Christopher's Law (Sex
Offender Registry), 1999, Bill 31, Mr
Tsubouchi /Loi Christopher de 1999 sur le
registre des délinquants sexuels, projet de loi 31,
M. Tsubouchi
Canadian Resource
Centre for Victims of Crime
Mr Steve Sullivan
Mennonite Central
Committee Ontario
Mr Brian Enns
Mr Evan Heise
Police Association of
Ontario
Mr Paul Bailey
Ontario Provincial
Police Association
Mr Brian Adkin
Centre for Addiction
and Mental Health
Dr Howard Barbaree
Hamilton-Wentworth
Regional Police Service; Ontario Association of Chiefs of
Police
Mr Ken Robertson
John Howard Society
of Ontario
Ms Barbara Hill
Mr Bill Sparks
STANDING COMMITTEE ON
JUSTICE AND SOCIAL POLICY
Chair /
Président
Mr Joseph N. Tascona (Barrie-Simcoe-Bradford PC)
Vice-Chair / Vice-Président
Mr Carl DeFaria (Mississauga East / -Est PC)
Mr Marcel Beaubien (Lambton-Kent-Middlesex PC)
Mr Michael Bryant (St Paul's L)
Mr Carl DeFaria (Mississauga East / -Est PC)
Mrs Brenda Elliott (Guelph-Wellington PC)
Mr Garry J. Guzzo (Ottawa West-Nepean / Ottawa-Ouest-Nepean
PC)
Mr Peter Kormos (Niagara Centre / -Centre ND)
Mrs Lyn McLeod (Thunder Bay-Atikokan L)
Mr Joseph N. Tascona (Barrie-Simcoe-Bradford PC)
Substitutions / Membres remplaçants
Mr Ted Chudleigh (Halton PC)
Mr Brad Clark (Stoney Creek PC)
Mr Frank Mazzilli (London-Fanshawe PC)
Also taking part / Autres participants et
participantes
Mr Mike Colle (Eglinton-Lawrence L)
Ms Marnie Corbold, counsel, legal services branch, Ministry of
the Solicitor General
Clerk / Greffière
Ms Susan Sourial
Staff / Personnel
Ms Susan Klein, legislative counsel
Mr Avrum Fenson, research officer, Research and Information
Services
The committee met at
1003 in room 151.
SUBCOMMITTEE REPORT
The Vice-Chair (Mr
Carl DeFaria): Good morning. I'd like to call the
meeting to order. This committee hearing is on Bill 31, An Act,
in memory of Christopher Stephenson, to establish and maintain a
registry of sex offenders to protect children and
communities.
I wish to welcome everyone
here this morning. To begin, I'd like to call on a member to move
the subcommittee report.
Mr Marcel Beaubien
(Lambton-Kent-Middlesex): I'll so move, Mr Chair. The
minutes read as follows:
(1) That the committee hold
two days of public hearings at Queen's Park subject to the number
of people/groups requesting to appear.
(2) That the clerk issue a
press release and place an advertisement regarding the hearings
on the Ontario parliamentary channel.
(3) That witnesses be
allotted 20 minutes.
(4) That witnesses requesting
reimbursement for travel be considered on a case-by-case
basis.
(5) That the clerk and the
research officer compile a list of groups that might be
interested in appearing as witnesses. That this list, as well as
a list of members of the public/groups that have requested to
appear, be faxed to the members of the subcommittee on committee
business.
(6) That members of the
subcommittee choose from the above lists who they would like to
appear as witnes-ses and inform the clerk of the committee of
their decision.
(7) That the committee send a
letter of invitation to the Honourable Anne McLellan, Minister of
Justice and Attorney General of Canada, and to the Honourable
Lawrence MacAulay, Solicitor General of Canada.
(8) That the research officer
prepare information on other jurisdictions with similar laws as
well as data on parole issues dealing with sexual offences and
the nature of tracking at the federal and provincial level, if
any.
(9) That the committee meet
informally at 9 am on the first day of public hearings for a
technical briefing from the appropriate staff of the Ministry of
the Solicitor General.
(10) That the parliamentary
assistant, the opposition critic and the third party critic each
have five minutes for opening statements.
(11) That the committee meet
for clause-by-clause consideration of the bill after public
hearings.
The
Vice-Chair: Mr Beaubien moves approval of the
subcommittee report. Shall it carry? Carried.
Before proceeding to the
opening statements, I'd like to remind the members that any
amendments to the bill, I think it has been agreed, should be
submitted by 1 pm. Are there any questions about that or is that
agreed?
Mr Peter Kormos
(Niagara Centre): If I may, Chair, that's a
recommendation.
The
Vice-Chair: That was the recommendation of the
Chair.
Mr Kormos:
But during the course of clause-by-clause, of course, any
amendment could be made at any time. We're not dealing here with
the constraint of time allocation.
The
Vice-Chair: My understanding is that the amendments
should be delivered to the Chair by 1. If there are other
amendments, you would need the consent of the committee to extend
the deadline.
CHRISTOPHER'S LAW (SEX OFFENDER REGISTRY), 1999 /
LOI CHRISTOPHER DE 1999 SUR LE REGISTRE DES DÉLINQUANTS
SEXUELS
Consideration of Bill 31, An
Act, in memory of Christopher Stephenson, to establish and
maintain a registry of sex offenders to protect children and
communities / Projet de loi 31, Loi à la mémoire de
Christopher Stephenson visant à créer et à tenir
un registre des délinquants sexuels en vue de protéger
les enfants et les collectivités.
The
Vice-Chair: Let's proceed now with the opening
statements. Each caucus has five minutes. Did the government
caucus wish to-all right. We'll start with the official
opposition.
Mr Michael Bryant (St
Paul's): There's a saying in opposition circles that
when you support a government bill, you should not speak very
long, so I may not take my full five minutes.
We support this bill. The
circumstances surrounding the murder of 11-year-old Christopher
Stephenson have been gone
over several times and we should continue to go over them. One of
the recommendations in the coroner's inquest is that a sex
offender registry be set up, and that's happening. We support
that. That is a good thing.
With most justice issues,
rightly or wrongly, we live in an era where much of the
discussion revolves around rights. In other words, there is a
debate over the right of someone who has been charged and
convicted of an offence to privacy, individual civil liberties,
and we'll be hearing about that over the course of the committee
hearing today, versus the right of the public to have access to
information regarding crimes regarding offenders who will be
entering their community.
I like to think of this bill
as less about the triumph of the right to public access than
about the triumph of responsibilities. There is a responsibility
that all of us have as citizens that we by and large endeavour to
fulfill. Those who are convicted of a sex-related offence have a
responsibility now by law to register in Ontario with the sex
offender registry. While we will work out the details of that,
and the regulations with respect to how the information is
provided and how it is kept are obviously crucial, we don't want
to have a circumstance where somebody who has not been convicted
of a sex offence winds up on the registry. We want to make sure
that if the registry is going to work, the information provided
is accurate. But the bill is one that we support.
My only concern is that we
are talking about this in February of the year 2000. This bill
was mentioned in three throne speeches. This bill should have
been passed a long time ago. But, that said, better late than
never. We support the bill, and I look forward to hearing from
those who have taken the time to come and make submissions
today.
1010
The
Vice-Chair: Mr Kormos.
Mr Kormos:
Thank you, Chair. I can indicate very specifically at the outset
that I support the legislation, not only in my own right but on
behalf of my colleagues in the NDP caucus, and tell you, as I've
told you in the Legislature during the course, among other
things, of second reading of this bill, that I have read the
coroner's inquest jury recommendations in the Christopher
Stephenson inquest. I have probably read it far too many times,
regrettably. Clearly, Bill 31 reflects one of a myriad of
recommendations there. I know that the parliamentary assistant
understands that, because he has been most receptive in my
discussions with him about other recommendations.
I think all the people
involved in the development of this bill acknowledge, and it was
referred to this morning, that it is not a panacea for the
incredible public danger that sexual predators constitute in our
communities. It isn't, and we understand that. I think we had
better make it very clear that this isn't the be-all and end-all.
It's but a small piece of the puzzle.
The bill requires that sex
offenders, that class of offenders convicted of the prescribed
offences, submit to registration. Clearly that doesn't protect us
from the anonymity, if you will, of a sexual predator who travels
into a community and doesn't want to comply, or chooses not to
comply, with Bill 31. I accept, though, some of the commentary-it
will be made by a submission very early this morning from the
Canadian Resource Centre for Victims of Crime-that talks about
some modest deterrent impact of having something like Bill 31. I
regret that this isn't occurring at the national level, because
of the incredible mobility of anybody in our society and in our
country.
Inspector Lines from the OPP
told us this morning that the current data indicates that
approximately 1,500 offenders a year will be required to
register; 1,500 convictions a year based on the current
statistics-I think the exact number was 1,560. I suppose one way
of auditing the effectiveness of Bill 31 will be to track those
convictions, if we can, and see whether they register and how
those registrations are maintained.
Some of the concern I have is
that at the end of the day I'm convinced-and I'm sure others
disagree with me-that the most effective part of this is the
process of registration, so that when a sex offender moves into a
community the police in that community know that she or he is
there, and then can do what they do best to protect members of
the community against that person. It remains to be seen, by
virtue of regulation, the nature of the data that's going to be
collected, who is responsible for maintaining that data, although
we understand, and I suppose we're going to be told more later,
that the OPP will have the lead in terms of responsibility for
organizing the database, but whether local police forces can
maintain that data in their own right, in an open-I'm not talking
about public, but without doing it clandestinely, without doing
it in a secretive manner to comply with Bill 31. Our researchers
provided us with some of the data regarding prison sentences,
parole and some of the comparative jurisdictions.
As I say, this is but one of
the recommendations in the Christopher Stevenson report, in the
coroner's inquest jury recommendations. I hope this government
will carry on in the same spirit of this bill and let us talk in
the assembly in a very prompt way about things like treatment
programs. Quite frankly, Parliamentary Assistant, I am concerned
about the future of the Ontario Correctional Institute which, as
you know, has a treatment program for pedophiles, one of the
hardest groups of deviants to treat, but which has one of most
successful programs certainly in North America, and is
acknowledged as such. We have to talk about how effectively we're
dealing with sex offenders once they are in prison, so that when
they are released the likelihood of the recidivism is reduced as
much as possible.
I also note that this will
have a cost attached to it, a public cost in terms of tax
dollars-there will be approximately 1,500 registrants a year if
all the offenders comply. I as a taxpayer am prepared to pay for
that, just as I am prepared to pay for effective and adequate
policing in our communities.
I appreciate the co-operation of the parliamentary
assistant with my modest private member's bill regarding fees for
volunteer checks, because this is part and parcel. It was another
recommendation of the Christopher Stephenson report.
This is one part of the
puzzle. Please, I say to the government, let's assemble the
balance of pieces of that puzzle so that we can protect the
children and women, the two groups of people who are most
frequently the victims of sexual offenders, in this jurisdiction
in the manner they deserve and that all of us in a civil, and
presumably civilized, society deserve.
The
Vice-Chair: Mr Mazzilli.
Mr Frank Mazzilli
(London-Fanshawe): Good morning, Mr Chair, ladies and
gentlemen. Just to inform you, Mr and Mrs Stephenson are in the
building and will be joining us.
On behalf of the Harris
government and the Ministry of the Solicitor General, I'm pleased
to make a few comments to this committee in support of our
proposed legislation creating a provincial sex offender
registry.
The proposed sex offender
registry will be known as Christopher's Law, in memory of
Christopher Stephenson. This will be a great honour in
Christopher's memory. It will be the culmination of 10 years of
dedicated effort from his family to help guard against such
horrid acts of violence.
Since second reading of this
bill, Mr Tsubouchi and I have received an overwhelming amount of
support from victims' rights organizations, police services and
the public. We've heard from organizations like CAVEAT, a
national anti-violence group, from the Ontario Association of
Chiefs of Police and from the Ontario Police Association. We've
heard from municipal officials in communities like Sarnia, where
the local council passed a motion strongly recommending that the
province pass a sex offender registry.
Many organizations are also
dismayed that Ottawa has totally ignored the need for a national
registry. The Harris government is taking action to do the right
thing and is acting to protect our citizens. Ontario is leading
the way for the rest of the country in creating a tough deterrent
for offenders and would-be offenders.
As Minister Tsubouchi and I
have said before, the key goal in establishing a provincial sex
offender registry is to protect the most vulnerable people in our
society. The need to safeguard our children-our sons and
daughters-is more than just necessary; it is crucial.
A provincial sex offender
registry will provide our police with something they have not had
before: a way of keeping track of sex offenders. The registry
would be a vital investigative tool, allowing police to monitor
sex offenders in our communities. Police already have the
authority to disclose the names of offenders in the interest of
public safety. Under the proposed legislation, they would be
given the authority to arrest those who fail to comply with
Christopher's Law.
We need to protect the most
vulnerable in our society and safeguard our communities. We need
to let victims and victims' families know that their efforts are
not in vain, and provide police with the means to track the
whereabouts of high-risk offenders. The safety of our communities
is one of our top priorities.
Mr Chairman, we owe it to the
Stephensons, to all victims and their families, to all potential
victims and to police services in every community in our province
to enshrine a law that will serve as a major crime-prevention and
crime-fighting strategy. Everyone in Ontario has the right to be
safe from crime. We should be able to walk in our neighbourhoods,
use public transit, live in our homes and send our children to
school free from the fear of criminals.
Christopher's Law will be
another step towards making our streets safer for the people of
Ontario.
The
Vice-Chair: We will proceed now with the submissions.
I'd like to indicate that each presenter will have 20 minutes.
Those 20 minutes also include questions by the members, so if a
presenter would welcome questions he or she should try to limit
submissions to less than 20 minutes so that questions can be
presented to them.
1020
CANADIAN RESOURCE CENTRE FOR VICTIMS OF CRIME
The
Vice-Chair: We'll start with the Canadian Resource
Centre for Victims of Crime, Mr Steve Sullivan. Welcome, Mr
Sullivan.
Mr Steve
Sullivan: Thank you, Mr Chair. My name is Steve
Sullivan. I'm with the Canadian Resource Centre for Victims of
Crime. The resource centre is a national non-profit victims'
advocacy or lobby group. We are completely funded by the Canadian
Police Association and do not receive any government funds from
any level of government. We work with all levels of government to
ensure that the voice of victims is heard during debates about
justice reform and victims' rights.
At the outset, I will say
that we support Bill 31. Before I begin, I'd like to echo some of
the comments that have been made around the table that this is
one tool in law enforcement's ability to protect the public from
sex offenders.
Before I get into the meat of
our discussion, I would like to publicly recognize the incredible
work of Jim and Anna Stephenson. I have known both Jim and Anna
for a number of years now. In the work I do, I get to meet a lot
of pretty wonderful people. They are among the most courageous
and dedicated people I've ever met, and the people of Ontario owe
them some gratitude and I think the people of Canada do as well,
because I know they will continue to work to see a national
registry of this type.
We also want to thank the
government and the opposition parties for all recognizing the
importance of this tool as well to law enforcement.
I have provided a brief which
gives some background information about the experience the United
States has had. As you may know, every state in the US has some
type of registry. I won't
go into detail about that. I was recently in Washington to meet
with some victims' groups and government agencies, and this is a
snapshot of the information I brought back.
The key is that some of the
studies from the US show that the registries have enabled law
enforcement agencies to solve crimes quicker and identify
suspects sooner. It's common sense. I'm sure you'll hear from the
police representatives later on today that when there is a crime
in the community and the police don't have a suspect, one of the
first places they go is a halfway house, or they go to parole
officers; they go to prisons to see who has been recently
released who has committed that type of crime.
When a young boy was abducted
in the States, which eventually led to the Jacob Wetterling Act,
enabling the states to pass registry laws, the police at that
time said it would have been helpful for them to know which
offenders were in their community. So this is an important tool
because it does allow police to know who's in their community,
what types of offences they've committed, and it will assist them
in solving crimes quicker and hopefully preventing more
victims.
As I mentioned, we support
the bill in its entirety. We would offer a couple of
recommendations for this committee's consideration later on. One
is, I note the bill did not include the child prostitution
offences. A lot of people don't recognize those who seek the
services of child prostitutes as child molesters. I would argue
that they are, and I would argue that people who seek the
services of young prostitutes should be on this registry.
We would also include young
offenders on this registry. In saying that, we don't view this
registry as punishment. It's not a punishment for offenders.
Certainly, the courts in the US have found that registration is
not a form of punishment. They have found that it is really no
different than any other type of sentence. If people commit
crimes with firearms, we can order that they don't own firearms
for 10 years or life. If people commit crimes such as impaired
driving, we can order that they don't drive for a number of
years. If sex offenders are released from prison, we can get a
peace bond or a judge can order at sentencing that they can't go
near parks. This is just one more tool for control of that type
of offender.
There's research that shows
that the younger a person is when they commit their first sexual
offence, the higher the recidivism rate is later on, or the
higher the risk is. So we believe that young offenders should be
included in the registry, with the emphasis that the public won't
have access to this registry, so there's no concern about public
identification.
We also think it's important
that if this registry will work, it might not be good enough to
simply wait for an offender to come in annually to a police
station to verify his address. We think the police should be more
proactive in doing that. There are jurisdictions in the US that
verify every 90 days, and it varies up to the period of one year.
Some kind of regular verification is important.
Part of that is one of the
issues we'll throw out for the consideration of this committee,
the issue of resources. It may be a question not dealt with at
this stage but certainly later on at the implementation stage.
The police will need additional resources to deal with this
registry if it is to be effective. I spoke with an officer from
the Toronto police ROPE squad, which deals with repeat offenders
who are in the community. He expressed to me that if it's really
going to be effective, the police will need resources to input
the information, to verify the information.
Research from the federal
government shows that the longer you track a sex offender, the
higher the recidivism rate is. I've included in my brief a
reference to a 15- to 30-year follow-up study which showed that
the recidivism rate was almost 50%. I think it was 42% or 45%.
That's an alarming figure.
We regret to say that the
federal government still hasn't seen the value in creating a
national registry. Their own research shows that it wouldn't be
difficult. They could amend the CPIC system to include
information about someone's address. Maybe they haven't read the
same research from the States that I have, but they have so far
denied that. I would ask this committee, this government and the
opposition parties to make their views about this bill known to
the federal government; I know we will be.
The final thing, again as a
practical measure, maybe to be dealt with in the regulations, is
creating a bond or a relationship with other agencies to ensure
that offenders who are being released from federal or provincial
prisons are aware of their duties under this law; also, that the
police are aware, as best as possible, of who is coming into the
community. Other agencies will be a valuable resource to the
police in helping them enforce this piece of legislation.
I will end there and welcome
any questions any members may have.
The
Vice-Chair: We have approximately three minutes per
caucus. We'll start with the government caucus. Any
questions?
Mr Mazzilli:
Mr Sullivan, thank you very much for attending today. Have you
received any hope for the future from the federal government that
it shows any interest in creating a national registry?
Mr Sullivan:
Unfortunately, to date I have not. When we were preparing our
brief for this bill, we wrote to the Solicitor General and
received a very similar letter to the one this committee
received. We are, though, meeting with his officials next month,
and we'll bring the message to them once again. But to date there
has been little interest.
Mr Mazzilli:
Thank you very much. We will continue to let our views be known
to the federal government, that the need is there for a national
registry.
The
Vice-Chair: Any further questions from the government
caucus? Mr Kormos?
Mr Kormos: I
read your brief, obviously, because it was the first one here,
the only one we had before we were able to start. I'm concerned too about the
matter of resources, because it's voluntary-I say "voluntary
compliance." It's compelled by the statute, but it relies upon
the willingness of the offender-why do I point at myself when I
speak of offenders?-to surrender himself or herself to a police
station to register. Inspector Lines told us earlier this morning
that there are approximately 1,560 new convictions per year, but
that doesn't imply just 1,560 new registrations, because as
people move about they should be and will be expected to
register. So you're talking about some compounded number of
that.
When you talk about
integration-I was hoping, because we had submitted a request for
the people who operate CPIC to come here. What is your
familiarity with the level of resources available currently in
terms of, let's say, CPIC? I've heard police officers complain to
me about the outdated nature of it and that it's becoming less
and less effective as a tool for police officers. Notwithstanding
that they're getting little computer terminals in their cars, all
the technology in the world doesn't work-garbage in, garbage out.
