Joe Comartin

[Abolition of Early Parole Act, February 15th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, I know my colleague was unable to get through all of it.

I just want to ask the member about a preventive approach to white-collar crime, so that people like Earl Jones would not be allowed to operate. There could be a system that would require them to register. They would have to show their registration. They would be monitored. They could not receive any money unless they were registered and met certain qualifications to be able to advise and direct investment.

Added to that kind of a structure, beyond the initial registration, would be a monitoring structure, much as lawyers have their trust funds monitored and the funeral industry has its trust funds monitored. It could be that kind of an approach and strict enforcement if there was a breach.

Could the member comment on that?

[Abolition of Early Parole Act, February 15th, 2011]

Madam Speaker, what is happening in the United States is interesting. We had a witness, a private consultant who works closely with the Mennonite Central Committee, in front of our justice committee last week. He was going to California, which is one of the more notorious states in terms of an increase in their prison population over the last 20 to 30 years with about a 300% increase in the prison population. He was going there to describe some of the provisions that we have here.

The United States generally does not have this kind of provision that I am aware of in any of its states. However, California was forced last spring to release something like 40,000 to 45,000 prisoners, including drug dealers and other people who had committed violent crimes. They are having to do that, but mostly they are closing prisons and releasing people. They are changing their drug laws, doing away with mandatory minimums in most cases and shortening the length of time that people can be sentenced, particularly for drug crimes. That is what is happening in the United States.

In other parts of the world, western Europe, the democracies of Australia and New Zealand, no one has gone down this route to any significant degree with the kind of mandatory minimums that the Conservative government is using. They just do not do it. If they do, they always leave residual discretion in the hands of the judiciary to deal with individual cases, which is really what this section is about. It allows that discretionary role to be played if the person has cleaned up his or her act, is not a risk to society, is able to contribute when he or she gets back into society, is rehabilitated and does not commit more crimes. That is what we need to be doing.

This section is such an over-reach that it is throwing the baby out with the bath water.

[Abolition of Early Parole Act, February 15th, 2011]

Madam Speaker, the member obviously was not paying attention to the latter part of my speech when I specifically addressed the issue of drugs and organized crime members.

I want to make the point that we in the NDP are very clear that there are provisions within the existing corrections act around the one-sixth provision that need to be changed. I made that very clear. I spoke of it yesterday. My colleague from Vancouver spoke on it today.

That is why we are quite prepared today to vote as a caucus to send the bill to committee this evening, but we want to be very clear, and this is what the member who just asked the question is missing. This bill excludes everybody. It is not just the drug dealer in his area of the country, but everybody else. There are certain people who should in fact qualify for this.

[Abolition of Early Parole Act, February 15th, 2011]

Madam Speaker, I will be sharing my time with my colleague from Elmwood—Transcona.

Bill C-59 deals with an issue that we have needed to address for at least the five years that the government has been in power. However, it sat on its hands and passed all sorts of other silly laws, including in the area of criminal law, which in its mind took precedence over this particular bill.

I find it surprising that the Bloc members never acknowledged the fact that these amendments were initially introduced under the Mulroney Conservative government in 1992 and then introduced in 1997 by the Liberal government. During that time in 1992, the Bloc members, who were Conservative members at the time, voted for those amendments. In 1997, the whole Bloc caucus voted for the amendments that affected the types of victims that we are hearing so much about today. Of course that was done after they had been victimized. However, any number of steps could have been taken, both at the federal and provincial levels of government, to prevent these types of crimes. I will address that a bit more toward the end of my speech today.

The issue that we have before us today with regard to changing these provisions for early release is that we are doing it almost totally in reaction to one case, the Earl Jones case out of Montreal, Quebec. Earl Jones will be eligible for early release somewhere between December 2011 and the spring of 2012. It is not as though it is tomorrow or next month. We have at least nine months, if not a full year, before we attempt to stop him from being able to use it.

As an aside, whether in debate or in private conversations, I have not heard of one member of the House, including my entire caucus, who is opposed to ensuring that Earl Jones does not serve only one-sixth of his sentence. We all agree that we should be doing something about this. However, as is so typical of the government, especially in the criminal justice area, there is much overreaction and overkill. I castigate the Bloc members for agreeing to this on the basis of the few facts that we have.

