House of Commons Hansard #94 of the 41st Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament's site.) The word of the day was hiring.
Charlie Angus NDP Timmins—James Bay, ON
Thank you, Mr. Speaker, but could you ask people to stop swearing in the House? I know they are acting like drunks at a sports bar, but when the Minister of the Environment uses the word “bullshit” regarding the issue--
The Speaker Conservative Andrew Scheer
Order. Whatever may have been said certainly should not have been repeated while the member has the floor.
I am going to ask members to come to order. It is late at night, and I sense this might be getting off the rails rather quickly.
Order. If members want to have a conversation, they can do so outside the chamber.
Mike Wallace Conservative Burlington, ON
If you don't respect yourself, at least respect this place.
The Speaker Conservative Andrew Scheer
Order. The member for Burlington will not enter the chamber and start hurling heckles out. It is not conducive and certainly does not help the Speaker try to bring the House back to its normal calm.
I would ask the hon. member for Timmins—James Bay to very quickly wrap up his question.
Charlie Angus NDP Timmins—James Bay, ON
Mr. Speaker, I was asking about murdered and missing women and you saw the outburst and the ridicule.
What does my hon. colleague think when the issue of murdered and missing aboriginal women is raised? We see the behaviour of the government with the minister throwing the information of their disappearances on the ground. Why does he think there are two kinds of victims and one kind of victim, aboriginal, does not count?
David McGuinty Liberal Ottawa South, ON
Mr. Speaker, I cannot divine the reasons that compel this kind of behaviour, either in the House or publicly. I will let Canadians draw their own conclusions about that kind of conduct.
I would go back to the important words that were spoken by the outgoing director of criminal law policy at the Department of Justice after a 22-year career there. He was the most senior adviser on criminal law policy. He could have gone quietly into retirement, but instead they say that he tried to talk some sense back into our country. In an editorial in The Globe and Mail he said:
The tough-on-crime route has been tried and failed. The government knows what it knows, doesn't listen to evidence and is reluctant to ask for research to be undertaken.
Tougher Penalties for Child Predators ActGovernment Orders
Lévis—Bellechasse Québec
Conservative
Steven Blaney ConservativeMinister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness
Mr. Speaker, I consider it a privilege to rise in the House tonight to express my full support for the tougher penalties for child predators act, not just as the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness and co-sponsor of this bill, but also as the member of Parliament for Lévis-Bellechasse and Les Etchemins.
I am very proud to represent this region. It includes people in the agricultural, manufacturing and service sectors as well as the insurance world, who, generation after generation, have built their business relationships on trust.
Trust is partly what I want to talk about tonight, not the trust between an insurer and his client, as one would see in my riding, but the trust between a child and an adult that is broken in cases of abuse.
This evening, I saw that everyone in the House supports the principle of this very important bill. This bill would better protect children against people who want to steal their innocence for their own perverse sexual gratification, and it would hold those who commit these heinous crimes accountable for the harm they inflict on society.
Our government is standing up for victims, just as the Minister of Justice is doing tonight by rising to introduce the victims bill of rights, which would implement measures to complement those that we have been putting place since 2006 to protect victims. We want to give them back their voice; their dignity; and the right to information, protection and restitution, as well as the right to participate in the judicial process. We want to put them back at the heart of our justice system.
Last week, our Prime Minister—accompanied by the hon. member for Mégantic—L'Érable, who is the Minister of International Development—kicked off a hugely successful summit in Toronto intended to help women around the world, as well as those children who come into this world and are not lucky enough to be born with a silver spoon in their mouth.
The initiative announced by the Prime Minister will ensure that, as Canadians, we are proud to help women around the world who are in need.
We have always been clear that when it comes to violent and sexual crimes, particularly those committed against our children, we make no apologies for our push to impose harsher penalties and longer sentences for the monsters convicted of these horrendous acts.
