Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to speak to Bill C-642, An Act to amend the Corrections and Conditional Release Act (high profile offender).

I want to start by saying that I will oppose my Conservative colleague's bill at second reading, and I will explain why in my speech today.

This bill would amend the Corrections and Conditional Release Act to require the Correctional Service of Canada, in certain circumstances, to disclose particulars of the statutory release of a high-profile offender by posting those particulars on the service's website and to provide a written notice of the disclosure of the information to the victim. Information including the offender's name and a recent photograph, previous convictions, the date of release, the destination of the offender and any of the conditions attached to the conditional release could be disclosed.

My colleague spoke a lot about the fact that the public has the right to know what is going on, which is connected to what I want to talk about in the second part. I do not know whether the member opposite is aware of these provisions, but I still want to inform people across the country who may be watching right now and following this debate closely.

Right now, the communication of this sort of information is governed by section 25 of the Corrections and Conditional Release Act. Under this section, before the conditional release of an offender, the Correctional Service of Canada notifies all police forces that have jurisdiction at the destination of the offender. Police forces are also given any information that the Correctional Service of Canada has about the offender. If the Correctional Service of Canada has reasonable grounds to believe that an offender poses a threat to any person, police forces can share that information with the general public. That is already in the existing legislation. This decision is left to the discretion of police forces, who are responsible for determining whether such communication is necessary. Right now, it is already possible to do that under the existing legislation. The Correctional Service of Canada transfers the information to the police forces concerned. They are the ones that decide whether or not to disclose the information, for all sorts of reasons that I will talk about later in my speech.

Unfortunately, the bill as it now stands is a way for the Conservatives to play partisan politics rather than establishing a good public safety policy, which Canada really needs. There have been a few examples of this in the area of public safety, whether it be private members' bills or bills that come directly from the government. I am thinking, for example, of Bill C-42, which we are in the process of examining in committee and which deals with the classification of restricted and prohibited weapons. This bill would assign the responsibility for classifying these weapons to cabinet rather than to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, which is who should be responsible for doing that.

As I mentioned, our police forces already have the discretionary power to release information about the offenders referred to in Bill C-642 when they deem it to be necessary. That brings me to the question that I unfortunately did not get an answer to. That question concerns the groups that should have been consulted, groups that have specific questions about Bill C-642.

I think that, in examining this bill, it would have been a good idea to consult victims groups across Canada.

As I mentioned, Steve Sullivan, the former federal ombudsman for victims of crime, had far more questions than answers about this bill and what it involves. I would like to quote him once again for those watching the debate. He said that there was no evaluation of the potential consequences of the disclosure of information on rehabilitation and public safety.

He was concerned about victims of crime and wondered what would happen if the victim were related to the offender and did not want the attention or if there were a publication ban.

He also said that this could be integrated into provincial legislation governing disclosure of information about dangerous offenders. Each province has information disclosure laws and policies often used by police services, and this bill could infringe on their jurisdiction.

I note that my colleague from the third party asked a question about the provincial laws that would be affected.

Again, my Conservative colleague failed to answer the question.

Studies show that the best results for public safety are obtained through the supervised, gradual reintegration of offenders in society.

Perversely, Bill C-642 might lead some offenders to opt out in order to avoid being covered by the content of the bill, and that is quite serious.

Rehabilitation programs are the cornerstone not only of our Canadian correctional system, but also of our entire political system when it comes to public safety and national security.

The Auditor General's report came out today and raised a relatively serious fact about what goes on at Correctional Service Canada institutions. Last year, 1,500 offenders did not have access to reintegration programs. At the end of their sentence, they left prison directly without having followed this type of program. This is quite serious.

We know, we see it and everyone talks about it, including the police services who happen to be on Parliament Hill today. I commend the Canadian Police Association, which supports all reintegration measures.

Correctional Service Canada works hand in hand with a number of reintegration organizations, including ARCAD, whose $70,000 annual funding was unfortunately cancelled by the Conservative government. This group performed small miracles in terms of reintegrating different offenders. What is more, this group existed for over 50 years. It therefore had a proven track record.

It is not uncommon to see that the members across the way do not take into consideration all these fine examples and this evidence that everyone wants to work together to ensure that our communities are safer and that, as much as possible, we live in harmony and in a safe system. They do not understand the importance of reintegration. This bill might have some egregious repercussions for safety in general.

We are already going downhill when it comes to reintegration and the false debate surrounding crime. As a society we simply have to make a choice and the choice the Conservatives are making is to play partisan politics with programs as important as those that Correctional Service Canada and their partner organizations are trying to put in place.

Many stakeholders we were able to speak with seemed to share our opinion regarding Bill C-642. I cannot name all of them, but I would like to name a few.

As I mentioned, one such individual is the former federal ombudsman for victims of crime. Another is Howard Sapers, the current Correctional Investigator of Canada. We would have liked him to be able to stay longer, since his reports are always extremely important and interesting.

Howard Sapers said that he finds it unfortunate that offenders are staying in prison longer, much like Marion Vacheret, a professor and criminologist at the Université de Montréal, who said that she does not understand why the government wants to see offenders kept inside at all costs.

Furthermore, a very interesting article that appeared in La Presse in January 2015 had this to say:

...a number of studies have shown that social reintegration has a higher success rate when the offender has spent more time under community supervision before the end of his sentence, in other words, on parole.

I also deplore the lack of consultation by my colleague. I do not know why he did not do more consultation.

When introducing such a bill to amend the Corrections and Conditional Release Act, it is important to consider every possible effect it could have on the Parole Board of Canada.

I think more consultation was needed, and my colleague did not address that very much, especially since this bill aims to replace the objectivity of the Parole Board of Canada with public consultation. That is something that he perhaps should have examined a little more thoroughly.

The Parole Board of Canada always does a remarkable job. The staff there do excellent work and are under a lot of pressure to protect our safety. I think it would have been important for my colleague to do more consultation.

I would like to add that, once again, I will unfortunately have to vote against this bill at second reading. I would like the member to go back to the drawing board and come back to us with something that will encourage social rehabilitation rather than discourage it, as my colleague suggested.

Rosane Doré Lefebvre

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