We do not have answers to a series of questions that we have posed. We have some partial figures and partial facts but we have nowhere near a clear picture, nor will we get it this evening at committee. For instance, we do not know how many people are released on an annual basis under this one-sixth provision. We do not know how many of those released are in full parole, how many are in day parole or how many are spending their time in halfway houses, which is another form of detention. We also do not know what crimes they have committed before being released.

Every Conservative member who I have heard speak to this, and I think the Bloc is making the same mistake, assumes that the offenders who are eligible are white-collar criminals. I can say that is absolutely not true but I must admit that I do not know how many of the offenders committed the stereotypical white-collar crime and how many were incarcerated for other reasons. We know they are crimes of a non-violent nature, because that is the criteria for eligibility, and that it has to be a first offence. We also know that the offenders must show that they are not at risk of committing a violent crime. All of those criteria are written in the statute of the corrections act now.

However, we do not know what crimes those offenders have committed or what their individual factual situations are. We have some indication that a good number of those who are eligible for this had originally committed the crime because of addictions, whether it be gambling, alcohol, drugs, et cetera. However, they are eligible because they have since dealt with those issues while in custody or, in some cases, even before sentencing. However, all of those are unknowns in terms of absolute numbers.

We have a figure of approximately 800 people who get this benefit each year. We do not know how many weeks, months or years it takes off their sentences, so we do not have a sense of how much it will cost if they stay in the full-blown prison for an extra few weeks, a few months or a few years. It costs, on average, $93,000 per inmate per year. If we do the math, that is $93 million. The number may be higher than that or a bit lower but we never hear the Conservatives, when they are talking about victims, say how much it will cost the Canadian taxpayers. The only answer we ever get is that they are prepared to pay the price. That is false. All we have to do is look to the United States where we are seeing state after state changing their laws to reduce their prison population because they are bankrupting themselves by putting many more prisoners in prison for lengthier periods of time.

We need answers to those questions. We do not know, for instance, the effect it has on the rate of recidivism, which is a straight public safety issue. The individuals who benefit from this commit fewer crimes. The figures we do have on that indicate that their rate of recidivism is lower than if they serve their full one-third or up to two-thirds sentence. By extending this, by passing the bill, we may be creating greater risk to the Canadian citizenry.

There is a number of questions as to how should we deal with this. We have certainly put forward suggestions. Are there specific crimes that should be excluded from the use of this section? We passed a few months ago in the House the Conservative answer to white-collar crime, which was not that to any significant degree, but in that we put in that if people steal a million dollars or more they will spend at least a minimum of one year in jail. We could be putting that type of provision in the Corrections and Conditional Release Act to say that the one-sixth does not apply if a person has committed this crime. That is what is in there now with regard to other crimes, but with regard to white-collar crime, we could put a very specific section in that would say that a person is not entitled to it if the person has done this. That is a very simple amendment and it would address the current crises that we have, in the minds of the Bloc Québécois and in the minds of the Conservatives, with regard to Earl Jones. It would solve that problem right there. It is simple enough.

For the long term, what we should be doing with the one-sixth is that at the time of sentencing the judge should be allowed the discretion, which we will have to write into the Criminal Code, to say that the crime is so serious, even though it is non-violent, and with so many victims, or whatever other criteria we want to build in, that the individual will not be entitled to a one-sixth reduction. It is gone for those people. That would be step number one.

Step number two would be to give a very similar discretion to the Parole Board, which it does not have now. The Parole Board, as it stands now, is required to establish the three criteria of an offender: first offender, non-violent offender and not likely to commit a violent crime before he or she is allowed out. The board has to prove why a person should be held back. We should be taking away the reverse onus on the Parole Board and giving it a general discretion. If the person is not likely to be a risk to society and he or she meet certain criteria, then the board has the right to release the person. However, if it is felt for any reason, it would be that broad of a discretion, it would not release the individual. There are things like that which can be done.

There are other specific crimes. We are hearing anecdotally that some members of organized crime, organized syndicates, biker gangs are able to take advantage of this because of what they were convicted of. That should not be allowed. I can envision quite easily amendments that would prevent them from accessing it.

There are ways of fine-tuning this, tailoring it for those people who, I think Canadians would generally agree, should be entitled to this. We can let them out, but restrict the others.

I see my time is up. Hopefully my friend from Elmwood—Transcona will be able to cover the issue around the prevention of these crimes.

[Black History Month, February 15th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, as we know, February is Black History Month, the month when we officially recognize the rich and diverse history of Canadians of black heritage.

