Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise in debate on Bill C-587 and to follow my colleague from Montreal, who has spoken very eloquently, as always. He is also a heck of a hockey player and he is kind enough sometimes to drive some of his colleagues to hockey. That is always appreciated.
However, this is not about hockey tonight. It is about a much more serious matter: the question of parole eligibility and the notion of making life a little easier for families of victims of crime. This is an objective that everyone in the House would share, and if we all share the objective, the key is that when we bring forward a piece of legislation, we have to ask ourselves if it will achieve the objective that the mover of the bill has in mind.
The second issue is the fact that the government has tended to bring in a lot of criminal legislation through private members' bills instead of government bills. A private member's bill does not go through the kinds of constitutional checks that a government bill does. When the government brings forward a bill on criminal law, the normal practice is that the Minister of Justice would have his department examine the constitutionality of that bill to make sure that it complies with, for example, the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and would not be found unconstitutional on the grounds of being offside with the charter or on other grounds.
This summer we saw some problems arise with bills that went through the House in the less thorough manner that is given to private members' bills as compared to government bills. We all know that more time is spent debating and examining government bills than is spent on private members' bills, because they are, generally speaking, of a somewhat different nature. Government bills tend to be longer and more detailed, and to some degree usually deal with more substantive matters, although not always.
Here is an issue in which we are considering amendments to the Criminal Code. That is a significant thing, and it seems to me that it ought to be given full and proper consideration.
As my colleague said, we are going to support sending the bill forward to committee to have it examined there. We support the idea of the bill, but it is important that it have thorough examination in committee, because that is not always the case. Certainly my recent experience and my experience since this government has come into power is that committees do not get the ability to perform a thorough study of these matters because the Conservatives, who have the majority on these committees, cut the time allotted for the study of bills to maybe a day or two days.
When I say “a day”, I am talking about one meeting of a committee, which is generally two hours. That is not much time to give to these sorts of private members' bills on criminal law, which need proper study to ensure not only that the ends that are sought are achieved but also that the bill works with other elements of the Criminal Code and with other bills that are in the process of being amended. If things conflict in some way, all kinds of problems can be created in the future.
There is no question that we do like the idea of allowing families in cases of egregious crimes to avoid the stress and the horror of having to sit through a parole eligibility hearing every few years for an offender who realistically is never going to get out of prison. I think it is fair to say that a lot of Canadians do not realize that even though we think of the maximum sentence as being 25 years, the maximum sentence in Canada is life. There are people in prison in Canada who are there for the rest of their lives, for actual life, because although after 25 years a person in the worst cases can apply for parole, the fact of the matter is that there are people who do not get it.
Really, the question we are talking about here tonight is this: in the cases of the kinds of people who are not likely to ever get parole, how frequently should a family have to go through the process of worrying about the possibility of that criminal getting eligibility and being paroled? That is obviously a fearful and very worrisome thing. Not only do those families feel revictimized by this process but there is also a concern about what that person might do to someone else. That is a concern we all share as Canadians and as members of the House.
We think there are some flaws in this bill that could perhaps be corrected in committee. First of all, it would eliminate one of the only incentives for a certain class of violent offender to behave well in prison. There is a question here about whether taking this particular class of offenders, as opposed to a broader class of serious offenders, is the right way to achieve the objective.
It is also important to think about what eligibility for parole can mean in prison. We know from people who look at these things and from people I have talked to in the past from law enforcement and from prison guards that when we are dealing with offenders in prison, there can be a real difference between the offender who hopes for parole and therefore works toward rehabilitation, which we would all like to see, particularly with those offenders who will someday get out, and the one who has no hope of getting parole. There is a difference in the way they treat other inmates and guards and in terms of the safety of the correctional service guards. We do not want to put those guards in a worse situation.
Moreover, it may be the attitude of the government that anyone who is in prison should rot there, and it may not even think about the question of rehabilitation. However, not every offender is going to be there forever. Some offenders are, in fact, going to get out, so doing whatever we can to support rehabilitation during the period of their incarceration is absolutely vital, especially for those who will get back out into society.
We have seen many cases of offenders who go to prison, do their time, serve their time, and come out and do not commit offences. They become good citizens. We would like to see more of those, and we should always consider what impact a bill might have on that process.