What's your sense on the level of resources that we have now to
assist police in doing the sorts of things that Bill 31
contemplates?
1030
Mr Sullivan:
I'm not familiar with using CPIC myself, but I've spoken to
officers who are, and you're right that there is a lot of
frustration in getting information back. It's a slow process, and
the technology hasn't really caught up. The technology we have
available isn't implemented yet.
Having said that, the budget
is being released today, and there have been rumours that CPIC
will get a boost as part of the RCMP package, so there's hope
there. But certainly the concerns have been raised with us that
CPIC is not up to standards.
Mr Kormos:
What would you argue-and we'll have a chance to talk more about
the issue of young offender participation in Bill 31. The bill
simply says "offenders convicted of"; it doesn't specifically
speak to adult or young offenders. You're obviously speaking to
the recent level of awareness about the crisis in young offenders
and sexual crimes which have been publicized over the course of
the last couple of years. Expand on that as quickly as you can,
please.
Mr Sullivan:
The bill makes reference to offenders, and I'm just trying to
find it quickly. Subsection 8(2) says the bill doesn't apply to
young offenders. Dr Barbaree is speaking later on this afternoon.
He might be able to give you more specific data. But certainly
the research I've read indicates that the younger a person is
when they commit their first sexual offence, the higher a risk
that person will be down the road.
If we're targeting sex
offenders, and particularly repeat sex offenders, we want to
definitely include everybody. Given that this is not accessible
to the public, there's no fear of identification for young
offenders.
Mr Kormos:
Thanks for coming today.
Mr Bryant:
Thank you very much for coming. Am I right that Ontario was the
first province to establish a sex offender registry?
Mr
Sullivan: It is. BC raised it a couple of years ago with
the federal government, but they've made no move, so Ontario is
the first.
Mr Bryant:
Presumably, in the alternative, if the federal government doesn't
take the position that there is a responsibility on them to have
a national registry, the next-best thing, perhaps the preferable
option, is that other provinces establish registries. Am I right
that the US experience is that Megan's Law sets out the
requirements for state registries and that, state by state, each
of them enacts the details? Is that right?
Mr
Sullivan: Yes. I think the first act which dealt with
registries was the Jacob Wetterling Act. Megan's Law dealt with
notifications, community notification, public access to
registries. The federal government there makes the broad
statement that every state should have a registry, and then they
work out how it works in their own state.
Mr Bryant:
I understand. Thank you for coming.
MENNONITE CENTRAL COMMITTEE ONTARIO
The
Vice-Chair: The next presenter will be from the
Mennonite Central Committee Ontario, Mr Brian Enns. If you could
please state your names for the record, both of you. Welcome to
the committee this morning.
Mr Brian
Enns: My name is Brian Enns.
Mr Evan
Heise: My name is Evan Heise.
Mr Enns:
Thank you very much for allowing us to present today. It's
appreciated.
In November of 1996,
Mennonite Central Committee Ontario began receiving funds from
Correctional Services Canada for the Community Reintegration
Project, a pilot project meeting the needs of communities for
enhanced safety by providing circles of support and
accountability for released sex offenders discharged at warrant
expiry from federal institutions. We have formed circles of
volunteers around released offenders with the involvement of
faith communities, police, neighbourhood groups and treatment
professionals. Based on our experience in southern Ontario, we
support measures that provide for the safety of Ontario's
communities.
We are concerned that this
registry will duplicate existing mechanisms when funds, time and
energy could be better served in treatment for offenders. Large
amounts of energy and money, at least $6 million annually
according to the last provincial budget, would be spent on the
creation of the proposed registry that would duplicate already
existing mechanisms. Restrictions can be placed on sex offenders
at the time of sentencing or after their warrant expiry date, and
information can be gathered on convicted or suspected sex
offenders with these existing mechanisms that have already been
put in place since the Christopher Stephenson inquiry.
C-55 is placed on sex offenders at the time of
senten-cing and allows community supervision for up to 10 years
after the completion of the sentence.
Section 161 is similar to
C-55.
Sections 810.1 and 810.2:
These two measures can be placed on offenders after their release
and can require them to report regularly to police officers and
provide their addresses and information of any change of address
to the police. It can be renewed annually if required.
As well, there is CPIC,
which we were just talking about.
MCC Ontario is concerned
that the requirements of the registry would place one more
obstacle in the way of sex offenders wanting a healthy
reintegration into our communities. MCC Ontario believes that
some restrictions for released sex offenders may be effective in
promoting community safety but cannot understand why extra
restrictions are needed when the already existing mechanisms are
adequate.
We believe that the
proposed registry, in addition to being redundant, will also be
ineffective in accomplishing its purpose. Insofar as this
legislation relates to the death of Christopher Stephenson,
people who know Jo-seph Fredericks, the man who murdered
Christopher Stephenson, believe a registry would not have
prevented Christopher's murder. The police knew Fredericks's
place of residence without the proposed registry, and today the
courts could place an 810 on him, which would require him to
report to the police daily.
In the provincial
government's December 9, 1999, press release on the registry, the
Solicitor General suggested it would help the police in knowing
the whereabouts of sex offenders. Placing an 810 on an offender,
or even a potential offender, would ensure accurate infor-mation
with penalties for those who do not follow the 810's provisions.
Some of the ex-offenders we work with in circles of support and
accountability have provisions that require them to check in with
an officer of the sexual assault squad every week and provide
notification of changes in residence.
The most effective way to
avoid repeating the tragedy of Christopher's death, according to
our experience, is through treatment and education for people
with mental problems that lead to this kind of crime.
Treatment: We are deeply
disturbed that effective treatment centres inside institutions
and the community are being forced to close down. Proven
ineffective treatment will lead to many more victims like
Christopher, regardless of registries, laws and best attempts of
our law officers to enforce these laws. The jury recommendations
from the inquest into Christopher Stephenson's death emphasize
the importance of treatment.
And here we have the
recommendations for the Correctional Service of Canada and the
National Parole Board, emphasizing the need for treatment in
communities and aftercare. While this recommendation is made to
federal institutions, it does not detract from how the jury
stresses the role of treatment.
Education would be through
school programs and with the participation of parents, educating
children on how to identify sexual abuse and that it is all right
to say no.
The coordination of
information between governments would make better use of public
resources. MCC Ontario suggests that this committee consider
another recommendation from the jury investigating the death of
Christopher Stephenson. The recommendation talks about
coordination of research on how to manage sex offenders.
What is accomplished if
this registry is redundant? If we have CPIC, the 810 and other
instruments to provide safety for our communities, why spend our
tax money on a redundant and expensive registry? If the
government and this committee can establish that all these
instruments, used in conjunction, are faulty or lacking, then
something must be done. But we only hear about the limits of
CPIC. We urge this committee to examine how these instruments
already address the concerns of the Solicitor General and
Christopher Stephenson's family.
Thank you.
The
Vice-Chair: Thank you, Mr Enns. We'll start with
questions from the Liberal Party.
Mr Bryant:
Thank you very much for coming. It's puzzling to me-it's your
position that this law is retribu-tive; in other words, it adds
another punishment on some level to the offender. We just heard a
submission that I would agree with that in fact this has nothing
to do with retribution and everything to do with prevention.
Leaving aside the concerns about redundancy which you've
expressed-and I'm not convinced that there is a redundancy; but
anyway, leaving those aside-when a sex offender fulfills a
responsibility that's set forth in legislation whereby you have
to let people know where you are for 10 years after an offence,
first, how is that retribution? Second, leaving aside the
retribution concerns, would you agree that, as a preventative
measure, this is a good law?
1040
Mr Heise:
I'll speak to that. I don't think we were looking at the
retribution aspect of it. Our concern is that there are a number
of measures. In our project, we are working with the highest-risk
offenders who have been detained to warrant expiry in the federal
system. They are coming out with no parole provisions, no
supports in the community. I think now, fortunately, in some
cases we do have the provisions of the 810 and some others.
But other things we've
heard from professionals in the field are that when you're
dealing with additional layers of demands on an offender, there
is a point to which these are beneficial, and then there's a line
you can cross and it starts to cause bitterness and a build-up of
resentment and tips the scale to a greater likelihood of
reoffending.
So we have some of the
fellows we are working with who are complying within 810, have
other restrictions on them, other reporting procedures, and when
they hear that there's another law, another reporting procedure
they're going to have to follow, they start to freak.
Our concern is, is there some way to merge these
various reporting things so that it doesn't seem like another
layer on another layer on another layer? It makes it easier then
to get on to dealing with the real issues that the fellows are
grappling with to keep our community safe.
Mr Kormos:
Good to see you again. Thank you kindly. I find myself in
agreement to a large extent with what you say, once again.
However, having said that, I've got to tell you-and I appreciate
you're working with people released from the federal system,
convicted of sex offences. In my community down where I'm from, I
get phone calls from neighbourhoods that are aware that somebody
who has committed a rape in that community is released now, and
they don't have the same sort of-I wouldn't call it
benign-accommodating feeling towards them as you do. I hope you
understand that. People in my community are frightened when they
know that a rapist or a child molester is coming back into the
community.
I agree with you about
utilization of the existing CPIC and so on, and some of the
briefing we got earlier this morning suggested that was well
within the scope of possibility. So I think that's valuable
input. I don't think there has to be an entirely independent
system. I think you have to coordinate the various technological
resources. But I'm concerned about the level of treatment people
are getting in prisons, because we have the Ontario Correctional
Institute in Ontario, which treats pedophiles among other people,
and of course the maximum Ontario sentence is only two years,
right? It's two years less a day. That means the treatment period
is very brief. So people are being released from a provincial
facility with a relatively brief period of treatment. Tell us
about the treatment that is or isn't taking place at the federal
level.
Mr Heise:
Part of the, if you want to call it an advantage, is just the
person being in the system, incarcerated for a longer time, gives
them a longer period of time to take advantage of treatment.
Treatment is not a six-week or a 10-week event. It has to happen
really over a lifetime for many of these people. So it gives a
little lengthier time for that to happen. There are some good
programs happening in the federal institutions, with statistics
coming out now that are showing pretty good track records on
them.
Our concern at the
provincial level is that there was a fairly effective treatment
program at OCI which is in jeopardy, and the greater concern for
me is the treatment available after the release of the offender.
We have taken on one situation in your riding, Mr Kormos, of a
fellow who was only in for 18 months in the provincial system and
did access some good treatment. But now where does he have
treatment paid for when he's on the street? He is under those
section 161 conditions, very, very restrictive conditions in
fact. His offences were within the family, and statistics and
research show that he is not a danger to the general public,
because incest perpetrators tend to stay within the family. But
he has these very, very restrictive measures. He basically does
not leave his apartment unless two volunteers are with him. But
where does he get treatment?
The Hamilton-Wentworth
police were able to negotiate with the courts and a psychologist
to pay for treatment for some of our fellows in Hamilton.
Recently the provincial government has said: "You can't do that
any more. We are not going to pay for these people's treatment."
So our fellows who go to Hamilton no longer have access to
treatment that's paid for when they go to Hamilton. These
treatment provisions are really crucial.
If we have sections like
161 and Bill C-55, the child abuse registry that children's aid
keeps as well as the CPIC etc, is there some way to simplify
those systems, regularize them in a cost-saving way, so that we
can do what we need to do: keep track of where people are and
free up some funds for treatment?
The
Vice-Chair: I think Mr Beaubien has a question.
Mr
Beaubien: First of all, thank you for being here this
morning. I agree with you that education and treatment have a
very important role in dealing with these people. However, on
page 2 of your presentation you say that you "cannot understand
why extra restrictions are needed when the already existing
mechanisms are adequate."
We had a very high profile
case in the Sarnia area this summer, and I strongly suggest to
you that probably 99.99% of the population of southwestern
Ontario would be flabbergasted by the statement you make in your
presentation. How can you qualify this type of statement? I think
it's very irresponsible to state that the restrictions in place
today are adequate when it's obvious that the opposite exists.
How can you qualify that?
Mr Heise:
I think you are moving into the subject of notification rather
than registry. When Mr Willemse was planning to go to the Windsor
area, there was a group of inter-agency professionals, from the
John Howard Society to the parole board to police as well as
others, who were prepared to work with the circle of support and
accountability there to make sure he was safely housed and given
employment in that community. Then the police in another
jurisdiction adjacent to Windsor, where his residence would
actually be, decided to go public in the newspaper. This
gentleman felt so frightened-really, he was like a frightened
rabbit in a corner. I don't want to minimize the offences and the
harm he caused. In fact, I talked with him before he was released
from prison, and he was taking real responsibility for the harm
he had caused, and he said, "I don't ever want to do that kind of
thing again."
Mr
Beaubien: He reoffended shortly thereafter.
Mr Heise:
He fled to another city, to stay with his aged parents, but could
only stay a few days in the old folks' home there, because old
folks' homes can't accom-modate people of that age. He finally
felt at his wits' end. He could go nowhere but to another city
where an agency was willing to find housing for him. But by that
time he was so emotionally worked up-and we're not talking about
normal people. The police knew where he was. They knew he was
going to that city, and another agency knew he was going there as well. Under his
conditions, he had to inform them where he was going 72 hours in
advance of changing address. These provisions don't provide
anything that existing provisions do not provide. That did not
prevent his reoffending. The same day he left the Sarnia-Windsor
area, he went to the other city and reoffended. I'm only thankful
he did not reoffend in the Sarnia-Windsor area.
The
Vice-Chair: Mr Mazzilli, do you have a question?
Mr
Mazzilli: Thank you for coming. In your opening
statement you essentially said, and correct me if I'm wrong, that
a registry is not required, and essentially that the money could
be better spent on treatment programs.
What is the success rate of
treatment for people who do not want treatment?
Mr Heise:
The success rate definitely goes up with treatment. There are
some recent studies, and I didn't bring them with me, that look
at dynamic risk factors. Static risk factors are factors that
can't change: your birthdate, your place of origin and all of
that. Dynamic risk factors are those that do change. Those show
that, aside from treatment, one of the most significant factors
in reducing risk is the social group you affiliate with. In our
program we put folks around these people who are healthy, who
care and who want to help them go in a direction that they do not
reoffend. We only deal with fellows who say, "I don't want to
reoffend."
Mr
Mazzilli: But in all fairness, you would be dealing with
federal releases. Is it fair to say that not only are they sex
offenders but there may be violent components and certainly
repeat offenders?
Mr Heise:
Yes, there are degrees of violence. We have not taken anyone who
has killed someone. Those folks stay in. If they're that
dangerous, they are committed into the mental health stream and
we are not faced with those men.
Mr
Mazzilli: So how can you object to registering people
who have made those types of-
Mr Heise:
I'm not objecting to registering them. All I'm saying is that
there are already three or four registries. Let's collapse that
redundancy and make one efficient one.
The
Vice-Chair: We'll proceed with the next presenters. I'm
not sure whether Mr Brian Adkin is here from the Ontario
Provincial Police Association.
1050
POLICE ASSOCIATION OF ONTARIO
The
Vice-Chair: We'll proceed with the Police Association of
Ontario, Mr Paul Bailey. Good morning and thank you for coming.
You have 20 minutes to make your presentation and to take some
questions from the committee.
Mr Paul
Bailey: First of all I'd like to thank the committee for
allowing me to be here. My name is Paul Bailey. I'm the
administrator of the Police Association of Ontario and represent
about 13,000 front-line police personnel in Ontario. I should
also clarify that I do not represent the Ontario Provincial
Police Association, the Toronto Police Association or the Niagara
Regional Police Association.
By way of background, I
joined the Metro Toronto police force in 1973. I worked as a
foot-patrol officer in 52 division, which is the downtown core of
Toronto. A year later I left Toronto and joined York Regional
Police, which is north of Steeles Avenue between Schomberg,
Whitchurch-Stouffville, Aurora and up to Georgina township. I
remained there until March last year, when I stepped down as a
police officer and became the administrator of the PAO.
I was both a front-line
police officer and a road supervising sergeant and spent a number
of years as a detective investigating serious crime, including
sexual assaults against both children and adults. In my capacity
as a police officer I have had occasion to investigate and arrest
individuals for a variety of sexual crimes. I have seen at first
hand the horrific damage that can be inflicted on victims
involved in these types of crimes. The effects are tragic, and in
some cases life-threatening, because some of the victims never
recover. Unfortunately, some even end up taking their own lives
due to the misery they go through involving this.
I had the privilege of
meeting Jim and Anna Stephenson at the victims' conference a few
years ago in Hamilton. I should add that I respectfully applaud
them for the courage they have demonstrated over the years to
effect changes in law so that other parents wouldn't have to go
through the anguish they did when they lost Christopher. I wish I
could offer something to ease their pain, but I can't; as a
committee, you can.
The Police Association of
Ontario not only supports and endorses this most important
legislation but also applauds the government for taking the
initiative in attempting to address an issue that should have
been addressed by the federal government. Let's be perfectly
frank: Christopher lost his life in, I believe, 1988, and it has
taken 12 years and a 1993 inquest to awaken legislators to
introduce this most effective and common-sense bill.
I believe, and I hope you
also believe, that since Ontario is the first to introduce this
type of legislation, other provinces will follow suit. This
legislation should generate a teamwork approach across Canada,
and I sincerely mean that. Currently in Ontario the police, like
other publicly funded agencies, are restricted in some areas of
law enforcement due to budget restraints and the need to keep
taxes down. This may not be a popular statement, but it's
reality. If that is the case, and I believe it is, then police
services should be given more effective tools to get the job done
and to ensure public safety is issue number one. With the PAO it
has always been issue number one.
One of these tools is
Christopher's Law. Currently, if a person is convicted of a
sexual offence, as described in the proposed legislation, the
police can utilize the follow-ing tools to assist them should
they become involved in that investigation. CPIC, as you heard mentioned
earlier by other people, is a Canadian system set up to keep
track of information for policing.
I should tell you that back
in September 1998, along with colleagues at the Canadian Police
Association with me, I met the federal finance minister to
address concerns about CPIC. At that time he was very upfront and
honest when he said he understood finances but he didn't
understand CPIC. He was given a very crash course on the
importance of this tool to policing. As you may be aware, we
asked the government for some $200 million-plus to enhance the
system and get it up to speed. They did participate by bringing
in, I believe, about $115 million late last year to enhance the
system.
The other way we
investigate is good old-fashioned police work. Officers go out
and check with informants, local criminals, etc to ascertain the
location of individuals being sought. It's a very time-consuming
and labour-intensive issue to police services. Manpower, as you
are aware, is probably the most cost-prohibitive issue that
police services face. If Christopher's Law is passed, the police
will have an effective additional tool in their arsenal to locate
and investigate these types of offenders, and I emphasize
"locate."
The proposed law is clear.
A sex offender registry is created, a database of information
that contains the name, date of birth, address, history of the
individual and whether or not they are currently serving time or
have served time. All this information is very helpful to police
in the sense that you have another tool in the arsenal I just
mentioned to keep track of the most dangerous people in our
society.
The law further provides
some effective monitoring of the individual by using the
following: Upon release from jail, the offender must register
with police within 15 days of a change of address or within 15
days of coming to or leaving Ontario. The offender must provide
the police with his name, address, date of birth and other
information deemed necessary, and it's important to note that
this information must satisfy the police. It's not simply good
enough if a man walks to the front counter, gives his name, date
of birth and address and walks out. The police are going to be
much more observant and diligent in gaining accurate and topical
information to keep the system alive and updated.
This registry is safely
maintained by the Ontario Provincial Police, and the offender has
a right to see his information if he requests it in writing.
The system is established
to allow the police to constantly update and correct information.
I think that's important. I heard Mr Kormos say earlier, "Garbage
in, garbage out." It's very important that the proper and
accurate information is installed in this system.
The registry maintains the
information anywhere from 10 years to life, depending on the
offence committed.
What happens if the
offender doesn't comply? There is another very important part of
this legislation that says, "If you don't play by the rules, you
will be held accountable and charged criminally with failing to
comply with the requirements under the registry." The first time,
it's up to $25,000 or a year in jail, and for more than one
offence, up to $25,000 and two years less a day in jail.
This penalty section is an
important part of this legislation because it provides something
that we have always supported at the PAO, and that is
accountability. Without Christopher's Law there is very limited
accountability on the offender other than, "I serve my time and
get out of jail." But now the offender serves his time, gets out
of jail and is required to account for his whereabouts for
potentially the rest of his life-again, accountability.
