Bill C-2 (39th Parliament, 2nd Session) committee  I don't have numbers. Again, we can make the inquiry. No, it's not something that I have at my fingertips.

Bill C-2 (39th Parliament, 2nd Session) committee  I can certainly answer the question in terms of why we don't and why it may not be applicable. If you consider again the threshold for remand for assessment, it's not exactly a hard test. There are soft criteria that a judge has to consider to determine whether it meets the criteria of a serious personal injury offence.

Bill C-2 (39th Parliament, 2nd Session) committee  Just that one of the issues raised was how this compared to U.S.-style legislation. Again, in the U.S. there are three offences that automatically trigger a life sentence. This does not do that. This is designed very deliberately to narrow the scope towards the target individuals who typically are going to be subject to a dangerous offender application, and in many cases a successful one.

Bill C-2 (39th Parliament, 2nd Session) committee  As the minister has already stated, the broad scope of the reform to the dangerous offender legislation is to respond to the case of R. v. Johnson. In fact, R. v. Johnson laid out a bit of a different landscape from what was there previously. It suggested that even though an individual meets the dangerous offender criteria, they still will not be designated dangerous offender nor receive the dangerous offender indeterminate sentence if in fact there's a finding by the court that a lesser sentence can manage the risk posed to the general public.

Bill C-27 (39th Parliament, 1st Session) committee  There's a fine line sometimes. You break and enter, you steal something, you might commit a sexual assault, and there might be a robbery. There might be a number of primary designated offences in those acts, but if they were all connected they would only be able to count as one offence, for example, assuming you got a total of two years.

Bill C-27 (39th Parliament, 1st Session) committee  Again, given current jurisprudence regarding the issue of retroactive/retrospective application of current law, if an individual was, for example, charged prior to the coming into force of this legislation, these provisions probably would not apply. But if a person committed the act, as I say, in 1978 but was charged after the coming into force, we believe that a court would find these provisions consistent with prior jurisprudence.

Bill C-27 (39th Parliament, 1st Session) committee  Yes. As long as the trial started after coming into force, I don't think there would be any question. There might be some question if the trial started before coming into force but he wasn't sentenced until after coming into force. So there might be a gap, and that'll be for the courts to decide.

Bill C-27 (39th Parliament, 1st Session) committee  We actually do have some data we can provide. It's a little bit rough, because we're looking at the number of offenders who committed one of the primary designated...and then is there another one, and is there another one? It's sometimes a little bit difficult, because they can show up more than once.

Bill C-27 (39th Parliament, 1st Session) committee  I believe you will be hearing from Mr. Jim Bonta of the correctional directorate at Public Safety Canada. He has a great deal of expertise in this area and is much better able to answer those types of questions than I am. I would add that Correctional Service Canada is perhaps noted around the world as one of the leading agencies, not just for keeping high-risk sexual and violent offenders in prison, but for attempting to analyze and understand what makes them tick in the first place and what types of programs can help treat and cure the propensity for violent sexual behaviour.

Bill C-27 (39th Parliament, 1st Session) committee  In the first place, the vast majority of dangerous application defences are actually conducted under provincial legal aid programs, with some federal funding. So the impact of resources of these changes would actually be borne—a very large majority—by the provinces themselves, who primarily support the ability, as best we can, to provide these reforms to the dangerous offender provisions.

Bill C-27 (39th Parliament, 1st Session) committee  When we began consultations a number of years ago, we tried to listen to what the concerns were of all jurisdictions and we heard different concerns, depending upon the jurisdiction. Ontario, British Columbia, and Alberta typically have a very high rate of applications relative to other jurisdictions.

Bill C-27 (39th Parliament, 1st Session) committee  No.

Bill C-27 (39th Parliament, 1st Session) committee  On a procedural issue, especially post-Johnson, we heard a number of crowns in our consultations suggest that a new strategy used by defence counsel in dangerous offender proceedings was beginning to manifest itself. Specifically, if the offender chose not to participate actively in the psychiatric assessment, because the burden of proof is beyond a reasonable doubt for the criteria portion of the hearing, it became exceedingly difficult to prove based on the offender's actual condition today.

Bill C-27 (39th Parliament, 1st Session) committee  On the specific issue of long-term offenders who meet the dangerous offender criteria, it's really not possible to give a definitive number, because you'd have to actually look at the reasons for the actual designation. Certainly I've taken a hard look at all the cases that have come down post-Johnson.