Debates of Sept. 21st, 1995

Corrections And Conditional Release Act

[Art Hanger, Reform, Calgary Northeast, AB]

That is something the government should be doing.

[Randy White, Reform, Fraser Valley West, BC]

That is right. My colleague from Calgary says that is something the government should be doing. It is opposing a motion that says exactly what so many people are trying to do. They want sex offenders on some form of registry. They want the registry to be available to everyone. They want to know who is living next door. It does not much matter if only the police know about it.

I do not have access to CPIC. It is a police system. If I have children in my home I want to know who is living next door, if they are serious sexual offenders. Today in this country we are not permitted to know that, courtesy of this government.

[An hon. member]

And the parliamentary secretary over there is laughing.

[Randy White, Reform, Fraser Valley West, BC]

Yes, it is unfortunate, we even get laughs at this kind of stuff here.

Let us take the matter away from the political sphere for a moment. Let us see what CAVEAT has to say about this, Canadians Against Violence Everywhere Advocating its Termination. Its members met and talked about this. In fact they have quite an interesting document from recent meetings which people from right across the country attended.

One such group that met with CAVEAT is the Community Standards and Child Exploitation Committee. Its chairs included people like Justice John McGarry, Ontario Court of Justice, General Division; the London police were represented; the London family court; the president of a group against pornography and so on.

What did these groups say about it? Is it just the Reform Party talking here? They state: "We recommend the creation of a national child abuse registry. Such a registry would work in the same way as bonding at a financial institution. In order to work with children in a position of trust, such as teacher or babysitter, the onus is upon the prospective employee to produce an updated recent certificate from the registry to prove that the individual has no previous convictions for sexual offences against children. We acknowledge that those who sexually offend against children are highly likely to recidivate. Accordingly we recommend that if such offenders are to be released in the community, measures be undertaken to inform the community of the offender's release".

It is not just the Reform Party. This is across the country. If we are to err in areas of criminality we must err on the side of caution. We must take the route of protecting our young at all costs. We cannot afford to debate whether or not such things are as important as the other. What we must do is protect our young.

Therefore, can any Liberal in this House stand up and say that a national registry for sex offenders against children and others is not necessary for everybody? I keep hearing that we have one. CPIC has one. Members opposite do not understand. That is a police registry system. People do not have access to it. We must know who are the child offenders and who perpetrates these offences. We must know who they are, where they are and what their MOs are. It is critical.

To listen to rhetoric like I just heard is just so Liberal. I cannot think of anything else. They got us into this mess and we are still in the mess. Notwithstanding CAVEAT, Victims of Violence, Citizens Against Violence Everywhere, the Melanie Carpenter Society and on and on, they do not listen.

[John Williams, Reform, St. Albert, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I too would like to think the government would realize the importance of bringing in a child sex offender registry.

We have had the parliamentary secretary tell us this morning that it is out of order because it will cost money. Surely the rights of the innocent deserve a little bit of money. We seem to spend millions and millions of dollars and all kinds of effort by the police to try to convict people after the crimes are committed.

As we have heard the previous speaker tell us, even those who are convicted of dangerous offences and should be in jail, not only for a long time but perhaps as long as they live, are out on the street. Perhaps it is not a Canadian street but the street of another country, in order for them to continue to perpetrate these horrible and horrific crimes to destroy innocent young children who are the most precious people we have.

The government is totally and absolutely opposed to trying to protect and help the innocent, not the criminals but the innocent, our young and vulnerable. The government is not prepared to spend any money whatsoever to help these people before they are victimized, before their lives are ruined and before they are turned perhaps into criminals themselves. The government would far rather keep the money and spend it on recycling prisoners through our jail system. They are out the door as soon as they are in to continue on in their awful ways.

In the last little while I have been hearing about Gustafsen Lake on the television and the fact that we now have the criminals in that situation behind bars. It is said this is going to be the largest police investigation in history. No doubt millions and millions of dollars will be spent building a huge case against people who are obviously guilty. It is going to drag through the courts for months and perhaps years while the government says it has no money whatsoever to protect our young.

In this House we have had debates covering weeks on setting up a registry for guns and other firearms. The Minister of Justice is prepared to spend by his own admission up to $200 million of taxpayers' money to set up a national gun registration system so that law-abiding citizens can be registered, fined and penalized if convicted of not following the rules. This is $200 million of taxpayers' money. The innocent law-abiding citizens are going to be put through hoops time and time again. If they fail to register their guns they are going to be subject to the Criminal Code, imprisoned and everything else.

