Bill C-36 (Historical)

Serious Time for the Most Serious Crime Act

An Act to amend the Criminal Code

This enactment amends the Criminal Code with regard to the right of persons convicted of murder or high treason to be eligible to apply for early parole.

Disposition of Abolition of Early Parole Act

[Alexandra Mendes, Liberal, Brossard—La Prairie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to participate in the debate on the motion to prevent debate on the content and substance of Bill C-59. I find it rather odd that the Bloc has supported the government's attempt to stifle any attempt at debate on the substance of this bill.

No one in the House can accuse the Liberals of not supporting the idea of eliminating parole eligibility after one-sixth of the sentence is served for economic crimes. Two years ago, my colleague from Bourassa, our candidate in Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert and our member for Lac-Saint-Louis participated in a press conference with several of Earl Jones' victims to call on the government to quickly bring forward a bill to eliminate parole eligibility after one-sixth of the sentence is served, especially for criminals who commit major fraud and have multiple victims.

No one can accuse the Liberals of not supporting that idea. I think it is really dishonest of the government to make that kind of accusation when it knows very well what the Liberals' position is. This was pointed out by my colleague from Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine.

Now I would like to talk about the debate and the fact that the Conservatives and the Bloc members want to limit the scope of the debate. Just seven months ago the members of the Bloc rose in the House to criticize the government for doing the exact same thing it is doing now with Bill C-59. The government moved a motion to block debate.

Last June, the member for Saint-Maurice—Champlain rose in the House to criticize the government for moving a motion to block debate on the Canada-Colombia Free Trade Agreement Implementation Act. The Bloc member for Hochelaga also rose to oppose a government motion to block debate on Bill C-9, the Jobs and Economic Growth Act, by imposing time allocation.

We are opposed to this time allocation motion because we believe that Bill C-59 addresses a very important issue. Furthermore, for two years now, the Liberals have been calling on the government to eliminate parole eligibility after one-sixth of the sentence is served for economic crimes like those committed by Earl Jones, Vincent Lacroix and others.

I think it is a shame that some would have people believe that the Liberals do not want to protect victims. That is simply not true. When the government introduced Bill C-21 on economic crimes and it was referred to committee, the Liberal justice critic proposed an amendment to the bill to eliminate eligibility for parole after one-sixth of the sentence in cases of economic crime. The Conservatives and the Bloc defeated the motion.

Every MP is entitled to his or her opinion on bills that we are called on to debate in the House. It is a fundamental aspect of the democratic process. The operative word here is “debate”, and the collusion between the Conservatives and the Bloc is preventing us from acting as responsible parliamentarians.

We would like to hear from experts. We want to know how this bill will truly address a gap in the law, how it will do justice to victims, how this bill will improve the chances of rehabilitation for those who once lost control of their lives.

Perhaps we should indeed eliminate parole after one-sixth of a sentence for offenders who have committed serious economic crimes and left a number of victims.

However, for non-violent criminal acts that are not fraud, we believe that evidence has shown that parole after one-sixth of a sentence has been very effective and that the rate of recidivism is much lower.

We will never know what the experts might have said since this closure motion eliminates any chance to consult experts. With this government so eager to control everything, it has become somewhat of a tradition to just pass a bill without any idea of the facts that might call it into question.

The Liberals are against this closure motion. It is not justified, and we regret that the Bloc has decided to join the Conservatives to limit the debate on this bill. As far as the substance of the bill is concerned, in the past and still today, no one could accuse the Liberals of not showing their support for eliminating parole after one-sixth of the sentence for economic crimes.

In order to illustrate the government's intellectual dishonesty, I would like to present a chronology of the Conservatives' failures in their so-called fight against crime.

I am referring here to the various bills that have died on the order paper for all sorts of reasons or that have remained in the House or at committee indefinitely.

Here they are. Bill C-15, An Act to amend the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act and to make related and consequential amendments to other Acts, died on the order paper when Parliament was prorogued; Bill C-19, An Act to amend the Criminal Code (investigative hearing and recognizance with conditions), died on the order paper before the House had a chance to vote on it; Bill C-26, An Act to amend the Criminal Code (auto theft and trafficking in property obtained by crime), also died on the order paper. It is certainly not the opposition that forced the government to prorogue Parliament.

Bill C-31, An Act to amend the Criminal Code, the Corruption of Foreign Public Officials Act and the Identification of Criminals Act and to make a consequential amendment to another Act, died on the order paper, and Bill C-36, An Act to amend the Criminal Code, on the faint hope clause, died on the order paper before being brought back this session. One committee meeting was held on Bill C-46, An Act to amend the Criminal Code, the Competition Act and the Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters Act, before it died on the order paper. Bill C-52, An Act to amend the Criminal Code (sentencing for fraud), which is related to Bill C-59, the bill we are dealing with today, died on the order paper when Parliament was prorogued. Bill C-58, An Act respecting the mandatory reporting of Internet child pornography by persons who provide an Internet service, died on the order paper. The prorogation of Parliament killed many bills.

Among the bills introduced by the Minister of Public Safety was Bill C-34, the Protecting Victims From Sex Offenders Act, which also died on the order paper. The bill to deter terrorism and to amend the State Immunity Act died on the order paper. Bill C-43, An Act to amend the Corrections and Conditional Release Act and the Criminal Code, died on the order paper. Bill C-47, An Act regulating telecommunications facilities to support investigations, died on the order paper. Bill C-53, An Act to amend the Corrections and Conditional Release Act (accelerated parole review) and to make consequential amendments to other Acts, died on the order paper. Bill C-60, An Act to implement the Framework Agreement on Integrated Cross-Border Maritime Law Enforcement Operations between the Government of Canada and the Government of the United States of America, died on the order paper.

To date, no meetings have been held to discuss Bill C-16, An Act to amend the Criminal Code. Bill C-17, An Act to amend the Criminal Code (investigative hearing and recognizance with conditions), was given first reading 51 days after Parliament was prorogued, and the committee still has not met to discuss that bill.

Bill C-21, An Act to amend the Criminal Code (sentencing for fraud), was fast-tracked at committee in just one meeting and still has not reached second reading. Bill C-22, An Act respecting the mandatory reporting of Internet child pornography by persons who provide an Internet service, was given first reading 64 days after Parliament was prorogued, and the government delayed it for 26 days at report stage because of the debate on the short title.

Bill C-48, An Act to amend the Criminal Code and to make consequential amendments to the National Defence Act, was given first reading 89 days after Parliament was prorogued, and we are still waiting for the next step. Bill C-50, An Act to amend the Criminal Code (interception of private communications and related warrants and orders), was given first reading after 94 days, and we are still waiting. First reading of An Act to amend the Criminal Code, the Competition Act and the Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters Act took place 243 days after Parliament was prorogued. Bill C-53, An Act to amend the Criminal Code (mega-trials), was given first reading and nothing more.

Bill C-54, An Act to amend the Criminal Code (sexual offences against children) only made it to first reading. Bill C-5, An Act to amend the International Transfer of Offenders Act was introduced at first reading by the Minister of Public Safety 15 days after prorogation. Two committee meetings were held and nothing has happened since. As for Bill C-23B, An Act to amend the Criminal Records Act and to make consequential amendments to other Acts, we are still waiting. After a few meetings on the subject, the minister was supposed to come back with amendments that he felt were necessary in order to make the bill more comprehensive and definitely more respectful. Bill C-39, An Act to amend the Corrections and Conditional Release Act and to make consequential amendments to other Acts was introduced for first reading 104 days after prorogation and we still have not met in committee to discuss it. Bill C-49, An Act to amend the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, the Balanced Refugee Reform Act and the Marine Transportation Security Act was introduced for first reading 232 days after prorogation and there it remains. Bill C-52, An Act regulating telecommunications facilities to support investigations was also introduced for first reading 243 days after prorogation and we are waiting for the next step. The Senate introduced Bill S-7, An Act to deter terrorism and to amend the State Immunity Act for first reading 49 days after prorogation and we are still waiting for the next step. Bill S-10, An Act to amend the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act and to make related and consequential amendments to other Acts was introduced for first reading in the Senate 60 days after prorogation. Bill S-13, An Act to implement the Framework Agreement on Integrated Cross-Border Maritime Law Enforcement Operations between the Government of Canada and the Government of the United States of America was introduced for first reading 237 days after prorogation.

I am pointing this out to prove that it is not the opposition parties that are slowing the process down. For all sorts of unknown reasons, the government introduces these bill and then goes no further with them.

To conclude, I would like to question the justification for Bill C-59 and the fact that the Conservatives and the Bloc felt this was urgent enough to warrant this closure motion, which is an affront to parliamentary dialogue.

Criminal Code

[Bill Siksay, NDP, Burnaby—Douglas, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to have this opportunity to participate in the debate on Bill S-6 on the elimination of the faint hope clause.

I want to start where my colleague ended on the importance of having a place in our criminal justice system where redemption and hope are possible, even for those who have committed the most serious crimes that we deal with in our society. The member put it very well and I do not think I could say it better or more clearly than he has. This has to be an important part of our criminal justice system and our corrections system. The bill would go some way in eliminating that possibility from our system.

Bill S-6 is back in the House. The last time I spoke on this issue was back on June 18, 2009, when we debated Bill C-36, essentially the same bill. The bill died when the Prime Minister decided to prorogue the House, once again short-circuiting the government's agenda on criminal justice issues. It was not the House that has slowed down the Conservatives' agenda. They have slowed down their agenda by using prorogation and calling early elections. They have not put forth the effort that it takes to get legislation through this place and this is an excellent example of one of those bills. They like to blame the opposition, but the reality is they have done more harm to the timing of their own agenda than the opposition could ever hope to do.

Bill S-6 is an act to amend the Criminal Code on the right of persons convicted of murder or high treason to be eligible for early parole. One of the good amendments that has come out of the committee process this time around is to eliminate the silly subtitle that the Conservatives chose to give the legislation. I am glad that is gone.

At the outset, this legislation, which eliminates the possibility of revision to parole for people who have committed murder or who are sentenced to life for high treason, is completely wrong. I am opposed to the basic principle of the legislation that claims we are not well served by this process of judicial review, in fact of citizen review, and that the faint hope clause should not be part of our criminal justice system.

I really believe we have been well served by the legislation and by the process. I believe it has encouraged rehabilitation in our prison system and made our prisons safer for both other prisoners as well as the prison guards and other professionals who work in our correctional service. It gives people the possibility of hope that they might be released early from a life sentence.

It has a very important positive effect within the institutions of the correctional system. It has also allowed for a measure of discretion to review the parole eligibility of people who have been sentenced to life in prison and it has encouraged a strong measure of citizen involvement in making the decisions on that very important process. However, in my opinion this legislation would seek to undo all of those things.

The current legislation and section 745.6 of the Criminal Code, which deals with judicial review, enables offenders serving life in prison with parole ineligibility periods of more than 15 years to apply for a reduction of that period. The review is not intended as a forum for retrial of the original offence. The focus is instead on the progress of the offender after having served at least 15 years of his or her sentence. That is how the Department of Justice describes the current process on its website. It is how it describes the intent of the current legislation.

It is important to review the process involved when the faint hope clause is engaged by someone serving a life sentence in prison. It is a very rigorous one. It is one that involves several stages. It is not easy to accomplish and everyone needs to appreciate the fact that there is rigour involved in this process.

The first stage is an application to the chief justice of the province in which the person was convicted. The chief justice or a designated superior court judge reviews the written materials presented from the Crown and the applicant. Then that judge determines on the basis of the written materials whether the applicant has shown on a balance of probabilities that there is a reasonable prospect that the application will succeed. If the judge decides that, a jury is impanelled to hear the case. If the judge decides there is no reason to proceed further, the appeal process stops at this point and there is no further follow-up. The judge, the Crown, the applicant all have a key role in this first stage.

The next stage is the jury. When the jury is constituted and impanelled, it then considers a number of issues when it looks at the application from the person in prison. When determining whether there should be a reduction of parole ineligibility, the jury determines the character of the applicant, his or her conduct while serving the sentence, the nature of the offence, information provided by the victim's family members about how the crime has affected them and any other matters the judge has considered relevant in the circumstances. The jury looks at a very broad scope at this point.

This is a panel of 12 citizens and the panel considers those factors and makes a decision about the reduction of the period of ineligibility. The decision of that jury to reduce the ineligibility period must be unanimous. We are not talking about a simple majority or anything like that. The jury can reduce the parole ineligibility period immediately, or at a later date or deny any reduction.

This is a pretty important process involving citizens who are engaged in this decision. That is a crucial thing to notice about this process. It is important to protect that point where citizens can engage in the criminal justice system, where they can engage in the corrections system and help make important decisions that affect the community, that affect other citizens, both victims and people in prison. That is a crucial piece of the existing legislation. It is important to have citizens engaged in making decisions.

There are safeguards all through this process. The fact that the jury has to be unanimous is key among those safeguards in the existing process.

When the jury decides unanimously that the number of years to be served should be reduced, it can then decide by a two-thirds majority the number of years that must be served before the inmate can apply to the National Parole Board. If the jury decides that the period of parole ineligibility is not to be reduced, it can set another time at which the prisoner can again apply for judicial review. If no date is set, then the prisoner can reapply after two years for this process to be engaged again.

It is a complex process. The process initially involves a senior judge and then a jury of 12 citizens, two of the most important features of our system. Judicial discretion is involved. There is a strong citizen involvement component. The community is absolutely represented in the decision that someone's parole should be reduced.

