JURI Committee Meeting

STANDING COMMITTEE ON JUSTICE AND HUMAN RIGHTS

COMITÉ PERMANENT DE LA JUSTICE ET DES DROITS DE LA PERSONNE

EVIDENCE

[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]

Monday, May 4, 1998

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[English]

The Chair (Ms. Shaughnessy Cohen (Windsor—St. Clair, Lib.)): If this is Monday, it must be the Solicitor General. In our never-ending pursuit of how much work we can accomplish in a week on this committee, we today have appearing with us the Honourable Andy Scott, Solicitor General of Canada.

I'll let you introduce your colleagues.

Hon. Andy Scott (Solicitor General of Canada, Lib.): Thank you very much, Madam Chair. With me today are Richard Clair and Ole Ingstrup from the Correctional Service; Willie Gibbs, the chair of the National Parole Board; and Mary Campbell, from our ministry. They're here to help us all begin the process of the CCRA review, and it's on this that I would like to begin, if it's your pleasure.

The Chair: Please.

Mr. Andy Scott: Madam Chair and members of the committee, I'm very pleased to appear before you today to talk about the Corrections and Conditional Release Act.

First, I'd like to thank the committee members for the early opportunity to meet on this very important piece of legislation. I plan to use my time today to share my impressions about how this legislation is working and make some remarks about the results of our consultations to date.

As you know, a review of the CCRA is a statutory requirement five years after the coming into force of the legislation. In undertaking this process, the committee is faced with a complex and important task: to review one of the most fundamental pieces of legislation we have in this country, which has a direct impact on public safety. As such, I see this review as an integral part of the government's ongoing efforts to build safer communities and an opportunity for all of us to contribute to this common goal.

By way of background, the Corrections and Conditional Release Act is relatively new. Its proclamation in November 1992 represented a significant milestone for corrections and conditional release legislation in Canada.

In particular, the CCRA replaced the outdated Penitentiary and Parole Acts with a modern and fair legislative framework. The act also incorporated the long-standing office of the correctional investigator as an ombudsman for federal inmates.

[Translation]

The Corrections and Conditional Release Act was the culmination of many years of consultation and research that was undertaken on various aspects of correctional reform dating back to 1984.

Central to this was the Correctional Law Review, which produced a series of nine discussion papers covering issues such as: victims' rights, inmate responsibilities, procedural protections, conditional release and inmate work programs.

[English]

In 1990, the government released “Directions for Reform”, an ambitious package of reform proposals that were designed to create a more open, fair and effective correctional system for Canada.

Following the release of the proposals, extensive cross-country consultations were held with professional and voluntary sector organizations, stakeholders, victims, police and other interested individuals. This resulted in a bill that was further studied and debated as it made its way through the parliamentary process and finally was proclaimed as the CCRA in 1992. Today, the act provides the foundation for federal corrections and conditional release in Canada.

The adoption of the act signalled many firsts. In particular, it established a clear statement of the purpose and principles of federal corrections and parole; it enshrined public protection as the paramount consideration in all corrections and conditional release decision-making; it formally recognized victims of crime in the corrections and parole process; it recognized the special needs of female and aboriginal offenders; it enshrined access to thorough and objective investigation of offender problems by an ombudsman agency called the Correctional Investigator, which is independent of the Correctional Service of Canada; and it enhanced the openness and transparency of the federal corrections and conditional release system.

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There was also a need to bring correctional legislation into line with developments such as the adoption of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and related court judgments, and to affirm the rule of law. The act accomplished this and was recognized as one that strikes a balance that respects the rights of all Canadians, offenders, victims, correctional staff members, and the community at large.

The purpose of the act then, as it is today, was the long-term protection of Canadians. Some parts of the act have undergone changes since 1992. I'm referring here to improvements that were made to the sentence calculation process in 1996 and to changes to day parole eligibility. Many of you will be familiar with these reforms, since they were discussed and reviewed by this committee.

The fact that the act has been amended in recent years speaks, I believe, to the openness and willingness of parliamentarians and others to undertake correctional reform in the interests of all Canadians, and I'm sure you share this objective with me. This is the type of open and results-oriented process that I'm committed to as a member of Parliament and as the Solicitor General of Canada.

By way of consultations, on March 3 members of the committee received a copy of our consultation document Towards a Just, Peaceful and Safe Society: The Corrections and Conditional Release Act Five Years Later. At that time, I invited Canadians to share their comments on the CCRA and how the act is working.

The consultation paper incorporates the findings from 24 evaluation studies that were undertaken by the Correctional Service of Canada and the National Parole Board. A consolidated summary of these reports has also been produced, and copies have been distributed to committee members.

Over 650 copies of the consultation paper were distributed to seek the input of stakeholders across the country. Comments can also be submitted electronically to the Solicitor General of Canada's Internet site. You may be interested to know that during the month of March the CCRA web site received almost 3,000 hits. It is also encouraging that the public can submit their comments on the act through the site and that many have taken the advantage and opportunity to do so.

Last week marked the beginning of a series of regional meetings, which are also being held as part of the process. People from the criminal justice sector, stakeholder groups, aboriginal organizations and other interested individuals are taking part in these meetings. Inmate committees are being heard as a part of the process. A full report on the results of these consultations will be shared with the committee when the meetings are completed.

As part of your work in reviewing the act, I know you will also be seeking the input of groups and individuals who are asking that they share their experiences and expertise with the committee. I encourage them to participate fully. You will no doubt be hearing from some of those groups that were involved in earlier consultations on the “Directions for Reform” proposals. This type of insight and firsthand knowledge will make an integral contribution to this review.

I would also like to share with you briefly the results of the first consultation meeting on the CCRA that I chaired on Parliament Hill on March 27 with members of the National Reference Group.

The National Reference Group is made up of organizations and individuals who are interested in improving Canada's criminal justice system. Our discussions proceeded along the broad categories outlined in the consultation document that I referred to earlier. These include: public safety and reintegration; openness and accountability; fair processes/equitable decisions; special groups/special needs; and the office of the correctional investigator.

At the onset, I asked participants to consider whether their comments related to problems of procedure or problems that might be inherent in the legislation. This is an important distinction and one that I feel we should bear in mind as the review progresses. While the discussion was wide-ranging, I was heartened to hear several of the participants say that the CCRA is generally achieving its purposes.

