Bill S-6 (Historical)

An Act to amend the Criminal Code and another Act

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. It also amends the International Transfer of Offenders Act.

Serious Time for the Most Serious Crime Act

[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.

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

Mr. Speaker, I am going to ask my colleague who also sits on the justice committee with me the same question as I asked the Bloc.

With regard to the system whereby the faint hope clause is available, I know the member has analyzed this and listened to all the evidence that we heard at that point. Is she aware of any other system within corrections, parole or probation that has been as successful in terms of limiting recidivism? By that I mean not only the very minor breaches that sometimes occur but in particular there have been only two cases, in all of the cases where the faint hope clause has in fact been used, where there is even a suggestion of a serious crime being committed by individuals who are released under that program.

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

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Tecumseh for the question he asked. According to the evidence we heard from justice officials, from victims groups and from organizations that work with inmates and with people who are out on parole, no, we did not hear of any other program within our sentencing regime and our Criminal Code that pertains directly to the Correctional Service of Canada that appears to work as well as the faint hope clause regime does and has proved itself to do--

[The Acting Speaker, Barry Devolin]

Questions and comments, the hon. member for Elmwood—Transcona.

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

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the member for another excellent speech on the bill.

I want to make a Hansard correction. The member for Windsor—Tecumseh pointed out that I inadvertently indicated that the Liberals changed the faint hope clause, removing the faint hope clause option for multiple murderers such as Clifford Olson, and it was in 1997. I know I have mentioned that several times already, but I evidently have used a different year. Therefore, I want to correct that in Hansard.

However, the Liberal government did change the faint hope clause in 1997 to remove that option for any multiple murderers like Clifford Olson, like Mr. Williams. The fact of the matter is I do not know how much the public knows or understands about that.

This particular bill is to remove the faint hope clause for other murderers, but 15 years from now. The Conservative are going to campaign on the issue that somehow they have removed the faint hope clause. The reality is that it is going to take 15 years for it to take effect.

I would ask the member to comment on that particular piece of information.

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

Mr. Speaker, I welcome the question from the member from the NDP and I am glad that I now realize that I misstated the name of the riding of my earlier colleague from the NDP. It is not Tecumseh, it is Windsor—Tecumseh. So for the record I would also join in correcting a misstatement.

The member is quite right that if one looks at the bill, the repeal of the faint hope clause will actually only have effect 15 years after the coming into effect of this legislation, should it pass all Houses, be adopted and receive royal assent. Clearly the Conservative government has no interest in educating the public, educating groups that represent families of victims and victims themselves of the actual facts of this case.

It is not surprising. We see it with a number of other pieces of legislation, such as the white collar crime bill, which the Liberals, the Bloc and the NDP were clamouring for back in 2007-08. The government finally brought it through after letting it sit for 216 days before actually pushing it forward. That is a bill that Liberals attempted to amend in order to remove the early release at one-sixth of the sentence. The Conservatives voted against it. How about that?

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

Mr. Speaker, I rise to speak to the amendments proposed by the government as a result of three changes the justice committee made at committee to Bill S-6.

I want to be clear that, like the Bloc, the NDP is totally opposed to the legislation and we will be speaking to that when this matter gets to third reading. With regard to the amendments, we supported the changes made at committee but now the government is trying to reverse those changes. One change is the deletion of the short title. The second change deals with the amount of time, which was very short and still is, an individual who was looking to apply for this would be given in order to make the application. The third change was a response to an issue of victims rights and sharing information with the families of murder victims and perhaps more extended members, loved ones and friends.

I will go through those three amendments one at a time, but before I do, it is important that at every opportunity we get we make it clear to those who are opposed to getting rid of this legislation and this regime that Canada has at the present time the longest sentences served, not given but served, in the world, with the exception of a very small category in the United States.

In the United States, where people are sentenced to life as a result of a murder, first degree murder in most cases, are granted the opportunity to get parole but they only serve 18.5 years. In Canada, people who are convicted of first degree murder serve 28.5 years.

In the United States there is a category where people can be sentenced to life imprisonment with no possibility of parole. It does not happen very often but there are cases like that. Even in those cases, however, the average person in the United States who is convicted of first degree murder and sentenced to life with no opportunity for parole ever, only spends 29 years in prison and then, on average, die in prison at year 29.

We heard this from practically everyone who works in this area and we heard the question being put to the Conservatives on the justice committee. They wanted to know where the problem was and where we were going with this legislation? The only answer was that it would make it less onerous on the families of victims of murder to be faced with the likelihood that they will need to go repeatedly before a judge to defend why the person should not be given the faint hope clause opportunity.

Then again, here are the facts. We have had 3 cases in the 4,715 either first or second degree murder cases where people applied more than once under the faint hope clause. Out of the 4,715 cases since this faint hope clause came into effect, the people who were eligible to apply for the faint hope clause, we had 3 applications. That is what this bill will do away with.

The other reality is that the average person who was released under the faint hope clause in 2009, the average sentence the person served was 25 years.

