SoVote

Decentralized Democracy

Member of Parliament

Randall Garrison

  • Member of Parliament
  • Member of Parliament
  • NDP
  • Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke
  • British Columbia
  • Voting Attendance: 67%
  • Expenses Last Quarter: $148,586.11

  • Government Page
Context: House Hansard - 207 - Jun/6/23
Mr. Randall Garrison
Madam Speaker, I must say I am bit perplexed as to why the Conservatives would do a quorum call in the middle of my speech. Maybe they do not want to hear what I have to say about parole and the importance of parole to public safety, or maybe they do not want to hear what I am about to say about bail. One of the things we have been talking about as New Democrats, which is now in the government's bail bill, a bill we have not been able to get to because of the delays of the Conservatives, is community-based bail supervision. That is the idea that we would take similar principles to parole and apply them to bail. Right now, in the system we have in this country, when someone is on bail, there is actually no supervision whatsoever. The government's bill, Bill C-48, would provide that judges could refer people to community-based bail supervision programs. That means that people who are on bail would actually be supervised if they have a curfew, if they are supposed to be at a certain address or if they are supposed to be going to work, whatever the conditions of bail are. We do not really supervise that now. Community-based bail supervision would be important. The other thing the bill would do is help with what I see as the real problem with bail in Canada, which is that we detain way too many people before trial, people who have not been convicted of anything. In particular, we detain way too many indigenous people, way too many racialized people, way too many poor people and way too many people with mental health challenges. We do that because our system says that to get bail, people need a surety. They need somebody who is a friend or family member, who has a stable address and a stable job. They, themselves, also need a stable address, a telephone and usually a car before they could actually get bail. What we are doing is taking a lot of people and keeping them in detention, at very high costs, sometimes over $1,000 a day to keep people in detention. If we use community-based bail supervision programs, the average cost of those pilot programs that the John Howard Society runs is five dollars a day. What we would get out of that is better public safety outcomes, fewer people in detention, and better public safety because we have better supervision for those on bail. I am talking about this because it is the other end of the system from parole. Both of these are measures to keep the public safe. If we invest in parole and if we invest in community-based bail supervision, we would have fewer people who are victims of crime in this country. I hope that people in this House will see the wisdom of investing in these ways of rehabilitating and reintegrating people into our society.
504 words
All Topics
  • Hear!
  • Rabble!
  • star_border
Context: House Hansard - 207 - Jun/6/23
Mr. Randall Garrison (Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke, NDP)
Madam Speaker, as a New Democrat, I am pleased to rise in the House and say that we do support this bill as part of our commitment to the protection of victims' rights. Also, we encourage all members of the House to support the attempts to provide victims with the services they need in terms of rehabilitation or to compensate for losses they have suffered as a result of being victims of crime. We conducted hearings in the justice committee, where we heard from victims, and we heard very clearly that one of the things they want is accurate and timely information about the parole process. For that reason, I am quite happy to see this bill come forward and to support it. One of the additional things we heard from victims was on the specific case of sexual assault victims, who asked to be consulted and to be informed about publication bans, and have the right to opt out of publication bans on their assaults. Many of them felt a publication ban without their consent denied their agency and their ability to speak about their own experience, and often it inadvertently protected the perpetrators when their names were suppressed. That is in a bill that is before the Senate, Bill S-12. It was in committee in the Senate today, and I think most of us look forward to that provision getting here to the House very soon. There are other important measures, and I thank the member for Shefford for talking about the attempt to move coercive and controlling behaviour into criminal law. That was originally in a private member's bill I sponsored, but it is now being brought forward by the member for Victoria as Bill C-332. I hope we will be dealing with that this fall. Again, by making coercive and controlling behaviour a criminal offence, we can prevent victims of violence in the future, since coercive and controlling behaviour in intimate partner relationships is almost always a precursor to actual violence in that relationship. I spent 20 years, before I came here, as a criminal justice instructor, and one of the things I know from working with and talking to victims is they are concerned about public safety, and in the very specific sense that almost every victim wants to make sure we take measures to make sure the same experience they had does not happen to others. That concern for public safety is always front and centre with every victim I have met with. It is unfortunate when rhetoric around crime, punishment, parole and bail veers off into what I would call an ideological position that tougher, longer sentences actually keep people safe. It really misunderstands the purpose and function of our parole system. We know that, in Canada, people are eventually going to be released from jail, except for a very small number of them. The parole system does not provide a “get out of jail free” card or earlier release; it provides incentives for good behaviour in the corrections system and it provides incentives for people to participate in rehabilitation, to take drug and alcohol counselling and to take anger management courses. It is hard to get parole if one does not engage in good behaviour in the system and does not engage in those rehabilitation activities. A person will not actually get parole and will not get the privileges of a phased release, being in a halfway house or any of those other things that are seen somehow as privileges. Those things are actually the phased reintegration of people into the community. We know that people who successfully complete a parole process have a much smaller chance of reoffending. If we make parole almost impossible to get and if we insist on very long sentences, we actually have a negative impact on public safety, in that those who have committed crimes will serve their sentence in the institution, will not participate in rehabilitation activities and will be released at the end of their sentence with no supervision, no access to public services and no monitoring of what they are doing in the community. Parole is a way of keeping people safe; it is a way of promoting public safety. It is a way of encouraging rehabilitation. It is important we not lose sight of that. Having said that, victims obviously need to have accurate information about how this works and what is happening at each stage of the process. In that sense, of course, I am still supportive of this bill. At this point, it is important to mention what I will call the unsung heroes of public safety, who are not as high profile as the police or as corrections workers. Those are the parole officers in this country. Parole officers work very hard with those who are being phased back into the community, to make sure they are successful. In doing so, they help promote public safety. I salute the more than 1,600, I think it is now, parole officers who work for Corrections Canada and belong to the Union of Safety and Justice Employees. They have recently released a report, within the last year, that points out the challenges they face. Parole officers have very high levels of operational stress injuries in their occupation. That has to do with the stress of dealing with the offenders and the lack of resources in our system. One of the things they have called for is the hiring of additional parole officers. This would help each of them do their job in a healthier manner, but also reducing caseloads would mean there is more time for those parole officers to spend on the people who are being released, so they can provide better supervision, more monitoring of things like curfews, or more monitoring of whether they are actually where they are supposed to be while they are on parole. In addition, they called for increased mental health services for parole officers. One of the things they pointed out was that this, in actual fact, saves money. If we provide better mental health services, we avoid the burnout that leads to long-term operational injuries and long-term sick leave. The other thing they asked for, and I think this is interesting because it shows their professionalism, is increased funding for more mental health professionals working inside our correctional institutions and as part of the parole system. Quite often what we see now, unfortunately, is offenders who have very complex psychological and substance abuse problems to deal with. We need those highly skilled professionals to help design the programs that would help rehabilitate them into the community with the least risk possible to the public. Again, it is important, whenever we are talking about probation, parole or bail, to remember that things like parole and bail are designed to help keep the public safe— An hon. member: Do we have quorum?
1165 words
All Topics
  • Hear!
  • Rabble!
  • star_border