Mr. Speaker, in this society of ours, criminality, and particularly the kind of sexual offences Bill C-240 deals with, is a very sensitive subject. Sure, we have to talk about it, but as parliamentarians we have the moral obligation not to turn this into a circus. This is a very sensitive issue.
The death of a child is always a tragedy. Whether a child dies in a car accident, of natural causes, or whether he is abused before being killed, it is still a death.
As individual members of a society, regardless of who and where we are, we have the fundamental and legitimate duty to protect children who, after all, represent the generation for which all of us here work. Indeed, we must protect children. We must do everything we can to provide them with the best possible future in the safest possible world. However, it is wrong to want to eliminate anyone who dares get close to a child.
I want to make it clear that the Official Opposition does not take lightly a tragedy like the one referred to by the Reform Party member, in his speech to this House, on June 10. I am alluding to the case of young Christopher Stephenson who, on the evening of June 17, 1988, was kidnapped and then physically
and sexually abused for over 24 hours by a 45-year-old individual named Joseph Fredericks.
No one in his or her right mind can tolerate tragedies like that. And I mean no one. We often hear people say that inmates are all like this or like that, but the fact is that they have their own code in detention centres. Indeed, even inmates who have committed crimes themselves do not tolerate such horrible crimes. All of us, including criminals, agree that to hurt a child is a terrible thing to do. In January 1992, some inmates in Collin's Bay penitentiary, Ontario, took justice into their own hands and Joseph Fredericks was stabbed while serving his sentence in that institution.
You know, the worst thing is that, whether they have raped, injured, killed or done all of the above, child molesters have to face the judicial system to be sent to jail. They have to go through the whole usual process to be sentenced. And then they end up behind bars.
Once inside the penitentiary, they have to face another type of police, as I indicated earlier. That is why these individuals need the form of protection commonly referred to as inside protection, or the protect as they say.
I am not here to champion unduly the cause of such offenders, but nonetheless, if the judicial system sentenced them once, we should not keep sentencing them over and over, any time we feel like it. The main fault we find with the correctional system is this huge number of inside policies that govern the parole procedure. In other words, giving too much of a free rein to individuals who are not necessarily appointed because of their high qualifications but, in some cases, because of their party affiliation. To put it bluntly, these positions are too often filled by party hacks.
Once a person has been sentenced, members of the parole committee should not be given the authority to "retry" the convict by trying to find out whether for some reason, it would have been better to, or not to, and so forth, because there is no end to the administrative maze. If we do that, we will get into an incredible mess, a real mountain of red tape.
When a judge hands down a sentence-it was a judge who told me this, and I think all judges would agree-he does so on the basis of his assessment that by the end of the sentence, the individual will normally have served his term and realize, after going through the system and the follow-up services that are available, that he must not repeat the offence for which he was incarcerated.
Of course, if this worked every time, it would be an ideal world, and we have yet to achieve that objective.
On the other hand, when we look at cases like the one involving young Christopher Stephenson, everyone deplores the mistakes that were made and, of course, mistakes were made, unfortunately. Everyone deplores such mistakes. However, statistics show-because we must look at both sides of the coin; we were not elected to act in demagogic or dramatic ways-that only 6 per cent of parolees reoffend within six months of their release. Granted, they can commit new offences after the six months are up. But even if we go up to 10 per cent, which is a large increase, it means that the current correctional system still works for 90 per cent of the people. After a period of imprisonment, 90 per cent of the people can regain the freedom to which they, like you and I, are entitled.
We live in a democratic and human system managed by human beings so, on the one hand, there will always be mistakes but, on the other hand, we must also work to improve living conditions for individuals like ourselves. That is what we call community.
There will always be marginal cases; there will always be people who take undue advantage of the system, be they insiders or outsiders. Of course some people will get away, but when a system has a success rate of 90 to 94 per cent, I think that we must start on that basis and try to improve it and not just focus on the 6 per cent and dwell on them and go after them.
Yes, there is work to be done, that is quite true, everyone agrees. But I think that letting people who are not even judges render a second judgement, as the bill would do, is going too far.
I will conclude with that. Of course there is a flaw, as everyone will agree. As I just said, the system is not perfect. Many people from all backgrounds are working on it in good faith, I think. Even people who do not always deal with the public but are in the community or are senior officials. They all work hard and listen to the people.
Yes, we have to look for a solution, but I really doubt that we will find it in Bill C-240.