The fate of one of the federal government’s toughest crime bills is in doubt after the House of Commons sent the wrong version on to the Senate, which debated that version and sent it on to a committee for further study.
The Commons’s mistake affects a key government priority – victim rights – by leaving out four amendments approved for the Fairness For Victims Act. Parliamentary experts say they have never heard of such an error being made before.
The revelation comes at a time when the government is focused relentlessly on crime, and new crime laws may not always receive careful study. Thirty criminal-justice bills are currently before Parliament or were passed in June; of those, 25 are private member’s bills, which do not receive Charter scrutiny from officials, or a detailed backgrounder from the Library of Parliament; and research staff in the Justice Department has been cut sharply, while Public Safety staff are given as little as one week to draft new laws.
The Fairness For Victims Act, sponsored by Tory MP David Sweet of Ontario, would extend the waiting period for violent criminals rejected at their first parole hearing. Instead of waiting two years for their next hearing, they would wait up to five years.
The provision could affect 16,000 of the 23,000 people who are in the federal prison system per year, and by reducing the use of early release, usher in a basic change to how Canada releases and supervises jailed criminals into the community. The bill also has provisions that give victims a greater say at parole hearings and give them the right to more information about the offenders.
The mistakes in the Senate’s version of the bill are so serious they could thwart Mr. Sweet’s objectives, according to Mary Campbell, who was the Public Safety department’s director-general of the corrections and criminal justice directorate until her retirement last year.
Ms. Campbell, who tracks legislation partly because she instructs judges’ groups on legislative changes, was the first to spot something amiss. For instance, three items related to what victims are allowed to know about the offender are on two contradictory lists: a discretionary one, and a near-mandatory one. And Mr. Sweet wanted victims to be able to receive the information 14 days before the offender’s release. But the clause entitling them to the information refers to a section of the law that does not exist.
How the unamended version was passed on to the Senate is unclear. Ned Franks, a professor emeritus at Queen’s University, said he assumes “it’s just simply a clerical error by the ‘table staff’ – clerical staff of the House. They’re the ones responsible for getting the bills through and getting them right.”
How to fix the problem isn’t clear, either. Ms. Campbell’s attempts to ascertain how the mistake was being addressed suggested a scramble was on in the public service. The clerk of the Senate, Gary O’Brien, declined to comment, or even to confirm an error had been made, and his office referred questions to the House of Commons. The deputy clerk of the Commons did not return phone calls.
Mr. Sweet said in an interview that the mistake was administrative and is being addressed by the Senate.
“There has been an administrative error that I found out about between the House of Commons and the Senate administration. So the legislation that was in the hands of the Senate was not the legislation that passed the House of Commons. Measures are being taken already to correct that, internal to the Senate administration.”
Jason Tamming, a spokesman for Public Safety Minister Steven Blaney, said the error would be corrected: “There was an error made by House of Commons and Senate Administration officials in printing the Bill for consideration by the Senate. Officials are working to rectify the situation to ensure that the legislation, as passed by the House of Commons is appropriately considered in the Upper Chamber.”
Victims’ rights groups had demanded the changes, and Mona Lee, whose sister was murdered in 1997, made an impassioned plea to a Commons committee to pass the bill. “Families of a homicide do not get parole for their suffering,” she said, quoting from a petition from crime victims. The Commons passed the bill after a unanimous vote on June 4.
Liberal MP Wayne Easter, a former solicitor-general, said he supported the bill because it would give the parole board discretion set at between two and five years for a review after a rejection. But Ms. Campbell said that, in practice, the department would have no incentive to conduct a review until five years were up.
Ms. Campbell described the law as “dreadful.” Parole is “a safety valve. Parole is not for the offender. Parole is for the rest of us. I don’t think it’s respecting victims to put the public at greater risk.”
She said that, from the 1980s until the mid-1990s, parole reviews were conducted yearly, so prisoners wouldn’t languish in the system; the Liberals changed it to every two years to save money.
“You have to bear in mind all the kinds of reasons for denial. It’s not necessarily that there’s some major risk. It may just be that the best halfway house is suddenly not available or some program is not available or case management has decided for some reason they’re not supporting you.”
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In Ottawa the medieval inquisitions continue on a daily basis. The Ottawa
Police operate a Terror Organization that literally promotes violence against
fathers.
Any woman in Ottawa can make any wild allegation and the more bizarre and
unlikely, the more the Ottawa Police are likely to act on it.
This generally results in Male Victims of Domestic Violence being CHARGED by the
police and now, these same State Funded Terrorists wish to have their witnesses
testify anonymously?
Has Peter McKay gone stark raving mad? This former prosecutor seems to be
seriously compromising his ethics and principles to satisfy the Extreme Feminist
lobby group.
PROSECUTORS in Canada, at least in Ottawa include some the most vilest examples
of criminality.
Take TARA DOBEC of Ottawa. This insult to justice STAYS charges against the most
violent of female offenders when the evidence normally would be a slam dunk if
the genders were reversed.
Ontario Judges cannot be trusted with the yet another power that effectively
removes the right of a fair trial and make a mockery of justice, not to mention
leave a trail of destruction and promote terror.
The classic example of a Police Terrorist is Ottawa Police Det. Peter Van Der
Zander who fabricates evidence to NOT CHARGE the most violent of female
offenders.
The present Ontario Government is FASCIST in nature, it promotes Gender
Cleansing, Male Sharia Law and this proposed legislation is an example of the
increasingly Fascist nature of our Legal System that believes that 50% of the
population, by nature of gender, should not have any legal rights, unless of
course they happen to be gay men and there are no mothers involved.
We already have Fascist Secret Courts in Ontario, called C.F.S.A. aka Secretive
courts called CAS courts, with draconian publication bans to protect the worst
criminals on earth, Child Abusers in the form of employees of Ontario's largest
Criminal Cartel, the Children's Aid Societies of Ontario who, spend billions of
dollars of tax payers money providing fee legal services for any mother with a
serious problem with violence.
Take Ottawa CAS lawyer Marguerite Isobel Lewis, who PERSONALLY FABRICATES
EVIDENCE..
Lawyers like Marguerite Isobel Lewis are "anointed" as judges. Its a bit like a
putting a hungry shark in the middle of a tank in a fish farm.
It's called "POSTURING" before the court. Women are coached by prosecutors and
extreme feminists on how to look like a victim.
Judges are forced to attend Political Camps where they are indoctrinated with
Feminist ideas.
It creates a bizarre society where only the politically correct are allowed to
be parents.
Memo to Peter McKay,
If you wish to remain in Politics, you should seriously start taking notice of
all those letters you receive from lawyers and the community that you are
presently ignoring.
You are at presently hell bent on alienating not just 50% of the Conservative
voters but all their sisters, mothers, aunts grand mothers who become victims of
Canadian Male Sharia Law.
Ottawa Mens Centre