Evidence of meeting #89 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 information.
A recording is available from Parliament.
11:45 a.m.
Liberal
11:45 a.m.
NDP
Randall Garrison NDP Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke, BC
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
As everyone is aware, I'm substituting for Peter Julian today. He has a notice of motion that he wanted me to place before the committee, which I will do right now, given the vagaries of time in committee.
Mr. Julian would like to give notice that he plans to move the following motion:
That the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security hold a 2-hour meeting, immediately after the winter break, to study the possible impact of the Conservative Party of Canada's proposed motions and votes, on December 7, 2023, to cut each of the following Supplementary Estimate (B) items of a total of $659,805,933 related to public safety:
Canada Border Services Agency - cuts proposed of $23,051,792
Canadian Security Intelligence Service - cuts proposed of $32,964,572
Correctional Service [of Canada]- cuts proposed of $290,588,112
Courts Administration Service - cuts proposed of $22,743,433
Department of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness - cuts proposed of $176,059,072
Royal Canadian Mounted Police - cuts proposed of $114,398,952
I'll send that off and people will be receiving that through the normal committee channels.
I felt that this was a good time to do that, because Ms. O'Connell has raised an important question. No matter what changes we might make in favour of providing victims with more support and more information in law, we have to carry that through with the resources needed to follow up on that.
I don't have a question at this point for Mr. Carrie. I thank him for the work he's done on this bill.
11:45 a.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Heath MacDonald
Thank you, Mr. Garrison.
Just to inform the committee, we're getting down in time. I'm going to move to four minutes each for the last two in the second round.
Mr. Shipley, you're up.
11:45 a.m.
Conservative
Doug Shipley Conservative Barrie—Springwater—Oro-Medonte, ON
Thank you, Chair.
I also will be planning to give a notice of motion. Before I do that, I'd like to just do a little preamble to it.
We know that the carbon tax is driving up the cost of everything, but something that is overlooked is how this tax impacts the budgets of policing services across this country—and I think that's important to discuss here at the public safety committee—particularly in rural and remote areas, where regularly driving long distances is required.
For example, for a large provincial police service, every one-cent increase costs that police service an extra $250,000 annually on their police budget. The City of Peterborough recently had to increase their budget 11% due to many things, including the rising cost of fuel. Last year in Brandon, Manitoba, the Brandon Police Service had a deficit of $174,000. The biggest contributor was the increased cost of fuel.
Therefore, we must support our hard-working law enforcement officers across the country and call on the Liberal government to cancel the carbon tax.
My notice of motion will be:
Given that the Liberal government's costly carbon taxes are driving up the cost of everything, including the cost of fuel, which negatively impacts the budgets of policing services across Canada, that the chair report to the House that the committee call on the government to immediately cancel the carbon tax.
Chair, that's our notice of motion.
11:50 a.m.
Conservative
11:50 a.m.
Conservative
Dane Lloyd Conservative Sturgeon River—Parkland, AB
Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Carrie, for being here today.
It's important for me to be part of this bill because I had a tragic case happen in my area back in 2010 with the McCann family, when an elderly couple was murdered on a road trip. Their bodies have never been found, but their killer is currently in prison and will be eligible for parole very soon—if not already.
It's critically important that we have legislation to ensure that, at the very least, victims and the victims' families get the transparency they deserve so that we can avoid any additional emotional trauma. In our previous study on security reclassifications, which we're in the process of completing, that's been so clear when we have friends of the victims and lawyers who represent the families of the victims come forward to committee and tell us about the severe impact.
As well, based on Mr. Garrison's testimony, it seems that the Victims Bill of Rights has this language in there and it's clear that it's on the “request” of the victim. I note that your amendment doesn't really deal with that—it deals with amending part of it—and that the information must be provided.
What would be your thoughts about perhaps amending subsection 26(1) to make it so that, unless otherwise requested by registered victims, there is proactive disclosure from the Parole Board and Correctional Service Canada to provide this information?
11:50 a.m.