That is not the end of the story because then the parole board does its job. The decision about whether the person gets out on parole is made by the parole board in the usual fashion. Here is another group of professionals who serve our communities admirably, who are engaged in this decision-making process, who are then engaged in discovering whether the person will succeed in the community and then help that person if he or she is ultimately released into the community.

This is not just a short-term parole. Anyone who gets out as a result of this process is on parole for life. That parole period never ends. It continues until that person dies. We need to remember again how important that is and how that offers protection to our communities as well.

There is a lot to this complex process. It is one that has served us well over many years. It originally came in during the mid-seventies when we essentially stopped using capital punishment. It was reaffirmed after the last capital punishment debate in the House in 1986. I believe it has been serving us essentially in its current form for about 25 years.

What has happened in that 25 years? What is the exact experience of this faint hope clause, of this possibility for early parole for someone who is sentenced to life for murder or treason?

New information came out during the course of the justice committee hearings on this bill from the Commissioner of the Correctional Service Canada, Mr. Don Head. He presented information that was valid as of October 10, 2010. He noted that there were 1,508 offenders with cases applicable to judicial review. That is the number of people in our system who could potentially apply for early release under the faint hope clause.

In the 25 years since the first judicial review hearing in 1987, there have a total of 181 court decision. In that 25 years, 181 people have applied to engage this process. That is not a significant number when we look at the total number who are eligible to do that.

Of those 181 court decisions, 146 resulted in a reduction of the period that must be served before parole eligibility and 35 resulted in a refusal. Already, the system has been weeding out the potential reductions.

Of the 146 offenders who had their parole eligibility moved earlier, 135 have been granted parole. Again, there is a change in the number. Out of the potential 146, we are down to 135.

Of those 135 who were granted parole, 68 have had no issue during their period of supervisions, 35 received a suspension because of some problem during their parole but their parole was not subsequently revoked and 23 had their parole revoked. Apparently a lot of those cases dealt with issues related to chronic offending against the conditions of parole, things like using drugs, alcohol, being late when there were restrictions on their movements, those kinds of things.

Seven of the one hundred and thirty-five who reoffended did it in a non-violent manner and two offended violently. Therefore, nine people reoffended out of the total number of cases that were looked at, seven in a non-violent manner and two offended violently. I believe a number of the seven offences were also related to drugs.

That is a whole other issue that we could talk about. We could talk about how our criminal legislation around drugs serves our communities, how well it has served us and the problems with that, but that is probably for another debate.

Of the two offenders who offended violently, one was found guilty of two counts of assault with a weapon and one count of assault using force and the other offender was found guilty of one count of robbery.

I am not going to make any bones about it. Those are serious crimes and serious issues, but these people were charged and convicted in court and are back in jail.

To put it succinctly, since 1987, there have been thousands of offenders who were eligible for early parole. Only 181 chose to apply. Out of those 181, only 135 received a reduction in their sentence. Less than 15%, in fact, of those eligible have applied.

Some of the talk about the legislation comes about because there is somehow this impression that we treat people who have committed murder in Canada lightly, that somehow we are soft on that crime in Canada and that people do not serve a lot of time in Canadian prisons for the crime of murder. In fact, it turns out that is absolutely the furthest from the truth.

It has been shown that the average time served in prison for first degree murder in Canada is 28.4 years. That is one of the longest average times in any country in the world. In comparison, in the United States, the average time incarcerated is 23 years. In many other countries, it is even shorter than that. Certainly in countries like New Zealand, Scotland, Switzerland and England, the average time spent incarcerated for murder is under 15 years.

The fact is that Canada does treat this crime far more severely than many of the countries to which we would want to be compared and significantly more when we look at the average time people spend in prison. It is not something that we are being soft on. We are taking advantage of the possibility of incarceration. We are ensuring that people spend a significant time in jail.

There may be problems with that. Perhaps that is something we should be looking at as it may not be serving us well. In terms of the whole argument that somehow we are soft on crime and this is an issue that needs to be addressed by this Parliament, it turns out that is baloney because we are in fact much more severe than almost any other country we would choose to compare ourselves to. That is something that is also crucial to know in this process.

We have a process that we have had long experience with and that has been in place for over 25 years, probably even longer than that because it was in place for probably a decade before that. There were some changes made to it in the late 1980s. We have good experience with this. It is a program that has been successful, that has shown real and positive results for both people who have been incarcerated in our system and for the communities from which they come and to which they often return. It has shown that citizens can be engaged in a meaningful way in making determinations about their safety and the safety of their communities and decisions about who has been successfully rehabilitated. Citizens get to apply those standards that they believe are most important in making that kind of determination.

If there is a reason why we should reject this legislation, it is because it very clearly eliminates the possibility of citizen engagement in this very important process. This is something that has evolved over time and is something that we have shown great leadership in, establishing this kind of process that allows citizens to make important decisions about parole eligibility for people who have committed the most serious crimes possible in our society. It speaks well to our society that we both make that possibility available and that we also engage citizens directly in making the ultimate decisions about who gets out early, about who has been successfully rehabilitated. The process engages judges with discretion and engages a very senior level of judiciary in this decision-making process. That is also very important. It is important to give judges that discretion and that they exercise discretion on our behalf. After all, they are experts in this area. That is something that is also very important and a key aspect of this process.

As well, we must remember that the parole system continues to be engaged, that even the small number of people who do successfully complete this process remain on parole for the remainder of their lives and under strict supervision by the people who run our parole system.

I recently met with representatives of the parole system in my community. I was very impressed by the work that they do on our behalf in Burnaby and in New Westminster where the office is located. It is a very important contribution they make to the safety of our community and to the hopes of our society, that people can turn their lives around and be successfully integrated back into the community. It is important that we acknowledge the work that they do. It is very difficult work. They are often under great scrutiny for the decisions that they make. I am not sure that we always appreciate all that goes into an understanding, a determination of parole and that ongoing supervisory role that people engage when they are released from a correctional institution in Canada. I want to salute parole officers and the people in the parole system for the important work that they do.

All in all, this is a very flawed bill. It eliminates the possibility for hope, for redemption, as my colleague from Vancouver Kingsway so clearly pointed out in his speech a few minutes ago. We should be very cautious about eliminating this from our system. When we eliminate the possibility of hope, even from those who have committed the most serious crimes, we do not make our society any safer, nor do we make it any better and the bill takes us down absolutely the wrong course.

Serious Time for the Most Serious Crime Act

[Brian Murphy, Liberal, Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe, NB]

Mr. Speaker, I withdraw that. Because of the recess, we have become a little relaxed on things. I apologize very much for that.

The Prime Minister of Canada killed his own bill. The Prime Minister of Canada took the legs out from underneath the Minister of Justice. However, he survived another day and then waited 48 more days to introduce this bill that is so important.

I will go back to the bill. On its merits, the bill is tough on crime. It sure is. It is late on crime, very late. There is a saying that justice delayed is justice denied. If the minister believes so vehemently in this bill, why did he delay it so much and do injustice to the people of Canada? That is a good question.

Some of my colleagues, particularly on the other side of the House, have tried to describe us on this side as weak on crime. Nothing could be more false. I wish our laws were tougher on a wide range of crimes. I wish the government and the minister would act with more dispatch on the important aspects that threaten Canadians today. Not two crimes out of 1,500 since 1987. There are far more important and urgent issues that involve the security of our public than this issue. Even when the Conservatives profess to think it is an important issue, they delay the heck out of it.

I consider the sentencing principles of denouncing unlawful conduct, deterring offences, and the separation of offenders from society to be very important. They are in the code that we believe in, the Criminal Code section 718. Every law should be seen through the prism of section 718 because it affects the balance of how we treat offenders. It is the Criminal Code. It is to put criminals in programs, including incarceration, that deal with their crimes. First of all there has to be an offender, there has to be a crime, and there has to be a punishment. We are talking about the punishment phase here.

The case that Liberal colleagues want to keep Canadians safe cannot be disputed. We want this country to be tougher on crimes and we believe we have very good ideas on how to get tougher. This does not mean we have to buy into the ridiculous idea that Bill S-6 is going to make Canada tough on crime. Let me be clear. The Liberals are not opposed to the repeal of the faint hope clause in this instance. The questions are why it took so long, why they are targeting something that is so minor in impact, and why they are dilly-dallying on the important criminal laws that need to be enacted.

Repealing the faint hope clause will likely have no drastic effect whatsoever. It affects such a small group of individuals that what negative impact it could have will likely be very limited. So we will not oppose it. However, we have to object to the shameless promotion of the so-called toughness of the bill and the whole Conservative agenda on fighting crime. It goes right to the top, not to the Prime Minister in this case, but to the short title.

The Minister of Justice went on about how inane it is to attack a short title. It is what Canadians believe the bill to be when they look at the short title. Someone looking at the short title of this bill, which was clearly crafted by some republican hack who also writes the tops of cereal boxes, would not have any clue what phase in the criminal justice system this deals with, and could not be guided by the short title.

This bill deals with the faint hope clause. It is to live or die, to eliminate it, to modify it, to let it live another day. That is what the bill is about. People may understand that, but they certainly would not understand the shameless self-promoting title chosen by the Conservatives, which engenders that they want a snappy title, they want to over-promise and under-deliver. Finally, it is their job every night to put the fear of potential harm that does not exist in the hearts and minds of Canadians.

Wow, what leadership that is, to say, “I am your leader and I am going to scare you tonight. Look at the 7 o'clock news”. That is what the government does, and in this crime, the Minister of Justice is an accomplice of the Prime Minister of Canada.

I am ready to support a government, if we could see one that would be tough on crime. However, the only thing tough about these bills is the short title. Getting to that, the short title of the bill is “Serious Time for the Most Serious Crime Act”.

If the Conservatives want to write poetry, if they want to write television titles, they should choose another occupation. However, if they want to stick to the realm of criminal law, they should look at the Criminal Code and pick titles that relate to it.

We Liberals have amended the bill to remove the short title. We amended the short title because it was disingenuous and misleading. Criminals who receive life sentences in Canada do serve serious time. How dare the Conservatives accuse us of delaying this bill for refusing to agree to a short title that tries to create a problem that does not exist.

Perhaps the problem is one of perception and the Progressive Conservatives, of which the Minister of Justice was a proud member and a cabinet member himself, can be part of the explanation as to why we have a perception problem with respect to life sentences for first degree murder, for example. If we asked Canadians what happens when someone is convicted of first degree murder, the answer would be that one gets a life sentence. I bet if we asked if that meant serving life in prison, most Canadians would think so.

We have to remember it was a Liberal government that enacted this law as a compromise for eliminating the death penalty. This very intricate compromise has been upheld by the Supreme Court and commented upon. It seems to be the balance with which we have lived in Canada for a long time. It says that a person who commits first degree murder will receive a life sentence and will be eligible for parole after 25 years served.

In addition, this faint hope clause we speak of recognizes that if after 15 years in prison a first degree murderer has shown elements of rehabilitation, denounces his or her own unlawful conduct, is likely to be deterred for life and fits all of the sentencing principles that we have lived with in society, that person might be eligible for early parole after passing through a whole series of hoops, including the empanelling of a jury, the selection of a chief justice to review the file and finally a parole hearing. That is a lot of hoops to go through. As I have said, of 1,500 who were eligible, I think only 146 actually received the faint hope consideration or early parole.

Let us remember the years when a Conservative government was in power. It did nothing to change these provisions of the Criminal Code because Progressive Conservatives believed that this was an adequate balance. However, today the Alliance Reform Conservatives believe this is an urgent and pressing problem. It is so urgent that they introduced it, let it die by their own hand and took 48 days to reintroduce it. They are really ragging the puck on something that is so urgent.

What is urgent for the Conservatives is to get out before the media and say that there is a real problem with murderers running around the streets of our home towns and they are going to make sure they never get out of prison. It is disingenuous because, in this chamber at least, everybody knows that a life sentence means 25 years with eligibility for parole. Everyone knows that in Canada the average sentence served is about 28 years for a first degree murder. Everybody should know that is just behind the United States where first degree murder has a combination of the death penalty and 29-odd years.

Everyone should also know that there are developed, civilized, important countries of the world that have average time served for first degree murder at a much lower number of years: 10, 11, 12 and 13 years for countries like Britain, Belgium, Australia and the Antipodes.

We are not lax on crime. If I were to take credit for this legislation as a Liberal from the 1970s, one could not say that being just a hair under the United States for time served is lax on crime. It can be said on a newscast and said in here, but out in the public there ought to be a little more truth and sincerity when addressing important issues such as crime and justice. That has been lacking in the whole debate on crime since I came here in 2006.

At committee we have had expert witnesses tell us that not only is there no evidence to suggest that the elimination of the faint hope clause will make our communities safer, but Canada is a world leader, as I just mentioned, in incarceration times. It means then we are tough on crime already in this respect.

I have underscored before that hope is already faint. Correctional Service Canada shows that the average time spent is actually 28.4 years, 10 years longer than in many other countries. Hope is already faint for criminals here. Time in custody is already serious for criminals.

I had occasion, after we rose in December, to visit Dorchester Penitentiary and to see the conditions under which criminals were kept. I heard from wardens and officials at one of our oldest units in the country. The said that they lived a bit in fiscal and security fear of what the Conservative government had in mind by overpopulating a prison that was as old, almost, as Confederation itself.

