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

[Rob Nicholson, Conservative, Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada]

moved that Bill S-6, An Act to amend the Criminal Code and another Act, be read the third time and passed.

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to speak on a very important piece of legislation. That, of course, is Bill S-6, the serious time for the most serious crime act, sometimes referred to as the ”faint hope clause bill”. It will get rid of that particular section.

As all members of the House know full well, Bill S-6 proposes important amendments to the faint hope regime.

The bill was first introduced as Bill C-36 and was reintroduced in virtually identical form as Bill S-6 in June of 2010. After debate and study in the Senate, the bill was, appropriately enough, passed without amendment.

I am always happy to rise in the chamber to talk about justice legislation and to discuss the issues that affect Canadians and the people of my riding of Niagara Falls, but I am saddened by the fact that we are still debating this bill, a bill that could have been passed before Christmas if not for the agenda of the opposition parties.

Unfortunately, as my hon. colleague from Edmonton—St. Albert explained during the report stage debate, some Liberal members of the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights chose not to listen to the testimony of victims and victim advocates and decided to delay this important bill by introducing unnecessary amendments, including deleting the title.

I have said this before about the opposition: that at some point it should take time to understand the needs of victims of crime. Unfortunately, it uses opportunities--as it did on this bill to get rid of the faint hope clause--to delay this government's important legislation and our attempts to fight crime and stand up for victims and law-abiding Canadians. The unnecessary amendments introduced by the Liberal justice critic and cheered on by the NDP and the Bloc were clear examples of the political tactics used by the opposition to delay our justice legislation.

I want to be clear in reminding the House that we are not talking about controversial legislation today. The bill before us is a bill that will get rid of the faint hope provision that currently allows a murderer to apply to be eligible for early parole after serving only 15 years in custody. It is legislation that will correct a law that has left many ordinary Canadians perplexed by the existence of a process that seems to allow murderers to get around the sentences imposed on them in open court after fair and public trials.

More importantly, it is legislation that victims have been asking for. I have met with victim after victim, and they have told me that the current faint hope regime must be repealed because it re-victimizes them and forces them to relive the horror that was the death of their loved ones. It is inconceivable to me that such an important matter as the protection of the families and loved ones of murder victims should be delayed because certain members do not like the title of the bill.

The measures proposed in Bill S-6 aim to accomplish three simple goals.

The first is to restore truth in sentencing by ensuring that the sentence pronounced on a convicted murderer in open court is the sentence that is served. It should not be too unreasonable for anybody that the sentence pronounced on a convicted murderer in open court is the sentence that should be served. That is reasonable.

The second is to keep those convicted of the most serious crimes in prison for lengthier periods of time, commensurate with the gravity of the crimes.

The third--and, in my opinion, the most important--is to ensure that the families and loved ones of murder victims are not themselves victimized at the whim of a convicted murderer who may decide to bring an application to be eligible for early parole. All this does is force families and loved ones to re-experience the pain of their original loss. They are victimized again and again. I do not think the goals of this bill are controversial or unreasonable and I believe the vast majority of Canadians agree.

As I have said many times before, this government is committed to redressing the balance in Canada's criminal justice system by considering the interests of law-abiding citizens. We are committed to ensuring that families and loved ones of victims are not themselves re-victimized by the justice system, and this is exactly what Bill S-6 accomplishes. This is a fair, balanced and reasonable reform of a controversial area of the law, and it should have the complete support today of all members of the House.

[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.

[Rob Nicholson, Conservative, Niagara Falls, ON]

Mr. Speaker, this is exactly what we are dealing with. They never quite get it over there.

First of all, they spent the first couple of years with their colleagues over in the Senate holding up our justice legislation. Now that, thankfully, there is a government majority in the Senate, they figure they had better do the dirty work themselves.

He has questions for me; well, victims in this country have some questions for them. Why would they hold this bill up before Christmas? All this bill would do is reduce victimization in this country. What was their complaint? I had to tell people that they did not like the title of the bill. I had to tell victims who do not want to be re-victimized over and over again that the Liberal Party does not like the title of the bill.

He wants to know how many people have reoffended. I am going to tell members something. They still do not understand what this bill is about. This is about reducing victimization. This is not necessarily about those people who got out after 15 years. These are the people who stayed in there, but the families of those murdered victims had to worry about this starting at the 13th or 14th year, and if they got by the 15th, then the 17th, 19th, or 21st years.

It is the victims we stand up for in this Parliament. That is what they do not get.

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

Mr. Speaker, I was not going to ask a question. However, after the hyperbole coming from the minister, I could not resist.

The reality is that the victimization of the family members of people who have been murdered in this country is primarily at the feet of the Conservative Party and the ultra-right wing of that party. The Conservatives have gone around the country and have told family members of murder victims that they are going to have to appear repeatedly in order to see that this person does not get out. Their position is that if they do not want this person to get out at the 15-year mark, they have to appear repeatedly.

In fact, that is not what happens. We have had four cases of people applying more than once. There have been four cases, out of thousands, of people applying more than once. The jury that hears the application the first time has the right to deny any further applications, and they do that on a fairly regular basis.

The reality is that the minister and Conservative Party members have run around the country and said, “Look, we are going to fearmonger you to death. That is what we are going to do.” We see victims constantly coming forward and saying that, when in fact the reality is just the opposite.

I cannot help but ask the minister why they keep doing that. He knows the facts. Why do they keep putting that fear into the family members of murder victims in this country, when the reality is not that at all?

[Rob Nicholson, Conservative, Niagara Falls, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I really find that incredible. It is the exact opposite. Victims' groups have come to us, as they have to parliamentarians over the last 15 years, and they are the ones who say they are re-victimized again and again.

I give credit to those individuals who are prepared to stand by us when we introduce these pieces of legislation because they know we are responding to their concerns. I have had families who have been victimized by one of these murderers tell me that when that 15-year period rolls around, they are tortured over and over again. They are re-victimized.

The NDP would not get that. I understand that. Its members would not understand that at all, but they are the ones who tell us that the victims are worried about whether this individual is going to get out or not. Many times, if not most times, they do not get out, but that is not the point; they are victimized again and again. That is what it is all about.

Another bill we want to get passed would deal with consecutive parole ineligibility. I know what the NDP members will be saying. They will be saying that the poor fellow is not going to be eligible for parole for 50 years under our bill. I say, “Good enough for him. If you're committing more than one murder or something, that is what you should be looking at in this country.” However, the NDP will not be able to figure that one out either.

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

Mr. Speaker, my question is specifically with respect to the victims in the process.

As a result of the government proroguing and the delays it has caused with respect to this bill, we have gone through it twice. The first time Conservative members on committee called for grandparents in one case and a parent in another case, family members of a person who had been murdered. They did not do it the second time because on the first occasion one of the two witnesses called by the Conservative Party was honest enough to say that after a recent experience with dealing with somebody who had been released on early parole under the faint hope clause was convinced there are times when the clause is useful. Interestingly, that person was not called when the hearings were going on a second time.

Could the minister tell me why that person was not called? Did the minister speak to that victim when he heard that evidence on the first occasion? Did he change his mind and realize that the faint hope clause is a useful tool on occasion?

[Rob Nicholson, Conservative, Niagara Falls, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the NDP is sticking up for the faint hope clause. That is good coming from an NDP member. I am glad that party has come forward. For a couple of years those members were content to let some of their colleagues do the dirty work, get the bill out of the House of Commons and to committee where it would be amended or held up forever. Now at least those members have come out on the record.

I appreciate that the hon. member and his party think that the faint hope clause is a wonderful thing. I appreciate that he and his party are not going to support us on any measures that stand up for victims and law-abiding Canadians. That is their approach and their ideology and they are welcome to that.

I have talked to victims right across this country. They applaud the government's efforts to take their interests seriously, to make them paramount. That is what I said when I introduced this bill on getting rid of the faint hope clause. I am sure the hon. member would be pleased to sit down with some of the people I have spoken to, people who want to know if getting rid of the faint hope clause would stop people from committing first degree murder. It would be a challenge for someone to figure out why anybody would commit first degree murder and think that was a good idea.

I know for sure that getting rid of the faint hope clause will reduce victimization in this country. Not one more family will have to go through that torture and relive the pain inflicted on them after 15 years. But we are going further. We have legislation before Parliament right now that will have consecutive parole ineligibility. That possibility will keep the hon. member up at night I am sure. There should not be any discounts for people who commit more than one murder in this country. If someone commits two, three or four murders, that individual should have parole ineligibility consecutive to that.

Individuals have told me that their son or grandson was the second or third victim murdered by the same individual yet there are no consequences for that under Canadian law. We stand with them. We will do what we can to make sure that their child or grandchild counts for something in the Canadian judicial system. We owe that to those families.

[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--

[The Acting Speaker, Barry Devolin]

The hon. member is an experienced parliamentarian. Please do not refer to colleagues by their given names.

[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.

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

Mr. Speaker, I must admit I am perplexed by the position of the Liberals. This law was brought in by them as a result of us, as a society, doing away with the death penalty.

At committee, the member for Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine made it quite clear that her position was that although they would support the bill to get rid of the faint hope close, when “they got back into government”, they would bring it back. At a subsequent meeting of the committee, she backed off that position, making it clear that was her position and not necessarily that of the Liberal Party.

Is it the Liberals' position that at some point, should they or some other progressive government get back into power, they would support reinstating the faint hope clause?

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

Mr. Speaker, I like the comments of Justice Patrick Callaghan in the Vaillancourt case when he said:

—a very important "glimmer" of hope, "if some incentive is to be left when such a terrible penalty is imposed on the most serious of all criminals.

I will answer the question by saying that at the time of eliminating capital punishment and instituting the life sentence, it was felt this was a necessary provision. However, time has passed.

We have seen 1,500 people apply for this remedy and very few were eligible. It lends credence to the idea that a life sentence ought to be a life sentence. However, it will be a terrible outcome if after the 25 years of overcrowding and lack of programming that person gets back on the street and does harm to the community.

It really has nothing to do with this law. It has to do with the Minister of Public Safety's program to build the prisons to put the people in, but to provide no programs. It is a recipe truly for danger and increased crime when those people eventually get out after 25 years, if they are eligible.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

Mr. Speaker, prior to the member's speech, he asked a direct question of the Minister of Justice about how many people this would affect in the last quite number of years.

We all know the Minister of Justice. We have a lot of respect for him. We know him not to be an unintelligent man and certainly outside of this chamber is quite a pleasant individual. Yet he quite clearly was either unable or unwilling to put before this chamber the evidence to support his initiative.

The Conservatives have had five years in government. We have gone through two prorogations and quite a number of these bills, which have fancy headlines to them, yet the minister was unable or unwilling to put before the House the foundational evidence for the need for this legislation.

If it is true that we are functioning on kind of an evidence-free basis for the criminal law initiatives that the government wishes to take, if it is true it is unable or unwilling to put forward evidence, what is the basis for these various initiatives that have these headline-grabbing titles?

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

Mr. Speaker, I am shocked that the minister did not answer the question.

Since 1981 there have been 181 court decisions, 146 persons were eligible for early parole and, in that time, 2 people violently offended.

The answers are one of policy and it goes back to 718. Members may think any one of the principles of sentencing is more important than the others. Clearly, the separation of the offender from the public, one of the principles, has been put at the top.

I would not dare answer a minister's question but I think the answer for them is that not everyone reads the law in the same way the government does. Not everyone thinks that all criminals should be equal and put in a pot for a judge to decide, Early on it has been against discretion in judges. It has backtracked now because it has appointed enough people to the bench and it cannot criticize its own.

The government does not believe in the pot of discretion for the balancing of those issues. It thinks the separation of the offender is the most important issue. If the Canadian people think that too, well that will perhaps be the issue for debate in the coming election.

What I want for my 8-year-old daughter and my 81-year-old mother is to have a safe community. I do not know anybody in this House who is against safety in the community.

I think the government is skewing the facts in its favour for one piece of philosophy which it thinks is primordial to the others, and that is separating the offender.

[Serge Ménard, Bloc, Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the member who just spoke to explain how his party can be in favour of this bill when previous governments believed in the law and improved all aspects of it. It is giving extraordinary results. He said that there have been two cases of recidivism. We should add that neither case involved murder; one offender was convicted of robbery and the other of a serious offence. The law has been an all around success. Despite this fact and the improvements that have been made, in cases of death sentences commuted to life in prison, the average length of imprisonment has increased from seven years, before 1968, to 28.4 years today, or longer than in any other civilized nation.

I have the impression—and he will try to give another reason—that it is because they are afraid of the Conservatives' demagoguery on these issues. Am I mistaken?

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

Mr. Speaker, after 18 years of elected life, I do not think I will ever be afraid of demagoguery, if that is the word. So, no.

The issue is that there have been two offences and perhaps that is two too many. The issue is that the people in Canada, and not just the Conservatives who do not really care about the evidence, and despite the propaganda from the Conservatives, think that a life sentence is a sentence of life imprisonment. It is not. The sentence is really 25 years eligibility and the vast majority of those incarcerated get out at that time. A very small number stay in prison, otherwise the average would not be 28.4 years.

As I said earlier, perhaps it is an issue of how the people perceive it. When people are asked what life in prison means, all of this has to be explained. Maybe this debate will serve the purpose. However, 25 years for first degree murder is the sentence that Parliament settled on. If a person is convicted of first degree murder, the person more than likely will serve 25 years. I do not know how to explain that any better but there is the perception, which the member must feel even in Quebec, that people misunderstand this section.

We are the party of the middle, the party of compromise and we understand that people feel that the section is mis-described. We do not go all the way with the Conservatives in thinking that it is a huge problem. It has been a serious problem for two victims, which is perhaps two too many, but in the history of criminals and criminality in Canada, there is a lot more victimization going on right now in Canada that the government could more about. It could be more effective, more surgical, more co-operative with us, more surgical in giving more funding to police officers, and finally, like the ad about not cooking with cheese, the government could just stop proroguing.

[Serge Ménard, Bloc, Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC]

Mr. Speaker, today we are examining a purely doctrinaire bill that seeks to strike down a piece of legislation and measures that have met all the objectives set, that ensure public safety and that incorporate decisions made by juries representing a wide cross-section of the population. In addition, no studies have been conducted that show the failings of this legislation; we are acting on mere perception. I find it shocking that the members who spoke before me based their remarks on misperceptions. As legislators, what should we do in this type of case? I think that the voice of conscience must take precedence over public rumour.

Certain important things, such as liberty, justify me in listening to my conscience over public rumour, especially since the rumour in question is volatile and could change quickly, as evidenced by complaints about unanimous decisions rendered by juries.

What does this legislation do? It ensures that people who have been convicted of first or second degree murder cannot apply for parole.

First degree murder, which is currently defined as voluntary and planned homicide, is the most serious. First degree murder also includes murders committed in certain very serious circumstances, such as murder committed against a police officer or prison guard, murder committed as a terrorist act or murder involving sexual assault. The mandatory sentence for first degree murder is life in prison. However, those who have committed this type of murder can be eligible for parole after 25 years. It is important to note that these individuals are not freed after 25 years. In fact, most first degree murderers who apply are not granted parole; those who are can apply only after 25 years and so their application is reviewed only after a certain period of time has passed.

The minimum sentence for second degree murder is also life in prison; however, the judge who hears the case determines the parole ineligibility period, which can vary from 10 to 20 years. Nevertheless, those convicted of second degree murder cannot apply for parole until they have served 15 years in prison.

In 1976, the government thought that this legislation was necessary when it decided to abolish the death penalty. We still needed some kind of penalty that was a deterrent and life in prison certain was a deterrent. A parole system already existed, and it was decided that in the case of murder, the period before being eligible for parole needed to be much longer. That is why we have the periods that I mentioned.

In 1997, the legislation was amended to ensure that someone who committed multiple murders, or murders in some other circumstances, were not eligible for parole before 25 years. What was the purpose of that law? The Minister of Public Safety, who was known at that time as the Solicitor General, said it best.

He said:

A period of incarceration, with hope of parole, and with the built-in additional incentive for the inmate, and protection for the guards, of a review of that parole eligibility after 15 years is necessarily better than a sentence of death because it removes the possibility of an irreversible error of execution.

Thus, this was added to the Criminal Code in the hope that it would provide an incentive for long-term offenders to rehabilitate themselves and, therefore, afford more protection to prison guards.

It seems as though this goal was accomplished. There must always be some kind of hope when someone receives a sentence that could, in most cases, make them desperate and, since they have nothing to lose, cause them to do something worse.

But why 15 years? We realized that in countries such as England, Australia, Belgium, Denmark, Scotland, New Zealand, Switzerland and Sweden, that the average prison time was 15 years, and 12 years in Sweden.

And what were the results? One thing is certain: it cannot be said that this law was abused. In April 2009, when statistics were studied in order to review the law, it was found that although 991 offenders had been deemed eligible for judicial review—people sentenced to life in prison without any possibility of parole depending on whether they had committed first or second degree murder—court decisions had been rendered in only 174 of the cases. I have taken these numbers from a Library of Parliament study. Of these 174 offenders, 144 had been declared eligible to apply for parole. So 30 were not eligible to begin with. Then, only 131 were granted parole, representing just over 13% of those who had been deemed eligible to apply for a judicial review. Can we really deprive all those convicted of murder in Canada of all hope and not allow 13% of them to be completely rehabilitated?

