Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Justice.
On Tuesday afternoon in a Vancouver courtroom Dale John Hicks was found guilty of manslaughter in the killing of Caren Rainey and Laurie Wood.
The charge was reduced from second degree murder to manslaughter. The reason given for this reduction was that Hicks had not shown an intention to kill the two women but merely to assault them. Their brutal deaths, with one being stabbed 17 times, was blamed on the cocaine that Hicks had taken rather than on Hicks himself.
On behalf of the families of these two victims and millions of other Canadians, will the minister consider changing the law so that substance abuse does not constitute an excuse for murder?