House of Commons Hansard #77 of the 41st Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament's site.) The word of the day was funding.

Topics

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

Vote #107

Tax EvasionPrivate Members' Business

6:20 p.m.

Conservative

The Speaker Conservative Andrew Scheer

I declare the motion defeated.

The House resumed from April 28 consideration of the motion that Bill C-565, An Act to amend the National Capital Act (Gatineau Park) and to make a related amendment to the Department of Canadian Heritage Act, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

National Capital ActPrivate Members' Business

6:20 p.m.

Conservative

The Speaker Conservative Andrew Scheer

The House will now proceed to the taking of the deferred division on the motion at second reading stage of Bill C-565.

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

Vote #108

National Capital ActPrivate Members' Business

6:25 p.m.

Conservative

The Speaker Conservative Andrew Scheer

I declare the motion defeated.

It being 6:28 p.m., the House will now proceed to the consideration of private members' business as listed on today's order paper.

The House proceeded to the consideration of Bill C-479, An Act to amend the Corrections and Conditional Release Act (fairness for victims), as reported (with amendment) from the committee.

Motions in AmendmentPublic Safety and National SecurityPrivate Members' Business

6:30 p.m.

Scarborough Centre Ontario

Conservative

Roxanne James ConservativeParliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness

moved:

Motion No. 1

That Bill C-479, in Clause 6, be amended by

(a) replacing line 9 on page 5 with the following:

“6. (1) Subparagraph 142(1)(b)(iii) of the Act is repealed.

(2) Subparagraphs 142(1)(b)(v) and (vi) of the Act are repealed.

(3) Paragraph 142(1)(b) of the Act is”

(b) replacing line 18 on page 5 with the following:

“(4) Subsection 142(1) of the Act is”

(c) replacing line 1 on page 6 with the following:

“(5) Section 142 of the Act is amended by”

(d) replacing lines 4 and 5 on page 6 with the following:

“information referred to in paragraph (1)(c) at least 14 days, where”.

Mr. Speaker, I rise to speak about an issue that is close to my heart and the hearts of all Canadians, fairness for victims of crime.

When our Conservative government first came into power in 2006, we made a commitment to take a long, hard look at our criminal justice system to see if it was fair to victims. We knew that we had to move forward with comprehensive legislative changes—

Motions in AmendmentPublic Safety and National SecurityPrivate Members' Business

6:30 p.m.

Conservative

The Acting Speaker Conservative Barry Devolin

Order. The hon. member for Malpeque is rising on a point of order.

Motions in AmendmentPublic Safety and National SecurityPrivate Members' Business

6:30 p.m.

Liberal

Wayne Easter Liberal Malpeque, PE

Mr. Speaker, just for clarification, are we speaking on the amendment just introduced or are we speaking on the legislation as amended?

Motions in AmendmentPublic Safety and National SecurityPrivate Members' Business

6:30 p.m.

Conservative

The Acting Speaker Conservative Barry Devolin

To clarify, we are at report stage. We are debating the amendment at report stage.

Motions in AmendmentPublic Safety and National SecurityPrivate Members' Business

6:30 p.m.

Liberal

Wayne Easter Liberal Malpeque, PE

Mr. Speaker, on a point of order, if we are speaking on the amendment, the remarks from the parliamentary secretary were certainly not targeted at this amendment.

Motions in AmendmentPublic Safety and National SecurityPrivate Members' Business

6:30 p.m.

Conservative

The Acting Speaker Conservative Barry Devolin

Order. Pardon me; I was having an audio problem hearing the member for Malpeque. It is my understanding that he was raising a question of relevance.

As all hon. members know, all remarks delivered in the House ought to be relevant to what is before the House. I urge all members to phrase their remarks in that fashion. Second, I urge all hon. members to exercise some patience in allowing their colleagues to get into the content of their speech.

The hon. parliamentary secretary.

Motions in AmendmentPublic Safety and National SecurityPrivate Members' Business

6:30 p.m.

Conservative

Roxanne James Conservative Scarborough Centre, ON

Mr. Speaker, I just started. It is a 10-minute speech, and I will certainly get there.

As I was saying, we knew that we had to move forward with comprehensive legislative changes and create policies and programs that would help victims of crime rebuild their lives.

Using a comprehensive approach, we have accomplished a great deal in a very few short years, including targeted investments of more than $120 million in crime prevention and victim services.

