SCRA Committee Report

The Progressive Conservative Party concurs with the majority of the recommendations made by the Sub-committee with respect to the Corrections and Conditional Release Act. However, the PC Party was disappointed that the government recanted its initial commitment to deal with public concerns and amend the section of the CCRA dealing with statutory release.

Although, the PC Party would have liked to see the elimination of statutory release from the CCRA, we were initially buoyed by the commitment from the Liberal government to amend this dangerous practice of automatically releasing prisoners after serving only two-thirds of their sentence.

The PC Party is of the opinion that offenders in prison must earn release before they have completed their sentence. Similarly, certain rights and privileges should also be subject to discretionary granting and removal. Offering community reintegration during parole is not necessarily a risk to public safety. Yet, doing so automatically without proper vetting procedures certainly can be dangerous. Our Party is of the opinion that the public needs to have confidence in sentencing practices and procedures if there is to be faith in our corrections system.

The PC Party position would possibly necessitate the building of new prisons to house the increased number of incarcerated offenders. We understand that this could be an expensive proposition but we also feel that a price cannot be placed on public safety.

Under the current system of statutory release, Correctional Service Canada and the National Parole Board only review violent offences. In making their decisions, the NPB does not consider the negative attitudes of statutory release offenders and their unwillingness to undertake rehabilitative programs. As well, there are no clearly defined factors to be followed by the NPB when imposing special conditions on an offender's release.

For these reasons, we feel that after an offender has served their sentence, monitoring, supervision and treatment should be improved in order to reduce the risk of re-offending, thereby enhancing public safety. In fact, the two-thirds measurement could continue to be used as the standard for release but it should not be required in every case. All cases should be subject to a mandatory, parole style review, perhaps with a reverse-onus test. The PC Party is of the firm belief that the concept of earned release as opposed to automatic release would better serve the public.

We recommend the elimination of statutory release and a return to greater accountability and confidence in sentencing. The rehabilitation of offenders must be balanced with the consideration of public safety concerns regarding statutory release.

Peter MacKay, M.P.

PC Member, Sub-Committee Studying the Corrections and Conditional Release Act