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View Pierre Paul-Hus Profile
CPC (QC)
Thank you for your response, Minister Goodale.
The fact remains that one individual has been clearly identified. Why was this person, whom Mexico has identified as a criminal, able to cross our border? Don't the two countries share information on everyone arriving in Canada? Since Mexico has identified this person as a criminal, isn't that information entered in a database? What process does CBSA follow?
View Ralph Goodale Profile
Lib. (SK)
All of the proper checks in terms of identity, records, background immigration issues and criminality have been done thoroughly by CBSA at the border.
Mr. Ossowski, can you comment on the specific individual that Mr. Paul-Hus is referring to?
John Ossowski
View John Ossowski Profile
John Ossowski
2019-06-03 15:59
Thank you.
I would just say that, in the first instance, I think it's important to understand the layers of security. We work in airports and with Mexican officials in Mexico to, first, try to prevent people from even getting on flights to Canada if they don't have the proper documentation or if there are any concerns in terms of misrepresentation or criminality. That being said, if they do arrive and there are concerns, our officers are very well trained to deal with those upon arrival. They could be allowed to leave at that point, if they stay at the airport until the next flight and then go home. If they do come in and we suspect that there is some work that we need to do, we will check in secondary inspection for any criminality.
During that same reporting period, I can say that we found 18 people who had used fraudulent travel documents and whom we were able to prevent from entering. There are layers of security.
With respect to that specific individual, he has been removed from the country.
View Pierre Paul-Hus Profile
CPC (QC)
I understand that you can have this information in advance since I know that there are officers in Mexico and agreements with that country. Thousands of Mexicans come to Canada. Aren't there adequate computer mechanisms in CBSA's systems? Isn't passport data available, especially for convicted criminals? Isn't there an exchange of information on these criminals, a bit like Interpol?
John Ossowski
View John Ossowski Profile
John Ossowski
2019-06-03 16:00
I think it's important to understand the differences. With Mexico, visas are not required in order to come to Canada. We lifted the visa requirement a couple of years ago. They travel now on what's called the electronic travel authorization program. That's a lighter touch in terms of criminality.
As I mentioned, if they arrive and there are some concerns or some indicators, we do those criminal checks at the port of entry upon their arrival.
Joseph A. Cannataci
View Joseph A. Cannataci Profile
Joseph A. Cannataci
2019-05-28 15:42
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair, and members of the grand committee, for the invitation to speak.
I will try to build on what Mr. Therrien has said in order to cover a few more points. I will also make some references to what other witnesses presented previously.
First, I will be trying to take a more international view, though the themes that are covered by the committee are very global in nature. That's why when it comes to global...the previous witness spoke about an international treaty. One of the reasons, as I will be explaining, that I have decided in my mandate at the United Nations to go through a number of priorities when it comes to privacy is that the general framework of privacy and data protection in law insofar as an international treaty is concerned, who regulates this, doesn't happen to be specifically a UN treaty. It happens to be convention 108 or convention 108+, which is already ratified by 55 nations across the world. Morocco was the latest one to present its document of ratification yesterday.
When people meet in Strasbourg or elsewhere to discuss the actions and interoperability within an international framework, there are already 70 countries, ratified states and observer states, that will discuss the framework afforded by that international legal instrument. I would indeed encourage Canada to consider adhering to this instrument. While I am not an expert on Canadian law, I have been following it since 1982. I think Canadian law is pretty close in most cases. I think it would be a welcome addition to that growing group of nations.
As for the second point that I wish to make, I'll be very brief on this, but I also share preoccupations about the facts on democracy and the fact that the Internet is being increasingly used in order to manipulate people's opinions through monitoring their profiles in a number of ways. The Cambridge Analytica case, of course, is the classic case we have for our consideration, but there are other cases too in a number of other countries around the world.
I should also explain that the six or seven priorities that I have set for my United Nations mandate to a certain extent summarize maybe not all, but many of the major problems that we are facing in the privacy and data protection field. The first priority should not surprise you, ladies and gentlemen, because it relates to the very reasons that my mandate was born, which is security and surveillance.