We have also changed laws to support victims. For example, we have strengthened the national sex offender registry and introduced Bill C-26, the tougher penalties for child predators act, which will better protect children from sexual offences and exploitation both here in Canada and abroad.

Motions in AmendmentPublic Safety and National SecurityPrivate Members' Business

6:30 p.m.

Liberal

Wayne Easter Liberal Malpeque, PE

Mr. Speaker, I have a point of order.

Motions in AmendmentPublic Safety and National SecurityPrivate Members' Business

6:30 p.m.

Conservative

The Acting Speaker Conservative Barry Devolin

Order. Before I go to the hon. member, I would also like to clarify something.

It was my understanding when I took the chair that the Speaker had delivered his ruling prior to his departure, but apparently that is not the case.

Regarding Bill C-479, An Act to amend the Corrections and Conditional Release Act (fairness for victims), there is one motion in amendment standing on the notice paper for the report stage of Bill C-479. Motion No. 1 will be debated and voted upon. That is the business that is before the House.

I presume this deals with the point of order that the hon. member for Malpeque was raising.

Motions in AmendmentPublic Safety and National SecurityPrivate Members' Business

6:35 p.m.

Liberal

Wayne Easter Liberal Malpeque, PE

Mr. Speaker, on a point of order, we are dealing with the amendment, which is basically a technicality. We do not need a propaganda speech on everything the government thinks it has done. What we need are comments on the technicality of the amendment.

It is the ninth amendment to this particular bill. This is just a technical amendment to the bill; if the comments are on that, that is fine. However, I have not heard anything from the parliamentary secretary as yet that comes close to debating the amendment.

Motions in AmendmentPublic Safety and National SecurityPrivate Members' Business

6:35 p.m.

Conservative

The Acting Speaker Conservative Barry Devolin

The Chair's response to the member for Malpeque is similar to the initial response, and that is that obviously members are expected to speak to matters before the House. It is common practice in this place that when members are speaking to an amendment or a portion of a bill that they may speak to the bill itself or to other matters related to that. It is not the practice of the Chair to narrowly define relevance in such a way that members have no liberty to explain the context of their point of view. As such, the Chair will proceed.

Resuming debate, the hon. parliamentary secretary.

Motions in AmendmentPublic Safety and National SecurityPrivate Members' Business

6:35 p.m.

Conservative

Roxanne James Conservative Scarborough Centre, ON

Mr. Speaker, we also brought in a number of changes to strengthen the parole process and help victims through the Safe Streets and Communities Act, which was passed into law in March 2012.

In the most recent Speech from the Throne, we outlined our intent to bring forward further measures to ensure that public safety would come first and victims' voices would be heard. This includes introducing the victims bill of rights act which would restore victims to their rightful place at the heart of our justice system.

Through these steps and others, we will continue to fill our commitment to Canadians that we will help victims of crime overcome the trauma they have experienced and that we will give them access to information they need and ensure that they are part of the parole hearing process. We want to ensure that victims are not falling through the cracks of the criminal justice system. That is precisely what Bill C-479 aims to do.

I would like to take a moment at this time to thank the hon. member for Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Westdale for his tireless dedication to helping victims of crime in our country. With this private member's bill, the hon. member continues his quest to ensure that victims do not feel marginalized and that they do not feel re-victimized by the criminal justice system. Our government is proud to stand behind the member and his efforts and I hope to hear strong support from all members of the House on the bill.

We have heard how Bill C-479 proposes to modify parole and detention review dates as well as to provide additional support to victims of violent crime. By increasing the review period between legislated parole and detention reviews for offenders sentenced for violent offences, Bill C-479 aims to ensure a more reasonable length of time has elapsed before the Parole Board must undertake another review.

For example, instead of having to review parole within two years, the Parole Board would now have up to five years. What this means is it allows the victims who are choosing to hear the actual Parole Board hearings not be re-victimized. They do not have to relive their emotional pain every two years. By proposing to give victims additional information and increase their involvement in the parole process, the bill aims to empower victims of violent crime by increasing their understanding of the process and giving them a stronger role.

I am very pleased that this legislation received support through the committee and we reached agreement on some important amendments that further strengthened the bill. This includes a number of technical amendments to clarify the language and ensure that it can be implemented in an effective manner.

During study by committee, we introduced important amendments to the bill to address public safety concerns and ensured that victims were provided key information in a timely fashion.