These are not people who have committed a crime. They are not people who by and large will commit a crime. Yet the Minister of Justice says it is perfectly A-okay to spend $200 million on the effort. However there is no money to protect our young, our innocent and our vulnerable.

Where is the government coming from? I cannot understand the logic of the $200 million, the imposition of all kinds of rules and regulations on law-abiding citizens. Yet the Minister of Justice absolutely and completely refuses to take the worst criminals in the country and put their names on a list to let people know who they are, where they are, what they have done and what they could do to children in our neighbourhoods.

[An hon. member]

Shame.

[John Williams, Reform, St. Albert, AB]

It does not make sense.

The charter of rights and freedoms is hauled out every time somebody accused of a crime ends up in court. It is the criminals who always seem to benefit from it. However the charter of rights says we have the right to live free from fear, free from persecution, free of assault by someone else. We have these rights and freedoms and we should be able to enjoy them in a civilized society.

Presumably the government is committed to protecting the charter of rights and freedoms and the rights and freedoms of the innocent individuals but it is not. It would far rather spend the taxpayers' money creating all kinds of rules for law-abiding people and letting those who have abused the privileges, assaulted our young, destroyed the vulnerable in society. The government is not prepared to spend any money on the law-abiding people whatsoever.

As I said at the beginning of my speech, the parliamentary secretary ruled this motion out of order because it will cost some money. That speaks for itself and for the Liberal government that has its priorities totally and absolutely wrong. I think the Canadian people would agree with the Reform Party when we stand up and say: We want to protect our children. We want to protect our vulnerable, protect the innocent people in the land. If it takes a few dollars-not $200 million-to do so then it is money well spent.

I suggest that Mr. Rock cancel his gun registration program and use that money, if necessary 10 times over, on a program that will produce a child sex offence registry and the country will be far better off.

[The Deputy Speaker]

Colleagues we are all recently back in the House. I would ask all members to not refer to ministers by their surnames, family names or first names, but by the name of the ministry.

[Leon Benoit, Reform, Vegreville, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I listened to the debate on the amendments and I felt I had to say something on behalf of Canadians, particularly those in my constituency whom I met with over the summer and Canadians in Atlantic Canada whom I met with recently.

Canadians are saying they want our justice system changed to give more protection to its citizens. They never talk about changing the system to give more protection to the criminal. They do not want that. They are not particularly concerned about spending more money to rehabilitate criminals although most want rehabilitation to take place where possible. Canadians want a justice system that protects the people.

The amendments presented by the hon. member for Wild Rose provide more protection at least for a certain group of people, in this case, children. The amendment should certainly be supported by all members of the House. I just do not believe that all members of the House are not willing to put in place an amendment which would allow more protection for children. I find it hard to believe that they would not pass this amendment.

Specifically these amendments would put information on a police computer system, CPIC. It would allow information to be entered in the computer system on the modus operandi used by sexual offenders who commit sexual abuse on children. That is what the amendment would provide. It would make this information available to all peace officers across the country.

In that way, if police were investigating a sexual offence against a child, they would have quick and ready access to information across the country which would point out if a similar type of a crime had been committed in another part of the country in the past.

Also the amendment would give information to peace officers again on CPIC. Specifically it would give the location of the prisons in which offenders are imprisoned and the date of release of any offender who has committed a sexual offence against a child. Because the information would be on CPIC it would be readily available to all police officers across the country.

Therefore it is very difficult for me to understand why the amendment would not be supported by all members of the House. For that reason too I thank the hon. member for Wild Rose for bringing the amendment forward.

There is much more that can be done. It is necessary to clearly redefine the priorities in our justice system. Through a conscious effort made by Liberal governments starting in 1972 with Solicitor General Goyer, the priorities of the justice system were shifted from a system that put the highest priority on the rights of the people in the country to be safe and to feel safe to the rights of the victims. They shifted the priorities to a situation where the top priority has become the rights of the criminal, the poor criminal; we have to do everything we can to protect the criminal, the rights of the criminal and the rehabilitation of the criminal. I do not think most Canadians believe the criminal should be the top priority in our justice system.

The amendment proposed by the hon. member for Wild Rose will do something to shift the focus back again to the victims. For all the talk I have heard across the country about the need to care for the victims, I have not seen legislation in the House that has done much in terms of giving the victims more say, making them a higher priority within our justice system.

