New Library of Parliament Publications

The Parliamentary Information and Research Service of the Library of Parliament has just made available 2 publications:

• Civilian Oversight of the RCMP's National Security Functions (revision of an earlier edition of the document from January 2006): "On 11 September 2001, terrorists hijacked several aircraft and attacked civilian and military targets in the United States (...) Following these events, Parliament passed the Anti-terrorism Act. This statute enacted the Charities Registration (Security Information) Act and amended 20 other laws. By defining terrorist support as a criminal offence, it changed the RCMP’s role and provided an opportunity for the organization to be more involved in matters of national security. Although Parliament expanded the role of the RCMP, it did not subject its national security functions to comprehensive civilian oversight. This has created a disparity between the review mechanisms for CSIS and the RCMP, whereby the RCMP is subject to less rigorous scrutiny." The report examines a few options for better oversight of RCMP anti-terrorism operations.
• Bill C-27: An Act to amend the Criminal Code (dangerous offenders and recognizance to keep the peace): "The bill addresses, in two ways, the problem of offenders who have committed one or more violent or sexual offences. First, it tightens the rules that apply to dangerous offenders in the case of repeat offenders. Second, it extends the recognizance to keep the peace and clarifies the terms of recognizances in order to prevent repeat offences. More specifically, the bill makes the following amendments to the Criminal Code (...): an offender convicted of a third violent or sexual offence (...) for which it would be appropriate to impose a sentence of two years or more is presumed to be a dangerous offender, and will therefore be incarcerated for as long as the offender presents an unacceptable risk to society (...); (...) the conditions of a recognizance to keep the peace in relation to a violent or sexual offence may include participation in a treatment program, wearing an electronic monitoring device or requiring the defendant to observe a curfew (...)"