We really need to understand that the murder cases we hear about are always the worst ones. But not all murderers fill us with the same horror as the case of Clifford Olson and the more recent case of Colonel Williams. In fact, we know that in 84% of murder cases, the murderer knew the victim. In my career in criminal law as well as prosecution and defence since 1966, I realized that murder is a peculiar crime in that it cannot be said that it is usually committed by people who would be considered criminals, meaning that they have led a criminal life or that they are regularly involved in criminal activities. They are not all street gang or organized crime members. Quite the opposite. People kill for all sorts of reasons: often it is out of vengeance, on impulse, for money, but quite often the murderer knows the victim, and some examples in Quebec last year prove that. The most serious example is that of the mafia godfather, Nicolo Rizzuto, who was evidently killed by a very competent hitman.

But there is also the case of the surgeon in Saint-Jérôme who had an outstanding reputation and who was loved by his patients and the community. But when his wife, also a doctor, left him, he could not accept it and turned on his two children, killing them.

There was also that terrible family tragedy in Lac-Saint-Jean, where the father and mother of a family were desperate and decided that life was not worth living, either for them or for their children. They bought enough drugs to kill the entire family. When the police entered the home, the entire family had taken the drugs. The police were able to revive the mother, but the father and two children were dead. The mother was convicted of this triple murder. It is also thought that some murders, for which the trials are not over yet, are honour killings.

Obviously there is a whole host of situations that lead people to kill. In many of these cases, it might not be so bad after 15 or 20 years to see whether we could trust certain individuals again, especially considering the financial and social costs involved. In my opinion, the social cost of incarceration is much greater than the financial cost, which in and of itself is not insignificant.

I am told that the average cost of incarcerating an offender in Canada is $110,000. It is probably higher in maximum security penitentiaries. Only 2% of that money goes to the various programs for the rehabilitation and well-being of the inmates. Most of the money is required for satisfying security rules: walls, barbed wire, electronic systems, armed guards, three shifts and more for covering vacations, etc. All of this runs up considerable costs.

Let us be clear: when individuals are granted parole, they are not entirely free; they are under mandatory supervision. When people go to a halfway house, which is no different than prison except for the absence of bars and walls, they are still not free to move around. They have to eat and sleep as they are told, just like in prison. They are denied their freedom. They are far from being entirely free.

Of those who have benefited from this measure—only 13% of all those sentenced to life in prison for murder—that is, the 125 offenders who have been released on parole so far, 95 were actively supervised in the community and 15 were reincarcerated for breaching a condition of their parole.

So this is proof that they are closely supervised and that they must respect their conditions. However, of those 15 individuals, only two committed an offence. One committed an armed robbery and the other committed a drug-related offence. As we can see, public safety was not at risk.

In addition, the bill abolishes the system. Of course the system cannot be abolished for those who have already been sentenced by judges, who surely must have taken into account the fact that these people could eventually apply for parole. Furthermore, in cases of second-degree murder, the judges would have had to determine the length of the sentence before the accused could apply for parole.

So, there are still some people in the system. This means that if we were to pass this bill today and it were to receive royal assent, the legislation would not come into force for 15 years. In fact, it would apply only to those who commit crimes after it passes. Considering the time it would take for the bill to be passed and approved, it would probably take about 17 years for it to be fully enforced. It will eventually be enforced and this will complicate matters for the remaining offenders already in the system. First of all, inmates engaged in a rehabilitation process, who are under the care of psychiatrists and other staff, are sometimes told to wait a little longer because they need to be examined a little longer before they apply. This will no longer be possible, because the rules will be rigid and absolute. Inmates will have to apply after 15 years and will have only 90 days to do so.

After 15 years, the inmate has often been moved. Preparing his file takes several months. Some lawyers who deal with these cases testified before the committee in this regard. Furthermore, Correctional Service Canada acknowledged that preparing a file could take more than six months, but the application must be made within 90 days. The government has argued a great deal that offenders can apply for parole repeatedly, every two years. That is not true. Under the current law, offenders can go before a jury only if they obtain the permission of a judge, who must determine whether there is a reasonable prospect that the application will succeed. In the bill before us, it must be shown that there is a substantial likelihood that the application will succeed.

Then the jury must make a decision. If it refuses to grant parole, the jury may determine a period of time during which the offender is not entitled to make another application for parole. Thus, the idea that offenders can apply after 15, 17, 19 and 21 years is not true in practice. The government has been unable to give a single example where there have been such repeated requests.

I would like to point out that, on the weekend, we received a copy of a letter to the Prime Minister from the Church Council on Justice and Corrections. This organization points out that the government's plan to send more Canadians to prison for longer periods is not a good solution and that higher levels of incarceration in society in general do not have a deterrent effect. There must be a deterrent; however, prison as a deterrent must be used in moderation. I am quickly summarizing. I agree with them that this does not respect the fundamental principles of religion, such as caring for one's neighbour and its ramifications, and forgiveness. They believe that man is imperfect, a sinner, but that he can rehabilitate himself.

The bill is useless and not supported by any study, whereas the law the Conservatives want to amend has given good results. There is only one reason for what they are doing: they want to flog their ideology. I would remind my colleagues that everyone the minister said he met with could very well be called to be on a jury that hears these cases. I do not understand why, suddenly, the minister is afraid of their opinion and does not want more offenders to go before them.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I always appreciate the input of the hon. member in debates on justice issues.

We have had this debate many times before. It has to do with a government that has not been governing but rather campaigning on slogans and one of its slogans is that it will be tough on crime. However, many of the bills have been recycled, delayed and reconstituted, Some may not at the same position but may be part of an omnibus bill in some cases.

The justice committee has been backlogged with so many bills that probably many of them could have been consolidated. If the government were serious about an agenda to address crime, it would have put these matters forward in a fashion in which they would become law within a reasonable period of time.

Not only has the government not done that. It is building prisons because of rising levels of unreported crime by unreported criminals. The issue here is that the purpose of our justice system is to deal with not only the punishment of crime but the rehabilitation and the reintegration of people, because eventually they will be released and the safety of society depends on that happening successfully.

Perhaps the member might want to comment.

[Serge Ménard, Bloc, Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the member is right. I completely agree with him. The government's game of introducing bills, killing them with prorogation and then introducing them again makes complete sense in light of their philosophy. Its philosophy does not involve tackling crime. It does not aim to reduce the number of crimes committed. In fact, the Conservatives noticed that in the United States, being tough on crime pays off in terms of votes.

Therefore, when a bill is introduced and is given first reading, then second reading, then it is killed and introduced again, and so on, the government is pandering to a public that wants to be tough on crime. But being tough on crime can be completely stupid. What is important—and I love this expression from the Liberal Party—is being smart on crime.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, to follow up on that point, it is important to be smart on crime as well. It is very important that the public interest is served but public interest is not served when the government puts forward a minister who parrots lines of an election and uses some hot button phrases and yet none of its members speak to the bill because they have been told not to. This is the fallacy of its commitment to be tough on crime. It is to be tough on electioneering and campaigning.

The House deserves to get answers. When the member for Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe asked two straightforward questions of the minister, the response was a litany of electioneering slogans. The bill was last reported back from committee before committee members had the benefit of a government study, survey and report, data which reported and demonstrated the weakness in the arguments made by the government on the legislation. The member may know about that.

[Serge Ménard, Bloc, Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I completely agree with the member who asked this question. This government's Minister of Justice has become the minister of propaganda. There are many examples. He is constantly saying that they support victims and that we support criminals. This is completely untrue. No one can say such a thing in good faith, knowing that they are telling a blatant lie. We have different opinions on the best way to deal with crime. The Conservatives follow the United States' tough on crime model. It was profitable for American representatives to campaign against crime, so much so that the incarceration rate in the United States is now seven times higher than in Canada.

Let us take the cost of correctional services and multiply it by seven to see how much such a campaign would cost us. Is the United States obtaining better results? Not at all. The homicide rate in the United States is three and a half times higher than in Canada and, might I add, five times higher than in Quebec.

Although this is clearly a very bad example to follow when dealing with crime, it is profitable because people always form their initial opinion based on emotion. However, once they consider the issue more carefully, they form a more rational opinion. The Conservatives are doing what they are doing because it is profitable for them.

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

Mr. Speaker, as I was listening to the minister in his opening speech this afternoon, I could not help but think of my many years in court and that if this issue were ever put before a court in this land, any court, whether a criminal court or a civil court, it would get dismissed on a preliminary motion for want of any factual basis. It would not make it past a preliminary motion because there is no evidence, none whatsoever, to justify doing away with the faint hope clause.

We have to look at this issue historically and where it came about, to look at the point where this legislature decided that it would do away with the death penalty. We recognized that we had to deal with the issue of sentencing with regard to murder, first degree and second degree and manslaughter, and we did that.

It is interesting to go back and read some of the evidence that was put before the justice committee at that time. It is clear that the committee knew at that time that across western democracies, the ones with societies similar to Canada's, people convicted of first or second degree murder were being incarcerated for between 10 and 15 years on average before they were eligible for parole. That was the situation back in the 1970s when we decided to do away with the death penalty.

There was great pressure at that time from various elements of society that that was not acceptable. Therefore, the compromise was that we would fix it at 25 years for first degree murder before eligibility for parole, but that we would allow for those exceptional cases to apply after 15 years. That is where the current 15 years in the Criminal Code comes from, allowing people who are convicted of first degree murder and, in some cases, second degree murder, and sentenced to 25 years, or more than 15 years, to be able to apply at 15 years.

In addition to the compromise that was reached at that time, we also fixed very rigid terms as to how a person could become eligible to apply for parole. It would not be automatic. A person would actually have to go through two steps, and that is still the situation today, but it will be done away with by this bill. First, the person has to convince a judge in the area where the murder was committed that he or she at least has a reasonable case for release. If the judge says yes, then the case goes on to a judge and jury, where the jury decides whether the person is going to be allowed to apply for parole. The parole board still has to deal with it.

Those hearings are always held in the same communities where the murders were committed. And at that time, we gave juries in those communities the right to have all the evidence of the facts around the murder and all the evidence with regard to how the convicted murderer had functioned in the prison system after being convicted and sentenced and incarcerated.

At that time, we gave juries the authority not only to grant the application for early parole but also the right to turn the application down, which they do on a regular basis. We also gave them the authority to tell the person that he or she cannot apply again for up to 25 years. Juries do that occasionally as well, Clifford Olson being one example.

Hence, what we are doing here with Bill S-6 is in effect saying to those juries that we do not trust them to do this right, even though they have in fact done an excellent job in dealing with these cases, and that we no longer trust the judges to do it either. We are going to fix the time here absolutely at 25 years: no one is going to allowed to apply for parole, no matter how well the person may have in fact rehabilitated themself while in custody for that 15-year period.

When we look at this system, there is no other methodology that we have used in our corrections system that has been more successful than this one in terms of avoiding recidivism. This one has absolutely been the most successful. Of all the people who have been released, and they are not a large number, only two have committed violent crimes. In only one of those two cases were there actual physical injuries to the victim.

There have been other cases where parole has been revoked, which again I think clearly demonstrates that system works. We heard from the people who work in the system and actually know it that the vast majority of those cases in which there has been a revocation of the parole, it has usually been because of alcohol or drug abuse, or non-compliance in other ways with the conditions that were imposed upon them by the parole board, things like their required place of residence and oftentimes a requirement not to associate with certain other individuals. The person breaches those, usually repeatedly, so their parole is revoked. It has worked because other than those two cases, there have been no violent crimes.

Since this clause came into effect, there have been somewhere in the range of about 4,000 individuals, although the figures are not completely accurate, who could have applied under the faint hope clause. In fact, only 181 of those who applied were ever granted it in the first round. Of those, 35 were denied by the jury and, interestingly, another 35, even after the jury recommended they could proceed, were turned down by the parole board. We have had only a little over 100, about 115 or 116, who have actually got out under this. We have only had two cases where anybody applied more than once, although there is a suggestion there was a preliminary hearing for two other ones.

When we hear the justification for this by the government, it is all about protecting victims. However, when we look at the facts, we have to ask, where are the victims who are being victimized by this process?

The Conservative Party and conservative elements in this country, including a number of media personalities, have gone across the country, fearmongering that every first degree murderer and second degree murderer who has more than 15 years is going to apply for the faint hope clause, when the evidence is overwhelmingly to the opposite. That information is not given out. We have to ask, if we are really worried about the families of the victims being afraid of what might come, why would we not do something as simple as educating them and advising them that this is the way the system has worked for over 20 years. Why wouldn't they be told? Rather than stirring up the fear of what might happen, tell them in fact what does happen. The government and that political party have never done that--never.

Instead, we have the justice minister and the Minister of Public Safety leading the charge, and the Prime Minister assisting them in it, stirring the pot and raising the fear when the reality is just the opposite.

When we look at those facts, we have to ask, as my colleague from the Bloc just did, why the Conservatives do it. They do it because politically they have been able to make it work for themselves. By raising the fear level in this country among the families of murder victims they have been able to garner political support. That is reprehensible. If we are going to protect the victims, let us be serious about doing it. Let us not use them as photo ops, as the Conservatives repeatedly do.

I challenged the minister when he was here earlier this afternoon that this issue was before the committee the first time, before the Conservatives prorogued Parliament, and let it die. Conservatives on the committee brought forth two witnesses. Everyone was expecting them to get on the stand, under oath in some cases, and say, “We absolutely support the government in doing away with the faint hope clause”. The Conservatives were shocked. The grandmother of one of the murder victims was very forceful about being opposed to the continued use of the faint hope clause.

The other gentleman, interestingly, about a month before he testified before the justice committee, had the opportunity to be on a panel. He was an advocate for victims' rights, and he had done a fair amount of work. His daughter had been killed, and he had spent a good deal of his time advocating for greater assistance to victims of crime and the families of victims of crime. Because of the work he was doing, he was asked to sit on a panel to talk about these issues. Also on the panel was another individual who was a convicted murderer and had been released under the faint hope clause. In the course of the debate, the father of the victim came away convinced that there were occasions, because he saw this other individual who appeared to have been rehabilitated and was doing good work in the community, when the faint hope clause made sense. That is why we put it in in the first place, because there are occasions when people rehabilitate, even convicted murderers. Interesting enough, he thought about it after that panel discussion, and when he came before us, he was quite honest to tell us that story and to say why he, in effect, had changed his position.

I cannot help but think, and I say this from my professional experience as a lawyer for a long time and the number of clients I had who had suffered the loss of loved ones as a result of murder, that when people can step over the need that we all have as a human element in our makeup for vengeance and punishment and look at it as a whole, what happened to that gentleman is usually what happens to the families of victims.

Again, we all use Clifford Olson and Paul Bernardo as examples, or Mr. Pickton. There are those examples where we know we cannot do anything to retrieve that individual. They will stay in custody for the rest of their lives. There are others like that. They are not the only three.

We also know there are times with the treatment that people are given in the course of incarceration that some of them are eligible to be treated as having been rehabilitated and treated as being eligible to return to society as a whole. That reality was why we brought in the faint hope clause. That reality is why we still need the faint hope clause.

I have to say to my colleagues in the Liberal Party and I do not want to use too strong a term, I really am sorry and I feel sad that they are not prepared to stand up to that bullying that is coming from the government side. It was one of their governments that brought this in originally with the support of the NDP at the time, clearly. It has worked. Again, back to my opening comment, there is no reason to believe that in a courtroom we would have no ability to convince a judge that it would not continue to work.

We look at what the consequences would be and we heard it from the Liberal spokesperson earlier this afternoon. We are going to have more people who have been convicted of lesser crimes who will have less access to needed services for rehabilitation coming out of prison, not necessarily the convicted murderers, although even some of them, who do not get treatment until they are nearing the end of their sentence as we heard from the ombudsman for Corrections Services. Prisoners do not get services, particularly mental health services, until near the end of the time of their incarceration.

That will spill over into all of the other people we have incarcerated. There is no indication from the government that it is going to spend any money on anything other than bricks and mortar to build more prisons to incarcerate more people. It is not talking about any programming dollars coming into play. The scarce dollars that are there now, which are grossly inadequate, are going to remain at the same level and more people will need them. That is one of the consequences.

It is interesting to look at the government's punitive approach. Ideologically this is all about looking at punishing people, not rehabilitating people.

I understand the Liberals taking this position, but in this case it is not valid. I understand that constant need of our responsibility as elected officials at the federal level, being responsible for the Criminal Code and for dealing with crime in the country. We constantly have to balance the need for society as a whole to respect the system and to support it, to believe that it is a just one and the need to actually treat antisocial behaviour in the form of criminality.

It is a constant balancing. With some basic public education, it would be easy to convince the Canadian public that this is a system that works. It is a just system that recognizes the loss of their loved one that the families have suffered.

Another fact that we should be telling the public with regard to how the system works is that of those people who apply for this faint hope clause, the vast majority do not apply until around year 19. That is the mean average. It is not at year 15, when they first could. Again I would remind people that somewhere around 87%, which I think was the last figure, of people convicted of first degree murder, never apply. They serve out the 25 years and on average spend 28.4 years in custody. Around 87% never apply.

This fear that we hear from the Conservatives that at the 15-year mark, the 17-year mark, the 19-year mark, the 21-year mark, the 23-year mark the family of the victim, their loved one, will be faced with this application is absolutely false. The average person convicted of first degree murder applies at year 19.

The system takes so long going through those three steps: the judge alone, the judge and jury, and then the parole board, that it takes more than two years.

We saw some statistics on the last five years, up to 2009. In those five years, of the 13% who applied and again a number of those did not get very far in the process, who did get released, were incarcerated from 21 years to 23 years. In fact, in 2009, the person released actually served 25 years. They had applied and got out at the 25-year mark.

We have all of these facts with absolutely no evidence supporting the bill, but both the government and the official opposition are supporting the bill. It is a really sad day for justice in this country.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the member raised some interesting points that made me think of one other discussion point. It appears that the government has assumed that everyone who has committed a murder is a heinous animal that has to be thrown in prison and the key thrown away.

