Public Safety Committee on Nov. 29th, 2023

[Iqwinder Gaheer, Liberal, Mississauga—Malton, ON]

That's great.

I think I speak on behalf of the committee when I say we are very appreciative of your comments. Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Heath MacDonald]

Thank you.

I'd like to move on to Ms. Michaud, please.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Do I have two and a half minutes?

[The Chair, Liberal, Heath MacDonald]

Yes.

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

Thank you.

Dr. Roebuck, thank you for being with us as well.

Tim Danson, the lawyer representing the families and victims, challenged the reasons put forward by Correctional Service Canada when it said that an inmate's right to privacy takes precedence over the victims' right to be informed. In this case, he took issue with Correctional Service Canada's lack of transparency.

Do you agree with him? Do you think that the Canadian Victims Bill of Rights was upheld in this case? Should it be strengthened?

What do you think about us discussing the offender's right to privacy versus victim rights? One takes precedence. That seems unfortunate.

What could be done to improve victim rights?

[Dr. Benjamin Roebuck]

Thank you.

I'm sorry, but I will answer in English.

I clearly agree that victims' rights don't currently carry a weight equivalent to offenders' rights, and I think there is a problem with how we think about information, thinking that it somehow belongs to the offenders. There is a lack of understanding of how relevant and how important that is to victims and how central it is to their experience.

If there is an assessment report that talks about some of the reasons or factors connected to a homicide, for the families who lost a child, that is their information. That matters, yet we treat it as if all of this belongs to the offender.

I don't think the problem is necessarily with CSC specifically; I think it's in the legislation and it's in our collective approach to responding to victims of crime. I think we need to strengthen the Canadian Victims Bill of Rights to give it meaningful recourse, and our office would like to see the Canadian Victims Bill of Rights brought into the preamble of the Corrections and Conditional Release Act so that the guiding principles for victims of crime follow through the rest of the CCRA.

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

That's interesting. Thank you very much.

On Monday, the assistant commissioner of Correctional Service Canada said that it was important to notify victims' families in advance because certain things had to be taken into consideration in the event of a transfer, such as geographic circumstances.

In this case, we learned from the media that the families had been notified the same day or later, and that some of them had learned about it through the media.

Was this done properly, in your opinion? If we had subsequently learned that one of the victims' friends or loved ones lived near La Macaza, could we have ended up with a somewhat disastrous situation?

I'm only talking about geographic circumstances. Do you think there are other circumstances that need to be taken into consideration, hence the importance of talking to victims beforehand?

[Dr. Benjamin Roebuck]

Thank you.

That's a really important question that speaks to clear rights that victims have to protection and participation. The CVBR puts an onus on victims to request information, but the onus is on the state to provide protection and participation, and that needs to be better reflected in the CCRA.

To reply to what we heard earlier about victim statements, if I can differentiate, a “victim impact statement” is what's given at court for sentencing. Once somebody is in the custody of the Correctional Service, there is what is called a “victim statement”. It's very similar. You can provide details about how you've been affected, you can request geographic restrictions and you can share safety concerns.

We've requested that this mechanism be streamlined so that people can request geographic restrictions or share safety considerations without having to go through all of the impact on them personally, and it would carry the same weight without their needing to revisit those things.

People can submit victim statements at any point throughout the process. They can submit as many as they want. This is what we're told. I don't know what would happen if everyone submitted them weekly, but as we heard, it's impossible to submit them if you don't know they're required.

Within that existing mechanism of victim statements, or even just the streamlined version, we would like to see advance notification given of a pending decision, with clear information on how decisions are made and on how to share concerns or geographic restrictions that can be taken into that decision.

Finally, currently, CSC will automatically consider any information it has on file for registered victims, but without updates.... Somebody might have registered 20 years ago and they might not be living in the same place. We don't know their daughter just went to university in Kingston. Therefore, people really need to be prompted to share those concerns if they have them so that we can better protect the safety of victims of crime.

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

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Heath MacDonald]

Thank you, Mr. Roebuck and Ms. Michaud.

Can we move on to Mr. Julian, please?

[Peter Julian, NDP, New Westminster—Burnaby, BC]

Thanks very much.

Dr. Roebuck, I'd like to continue on with what you were just saying.

We know from the surprising testimony of Ms. Kelly that the onus is on the victims. As we've heard from the three very eloquent witnesses today, the trauma involved in producing a victim statement or a victim impact statement is enormous.

The fact that the onus is still on the victims is something I see as a major shortfall in this situation, so I wanted to come back to that issue.

For example, the Correctional Service is not obliged to follow geographic restrictions, despite it being a recommendation or request from a victim. They're not obliged to follow that. In the case of the transfer of Mr. Bernardo's, a horrific serial killer, no notice was given to the victims so that they could actually provide that victim statement and perhaps that geographic restriction.

How do we put in place a system that actually respects victims and puts the onus on the Correctional Services so that victims are truly respected and aren't forced to go through trauma trying to anticipate when and if an inmate may be transferred?

[Dr. Benjamin Roebuck]

Thank you.

I think that's exactly what we need. We need ongoing communication and respectful consultation on that type of safety information.

Too much onus is on victims to know what to do or what to ask for. The CVBR really leaves us with rights that people need to ask about, and they don't know that they need to ask. We don't have an equivalent right, up to the charter level. When somebody is accused of a crime, they're provided automatically with information about their rights and about legal counsel, but we don't provide the same to victims of crime.

