moved:
That this House appoint a committee to conduct an independent public inquiry into Canada's sentencing, corrections and parole systems for the purpose of identifying measures to provide meaningful consequences for offenders, reinforce public safety, and instill public confidence.
Madam Speaker, I am very pleased to rise today to speak to my motion, Motion No. 387, pushing for much needed justice reform.
This motion is quite broad in scope. It is a call for a reform in the way we handle criminals from the point they enter the corrections system at their sentencing to the time that they leave it through the parole process. Although the process can be broken up into segments, it needs to be dealt with in a unified manner as is evident from the haphazard setup that currently exists.
The motion calls for an independent inquiry. The question of corrections reform seems to have reached a stalemate in this place a long time ago with debate degenerating into partisan wrangling. A process needs to be set up that enables those of us in government to learn from the wisdom of concerned citizens and experts across the country and to do so in a format which ensures that their input will contribute to a process of real reform to the corrections system.
The motion reflects a recommendation made by the Canadian Police Association and also the Ontario Police Association as they push for improvements to Canada's corrections system. Canada's police forces are increasingly frustrated at the present system. They put their lives at risk every day as they go to work, yet the criminals they catch are treated so lightly that it makes some officers wonder why they should risk their lives to pursue them in the first place.
I suspect that most of these fine public servants feel that it would be unprofessional and inappropriate to express such a sentiment too vocally or too publicly. On the other hand, I would contend that it is completely inappropriate to use their professionalism against them by pretending that they should not speak out and by pretending that police morale is not a concern simply because they do not give aggressive voice to it.
Of course, there are tragedies of police officers being killed in the line of duty by dangerous offenders who have been released on some form of parole. If the government sets up some kind of public inquiry, as I suggest here, and does so in a way committed to pushing forward with real reforms, it can be sure of the support from Canada's police officers.
The motion focuses the inquiry on the primary functions of the corrections system or what should be the primary functions of the system, in other words, providing meaningful consequences for offenders, reinforcing public safety and instilling public confidence.
It is really very unfortunate that I have to speak on these issues in this place today. Just a brief scan over Hansard records from the past decade shows how frequently these concerns and these themes have already been raised, yet so little actual movement has taken place to bring about some constructive reforms and to bring those forward.
Members of parliament have repeatedly expressed the need for change, documenting the many failures of the current system. The general public has made its concerns known as well, perhaps most obviously in polling data which has shown an increase in the level of fear that Canadians have regarding violent crime. There has also been widespread criticism over the imbalance that exists between the rights of criminals and the rights of victims. There are also numerous organizations that exist to lobby for reforms. Many of them are victims rights groups.
I have already referred to the Canadian Police Association, yet its concerns, the concerns of victims groups and various lobby groups seems to fall on deaf ears. That is why it is necessary that some type of independent public inquiry be set up, a process that has real teeth, a process that will hear from a wide spectrum of Canadian viewpoints and a process which the government commits to respecting when it comes to amending the current system.
I want to speak briefly about the ongoing petition drive by the Canadian Police Association and the Ontario Police Association which they have called “No More Club Fed” campaign. It is very unfortunate that they feel the need to launch a public campaign like this against current government policy but they raise real concerns that are felt far beyond their own membership. In other words, the purpose of the campaign is to make the government see the need to bring an end to the club fed culture of Correctional Service Canada. They say:
It is time to instill meaningful consequences for offenders, reinforce public safety, and instill public confidence in our criminal justice system
They focus most of their campaign on the problems associated with parole and early release, and not without cause considering the growing list of police officers who have been killed and injured by non-rehabilitated violent offenders who are back in the community.
On March 10, 28 year old OPP Constable Dan Brisson was shot near Cornwall, Ontario. His assailant, Daniel Lamer, was being sought for violating day parole while serving a lengthy prison sentence for trying to kill another police officer back in 1991. Thankfully, Brisson survived the attack.
In February Manitoba officer Mike Templeton was also shot by a parolee. He is also fortunate to have survived.
Prior to that, RCMP Constable Dennis Strongquill was killed in Manitoba. He was shot four days before Christmas last year, leaving behind a wife and five children. The suspects were brothers who were out on parole and were wanted for parole violations. The 21 year old younger suspect had been denied parole three times previously. Prison officials had described him as “unstable, impulsive and violent”, but he was out on parole after serving two-thirds of his sentence.
One of the latest outrages is that of Conrad Brassard who is guilty of multiple counts of murder and attempted murder. The National Parole Board qualified him for release. While out on day parole, one of those incremental release programs that the government says is essential to effective reintegration of convicts into society, he raped and killed again.
The solicitor general has told the House that the National Parole Board and Correctional Service Canada have promised to conduct a thorough investigation of the parole board's decision. People are being drawn from various places for this very necessary investigation, but it is still under the auspices of the parole board itself.
As the member for Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert has pointed out however, it is most unusual to have the offending organization investigate itself. She has pointed out that whenever a police force makes a blunder the investigation is never conducted by that force. In my view this is an appropriate comparison of the growing concerns that Canada's police officers have about their own safety and the priority given to them by the government and its current legislation. These police officers who put their lives on the line in the service of the public are feeling increasingly taken for granted by a government which has other conflicting priorities when setting sentencing, corrections and parole policy.