I spent five years on the board of Interim Place, which is the shelter for battered women in our community, and I have worked with it for many years since. There was a case where an abused mother of a couple of young children killed her husband. This person is not a risk to society. After a period of punishment, which is necessary in our system, but in the best interest of society, those two children need a mother or someone to care.

I wonder if the member would like to comment on whether or not the faint hope clause was ever intended to deal with those cases where clearly there was no risk to society and it was in the best interest of the rehabilitation of the person as well as the safety of society that the faint hope clause be retained.

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

Mr. Speaker, any jury in this country would be given the facts. The evidence would be put before them about the murder incident, how horrendous it was and all of the facts about the individual asking to be allowed to apply for early parole. There would be 12 men and women from the community where the incident took place. Would we say to them or to this legislature that they would not take into account whether this individual is a risk to their community because the chances are that is where he or she would most likely end up. Of course, it is absolutely certain that would be a major consideration. Have the individuals redeemed themselves? Are they rehabilitated? The crucial issue is if they would be a risk to the community.

As a juror, they and their family live in the community. Would they let someone back into their community if they thought that individual would pose a risk to the community? The answer is obviously no. They would not do that and they do not do that.

[Alex Atamanenko, NDP, British Columbia Southern Interior, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I know the member has worked very hard on this file and I often see in our caucus meetings the thorough analysis that he and his staff provide on various crime bills that come before us. It is done with a measure of objectivity and knowledge because he has served in the legal system for many years.

It seems that we now have a policy under the government to put more people in prison and spend more money building prisons. However, at the same time, we read that there are fewer people eligible for rehabilitation under the current system. The crime rate is decreasing, yet, as the member mentioned in his speech, somehow there is a campaign to make us all afraid so that we can support measures such as this and build more prisons.

Does the member feel there is a trend within the government with all these bills to take away the power from the legal system and from the judges and juries to make decisions?

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

Mr. Speaker, there is no question that is what has been happening because the Conservative Party, as opposed to its predecessor the Progressive Conservative Party, has been taking its lines, ideologies and standard of conservatism from the Reagan-Bush people in the United States.

What has happened there is interesting. On January 7, Newt Gingrich, along with Pat Nolan, who I believe is a member of the House of Representatives in Texas, blogged this piece, which is two pages of hard copy. They went through an analysis of what the U.S. government was following. There are some really interesting points, but the bottom line is this. Newt Gingrich, a Republican in the House of Representatives, an arch conservative, stated that it did not work, that it had to change because Americans could not afford to do this. He and Mr. Nolan are very blunt about it. I remember being attacked by the government over making the same points.

The government points to a number of states in the U.S. and says that it is interesting to look at these states. Some of them greatly increased their prison population and the crime rate went down a bit. However, if we look at other states that did not increase their prison population nearly as much but spent money on prevention and enforcement, their crime rates went down even more.

That is the history in Canada. The Conservative government is on the verge of cutting funds for the prevention of youth going into street gangs. The funds will not be in the next budget. It has made that very clear and it will dump it on the provinces. However, when we have spent that money, we have been effective in cutting the crime rate. By incarcerating more people, we do not do that. We take them out of the system and bring them back into society as hardened criminals and they commit more severe crimes.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member always provides a very thoughtful analysis of whatever bill is in front of the House. I have heard probably more facts out of the hon. member in his 20 minutes than I have heard in literally dozens of speeches from government members opposite, who seem to operate in a fact-free zone with everything being ideology.

I was thinking over the break about what it was the government would achieve by this, other than creating an atmosphere of fear. People in an atmosphere of fear stop thinking and therefore consent to doing things they might not actually otherwise do if they have analyzed the evidence. I thank the hon. member for standing up for a system of justice as opposed to a system of punishment.

The hon. member knows that inevitably the government will be pushing a prisons agenda and robbing from the criminal justice portfolio's police and program services. Inevitably what will happen is there will be more people incarcerated and punished and our system of justice will diminish as a consequence.

I would be interested in the hon. member's analysis with respect to the creation of the atmosphere of fear when the facts do not support the initiative.

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

Mr. Speaker, I certainly agree with the comments about the thrust being all about punishment and not about rehabilitation.

I want to go back to some of the points Mr. Gingrich made in his article to support that. He used the comparison between Florida and New York. Florida increased its incarceration rate by 16% and New York decreased its rate by 16% in the same period of time. The crime rate in the state of New York fell twice as fast as it did in Florida in the same period of time. The United States spent $68 billion in 2010 on corrections. That was a 300% increase in 25 years, right at the time when Reagan came in as president.

That is what the Conservative government is starting to do. It is going to do exactly the same thing. It is absolutely arrogant on its part and not based on any facts. It is going to spend $9 billion on prisons, bricks and mortar. It is going to incarcerate more people and under the faint hope clause, they are going to be incarcerated for longer periods of time. For what purpose? It is simply so the government can stir the fear in the electorate to try to get more votes. It is disgusting.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to address Bill S-6 this afternoon. It is an interesting bill, to say the very least. When we read it, it states, “serious time for the most serious crimes”. There is no doubt in my mind that the Conservative Party, over the last number of years, has taken the position that it wants to be tough on crime. To try to reinforce that, the Conservatives have come up with creative sayings in their bills, which, when they give their speeches to their constituents, give the impression that they were getting tough on crime.

When we look at what Bill S-6 would do, it is an interesting thing. I think the Conservatives have a good sense in terms of what public expectations are, but they cannot help but look at the title. I believe the title is an attempt to communicate a very strong message that the Tories are actually tough on crime. The bill would do nothing to really address the issue of crime. There would not be any crimes prevented as a result of it.

At the end of the day, it allows the government to send a very interesting message to its constituents when its members go across the country and cite the title of the bill. What we really are talking about is the faint hope clause.

I understand it was former Prime Minister Jean Chrétien who made an amendment to the legislation. We acknowledged that there was a need to put some restrictions in place. We saw that because, in good part, we wanted to listen to what the citizens were saying. That is why it was amended a number of years ago to recognize the value of putting in restrictions that would not allow for the faint hope clause to be applied to anyone who wanted to apply for it. Under certain circumstances, individuals would not be able to apply for it.

At this point, the government has as amended it even further. At the end of the day, we support what the bill attempts to do. However, I have many reservations with regard to the way the government tries to deal with the issue of crime and safety and the use of legislation to try to reinforce that it is being tough on crime. This is an issue which I want to highlight.

Recently in Winnipeg North the government decided not to reinvest in a number of programs. Those programs dealt with some of the crimes happening in our constituencies. They allowed for former gang members to participate in programs that would, hopefully, get them back on the right track. This is when government really has the opportunity to impact the types of crimes being committed in our communities.

On the one hand, we are debating an important bill, Bill S-6. The bill tries to appeal to those who want to see the faint hope clause diminished. It is not to undermine the importance of addressing that issue, but rather to highlight the need to get into our communities and do something that would prevent some crimes from occurring. That is why I thought today would be a wonderful opportunity for me to provide some comment on this issue.

A story in the Winnipeg Free Press indicated that some programs could be lost in the community of north Winnipeg and beyond. These programs assist individuals in getting out of gangs and other types of criminal activities by supporting good, non-profit organizations that really have an impact. On the one hand, we are debating this bill. On the other hand, the government fails to recognize valuable programs that prevent some of these crimes from taking place.

I want to highlight the difference in terms of approach in dealing with the whole issue of crime.

I understand the legislation was in front of the House before it was prorogued. The government is now attempting to get it passed through the second time. I suspect it will be more successful this time in getting it passed. We will just have to wait and see.

I cannot help but note that during the 2006 federal election campaign the government initially talked about getting rid of the faint hope clause. It has taken a number of years for the government to get it to this stage. One could question as to why the government has taken the legislation on the course that it has in terms of not bringing it to the House in such a fashion as to get its agenda dealt with quicker or its sense of commitment to passage. The government cannot blame opposition parties in the sense that the bill was before the House prior to proroguing just over a year ago.

It is important for us to recognize that there is some value to the faint hope clause. In many situations, different organizations, different stakeholders supported the rationale that was used in the creation of the faint hope clause, noteworthy organizations such as the John Howard Society and the Elizabeth Fry Society.

As the province of Manitoba's justice critic, I had the opportunity to meet with representatives of those organizations. These two stakeholders have an interest, like no other, in trying to get those who have committed crimes reactivated into society in a more positive way. I recognize they do not see Bill S-6 as a positive bill. They understand and appreciate why it was brought into the House in the first place.

In many ways it is felt that by offering that branch of hope, if I can put it that way, it would affect the way people might behave or participate in a more positive way while incarcerated, believing that good behaviour and upgrading their skills and education in jail might assist them in getting out of jail earlier so they can become a part of society outside the prison walls and be more productive.

Representatives from both of those organizations will no doubt be somewhat disappointed with the passage of this bill. However, at the end of the day, we recognize how the faint hope clause has impacted the victims and their families and we understand the public perception of the faint hope clause and the need for restrictions. Those restrictions have been talked about over the years in terms of the need to have additional restrictions. By having additional restrictions back then, we recognized the need for changing this legislation.

As we go forward, I suspect there will always be a need for modifications to improve the law so we can find the balance in terms of legislation that gives our prisoners the opportunity to better educate themselves and be more positive in that prison environment so that when they are released into society they will be better able to participate in a more positive and acceptable manner. We believe that is very important. If there are things we can do to enhance or improve that, I believe we should be moving in that direction.

A number of my constituents are guards with Correctional Service of Canada. I can recall one occasion when the faint hope clause came up for discussion with a correctional officer. I found that he was fairly supportive of its concept. He did not necessarily agree that prisoners should have the opportunity to have their sentence reduced but he supported the concept. which is something we need to talk more about. How can we improve our prison system to ensure a higher percentage of individuals who leave our prisons do not return to prison? When we talk to many correctional officers and administrators of our prisons, we often get into a discussion about the revolving door syndrome and what we can do to stop it.

Those are the types of things that we need to explore. The faint hope clause was one of those tools that provided encouragement, that tried to say to those people within the prison walls that, under certain situations, they will ultimately be better equipped and better able to conduct themselves in a better way.

However, I do have concerns about other things that the government is doing at the same time as we are debating this legislation. It is important for me to emphasize to the government, whenever I get the opportunity, what I believe was the number one concern in Winnipeg North during the last by-election and, I would argue, is still a concern today, and that is the issue of crime and safety. I was disappointed recently in the government's failure to provide the funds necessary to provide the programs that would allow individuals who are on the off side or may be affiliated with gangs and want to get out of gangs, or individuals who are having a difficult time in their communities and are being attracted to environments that are not good environments to be attracted to. There are three specific programs that need funding and the ear of the government and I would suggest that the government act on those programs.

At the end of the day, focusing on crime prevention, looking at these types of programs, along with dealing with legislation of this nature would be a good thing. I am not convinced that the government is as interested in dealing with the necessary programs as it is in terms of sending a message that it can be tough on crime.

Talk is cheap. I would suggest that the government has a responsibility that goes beyond just passing legislation that gives the impression that it wants to be tough on crime. It needs to start dealing with the programs that prevent crime from occurring in the streets.

[The Acting Speaker, Barry Devolin]

I must interrupt the hon. member from Winnipeg North. He will have four minutes remaining when the House returns to this matter.

The House resumed consideration of the motion that Bill S-6, An Act to amend the Criminal Code and another Act, be read the third time and passed.

Criminal Code

[The Speaker, Peter Milliken]

When the matter was last before the House, the hon. member for Winnipeg North had the floor. I believe he has four minutes remaining in the time allotted for his remarks. I therefore call upon the hon. member for Winnipeg North.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, at the closing of my comments just prior to 12 noon, I had indicated that the principle of Bill S-6 was something we could support. The concept behind the faint hope clause is a good one and I suspect we need to look at ways in which we can provide those types of incentives for individuals who are behind bars to reform and change their behaviour so that they can integrate into society in a better and more peaceful fashion and become a more productive citizens.

I also drew a comparison to something else that the government was doing over the last number of days which has a very profound impact. I did not make reference to the specific programs and I want to do that because I want to appeal to the government, to the Prime Minister, to deal with this issue in that the bill we are debating right now would not necessarily prevent crimes from taking place while, on the other hand, the government is cutting back on programs that would in fact prevent crimes from taking place.

I believe the member for Winnipeg Centre rose today with regard to a member's statement on the issue. My colleague from Winnipeg South Centre raised the issue in question period. It is the issue of the anti-gang programs that are being proposed to be closed because of the government's failure to recognize the value of these programs.

On the one hand, we are looking at a bill that would have very little impact on preventing crimes, whereas, on the other hand, we have a government that is looking at allowing for a circle of courage, an oasis, youth outreach projects, turning the tides. These are all youth gang prevention programs that could have an impact on preventing crimes from occurring. The government needs to put more time on dealing with programs of this nature and on how we can bring in and spend tax dollars in such a way that we would prevent crimes for occurring, as opposed to putting so much focus on trying to give the image that the government is being tough on crime. When I look at Bill S-6, I believe the government is just trying to send a message more than anything else.

I, too, sympathize with the victims of crimes and want to get a sense of fairness in certain situations. That is why I believe there was a need to review the whole issue of the faint hope clause. However, at the end of the day, I would be remiss if I did not emphasize that the government is cutting programs and allowing them to disappear by its lack of commitment and lack of action in dealing with what I would suggest is crime on the streets. The government needs to reassess whether it just wants to talk about getting tough on crime or whether it wants to actually act on it.

I can tell members that there will be a negative impact as a result of the government not funding the programs to which I have referred. There will be more crime in our streets. I would suggest that it will go well beyond just Winnipeg North and the province of Manitoba.

When we have an idea and when we have a program that is effective, we should be supporting it.

[Marc Lemay, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Mr. Speaker, in a few minutes I will have an opportunity to speak to Bill S-6, but first I would like the hon. member to explain something I did not understand. What is the Liberal Party's position on Bill S-6? Do the Liberals plan to support the bill or will they vote against it?

Throughout our work in committee, the Liberals always seemed to be speaking against the bill, but at the last minute they decided to support it. I wonder if someone could tell me how the Liberal Party plans to vote on this bill. Will the Liberals revoke the faint hope clause they brought in in 1976, or will they maintain it?

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, we need to acknowledge that when Jean Chrétien was prime minister of our country he recognized that in certain situations we should not allow access to the faint hope clause. It was the Liberal Party of Canada that ultimately made those initial amendments to the act to make it even better.

When we look at the bill today, we recognize the original rationale that was being utilized to bring in the faint hope clause, but a number of things have happened since 1976 that we need to take into consideration. We recognize that the Liberal Party of Canada, through Prime Minister Chrétien, saw the merits of making changes to make it better. The Liberal Party does support the need to improve legislation.

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

Mr. Speaker, I know the previous member who asked the question was looking for an answer and the answer he received was maybe. He did not receive a definite yes or no.

I want to make some comments on the member's speech and draw his attention to comments by Newt Gingrich and Patrick Nolan on January 7, 2011 in the United States. They have come around to the way of thinking of people here in the NDP and the Bloc whereby we look at dealing with issues of crime and best practices and look to jurisdictions that have successful programs.

For example, being from Manitoba, the member knows that the Manitoba government has been successful in reducing auto theft by 80%. The Manitoba government brought in legislation dealing with the proceeds of crime and has seized 21 houses, starting with the Hells Angels gang house. Those houses are worth about $9 million to the treasury.

Those are things that work. We need to strip away the ideology. The Conservative government is basically following the Ronald Reagan solution of “three strikes and you're out”, filling up American prisons and yet the crime rate has not gone down. Right wing thinkers like Newt Gingrich have come around to our way of thinking saying that the U.S. needs to be smart on crime and that it needs to develop programs that actually work.

It does not matter what jurisdiction is implementing the programs or whether a right wing or left wing government that is implementing the programs, we need to know where it works. If a program works in Quebec, and many programs do, then we should be looking to Quebec as an example of implementation. If a program is working well in Manitoba, we should be looking at Manitoba. We should not be taking the Conservative government's ideological approach of saying that it does not fit within its ideology, that it wants to go back to Ronald Reagan's days and say that “three strikes and you're out” is the way to do it. We have had 25 years of that and we have not had good results to show for it.

The American system is bankrupting itself. Some of the states are in difficult economic times now and have to admit that they were wrong in the first place and are now letting people out of prisons. The Americans should have developed a rehabilitative approach to dealing with drug issues and so on as opposed to putting people in jail for 20 or 30 years.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, the member for Elmwood—Transcona has caught the point that I was trying to emphasize with regard to the irony of having this particular legislation before us today and what the government is actually doing in terms of some of its budgetary action. It is, for example, cutting back on the youth gang prevention fund, which is an anti-gang program that will be closed.

The member is quite right. There are many good ideas around the world so that we do not need to re-invent the wheel in order to make significant progress but we need to share those ideas with the government where we can.

The member made reference to auto theft. Back in, I believe, 2004, Winnipeg had somewhere in the neighbourhood of 13,000 or 14,000 vehicles being stolen. After a lot of prodding from the opposition, the government tried to come to grips with how best to deal with that.

One of the things we found out was that a relatively small number of youth, I believe less than 200, were stealing thousands of cars. A number of them got caught stealing at least 30 cars. What happened is that a program was developed that gave special attention to the high offenders.

What we really need to do is encourage and support those types of programs. We should not only bring in legislation of this nature but act on programs that will actually have an impact on crime in the streets. As I say, this particular bill will not necessarily prevent crimes from taking place.

[Marc Lemay, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Mr. Speaker, something is not right here and I hope my hon. colleague is listening. Let us stop talking about street gangs and car thefts. That is not what we are talking about here; we are talking about murder.