You would recall that my United Nations mandate was born in the aftermath of the Snowden revelations. It won't surprise you, therefore, that we have dedicated a great deal of attention internationally to security and surveillance. I am very pleased that Canada participates very actively in one of the fora, which is the International Intelligence Oversight Forum because, as the previous witness has just stated, oversight is a key element that should be addressed. I was also pleased to see some significant progress in the Canadian sphere over the past 12 to 24 months.
There is a lot to be said about surveillance, but I don't have much left of my 10 minutes so I can perhaps respond to questions. What I will restrict myself to saying at this stage is that globally we see the same problems. In other words, we don't have a proper solution for jurisdiction. Issues of jurisdiction and definitions of offences remain some of the greatest problems we have, notwithstanding the existence of the Convention on Cybercrime. Security, surveillance and basically the growth of state-sponsored behaviour in cyberspace are still a glaring problem.
Some nations are not very comfortable talking about their espionage activities in cyberspace, and some treat it as their own backyard, but in reality, there is evidence that the privacy of hundreds of millions of people, not in just one country but around the world, has been subjected to intrusion by the state-sponsored services of one actor or another, including most of the permanent powers of the United Nations.
The problem remains one of jurisdiction and defining limits. We have prepared a draft legal instrument on security and surveillance in cyberspace, but the political mood across the world doesn't seem conducive to major discussions on those points. The result is that we have seen some unilateral action, for example, by the United States with its Cloud Act, which has not seen much take-up at this moment in time. However, regardless of whether unilateral action would work, I encourage discussion even on the principles of the Cloud Act. Even if it doesn't lead to immediate agreements, the very discussion will at least get people to focus on the problems that exist at that stage.
I will quickly pass to big data and open data. In the interests of the economy of time, I refer the committee to the report on big data and open data that I presented to the United Nations General Assembly in October 2018. Quite frankly, I would advise the committee to be very wary of joining the two in such a way that open data continues to be a bit like a mother with an apple pie when it comes to politicians proclaiming all the good it's going to do for the world. The truth is that in the principles of big data and open data, we are looking at key fundamental issues when it comes to privacy and data protection.
In Canadian law, as in the law of other countries, including the laws of all those countries that adhere to convention 108, the purpose specification principle that data should be collected and used only for a specified or compatible purpose lives on as a fundamental principle. It also lives on as a principle in the recent GDPR in Europe. However, we have to remember that in many cases, when one is using big data analytics, one is seeking to repurpose that data for a different purpose. Once again, I refer the committee to my report and the detailed recommendations there.
At this moment in time, I have out for consultation a document on health data. We are expecting to debate this document, together with recommendations, at a special meeting in France on June 11 and 12. I trust there will be a healthy Canadian presence at that meeting too. We've received many positive comments about the report. We're trying to build an existing consensus on health data, but I'd like to direct the committee's attention to how important health data is. Growing amounts of health data are being collected each and every day with the use of smart phones and Fitbits and other wearables, which are being used in a way that really wasn't thought about 15 or 20 years ago.
Another consultation paper I have out, which I would direct the committee's attention to, is on gender and privacy. I'm hoping to organize a public consultation. It has already started as an online consultation, but I am hoping to have a public meeting, probably in New York, on October 30 and 31. Gender and privacy continues to be a very important yet controversial topic, and it is one in which I would welcome continued Canadian contribution and participation.
I think you would not be surprised if I were to say that among the five task forces I established, there is a task force on the use of personal data by corporations. I make it a point to meet with the major corporations, including Google, Facebook, Apple, Yahoo, but also some of the non-U.S. ones, including Deutsche Telekom, Huawei, etc., at least twice a year all together around a table in an effort to get their collaboration to find new safeguards and remedies for privacy, especially in cyberspace.
This brings me to the final point I'll mention for now. It's linked to the previous one on corporations and the use of personal data by corporations. It's the priority for privacy action.