I'm the first to recognize, however, that there are areas that require further discussion and improvement. One such area is accelerated parole review. This committee has already heard me refer to this matter during my April 23 appearance before you on main estimates.

I should offer my appreciation to those who responded to the invitation to get back to us with regard to moving more quickly on aspects of the accelerated parole. Given the fact that the committee wouldn't be able to deal with the CCRA this spring and not until the fall, it seemed an appropriate opportunity to move forward on, I think, a piece of the legislation on which there seems to be a consensus that needs to be attended to.

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This particular provision was adopted as part of the CCRA in 1992. It provides a mechanism whereby offenders who are good candidates for release and are granted parole can be released as close as possible to the parole eligibility date without encountering administrative delays.

The APR provision was intended to streamline the process for this group to ensure their timely release at no increased risk to public safety. Concerns have been raised that when applied to certain types of offenders, such as those affiliated with organized crime, this provision may undermine the sentence of the court.

I believe these concerns are legitimate, and they warrant early action to prevent organized crime figures from benefiting from the APR provisions. I believe we need to send a clearer signal to Canadians that these types of offences are treated seriously by the government. I'm interested in hearing the committee's views today on this matter, and the results of your subsequent deliberations.

There is no question that Canadians continue to be concerned about violent crime. In this context we must examine legislative provisions and operations for dealing with offenders who pose a risk of violent reoffending.

Detention is one option in these cases. While the number of offenders being detained has risen over the years, our research shows that more recently this number has declined. However, questions have been raised about whether the risk assessment process can be enhanced to better determine which offenders should be detained.

As the review unfolds, other issues will undoubtedly be identified as requiring our attention. I'm particularly concerned with the long-standing problem of the overrepresentation of aboriginal peoples in the corrections system. All Canadians should be deeply disturbed when 3% of the population accounts for 15% of the incarcerated federal inmate population.

These were some of the issues raised at the National Reference Group meeting here on March 27. A more detailed account of these discussions is included in a new quarterly newsletter, Interaction, being produced by the department. Copies of this newsletter were distributed to committee members just last week.

During the National Reference Group meeting and throughout the consultation process so far, I've stated that I'm committed to making improvements to the legislation where the need for change is demonstrated. As part of this process, I believe it's very important that Canadians have the opportunity to voice their views and participate in how government operates. I said earlier that I see this review as an important opportunity to contribute to our mutual goal of building safer communities.

I also see it as an important opportunity for Canadians to participate in a broad public discussion on corrections and conditional release issues.

[Translation]

I strongly believe that these discussions are a fundamental part of building a better Canada and a more effective corrections and conditional release system. However, I recognize that this is not the easiest of debates in which to engage people. Tragic incidents overshadow the system's many successes and have eroded public confidence. So we have an opportunity, through this review, to raise public awareness about the system.

[English]

To me citizen engagement is extremely important in the correctional area. For too long the public environment has created pressures to adopt a more punitive approach when all the evidence suggests that this doesn't work.

This is certainly the case in the United States. In that country calls for a get-tough approach have only resulted in bad public policy, but it has not made the United States a safer place to live.

That's why I'm so committed to changing the public environment where that is the necessary course of action. I believe that if we can raise public awareness about corrections and conditional release, we will also start to change the nature of the public debate. I want to bring forward sensible public policy that is based on the evidence and reflects Canadians' values. That's the only way to achieve a made-in-Canada solution, but it will require the active participation of us as parliamentarians and of Canadians in general.

One of the main reasons we need to engage people in this discussion stems from the fact that offenders come from our communities, and almost all will return there. Therefore, the best long-term protection is their gradual release under appropriate control and supervision.

The success of our reintegration efforts, including our correctional and conditional release programs, depends on an informed and involved public.

With this goal in mind I've been speaking a lot lately, with one of my key priorities being effective corrections. I was pleased to discuss this subject in a recent speech to the Beyond Prisons International Symposium in Kingston. Copies of this speech were distributed to all members of Parliament, and the proceedings of this conference were broadcast on the Cable Parliamentary Channel, or CPAC.

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At this symposium I was frankly amazed to see the degree to which virtually all nations are struggling with the same problems, to find effective alternatives to the overuse of incarceration, while assuring that those who require it are safely separated from society.

I am also encouraged by the degree to which we're finding that Canadians support the use of community-based corrections programs for offenders who can be safely, and often more effectively, managed in the community.

On April 15 I had the opportunity to join with Solicitor General Barry in New Brunswick to announce new directions for corrections in that province. The Canada-New Brunswick corrections initiative will enable both governments to harmonize their corrections programming, better meet the needs of offenders, and target resources in a way that will have the greatest impact.

We are also strengthening our corrections efforts within my own ministry. On April 23 I announced that the Correctional Service of Canada will hire 1,000 additional officers over the next three years.

This action will improve the overall effectiveness of CSC in a number of ways. For example, it will improve CSC's ability to support the reintegration of offenders into the community, provide for more secure federal correctional institutions, and contribute to a safer and healthier working and living environment for staff and inmates.

The fact is that Canada's incarceration rate, at 133 per 100,000 of the population, is higher than most western democracies. It is also a costly system to maintain. About $2 billion annually is spent on the adult federal and provincial correctional systems in Canada. Yet at the end of the day there is no clear evidence that putting more people in prison results in safer communities.

That's why I believe we must distinguish between those offenders who need to be separated from society and those who can be safely and more effectively managed in the community. This is consistent with the principles underlying the CCRA, and it also reflects the directions outlined in the government's Speech from the Throne.

In this regard, I've asked the Commissioner of Corrections to work towards a better balance in the federal corrections system between the use of incarceration and community programming and supervision. These are the directions I want to reinforce as the committee moves forward with its review.

In closing, I'd like to say that I look forward to working with the committee, and I'm interested in hearing your suggestions for improvements to the act. I welcome the review as an important opportunity for all concerned Canadians to work together to improve public safety.

Madam Chair, I very much look forward to the opportunity for the parliamentary committee, which I know is very interested in these issues. I look forward to having Canadians feel very much included in this discussion.

The bottom line, Madam Chair, is that we need to do good public policy, but we also need to be seen to be doing good public policy, in particular on these issues where community support is so important to the effective reintegration of people back into the communities where most people come from, and to which they will return.

So with that, Madam Chair, thank you for your kind attention. I look forward to taking questions.