We will not apologize for imposing tougher, longer sentences on people who attack that which we hold most dear—our children. That is why it is important to make changes to existing laws, so that a convicted sex offender is given a sentence that reflects the severity of his crime. That is why we will be moving forward with this bill, which includes many measures to ensure that child predators are punished, and that we are protecting children here in Canada as well as abroad.
The Minister of Justice talked about the changes he wants to make to the Criminal Code and the Canada Evidence Act, notably to ensure that someone who is found guilty of sexually assaulting several children serves consecutive sentences, and to increase maximum and minimum penalties that apply to offenders convicted of sexual offences against children.
Why should we have minimum sentences for sexual predators? It is a measure that is used when society feels that the crime was abhorrent, unacceptable and intolerable. That is why our government uses minimum sentences with discretion, moderation and, I would say, restraint, for heinous crimes. That is the kind of crime we have, when adults attack our children.
We will increase maximum penalties for offenders who violate the terms of their supervision orders, which is to say, repeat offenders.
This would ensure that committing a crime while on parole and on unescorted temporary absence, statutory release or while subject to a conditional sentence order would be an aggravating factor for sentencing purposes.
This will ensure that committing a crime while on parole or during an unescorted temporary absence would be considered an aggravating factor for sentencing purposes.
My colleague, the Minister of Justice, also indicated that he wished to amend the Canada Evidence Act to permit spousal testimony in child pornography cases.
I would like to talk about the public safety aspect.
For my part, I will focus on the proposed changes that would help front line law enforcement keep track of dangerous sex offenders.
Canadians, even members of the opposition, agree that it is critical that law enforcement agencies are aware of the location of high-risk registered sex offenders. That, in fact, is one of the reasons why the national sex offender registry exists in the first place.
The national sex offender registry helps police investigate sex crimes by providing up-to-date information about convicted sex offenders and the identity of all registered sex offenders living or working in a particular geographic area. These sex offenders have been convicted of serious sexual offences, and the courts have ordered that they be identified to police.
This database has been an essential law enforcement tool since 2004. There are currently 33,000 individuals listed in the national sex offender registry. Two-thirds of those, or 22,000 individuals, have been convicted of sex crimes against children. I cannot overstate the importance of this registry because police need to have quick access to that information when they are trying to locate sex offenders or investigate crimes.
In 2010, our government passed several measures to strengthen the sex offender registry and make it more effective. At that time, we made sure that anyone convicted of a sexual offence would automatically be added to the registry. We also made it mandatory that every convicted sex offender had to provide a DNA sample to the National DNA Data Bank.
At the same time, we also gave police the power to use the registry proactively as a crime-fighting tool, not just an investigative tool.
This meant that rather than having to wait until after a sexual crime was committed, police officers were able to access the registry to help prevent a crime if they noticed a suspicious person or activity near playgrounds or schools, for example.
I have to say that I have met chiefs of police who have told me that police officers have witnessed suspicious activity around our schools. They get calls and reports. When they respond, they see individuals behaving suspiciously. I think that Canadian families need reassurance. They need to know that our government and Parliament are working to implement measures that will keep our streets safe so that our children can run around without having to worry about someone hurting them.
These amendments mark a tremendous step forward for the protection of vulnerable people from sex offenders.
That being said, there are other necessary changes to ensure the effectiveness of the registry and to protect children here in Canada and abroad. Indeed, sometimes people here leave the country to abuse children abroad. That is why it is important to provide better information to police services when it comes to the travel records and the location of registered sex offenders, especially those found guilty of sexual offences against children. As we saw, nearly two-thirds of the individuals on the registry, or nearly 22,000 people, committed crimes against children.
Currently, all registered sex offenders have to declare absences of seven days or more for any trip, regardless of whether the trip is taken domestically or internationally. For any trip a registered sex offender plans on taking in Canada, that offender must provide detailed information on the location he intends to visit and the addresses of where he plans to stay. However, under the current law, he is not required to provide that same detailed information on his destination and addresses if he is travelling abroad.