I have been increasingly concerned about privacy issues, especially those affecting children as online citizens from a very early age. As the previous witness has borne witness, we are looking at some leading new and innovative legislation, such as that in the United Kingdom, not only the one on digital harms, but also one about age-appropriate behaviour and the liability of corporations. I am broaching these subjects formally next with the corporations at our September 2019 meeting. I look forward to being able to achieve some progress on the subject of privacy and children and on greater accountability and action from the corporations in a set of recommendations that we shall be devising during the next 12 to 18 months.
I'll stop here for now, Mr. Chair. I look forward to questions.
Josette Roussel
View Josette Roussel Profile
Josette Roussel
2019-05-16 15:48
Thank you, Madam Chair and members of the committee, for the invitation.
My name is Josette Roussel. I'm a registered nurse and the Program Lead for Nursing Practice and Policy at the Canadian Nurses Association. I'm joined today by my colleague, Ms. Isabelle St-Pierre, who is a registered nurse and an associate professor at the Université du Québec en Outaouais. Ms. St-Pierre also has her doctorate in nursing, with a focus on horizontal workplace violence.
The Canadian Nurses Association is the national and international professional voice of nursing care in Canada. It represents more than 135,000 nurses in 13 provinces and territories of Canada.
The CNA advances the practice and profession of nursing in order to improve health outcomes and to reinforce the public and non-profit health system in Canada.
Canada's health care system couldn't function without nurses. Nurses work in a variety of settings, including hospitals, nursing homes, rehabilitation centres, clinics, community agencies, correctional services, long-term care and home care settings.
Violence in health care is not a new problem. Violence can be overt, such as physical, verbal, financial and sexual behaviours, or it can be covert, such as neglect, rudeness or humiliation in front of others. Violence can occur between employees of an organization, such as between nurses or between employees and non-employees, for example, between patients and nurses.
In fact, violence is a widely recognized global issue, with one-third of nurses worldwide being victims of physical assault, two-thirds being exposed to non-physical violence at work, and 80% being victims of some form of workplace violence. Although these numbers show an alarming situation, it is much worse. Only 19% of nurses formally report workplace violence.
Statistics show that 60% of new nurses who experienced workplace violence will resign from their first place of work within six months of employment, and of these nurses, 50% will choose to leave the profession altogether. Nurses are the most at risk of being attacked in their workplace, second to police officers.
While all nurses are at risk of workplace violence, we know that nurses working in long-term care, emergency departments and psychiatric settings may be more at risk, as well as night-shift workers and novice nurses.
Perpetrators of workplace violence include patients, and patients' families or visitors. They can be doctors, managers, other nurses or other employees. The work environment is also known to contribute to workplace violence. Examples of organizational factors that contribute to the problem include excessive workloads; inadequate staffing; excessive use of overtime, both mandatory and voluntary; lack of managerial support when reporting instances of workplace violence, and a lack of perceived consequence when committing violent acts.
Some of the most reported workplace violence consequences include physical injuries, post-traumatic disorders, burnout, anger management issues and persistent fear and anxiety, to name a few. Statistics from the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board in Ontario show that in 2016 lost-time injuries due to workplace violence in the health care sector greatly outnumbered those in other sectors, with over 800 injuries compared to manufacturing at 138, construction at three and mining at zero.
The effects of workplace violence in the health care sector are significant, and their consequences are real. Violence negatively affects outcomes for patients, nurses and organizations.
CNA has four recommendations to make to the committee.
The first is that the federal government lead a pan-Canadian strategy to study why workplace violence continues to be an issue and why initiatives continue to have limited success. This study may include conducting consultations, round tables, and a public inquiry seeking feedback from politicians, senior leaders, health care professionals, patients and families. This federal government study would also lead to clear, more targeted definitions of violence to move toward a common language to allow comparison of data.
The second is that the federal government create a hub for promising practices and create information-sharing opportunities for organizations to discuss best practices and learn from incidents and near misses.
