Evidence of meeting #23 for Public Safety and National Security in the 43rd Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was case.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Pierre Paul-Hus Conservative Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC
Thank you.
We also talked about the board members. You suggested that board members did not have enough experience. We learned that, in 2017, a purge had taken place, which the motion in question also refers to. Board members in Quebec were dismissed from their duties, and new board members were then appointed.
You have been tracking cases for years now. At that time, did you notice a drastic change in how cases were handled?
Senior Counsel and Board Director, As an Individual
I would say so. As I see it, the transfer of knowledge and expertise matters.
First of all, a person has to have a minimum level of education to be able to recognize pre-incident indicators. People have to be experienced, like Mr. Lafrenière, who has years of experience and extensive knowledge about offenders.
In complex cases like this, where individuals have been convicted of murder, the group of decision-makers should always include either a psychologist or a psychiatrist.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal John McKay
Unfortunately, Mr. Paul-Hus, we're going to have to leave it there.
Thank you.
Ms. Khera, take six minutes, s'il vous plaît.
Liberal
Kamal Khera Liberal Brampton West, ON
Thank you, Chair, and thanks to both of our witnesses for being here.
My question is for Ms. Campbell.
Ms. Campbell, thank you for being here and for your testimony and, importantly, for all the work you've done and for your advocacy.
I really want to first thank you for stating the fundamental difference between the Parole Board of Canada and the CSC, because I find there is still much confusion about their roles and the work they do, including among members of this committee.
I'll just allow you to clarify these matters for the committee.
As an Individual
Yes, I have a couple of comments on Parole Board appointments in particular because, as I say, I have been there through the Mulroney, Chrétien, Martin and Harper governments. I have seen a lot of appointments. That was part of my job.
First off, you have to understand the model that you have. Members are appointed for a fixed term, usually three years or five years. That's it. No one should have any expectation that they are going to be renewed. That's the model. It's a short-term or fixed-term appointment. Some people are renewed and some are not. If you want to have a so-called professional board on which people are given permanent jobs, that's a different model. You're Parliament. If that's the model you think would be better, you write the laws, but the one we have right now is it is a fixed-term appointment.
The board has other things to take into account, such as having a diverse board. They are required by law to have a board that reflects the community. That means different ethnic backgrounds, different race, different gender, different life experience, and it's done regionally. You're appointed to a region. They have to manage all those things, and if for some reason, just happenstance, you end up with a board on which everyone looks the same and speaks the same language, you have to balance that. That's why sometimes when a board member's term ends and they've done great service, it's “Thank you very much; now we need to fill in some other gaps so that we have a board that looks like the community.” That's an important point for the community to understand.
Liberal
Kamal Khera Liberal Brampton West, ON
Thank you for that.
Ms. Campbell, in April 2015 you said that we are witnessing the demise of the parole system. Since then, have you seen any improvement within the parole system under the current government, and what else do you think needs to be done?
As an Individual
Gosh. I wrote a list in the fall of 2015 about what needed to be done. I still have that list.
I think some things have improved. There have been comments that the number of people out on parole has increased and that this is a bad thing. No. I think you have to look at that number. Yes, the number of people on parole has increased, but that was only in relation to the dramatic decline prior to 2015, when the parole numbers went way down. You don't actually have an unusual increase since 2015; it's just an increase back to normal numbers.
The system, by and large, works well, but I think the Board of Investigation made some important recommendations. I was shocked to see that CSC parole officers were not trained in domestic violence, as George Myette has said. I think that's a particular kind of violence that they need training in, and board members as well.
I think we could be applying great efficiencies in parole supervision. Not everyone is a psychopathic monster, and far too many resources are devoted to those who don't really need them.
Streamlining amendments could be made that have not been made. Things have been done that I think have really done a disservice to the process. I can share my list with you sometime.
Liberal
Kamal Khera Liberal Brampton West, ON
Please. It would be great if you could share that list with the committee.
As an Individual
Of course, a terrible case always happens, and this is such a tragic case. The natural instinct is to think we need to change the system because of one case. That's really the worst thing you can do. You have to pinpoint what happened, if you can.
These cases, as tragic as they are, are also very rare, which makes them very difficult to predict. The risk assessment said four out of five people with his profile would not reoffend. Well, tragically, it means one likely will offend, so how do we figure out who?
Liberal
Kamal Khera Liberal Brampton West, ON
Thank you.
I know I'm running out of time, but if you don't get to finish your answer, maybe you can include it in your testimony.
What are your thoughts on the current pardon system and the impact it's having on allowing ex-offenders to successfully reintegrate, understanding that it was in the minister's mandate to reduce systemic barriers through record suspensions?