Even though we hear of reinstating this title of truth in sentencing, that they do serious time for the most serious crime, they are doing that time. If we were to look at the last five years, not just 2009, we would see that the average person was released under the faint hope clause after about 23 to 23.5 years.

The Conservatives have run around the country stirring up emotion and scaring the families and close ones of murdered victims by telling them that they will be faced with repeated applications every two years, which is what the law allows now. They have been told that every two years they will be before a judge or a judge and jury, or before the Parole Board and they will have to relive the crime. That is simply not true. As I said before, there have been three cases where there has been a second application. By the way, there was only a second application in those three cases. There has never been a case where a person has applied more than twice.

Therefore, this fear that every two years, from the 15th year when a person can first apply under the current law in a first degree murder case, until the 25th year when people could theoretically be faced with this, if my math is correct, five times, there has never been more than three cases, and that has only occurred on the second application three times. However, this fear is stoked and the Conservatives repeat it and repeat it.

My colleague from Winnipeg was telling me that Tom Flanagan, the mentor of the Prime Minister and the guy who suggested that Assange should be assassinated, was quoted in one of as saying that it does not have to be true what one is saying, it just has to be believable, which t is what this is about. This is believable because it is in the law that a person can apply every two years from the 15-year mark in first degree murder. Of course, if one is a multiple murderer, he or she cannot apply until the 25th year under the Parole Act. However, the Conservatives continue to say it.

We have witnesses who come before us out of fear. We had the ombudsman come before us and she recounted the stories of victims she has been in touch with. One of their fears was to wake up at around the 15-year mark and worry that for the next 10 years, every two years they will be faced with an application. Does anybody within the correction system, the justice department or the government tell them that is not what will o happen and never has happened? No. However, the Conservatives' minions run around the country saying that this is what people will be up against. They tell people who have suffered the tremendous loss of a family member that they will be faced with this every two years. That is absolutely false.

I want to speak to one of the amendments being proposed here. The reason the majority of the justice committee deleted the phony title was that it did not reflect the reality of what happens in Canada. When we are talking about a serious crime, and there is nothing more serious than murder, Canadian victims have every right to know that we keep murderers in custody longer than anybody else in the world, and that is 28.5 years on average.

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

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member is absolutely correct in what he said. The public actually do believe that somehow Clifford Olson, Paul Bernardo and Russell Williams are, almost on an annual basis, making applications under the faint hope clause.

In fact, in 1997 the previous Liberal government introduced legislation that was passed in the House to ban faint hope clause applications for any multiple murderer. Clifford Olson has not been able to apply at all since 1997 and, even if he were, he could not apply on an annual basis anyway. This is a lot of smoke and mirrors.

Tom Flanagan did say that what one says does not have to be true, it just has to sound plausible. That is the mantra of the government and that is the strategy it follows.

The member did mention that out of 4,715 cases there were only 3 applications, since the faint hope came into existence, made for a second case.

I would like to ask the member to repeat some of those arguments because I think the public should hear them over and over again.

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

Mr. Speaker, of the 4,715 cases since the faint hope clause came into existence, we have only had, on average over that period of time, and it has fluctuated slightly, 16% of people apply for the faint hope clause.

As I said earlier, in 2009, when prisoners did not get out until the 25th year, most of them applied quite late in the process as opposed to when they could have applied. Usually somewhere between 21 and 22 years is when inmates make their first applications. That is the normal pattern. It takes them about two years to get through that process and another year to get through the parole process.

We must remember that the faint hope clause only allows the right to apply for parole. Inmates still need to go through the parole process and they are at times not granted.

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Mr. Speaker, the member just pointed out the minuscule effect this would have, if any, in increasing public safety. I know he has some good advice for the government on what it could actually do that would affect a significant number of people and make Canada safer, and maybe he could outline that.

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

Mr. Speaker, let me deal with the issue of alternatives.

In terms of reducing the fear people have of multiple applications, we should be examining the Parole Act and giving the Parole Board the authority, as we have under the faint hope clause. A judge and jury under the faint hope clause as it exists now can tell inmates that they have heard their application, that they will never get out and that they do not need apply again. They can do that right now and, in fact, have done it with Clifford Olson the one time he applied.

The Parole Board should be given the same jurisdiction so that we could then tell the families of the victims of murderers that the person was allowed to apply for parole, at this point it would be at 25 years, the individual was turned down and was told never to apply again or not to apply for another 10 years.

I want to be very clear on this for my friend from Yukon. The key here is that the government must communicate that to the families of victims and it is not being done right now. The families are oftentimes left in ignorance and then the Conservative Party plays on those fears. If we tell families what they will be facing, that they will never be faced with another application or that it will be 10 years from now, that is a great way of empowering them into being able to deal with the system.

[The Acting Speaker, Barry Devolin]

Is the House ready for the question?

[Some hon. members]

Question.

[The Acting Speaker, Barry Devolin]

The question is on Motion No. 1. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

No.