Throughout Windsor and Essex county, it is quite well known that we were a major terminus of the underground railway for those fleeing slavery in the United States. However, in many other communities across the country there is still little knowledge of black Canadian history.

In the areas of science, medicine, politics and the law, black Canadians have often, in the face of opposition and injustice, made vital contributions to our national mosaic. I take a measure of community and professional pride in the fact that the first Canadian-born black lawyer, Delos Rogest Davis, established a law office in Windsor and his great grandson, Lloyd Dean, a University of Windsor alumnus, is now a judge in the Ontario Court of Justice.

I would encourage my colleagues to take the rest of the month to familiarize themselves with black history, not only in their individual communities but throughout Canada. I would also encourage all Canadians to become more knowledgeable of the significant contributions of the black community.

[Disposition of Abolition of Early Parole Act, February 14th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, I was quite serious. It is hard to be more specific than this because we do not know what the original sentence was. That, again, has to be gathered file by file.

However, as that is being done, we have to assume that it is going to be close to one year for the average person, because we rarely get people sentenced to federal prison for exactly two years. Most of the time it will be three, four, five or six years.

If we take one-sixth off that, we will be talking in a number of cases about a year of additional time in jail. Just do the math in rough figures. There are at least 1,000 people from what we have been able to determine who are eligible for this each year, of which 800-plus receive it, and we think that number may be as high as 1,500. All of those people stay in. Even if it were the 800 figure, it would not be $85 million, but about $70 million or $75 million. That is what we are talking about.

When the Conservatives run around the country and stir up the pot and do their fearmongering, they never put a dollar figure to it. In fact, they are hiding the figures. We have a motion before this House right now for them to deliver those figures for a whole bunch of other crime bills. We never see the figures. They never talk about what this is going to cost; they talk about prudent financial planning. However, they do not have the first idea about that when it comes to this issue.

[Disposition of Abolition of Early Parole Act, February 14th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, the member for Hamilton Mountain says that I am not; and I agree with her, I am not.

It is interesting that the member talks about white collar criminals, and then he says “and others”. He has no idea who those others are.

Let me give me one example that I heard of recently. A woman who was addicted, I am not sure if it was to gambling or drugs, embezzled a large amount of money from her employer. She had young children. She was sentenced to more than two years and is now in federal prison. It is her first offence. Those children are not being cared for by other family members. If she applies for parole, she is going to get it. Is the average Canadian going to say, no, she should not get it?

She can go home and put her life back together. She has cured her addiction, which would be part of the reason for her being able to get out. She will be back in society, hopefully, being productive and caring for her children. Would the average Canadian say no to that? I do not know. However, I think the average Canadian who I know and who cares would say, yes, it is time to let her out and let her get her life back together.

[Disposition of Abolition of Early Parole Act, February 14th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, as opposed to everyone on the government side, I will actually speak to what the debate is about right now, which is about shutting down the democratic process in this House by limiting the amount of time that we are allowed to consider a significant issue.

I do not think any party is claiming that this is not a significant issue. It is a significant issue and one that probably should have been dealt with four or five years ago when the Conservatives first formed government.

What we have before us is an undemocratic shut down of debate. The government wants to shove a bill through the House with nowhere near enough time to deal with the facts and to make proper public policy. That is offensive to the democratic process. Speaking as the NDP justice critic and as a lawyer, it is particularly offensive for the government to force a bill through in this manner when we are dealing with criminal justice issues and the question of people's liberty.

What is the government doing? This motion will obviously pass later today because of the holy coalition between the Conservatives and the Bloc, which will be more than enough members to get it through.

I am being reminded that I forgot to tell the House that I will be sharing my time with my colleague from Hamilton Mountain.

This is what will happen. The government will call the bill tomorrow and we will have one day of debate. Allowing for question period and routine proceedings, that will amount to maybe four hours of debate or maybe even a bit less than that. At 5:15 p.m. tomorrow, the bill will be put to a vote. We will have one day of debate at second reading and then the bill will immediately be sent over to committee. The committee will be given until 11 o'clock tomorrow evening to report the bill back to the House. If my math is correct, the committee will have less than five hours to bring forth witnesses, debate the issues, make any amendments and go through the bill clause by clause.

We are talking about a criminal justice bill that would affect the liberty of people in this country and yet debate will be limited.