Third, we recommend that the federal government support funding to evaluate existing programs and successful strategies and conduct a longitudinal research program on workplace violence. These evaluations should focus on learning from incidents and near misses, on what health care professionals say is effective in their organizations and on ensuring that policies have the intended on-the-ground outcomes.
Finally, we recommend that the federal government collaborate with provincial and territorial health ministries and health care organizations to develop prevention strategies to take into account individuals' characteristics, interpersonal factors and organizational factors. Such strategies could include, for example, minimum system enhancement initiatives related to health human resources, communications and work environments.
Along with these recommendations, I would also like to point out that part of the problem is that definitions of what constitutes workplace violence vary. Many words are used interchangeably and there is no one standard typology that classifies episodes of workplace violence. CNA's full submission to the committee will further outline the complexity of varying definitions. However, there is a need for more standardized language to describe the problem. There's also an ongoing debate as to whether intent should be considered as part of the definition as well.
In closing, with an upward trend in the number of incidents of workplace violence in health care, CNA believes that workplace violence requires immediate federal government action, including support for the victims. By adopting the recommendations made here today, the standing committee can address the growing need for prevention, evaluation and intervention pertaining to workplace violence in the health care sector.
It will take a sustained, concerted effort and collaboration if we are to achieve what we all want: violence-free workplaces and the resulting improvement in outcomes for patients, nurses and organizations. As well, because different factors contribute to violence perpetrated by patients' families or health care professionals, it will require different and multi-faceted strategies to alleviate it. It is not a simple one-size-fits all approach or solution.
I would again like to thank the committee for providing CNA with the opportunity to share our perspective and recommendations. Let's all work together to create a better future for our health care sector workers and nurses.
We look forward to your questions. Thank you.
Sandy Stephens
View Sandy Stephens Profile
Sandy Stephens
2019-05-08 16:23
Thank you for the opportunity to speak with the committee today as part of your study of Bill C-97, specifically on the changes in division 2, part 4 of the legislation, which deal with anti-money laundering and anti-terrorist financing.
My name is Sandy Stephens and I'm an assistant general counsel with the Canadian Bankers Association. The CBA is the voice of more than 60 domestic and foreign banks that help drive Canada's economic growth and prosperity. The CBA advocates for public policies that contribute to a sound, thriving banking system to ensure Canadians can succeed in their financial goals.
The banking industry is fully committed to the fight against money laundering and terrorist financing. Banks in Canada take their responsibility under Canada's AML/ATF regime very seriously, working co-operatively with the Department of Finance, FINTRAC, law enforcement agencies and provincial regulators.
The banking industry is fully supportive of the government's recent actions and ongoing plans to strengthen Canada's AML/ATF regime. This includes measures announced in budget 2019 to increase funding to police and FINTRAC to expand operational and investigative capacity, to develop the anti-money laundering action, coordination and enforcement team, and to expand public-private partnership projects to improve the overall efficiency and effectiveness of the regime.
With respect to the AML/ATF provisions contained in Bill C-97, we are fully supportive of improving transparency and beneficial ownership, including the amendments to the CBCA that would allow law enforcement access to the beneficial ownership information that corporations will be required to maintain under this act. The banking industry looks forward to the second phase of this work, which will examine registry options. We believe that reporting entities should have access to any registry that is developed.
Also, the banking industry supports the amendments to section 462.31(a) of the Criminal Code to add an alternate requirement of recklessness to the offence of money laundering. Banks devote significant resources to their reporting obligations under the AML/ATF regime and we support provisions that would allow for more output in the form of investigations and prosecutions of money-laundering offences. This amendment to the Criminal Code will help to prevent professional money launderers, who purposely distance themselves from criminal organizations and their predicate offences, from avoiding prosecution.
Further to recommendations made by this committee, we look forward to working with the government going forward to explore mechanisms and models to enhance public-private information sharing as well as information sharing between private sector stakeholders. It is widely recognized that improved information sharing can facilitate more targeted disruption of illicit activities and improve the effectiveness of the regime.