I guess it would be simple
to say, "If you don't want to be monitored for the rest of your
life, then don't go out and sexually assault innocent people." Is
that too much to ask? We don't think so.
There is no person I have
arrested and testified against in court for this type of crime
who has said to me that someone made him do it. No one put a gun
to their head or a knife to their throat and said, "You go out
there and sexually assault a child or a woman," but I can assure
you the offender doesn't have any concerns about using a gun or a
knife to get what they want.
Another benefit of this
legislation I would like to mention is the potential effective
use of the tax dollar. Simply put, it will save money in the
sense that police resources may be somewhat freed up by the
information contained in the sex registry database so that human
resources of police services can be more effectively monitored
and utilized.
In closing, I am not so
naive as to think that when this law is passed the police
stations will be flooded, with every sex offender living in
Ontario lining up to tell the police where they live and work,
nor am I so naive as to think that sex offenders living outside
of Ontario will now not move to Ontario because of this
legislation, but we believe we must do everything that is humanly
possible to protect the most vulnerable people in our society,
and that is the victims of crime.
I'd like to thank you for
the opportunity to address you today, and I would be pleased to
answer any questions you may have.
The
Vice-Chair: Mr Kormos.
Mr Kormos:
How long, Chair? Five minutes?
The
Vice-Chair: Go ahead, ask the question.
1100
Mr Kormos:
Thank you kindly.
One of the things that has
bothered me a little bit is that this focuses on creating a
provincial registry of sex offenders. The local police station,
the local police service is obligated to collect the information
and then, the legislation suggests, submit it on to the
provincial registry. It seems to me that the most valuable part
of this process is the point at which the offender has to advise
the local police that he or she is in their community. I'm
concerned that the legislation doesn't provide for a requirement
that the local police force maintain a registry in a prescribed
form. Granted, there's a whole lot that can be done by
regulation, but would you share my view that the regulation, when
it prescribes the type of information that's collected, the structure of the
provincial registry, should also provide the form in which local
police forces like my Niagara regional police force have to
maintain their own registry in a responsible way so that you
don't have a police services board that says, "We sent the
information on; we've done our job"?
Mr Bailey:
It's a two-way street. You send the information in and you have
access to it. There are people here today who will give you a
more detailed explanation, but from my perspective-and I'm only
speaking from my perspective-I think the legislation doesn't go
far enough. I would like to see them put Jumbotrons on every
police station in Ontario so that we could publicize these
people, because they are doing such damage to our citizens. This
legislation is designed to be just a tool for the police to keep
track of these people. We won't know until the system is in use
and it's monitored and there's testing done on it how many sex
offenders will use it. I can tell you from my experience as a
detective investigating these types of offences that the longest
part of my job is trying to find them. If we can utilize a tool
that can assist us that way, we can save a great deal of
resources and apply those resources to other, more topical issues
like organized crime, homicide and those kinds of issues.
I'm not sure that I could
give your question a fair answer other than to say that the
police will have access to that information that is being stored
by the OPP. There had to be some central location to maintain it,
and the OPP, in my view, is a very highly skilled and
professional organization capable of doing that.
Do I have more time?
The
Vice-Chair: Do you have another question?
Mr Kormos:
Yes, of course I do.
We all acknowledge that
this isn't going to stop the driven, committed sex offender from
committing yet another offence, however unfortunate it is. What
do you say to the level of supervision that's necessary for
people who at one point or another are released from whatever
their prison sentence has to be? I don't know if you were here
earlier when the Mennonite Central Committee was presenting.
Mr Bailey:
I was.
Mr Kormos:
Can you comment on the level of supervision that has to be there
for released offenders, notwithstanding their need to
register?
Mr Bailey:
I don't think I can in an effective way. I do have some concerns
about what I heard from those individuals. Although I respect
them very much, I don't share their loyalty and respect for these
types of offenders. Millions of dollars of government and
taxpayers' money is committed to helping these individuals, and
from my perspective I don't see any commitment from these
individuals or the people who represent them to repay that money
or to help reduce the cost of those kinds of issues. Maybe I'm
too far one way but I have absolutely no empathy for people who
go out and brutally sexually assault women and children. This
kind of legislation is very important to the police, but it also
sends a strong public safety message out to the public that
there's another way we can look after our citizens. I'm not
really qualified to deal with issues of parole.
Mr Brad Clark
(Stoney Creek): As a preamble, I'm sure you're aware of
what's been happening in the United States. The Jacob Wetterling
Act was enacted in 1994, and that actually required all of the
states to create sex registries. In 1996 Megan's Law amended that
so that there was actually a community notification process
attached. In 1998 they then created a national sex registry.
Bearing that in mind, I
wonder if you could comment. There was a letter that we received
from the Solicitor General of Canada in which he states that a
comprehensive screening approach would be a more effective option
to enhance community protection than establishing a new sex
offender registry.
Mr Bailey:
The only comment I can make on that is that I've watched the
development of Megan's Law down in the United States and I've
watched the development of this law, and it's unfortunate that
somebody has to make the ultimate sacrifice to get legislators
off their butts, creating good, effective public safety laws.
We're dealing here with a
federal issue that has ended up in provincial jurisdiction. I
don't know enough about all the United States law to comment, but
I believe that the sex offender registry is probably the most
important tool dealing with this type of crime to come along for
policing in many years. That's my only comment on your
question.
Mr Clark:
The Solicitor General makes the statement that the screening
process-which is basically where they do checks on anyone who
wants to work with children's groups: Big Brothers, Big Sisters,
Girl Guides etc. He's making the statement that that screening
process-I guess in 1997, they had 750,000 checks done-is a better
system and much more comprehensive than any sex offender
registry. Would you agree with him?
Mr Bailey:
In part. I have been involved in investigations in my past as a
police officer when we've uncovered Big Brothers-and I'm not
utilizing Big Brothers, but people in authority who have abused
that authority. I'm sorry I mentioned Big Brothers; that's not
what I meant. They're a tremendous organization.
I guess both of them are
necessary. The checks that we get at police stations and police
services across Ontario to check these people are becoming more
and more a topical issue. You've read about these scandals
happening out in Belleville and those areas involving people.
We've heard that the religious groups have been under close
scrutiny because of their conduct in the past. My own feeling is
that I don't care who the sex offender is, whether he's a
criminal, a low-life, a priest; if he has committed that offence,
he should be on the registry and the police should monitor
him.
Mr
Mazzilli: Mr Bailey, I just want to thank you for
sharing your personal experiences as well, on behalf of the
Police Association of Ontario. It seems that members of your
association and other police associations are working everyday
with resources from the grassroots level. Essentially, the majority of your time is
spent pushing governments to do the right thing on behalf of
victims' groups, and the financial resources there come from the
police officers of the province. I just want to thank you for
representing the victims' groups.
Mr Bryant:
The committee has had a briefing on this, but perhaps you could
give us an example, using your own experience from a front-line
perspective, and explain exactly how this registry is going to
benefit the officer in terms of preventing a crime or
investigating a crime.
Mr Bailey:
It's more in the investigative area. I can recall investigating a
sexual assault, a rape, years ago where we didn't have very many
suspects. We did a lot of leg work, and we found out who the
individual we suspected was. I would say, after that, 80% of our
time was going around knocking on doors, seeing our informants,
speaking to known criminals and trying to find this individual.
Had this individual been on the registry, it would have saved
literally hundreds of man-hours, money and time that we could
have spent on other investigations.
We talked earlier about
CPIC. It is starting to be enhanced, and we do appreciate the
federal government's influx of money there, but we always seem to
be chasing the tail. We never, ever get ahead of the game. It
would be refreshing if laws were passed to allow us to stop
playing catch-up all the time. That's how the registry could
help, Mr Bryant.
Mr Bryant:
Last question. You said that the law didn't go far enough in
terms of other investigative and preventive measures. What else
might this committee consider doing, perhaps by way of
regulation, for the future so that we can get ahead?
Mr Bailey:
I would like to see their pictures widely distributed. I know
it's a very touchy issue in the privacy field and we're invading
people's rights, but, especially those people who are repeat
offenders, I would like to see their pictures made public. The
police have the right now to do that, but I would like to see it
made mandatory for the police to put these pictures up, whether
it be published in local newspapers or whatever. I recognize the
need for rehabilitation is there, but the need for public safety
should outweigh that in all cases.
Mr Bryant:
You weren't here before when I said this. I just don't see that
this law is about a clash of rights. I really see it as a sex
offender fulfilling his or her responsibility, and that's what
this is about. Thank you for coming.
Mr Bailey:
Accountability.
Mr Bryant:
Absolutely.
1110
ONTARIO PROVINCIAL POLICE ASSOCIATION
The
Vice-Chair: The next presenter will be from the Ontario
Provincial Police Association, Mr Brian Adkin. Welcome.
Mr Brian
Adkin: I also have Mr Walter Tomasik, who is our
vice-president, with us as well, in case the questions get
difficult. He'll provide us with some ready information.
Thank you for the
opportunity to be here and speak to the committee. It's nice to
see you all again and especially nice to be able to speak on such
an important issue both to the public and to our police officers
and members of the OPP Association.
My name is Brian Adkin, and
I'm the president of the OPP Association. I'm a detective staff
sergeant with the OPP. Our vice-president, Walter Tomasik, is
with me as well today, and Walter is a sergeant with the OPP. We
represent 5,000 sworn officers who are members of the OPP across
Ontario, and we police over 400 communities in Ontario, providing
front-line service delivery and specialized services to many of
the police forces across Ontario. Our members and their families
not only police these communities, but we also live in those
communities. Our members reside throughout Ontario from the most
southerly communities to the most northerly communities.
We are here today to speak
on behalf of Christopher's Law. It is legislation that will
assist the front-line police officers and make our communities
safer. The proposed law will allow police officers to be aware of
convicted sex offenders who live in their area. While some may
say this is a problem associated with large municipalities, we
see this law as being very important to the many communities
which we police.
To investigate these types
of offences, we need every type of assistance we can get, and
it's very refreshing for us as a police provincial force and our
5,000 members to see a government that's committed to bringing
this type of legislation in, and we appreciate that a great
deal.
The two most important
aspects are the establishment of the registry and the requirement
to register. This will allow police services and the OPP to be
aware of who is living in their communities. It will provide
important information for the police service or force during
investigations and has the potential to save lives.
The offences identified are
very serious offences dealing with sexual assault which warrant a
heightened awareness by law enforcement agencies and a further
need for public safety. While some will argue that the act is
draconian or very intrusive, we feel that the public interest and
the concern for the safety of our families is the most important
issue. As parents or friends, we see our youth develop and become
part of our future. The senseless taking of lives or being
victimized by sexual predators requires increased protection for
our most vulnerable people.
As I look around this
committee, I see many of you who have had very serious
occurrences of this nature in your respective areas. I ask you
all to think, when you're dealing with this in the
clause-by-clause section, of how many times you have gone to a
shopping mall or how many times you've been at a large public
gathering, perhaps with your young children, and looked aside and
just wondered when
they're out of sight for a minute what happens and what has
happened.
I go back to an occurrence
shortly after the Stephenson matter where there was actually a
story that had talked about a young girl being abducted in a
shopping mall, and it later turned out to be fraudulent, or false
actually. But I just want you to think about that, and I want you
to think about the impact that has on public safety. It's very
important, not only to ourselves as professional law enforcement
officers, but also to the public who are out there. The right to
attend a large shopping mall or a large commercial area is very
fundamental to public safety and also very fundamental to the
commerce we have in this country.
As we make this
presentation, there is a very intense investigation into a serial
rapist in the Guelph and Kitchener area, where MPP Elliott is
from. The people in Guelph and Kitchener are very concerned about
their safety. These incidents involve home invasions and sexual
assaults. I go so far as to say to all of you that there is
nothing more frightening for anyone than to wake up in the middle
of the night and find a strange person standing in their house,
albeit even more frightening for a woman to awaken in her house
and find someone standing in the house there dressed or undressed
and ready to attack her. It's a terrible thing, it's a crime
that's becoming more prevalent and, especially in Guelph and
Kitchener, where I live, it's one that residents are afraid of.
These incidents involve home invasions and sexual assaults, and,
as I said, these incidents are very frightening and every
possible thing must be done to prevent and solve these
incidents.
We would also ask that the
Solicitor General and your committee review the inclusion of
young offenders in this act. A lot of this is now prohibited. It
is an area where change should be sought to ensure that the
public is protected. We have a problem out there with youth
violence and we have a problem with youth crime. For people to
say, "Well, we're just not going to pay attention to it," or,
"We're not going to address it," is hiding our heads in the sand.
We can no longer do that. There have been presentations on the
new youth violence act to the federal committee which is studying
that as well right now, and it's our opinion that it does not
recognize the problem with youth crime and youth violence. We ask
you as a committee to study this act that you've brought forward
and also to make some recommendations to the federal government
and to deal with your colleagues on a provincial basis to see if
we can get some type of effective tool for us to deal with youth
crime.
The sex offender registry
should be implemented on a national basis, and it is most
unfortunate that the federal government has not identified this
as a priority. While in Ontario, if this bill should pass, we
will have a very effective tool to fight the crime and to deal
with sexual predators, it will not be in effect in Manitoba or
Quebec or the rest of Canada. This is a very important issue for
us as police officers nation-wide.
We urge you to implement
Christopher's Law in its entirety and as quickly as possible. It
will result in our members being better able to serve the public.
Christopher Stephenson didn't have the benefit of this proposed
law. It is important that we learn from his tragedy and prevent
similar events from occurring in the future. Christopher's Law
will make our communities safer. Thank you.
The
Vice-Chair: Thank you, Mr Adkin. We'll start with the
government caucus.
Mrs Brenda Elliott
(Guelph-Wellington): Thank you very much, gentlemen, for
coming this morning. I very much appreciate your input on this
particular law.
You mentioned that we have
a situation in Guelph that's certainly throwing a chill into the
hearts of most of our residents. I can attest to that and was
shocked to see that just a couple of blocks away from my house
the investigation is heating up, so to speak.
I would like to look to the
sentence where you indicate, "The sex offender registry should be
implemented on a national basis." I have a letter here from the
Minister of Justice, Anne McLellan, and I'm going to read a
quote. I'd like your comment on what she has to say.
The last paragraph says,
"It is well within provincial jurisdiction to create sex offender
registries and"-this is the part that troubles me-"I believe that
this is the proper level of government to implement registries,
given the ability of provinces and municipalities to adapt
registry operations to local circumstances."
We've heard this morning a
fair amount of conversation about CPIC, which I understand is a
registry of criminal convictions and really has very little to do
with where a person is currently residing. I find it puzzling
that a national minister would say it's up to the individual
provinces to make decisions of this nature and, I agree with you,
of this importance because it's dealing with such offensive acts
against children when our society is so mobile. Do you have any
thoughts on that?
Mr Adkin:
We do. Actually, I just want to add that one of the famous things
now has become the word NIMBY, which means "not in my backyard."
I live in Guelph, as MPP Elliott knows, and when I read the paper
this weekend and saw that, I was very shocked as well. I think of
some of the things that have occurred in Mr Kormos's area and Mr
Bryant's area as well, and I think it's very important for us to
do all the things we possibly can.
In relation to the
minister's position on that, our opinion is that that's just the
minister deflecting something that should be done at the federal
level. One of the reasons we have such an excellent criminal
justice system in Canada is because the federal government makes
the law and the provincial government administers the law. So if
it's an offence in Ontario, it's an offence in Quebec, it's an
offence in British Columbia and it's an offence in the Northwest
Territories. That's very important, and that's why this type of
thing should be brought in Canada-wide. As I said earlier, we
applaud your government bringing this in. The problem is that it
should be brought in literally from ocean to ocean, on a Dominion-wide
basis. It's very important for police officers. It's the federal
government not living up to their obligation and responsibilities
to the people of Canada. They should be bringing it in
nation-wide and it should be part of the Criminal Code.
Mr Bryant:
Thank you for coming. As you probably know, you're speaking to
the converted all around the table.
Mr Adkin:
I sensed that, Mr Bryant.
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Mr Bryant:
The official opposition supports this bill, but we've been
talking about jurisdiction for a bit. Let's just be clear for a
moment. If in fact this is a federal matter, then we've got a
problem, because that means this bill won't withstand judicial
scrutiny. It means it's a federal matter and only the federal
government can legislate in this area, and that means this bill
will be struck down.
I sincerely hope that's not
the case. I think the province has a role to play in criminal
justice, and here's a way in which they can do so by bringing
forth this law. I think other provincial governments ought to do
so, and if the federal government sees an opportunity to pass
something similar to the American Megan's Law which sets a
standard for provinces' sex offender registries, that would be a
very good thing. But you're not suggesting, just so we're clear,
that this law is unconstitutional?
Mr Adkin:
No, I'm not, Mr Bryant, not at all. We were talking about
responsibilities, and we were obviously dealing with MPP
Elliott's question from the Minister of Justice as well.
Mr Bryant:
Along those lines, in fulfilling those responsibilities, could
you talk for a minute about the importance of including young
offenders in this registry? We're missing a part of the puzzle
here, aren't we?
Mr Adkin:
We are, definitely. One of the problems we have is the way times
have changed and, in essence, youth has matured. If anything, the
age of responsibility should be going down, and it's a problem
when young offenders are not covered. We've been down, actually,
to meet the minister and we're appearing before the committee on
the new Young Offenders Act on Thursday night to talk about this
very thing. This is an area that should be covered off by this
bill and should be dealing with youth. Youth, like anybody else
in society now, is far more mobile. There are problems which can
occur in Toronto; there are problems which can occur in Wasaga
Beach or Kenora or Pickle Lake. It's all over the province, and
it's an area that should be identified in this.
Mr Bryant:
Thank you.
Mr Kormos:
You're not the only people today to raise issues about the young
offender coverage. Again, just to flesh it out, you're not just
talking about 12-year-olds. You're talking about 16- and
17-year-olds who have, the reality of it is, posed real dangers
to other people. I tabled an amendment to that regard-I should
let the government know that-to include young offenders in this
bill. I'd be interested in seeing how they respond.
I'm also concerned about
the fact that this creates a new regime wherein, if one has been
convicted and has completed one's sentence for even the most
horrendous sexual crime, one is not required to register. We
heard some data earlier today that we have approximately 1,560
sexual offence convictions, sexual offences as defined here, per
year in Ontario. I don't know how far that goes back
historically, but let's say for the last 10 years one would
assume it's reasonably the same, unfortunately. That would mean
15,000 sexual offenders conceivably convicted, Mr Mazzilli, over
the course of the last 10 years, whose sentences have been
completed-no more probation, finished their custodial
sentence-who would be exempt from the bill.
I think there are practical
ways of giving these offenders some notice that if they're not
pardoned by such and such a date, they are expected to comply as
well. If we're going to meet the intent and spirit of the bill,
if we're going to be able to track predators, sexual predators
out there, let's track sexual predators. Do you agree that those
people should not be exempt from the coverage of Bill 31?
Mr Adkin:
I think, Mr Kormos, it's the best initiative they give us, the
best tools to deal with that. Some of your statement there was
obviously a statement from your regard-
Mr Kormos:
Sure it was.
Mr Adkin:
-but it's important to give us the best tools that we can get to
investigate these types of offences.
As I said, I go back, and
I've been in this role as a parent myself, when I'm standing in a
mall and I think about this and all of a sudden my daughter or my
son is gone out of sight for a brief time, even seconds. You
begin to think of all these things. Maybe people like yourself
and ourselves are exposed to it more often, but it's frightening.
It's scary; and anything we can get as the best that we need for
these types of investigations.
Mr Kormos:
The fear of this sort of crime has become an oppressive
preoccupation of people of my community, to the point where it
impacts their lives on a daily basis. People are standing at the
street corner with their kids now waiting for the school bus in
my neighbourhood, which is a dense urban neighbourhood. It's
something that was unthinkable, Lord knows how long ago, when we
were kids, at least. It has become a fearful preoccupation, and
not out of mythology but out of the realities.
Mr Adkin:
I think what it has become, Mr Kormos, is reality. It's not a
preoccupation any more, it's a preoccupation with reality, and
that's what people think now.
We have probably one of the
toughest roles in policing because of our role in policing summer
detachments. In places like Wasaga Beach and Grand Bend and
Sauble we have a huge influx of people come in and we don't know
who those people are. We're forced to deal with them many times
on spontaneous issues. This type of thing will help us. That's
the kind of thing we see occurring all the time with people, that
people are concerned. As
you said, and I know you're a little older than I am, when we
were back, we never had to worry about that.
