House of Commons Hansard #73 of the 35th Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament's site.) The word of the day was crime.

Topics

Prisons And Reformatories ActGovernment Orders

5:05 p.m.

Reform

Diane Ablonczy Reform Calgary North, AB

It is not when you escape. The purpose of a temporary absence program is to allow a prisoner to be absent from his incarceration for the following purposes: for medical purposes; for "humanitarian purposes"; for rehabilitative purposes; or to help offenders integrate into the community; or for any other purpose established by a province and relating to prisoners convicted under provincial law. For any of those purposes there can be what is called a temporary absence.

The bill before us would amend the Prisons and Reformatories Act to add a statement of purpose and principles which would apply to the temporary absence programs. It sounds good. There certainly should be purposes and principles for these kinds of programs and processes. Unfortunately, the effect of the bill is to expand the practical operation of these programs no matter what the purposes and principles are. In fact the purposes and principles are sorely lacking in one important respect.

Also this bill for the first time authorizes the provinces to create additional types of temporary absence programs. That was done at the request of the provinces as they administer much of the practical result of our justice system.

Also this bill will lengthen the maximum duration of temporary absences. In fact it will lengthen them by four times. Right now the maximum temporary absence can be for only 15 days. Under this bill it will be expanded to 60 days. Even after the 60 days under this bill the temporary absence can be renewed. That is something else

to consider when we talk about whether the bill is good for Canadians.

Also under this bill the grounds for suspending, cancelling or revoking temporary absences are set out for the first time.

There are some greater certainties or particulars in the bill. What we want to look at is what Canadians actually get in the bill.

There is another act which is quite similar to the Prisons and Reformatories Act. It is called the Corrections and Conditional Release Act. In the Corrections and Conditional Release Act these words are stated: "The protection of society is to be the paramount consideration in the determination of any case". In the amendment to the Prisons and Reformatories Act the principle that the protection of society is to be paramount is absent. I would like to ask the government why that is. Canadians are entitled to know why. By implication, by omission, the protection of society need not be the paramount consideration when permitting convicted offenders to be out of prison on temporary absences.

In 1971 the Liberal solicitor general of the time rose in the House and made the following statement: "We are going to put the rehabilitation of individuals ahead of the protection of society". In other words, in 1971 the Liberals decided that our justice system which for centuries had as its primary purpose the protection of law-abiding citizens and their property would now serve a different master. Its main purpose, focus and reason for being would be to rehabilitate people who had violated the rights of others and the protection of society would come second.

It was strange to me, although I was quite a bit younger at the time, and I do not want to say exactly how much younger, that there was not a big uproar about such a fundamental philosophical shift. One of the main reasons why we have an organized society and an organized government is to protect the lives and property of law-abiding citizens. However, the Liberals made that tremendous shift in the focus of the justice system.

We have been urging the government, indeed all of society, to consider whether that shift in the focus and priority of the justice system has in fact served us well over the last 20 some years. Of course my party and I submit that it has not. The protection of law-abiding citizens and their property and the protection of society, the safety of our families and communities should be first in the justice system. Rehabilitation measures, important and necessary as they are, should be second.

This is very important when we come to judging whether we should support these amendments to the Prisons and Reformatories Act in Bill C-53, which expands the operation of temporary release. This philosophical decision or choice is very important. If we are going to put the rehabilitation of prisoners first and foremost then these additional tools to use conditional release in the way we treat prisoners and the way we deal with them would make perfect sense. That is probably why the Liberals propose it and why they are supporting it.

However, if we are worried and concerned and have as our priority putting the protection of society and law-abiding citizens first, then we would have some extremely serious concerns about the provisions of this bill. The reason is that temporary release can and has jeopardized public safety, can jeopardize the safety of our communities, can jeopardize the right to security of innocent and law-abiding citizens.

Canadians are increasingly outraged at how little truth or honesty there is in the sentences handed down by the Canadian justice system. We had a huge debate on this on Bill C-45 where life in prison with no possibility of parole for 25 years really means possibly 25 years in prison with the possibility of parole after 15 years.

