OTTAWA - The Conservative chairman of the Commons public safety committee says a proposed law that would bar thousands of Canadians from ever applying for a criminal records pardon may have to be amended.
But Kevin Sorenson's frank assessment flies in the face of the official line from the Harper government, which continues to berate opposition MPs for allegedly favouring criminals over victims.
Barring child sex offenders from ever receiving pardons is the headline-grabbing — and widely endorsed — impetus of Bill C-23B.
The legislation, however, would also stop anyone with more than three indictable convictions — for anything from cheque kiting to selling steroids — from ever being eligible to apply for a record suspension.
A parade of credible and sympathetic witnesses have told MPs on the public safety committee that the three strikes rule would affect countless Canadians who are trying to turn their lives around. A single bad decision, MPs have been told, can result in half a dozen indictable charges.
Conservative MPs on the committee lauded the inspiring personal stories of rehabilitation by some of the very ex-offenders the new law would punish.
"The minister has said we'll have to look at this," Sorenson said this week. "There can be amendments."
Sorenson's tone made it sound like a foregone conclusion.
Public Safety Minister Vic Toews has opened the door a crack.
"If I were assured that multiple offenders could not take advantage of the pardon system, I would consider another proposal," he recently said.
But asked for clarification Thursday, Toews' office responded with sloganeering and partisan bombast.
"Our Conservative government stands up for the rights of victims," Toews office said in an email.
"These reforms would make repeat offenders more accountable to their victims for their actions. As the minister of public safety said this week in the House, a criminal's rights should not come first in our criminal justice system. We call on the opposition to finally listen to victims and support Bill C-23B, a bill that would deny child sex offenders the right to ever receive a pardon."
But the sex offender section of the bill is not in dispute.
Canadians recoiled with disgust last spring when The Canadian Press revealed that convicted child sex abuser Graham James had been quietly pardoned in 2007. James has since been charged with nine more sex crimes against minors dating from the late 1970s into the early 1990s.
The House of Commons unanimously agreed to change the law in June to give the National Parole Board greater discretion to deny pardons to repeat sex offenders like James and Karla Homolka. But MPs refused to rush through the entire government bill because of concerns over the problematic elements that are now coming to light in committee testimony.
This week, Conservative MP Phil McColeman took pains during a public safety committee hearing to assure former offenders who were testifying that he did not consider them to be the "heinous" and "outlandish" criminals the bill is targeting.
Yet all three individuals would be barred from ever applying for a pardon under the new law because each has more than three indictable convictions. The most eloquent of the three testified he had more than 25.
The following day in the Commons, McColeman asked a scripted question in which he described the same witnesses he'd so recently praised simply as "convicted criminals" and said they were trying "to keep Canada's pardon system as is."
McColeman then accused Liberal MP Mark Holland of putting "the rights of criminals before the rights of victims."
Holland later rose to say McColeman's attack was "offensive and it does a tremendous disrespect to the House and to the debate that is before us."
Toews declined an interview request from The Canadian Press.