Mr Kormos:
Thank goodness for CPIC, right?
Mr Adkin:
Yes, that's right.
The
Vice-Chair: Thank you very much.
Mr Adkin:
Thank you. It's appreciated. Thanks for the opportunity here.
CENTRE FOR ADDICTION AND MENTAL HEALTH
The
Vice-Chair: The next presenter will be from the Centre
for Addiction and Mental Health. Dr Howard Barbaree, welcome to
the committee.
Dr Howard
Barbaree: Thank you very much for the opportunity to
speak to you this morning. I have passed around a letter that
summarizes our submission. I'm the clinical director of the law
and mental health program at the Centre for Addiction and Mental
Health and the head of the same program in the department of
psychiatry at the University of Toronto. I am here on behalf of
those programs to present our position on this proposed
legislation.
In our program we provide
assessment, treatment and case management services to sex
offenders as they're being released into their community,
especially in the greater Toronto area. At the former Clarke
Institute of Psychiatry site of the centre, our sex behaviours
clinic treats about 50 sex offenders each year and assesses a
further 300 offenders each year. The vast majority of these
offenders are on probation or parole and are being released from
custody into the community. At the Queen Street site of the
centre, we care for about 170 mentally disordered offenders who
are under the jurisdiction of the Ontario Review Board after
having been found unfit to stand trial or not criminally
responsible on account of their mental disorder. About 10% of
those 170 individuals at any one time are sex offenders. We work
closely with both federal and provincial correctional authorities
and the police to ensure a safe reintegration of these offenders
into the community.
As you'll see from my
letter, we're in strong general agreement with the proposed bill.
We feel that a sex offender registry can be an important
component of a comprehensive approach to the prevention of sexual
assault. Other important components include both institutional
and community treatment for the sex offender, effective case
management by parole and probation officers, state-of-the-art
risk assessment and informed and effective policing, among other
components. We see the registry as an important part of this
comprehensive approach to the prevention of sexual assault.
As you'll see from my
letter, there are a number of recommendations that we submit
respectfully that may hopefully improve the way the legislation
might work. The first has to do with clause 7(2)(b) in the
legislation. I take it from reading the bill that it's the intent
that every sex offender who is being released into the community
from custody will be included under the terms of this legislation
and required to report to the police and give information about
their circumstances, their address and other information. With
respect to individuals who have been found to be not criminally
responsible, the bill requires them to report within 15 days
after he or she receives an absolute or a conditional discharge
from the Ontario Review Board order.
1130
It may seem contradictory
but, according to the terms of Ontario Review Board orders, some
patients who are ordered to be detained within the hospital
facility are given at the same time privileges which allow them
access to the community. This access can be short passes, a few
hours to a few days, but also includes the provision that the
offender is allowed to live in accommodation approved by the
centre in the community. There's a group of offenders here who
are not captured by the wording as it's laid out in clause
7(2)(b), and our recommendation would be that the wording be
changed to include offenders who are under the jurisdiction of
the ORB who are detained in hospital but who have community
access of one kind or another.
Item 1: As it stands now,
we inform the police when those offenders are released to the
community and have community access, but having those individuals
on the registry would be of assistance as well.
Item 2: The scientific
literature over the past 10 to 15 years has made great strides in
the development of our capacity to assess the risk that offenders
pose. Sex offenders are a very heterogeneous group. They include
individuals who will never commit a sexual offence again and they
include individuals whose likelihood is almost certainty that
they will commit an offence again. That information is often
available in charts and files in the correctional services as
these individuals are being released into the community, and we
are recommending that that information be included in the sex
offender registry.
One of the secrets to the
effective use of a registry like this is that the resources
should be devoted to individuals who are at highest risk of
committing a sexual offence again. The numbers of individuals on
this registry are going to be large, and the police will need
some assistance in deciding which among those individuals require
the most scrutiny and monitoring.
We recommend in this
legislation, under clause 14(g), that there be provision for the
information contained in the registry to be added to as time goes
on and also provision for co-operation between levels of
government to add information that other levels of government may
have. For example, federal corrections may be able to provide
information about risk assessments to this registry.
Our final recommendation is
in the interests of making this registry operate most
effectively. We feel that the registry should be maintained by
the behavioural sciences section of the Ontario Provincial
Police. The OPP already keeps important information like this,
including the ViCLAS database. Having those two databases operate
together, it seems,
would provide for a more efficient and effective operation of the
registry.
Thanks again for the
opportunity to make this presentation to you today. If there is
any further information that you require about any of the three
recommendations we're making, we'll be happy to respond to
questions now or provide information to you later.
The
Vice-Chair: Thank you, Dr Barbaree. The Liberal
caucus.
Mr Bryant:
Thank you very much for coming. I tend to agree with everything
you've said. So my first question is, have you been consulted on
this bill previous to this opportunity here today?
Dr
Barbaree: Not me personally. We have a member of our
program, Dr Peter Collins, who works closely with the Ontario
Provincial Police. He and a colleague in our program, Dr Choy,
have consulted with the OPP about the development of the
registration.
Mr Bryant:
Just so I'm clear, while we're on the subject of the OPP, with
respect to your third recommendation, of course the behavioural
sciences section of the OPP would have access to the registry as
it now stands, but they would not be managing the database.
You're suggesting that they be co-managers, is that right?
Dr
Barbaree: Yes. The bill doesn't make clear how this
registry is going to be managed. Critical to the effective
operation of this registry is the time it takes for information
to be added to it and the ease with which police organizations
can have access to that information. With modern technology, that
should all be instantaneous and fairly rapid. But who has
carriage of it will determine in part how effective it is as a
policing aid.
Mr Bryant:
My other question is with respect to your first recommendation,
that those found not criminally responsible be included in the
registry. Just explain to the committee why that isn't captured.
Clause 3(1)(b) refers to those found not criminally responsible
for the offence having to register. But obviously you're talking
about a different category of people.
Dr
Barbaree: Under the Ontario Review Board orders, the
first part of the order puts offenders in one of three different
categories: (1) They're to be detained in a hospital; (2) they're
to be given a conditional discharge, so they're discharged to the
community under conditions; or (3) they are discharged
unconditionally and essentially set free without condition.
This bill names the latter
two categories, the absolute and conditional discharges; it
doesn't say anything about individuals who are detained in
hospital. I imagine the reason is that the assumption would be
that people who are detained in hospital are detained in
hospital. It's important for you to know that a large number of
individuals who are detained in hospital have fairly frequent
contact with the community and in fact some of them, a minority,
are actually living in the community.
The reason this order is
like this is because when, for example, an individual has a
history of non-compliance with medication or treatment, they are
allowed to live in the community but the ability of the hospital
to bring them back into custody is felt to be an important
element to their management by the board. In this circumstance
the hospital can bring them back into custody without resorting
to any legal process at that point. We simply phone the police
and they are picked up. That group, the people who are detained
in hospital, is not included in the bill.
The
Vice-Chair: Thank you, Mr Bryant. Mr Kormos.
Mr Kormos:
This has been a matter for a little confusion to some of us. I'm
sure my colleagues over there have it down pat, but Mr Bryant and
I both had concerns about this section. We talked about it this
morning during the briefing.
You have people at the
Lieutenant Governor's pleasure-is that the terminology?
Dr
Barbaree: That's the old legislation. Now they're under
the jurisdiction of the Ontario Review Board.
Mr Kormos:
I'm obviously older than I look.
These people are held in
places like-
Dr
Barbaree: The old Queen Street Mental Health Centre.
Mr Kormos:
They're held there for a number of years and then, at some point,
they're out in the community, still under the jurisdiction of the
Ontario Review Board-Mr Mazzilli wants to talk to you after I'm
finished. You're saying that your impression is that this doesn't
cover those people.
Dr
Barbaree: My reading of the bill names the two
categories, conditional and unconditional discharges. It doesn't
name individuals who are detained in hospital.
Mr Kormos:
I'm going to simply leave it at this. I'm looking forward to Mr
Mazzilli's comments to you, but I invite the government to draft
the amendment in that regard, if indeed there is a deficiency
that has to be corrected. I have been here drafting my own in
other respects-unless you want me to draft that one too, Mr
Mazzilli.
1140
The
Vice-Chair: Mr Mazzilli.
Mr
Mazzilli: Doctor, this is certainly an area we need
clarification on. Would I be correct in saying that those cases
which fall under the Ontario Review Board, because of lack of
insight into their illness, are able to go through the criminal
justice system and therefore are directed through the Ministry of
Health?
Dr
Barbaree: That's correct. At the time of their trial, if
they are found unfit to stand trial, they are simply transferred
to the jurisdiction of the ORB and sent to a mental health
facility. If they are found not criminally responsible, then they
are also sent to a mental health facility.
Mr
Mazzilli: Therefore, once the Ministry of Health takes
responsibility for these people-in your case, you said there are
about 170 people at the Clarke Institute?
Dr
Barbaree: We have 170.
Mr
Mazzilli: And 10% of them would be sex offenders.
Dr
Barbaree: That's correct.
Mr Mazzilli: So approximately 17
of the 170. Of these 170, the Ministry of Health essentially
allows some people to have two-hour passes or five-hour passes,
whatever the psychiatrist deems reasonable. Would that be
correct?
Dr
Barbaree: Yes. The process is that we make
recommendations to the board, at what is usually an annual
hearing, and the board will then change the order to allow for
community access. The access can be all the way from one- or
two-hour passes into the community to moving into accommodation
that's approved by the hospital.
Mr
Mazzilli: But although these people have a two-hour
pass, they are not able to look after themselves or have been
found not criminally responsible because of their illness. So how
could a system force a person to register who has been found not
to have enough insight into their illness to know they committed
a crime? Would the psychiatric institution have to make their
registration?
Dr
Barbaree: Yes, it may be that the way to accomplish this
would be to require that the hospital that has responsibility for
that patient take responsibility for ensuring this information is
on the registry. By the time these individuals are moving into
the community, or even for extended passes, they are well enough
to take some part of the responsibility to report to the
police.
Mr
Mazzilli: Thank you very much for your answers.
The
Vice-Chair: Thank you very much, Doctor.
HAMILTON-WENTWORTH REGIONAL POLICE SERVICE /
ONTARIO ASSOCIATION OF CHIEFS OF POLICE
The
Vice-Chair: The next presenters will be the
Hamilton-Wentworth Regional Police Service, Chief Ken Robertson.
Welcome, Chief.
Mr Ken
Robertson: Good morning. I am appearing in front of the
standing committee as chief of police for Hamilton-Wentworth
Regional Police, but in addition as the president of the Ontario
Association of Chiefs of Police.
I want to start by
acknowledging the presence of my MPP from Hamilton, Brad Clark.
It's good to see you here and to see you taking an interest in
such an important piece of legislation on behalf of our citizens
here in Ontario.
All members of the police
community across Ontario support and commend the government, in
particular Minister Tsubouchi, for taking this initiative to
bring in improved legislation that will make our communities
safer across this great province.
This is not just about sex
offenders. We believe this is about victimization. Our society
has not been effective in understanding and reducing
victimization in this province. The bottom line really is that
many people just don't understand that when a child or a
vulnerable person is traumatized by a sexual predator, that
nightmare lasts a lifetime. In effect, many of these victims are
sentenced to a life of trauma. Their sentence is a life
sentence.
In many cases, police
investigations conclude with an arrest. The suspect is brought
before the courts and is sentenced. In the case of some offences,
they may get a six-year term that in fact is reduced to two
because of our parole system. In some high-profile cases, they
may see a 10-year term, and citizens and society are relieved,
thinking they are finally free of these monsters. But reality can
actually see these individuals back on the streets in our
communities in three to six years. Most importantly, everyone
must understand that they are eventually back in our communities.
They don't get a life sentence, and if the problem is not
resolved they are out looking for another victim. Then, of
course, the cycle continues.
The sex offender registry,
we believe, has the potential to start the process going and to
break this cycle. If it saves just one victim from a life filled
with trauma, we feel it is very worthwhile.
I would also like the
committee and the legislators to consider an additional piece of
legislation as part of this that would bridge the gap that exists
between the time these individuals are released on parole or
probation and the time they must register at the end of their
sentence. Contrary to the belief of some, the proposed
legislation will not apply until the offender completes their
sentence. This means, as an example, that dangerous offenders who
could be sentenced to six years but are released after three
years may be out in our communities without a requirement to
register until they complete their sentence.
I've had discussions with
some of the ministry staff, and they, like I, are concerned about
the lack of federal involvement and federal support in this
initiative. I think the people of Canada and the people of this
province should be speaking out loud and hard about this gap in
the federal initiative.
We're leading the way here
in Ontario, wanting to increase public safety, but we're
struggling with this gap in legislation. We may be able to, in
the short term, develop a protocol that would empower
corrections, parole and probation officials to require subjects
to register with the sex offender registry as a condition of
their release. I acknowledge the fact that there are some
constitutional issues associated with this, and I understand why
the government is showing leadership in proceeding regardless of
this gap that may exist. I think a protocol could be developed
with federal services-in particular, corrections services,
probation and parole-that could cover this gap.
We currently use as an
example where we have serious drug offenders who are released
from a federal institution with conditions of release on their
parole saying that they will not be involved in drug use. Of
course, they are subjected to periodic drug testing. As part of
their conditions of release, if they are found to be involved in
the use of drugs, their parole is revoked. In a similar way, I
believe it would not be unreasonable to develop protocols that
would say that these offenders would be required as a term of their release to file
their names with the registry and to comply with the conditions
of the registry.
So I'm encouraged by the
provincial initiative and I would encourage you to pursue the
issue of developing a protocol. We will be speaking out on a
federal perspective also to bring in federal legislation that
will help cover this gap.
The next thing I would like
to talk about is funding for the cost implications for police
organizations, particularly in large communities across the
province. As many may or may not know, most sex offenders migrate
to large cities on their release even though they may not have
committed their initial offences there. This legislation will
create a new workload that could have an impact on the front-line
services to our citizens. I believe the government should
consider cost implications for administering this legislation
and, if required, have some additional funding. This issue can
also be compounded by the costs associated with additional
technology to implement the registry.
I recently appeared before
Finance Minister Eves as part of his pre-budget consultation and
advised him of our need to develop a province-wide computer
network for policing here in Ontario. The government is moving
toward that vision of computer databanks across Ontario being
connected through one computer network across this province so
that we would be able to access data on individual suspects
across all computer databases. I believe the province is moving
in this direction, and this initiative could be an enhancement of
the sex offender registry.
I commend the government
for this initiative. I believe it represents a step in the right
direction, and I only hope the federal government will learn from
the example that's being established here in Ontario.
Those are my comments, and
I'm prepared to answer questions.
1150
Mr Kormos:
Thank you. I don't know if you were here when the Mennonite
Central Committee made their submission earlier. One of their
issues was the existing technology that's out there-CPIC among
other things-and the impression they had, and hopefully I don't
misstate their case, that this was going to be an isolated,
stand-alone sort of registry. Are you talking about the need to
have a broad-based, integrated information database?
Mr
Robertson: We believe in Ontario, and we think it should
exist across Ontario, that in addition to the CPIC links that we
currently have, there is a need to link the databases of police
agencies across Ontario. There are many examples where there may
be information in the community of Cornwall, for example, a
database that may not be a CPIC-type entry, that would be a
valuable investigative tool to an investigator who is confronted
with an individual, as an example, in Windsor. The current CPIC
system does not allow that interface, and we need to have that
interface.
Mr Kormos:
We were told earlier that we've got some 1,560 sexual offence
convictions per year, based on the definition here in this bill.
Shouldn't all these be automatically registered upon conviction?
That way they can be tracked. If the convictions aren't
registered in a way that the sexual offender registry can have a
handle on them, how will we ever know how many of those same
convicted people are registered? Granted, some of them may have
moved out of the province. You understand what I'm saying? But
how will we ever be able to audit the effectiveness of it if
those convictions aren't automatically registered with the
sentences? The computer could tell you what the time frame is for
when those people should be starting to register.
Mr
Robertson: If I could comment, the vision that the
police community has is something that's very much like our
current ViCLAS system, the violent crime offender system, and we
all feed into the system. That is, outstanding cases and cases
that are ongoing investigations are fed into a computer. So if we
use a violent criminal/sexual predator type case that's going
unsolved, we have half of the puzzle because we're able to tie
those unsolved cases in together.
The sex offender registry
is the second key to that puzzle in that we'll be able to have
outstanding offences on one page and we'll be able to match those
up with who are the sex offenders living in the area or working
in the area where those sex offences are occurring. As it
currently stands today, we are not able to match the two. The sex
offender registry will provide us that technology and tool to do
that match.
We know where the offences
are occurring from the ViCLAS and we know where the problems are
occurring as a result of what's come into place through the
follow-up to the Bernardo case and the ViCLAS implementation.
This is now the next phase. That's giving us an inventory of who
is out there and, when they move, letting us know that they are
moving so that we then can see how this matches up.
Mr Kormos:
What are the set-ups or the relationships or protocols for
accessing the American databases similar to the proposed sex
offender registry? How do you get access to that currently, if at
all?
Mr
Robertson: It would have to be done through our treaty
and through the RCMP in most cases, if it was to be done in an
official capacity. We have informal ways of accessing that, and
obviously, if it's needed for court, there have to be court
orders and it has to be done through diplomatic channels.
Mr Clark:
Good morning, Chief. I'm not sure if you're aware of it, but we
received a letter from the Solicitor General of Canada in
response to our invitation to him to appear before this
committee. In the letter he states that "a comprehensive
screening approach would be a more effective option to enhance
community protection than establishing a new sex offender
registry." He's referring to the national screening program that
they have in place where charitable groups can have applicants who are wanting to work
with children screened by the police department.
Do you share his viewpoint
that that screening process is better or more appropriate than a
national sex registry?
Mr
Robertson: I don't share that. In fact, I think it's a
rather simplistic approach to the problem. Obviously a volunteer
screening process has some benefit in that it is a deterrent to
predators to become involved in volunteer organizations, because
they know that if they register in a volunteer organization that
does screening, they are going to be exposed. But there is a huge
component beyond that. As an example, they could move into a
townhouse complex or into an apartment complex and befriend the
local children in these complexes and there's no requirement to
register.
It's a simplistic approach,
and I don't accept that as an appropriate solution to what is an
attempt to deal with reducing victims in our society.
Mr Clark:
This is a big step forward in the province, developing this
offender registry, but I see some major gaps also-and you stated
it earlier-in terms of national versus provincial
initiatives.
One of the concerns that
have been raised back in my own community is, what is preventing
sexual offenders from simply leaving the jurisdiction of
Ontario?
Mr
Robertson: I think you have to start somewhere. It would
be easy to turn away and say, "Let's not move until the federal
government is prepared to move." That's not what leadership is
about, and that's not what we here in Ontario are about. We
believe the time to move is now, and if we have to start here, I
think it's a sign of things to follow and it's only a matter of
time until the people of Canada will call for the federal
government to fall in and support this legislation.
Mr Bryant:
Thank you for coming, Chief Robertson. I've got a couple of
questions. The first one is with respect to the province-wide
computer network for policing that you spoke about near the end
of your submission. Obviously that is the ideal technological
investigative and preventive tool we could have in this province.
You indicated that the government is committed to it. Where are
we in terms of actually getting a commitment so that will
happen?
Mr
Robertson: The vision is currently out there. There are
technological committees under the support of the federal
Solicitor General's ministry in conjunction with the Attorney
General's ministry operating under the umbrella of the integrated
justice system that are looking at this provincial network. Some
of the issues that still need to be addressed are how it will
roll out, timelines for final rollout and of course the
appropriate funding associated with this.
Mr Bryant:
You haven't got a commitment yet that we're going to get this
network?
Mr
Robertson: I'm optimistic. I think it will come through.
There is going to be an additional funding requirement, but in
the hope that public safety is a continuing commitment, I think
we'll get through that.
Mr Bryant:
I hope you're right.
I agree that we've got to
start somewhere. Some view a federalist system as providing for
laboratories of democracy where the province can lead and other
provinces can follow and the federal government can follow too.
What else can we do, going into the future, with respect to this
bill to make it better, specifically, and more generally in terms
of dealing with sex offences in Ontario?