The parliamentary secretary to the solicitor general has said that the amendment cannot possibly go through because we cannot afford it. We have to always be very conscious of spending. The Reform zero in three plan which we presented across the country during the 1993 election campaign laid out in some detail a plan which would lead to a balanced budget in three years. In that plan we allowed for spending in the justice area. If we are to have the deterrents in place and the deterrents sometimes are longer prison sentences-other deterrents can be used as well-it costs money. It is a matter of priorizing spending. In our zero in three plan we did that. Justice is such a high priority that we allocated money to it.

In our taxpayers' budget presented before the finance minister's budget last February we put aside money to put in place systems like the one proposed by the member for Wild Rose.

We are always conscious of spending money but we also know how to priorize. It is important to know where Canadians are willing to spend money and where they are not. In most cases the government has those priorities completely turned around. It does not know what is important to Canadians and it does not know in what areas Canadians are willing to spend money and what areas they are not.

It will take a continual reminder from us on this side of the House for government members of what is important to Canadians. It seems the government is out of touch. Perhaps I am being a little unfair when I say that all members of the governing party are out of touch, because I believe it is mainly the cabinet, the old boys who have been around for years that are out of touch.

Unfortunately in the old party system that is all that really matters. If the leader of a party wants it done this way it will be done this way. We have seen party discipline that is way beyond democratic. It is anti-democratic. We have seen party discipline used in the House over and over again, to the extent that the members of Parliament who know what the people want are completely ignored and are not even allowed to vote for what their constituents want.

The system is in collapse and it must be fixed. Until the system is fixed I suspect the legislation in the area of justice will do very little to improve the system.

Positive proposals like those presented by the member for Wild Rose will continue to be ignored in spite of the fact that many members across the floor, those who are still in touch with their constituents, know they should be passed. The Prime Minister says that they are not going to support it, the whip cracks the whip and those members have no voice.

I do not care much that members of Parliament have no voice, but I do care that their constituents have no voice. It is time that was changed. The changes to the justice system that we need, the changes that Reform has proposed in the House over and over again, will not happen until the system is fixed. We have to fix it. We have to fix it quickly, but I am afraid it will not happen with the government that is in place.

[The Deputy Speaker]

Is the House ready for the question?

[Some hon. members]

Question.

[The Deputy Speaker]

The question is on Motion No. 16. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[Some hon. members]

No.

[The Deputy Speaker]

All those in favour of the motion will please say yea.

[Some hon. members]

Yea.

[The Deputy Speaker]

All those opposed will please say nay.

[Some hon. members]

Nay.

[The Deputy Speaker]

In my opinion the nays have it.

And more than five members having risen:

[The Deputy Speaker]

Pursuant to Standing Order 76(8), a recorded division on the proposed motion stands deferred.

We will now deal with group 7.

[Myron Thompson, Reform, Wild Rose, AB]

moved:

Motion No. 19

That Bill C-45, in Clause 56, be amended a ) by adding after line 8, on page 36, the following:

"(1.1) An inquiry shall be held to determine whether any member of the Board should be subject to any disciplinary or remedial measures where the member has recommended conditional release for a violent offender and the violent offender has committed a violent offence while on that conditional release."; b ) by replacing lines 10 and 11, on page 36, with the following:

"propriate that an inquiry under subsection (1) be held or where an inquiry must be held by virtue of subsection (1.1), a judge, supernumerary judge or former"; c ) by replacing line 46, on page 37, with the following:

"member's office,"; and d ) by replacing line 3, on page 38, with the following:

"the due execution of the member's office, or e ) has recommended conditional release for a violent offender and the violent offender has committed a violent offence while on that conditional release,''.

[Randy White, Reform, Fraser Valley West, BC]

Mr. Speaker, Motion No. 19 concerns a difference of opinion about whether or not there should be or may be a mandatory review of parole board decisions if someone who is out on parole commits a crime.

Our belief is that there should be a mandatory review of parole board decisions when it makes errors. I will give some examples. I have mentioned it twice but I have to mention the Wayne Perkin case again because it is so close to the real problem. This fellow went into a home, coerced an individual in my community into her garden shed, beat her over the head with a hammer, raped her, taped her hands behind her back, injected her with cocaine and left her for dead. He got six years, which is light, was put out on parole and while on parole murdered Angela Richards.

