Mr. Speaker, I am privileged and proud to be asked to speak to private member's Bill C-240 put forth by my colleague from Surrey-White Rock-South Langley.
My colleague previously spoke briefly about stirring up passions and primal instincts when talking about such a subject. I guess my colleague would do well to live in a community like mine, surrounded by seven prisons and correctional institutes. He would know what passions would be in a community that has many offenders wandering the streets on day parole.
My colleague has given a picture of what ails the criminal justice system specifically in the area of detaining dangerous offenders. I would like to tell a story that illustrates just how bad things have become. Bureaucratic mismanagement in itself is not much of a story. Unfortunately people are killed in these stories, innocent people who leave behind families filled with rage and sorrow. Let me be absolutely clear that although these tales read like detective novels, the real reason we in the Reform Party are focusing on them is the human suffering caused by the criminal justice system that we feel has fallen apart. I was quite incensed today to see the justice minister stand in question period and suggest that the system is working well. It is not working well.
My first story is this one. In a basement apartment in Seattle at the end of a hallway, out of sight of windows and doorways, rests a chair. At the base of the chair is a pool of blood three inches in diameter. The trail leads upward to a stab wound in the chest of a 57-year old man slumped slightly to the right and forward. A large band of masking tape covers his mouth and the rope used to strangle him dangles loosely around his neck.
Although this may sound like fiction it is not. This is fact. It is a description taken directly from the police report and documents I have received from prosecuting attorney Norm Maleng of King County, Washington.
Why Washington? The two men charged with the first degree murder of Elijio Cantu on June 5 were escapees from a minimum security facility in the Fraser Valley where my home is. The corrections system classified these men as low risk offenders yet one of them had been convicted of attempted murder of a police
officer and had killed another inmate. The story we get from the government is that these escapes are rare and not statistically significant. I would challenge any member of the government to tell that to the family of the victim.
I have another story that comes from a woman in the same town the prison is in. Two young men walk into a pizza place in Abbotsford, British Columbia, where I live. One of them is armed with a sawed off shotgun. No one is shot during the robbery but the restaurant employee who had to stare down the business end of a sawed off shotgun testified he will never be the same. However the story does not end there.
Rosalie Turcotte's son was 19 years old when he was savagely beaten to death with a baseball bat and buried in a shallow grave near Mill Pond in Mission, British Columbia, just a few miles from my house. The young man who was recently convicted of the murder is the one who wielded the sawed off shotgun in the pizza place robbery. He was trying to silence his accomplice, Ken Turcotte, who had told his friends he wanted to confess to his mother about the robbery.
Zachary Finley who killed Rosalie Turcotte's son, Ken, will be eligible to apply for temporary absences immediately. He will be eligible to apply for day parole three full years before the date set by the judge for parole.
Zachary Finley killed Rosalie Turcotte's son, Ken, and was convicted of second degree murder which carries a maximum sentence of life with parole eligibility set at a minimum of 10 years. When the crown's request to increase that to 15 years was denied, a member of the victim's family became distraught. The convicted criminal who committed the brutal act laughed.
What does Rosalie Turcotte have to say about our criminal justice system after her ordeal? Let me quote, and I have talked to Rosalie a number of times: "This is supposed to be our system, paid for and accountable to us. How has it eroded to such a sorry state of affairs? The only ones being served by the system as it stands now are the offenders and their lawyers who are laughing all the way to the bank".
I find this funny. No, let me rephrase that. I find it ironic. It is really the criminals who find it funny. Last week I was asked to debate the head of the John Howard Society over the rights of prisoners to receive old age security, GST rebates, Canada pension plan and other payments. During that interview he was adamant, and I quote: "The prisoners are not laughing at the system". I said it then and, just in case the John Howard Society or any other prisoners rights groups are listening, I will say it again. Listen closely. They are laughing at us.
There is another story that my colleague spoke about previously but I want to indicate some more details that I have been given from certain sources. The House may have heard a bit about the saga of Larry Fisher from my colleague and in the newspapers. He has been released recently after serving his full sentence. Mr. Fisher who has reportedly been sighted in the riding of another one of my colleagues this week has a history familiar to anyone not living in a cave.
Mr. Fisher was released from his latest prison term two weeks ago. It was a 10-year sentence for the rape, stabbing and attempted strangulation of a Saskatchewan woman. Mr. Fisher has been behind bars for 23 years except for a brief taste of freedom on 1980 when he was granted escorted parole. He grabbed a 56-year old woman, dragged her into an abandoned house, raped her, stabbed her three times, slit her throat, tried to suffocate her and left her for dead. He was convicted of six previous rapes.
Let me quote from yet another significant document I have received on the parole board's official reasons for denying Mr. Fisher's parole on April 1, 1993. Mr. Speaker, note the date, April 1, 1993, April Fool's Day, and ask yourself, when I am finished with the story who is fooling whom.
At the time the board said of Mr. Fisher: "There are no significant changes to demonstrate that your release can be managed in the community on any form of conditional release or that your likelihood of reoffending and causing serious harm has been lessened in any way. Therefore detention is confirmed".
Let us jump ahead in the story to February 1994, not too long after that, the next time the board ruled on his case: "There is no new information on file to suggest that your risk of reoffending in a violent manner has been mitigated or reduced since your last review and the detention order is confirmed".
Just a few weeks later this man was released into the community because his sentence had expired. Let us think about this for a moment. After issuing two clear statements about the dangers this man would pose to society if released, the system is forced to release him anyway.
Our question is simple: Why? Why can the system not take its own advice and keep high risk offenders like this where they belong, behind bars? The criminals are laughing at the government whose members day after day stand in the House to tell a story. Their story is that the system works, everything is okay, and the Reform Party is playing politics. Our story is that the system is laughable. It is beneath contempt.
More important, I want to stress before closing that our story is not really our story. It is the story of Rosalie Turcotte who lost her son. It is the story of a man in Seattle who lost his life. It is
the story of Larry Fisher and all the people living in fear in the communities where he is sighted. Increasingly it is becoming the story of a government that has not only lost touch with reality but has lost the courage to act responsibly and to make the necessary corrections.
My colleague's bill is an excellent one. We need the courage to stand up to the naysayers, those who will do nothing, and send a clear message to the justice system that these dangerous offenders must not and cannot be allowed back on the streets until they have proven they are ready.