Mr
Robertson: If you're able to convince the provincial
constitutional people that it's worth a stab at proceeding to
making this compulsory as part of the release provisions of a
parolee into Ontario-in other words, a condition of your release
will be that you will be required to register-I think it would be
worth a constitutional attempt.
I've been in policing for
32 years, and this is not unlike the days-and I was confronted
with those days-when we first put in the drunk-driving laws. What
society did during the drunk-driving law changes and the
compulsory roadside test is that we challenged the
constitutionality of what was viewed as the arbitrary right of
the police to stop people and give them roadside testing. But
because of the public concern over the issue of safety and the
trauma associated with victimization by drunk drivers-the victims
who were created by drunk driving-they felt that was a fair
infringement on the charter.
I can't think of anything
more parallel to that than when you put a face on the victims.
When you hear of 1,260 offences in Ontario last year, and think
that in each and every one of those offences there's a face, a
human being who has been sentenced to a lifetime of trauma as a
result of the actions of that offender, surely to goodness any
modern civilized society would accept that as a reasonable
infringement on the charter.
I encourage you to proceed
to see if we can't put some teeth in there that will make these
people register if they are to be subject to early release.
Mr Bryant:
Thank you. I will.
The
Vice-Chair: Thank you, Chief Robertson. We appreciate
your taking the time to appear before the committee.
1200
JOHN HOWARD SOCIETY OF ONTARIO
The
Vice-Chair: The next presenters will be the John Howard
Society of Ontario, Mr Bill Sparks. Welcome to the committee.
Could you state your names for the record, please.
Ms Barbara
Hill: I'm Barbara Hill, the director of policy
development for the John Howard Society of Ontario.
Mr Bill
Sparks: I'm Bill Sparks, the executive director of the
John Howard Society of Ontario. We're pleased to appear before
the committee today.
The John Howard Society of
Ontario, as you may know, is a social service organization
serving individuals, families and groups at all stages in the
youth criminal justice
system. We are presently in 17 local communities, and last year
we saw over 50,000 people.
Our mission is effective,
just and humane solutions to crime and its causes, which brings
us before you today to talk about the effectiveness of this
legislation. We have put together this submission from our
experience in working with people in conflict with the law, our
know-ledge of the research relating to sex offenders and our
experience of other jurisdictions in matters relating to
information systems designed to protect children and other
vulnerable groups. I draw your attention to the written
submission that's been given to you, which quotes that current
research and cites references.
First, we want to make it
clear that the John Howard Society of Ontario understands the
impact of sexual offending on victims and on the community. We
want to see the incidence of sexual offending reduced. Our
interest is in how best to accomplish this. We believe that is
through quality, accessible treatment, not a registry.
Bill 31 may be attractive
because it appeals to the public intuitively and gives the
illusion of doing something about sexual offending and sexual
offenders. But we believe that a longer look at the facts and the
research shows that it is not a good, effective crime control
strategy and not good social policy.
The major points of our
opposition to Bill 31 relate to the myths upon which the bill is
premised:
(1) That we are in the
midst of a crime wave of sexual offending. In fact, rates of
sexual offending have decreased substantially since 1993.
(2) That most sex offences
are committed by predatory strangers. In fact, many are committed
by family members and friends.
(3) That most sexual
offenders reoffend sexually. While research in this area,
particularly in the very long term, is limited, what is available
shows that this is not the case and that the reoffense rate
depends on the nature of the sexual offence.
(4) That nothing works to
reduce reoffending. In fact, evidence is growing that treatment
does work to reduce reoffending.
(5) That a registry would
define everyone who is a sex offender. In fact, the majority of
people in prison for a sexual offence have not been convicted for
a sexual of-fence in the past.
(6) That there is no
current information system that could assist the police in their
investigation of sex crimes. In fact, we have CPIC, the Canadian
Police Infor-mation Centre system; notification to the police of
releases from federal prisons through the CCRA, the Corrections
and Conditional Release Act; the Ontario Safety Act, which
permits disclosure of personal information by the Ministry of
Correctional Services; and the Ontario child abuse registry.
We are particularly
concerned that the costs of establishing and maintaining a
registry are high, against the benefits, which are questionable.
We have heard quoted $5 million to $6 million, a figure that we
see as conservative and not fully taking into account court and
police costs-and we've already heard submissions today from
police and other agencies for additional resources-in order to
get one additional piece of information: the individual's
address. The reliability of this information depends on the
degree to which individuals comply, and data from the US suggest
that there was missing or inaccurate information in almost half
of the files of those to be registered. Verifying the information
will no doubt result in extra police costs.
We are also concerned about
the unintended consequences of the registry, such as:
(1) Encouraging a false
sense of security. This may undermine support for those
activities that we know make a difference, such as adequate
screening and supervision in organizations involved with children
and other vulnerable groups, and treatment.
(2) Resisting the
inevitable pressure to make the registry publicly accessible, and
all the problems associated with a publicly accessible registry
system, which we believe are hazardous to both the individual and
society at large, including vigilante behaviour directed at both
the registered individual and family and friends; driving the
offender underground, which works against the factors which
assist reintegration-the Sarnia-Windsor example was already
mentioned today-undermining the motivation for treatment;
transferring the problem to another province if individuals move
to avoid registration and the possibility of public
identification; working against pre-release planning-those who
fear identification will not plan for their release for fear of
identifying their destination.
(3) Exposing people to
special liabilities and punishments on the basis of predictions
of future conduct, legis-lative action which should not be done
without a clear demonstration of the necessity of doing so and of
the effectiveness of the proposed measures. The legislation
certainly adds to the reach of the law-people can and likely will
be incarcerated for lengthy periods of time for not registering.
We have to examine how much this will cost us, socially,
economically and in human terms.
Our alternative would be to
use the resources, both in terms of time and money, that would be
allocated to the establishment and maintenance of the
registry-all that money instead for treatment services.
Specialized, professionally operated and adequately funded
treatment services should be available and accessible to all, not
just those currently under sentence and in custody facilities, to
treat the offender, assist in the development of a plan for
relapse prevention-and there is good research on the success of
relapse prevention-and link the community and the offender to
treatment services.
Supporting the focus on
treatment would be a greater use of conditional release and the
appropriate targeting of community-based support and supervision.
We've already heard today about community-based support and
supervision. We've heard about Bill C-55, section 161, talking
about 10 years of supervision, and in some cases lifetime
supervision; section 810 of the Criminal Code, requiring police
registry; and we've also heard about the Ontario Review Board, under the mental
health conditions, where the hospital would act as the power to
inform and then have the police apprehend and bring back to
hospital custody.
To this end, our strategy
calls for an end to policies and practices that undermine the
gradual release process, such as detention under federal
legislation and the current actions of the provincial government
geared to decreasing the use of parole and temporary
absences.
In summary, we feel that we
can best prevent these kinds of offences through adequate
accessible treatment, through adequate supervision and through
adequate gradual release in which these two elements are
supplied. If we have to take $6 million, which according to the
research has assisted in the United States in the police making a
faster arrest after the fact, I would rather put the $6 million
into preventing the crime. Thank you.
1210
The
Vice-Chair: Thank you, Mr Sparks. Mr Mazzilli.
Mr
Mazzilli: Sir, in your professional opinion-you've
worked with offenders in the past-how can you prevent the crime
if an offender is not willing to take part in treatment?
Mr Sparks:
There are a hundred ways in which an offender who indicates
initially that he's not willing to take part in the treatment can
be counselled into that treatment. Sometimes the problem is that
the federal government is saying or the provincial government is
saying as part of the administration within the prison that "You
have to do this," and that's a rebellion, because he doesn't have
to do that. There are organizations like the Salvation Army, the
Elizabeth Fry Society, the John Howard Society, the Mennonite
Central Committee, that sit down with the person and say, "This
is in your best interests and those of everyone around you."
Mr
Mazzilli: I understand that, sir. But then that person
says, "I do not want to take any treatment." How are you going to
prevent any crime with an individual who refuses to take part in
any treatment?
Mr Sparks:
At that point we have, of course, the legislation that requires
10-year supervision, but I'll defer to-
Ms Hill:
Can I just answer that? I think what we're saying is that no
measure, in effect, is going to prevent every crime, but what
approach is going to give you the best lowering of recidivism?
The suggestion is treatment as opposed to a registry, that if a
registry is going to undermine treatment, people's motivation for
treatment, their pre-release planning, all of those kinds of
things that research has shown reduce recidivism-that's where I
think we're saying we want to put our money. You can't say that
any approach will absolutely prevent every crime.
Mr
Mazzilli: Would I be correct in saying that governments
of all sorts over the years have increased funding for
treatment?
Mr Sparks:
That's probably not correct. The Ontario Ministry of Correctional
Services right now is facing a $60-million deficit. They are
building, as you know, superjails. They have expressed with the
new minister, which is a breath of fresh air, an interest in what
works, an interest in effective treatment, but they are still
scheduling to close the Ontario Corrections Institute, an
award-winning treatment institute. They've given it a breath of
fresh air, a three-year reprieve, but it's still on the books to
close.
Mr
Mazzilli: But in the past with that funding, there was
never any measurement as far as what treatment success was
achieved at the end of enormous funding increases-
Mr Sparks:
Oh, no, you-
Ms Hill: I
think that's changing, though. I think there is far more now,
whenever you go into some kind of program, an evaluative
component attached to that. Even if you look at the research
around the efficacy of treatment services for sex offenders, what
they're saying is that the results are becoming more and more
positive. It has to do with the fact that there certainly is a
whole lot more emphasis being put on treatment services, a whole
lot more emphasis being put on evaluating that treatment service,
and I think rightfully so.
Mr Sparks:
I think Canadians can be very proud too. The research here
actually has been done by Professor Don Andrews at Carleton
University and Professor Paul Gendreau at the University of New
Brunswick around what works and what doesn't. So there's a good
body of research.
Mr
Mazzilli: Thank you.
The
Vice-Chair: Mr Beaubien, you have a short question?
Mr
Beaubien: Yes. Thank you for being here this morning.
I'm not going to comment on your presentation, because I find it
disturbing at times.
Mr Sparks, you mentioned
that costs are high against the benefits. Could I ask you what
you think the costs of rehabilitating a young person who has been
sexually offended by somebody are?
Mr Sparks:
In Ontario they are certainly, in terms of the treatment, high in
terms of per diems and high in terms of hospitalization. What we
have heard and what we are seeing is that the Ontario government
in its previous budgets has looked at reducing the treatment for
mental health, looked at reducing the treatment for
hospitalization, and has had a preponderance of solutions in
terms of using the criminal justice system instead. We certainly
recognize and we would like to prevent those high costs.
Ms Hill: I
think we come here today, as well, really seeking fewer victims.
We're saying that the approach is supposed to focus on treatment.
What we're seeing is a real emphasis there that it can reduce
recidivism. So that's really important for us and we are looking
for approaches that don't undermine treatment, in the community
and in custody facilities. We want to see the emphasis put on
that.
Mr
Beaubien: I don't think anyone wants to undermine the
education and treatment factor. However, I think the general
public is looking at some type of protection, as we've heard from different
presenters, not only for adults but for young people who are
certainly susceptible to some of these predators. When we talk
cost, an ounce of prevention certainly may be worth a pound of
whatever at the end of the road, but I find it difficult to say
that the cost-I don't know exactly how you put it, but that the
costs were high against the benefits that could be generated from
having a registry. I cannot rationalize that one.
Ms Hill:
Could I just clarify that? It was saying the costs are high and
the benefits are questionable. So you have to always look at one
side and the other. You also have to say, if I have that $5
million or $6 million, is there another approach in which the
benefits are clearer, in which we may get more for investing in
that approach? I think that's what we were saying.
Mr Bryant:
I also thank you for coming and thank you for providing obviously
a very thoroughly researched and thoughtful presentation. I agree
with some of your observations; I disagree with your
conclusion.
Let me get right to the
heart of it. Am I right that you seem to be taking an either/or
approach? The assumption is you've got a pie that's so big and
has so many millions of dollars in it, and you're saying that if
you have a choice between effective treatment programs and
community-based support and supervision on the one hand, and a
registry on the other hand, then you're opting for the
latter.
Interjection: Former.
Mr Bryant:
What would be the problem with trying the preventive,
investigative approach, the costs and benefits to go with the
registry, as well as effective treatment and community-based
support?
Mr Sparks:
Well, let me just speak to what works and what doesn't work. So
far in the States we have no evidence at all that sex offender
registries work to prevent the offence. The evidence is that
after the fact the police have more information and can make the
arrest quicker. What we really want to do is prevent the crime;
we want to prevent the crime in the first place. We want to
prevent the sexual offence in the first place.
We know there are a number
of people who have committed a sexual offence and who are coming
out. We know, based on the research, that if they come out under
the proper supervision and the proper programming, the percentage
of ??reoffence goes way, way down, so that's a way of preventing
the offence.
We also know that for a
large number, the majority of people who are serving sentences
for sexual offences, that's their first offence, or at least it's
the first time they have been known and arrested and tried and
found guilty.
What we're really talking
about there is where the huge majority of sexual offences occur,
which is in the family. We need to find ways in which to
intervene with the family to support and reduce sexual abuse
within the family. We also know that the huge majority of sexual
offenders have been sexually abused as young people.
So it's not just an
either/or choice. It's the way in which we say that a registry
could draw money-not even just money and resources, but it gives
a false sense of security and it uses the criminal justice system
as a solution to all the other problems, and there's no evidence
to show that in fact this solution works.
Mr Bryant:
Let me just push you on this a bit. Let's sort of agree to
disagree on whether or not sex offender registries will be
effective. I think certainly, rationally speaking, if in fact
police have the opportunity to get more information about
potential offenders out there, necessarily that's going to be of
some benefit. And as we heard before, if it ends up preventing
just one crime, then it's worth every dollar.
1220
Other than the false sense
of security-and, to be fair, one could say that about just about
any government initiative in this area. I'm not so concerned
about the false sense of security, frankly, certainly not in
Guelph-Kitchener right now. I don't think there's any false sense
of security about people's safety. Leaving those aside, I fail to
see why having the registry along with an effective treatment and
community supervision program would be somehow not worth the
effort. Why is it not worth the effort?
Ms Hill:
Could I answer that? There is very little research about whether
in fact it undermines. There's no evaluation of treatment. But
certainly some of the material that I've read from the States
expresses some concern about that. There was one situation in
Vermont where, during a period of time when there was a lot of
publicity around a new registry and community notification
scheme, the local sex offender referral hotline, if you want to
call it that, noticed a really dramatic decrease in their calls.
The idea was that they were really afraid, with all this
publicity, that people, for fear of identifying themselves and
for fear of what that would do to them in the local community,
were not accessing and using the treatment resources that were
there. I'm just saying that's a concern to us.
Mr Sparks:
Maybe I can just add to that. What we've also mentioned here is
the danger of the tendency of sexual offender registries in the
States to have been made publicly accessible. We had this
terrible example in Windsor and Sarnia where a person had been
released to Windsor. Several agencies, including the police, were
working with this individual and a plan was in place. The police
had decided that they were not going to release this person's
name. They felt there was a sufficient plan. Without authority,
an individual police officer notified the community, notified the
press. The whole plan fell apart. With the work of several
agencies he ended up in Sarnia for a very brief period of time.
He said to those agencies: "I don't have any support here. I
don't have any plan here. I need to go to another town where at
least I've got some people I know." His plan was falling apart
and disintegrating. In fact he moved to another community away
from Sarnia and reoffended. It's a way in which the notification,
the registry, all of those things in fact undermine community
safety.
Mr Kormos: Thank you very much
for coming. You know I support the bill. This whole business of
the risk of publication-you know, like I do, that historically
our court system has been very public and it's only because of
the size of our communities and the complexity of access to those
courtrooms-in days gone by the whole community knew when somebody
was convicted because the courtroom was that much of a public
place. So I have probably less concern.
Quite frankly, I want to
know whether the person who has moved in down the street has been
convicted of a number of car thefts. I similarly want to know
whether the person who has moved in down the street has been
convicted of molesting kids or raping women. This is public
information to begin with, in theory. The press can't be in every
courtroom and they have far less interest in reporting what they
consider mundane offences, and it's sad that we should consider
them mundane.
I appreciate that
registries don't prevent the offence. Nobody has suggested that
here. I agree with you wholeheartedly on the treatment and I'm a
great supporter of OCI. We've raised this so many times with this
Solicitor General and ministry of corrections. It's one of the
few programs that has any meaningful success rate. I agree with
you wholeheartedly.
But I similarly have to
advocate for the police. I don't think any of us can dispute that
it's a valuable tool for them to have a database around previous
sex offenders-and I appreciate that there are all different kinds
of sex offenders. Some types of sex offenders have higher
recidivism rates than others, and we all know what we're speaking
of.
But I've got to tell you,
there's a letter that has been sent to this committee that's in
some respects shocking, and I'm not even going to name the
author. But here's a guy who writes a letter opposing the bill.
I'm reading this and the little hairs on my arms are starting to
tingle because I can read through the lines. I've heard these
people before, right? And sure enough, bingo, by the time you get
to page 3, he's a convicted sex offender. But you see, in what I
consider the typical, manipulative way-and the pecking order. He
wants to point out that he's a non-violent sex offender-as if
there was somehow some status in that-of adolescent males.
"Non-violent." That's code language. We've heard it come from a
number of sources. This is the rationalization. This is the con
job. I resent that and what I particularly resent is him crowing
about the fact that he's not going to be included in this
legislation.
Well, I've got an amendment
tabled here that will include him in this legislation. Is there a
stigma attached to being publicly registered even though the
information is kept quasi-private? You bet your boots there is.
Do I think there should be some stigma attached to raping women
or kids? Yes, there should be some stigma attached. I'm very
concerned about the normalization of so much behaviour. I'm
convinced that incest is as high as it ever was historically,
perhaps even higher. I'm convinced that just anecdotally-we
haven't got the data but we see the frequency of reported cases
of child interference, child molesting, child sexual assault in
the context of various volunteer organizations and the difficulty
those groups have in controlling access to kids.
I don't think we've begun
to make a dent and I'm convinced that part of it is because-sure,
the notorious Toronto Sun and Toronto Star front page sex
offenders are notorious by virtue of the publicity, but I think
we've got to stigmatize this. I appreciate a-I come from the
Niagara region, which has suffered some horrendous assaults on
all of us, on the whole community; some horrendous crimes. You
have to understand where some of us are coming from, or certainly
where I'm coming from. Those horrendous crimes have impacted on
us, and in the case of the Niagara region, it was as a result of
lack of resources available to police and some discordance in
terms of police forces working together.
I'm sorry. I appreciate
what you're saying and I support your whole goal in terms of more
money for treatment, and this government has not been helpful in
that regard. I don't think you have. At the same time, we should
be concerned about ensuring that there's as low a recidivism rate
as possible, but we should also, and this is why I'm here doing
this, be concerned about the fact that when there is a repeat
offender, he or she, but "he" almost inevitably, is caught as
quickly as possible. At that point you have to dismiss his or her
rights and talk about the protection of the community. That's the
rationale for my support for the bill, having heard everything
you said and agreeing with virtually everything you said.
The
Vice-Chair: Thank you very much, Mr Sparks and Ms Hill.
I think those were all the submissions that we had scheduled. The
committee will recess until 2 pm for clause-by-clause
consideration of the bill.
I'd also like to indicate
that the Canadian Bar Association of Ontario has cancelled. They
were on the list but they have cancelled.
The committee recessed from 1230 to
1410.
The
Vice-Chair: I'd like to call the committee to order.
This afternoon we'll be proceeding with clause-by-clause of Bill
31. We'll start with section 1.
Mr
Mazzilli: I move that section 1 of the bill be amended
by adding the following subsection:
"First Nations police
services
"(2) Where an offender
resides in an area where the police services are provided by a
First Nations police service, references in this act to a police
force shall be read as references to a First Nations police
service, with necessary modifications, and references to a police
officer in this act shall be read as references to a First
Nations constable."
The
Vice-Chair: Are there any comments?
Mr Kormos:
Chair, could Mr Mazzilli explain the amendment?
Mr
Mazzilli: Absolutely.
Mr Kormos:
If he has briefing notes to that effect, I don't see how it
should be a problem.
Mr
Mazzilli: This essentially has to do with the services
in the registry being extended to First Nations police services.
That is the intent of the act, and it was overlooked in its
original form.
Mr Kormos:
That's fine. I support it.
The
Vice-Chair: Shall the amendment to section 1 carry?
Carried.