From my hon. colleague's response, I understood that the Liberal Party plans to vote in favour of this bill. If that is true, the Liberals are going to abolish the faint hope clause that they themselves created in 1976. Is that clear enough?

I want to know why they are choosing to support a bill that goes against what they have always defended, specifically, that criminals must be given the opportunity to return to society. That is exactly what they are about to do with Bill S-6, if they support it.

They need to stop talking about street gangs. We are talking about murder, are we not? My question is clear: do they want to give people one last chance? If so, they must vote against the bill. That is what I want to know.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I know the member would like a simple yes or no answer to the question but he will not necessarily get the yes or no answer from me at this point.

What I can tell the member is that many gang activities involve murder. Yes, I can assure the member that there are in fact gang members who commit murder. I would suggest that the principle of encouraging better behaviour within our prison system is to better educate prisoners and provide them with the opportunity to gain skills so that once they are released there is less likelihood of them repeating their crimes. We are very supportive of trying to beat the revolving door syndrome.

Through time, legislation needs to be changed but we need to be sensitive in terms of the realities of the different stakeholders and the expectations of the Canadian public. I suspect that in time we will find out exactly how the Liberal Party will be voting on the bill.

[Marc Lemay, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Mr. Speaker, over the past six years, I have heard some interesting things in the House, but the argument being made by my colleague from the Liberal Party is, with all due respect, extremely flawed. His argument does not hold water and it is inconsistent with Liberal Party philosophy.

I am liberal-minded because for 35 years, I was a criminal defence lawyer. I have defended many murder cases.

There are some things I do not understand. In 1976, the Liberal Party agreed to vote in favour of abolishing the death penalty and instituted what we call the faint hope clause. Decisions on this have gone all the way to the Supreme Court.

The Liberal Party is starting to realize it is being tricked. If the Liberals vote in favour of Bill S-6, they will be opening the door to reinstating the death penalty. Is that clear enough? That is where the Conservatives are going with this. I hope my colleague will consult with his colleagues who were on the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights. I can give him some arguments to convince his colleagues.

These numbers do not come from the Bloc, the Liberal Party, the Conservative Party or the NDP. These numbers were complied by the Correctional Service of Canada. As far as I know, the Correctional Service of Canada is neutral. It deals with inmates and ensures that those who are released on parole deserve to be.

The Conservatives do not understand the first thing about the faint hope clause. I hope my Liberal colleagues will understand. The Conservatives want to defend the victims. There is nothing better than the faint hope clause, which was implemented in 1976, to ensure that victims are respected.

Allow me to explain. The faint hope clause was adopted in 1976. The first hearings were held in 1987 because the inmates had to serve their sentences after all. Since 1987, there have been 181 hearings. As of October 10, 2010—

[Daniel Paillé, Bloc, Hochelaga, QC]

At 10:10 a.m.

[Marc Lemay, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Practically at 10:10 a.m., as my learned colleague from Hochelaga says. As of October 10, 2010, 4,774 people were serving life sentences in Canada. Since 1986, 181 offenders have gone before the board. The Conservatives claim that not enough is said about the victims, but 181 applications were heard. Many more people could have applied, but some did not because they knew that they, like the Clifford Olsons of this world, would not succeed. There are a number of them.

Of these 181 cases, 146 had their sentences reduced and 35 were rejected. That is close to 1%. But that is not all. Of the 146 inmates whose eligibility date for parole was moved forward, 144 have now reached the revised date for day parole eligibility.

Parole has been granted to 135 people. We will do our job and state the facts: 135 individuals out of 4,700 have been paroled. Just wait, that is not all. Of these 135 individuals, 68—just about half—have never had problems. We need to explain something that the Conservatives will never understand, and that I would like the Liberals to realize. When offenders are sentenced to life, when they are incarcerated for the rest of their days, they fall under the parole system, the Correctional Service of Canada system. Therefore, they are monitored and under the jurisdiction of the Correctional Service of Canada not just while they are in prison, but to the end of their days, until they die.

Thus, 68 individuals have been released, 35 have had their parole suspended but not revoked—I will return to that—and 23 have had their parole revoked. Thus, 23 out of 135, out of 181, out of more than 4,000. Only 23. I will continue. Of the 135 paroled, seven committed non-violent offences, and two committed new violent offences. Naturally, the Conservatives are focusing on those two. Two out of 141, two out of 4,000, committed violent crimes. Naturally, we wanted to find out if the offences were murder. They were not.

Since 1987, no one released through the use of the faint hope clause has committed murder. And that is a good thing, of course. Two individuals committed violent crimes. We asked the Correctional Service of Canada what type of crimes these were. There had been assault causing bodily harm and armed robbery. Clearly, these two individuals returned to prison and will probably stay there for the rest of their lives.

Why did I quote these figures? I did it because the faint hope clause works. The Conservatives have not understood this, but I hope that the Liberals will wake up and ensure that this bill never goes to third reading, that it gets no support and is defeated in the House.

The faint hope clause is a system that works. Generally, the Criminal Code is amended to adapt it, for example, if there are computer-related crimes or an increase in car theft, armed robberies or street gangs. Also, there were Hells Angels and the mafia. So we take measures to amend the Criminal Code. We have a system that works and that works very well. Why amend it? I say that it works very well because the parole board would never release someone convicted of murder if there were a possibility that the person would reoffend. It would never happen if there were a chance the person would reoffend.

There are significant steps that an individual must take before being released. Under the faint hope clause, the individual must first submit an application to a judge in the district where he or she was sentenced 15 or 17 years previously. It is the judge who determines whether the person is eligible to apply. If the Superior Court judge is convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that the individual is eligible, the judge empanels a jury. Despite what the Conservatives may say, it is not true that it is up to the jury to determine whether an individual is eligible for release. The only thing a jury can do is to determine whether the sentence should be reduced or whether the individual should be granted permission to ask the parole board for parole after one, two, three, four or five years. The jury would determine the timeframe.

The faint hope clause found in section 745 of the Criminal Code has been so clearly defined that I am wondering why we would now want to abolish it. This is not my opinion, but that of reporters, and I would like to cite a passage in support of this argument. Manon Cornellier, a reporter for the newspaper Le Devoir, stated the following in an article published on June 10, 2009: “What if a lack of hope were to destroy a convict's desire for rehabilitation, resulting in more violence and more problems in our prisons?”

It is obvious to us that if we deny the possibility of the faint hope clause to those who have been convicted of murder, they will have no hope of being reintegrated into society. The faint hope clause: the name says it all. The wording is clear. It means that such individuals can think about returning to society after 15, 17, 18 or 20 years have passed, but they cannot do it alone and they would have to be deemed ready to return to society.

I do not understand why the Conservatives want to do this. Actually, I did not understand why until I read that the Prime Minister stated that he was against capital punishment except in certain cases. Then I understood everything. I understood why this bill was being introduced: it is the beginning of the return of the death penalty in Canada. This is extremely dangerous. This door must be closed immediately. The only way to close this door is to vote against Bill S-6. We must vote against this bill because it removes the opportunity for individuals to be reintegrated into society. I have argued many cases and clearly murder is the worst crime in the Criminal Code. A life has been taken. The person responsible should not be allowed to return to society until they understand the seriousness of their actions, before they are ready to return and have served a minimum sentence.

Let us again look at the numbers. I did not make them up. Statistics have been compiled since the death penalty was abolished in 1976. Canada kept track because keeping statistics is one of our strong suits. The average incarceration time for first degree murder, before the slightest possibility of eligibility for parole, is set out in a study by the Correctional Service of Canada. This data does not come from the Bloc, the Liberals, the NDP or the Conservatives. It comes from the Correctional Service of Canada.

The average time served is now 22.4 years. This means that offenders, even if they have the right to apply for parole after 15 or 17 years, serve on average 22.6 years before even being eligible for parole. This means that the Correctional Service of Canada and the National Parole Board are doing a good job. And the government wants to change that? It makes no sense.

It works so well that we have very few cases of repeat offences. Since 1987, two violent crimes have been committed by individuals who have been released and 23 individuals have violated their parole conditions. They returned to prison. Here is what the Conservatives do not get: someone who is handed over to the Correctional Service of Canada for murder is imprisoned for life. I encourage my Conservative and Liberal colleagues to read section 745 of the Criminal Code. It clearly states that someone who is convicted of murder is sentenced to imprisonment for life. As far as I know, a life sentence is not 1, 2, 15 or 18 years in prison, it is life in prison. The individual is under the control of the Correctional Service of Canada for the rest of his life. As we say, he had better stay on the straight and narrow.

I have handled many cases and files that I could spend an hour talking about. The people from the Correctional Service of Canada who came to the committee asked why we were tinkering with a system that worked really well. The Conservatives responded that they wanted to be tough on crime. That makes no sense. Murder is the worst crime and a convicted murderer is sentenced to life in prison. He cannot get out unless he is ready to return to society.

The Conservatives claim to protect victims. But the victim's biggest advocate in this case is the Correctional Service of Canada and its parole board, which, since 1987, has been on the ball. They are good. Everyone released under the faint hope clause has behaved well, with the exception of two people. Two out of 181 is less than 1%.

If the House wants me to speak for another half-hour I would be happy to. In conclusion, I urge the Liberals, who brought in the faint hope clause, to think about this carefully. If Bill S-6 is passed, I guarantee that we will soon see the return of backbenchers' bills aiming to bring back the death penalty. That is unacceptable and we will never go along with that.

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

Mr. Speaker, I think the member hopes he will be able to appeal successfully to the Liberals. I would suggest he give up on that idea. I think the Liberals have already decided that they will follow the Conservatives in this venture for short-term political gain and will give up on the history of their party, going back to 1976 when it did show leadership on this issue.

It is interesting that this all comes about at a time when the United States is starting to reassess its system. When right-wing leaders such as Newt Gingrich, who was one of the top Republican leaders a number of years ago, and still is, come up with conclusions that basically agree with what the NDP and the Bloc have argued in the House on a number of crime issues, that is pretty amazing. He uses examples in the United States where the Republicans have come together with the Democrats to look at systems that actually work and have reduced the number of people in the prison populations in certain states. There is a lower rate of crime as a result of this and it is a much less cost to the taxpayers.

The government is looking at spending $9 billion on new prison construction. It is going against where the world is moving, especially when we look at the United States right now.

Would the member like to comment on those points?

[Marc Lemay, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I have defended lost causes. It has happened that the court said it would re-examine a case in detail and that arguments have been brought before it that may not have been seen before. That is exactly what I have been doing. Some Liberals may tell their colleagues that they established the faint hope clause in 1976; that it was their political party that has defended it tooth and nail since then, despite all the attacks; that they are the ones who enforced respect for the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and the ones who put it in place in 1982.

And we are the ones who are afraid to be tough on crime? I cannot agree with that. Voting against Bill S-6 does not mean we are not tough on crime. On the contrary, it means we respect the Charter. I repeat that the faint hope clause works very well and has proven to be useful. We do not need Bill S-6 to get rid of what is working well.

[Daniel Paillé, Bloc, Hochelaga, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to acknowledge my colleague's experience and way of speaking. His eloquence was clear as he began by saying that his remarks would sting. It reminded me of the day that I went to his riding when we began our prebudget consultations. He told us to hang onto our hats because it was going to hurt.

Knowing his characteristic seriousness, I was surprised and impressed that this distinguished criminal lawyer used figures. I would like to draw a parallel. He said that the current system put in place by our Liberal colleagues works very well and he asked why the government would change it. We could ask the same thing about Canada's securities regulatory system, which works well. Why change it?

Has my distinguished colleague given any consideration to the fact that the Conservatives have a habit of not fixing things that are broken, but attacking things that work fine?

Earlier, my colleague asked for an additional half an hour. I will quickly take my seat and ask him to keep up the good work and convince our Liberal friends to vote as we will and to continue to uphold the law that currently exists. I turn the floor over to my colleague, who is extremely eloquent.

[Marc Lemay, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague from Hochelaga, who has skilfully replaced our colleague Réal Ménard. I learned a great deal from Réal Ménard, and I sat with him on the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights. Mr. Ménard is not a lawyer, but he was definitely eloquent when it came to his files.

Since I became a member of the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights in 2006, we have been swamped with bills. It is incredible. I was shocked. We are unbelievably busy. We seem to agree on some things. For anything related to cybercrime, things move quickly; we agree on that. I say we do away with parole after one-sixth of a sentence is served. I am a criminal lawyer—I defend criminals—but I agree with eliminating the one-sixth rule. I even used to tell my clients that they would get three years, but with the one-sixth rule, they would get out after six or seven months. We now realize that serving one-sixth of a sentence is not that. That is what shocks people. What shocks people is not the sentence that a criminal receives, but rather that he does not serve his sentence in prison.

With this bill, what happens is the opposite, because with the faint hope clause at this time, not only do offenders serve their time, but for the rest of their lives, they will not be released unless they can demonstrate that they are fully rehabilitated and fully capable of returning to society. At present, the Correctional Service of Canada controls that and it works. I do not see why we would change that.

[Raynald Blais, Bloc, Gaspésie—Îles-de-la-Madeleine, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I have a question based on what I just heard. Why would anyone want to change that? Why such eagerness and interest? The people listening to us talk about this issue would really like to get to the truth of the matter. What is the strategy behind all this? Is there one? Can we see a strategy? What is the real reason for creating so much confusion that after saying one thing, they turn around and do the opposite?

[Marc Lemay, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague.

It took hearing the interview with the Prime Minister. He was asked whether he was in favour of the death penalty. He said no, that he would never reopen that debate, but that there were times when the death penalty might apply. That is when I understood where they were going with Bill S-6. It is the cornerstone. It is opening the door to reinstating the death penalty in Canada. That is precisely what is happening. This is the first step.

With all due respect, what I do not understand about the Conservatives is this idea of being tough on crime. Of course certain criminals deserve to go to prison. I have no problem with that. The problem is that we have to make them serve their time. Even if an individual is given an additional two years, he is still eligible for parole after one-sixth of his sentence. We just saw that with Mr. Lacroix from Norbourg. That guy was sentenced to 13 years, but he served only two. Why? Because he was eligible after one-sixth of the sentence. He is not dangerous. He was not violent in detention.

In the matter before us, a person who kills someone commits the worst crime under the Criminal Code. It is the worst crime a person can commit. Before that person has any chance of returning to society, we have to be sure that he is ready and able to return. That is exactly how the faint hope clause works. It was implemented in 1976 and it works very well. Again, out of more than 4,000 individuals who have had the right to apply for it, only 181 have done so. Out of that 181, only 147 have been successful and there have been only two recidivists. I was looking for this information earlier. Here it is: assault with a weapon charge in one case and robbery in the other case. I can assure you, we checked, these individuals are still locked up. The situation is under control. Eliminating the faint hope clause is unacceptable.

[Megan Leslie, NDP, Halifax, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I have really enjoyed my time in the House this afternoon, particularly listening to the speech of my colleague from Abitibi—Témiscamingue.

He may want to know that I received an email from one of my constituents who is at home watching the debate on CPAC and who said that the member for Abitibi—Témiscamingue was very refreshing and that it was nice to see someone speaking in the House on this issue who made some sense. I congratulate him.

The member already went over a lot of the numbers. I know I will repeat some of them, but they absolutely bear repeating, especially when we had Don Head testify at committee. He is the Commissioner of the Correctional Service Canada. He is not partisan. He is not working for us, or the Bloc or the Conservatives. He was there as the commissioner. He said that, as of October 2010, there were 1,508 offenders with cases applicable for judicial review.

Here are some of the numbers he brought to committee. Since the first judicial review hearing in 1987, there had been a total of 181 court decisions. Of those 181, 146 of the court decisions resulted in a reduction of a period that must be served before parole eligibility and 35 of them ended in a refusal.

Since 1987, we have only had 146. That is about six a year. To put things in context, since 1987, of the literally thousands of offenders who were eligible for parole early, only 181 applied. Of those 181, 146 received a reduction in their sentence.

This is really important. Less than 15% of the people who are incarcerated with no eligibility of parole for 25 years have even made the application. In addition, most applications do not commence at the 15-year mark. In fact, most of them start at the 17 or 18-year mark.

Those are some of the numbers. As we can see, it is not a great horde of inmates who use this as a loophole or a get out of jail free card. They are serving their sentences. Some are applying, some are being approved and, consequently, some are being rejected, like with any good process for decision making. The system is not broken.

Something that the numbers do not show, and if there is time I will get back to the numbers, is the purpose of the faint hope clause. It increases the safety of fellow inmates. It increases the safety of workers. It makes our federal prisons a better place to be, where people are engaging in good behaviour and, more important, rehabilitative behaviour. It promotes good behaviour because it holds out faint hope, which is exactly the point.

If people are convicted of murder, and frankly it does not actually matter whether or not they committed the murder, why would they comply with treatment? Why would they listen to the guards or their doctors about what kind of treatment or programs were needed?

If people receive a 25 year sentence and if they think they are there for 25 years, there is absolutely no reason to engage in good behaviour or in rehabilitation programs. Faint hope holds out exactly that, faint hope.

Addiction counselling, anger management, mental health supports, why would inmates even bother engaging with that stuff if they know they are in prison for 25 years and there is no hope. There is no reason to get along with fellow inmates because there is no chance, no hope and no reason for good behaviour because good behaviour will not actually help them.

It is not just about good behaviour; it is also about rehabilitation. If that is the case, why would an inmate engage in the rehabilitation process. If that is what is happening, if there is no reason to be involved, then we have to own up to the fact that when we release inmates after they have served their time, they are not necessarily rehabilitated.

There is a huge flaw in the thinking that this is sound public policy. It does not make any sense.