The Chair: Thanks, Minister.

Mr. Breitkreuz. I'm just going to leave the time open. I'll just ambush you when I think you've had enough.

Mr. Garry Breitkreuz (Yorkton—Melville, Ref.): Or the questions get too rhetorical.

The Chair: Yes, when the questions get too pointed, and I feel I have to save the minister, I'll just butt in.

Mr. Garry Breitkreuz: Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

Thank you for coming before the committee. I have a rhetorical question. I was actually asked to be here, but at the same time I'm supposed to be in the House debating the bill for which you're responsible. So you're making it very difficult for me to be here and in the House at the same time.

The Chair: Mr. Breitkreuz, let me address that. Minister Scott doesn't control the House agenda, and neither do I, but what we do have to do here is get our work done in this committee, and some of us just have to set priorities.

Frankly, I'd rather be at the DNA bill, Mr. McKay would rather be at the DNA bill, Mr. Lee would certainly rather be there, and Mr. Telegdi would rather be in his constituency. But we're all here, and that's tough, but that's life.

Mr. Garry Breitkreuz: It sure didn't take you long to intervene.

The Chair: No, it didn't, and as long as our justice critics, my fellow colleagues in the other parties, don't want to accommodate the work of this committee by helping with the scheduling and helping to set real priorities, we're going to have this problem. So you might want to take that back to your House leader.

Go ahead.

Mr. Andrew Telegdi (Kitchener—Waterloo, Lib.): I have a point of order, Madam Chair.

The Chair: Yes, go ahead.

Mr. Andrew Telegdi: There's no place I'd rather be than here and listening to the minister.

An hon. member: Oh, oh!

The Chair: Go ahead, Mr. Breitkreuz. I think you walked into that one.

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Mr. Garry Breitkreuz: The act allows the National Parole Board to order an offender to be detained beyond the automatic statutory release date until the end of the sentence. It appears from the data contained in your consultation papers that the number of offenders ordered detained in recent years has increased.

The questions we have from that are: Can you explain the process by which the CSC identifies and refers offenders to the National Parole Board, which makes the actual detention decision? Secondly, what types of offenders are ordered detained, and has their offence profile changed since Parliament enacted it? And last of all, what proportion of those ordered detained are incarcerated until the end of their sentence, for what offences are they imprisoned, and do you have any data on the recidivism rate after the sentence has expired?

Mr. Andy Scott: I'm sure both the commissioner and the chairman were noting the questions, and I'll get to them in a second in the context of very specific process questions, Mr. Member, but I would like to correct one thing.

You referred to it as the automatic statutory release, but given the fact that the provision allows for detention, it can't be automatic and at the same time allow for detention. That's important, because it comes up from time to time. You'll read articles in the newspaper and so on about the fact that statutory release somehow is automatic. It is not.

Ultimately, as we said when we talked to you during the main estimates to position the exercise, the fundamentals of the CCRA have it that at a third of one's sentence, one is eligible to make application for parole, but the onus is really on the applicant, if you like, to make a case for their parole. At two-thirds of sentence, with statutory release, the onus is reversed. That's probably an oversimplification of the process, and I'm sure I'll be told that by both the commissioner and the chair, but at some level, that's what we're talking about.

To protect the system from those many cases where that general process is less appropriate, there are specific cases where detention is suitable and those decisions are taken.

As for the roles of the Correctional Service of Canada and the National Parole Board, I'll let the commissioner and the chairman speak to that, because they can get into the specific details.

Commissioner Ingstrup.

Commissioner Ole Ingstrup (Correctional Service Canada): Thank you very much, Minister.

Mr. Breitkreuz, Madam Chair, you asked for the criteria. What's the process?

We do now an offender intake assessment. Every offender who arrives at our doorstep will be looked at. One of the things we look at is whether this is a potential detention individual. In identifying that individual, we're looking at two things the act provides for.

Point one, is this an individual who has violated a part of the Criminal Code that is included in either schedule 1 or schedule 2 of the Corrections and Conditional Release Act? Schedule 1 is basically all types of violent offences and all kinds of sexual offences. Schedule 2 is essentially drug offences.

If the answer is yes, the individual has committed such an offence, then we will look into the nature of that offence to see if it has caused death or serious harm to anybody, which could also be psychological harm. And there is a slightly wider provision when it comes to sex offences against children: we don't have to prove that physical harm has occurred.

If we think this is what has happened to that individual and if we believe that once that individual is released on statutory release after two-thirds, he or she is likely to commit a new offence before the end of the sentence that would cause death or serious harm to somebody, then we will refer that case to the National Parole Board.

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What has happened historically is that back in 1986 or 1987 the House was called back in the middle of the summer to pass the amendment that contained the detention provision, because that didn't exist prior to ten years ago, and the minister of the day said that it would be used very sparingly, very restrictively, and we would not get more than a hundred cases on an annual basis.

Things went differently. So over the years a gradual increase in that number occurred, and last year or the year before we were up at around 500 referrals. The vast majority of those referrals were actually responded to positively by the National Parole Board in the sense that the National Parole Board followed CSC's recommendation to detain the individual.

This is in my personal view and I think in the view of the chairman, although he can speak for himself, but in my view certainly it's way too many to detain. It's much more than what was the intention of the act and much more than what we need to protect society.

So we have looked into the cases and the number of detention referrals has now gone down slightly. It's about 15%, I think, or maybe a little bit more, and the actual number of detentions has gone down by 11%. It's still more than four times higher than what was anticipated when the act was introduced. So what we are talking about here is a slight decline after a long increase and without any increase in crime committed by these people.

A study was then done, which showed that these individuals, the majority of whom will stay until the end of their sentence, actually committed relatively few new offences after release.

I know your next question, so I'd like to answer it.

Mr. Andy Scott: I want to just make sure we hit exactly what Mr. Breitkreuz is asking.

Mr. Garry Breitkreuz: We can go back to this.

Mr. Willie Gibbs (Chairman, National Parole Board): Madam Chair, the commissioner has explained very well the process. The end of the process is that the particular inmate, who's still inside so we call him an inmate, will appear before the parole board and we will review the case, assess the risk to reoffend in a violent manner very seriously up to that, and if the offender meets that criterion then we detain.

