Sean Casey, MP

Changes to Passports coming July 1st

Our office is one of the busiest for passports as we still do not have a Passport Office on Prince Edward Island. There are big changes coming on July 1, so I wanted to make sure all of you were aware and please at any time call Corinne Reid at my office at 566-7770 if you have any questions.

1. New passport and travel document fees take effect on July 1: Rather than being funded by taxpayers, Canada’s passport program is financed by the fees paid by passport applicants for its services.

New passport fees effective July 1, 2013

In Canada (application submitted in Canada and passport is delivered in Canada):
10-year adult passport: $160*
5-year adult passport: $120*
Child passport: $57

2. Deployment of the 10-year ePassport July 1: The new 36-page ePassport will be available to Canadians through all service channels as of July 1, 2013. Applicants age 16 and over will also have the option of applying for a 5-year or 10-year passport.

3. New forms: Application requirements will remain the same with the implementation of the new ePassport. New application forms reflecting the new fees and 5-year or 10-year option for Canadians age 16 and older will be available as of June 17, 2013.

I appreciate the summer can be a busy time for many people to travel. I would recommend ensuring your passport is valid to avoid having to go to Halifax or Fredericton for an express service. Again, please call my office if you have any questions or would like us to send your passport for processing.

Sean

Meet Yvonne Jones!

Meet Yvonne Jones

Yvonne is the newest Member of Parliament from the federal riding of Labrador.

She won that riding last month during a by-election that pitted her against Peter Penashue, the former Conservative cabinet minister forced to resign due to Election Canada spending irregularities.

Yvonne won that riding, despite the overwhelming efforts of the Harper government to defeat her. S…he is the first person to defeat a Conservative in a by-election in a riding previously held by a Conservative under Prime Minister Harper.

She is also the first female to win the Federal Labrador Riding.

However Yvonne Jones is no stranger when it comes to tackling and overcoming significant challenge. After serving as Mayor of Mary’s Harbour, she contested the provincial Liberal nomination in Cartwright- L’Anse au Clair. She was unsuccessful, so she ran as an independent, and won. She went on to hold that seat for 17 years. In 2007, she assumed the Leadership of the Liberal Party of Newfoundland and Labrador. She was the first women to lead the Party, and faced off daily against then Premier Danny Williams.

Then Yvonne faced one of the biggest challenges of her life!

While still leading the provincial Liberals, she was diagnosed with breast cancer. She underwent surgery, chemo therapy and radiation all the while continuing to serve her constituents. In the summer of 2011 She stepped down as Leader in order to focus on her health. Miraculously, she was able to come back to political life and is now a role model for so many who face challenges.

Yvonne has a remarkable story to share, and I am honoured that she will be in Charlottetown on August 14 for my annual fundraiser where she will talk about her life, her cancer and her ongoing success as a female public leader. Having given much of her life in the service of others, she still continues to do so with excitement, enthusiasm and vigor.

Sean Casey

Hill Times: Violent crime victims’ families support feds’ not criminally responsible bill, but opposition parties say legislation based in fear, ideology

Published | Publié: 2013-06-10
Received | Reçu: 2013-06-10 2:08 AM Hill Times
Violent crime victims’ families support feds’ not criminally responsible bill, but opposition parties say legislation based in fear, ideology
The bill, the Not Criminally Responsible Reform Act, would attach a new high-risk non-criminally responsible’ label to accused individuals, and would ensure that the public be notified if an accused person is discharged.

Matt Moir

Amid concern from opposition parties and some mental health organizations, the federal government’s Bill C-54 designed to amend the Criminal Code and the National Defence Act by implementing restrictions on people found not criminally responsible due to a mental disorder is making its way through a House Committee.

The bill, the Not Criminally Responsible Reform Act, would attach a new “high-risk non-criminally responsible” label to accused individuals, and would ensure that the public be notified if an accused person is discharged. Additionally, the accused would be ineligible for unescorted passes, and would have to wait three years before being reviewed by a mental health board, instead of one.

At the House Justice and Human Rights Committee meeting on June 3, Justice Minister Rob Nicholson (Niagara Falls, Ont.) explained that the number of individuals the courts would consider “a higher threat to public safety” and thus “high-risk” would be very small.