Under the provisions of Prisons and Reformatories Act an offender may be sentenced to incarceration but in fact there are a number of provisions whereby this incarceration can be changed to something quite different and the public is not always aware that this is the fact.

In addition to parole, which we talked about in Bill C-45, in addition to this temporary absence for medical, humanitarian, rehabilitative, reintegration or any other purpose, convicted offenders may have the benefit of conditional release, mandatory supervision, statutory release, community sentencing and alternative measures.

If we are going to put the protection of society and law-abiding citizens first and foremost, and if we decide that people who violate the rights, liberties and the freedoms of others, should be subject to criminal sanction and have a debt to society then the question arises: Why are criminal's rights and the rights of law abiding-citizens to security of the person so much at variance? Why is the balance being continually shifted by these kinds of social experiments?

Again, it comes back to what Canadians want as the underlying philosophy, the underlying purpose of our justice system. Do we want it to attempt to rehabilitate offenders, people who have shown a willingness to choose to violate the rights of others, above the protection of society? On the one hand we have rehabilitation. On the other hand we have the rights of victims and the protection of society.

There is a very simple resolution to the proper balancing of these two considerations because they are both important. I suggest that

when the desire for rehabilitative measures and the need to protect the law-abiding citizen conflict, then the justice system should err on the side of safety for law-abiding citizens. That is why in the bill I think we should see a statement to the effect that the protection of society is to be the paramount consideration in the determination of any application for temporary absence. But it is not in there. I would suggest that the measures in this bill fail Canadians.

In the bill principles are set out which would guide decisions relating to temporary absence. These are the principles. First, the decision should be the least restrictive one on the prisoner, keeping in mind the protection of society-good-and prisoner's rehabilitation. Both are given equal paramountcy in this statement of principles. Again, the protection of society is not given paramountcy. The clear principle is that the decision on behalf of the convicted person, the person who owes a debt to society, should be the least restrictive on that person.

There is a lot of protection of prisoners having information relating to the decision, reasons for the decision, access to a review of the decision. Guess who gets to pay for all of the time, the people and the resources it takes to make sure that the rights of offenders are tenderly and carefully protected? Again, mention of the rights of law-abiding citizens seems to be a poor second.

Then there is the matter of giving information about these programs to prisoners, victims and the public. This is something which needs to be highlighted. We need to have a real debate on the philosophy underlying these measures and, indeed, our entire justice system.

The Reform Party supports a judicial system which places the punishment of crime and the protection of law-abiding citizens and their property ahead of all other objectives. Interestingly enough, previous considerations of this whole area by the House have been consistent with that Reform principle.

I would like to refer the House to the report of the Standing Committee on Justice which came down in October 1991. This was a report relating to a consideration by the House justice committee on the escapes of Daniel Gingras and Allan Legere. Members will know that both of these individuals murdered other Canadians when they were out of prison on temporary absences.

On June 29, 1987 Daniel Gingras, an inmate at Edmonton Institution, escaped while on escorted temporary absence to West Edmonton Mall. He was later convicted in 1988 and 1989 of two separate first degree murders committed while he was at large. Allan Legere, an inmate at Atlantic Institution, escaped on May 3, 1989 while on an escorted medical temporary absence. Later there were several charges of murder against him which he committed while he was at large.

According to the committee both of these incidents raised serious concerns in the surrounding communities. As a result, there were requests from many sources for the release of the reports concerning the circumstances surrounding these two escapes.

In early 1990 the Correctional Service of Canada reviewed these two reports and released them with numerous deletions under the Privacy Act. Many passages in the documents were deleted, thus making any complete understanding of the underlying findings and analysis almost impossible.

The report goes on to say that it took over a year for the committee to obtain access to the two unexpurgated reports. When the committee finally did, it said this in October 1991: "The first priority of any correctional system is protection of the community". That recommendation of the justice committee has stood since October 1991. I would submit that here we are in September 1996 completely ignoring a strong, explicit recommendation that came out of one of our own committees relating to two terrible consequences of crimes committed flowing out of temporary release.