Time in custody is already serious. If it is the government's will to make hope even fainter for criminals, we cannot say that two individuals is a track record of a failure in this regard. What we have to say is that this overall section affects so few criminals and people in our country that it is not really the object we want to talk about today. We want to talk about what the government has done in other serious areas of the law in law reform.

As I have already mentioned, this bill will have a very limited effect on very few criminals. The faint hope clause has been in effect for 30 years and has made it possible for 130 people to be paroled.

The Conservatives are trying to make us believe that the bill tackles a serious problem. Is that how they protect Canadians and show respect for victims? Criminals are not fools, and neither are victims. Bills such as this will not reduce the crime rate. What this bill really does is make a minor change to how a small number of inmates are paroled.

The Liberal Party will vote in favour of this bill as quickly as possible because it is waiting impatiently for this government to bring forward a bill that is truly tough on crime.

We want to move on with the bill so the government can have the time and space to put forward a bill that is truly tough on crime. At the justice committee five different witnesses have said the same thing, that the bill is not tough on crime. As John Howard Society told us in its committee submission:

Eliminating the faint hope clause, which in practice only allows the earlier application for parole of a handful of already assessed, low-risk, rehabilitated applicants who have already served at minimum 15 years...is unnecessary...and will not improve community safety.

One would have thought in the ensuing years since Bill C-36 was introduced that there might have been new evidence. Alas, there was not.

The aspect of keeping people safe is far different than making them feel that they are safe. The government does a deep disservice to the latter by fearmongering and causing Canadians to feel that the system is not working. It is almost tantamount to treason to say that our criminal justice system does not work.

When first elected, Conservatives and the Prime Minister of Canada were not reluctant to say that Liberal-appointed judges were weak on crime. He also said, in his drive-by schmear, that the Liberal-appointed Senate was useless.

With the passage of time, Conservatives have now had their hands on the rudder for over five years and have appointed a lot of judges to the Supreme Court and the courts of appeal. I do not hear in the Prime Minister's speeches that it is now the fault of judges or that it is no longer the Senate's fault. Talk about victims. He is blaming a narrow number of victims for the perception that the battle on crime is not working because Conservatives have done precious little to actually attack crime. All they have done is make people feel that there is more crime.

This is the conundrum we have. If we speak against a law and order bill, we look like we are pro victim. If the government speaks against the judiciary, it looks like it is undermining the system. What it all means, unfortunately, is that Canadians cannot get a true picture of what is going on with respect to criminality in our country.

I would lay down the sword, along with the Minister of Justice and others, and say that some of us are lawyers and officers of the court. Law societies would be looking at me if I denied it, but that is extremely important. However, we have a higher duty than that. We have a duty to the Canadian public to be truthful and earnest and say, yes, that there are growing areas of crime that we need to attack surgically by implementations that we have spoken about at an all party committee in an in camera meeting. We have talked to judges in camera and know that these tools would be useful in fighting that criminality.

It is not helpful to go on the six o'clock news and say that it is a mess out there, that it is riotous, that judges and prosecutors do not care, that the opposition will not pass government bills, that people should head for the hills, lock their doors and turn out the lights or that they should get a shotgun because they do not have to register them anymore. The point is it is a disservice that all in Parliament is doing to the perception of public safety.

Let us talk about the Liberal agenda. Since prorogation, we have seen a series of bills on criminal law that simply fail to meet the expectation of being tough on crime. We have a different idea about being tough on crime. We want our country to be tough on crime we want to protect and respect victims. We will achieve that end with solutions that are based on evidence and on fact, not on being gluttons for glamour, TV, publicity and fearmongering that those on the other side are. The science of criminology has produced a multitude of sophisticated evidence based on research and fact and we are told how effectively tough on crime certain bills are.

In summary, it seems that the only part of justice the government gets is the word “just”. We want to protect the victims in the funding of witness protection programs and counselling not by just funding the advertising of victims' abuse programs. We want to fund crime prevention so we can avoid crimes altogether not just try to scare people with harsher punishment that we know to be ineffective. We want to equip police officers not just throw even longer sentences at criminals.

I will conclude with a real-life situation. People should talk to corrections officers at a place like Dorchester and ask them if they are not a little afraid about public safety with the onslaught of prisoners who are coming in without the adequate resources and training within the institutions. What are those inmates going to do when they get out of overcrowded prisons with no treatment? That will be cause for fear some day and it has to be corrected.

[Brian Murphy, Liberal, Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe, NB]

Mr. Speaker, I would not want the remarks of the minister to be stale in the chamber before I inform him and the House that in the history of judicial review under this clause involving over 1,500 eligible offenders, 181 reached the stage of court decisions, 146 were granted parole before their 25 year eligibility, and out of 146, two offended. I am afraid that the minister is not aware of that otherwise he would not go into the hyperbole that my friend speaks of.

The minister wants to put in the minds of Canadians an enormous problem that has to be dealt with urgently by legislation but he does not want to tell the public that when his government was elected in October 2008 it killed its own Bill C-36, which was similar to this bill almost in its entirety. The Conservatives killed their own bill in December 2009 of their own volition. That minister must have stood behind his Prime Minister and said that is fine even though a lot of people in his riding of Niagara Falls want the bill. I did not read about any dissent. I never read about any dissent on that side. It is not like there is a lot of independent dissenting thinking going on over there.

So the Conservatives killed their own bill in December 2009 and then after prorogation took 48 days to introduce this bill, essentially the same bill. It is not like those members are in a hurry with respect to the faint hope clause. It is not like the minister can go to his constituents in Niagara Falls and claim he is blameless, that he thought Mr. Harper should not have prorogued Parliament, that he thought this bill should--

[Brian Murphy, Liberal, Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe, NB]

Madam Speaker, I want to ask the Minister of Justice a couple of questions, because it seems to me that we have very faint hope of actually getting straight answers from the minister on simple questions like this: why was this bill delayed?

He talked about Bill C-36 in the previous Parliament. Where was it in December 2009? It was well on its way to going through committee, and his government, his Prime Minister, cut the legs out from under him by proroguing Parliament.

It started at the bottom of the pile as the current bill in April 2010. Four months take place; it is the government's fault. Prorogation occurs; it is the government's fault.

The bill makes its way through the Senate and makes its way to the House only in September 2010. Why the delay? Why is the Prime Minister cutting the feet out from underneath the minister?

Second, on this bill itself, I want him to tell me precisely how many of the 146 persons who were given parole earlier than they were eligible for under this section of the Criminal Code have reoffended in the history of this offence? Is it one? Is it 20? Is it 40? How many is it? He should know the answer.

[Marlene Jennings, Liberal, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have the opportunity to participate in this debate on the government's Bill S-6 at report stage.

The government, through its Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada, was all over the media yesterday denouncing the three opposition parties and claiming that the opposition was delaying government bills in general, and Bill S-6 in particular.

I would like to put certain facts before the House. Bill S-6 in the previous session of the 40th Parliament was Bill C-36. The government tabled it in the House. The bill went through the three stages in the House, was adopted and sent over to the Senate. The government, in its wisdom, did not move second reading in the Senate. Instead, the Prime Minister decided to prorogue the House in December 2009. The House was prorogued for close to two and a half months.

When the second session of the 40th Parliament began on March 3, there was a throne speech. Did the government at its first opportunity reintroduce Bill C-36? No, it did not. It waited 48 days after the throne speech before tabling its legislation again. Then after tabling it 48 days after the throne speech, it let the bill sit, collecting dust, for 99 days before it moved second reading debate. If anyone has held up this bill it is not the opposition, definitely not the official opposition, but the government itself.

The government counts on the fact that most Canadians are not paying enough attention to what is actually happening in the House and what the procedures are to realize that it is their own government that is holding up its own justice legislation.

One could speculate on the reasons the Conservative government has for doing do that. I speculate, given that every end of session in December and June for close to the last five years, the minister of justice, whoever he or she has been under the Conservative government, has gone to the media to claim that the opposition is holding up the government's justice bills and if the opposition would be conciliatory and work with the government, the justice bills would get through.

When we look at each of the bills the government identifies at each one of those periods, June and December of 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009 and now 2010, those are the very bills that the government itself has held up, either by letting them sit at first reading and not moving second reading debate, or by not even introducing them initially.

With those facts on the record, I would like now to speak to the content of Bill S-6.

We know that victims and their families want the faint hope clause to be abolished. No one wants those found guilty of serious crimes to get out of jail without serving a long enough sentence. It is for that reason that when we, the Liberals, were in government, we placed restrictions on the faint hope clause so that anyone found guilty of multiple murders would not be eligible. Contrary to the claims of the Conservative government, the amendments it is proposing to make to the law will not apply to dangerous criminals such as Clifford Olson. Russell Williams also will not be able to avail himself of the faint hope clause to obtain a judicial review because of the changes made by the previous Liberal government.

The faint hope clause, also known as judicial review, gives inmates who are serving a life sentence the opportunity to request a judicial review after 15 years of incarceration in order to determine whether or not they may apply for parole. Parole is not automatically granted. The application must first be heard by a jury selected from members of the community where the crime took place. If the 12 jurors unanimously agree, the inmate may apply to the National Parole Board. If the inmate proceeds, the National Parole Board determines whether the inmate, once released, may pose a risk to society or if release will contribute to his or her rehabilitation.

The Liberals believe that a balance must be struck between punishment and rehabilitation in our correctional system. We would like the government to invest more in crime prevention and programs for the victims of crime. Although the faint hope clause helps make our prisons safer and contributes to the rehabilitation of offenders, we believe that access to it must be limited.

The government is not taking into consideration the facts around the faint hope clause. Despite this clause, someone convicted of premeditated murder in Canada serves 28 years in prison on average. That is longer than in any other country that imposes life sentences with possibility of parole, including the United States. Prison guards feel that the faint hope clause helps keep them safe. The Correctional Investigator of Canada believes that the current faint hope clause serves the purpose for which it was conceived.

The Liberals proposed amendments to the Conservative bill in response to calls from various victims' groups. These groups told us that they live in a constant state of anxiety because of the faint hope clause, so we amended the bill to require that the Commissioner of the Correctional Service of Canada notify victims when an inmate applies for judicial review of his case. The commissioner already notifies victims' families when an inmate applies for judicial review. But under the current law, the commissioner is not required to notify victims' families when an inmate does not apply. Under the bill, once the inmate's opportunity to apply has passed, he must wait five years before reapplying.

The Liberal amendment moved and passed with the support of the Bloc and the NDP was as follows.

When an inmate does not exercise his right to apply for a judicial review under the faint hope clause, the commissioner should notify the families and indicate the next date on which the inmate will be eligible to apply. Unfortunately, the Conservatives on the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights voted against this amendment. I am puzzled by that.

We also proposed a second amendment that would extend the 90-day period for applying for a judicial review to a maximum of 180 days when the judge feels that extraordinary circumstances beyond the inmate's control prevented him from applying within the 90-day period.

I will stop here, because I see that my time is up. I invite hon. members to ask me questions.

[Jim Maloway, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to follow the member for Vancouver Kingsway, who has made an excellent presentation on this bill, as well as the NDP critic, the member for Windsor—Tecumseh, who spoke to the bill earlier today.

As I pulled out my file on what is now Bill S-6, I noticed that it was labelled as Bill C-36 from last year. I have only been here not quite two years yet and already I am finding my files are rather heavy and there are multiple numbers for essentially the same bill. Perhaps this will be the last iteration of this bill. Let us hope that the government does not see its way to proroguing the House again or finding another way that would cause us to have to start this all over again.

This particular bill, now Bill S-6, is an act to amend the Criminal Code and another act. It was given first reading in the Senate on April 20 of this year. The bill would amend the provisions of the Criminal Code regarding the right of persons convicted of murder or high treason to apply for early parole. This is done through the elimination of the faint hope clause by which those given a life sentence for murder or high treason could apply for parole after having served 15 years of their sentence.

A similar predecessor bill, Bill C-36, as I mentioned before, was introduced during the second session of the 40th Parliament but did not become law because of the abrupt ending of the session on December 30 when the Prime Minister prorogued the House.

In terms of the history of section 745.6 of the Criminal Code, it is known informally as the “faint hope clause” because it provides offenders serving a sentence for high treason or murder with the possibility of parole after having served 15 years. We will see later that there are a number of comparable countries to Canada with similar systems that have a much lower number of years for murderers to serve.

In our case, it is 15 years, where the sentence is imprisonment for life without the eligibility of parole for more than 15 years. Offenders convicted of first degree murder receive life imprisonment as a minimum sentence with the earliest eligibility for parole set by law at 25 years. For offenders convicted of second degree murder, a mandatory sentence of life imprisonment is also imposed, with the judge setting parole eligibility at a point between 10 and 25 years. Those serving a life sentence can be released from prison only if granted parole by the National Parole Board.

Unlike most inmates who are serving a sentence of a fixed length, for example, 2 years, 10 years or 20 years, lifers are not entitled to statutory release. If granted parole, they remain subject for the rest of their lives to the conditions of the parole and supervision of a Correctional Service of Canada parole officer. Parole may be revoked and offenders returned to prison at any time if they violate the conditions of parole or commit a new offence.

Not all lifers are in fact granted parole. Some are never released on parole because the risk of their reoffending is too great. In fact, I will look later at the numbers of people involved in this situation and we will find that a very small number of people in prison, at the end of the day, would get parole.

During the years following its initial introduction in 1976, the faint hope provision underwent a number of various amendments. Now the criteria for the possible release on parole of someone serving a life sentence are as follows.

