Mr. Speaker, I would just like to say first that I will be splitting my time in debate.
I will speak to Bill C-54, An Act to amend the Criminal Code and the National Defence Act (mental disorder). I would say from the outset that we support investigating this topic and we will vote for this proposal to move the bill to committee for study.
Before moving along further, I would like to thank the MP for Gatineau for her work on this file, and on many other files. I know the public safety and justice committees are some of the busiest here in the House of Commons, and she does great work, along with my benchmate, on these topics.
From a broad perspective, this is a very difficult issue for victims, families and communities in general. It is probably one of the most difficult issues any community must face: what to do when a member of that community is accused of perpetrating a heinous act, but is found by professional evaluation not to be of right mind. What to do with these individuals is really what we are trying to come to grips with here.
The sad truth is that I do not think there is any way that we will ever make a perfect decision. What we really have to do is try to figure out how to manage this in the best way possible and ensure that we do not make things worse than they already are.
Of course, we have to think of the victims first. We have to think of public safety. We also have to think of the broader communities in these senses and ask what is the best thing we can do to ensure that the community itself comes out as well as it can when we are dealing with these types of sad issues.
There is one bright spot, if we can call it a bright spot on this awful topic, and it is that through our health and social scientists, our criminologists and psychologists and psychiatrists, we probably know more about this issue than we have ever known in the past. My mind drifts back to the asylums of the 19th century, when people who were of healthy mind and body were incarcerated along with those who were criminally insane. We have gone well past that, knowing more about the causes of these mental shortcomings in the perpetrators of these acts, and also what to do to help victims recover. Through the good research of our professionals in this area, we are probably better equipped to deal with this problem than we ever have been in the past. This wealth of information should be used to help us make the best possible decisions in this area.
We are supporting moving this bill to committee because we need to have a reasoned and rational discussion. We need to bring in many experts and try to stay away from some of the partisan witnesses that sometimes parties are guilty of bringing to the committees. We should probably resist that and try to bring in the best experts we can in this area in order to have a reasoned discussion about what we should do in these cases and to evaluate the proposals being made in this particular bill. Therefore, I urge the government to listen to a wide range of experts when this inevitably comes to committee and to take the time to get it right.
In addition to the psychologists, psychiatrists and criminologists, we should also take time to hear other witnesses. Often the people who are affected by these awful crimes are also from marginalized communities, so we should hear from these community leaders, including first nations. My mind is always drawn to the awful events of British Columbia, whether it is Clifford Robert Olson or perhaps Willie Pickton. Many members of the community were affected by these awful crimes perpetrated by people who were found to be mentally deficient, and mental deficiency was the reason these people were perpetrating or involved in these crimes. We should ensure we talk to the people in the communities who were most affected, because they are the ones who now have the experience of working through how to heal from these awful events.
When we go to committee, we also have to be mindful that our actions are bound by the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The Charter of Rights and Freedoms establishes clear boundaries within which our laws must fall, so we should take care that we do not put new laws into place that would clearly violate the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
In addition to the criminologists, psychologists, psychiatrists and community members who come to committee, we should also make ensure there is the due diligence to make sure the laws we are bringing in do not violate any aspects of the charter. From the NDP perspective, public safety must come first on this issue, and we need to help the victims as much as possible. However, we have to make sure we are abiding by our primary law.
The issue at hand is to consider what to do when an accused is discharged. Increasing notification to victims and their families would seems like a reasonable thing to consider. If review boards would be able to issue non-communication orders with victims, keeping as much distance between the accused or somebody considered not criminally responsible and thus giving victims as much time as possible to recover, that is worth consideration. Even if there is no contact between the individuals, the peace of mind this might bring to victims is in itself well worth considering.
The bill would also create a new category of high-risk accused, and the review boards would have the option of tripling the length of time between reviews, from 12 months to 36 months. It is moving away from mandatory decisions imposed on judges and allowing the legal system to consider these cases in great detail.
I was reading some statistics by Mr. Chris Summerville, the alliance facilitator and chief executive officer of the Schizophrenia Society of Canada, who stated, “In Canada's most populated province, Ontario, only .001% of individuals charged with Criminal Code violations were adjudicated [not criminally responsible for their actions]”. This law will affect a very small number of people, so we have to make sure we are also taking that into consideration.
We should also take care that when we are considering these and other types of similar bills that we do not try to hype up this issue at all. As is well documented in Canada, crime rates have fallen dramatically. Both violent crimes and crimes against property have fallen over the past couple of decades. While it is important to get these laws right, we do not want this type of debate making the public think that crime is somehow spiralling out of control.
With regard to victims who are affected by current crimes, we really have to do as much as we can to help them through these things. However, as public opinion will show, Canadians are more concerned about the economy, for example, than spiralling crime rates. While it is good to get these things right through reasoned debate, it should not be used as an excuse to try to scare the public into thinking that crime is at a higher rate than it has been in previous decades, because it is not.
When this goes to committee, New Democrats want to discuss the idea that public safety must come first, but any laws that are changed must comply with the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. We are open to change to ensure the way in which cases involving mentally disordered accused persons are handled is effective in terms of treatment. I note in the bill that this in no way should affect treatment. However, we have to make sure there is treatment in order to ensure the entire community is considered when we put these kinds of motions forward.