Conservative
Colin Carrie Conservative Oshawa, ON
Thank you, Mr. Lloyd.
I would be in favour of that. I think that any time we can give more information, more transparency, it's a good thing. Until you're a victim of something like this, you don't even understand. You can't even relate to what you need to go through and the hoops you need to jump through.
Anything we can do, first of all, to listen to victims.... As you said, they've come before you. As Mr. Garrison did say, it's about action. We have a great report coming out of the committee but has the government done anything about it yet? I guess not, but I'm hopeful today. This is just one little step so that all of us can move forward and make a difference in the lives of victims and victims' families. Anything in that regard, I would be supportive of.
11:50 a.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Heath MacDonald
Thank you, Mr. Carrie.
We have a final question from Mr. McKinnon.
Welcome back. It's great to see you here. Go ahead for four minutes.
11:50 a.m.
Liberal
Ron McKinnon Liberal Coquitlam—Port Coquitlam, BC
Thank you, Mr. Chair. It's good to be back.
I don't have a notice of motion, and I feel bad about that.
I will remark on the climate change aspect.
The whole point of the carbon tax is to not pay it. Therefore, over time, we change our behaviour, burn less and less carbon dioxide, and so forth. I should point out that we are, at this point, on track to meet or exceed our 2030 projections, in large measure because of programs such as the carbon tax.
I'll go back to Dr. Carrie, though.
Firstly, I agree with your concern about trying to take too big a bite out of things. I find that, with private member's bills, if you keep it short and sweet and to the point, you're more likely to succeed, whereas if you try to solve the whole world, too many things can go wrong and things fall apart pretty quickly. I respect that you made this very short and sweet.
Once this is said and done, and we've accomplished what we set out to do, what do you see as the next steps? What is the next low-hanging fruit we should take on in regard to victims' rights? This is giving deference to Mr. Garrison's comments about the report from the justice committee.
11:50 a.m.
Conservative
Colin Carrie Conservative Oshawa, ON
Thank you very much, Mr. McKinnon. It's good to sit around the table with you again. I always appreciate your input.
As you said, work has been done. I think what's key is that we don't reinvent the wheel. We take a look at what's been done and set timelines. Whatever we do, we do it with the thought of victims at the back of our minds. What I've learned through this process is that an unimaginable amount of trauma and permanent life change occurs when somebody is presented with this and deals with it in their life.
I don't know the background of everybody around the table, but I know enough victims and their families to know they're hurting. They also have an amazing ability to reach out to others who are suffering in the same way. Allow them a voice at committees like this to discuss what the legislation we're dealing with means to them. It's everything from stickhandling the bureaucracy to dealing with the mental health issues they have, as well as their children, families and extended communities.
Whatever we do, moving forward, keep the victim at the back of our minds. That is the person we're responsible for, more than anybody else. If we do that, I think we'll do good work.
11:55 a.m.
Liberal
Ron McKinnon Liberal Coquitlam—Port Coquitlam, BC
With 33 seconds left, we'll leave it there. Hopefully, we can move on to clause-by-clause.
11:55 a.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Heath MacDonald
Mr. Carrie, thank you for being here today.
Committee, we're going to take a five-minute pause while we get set up for clause-by-clause.
12:05 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Heath MacDonald
We're back at it, members. We will start our clause-by-clause consideration.
I'd like to welcome the officials who are with us. They are available for questions regarding the bill, but they will not deliver an opening statement.
From Correctional Service of Canada, we have Kirstan Gagnon, assistant commissioner, communications and engagement sector; Katherine Belhumeur, director general, offender programs and reintegration branch; and Katherine Cole, director, citizen engagement. From the Department of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness, we have Chad Westmacott, director general, community safety, corrections and criminal justice. From the Parole Board of Canada, we have Lawrence Chow, director general, policy, planning and operations.
Welcome. Thank you for joining us today.
We'll move now to clause-by-clause consideration.
(On clause 1)
Shall clause 1—
12:05 p.m.
Conservative
12:05 p.m.