In this regard, it is worth noting that we also strongly support the recent recommendation of the ETHI committee that PIPEDA be amended to allow for a broader range of instances where financial institutions can share information beyond financial fraud, including money laundering and terrorist financing, in order to strengthen the regime as a whole. At the same time, we recognize that any measures taken to enhance information sharing must be balanced with privacy considerations.
The changes in Bill C-97 are positive steps to improve Canada's AML/ATF regime. The banks' central role in implementing the regime gives them hands-on experience and insight into where the regime can continue to be improved over time to more effectively and efficiently fight against money laundering and terrorist financing. Through the strong dialogue that the industry maintains with government agencies and regulators, we look forward to using that first-hand experience to assist in additional areas to strengthen the regime even further.
For example, adopting a more risk-based approach to the regime to encourage reporting entities to focus on risk typologies and customers who demonstrate significant AML/ATF risk would allow banks and others to effectively dedicate resources where they can achieve the greatest benefit.
To conclude, banks remain committed to the global fight against money laundering and terrorist financing, and we will continue to work collaboratively with the federal government.
Thank you for your time today. I look forward to any questions you may have.
View David Tilson Profile
CPC (ON)
I'd like to comment a little bit more on something that has to do with division 16, which amends the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act to prevent asylum claims in Canada if a claimant has been rejected in certain other countries with whom we have information-sharing agreements.
I expect this is the area that will most concern the witnesses who are going to be appearing before us after you. I wonder if you could help us as to the rationale behind all of that. By listening to what has been said in the media and elsewhere, I can anticipate that this issue is not going to be accepted by a large number of people.
Mr. MacKinnon, do you have any thoughts?
Paul MacKinnon
View Paul MacKinnon Profile
Paul MacKinnon
2019-05-07 17:14
I can offer a couple of thoughts. I guess the first thought would be that we are confident that this meets our international obligations, albeit it's a different process than going through the IRB. As I've said on a couple of occasions, it makes the determination based upon the same standards and thresholds as the IRB.
My second and final point would be that, in some sense, we're not breaking brand new ground here. We have situations where certain claimants who come into Canada do not have access to the IRB and they go directly to a pre-removal risk assessment.
I'll just give you a couple of examples. We have five or six that I can leave with you, Mr. Chair, if it's helpful.
If someone has already made a previous asylum claim in Canada—including those whose claim was withdrawn or abandoned—if they already have protection in a third country, that is, if they have already been granted asylum but they show up in Canada and make another asylum claim, they will go directly to the pre-removal risk assessment. Or, if someone is inadmissible for security reasons—violating human or international rights, serious criminality or organized crime—they do not go directly to the IRB for the refugee protection division, the refugee appeal division, the Federal Court and then the PRRA. In these examples, they go directly to the pre-removal risk assessment, which is a process comparable with what we're suggesting for this cohort.
The main point I would leave with you, however, is that they are looked at under the international obligations to Canada, which is critical. The government does not want to send anybody back to persecution.
Lobat Sadrehashemi
View Lobat Sadrehashemi Profile
Lobat Sadrehashemi
2019-05-07 19:07
Clause 306 only provides for the creation of this new class of ineligible claimants. It says that somebody who has made a claim in a county that Canada has an information-sharing agreement with will now be ineligible. IRPA is the reason they would get access to the PRRA if they're ineligible. There's nothing changing the normal PRRA process in the budget bill.
Justin Mohammed
View Justin Mohammed Profile
Justin Mohammed
2019-05-07 19:08
The only additional comment I would offer on that is that the notion of relying on protection regimes in other countries is limited in the bill at this point to what many people refer to casually as the Five Eyes countries. Those are the countries with which Canada has signed an information-sharing agreement.