Mr. Nicholson said that in order for an accused to be deemed “high-risk,” the individual must be “found NCR for a serious personal injury offenceinvolving the use or attempted use of violence or conduct intended to endanger the life or safety of another person, or a number of sexual offences.”

The justice minister also noted the increased role that victims would play in the high-risk designation process.

“C-54 amends the Criminal Code to enhance the safety of victims and provide them with opportunities for greater involvement in the hearing process. The bill provides that victims be notified when an accused is discharged if they so requested, and it allows for non-communication orders between an NCR, accused and victim,” Mr. Nicholson said.

Opposition MPs reject those arguments, however.

Liberal MP Sean Casey (Charlottetown, P.E.I.) said he was not satisfied with Mr. Nicholson’s presentation at the committee, and told The Hill Times that he does not think Bill C-54 is amendable.

“It comes from a position based in fear and ideology and not from evidentiary basis, which is something we see all too often with Conservative crime legislation. This bill will help them raise a lot of money from their base, which is typical of all of their law and order legislation,” said Mr. Casey.

Mr. Casey also said that the governing Conservatives are leveraging well-known criminal cases involving the mentally ill, including the 2008 beheading of Tim McLean by Vincent Li on a Greyhound bus. Mr. Li suffers from schizophrenia, and in a 2012 interview told Chris Summerville, the CEO of the Schizophrenia Society of Canada, that he believed Mr. McLean was an alien, and that he was chosen by God to stop an alien invasion.

“Bad facts make bad law, and there’s been a couple of horrific cases that have been widely reported that cause a furor among the public which is understandable and it’s based on emotion and it plays on that. And because that’s the genesis of it, [Bill C-54] is wrong from the get-go,” said Mr. Casey.

Mr. Summerville of the Schizophrenia Society of Canada is one of the mental health advocates that have come out strongly against the bill.

Mr. Summerville told The Hill Times that his organization is “gravely concerned” that the high-risk’ designation would “perpetuate stigma” directed toward people with mental health issues.

“What the bill does is create a new category of high risk’ and the way they define high risk is determined on the brutality or the heinousness of the offence. There is no scientific evidence for the correlation between the brutality of the offence and whether the person will recidivate again or reoffend or even how well they’ll get. So we oppose the high-risk designation because it’s not scientifically based,” said Mr. Summerville.

He also noted his group’s opposition to the way the bill portrays the review board system.

“We have no concerns around elements of the bill that deal with victims. The bill insinuates that the review board system and how they determine high risk of an NCR person is broken. That is just not true,” said Mr. Summerville.

Victims and victims’ rights groups, however, have come out strongly in favour of the legislation.

On June 5, Isabelle Gaston spoke to the committee. Ms. Gaston’s ex-husband, Guy Turcotte, murdered the former couple’s two young children in 2009. He was found not criminally responsible, and released from custody in 2011. Ms. Gaston told the committee that Bill C-54 ensures that victims’ integrity is not “violated” again.

“Under this bill, we would not only be protecting victims, but society as a whole. When I’m being told that [Bill C-54] will do nothing for preventionor that it will stigmatize people with a mental illnesswe forget that a serious crime has been committed. We forget that it was somebody else who was a victim of this crime, and someone else who will also be victimized if there is recidivism,” said Ms. Gaston.

Ms. Gaston also told the committee that those who oppose the bill should not think that its supporters are not compassionate toward the mentally ill, but want to protect victims from further harm.

Sharon Rosenfeldt, founder of Victims of Violence, an Ottawa-based victims’ rights organization, and whose son was murdered by Clifford Olsen, said that her group is “definitely in support of Bill C-54,” and that the high-risk offender designation portion of the legislation is an important advancement for victims of crime.

“There is still the problem of individuals committing such heinous acts that are just so morally repugnant to society in general. We do understand that there is not many of these individuals, but we just think that this legislation is just common sense because there are such individuals in Canada, and society has to be protected and it has to be taken more seriously than it is today,” Ms. Rosenfeldt told The Hill Times.

The committee will continue to look at the bill on June 10.

mmoir@hilltimes.com

The Hill Times

Online: http://www.hilltimes.com/news/news/2013/06/10/violent-crime-victims%E2%80%99-families-support-feds%E2%80%99-not-criminally-responsible-bill/34984

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