Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, for the invitation and the opportunity to speak here today.
Thank you to Mr. Brock.
As I am a victim and have gone through our justice system, I believe that victims' rights and the lack thereof are in great need of review.
My name is Sharlene Bosma. On May 6, 2013, my husband Tim was taken from our home and shot in his own truck across the road from our house. His body was eventually taken to Waterloo airport and then burned in an animal incinerator.
We spent eight days searching the province for him, not knowing where he was. On the eighth day, my world fell apart and I learned one of the most horrifying phrases in the English language: “His body was burned beyond recognition.” It took another three years before I was allowed to know what that meant.
Through the excellent work of the Hamilton police department, in conjunction with police forces from surrounding areas, two arrests were made shortly thereafter, and in 2016 we spent six months at trial in Hamilton. The team of Crown attorneys worked extremely hard and were victorious, with not one but both offenders being convicted of first-degree murder. The investigation into my husband's murder led to further charges being laid for the deaths of Laura Babcock and Wayne Millard, both of which also resulted in first-degree murder convictions.
I cannot convey the overwhelming amount of joy and relief that we as a family shared when the court determined consecutive life sentences in each case—75 years and 50 years for cold-blooded, heartless killers. As the mother of a little girl who was not quite two and a half when her father was murdered, I was extremely thankful that she would never, ever have to face the monsters who killed her father for no reason other than they simply could.
In comparison to many other homicide families that I have had the unfortunate privilege to meet in the last nine and a half years, our case, our convictions and our sentencing were the absolute best that anyone in our position could hope for. It allowed hope for other victims that yes, perhaps in the Canadian justice system, justice might actually be served and offenders sentenced according to the crimes they have committed—a true life for a life.
Some may say that because of the overall positive experience that I had with the police departments and the Crown attorneys' offices, I'm in no position to comment on victims' rights. They may be right, but it does not diminish my ability to stand here before you and fight for my daughter's future and for those who were unable to benefit from the same positive experience that I had. Everyone needs and has the right to the same justice system that was bestowed upon me.
In May of this year, our government took away one of the very few things that we as victims had to hold on to, which was consecutive sentencing. It was one of the greatest blows that the Canadian government has ever dealt to victims of violent crime. It says to us that someone can kill as many people as they want here in Canada because sentencing will not change. It says that Canada only places value on the first victim, with the lives of any other victims not mattering—not here in Canada.
My daughter was two and a half when her father was murdered, as I mentioned earlier. She has no memories of her own of her father. She was never given the chance; it was ripped away from her. All she has are stories and photos that I and others close to him share. Some may say that it's enough, but it's not. She had a right to know her father. She had the right to be raised by him and know him for the loving man that he was, just as much as anyone else.
Now, because of the ruling in May, when my daughter is 27 she will be asked to carry on the fight that I thought I had already fought for her. The parole hearings will begin. She will be called upon to state why these monsters should not be offered any sense of freedom and why they should stay in prison. She will have to face the soulless psychopaths who scarred her life before she even knew that it was her own.
In those moments, she will be the little toddler begging for her daddy to come home, but in the body of a woman. She will be defending her father’s life and the lives of Laura and Wayne to keep those men in jail.
It will not only be up to me, but up to my daughter to continue the fight, because this government puts more value on the life of the criminal than of its law-abiding citizens. Our nightmare will start all over again. We will be revictimized and will relive all of the trauma each and every time they apply for parole.
As victims in our current society, we are treated as pariahs in our schools, our places of worship and our work. In many people’s minds, it is easier to believe that we have done something wrong to deserve this, rather than to accept that really, truly, there are monsters in human form in this country. If it can happen to us, it can happen to you.
As a victim, I can tell you that Canada does not care about us. I ask this committee to prove to me and to all other victims of violent crime that I am wrong. Stand up for us, as we have fought to do so for ourselves. Show me that I am wrong.