Time and time again, on crime and punishment issues, the government takes its cues from the U.S., from the failed policies of the United States such as more prisons, “three strikes, you're out”, mandatory minimums and, in particular, mandatory minimums for drug offences, which evidence shows do not work.

I sat in the justice committee and I listened to testimony about mandatory minimums on drug offences. Over and over again, we heard that they did not work. We heard in fact that policy-makers in the United States were retreating from that line of thinking. However, here we are following them when we know it is not working, when we know that what works is the four pillars approach: harm reduction, prevention, treatment and enforcement. We know that works, but instead we will do something that is outdated and that has been proven not to work.

Testimony at justice committee showed that it did not work, yet the Conservative government says that it is a great idea, that it will go ahead with it, that it will follow failed policies.

It is not about what is working, clearly. It is not about what does not work. What the government is about is ideology.

For those of us who do not asbscribe to that ideology, do we give up hope? Does this ideology mean that the Conservatives will never see reason, that they will never be reasonable?

Interestingly, I do not think that is what that means necessarily. We heard earlier from some of my colleagues that Newt Gingrich, if we can believe, recently wrote an article with Pat Nolan about this issue. I think it was in the Washington Post on January 7. If Newt Gingrich can come around, surely to goodness those guys can come around. Plain and simple, the article is remarkable. I want to read from it because I think anybody who is listening at home and my colleagues here will be so surprised. The article states:

With nearly all 50 states facing budget deficits, it’s time to end business as usual in state capitols and for legislators to think and act with courage and creativity.

We urge conservative legislators to lead the way in addressing an issue often considered off-limits to reform: prisons. Several states have recently shown that they can save on costs without compromising public safety by intelligently reducing their prison populations.

It continues:

We joined with other conservative leaders last month to announce the Right on Crime Campaign, a national movement urging states to make sensible and proven reforms to our criminal justice system--policies that will cut prison costs while keeping the public safe. Among the prominent signatories are Reagan administration attorney general Ed Meese, former drug czar Asa Hutchinson, David Keene of the American Conservative Union, John Dilulio of the University of Pennsylvania, Grover Norquist of Americans for Tax Reform and Richard Viguerie of ConservativeHQ.com. We all agree that we can keep the public safe while spending fewer tax dollars if we spend them more effectively.

The Right on Crime Campaign represents a seismic shift in the legislative landscape. And it opens the way for a common-sense left-right agreement on an issue that has kept the parties apart for decades.

They are doing it in the U.S. They are reaching across the House. They are working on issues together.

It continues:

There is an urgent need to address the astronomical growth in the prison population, with its huge costs in dollars and lost human potential. We spent $68 billion in 2010 on corrections – 300 percent more than 25 years ago. The prison population is growing 13 times faster than the general population. These facts should trouble every American.

Our prisons might be worth the current cost if the recidivism rate were not so high, but, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, half of the prisoners released this year are expected to be back in prison within three years. If our prison policies are failing half of the time, and we know that there are more humane, effective alternatives, it is time to [fundamentally] rethink how we treat and rehabilitate our prisoners.

We can no longer afford business as usual with prisons. The criminal justice system is broken, and conservatives must lead the way in fixing it.

Several states have shown that it is possible to cut costs while keeping the public safe. Consider events in Texas, which is known to be tough on crime. Conservative Republicans joined with Democrats in adopting incentive-based funding to strengthen the state’s probation system in 2005. Then in 2007, they decided against building more prisons and instead opted to enhance proven community corrections approaches such as drug courts. The reforms are forecast to save $2 billion in prison costs over five years.

Members will note that we are going to build more prisons.

It continues:

The Lone Star State has already redirected much of the money saved into community treatment for the mentally ill and low-level drug addicts. Not only have these reforms reduced Texas’ prison population – helping to close the budget gap – but for the first time there is no waiting list for drug treatment in the state. And crime has dropped 10 percent from 2004, the year before the reforms, through 2009, according to the latest figures available, reaching its lowest annual rate since 1973.

Last year we both endorsed corrections reforms in South Carolina that will reserve costly prison beds for dangerous criminals while punishing low-risk offenders through lower-cost community supervision. The legislation was a bipartisan effort with strong support from liberals, conservatives, law enforcement, the judges and reform advocates. The state is expected to save $175 million in prison construction this year and $60 million in operating costs over the next several years.

Some people attribute the nation’s recent drop in crime to more people being locked up. But the facts show otherwise. While crime fell in nearly every state over the past seven years, some of those with the largest reductions in crime have also lowered their prison population. Compare Florida and New York. Over the past seven years, Florida’s incarceration rate has increased 16 percent, while New York’s decreased 16 percent. Yet the crime rate in New York has fallen twice as much as Florida’s. Put another way, although New York spent less on its prisons, it delivered better public safety.

Americans need to know that we can reform our prison systems to cost less and keep the public safe. We hope conservative leaders across the country will join with us in getting it right on crime.

I can barely believe I stood and read something written by Newt Gingrich. I am holding it forward as a sound public policy, but it is so much more sound than what the Conservative government is doing. It is absolutely remarkable to me.

Time and time again the NDP has stood in the House and said that it is not about being tough on crime; it is about being smart on crime. I have heard my colleague from Elmwood—Transcona many times say “smart on crime”. Our justice critic the member for Windsor—Tecumseh is always talking about smart on crime. Our public safety critic, the member for Vancouver Kingsway, talks about smart on crime. Here we have Newt Gingrich saying that we have to be right on crime. It is the same thing. It is unbelievable. He is right on crime.

I would like to go back to some of the testimony given at justice committee, particularly the testimony of Don Head. He talks about Correctional Service Canada and how it supports the judicial review process. He says that CSC supports the judicial review process that is governed by a particular directive. He says that 12 months before the offender's judicial review eligibility date, the institutional parole officer would meet with an offender to determine whether he or she was planning to submit an application. The staff would advise the offender at that time of his or her responsibility to actually engage with legal counsel. The staff of Correction Service Canada also works with the offender to facilitate a transfer to the jurisdiction where the hearing would be heard if the offender actually requests a move.

Next in the process is staff would advise the inmate to request access to his or her file through Access to Information so the information could be shared with legal counsel. Then the primary worker or the internal parole officer works to ensure that a psychiatric and/or a psychological assessment is completed in the 12 months leading up to the application as well as a judicial review report. That makes good sense to me.

The judicial review report follows the form that the department uses to determine parole eligibility and it covers six different areas: the offender's social, family and criminal background; sentence administration dates; summary of transfers and any disciplinary actions; summary of the offender's performance and conduct; any assessments done by psychiatrists, psychologists or elders; and finally, the offender's personal development.

Earlier I talked about these incentives, the faint hope clause being an incentive for good behaviour, but also being an incentive to actually engage with rehabilitation services. It is right there in the judicial review report. One wants to ensure that all the boxes are ticked, that there is a good record and that the required assessments have been completed. It makes perfect sense.

Another reason I bring up the actual process is to show that CSC works really hard to help determine whether an offender is a suitable candidate for parole. I have a copy of Don Head's testimony. When he testified in committee he said on the record, “As always, public safety is our paramount consideration”. This is not just a matter of submitting an application online and an answer of yea or nay coming back. This is a lengthy, detailed and thoughtful process and as he said, public safety is of paramount consideration. He went on to say:

The offenders in our care all come from communities across this country, and most will return there. It is the job of Correctional Service of Canada to manage their sentence from the day they enter our facility through their incarceration and out into the community. And we do so with a constant eye to achieving good correctional results for Canada and Canadians.

When one hears about the process, one thinks this is achieving good correctional results for Canada and Canadians. When one hears about why the faint hope clause exists and the benefits it can give to the prison population as a whole, as well as to the workers in prisons, it makes good sense. It achieves good correctional results for Canada and Canadians. It is sound policy.

In 2005, Guy Bourgon from Corrections Research prepared a document on average time incarcerated for first degree murder convictions. In preparing this document, he asked the question: How long, in comparison to other countries, do offenders sentenced to first degree murder in Canada spend incarcerated? That is a really great question.

Clearly, if the government is introducing this piece of legislation, Bill S-6, then it must think that something is wrong, that something must be broken. It is a great question. Maybe the case is that in Canada people are being let out way too early and in other countries offenders are staying in prison much longer. It is a good question to explore. I will flip to the answer that he discovered.

This went to committee from Mr. Sapers. In the first part, he looked at some research by Andrew Harris in 1999 and found that in Canada the accountability and performance measurement sector of Correctional Service Canada. It reported that offenders serving time for a first degree murder conviction spent, on average, 28.4 years incarcerated.

In contrast, 16 other countries around the world were surveyed for the same first degree murder charge or its equivalent and those who were eligible for release. Those who were sentenced to death or offenders sentenced to life without parole were excluded. They spent an average of 14.3 years incarcerated. Only Japan, Austria and the U.S.A. have offenders serving life sentences without parole in reported averages of 20 years or longer.

It is not even that we in Canada are way behind the rest of the world when it comes to sentencing for first degree murder. In fact, in Japan it was 21.5 years, Austria was 20 years and the U.S.A. was 29 years. We are at 28.4 years. We are behind the U.S.A. by just a few months. It is crazy when we think about it that way.

We know that we are not wildly out of sync with other countries around the world when it comes to our sentencing provisions. We know this is something that works. It keeps our workers safe in prisons. It gives people incentives to try to rehabilitate. It keeps our communities safer in the long run.

I urge all members of the House to reject what it is that Bill S-6 is trying to do.

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

Mr. Speaker, the member made an excellent speech on Bill S-6. Her commentary about the article written by Newt Gingrich and Pat Nolan should be required reading for all members of the House, particularly those on the government side. When I read the article, I thought Newt Gingrich had stolen my speech because we are practically in lockstep. I never thought I would ever see the day when that would happen.

If members read the article, they would see that he is taking a realistic approach to the problem. He is crossing party lines. He is working with Democrats to arrive at best practices. That is something we should all be trying to achieve regarding any aspect of spending money. We should be looking at what works and best practices, which is what the Americans are doing. After the Reagan administration, they have realized that the 25 years of “three strikes and you are out” has not worked. Jails are full of people and the crime rate is going up. Now they are looking at best case scenarios and reducing the prison populations in many states, reducing costs and getting results. That is what we should be doing in Canada. It is painfully obvious.

The member for Abitibi—Témiscamingue is very upset that he has lost the Liberal Party. The Liberal members are looking at short-term gain. They are worried about an election happening in a few months and are going to follow the Conservative Party to eliminate this bill. That is straightforward. However, all the evidence south of the border proves we should be looking at it in a different light.

[Megan Leslie, NDP, Halifax, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I share the member's amazement with the Newt Gingrich piece. It makes perfect sense.

When we hear testimony at committee about what works and what does not work, often we know it does not work because we actually look at the experience in the U.S. Certain states have done everything wrong on different issues. I suppose it is useful. We can look at it to say that it does not work, that in fact crime rates do not go down, that it does not make sense that there is an increase in rehabilitation.

The faint hope clause does encourage rehabilitation. That is what we are here for. Because we live in a just society, it breaks my heart to think that some of my colleagues in the Liberal Party are going to support Bill S-6 because it is the political thing to do. This is an absolutely unjust bill. I think of Gandhi who said that an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind. What we are doing here is punishing for punishment's sake. It does not make good sense and it is unjust.

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

Mr. Speaker, when one considers it, at the end of the day, through this long, rigorous process that must be followed, only 1% or 2% would ever get out under the system. However, potentially 100% of the prisoners would behave themselves because of the belief that they might eventually be one of that 1% or 2%. To me it is a small price to pay, giving those people a semblance of hope to encourage them to stay out of trouble and engage in rehabilitation, which is what we want them to do. We must ensure that these prisoners are not a danger to others in the prisons nor a danger to the guards. I do not see anything wrong with the idea that somehow 100% of the prisoners will do the right thing, rehabilitate and behave themselves in the hope that they may be part of that 1% that gets out at the end of the day. That is obviously what the member for Winnipeg North's former leader, Pierre Trudeau, was thinking of when this legislation was dealt with. However, for short-term expediency, the Liberals have jumped on the Conservative bandwagon in fear when they should be looking at what is going on in other parts of the world, such as the United States.

It is interesting to note that Newt Gingrich and the NDP have aligned and the Liberals, not surprisingly of course, are following the Conservatives on this particular issue.

[Megan Leslie, NDP, Halifax, NS]

Mr. Speaker, the member for Elmwood—Transcona has been here throughout the whole debate. He knows a lot about this issue and is very passionate about it.

One thing we forget is that in Canada a life sentence is a sentence for life. Even those offenders who are released into the community after they have served their time in prison are supervised until the time of their death. It is a life sentence.

When it comes to time served in prison, 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 the world. In comparison, the U.S. average time incarcerated is 23 years. In New Zealand, Scotland, Switzerland and England, the average time spent is under 15 years.

We are taking it seriously in Canada. There are many good, sound public policy reasons for keeping the faint hope clause.

We have to remember history. We have to remember the past. The faint hope clause was tied to the abolition of capital punishment and the concept that individual offenders are capable of change and rehabilitation. It is the just thing to do to stand up in the House and reject this proposition and to reject Bill S-6.

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

Mr. Speaker, I think I am the next speaker on the bill in any event, so we will get to some other issues.

I would like to query the member about how this bill fits in with the Conservative election strategy. We have a number of boutique bills that cover issues that are already covered under the Criminal Code. As a matter of fact, the whole issue should be for us to revamp the entire Criminal Code, but that is not something in which the Conservatives want to be engaged.

We had a situation recently where the Conservatives discovered that Clifford Olson was receiving an old age pension in prison. They acted immediately to bring in legislation. When we looked into who started sending pension cheques to federal prisoners in the first place, we found that it was none other than Joe Clark's Conservative government in 1979, I believe it was. I have had the date wrong a couple of times already so I want to make sure that I am correct on that.

There is silence from the Conservatives, because they would never want to admit to their base that they were the ones who brought in that legislation. Don Mazankowski and other Conservatives were licking stamps, putting them on envelopes and mailing pension cheques to prisoners. They are the people who started it, but the Conservatives have to pretend that it was some sort of Liberal conspiracy. That is one they could not pin on the Liberals.

I have not yet heard a Liberal try to make the point that it was the Conservatives who started this process. We should give them credit in that they are helping correct it, but they should take responsibility for starting something they should not have started in the first place.

[Megan Leslie, NDP, Halifax, NS]

Mr. Speaker, yes, absolutely.

I do not really have much to add to what the member for Elmwood—Transcona said. I think he said it beautifully.

[The Acting Speaker, Barry Devolin]

It is my duty, pursuant to Standing Order 38, to inform the House that the questions to be raised tonight at the time of adjournment are as follows: the hon. member for London—Fanshawe, Status of Women; the hon. member for Québec, Contaminated Water in Shannon; the hon. member for Laval—Les Îles, Census.

Resuming debate, the hon. member for Elmwood—Transcona.

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

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to be back after the so-called Christmas break. I have to say, it was not much of a break. I spent the last month and a half doing a lot of work in the constituency and participated in 11 tea parties. I am sure that many members were doing the same thing over the Christmas break; actively involved and probably working as hard or harder as sometimes we do here in Ottawa. I want to counter the impression the media have suggested in that the MPs are now back from a month and a half break. Some relaxing month a half break it was. I am sure many MPs were in the same boat that I was.

In dealing with Bill S-6, we are now at third reading. It has gone through committee, the amendment stage and I think the bill is likely to pass at the end of the day with support. I believe the Liberals and the government will put this legislation through. Whether it will make it through the Senate quickly enough to become law before the next election is a separate issue.

The fact of the matter is that speaker after speaker, particularly from the Bloc and NDP, have pointed out the history of the faint hope clause. The Conservatives like to misrepresent it, particularly with the media, and pretend that somehow it is an evil piece of legislation that needs to be eliminated. They do not ever get around to explaining to the public why it came into place initially and what the benefits of it are.

Other speakers have indicated how long, involved and complicated this process is. If I have enough time I will get into that later, but it is very involved and I think very few prisoners actually apply for it.

As I indicated before, in some ways it is a small price to pay for getting the co-operation of the prisoners. Right now if we throw them away in custody for 28.4 years, which is longer than most other countries, with absolutely no hope of any chance to get out, where is the incentive for them to take rehabilitation programs? Why would there be any incentive for them to behave themselves while they are there?

I do not think the public needs the promotion of prison riots, violence in prison, or inmates refusing to rehabilitate themselves. That is not what we want. If we can get 100% of the prisoners to behave themselves for long periods of time and take rehabilitation, knowing full well that at the end of the day there is only a 1% chance that any of them will ever be released, that is probably a very good approach and good idea.

Once again, we are looking for best practices and ideas that work regardless of the party, regardless of the jurisdiction or country that it takes place in. We should be trying to save the taxpayers of Canada and give them as efficient a government as possible.

The Conservatives are now talking about $9 billion in new prison developments and expansions, and the public are onside and say, “Absolutely, bring it on, get tough with those criminals and build more prisons”. However, it should be explained that costs would go up astronomically under some of these pieces of legislation the Conservatives are proposing to bring in. It is going to cost the taxpayers $9 billion for prisons. It is going to cost the provinces because a lot of these costs are going to be borne by the provinces. It is going to cost the taxpayer, and there is only one taxpayer, as the Conservatives often point out to us.

That is a different picture. It looks a little different to taxpayers when they see that. They see that Canada is going to build more prisons and is going to operate on the basis of “three strikes and you're out”, which has been proven not to work in the United States over the last 25 years, but we are going to adopt that model. The prisons are going to be filled with these prisoners and it is going to make us feel good for a while, but at the end of the day, it is going to cost $9 billion to build the prisons, and in perpetuity it is going to cost enormous amounts to keep people warehoused in prisons. That is what has happened in the United States.

