Mr. Speaker, it is a privilege to join in the debate and to follow the very moving and eloquent words of the member for Halifax. I am sure the House was moved in a very real and a very positive way five years ago when this tragic occurrence took place.
It is particularly timely to reflect on that. We are exploring violence in our society as we begin to discuss the impending legislation, Bill C-41, which is the hate law and the legislation to come on gun control.
All of these things are intermingled and mixed with the violence that seems to be pervasive in our society. When we turn on the television and see children's programs that are one violent scene after another, when we go to movies and see that they are based almost exclusively on violence can we wonder when it happens in our midst what causes it?
This incident was horrible to a degree that we in Canada had not ever seen previously. It was aimed not randomly but specifically at women. The action was taken by someone who could have lived next door to any one of us, by someone who could have been one of our children, someone who otherwise seemed to be normal and just like everybody else.
This happened to ordinary people who were identified specifically because they were women and the killer thought they were a threat to him. They were engineering students in an occupation that traditionally has not had a lot of women.
My wife and I have a daughter who is an engineer. We understand that females who are engineers are unique because there are not that many of them. This touches so many of our lives because of the very ordinariness of the people who were affected by it and by the fact that it happened in Canada. This kind of thing just does not happen in Canada.
It does happen in Canada. It happens all over our country. It happens with alarming frequency. It happens with randomness. Here in Ottawa we had a young man who had just finished university shot and killed by a random act of violence in a drive-by shooting by a young offender.
When we compare that to the horrific events of the l'École Polytechnique five years ago, we have to speak to all of the people who are victims of violence, not just those who were tragically killed that night. Barb Danelesko was awakened in her home. She is just as dead, just as gone from her loved ones as anyone else.
As a society and as a legislative body we need to get beyond the superficial and see if we cannot find out what are the underlying problems in our society that cause or will allow this
kind of tragedy to happen. Violence against women is usually a domestic situation.
One thing that has puzzled me is that when there is violence in a domestic situation it is the women and the children who end up leaving the home and going to a shelter. The perpetrator of the violence is given a warning but usually that is about it. It is usually a male and he is usually allowed to go to work and lead a fairly normal life. What happens to the children? They end up being shunted about, torn from their home, torn from the things most familiar to them, torn from their friends and perhaps even torn from extended families if they are being stalked.
Why can we not throw the husband in jail? It is because the husband has rights. Society does not have rights. The children do not have rights. The wife who may well be dead does not have rights but the husband has rights.
The member for Halifax mentioned in her dissertation when she alluded to the question of gun control that sometimes in the greater good the rights of others need to be trampled. I believe in this reference she was speaking about firearms, and perhaps the rights of people to own and use firearms for the greater good have to be in some way restricted.
If we accept that as being true, surely in the interest of the same greater good the rights of husbands should also be curtailed. It makes absolutely no sense to me that society would have a situation where we protect the rights of an abuser or a husband, take the wife and the children from the home and put them into a shelter because we cannot in any way interfere with the rights of the husband. It makes no sense whatsoever. Why can we not throw him in jail for 90 days or 120 days, for a cooling off period?
Statistics show the vast majority of women are injured or killed as a result of domestic situations. However also in a vast majority of cases neighbours or friends know a disaster is about to happen. If we as fellow citizens, neighbours or relatives know that, why can we not intervene? Why can we not tell the police?
One of the underlying factors in domestic homicide is violence. If people are not getting along the chances of them being shot are greatly enhanced. Therefore it would be a good idea if the police very quietly and very gently said: "We know you are having problems. We do not want them to get worse. We know that you have guns. We want to remove these guns from your home for the protection of society and for the greater good. When the problems abate we will return them".
These laws are on the books right now. It would not require one new law. The police have the right to confiscate weapons if they feel and have good knowledge that there is the possibility of a crime being committed with the weapons.
