Karen McCrimmon

[Public Safety, June 10th, 2019]

Mr. Speaker, all allegations of this nature are taken very, very seriously. The minister is aware of this file. We are committed to ensuring that border services earn and deserve the trust of Canadians. We have put $24 million into a civilian review and complaints commission to handle these kinds of specific complaints and there is legislation. We hope that all members will work with us to get Bill C-98 passed.

[Criminal Records Act, June 6th, 2019]

Madam Speaker, I appreciate the very balanced perspective that the hon. member for Elgin—Middlesex—London put forward, showing what some of the advantages are and what some of the disadvantages are. That is the kind of conversation we should be having, and I appreciate that. However, this is not finished. Everything is not done here. There is more to do.

I would like to ask the hon. member this. If she could pick one thing that we were to look at in the next Parliament to make this even more effective, what would it be?

[Criminal Records Act, June 4th, 2019]

Mr. Speaker, I would have to agree with my hon. colleague.

When people are entering another country, they might not be asked if they have a criminal conviction. They could be asked if they had ever been in possession of cannabis. That would actually make that difficult as well. If people have a pardon, they actually would have paperwork to prove that they have been pardoned. There is no guarantee that this would make a difference to the border officer, but they would have that paperwork.

[Criminal Records Act, June 4th, 2019]

Mr. Speaker, I believe how it would work, at a provincial or municipal level, is that payment of those fines, if they are not granted amnesty on those fines, would be through civil recourse.

I know that the federal government wants to help the provinces and the municipalities succeed in this, because we do want this pardon process to be a success. We believe it is really important for our society as a whole, not just for the individuals who are carrying this burden. There have been discussions and I imagine there will be more in the future.

[Criminal Records Act, June 4th, 2019]

Mr. Speaker, again the challenge comes down to whether those fines are owed to the federal government or not. If they are owed to the federal government, then it is easy for us to say those fines do not need to be paid. If they are fines owed to another level of government or another jurisdiction, then it is not as easy for us to forgive those fines. However, if the fines are only owed to the federal government, those fines will be forgiven and that person can proceed with the pardon.

However, when a criminal records check is done on people who have been pardoned, those fines at the provincial or municipal levels may not even appear. Therefore, the federal government is forgiving those federal fines that need to be paid, but there is a challenge at the provincial and municipal levels.

[Criminal Records Act, June 4th, 2019]

Mr. Speaker, this really was a very key part of the debate. We came up against a couple of challenges that would make that avenue particularly difficult, one of them being the technological challenges, in that all of our records are not held at the federal level in a federal database. Many of them are held at provincial and municipal levels and are not digitized. Therefore, we have no way of knowing where all those convictions are.

For us to go and do that, we would have to go and search for each and every one of those records. Some of those people might have already passed on. Some of these records are so old they could be from 50 years ago and that would take a lot of time and staff effort. We thought that if we made it inexpensive, easily available and we worked with the non-government organizations on the ground that work with these communities that were particularly hit with these kinds of convictions we could do as good a job by using an application method.

[Criminal Records Act, June 4th, 2019]

Mr. Speaker, that is indeed one of the challenges, because we wanted to eliminate administrative fines related to these same convictions. However, not all of the fines are owed to the federal government. All the federal government can do is wipe its fines, but it has to discuss this with provinces and municipalities and encourage them to do the same. That kind of discussion is ongoing, but it will take a while to come to an understanding of how provinces and municipalities can actually contribute to this process.

[Criminal Records Act, June 4th, 2019]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to start off the debate at third reading of Bill C-93. This measure will make the pardon process simpler and quicker for Canadians convicted only of simple possession of cannabis. This is the next logical step in our efforts to establish a safer and more efficient system for cannabis.

During the last election, we committed to legalizing and regulating cannabis. We did that last fall. At that time, we committed to establishing a way for people to get their records pardoned with no waiting period or application fee. Now we are on the cusp of passing legislation to do just that.

I am very appreciative of the members of Parliament who have participated in the debate on the bill in the chamber. I would especially like to thank all the members of the public safety committee for their usual thorough analysis. My thanks go out as well to the witnesses and to those who provided written briefs.

Ordinarily, to apply for a pardon, people have to serve their full sentence, wait five or up to 10 years, collect and submit police and court records, and pay a $631 application fee. People also have to convince a member of the Parole Board that they meet certain subjective criteria, namely, that they have been of good conduct, that the pardon would give them a measurable benefit and that granting them a pardon would not bring the administration of justice into disrepute.

It is an expensive and time-consuming process, but people go through it because of how valuable a pardon really is. The public safety committee has studied pardons at length, not only in the context of this bill, but as part of a broader study initiated by Motion No. 161 from the member for Saint John—Rothesay.

During that study, a witness from the Elizabeth Fry Society said that a pardon is like “being able to turn that page over” and allows people “to pursue paths that were closed to them.” A witness from the John Howard Society testified that pardons “allow the person to be restored to the community, as a contributing member without the continuing penalization of the past wrong.”

Getting a pardon means that when a person undergoes a criminal records check, it comes up empty. That makes it easier to get a job, get an education, rent an apartment, travel, volunteer in a community and simply live life without the burden and the stigma of a criminal record.

Clearly, now that possession of cannabis is legal, people who have been convicted of nothing but that should be able to shed their criminal records. Given the reality that the prohibition of cannabis had disproportionate impacts on marginalized communities, it is important for the process to be as simple, straightforward and accessible as possible.