Take, for example, a registered sex offender who lives in Ontario and is planning to go to British Columbia for two weeks. He has to provide the police with the address and contact information of where he plans to stay, but if he leaves for Thailand for two weeks, there are no rules. That person is not required to provide locations or details. Under the legislation we are debating this evening, this practice would end. The sex offender would have to provide travel details for trips outside Canada lasting seven or more days, and provide the precise dates of departure and return. Unfortunately, sexual tourism exists. It is important to address this practice when it affects children.
Indeed, international travel is a key focus of this bill. We are concerned about child sex tourism, namely those who are leaving Canada without the knowledge of Canadian authorities and being convicted of sexual assault in the past.
We believe the current system creates a loophole that could be exploited. As it stands today, child sex offenders can travel outside of Canada for only four, five or six days and therefore not be obliged to report their absence to authorities.
We will close this gap by making it mandatory for any registered sex offender convicted of a sex offence against a child to report any absence of any duration outside of Canada.
Whether it is a matter of two days, two hours or two minutes, the duration will no longer be an issue. A child sex offender will have to report any time spent outside Canada.
With these measures in place,we will give the authorities the tools they need to acquire more specific information about where sex offenders live, when they leave, where they stay and when they return. The police will be in a position to follow them and exchange this information with police authorities and law enforcement agencies in the countries where these individuals travel. This will be done to protect children around the world.
We all know that there will always be individuals who try to circumvent the rules and avoid informing the authorities of their plans to travel abroad. That is where another agency will step in; the Canada Border Services Agency will play an important role.
Consider that in 2012 almost 100 million people crossed our borders, either at our ports, airports or departure docks.
While Canada Border Services Agency officers have a number of tools at their disposal to determine the admissibility of each traveller coming into Canada, they do not currently have access to information found in the national sex offender registry. Furthermore, Border Services Agency officers are not able to collect certain travel information from sex offenders at the port of entry, nor can they regularly provide information to officials at the national sex offender registry. The left hand needs to speak to the right hand. This is also what this bill is all about.
If we keep an eye on child sex offenders who travel abroad, it goes without saying that border services officers must have access to this vital information; they must also be able to work more closely with those responsible for the registry in order to share pertinent information. The bill will allow us to do that. We propose to improve information-sharing between these two entities, the Canada Border Services Agency and the national registry, in order to ensure the safety of Canadians and of children in Canada and elsewhere.
When the bill is passed, registered sex offenders will be required to include their passport and driver's licence numbers in the information provided to the national sex offender registry. These are concrete and practical measures. However, they must be covered by legislation and it is the reason why we are introducing them.
Furthermore, those responsible for the registry must be able to provide the Canada Border Services Agency with information about high-risk sex offenders who intend to travel abroad, or other registered sex offenders, in order to help prevent or investigate a sex crime.
If the Canada Border Services Agency is made aware of a registered sex offender, border guards will be able to collect the offender's travel information at the border and share it with those responsible for the registry. The people who maintain the registry will know whether sex offenders are leaving the country and where they are going. These strong measures will allow us to keep children safe from dangerous pedophiles both here at home and abroad.
I would like to talk about a third thing, which Canadians feel very passionate about, and that is the right of victims, children and families to know whether there is a high-risk sex offender living in their neighbourhood. That is perfectly legitimate. We can inform them in a safe way in co-operation with local authorities, and that is what we are proposing to do.
Canadians have the right to know the character of the individuals who are near their children. If a dangerous pedophile is within arm's reach of their child, they have the right to take proper actions and precautions. That is why the bill would enact the high risk child sex offender database act, which would allow our government to create a national public database.
We are going to create a public registry of high-risk sex offenders so that parents can take responsible measures to keep their children safe.
Françoise Boivin NDP Gatineau, QC
Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness for his speech.
He spoke about the public registry of high-risk offenders and said that it would allow parents to take the necessary measures. I would like him to elaborate on what he means by that and what measures parents could take once they know who is in the registry.
