Report of the committee
Tuesday, June 15, 2021
The Standing Senate Committee on National Security and Defence has the honour to present its
SECOND REPORT
Your committee, to which was referred Bill C-228, An Act to establish a federal framework to reduce recidivism, has, in obedience to the order of reference of Thursday, May 27, 2021, examined the said bill and now reports the same without amendment but with certain observations, which are appended to this report.
Respectfully submitted,
GWEN BONIFACE
Chair
Observations to the Second Report of the Standing Senate Committee on National Security and Defence (Bill C-228)
Community Integration During Sentence
The committee observes that while the focus of Bill C-228 is primarily to urge the government to fulfill what is already a legal obligation of the Correctional Service of Canada pursuant to s. 3 of the Corrections and Conditional Release Act, the government is urged to more rigorously pursue its efforts to support individuals to successfully rehabilitate and reintegrate by enhancing access to community supports and opportunities for release, including through the development of expanded non-carceral measures of the kind recommended to ss. 29, 81 & 84 by the Senate in 2019 (35th report of the Standing Senate Committee on Social Affairs, Science and Technology, 42nd Parliament, 1st Session), in order to promote safer communities for all.
Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls
The committee observes that whereas Bill C-228 calls on the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness to develop and implement, in consultation with a diverse range of stakeholders, a federal framework designed to reduce recidivism and report back to Parliament, that clause 2(2) be interpreted as requiring review and reference to the Final Report of the MMIWG Inquiry as well as the data sources and the relevant components of the MMIWG National Action Plan and to programs, procedures and practices in other countries that have addressed reduction of recidivism among racialized populations that are over-represented in prisons.