I will read it again, because I know some members of the House are having little visits and perhaps did not hear this point. The committee said: "The first priority of any correctional system is protection of the community".

We have a bill here which vastly expands the consideration given to convicted criminals in the matter of temporary absences. There may be reasons for that. We could debate whether this is desirable or undesirable. Leaving aside all that, I would say, at the very least, we should make it very clear in this legislation that the protection of society is to be the paramount consideration in the determination of when temporary absences should be permitted. That is not in this legislation.

For that reason I urge this House to either amend the legislation to include it or to reject this bill by voting it down.

Prisons And Reformatories ActGovernment Orders

5:25 p.m.

Liberal

Derek Lee Liberal Scarborough—Rouge River, ON

Mr. Speaker, the member has occasion to remind me of some work that I and other members of the House participated in on the justice committee in the previous Parliament, including the member for Moncton who is here this afternoon with us.

I want to bring to the attention of the hon. member that following that report and in the drafting of the Corrections and Conditional Release Act legislation which followed, the matter of public safety and safety of the community was inserted. If I am not mistaken in the first draft of the act perhaps it was left out. I am trying to remember and I think it may have been. This was five or so years ago.

I believe the work at the committee stage resulted in the insertion of that principle. If am not mistaken in this Parliament a CCRA amendment was going forward, or perhaps it was the sentencing act, and the issue of public safety was listed at about number five on the list of criteria. For cosmetic purposes we were successful in moving that up the list to number one or number two. In any event, the member has made a good point. If the issue of safety to the community, public safety, is missing from this bill and it is not already present in the statute it amends, then perhaps this House through the committee which will study the bill should consider inserting it as a principle. She may wish to respond.

Prisons And Reformatories ActGovernment Orders

5:25 p.m.

Reform

Diane Ablonczy Reform Calgary North, AB

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Scarborough-Rouge River. It is good to have people with us who have institutional memories which some of the rest of us are just acquiring. He is correct.

I mentioned in my intervention that the primacy of the protection of the public is in the Corrections and Conditional Release Act. My whole contention was that is good and is another argument for its inclusion in the bill before us.

I would welcome adding that amendment to the bill. It would make our party a great deal more comfortable with the bill. If he and other members of the justice committee would recommend and bring forward that amendment to the House and support it, I would certainly applaud that and I would applaud him for making that move.

I thank him for his intervention and look forward to perhaps having that carried through.

The House resumed from September 19 consideration of the motion that Bill C-201, an act to amend the Criminal Code (operation while impaired), be read the second time and referred to a committee.

Criminal CodePrivate Members' Business

5:25 p.m.

The Acting Speaker (Mr. Kilger)

It being 5.30 p.m., the House will now proceed to the taking of the deferred recorded division on the motion at the second reading stage of Bill C-201, an act to amend the Criminal Code (operation while impaired).

Call in the members.

Before the taking of the vote:

Criminal CodePrivate Members' Business

5:50 p.m.

The Acting Speaker (Mr. Kilger)

As it is the practice, the division will be taken row by row, starting with the mover and then proceeding with those in favour of the motion sitting on the same side of the House as the mover. Then those in favour of the motion sitting on the other side of the House will be called. Those opposed to the motion will be called in the same order.

All those at my left in favour of the motion will please rise.

(The House divided on the motion, which was negatived on the following division:)

Criminal CodePrivate Members' Business

6:05 p.m.

The Acting Speaker (Mr. Kilger)

I declare the motion defeated.

The House resumed from September 23 consideration of the motion and amendment.

Committees Of The HouseRoutine Proceedings

6:05 p.m.

The Acting Speaker (Mr. Kilger)

The House will now proceed to the taking of the deferred recorded division on the amendment of Mr. Williams on Motion No. 7 under government business.

The question is on the amendment.

(The House divided on the amendment, which was negatived on the following division:)

Committees Of The HouseRoutine Proceedings

6:05 p.m.

The Acting Speaker (Mr. Kilger)

I declare the amendment defeated.

It being 6.13 p.m., the House will now proceed to the consideration of Private Members' Business as listed on today's Order Paper.