I always wondered in that particular case as I attended the sentencing hearing where the parole board was. What responsibility and what accountability are on the parole board for the absolutely disastrous error it made? Had Perkin not got out on parole the first time for such a terrible crime, Angela Richards would be alive today. I have talked with Corrine and Ron about it, Angela's sister and brother-in-law. That is one of the significant questions they have.

Why is the parole board that made this terrible decision going on with more decisions? Why is it not held accountable? Why was it not brought in to listen to the whole court case? Surely we need to have better answers.

This is what the motion is talking about. It wants a mandatory review of its decisions. I am for the termination of employment of those people when they make such drastic decisions. What we are

asking for seems realistic. It seems the Liberal government should agree that there be a mandatory review.

Let us talk a bit about parole for a moment. Most of us are aware that we have a legal system and not a justice system in Canada. It is fraught with lawyers who have made it so convoluted, so difficult to understand and so complex that the average person has lost his or her way throughout the system.

Since 1975, 240 murders have been committed by parolees. They say 70 per cent of those on full parole are successful, but it is the 30 per cent who are the problem.

Not too long ago I received a call from a parole board member who was upset at my making these kinds of comments. He said that in his region there was an 87 per cent success rate. I said: "While that is nice, I wonder if the victims take much consolation in the 13 per cent failure rate". We cannot tell Corrine and Ron that everything should be a bit better for them because we have an 87 per cent success rate. They are a part of the 13 per cent failure rate, and that is what we have to concentrate on.

In 1977, 85 per cent of parole board members had experience in the justice system; in 1988, just 10 years later, 53 per cent. It went down. Why did it go down? It was because that party and the other party from Jurassic Park started appointing their friends to parole board positions. How do I know? In 1993, 16 of 22 full or part time members were either defeated or failed politicians.

What kind of decisions do we get from them? They are their friends. They are party hacks. They collected money for your campaigns. The cost of doing that business results in people like Angela Richards being stabbed 22 times and murdered unnecessarily. This is not much consolation for Corrine and Ron, or Mrs. Richards.

Do we have any solutions? What do we do when they let these people out and they ruin the lives of thousands of people? There is no question that parole board members need more training. If the Liberals are going to run this country by a majority and they are going to put all their friends into these important jobs, then they should at least have the courtesy to the rest of us to train them.

I was in a parole board hearing not too long ago and received some information from an administrator who said that the psychologists' reports, which are relied upon for decisions by parole boards, are going to be given to them in a précis. That is just a short capsulation by a civil servant who makes a judgment as to what a psychologist says on five or six pages.

I can say that when people like Wayne Perkin go up before a parole board I would really like them to have a full psychologist's assessment and not a précis. Listen to what we are saying. The safety of the public is the number one concern.

While the heads are down and they are all quiet over there I cannot understand why they would oppose a mandatory review. Just exactly what is wrong with a mandatory review of a parole board and its members for making bad decisions?

It is understandable why we stand here in frustration and say this is absolute common sense. What is the problem? Who are you not listening to?

I would like to give some recommendations from another group.

[The Deputy Speaker]

The member has approximately two minutes left, but when he says you and looks across the Chamber the poor Speaker is left thinking that nobody cares whether he or she is here at all. I would ask the member to please look this way when he says you.

[Randy White, Reform, Fraser Valley West, BC]

I will talk through you, Mr. Speaker. It is difficult enough talking about this over here, because it does not register in here.

We have to bite the bullet in this country and remove bad decision makers. The bad decision makers were in part responsible for a young lady losing her life by allowing a terrible criminal out on parole, and they walked away unscathed. They did not even get a reprimand on their job performance sheets. Nothing happened. Maybe one said: "I am sorry". A hell of a lot of good that is to Corrine, Ron, or Angela.

Some day either they are going to have to listen over here or they are going to be replaced. The time is coming because these Liberals are not listening to a major groundswell in this country.

Since I only have a minute, I am going to give you one recommendation from CAVEAT, Canadians Against Violence Everywhere Advocating its Termination. "Allow discipline of parole board members short of termination to be carried out by the chairman of the National Parole Board, a procedure akin to the Federal Inquiries Act, allowing for private or public inquiries. A mandate for a maximum five-year term of appointment for parole board members". They are not going to listen.

[The Deputy Speaker]

I must tell the member that his time has expired.