Since we are lucky enough to have the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness in the House at this wonderful hour and we know that the commissioner of the RCMP will have to decide who will be included in the registry, determine the criteria and so on, I am curious to know whether the minister intends to give the RCMP any additional resources. The RCMP is already having a lot of difficulty keeping the criminal records in registries up to date, which is problematic. Individuals who should be being found guilty of reoffending are not because the Crown does not have that information when entering its pleas for sentencing.
Does the government intend to give the RCMP more resources so that it can fulfill its obligations?
Steven Blaney Conservative Lévis—Bellechasse, QC
Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for her question. This gives me the opportunity to give an overview of how the future registry will work.
As my colleague knows, the registry already exists. There have been 33,000 names on the list since 2004. It is important to note that the public registry will target high-risk child sex offenders. These offenders are not determined by politicians; they are identified by the appropriate local authorities, such as provincial and municipal police forces. These authorities generally issue a notification. Some already do so.
The only work that is left to be done is to make this information accessible in a national online database. If, for example, a high-risk child sex offender moves from one province to another, the registry will ensure that our children's safety is not at risk and that parents can have access to that information.
That is how the Royal Canadian Mounted Police will play a role in managing and establishing national standards, to ensure the registry works properly. This registry is an important tool for our communities.
David McGuinty Liberal Ottawa South, ON
Mr. Speaker, the minister said earlier that the bill contained measures that would make our streets safer so that our children would be safer, but he has produced no analysis, nor has the Minister of Justice, to substantiate the claim.
I want to go back to the comments made by the former Progressive Conservative member of Parliament who chaired the justice committee and led the Conservative government's sentencing reform team at the Department of Justice when he said that the policy the government was proposing “is based on fear—fear of criminals and fear of people who are different. I do not think these harsh views are deeply held”.
Furthermore, in the U.S., there is a bipartisan measure in Congress to roll back mandatory minimums, which were created in the seventies, eighties, and nineties. The smarter sentencing act, put forward by Republican Senator Mike Lee from Utah, has already passed the senate judiciary committee and has the support of the U.S. Attorney General, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, Families Against Mandatory Minimums, and the chairwoman of the United States Sentencing Commission, who highlighted how mandatory sentences backfire in the fight against crime.
Could the minister, or any minister, tell us why we are moving backward in Canada, when the 25 years of experience in the United States shows us that this is clearly the wrong way to go?
Steven Blaney Conservative Lévis—Bellechasse, QC
Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for Ottawa South for his question.
Facts are stronger than rhetoric. In Canada, since 2006, it is evident that our policies have been working. Crime rates are going down. Whether my colleague likes it or not, their apocalyptic prediction of overcrowded prisons did not come true. The Auditor General's latest report confirms that. Correctional Service Canada is returning hundreds of millions of dollars to the public purse because our prison population is growing at a lower rate than our general population.
However, there are still areas that warrant closer attention. I am talking about people who attack our children, and we will find responsible ways to ensure that our children are safe and that their parents can feel comfortable letting them play outside.
Ryan Leef Conservative Yukon, YT
Mr. Speaker, it is always interesting to listen to the Liberal members pose questions about this. They talk about imposing mandatory minimum sentences on child sexual predators as though these perpetrators just made a bad decision one day, just woke up and did not do something right today that they really should have rethought about.
The Liberals talk about our policies being based on fear. They are darned right. I think the average Canadian should be fearful, and is fearful, that somebody would prey on their child for sexual purposes.
The fact that the Liberal Party has no interest in imposing a sanction on that will be its problem, not ours, because this government will take those concrete steps.
I do have a question for the minister on this. The Liberals like to drag out all the statistics on the U.S., but they do not tell the Canadian public that over the last three decades, the States have actually been increasing penalties and increasing sentences on child sexual predators. There are five states in the United States that have the death penalty for child rape. Are the Liberals suggesting we mirror our Conservatives cousins to the south? Is that what they are recommending?
The minister has talked to victims. What do they have to say about that?
