Hon. James McCrae (Government House Leader): Madam Speaker, would you be so kind--
Madam Speaker: Order, please. I believe, with the indulgence of the government House leader, there are committee changes.
Mr. Edward Helwer (Gimli): I move, seconded by the member for Pembina (Mr. Dyck), that the composition of the Standing Committee on Law Amendments for June 24 at 3 p.m. be amended as follows: the member for Rossmere (Mr. Toews) for the member for St. Norbert (Mr. Laurendeau); the member for River Heights (Mr. Radcliffe) for the member for Brandon West (Mr. McCrae); and the member for Gladstone (Mr. Rocan) for the member for Sturgeon Creek (Mr. McAlpine).
Motion agreed to.
Hon. James McCrae (Government House Leader): Madam Speaker, would you please call Bill 46.
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Mr. Gord Mackintosh (St. Johns): Madam Speaker, after several weeks of waiting for the Minister of Justice to fulfill his obligation and promise to provide the explanatory notes, we received these two days ago and have reviewed those explanatory notes, made further inquiries and are now prepared to debate this bill.
We want to outline at second reading a number of concerns that we have about the bill as currently before the House. I want, first of all, to acknowledge, however, that the principles in the bill contain some good provisions. I look, for example, to those provisions which talk about the need to protect society and ensure accountability and responsibility of offenders and that shall be given paramount consideration in decisions made under the act. I also note that the principles acknowledge the importance of reparation to victims and to the community and that that should be to the fullest extent possible. The principles also talk about the need to encourage offenders to participate with victims and the community for that purpose. It is, in part, with those thoughts in mind that I will make comments and enumerate our concerns.
First of all, Madam Speaker, it is well known that we believe that dealing with organized criminal gangs should be recognized as a unique challenge for the justice system, for one system in particular. It is time to rethink the justice system, to acknowledge this tremendous challenge of street gangs and to rejig our systems to better counter that threat. Unfortunately, in this bill, there is no protocol set out which specifically deals with gangs or gives tools to the Correctional Services to suppress gang activity. There is no particular direction as far as supervision goes to deal with gangs. There are no particular consequences that can come to bear as a result of gang activity, and I think in particular of the serious threat and problem and challenge of recruitment to criminal gangs that takes place in correctional institutions.
Second, the legislation in section after section talks about contracting out. It clearly enables the Department of Justice to move full steam ahead on privatization schemes. We are aware of the useful role from time to time of contracting out with social service agencies to provide programs that are both preventative and correctional in nature, to change the behaviour of offenders for the better. But this legislation enables the privatization of prisons, a phenomenon that has occurred elsewhere with mixed results, if not dubious results. The former Minister of Justice, indeed, assured members of this House that the government had no plans whatsoever to move towards the privatization of correctional services. So I ask why is it in this statute enabling provisions which will allow this government to privatize in the area of corrections.
I also look at the area of probation. In the area of probation, the ability to contract out and privatize is evident in the bill. It is important that our probation service be full time, be comprised of career public servants who will learn from experience, who will develop a body of expertise, who will enjoy a career path and ensure not only effective probation services at an entry level but at the highest management levels possible.
I think, for example, of the intensive supervision program to deal with young offenders, a program that we support in principle but which has, as one of its salient features now, people on contract positions. I believe there are about six people on contract serving that program. Those people come and go. The public is unable to enjoy the benefit of accumulated knowledge and expertise. If the government is committed to that intensive program and to our safety through vehicles like that, it should be committed to a public service not a private service, a full-time probation service.
The third issue we raise is our serious concern that nowhere in this legislation are probation officers acknowledged. The current legislation acknowledges the important role and function of probation officers. By reading this legislation, one would come to the conclusion that probation officers do not exist in Manitoba. As a result of that omission, there are a number of consequential concerns.
The legislation removes the current provision acknowledging that probation officers are officers of the court. The reason that probation officers are officers of the court is because they have accountability and responsibility to the court. They have an obligation in law, both as a result of their status and their position, to help ensure the safety of Manitobans and respond to orders of the court. So what is the effect, Madam Speaker, of removing the fact that probation officers are officers of the court? We would like answers from the minister in that regard. Are probation officers now to be responsible first and foremost to the administration and the government and to resourcing issues, to administrative directives which may supersede the order of the court? I do not know. It is a serious question I have for the minister.
Why are probation officers now described as correctional officers? In this province correctional officers are known for their duties and responsibilities in correctional facilities, mainly with regard to ensuring security and duties relating to management units. But the duties and responsibilities of correctional officers as we now know them differ significantly from the duties and responsibilities of probation officers. Why does this legislation appear to treat correctional officers and probation officers as though they were one and the same? Is there some intention on the part of government to make probation officers and what we now know as correctional officers subject to one position description, subject to the same duties and responsibilities, even though the duties and responsibilities differ and differ significantly?
