Evidence of meeting #66 for Public Safety and National Security in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was amendment.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Counsel, Criminal Law Policy Section, Department of Justice
No, there is no substantive change. It just adds “firearm part” to the list of items that a judge....
When a judge issues one of these recognizances, the person must abstain from possessing it. Similar to the last two or three amendments, it would just add it to the list of items they can't possess.
Conservative
Doug Shipley Conservative Barrie—Springwater—Oro-Medonte, ON
I apologize for this being a little repetitive, but we weren't here earlier.
What would be the outcome of adding that?
Counsel, Criminal Law Policy Section, Department of Justice
It's an additional tool for a judge to be able to add firearm parts to the list of items a person cannot possess for a certain period of time if they are subject to one of these orders.
Conservative
Philip Lawrence Conservative Northumberland—Peterborough South, ON
If you have numbers or statistics on this, it would be great. Otherwise, I'll just take your anecdotal evidence.
What would be the impact on public safety? How many people would be caught by this provision?
Counsel, Criminal Law Policy Section, Department of Justice
I'm unsure how many people are caught by these recognizances, and I think it depends on the jurisdiction where they are issued. We don't collect data across Canada, because they are issued in various courts across Canada, so the Department of Justice wouldn't have that information. I can look to my colleagues to the left and to Sandro.
No. As far as I understand, there is no collated data on those across the country.
Conservative
Liberal
Conservative
Philip Lawrence Conservative Northumberland—Peterborough South, ON
I'm new to this committee. Normally I sit on the finance committee and we talk about dollars and cents.
Before I vote on this, I want to understand it. No data is collected on this because it is across different provinces.
Do you have any data from any particular province, even anecdotally, to tell me the impact of recognizances? Is that what you call them?
Counsel, Criminal Law Policy Section, Department of Justice
It is recognizances, but they're colloquially called peace bonds. There are different types of peace bonds in the Criminal Code. This one targets serious personal injury offences, or SPIOs as we used to call them.
My understanding is that they are not ordered fairly often in the criminal justice system, but I don't have that data. I can undertake to look for that data and see if we have that in our possession and provide it to the committee, but I don't have before me how often it is used in various courts.
We may have some data, but we don't have data from every courthouse across Canada.
Conservative
Philip Lawrence Conservative Northumberland—Peterborough South, ON
For my purposes, I would probably get the information too late, but I think it would be valuable information for the committee to have, as I know it will continue to study these and other issues. If it wouldn't be too much work, I would greatly appreciate it if you would undertake to provide those numbers to the committee.
Counsel, Criminal Law Policy Section, Department of Justice
Absolutely. I will undertake to do that.
Conservative
Conservative
Glen Motz Conservative Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner, AB
I wanted to respond to my colleague, Mr. Lawrence, and to the officials.
I will confirm that it's a rarity this sort of peace bond or recognizance would be in effect, because if we're dealing with a serious threat of personal injury, there would be other issues that you'd be dealing with. We'd probably, especially in domestic situations, be seeking to have that individual remanded in custody.
That was before we had Bill C-75 and Bill C-5. Now we can't keep anybody in custody.
Liberal
Liberal
Anthony Housefather Liberal Mount Royal, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I have a brief question.
Given the adoption of the policy and given that these are all coordinating amendments, wouldn't it create incredible confusion within the Criminal Code at this point if this committee stopped voting in favour of adding the new term to the rest of the amendments?
Counsel, Department of Justice
Thank you for the question.
As I mentioned earlier, the batch of items to which the words “firearm parts” are being added is a thread woven throughout the code. It's not only in part III but also, as we've seen, in the bill provisions, peace bond provisions and so on and so forth.
Yes, it would introduce an inconsistency if this term stopped appearing as that thread weaves itself through the code.
NDP
Peter Julian NDP New Westminster—Burnaby, BC
That was a very good question from Mr. Housefather.
Essentially, we have 39 amendments that are identical and that all need to be adopted. I have a suggestion, through you, Mr. Chair, to all members. I appreciate the members of all parties who are here. A number of my friends from the Conservative Party have come to join us. In the past, when we've been official opposition, we briefed the new members coming in when we had evening sessions. We made sure the new members coming in were aware of the information the members who were leaving had already managed to get through and their questions. That would end the repetitive nature of some of the questions and move us along.
If we stop now on these 39 amendments, which are absolutely identical with the same two words, we are creating a problem in the bill. It's best to get through these 39 amendments and move on to other issues where there might be more discussion.
Liberal
Conservative
Philip Lawrence Conservative Northumberland—Peterborough South, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
While I have great respect for my colleague, I was elected by the people of Northumberland—Peterborough South to not take briefings as they are provided but to ask questions. It's my job, especially when there are significant changes and attacks on hunters and sport shooters. They want me to ask questions, so I'm going to do that.
