“I think rehabilitation is good. I don't like this bill. This bill will make it harder to rehabilitate criminals. I'm worried this bill is just about revenge.”
Official Hansard
Mr. Speaker, rehabilitation and social reintegration are foundational features of the Canadian correctional system. People commit various crimes, some more serious than others. The goal is always to put these individuals behind bars. Part of the reason for that is punishment, but there is also considerable emphasis on rehabilitation to ensure that, when they are released from prison, they are less dangerous than when they entered. Rehabilitation and social reintegration are the hallmarks of a successful correctional system. As I was saying, an inmate who is released without having been rehabilitated poses a significant risk to society. With few exceptions, these people always get out of prison eventually. Some die behind bars, but the vast majority are released from prison at some point. What we want is for them to be as harmless as possible at that time. Rehabilitation is therefore essential. I am not a social worker or a criminologist, and I do not have the expertise to discuss the merits of rehabilitation or the best way to rehabilitate someone. However, I believe that weekends of freedom, after which people have to return to the institution, along with vocational training and all those other measures, are part of a comprehensive set of initiatives designed to help rehabilitate individuals and help them reintegrate into society at the end of their sentence. The bill seeks to increase the security classification for certain crimes. We can agree that these are some of the most serious crimes. However, the consequence of this is that these individuals will not be able to benefit from adequate rehabilitation measures. In a way, we are shooting ourselves in the foot by doing this. I understand that this bill stems from a number of cases that are, quite frankly, scandals. These cases shocked almost everybody. I am thinking of Paul Bernardo and Luka Rocco Magnotta, who committed heinous crimes. Reacting to these crimes is a normal human response. However, I think that, as legislators, we must be careful not to pass laws simply in response to scandalous cases that are condemned by just about everyone in society. Laws must apply to society as a whole and not become a type of revenge or protection in the face of isolated cases that should be relatively rare. I am not just talking about Paul Bernardo or Luka Rocco Magnotta. There are other cases as well. I am thinking of Claude Paquin, who was acquitted in 2024 in connection with two murders for which he had been found guilty 41 years earlier. This person spent 41 years in prison unnecessarily. There is also the case of Daniel Jolivet, who was convicted of four murders. The director of criminal and penal prosecutions recently stated that there may have been a miscarriage of justice. This person also spent many years in prison. It is not easy, and I do not blame the system. I understand that nothing is perfect. We all dream of perfect justice, which would penalize only criminals and free all innocent people. However, that justice would be neither human nor possible. We have to accept that there will always be a certain number of errors to deal with. If we admit that there will be a certain number of errors and acknowledge the system's weakness in isolated cases, I think it is best to try to get the most conclusive results. It is important to ensure that the reaction is not to penalize two or three specific individuals. It is important to ensure that our system makes it possible to rehabilitate people who have been found guilty. The system has to make it so that society is a safer place when these people get out of prison, since they are no longer in the same state of mind as when they went in. Security classifications are currently assigned based on an inmate's behaviour. An inmate who behaves well in prison may have their security classification adjusted to reflect that good behaviour. This can allow them to be released on weekends. It can open up certain opportunities for them and contribute to their rehabilitation, as I mentioned earlier. When it comes to granting parole or conditional release, professional expertise is available. Criminologists and many other professionals can testify before the Parole Board of Canada to explain which areas an individual needs to work on and whether or not they should be released. This process, which involves adjusting security classifications based on the inmate's good behaviour and relying on professional expertise before deciding how and when to release them, is one of the strengths of our justice system. It contributes to the rehabilitation of convicts, which in turn assures us that, when they are released from prison, they will be better off than when they went in. There is another issue that I wanted to address. My Liberal colleague mentioned it earlier. What Bill C-232 seeks to do could well be deemed unconstitutional if it were to be challenged in court. We know that the Supreme Court of Canada has already ruled that cruel and unusual punishment is unconstitutional. In this case, could designating an individual as a maximum security offender and taking away pretty much all hope of ever getting out of prison not be considered cruel and unusual punishment? I think it could be. I think that this bill leans too heavily on the punitive aspects of our justice system, and the risk is significant. If the Supreme Court has to strike down these provisions on constitutional grounds, Charter grounds, we would likely end up in a worse situation than we are in already. The Bloc Québécois stands in solidarity with the victims of these monsters, and I believe that monsters is the right word. They committed heinous crimes. I do not know anyone who would condone these crimes. We stand in solidarity with these victims, but we want to avoid falling into the trap where we throw the baby out with the bathwater, as the saying goes. There are isolated cases of individuals that we have to deal with, and we are already dealing with them. I think that the justice system ensures that these people are detained and prevents them from becoming a danger to the public. However, we must not build the entire body of Canadian legislation around these isolated cases. We denounce criminals, we condemn them, we support victims and we stand in solidarity with them, but we refuse to embark on a legal process based on revenge. That would be misguided. As far as I am concerned, rehabilitation and the social reintegration of people who have committed crimes is the path we must continue to follow. That path can be improved, though. I agree. I think there is a lack of statistics on rehabilitation, for example. Do the measures taken in prison to rehabilitate inmates and ensure their reintegration into society have a positive effect or not? It is unclear. At the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights, we have questioned numerous experts about this issue on numerous occasions. We have too few statistics. That aspect of our prison system could benefit from further study; it could probably be improved. Let us stay on the right path that we have set out on, work to improve that path and avoid falling into the trap of revenge, which would only hurt us.
View on ourcommons.ca ↗