Thanks.
It's an interesting debate, because what Mr. Rathgeber's questioning led to is the agreement in the room that civilians outside the room feel that life is life and it isn't 25 or 28, which is the actual average statistic, and that there are murderers who get out after seven years or nine years, or what have you, through the working of the parole board--murderers, second degree, after 10 years, 17 years, or whatever.
That's the working of the parole board. You laud the work of the parole board because they are given the task of freeing people who have committed murders and have been given life sentences by judges. I don't think the public sees it that way. It seems like a bit of an error on the government's part not to look at--and maybe they are--either the educative aspect or the legislative aspect of the parole board. That seems to be, from their own mouths, one of the problems.
It's precisely because every murder is different. I don't think there's anybody in this room who thinks that Clifford Olson should be up for parole every so often, either. He should be in for 275 years, as the 11 sentences would be. It should never happen, but in the government's own words, they recognize the problem of murder in general.
Mr. Petit, again, the patterns of multiple murders are extremely varied. They range from cold-blooded serial killings and contract killings to unplanned killings in the heat of passion, parental killing of children, workplace killings of fellow workers, right through to killings by persons in delusional states cause by alcohol, drugs, and mental illness. I think what you're saying is there are cases where people should be given a parole eligibility because they might be worthwhile to society. I get that.
In the case of multiple murders, the Department of Justice official was exceedingly unhelpful in trying to see a way of amending the bill or seeing why there wouldn't be discretion. It seems to me that proposed section 745.51 could be amended at the end to give that judge the discretion between 25 and 50 years. He can't do it in numbers because it's the multiple of the number of murders there are, but somewhere between 10 and 20, somewhere between 20 and 40. If that were there, that would be true discretion, which the government, in its own words, believes in now with respect to judges, and I think on this side we believe in. Wouldn't that be a neat amendment? I don't think it would be outside the scope of the bill. What do you think of that kind of amendment?