Public Safety Committee on Jan. 25th, 2021

[Jennifer Oades]

We are responsible for all of our decisions. We are accountable for all of our decisions. This board of investigation was independent. I have never met the two co-chairs other than to have read their CVs. They were assisted by people in CSC and at the board, because any inquiry or investigation—for example, the Daubney report, “Taking Responsibility”—has to have people to help these independent chairs find the information they want and to explain how things work. So I beg to differ. It was an independent report.

The findings were such that the board members who made these two decisions, the March and September decisions, followed law and policy, and appropriately applied the risk assessment framework. I'm not sure what else you need to know. These aren't my findings. These are findings from independent people.

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

I appreciate that. You're saying just now, and the report says, that the appropriate process was followed by the Parole Board members. The training of the Parole Board members was adequate. No changes to policies or laws are required. So if the laws are okay, if the rules are okay and if they were followed by the board members, then there is only one variable left, and that is that the decision-makers themselves made a mistake.

It seems clear they did not have additional information that was lacking from the files before making a decision, but that certainly doesn't reassure Canadians that the Parole Board's decision will be any different moving forward.

This report says—

[Jennifer Oades]

They had all—

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

Let me finish, please. You can answer my question then.

It's noted in your report that there were areas in this case that had missing or not enough information to make appropriate, informed decisions, so was there anything preventing the Parole Board members who actually heard this case from seeking further information in order to make a better, more informed decision before releasing this offender?

[Jennifer Oades]

I don't know where—

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Unfortunately, Ms. Oades, Mr. Motz has left you about eight seconds to answer that question, so you'll have to work it in somewhere else.

[Jennifer Oades]

They had all the information they needed.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Okay, I am going on to Mr. Iacono, for five minutes, please.

[Pam Damoff, Liberal, Oakville North—Burlington, ON]

Apparently he got disconnected, Chair. Maybe you want to move on to Emmanuella.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Emmanuella, are you ready?

[Emmanuella Lambropoulos, Liberal, Saint-Laurent, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I want to thank the witnesses for their testimony today.

Before asking my questions, I would like to offer my condolences to the family and loved ones of Ms. Marylène Levesque.

Ms. Kelly, you said that it is extremely rare for such an event to occur, that is for an offender on day parole to commit a violent act like the one on January 22, 2020. However, even one case like that is one too many. I think everyone agrees on that.

I am very pleased that the decision to take steps to adopt a single community supervision model for federal offenders in Canada has been made, but, as a Quebecker, I am curious as to why the Quebec model in this regard differed from the model adopted in the rest of Canada up to that time.

Why did an event like that one have to happen before we decided to standardize this?

Why haven't all federal offenders been treated the same way?

[Anne Kelly]

Thank you for your question.

The Quebec model has been in place for an extremely long time. We are talking about more than 40 years. I'm in my 38th year at the Correctional Service of Canada, and since my arrival, direct supervision was done by some community residential centres in Quebec, that is, eight centres out of 48, and it worked. However, it is obvious that what happened revealed some things.

Maison Painchaud currently houses 14 offenders. There are approximately 150 others. This is a small number. As commissioner, I decided that a single model of community supervision for federal offenders was the best approach to standardizing practices and ensuring accountability. That is why we are taking the necessary steps. By March 31, 2021, Maison Painchaud will no longer supervise offenders. After that, we will engage our partners. Our goal is to make supervision the responsibility of the Correctional Service of Canada.

[Emmanuella Lambropoulos, Liberal, Saint-Laurent, QC]

I see.

Why do you think this event took place?

In response to a question from Ms. Michaud, Ms. Oades said that this offender had visited massage parlours on several occasions when it had not been recommended that he be given this right.

Why did this kind of thing happen? At what level was this mistake made?

[Anne Kelly]

First, as I have said several times, the community strategy was unacceptable and should never have been in place. It was inappropriate and I have been clear about this within the organization. That is why we have done a review of all community strategies nationally. There have been some gaps in supervision and our action plan includes concrete measures to address these. We want to ensure public safety and we want to ensure that such a tragic event never happens again.

Contact with third parties was certainly a factor. We need to corroborate the facts that the offender gives us. We're going to improve case conferencing so that parole officers and their supervisors discuss key elements when an offender is under supervision in the community. Risk always needs to be reassessed, and when further intervention is required, we do it, and if we need to change the way we manage risk, we make the change.

I think the changes we will make will improve community-based supervision.

[Emmanuella Lambropoulos, Liberal, Saint-Laurent, QC]

Thank you, Ms. Kelly.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Thank you, Madam Lambropoulos.

Before I ask Madam Michaud to begin her two and a half minutes, am I to assume that Ms. Stubbs is not going to be available to ask questions in this round?

[Shannon Stubbs, Conservative, Lakeland, AB]

I am still having some off-and-on issues with a warning that keeps warning me that I might be disconnected at any time.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Okay. We'll go to you unless you tell us otherwise.

[Shannon Stubbs, Conservative, Lakeland, AB]

Thanks.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Madam Michaud, you have two and a half minutes, please.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I am going to quote a few elements from the report that I think are important.

The Board of Investigation (BOI) found that there were many pre-incident indicators of disorganization in Gallese's emotional management around November 6, 2019, approximately 78 days before the incident under investigation.

[...]

The BOI noted that several of these pre-incident indicators were similar to those demonstrated by Gallese in the months leading up to his index offence—the murder of his then-spouse on October 21, 2004—and were directly related to his offence cycle.

[...]

The BOI believes that Gallese's history of domestic violence was a contributing risk factor in the January 22, 2020 incident and was known to his case management team.

The report makes several recommendations to the Correctional Service of Canada, but none to the Parole Board of Canada.

Ms. Oades, do you find that the facts demonstrate that the Parole Board of Canada was beyond reproach throughout this case?

[Jennifer Oades]

Thank you.

What probably the timelines in the redacted report don't indicate is that many of those precursor emotional dysregulations happened well after the September hearing. At the time of the September hearing, none of those were an issue. They didn't come to light because they weren't evident at that time. The offender was apparently, according to the hearing and the parole officer of the Maison Painchaud, just to be clear, a person who was with the offender at the parole hearing, was doing extremely well, had a new job, etc. All of those events that started to derail this offender though emotional dysregulation, disorientation, etc., happened well after that September hearing.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Thank you, Madam Michaud.

Mr. Harris, you have two and a half minutes.

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

Thank you, Chair.

Commissioner Kelly, I want to refer you to the references in the report. The executive summary, on page 6, says that the caseworkers at the CRF didn't receive the same training as CSC provides its parole officers, didn't benefit from the guidance or clinical supervision provided by parole officer supervisors, and that “despite the contract agreement between the two organizations, there was much confusion regarding the caseworkers' roles and responsibilities on the file”, both at CSC and at Maison Painchaud.

Does the CSC or do you take any responsibility for that failure?

[Anne Kelly]

In terms of the training, I believe what the report says is that, first of all, academic qualifications were met. In terms of the training, the CSC people had received the CSC training, and the clinical caseworker had received the training from Maison Painchaud.

Again, the way it works is that a clinical caseworker, at Maison Painchaud in this case, supervises the offender. However, CSC had a liaison officer as well, who worked with that caseworker, and what we call a parole officer responsible for supervising—