In terms of public safety concerns, the bill was originally drafted to provide for mandatory release of information regarding date and time, conditions and locations of an offender's conditional release. However, and I think all members in the House would agree, there are circumstances in which disclosing the destination of an offender on release may expose front-line correctional officers to potentially dangerous situations.

To account for such situations, we introduced amendments to the bill to say that the disclosure of this information would only occur when it was clear to the chairperson of the Parole Board of Canada that there would be no negative impact on public safety.

However, there was an error in the drafting of the motion to amend the bill. The amendment adopted at committee stated that the disclosure of an offender's date, location and conditions of the release to the victim under section 142 of the Corrections and Conditional Release Act must occur subject to a public safety test. The amendment, as drafted, inadvertently overwrote clauses 6(2) and 6(3) of Bill C-479. These two clauses deleted paragraphs from the discretionary section of the provision.

The result of this drafting error was that the disclosure of this information would continue to be at the discretion of the chairperson of the Parole Board, as well as mandatory following a public safety test. As such, I have introduced amendments to correct the drafting error to ensure that disclosure of this important information will not be left solely to the chairperson's discretion.

We also introduced amendments at committee to specify that the date, location and conditions of a prisoner's release would be disclosed to victims within 14 days before the offender's release, where practical. We specified that this would only occur where practical because in some cases these details might not be fully arranged two weeks before the actual release.

We amended Bill C-479 at committee to ensure that we did not place the Parole Board in a position where it would not be able to comply with the law in cases that were obviously outside of its control. However, in drafting the motion to amend this paragraph in Bill C-479, the notation of the amendment was incorrect. Where we specified the items to be disclosed, we referred to paragraph 142(1)(a), and we should have referenced paragraph 142(1)(c). The amendments I have introduced would correct that error and ensure that this requirement, where feasible, would operate effectively for timely disclosure of date, location, and conditions of release.

In summary, I have introduced these amendments to correct drafting errors. My amendments that we are considering today, when combined with the amendments adopted by the committee, would allow Bill C-479 to make our justice system more just, unbiased, and equitable for victims. Ultimately we would ensure more fairness for victims of crime.

I would like to ask all members of this House to support my amendments to correct drafting errors.

Motions in AmendmentPublic Safety and National SecurityPrivate Members' Business

6:40 p.m.

NDP

Randall Garrison NDP Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC

Mr. Speaker, I ask the hon. parliamentary secretary if this amendment has been checked against the victims rights bill.

We have several private member's bills amending the Corrections and Conditional Release Act, plus the victims rights bill, which also amends the same act. Therefore, we run into the danger that these amendments would inadvertently contradict each other.

Given the number of amendments we have already had to this private member's bill—I think it is nine: eight plus this one just introduced now—I am concerned about the coordination between things that are making their way through the House through different paths and from different committees at the same time.

Motions in AmendmentPublic Safety and National SecurityPrivate Members' Business

6:40 p.m.

Conservative

Roxanne James Conservative Scarborough Centre, ON

Mr. Speaker, I assure the member that there is absolutely no conflict with the victims bill of rights. In fact, the member who introduced this bill has done it in connection to his view that victims of crime should actually have a better place within our justice system and have more of a say when it comes to the Parole Board hearings.

Again, I support the private member's bill, and I thank the member for his question, which allowed me to clarify.

Motions in AmendmentPublic Safety and National SecurityPrivate Members' Business

6:40 p.m.

Conservative

The Acting Speaker Conservative Barry Devolin

The hon. member for Halifax on a point of order.

Motions in AmendmentPublic Safety and National SecurityPrivate Members' Business

6:40 p.m.

NDP

Megan Leslie NDP Halifax, NS

Mr. Speaker, I just want to clarify, because I believe we are at report stage, and I did not think there were questions and answers during report stage.

Motions in AmendmentPublic Safety and National SecurityPrivate Members' Business

6:40 p.m.

Conservative

The Acting Speaker Conservative Barry Devolin

Yes, there are ten-minute speeches followed by five minutes of questions and comments.

Questions and comments, the hon. member for Malpeque.

Motions in AmendmentPublic Safety and National SecurityPrivate Members' Business

6:40 p.m.

Liberal

Wayne Easter Liberal Malpeque, PE

Mr. Speaker, with the amendments just introduced now, does the power of the Parole Board to use its discretion remain within the provisions of the act?

As I understand it, even with all the amendments, discretion still remains with the Parole Board. Is that correct?