The inmate must have served at least 15 years of the sentence. As a matter of fact, the member for Windsor—Tecumseh pointed out this morning that it is usually around 17 years before applicants normally apply and that in fact very few people actually do apply even at that point.

An inmate who has been convicted of more than one murder, where at least one of the murders was committed after January 9, 1997 when certain amendments came into force, may not apply for a review of his or her parole ineligibility period.

To seek a reduction in the number of years of imprisonment without eligibility for parole, the offender must apply to the chief justice of the province or territory in which his or her conviction took place.

The chief justice, or a Superior Court judge designated by the chief justice, must first determine whether the applicant has shown that there is a reasonable prospect that the application for review will succeed. The assessment is based on the following criteria.

One is the character of the applicant. We have already mentioned that we have excluded multiple murderers from the applying in this case, so the judge has to look at the character of the applicant. If the character is bad, that person would not qualify.

Another criterion is the applicant's conduct while serving the sentence. I am assuming that if the applicant has been involved in something like a prison riot or some other altercation with other inmates within the prison or just has not co-operated, that too would disqualify him or her from applying.

Next is the nature of the offence for which the applicant was convicted. That too, would vary with the individual.

Another one is any information provided by victims at the time of the imposition of the sentence or at the time of the hearing under this section. So once again we are looking at victim impact statements. The judge then has a better opportunity to look at the total picture of each and every situation.

Finally, any other matters that the judge considers relevant in the circumstances can be considered.

If the application is dismissed for lack of a reasonable prospect of success, the chief justice or judge may set a time for another application not earlier than two years after dismissal, or he or she may declare that the inmate will not be entitled to make another application.

The point here is that it is not a simple process. It is a long, involved process and there has to be an exemplary situation on the part of the inmate for him or her to get through all stages of the process and achieve release.

If the chief justice or judge determines that the application has a reasonable prospect of success, a judge will be assigned to hear the matter with a jury. In determining whether the period of parole ineligibility should be reduced, the jury should consider the five criteria that I have outlined. The jury determination to reduce the parole ineligibility period must be unanimous.

Evidently, before, that was not the requirement. I believe it was two-thirds, but now it has to be unanimous on the part of the jury.

The victims of the offender's crime may provide information either orally or in writing, or in any other manner that the judge considers appropriate. This is also an excellent provision of the rules.

If the application is dismissed, the jury may, by a two-thirds majority, either set a time not earlier than two years after the determination when the inmate may make another application, or it may decide that the inmate will not be entitled to make any further applications.

We see within the bill that there are some changes to these provisions later.

If the jury determines that the number of years of imprisonment without eligibility for parole ought to be reduced, a two-thirds majority of that jury may substitute a lesser number of years of imprisonment without eligibility for parole than the number then applicable. The number of years without eligibility for parole that they can assign can range from 15 to 24 years.

Once permission to apply for early parole has been granted, the inmate must apply to the National Parole Board to obtain the parole. Whether the inmate is released, and when, is decided solely by the board, based on a risk assessment, with the protection of the public as the foremost consideration.

We can see from each of these steps that if there is a red flag popping up at any of these stages, that should end the process. The process should not continue beyond that.

Board members must also be satisfied that the offender will follow specific conditions, which may include restriction of movement, participation in treatment programs, and prohibitions on associating with certain people, such as victims, children, and convicted criminals.

One of the points we have continually made is that progress can only be made if the people in the prisons are actually being rehabilitated. The fact that they are participating in rehabilitation programs is something that we as a society want. We do not want people sitting in the prisons for years and years and refusing to take part in programs. By taking part in programs, the inmate enhances the possibility that at some time, away in the future, there could be some faint hope down the line.

It has been mentioned several times today that Colin Thatcher, a former Conservative member of the legislature in Saskatchewan, had been in jail since 1984. In fact, he wrote a book while he was in prison. He served 22 years or more for the murder of JoAnn Wilson. At the end of the day, I believe the faint hope clause did apply to him only two or three years from the time that his 25 year term would have expired.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it is an honour for me to stand and speak on behalf of my party and the constituents of Vancouver Kingsway to this important bill, Bill S-6, An Act to amend the Criminal Code and another Act, sub nomine, serious time for the most serious crime act.

Bill S-6 amends provisions in the Criminal Code regarding the right of persons convicted of murder or high treason to apply for early parole. This is done through the elimination of the so-called faint hope clause as it is commonly known by which those given a life sentence for murder or high treason could apply for parole after serving 15 years of their sentence.

A similar predecessor bill, Bill C-36, was introduced during the second session of this Parliament but did not become law before that session ended when the current government prorogued Parliament at the end of 2009.

It is important when we discuss profound issues, particularly ones that involve critical issues of crime and punishment and proper approaches to our carceral system, to have a very sound understanding of the structure and facts. I will spend a little time reviewing what the current law is.

Section 745.6 of the Criminal Code, known as the faint hope clause, provides offenders serving a sentence for high treason or murder with the possibility of applying for parole after having served 15 years when the sentence that they have been imprisoned for amounts to life without eligibility for parole for more than 15 years.

Offenders convicted of first degree murder receive life imprisonment as a minimum sentence with the earliest parole eligibility date set by law at 25 years. For offenders convicted of second degree murder, a mandatory sentence of life imprisonment is also imposed with the judge being able to set parole eligibility at some point between 10 and 25 years. Judges have that discretion in our Canadian courts.

Those serving a life sentence can be released from prison only if granted parole by the National Parole Board. Unlike most inmates who are serving a sentence of a fixed link, for instance two, five or ten years, lifers are not entitled to statutory release.

If granted parole, those convicted of a life sentence remain subject for the rest of their lives to the conditions of parole under the supervision of a Correctional Service Canada parole officer.

One thing that is important to point out is that in this country, those who are given a life sentence do have a life sentence. That sentence is and will be applied to them for the rest of their natural lives. The question is whether or not and when they will be permitted to serve that sentence in the community as opposed to being incarcerated.

Parole may always be revoked and offenders returned to prison at any time if they violate the conditions of parole or if they commit a new offence. Of course, not all people who have been given a life sentence are granted parole. Some offenders are never released on parole because the risk of their reoffending is too great and that is appropriately so.

During the years following its initial introduction in 1976 the faint hope provision underwent a number of amendments so that now the criteria for the possible release on parole of someone serving a life sentence include the following. The inmate must have served at least 15 years of his or her sentence. An inmate who has been convicted of more than one murder where at least one of the murders was committed after January 9, 1997, which was when certain amendments came into force, may not apply for a review of his or her parole ineligibility period. To seek a reduction in the number of years of imprisonment without eligibility for parole, the offender must apply to the chief justice of the province or territory in which his or her conviction took place.

The chief justice or superior court judge designated by the chief justice must first determine whether the applicant has shown that there is a reasonable prospect that the application for review will succeed. This assessment is based on the following criteria: the character of the applicant; the applicant's conduct while serving his or her sentence; the nature of the offence for which the offender was convicted; any information provided by a victim at the time of the imposition of the sentence or at the time of the hearing under this section; and any other matter that the judge considers relevant to the circumstance.

If the application for early parole is dismissed for lack of a reasonable prospect of success, the chief justice or judge may set a time for another application not earlier than two years after the dismissal, or he or she may declare that the inmate will never be entitled to make another application.

On the other hand, if the chief justice or judge determines that the application has a reasonable prospect of success, a judge will be assigned to hear the matter with a jury. In determining whether the period of parole ineligibility should be reduced, the jury should consider and does consider the five criteria I just mentioned. The jury determination to reduce the parole ineligibility period must also be unanimous.

The victims of the offender's crime may provide information either orally or in writing, or in any other manner that the judge considers appropriate.

If the application is dismissed, the jury may, by a two-thirds majority, either set a time again not earlier than two years after the determination when the inmate may make another application, or it may decide that the inmate will not be entitled to make any further applications. Furthermore, if the jury determines that the number of years of imprisonment without eligibility for parole ought to be reduced, then a two-thirds majority of that jury may substitute a lesser number of years of imprisonment without eligibility for parole than the number then applicable. The number of years without eligibility for parole that they may assign can range from 15 to 24 years.

After all that extensive process, once permission to apply for early parole has been granted, the inmate must apply to the National Parole Board to obtain parole. Whether and when the inmate is released is decided solely by the board based on a risk assessment, with the protection of the public as the foremost consideration. Board members must also be satisfied that the offender will follow specific conditions, which may include restrictions of movement, participation in treatment programs and prohibitions on associating with certain people, such as victims, children and convicted criminals and the like.

A faint hope clause review is not a forum for a retrial of the original offence, nor is it a parole hearing. A favourable decision by the judge and the jury simply advances the date upon which an offender will be eligible to apply for parole.

This section, of course, has been considered by the sharpest legal minds of our country, the Supreme Court of Canada. The Supreme Court of Canada has stated that the purpose of this review procedure is to re-examine a judicial decision in light of changes that have occurred in the applicant's situation since the time of sentencing that may justify lessening the parole ineligibility period.

Section 745.6 of the Criminal Code gives the jury broad discretionary power to consider any matter governing the offender's situation, and the Supreme Court has provided guidelines for the judicious exercise of that discretionary power. The jury, for instance, must consider only the applicant's case and must not try the cases of other inmates who may have committed offences after being released on parole. The court has also stated that it is not the jury's role to determine whether the existing system of parole is effective.

The faint hope clause was added to the Criminal Code in 1976 in the hope that it would provide an incentive for long-term offenders to rehabilitate themselves and therefore afford more protection to prison guards, as well as fundamentally achieve greater justice in our country. The provision is also said to represent Parliament's awareness of how long other countries imprison persons convicted of murder before allowing them to apply for parole. For example, Australia, Belgium, Denmark, England, New Zealand, Scotland and Switzerland keep persons convicted of murder in prison for an average of 15 years before they may be paroled.

The very first judicial review hearing under the faint hope clause was held in 1987. Here are some statistics that the House might find instructive.

As of April 12, 2009, 991 offenders had been deemed eligible to apply for a judicial review. Court decisions have been rendered in 173 cases, and 143 inmates have been declared eligible to apply for earlier parole. Of these, 130 were granted parole, representing just over 13% of those who had been deemed eligible to apply for a review of their parole dates.

I spoke about comparing Canada to other countries, and there are some other instructive facts that would be helpful for parliamentarians as we consider this difficult matter.

In 1999, an international comparison of the average time served in custody by an offender given a life sentence for first degree murder showed that the average time served in Canada is 28.4 years. Moreover, that is greater than in all countries surveyed, including the United States, with the exception of offenders in that country who serve life sentences without parole.

Here is the average time spent in custody by offenders convicted of first degree murder: New Zealand, 11 years; Scotland, 11.2 years; Sweden, 12 years; Belgium, 12.7 years; Australia, 14.8 years; United States for life sentence with parole, 18.5 years; and United States for life sentence without parole, 29 years. Once again, Canadian inmates convicted of first degree murder served 28.4 years.

I know the government is fond of saying where Canada sits on the world stage. It uses those facts when it thinks they are helpful. Let us then take a look at this fact: Canada keeps its first degree murderers in prison longer than every country on earth except for the United States.

Those who favour the retention of the faint hope clause have a number of arguments. They argue that judges and juries who consider whether to reduce the parole ineligibility period often take into consideration the circumstances that have led criminals down the wrong path, factors like poverty, fetal alcohol syndrome, low cognition, and other factors. They also recognize that mistakes can be made in court rooms from time to time resulting in innocent people being convicted.

Those who commit murder do deserve to be treated severely. Despite the government's constant attempt to try to simplify any argument other than its own or its attempt to make up straw person arguments that are easy to beat up, let it be said that there is no parliamentarian in this House who does not think that someone convicted of first degree murder ought to be treated severely. Of course they should. Anybody suggesting that any parliamentarian thinks otherwise is simply trying to mislead the Canadian public.

However while acknowledging that, people who favour retaining this section believe that offenders should not necessarily be utterly robbed of all hope, since one of the aims of punishment is rehabilitation. They believe, in other words, that justice must be tempered with mercy.

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL]

Mr. Speaker, after that speech I think my colleague should be one of the ones to lead the charge. I certainly put the compassionate argument. I will go back to what I said in my speech. One of the benefits of being a member of Parliament is that we have access to resources and people who work within the industry, people who are experts, people who know more than we do. Believe it or not, some of us actually believe there are others out there who know a lot more than we do. Because of the member's personal experience, he is able to bring the matter of FASD into this House and certainly give it the full debate it deserves. That goes back to the idea of the faint hope clause.

It is an incredible way to debate this issue through the measures he mentioned. The convening measure, the first ministers conference, is certainly something that can bring the whole country together, not to be divisive but to lift the bar on how we can address rehabilitation for people who commit the serious crimes and for people who are victims of FASD, and the member talked about IQs.

That being said, the federal government has that power through the Canada health and social transfer. It can become one of the driving agents behind this. There is nothing wrong with that, because by being in the driver's seat on this particular issue, let us face it, we also safeguard the five principles of health care across the country, which is universal to all despite in which territory or province people live.

I commend my colleague for bringing this up. I think that is all part of the debate within this House. Sometimes we do not give these issues the debate they deserve. It becomes a series of sound bites and cute little slogans that we use from time to time to gain ourselves momentum into the next election. Unfortunately, that may be what I would call the negative aspect of a minority Parliament, if indeed we want to use that. However, there are positives of a minority Parliament and the positives include fulsome debate in order to get something passed. Otherwise, if we do not have the numbers, we have to have honest debate.