Steven Blaney Conservative Lévis—Bellechasse, QC
Mr. Speaker, the member for Yukon is doing outstanding work. I had a chance to visit him. He is a former police officer. He has a long experience in the correctional services. He is a well-respected member and is also an athlete.
That being said, to get back to the core of his question, it is all about the victims. I am proud to stand in a government that is standing up for victims.
I come from Quebec. I sit in the Quebec caucus with members like Senator Pierre-Hugues Boisvenu who has experienced the tragic loss of his daughter. That is why I am so proud to work with the Minister of Justice to bring forward legislation that is bringing a voice for victims into our justice system, and that is making sure that when we are making decisions and taking those inmates out of prison, we take into account the concern of the victims.
Françoise Boivin NDP Gatineau, QC
Mr. Speaker, I wish the minister had given a more detailed answer earlier when I asked him the question. We know how important it is for parents and communities to know when a dangerous predator is going to be in their midst. Once they know, what do they do? He stopped there. I am curious about what that information would enable victims and parents to do.
The minister talked about the fact that it was not up to politicians to determine the criteria. However, I would like him to comment on clause 11 of the new registry, which states that the Governor in Council can make regulations establishing the criteria. I would like him to adjust his earlier answer. It is not necessarily the RCMP and its commissioner. The Governor in Council is the one who will be able to establish the criteria for determining whether a person is a dangerous predator.
Steven Blaney Conservative Lévis—Bellechasse, QC
Mr. Speaker, I would simply like to repeat that the local authorities are the ones who will notify the public about sexual predators. The registry will include high-risk sexual predators.
I think that a mother is in a good position to know what information she would make use of, keeping in mind the need to be careful. We always need to be prudent and remain vigilant, making sure that we take precautions, as was said earlier. We want to avoid hare-brained initiatives. We will create a reliable process so that parents can get the information.
Nycole Turmel NDP Hull—Aylmer, QC
Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with another member.
I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak to Bill C-26. We all agree that it is important to protect our children from any and all forms of violence, particularly sexual abuse.
Given that there are mothers, grandmothers, brothers and sisters who are living in families where there is sexual abuse, it is understandable that the government wants to find ways to prevent these sorts of things from happening and pass bills in this regard. That is not my situation. I have been lucky in life, but I have heard the testimony of families where there has been abuse. We are going to support this bill, but we disagree with the fact that, once again, it refers only to punishment and not necessarily to prevention, training, resources and assistance.
I would like to read a comment that was made by Clayton Ruby, a defence lawyer and author of the textbook Sentencing. He said:
The minimums, especially consecutive minimums, don’t leave room for considering the individual offender and the nature of the offence. Government doesn’t trust the judges. They appoint them, but they don’t trust them. It’s all about control.
I would like to talk about a particular situation. Today, I spoke with Mr. Michaud, the director of the Centre d'intervention en abus sexuels pour la famille. He talked to me more about the guidance and help we can provide to the family than he did about punishment. First and foremost, there are statistics. He said that 90% of the attackers are known to the child. Often, the victim is torn by the affection he or she might have for the attacker, and it is even worse when that person is the father. The family ends up torn apart in this situation. The longer the sentence, the greater the impact it will have on the family. That has to be taken into consideration. All that to say that training, prevention and methods for helping the family are very important.
Mr. Michaud also said that if we want a program to succeed, then we must truly provide support to the entire family. He said that when the mother learns that one of her children was sexually abused, it is doubly hard and often she feels guilty for the rest of her days. That means that if we do not have the means to help them, then nothing will come of it. People have to look for help. Help is available. It can be found.
Stress levels are going up and needs are becoming greater.
What he would like to have is help in the form of tools to assess the aggressive behaviour or what happened and develop a standard protocol for assessing the risk of reoffending . He says that, in general, without providing statistics, the assessment shows that many people do not reoffend. However, if they are taken out of their environment and the family is placed in a difficult situation, the risk of reoffending is higher. That is what the director of the crisis centre deplored.
