At first glance, this is the second time, for instance, Mr. Mandelcorn, that I've questioned you. I have a pretty good memory of what I asked you last time, so I won't ask you the same thing again.
Where I come from on this is...as you know, everybody in their community has an instance where a 13-year-old girl is gunned down by someone in a store. We have one in a small community like Moncton. Every so often there's a parole board application by the offender, who really isn't hero number one in a place like Moncton. So sympathies for the victims, the victims' families, are very much on the minds of people in these cases. If we can work out a way to minimize the re-victimization, I think we could get through to the argument that is so appealing from all of the panellists here, that it is, to use the phrase, a solution looking for a problem.
I fully respect, Mr. Sauvé, Mr. McIsaac, your testimony. It's very compelling. But from a legal point of view, what effect would these changes have in sentencing procedures? Would judges and lawyers now look at it and say one of the reasons, under clemency and prerogative, that this section 745 was brought in to counterbalance the taking away of the death penalty, was to give this hope, any type of hope, of rehabilitation?
Will it have an effect? I'm trying to get inside the mind of the criminal courtroom. Will there be, in the back of the mind of the judge, a thought...“I know it's supposed to be beyond a reasonable doubt and all that, but...”? Would it make the doubt even less? Could there possibly be fewer convictions because the judge knows, and perhaps the prosecutor, in laying the charge, that the consequences are going to be made much more grave I think--long term for a long-term offender? That's one question I have.
The other thing that troubles me is that we have lifers spending, on average, 28 years in prison. We like to compare ourselves not to the United States but to European countries, which on average have something like 10, 11, and 12. Is there something we're missing in the comparison? I'll ask Mr. Mandelcorn. Is there something in those jurisdictions that grade the laws differently? Is there a different nomenclature for the laws? Is there a different system? Why are they so markedly different from us on that?
So those are two, really, legal questions to you, Mr. Mandelcorn, because we only have five minutes.