The issue is that the bill says nothing about the Five Eyes. It says nothing about the countries that I and others have listed here. It talks about countries with which Canada has signed an information-sharing agreement. There's no limitation on which other countries might sign such an agreement in the future. So parsing out Canada's international legal obligations to other countries—think what you will of the the four that are included in the information-sharing agreements as they exist now—is where the issue is. There's no discussion about the potential addition of other countries.
Then, just to reiterate, there is the problem of claims that exist in other countries. I've given the United States as an example here. There have been recommendations and responses that suggest that the United States is a country of the rule of law, where there is still a Congress that operates functionally. I would suggest to the committee that while the Congress or the judiciary of the United States may trim the excesses of the Trump administration as they relate to refugees and refugee protection claimants, those changes take time to take place. In the meantime, there are people who are impacted by these decisions right now.
The decision—
Chris Roberts
View Chris Roberts Profile
Chris Roberts
2019-05-07 11:07
Thank you very much, Chair, and good morning, committee members. Thank you for the opportunity to be here today.
The Canadian Labour Congress is Canada's largest central labour body advocating on behalf of three million workers across Canada. In the brief time I have, I will focus on divisions 5, 6 and 7 of part 4 touching on the guaranteed income supplement, the Canada pension plan, changes to insolvency rules and amendments to the Canada Business Corporations Act. I will also touch on the Canada training credit.
I want to begin, however, by commending the government for a budget measure that is not contained in Bill C-97, namely its initial steps toward the implementation of a national pharmacare plan for Canada. Canada's unions are eager to see a universal single-payer system introduced in this country to address significant coverage gaps and the drug affordability crisis facing Canadians.
Turning to retirement benefits, Bill C-97 allows the proactive enrolment of CPP contributors aged 70 and over. The CLC welcomes this initiative as a very positive step. The bill also amends the Old Age Security Act to make improvements to the guaranteed income supplement and allowance for low-income seniors.
Extending the GIS earnings exemption to self-employment income, increasing the full exemption and introducing an additional partial exemption are important improvements that will make a meaningful difference in the lives of low-paid working seniors.
However, the GIS clawback will continue to apply to the first dollar of CPP and pension income, RRSP income, EI benefits and other income in retirement. On these income sources, a 75% or higher effective marginal tax rate continues to apply. For this reason, the CLC urges the government to undertake a comprehensive review of the GIS clawback in the context of all income sources in retirement.
With respect to changes to insolvency rules, in our view, Bill C-97's amendments to the Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act and Companies' Creditors Arrangements Act are inadequate and represent a missed opportunity to prevent the injustice of defined benefit plan members and retirees suffering benefit cuts when sponsors enter insolvency.
Bill C-97 will amend the Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act to allow a bankruptcy court to determine whether a share redemption or a payment of dividends in the year prior to the date of bankruptcy was made by an insolvent company or had the effect of making the corporation insolvent. If so, the court can now allow the trustee to recover these amounts. However, this would not have prevented the $1.4 billion in dividend payments approved by the directors of Sears Canada in the years prior to entering insolvency and liquidation in 2017, despite the windup deficit in the pension plan.
There is still no requirement for corporations to notify the pension regulator, much less seek the regulator's authorization if a sponsor with a pension deficit makes a dividend payment or engages in a share repurchase that represents a risk to benefit security.
To address this risk, Ontario introduced the disclosable event regime last year, and regulators in the United States and the United Kingdom have similar powers. The federal government can and must do far more to protect plan members in insolvency. Labour movement has been urging the government to either grant pension claims superpriority status in bankruptcy or introduce mandatory pension insurance in conjunction with provinces and territories.
Turning to continuous learning, Bill C-97 enacts the Canada training credit, part of the new Canada training benefit. The CLC welcomes this lifelong learning benefit; however, we are concerned that the four-week limit on training programs, the 600-hour eligibility requirement and low replacement rates of the EI training support benefit and the fact that the training credit can cover no more than half of tuition and training fees will limit the benefit's effectiveness and reach for low-paid precariously employed workers who most need training opportunities.