That is why we have jurisdictions in the United States like California that are practically bankrupting themselves and are now coming to grips with the issue of overcrowded prisons that they cannot afford to run anymore. That is why we have the shocking revelation that none other than Newt Gingrich and Pat Nolan have joined forces to try to move the right in the United States on a more sensible path.

I never thought I would see the day when I would be supporting Newt Gingrich. When I read his communiqué and see that it is pretty close to some of the speeches I have made, I would normally be scared about that. However in this particular case, I think what Newt Gingrich is proposing makes eminent sense.

I want to read some parts of the letter. It should be required reading for all of us. I would be surprised if anyone, even on the Conservative side, disagreed with anything he has had to say in this recent communiqué of January 7, 2011. He says:

With nearly all 50 states facing budget deficits, it's time to end business as usual in state capitols and for legislators to think and act with courage and creativity. We urge conservative legislators to lead the way in addressing an issue often considered off-limits to reform: prisons. Several states have recently shown that they can save on costs without compromising public safety by intelligently reducing their prison populations.

I hope everyone is with me so far because it certainly sounds reasonable to me.

He goes on:

We joined with other conservative leaders last month to announce the Right on Crime Campaign, a national movement urging states to make sensible and proven reforms to our criminal justice system - policies that will cut prison costs while keeping the public safe. Among the prominent signatories are Reagan administration attorney general Ed Meese...We all agree that we can keep the public safe while spending fewer tax dollars if we spend them more effectively.

Why would any member of the Conservative caucus have a problem with this, up to this point? He continues:

The Right on Crime Campaign represents a seismic shift in the legislative landscape. And it opens the way for a common-sense left-right agreement on an issue that has kept the parties apart for decades. There is an urgent need to address the astronomical growth in the prison population, with its huge costs in dollars and lost human potential. We spent $68 billion in 2010 on corrections - 300 percent more than 25 years ago. The prison population is growing 13 times faster than the general population. These facts should trouble every American.

He goes on to say: “Our prisons might be worth the current cost if the recidivism rate were not so high”.

I can agree with that. He goes on: “...but, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, half of the prisoners released this year are expected to be back in prison within three years”. This is proof that the current system does not work. He continues:

If our prison policies are failing half of the time, and we know that there are more humane, effective alternatives, it is time to fundamentally rethink how we treat and rehabilitate our prisoners.

It is time to fundamentally rethink how we treat and rehabilitate our prisoners. We can no longer afford business as usual with prisons.

That is an admission that the Reagan administration made a serious mistake. Maybe it made sense to a lot of people at that time, and it was popular at that time, but through the last 25 years we can look back and see that we are not getting the results that we wanted to have.

The criminal justice system is broken and he says that Conservatives must lead the way in fixing it. Several states have shown that it is possible to cut the costs while keeping the public safe. Is that not what we all want?

Consider events in Texas, which is known as a tough on crime state. Conservative Republicans joined with Democrats in adopting incentive-based funding to strengthen the state's probation system in 2005. Then in 2007 they decided against building more prisons, unlike our government which will build $9 billion worth of new prisons. They stopped building more prisons. Instead, they opted to enhance proven community corrections approaches such as drug courts.

We know that we have drug courts here in Canada and the evidence shows that they work reasonably well. That is what they are looking at in Texas. Once again, we should be able to compare notes and realize that if a system works here and works there, it must be a good idea.

The reforms are forecast to save $2 billion in prison costs over five years, because as I have mentioned before, we know that when we lock in $9 billion in prison construction, take all the fixed costs associated with keeping all these prisoners we will have in there, where will it end? We will have no end in sight, and then 10 or 15 years from now, we will try to dismantle the system that is not working when we knew at the beginning that it would not work.

He goes on to say: “The Lone Star State has already redirected much of the money saved into community treatment for the mentally ill and low-level drug addicts.”

Once again, a recognition of something we already know here. Not only have these reforms reduced the prison population of Texas, helping to close the state budget gap, but for the first time there is no waiting list for drug treatment in the state, and the crime rate has dropped 10% from 2004, the year before the reforms.

These reforms did not just happen this year. They have been in effect now for five years. Why is the government not sending a task force down to Texas to check up on this stuff? Why are we not hearing speeches from the opposite side about what they discovered on their trip to Texas? Why are the Conservatives not looking at doing that? The simple answer is that what Conservatives are doing is what they think is selling to the public. That is what it is really all about. It is not about results, saving money and giving the taxpayers value for dollars spent, which is what we would want, and finding out what Texas is doing and implementing it here. No, it is all about what does the focus group say about the current crime measure before us on a particular day. We have a new one almost every day.

The crime rate dropped 10% from 2004, and according to the latest figures available, it reached its lowest annual rate since 1973. That is a rather important statistic. He also said:

Last year we both endorsed corrections reforms in South Carolina that will reserve costly prison beds for dangerous criminals while punishing low-risk offenders through lower-cost community supervision. That is a very sensible thing to do.

However, what does the government want to do? It wants to throw these low risk offenders into the $9 billion worth of prisons it is constructing.

He also says: “The legislation was a bipartisan effort with strong support from liberals, conservatives, law enforcement, the judges and reform advocates”.

Speaking about South Carolina, he says: “The state is expected to save $175 million in prison construction this year and $60 million in operating costs over the next several years”.

It is those operating costs that are really debilitating to our treasury. When we should be spending the money on health care and other productive things in society, we are fixing ourselves in cement by indicating that we will have operating costs for many years to come when we fill the prisons with people.

He goes on to say:

Some people attribute the nation's recent drop in crime to more people being locked up. But the facts show otherwise. While crime fell in nearly every state over the past seven years, some of those with the largest reductions in crime have also lowered their prison population. Over the past seven years, Florida's incarceration rate has increased 16 percent, while New York's decreased 16 percent. Yet the crime rate in New York has fallen twice as much as Florida's. Put another way, although New York spent less on its prisons, it delivered better public safety.

Once again, that is something that we want to support.

He goes on to say:

Americans need to know that we can reform our prison systems to cost less and keep the public safe. We hope conservative leaders across the country will join with us in getting it right on crime.

I guess his message is not going anywhere in Canada with the federal Conservatives or Conservatives elsewhere in the country because we do not see a recognition of what the problem is and how it can be solved.

I would like the people who are watching CPAC to know that Newt Gingrich was the speaker of the house when Bill Clinton was president, so it goes back a little way. Newt Gingrich wanted to run for president himself but he was speaker of the house from 1995 to 1999 and is the founder of American Solutions. Patrick Nolan was the Republican leader of the California State Assembly. There are some very high level people in the United States doing a total about-face on this issue. It could not have come at a better time in terms of our assessment of this bill and others in the House.

When the member for Winnipeg North made a speech earlier in the day, I asked him a question. We are from the same province and are trying to deal with issues that work in certain areas. We know that our home province of Manitoba is practically the only province in the country that has been able to get a handle on auto theft and has reduced the rate of auto theft by 80% in the last five years. That is an astounding result.

Manitoba also has new legislation on the seizure of goods obtained by crime. The Hells Angels' clubhouse was recently seized in Winnipeg and I am told that in the last few months 21 more houses in Winnipeg have been seized, for a total value of $9 million, which has taken the money out of crime, which is why criminals are in prison.

Before the RICO law in the United States, criminals were quite willing to go to prison for a couple of years because they knew that once they were released they could access millions of dollars that were hidden in banks. Now the money, the bank accounts, the houses, the cars and the grow-ops of the Hells Angels are being seized. Where is the reward in criminal activity when those things are gone?

That is the type of activity Canada should be advocating. It is the NDP government in Manitoba that has taken those two initiatives that are achieving results. We just wish the federal government could show the same kind of initiative and results. The federal government is being outshone by a provincial government when it should be showing leadership, following best practices and taking the advice of its own seatmate, Newt Gingrich, in the United States.

I see the member for Kings—Hants taking notes. He is certainly aware of Newt Gingrich. He would probably want to read Newt's latest tome. I am sure he would be very impressed with what he has written.

[John Rafferty, NDP, Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON]

Mr. Speaker, what is happening here is that the government simply wants to build more beds in prisons and build bigger prisons because it knows that it appeals to a small part of its base but it does not make any dollars and sense. Aside from no sense, it makes no dollars and cents.

Given that it costs $343,810 to keep one woman in a federal prison for one year, does my colleague think it makes sense to build more prisons and put in more beds rather than giving people the opportunity to rehabilitate or deal with problems in a preventive way in terms of having supports in place for people who have a mental illness?

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

Mr. Speaker, I think Newt Gingrich and other conservatives in the United States have recognized that the program is unsustainable primarily because it does not get results at the end of the day.

The government will have some short-term advantage with the public because the public will agree to the building of prisons, but it is not looking at the $9 billion associated with building them and, as the member pointed out, the fact that it costs $343,000 a year to keep one person in prison without showing results.

We need to start getting smart on crime but the Conservative government is not showing a lot of signs of that at this point.

I pointed out earlier that on the day the Conservatives found out that Clifford Olson was getting a retirement pension, they introduced legislation to eliminate it. However, when we checked into it, we found out that it was the Conservative government of Joe Clark that started mailing pension cheques out to prisoners in the first place.

A lot of things need correcting in this system, and that was one of them and it was corrected, but the Conservatives did not admit that it was their problem in the first place. They did not admit that they were the ones who started sending pension cheques to prisoners in the first place. I just get total silence from that side when this issue comes up.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, one of the things we have not seen from the government is a follow through on programs and services for youth.

Prior to coming to this chamber, I worked at the multicultural council with youth at risk. We ran an important summer program that gave youth the opportunity to learn skills and get engaged with the community. We had over a 90% success rate of youth either going back to school or finding employment.

It is also important to note that the government has changed some of the actual programs to make it more difficult to acquire funding. One in particular that was sadly lost was the new beginnings project where counsellor Bill Marra and the executive director of new beginnings and his staff did a terrific job on a garden project. During the summer, youth at risk would learn gardening skills and provide food for the community. However, the government made the program so difficult that it has disappeared.

Just recently, our summer employment bank was also reduced in terms of funding. Around $4,000 to $5,000 has been cut from Windsor West so more youth will not get employed. Our youth unemployment rate is 20%. It is critical to have these types of programs in place so young people can get the opportunity to learn skills and further their education and experience because they will be applying it in the field.

We had a press conference, along with the presidents of the University of Windsor and St. Clair College, the student unions and a youth activist group, to bring this issue forward.

I would ask my colleague about the fact that not enough preventive work is being done and that only a small amount of money is necessary to get youth to make other decisions. If we provide them with a choice, they will make the right choice for the most part.

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

Mr. Speaker, just a few days ago, the government announced that it would not renew the funding after either March 1 or April 1 for three anti-gang programs that it had set up across the country approximately three years ago.

We have a government that decided to set up three anti-gang programs at multiple locations across the country to keep young people away from gangs and away from crime and then, after three years, it wants to cut their funding completely and shut these programs down when the programs, evidently, have shown to have benefits and are solid programs. That is not an example of a government that is smart on crime, in any sense of the word.

[Peter Julian, NDP, Burnaby—New Westminster, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the member for Elmwood—Transcona has been very articulate and outstanding in this Parliament in pointing out the differences and the contradictions between what the Conservatives say and what they actually do.

Here we have a situation where there have been massive cutbacks in crime prevention programs and massive cutbacks in addiction programs. In short, there have been massive cutbacks in every sector that actually works to reduce crime.

Given the Conservatives' track record and given all these things that they have cut back on that actually helped to bring the crime rate down, does the member not think that the real objective of the Conservative government is very juvenile partisan gamesmanship, that rather than actually doing the concrete things that reduce crime and that work in communities, they want to stoke some kind of political fire to obtain some kind of cheap partisan political advantage from what they should be taking seriously?

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

Mr. Speaker, we need look no further than the prison farm program. We had six prison farms in this country for many years in Kingston and in Winnipeg where prisoners would get up at six in the morning and work with animals producing milk and other farm commodities. The government just shut down the farms when it should have been doubling them, taking the number of farms from six to twelve, or maybe even more, and expanding them. However, it shut them down at cost to the economy for the farmers around Kingston who used the abattoir in Kingston. There are dairy herds in Winnipeg and in Kingston that have been sold off. The land is being sold off. When I tell Conservative voters what the current government has done to the prison farms, they shake their heads.

This is an issue that even the government's own supporters cannot understand. The Conservatives are basically looking to the next election. Their whole vision is to lurch from crisis to crisis and to wonder how the issue will look in a focus group and how it will help them in the next election to get a majority government. They want to forget about the long-term consequences and the long-term costs that have been clearly demonstrated in the United States and recently commented on by Newt Gingrich.

They want to spend $9 billion to develop prisons to house prisoners when they say that the crime rate is actually dropping and then there will be the ongoing costs of keeping these prisoners, which, as the member for Thunder Bay—Rainy River pointed out, is about $300,000 a year per prisoner, when they should continue to fund the anti-gang programs that they started three years ago. They should also have addiction programs and rehabilitative programs. They should actually start following Newt Gingrich, to be honest, to achieve results.

[Peter Julian, NDP, Burnaby—New Westminster, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to follow my colleague, the member for Elmwood—Transcona. Earlier in the day, the member for Halifax and the member for Windsor—Tecumseh spoke to the bill.

It is interesting to note that the Conservatives cannot even rise in the House to defend the bill. The criticisms that have been brought on Bill S-6 have been so sharp and so clear that they do not have answers. The justice minister made his little partisan attempt earlier this afternoon, but it is very clear that the Conservatives know they do not have very much substance backing up the bill.

To start, we need to talk about what the history has been around Bill S-6. This is now the umpteenth time in the House of Commons that we are negotiating the same bill and having these discussions and debates around it.

Why has the bill come back yet again? As we well know, it is for one simple reason. What the government has done systematically with its justice legislation, some of which was good but mostly bad, is every time it moves in the House of Commons, it moves to prorogue the House of Commons and then starts the bills over again. Then the Conservatives have the audacity to come into the House and say something about the opposition not agreeing with or slowing down their agenda. What we have seen every time is the Conservative government stopping the Conservative agenda. For the umpteenth time now the bill is back.

In the cost of debates, prorogations and bringing this back, countless dollars in taxpayer money have been spent on the bill. It begs the question of why the Conservatives are bringing this forward so often every time they prorogue Parliament. It is a despicable act, given the importance of moving forward as a country and as a democratic government moving forward, having debates, deciding which legislation is good and which legislation is bad. That is an extremely important role in democracy.

As we well know, we see countries in North Africa where people literally die trying to obtain that quest for democracy, that desire to have what we have here. The forum for democratic debate is absolutely essential.

We have a democratically elected Parliament that is systematically prorogued by the government and a prime minister who tends to treat Parliament as his own personal play thing. Therefore, the government has brought the bill back.

When we look at the due regard of the impact of the Bill S-6, we have to look no further than the testimony of Don Head, Commissioner of Correctional Service Canada, before the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights on November 16, 2010. This testimony is freely available to every member of Parliament to look at the actual impact of the bill that the government keeps stubbornly bringing back.

On November 16, Mr. Head said, “Historically, since the first judicial review hearing in 1987, there have been a total of 181 court decisions”. Therefore, over the last 25 years, there have been 181 court decisions. This bill would obviously have an impact on that.

He went on to say:

Of these cases, 146 of the court decisions resulted in a reduction of the period that must be served before parole eligibility, and 35 resulted in a refusal.

Of the 146 offenders who have had their parole eligibility dates moved earlier, 144 have now reached their revised day parole eligibility date and 135 have been granted parole. Of these 135 offenders, 68, or about half, had no issue during supervision; 35 received a suspension but were not subsequently revoked; and 23 had their parole revoked. Seven of the 135 reoffended in a non-violent manner and two reoffended violently.

Over the last quarter century, out of the hundreds of persons who might have been eligible, as we work through the process, we find that many of them were rejected, some were granted parole and some, for parole violations, had their parole revoked. Only seven reoffended in a non-violent manner. Two reoffended violently.

I will finish the quotation from Mr. Head because it is very relevant to Bill S-6 and what has been brought forward today. He said:

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

This is a very important preamble to the debate we are having today. We are talking about the government being concerned about violations over a period of a quarter century that resulted in exactly one assault and one robbery. There is an inordinate amount of time brought forward on the bill for an issue that has essentially resulted in one assault and one robbery. While we deplore the assault and robbery on those victims, the reality is the other actions of the government have had a manifold negative impact on increasing crime rates far beyond the characteristics of the bill.

Let us take a moment and look at what the government has done since it has been in power.

We are talking about Bill S-6 and the net impact, if it had not been so poorly drafted. As usual, the government, as we have certainly seen in trade policy, most recently with the softwood lumber sell-out, did not do its due diligence. Softwood lumber communities across the country paid the price with another $60 million fine levied a few days ago and millions of dollars now in potential fines coming forward because the government simply did not do its work on the softwood lumber. The government has not done its work on Bill S-6 and even if it had, we are talking about an issue that over a quarter of a century resulted in one assault and one robbery.

As deplorable as those two acts were, the government's intent and actions in gutting crime prevention programs have had far worse of an impact.

Let us look at the impact of what the government has done since it came to power, the so-called anti-crime government. It has slashed crime prevention programs by more than half. It has gutted the programs that actually reduce the number of victims in society. Yet, instead of doing anything to increase crime prevention, which the NDP would support fully, the government has gutted those programs. The NDP has stood strongly in the House to say that this was fundamentally wrong.

Every dollar spent on crime prevention programs saves six dollars later on in policing costs, courts costs and prison costs. Why would the government not beef up the crime prevention funding? That is certainly what Canadians want to see.