We will detain for one year at a time. In other words, if a person is serving eight years, that means the person will have close to three years remaining from statutory release to the warrant expiry, but every year thereafter we will review that case to ensure that the person still presents a serious risk to the community.

Thank you.

Mr. Andy Scott: I think just before the commissioner anticipates your next question, we have to always keep in mind that we're looking at this in the context of the fact that we incarcerate at a rate that is arguably the second highest in western democracies. The Americans incarcerate at the rate of about 600 per 100,000. We incarcerate, as I said, at a rate of 133 per 100,000, and that rate of incarceration is not just the rate of sentencing in terms of a response but it has a lot to do with how quickly people leave the system and the processes that are involved in leaving the system.

So I think it's important to keep all of this discussion in this context, that we're doing this in a way that is incarcerating higher than almost all other countries except the Americans.

Commr Ole Ingstrup: Thank you very much.

My guess is, Madam Chair, that the question will be: isn't it then a natural conclusion, if these people don't commit many offences, that we should just detain more people, because obviously they don't commit many offences when they're released? My research division tells me that this conclusion cannot be drawn. It has to do with the assessment of risk that we do at an earlier stage. But we will be developing a paper that the service and the minister can table in the House so that you can see what the arguments are and the scientific reasons why you can't make that conclusion.

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Mr. Garry Breitkreuz: In regard to the argument that the Solicitor General just gave to me, obviously you don't look at the rate and compare yourself to other countries as to whether it's higher or low. Don't you assess risk on an individual basis?

Mr. Andy Scott: Absolutely.

Mr. Garry Breitkreuz: Isn't that the obvious thing you have to do here? I don't think you look at the picture and say this is too high, this is too low. You must deal with it on an individual basis. I've been at some of the parole hearings and so on and I think there are flaws within it. I think that's what has to be fixed. They're taking the advice of some of the people who can be influenced by the inmate who is to be released, and I think that's very questionable. That's just a little example. Don't you have to go on an individual basis rather than saying it's too high or it's too low?

Mr. Andy Scott: I didn't mean the numbers bear on the outcome in terms of that. I'm simply saying that for those who would subscribe to the notion that we don't keep people in the system long enough generally or that we would want more people or whatever it might be, I would put it in the context that we are already incarcerating at a very high rate compared to other countries in the world, that's all. You're absolutely certain... That's what risk management is about; it's case by case, and that's what both the commissioner and the chair just described.

Mr. Garry Breitkreuz: Let me just go on. Time is very limited here.

Another question is that at the present time in the act it says it doesn't require automatic statutory release, but the information I have is that generally it is the case that after two-thirds of their sentence has been served they may be released. Recent amendments allowed the National Parole Board to impose a residency requirement on those who are statutorily released, and all the other forms of conditional release have to be earned, applied for; they've been decided on in part based on assessment of risk. Why should a form of conditional release that is automatic and not based on these principles be retained?

A follow-up to that question is what is the success rate of those who have been statutorily released and how does it compare with other forms of conditional release? Are those statutorily released subjected to a less intense level of parole officer supervision than those on day or full parole?

Lastly, in what circumstances would the National Parole Board impose a residency requirement on offenders statutorily released? Can you provide us with any data on the imposition of such conditions?

Mr. Andy Scott: I see data just springing up here. Let me speak to the first part of the question, which had to do with the fact of the question of whether statutory release is or is not automatic.

I think the commissioner just spoke to the fact that when detention was originally introduced it was anticipated that we may have a 100 cases. I guess this was the pitch that was made at the time. In fact, it's closer to 500. That would mitigate against the argument that it's automatic, when in fact on an annual basis there are 500 detentions.

Having said that, the recent amendment that would require or would offer the opportunity that a condition of a statutory release be a residency requirement, which you mentioned, in fact was done specifically to increase the security. At least that was the intention. Essentially, what was happening was that as you were offering statutory release...and understand that the principle behind this is the fact that the vast majority of people who are going to be released, whether it be through statutory release, through parole, or when the sentence expires, are going back to the communities they came from.

The argument that is fundamental to this debate is that people will be less likely to reoffend if the exercise is done in a controlled, supervised and gradual way. The residency requirement under statutory release is simply another one of the instruments inside that controlled, gradual release set of tools and was introduced for that purpose.

In answer to your question as to how it's determined what the conditions are and so on, again, those are all based on needs assessment, risk assessment, and are done on a case-by-case basis, as you most appropriately pointed out.

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Do you have anything to add?

Commr Ole Ingstrup: I can respond to two of Mr. Breitkreuz's questions. One is the supervision intensity and the resources we put into that. I can say that exactly the same standards apply whether the person is on full parole or on statutory release, except if we think that the person is a particularly high-risk type who, in spite of that, we think is better managed in the community.

In that case, we have in a number of places across Canada what we call intensive supervision, which means two parole officers for a group of offenders. So it's double coverage. That will almost always exclusively apply to people on statutory release because they wouldn't ever get full parole. So the response is that it's the same level of service and supervision.

The other question was your question about recidivism rates. Basically for statutory release the recidivism rate for the last year we have, 1996-97, was 12.2%, of which 2.1% were violent and the rest were non-violent. That's, by the way, a significant improvement over the last five years.

For full parole, we're talking about a recidivism rate of about 10.6%, of which 1.7%—it's just shy of 2%—would be violent.

For day parole, it's a 3.5% recidivism rate. Of that, our calculations show, just short of 1% are violent. So the numbers are very low.

The Chair: Thanks, Mr. Breitkreuz.

Just for your information, without my interruption, that was about 17 minutes.

Mr. MacKay.

Mr. Peter MacKay (Pictou—Antigonish—Guysborough, PC): I'll try to stay brief, but I do want to first say that I'm pleased to see you here, Mr. Minister and members of staff. It's a unique opportunity for us to speak to you face to face.

I do have to put on the record that I am troubled as well by the fact that there is a conflict with what is going on in the chamber right now. There's a very important piece of legislation from your department that we, as opposition justice critics, are required to comment on. This conflict was created by no one other than the government. We don't have input into the scheduling here. I think it's very unfortunate, and I hope it's not going to happen again.

Mr. Minister, I do want to ask you a question about specifically the Leduc case, in which John Richardson, while on statutory release, committed these atrocities.