Conservative
Dane Lloyd Conservative Sturgeon River—Parkland, AB
It's a new line. I don't know when the appropriate time to move it is.
12:05 p.m.
Conservative
Dane Lloyd Conservative Sturgeon River—Parkland, AB
Thank you.
I do want to ask the officials something. Basically, I'm just waiting for a quick translation to be done.
Subsection 26(1), which is the initial paragraph that this entire amendment deals with, uses this terminology: “At the request of a victim of an offence committed by an offender, the Commissioner”. Then it goes on to list the things the commissioner “shall” do, which is what we're dealing with here today.
Based on the testimony we've heard today and from the previous study on security reclassifications, it's become clear that a lot of victims aren't even aware that they have a right to request this information. They're not aware that these things are even happening. Based on a review of the Victims Bill of Rights, it was recommended that we set up some sort of proactive disclosure. I thought this bill could be a great opportunity. We asked Mr. Carrie, who was moving the bill, if he would be supportive of this. He indicated that he would be supportive of this.
I'm looking for some feedback from the analysts on my amendment, which I am still just getting translation for. It's very minor.
We propose saying, “Proactively, to a victim of an offence committed by an offender, unless otherwise requested, the Commissioner”. That changes subsection 26(1) by removing “At the request of a victim” and changing it to “Proactively, to a victim”. This is “unless otherwise requested”, because it has been noted that there might be victims out there who don't want to receive this information. That's completely within their rights. If the commissioner gets a request from a victim that they do not want to receive this information, then it should not be released to them.
This would ensure that all victims, as best as CSC could contact them, would have an opportunity to get this information ahead of time without having to know that they have to make a request.
I'm wondering what the thoughts are of the panel here about that amendment.
12:10 p.m.
Kirstan Gagnon Assistant Commissioner, Communications and Engagement Sector, Correctional Service of Canada
Thanks for that. I agree with you. Education is key. I'll just provide a bit of context on what we currently do, because we do proactively reach out to the victims before they're registered.
We send a first contact letter. I'm okay sharing these with the committee as well, if you're interested. We provide convicted offences, court of conviction, date of conviction, sentence length, start dates, eligibility dates for escorted temporary absences and unescorted temporary absences, and the dates that they can apply for parole and full parole. We then provide a second letter, once they're registered, with the same information. Then there's a third letter if, for example, the offender occurs new offences or there are any additional changes to that.
We also do a correctional plan progress report that's provided yearly or every two years, depending on the length of the sentence of the offender, that provides all of the eligibility dates. On top of that, we do proactive victim notification for these things in addition to offender transfers.
I'll just say that in terms of adding “proactive”, as you mentioned, some victims just do not want to receive the information. We have a bit of a plug-and-play approach, if you will, where they can choose what they want to get, how they want to get it and when they want to get it. If that changes over the course of an offender's sentence—sometimes over 30 years that situation can change for the victim—they can come forward and change their victim statement or provide additional information and we will change that. We have a 1-800 number. We proactively call them. We do letters.
I think the change may be inconsistent with the Canadian Victims Bill of Rights. Sections 6, 7 and 8 specify that it should be “on request”. I'll just flag that, because we want to be consistent with that piece, which is quasi-constitutional as well.
I don't know if you have anything to add.
12:10 p.m.
Chad Westmacott Director General, Community Safety, Corrections and Criminal Justice, Department of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness
Thanks very much.
The only thing I would add is that Public Safety Canada regularly holds round tables with victims and victims groups. We do hear repeatedly about the need for information, as you pointed out.
However, as my colleague has pointed out, there is the need to respect individuals who do not want that information. The idea of moving to proactively providing that information raises some concerns in terms of the revictimization and retraumatization of those individuals who do not want to receive that information.
I will point out that the recent passing of Bill S-12 sets up a much better approach to ensuring that victims knowingly have the opportunity to register for additional information. I think that goes a long way toward what you're suggesting, while respecting the rights of some victims to decide not to have that information proactively put toward them.