Am I convinced that we are using this House in a situation like Bill S-6, the faint hope clause, which was formerly Bill C-36, and the idea of rehabilitation, or protecting victims or allowing victims to receive the justice they so desperately deserve? We need within this Parliament to give these people the voice that they deserve. If we surround it with sound bites and politics and divisiveness, which we see normally on the 10 o'clock news, then they become the ones to whom we have given short shrift. That is the unfortunate part of this.

I implore my colleagues, this is the big reason that I want to send this bill to committee, so that we can discuss these issues. Unfortunately, we did not have that chance before, but now we do.

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL]

Mr. Speaker, this is my first time speaking on this type of legislation. Prior to being called Bill S-6, it was Bill C-36 before the prorogation. I would like to talk about the process by which we get here and the tough on crime agenda that many of us on both sides of the House have referred to. There has been so much time spent on the issue of tackling violent crime, yet we have been using this, for the most part, as a divisive political wedge between many sections of the country, many sectors of society, and unfortunately a lot of what I would call the mature debate has been lost as a result of that.

Yes, I support sending the bill to committee at this point and I support the fact that we are able to carry on a mature conversation about people who are convicted for life for serious crimes. Even the bill's title, the serious time for the most serious crime act, in and of itself almost sounds like an advertising slogan. I feel as though we are trying to sell something through the Shopping Channel, pardon the vernacular, but nonetheless, members get the idea. This is how revved up this debate has become, to a point of wedge issues, fear tactics and all around misinformation by both sides because both sides have been so vehemently opposed to the other that we forget the fact that we at some point have to listen to the other side as to which part of the debate is germane to the situation and which part of the debate matters the most.

I want to provide a few more notes on that issue, but before I return to that, I want to talk about the background on the bill and the analysis of Bill S-6. As I mentioned earlier, it was introduced in the House as a Senate bill, but it was before us a while back as Bill C-36. It passed through the House with support of the parties here and was debated at second reading into the Senate when we faced the prorogation. I am going to leave the prorogation matter out of it because we have debated that ad nauseam. I do not think it was a fair thing to do, but nonetheless, we will leave it at that.

Section 745.6 is the clause that was devised and included in the Criminal Code in the wake of Parliament's decision to abolish the death penalty in 1976. Capital punishment was replaced with mandatory life terms of imprisonment for first degree and second degree murder. The faint hope clause is essentially the vernacular we use for what is being debated here today. That clause was seen as a necessary safeguard to a sentencing regime without capital punishment, to encourage the rehabilitation. Therein lies the other aspect of this debate that is so very important to this, which is rehabilitation.

Unfortunately, in terms of the idea and the concept and the methods by which we rehabilitate people who are convicted, that argument seems to be lost and I do not think we have had the full argument on this particular issue for quite some time. Since 2006, since crime has become far more at the forefront of the agenda than in the past, that part of it really has been left out. We have focused a lot on the crime itself. We have focused a lot on the victims, and there is nothing wrong with that. I am certainly in favour of that, and if I were not in favour of it, I would not be supporting that the bill go to committee. Nonetheless, we also have to have that mature debate that I spoke of that sometimes escapes us about the idea of rehabilitation and how this country deals with rehabilitation for people who get parole and go back onto the streets.

Are they rehabilitated? Are they a threat to society? Do we believe that our system allows these people to be rehabilitated enough? Do we raise the bar by which these people can be brought back into society? Does our penal system believe that these people are rehabilitated? Would our penal system benefit by focusing more on the more violent criminals who cannot be rehabilitated? These questions are the reason we should have a more fulsome debate on this issue.

I spoke of section 745.6. As I mentioned, the section goes back to 1976. Amendments by the Chrétien government in 1997 changed this particular section so as to require judicial review and the unanimous consent of 12 jurors as a prerequisite to the National Parole Board application process. Even at that point it was decided that the faint hope clause was a serious issue.

Several stories in the media referred to the faint hope clause as being used by people convicted of first degree murder and being released back into the public. There are several sides to every story, but on the surface this shocked people. There is shock value to this. Unfortunately, there are groups that use the issue of rehabilitation, or the lack thereof, for shock value in the media. It was addressed at that time in some of the stories that came out.

The most famous instance where a prisoner was granted parole through a faint hope application was the situation with Colin Thatcher, who was convicted of killing his ex-wife in 1984. He was sentenced to life in prison with no chance of parole for 25 years. Mr. Thatcher was granted full parole in 2006.

That is just one example of how we have sensationalized many of the issues involved in first degree murder, dangerous offenders, and rehabilitation.

In the international context of rehabilitation and in the context of how we deal with this issue, are we really having an honest debate?

I spoke earlier about the politics of the issue and I would like to return to that for just a moment.

A key benefit of being involved in the political system is our ability to rely upon expert advice. We listen to the experts and we find out how they deal with a particular situation. As politicians, we become generals. All issues come before us. I have issues to deal with. I just had a major flood in my riding and I am dealing with disaster relief. I dealt with employment insurance this morning and now I am dealing with serious crime. One of the benefits is that we have the resources to get as much material as we can in a very short period of time.

We can also hear the stories of serious crime that affects everybody: yes, the victims, and yes, the people involved in the penal system who have to rehabilitate serious offenders while at the same time looking after them.

Societies outside the penal system know quite a bit about this issue, so we should look to them for advice. Victims of crime groups generally support the elimination of the faint hope provision. Some other groups do not, and their opinions mean quite a bit to us.

The John Howard Society opposes the legislation. It believes the faint hope clause as it currently exists encourages prisoners to reform their behaviour in the hope of being granted early parole. The Elizabeth Fry Society opposes this bill and believes there are already sufficient checks and balances in place to ensure only offenders unlikely to pose a threat to public safety are paroled based on faint hope applications. The Canadian Council of Criminal Defence Lawyers, as well as the Quebec bar, oppose this legislation. To varying degrees, prison guards believe the faint hope clause makes their job safer.

These are just a few snippets of the stakeholder reaction to this. There are many groups out there that believe we should get rid of this. Victims of crime obviously believe people who are the most serious offenders should be doing the time, not going through the faint hope process.

I would also like to mention what my colleagues noted earlier about the fact that as far as the international context is concerned, and I certainly have the notes here as well, 28.4 years is the average time spent in jail for a Canadian convicted of first degree murder in this country. At 28.4 years, that is certainly on the high end of the scale.

In other countries, I think Sweden, Belgium and other European countries were mentioned, it was close to half that length of time. In the United States of America, it was also less, and several other countries followed suit.

There is certainly quite a bit of time spent here, on average 28.4 years. It still goes back to the situation of the faint hope clause. Do we provide a faint hope clause for people who have been convicted of first degree murder?

I can honestly say that in this particular situation I do support this bill going ahead to committee because I think it deserves further study. However, I also believe that the faint hope clause may provide an incentive for people who are not rehabilitated to go back into society and this is going to cause problems. It is something that concerns me greatly and it greatly concerns people I represent.

I do believe that in this particular situation one of the issues we should be giving more emphasis to is the idea of rehabilitation. I implore the House not to shift back into an example where we are using this as a poster or a sound bite for a political issue of the day, which unfortunately happens too often.

If we start using labels in this particular situation, we could be denying the public an honest debate on rehabilitation, which I feel needs to be debated in this country. I mean that in a general sense, not just for those who are convicted of doing the most serious crime.

I would suggest to the House that we take this issue and give it the reading and study it deserves, especially in regard to rehabilitation.

In this particular situation, we can look at examples of people who cannot be rehabilitated. A small number of those, we know, do receive a favourable hearing with respect to the faint hope clause. Even though the number is not great, we have to look at that as well. This was talked about in the campaign in 2006, to get rid of the faint hope clause. This just might be the way to go. However, I feel deeply within my heart that we have not fully debated how rehabilitation is handled in this country.

I thank the Speaker and the House for this time to present a few of my thoughts.

[Marlene Jennings, Liberal, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to take part in this debate on Bill S-6.

We already know the basics about this bill after hearing the speeches of the Conservative and NDP members, but I would still like to give a brief history before going into more detail.

We know that Bill S-6 was introduced prior to prorogation as Bill C-36, which had passed through the House with Liberal support. At the time of prorogation, the bill was being debated at second reading in the Senate. Therefore, when the Prime Minister decided to prorogue the House in late December 2009, he did so knowing that his decision would kill this bill. That is the first point that needs to be made.

The second point that needs to be made is that Bill S-6 will amend section 745.6 of the Criminal Code. That section is the so-called faint hope clause, which offers offenders sentenced to life imprisonment a chance to apply, at the 15-year mark in their sentence, for an earlier parole eligibility date . Bill S-6 would amend section 745.6 of the Criminal Code in such a way that offenders who commit murder on or after the date that this proposed legislation comes into force will no longer be eligible to apply for early parole.

However, a point that the government seems not to want to make known to the public is that this legislation would not change anything for offenders currently serving a life sentence in prison. They will still benefit from the faint hope clause as it now exists.

Therefore, even if the bill was adopted, proclaimed, and enacted today, it would apply only to those sentenced today or thereafter to life without parole. That means the practical effect of this legislation will not be seen for about 15 years. Under the existing faint hope clause, people sentenced to life without possibility of parole for 25 years could apply for early parole at the 15-year mark.

In fact, the practical impact of this legislation, if it becomes law, will be seen only in 15 years. That is the second point I wish to make.

The third point that I wish to make is that the existing section 745.6 of the Criminal Code was included in the Criminal Code in the wake of Parliament's 1976 decision to abolish the death penalty. Capital punishment at that time was replaced with mandatory life imprisonment for first- and second-degree murder. The faint hope clause was seen as a necessary means of encouraging rehabilitation in a sentencing regime without capital punishment.

I would like to remind anyone who is listening to this debate that rehabilitation is one of the core principles of our criminal justice system. Deterrence is one; rehabilitation is another. That is important and people should remember it.

The section was amended in 1997 by the Chrétien government to require judicial review and the unanimous consent of 12 jurors as a prerequisite to the National Parole Board application process. In 1997, the section was also tightened so as to remove the right to apply from anyone convicted on more than one count of murder. In fact, as of 1997, with the amendments brought to the faint hope clause, someone convicted of more than one count of murder is no longer eligible for the faint hope clause. That is the third point.

Fourth, during the 2005-06 election campaign, the Conservatives actually pledged to repeal the faint hope clause.

The election took place on January 23, 2006. We are now closing in on January 23, 2011. That means the government has definitely been in place for four years. Counting every month from January 2006 to now demonstrates that this government has been in place for four years and nine months. It is only now moving on this bill.

Who knows? The Prime Minister may decide to prorogue again and kill this legislation yet again, as he has done with every single one of the criminal justice bills that were on the order paper, in debate at second reading, before a committee, at report stage, or were at third reading in the House or the Senate. Each time the Prime Minister prorogued the House, he knew he was going to kill every one of those bills.

When the Prime Minister brought Parliament back, he had the opportunity to reinstate those bills at the stage they were in at the time of progrogation. He chose to do this with a number of the bills, but not with all the criminal justice bills. That is another point I would like people to understand.

Perhaps the most famous instance of a prisoner's being granted parole through a faint hope application is the case of Colin Thatcher, who was convicted of killing his ex-wife in 1984. He was sentenced to life in prison with no chance of parole for 25 years. In 2006, Mr. Thatcher was granted full parole under the faint hope clause.

On June 28, 2010, the Senate adopted the bill, on division, with no amendments.

These are just a few of the points I wish to make before going to the substance of the bill. I thought it important to raise these points, because they provide the context for the bill.

We know that the repeal of the faint hope clause is something that victims of crime and their families have been calling for for a long time. No one wants someone who has been convicted of a serious crime to get out of serving a long prison term.

When we were in power, we tightened up the faint hope clause to ensure that anyone who committed more than one murder was not eligible. We believe that there needs to be a balance between rehabilitation and punishment in the correctional system. We would like this government to put more emphasis on rehabilitation.

We continue to support the fundamental principles behind the faint hope clause, in particular because they encourage good behaviour and encourage prisoners to work toward rehabilitation. However, since this provision can have some serious repercussions for victims of serious crimes and their families, it is important that we examine it in light of recent data and statistics.

We all know this is a government that is not interested in scientific data or evidence. Witness the decision to eliminate the long form mandatory census. However, Correctional Services, through its appearances before House committees and its annual reports, provides statistics, some of which I will be using in my speech.

As I mentioned, Bill S-6 was first introduced before prorogation. At the time, it was known as Bill C-36, which had passed through the House with Liberal support and was being debated at second reading in the Senate. As I already mentioned, it was the government's decision to prorogue the House that caused the delays for all of its criminal justice bills.

During the 2006 election campaign, the Conservatives promised to repeal the provisions, but they did not fulfill that promise and they are trying to do so now, four years and nine months after their election and their promise. Way to go. It is four years and nine months later, but congratulations, anyway.

I already talked about the fact that in 1997, a previous Liberal government amended the provision to require judicial review and the unanimous consent of 12 jurors as a prerequisite to the National Parole Board application process. I have already mentioned that, at that time, the provisions were also tightened so as to prohibit anyone convicted on more than one count of murder from applying for early parole. I think that is a very important point.