This was despite the concerns of the National Parole Board. Their opinion was that there was a real likelihood that he would offend and possibly commit another violent offence, which he did. Correctional Service Canada chose not to exercise their authority and chose not to make a recommendation for detention. The National Parole Board is then hobbled in the sense that they must release him in accordance with the CCRA.

I guess my question to you is has that been reviewed? You initially indicated that you ruled out any sort of intervention on your part. You said that you didn't have the statutory authority to do that.

I understand that position may be revisited in light of the fact that section 6 of the federal Inquiries Act does allow you to do that. It does allow you to intervene and call for a public or private inquiry. There is a precedent for that. It was done as recently as 1990. I'd like to get your response.

Mr. Andy Scott: I've had the occasion to speak to members of the family. We're in fact engaged right now in a process with them. It was the family, I think, that asked for the inquiry.

This is, I think, something that we'll have to attend to in the course of the CCRA review, because unfortunately, while Canada has been quite successful in what it does around these issues, there have been mistakes. If you're operating on the basis of the best information you have, and given the fact that human behaviour is impossible to predict, I think it's important to distinguish between people who have basically not operated on what that information would suggest and those who did, but ultimately just couldn't predict with 100% accuracy.

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The fact remains that as tragic as it is, from time to time there will be incidents like this, because the system isn't perfect. We want it to be. I think that has to be our mission—to try to make it the best system we can have.

The problem with the circumstance we're faced with when asked for a public inquiry around a particular case is what happens when there is another case. I don't want there to be another case, and I'm not suggesting that the system is working so badly that there are obviously more than we would like, but the system is working reasonably well when compared with other jurisdictions.

How do you say in one instance, yes, this particular case is one that we should have a public inquiry on, and the next one is not? That's a very serious question.

I put it to all members of the committee today to consider the ways we can make the system more transparent, because as I said in my opening statements, it's critical to this system that the public have faith in it. The people are going back to the communities, and in order for them to go back to the communities and be successfully reintegrated, I think the public needs to have a confidence in the system.

We both know what it's like in the communities we come from when visible and very, very recognizable people from the system come back to our communities, and what the reaction is, and so on. But given the fact that we know also that it's going to happen, I think we need to do the best job we can to create the supportive environments so that they're less likely to reoffend.

Mr. Peter MacKay: Mr. Minister, with all respect, do you not agree that a public inquiry that would perhaps provide answers—not only to the victims' families but to your department and to those who were administering the system—as to what went wrong and what could be learned from what went wrong, is a goal that we should all be encouraging?

Mr. Andy Scott: Well, we have undertaken an inquiry. We do it whenever there's an incident of this nature, and lessons are learned. There have been changes in the process as a result of the investigation into the incident you're speaking to. In terms of the case in question, as I said, we're trying to accommodate those involved in the most complete way we can.

Mr. Peter MacKay: Have those findings been made public?

Mr. Andy Scott: No. You mean the findings in terms of the conversations?

Mr. Peter MacKay: With respect to John Richardson, to that particular case.

Mr. Andy Scott: The investigation report, Mr. Commissioner, is just on its way?

Commr Ole Ingstrup: It's actually complete now, but we want to share it with the family first, and then it will be made public. Also, as you will recall from your previous life, sometimes the crown will ask us not to release the findings until the criminal case is over, and this is one example of that. As soon as there is no longer need to keep this under wraps, it will be made public. It always is.

Mr. Peter MacKay: All right. Thank you.

Mr. Minister, with respect to victims of crime and their families—and you spoke in a very straightforward way about the need to instil confidence in the system, or regain confidence, perhaps more appropriately—in the past months there have been internal reviews of various cases, including Richardson, Hector and Russell, and Carruthers. The victims were left feeling very unsatisfied about the results of those inquiries.

Yet when incarcerated offenders have problems within the justice system, within the prison system, they have the corrections investigator. They have an independent individual to whom they can go.

I asked both the director and the chair about their opinions with respect to establishing an independent ombudsman for victims—a person outside of the traditional system we have, a person to whom they could go to voice their concerns and to receive answers. I know this is an idea that's been floated in the justice system and within your department, and I would ask you for your opinion on whether you would support the initiation of such an office.

• 1605

Mr. Andy Scott: Well, I wouldn't want to be limited to that particular application of the objective. In other words, I agree with you, as I said, that we should look at possible structures that would allow us—at two different levels; at one level, the broader community level—to have the community feel that the process is transparent, and so on.

I've had these discussions with both the commissioner and the chairman in advance of this particular review. I think there is an openness on all parts, political, professional and otherwise, to determine the best possible way to deal with those occasions that happen from time to time, when on the face of it the system would seem not to work. This is one of the things that I hope this exercise identifies.

Now, as to the specific nature of that instrument or whatever we would do, I don't want to be tied to any particular type of approach to that yet until we've heard from everybody. But I do ask the committee to think about how we might accommodate that desire, because I think we all share it. It's just a question now of how you would attend to it.

Mr. Peter MacKay: Well, as you know, when these internal investigations are done and the reports are reviewed or made public, they're often not complete as far as the victims are concerned. They contain a lot of whited-out information. When we see those reports, unless there's a specific reference made and we have an in camera hearing, what we get is a report that has a lot of the information whited out.

So again, I'm asking you if there is support, even qualified support, for having an individual to whom victims can go specifically to make requests and to have information about cases that pertain to their loved ones, the ones who have been victimized by the violent offender.

It seems to me that there's a person in place... We heard last week about a prison in British Columbia where they have a golf course. So if an offender is concerned about missing a tee-off time, or his cable is cut off, or he can't get his steak cooked right, he can complain to the corrections investigator. But the victims are not able to go to anyone specifically.

Mr. Andy Scott: I think one of the reasons the public is perhaps a little misinformed about the nature of our system has to do with the fact that from time to time we have a tendency to get a little carried away.

I will ask the commissioner if there have been any instances where any inmate has called upon the correctional investigator to check into the fact that his tee-off time was missed. I doubt it very much. I think that those kinds of stories don't do anything to help the level of this discussion.

Mr. Peter MacKay: Well, the fact that they have a golf course at all tends to lend some credence to what I'm saying.

Mr. Andy Scott: Again, I think one should look into this in the context of the fact that it provides a service to the community and, in fact, it teaches marketable skills to people who are inside the system—

An hon. member: Golf.