Shall section 1, as
amended, carry? Carried.
Let's move to section 2. I
understand there are no amendments to section 2.
Shall section 2 carry?
Carried.
Moving to section 3, are
there any amendments to section 3?
Mr
Mazzilli: Yes, there are.
I move that subsection 3(1)
of the bill be amended by striking out the portion before the
clauses and substituting the following:
"Offender required to
report in person
"(1) Every offender who is
resident in Ontario shall present himself or herself at a
designated bureau, police station or detachment of the police
force that provides police services where he or she resides or at
another place in the area where the police force provides police
services designated by that police force."
The
Vice-Chair: Are there any comments with respect to this
amendment?
Mr Kormos:
I really don't understand how this differs from the original
bill, which requires him to present himself at the police bureau
that provides police services in the area where he or she
resides. Is that not the same thing?
Mr
Mazzilli: This amendment is that a police service will
be able to designate a location in which reporting shall take
place, that in urban centres, where there are many police
stations, if you will, they have some way of controlling where
people attend for registration purposes.
The
Vice-Chair: Any further comment? Shall the amendment to
subsection 3(1) carry? Carried.
Are there further
amendments to section 3?
Mr
Mazzilli: I move that subsection 3(1) of the bill be
amended by striking out "and" at the end of clause (e), by adding
"and" at the end of clause (f) and by adding the following
clause:
"(g) on a day that is not
later than one year after and not earlier than 11 months after he
or she last presented himself or herself to a police force under
clause (f)."
The
Vice-Chair: Any comments?
Mr Kormos:
Mr Mazzilli, please.
Mr
Mazzilli: Mr Chair, if I could call on a ministry lawyer
to explain for Mr Kormos the different sections there, that would
be proper.
The
Vice-Chair: Is that in agreement?
Mr Kormos:
Because of course we had a 1 o'clock time frame and the first
time we've had access was just a few minutes ago. I think it's
important that this be on the record, that these amendments be
spoken to.
Mr
Mazzilli: It would be proper if a ministry lawyer could
be seated here to explain any housekeeping items, if you will, in
this bill that the government intends to clean up through this
process.
The
Vice-Chair: If the ministry lawyer could sit in the
witness chair, I'd appreciate it. We are dealing with the
amendment to clause 3(1)(g), I understand, if you could explain
to the committee the purpose of the amendment.
Ms Marnie
Corbold: Certainly. This amendment has been added just
to make it clear that there is an annual registration obligation
on the offender. The way it was previously worded, it wasn't
entirely clear that there would be an annual obligation, so this
section has just been added to make it perfectly clear that the
offender does have to report on an annual basis.
Mr Kormos:
There's a one-month time frame in which that's to occur?
Ms
Corbold: Again, rather than saying it was one year to
the day, it was giving sort of a month's time within that year
that they could register.
Mr Kormos:
OK, I appreciate that. Seriously, Chair, I just want to make sure
we know what we're voting on when we vote on these things because
Lord knows enough has been voted on around here without people
knowing what they're voting on.
Mr Ted Chudleigh
(Halton): Speak for yourself.
Mr Kormos:
I've watched it too often, Mr Chudleigh. Do you want me to name
some of the bills? Shall we start with tax bills or the megacity
Toronto bill?
Mr
Beaubien: A different side of the House, too.
The
Vice-Chair: Order. Shall the amendment carry?
Carried.
Is there another amendment
to section 3?
Mr
Mazzilli: I move that section 3 of the bill be amended
by adding the following subsection:
"Designated places, times
and days
"(2.1) Every police force
shall designate one or more bureaus, police stations, detachments
or other places in the area where the police force provides
police services at which offenders may present themselves for the
purposes of subsection (1), subsection 7(2) and subsection 9(1)
and may also designate
the days and times when offenders may present themselves for
those purposes."
The
Vice-Chair: Are there any comments?
Mr Kormos:
I understand the intent of this. Let me say this to you, Mr
Mazzilli and Chair. I appreciate that what you're trying to do is
make sure that police stations, especially those perhaps in
smaller communities like the ones in Niagara which are seriously
understaffed, don't have to deal with the registration process
seven days a week, 24 hours a day, because they simply don't have
the staff there to deal with that.
I have some concerns,
however. Let me tell you what they are. You delegate the power to
determine access times to the respective policing units. In
itself, that would be fair enough. If we want this to work, I
believe we have to make it as easy as possible to facilitate
registration as much as we possibly can.
I can speak for Niagara
region because I'm obviously familiar with their respective
stations and the type of staffing they have. But I can also
anticipate parts of the province where the policing units are
much smaller than they are, never mind in Toronto, in places like
Niagara. I don't dispute the intent of what you're doing here.
What I'm concerned about are police services boards with a
serious lack of resources and staffing, because you've heard
already from at least one of the submitters that the police are
going to need some financial support. This issue came up during
the whole business of investigating the backgrounds of
volunteers. Police are going to need financial support to
facilitate the paperwork and the actual load that this will
constitute. What worries me is that the intent of this bill could
be frustrated through the back door, where nobody would dare
frustrate it through the front door.
1420
I appreciate that it's not
your function during this committee to talk about what sort of
support police services are going to be given for doing this kind
of work. There's going to be a whole new sort of load on them. We
understand that. We don't know what that load will mean in
different parts of the province. I anticipate that in Toronto,
simply because of its size, there's going to be probably an
incredible load on whatever police stations are delegated or
authorized to do this work.
I'm concerned about this
because you give carte blanche authority to the police services
to determine hours, for instance. I'm not going to prejudge them,
but I do know that many of them are strapped financially. I'm
concerned about this being so loose that it permits police
services boards to perhaps be overly restrictive, such that it
provides a disincentive to registration. It's not a big concern.
It's not a mega-concern, but I'm just worried about how you've
delegated it.
I would have felt far more
comfortable if you had said "minimum access periods," that they
should provide at least two business days a week during business
hours, something like that, so that people don't have an excuse
for not going. That's all I'm trying to anticipate here, people
justifying, be it legitimately or illegitimately, not fulfilling
their obligations under the act by saying: "Jeez, they're only
open two hours on Friday afternoons and for five consecutive
weeks. That's when my aunt died, my grandmother died and I had
three job interviews." That's what I'm concerned about.
This will pass if the
government members want it to pass, but I wish it would be
rethought. I'm not sure it has to be part of the bill, because
this could be as readily done by way of directive. It doesn't
have to be part of the legislation. This could as readily be done
by way of directive or policy that's set by the central agency
responsible for maintaining the registry. As a result, there are
going to be conversations between police services boards and your
ministry about some sort of subsidy or compensation for police
services boards doing this. I wish that this sort of thing were
the subject matter of those negotiations rather than a part of
the bill. I'm uncomfortable with this being a part of the bill. I
don't think it's helpful.
Mr
Mazzilli: Mr Chair, if I could just respond to the
concern that was raised. In urban Ontario certainly registering
at all times is generally not a problem. In this amendment in the
second-last line is the word "may," and Mr Kormos is very well
aware of what "may" means in technical legal language. Certainly,
police departments do not have to restrict times or locations. It
says, "one or more bureaus, police stations." It's very specific
as to what police services have to perform. In areas outside of
the urban centres that Mr Kormos might be concerned with, rural
Ontario, northern Ontario, this gives them some leeway as to how
to deal with large geographic areas and still comply with the
legislation.
Mr Bryant:
My question is, what would be the alternative? Your concern is
that they'll be straightjacketed, and as a result, what would
happen? What are you trying to prevent by passing this
provision?
Mr
Mazzilli: There's obviously a small service in northern
Ontario or rural Ontario that may have a designated location and
time when people go to register, where we know that some of these
detachments are not staffed 24 hours a day with someone there
because of their geographic areas.
The
Vice-Chair: Any further comments? Shall the amendment
carry? Carried.
Shall section 3, as
amended, carry? Carried.
We move now to section 4 of
the bill. I understand there is an amendment to section 4.
Mr Kormos:
I move that section 4 of the bill be amended by adding the
following subsection:
"Retention of information
by police force
"(2) The police force shall
retain, in a manner approved by the ministry, a copy of the
information submitted to the ministry under subsection (1)."
This was the subject matter
of some discussion during the briefing period this morning.
Clearly the ministry is going to prescribe the manner in which
the central registry is maintained-the standards, the format of
it, the structure of it. We talked with several people, and we
also talked in the briefing this morning about the fact that
this serves two
interests: one at the local level, where an offender has to
register, and effectively giving notice to the local police force
that he or she is in their jurisdiction. So it's valuable to the
police in that regard. They know that offender X, Y or Z is now
in their community at that address. They, similarly, then are
obligated to transmit this to the central registry, which is
going to have standards set for it by the ministry.
I want the retention of
that information at the local level uniform as well so that every
police force maintains that information in the same form and in
the same manner. Although it's going to the central registry,
where it's being regulated by the government, the ministry
through regulation or directive, it's also going to be in the
local police services.
I also want local police
services to feel comfortable keeping that information. Do you
understand what I'm saying, Mr Mazzilli? I don't want them to
think they've fulfilled their responsibility once they've sent
that on to Toronto or Orillia or wherever the registry is going
to be maintained. I want to know that the manner in which they're
keeping that information and accessing it-and you'll see there
are some other amendments that are consistent with this one-is in
accordance with the standards set by the ministry.
This is for the protection
of the police, the respective police forces, for the protection
of the public and also addresses what could be issues about
misuse, or allegations, rather, of misuse of this information.
That's my reason for putting this amendment forward. Is this
regime going to be attacked? Of course it is. You know that, Mr
Mazzilli. There are critics of it who are going to attack the
process. You know where some of that attack is going to come
from, the legal attack. Fair enough, the courts will deal with it
if that happens. But I think, by passing this amendment, we're
putting respective police services boards in a position where,
assuming they comply with the standard, they are covered, so to
speak, in terms of having not only received the information and
sent it on, but then kept it for their own purposes locally,
because there surely has to be some continuity there.
The
Vice-Chair: Mr Mazzilli, would you like to respond?
Mr
Mazzilli: Mr Chair, we will not be supporting this
amendment. I want to focus on what our intent is here today. It's
to create a provincial sex offender registry, one that will have
the most current information province-wide. That is the intention
of Christopher's Law. This amendment essentially tries to dictate
how local police services keep their own information. As long as
they keep that information in the lawful manner, we're quite
supportive of that, and the local information, or relying on the
local information, can also be very dangerous. By creating the
provincial registry, that is the one that should be the most up
to date at all given times.
Mr Bryant:
I appreciate the spirit in which you make your comments, Mr
Mazzilli. I don't see the danger of insulating police services
boards with the comfort level that they are allowed to keep
information that they send off to the sex offender registry, as
we heard. It's not just the registry, but it's so-called
old-fashioned police techniques, with which you are familiar, and
they are going to want to use that information. I don't see this
as somehow restricting them, but I think we agree on the
principle. We just disagree on the particular mechanics of
getting there. That's all I have to say.
The
Vice-Chair: Any other comments?
Mr Kormos:
Recorded vote.
AYES
Bryant, Kormos.
NAYS
Beaubien, Chudleigh,
Elliott, Mazzilli.
The
Vice-Chair: The amendment has been defeated.
Shall section 4 carry?
Carried.
We'll proceed now to
section 5. I understand there are no amendments to section 5.
Shall section 5 carry?
Carried.
There is an amendment to
section 6.
1430
Mr Kormos:
I move that section 6 of the bill be amended by adding the
following subsection:
"Retention of information
by police force
"(4) The police force shall
retain, in a manner approved by the ministry, a copy of the
information submitted to the ministry under subsection (3)."
Once again, this is
self-explanatory, however much it is consistent with the
amendment to section 4 which was rejected by the government.
The
Vice-Chair: Any other comments on this amendment?
No?
Mr Kormos:
Carry.
The
Vice-Chair: All those in favour of the amendment, please
raise your hands.
Mr Kormos:
How come in other instances you asked, "Does this motion
carry?"
The
Vice-Chair: Because of the previous vote, I understand
there is some opposition to the amendment.
All those opposed to the
amendment, please raise your hands. The amendment has been
defeated.
Mr Kormos:
You're not friends with these people, are you, Chair? You're not
a member of their caucus, are you?
The
Vice-Chair: Shall section 6 carry? Carried.
We move now to section 7 of
the bill. I understand there is an amendment by the
government.
Mr
Mazzilli: I move that subsection 7(2) of the bill be
amended by striking out "at a bureau, police station or
detachment of the police force that provides police services in
the area where he or she resides" in the seventh, eighth, ninth
and tenth lines and substituting "at a designated bureau, police
station or detachment of the police force that provides police
services where he or she resides or at another place in the area
where the police force
provides police services designated by that police force."
The
Vice-Chair: Are there any comments? Shall the amendment
carry? Carried.
Shall section 7, as
amended, carry? Carried.
We now move to section 8 of
the bill. There are a few amendments.
Mr Kormos:
I would ask that the amendment identified as number 8 in the
package of amendments be withdrawn.
There's an amendment that's
labelled as number 9, and we'll be moving that.
The
Vice-Chair: So you'll proceed with amendment number 9,
and number 8 has been withdrawn.
Mr Kormos:
I will tell you that I purport to move this amendment in a
modestly amended form. I understand that that takes unanimous
consent. I think it's an important issue and I would hope there
would be some attention given to its amended form. So I'll read
it in in its amended form.
I move that section 8 of
the bill be amended by adding the following subsections:
"Same
"(1.1) This act applies to
every offender anywhere in Canada who was convicted of a sex
offence no more than 10 years before the day section 3 comes into
force, is not serving a sentence for a sex offence on the day
section 3 comes into force and has not received a pardon for that
sex offence.
"Same
"(1.2) A person described
in subsection (1.1) shall comply with subsection 3(1) no later
than a day to be named by proclamation of the Lieutenant
Governor."
I need unanimous consent
for that motion to go to the floor.
The
Vice-Chair: Does everyone understand the change? Is
there unanimous consent? All right. Go ahead.
Mr Kormos:
If I may speak to it, in being addressed by any number of people
here today, I was struck by the importance of this registry to
the police and therefore to the community, not as a surrogate for
treatment, not as a surrogate for vigilance on a daily basis by
our communities, by our families, by parents, by schools, by
volunteer organizations etc.
But it struck me clearly
that the day Bill 31 comes into effect, this new regime of sex
offender registration, sex offenders ranging from ones with the
lowest possible sentences and some without even custodial
sentences all the way through to the most serious and
highest-sentenced sex offenders will be forced to submit to the
registry. What we will have, though, in our communities is any
number of sex offenders who were convicted and whose sentences
were completed before the day Bill 31 comes into effect. We're
talking about multiple rapists. We're talking-again, I don't have
to list the types of people who will be excluded from this regime
because their convictions and sentences occurred and were
completed prior to Bill 31 coming into effect. That's why I
amended the motion as it was originally prepared, because I
received some comments about the fact that the motion without the
amendment-basically, we're talking about a 10-year time
frame.
Anybody who was convicted
and completed their sentence-if they haven't completed their
sentences they're caught by Bill 31 anyway, right? But the ones
who have completed their sentences-again, we're talking here
including in this class of people some very serious offenders.
Let's not try to pretend that they're not. These people aren't
going to be subject to a sex offender registry; they're not going
to be on the same database. I understand that the police have
other ways of documenting these sorts of offenders, but the
reason everybody is in agreement about a sex offender registry is
because of the precision of it and because it addresses this very
specific area of offences so that the police can use that as part
of their broader database.
What this amendment does,
Mr Mazzilli, is it includes those offenders who wouldn't
otherwise be subject to Bill 31, but it restricts the time frame
to 10 years. I appreciate that without that amendment it went
back ad infinitum. So you'd be talking about the fact that there
would be somebody out there with a 25-year-old sex offence who
hasn't repeated or hasn't been convicted again, and I realize
maybe it isn't reasonable to put them into the regime because
there haven't been any subsequent offences for, let's say, 25
years. But the reason we have the second paragraph here is
because it's not intended that this section come into effect on
the same day as Bill 31. Clearly it would provide that those
people who had outstanding criminal records that resulted from a
conviction within the last 10 years would have an opportunity to
apply for a pardon. If those people got pardons, well, what can I
say? They got pardons. But if they didn't get pardons, using that
time frame that's allowed them, then they'd be included in this
registry.
I can't help but think,
however bizarre this sounds-but, I mean, this whole committee
process, our having to address this, is an unpleasant and quite
frankly sometimes scarily bizarre process, this whole subject
matter. There are going to be some people out there, literal sex
offenders, some hard-core sex offenders, who are basically
saying: "I'm not on the registry. I don't have to report. I don't
have to advise the local police where I move to, where I live."
Any number of predators will be exempted.
This isn't the perfect
solution, but I suggest to you, Mr Mazzilli, please, that it
addresses some of the problem. I'm not faulting you and the
drafters of the legislation, but you and I both know there were
some things that were overlooked during the course of the
legislation drafting process. That's why you moved your
amendments today. Let's be fair. You and I both know they didn't
flow from the submissions that were made during the course of
today's brief period of hearings; they were, upon reflection,
oversights. I submit to you that it was an oversight that the
legislation didn't try to do something to encompass people
convicted and having served their sentences prior to the day Bill
31 becomes law.
1440
If you are serious about
this system and you want to make it work and you want the
opportunity-because, what's going to happen? I'm just
speculating: The police are confronted with an investigative
scenario. They access the sex offender registry. But then they
also have to say, "But not every sex offender, including some
very serious sex offenders, is on that registry, because they
didn't fall within the scope of Bill 31." How helpful is that to
the police?
Once again, we're trying to
give the police as complete a database as possible so they can
work rapidly. Yet if they still have two worlds, two communities
in which they have to investigate, the sex offender registry is
going to become less valuable than it would be if it were more
inclusive. I suggest to you that this makes it more inclusive,
that giving a time gap between Bill 31 and when this subsection
becomes effective permits people who might be eligible for
pardons to seek pardons, and that 10 years is a reasonable time
frame. What persuaded the 10 years was that 10 years is the
maximum amount of time on the sex offender registry for people
convicted of the lower tier of sex offences. I didn't pick 10
years arbitrarily. I thought it was reasonable in itself, and it
also is consistent with the lowest level for a sex offender
caught by Bill 31. It gives some benefit of the doubt to pre-Bill
31 offenders, but I think this is helpful to the police. It
broadens the scope of data that is available on the sex offender
registry in a bona fide or legitimate way. I'm talking about
people who have been genuinely convicted and people who haven't
received a pardon. I hope you will seriously consider this, Mr
Mazzilli.
Mr
Mazzilli: We will not be supporting this amendment for
many different reasons. As Mr Kormos has indicated, this
legislation certainly does not cover all aspects and, as Mr
Kormos has agreed in the past, the federal government should
establish a national sex of-fender registry that covers all
areas.
The one reason we are going
on a retroactive basis is that everybody convicted prior and
still serving their sentence will be required to register.
However, going back 10 years would not only be an enormous strain
on getting the registry going, but as Mr Kormos well knows, the
legality of punishing someone today for what they did 10 years
ago has not been highly successful and would put the entire bill
in jeopardy. In my conversation with the Stephenson family,
certainly that is not what they want at the end of the day.
There may be some of what
Mr Kormos would refer to as weaknesses. They're not weaknesses we
have created; they are weaknesses in the legal system that we are
dictated by. At the end of the day, we want a bill that is
effective and that will protect people from today forward.
Mr Mike Colle
(Eglinton-Lawrence): When Mr Kormos was speaking, I was
thinking of the celebrated case of Dulmage in Ottawa, who has
served his sentence and now been released.
Does this mean that
according to the way this bill is written right now, this Dulmage
character isn't in the registry?
Mr
Mazzilli: I refer that question to the lawyer for the
ministry.
Ms
Corbold: Is he still serving a sentence?
Mr Colle:
No, he has been released.
Ms Corbold: No probation,
no parole?
Mr Colle: No.
Ms Corbold: Then he
wouldn't be captured. The only people who are captured the way it
is now are those still serving a sentence, and that can be a
probationary period or on parole. But if the sentence is over
they wouldn't be caught.
Mr Colle: The concern I
have is if a character like this is not on the registry-if
someone should be on the registry, it's this individual.