Our criminal justice system has a number of different purposes. Yes, punishment is a large part of the system, but so too is rehabilitation, crime prevention, and victims programs. This bill, if not all Conservative justice bills, does not address these other important aspects of criminal law, and these other important aspects are key to ensuring public safety. They are key to ensuring that each and every member of our society remains safe.

While Liberals believe in appropriate sentences for crimes, we, unlike the Conservatives, understand that appropriate sentencing is only one piece of a much larger puzzle, and that this larger puzzle includes crime prevention. If we are not willing to attack crime prevention at the entry point, then what comes out at the end will not change. Studies have shown time and again that tougher sentences, locking someone up and throwing away the key, do not create or enhance public safety.

One has only to look at the United States, where states like California instituted “three strikes and you're out” laws. Crime rates in these states went through the roof. Meanwhile, prisons became breeding grounds for more serious criminality than the individuals had been convicted of, instead of becoming a milieux that offered some inmates a chance to rehabilitate themselves.

The Conservative government, by tackling only one piece of the criminal justice system, that is, the sentencing portion, and not working to enhance the crime prevention portion of criminal justice, is in fact endangering the safety of our communities. The Conservatives have slashed spending to programs that stop crime before it happens. I am not making this up. Government department reports have clearly demonstrated this.

During the last full year the Liberals were in power, the National Crime Prevention Centre supported 509 projects in 261 communities for a total investment of $56.9 million. At present, the Conservatives have cut over half of that spending, cutting a little more every year. In fact, 285 of those projects are no longer being financed and the total spending for that program is only $19.27 million.

Four years and 9 months ago, under the Liberals, the National Crime Prevention Centre supported 509 projects in 261 communities for a total investment of $56.9 million. Today, 285 of those projects are no longer being financed, and the total financing under the National Crime Prevention Centre is only $19.27 million. That is a big cut.

As for inmates sentenced to life imprisonment with no eligibility for parole for 25 years, but who might be eligible under section 745.6 of the Criminal Code, here are the numbers.

In 2007, 921 inmates were eligible for hearings under the faint hope clause. That figure comes from Correctional Service of Canada. If the Conservatives want to say that it is being made up, then it is their own department that is making it up.

The other piece of information that Correctional Service of Canada provided us is that of the 921 inmates eligible for hearings under the faint hope clause, only 169 actually had hearings and, of the 169, 125 individuals were released on parole. Of the 125 inmates released on early parole under the faint hope clause, and that is out of 921 inmates, 15 were returned to custody.

I will provide some information on those 15 inmates. The vast majority of individuals returned to society without incident, which means that 110 inmates convicted of life imprisonment with no possibility of parole before 25 years but who were eligible under the faint hope clause in 2007, had a hearing, successfully pled their case and who were released on early parole, are still out there with no incidents, meaning that they have not violated the conditions of their parole, that they are integrating into society and that they are not a risk to the public. Fifteen were returned to custody.

I will provide a bit of information, which again comes from Correctional Service of Canada. on those who were returned because they violated the conditions of their early release.

Instead of going to the stakeholders, I will just say that, from what I understand, the groups that support victims and families of victims are strongly in support of this legislation. The Liberals already supported it when it first came through the House and we will be supporting it l again going to committee. We again want to hear from all of the different stakeholders, particularly the association of prison guards who work in the federal penitentiaries, as to what their view of the amendment through this legislation would be.

[Joe Comartin, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

Madam Speaker, as I have been listening to the debate today, I must admit I have been suffering from some real pangs of frustration. This is a terrible bill; it really is as simple as that. The background behind it and the role the Conservative Party has played, and the Reform and Alliance parties before it, and I cannot put it any other way, in using the faint hope clause as a way of stirring up fears among the families of the victims of murderers in this country is, quite frankly, shameful.

As we have already heard from the Liberal member for Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe this bill has sat around for quite some time. It is a typical example of a government and a political party that claims to be concerned about victims and sees its members as self-appointed champions of victims, but when it came to prorogation last December, the Prime Minister had no hesitation and, I believe, gave absolutely no consideration to the various crime bills that were going to go down and to the delay it was going to cause in dealing with issues.

I am also frustrated because the way this bill has been handled by the Conservatives is a classic example of the government refusing, as we saw most recently with the census, to deal with facts and reality if it at all clashed with the government's ideology.

What I am referring to is that evidence came forward from Correctional Service Canada on this particular bill and on the whole issue of the faint hope clause in the Criminal Code. As a result of questions from me and the Bloc, further evidence was required. The department prepared a report in answer to those questions. It sat on the desk of the minister of public safety at that time until after we completed clause-by-clause study. The evidence that came out in that report was quite damaging to the government cause and it was never heard by the committee. The bill came back to this House without that evidence having been considered.

The evidence was clear that this bill is not going to do anything in terms of dealing with the one problem that exists with the faint hope clause, and that is how we treat the victims in the process. That is the only issue that has some validity here. Unfortunately, I do not believe it is an issue that can be dealt with in any serious way by legislation.

There are practical solutions. One of them is for the government party to stop the fearmongering around this issue, to tell the victims how the system actually works, how it has worked for almost 35 years, what the effect is on the murderers who are incarcerated, and what impact it is going to have on them. There are ways of doing that. The Conservatives have not done any of that in the five years they have been in power. There are ways of softening it.

It is important to put this into context. The faint hope clause came into effect when we did away with the death penalty. At that time we looked at what the penalties were going to be for first degree murder. Most of my comments today are going to be with regard to first degree murder.

When we investigated it at that time and looked around the globe to our normal allies, that is, societies that are close to what Canadian society is, the average maximum sentence for first degree murder in those other countries was 15 years. We did not do 15 years; we did 25 years.

We then said, “Okay, we trust our judges and our juries”. This bill is really an insult to both of them. We trust our judges and our juries to look at individual cases, to say that 25 years is too much, that the person is rehabilitated and will not be a risk to society and the recommendation is to allow the person to apply for parole earlier than 25 years. That is what the faint hope clause did at that time.

It was in consideration of looking around the globe at societies similar to ours, and those societies have lower murder rates than ours and some of them have 15 years as a maximum for eligibility for parole, and in a good number of them, it is 12 years. That is still the case today. In fact, in that period of time, most of those countries have reduced it from 15 years to 10 or 12 years. That is the factual situation. That is how it works elsewhere, and it is how it works here in the sense that the clause does work.

The parliamentary secretary stood up in the House today and put forward figures and facts that are grossly misleading.

Here is a fact that every Canadian should know. This is a fact that the Conservative government should be passing out to every Canadian. The average time that someone who commits first degree murder in Canada is incarcerated is 28.5 years, not 25, not 15, before the person can first apply, and most of them do not, but it is 28.5 years. That is the longest incarceration period in the world. That is the situation in Canada today.

These facts came out during the course of hearings on Bill C-36, which preceded this bill but is identical. We are dealing with a problem that does not exist in terms of the years. I repeat that 28.5 years is the average incarceration period in Canada and it is the longest in the world, longer than that in any of the United States. That is the so-called problem we are dealing with.

I made earlier reference to the request that I and the Bloc made for more information. We did get it. These were the facts, and I want to read them into Hansard today.

I have a letter from Don Head, the commissioner of Correctional Services Canada. None of this evidence got into the record at committee before the bill was returned to the House. I wanted to know the factual situation. I would have thought the government would have wanted to know this before it drafted the legislation. Here are the facts of the situation in Canada.

For those people sentenced to first degree murder, there is no eligibility for parole under 25 years. As of October 18, 2009, there were 622 people in custody who were in that category. Of those 622 people, 174 applied for and received a decision from our courts as to whether they could apply for an earlier parole. Thirty of them were rejected; 144 were granted the opportunity to apply.

On the first application, 140 were granted the opportunity to apply--and let us consider this carefully--by a jury composed of people who live in the region where the crime was committed. That is how the system works. This was not one of those, as the Conservatives like to think, elitist juries or an elitist judge totally disengaged from the community. They are people who live in the community. They are given all the evidence as to the nature of the crime. They are told all the facts about the individual's record while incarcerated. It is an in-depth process. It is the jury, not the judge, that ultimately makes the decision as to whether an individual is going to be granted a reduction in the number of years he or she has to serve before being able to apply for parole. Even then, of the 144 cases where the individuals were granted the right to reply, those individuals still had to go through the parole process and 10 of them were not granted parole.

If we look at it, and we heard some of this from the Bloc, of those who were granted parole, there was only one serious crime that had been committed. It was an armed robbery, but they were not able to give us information. We do not know what kind of weapon was involved, whether it was a gun or not. We do not know if there were any injuries that came out of it. There was only one serious crime, and we do not know how serious it was.

There were a number of people, 14 in total including that one, who were sent back to prison. The other 13 were all because of breaches of their conditions, usually because of abuse of drugs or alcohol. In some cases the abuse was as simple as changing their place of residence and not telling the person where they had moved to, but they continued to comply with the rest of the provisions. It is a very rigid supervision that is done through that period of time, for life.

Perhaps I should stop at that point. We have to remember that the sentence is a life sentence. Even when they get out in these circumstances, they are still serving life sentences and their parole can be pulled at any time, up to death. The supervision goes on for the rest of their lives.

Again as we heard, three were deported, eleven died, and one is missing. They did not know where one person was. There seems to be some indication that they thought the person had left the country, but that was the situation as of a year ago.

What we get from the government is that we have a major problem here and it is going to toughen this up. I do not know how it would toughen it up. What does it want? Does it want the average time spent in custody to be 35 or 40 years? Does it want to bring back the death penalty?

In fact, the only way we are actually going to deal with the one problem that is here, and that is how victims are treated by the system as the process happens, is by bringing back the death penalty and killing the murderer. The problem that exists is that we have people who are told that the person who committed the murder against a person's friend or family member has applied for eligibility for early parole. There is no one who was sitting on that committee who did not understand the implications for the emotional and psychological well-being of the victims' families. We understood that. That is not an issue here. We understand there is a problem in this area, but the solution that is being envisioned by this bill is not an answer to that problem.

I have been on the justice committee for more than six years and a number of different pieces of legislation have come forward. We have heard of the problems that victims have in dealing with the criminal justice system. We have seen occasions where there are some systems in place, usually regional ones, across the country that go quite some distance to support victims and their role in dealing with the criminal justice system, whether as witnesses or, as in cases like this, where they are coming in as family members or friends of the victim of the crime.

We know there are ways of lessening the burden. One of them clearly in this situation is education. So let us have the Conservative Party of Canada stop running around the country fearmongering on this issue. Let us have it simply put out the correct information.

Less than 25% of the people who are incarcerated with no eligibility for parole for 25 years apply. That is the first figure that victims and victims' families should know.

The second one they should be aware of is that the process itself takes a long time. One of the facts I have not given that came out, and this one is not nearly as clear, is that most of the applications do not come at the 15 year mark. Most of them start at around the 17 to 18 year mark.

Of the 622, we have only had one case where somebody applied immediately after the 15 years and was granted the right to apply, and in fact was granted parole. He actually came as a witness and testified before the committee. He is the only one. He was granted parole at about the 17.5 year mark. That is a fact that people should know; there was only one.

The vast majority, around 22%, of people apply on average at 17 or 17.5 years. The process itself takes more than two years. That is how long it is taking at this point. A number of them do not get out. They are rejected. Of the people who actually get out and who are released back into the community, the best figure we could see was at somewhere from 19 or 19.5 years up to 23 years. That is the range for people who are released.

When we think about the number of people who are getting out, the 20% to 22%, I want to go back to the 28.5 years. They are included in that group. The balance of somewhere between 75% and 80% of the people who are incarcerated in Canada for first degree murder spend well over 30 years in custody. A number of them, and this was an interesting fact that came out from the John Howard Society, after 25 years, are pressed by authorities to apply, and they will not do it. Some never do apply. They die in custody.

Those are the kinds of facts that victims who survived the loss of a loved one should be aware of. The education part is something that should be done. It has nothing to do with legislation. I posited, as we were going through this process, the possibility of one amendment, which would be that we do not tell the victims in the initial stage that an application has come forward, because as I already indicated and I think we heard it from a member from the Bloc, the way the process works is that when the initial application is put forward, it goes before a judge alone. The judge then takes a look at it and decides whether the application has any merit at all. As has already been said, there were 174 of them and 30 of them were rejected at that point.

It seems to me that if we said to the victims that we would let that initial phase go forward before telling them because we want to spare them from that, because they do not have the opportunity to make representations at that time, that is one of the solutions. I must admit I got both positive and negative responses from victims groups on that.

I want to make a final point with what we could be doing with victims, which is to provide them with a support system that is meaningful. Oftentimes, if there is an adjournment of the proceedings, they are not told. They travel to wherever the hearing is, if they are not in the immediate community. They are compensated for that eventually, but they are not told, so they oftentimes have to go repeatedly. Every time they go for a hearing, the memory is jogged and they suffer those emotions.

That is another area where we should be doing much more, both with our prosecutors and with the financial support we provide. The financial support is really quite limited and we should be doing more. Those would be good practical solutions. There is no legislation required. This is something the government could have done five years ago, and of course it did not, because it wanted to play politics with it.

[Brian Murphy, Liberal, Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe, NB]

Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure to speak to this bill and give a few comments.

In response to the parliamentary secretary's speech, I have said that the official opposition, the Liberal Party, will be supporting sending this bill to committee for examination to see how it might be improved upon or at least made clearer.