Mr. Andy Scott: Yes, that's who plays there, seniors in the community. And it teaches marketable skills to the people who are inside. They learn landscaping. They learn the kinds of things that, once they leave the facility, mean they in turn can get jobs. That makes it less likely that they will return.

But the existence of a golf course was not the premise. The existence of a golf course was...the fact that inmates were making applications to the correctional inspector to deal with that.

Anyway, I make the point that I don't think it elevates the debate any to wander off into areas that are obviously not quite accurate enough.

You've asked the question as to whether we are very seriously considering a mechanism that will allow people to have access to the system, whether it's to challenge a decision or not. I agree that it's important. I've already had a conversation with the commissioner and the chair. What the mechanism is, I'm not certain. We're going to be debating this across the country and involving a lot of Canadians for the next few months.

I think the most responsible thing I can do is simply ask Canadians, first, is that perception right? I think the answer is yes, but we're beginning a consultation; I don't want to pre-empt too much.

So is the perception right that we need to do that? Second, what is the most appropriate instrument to undertake that kind of inquiry in terms of the system?

• 1610

The best example I can give to demonstrate the level of my commitment is the fact that we did an investigation at Sumas, British Columbia. It was brought to my attention that the community needed, and didn't have, a community representative in the investigation. So we established an external person on the investigation team in that particular inquiry. I sought names from the community and in fact was referred by one of my colleagues in Parliament to consult with the police chief, which I did. In fact, that was the source of some of the recommendations as to who it was.

Consequently we have a three-person committee looking at this particular situation at Sumas, and one of the three people was an external person from the community.

How we do this is to be determined. The fact that we want to do something like this is pretty much for sure in my mind right now.

Mr. Peter MacKay: So you would agree, then, that the independence factor is what's important?

Mr. Andy Scott: There's no question, and that's been demonstrated by my actions already.

Mr. Peter MacKay: Thank you, Mr. Minister.

Madam Chair, I'm going to take my leave. I have to go back to the House—

The Chair: Have fun.

Mr. Peter MacKay: —to debate this issue.

Mr. Garry Breitkreuz: We'll have to leave soon, too.

The Chair: Mr. Telegdi.

Mr. Andrew Telegdi: Thank you, Madam Chair.

Minister, it seems to me that one of the problems we have is public perception. If I think about the offender... I'm talking about non-violent offenders. I'm not talking about the violent offenders, because clearly you identified them as two separate groups. The ministry identified them as two separate groups.

It's just a perception. You see the old western, where somebody rides out of Folsom State Prison or wherever, saying, “I served my time, I paid my debt to society”. The reality is that they enjoyed rather expensive accommodation, and society paid a lot of money to keep them incarcerated. In my mind the people we should be incarcerating are the ones who are a danger to the community. The other group would be the ones who do not abide by community sanctions such as restitution, community service, or a limitation on their freedom of movement.

I think the problem we have is that crime got commercialized by the media. It got commercialized by the entertainment industry. It got politicized. It is where you take the one case or the few cases that go wrong and you spend an inordinate amount of time exploiting that.

As you correctly identified in the last meeting here, we have a lot of people living in fear. That's a huge group of victims. I wonder, is there some kind of conference you can have about that issue and where you can look at why Europe is so different? Why is Europe able to incarcerate a lot fewer people than we do in Canada? Why do we copy the United States of America so much?

How do we deal with them? I think the money we waste in incarcerating people is obviously money that cannot go into preventive programs.

I applaud the additional correctional officers you're hiring, particularly the ones who are going to be working for reintegration into the community. Somehow we have to break that cycle where we have such a high incarceration rate, and it does absolutely nothing for public safety. I'm talking about the group I'm referring to.

Mr. Andy Scott: I think the most important mission we need to project to the community is that in fact we're driven by public safety. We need to step back from the political debate and actually think about who would have my position, or any of the positions of the people who are gathered here, who wouldn't be operating in the interest of public safety. It's obvious. Consequently we're simply debating as to how you do that. That's the debate.

The evidence suggests that the best way to assure Canadians of their safety is to gradually reintegrate people who will ultimately be going back to their communities at the expiration of their sentence. So that's what our system is designed to do. Unfortunately the occasions when the system does not work—and that happens in Canada less often than most places...

• 1615

But I don't mean to bring statistics into what are very real human tragedies. That's part of the reason it's so difficult to defend the system, because you're generally speaking of it at a time when it's very difficult to be defensive.

Nobody wants this to happen. People feel badly when it does. I feel as badly as anyone when these things happen, as do the people who are gathered here. So people have an impression that the system doesn't work as well as it does.

I think the last time I was here I mentioned unescorted temporary absence and escorted temporary absence. These are issues that raise enormous interest in the community.

Someone is given an unescorted temporary absence into Fredericton. I can remember a couple of instances in my first term where I was called upon by the media and asked, is it acceptable to you that this person is going to be living in this community? Well, the reality is that in two or three years they're going to be living there without any conditions at all. Consequently the best way to assure the people in my community that this person is least likely to reoffend is through a gradual, controlled reintegration.

I think that's what my obligation is. All the research indicates that this is exactly what will minimize the likelihood of someone reoffending.

So why we proceed in the way we do is... I mean, everybody probably has a political opinion on that. The reality, though—and I think it's an important benchmark for this debate—is that the notion of simply longer, tougher sentencing somehow creating a safer place... There's nothing in the American experience that would cause us to believe that's the case.

Now, that isn't to say there aren't places for very long sentences. In fact, there are places in the system for people who perhaps would never leave. But as a general rule, I don't see any evidence that being tougher, so to speak, works as a general principle.

I think that, quite the contrary, beginning the process of reintegration, recognizing the fundamental fact that most people are going back to the community... And we need to assure Canadians that we're doing everything in our power to minimize the likelihood of those people reoffending. That's the job.

Mr. Andrew Telegdi: My apologies; I think I was unclear. What I was saying was that I have no problem with the violent offender. I mean, that's one group.

But there's the non-violent offender, like your white-collar criminal. If those people can be handled in the community, then they can be paying restitution, and they're not so costly to the government.

We can effectively also... I mean, if you're paying restitution, you are assisting the victim. There's money that's going to support the victim or pay back the victim, if you will. That's not happening while that person is in jail.

So if the person is a danger to society, you know, no problem, put him in jail. Hopefully do what we can to make sure he's not dangerous when he comes out. But for the white-collar criminals, and those people who are not a risk to public safety—and many of them are not—the more we can handle them in the community the better off we are, and we can better allocate the resources we're spending on incarceration.