I don't know if you saw the
documentary about it on TVOntario. It was just appalling that
this man, who served a short sentence, is basically free again,
is now living in the same area. I would ask the government
members to consider a case like this. There may be others like
this Dulmage character out there, and I don't know if it
jeopardizes the bill. But I certainly would want that type of
person on the list. Someone who has such a brutal history should
be on the list, and certainly the public should be protected in
that way. So I would ask members to consider that. Because if
this individual doesn't quali-fy, I wonder how many more there
are out there who wouldn't qualify.
I would be very afraid to
have him in my community and my community not knowing about it.
In this case the community knows about it because it's such a
celebrated case, but there could be others out there. I hope you
would consider that, in light of real-life cases like this
Dulmage case, which I wasn't aware of-I saw it on television; it
was in a small town in southeastern Ontario-and whether you can
include that or somehow look at that. These are the type of
people who might skip through, and there's no way they should not
be on the list. I would find it very frightening if he weren't. I
just thought I'd add that; it came to mind when you were
discussing it. It's something very real in my mind.
The Vice-Chair: Mr
Kormos.
Mr Kormos: Just to respond,
Mr Mazzilli, I listened carefully to your comments and I
appreciate that one of your-do we all know that the federal
government hasn't implemented a sex offender registry? Of course,
we know that. Enough said. Said once, said 30 times, it's not
going to change the reality of it.
I'm fortunate because I'm a
New Democrat and can criticize both the Conservatives and the
Liberals. You have to defend provincial government while
criticizing the Liberals, and I suppose the Liberals have to
criticize you while defending their counterparts. There are few
of us, but we are far more impartial because we can criticize
everybody.
Having said that, you talk
about retroactivity. Do I have concerns about retroactivity? Yes.
And you know that the
retroactivity concerns were raised by Alan Borovoy and the
Canadian Civil Liberties Association, in the letter that was
filed as part of the report, and I have high regard for their
opinion. None the less, the bill as it is contains retroactivity
in that it applies to convictions that were registered before
Bill 31. I'm prepared to support that, notwithstanding the caveat
issued to us from Alan Borovoy. If there is an issue around that,
it will be dealt with in due course.
You have talked about this
as punishment, and this isn't the case. The registry isn't part
of punishment, and you should be very careful about your language
in that regard. With all due respect to you, I wish you would
withdraw that, because that isn't what you meant. I'm sure that's
not what you meant to say. If it were punishment, then it would
contravene, among other things, the charter and common law, and
that is to say that punishment that is applied to you has to be
the punishment that existed at the time of conviction. So I'm
sure you didn't mean to say punishment and that you'll address
that in short order. I'm sure you didn't mean that.
This isn't punishment. This
is a system of developing a database. Bill 31 as it stands
applies to convictions that occurred prior to its becoming law,
and I'm prepared to vote for that. I'm prepared to support that,
and if there's a problem with it down the road it will be dealt
with. I raise that to counter, or frankly to contradict, your
proposition that my amendment would somehow infect Bill 31.
You know as well that the
class of persons you have created, who were convicted before Bill
31 and are still serving sentences, that element of retroactivity
was, with all due credit to legislative counsel, contained in a
separate section so it could be isolated from the rest of the
bill, if need be, wasn't it? So if there are problems with it,
and I hope there aren't, it doesn't mean the death of the bill.
It can just be severed from the rest of the bill.
Similarly, my amendment
here is in a section of the bill that can be severed, so that if
it were to fail as a result of judicial scrutiny, it could be
effectively ruled out without impact on the rest of Bill 31, just
as your section dealing with that class of convicted persons
still serving their sentences on the date of enactment of Bill 31
could. Please, reconsider.
It's 10 to 3. You guys are
going to make the decision because you have the majority; there's
no question about it. If you want a 10-, 15- or 20-minute recess,
I'm more than willing to consent. It's not going to take us much
longer; we haven't got much more to do. I think this is important
enough that you may want to consider some consultation. Would you
do that, please?
The Vice-Chair: Any other
comments?
Mr Beaubien: I have a
question for clarification. I don't have the legal experience
that Mr Kormos has, but tell me if I'm right-and then I'd like to
get a legal opinion on this from the ministry lawyer. If you are
convicted and your sentence has expired prior to the bill being
passed or being prescribed as law, you don't go on the registry,
correct?
Ms Corbold: Correct. If
your sentence is complete when the-
Mr Beaubien: But if your
sentence is not complete-it could be a day's difference. One
doesn't go on the registry because of the timing, but a person
who has one day to serve is on the registry.
Ms Corbold: Correct.
Mr Beaubien: From a legal
point of view, what is the difference about retroactivity? Where
is the difference?
Ms Corbold: You have to
start somewhere and, as I say, we were trying to capture people
who are serving a sentence when the bill comes into force. If
someone gets out the day before the bill comes into force, if
their sentence is over, they're not going to be caught. It would
be true of anything. The same with a 10-year period; you're going
to have people before it.
Mr Beaubien: But if we are
concerned about somebody challenging the legality of the bill,
it's certainly a point of contention for me. Technically for one
day, one person is on and one person is not. This is really
cloudy for me. If we are looking at the legality of this bill, I
can't see where the difference is. I'm not a lawyer. I don't know
how the court rules, and sometimes I wonder how they rule. But
tell me, as an ordinary, taxpaying citizen, why it is or is not
different from a legal point of view.
Ms Corbold: Maybe we should
take Mr Kormos up on his offer.
Mr Beaubien: I think it
might be a good point, maybe take a pause. I certainly would like
to have a brief pause, maybe 10 minutes, so we can discuss this.
I think it's a point of concern.
Mr Kormos: I consent to
that, of course, and I wish you would also talk about the
severability of my amendment, should it not be upholdable, and
the fact that it is very much the parallel of the current class
of people, to wit, convicted before but not finishing their
sentence before Bill 31 comes into play. It's too important.
Let's take some time so these folks can discuss it.
The Vice-Chair: Is there
agreement to have a 10-minute recess?
Mr Kormos: And I will
consent to any new amendment.
The Vice-Chair: All right.
We'll recess until 3:05.
The committee recessed
from 1453 to 1505.
The Vice-Chair: We'll
resume the committee. Are there any further comments with respect
to the amendment proposed by Mr Kormos?
Mr Mazzilli: Again, Mr
Chair, we will not be supporting the amendment based on the
previous arguments that were made in committee.
The Vice-Chair: Any further
comments?
Mr Kormos: Recorded
vote.
AYES
Kormos.
NAYS
Beaubien, Chudleigh,
Elliott, Mazzilli.
The Vice-Chair: The
amendment has been defeated.
Are there further
amendments to section 8?
Mr Mazzilli: I move that
subsection 8(2) of the bill be struck out and the following
substituted:
"Exception
"(2) Except as provided in
subsection (3), this act does not apply to a young person within
the meaning of the Young Offenders Act (Canada).
"Same
"(3) This act does apply to
a young person within the meaning of the Young Offenders Act
(Canada) who has been convicted of a sex offence or found not
criminally responsible of a sex offence on account of mental
disorder in ordinary court as the result of an order made under
section 16 of the Young Offenders Act (Canada)."
The Vice-Chair: Are there
any comments with respect to this amendment?
Mr Mazzilli: Again, Mr
Chair, I will refer it to the ministry lawyer. It's in relation
to young offenders being transferred to adult court, but for a
full explanation I'll refer the question.
Ms Corbold: The bill, as it
was previously worded, did not apply to young offenders or to
young persons as defined within the meaning of the Young
Offenders Act. This provision would have the act apply to young
persons who have been transferred to ordinary court pursuant to
section 16 of the Young Offenders Act. So it would apply to young
persons who were convicted in ordinary court.
Mr Kormos: If I may, Mr
Mazzilli, you are no doubt aware of the amendment I filed,
identified as number 11 in your package of amendments, which had
very simply as its goal striking out subsection 8(2), that is to
say, it would exempt young offenders from the exemption, or would
include young offenders.
Once again I hear what
you're saying. I'm not sure there's been an adequate
investigation of whether this registration regime would in itself
violate the so-called privacy provisions of the Young Offenders
Act. I don't think there's much disagreement among us that it's
somewhat perverse for a 16- or 17-year-old rapist to enjoy the
privacy accorded a young offender. I find that a pretty bizarre
sort of proposition.
Let me put to you any
number of scenarios. You talk about the transfer to adult court.
There are other people with a whole lot more experience than I
have who would have access to statistics, but I am involved in a
fatality in my constituency right now where we're advocating on
behalf of the family of the dead victim. The alleged perpetrator,
the alleged driver of the vehicle that allegedly resulted in the
death of my constituent, who was a pedestrian, is a young
offender. At this point in time the crown is reluctant to pursue
an application to adult court for the reason that this would give
defence counsel two kicks at the can. In other words, they would
be able to cross-examine the witnesses once in the application
hearing and then a second time at the trial. The crown at this
point is somewhat concerned about whether or not that will impair
the crown's capacity to get a conviction in young offender
court.
Notwithstanding our efforts
with the crown on behalf of the victim's family-the alleged
offender here is a phase 2. It's a senior level young offender
who was driving the car that killed my constituent. We've been
advocating for that case to be transferred to adult court, where
we feel that a more appropriate disposition could be made, and
I'm doing that enthusiastically.
I'm reciting this to you
because this is just one illustration of why even rapists, as
young offenders, even the second levels, the phase 2s, the senior
young offenders, the 16- and 17-year-olds, won't find themselves
the subject of a section 16 application.
I don't criticize what
you're doing with subsection (3) here, but I think you're making
a mistake. This isn't a young offender-adult issue. We're
concerned about dangerous sexual predators, who run the whole
gamut here.
We referred very briefly
and in an oblique way, with some of the submissions this morning,
to some of the recent concerns about the capacity we have to
treat or respond to young sexual offenders. You're aware of the
controversy around that, aren't you? Our young offender system
hasn't been very capable, in the context of this discussion here
today, of dealing with sexual offenders in the young offender
category-and we know they're there. I think you agree with me-I
have a hard time distinguishing between a 17-year-old rapist and
a 19-year-old rapist. One is as dangerous to the community and to
women as the other.
I know what you're trying
to do, but I'm telling you that there are any number of
considerations and that's why I am not supportive of your bid to
keep young offenders outside of the regime of registration. I'll
put it to you this way: This is a specific section. If this
section should offend the Young Offenders Act, then the section
can be severed by an appellate-level court. Right? It won't be a
matter of striking down Bill 31.
For Pete's sake, Mr
Mazzilli, let's turn the fuel on here. If you have the concerns
that I think you have, and I think all of us have, about the
ongoing confusion about young offenders-and you know I'm not
talking about the kid stealing the candy bar; I'm talking about
the serious young offender, the one who poses a real danger to
the community-let's raise the price of poker here. Let's exempt
young offenders from the exemption. Let's exclude this reference
to young offenders.
If we have contravened the
Young Offenders Act-as in the past motion and our modest debate
around that, you want to go a little bit into the den but you
don't want to go all the way. What about young offenders who are
tried after they have reached the age of majority-right,
Chair?-people who commit a crime when they are a young offender below the age
of 18 but who aren't arrested until they reach the age of
majority? It's not uncommon. That happens. You know it happens.
This is what people are ticked off about. This is rotting
people's socks out there. They're angry about it and they're
frightened about it. There you've got a young offender who is an
18-, 19-, 20-, 21-year old being tried in young offender court,
accorded the status of a young offender. Again, we're not talking
about stealing candy bars from K mart. We're talking about
serious offences here.
May I ask legislative
counsel, and I don't want to put you on the spot here, in view of
the fact that you removed from consideration of exemption those
young offenders tried in adult court, who then are no longer
entitled to the privacy accorded a young offender-am I correct
that that is your distinction for the purpose of this amendment
in terms of how you understand it?
Ms
Corbold: I think not so much even the privacy issues but
the records provisions. Again, I don't have the exact citations,
but as you're aware, when a young offender has served their
disposition, there are provisions in the Young Offenders Act
which say that after a three- or five-year period, depending on
whether it was summary or indictable, they are deemed not to have
committed the offence. I think that's where it may be more
problematic to lump that category of young offender into this
obligation, because they would now be in a position where they
were deemed not to have committed the offence but we're still
obligating them to register. So just off the top, that seems more
problematic to me than the privacy issue that you were focusing
on.
Mr Kormos:
Fair enough.
Let's look at what we're
also doing. We're also including those people who are not guilty
by virtue of their mental state, because this isn't a matter of
punishment. It's a matter of wanting to identify-we've included
that. We've already voted on that, haven't we? We've included
people who have been found not guilty, not criminally
responsible, not convicted, people who are deemed innocent. They
are. They're not guilty, because their mental state was such that
they didn't comprehend in any way, shape or form the act that
they were performing. We still want to include them because we
know this is what the police need if they're going to have this
broad-based database on who constitutes a danger to the
community.
We've got some very good
legal counsel in the Ministry of the Attorney General. I don't
pretend to be an expert in any of these areas of law by any
stretch of the imagination, Mr Mazzilli, but I do know that we
should be here giving effect to the best interests of our
community. If that means taking on the Young Offenders Act and
the feds, I say God bless. If I'm wrong in that regard I
apologize. But once again, I have a hard time distinguishing
between a 17-year-old who has viciously sexually assaulted
somebody and a 19-year-old in terms of this registry and the
importance that it has.
One of the problems with
the Young Offenders Act, especially in Ontario, as you know, is
that we're the only province left that has the bifurcated
system-did you know this, Chair?-where in phase 1 young offenders
are administered by the Ministry of Community and Social Services
and in phase 2 the 16- and 17-year-olds are administered by the
Ministry of Correctional Services. We're the only province left
that does that. We can't even track these people within the young
offenders system because the one ministry doesn't communicate
with the other.
Would it then be repugnant
to the intent of this legislation, having heard what you said
about the young offender interpretation of record and conviction?
The bill wouldn't have to be amended in any other way, shape or
form, because the minute that person fulfilled the time period,
from the date of their young offender conviction to when they
were effectively cleared of a record, they would have a record.
After that time they could perhaps be exempt, just de facto
exempt, from Bill 31, but they would be de factor subject to Bill
31 for at least as long as their conviction stood.
Are we talking about the
most common situation? Of course not. I don't know whether I
should have been happy or unhappy to hear about 1,560 sex
offences a year out of an 11-million population. It should be
less, but maybe we should be thankful it's not more. But should
we be considering including young offenders on the understanding
that when their convictions expire, so to speak, they will no
longer be subject to the regime of Bill 31? I have concerns about
your amendment, sir.
1520
Mr
Mazzilli: Those concerns certainly have been raised by
Mr Kormos. His amendments have been adopted in part and with some
difficulties on the other part as far as interpretation. Might I
add that the federal government, as we speak I believe, is
reviewing the Young Offenders Act. We, as a government, continue
to push for changes to the Young Offenders Act and if those
changes will allow us to add young offenders in the regular
meaning into our system we would certainly adopt that.
Mr Kormos:
Mr Mazzilli, why are we doing this? Why are we even mentioning
young offenders? Why are we even mentioning them? Why are they
referred to in the bill at all? If you leave them out they either
are or aren't required to report-right?-and there's no risk to
Bill 31? You're not saying young offenders must report; you're
saying offenders who have been convicted of any one of this class
of sex offences, as defined in the act, have to report.
Far be it from me to decide
whether YOs are subject to that. But if you don't mention young
offenders at all you leave the door open. If you mention young
offenders in any way, shape or form, especially if you say
they're exempted-because by saying that they're exempted you're
somehow implying that otherwise they would be required. Why are
you mentioning them at all? Why isn't it just blank in that
regard? Why is there any reference to YOs at all when you could
be leaving the slate blank and an appropriate decision will be made whether
they have to or not?
If they don't have to, they
don't have to, according to the Young Offenders Act. Nobody who
is a young offender, who wouldn't have to, is going to be
convicted of the mere provincial offence of failing to register.
But if they do have to, they do, and by you including the
exemption for young offenders they'd never have to.
This is so unfortunate,
because you're closing the barn door after the horse has bolted.
I hope I got that one right. But that's what you're doing here.
You're precluding the possibility of including young offenders
within this regime by exempting them. Why don't you just remain
silent on the issue, delete subsection 8(2), remain silent on the
issue of young offender, because they either do or they don't.
But you have made it clear that they don't have to by virtue of
your volition. Do you know what I'm saying? It's your decision by
virtue of including it in the act that young offenders are
exempt. Why don't you just leave it silent with respect to
YOs?
The
Vice-Chair: Thank you, Mr Kormos. Any further
comments?
Mr Bryant:
Let me just add that in the past the government has taken the
position that if lawyers want to come out and try and take apart
their bills, let them take their best shot. If the concern is
truly a constitutional one, then I don't know why the government
wouldn't just stick with that position and say, "Look, if in fact
it's struck down, it's struck down." You're certainly not going
to get anybody on this side of the House, as it were, saying, if
you make that commitment, "What did you do that for?" We're
advocating it.
I don't know why the
government wouldn't at the very least leave the door open so that
we in fact could include youth in this when that's really what we
all want. Otherwise, my points have already been raised.
The
Vice-Chair: Mr Mazzilli has moved an amendment to
subsection 8(2).
Mr Kormos:
A recorded vote, please.
The
Vice-Chair: A recorded vote.
AYES
Beaubien, Chudleigh,
Elliott, Mazzilli.
NAYS
Bryant, Kormos.
The
Vice-Chair: The motion carries.
There is another amendment
to subsection 8(2).
Mr Kormos:
I move that subsection 8(2) of the bill be struck out.
Very briefly, you heard my
comments with respect to the government amendment. I don't know
why this bill is mentioning young offenders at all. They're
either required to or they're not. But why are we saying that
they don't have to, even if they're required to? Do you see what
we're doing? We're prejudging this. We're saying, "Even if young
offenders otherwise would have to comply with the registration,
we're exempting them."
That's why I voted against
your motion, sir, and that's why I intend to vote for mine,
because it strikes out subsection 8(2). It makes no mention of
young offenders. It certainly doesn't exempt them from the
requirements. They may not be required to by virtue of other
legislation, but I won't be voting for legislation that exempts
them. Do you hear what I'm saying? If some other level of
government is going to do it by virtue of their legislation, fine
and God bless; I'm not going to do it. I'm going to support my
motion, of course. On a recorded vote, please.
Mr
Mazzilli: I'm afraid we will not be supporting that. We
clearly hear from Ontarians, police services and lawyers, in
fact, that they want clear legislation that people understand,
not some fuzzy legislation that somehow no one knows how to
implement whereby you're specifically leaving something out and
police services, the public and offenders are left to wonder
whether they have to register or not. I would call for a recorded
vote.
Mr Kormos:
I already did.
The
Vice-Chair: Mr Kormos moved that subsection 8(2) of the
bill be struck out.
AYES
Bryant, Kormos.
NAYS
Beaubien, Chudleigh,
Elliott, Mazzilli.
The
Vice-Chair: The motion is lost.
Shall section 8, as
amended, carry? Carried.
We move now to section 9 of
the bill. I understand there is an amendment by the
government.
Mr
Mazzilli: I move that subsection 9(1) of the bill be
amended by striking out "at a bureau, police station or
detachment of the police force that provides police servi-ces in
the area where he or she resides" in the third, fourth and fifth
lines and substituting "at a designated bureau, police station or
detachment of the police force that provides police services
where he or she resides or at another place in the area where the
police force provides police services designated by that police
force."
The
Vice-Chair: Any comments with respect to this amendment?
Do you want to elaborate?
Mr Kormos:
We understand the objective. It's consistent with other
amendments in that same regard.
The
Vice-Chair: Shall the motion carry? Carried. There is
another amendment, Mr Kormos.
Mr Kormos:
You'll note that as I read this I'm omitting the respective
subsections because those subsections were created by earlier
amendments that I moved that failed, but it doesn't change the
impact or the function of this particular subsection by way of
amendment.
I move that section 9 of
the bill be amended by adding the following subsection:
"(4) The police force shall also delete every
reference to and record of the offender from the copy of
information submitted to the ministry that has been retained by
the police force under section 4 or section 6," instead of 4(2)
or 6(4), because 4(2) and 6(4) don't exist as they were dependent
upon earlier amendments.
The rationale for this is
that section 9 provides for an offender who submits a pardon to
have that pardon sent on to the central registry so the registry
deletes that person from their database as a registered sex
offender. This requires the police station that similarly has
that record in the first instance, or second or third, to delete
it from their records, because if the person has received a
pardon and they're no longer a convicted person for the purpose
of the registry, it's my submission that they should no longer be
a convicted person for the purpose of the police station that
transmitted that information on to the central registry.