However, because this is Parliament, we ought to debate or bring out subjects that perhaps are not top of mind for every Canadian and every parliamentarian, and that is the whole regime of how we treat prisoners and how we treat convicted murderers in Canada today versus the rest of the world compared to other periods before the death penalty was abolished, and how we might be treating convicted murderers in the future if this bill continues.

The first crime that I would like to speak to is the fact that this bill, Bill S-6, had a predecessor, which was Bill C-36. It went through the usual steps of being introduced, particularly with the present government in control, with multiple national news conferences to inform, excite and educate the Canadian public of the fact that help was on the way with respect to convicted murderers. They would not be given the chance of getting out and that the government would do something. However, it did not. Four years and eight months after it was first elected--and I will say that P word again--we were prorogued and the bill did not get passed.

This is the first crime we have to speak to from a justice point of view. The government must be held to account for not bringing forward good legislation that people were looking forward to getting at, improving perhaps and getting on the books.

This seems to be justice week. One of the topics is car theft. No one in this House is going to say that car theft is good. Another topic is white collar crime. No one in this House is going to say that white collar crime is good. Another topic is the security of the public by not having convicted murderers prematurely out on the street. No one is going to say that is not a good thing. However, all three of these subjects have not been addressed on a timely basis by the government and it is the government's fault because we were prorogued.

Specifically, with respect to the context of convicted murderers, we need to remember that in this country we had executions. I remember my grandfather talking about the last public execution in the province of New Brunswick. My family has been in the legal industry for a long time. I remember my uncle, a provincial court judge, talking about executions. I remember that he was part of a previous generation's set of mind that public executions happened and that executions for serious crimes took place. However, this generation, I believe, if I am speaking to the Canadian public, would not know that political milieu and that philosophical mindset.

The current generation of Canadians, the mainstream of Canadians, would not be amenable to the death penalty. It does not exist. Let us not talk in a vacuum. It is not part of the laws of Canada. It was in fact the law of Canada until it was abolished. However, when the capital punishment debate took place and capital punishment was abolished for murder, the compromise on this point was to institute a faint hope clause, the reason being that capital murders, as they were called then, would quite often end with no chance for parole whatsoever because there might be executions.

In this case, the idea of life meaning life or life meaning 25 years served was met with the idea that there would be no chance of rehabilitation if a person were to be subject to the death penalty, but there might be a chance of rehabilitation, which is very much a pillar of the Criminal Code of Canada, if a person serves up to 25 years without the eligibility for parole.

What the government and the Parliament of the day decided to do was insert the faint hope clause. The faint hope clause in simple terms means that a person convicted of a murder in Canada should be given an opportunity to rehabilitate himself or herself and therefore be returned to the public as a non-threat to the public. Having taken into account the principles of sentencing, rehabilitation, which is incredibly important because we cannot keep everybody who has done something wrong in handcuffs, which seems to be the mentality of the party opposite, must be a cornerstone goal. We also need to have an idea that the person understood and has been remorseful with respect to the crime that has occurred. Proportionality is always the case with respect to crimes and a sentence needs to be proportional to the crime committed.

At that time, the faint hope clause was put in place with many safeguards. My hon. friend went through the history and the details of the faint hope clause regime as it exists now. It should be very clear to parliamentarians and Canadians that the faint hope clause is very faint in achieving, because, first, there is the chief justice who selects the Court of Queen's Bench judge, who then empanels a jury which then determines whether there is a reasonable likelihood of release on parole for the person based on their rehabilitation achievements. It is then sent further. There are all kinds of gates before a person can even be considered for parole.

Before I get into the details of faint hope, I want to ensure that people understand the context of time served for murder convictions. I think we will have a bit of a moral debate at the committee on this, but it is important to understand, right or wrong, how long people serve upon being convicted for murder. The following are some averages. An international comparison that was done in 1999 showed that Canada sat at some 28.4 years served for first degree murder. We might ask ourselves whether we are ahead, behind, serving more or serving less than other countries across the world.

The average in the United States, not surprisingly, is 29 years life sentence without parole, which is slightly more time than us. However, what I found interesting, not being a criminal lawyer with 24 years of experience, and not necessarily comforting and led me to ask many questions about other countries, frankly, is that other countries have much lower years of sentences served for convicted murders. They are New Zealand at 11, Scotland at 11.2, Sweden at 12, Belgium at 12.7 and Australia at 14.8. The United States has 18.5 for life sentence with the eligibility of parole.

As we get into the debate and as we will be sending this legislation to committee, we need to ask ourselves what is so different between Canada and the countries I have mentioned. Do we consider ourselves that different from any other British found Commonwealth like New Zealand and Australia? I do not think we do. Do we consider ourselves on a social level that much different from European countries like Sweden and Belgium? In some ways I do not think we do. We need to examine why their regimes render much lower time served for convicted murderers.

As I said, when the death penalty was abolished in 1976 and replaced with mandatory life terms of imprisonment, the faint hope clause was seen as a necessary safeguard to a sentencing regime without capital punishment to encourage rehabilitation. It was not left there in 1976. It was amended in 1997 by the Chrétien government to require judicial review and the unanimous consent of 12 jurors as a prerequisite to the National Parole Board application process. So further gates or controls were added to the faint hope clause situation.

Like everything in politics, sadly, there is a bit of a slip from reality and importance to what is perceived to be urgent and important. When we go to committee, we would like to know the actual number of convicted murderers sitting in our prisons now. I also think knowing the actual number who have applied and failed would be reassuring to Canadians. Does faint hope mean faint hope in practice as in law? The actual number of people who get out on a faint hope clause in a long process is a very small number.

However, what happens in politics is that the notorious cases get the attention. As I said, it has been four years and eight months since the government brought this forward as a campaign promise. It is something it felt very strongly about but did nothing about it until the introduction of the bill, and it will be over five years before it becomes law.

It has been brewing for some time. I think one of those instances was Colin Thatcher, who was granted parole through the faint hope application. He was convicted of killing his ex-wife in 1984 and sentenced to life in prison with no chance of parole for 25 years. He was granted full parole in 2006 and that process certainly brought the faint hope clause aspect to the fore.

As I mentioned, with Bill S-6, having been through the Senate and having had now the second eyes look at it, there can no longer be the argument on the other side that the Liberal dominated Senate upheld the bill. In fact, we have many speeches on record from Conservative senators outlining the same history of the faint hope clause. The bill was sent to the Senate to be dealt with rather than having started it in the House of Commons.

There has been a revolution on the other side. The government now welcomes the Conservative dominated Senate in proposing bills. I do not know if this is a debate for another day, but I guess the other side has concluded that the work of senators and the work of the Senate, in general, is worthy, because we are sitting here discussing a Senate bill. Yet it is a reintroduction of previous House of Commons work in Bill C-36, which died on the order paper in 2009.

There is no doubt that serious crimes deserve serious time and that the desires for victims' groups for retribution must be balanced by a sense of justice toward all Canadians, including those who have committed crime. The statements of the minister and the statement by the parliamentary secretary would indicate that all we should be concerned with are the rights of victims. By implication, they are saying that we have never been concerned about the rights of victims. This is not true.

Victims like people convicted of murder and non-involved citizens of the public are all part of a rubric of public safety and public security. There is not a member of the House who does not believe that our community should be safe and that public safety and public security are the most important thing we do as parliamentarians.

This brings us to the main debate that we will have at committee with respect to the faint hope clause amendments. Is it really in the public's interest to deny convicted murderers of any chance of ever getting out on parole directed by parole officers? Carte blanche we may say yes. I am sure a victim might say yes.

However, as a footnote, many times, through the committee's experience since the time I arrived here, we would be surprised to see the number of victims' families and families of prosecuted persons in the organized crime milieu or in the gun control debates who would say that we should turn the other cheek and ensure that this crime, for instance, does not happen again. This type of violence is very much predicated on items that we believe very strongly on this side, such as early intervention, emphasis on rehabilitation, the idea that someone who commits a crime is someone else's son or daughter. Someone who commits a serious crime is a Canadian person usually brought up in our community somewhere and is deserving of an attempt at least to have he or she meet not only these serious consequences of crime, but have a chance to rehabilitate and reintegrate into the community as well.

I would hope that would be the goal of all parliamentarians and I would hope that these tightening provisions on the faint hope clause regime would not deny, even if it is one person, a person who committed a heinous crime but who has been rehabilitated, to get back into the main stream of the community under supervision.

Numerous briefs and calls have been made on the idea that if we have an inmate who knows he or she has no chance whatsoever of getting out of prison, even though he or she has made strides toward rehabilitation, that person might lose hope. Talking about faint hope of getting out, that person then has no hope of getting out and no real desire of keeping the peace and being on good behaviour while in our system. That presents a number of difficulties.

I was a difficult student in school and the nuns in Grade 8 told me that I was difficult and to go out into the lobby and read the encyclopedias, which I did. Therefore, it worked out for me. However, it is a lot more complex in the prison and correction systems in Canada because a difficult inmate sucks up resources that should be used otherwise within the facility. It is not only a matter of resources; it is a matter of attending to the other incarcerated individuals, many of whom will not be there for 25 years, but could benefit from the proper spreading out of the budgets of correction facilities. Therefore, corrections officers and their organizations will be before us to ensure that there is a balance here.

The parliamentary secretary in his remarks did strive for balance. I take him at his word, as a lawyer of some years, that the government is trying for balance. However, the rubber will hit the road at committee when we determine exactly where the balance would be and whether the removal of faint hope would be too far.

The bill itself has three provisions, which my friend went over.

No offender convicted of murder or high treason after the coming into force of the legislation would be eligible for early parole. An important footnote is that people already in the regime would have the rights that accrued from the previous legislation.

There are certain serious crimes. We have no doubt of that. However, we must consider the reasoning behind the introduction of the clause. It is designed to encourage prisoners to reform themselves, as I mentioned, and prison guards will be before us to say that there are some dangers presented by that.

As well, we know there is opposition from the Canadian Council of Criminal Defence Lawyers, Barreau du Québec, the John Howard Society and the Elizabeth Fry Society to the bill. We have to listen to the opposition with respect to the bill and why they oppose it. After four or five years, members of the justice committee, and the Conservative side in general, think that all the organizations I mentioned have nothing to say. Clearly if the first question asked of a John Howard Society or a Elizabeth Fry Society representatives is if they believe in greater security for the public, I cannot imagine them saying no. In fact, I can imagine them saying yes, that it is precisely for the greater security and safety of the public that they oppose the bill or have recommendations to amend it.

The provisions of the bill, which would permit early release, are very strenuous as is, and we will see that at committee. We will see it is not an easy wicket to get through to get out under the faint hope clause regime. We will have the exact numbers. We are well served by Statistics Canada, and I do not want to bring up the census debate, and juristat provisions in the Department of Justice working with Statistics Canada. They will be able to give us the updated numbers of persons who are eligible, who have applied and who have succeeded under the regime. I think we will see that this is a very small number of people.

As mentioned, amendments have been made to faint hope along the way. There were restrictions in 1997. It is very fitting in this day and age, when judicial discretion seems to be under attack, that the regime, as it was set up, relies on the wisdom of 12 men or women, Canadian citizens, to determine, at the first instance, whether there will be eligibility. Thankfully, that remains. Under this regime, if successful, a jury will be responsible, on a unanimous basis, as to whether an inmate deserves of early parole. Only following that unanimous decision would a judge decide that the file would be moved to the national Parole Board.

The reasonable prospect provisions, which will remain, would not be changed. It is just a matter of the time limits, the review, the degree of discretion involved that we must look at in committee.

We will support the bill going to committee and I very much look forward to a rigorous debate and I welcome questions.

[Bob Dechert, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice]

Madam Speaker, it is a great pleasure to rise today in support of the important Criminal Code amendments contained in Bill S-6 that will fulfill the government's platform commitment to repeal the Criminal Code faint hope regime.

As hon. members may be aware, the so-called faint hope regime is found in section 745.6 and related provisions of the Criminal Code. Basically, it allows those convicted of murder or high treason to apply to be eligible to seek parole as soon as they have served 15 years of their life sentence, no matter how many years of parole ineligibility remain to be served in the sentence originally imposed upon them.

Before going on I should note that because the National Defence Act incorporates by reference the faint hope regime in the Criminal Code, all the changes proposed in Bill S-6 would also apply to any member of the armed forces convicted of capital offences under that legislation.

Allow me to discuss for a moment the reasons these amendments have been brought forward and why the government places such importance on seeing them brought into law.

From the inception of the faint hope regime in 1976, the availability of early parole eligibility for convicted murderers has been a source of concern for many Canadians. These early concerns became more concrete as greater numbers of sentenced murderers began to benefit from early parole in the early 1990s. This in turn led to a citizens' petition for its repeal in the mid-1990s and to considerable negative newspaper commentary.

The passage of time has not alleviated those concerns. Many Canadians continue to be of the view that the existence of a mechanism that allows convicted murderers to short-circuit the lengthier period of parole ineligibility imposed at the time of sentencing offends truth in sentencing and appears to allow for overly lenient treatment of murderers.

In addition, victim advocacy groups argue that faint hope applications add to the trauma experienced by the families and loved ones of murder victims by forcing them to both live in dread that a convicted killer may bring an early application and then require them to relive the details of their terrible losses, during the faint hope review process and any subsequent parole board hearings. The measures proposed in Bill S-6 are in direct response to these concerns.

In this regard, let me briefly recap the current situation regarding parole eligibility for those who commit murder or high treason. I will not go into detail because Bill S-6 is virtually identical to Bill C-36 in the last session of Parliament and hon. members will already be familiar with the broad outlines of what is being proposed.

