains the authority and responsibility to make final decisions. The community residential facility's clinical worker was involved, but a Correctional Service liaison officer and a parole officer also handled the case. These officers are still responsible for quality control. Clearly, there were shortcomings in this area.

While we wait to take further steps to address the situation, we've clarified the responsibilities and duties assigned to clinical workers and Correctional Service of Canada officers. Parole officer positions have been added in the area offices to ensure better quality control and increased oversight of community strategies. I've also instructed area directors to review a certain number of community strategies each month to ensure that the strategies are sound.

Of course, by March 31, 2021, Maison Painchaud will no longer be involved in supervision. We'll then review the contracts of the seven other community residential facilities to ensure that the Correctional Service is responsible for supervising offenders in the community. That way, there will be only one community supervision model across the country.

As I said, this community supervision model has been in place in Quebec for a long time. However, the tragic incident brought some things to light. A very small number of federal offenders, a total of 155, are being supervised by community residential facilities.

[Joël Lightbound, Liberal, Louis-Hébert, QC]

Thank you.

Mr. Chair, how much time do I have left?

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

On the clock you have about a minute, but you got distracted for about half a minute, so you have a minute and a half.

[Joël Lightbound, Liberal, Louis-Hébert, QC]

I have one last quick question for you, Commissioner Kelly.

The report also refers to major shortcomings with respect to the corroboration of information with collateral contacts. How were these shortcomings key or decisive in this case? Based on the recommendations, how do you plan to ensure that the information that an offender provides to the Correctional Service is shared with an employer or family member? I want to hear your thoughts on this matter.

[Anne Kelly]

Thank you for your question.

I've worked as a probation officer and as a parole officer. Clearly, it's absolutely critical to corroborate what the offender says. There were some major shortcomings in this case.

Here's what we mean by collateral contacts. If an offender has a job, we must contact the employer. If the offender is going to visit their family, we must contact the family to corroborate the information. If the offender is in a program, we must follow-up with a psychologist. This is critical. In this case, there were certainly some shortcomings.

We'll develop a template, which will be added to our policy on community supervision, in order to list the specific elements that must be discussed, including the—

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Unfortunately, we're going to have to leave it there.

Madam Michaud, you have six minutes.

[Kristina Michaud, Bloc, Avignon—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

My thoughts also go out to Ms. Lévesque's family and loved ones.

We were anxiously awaiting this report. The report is extensive and it contains many elements. However, some questions remain unanswered.

I want to address the three-stage process. First, the Correctional Service of Canada assesses an offender's risk of reoffending. The parole officer then makes a recommendation to the Parole Board of Canada. The board member ultimately makes a decision on the release of the offender. The board member is really the one who could have suspended the day parole.

As you said, Ms. Kelly, we understand that there may have been shortcomings in the role played by the clinical workers at Maison Painchaud. We don't want to accuse anyone. We just want to make sure that this won't happen again. We want to know at what stage the error occurred.

Were mistakes made at all three stages? First, should the Correctional Service of Canada have assessed the risk of reoffending differently? As the report says, it was known that the risk was high. Second, should a different recommendation have been made? Third, who made the ultimate decision to allow the offender to visit massage parlours?

At what stages did an error occur? How can we ensure that this won't happen again?