With respect to pay transparency, Bill C-97 amends the Canada Business Corporations Act to require federally registered public companies to disclose prescribed information regarding the well-being of employees, retirees and pensioners and the diversity of directors and senior management.
The CLC believes that this information should include the ratio between director and senior management compensation and median employee earnings. It should also include total employee compensation and median pensions and pay received by pensioners as well as the funded status of the pension plan.
Thank you, Chair. My time is up. I welcome any questions the committee might have.
Tamara Trotman
View Tamara Trotman Profile
Tamara Trotman
2019-05-02 12:08
I will be dealing with amendments relating to the Proceeds of Crime (Money Laundering) and Terrorist Financing Act, or the PCMLTFA.
The first set of proposed amendments would add the Competition Bureau and Revenu Québec as disclosure recipients of the Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada, or FINTRAC, intelligence. This is intended to support the investigation of tax evasion and mass marketing fraud.
The second set of amendments modifies the timing and the discretion of the director of FINTRAC to make public certain information related to an administrative monetary policy. These amendments will also clarify the information for which confidentiality orders could be issued in an administrative monetary penalty litigation, which would exclude the identity of the reporting entity, the nature of the violations and the amount of the penalty imposed.
Finally, there are technical amendments that clarify terminology and improve readability of the text.
Thank you.
Annamaria Enenajor
View Annamaria Enenajor Profile
Annamaria Enenajor
2019-05-01 15:36
Thank you.
Good evening, Mr. Chair, and members. My name is Annamaria Enenajor. I am a criminal defence lawyer and the founder and campaign director for the Campaign for Cannabis Amnesty.
The Campaign for Cannabis Amnesty is a not-for-profit advocacy group focused on righting the historical wrongs caused by decades of cannabis prohibition. It was founded in April 2018, not too long ago, in response to the absence of federal legislation addressing the stigma of previous convictions for offences that would not longer be illegal under the Cannabis Act. Since then, the campaign has been calling on the government to enact legislation to delete criminal records relating to the simple possession of cannabis. We believe that no Canadian should be burdened with a criminal record for minor, non-violent acts that are no longer a crime.
It is an honour to appear before you today, and I offer you some observations and modest recommendations with respect to Bill C-93. The campaign supports the implementation of measures to remove the stigma of past cannabis convictions that disproportionately impact marginalized Canadians. As it is currently drafted, however, Bill C-93 does not go far enough.
The story of enforcement of cannabis possession offences in Canada is one of historical injustice and inequality. Canadians of different backgrounds consume and possess cannabis at comparable rates. In fact, Canada has one of the highest rates of cannabis consumption in the world. In 2017, 46.6% of Canadians—almost half of Canadians—admitted to using cannabis at some point in their lives.
Despite this widespread consumption, a growing body of social science evidence has shown that not all Canadians face the same consequences for these actions. Racial profiling and suspicion of specific groups on the basis of stereotypes means that some Canadians are more likely to be closely scrutinized by law enforcement than others. Black Canadians, indigenous people of Canada and low-income Canadians are more likely to be stopped, searched, arrested, prosecuted and incarcerated for cannabis possession offences than white Canadians. This is not a tragic and accidental phenomenon. This is a historical injustice and a systemic charter violation that cries out for redress.
The equality provision of the charter was intended to ensure a measure of substantive, and not merely formal, equality. The Supreme Court of Canada has consistently held, beginning with the case of Eldridge, 1997, that a discriminatory purpose or intention is not a necessary condition to finding a violation of the equality provision of the charter. It is sufficient if the effect of the legislation, while neutral on its face, is to deny someone equal protection and benefit of the law. To the extent that the government seeks to draw distinction between laws that are discriminatory on their face and laws that are discriminatory in their effects, a distinction is illegitimate for the purpose of our constitutional protections.
While historical cannabis protection laws were not discriminatory on their face, they most certainly produced discriminatory effects in their enforcement. They perpetuated disadvantage on the basis of race, ethnic origin and colour, all of which are prohibited grounds under the charter.