That's the point I was trying to make, and I didn't make it very well.

Mr. Andy Scott: I'll try to be very brief this time.

One reason people are not sentenced to the community is connected to what I said earlier about the overall sense of getting tougher, and so on; that's one.

The second point is that in many cases the people we're speaking to are in the provincial system—they're getting less than two years—and we don't have jurisdiction over that.

The third part, though—and this is what I was really getting to, and have been speaking about most of the afternoon—is that the system is very expensive because we incarcerate at such a high rate. Because we consume whatever dollars are available for corrections in this country through incarceration, as you say, that denies the community the crime prevention dollars, the alternative sanction dollars, that might be applied in the community at large. So you have this self-fulfilling exercise that goes on. When people demand something stronger, you deny the community the opportunity to respond in, let's say, more imaginative ways, as you propose.

• 1620

Mr. Andrew Telegdi: Thank you, Madam Chair.

The Chair: Thank you. Maybe we'll just clarify something, because as someone who worked as a criminal lawyer for many years, as a crown it was hard to get a federal charge for someone, and the only time you really did was when there were acts of violence involved, by and large.

So my guess is that people who could be supervised in the community—people who the general community would think would be acceptable to have there, being supervised—aren't your guests. Would that be fair to say?

Mr. Andy Scott: We have people who have not committed violent offences. There are some drug possession charges, for example.

The Chair: Yes. Someone argued, though, that that's a crime of violence in itself—the act at least of pushing drugs.

Mr. Andy Scott: Well, that's why I said I would distinguish between consumption, and exploitation and consumption.

The Chair: Sure. I agree with you. But I think of lawyers with trust funds and that sort of thing. Mr. Melnitzer is a well-known former guest of the federal government. He has to be the exception rather than the rule.

Mr. Andy Scott: I try to avoid particulars—

The Chair: Yes.

Mr. Andy Scott: —but I do believe that if we can do a better job and convince Canadians that we're doing a better job, which I think is half the equation, we will find more referrals to the community and more community support. That will then involve building up the community infrastructure necessary to do this.

I mentioned in my opening remarks the fact that we've just made an arrangement with the Province of New Brunswick whereby sex offenders with six months, or other offenders with one year, could be referred to the federal system. The savings the province will achieve by virtue of this exercise are going to be reinvested in the community, with the hope that people who are then released from the federal system back into the community will have a better series of supports in the community, so that the community will be more confident of the process.

The Chair: Mr. Lee.

Mr. Derek Lee (Scarborough—Rouge River, Lib.): Thank you.

Mr. Minister, I would accept that it is expensive to incarcerate, but in my experience, the costs of crime outstrip the $50,000, the $60,000, the $70,000 spent on an inmate, depending on the type of crime. By the time you start off with the damage to an individual or property, followed by the arrest, the detention, the prosecution, the appeal, the lawyers, the insurance claims, and the damage to people's lives, sometimes $50,000 can look cheap. That insurance premium of $50,000 is shared by all Canadians, which is what the king promised us at the time of the Magna Carta, or was it the time of the social contract?

An hon member: Where are we going with this?

Mr. Derek Lee: In any event, I'm going to talk about the detention provisions. Commissioner Ingstrup made a comment that he felt—and I believe you accept that—that the number of detentions is perhaps too high, or higher than you'd like it to be.

I recall when this process uncodified was called gating, and there were lots of little things that got added into the reasons for gating, including affiliations with organized crime and all kinds of things, so it got changed to detention.

The higher cost, as I recall—I was sitting over where Mr. Breitkreuz was sitting—of the detentions was, on an accounting basis, offset by the increase in accelerated releases. I recall that. I would say the public would be relatively pleased to hear that when the professionals assess risk and come up with higher risk, they detain. And they say thank you very much, you're doing your job.

I'm curious about why we would come to the conclusion that the numbers of detentions, because of risk or perceptions of risk, are too high. Is it because of the accountants, that it costs too much money? Or is it that our measurement tools aren't quite as good as we'd like them to be, and we're trying to improve them?

• 1625

Mr. Andy Scott: First of all, it isn't driven by the money.

In the course of the discussion, the question of resources and where it's appropriate to put them comes up. People talk about community versus incarceration and so on. This draws us into discussion. But I don't think anyone here would, on the financial argument, do things that we didn't think were in the interest of public safety.

My fear would be that we are not using the best method of reintegration. It's not the other way around. The level of detention in itself is not a problem, other than generally speaking. I keep making the point that we have a high rate of incarceration in this country generally, compared to other places.

But the reality is—and I think this is again an opening point that needs to be made in the course of this discussion—if we believe that a controlled, gradual reintegration is the best way to get from incarceration to the community, then the use of detention minimizes the application of that process. That's all. That's the point, if we believe that someone is less likely to reoffend if they've been gradually reintegrated.

At the end of sentence expiry, and if they've been detained to sentence expiry, we no longer have control. We no longer can exercise the kind of supervision and conditions and so on, that we can inside the period of the sentence.

So when I speak of the fact that I would be concerned, it's just that I would be concerned we're not using that instrument that I think most people believe is a better instrument than having someone go directly from a cell to the street. When I'm referring to it, Mr. Member, that's what I'm speaking of.

Commissioner?

Commr Ole Ingstrup: That's certainly also my view. I essentially see detention cases as a correctional failure, because Corrections is there to change behaviour and change attitudes so that people can gradually go back to the community in a controlled fashion and eventually live as law-abiding citizens. The fact that we are playing one important card out of our hand because we haven't been able to facilitate or impose that change is a serious concern to me. It's a risk assessment thing, not a cost assessment.

Mr. Derek Lee: Okay.

Now, these people in institutions are not potato plants that have no free will of their own. The objective of Corrections is certainly to assist the individual to go straight, so a failure... You suggest that CSC may not have accomplished its goal at the end of the term, and you really need that window to try the person out on the street.

Let's go to statutory release—

Mr. Andy Scott: Could I just make sure, if I may, that when you say “try the person”, this isn't intended as some kind of an experiment. It's intended to in fact gradually reintroduce, with the knowledge that this person is, in the vast majority of cases, going to be going out without constraint at some point in the future.

