Elizabeth May: Mr. Speaker, I was able to participate in some of the justice committee meetings and I thank the Chair for allowing me to speak in those sessions. One of the things that struck me were the witnesses on behalf of victims. No one could be untouched by the devastating and harrowing personal stories of people who have been affected by crimes committed by people with mental health issues, but they really were not relevant to the empirical question of whether people within the not criminally responsible system are returning in what was referred to as some sort of revolving door.
By the way, I would like to single out my hon. colleague for having tried to put forward more amendments brought forward from victims’ groups, particularly those of Sue O’Sullivan, the Federal Ombudsman for Victims of Crime. There was an attempt by this New Democratic Party member to put her testimony into amendments to give victims more notice and more information, but they were not accepted by the Conservative members on the committee. I would have supported these if I had been allowed to vote, by the way.
My question is this. When we look at the evidence of misleading statistics, there is a new report on the correction to data, which the member referred to in his speech, from key experts. They notified the Minister of Justice back in March, and it appears that we are still using the wrong numbers. For instance, the original report said that 38.1% of sex offenders found not criminally responsible and accused of sex offences had at least one prior NCR finding, but the accurate number is almost a quarter of that, 9.5%. How is it we are still talking about this issue and using the wrong numbers?
Hoang Mai: Mr. Speaker, as the member mentioned, we tried to bring forward amendments with respect to victims giving more information. One of the problems we had was that the Conservatives said that amendments were needed before we actually heard some of the witnesses. Those were the deadlines and procedures.
With respect to her question about why the government was still using the wrong numbers, I raised the fact that the Conservatives were using this as a partisan issue and making it worse than it was. It came to me that they were stigmatizing people with mental illness, and we heard this from witnesses. The Conservatives came out with numbers. They were talking 38%, 39% with the real numbers being 7% or 9%.
The worse thing is that this came from the Minister of Justice. He knew with the reports that those numbers were the wrong numbers. We are talking about people who are non-NCR. A minister should know all the facts. A minister should not use numbers to make it sound worse and do a bit of fundraising. That is not how we should work in Parliament.