Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to participate in the debate on Bill C-226, tabled by the hon. member for York South-Weston.
I have to admit that, when first asked if I wanted to discuss this issue, I almost decided to resort to demagogic comments such as: A criminal is the victim of his own action. All sorts of ideas like that are expressed and, unfortunately, too often by parties in this House, including the Reform Party, which I certainly respect. However, these comments sometime distort the reality.
I have met a few individuals who did truly regrettable things, including murder. Some of them never repented; they wilfully committed their crime. Even after a rather long time in jail, they had not learned anything. I think they would have been capable of committing the same crime again. Yes, there are such individuals.
We also have in mind the recent example of people who committed unfortunate acts. We know famous elected officials who ruined their careers by mere shoplifting, like the one who took a jacket from a department store.
That is why I have always said that the brain is the weakest organ in the human body. The brain sometimes betrays its owner.
Recently, in the Gaspé region, a father threw himself off a bridge with his three children. If this man had survived, I think he would have been the unhappiest of men. This unexplainable act is still a mystery.
When dealing with a mistake made without forethought and often unintentionally, our society must not act out of revenge in handing down sentences and guarding prisoners. It is not up to society to avenge victims.
Society benefits from the incarceration system, which removes dangerous offenders from its midst. However, it eventually realizes that these people are rehabilitated-as we often realize from the outset that rehabilitation is possible by reading pre-sentence reports, etc. As soon as offenders start serving their sentences, correctional officers have a pretty good idea if they will eventually be able to reintegrate society.
Jailing people also entails social costs, major repercussions on their immediate families, not to mention purely financial costs. Unfortunately, there have been reports lately that our prisons are overcrowded.
I believe that section 745 of the Criminal Code, which this bill seeks to strike down, has its purpose in the sense that, in certain cases, it provides for the re-evaluation, after the fact, of the state of mind of individuals who committed crimes and allows for an assessment of the advisability of their release. There is nothing mandatory in section 745. The jury hearing the application is not obliged to release the inmate. This review can only take place 15 years after sentencing. Then, people who know right from wrong and can weigh the pros and cons, may recommend that the individual be released.
I believe that in a society like ours, we must be able to afford acts of mercy of this kind since, as I mentioned before, sometimes people who committed crimes were not in their right minds at the time, a situation which can change after a while.
Therefore, in my opinion, it would be mean and would not benefit society. It could even be costly. When people are truly repentant, when they acknowledge their wrongdoings, take appropriate actions to solve their problems while in prison, and get positive results, keeping them in prison would be an act of revenge on the part of society.
A society which acts out of revenge is often ill-inspired and ill-advised. Revenge is a very poor adviser.
I know that there are heinous crimes. The Reform Party never fails to mention a few during Question Period. It is like an endless round of quotes from reporters on the police beat: "In Winnipeg, between 42nd and 32nd Avenue, at 2.25 a.m., So-and-so stabbed and killed Ms. Someone, as she left the hospital where she worked. She was wearing hushpuppies". And so on.
We hear this time and time again, and every time the Reform Party asks for stiffer or longer sentences. There is truth in what they say. Society must not leave crime unpunished and violence should not rule our society. I heard the hon. member for York South-Weston during the referendum debate. I was not a member then, I was not even in politics, but I heard him speak heinously of Quebec. That was at the time of the Charlottetown and Meech Lake agreements and the hon. member was probably driven by his well-known fiery spirit. I can understand that, but in Quebec we were hurt.
We do not bear a grudge against the hon. member who introduced this bill. We understand that this fiery spirit of his and boundless love for this beautiful country can lead to the fits of anger he is known for.
I read in the papers, yesterday, that the hon. member was himself the target of violence, and that he had to seek help and protection from the authorities, and I feel for him. I said to myself: a man of his intelligence must realize how violence feels-parliamentary violence, or verbal or political violence or whatever-we could even talk about ecological violence, for instance. Violence in any form, no matter who the perpetrator, is always bad, and I am sure the hon. member for York South-Weston realizes that now, which probably explains why, since last year, he has become extremely civil in his dealings with his colleagues in the Bloc.
I think the hon. member has seen the light. He is aware that society can and must exercise a measure of clemency at some point. If society does not believe in rehabilitation, why did we get rid of capital punishment?
I am somewhat baffled by all these considerations. The section they want to abolish was used by 40 people in the past 28 years. I have seen no statistics to show that these people became repeaters or abused their freedom.
For all these reasons, and considering the small number of cases that have come before the courts since this section came into effect, I am inclined to vote against this bill.