Mr. Derek Lee: Okay, so it's not a test. It's an acclimatization; it's a preparation for release. I accept that.

Now, on statutory release, the data that the commissioner and the National Parole Board brought to our attention last week seems to suggest that statutory release isn't working all that well on a data basis—that the recidivism experienced by those who are released on statutory release is higher than the other categories of release.

I was puzzled by that. I got the impression that those who are released on statutory release aren't good enough for early release and they're not bad enough to be detained. They just sort of float through, potentially unmotivated, don't do anything really good, don't do anything really bad, while they're on the inside. They may have had the benefit of a program or not. But even if they didn't want to participate in any programs, even if they didn't want to do any work, if they did nothing, they would still get the statutory release and be released, and good luck.

There's enough data there to make me ask the question, shouldn't all releases, for the very good and the very bad and everything in the middle, be really well structured? I don't mean a statutory release, where you do your two-thirds and it's “Here's your parole officer; good luck”. Should it be more structured than that? Do we still need statutory release?

• 1630

Mr. Andy Scott: I think it is more structured than the way you've put it. That's why we have 500 or 600 cases. So there are many instances where detention is the outcome—

Mr. Derek Lee: I'm sorry, I'm not talking detention, I'm talking basic statutory release.

Mr. Andy Scott: Where someone has been statutorily released, they've not been detained, and detention, as we've said, is 500 cases. So it isn't automatic by any means. There are tests and measures against this.

With regard to the statistics, I'll let the commissioner speak to that.

Commr Ole Ingstrup: It's always difficult to say what is too high and what is too low. We are talking here about the highest risk category of those that we still think can be managed in the community. That's what we're talking about. We have a 12.2.% recidivism rate before the end of the expiry.

When I benchmark Correctional Service Canada with other countries, other systems, and ask about their general statistics—and they never have it measured the same way—by and large we're talking there about 50% recidivism rates. This is not to brag about it, but I have not been able to identify any system that has a recidivism rate down in the vicinity of what we produce.

Mr. Derek Lee: I'm very much looking forward to the review.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

The Chair: Thanks, Mr. Lee. Mr. McKay.

Mr. John McKay (Scarborough East, Lib.): Thank you, Madam Chair.

It seems to me if the honourable member is quoting the Magna Carta, he's been here too long.

Some hon. members: Oh, oh!

The Chair: I just assume there's something in the air in Scarborough.

Mr. John McKay: I see. Well, Scarborough is the pinnacle of enlightenment, there's no question about that.

I want to have you talk a little bit about what I see as mutually contradictory issues with respect to the speech you gave at a symposium concerning restorative justice, which I assume—and I was not there for the speech, of course—has something to do with a more enhanced reintegration of the individual into the community, and this committee's study of victim's rights and the role of the victim in this entire process.

It seems to me that most conversations with respect to victims' rights have to do with the victim wanting to see a goodly amount of revenge in the process. Right or wrong, whether that's proper or not, I think ultimately the hope of any victim is to bring some closure to their lives.

I would be interested in your views as to what role—I'm assuming a role here, and possibly an enhanced role—the victims would play in the whole concept of restorative justice.

Mr. Andy Scott: I think there's a whole range of levels in which we can pursue this in the context of restorative justice being reconciliation. There's a role for victims in the context of that exercise and in some of the things we do among aboriginal Canadians, particularly, where I think the very beginnings of our restorative justice efforts have taken place.

I think you have to start at the broadest level—that is, if we don't deal with the desire of the Canadian public to see a system that meets their needs, real or imagined, then first and foremost we're not going to create the support in the community we need to make the system that I envision work.

The first time you get a phone call from the local newspaper saying “Someone's coming back to the community; do you think they should?”, it immediately touches off the issue. The community is afraid. They don't talk about what's happened in the last 12 years, they talk about what happened 12 years ago, and it's usually awful. Consequently, the community's faith in the system is challenged quite significantly.

• 1635

One of the ways we're going to have to proceed to restore that faith, so that people who come back to the community are not immediately put in a position where it's very difficult to cope, is to deal with what the public will outline as the deficiencies in the system. One of those is the services available to victims.

I don't it's necessarily contradictory. In fact my own experience with people who I guess you would call victims hasn't necessarily been as revenge-seeking, perhaps. There's more truth-seeking. Maybe the more forceful the comment, the more likely you are to hear about it, but the people I deal with from time to time are really looking for truth: What happened? Why did it happen? They are much more inclined toward that. There's a range of reactions, but I don't see these two things being inconsistent at all.

As long as we're operating with the mission of public safety, as long as we're doing what we do because we want the community to be safer—and we'll debate whether that means keeping people in longer or how the structure of the system works—I think we're on safe ground, because I think that's ultimately what the Canadian public wants of us.

Improving the public's confidence in the system is a part of making it safer, because that will mean people are less likely to reoffend when they come out, because the support systems in the community will be there when they come out, because the public will be involved in those support systems. Right now they're less likely to be, because they don't have that faith. One of the areas we need to restore is the participation of people who have been victimized by crime.

Mr. John McKay: Let's work with that proposition that the victims want truth above all else, or virtually above all else, and ultimately to have their faith restored in the system. How could that be structured in release programs so it becomes a matter of opportunity for the victims?

Mr. Andy Scott: As I said earlier, this is one of the challenges the committee faces. It certainly is one of the challenges I'm hoping the committee will help me wrestle with.

At the first consultation we did, I believe in Winnipeg, this was the biggest issue of the day: how are we going to include victims in this process?

Mostly it's at the front end. I think it's safe to say that for the most part, what people are talking about—

Mr. John McKay: Front end; what do you mean?

Mr. Andy Scott: The front end of the system at the time of the commission of the crime and in that process. But it also takes itself all the way through the process.

I think it's a fair observation that very often the need on the part of victims to be involved in the process later on is the result of the fact that they feel they didn't have their opportunity in the front end. If we can do a better job of involving people at the very beginning—I think most organizations of victims say this; at least certainly it's been expressed this way to me—that's where the real, immediate need is.

For the rest of it, you might see a change in the demands people place on the system if they're accommodated better in the front end, in the very beginning, at the time of the commission of the crime.

Mr. John McKay: Thanks.

The Chair: Anyone else?

All right, Minister, thank you very much. Gentlemen, Ms. Campbell, thank you.

We're adjourned.