Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Ms. Pate, thank you for being here today. With my colleagues, I'd also like to thank you for the good work you do to help people in difficult circumstances.
When you last appeared before this committee on the previous iteration of this bill, which I believe was Bill C-36, you appeared at the same time with Ms. Sharon Rosenfeldt, who leads a group called Victims of Violence and I believe was herself a victim of violence. One of her children was one of the victims of Clifford Olson. She said a number of things that I thought were quite interesting in that testimony that day. I'd just like to read a few passages. She said that when the member of Parliament who was responsible for the faint hope clause
talked about the waste of the life of the offender who is kept in prison for 25 years, he seemed not to take into consideration the innocent life the offender wasted when he or she made the decision to commit murder. There is no parole or judicial review for murder victims and their families. They have no faint hope clause or legal loophole to shorten their sentence.
She went on to say:
Most victims of crime feel we need to attend any and all proceedings dealing with the offender who took our loved one's life. It is with humble honour and strong conviction that we represent our loved one, for you see, no matter how many years go by, there is never closure when another human being has taken your loved one's life. There is never closure in the manner in which your loved one died. It is unnatural. The result of murder is ugly. The wound of the crime in violence is always there at the surface. It never leaves, even though our lives continue and we discover some years later that there really is a life after murder. In reality, the victim knows there is closure to certain stages of the justice system, there is a finality to the proceedings, or there is supposed to be, and that finality is a form of closure. For us, it seems it is the only form of human rights we have on behalf of our loved one, so we, the family, will always be there to represent them.
She went on to say:
...it is quite simple for us: the offender and the justice system may have forgotten our loved ones, but we, the victims' families, have not. Most of us will always be there to represent them and speak on their behalf. That is why victims' families attend any and all hearings, even though it opens up the wounds no matter how many years have gone by. That is just the way it is.
As other members of the committee have pointed out, with respect to currently incarcerated murderers, they have the right currently to apply under the faint hope clause at years 15, 17, 19, 21, and 23 of their incarceration. Each and every time they do that, those victims' families feel a need to come back before the parole hearings to represent the loved one who has been taken from them. I'd just be interested to hear your comment on that and your response to Ms. Rosenfeldt's concerns.