On the crime prevention front, Canadians want to see lower crime rates and crime prevention investment taking place because it is cost effective and it means eliminating victims. There are no victims when the crime is prevented in the first place. The government slashed those programs and is now bringing in this legislation. It is trumpeting how effective it wants to be on crime when the impact, over a quarter of century, has been one robbery and one assault.

The government has cut back on addiction programs. I will come back a little later to what even Republicans in the United States are saying, and Newt Gingrich was quoted earlier. Republicans in the United States have come around to the fact that they have to beef up funding for addiction programs to bring down the crime rate. What has the Conservative government done? Exactly the opposite.

Just a few scant weeks before the government came to power, the NDP brought forward a private member's bill. I was in the House when that vote was held and there were police officers and firefighters in the gallery. The legislation was for a public safety officer compensation fund. Conservatives at the time voted for that legislation. Firefighters, police officers and their families were very happy with that.

As we know, in many parts of the country firefighters and police officers are not covered by provincial or municipal plans. There is no insurance, which means if they die in the line of duty, if they die protecting Canadians, their families get nothing. Their families have to sell their houses.

I have spoken with spouses of firefighters and police officers who have had to take on second and third jobs to try to keep a roof over their heads, whose kids have had to give up on schooling, kids whose parents, father or mother, a public safety officer, or a police officer or a firefighter, died in the line of duty and there was nothing to compensate the family.

In the United States every one of those public safety officer deaths is compensated. There is insurance so the family can keep a roof over their heads. Families can mourn and go on with their lives, at least knowing they do not have to work every day to keep the wolf of indebtedness away from the door.

The Conservative government, elected scant weeks after that legislation was adopted by Parliament, has for five years steadfastly refused to provide compensation to police officers and firefighters in our country. If there is another reason for Conservative supporters to be ashamed, it is this; that the Conservatives would show such reckless disregard and disrespect for our public safety officers, our police officers and firefighters, who die in the line of the duty. The government has done absolutely nothing. It is sickening and deplorable.

For the government to pretend that it is somehow on the side of police officers, it is the height of hypocrisy. It has done even more than that. Before the Conservatives came to government, they made commitments to put community police officers on the streets right across the country. They have had five long years and have had ample opportunity to take action. Rather than bringing bills like Bill S-6 forward, they could have taken action in this regard.

Community policing is the most effective anti-crime strategy possible. Couple that with effective crime prevention policies and addiction treatment programs, we would have an overall strategy that would be remarkably effective.

What have the Conservatives done? They did not keep their promise. As my colleague, the member for Elmwood—Transcona mentioned a few moments ago, the government gutted the prison agricultural program, which was very effective in providing that transition for inmates back into civil society.

On the anti-crime front, the government has a lamentable and deplorable record. What it chooses to do is bring forward Bill S-6, after destroying the infrastructure that is providing for crime prevention and reducing the number of victims.

If the Conservatives continue to agitate for an election, putting those attack ads up across the country, wanting to go to an election right away, the only thing I would say is that given the Conservative record on crime, they better watch it. If the Conservatives want an election so eagerly, they will have to stand on their record. The Conservative record on crime prevention, the cutbacks to addiction programs, the disrespect for police officers and firefighters and the broken promises on providing community policing, is even worse than the previous Liberal government.

That is what the government has done on the crime front.

I want to mention a couple of other aspects that contrast vividly with Bill S-6, a bill that the government continues to bring back every time it prorogues the House because it says it is anti-crime.

Canadians are also aware of two other things that the Conservative government has done in the last few months. First, with respect to that murderous regime in Colombia, the secret police and the army, guilty of the deaths of dozens and dozens of people, labour activists, human rights advocates, the government chose to sign a preferential trade agreement. The government gave it preferential trade status. In other words, it whitewashed all the deaths. It did not in any way say that Colombia had to clean up its act and stop the secret police, the army and the paramilitaries from massacring civilians.

The Conservatives said that they would give Colombia a stamp of approval. It did not matter how many people were murdered, Canada would give Colombia a preferential trade agreement. It was absolutely despicable and hypocritical.

Across the length and breadth of this land, people see that difference. They do not see it as logical that a murder taking place in Colombia is all right and that the government is somehow being tough on crime in Canada.

Canadians are very principled people. Whether on the South Shore—St. Margarets, or in northern Alberta and Edmonton, they understand the distinction that a regime whose secret police and paramilitaries and militaries are guilty of murder should not be given a reward for having committed those crimes.

Then, of course, just a few months ago, we had this government bring forward other legislation. As we know, the IRS and the American state department have deplored the laundering of drug money in Panama by illegal drug gangs. What did the government do? Again, it gave Panama a stamp of approval and has put in place a trade agreement the NDP is sharply opposed to, allowing for more cover ups of the money laundering and tax evasion that takes place in Panama. There is no tax information agreement in place. The government requested it in a weak way. At this point in time, to put that trade agreement in place is fueling the laundering of dirty drug money in Panama today.

Here is the contradiction. After having prorogued a couple of times, this government comes forward yet again with this bill stating that it wants to be tough on crime. If we look through the statistics of the Correctional Service of Canada, we see that what it is actually talking about is one act of assault and one act of robbery over 25 years. Then we see what the government actually does. The government talks a good line; it does not walk its talk. What it does is to gut the programs that actually contribute to public safety.

Following me will be the member for Vancouver Kingsway, who is going to talk about the youth gang program the Conservatives have just gutted again, yet another public safety program, yet another crime prevention program, which stops crimes before they are committed. And what does the government do? It stops it.

That brings us back to the fundamental question: why is this bill being brought forward? That is the crux of the debate here today. It is not about crime; it is about the partisan, juvenile posturing the government has become renowned for. After five years in power, it still has no opportunity to get a majority government. That is because of its juvenile posturing on these important issues. When we look at its fiscal management and its record deficit and the appallingly misspent or misallocated money, the tens of billions of dollars for corporate tax cuts, and at the economy and government's throwing away of 600,000 well paying full-time jobs and its replacement of them with 400,000 low paying part-time jobs, and it then coming into the House and saying, this is a triumph, these are the contradictions that Canadians see. Canadians do not like these contradictions and the inability of the government to walk the talk.

Then we get to the crime file and we see in case after case, whether it is rewarding bad or murderous regimes, cutting back on the prison farm program, not keeping its promise on community policing, not showing respect and providing support for families who have lost a police officer or a firefighter family member by providing for the public safety officers compensation fund this House voted on five and a half years ago, and then the cutbacks to crime prevention and youth gang programs, to addiction programs, all of which have an impact on reducing the crime rate, these are the contradictions that Canadians see more and more. These are the contradictions that Canadians deplore. Yet this government is revving its motors, putting on its attack ads and its smear campaign in full bore to go for an election right now. It is very clear that it wants an election: devil the people, devil the Canadians.

Conservatives are saying they do not want to get stuff done, that all they want to do is to have partisan attacks, smear campaigns and to run attack ads everywhere they can. But Canadians want something different. They want a real crime strategy, a smart on crime strategy that prevents crimes before they are committed. They want to make sure that the funding is in place for youth gang strategy, and they want an effective, smart on crime strategy that actually—

[The Deputy Speaker, Andrew Scheer]

Questions and comments, the hon. Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of International Trade.

[Gerald Keddy, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of International Trade]

Mr. Speaker, I listened intently to the hon. member. I had some difficulty following his train of thought. He jumped around a lot and he really used a lot of examples and analogies that had nothing to do with this particular piece of legislation, but I would ask a pretty straightforward question.

I have heard the hon. member talk a lot about what Canadians like or do not like, so I am assuming he has spoken to most Canadians on the issue of crime. However, the real issue here is that Canadians want to feel safe and secure in their homes, on the streets, in their workplaces. That is not an unreasonable thought, and it should not be foreign even to the NDP's mindset. However, the NDP does not support legislation that enforces that.

My question to the hon. member is, does he intend to support Conservative legislation that actually forces criminals to serve their time in prison, or not? It is a simple question, yes or no?

[Peter Julian, NDP, Burnaby—New Westminster, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I will say this to the member: What the NDP has been pushing for is the kinds of programs that reduce crime. If the member for South Shore—St. Margaret's thinks that Canadians support the Conservatives' gutting of crime prevention programs, I think he will have a rude awakening come this election the Conservatives are pushing for.

What Canadians want to see is crime prevention programs put into place. They want to see the Conservatives keep their promise for community policing. Canadians want to see the kinds of addiction programs that bring down the crime rate.

The Republicans in the United States are saying that the NDP is right on these crime issues, that what the Conservatives have done is a wrong approach, that they are wrong to cut back on crime prevention and addiction programs. If the Republicans in the United States can say the NDP has been right all along on a smart on crime strategy, I guess it begs the question, on what planet are the Conservatives if even Republicans can understand the simple concept that when we put crime strategies in place, we spend less money and we have fewer victims? I guess the question is, why are the Conservatives offside of every other civilized country and even their own right-wing parties in other countries, who have come to the realization that we have to put in place the supports and the crime prevention strategy before the crime happens?

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, as I noted earlier in the debate, the Conservatives have cut back on the summer employment programs for youth in my area of Windsor West, where they cut thousands of dollars. What that means is that more youth will not find employment.

We have an unemployment rate of 20%. I have worked directly with youth at risk. One of the most important things we can do is to ensure their training and schooling and that they actually have employment during the summer.

It is interesting, because this is the government that talks about its fiscal record, and just the other day, it spent another $650,000 on a vase made by an American.

We have to wonder about the priorities of the Conservatives when the people who are on the streets right now, the youth who are actually spending record amounts of money and getting into debt to go to school, have no opportunities. It is not only important that they actually make some money, but also that it keeps them out of trouble and gives them hope and opportunity. It is also important for the Canadian economy for productivity, because if they get into their field of study, they are getting experience and we are not losing them to the United States or other jurisdictions because there are no jobs and they have no experience.

I would like to ask the member for Burnaby—New Westminster about choices like these. In his riding, is he seeing the youth being left behind? Will that cause a problem in the future? I just cannot believe the government could buy a vase for $650,000, but does not have enough money for one of the regions with highest youth unemployment rate, my riding, which has 20% youth unemployment? Where are its priorities?

[Peter Julian, NDP, Burnaby—New Westminster, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the member for Windsor West is absolutely right. Before I was elected to Parliament, I was a financial administrator. As it is with most New Democrats, the way ordinary Canadians manage their households is by being careful to spend money on the essentials. That is why one wants to put a budget in the hands of ordinary Canadians to be managed best, not by the high-flying, elite Conservatives, and certainly not by what we saw from the Liberals in the past. It is simply a matter of making the crucial decision the way Canadian families do every day and putting the money into essentials.

A $650,000 vase is not an essential and nor is it a priority to have $2 billion for a 72-hour meeting, because the Prime Minister got carried away and decided to build fake lakes here and cover over other lakes there, and nor are the tens of billions of dollars shovelled out the back of a truck for corporate tax cuts.

That money is going offshore because the Conservatives have not even put any valuation mechanism in place for them to know whether the money is actually being used for job creation. That is why 600,000 full-time jobs were lost and we got back 400,000 part-time, low-paying jobs, and yet they say it is a wonderful thing. They lost 200,000 jobs generally and the quality of the jobs they have created is much poorer than the quality of the jobs they have lost.

What is essential is putting in place programs for youth. The member for Windsor West identified the record levels of student debt and that we need programs in place for youth to make sure they are given alternatives. What have the Conservatives done? The member for Vancouver Kingsway will address this in a moment as well, but they have gutted the youth gang strategy and crime prevention programs and the supports for our nation's youth. They are simply incapable of putting in place a strategy that is effective. It is all about partisan politics. If they really want the election they are pushing so badly for, I think their time of judgment by the Canadian public will come.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I want to follow up with the member for Burnaby—New Westminster not only in terms of investing in summer employment for youth but also the issue with regard to the cut in the gang file. Once again, Conservatives have money for a vase but no money for gang-related prevention work.

We have seen that being proactive and having police resources is a real advantage. Ironically, the government talked about how it was going to increase the number of police officers out on the street and never did so. It failed on that promise. Making sure it lives up to its promise of putting more police officers on the street has been very frustrating. At the same time, if they cannot do that, those funds could go to prevention. Gang projects are very important. Organized crime is a very serious issue. Why does the government not take organized crime seriously, as it says it does with its other types of initiatives?

[Peter Julian, NDP, Burnaby—New Westminster, BC]

Mr. Speaker, that is a very good question. In fact, one could almost say that through the Conservatives' trade strategy they are fueling organized crime through the laundering of dirty drug money in Panama. They signed a reward cheque, a privileged trade agreement with Panama. It is the same situation in Colombia. The gangs there are affiliated with the government, and the government gets a reward from the Canadian government. It is absolutely appalling in both cases.

When we talk about youth employment strategies, anti-gang strategies and crime prevention, these are all priorities. They must priorities in the justice system. What is the government doing instead? Because it is so fiscally irresponsible, it is throwing away $9 billion for prisons that, according to the President of the Treasury Board, are being built so that people who commit unreported crimes can be put into jail. There have been enough jokes around the country about that idea, the phantom prisons, the prisons for unreported crime. It is absolutely absurd.

If the government spent a fraction of that money responsibly and prudently, the way Canadian families do, it would be putting that money into the programs the member for Windsor West just mentioned, the summer employment programs, the crime prevention programs and anti-youth gang strategies. Those are the prudent and smart investments that an NDP government, if it were the will of the Canadian people, would make. The Conservatives are simply a hollow shell as far as concrete and practical approaches on crime are concerned. That is becoming very evident from their actions over the last few months.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to express a warm welcome back to you and to all members of the House. I hope everyone had a chance to spend time with their families and communities over the last six weeks as we broke from our activities in the House in mid-December and are now back to resume the people's business here.

The reason I start off that way is because today is January 31. This is an important day because it is the very first day that parliamentarians have returned to the House of Commons here in Ottawa after the break. We have been away for over a month, back in our communities talking to our neighbours, community groups and organizations, meeting with business people, talking to our constituents and getting what I think all parliamentarians would agree, is a thorough exposure to the fundamental issues facing Canadians from coast to coast to coast. Here we are back in Parliament on January 31, the first day back, and we are debating the very first bill that the Conservative government has chosen to put before this chamber.

Over the last month and a half I have heard, as have my NDP colleagues, of the pressing and important issues facing Canadians across this country. New Democrats represent ridings from the east coast to the west coast, from the Canadian border on the south to the high Arctic. We heard the same serious priorities of Canadians.

Canadians tell us they are having problems housing themselves. They are worried about their pensions, many of whom have pensions that are in crisis. They are worried about health care. Our seniors are wondering how they are going to pay their bills and whether or not they will get access to home care. Parents are worried about the cost of education. Students are worried about how they are going to pay their skyrocketing tuition and their mounting student debts, that is if they can get into post-secondary education at all.

People are concerned about the disappearance of good middle-class jobs in this country. They are concerned about how they are going to raise their families in the same manner they were raised by their parents and grandparents before them

Families across this country are worried about child care and how they can get quality, affordable, accessible care for their children while they go to work and try to sustain their families.

Victims across this country are worried about how their needs are going to be met. People experienced with crime prevention issues are wondering where their funding will come from. Organizations across this country that deliver social needs for every gamut of issue in this country are wondering how they will survive.

What is the Conservatives' number one priority in the face of all of these priorities, in the face of all of these issues? They bring forward a bill that since 1987 affects 187 people. In the last 25 years, a quarter century, about 187 people have applied under the faint hope clause in the Criminal Code to have their life sentence commuted to 15 years because they have rehabilitated themselves. The government is taking up valuable legislative time in this chamber to get rid of that.

The government does not want to deal with housing, education or home care. It does not want to talk about crime prevention or community safety. It wants to go after people in prison to make sure that the tiny, minute, infinitesimal number of people affected by this legislation are stripped of any opportunity to rehabilitate themselves at all.

Governing is about choosing priorities. I do not think we are going to get a more stark reminder than this of what the Conservative government's priorities are and how incredibly divergent those priorities are from the very real priorities facing Canadians and their families today.

My hon. colleague from Burnaby—New Westminster made several references to me speaking about the youth gang prevention fund. I am going to speak about that because it also reflects a sense of priorities.

The Conservative government stakes a lot of political weight on its reputation as being tough on crime. The Conservatives claim they are the party that stands up for victims of crime, that they want to make our communities safer. Let us examine a few facts about that.

The youth gang prevention fund is a program that is funded by the federal government. That funding goes to dozens of organizations across this country, with one goal in mind: to help keep youth out of gangs. In Vancouver, Winnipeg, Toronto, Montreal and many other communities, dozens of programs are being run on a shoestring budget to try to divert troubled kids and kids who are at risk from going into gangs and going into a life of crime. The amount of money that is invested in this program: $33 million over five years. That is about $6.5 million a year. Our research indicates that about 1,000 youth have been in these programs; that is, 1,000 people who are being exposed to positive role models and who are being identified and worked with to help keep them out of a life of crime. Those programs, I am told, are oversubscribed and full.

That funding runs out in March. What do we hear? That the Conservative government is going to allow that funding to lapse. It can spend, by its own admission, $2 billion to $4 billion on building more prison cells, and of course we all know that those costs are vastly underestimated. Probably a more likely amount is at least $10 billion will be spent by the government over the next five years for building more prison cells, but it will not spend $6 million a year to keep our youth out of prisons. That is a striking sense of the priorities of the Conservative government. It prefers to talk tough, to have show, to play politics and prefers to issue propaganda and go after programs that do not affect anybody across this country but a small amount of people to try to display its toughness while millions of people's real problems remain unaddressed.