The other concern, of course, is just the plain lack of recognition of probation officers in this legislation. Probation officers in Manitoba are on the front lines, Madam Speaker. They have a tough job. Whether it is through supervision and programming, the preparation of presentence reports, whether it is the preventative as well as their correctional duties, probation officers have risen to the challenge and I would say against the odds and under a government that has been blind to the need to ensure that the probation services receive the support they need to do their job.
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We have talked in public about the caseloads of probation officers in Manitoba as compared to the caseloads elsewhere and the ideal caseloads. Manitoba fares poorly. So we ask where has the recognition of probation officers, as not just a career but as a profession, gone in the legislation?
Fourth, the legislation allows for the prescription of fees for programming, and while we understand--and the example is given of fees that are prescribed for programs as a consequence of drinking and driving--we are concerned that this legislation will empower the government and lead to the government instituting fees for programs that are there to change behaviour, regardless of one's ability to pay, with the result being certain offenders, and perhaps those most in need of programming, will be denied programming. Programming is there, presumably, to better protect us and to ensure a change of behaviour for the better of an offender, and we want the minister's assurance that fees will not be a prerequisite for protecting our safety and changing behaviour.
Fifth, Madam Speaker, and this has been a dominant theme in this session, and that is, again, victims are left out of this legislation. There is not recognition in this legislation of the need for victim notification of the whereabouts of an offender, in terms of what correctional facility the offender is in, the need for consultation with the victim before there is a release of an offender, before the court's prescribed release date. There is nothing in here to make it mandatory to ensure that certain officials warn victims who want this information when there is an escape or a release.
I know the government did not want to get into that in detail in their so-called victims rights act, but they should have done at least those limited recognitions of rights in this legislation. I refer, for example, to our Crime Victims' Bill of Rights that is before the House where the executive director for adult or youth corrections is specifically given the responsibility for informing the victim about the status of the offender and, as well, gives the executive director for adult or youth corrections the obligation to discuss with the victim the release of the offender from custody and the terms of the release if the offender is considered for release before the expiry of the sentenced term of incarceration and, importantly, to consider that opinion before concluding the release and terms of the release. Of course, under our statute, the director can delegate that responsibility to another, but there is an obligation and it is therefore enforceable. We also note that information about the offender while in custody is made confidential without regard to any exemption in the interests of the victim.
The sixth area of concern is this act's movement towards leniency in the enforcement of probation orders. Can you imagine, just when it is becoming public as to the extent of breaches of probation office orders, particularly regarding young offenders, that this government makes a statement in law, in legislation, allowing greater discretion as to whether to prosecute a breach of a probation order or not.
We are aware of, for example, in the Child and Youth Secretariat report on street gangs, which this government buried, the recommendation that there be enforcement of probation orders. We know that probation officers are too often not enforcing probation orders. What is known as breaching, in other words, it is not the offender that actually breaches a probation order, it is at the call of a probation officer, and they are doing so, not out of ill will or neglect. They are doing so because the courts are not enforcing or prosecuting those breaches because of the paperwork involved and because senior officials are sending those so-called breaches back.
It is important, particularly for young offenders, to know that there is a consequence when there is a wrongdoing, that when a court makes an order, it is serious business and it must be followed. But instead, youth after youth are going through our system, are being given probation orders, are breaching those orders, and the word is out that those orders can be breached with no consequence.
It is bad enough that is happening at the administrative level, but that is being sanctioned in legislation. What reason does the government give in its explanatory notes as to why that greater discretion is given now? Because if we started enforcing probation orders, it says, and I quote: this could overwhelm the court with breach allegations. It is saying: because the courts have backlogs. Well, why do they not deal with the backlogs instead of saying, hey, your breach of court orders, your illegality is just fine by us? What kind of administration of justice is this? This is the government that ran on tough on crime. This is a law and order government. No, they put it in a law that you can breach a probation order. It is up to the probation officer to look at that as a wide range of discretion.
The seventh point, there is nothing in here, Madam Speaker, to prevent the kind of corruption of the justice system that we saw following the Headingley riot when people sentenced to intermittent incarceration at Headingley were excused by this government at the administrative level from serving those sentences. In our view, contrary to provisions of the Criminal Code regarding drinking and driving, there should be in law, and I want to find out from the minister why there is not, an obligation on Correctional Services to abide by an order of the court.
