Public Safety Committee on Nov. 29th, 2023

[Dane Lloyd, Conservative, Sturgeon River—Parkland, AB]

Thank you. I appreciate your candidness.

I'll maybe give an opportunity to the others, but I have just another quick question to think about.

Correctional Service of Canada Commissioner Anne Kelly came and said that the law was followed.

In your opinion, if the correct application of the law as it exists leads to people like Bernardo being transferred to medium security, is the law truly a good law, or is it a flawed law?

I'll just pass that along.

[Marcia Penner]

Thank you for that question.

I would answer that it is absolutely a flawed law. This is absolutely not the right decision. It was the absolute wrong decision.

Yes, I agree that on paper the job was done correctly, and all the necessary boxes, as I said, were checked, but is that right? No.

When you hear of the things being communicated and not being communicated and light being made of something this severe, it leaves you wondering if any of this is being taken seriously at all and what the motivations are. What was the real motivation for this move?

I have many speculations. I, of course, am not on the inside. I don't know, but I highly suspect that there are other motivations that encouraged this move. Clearly there is no regard for the victims in any of that, and “flawed law” is an understatement.

[The Chair, Liberal, Heath MacDonald]

Thank you, Ms. Penner. Thank you, Mr. Lloyd.

We can move now to Mr. McKinnon, who's online, please.

[Ron McKinnon, Liberal, Coquitlam—Port Coquitlam, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

As a computer programmer in real life, I need someone to walk me through the talk of trauma-informed questioning and that process. Those are where my questions were going, but I think we're winding up and coming to the end of this meeting, so what I'll do instead is ask if the different witnesses have any closing remarks they'd like to make to wrap it up.

[Marcia Penner]

In closing I want to thank all of you for being here, for inviting us, for allowing us to finally speak, to get our feelings, our concerns and thoughts—not all of them, but a majority—to all of you.

As you all know, we've said this is a very difficult situation. It has been very traumatizing, but we do hold hope that things can be corrected and that this will not happen to anybody else.

That is our goal: to fight to ensure that Kristen always wins, and that the victims will always win, and that we can correct the system and make sure that nobody else has to feel this way or go through any of these traumatic things again.

Again, we want to thank you all so much for allowing us to be here. We appreciate every single one of you.

Thank you.

[Ron McKinnon, Liberal, Coquitlam—Port Coquitlam, BC]

Thank you.

Ms. Chwalczuk, would you like to make any closing remarks?

[Tennille Chwalczuk]

I as well would like to thank each and every one of you for your most valuable time this evening.

For me, I guess the plea here is just to see change, see a positive change, to see a better outcome for our victims, to make sure that they have just as much right.

I would like to thank all of you for actually making us feel tonight that you're listening, that there's hope that the changes will be made, and that hopefully nobody else ever has to go through this, and that there's some slight hope that maybe he'll go back where he belongs.

Thank you for your time.

[Ron McKinnon, Liberal, Coquitlam—Port Coquitlam, BC]

Thank you, indeed.

Go ahead, Ms. Murray.

[Laura Murray]

Thank you, Mr. McKinnon. I am in mental health, so I love your question.

I'm just going to say very quickly that trauma is very complex, and that is what really separates it and makes it different from just simple anxiety or simple depression or these types of things. That's why it's so important to have somebody who understands trauma, because there are so many different aspects of it. I suspect if you start reading, you will fall down a rabbit hole, because there is so much to learn about it.

Really, I think that's actually very important for anybody who works with victims to understand. If you are victimized, you are more than likely traumatized, and to understand the victim, you have to understand trauma.

That's probably where I will leave it. As Tennille and Marcia have said, we thank you and we hope for change. Any time you all would like to have us back and have any more input in this process, we are more than happy to do this.

We feel very privileged to be a part of this. Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Heath MacDonald]

Thank you, Mr. McKinnon.

Ms. Michaud, you have two minutes, please.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I don't know if there's anything to add after that testimony and those conclusions.

Thank you very much for your comments and testimony, ladies. We really appreciate it. I believe it's our duty as parliamentarians to take that testimony and try to improve the system.

Thank you very much, Mr. Ombudsperson. Much has been said about the imbalance between offender and inmate rights and victim rights. You said that you hope this whole situation marks a turning point. There could be positive repercussions in the future if the recommendations you've made since 2010 can finally be acted upon.

I hope that today's exercise will prove useful and that it will, to some extent, help to ease all this pain. As you said so well, we hope that other people won't have to deal with things like this.

Thank you for your contribution.

[The Chair, Liberal, Heath MacDonald]

Thank you, Ms. Michaud.

Mr. Julian, you have the final word.

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

Like everyone else on the committee, I've been deeply moved by the testimony today, and I want to thank you, Dr. Roebuck and above all you, Ms. Penner, Ms. Chwalczuk and Ms. Murray, for your important testimony today.

The reality is that you've received very little support over the course of the last few decades, and I don't believe Correctional Services and the current regulations have served you as victims at all. We are all hearing that message loud and clear. We appreciate your courage in stepping forward. We appreciate your wisdom. We appreciate the recommendations you have given to us and we will be endeavouring to work on a report that targets what needs to be changed in Correctional Services and how it approaches the case of pathological serial killers in a way that fully respects victims at all times.

I think that all members of the committee will endeavour to do the best we can to make the changes so that this never happens again. Thank you for stepping forward to speak to us today.

[The Chair, Liberal, Heath MacDonald]

Thank you, Mr. Julian.

For about 30 seconds, we have Mr. Motz.

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

Thank you very much, Chair.

Thank you again, witnesses, for your incredible courage and testimony.

Thank you, Dr. Roebuck. Hearing you today reminds me of something that I'd like your quick feedback on, with a yes or no.

When CSC begins to consider the downward reclassification of an offender, would it be necessary for CSC to contact all relevant victims and offer them an opportunity to submit a victim impact statement at the earliest stage of reclassification consideration and at least three months before any transfer is finalized, and would CSC be obligated to equally consider all factors with reclassification, including victim impact statements—yes or no?

[Dr. Benjamin Roebuck]

Yes.

[Marcia Penner]

Absolutely.

[Tennille Chwalczuk]

Yes.

[The Chair, Liberal, Heath MacDonald]

Thank you, witnesses. As chair, I just want to say, with regard to the courage and strength in your voice here today, that we want to thank you for doing this. You can be proud of yourselves for what you're doing here today. It's not easy coming here under any circumstances, but these are quite difficult ones.

I want to thank the committee for keeping this very professional and for allowing me to kind of go outside the boundaries on timing and things like that.

Keep up the good fight. We hear you. Thank you for attending here today.

[Marcia Penner]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Heath MacDonald]

The meeting is adjourned.