Then, and I always find this one really cute, if amendments are not approved at committee stage, members will have until 3 a.m., four more hours, to get proposed amendments to the clerk. I do not know who at the Table has been designated to be here until 3 a.m. on Wednesday morning but he or she will need to be because I assume we will have amendments during that period of time.

Wednesday is considered a half day given that the caucus meets on Wednesday morning. The bill will be called again in the afternoon and, by the end of that day, the debate on both report stage and third reading must be completed. A vote will be held that evening and, assuming the coalition will stick together, the bill will pass and be on its way to the Senate where the unelected, Conservative dominated, not responsible, other than to the Prime Minister, Senate will pass the bill and it will become law. The Conservatives have been in office for five years and they will shove the bill through.

We have had one election that was contrary to their laws and two prorogations during that period of time. We had the justice committee tied up for a very long period of time due to the shenanigans of the chair. The justice committee went a whole year without sitting because of the election, the prorogation and the shenanigans of the chair.

When we are talking about the importance of timeliness here, where have the Conservatives been? What they have been doing is what they have done with so many other crime bills. They always talk about protecting the victims but the victims were there five years ago, fours years ago, three years ago, two years ago and last year. When did we see this bill? The first time we saw it was about five or six months ago

There is another thing with regard to timeliness. On two different occasions, the Bloc Québécois introduced a private member's bill seeking unanimous consent. On those two occasions, the Conservative government refused to give unanimous consent. Where were the Conservatives then on protecting the victims? They were sitting on their hands because they wanted to take credit for this. That is what this is all about.

We are now faced with the prospect of an election, potentially in the next few months, so the Conservatives want to ensure they get this through so they can run around the country and say that this is what they have done to get tough on crime. It is a joke and it is highly hypocritical by any objective analysis.

I want to go to what this issue is about. From both the experiences I have had at justice and those my colleague from Vancouver has had on the public safety committee, the information that we need as to what changes should be made in this part of the Corrections and Conditional Release Act will not be available in that 36 to 48 hour timeframe I have just given. It will not be available because this information is not on a computer any place. I want to know how many people were released last year or in the last three to five years under the one-sixth provision of the Corrections and Conditional Release Act.

I actually have a rough estimate for that. We have asked this of both the Minister of Public Safety and the Minister of Justice repeatedly and they do not know, or at least they are refusing to say. They always get up and talk about victims but they do not tell us what this will really do and who has used this up to this point. We have some rough figures. There may be as many as 1,500 individuals per year. This is almost speculation on how many actually get it. We know, in a rough way, that it is somewhere in the 800 individuals per year range. We do not know though by how much their sentences are reduced. If I take a rough estimate that each person is going to get out a year earlier, because these people generally will be in the minimum security sections of our prisons, the cost is about $85,000 to have them there. I am not really great at math but I am certainly better than the government is. If we do this calculation for 1,500 individuals, it is up to about $100 million. If it is only about 1,000 people we are going to keep in, that would be $85 million a year.

When we go out to the public and say that we are taking care of the victims, we need to consider the taxpayers. We also will be asking who has used this. Is it all white collar crime? Is it the Earl Jones and the Lacroix of the world? We do not know that. We have had speculation that it may be people who have been involved in the drug trade. We do not know that, and if there are those, we do not know how many.

When I say “we”, I and my colleague probably has more information than the government has. However, I can tell the House that by tomorrow evening, when the committee is working on this, those figures will be no clearer than what I have at this point. Those statistics are not computerized. We know from other experiences that Correctional Service Canada and the Parole Board have to look at each individual file to tell us what an individual was convicted of, for how long and how much he or she will get off. However, we will not have that information so we will be flying blind by the time we actually have to vote on the bill when it gets back here on Wednesday.

[Securities, February 14th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, after many months of promises, we finally see the beginning of some change by this government for some kind of public review. However, the provinces, business analysts, traders and even oil industry executives are all voicing concerns about this deal. While the exchanges are private companies, they are tightly regulated because of their strategic importance as capital markets.

Will the minister commit today to a full public review that allows for open and transparent consultations on both this decision and any conditions that might apply if the deal is approved?

[Securities, February 14th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, everyone knew last week that this was a takeover and that we needed a full public review, not just minimum adherence to the law.

Before Christmas, in response to the NDP leader, the Prime Minister admitted that the Investment Canada Act was broken and needed fixing. Those were his words. Since then we have seen nothing from the government.

Now we have another takeover in a strategic sector. How many more takeovers will we see with no public consultation before the Conservative government finally revamps the act?