Do you recall that circumstance where the government not only was effectively commuting those sentences but never even told the judges that intermittent sentences were a no-go? They had taken away an option that judges thought they had available to them at sentencing. What lesson was that to the public? Once again from this government the lesson that justice is a joke, that we do not stand by our word. The government is all talk, no walk in the justice system. Maybe no other place but the justice system must the system back up the law and when something is said will happen, it must happen.
The eighth area of concern regards the ability of MLAs in particular, judges as well, to go to a correctional institution to see how things are functioning, perhaps to meet with the particular inmate, perhaps to see how a public policy is being administered. Well, it was shortly after the revelation that intermittent sentences were not being delivered and administered by this government that the member for Burrows (Mr. Martindale) and myself went to Headingley Correctional Institution to see if the minister's statements that there was no room at Headingley to accommodate intermittent sentences was indeed true.
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Madam Speaker, that was important for that debate for MLAs to have access to Headingley. It was important that the access to Headingley not be prohibited by the minister or some administrator. Well, I could go on to think of all kinds of instances where it is important that MLAs have access to a correctional facility in Manitoba. Why then does this legislation restrict that right? It restricts the right in the event of a lock-down. Even the minister in the event of a lock-down, under this legislation, is prohibited from going on to that correctional facility. Apparently, if the minister or an MLA did go, it would be subject to an offence of trespassing.
We understand that security has to come first, but to prohibit now MLAs from attending correctional institutions during lock-downs goes against the principle and the reason for letting MLAs in there in the first place. It is important, particularly during a lock-down, for the right of MLAs to be acknowledged and exercised if an MLA or indeed the minister thinks it necessary.
The ninth issue is regarding the new position created by this legislation, and that is the Commissioner of Correctional Services, and we will ask the minister who is that person. Is it creating in fact another line of authority? Will this be the assistant deputy minister of corrections, or is this a new layer? Madam Speaker, the Hughes Inquiry warned that management problems were in no small way responsible for that riot and said it is time for a hands-on approach to corrections, but hands-on approach and creating another layer may well be incompatible.
The next issue we raise is the lack of acknowledgment in the legislation of what the Aboriginal Justice Inquiry addressed, and that is that elders be granted a status equivalent to chaplains. The Aboriginal Justice Inquiry, of course, recommended the importance of the rights of aboriginal peoples to spiritual services appropriate to their culture. I would like to ask the minister and get an answer as to why that recommendation from AJI is not in here, but no surprises, I suppose, because very few recommendations have been heeded by the government opposite. I remember just after it was released, the then Minister responsible for Native Affairs, the now Minister of Industry, Trade and Tourism (Mr. Downey) said that this report will not be a doorstop at any door, and I am just wondering who got that doorstop.
The other issue we have is, again, this is legislation which gives greater powers to cabinet, taking away powers from the Legislature--a theme not unique to this government, I acknowledge, Madam Speaker. This endless devolution of power to cabinet to a minister must be checked. When are we as legislators going to ask why are we doing this? Why are we taking away the checks and balances of legislative debate and legislative approval? Why are we taking away the consistency, reliability, the foreseeability that is provided by legislation rather than by regulation? When are we going to respect that one political party is not government forever?
We note that in the minister's notes he says, and I quote: Wherever possible, the new act provides for administrative detail to be included in regulations so these can be changed as necessary without having to amend the act. Well, Madam Speaker, that kind of convenience can also be dangerous, and what is administrative detail? I saw, for example, in the victims rights act matters go under regulation which were matters of substantive rights of people, in that case victims.
So those are our concerns, and we look forward to the minister answering those concerns, and therefore we are prepared to see this matter move to committee.
Madam Speaker: Is the House ready for the question? The question before the House is second reading Bill 46, The Correctional Services Act; Loi sur les services correctionnels. Is it the will of the House to adopt the motion? [agreed]
Hon. James McCrae (Government House Leader): Madam Speaker, I think there might be a will to waive private members' hour today.
Madam Speaker: Is there leave to waive private members' hour today? [agreed]
Mr. McCrae: Madam Speaker, with the leave of this House, the Law Amendments committee will sit tomorrow afternoon at 3 p.m. to consider Bill 46.
Madam Speaker: Is there leave of the House to sit tomorrow afternoon in the Standing Committee on Law Amendments concurrent with the Chamber to consider Bill 46? [agreed]
Mr. McCrae: Madam Speaker, I move, seconded by the honourable Minister of Natural Resources (Mr. Cummings), that Madam Speaker do now leave the Chair and the House resolve itself into a committee to consider of the Supply to be granted to Her Majesty.
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Motion agreed to.