The Criminal Code currently provides that conviction for the offences of high treason and first degree and second degree murder carry mandatory terms of life imprisonment coupled with mandatory periods of parole ineligibility.

For high treason and first-degree murder, that period of time is 25 years, while for second degree murder it is 10 years except in three situations: first, it is automatically 25 years for any second degree murderer who has previously been convicted of either first or second degree murder; second, it is also automatically 25 years for any second degree murderer who has previously been convicted of an intentional killing under the Crimes Against Humanity and War Crimes Act; and third, it may be anywhere from 11 to 25 years if a judge decides to go beyond the normal 10-year limit in light of the offender's character, the nature and circumstances of the murder, and any jury recommendation in this regard.

However, the point to be made is that all first degree and at least some second degree murderers must spend at least 25 years in prison before they are eligible to apply for parole. While this may seem like an appropriately long time, the reality is that the faint hope regime provides a mechanism for offenders to apply to have their ineligibility period reduced so that they serve less time in prison before applying for parole.

What this means is that murderers who are supposed to be serving up to 25 years in jail before applying to the parole board are getting out of prison earlier than they would be if they had to serve the entire parole ineligibility period they were given at sentencing.

Before I go on to describe the current faint hope application process and the changes proposed by Bill S-6, I would also like to set out the changes to the faint hope regime that have been implemented since 1976.

The original procedure was for the offender to apply to the chief justice in the province where the murder took place to reduce the parole ineligibility period imposed at the time of sentencing. The chief justice would then appoint a Superior Court judge to empanel a 12-person jury to hear the application. If two-thirds of the jury agreed, the offender's ineligibility period could be changed as the jury saw fit.

Upon reaching the end of the ineligibility period, the offender could then apply directly to the Parole Board of Canada according to the normal standards for parole. By 1996, of the 204 offenders then eligible to apply for faint hope relief, 79 had done so and 55 had seen their parole ineligibility periods reduced. In other words, of those who applied, a full 75% had been successful.

In response to the public concerns and petition I mentioned earlier, the faint hope regime was amended in 1995, with the amendments coming into force two years later. These amendments had three effects. First, they entirely barred the access to faint hope regime for all future multiple murderers. Thus, since 1997, the faint hope regime has effectively been repealed for any post-1997 multiple murderer. This includes those who were convicted of murder prior to 1997 if they had committed another murder after that date.

Second, for those murderers who retained the right to apply for faint hope, the procedure was changed to require the Superior Court judge named by the chief justice of the province to conduct a paper review of each application beforehand to screen out applications that had no “reasonable prospect” of success. Only if an applicant could meet that new standard would a jury be empanelled to hear the application.

Third, the amendments also set a higher standard of jury unanimity as opposed to a mere two-thirds majority before the parole ineligibility period of an offender could be reduced. In 1999, the Criminal Code was amended yet again in response to the report of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights entitled “Victims' Rights—A Voice, Not a Veto”.

As a result, a judge sentencing someone convicted of first or second degree murder or high treason must state, both for the record and for the benefit of the families and loved ones of murder victims, both the existence and the nature of the faint hope regime. In short, families and loved ones of victims are now at least made aware of the faint hope regime in order to allow them to prepare themselves psychologically in the event that an offender decides to apply later.

Despite these piecemeal attempts to address the criticisms of the faint hope regime raised by concerned Canadians over the years, the faint hope regime remains problematic, nor have parliamentarians been immune from this controversy. Many have also voiced their concerns over the last few years and at least half a dozen private members' bills have been brought forward in that time seeking to repeal the faint hope regime in its entirety.

In the face of the continuing controversy surrounding this issue and the concerns that have been raised both inside and outside the House, it seems clear that this is the time to deal once and for all with the faint hope regime. In this regard, the bill before us today has to two fundamental purposes. The first is to amend the Criminal Code to bar offenders who commit murder and high treason after the date the amendment comes into force from applying for faint hope.

In short, Bill S-6 proposes, effectively, to repeal the faint hope regime entirely for all future offenders. Bill S-6 would thus complete the process begun in 1997 when all multiple murderers who committed at least one murder after the coming into force date were entirely barred from applying for faint hope.

After Bill S-6 is passed and comes into force, no murderer, single or multiple, will be able to apply for faint hope and it will effectively cease to exist except for currently sentenced offenders and anyone who may be convicted or committed murder prior to that date. They will continue to be able to apply until they have reached the end of the original parole ineligibility period imposed upon them.

In this regard, hon. members are no doubt aware that it is a fundamental constitutional principle that a sentence cannot be changed after it has been imposed. Both the mandatory parole ineligibility periods I described earlier, as well as the availability of faint hope, form part of the life sentence imposed on an offender found guilty of murder or high treason.

Repealing the faint hope regime as it applies to the more than 1,000 already incarcerated murderers in this country would be a retroactive change in sentence that would not survive a court challenge under the charter. That does not mean, however, that stricter faint hope application procedures cannot be applied to those who will continue to have the right to apply once this bill becomes law. Thus, the second thing Bill S-6 would do is to tighten up the three stages in the current faint hope application procedure, with the goal of restricting access to these offenders.

Let me now go through the current three-stage faint hope application process in order to highlight the significant changes proposed in Bill S-6. First, as I mentioned earlier, applicants must convince a Superior Court judge in the province where the conviction occurred that there is a reasonable prospect that their application will be successful.

If this threshold test is met, the judge will allow the application to proceed. This is a relatively easy threshold to meet. Bill S-6 will strengthen it by requiring applicants to prove that they have a substantial likelihood of success. This should prevent less-worthy applications from going forward.

At present, applicants rejected at this stage may reapply in as little as two years. Bill S-6 will increase this minimum waiting period from two to five years. An applicant who succeeds at stage one must then convince a jury from the jurisdiction where the murder occurred to agree unanimously to reduce his or her parole ineligibility period. An unsuccessful applicant may reapply in as little as two years. Bill S-6 will also change this waiting period to five years.

An applicant who is successful at stage two of the process is able to apply directly to the Parole Board of Canada. Bill S-6 proposes no changes in this area.

The net result of the change in waiting period from two to five years at stages one and two of the current process will be to reduce the overall number of applications that any offender may make. At present it is theoretically possible to apply every two years once 15 years have been served, for a total of five applications: after having served 15, 17, 19, 21 and 23 years respectively.

In normal circumstances, Bill S-6 will permit no more than two applications: after having served 15 years and once again after having served 20 years. Five years following the second rejection, an offender will have served the full 25 years and his or her parole ineligibility period will have expired.

However, this is not all that Bill S-6 will accomplish if passed into law. As things now stand, convicted offenders may apply for faint hope at any point after having served 15 years. The possibility that an application may come out of the blue with no prior warning causes great anxiety to the families and loved ones of murder victims.

For that reason, Bill S-6 will change this by requiring applicants to apply within 90 days of becoming eligible to do so. This means that applicants will have to apply within three months after completing 15 years of their sentence, and if rejected, within three months of the expiry of the next five-year waiting period.

The goal is to provide a greater degree of certainty to the families and loved ones of victims about when or whether a convicted murderer will bring a faint hope application.

Before closing, allow me to address briefly a criticism of Bill S-6 that was raised in the other place, namely that it ignores rehabilitation in favour of retribution. This criticism is misplaced for it appears to assume a role for Bill S-6 in the parole application process that it does not have.

As I have already mentioned, Bill S-6 does not change in any way the third stage in the faint hope application process for successful applicants of applying directly to the Parole Board of Canada.

There is nothing in this bill that in any way affects the ability of convicted murderers to rehabilitate themselves and to apply for parole in the normal course once the parole ineligibility period imposed on them at the time of sentencing has expired.

The bill simply insists that, for all future murderers, the full time in custody to which they were sentenced following conviction be served prior to making an application for parole. In the same way, for those who will continue to have the right to apply after 15 years, the bill simply insists that they follow a stricter procedure in the interests of the families and loved ones of their victims.

This government is committed to redressing the balance in Canada's criminal justice system by putting the interests of law-abiding citizens ahead of the rights of convicted criminals and by ensuring that families and loved ones of murder victims are not themselves victimized by the justice system.

The rationale for the bill before this House is very simple, that allowing murders, those convicted of the most serious offence in Canadian criminal law, a chance to get early parole is not truth in sentencing. Truth in sentencing means that those who commit the most serious crime will do the most serious time.

I am proud to support this historic measure. The government promised Canadians that it would get tough on violent crime and hold serious offenders accountable for their actions. The measures proposed in Bill S-6 offer further proof that this promise has been kept.

The reforms proposed in this bill have been many years in the making and are decades overdue. They reflect a well-tailored scheme that both responds to the concerns raised by the public and by victims' advocates that the faint hope regime as presently constituted allows for far too lenient treatment of murderers and measures those concerns against constitutional standards.

Bill S-6 proposes to effectively repeal the faint hope regime for all future murderers, as well as to require that currently sentenced offenders who may choose to make an application in the coming years do so according to stricter standards that fairly balance their rights against the legitimate interests of the families and loved ones of their victims.

These reforms are tough but they are fair and they are long overdue. For these reasons I support the bill and I call on all hon. members of the House to do so as well.

Information Related to the Study of Bill C-36—Speaker's Ruling

[The Speaker, Peter Milliken]

I am now prepared to rule on the question of privilege raised on November 30, 2009, by the hon. member for Windsor—Tecumseh concerning the inability of the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights to obtain documents requested from the Head of Correctional Service of Canada in advance of the committee’s clause-by-clause consideration of Bill C-36, An Act to amend the Criminal Code, as is described in the 14th Report of the committee which was presented to the House on November 26, 2009.

I would like to thank the hon. member for Windsor—Tecumseh for having raised this matter. I would also like to thank the members for Abitibi—Témiscamingue and Mississauga South, the government House leader, the member for Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine, as well as the Minister of Public Safety for their interventions.

In presenting his case, the member for Windsor—Tecumseh gave a detailed account of his attempts to ascertain whether the information which a witness, Mr. Don Head of Correctional Service of Canada, had committed to provide to the committee prior to its clause-by-clause consideration of Bill C-36 on November 16 had indeed been provided.

Although the information requested of Mr. Head, the sole source of this information, had been prepared in a timely manner and forwarded to the office of the Minister of Public Safety, it was not until November 23, 2009, the day that Bill C-36 was considered at third reading in the House that the member for Windsor—Tecumseh received an undated copy of a letter containing the information in question. The rest of the committee received a dated version of the same letter on November 25, 2009, the day after the House finished the third reading debate on the bill.

In alleging interference by the minister's office, either through incompetence or deliberate intent, the hon. member questioned the role of ministers in supplying information to committees and concluded that his work as a member of Parliament had been impeded.

This argument was supported by the hon. member for Abitibi—Témiscamingue, the hon. member for Mississauga South, and the hon. member for Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine.

On December 1, 2009, the Minister of Public Safety rose in the House to apologize unreservedly for the unwarranted delay caused by his office in transmitting the requested information from Mr. Head to the committee.

Pursuant to Standing Order 108(1)(a), it is a well-established and unequivocal power of all committees of the House to order the production of papers and records. Page 978, House of Commons Procedure and Practice, Second Edition, describes this as “a broad, absolute power”, and at page 979, it states:

No statute or practice diminishes the fullness of that power rooted in House privileges unless there is an explicit legal provision to that effect, or unless the House adopts a specific resolution limiting the power. The House has never set a limit on its power to order the production of papers and records.

When a committee's attempt to obtain information is unsuccessful, there are essentially three options available. As outlined on page 980 of O'Brien and Bosc:

The first is to accept the reasons and conditions put forward to justify the refusal...The second is to seek an acceptable compromise with the author or the authority responsible for access to the record...The third option is to reject the reasons given for denying access to the record and uphold the order to produce the entire record.

Accordingly, it is then incumbent upon committee members to avail themselves of these options which are designed specifically to ensure that a committee’s power to secure information is not circumvented.

In the case at hand, it is the view of the Chair that the hon. member for Windsor—Tecumseh could have proposed a motion to have the committee report to the House the fact that the information requested had not been received, and request that the House compel the production of that information. House of Commons Procedure and Practice, Second Edition, sets out this process when it notes, on pages 980 to 981:

Since committees do not have the disciplinary power to sanction failure to comply with their order to produce records, they can choose to report the situation to the House and request that appropriate measures be taken. Among the options available to the House is to endorse, with or without amendment, the committee’s order to produce records, thus making it a House order.

By failing to follow this prescribed course of action, the hon. member is asking the House to do that which the committee itself was required to do to remedy this situation. The Chair must note that the committee in question did not come back to the House to request for an order of the House to produce specific papers. As with all claims pertaining to a breach of privilege, the standard which must be demonstrated is whether the member has been impeded in the fulfillment of his or her duties and functions by some action or omission.

As outlined in the 14th report of the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights, in the submission of the member for Windsor—Tecumseh, and through the admission of the Minister of Public Safety, there is no denying that the information failed to reach the committee within the specified time. However, it is equally clear that the proceedings on the bill were nonetheless able to continue, with members’ full participation.

Seeing that neither the committee nor the House appeared to share the view of the hon. member that they needed the requested information in order to complete their deliberations on the bill, I cannot find that a prima facie case exists in this matter.

In this case I will dismiss the matter, but I thank the House for its attention to this ruling.