The
Vice-Chair: Do we have unanimous consent to the
technical change to the amendment?
Mr
Chudleigh: Since the other amendments were defeated,
doesn't that become redundant?
Mr Kormos:
No, only the subsections that I referred to become redundant. If
you take a look at it, you'll see it's subsection 4 of section
9.
The
Vice-Chair: We have consent. Proceed, Mr Kormos.
Mr Kormos:
Let's talk about pardons for a moment, Mr Mazzilli, please.
Pardons are, in many respects, an artificiality. What they do is
permit a convicted person to say, "I have never been convicted of
a criminal offence." A pardon doesn't change the newspaper
coverage of the event. A pardon doesn't change the court records
of the event. A pardon requires the sources of criminal record
information to say that there's no criminal record, but a pardon
could be set aside under any number of circumstances, as I am
advised, depending upon those particular circumstances.
1530
Here the impact of a pardon
is to remove the offender from the sex offender registry. I don't
know what the stats are with respect to the frequency of pardons
for sex offences. Although pardons occur routinely for old,
long-standing stuff that's left over, I'd like to think that
pardons are few and far between for serious, violent crimes,
because obviously in the reference to the record you want to
maintain it for any number of reasons.
This goes back to the whole
thing about conviction-I say this to the ministry counsel-or no
conviction. Once you receive a pardon, of course you were still
convicted, but the artificiality of "not convicted" is created.
It's sort of like the young offender. Everybody knows that he or
she did what they said they had done or else they wouldn't have
been found guilty, but all of a sudden the record disappears.
I submit that giving effect
to this will require not only the central registry to delete
their reference to that person as an offender, but should a
pardon be granted, it will require the police force that acquired
that information to similarly delete it from their records,
because if you can have a pardon at one level, you could have a
pardon at all levels.
Mr
Mazzilli: We will not be supporting that motion. It is
our position that what police services retain, as long as they
retain it in a lawful manner, is not the intent of this
legislation. This legislation, if we can refocus, is on a sex
offender registry. What Mr Kormos is getting into is pardons and
federal issues. He understands that federal legislation
supersedes and may dictate what must be done in the case of a
pardon. So we certainly do not need to duplicate that in
Christopher's Law.
Mr Bryant:
I supported the amendment to subsection 4(2) because I wanted to
give the police discretion as to how they deal with the
information they have. I understand that we're dealing with an
anomaly, but in the interests of Liberal consistency I suppose I
am compelled to stand aside from my colleague Mr Kormos on this
point, because we had not heard from the police as to how useful
that record may in fact be to them. In the absence of hearing
anything to the contrary, I really don't think it's necessary to
tie their hands with respect to this information in the rare
instance of a pardon.
Mr Kormos:
Mr Mazzilli, I am very focused on what we're doing here today. I
take in good humour your suggestion that perhaps I've lost focus.
My friend, Mr Bryant, I understand Liberal consistency. I've been
here for 13 years now.
Recorded vote, please.
The
Vice-Chair: Mr Kormos has moved an amendment to
subsection 9(4).
All those in favour?
AYES
Kormos.
NAYS
Beaubien, Bryant,
Chudleigh, Elliott, Mazzilli.
The
Vice-Chair: The motion has been lost.
Shall section 9, as
amended, carry? Carried.
We'll now move to section
10 of the bill. There is an amendment by the NDP caucus.
Mr Kormos:
It has been withdrawn because this indeed has no validity as a
result of the failure of the government to support my previous
amendments. That's number 14 in your package.
The
Vice-Chair: That amendment has been withdrawn.
Amendment 15.
Mr
Mazzilli: I move that subsection 10(2) of the bill be
amended by striking out "or person authorized by" in the first
and second lines.
The
Vice-Chair: Any comments about that, Mr Mazzilli?
Mr Mazzilli: If I can just
refer the explanation to the ministry lawyer, Mr Chair, this has
to do with people authorized to manage the sex offender
registry.
Ms
Corbold: The amendment here is just to ensure that it's
only police forces and employees of police forces that would have
access to the sex offender registry.
The
Vice-Chair: Any further comments about this
amendment?
Shall this amendment carry?
Carried.
Amendment 16.
Mr
Mazzilli: I move that subsection 10(3) of the bill be
struck out and the following substituted:
"Same
"(3) A police force, an
employee of a police force and an employee of or person
authorized by the ministry for the purposes of this section may
disclose information contained in the sex offender registry to
another police force in or outside Canada for the purposes of
this section or for crime prevention or law enforcement purposes
and the other police force may collect, retain and use the
information for crime prevention or law enforcement
purposes."
The
Vice-Chair: Mr Mazzilli has moved an amendment to
subsection 10(3). Any comments?
Mr Kormos:
I am trying to follow the original bill compared to this. One of
the things that hasn't been talked about here, Mr Mazzilli, is
the privatization of services. I appreciate that earlier the last
amendment was deleting "person authorized by" in the context of a
police force. Here, I want to make it clear, you are retaining
"person authorized by" with respect to the ministry.
Chair, if I could put that
question through you to Mr Mazzilli, I understand and I didn't
object to deleting "person authorized by" a police force, because
you clearly wanted to avoid third-party, perhaps private sector.
I want to understand, I want to hear from you, that here you're
maintaining "person authorized by" the ministry. Is that
correct?
Mr
Mazzilli: That's correct. There was some concern, in its
original form, that it was an authorized person of a police force
or a police service, and this took us back to either a police
officer or an employee of the police force. That is the
amendment, but it retained the ministry component to it.
Mr Kormos:
What I find strange about this, Chair, is that the government has
narrowed down the people who can access it in terms of the police
force, but doesn't narrow down who can access it, in terms of
similar language, in terms of the ministry. It goes beyond an
employee of the ministry to also a person authorized by the
ministry.
I simply put this on the
record now. This causes me some concern because of the phenomenon
of privatization and because the government is being inconsistent
in this instance by virtue of removing "person authorized by" a
police force and retaining "person authorized by" when it comes
to the ministry. This is inconsistent, and I suspect it should be
a matter of some concern. You know my phobia. I have many of
them, Mr Mazzilli. In this instance, it's to the matter of
privatization and private sector participation. My goodness, they
could cause some real mischief in the context of this sex
offender registry, couldn't they? Mischievous fingers could wreak
some real havoc here.
1540
I admonish the government,
please, you're going to be able to pass this motion, this
amendment, because you've got four people and there's only one of
Mr Bryant and only one of me. You're going to defeat us every
time. But I admonish you, be very, very careful about private
sector involvement in this, as has been demonstrated in so many
previous experiences by this government.
The
Vice-Chair: Any other comments?
Shall this motion carry?
Carried.
Mr Kormos:
Motion 17, withdrawn please.
The
Vice-Chair: Motion 17 is withdrawn. Amendment 18?
Mr Kormos:
Amendment 18, withdrawn please.
The
Vice-Chair: Amendment 18 is withdrawn.
Shall section 10, as
amended, carry? Carried.
We now have sections 11, 12
and 13 that have no amendments.
Mr Kormos:
Section 11, please.
The
Vice-Chair: Shall we proceed with them individually?
Mr Kormos:
Please.
The
Vice-Chair: All right. Any comments on section 11?
Shall section 11 carry?
Carried.
Any comments on section
12?
Mr Kormos:
This is-what do they call it?-the tort indemnification section. I
think that's what they call it, don't they? I'm a fan of tort
because I think tort holds people accountable. I understand-and
I'm sure ministry counsel will tell me-that this is the same tort
indemnification section that's been used around here for some
good chunk of time now. You talk about this in the context of
subsection (2), don't you, Ministry Counsel? I understand
subsection (2) retains tort for malicious wrongdoing;
old-fashioned, all out, break-their-ankles, knee-cap-them
tort.
We're dealing here with
some very sensitive stuff. For the life of me, I hope no innocent
person is ever falsely identified on this sex offender registry
or on any similar sort of thing, ever. I sincerely hope that.
I've got to tell you that I've had some experience over the
course of my career and my work in the constituency office with
the family and children's services child abuse registry. I've had
some experience with these kinds of registries. It's not as
sophisticated as the registry proposed here, and certainly not as
well regulated, because it's a pretty haphazard thing sometimes.
I've been witness to some tragic consequences in the context of
the family and children's services child abuse registry about
mis-registered persons.
We all appear in support of
the concept of the sex offender registry and its value as a tool
to police; one tool and one small piece of a much larger puzzle
but nonetheless
something that can prove valuable and something that is the
result of the coroner's inquest jury recommendations.
The utmost care has to be
taken. I know you'll refer me to sections of the legislation that
talk about the standards that are delegated to the Lieutenant
Governor in Council by virtue of regulation, or to ministry
directive, but I'm not a fan of this tort indemnification
section. If the government hurts somebody by way of wrongdoing,
and in this context it would probably be the mis-identification
of a person on the sex offender registry-a couple of contexts:
(1) putting an innocent person on the registry or (2) an omission
of another sort. Was it the Jane Doe case here in Toronto? Is
that the reference? You know what we're contemplating here: The
failure, for instance, to properly register a sex offender,
wherein that failure to register could be linked to serious harm
against some victim.
I want to put it very
clearly on the record that I oppose these sorts of tort
indemnifications. You and I don't have them in our personal
lives, and we shouldn't. If we hurt somebody, we should pay for
it. We should compensate them. I believe that. I similarly
believe that governments, if they hurt somebody as a result of
negligence, should be accountable too. I don't care which
government it is. I don't care who's in power. So I want to make
it clear that I'm opposed to this tort indemnification.
The
Vice-Chair: Any further comments?
Mr Bryant:
I have a question, if I could refer it to the ministry lawyer.
These provisions are relatively boilerplate for this kind of act,
is that right?
Ms
Corbold: Yes. Legislative counsel might be able to help
me out, but I think these are fairly standard provisions.
Mr Bryant:
My understanding is that, notwithstanding this provision, courts
will often disregard them.
Ms
Corbold: Right.
Mr Bryant:
In fact the crown can be held accountable. The target of this,
among other things, presumably is to have the ability to dismiss
frivolous lawsuits. We all get letters and actions in our
constituency offices in which the Queen, the Prime Minister, the
Premier and various others are named, and in part that's the
purpose of immunizing the crown in these circumstances. Is that
right?
Ms
Corbold: It is, and why they leave in the malicious
stuff.
Mr Kormos:
You've engaged me now. It goes back, doesn't it, to Mitch
Hepburn? Remember the anecdote about Mitch Hepburn, the Premier,
where a hitchhiker was injured as a result of being a passenger
in his vehicle and hence developed-I hope I've got this anecdote
right-the standard of gross negligence-am I right, Mr DeFaria, on
this?-as compared to mere negligence. Rumour has it that the
Premier of the day was covering his own pocketbook so he raised
the bar and created this new standard of gross negligence as
compared to the traditional standard of mere negligence. That's
civil law. Mr DeFaria is an expert on that, along with a whole
lot of other areas of law, so I appreciate his comments.
With respect, this does not
deal with frivolous claims. It says that all that has to be
established is good faith. That's a pretty low standard for a
defence to negligence. It's the old "Hear no evil, see no evil,
speak no evil."
This is not the time and
place. I've spoken to this section on numerous other occasions
with numerous other bills, trust me, so I'm not going to dwell on
this in this committee. But with respect, Madam Counsel-and I
know we'll have contrary views on this-this isn't just
boilerplate to prevent frivolous claims. What it does is create a
novel defence to a tort claim of mere good faith. It wouldn't
work if I ran over you in my car. I couldn't say, "Good faith."
It wouldn't work if you fell down the front steps of my old house
down in Welland. I couldn't say, "Oh, I was acting in good
faith." It shouldn't work for the government either. I believe
that.
The
Vice-Chair: Any other comments?
Shall section 12 carry?
Mr Kormos:
Don't you say, "All in favour?" You did that when I had my
motions. Just go, "All in favour?"
The
Vice-Chair: All right. All in favour of section 12?
Opposed? Carried.
Shall section 13 carry?
Carried.
We are now on section 14.
There is an amendment from the government.
Mr
Mazzilli: I move that clause 14(c) of the bill be
amended by adding "or in an area in Ontario" at the end.
1550
The
Vice-Chair: Do you want to make any comments about the
amendment?
Mr
Mazzilli: Perhaps I could refer that to the ministry
lawyer for explanation.
Ms
Corbold: The way it was originally drafted, it was to
assist us in deeming who was resident in Ontario versus another
province. The addition will allow some guidance, if necessary,
with respect to whether an offender lives, say, in the
jurisdiction of the Toronto Police Service versus the Durham
Police Service. So it's just giving us a bit more ability to
provide clarification if necessary.
The
Vice-Chair: Any other comments about this amendment?
Mr Kormos:
I understand this section as well. It's sort of the wrap-up of
all the loose ends and delegating everything that isn't included
in the bill to the Lieutenant Governor in Council by way of
regulation. I want to say again, very briefly, not a very good
way to do business; in particular, your amendment, for instance,
determining what "residency" constitutes, as compared to using
traditional or let's say common-law definitions of residence, as
compared to using residency as I suppose the Income Tax Act uses
the definition of residency and so on.
All I'm telling you, and
this is free advice and I suppose it's only worth as much as
you're paying for it, Mr Mazzilli, is that when you leave things
loose and open like this, you want to invite litigation, you're
going to get it. Legislative regulation is bad on its best day,
but dealing with some very fundamental things like that and
making them only a
part of the regulatory process-because we all know regulations
don't come to the Legislature. They come to a leg-and-regs
committee which is basically punishment for people from the
respective caucuses; that's why you're on the leg-and-regs
committee. I'm surprised I'm not on it on behalf of my caucus.
The reason I'm not is because Ms Lankin is on it; she's the
Chair. But again, it's not a good way to do business.
The residency stuff
especially; you know darned well that's going to be one of the
defences raised in a charge laid under this bill: "I wasn't a
resident." And your definition of residency was non-published,
other than in the Gazette, because it isn't part of the statute,
right? I wish you'd included residency as part of the statute
even if you incorporated the definition of residency from some
other long-held reference like the Income Tax Act, speaking of
the federal budget. If you had incorporated it, that way it would
be sort of common knowledge, but again you've got the
majority.
The
Vice-Chair: Any other comments?
Shall the motion carry?
Carried.
Shall section 14, as
amended, carry? Carried.
Section 15 has no
amendments.
Shall section 15 carry?
Carried.
Shall section 16, the short
title-Mr Kormos?
Mr Kormos:
Speaking to section 16, I want to thank you, Chair, for your
supervision of this meeting today. Let me also thank the people
who made submissions.
I most, and I don't think
anybody's not ad idem with me in this regard, want to thank the
Stephensons. They've stuck with this issue for over a decade now,
with a great deal of courage and tenacity. You see, courage alone
won't do it unless you have the tenacity as well-where I come
from we call it just plain guts-to move ahead.
I sincerely hope that this
bill, with its regime of registration, receives appropriate
resources to ensure that it operates as it was intended to both
by the coroner's jury-and I told you I read that inquest report
so many times now because there are so many things in there we
should be reading and addressing in our minds and in our
legislative efforts. So I hope it fulfills the intention of that
coroner's jury inquest.
To do that, it has to be
adequately resourced. Please, we heard only peripheral commentary
today from some of the policing community about the need for,
admittedly, federal resources for CPIC. And it would be so easy
again-because I can criticize both the province and the feds-to
whipsaw this and blame other levels of government.
But it's hard to point the
finger and lay blame, for this province to do that when it itself
may not have been meeting all of its financial obligations. Is
this exercise going to be cheap once again? No, we know that. Is
it going to be effective? We certainly hope so but it can only be
as effective as the success of the exercise in terms of
developing the registry and in making sure that police have
recourse to it, have access to it in a speedy and, more
importantly, accurate manner.
I don't look forward to
having to read ever about the registry being utilized, because
I'd like to hope that there's never a circumstance, a crisis
wherein it has to be resourced or accessed. But I know that's
naive on my part, and I'm many things but rarely naive. Could I
wish away sexual assault on kids and adults? If only I could, if
only any of us could.
But that brings as well the
whole area of discussion, very briefly, of the need to not just
rely upon Christopher's Law but on a broader-based program. It
includes, and yes, I'll tout my own bill again, the bill that the
government allowed to remain alive over the break regarding
access by volunteer agencies to criminal records for prospective
volunteers, and a dozen and more other things that again are
right there in the coroner's jury inquest report.
They cost money. Like I
said earlier today and like I've said before, as a taxpayer I am
prepared to invest that kind of money in protecting our children,
our sisters, our wives, our mothers, any number of people in our
community from the very vicious sort of violent assaults that
sexual predators of all sorts impose on them.
I am going to be supporting
the bill and its reference back to the Legislature. We will be
voting on it in third reading, I assume promptly, when we get
back to the House. I expect that it'll be some time before
proclamation because it'll take time for the appropriate
agency-we understand the OPP-to set up the central registry.
We'll be monitoring that closely.
Trust me, Mr Mazzilli, it's
going to be one of our constituency offices that gets the call
the first time there is a problem or an error made in
misreporting or underreporting or overreporting-you know what I'm
talking about-in making some sort of follow-up. You and I have
both seen these kinds of efforts. We've seen them succeed and
we've also seen them fail. You're not with the Ministry of the
Attorney General, but if you were I'd remind you of the family
support plan office. I'm serious. In the parallels, that's a much
bigger operation, I hope, than this is, but again, those sorts of
failures when you're dealing with something like this-is your
government going to take credit for this? By all means, please
do. I have no qualms whatsoever in saying the government did a
good thing with Bill 31.
But let's also be careful
not to be overly partisan about this. This exercise around Bill
31 has been a convenient one to throw flack at the failure of one
level of government to do something, at the failure perhaps of
previous governments to do something. It's been an opportunity
for some of the parties to express very partisan interests about
adequacy of funding and jurisdictional roles in terms of the
constitutional function of the federal government versus the
provincial government.
I just hope this will not
be the only element of the Christopher Stephenson coroner's
inquest jury recommendations that you and your government-you've
got three and a half more years, give or take, to do it. Any
number of things can be done. You can count on our support if the
right things are being done. I'm confident that you can count on the community support.
But I would urge you to please focus on some of those things.
Let's get them moving along.
Once again, I want to thank
the people who participated in this modest hearing, and
especially thank the Stephensons. I appreciate them being here
today.
The
Vice-Chair: Any further comments?
Mr Bryant:
Also speaking to section 16, I would echo the thanks to those who
came and made submissions before this committee. I would also
echo the comment with respect to the non-partisan support for
this bill, or tripartisan support, I suppose. I hope that spirit
of tripartisan support continues.
The first bill after Bill
31, which was introduced the same day as Bill 31, was Bill 32, a
private member's bill introduced by Rick Bartolucci. It was An
Act to amend the Highway Traffic Act to require a driver's
licence to be suspended if a motor vehicle is used when
purchasing sexual services from a child. Another prong in the
ongoing attack against sexual offences.
I think we all need to
rededicate ourselves here today, as I'm sure we have, to
fulfilling that ongoing attack against sexual offences. All the
amendments that I supported or opposed today were in the spirit
of doing just that. This is a good bill. This is a bill that I
support and the official opposition supports.
Lastly, I can't pretend for
a moment to imagine what is going on in the minds of the
Stephensons right now. I can only say that I'm sure it's a
bittersweet moment, and it's a moment in which I, for one, have
rededicated myself to this cause and appreciate the courage and
tenacity which you have demonstrated for all of us here. Thank
you all for being here.
Mr
Mazzilli: I'd like to thank Mr and Mrs Stephenson for
being here and for waiting 10 years for different governments to
deal with this tragic situation. The Stephenson family certainly
knows that all three parties in the House supported this bill and
that there was going to be debate on different issues, but all
three parties supported the legislation in full.
However, we're still going
to continue pushing the federal government to establish a
national sex registry. We believe it's the proper thing to do and
we will continue working in that regard.
The
Vice-Chair: Shall section 16, the short title, carry?
Carried.
Shall the preamble carry?
Carried.
Shall the long title of the
bill carry? Carried.
Shall Bill 31, as amended,
carry? Carried.
Shall I report the bill, as
amended, to the House? Carried.
I thank the members of the
public who made presentations and the Stephenson family for your
attendance here. Thank you very much.
