Question Period Note: Coroner’s Findings

The media are reporting on the coroner’s finding that an electronic monitoring system could have prevented the death of a young woman murdered by an offender on parole in January 2020 in the Quebec region.

• This was a tragedy and our thoughts are with the family and friends of Ms. Levesque for their loss.

• The Correctional Service of Canada will review the recommendations made in the coroner’s report relating to the death of Marylène Levesque and give them full consideration.

• Electronic monitoring is a tool that is currently available to parole officers, in conjunction with other community supervision methods. The Correctional Service is open to looking at further use of electronic monitoring.

• Following this incident, an independent Joint National Board of Investigation was convened by the Correctional Service of Canada and the Parole Board of Canada.

• A number of recommendations were made and accepted to prevent similar incidents from happening again.

• In response to the recommendations of the Board, the Correctional Service of Canada is changing its direct supervision model in Quebec, strengthening community supervision and information collection and sharing policies and tools and implementing new, mandatory Intimate Partner Violence training.

• To date, all recommendations are well underway and on track to be implemented before the end of 2021.

Federal offender Eustachio Gallese has been serving a life sentence since December 16, 2006. He was sentenced for the Second-Degree Murder of his then-spouse, with no chance of parole for 15 years. The index offence occurred on October 21, 2004. He was first granted Day Parole (DP) on March 26, 2019. On September 19, 2019, his DP was continued while Full Parole was denied. On January 23, 2020, his DP was suspended due to his suspected involvement in another murder. He was charged and convicted of First-Degree Murder on February 27, 2020, in the death of Marylène Levesque. Gallese remains in federal custody.

Joint National Board of Investigation Recommendations
The Joint National CSC – PBC BOI into the events surrounding the death of Marylène Levesque by offender Eustachio Gallese was convened on February 3, 2020. It was comprised of five members with the skills and expertise to carry out this investigation, including two external co-chairs, who are criminologists, independent of CSC and PBC. They conducted interviews and examined all of the documentation and facts around the release and supervision of an offender who was on DP at the time of the incident, and presented findings and recommendations that cover the following themes: information collection and sharing, community supervision, training, and the PBC decision-making process.

The BOI report made five recommendations:
• That CSC revise Commissioner’s Directive (CD) 705-2 – Information Collection to define a serious offence and specify the documents required, including source documents such as trial transcripts for sentenced offenders with a history of violence offences.
• That CSC revise CD 715-1 – Community Supervision to include a quality control mechanism with a network of collateral contacts.
• That CSC integrate training on domestic violence into the Parole Officer (PO) Induction Training and that this training be offered during the PO Continuous Development training.
• That CSC develop a case conference instrument that includes minimum indicators.
• That the direct supervision component set out in the contract agreement be taken away from the Maison Painchaud Community Residential Facility (CRF) and given back to CSC, and that CSC review the service models with all other CRF currently responsible for the direct supervision of offenders.
CSC’s Response to the BOI Recommendations

CSC has thoroughly reviewed, analyzed, and accepted the BOI recommendations as part of its commitment to do everything possible to prevent such a tragedy from ever happening again. CSC is taking the following actions in response to the report’s recommendations:
• CSC has changed its direct supervision model in Quebec. CRFs in Quebec no longer directly supervise offenders; however, they continue to provide accommodation and support to offenders, consistent with the rest of the country. CSC values these partnerships, as they are essential to supporting offenders in their transition from institutions to the community.
• CSC has strengthened its community supervision policies and tools so that specific elements, such as collateral contacts of the offender (employer, family members and friends) are regularly discussed during case conferences between Parole Officers and their supervisors to help continually re-assess an offender’s risk. These tools have been developed and promulgated to provide guidance to case management staff in their supervision activities.
• CSC has completed the review of its Information Collection policy to clearly define a serious offence for the purpose of information collection, specify which types of documents are required and relevant to an offender’s history, and implement a formal monitoring mechanism.
• CSC is implementing new, mandatory Intimate Partner Violence training, which will become a core component of the existing Parole Officer Continuous Development Training. This training will be delivered to all Parole Officers and their supervisors across the country. The training was developed and is being delivered with the assistance of recognized subject matter experts in the field, and aims at providing up-to-date information and increasing the competency in assessing and managing the risk of offenders. The delivery of the training sessions started in October 2021 and is on track to meet the target date of December 31, 2021.
Disciplinary investigations were completed, as per Treasury Board guidelines, and accountability measures have been taken.

Electronic Monitoring
The CCRA and the Corrections and Conditional Release Regulations permit the CSC to demand that some offenders wear an electronic monitoring device to monitor certain special conditions while in the community.

Electronic monitoring is a supervision tool available to community parole officers. Electronic monitoring is not intended to replace traditional means of supervising offenders on release. The purpose of electronic monitoring is to assist community parole officers in effectively supervising an offender’s compliance with one or more geographical special conditions. Electronic monitoring cannot be imposed as a condition; rather it is a supervision tool that can monitor a geographical condition. Depending on the releasing authority, the condition must be imposed by either the PBC or the Institutional Head.

Electronic monitoring is available for certain higher risk offenders in order to monitor compliance with a geographical condition of release while in the community on Statutory Release, Full and Day Parole, Temporary Absence, Work Release or while subject to a Long-term Supervision Order.

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