Official Hansard
Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak to Bill C-240, the offender rehabilitation act. I want to begin by recognizing the underlying objectives of this bill: to strengthen rehabilitation, reinforce accountability and ultimately improve public safety in Canada. These are goals I believe we all share. Ensuring that our justice system not only responds to crime, but also reduces the likelihood of reoffending is essential to safer communities. This bill would amend three key statutes: the Criminal Code, the Corrections and Conditional Release Act, and the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act, with a view to more explicitly integrating rehabilitation into sentencing, tying progress and rehabilitation to parole decisions, and addressing serious drug trafficking, including fentanyl. First, Bill C-240 would give courts the authority to require specific rehabilitative measures as part of an offender's sentence. In addition to imposing the term of imprisonment, Bill C-240 would give courts the ability to require an offender to participate in educational programs, job training or, where appropriate, with the offender's consent, treatment programs. The intent here is clear: to ensure that sentencing not only reflects accountability, but also establishes a pathway to address the underlying factors that contributed to the offence. It appears that this change is intended to ensure that when individuals are taken into custody, the criminal justice and correctional system would work together to create a clear path for how the underlying factors that contributed to their offence would be addressed, including substance use, lack of skills or other challenges. There is merit in considering this approach. Recognizing and addressing the challenges that contribute to criminality is an important part of breaking cycles of offending. It should also be noted that, at least at the federal level, there are already tools and processes in place to support offender rehabilitation and treatment, including the use of empirically based assessment tools to identify programming needs. At the same time, the impacts of these provisions, including how such orders would be implemented and the consequences of not complying, are important questions that would benefit from careful study at committee. Second, the bill intends to ensure that these court-ordered measures would be incorporated into an offender's correctional plan. By extension, an offender is held accountable for their progress on these measures and it would become a consideration in conditional release decisions. In other words, if an offender makes reasonable efforts to complete the ordered training, education or treatment, that progress would form part of their assessment, including for key decisions such as for parole. If they do not, that too would be taken into consideration. It will be important to examine how these proposed amendments would function in practice. Key considerations include the availability of programs, including in the jurisdiction or community where the sentence is to be served; how assessed needs align with access to appropriate services; and the criteria that apply in release decisions. Research shows that offering programs to low-risk offenders can in fact increase their risk. As such, if the courts are too prescriptive in their requirements, there are risks. The correctional system has the empirical tools and the expertise to determine the program and the treatment needs tailored to each individual offender. It will also be important to ensure that, should the bill pass, any conditions that form part of a sentence are realistic and capable of being complied with. Offenders should not be unfairly prejudiced by barriers outside of their control, including differences in service availability, depending on where a sentence is served. Ensuring fairness, consistency and transparency in these processes will be key. Third, the bill aims to address a significant public safety challenge facing our country, the opioid crisis, and, in particular, the role of fentanyl. Bill C-240 would amend the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act to require that courts treat large-scale fentanyl trafficking as an aggravating factor in sentencing. This means that when individuals are convicted of trafficking in quantities that indicate large-scale operations, judges would be encouraged to impose more severe sentences. The intent here is clear and it is very important. The harm caused by fentanyl in communities across Canada is profound, and measures that seek to hold accountable those who profit from that harm deserve serious consideration. At the same time, we must consider how these provisions would operate in practice, including how large-scale activity would be interpreted and whether this approach would serve to address current trends in organized crime or reflect the constant evolution of dangerous substances. It is also important to consider the broader societal context in which the bill would operate. Individuals who enter the correctional system often face multiple barriers long before their offence occurs, including limited access to education, unstable employment, mental health challenges and substance use disorders. Addressing those factors is essential if we are to reduce reoffending and improve long-term public safety. Bill C-240 recognizes this reality by proposing to make rehabilitation a more explicit and structured part of sentencing. It also aims to create another layer of accountability for an offender to meaningfully engage in that process. That said, it would be important to assess how these measures could be implemented effectively, including how they would align with the empirically derived risks-and-needs principles applied in the correctional system, as well as program availability across jurisdictions and consistency of delivery. We should also recognize the economic dimension of this issue. When people reoffend, the costs are borne not only by the victims but also by the justice system itself, through policing, the courts and correctional services. Investments in effective rehabilitation could reduce those pressures over time by lowering rates of re-entry into the system. Ensuring that the proposed approach would achieve those outcomes in a measurable and sustainable way would be an important part of the study of Bill C-240 at committee. The objective of the bill also appears to aim to provide greater clarity and transparency by allowing courts to set expectations, and requiring those expectations to be tracked through an offender's sentence. This is a positive principle. The broader approach outlined in Bill C-240, focusing on rehabilitation and reintegration, reflects principles that many practitioners support. The question for committee would be how best to translate those principles into workable and effective processes within the existing system. Ultimately, our communities want a justice system that enhances public safety, reduces reoffending and supports successful reintegration. Bill C-240 speaks to those broad objectives. The task before us is to ensure that the mechanisms it proposes are sound, effective and achievable. By embedding rehabilitation into sentencing, strengthening follow-through during incarceration and linking progress to parole decisions, the bill sets out a direction that many people would agree is worth exploring. Likewise, its focus on responding to the harms associated with fentanyl reflects a serious and pressing concern. As the bill moves forward, committee study would be critical and would provide an opportunity to examine its provisions in greater detail. That process would help to determine what refinements or amendments may be necessary to ensure that the legislation would achieve its intended goals and avoid unintended consequences. For these reasons, I support sending Bill C-240 to committee for further study so we could work collectively to strengthen the PMB and ensure that it would deliver meaningful results for communities across this country.
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