We need to be cautious when we are promulgating laws that deal with violence in homes, violence in general or violence in society. We have a situation in the country where violence is really endemic in society. In my view we are now trying to put politics ahead of principle. The principle we as a nation should hold dear is that we will not condone or in any way allow violence to become the way to resolve disputes in our society. Whether it is father and son, husband and wife or brother against brother, we are not going to use violence as a means of solving disputes in society.
We all agree on principle. I am sure every member of the House would disagree with the statement of principle that we do not want violence to be the means by which we resolve differences. What happens in a society when we say that some forms of violence or violence directed toward some people is more reprehensible than others? In my view that happens when we start to introduce penalties associated with a defining characteristic of the victim rather than the principle that we should not be doing it. It is almost as though we make allowances for some forms of violence or violence toward some people because they do not happen to fit in to a protected category.
I know this is not the intent of the legislation. I know this is not the intent of the government. However it is the reality of the legislation and the government if not the intent. We have abrogated the principle of evenness and fairness to all and replaced it with the notion that crimes committed against a person of a particular gender or with a particular defining characteristic are more heinous than crimes committed against the norm. That just does not make sense.
It does not speak to the root problem in society, that we tolerate ever increasing levels of violence as a means of resolving disputes. We see that in our grade schools. We see that on television when we turn on the TV. I wonder how many people have ever seen "Power Rangers", the children's program that was banned in many places.
When children grow up watching an ever increasing level of violence that is accepted, tolerated and condoned, is it any wonder that we end up with a society that uses violence to resolve disputes? I am speaking directly to the question of domestic violence, which is the vast majority of violence in our society.
Another form of violence I would like to spend a few minutes speaking to this afternoon is the violence directed toward children. That violence is the passive violence of neglect. In Edmonton there is a home called the Youth Emergency Shelter which is pretty much run by a few professional, very capable staff members and a lot of volunteers. It is pretty much supported by donations. It has a tremendous reputation within the community.
In 1983 in a nine-month period the Youth Emergency Shelter in Edmonton comforted around 200 young people around the ages of 14 to 16. Last year it was 200 and some or about a 15 per cent increase in the number of people helped by the Youth Emergency Shelter. We talked to the people at the shelter and asked them why people came to them and what their success rate was in salvaging young lives.
If we are to use a prophylactic approach to violence in our community, it would make great sense to be far more interventionist in support of agencies like the Youth Emergency Shelter so that children and young people 13 years old, who certainly could not be called children, have a place to which to go and be welcomed without question. They do not have to go to the door, knock on the door and ask to come in because they have done this or that. All they have to do is show up. When they are there they have to abide by the rules. They are welcomed. They are fed. They are given warmth and love. An attempt is made when possible to reunite the young people with their families.
What often happens is that a situation between a parent and a child becomes desperate and reaches a pivotal moment. Words are said and perhaps even blows are exchanged. One thing leads to another and the child leaves the home. Even if it is not the case, many young people feel they just cannot go back, that they are not welcome.
In many cases all that is required is a cooling off period, an opportunity for the young people to give it a second thought and the parents to speak to someone who has had some experience in this regard. As parents we all perhaps think we are inventing every situation as it comes along, but I have learned through my association, limited thought it is, with the Youth Emergency Shelter and my long experience with the youth programs of the Rotary that none of us are going through a unique occurrence. It has always happened to someone else before and many of us are in exactly the same boat.
It requires someone with some skill, some compassion and motivation to be an intervener and to build a bridge between the parents and the children to get the children, where possible, back into the nurturing environment of their homes. As we know that is not always the case. From time to time the only hope for a young person is to get out of an abusive situation.
We could make a tremendous return on our investment in society if we were to ensure that those young people who could not go back to their homes had another place to which they could go where they would feel safe and secure. We could keep them out of jail and perhaps they could become productive members of society.
I have had an opportunity to share in the debate today. I did so recognizing that violence in society directed toward women is something that all of us, men and women, have a role to play in preventing or in some way ameliorating. As well we need to look at the complete and the broader picture of violence as a part of our society, in particular the passive violence of neglect and abuse of children at home.