While the government is bringing forward legislation on ending the faint hope clause, let us talk about what people and Canadians really want us to address, as parliamentarians, when it comes to crime.

First, they want their communities to be safe.

How do we do that? Do we think communities are safe by keeping 180 people over the last 25 years from applying for a faint hope provision? Absolutely not.

Canadians would tell us they want more community policing. They want more cops walking the beat in their neighbourhoods. Community policing means a police presence in our communities, where we have small neighbourhood police offices.

They want, in rural areas, access to RCMP detachments where, if they phone a 9-1-1 number, they can actually get a response in an appropriate amount of time; unlike what the government has done by closing and allowing the closure of single-member police RCMP detachments in British Columbia.

They want crime prevention programs. Canadians want better lighting in our streets. They want more prosecutors and judges in our courts so that we can actually speed up the administration of our justice system. They want more diversion programs, where people who come into conflict with the law get actual help for the problems that are really causing them to act in a deviant manner to begin with; more mental health programs, more addiction treatment.

We need an anti-gun strategy that would stop the inflow of illegal guns across the border into our country.

Canadians want us to understand and acknowledge the obvious, which is that we have to address the social determinants of crime, which the government has never said a word on in the time I have been in the House. I have never heard a single Conservative stand and say, “I think that poverty, lack of opportunity, lack of educational opportunities, lack of resources in our communities for our young people are the breeding grounds for crime and criminal activity in at least some cases”. I have never heard one Conservative say that. Conservatives are actually wrong about that, because the data displays that fact unbelievably.

We need more community facilities. Canadians want community centres, where they have recreational, cultural and social facilities where they can gather in their communities, particularly our young people, where they can come and play basketball, or they can learn a musical instrument, or they can take a language lesson, or they can pursue arts and cultural activities. These are the kind of enriched activities that our youth need to be exposed to, as opposed to being lured to perhaps illicit activities on the street.

But again, what do they get from the Conservative government? It brings forth legislation that would eliminate the faint hope provision from the Criminal Code. That is its response to those very real problems and concerns of Canadians.

Not only is that a factually unwise approach, but it is actually economically insane. We have already heard that no less figures than Newt Gingrich and Pat Nolan, hardly left-wing liberals from the United States, have brought up examples from that bastion of left-wingism, Texas, and in the United States they are actually acknowledging what we New Democrats have been saying, year after year, which is that increasing spending on prisons, putting more people in prisons for longer periods of time under harsher conditions, not only does not reduce the crime rate but it bankrupts the treasury. They are actually withdrawing on that.

States, from Pennsylvania all the way to the Carolinas to Texas, are all actually putting more money into diversion programs and rehabilitation programs. They have found that half of the prisoners released in a year under the old programs are back in prison within three years. They recognize that what they are doing does not work. They are recognizing the approach they took over the last 25 years, having their prison population growing 13 times faster than the general population, by spending $68 billion in 2010 alone on corrections, 300% more than 25 years ago, has not done a darn thing for community safety except for bankrupting the taxpayer which is what the government will do if its policies continue going in the direction they are going.

Bill S-6, the faint hope clause, would, if passed, eliminate section 754.6 of the Criminal Code. This section allows for those serving a life sentence for murder or high treason the possibility of applying for parole after 15 years.

This faint hope provision was initially introduced in 1976, and the criteria for release and parole have been amended several times since. Presently the eligibility requirements are very stringent and include an appeal before a judge and jury, and unanimous approval of that jury before an appeal can even be heard by the National Parole Board.

According to the commissioner of the Correctional Service of Canada, Mr. Don Head, as of October 10, 2010, there were 1,508 offenders with cases applicable for judicial review. Since the first judicial review hearing in 1987 began, there have been a total of 181 court decisions. That is right, in 25 years there have been 181 court decisions.

Of those decisions, 146 resulted in a reduction of the period that must be served before parole eligibility, and 35 resulted in a refusal. Why were those 146 decisions positive in terms of the application? It is because the system worked in those cases. The purpose of corrections is multifaceted. It is to remove a person from society. It is to punish them when they have transgressed against our rules of society. It is also to give them the services and functions that they require in order to attempt to rehabilitate themselves. That is what we want.

In some cases some of those people have taken that to heart, and some of those offenders have actually rehabilitated themselves. I am going to talk about why that is positive. When a person goes to prison in Canada, they are going to come out at some point. Just about everybody will anyway, 95% will. Of course people like Clifford Olson, Russell Williams and Mr. Pickton, in my home province, will never get out of prison nor should they.

There is a gamut of offences even under the conviction of murder. There could be crimes of passion, people who have committed crimes while under the influence of drugs and alcohol, and crimes committed when people are very young. We believe, at least on this side of the House, in the power of redemption, that sometimes people can rehabilitate themselves and change themselves.

If that is the case, if people can correct themselves after serving long sentences—and nobody is talking about these people not serving long sentences. These are people serving 25-year sentences who after 15 years can apply and maybe have their parole eligibility reduced by a few years. Those people can change and the law recognizes that. In the Conservatives' simple world I suppose they would argue nobody changes, but that is false because people do change.

I have been to 25 federal institutions in this country in the last year and a half. Correctional officers will say that the faint hope clause helps maintain order and safety in prison because when hope is taken away from people in prison, they are left with absolutely no incentive to act appropriately. For some people that is important. Guards will say that they like the faint hope clause even for people serving life sentences because it gives them an incentive, a potential reward if they act appropriately, and the government wants to take that away.

Friedrich Nietzsche said, “Beware of those in whom the urge to punish is strong”. There is some wisdom in that. The government is playing politics with the crime agenda and Canadians are starting to have its number on this by the millions. They know that the government is pursuing U.S.-style politics and approaches to prison and crime that do not work, that will bankrupt us and that will not make our communities safer. That is the bottom line.

Seeing the priority of this bill before Parliament on the first day of the session illustrates that better than anything that I could say. Do the Conservatives bring a bill forward that would actually help victims of crime? Do they bring a bill forward that would actually build sexual assault centres for victims of sexual assault? Are they bringing forth bills that would actually build community centres that would give our youth hope? Are they funding education and making educational opportunities wider for our young people? Are they building mental health facilities and addiction treatment facilities so that we can deal with some of the most important underlying causes of criminal behaviour?

It has been estimated by all sources that 80% of people in our federal system have addictions or alcohol problems. Does the government address that problem? Does it say that it will put $100 million, $200 million or $300 million into mental health and addictions treatment? That would help make our communities safer. If people in prison got the kind of treatment they needed, when they get out they would be less likely to offend. Does the government bring forth that legislation? No, it does not.

Instead, it wants a showpiece. It wants to look like it is tough. By being tough, it wants to remove a faint hope clause that is a carefully considered part of our criminal justice system that was negotiated at a time when we abolished capital punishment.

Maybe that is what this is really about. We heard the Prime Minister muse about being in favour of capital punishment, but the Conservatives do not have the courage to bring that bill forward because they know Canadians would not support it. They know Canadians would reject any party that sought to bring in a system in this country where the state started murdering people.

What does the government do? It goes after people in prison by removing the faint hope provision, one of the few things that might give someone who committed a murder when he or she was young the possibility of perhaps redeeming his or her life, maybe making things right for the victim and living his or her life in the manner that we all would want the offender to live. That is atrocious. In fact, there are stronger words to describe people who would pursue that as a criminal justice agenda. I will leave it as being uninformed, mean-spirited, insufficient, deficient and it will be unsuccessful at making any Canadian's life any better.

I would urge the government, if it is serious about crime, to work with the New Democrats and all members of the House to bring forth legislation that would address the social determinants of crime, that would make our communities safer, that would help our young people and anyone who has any contact with the criminal justice system and to work with the professionals in this country to actually make a difference in people's lives.

[John Rafferty, NDP, Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON]

Mr. Speaker, one of the things that will happen if the bill continues and one of the things I am most concerned about is the lack of discretion, the discretion that will disappear in terms of judges and juries to make the kinds of decisions that they know they should be making. For me that is a real concern.

I wonder if the hon. member would like to make a comment about that.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I think Canadians are seeing, as they see the government stay in power longer and longer, that it does not believe in judicial discretion. The Conservatives do not trust judges. They do not trust prosecutors. They do not trust our justice system. They are trying to dispense justice from the politicians box. That is not only despicable but actually extremely ineffective and dangerous for our justice system where we depend on having an independent judiciary, where politicians are supposed to set the rules, carefully deliberate and pass laws to keep everybody safe, to govern our relations between each other and then trust others who are independent of politics to dispense justice.

Outside of the Supreme Court of Canada building, which is just down the street, is a statue of the traditional symbol of justice. It is the goddess of justice with a blindfold on her eyes and a balance in her hand. That is to symbolize two very important things: that justice must be independent, it must be measured and it must be judicious. The government is not interested in that.

The New Democrats trust in our judicial system. We know there are hard-working prosecutors. We know there are learned, astute judges who are sensitive and sympathetic to the community standards and who are subjected to rigorous appeal and scrutiny in everything they do. They dispense justice every day in this country. However, the Conservatives do not trust those people at all and that is why they want to take away discretion from our judges.

The essence of any justice system is built on discretion, because if people in this country were before a judge, they would want that judge to be addressing his or her mind to their specific situation with their specific conditions and what happened in their case. That is the essence of justice. We would not want ourselves and our life determined by some arbitrary standard set by a bunch of politicians in Ottawa.

[Randy Kamp, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans]

Mr. Speaker, I have one question for the member for Vancouver Kingsway. Has he, in his riding or on his travels, met with an individual who has had a loved one murdered and the murderer has gone through the judicial process a number of times to seek a hearing for early parole? If he has, did he actually listen to the individual?

I have person in my riding whose son was killed by Clifford Olson. He has talked to me a number of times about the incredible pain that he goes through for every one of these opportunities that this individuals takes knowing that he will never be successful but does it for all kinds of evil reasons, in my opinion.

I wonder if the hon. member has spoken personally to any of these people and what he thinks about what they have to say.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I do not think that could have been the case because I have been told that multiple murderers are excluded from the faint hope provision. It is my understanding that it could never have been the case that Clifford Olson applied under the faint hope provision. However, the member still makes a good point.

Every member of this House, including members of the New Democratic Party, I argue most of all, are truly concerned about victims of crime and about the impact that any exposure to the criminal justice system has on them. Victims of crime do not choose to be the victims and, in many cases, they are the people who have suffered the harm. They are an important voice in the criminal justice system and we need to pay attention to their needs.

I would like to see legislation in which victims are given a greater voice in the justice system. I would like to see legislation that expands the concept of restorative justice, where healing becomes a better part of our system and where victims can sit face to face with their offenders. when that is appropriate and where they want to, where we can actually hear the pain of the victims. Of course, in any kind of process, it is important that we understand that victims will be sometimes traumatized by the process again and again.

In the case of the faint hope clause, if an application for early parole were dismissed for a lack of reasonable prospect of success, under the current system the chief justice or a judge may set a time for another application not earlier than two years after the dismissal. In fact, the judge may declare that the inmate will never be entitled to make another application.

The law already recognizes that victims should not be traumatized by repeat application and there are provisions in the law to deal with that. I think the member's very well-founded concern is more than adequately met by the law as it presently stands.

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Mr. Speaker, I have two questions for the member.

First, what are some of the potential problems that could occur if this were removed? I am thinking of people in the jail system, in particular, by someone who has lost hope completely?

Second, could he just remind the House of the low recidivism or offence rate of those who have been released under these provisions?

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I will deal with the recidivism rates first. I do not have the number right in front of me but I have seen figures that show that the recidivism rate for those who have been released under the faint hope provision are very low. In fact, I think it is two cases if my memory serves correctly and, in both cases, I think one person committed an assault. I am not sure what the other person committed but I do not believe it was a murder.

The application process that someone in a federal institution must go through to access the faint hope provisions is extremely layered and controlled. It has to pass a lot of sets of eyes before a person can even be considered for early release.

This is because the law recognizes that people change. People who commit murder when they are 17, 18, or 19 years old may be totally different when they are 31 or 32. To simply have a law that allows them the possibility of at least making an application before a judge and a jury and then a national parole board, go through all those sets of eyes and minds with data from their doctors, psychologists, social workers and from prison administrators so we get a full picture of that person, is something that benefits our society. It is the hallmark of any civilized society as well. We do not lock up people in dungeons and throw away the key, as is done in some countries. I think that is something that we as a society have to deal with.

Dealing with prison and crime is not a pleasant affair. Prisons are extremely complicated places. I have been in 25 of them, as I said. They are places of pathos, sadness and destruction. They are places of depression and unhappiness but they can also be places of redemption, growth and hope. We as a society need to decide what we want our prisons to be. I as a Canadian want my prisons to be a place where there is the possibility of growth and redemption. The government and this legislation would take that away. I think it is bad legislation and every thinking parliamentarian should vote against it for that reason.

[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.

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Mr. Speaker, I have three quick questions. I certainly appreciate the member's thoughtful approach to this bill.

In the member's very last sentence, he said that he does not think it makes communities any safer. If in fact there were so few reoccurrences without this bill, maybe he could elaborate a bit on the types of the crimes that actually would be committed by the many people who lost hope or who have actually gone on to lead productive lives.

The second way we could see fewer victims is if the money saved by the huge costs of incarceration were used on more police or machines in hospitals. There are all sorts of ways more lives could be saved with the money that is saved.

Finally, could the member comment on the fact that the government would save a lot more people from becoming victims if it were to reinstate the crime prevention programs it has cancelled?

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

Mr. Speaker, I think there are many ways to make our communities safer.

We have seen clearly, time and time again, that crime prevention programs actually work, better education programs work, more opportunities for citizens work, and better jobs work. There are all kinds of things that make our communities safer that have nothing to do with keeping people in jail longer or putting people in prison longer.

We have seen that rehabilitation programs in prison work, but we do not often give them the kind of importance they need. We have seen that treating people for drug addiction often makes our communities dramatically safer, and yet we do not put nearly enough resources into that.

Instead the government thinks that it can be tough on crime and put more people in jail for longer, and somehow that makes us safer. Even the Americans who were the champions of that kind of policy are turning their back on it. Some of the most outspoken proponents of it are turning their backs on it, because it just does not work.

There is proof, time and time again. There is research, time and time again. Unfortunately, that does not make an impression on the current government.

Those kinds of things are really important to all of us. The cost of incarcerating people could be used in so many other ways that would actually make our communities safer. We could engage citizens in other ways to make our communities safer. Restorative justice that engages people, victims of crime, people who have committed crime, representatives of the community from the get-go is a way of making our communities much safer. The government has no interest in that kind of program.

[Peter Julian, NDP, Burnaby—New Westminster, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciated the speech from the member for Burnaby—Douglas.

Would the member comment on Newt Gingrich and Pat Nolan, two Republicans from the United States who, in their article, talk about what happened in Texas where it was decided against building more prisons and opted to enhance proven community corrections approaches, such as drug courts. Money was redirected into community treatment for mentally ill and low level drug addicts.

Not only have these reforms reduced Texas prison populations, but for the first time there is no waiting list for drug treatment in the state and crime has dropped 10% from 2004 through 2009, reaching its lowest annual rate since 1973.

Since even Republicans now understand the good merits of the NDP approach of being smart on crime, I would like to ask the member for Burnaby—Douglas why do the Conservatives not get it?

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

Mr. Speaker, if I had been told that I would standing in the House supporting an opinion offered by Newt Gingrich, the Republican to end all Republicans in some of our minds, and Pat Nolan, the Republican leader of the California State Assembly from 1984 to 1988, I would not have believed it.

I would not have believed that it would possible that Mr. Gingrich and Mr. Nolan would release the kind of statement that they have recently that says that they were wrong, that the approach that they championed, to build more prisons, to give tougher sentences, to put people in jail longer, the “three strikes and you're out”, which I am sure Mr. Nolan was around for, that hideous attempt at justice reform. All of those things have only served to make communities poorer and more unsafe.

Here they are, turning their back and calling for the kinds of smart on crime measures the New Democrats have championed for years, generations in fact. It is really hard to believe that I could stand here and be on the same page as Newt Gingrich. My colleagues say that he has come to our page, and that is great. He has seen the light.

It just goes to show that even the strangest people can be rehabilitated in their views of society, and that I am open to that possibility. I look forward to the possibility of somebody actually struggling with the numbers, the research and the experience of this kind of legislation, and then examining it carefully.

Mr. Gingrich deserves some kudos for taking the risk. This is a huge political risk for a Republican in the United States, to write this kind of statement and to re-examine something that he championed so vociferously. I think that is a very—

[The Deputy Speaker, Andrew Scheer]

Order, please.

The House resumed from January 31 consideration of the motion that Bill S-6, An Act to amend the Criminal Code and another Act, be read the third time and passed.

Serious Time for the Most Serious Crime Act

[The Acting Speaker, Denise Savoie]

Resuming debate. Is the House ready for the question? The question is on the motion. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

No.

[The Acting Speaker, Denise Savoie]

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

[Some hon. members]

Yea.

[The Acting Speaker, Denise Savoie]

All those opposed will please say nay.

[Some hon. members]

Nay.

[The Acting Speaker, Denise Savoie]

In my opinion the nays have it.

And five or more members having risen:

Call in the members.

And the bells having rung:

The vote will be deferred until tomorrow after government orders.

The House resumed from February 1 consideration of the motion that Bill S-6, An Act to amend the Criminal Code and another Act, be read the third time and passed.

[The Speaker, Peter Milliken]

The House will now proceed to the taking of the deferred recorded division on the motion at the third reading stage of Bill S-6.

(The House divided on the motion, which was agreed to on the following division:)

Vote #154

[The Speaker, Peter Milliken]

I declare the motion carried.

(Bill read the third time and passed)