(Chair) in the chair.

(The committee continued in camera.)

(The committee resumed in public.)

Honourable senators, it is our intention to spend the balance of the meeting conducting a clause-by-clause consideration of the Bill S-212, An Act to amend the Criminal Records Act, to make consequential amendments to other Acts and to repeal a regulation.

Before we begin, I have some reminders on a few points. If senators are not clear where we are in the process, please ask for clarification. We want to ensure that at all times we have the same understanding of where we are in the process. In terms of mechanics, wish you to remind you that when more than one amendment is proposed to be in a clause, amendments should be proposed in the order of the lines of the clause. Therefore, before we take up an amendment in a clause, I will be verifying whether any senators have intended to move an amendment earlier in that clause. I think in these circumstances, at least today, we don’t have a significant number of amendments, and I’ll try my best not to lose track of where we are. If senators do intend to move an earlier amendment, they will be given an opportunity to do so.

If a senator is opposed to an entire clause, I would remind you that in committee the proper process is not to move a motion to delete the entire clause but to vote against the clause as standing as part of the bill.

I will also remind senators that some amendments that are moved may have a consequential effect on other parts of the bill and there is a process by which we can address that, although I think it’s unlikely that will happen today. In the spirit of this, it would be useful to use this process of a senator moving an amendment identified to the committee other clauses in the bill that could be affected. Otherwise, it would be difficult for members to remain consistent in their decision making.

We will endeavour to keep track of the places where subsequent amendments might need to be moved and draw our attention to them, although perhaps today won’t be a day when we face that circumstance. Because no notice is required to move amendments, there can, of course, have been no preliminary analysis of the amendments to establish which ones may be of consequence and which ones could be contradictory. Again, that is probably not a concern today, but it’s useful to keep in mind.

If committee members ever have questions about the process or the propriety of anything occurring, please raise a point of order. As chair, I will listen to the argument and decide. The committee is the ultimate master of its business within the bounds established by the Senate, and a ruling can be appealed to the full committee by asking whether the ruling shall be sustained.

As chair, I will do my utmost to ensure that all senators wishing to speak, have the opportunity to do so. For this, however, I will depend upon your cooperation, and I ask all of you to consider other senators and keep remarks to the point and as brief as possible.

Finally, I wish to remind honourable senators that if there is ever any uncertainty as to the results of a voice vote or a show of hands, the most effective route is to request a roll-call vote, which obviously will provide unambiguous results and the clerk will undertake that when requested. Senators are aware that tied votes negate the motion in question. Any questions about that procedure?

This isn’t about that procedure in particular, but I was wondering about is that many times, obviously, for government bills and private members’ bills we have officials present, so they can answer questions. We might have more technical questions about how the bill is going to be, if there are amendments that we need to ask about, how they will affect a particular part of the bill or the existing framework that is currently in place. I don’t think there are any officials from any department here. Am I correct? And why not?

Well, it is Senator Pate’s bill, so maybe Senator Pate could speak to that.

If there are particular parts that people have concerns about, I certainly have documented the evidence we have received from Public Safety and the Parole Board of Canada. I would be happy to address that.

Quite some time ago, a number of months, I think it was maybe the first time that we were dealing with this bill prior to it getting interrupted by another bill, we had a witness from CBA, Tony Paisana, and I had asked him a technical question about how a part would be interpreted and he said that’s a very technical question and he would have to get back to me, and he indicated that he would.

When I last checked about this in June, we had not yet received any answer from Tony Paisana about that, and the clerk at the time, Mark Palmer, was going to check with him. I wanted to confirm that no such answer was received by the committee.

It wasn’t communicated to me, but let me inquire. Can I take that under immediate advisement, Senator Batters, to make the inquiry as requested? I am assuming the answer is going to be no, which is normal and expected. If the answer is yes, we will figure out a way of handling that.

[Translation]

I also note that the presence of Department of Justice officials, which is part of our committee’s usual practice, serves the essential purpose of informing the committee’s deliberations.

For bills introduced by senators and House of Commons bills that aren’t government bills, there hasn’t necessarily been an analysis of their impact on existing legislation. Government bills usually go through that process.

Is there a particular reason why Department of Justice representatives weren’t brought in today for this clause-by-clause study?

[English]

The best I can answer is that no decision taken not to invite them, but there was no decision taken at all. I’m in your hands as to what, in your view, the normal practice should be for the consideration of a Senate public bill.