For society in general, we have to find the means to help people. We must ensure that all the people and families affected receive some assistance. Naturally, there must be a punishment. These people have to realize how they have hurt their families.
However, I would like to come back to what Mr. Michaud was telling me. Victims often feel guilty. They feel twice as guilty when the family is affected and when they wonder what will happen with regard to means of co the situation.
We therefore need to address the overall problem, not deal with it on a case-by-case basis. We need to ensure that sexual offenders receive harsh sentences. We also need to provide support for victims and their families.
All too often we forget that the family is affected, and I am talking here about the extended family. Often family includes friends and everyone around the victim. We need to help victims speak out against their abusers and cope with this very difficult ordeal.
Over the past few years, organizations' budgets have been cut. There is less and less help available in the community. We need to go back to square one.
After all these bills were passed, we saw an increase in delinquency and crime.
I want to ensure that families and organizations get help and that victims feel reassured about everything that is happening in their lives.
The Speaker Conservative Andrew Scheer
The hon. member will have 13 minutes left to conclude her remarks the next time the bill is before the House.
A motion to adjourn the House under Standing Order 38 deemed to have been moved.
Wayne Easter Liberal Malpeque, PE
Mr. Speaker, on March 5, I asked the Minister of Public Safety to explain why he is allowing one of the most successful crime prevention programs in the country, a model other countries have been adopting, namely Circles of Support and Accountability, to be terminated. His answer, in part, was, “This program has the support of the government”. There is only one problem. The minister's words ring hollow. The program is, in fact, being terminated next year.
If it was accurate, how does he explain the statement made before the public safety committee on May 15 by a representative of Circles of Support and Accountability? He said:
The funding of a nationwide program, a Canadian innovation in both crime prevention and recidivism reduction, involving ordinary citizens across this country who are invested in risk management within communities and community safety, is over as of March 31, 2015.
CoSA is community-based, and the people who comprise CoSA were described as follows to the public safety committee on May 15:
They're your neighbours. They're often people who belong to a faith community. They're moms and dads.... ...[They are] 30-year-old people with new families, with young children, some of them churchgoers, some of them not, and they were saying, “If I don't do this, how can I say to my children that I did anything to protect them in society as much as I possibly could?”
The need for CoSA was best addressed by Andrew McWhinnie, who represented CoSA at the public safety committee on May 15. He said:
If you talk to a room full of people and say, “How about it? Let's provide the support and accountability network for sexual offenders,” they'll run you out of the room. And if you go back to your constituencies and say that, you're not going to get re-elected. But if you're talking about the reduction of victimization, about protecting children, about protecting college students, that's what we're about. That will get you elected. And when we talk to people about that, they start to say, “Okay, I get it. I understand it.” We've done some evaluations and asked, “Do you think your community is any safer? Do you feel any better about being in your community, knowing that there is a circle of support there around these guys who are coming out of jail?” People say, “Yes, a little bit.” They still think they should all go to jail and be kept there, and we should throw away the key, but they feel better that there is a circle of support for the people who are coming to the community, whether they like it or not. Because in Canada we don't have civil commitment, and we don't put people away forever—not yet, anyway. So we do have people of that high risk who are coming back to our communities.
We have heard a great deal from the government about crime, and we have seen the government's usual response. We have seen it tonight as well. It is toward punishment, toward incarceration, as if somehow these measures alone will result in a so-called safer society. However, what really makes a safer society is crime prevention programs, like Circles of Accountability and Support.
Therefore, I have to ask. Why is the government terminating the money for this program?
Cathy McLeod ConservativeParliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Labour and for Western Economic Diversification
Mr. Speaker, further to the request from the Minister of Public Safety, Correctional Service Canada has reviewed its decision and restored its full funding to previously existing agreements with the Circles of Support and Accountability, commonly known as CoSA.
When it comes to protecting the safety of our streets, communities and children, the government has adopted more measures than any previous government. Through the 2011 Safe Streets and Communities Act, we have increased the protection of children and youth from sexual predators, ended house arrest, eliminated pardons for serious crimes and have increased offender accountability.