That's reflected across the country and also in the correctional system. It's something we need to change all the way through.

[Peter Julian, NDP, New Westminster—Burnaby, BC]

I'll give you three more rapid-fire questions.

First off is the issue that has come from previous testimony from the Union of Safety and Justice Employees and the UCCO for correctional officers. More often than not, correctional officers are not consulted in the evaluation of inmates that takes place, even though they may be aware of behaviour that may indicate a higher risk. Do you believe it's important to have that additional knowledge and information of an inmate's behaviour as part of the prison security classification?

Second, you mentioned the issue around the registering of victims. How can we actually put more of an onus on the Correctional Service to ensure the victims are registered, rather than asking victims to try to navigate a system that is often incomprehensible?

Third, both in that regard of registering and overall, I was thinking about your testimony that 20¢ on the dollar is spent on victims' complaints, versus a dollar for offenders' complaints. What is the resourcing issue that we need to resolve so that victims actually get the supports they need? Does the government need to contemplate providing additional resources so the victims are treated with the respect they deserve?

[Dr. Benjamin Roebuck]

Thank you for that question.

I'm still learning how to address the chair, so I apologize.

[An hon. member]

Try “Your Honour”.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[Dr. Benjamin Roebuck]

That's a fancy name.

For the first question, our mandate is limited. We're not able to speak to transfer decisions or how those decisions are made, so I won't speak to that.

Number two is on registration. This is part of what our office advocated with Bill S-12, which has introduced a mechanism whereby at sentencing a judge or the Crown will ask if the victim would like to receive information about the sentence and its administration. A check box is also added to the victim impact statement.

Prior to Bill S-12, nobody had that legal responsibility to even provide that information, so it was haphazard on who would be informed. We've seen kind of systemic racism in who gets access to that information and who doesn't. We're pleased to see some progress on that, but we need to do a lot more.

On resourcing, I do think that's really important. In general, we hear complaints from victims of crime that the people who harm them have access to psychologists or to education and employment skills training, while that same resource isn't necessarily provided to victims.

Right down to the complaint angle, our office hasn't had the capacity to conduct a systemic review since 2017 because of resourcing. That's a core function of an ombuds office that we're unable to fulfill.

I think there's a lot of work to do to provide victims with the types of support that will be more effective in addressing their complaints.

[The Chair, Liberal, Heath MacDonald]

Okay. Now we're moving on to Mr. Shipley, please.

[Doug Shipley, Conservative, Barrie—Springwater—Oro-Medonte, ON]

Thank you, Chair, and thank you to all of the witnesses for being here today. I'm sure it's a very tough day for you and I appreciate that you're here and doing your bit for your friend.

Mr. Roebuck, I'd like to start with you. My colleague was asking earlier in regard to Ms. Chwalczuk's—I hope I said that right—opening statement, and I was watching you, and you were nodding your head quite noticeably. It looked like you had something you wanted to add, so I'm going to let you add something here.

I'll reread the line: “...knowing that he, Mr. Bernardo, may have more rights than the victims he left behind, and that it was very disturbing that the families and friends were left to do nothing but watch.” I was watching you, and you were definitely nodding your head. It looked like you wanted to speak there and you didn't get a chance. What would you like to say about that?

[Dr. Benjamin Roebuck]

Yes. I'm quite expressive, so thank you for noticing that.

I think it's absolutely true that...it's unequivocal that victims don't have rights equivalent to those of offenders. Even if you look at the government, there is an army of legal professionals who are dedicated to the rights of offenders, to the privacy rights of offenders, and we have such limited equivalence on the rights of victims of crime. That's reflected also when cases go to Federal Court and victims are asking for information. I think it's an important consideration. Who in government is representing the interests of victims of crime? This is why I think we need to strengthen the resourcing there; it's so that we can do the work to make these rights more meaningful.

[Doug Shipley, Conservative, Barrie—Springwater—Oro-Medonte, ON]

Thank you for that.

The second question is for you too, sir.

The French and Mahaffy families have been trying to obtain recordings of parole hearings and documents referenced in parole hearings for many years, but have been stonewalled by the government. Should registered victims have access to these materials?

[Dr. Benjamin Roebuck]

Absolutely. I think in the Federal Court case in which they have been arguing for access, the judge essentially noted that it's a shame that the media have more rights to access those recordings than the families themselves, and the judge referred it back to Parliament to say that legislative change is required to address that. I think we need to do something about that.

I'll say that when our office investigates complaints, we require a legislative mandate as well, because we are also denied access to parole recordings that are significant to the investigations of complaints. However, we're working on it collaboratively with the Parole Board.

[Doug Shipley, Conservative, Barrie—Springwater—Oro-Medonte, ON]

Thank you.

I hate to do this, because we have very limited time—I have only about two minutes left—but I would like to move a quick motion that I hope gets unanimous consent.

I would like to move that the committee extend its study on the rights of victims of crime, reclassification and transfer of federal offenders for one additional meeting to hear testimony from Tim Danson, the lawyer representing the victims' families. Hopefully we can hear him on Monday, December 4.

[Jennifer O'Connell, Liberal, Pickering—Uxbridge, ON]

What's the length? Is it one meeting or one hour?

[Doug Shipley, Conservative, Barrie—Springwater—Oro-Medonte, ON]

I said one meeting.