As an Individual
I think, as Mr. Myette has said, that tragic reforms were made to the Criminal Records Act. They have not been undone. Two major political parties apparently think that they're okay, and I'm strongly of the view that they're not helpful to reformation at all.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal John McKay
Thank you, Madam Khera.
Ms. Michaud, you may go ahead. You have six minutes.
Bloc
Kristina Michaud Bloc Avignon—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you to the witnesses for being with us. We certainly appreciate their participation.
Ms. Campbell, you covered the different roles of the institutions we are looking into, as well as the facts of the situation and the decisions that were made. In your estimation, most of the decisions that were made were the right ones. Something probably went wrong in relation to the new parole officer who had been assigned to the case just a few weeks or months before the tragedy.
I'd like you to talk more about the decisions that officer made.
As you understand the facts of the case, was it that parole officer who authorized Mr. Gallese to frequent massage parlours, where he met Ms. Levesque before ultimately killing her?
I'd like to hear your comments on that decision, whoever made it. Is normal or appropriate for that type of decision to be made?
As an Individual
No, that new parole officer was not the first one who allowed those visits to happen.
Again, you have to go back to the six special conditions that were placed by the board in the spring of that year. There is a fundamental difference between conditions imposed by the parole board and instructions that are given by the parole officer. You have conditions, and you have instructions. To use a technical term, I have seen some instructions that are lulus and that do not conform to the conditions. They go beyond them and they contradict them and they contradict the law. In a document, I think I called instructions the Wild West of corrections, because there's very little monitoring of them. Only the parolees themselves know what the instructions are.
They're intended to flesh out the conditions. If a condition says, “Don't go to places where alcohol is served”, you can parse that out a lot of different ways. The instruction is intended to say, “Don't go anywhere that's a bar, and don't go anywhere that doesn't serve any food.” In this case, the initial parole officer said it was okay to go and have visits with sex workers, and that's really where it got off the rails in that sense. I don't want to hang any parole officer out to dry, but it's very clear from the evidence, to me, that this is where things really fell apart.
You had very good testimony from two sex trade workers, and I thought they made some very useful points about how the current laws around sex work really cause danger to a lot of the workers. I would hope that you and your colleagues on the justice committee would have a look at the current legislation. The comments they made were very useful.
Bloc
Kristina Michaud Bloc Avignon—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia, QC
Your answer is duly noted. Thank you.
In a 2015 article, you talked about offender remorse, saying it was possible that parole decisions were being made on the basis of the remorse shown by offenders.
Do you think that's a good thing or a bad thing?
As an Individual
Yes, let's be clear. I've been very candid all the way along, and people are free to disagree with me. I felt that the message that was sent down to everyone in the system was quite a harsh one, and it was listened to. There was quite an emphasis put on, “Are you remorseful for what you did?” Remorse is not irrelevant. If you show remorse, in a sense you're acknowledging you did something wrong. You know that you shouldn't have done it, and it's the starting point then for rehabilitation.
To have that as a primary factor.... There are people who never feel remorse, first of all because they feel they did not commit the crime—and many of them are right—but also because it's not in their makeup. That doesn't necessarily mean that they can't be rehabilitated or live safely in society. This notion that you must really almost grovel and display constant remorse may be unrealistic, and it's not necessarily the most important factor in determining your risk of reoffending. I did feel for a period of time that there was far too much emphasis on that, to the detriment of other more scientific factors, in assessing risk.
Bloc
Kristina Michaud Bloc Avignon—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia, QC
What other factors should be considered?
As an Individual
I think that the science of risk assessment has obviously improved greatly over the years. It's not a precise science.
You have to bear in mind it's not just a binary in/out decision that the Parole Board makes. It's what the conditions are that would make this release safe. Nobody is one hundred per cent or zero per cent one or the other—risky or not risky. I think the crafting of the conditions and the nature of the supervision are equally important.
Liberal
NDP
Jack Harris NDP St. John's East, NL
Thank you, Chair.
Thank you to both of you for attending today.
Ms. Campbell, thank you for bringing up the Criminal Records Act, and to Mr. Myette as well, having been a beneficiary of the pardon system. I'm of the party and was personally involved in fighting against the changes to the Criminal Records Act that got rid of the pardon system and called it a record suspension, whatever that means to the general public. That battle is not over, but thank you for that.
First of all, can you tell me and everybody listening and watching.... They're called parole officers. You referred to the parole officer being present. The parole officer does not work for the Parole Board. Am I right or am I wrong?
NDP
Jack Harris NDP St. John's East, NL
The parole officer works for the Correctional Services of Canada and is involved in the supervision of the offender in the community.