We have talked about other legislation tonight, but we have also recently introduced legislation to strengthen the sex offender registry to prevent sexual exploitation online and to restore balance in the criminal justice system through better protection of the rights of victims.
The government has also acted decisively on measures to prevent crime. We have provided more resources to police officers, crime prevention programs through our national crime prevention strategy and to effectively coordinate in community corrections programs in order to prevent recidivism among offenders released in communities.
The hon. member for Malpeque knows that we are not cancelling effective programs. However, as a responsible government, we are always looking for the right balance to ensure that our citizens are protected from crime and that we, as a government, use our resources efficiently.
That is exactly why we provided additional funding to CoSA in 2009 through the national crime prevention strategy to find out more about the intervention's effectiveness to reduce sexual offences. Through this national demonstration project, we have provided an additional $7.5 million over five years to develop more CoSA sites that provide support to more sex offenders who have been released into communities. This additional support also enables us to commission, for the first time, a comprehensive, independent evaluation of the impacts of the intervention programs on the participants.
In addition to determining whether and to what extent CoSA reduces sexual recidivism, this evaluation will help identify the key elements of successful CoSA practices. Previous data do not provide the same level of detail and confidence that this evaluation will.
Through this additional funding, 250 new participants have entered the program so far, an increase of 137% compared the situation prior to our making this investment. I am pleased to report that 94 have completed the program and 125 are currently enrolled.
CoSA eases the stress and enhances the likelihood of successful community re-entry by providing constant support through the circles to help these offenders develop the positive pro social skills, establish positive social networks and maintain stable housing and employment.
I am convinced that Canadians appreciate that the results of the final evaluation will provide important information to all potential funders regarding the effectiveness of this investment.
It is important to understand that under current sentencing provisions, once offenders have completed their sentences in full, they are no longer under the jurisdiction of Correctional Service Canada. Investments such as these have the potential to provide needed supports that go beyond the programs offered by the CSC when individuals are in custody.
Wayne Easter Liberal Malpeque, PE
Mr. Speaker, I listened closely to what the parliamentary secretary had to say, but I take issue with a couple of points.
The government is, in fact, cancelling effective programs on the crime prevention side. The parliamentary secretary claims, and this is often the way that the Conservative government works, that the government is restoring funding. Yes, it has restored funding, but the problem is that the funding ends on March 31, 2015. That is just restoring temporary funding and letting a program drop that is in fact successful and seen as a model around the world in reducing recidivism for serious sexual offences. That kind of program is making streets safer.
I ask the parliamentary secretary again. Will the government restore funding long-term? I am not talking about these halfway measures that it uses to try to let on that it is doing something, when really it is not.
Cathy McLeod Conservative Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC
Mr. Speaker, the CoSA sites, which have had agreements for some years now with Correctional Service of Canada, have had their full funding reinstated. That was at the request of the Minister of Public Safety .
In addition, through a five-year agreement under the national crime prevention strategy, Public Safety Canada has been provided with additional funding. The funds include resources for a national evaluation of the CoSA to determine its effectiveness.
Through this new agreement, CoSA sites have been added and more sex offenders have been assisted, in fact increasing the numbers of persons enrolled by 137%. Consideration will be given to the findings of the evaluation that is due in the fall of 2014, which is expected to provide more reliable findings about the impacts of CoSA. Certainly the hon. member can acknowledge that an evaluation of any program that government does is important.
These measures, of course, should not be seen in isolation from the rest of the government's initiatives that are designed to make communities and vulnerable persons safe from crime.
The Speaker Conservative Andrew Scheer
Pursuant to an order made on Tuesday, May 27, 2014, the motion to adjourn the House is now deemed to have been adopted. Accordingly, the House stands adjourned until later this day at 10 a.m., pursuant to Standing Order 24(1).
(The House adjourned at 12:10 a.m.)