That is why, with Bill C-93, we are taking the unprecedented step of completely eliminating the $631 application fee and completely eliminating the waiting period. We are also completely eliminating the possibility that the Parole Board could deny such an application on the basis of subjective criteria like good conduct.

Also, thanks to an amendment at committee from the member for Toronto—Danforth, people will be able to apply even if they have outstanding fines associated with their cannabis possession conviction.

Due to an amendment we voted on at report stage yesterday, people whose only sentence was a fine will not be required to submit court documents as part of their application. That is because the main purpose of court documents for those applicants would be to show that the fine was paid, and that just will not matter anymore. Taken together, these measures remove many of the expenses and obstacles that could otherwise prevent people from getting pardons and moving on with their lives.

I was glad to see that the bill received overwhelming support from hon. members in the House yesterday. We have a process that will be created by Bill C-93 that is simple and straightforward without unnecessary obstacles placed in the path of applicants.

One of the issues that has come up over the course of the study of Bill C-93 is the question of why it proposes an application-based system. Some have asked why not just do it like some California municipalities and erase all the records with the press of a button? We do have an electronic police database of criminal records here in Canada, however, that database does not contain enough information to allow for a proactive amnesty.

For one thing, it generally does not contain information related to summary conviction offences, which is how cannabis possession is most often charged. And for another, it generally does not say whether a person possessed cannabis or an entirely different substance.

Information is entered into the database by individual police officers right across the country. Most of the time for a drug possession charge, the officer just enters “possession of a controlled substance”. It could be cannabis but it also could be cocaine.

To get the details and to find out about summary convictions as well as indictable offences, police and court documents have to be checked. Unlike in California, those documents are kept by many different jurisdictions. They are housed in provincial and municipal repositories across the country, each with its own individual record-keeping system.

Many Canadian jurisdictions have not digitized their records. They exist in boxes and filing cabinets in the basements of local courthouses and police stations. Without applications that enable the Parole Board to zero in on the relevant documents, it would take a huge amount of staff and many years to go through it all. Quite simply, a flick of a switch option that we have seen in California would be wonderful and we would like nothing better than to do just that. In Canada however, that is simply not physically possible in any reasonable time frame. Nevertheless, we are certainly aware of the importance of making the application system under Bill C-93 as simple and accessible as we possibly can.

The public safety committee has made recommendations to continue seeking ways of further reducing the cost to applicants. We have responded with a report stage amendment removing the need for court records for some applicants, and we will keep working to this end.

The committee also encouraged the Parole Board to explore options for moving towards a more digitized system capable of receiving applications electronically, something particularly important for Canadians in rural areas.

For the reasons I mentioned earlier, enabling a truly electronic system would involve technological enhancements not only at the Parole Board but in provinces, territories and municipalities as well. That is a considerable undertaking, but I think we all know that one day it must be done. Our grandchildren should not be breathing the dust off the paper records that we use today. Therefore, I agree with the committee's recommendation to make that advancement happen sooner rather than later.

In the meantime, the Parole Board is taking a number of steps to simplify the application process in other ways. It is simplifying its website and application form. It is creating a dedicated, toll-free phone number and an email address to help people with their applications. It is developing a community outreach strategy with a particular focus on the communities most affected by the criminalization of cannabis to make sure that people know about this new expedited process and how to access it, because accessibility is the most important element of this. The goal is for as many Canadians as possible to take advantage of this opportunity to clear their criminal records and to move on with their lives. It is to their benefit and to the benefit of all of us that they be able to do so.

I would like to conclude by reminding the House just how far the cannabis file has come during this Parliament, from the blue ribbon panel chaired by Anne McLellan, to the massive cross-country consultations in communities from coast to coast to coast, to the passage of Bill C-45 and Bill C-46, both of which received extensive study in both chambers of Parliament, and the coming into force of Bill C-45 this past October.

We legalized and regulated cannabis, as promised, with the goal of keeping it out of the hands of children and keeping profits out of the hands of criminals, and early signs are encouraging. In the first three months of 2019, according to Statistics Canada, the criminal share of the overall cannabis market dropped to just 38%, which is down from 51% over the same period a year before. Reporting on those numbers recently in L'actualité magazine, journalist Alec Castonguay said, “Organized crime no longer has a stranglehold on the cannabis market. It is in decline”.

The prohibition of cannabis was counterproductive. It was a public policy failure. The new regime we put in place last October is already showing encouraging signs, and Bill C-93 is the logical next step. I encourage all hon. members to join with the government to pass this bill so that the Senate can begin its consideration, and so that Canadians can begin benefiting from this new simplified, expedited pardon process as soon as possible.

[Public Safety, May 31st, 2019]

Mr. Speaker, we are deeply concerned any time part of the Canadian public feels unsafe.

We have committed to ensuring that the RCMP members have the resources and support they need. There is a new RCMP crime reduction strategy in Alberta that has led to a 25% reduction in reported property crimes between July 2017 and July 2018. We have increased, across the board, $700 million in funding to the RCMP, and the Conservatives cut $500 million.

[Public Safety, May 31st, 2019]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the hon. member for his concern and his hard work at committee.

Ashley Smith's death was a tragedy and we continue to extend our condolences to her family. We are working hard to prevent what happened to Ashley Smith from happening to anyone else. The new system we are putting in place will provide programs, mental health care and daily social interaction with inmates who need to be separated from the general population for safety reasons. We have backed that up with a $448-million investment, and unlike the current system, there will be new oversight mechanisms and regular reviews will be enshrined in law.