Has the parole board learned its lesson? That investigation is not yet completed. In fact, it has probably hardly been started. What did the National Parole Board do? On June 10, it granted day parole to yet another convicted murderer by the name of Sonny Head, who was convicted of second degree murder in the death of a woman in 1994. He was part of a group of four youths who broke into the woman's apartment and stabbed her to death when she awoke and discovered them in her home. He was sentenced in adult court to life in prison with a minimum of seven years. What does life with a minimum of seven years mean anyway? It is an absurd concept to begin with. At any rate, he served only eight years of this potential life sentence for murder. He is already out on day parole. The day parole is only supposed to last for six months before he graduates to full parole.
Perhaps Head will be okay. Perhaps he will not be. However the very fact that the parole board has the authority to make such decisions even without the completion of its review of the Brossard decision is outrageous and demonstrates the systemic problems that currently exist in Canada's parole system.
I am confident that an independent public inquiry, as this motion suggests, would shed light on the way Canadians feel about such a situation. It is not something that encourages confidence in the system or in public safety.
Those who support the current system say “Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater. Gradual release works”, and I do not disagree that we have to try this. However, when one looks at the bald-faced facts of the Brossard case, one has to do some tremendous intellectual contortions to understand what would give the parole board members the idea that this man should have qualified for day parole. The fact that he did shows that there are serious problems with the qualification process and the criteria considered under the present system.
People might insist that these incidents do not happen very often. Those words ring rather hallow because these kinds of incidents are happening with increased frequency today. The victims are not always police officers.
According to National Parole Board, recidivism data of 1,800 full parolees which ended in 2000-01, about 25% were unsuccessful, 9.7% of parolees were convicted of new offences and 16% had their parole revoked for violating their parole conditions. Of 3,500 federal day parolees, 5% committed a new offence and 12% were put back in jail after breaching parole conditions. Of the 4,900 offenders released on statutory release, almost half had problems, almost 50%, 14.4% were convicted of new offences and 26.7% had their releases revoked for failing to abide by the conditions of their release.
The Canadian Police Association is reporting a recidivism rate of up to 40% for offenders released through the accelerated parole process and statutory release.
Some members have observed that Canada's recidivism rate is low compared with other countries. That is pretty small consolation to the victims and family members of victims. There is still plenty of room for improvement under our system. I have always been under the impression that improvements are not made by comparing ourselves with people who are doing worse at any given task or project. We strive for a well-defined and achievable ideal.
I am not sure what the benefit is of making comparisons with other countries that are pretty suspect on a whole range of human rights issues when it comes to corrections reforms. That really attempts to dodge the hard questions.
No doubt many of the reforms that are necessary will cost money, particularly in terms of increasing staff so as to reduce the workload for corrections and parole board employees and to ensure that there are enough corrections workers to monitor the growing number of prisoners being released on parole. This is one area where the government should receive the full support of opposition members, at least among the official opposition, for increased spending.
I know money is available. Just several months ago the government announced its commitment to allocate $500 million in renovations to the condo style luxury accommodations for women in prison. Earlier this week we learned that the government was the beneficiary of a much larger budget surplus than anticipated. Sadly, initial reports of the priorities of the Prime Minister for this money do not include corrections reform.
One area where reforms are needed in the parole system is the accountability structure for releasing convicts into the community. The “No More Club Fed” campaign points out that despite the responsibility of the National Parole Board for examining convicts to determine their eligibility for parole, Correctional Service Canada makes a couple of options available which do an end run under the radar and bypass that system.
It gives out temporary absence passes and there is the work release program. “These forms of release may occur prior to any form parole eligibility and without any review of the offender's suitability by the National Parole Board” says the Canadian Police Association. These kinds of things can be unsupervised absences.
A policy like this demonstrates that there is no inherent connection between offender behaviour and the parole process. There is no inherent obligation on convicts to demonstrate that they have achieved a certain level of rehabilitation before they will be considered eligible for parole. In fact, offenders who are serving their first federal sentence and who have not been convicted of a violent crime or serious drug offence may be released on day parole at one-sixth of their sentence under an accelerated parole review. The onus is on the National Parole Board to demonstrate why an offender should not be released under this program.
There are conflicting statements on the record about whether or not a quota system exists to push convicts back into the community as quickly as possible. Whether or not there is a quota system in name, corrections policy certainly suggests that one exists in principle.
Full parole eligibility is available for most offenders upon serving just one-third of their sentences and almost all offenders, exemptions being those sentenced to life or to indeterminate periods of incarceration, become eligible for automatic statutory release after completing two-thirds of their sentences.
According to a February article in The Report magazine, of about 14,000 inmates in federal prisons yearly, only 200 are deemed so dangerous that they serve their entire sentence.
According to the National Parole Board, about 43% of federal prisoners obtain full parole each year, while 72% are granted day parole.
Rehabilitation does not automatically happen. Therefore it seems absurd to defend Canada's parole system as part of an effective rehabilitation concept, yet that is what some of the government members in the House in particular seem to do.
There has been a lot of criticism. That is why the motion is here today. I would like to ask at this point if I could have unanimous consent, because I think there is great concern exercised on the part of the government as well as a number of the backbenchers, for this motion to be given the status of being votable.