The unequal and disproportionate enforcement of cannabis-related offences on this scale and of this magnitude encourages distrust and resentment of law enforcement, cynicism towards the administration of justice and an understandable sentiment that the promise of substantive equality under the charter is a myth for many Canadians. An appropriately powerful response to this shameful history is therefore also necessary to maintain the integrity of our justice system.
While the campaign applauds the government's willingness to recognize the disproportionate stigma and burden that results from the retention of conviction records for historical simple cannabis possession, we believe the bill does not go far enough.
Given the serious consequences of a cannabis possession conviction on the lives of Canadians and the legacy of inequality through disproportionate and discriminatory enforcement, the federal government must respond to this historical injustice with a measure sufficiently powerful to denounce a shameful history. People with simple cannabis possession records should be put in the same position as those millions of Canadians who did and who continue to do the exact same thing.
While it was criminal, they did not face any consequences because of factors that have no bearing on their moral culpability or criminality—factors such as their race, income, family connections and their neighbourhood of residence. As a result of that, they were never arrested and never convicted and were able to proceed through their lives with opportunities that were not available to other Canadians. As a result, Bill C-93 should be amended to provide for free, automatic, simple and permanent records deletions for simple cannabis possession offences.
If the government is not willing to go that far, then we suggest that there are other aspects of that kind of regime that the government could tap into that would still be satisfactory. For example, the government could incorporate aspects of an expungement scheme that could improve the bill's utility and allow for the implementation in a way that would benefit as many people as possible.
For example, on Monday when this committee met last, we heard that because of our decentralized and often archaic record-keeping practices, attempting to find and then destroy all relevant records would simply be too arduous. Just because we can't do this for all records doesn't mean we can't do it for some, and in fact, for the most important. As the honourable Ralph Goodale mentioned on Monday, while records relating to criminal offences do not exist in a single national database, records for convictions that have the greatest impact on jobs, volunteering and travel, in fact do.
The Canadian Police Information Centre, CPIC, is a national database maintained by the RCMP. If someone is arrested, charged and convicted of a crime, this record exists in the CPIC database. When an employer asks for a background check, for example, and requests it from the RCMP, the RCMP doesn't dispatch agents to rummage through courthouses to get all these disparate court records and information about an individual. They scan CPIC. When Canada discloses conviction information about its citizens to the United States, it also doesn't send photocopies of papers in boxes that are all across the country in disparate jurisdictions. It shares one database: CPIC.
Whereas we can't delete all records, what we can do is target one extraordinarily important database. Automatically removing all simple cannabis possession offences from CPIC would go a long way to alleviate the impact of a conviction from the lives of Canadians, even though this would not constitute a full expungement.
The automatic deletion of CPIC entries in relation to simple cannabis offences is also a cost-effective way to provide immediate relief to Canadians. An application process involving the collection of records from provincial, territorial and local police databases involves delays and hidden costs. Even if Bill C-93 eliminates the $631 application fee ordinarily required for record suspension applications, applicants may still need to pay for fingerprinting, court information and local police record checks, which can add up to hundreds of dollars.
There has been some discussion in this committee about whether record suspensions assist Canadians when crossing the border to the United States. I'd like to speak very briefly about that, and I could be asked more questions about that later. Record suspensions do not assist Canadians seeking to cross the border to the United States. The United States does not recognize any foreign pardon, irrespective of the effect of conviction. In fact, neither foreign pardons nor foreign expungement are effective in preventing inadmissibility to the United States. They are essentially equally useless.
I have provided to this committee fulsome submissions in writing that outline further recommendations, points and observations about this law. However, I wish to conclude with our primary recommendation, which is this: Bill C-93 should provide for the permanent and automatic deletion of all conviction entries for cannabis simple possession in the CPIC database.
Our subsidiary recommendations are outlined in our written briefs.
We hope that the recommendations that we proposed would increase the bill's utility, assist in achieving its stated goals and allow for implementation that would benefit as many people as possible.
Thank you for your time.
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