[Translation]

That’s problematic. I want to raise another point. The bill before us is fairly substantial. It is 17 pages long and contains 51 clauses, and it amends several acts. As I said before in the chamber in a speech about another public bill, I’m somewhat uncomfortable introducing or amending a relatively complex bill that affects many different government operations or aspects of our criminal law without a Department of Justice analysis of the bill’s impact and the number of files. We don’t have a GBA either.

We don’t have an opinion on the constitutional aspects. We don’t know the bill’s spending implications. I understand the dilemma when a parliamentarian introduces a public bill.

When someone introduces a bill to designate a national day to celebrate the heritage of people from Lebanon or some other country, people who make huge contributions to our history and our society, I feel capable of assessing the importance of the bill and making up my mind easily.

With a bill the size of this one, though, I don’t feel I can form an informed opinion about it because it has both political implications — I realize it’s an expression of certain philosophies — and practical implications when it comes to incorporating these changes into the Criminal Code, the Parole Board’s mandate and law enforcement mandates.

I will say that, personally, I’m not against some of the ideas Senator Pate has put forward. Some of the testimony I heard, including from yesterday’s witnesses, left an impression and made me think. That being said, I really can’t imagine automatic systems for anything other than summary offences.

For summary offences, it makes sense that an individual can be automatically released after a given time. For criminal offences, including those that Senator Pate excludes and others, an automatic system would allow gang members, mafiosos and people with known criminal ties to get an automatic pardon, unless the police bring certain things to the Parole Board’s attention. Senator Pate called that “raising the flag.” That strikes me as a big change to how the pardon system works. I really don’t think we have the expertise to take things that far today.

I wonder if the best solution in this case — because there are so many good ideas here — would be to take the testimony and ideas in Senator Pate’s bill, put them in a report to the Department of Justice and the government, and ask for a response. For example, wouldn’t this be a good opportunity to restore the waiting period for a pardon application to what it was before the previous government’s amendments?

Our report could sum up what we heard about the impact of longer waiting periods for pardon applications.

In a nutshell, why don’t we talk about using everything we heard to draft a Senate committee report requiring a government response?

[English]

I’m going to invite Senator Pate to respond in a minute; it’s her bill. You’re proposing, then, that we essentially not report the bill and not undertake clause-by-clause consideration but produce a report in relation to the bill?

Exactly, Mr. Chair, that we don’t go to clause-by-clause consideration, and instead of reporting the bill, it will be a special report to the chamber in due course of our findings, options and suggestions for the government.

I skipped over Senator Boisvenu, but it might have been more on the procedural stuff. This is a bit more substantive. Could we carry on with this and —

[Translation]

I’d like to follow up on what Senator Dalphond said. May I?

[English]

I would invite Senator Pate to respond.

I’m happy to hear what Senator Batters says first.

Oh, I’m sorry. Are you on the same topic, Senator Batters?

I don’t think Senator Boisvenu was done yet.

Oh, I’m sorry. Go ahead.

[Translation]

Basically, there are two ways to look at this bill: as a person who has been convicted and incarcerated or as a victim. I understand that people can be on either end of the spectrum. Having listened to the stories of people who have gone through this process, I also understand that it needs to be reformed because it’s complex and it takes a lot of work for an offender to get a pardon. This bears thinking about, and there should be more flexibility, but I’m definitely not okay with throwing the baby out with the bathwater, as they say.

I haven’t received a satisfactory answer about the fact that Canada has almost 450 provincial jails and prisons, which handle about 55,000 offenders per year. On average, offenders go back to provincial prisons eight times. For federal penitentiaries, it’s four times.

I toured federal penitentiaries in Quebec, and I asked the wardens, “How many of the offenders who come here for the first time have ever been incarcerated in a provincial prison?” The answer is about 50%. I also asked, “How will the Parole Board of Canada, which has nothing to do with provincial prisons, be able to track these 55,000 offenders coming through provincial prisons?” We have 173 police forces in Canada. How are they supposed to keep tabs on these people and make sure they haven’t committed any offences during the automatic pardon eligibility period? Technically, it’s almost impossible.

I think this bill is dangerous, especially for women. It makes significant changes to a system that merits meticulous study with experts — as Senator Dalphond was saying — on the costs, benefits and public safety consequences.

I don’t think we’ve really looked at that aspect at all. How will automatic pardons impact public safety? I don’t have the answer to that, and I think a thorough study with experts from Public Safety or Justice would give us some clarity on that and provide a lot more reassurance to the public and to victims. It would also make the system much more acceptable to people who serve their time and apply for a pardon.

I concur with Senator Dalphond: This bill seems premature. We need an in-depth study to understand the consequences. Thank you.

[English]