Mr. Speaker, going through Bill C-45 raises a great concern about sexual offenders and sentences that they are given. In these days, sexual offences make headlines in all the media everywhere in the country.
Our duty, as elected people, is to legislate in such a way that the action we are taking will have positive results. Public safety is everyone's responsibility. But there is no point in passing legislation just to pretend we have done our job and this piece of legislation must be the least confusing possible. It is important that its enforcement be as easy as possible and, finally, this whole series of action must be efficient. Killers must not kill any more, thieves must not steal any more and rapists must not rape any more.
I will deal mainly with clause 3 of the proposed bill. It says, and I quote: "The Commissioner may in writing designate any staff member, either by name or by class, to be a peace officer, and a staff member so designated has all the powers, authority, protection and privileges that a peace officer has by law in respect of an offender subject to a warrant, and any person, while the person is in a penitentiary". It is that point I have a problem with.
I knew that the job of a correctional officer in a penitentiary was not well known, but I am very disappointed to see how badly it is known. In that clause of Bill C-45, it is clearly written that the commissioner may in writing designate, for instance, a night security officer from some warehouse to be a correctional officer in a penitentiary. I have nothing against security officers who protect warehouses and other buildings and I am sure they do a very good job. But that has nothing to do with the job and responsibilities of a correctional officer in a penitentiary. Absolutely nothing!
A correctional officer is a person who has been very carefully chosen. The time is long gone when people would offer their services as a policeman or a prison guard because they could not find jobs and had big muscles. That was the case at the beginning of the century. But this should not be the case at the end of this century. For instance, if there is no corrections officer around inside a penitentiary, it is highly unlikely anyone would try to break in. In fact for centuries, the tendency has been for people to try to break out.
However, in a warehouse without any security, it is very likely some people will likely help themselves, in the absence of security personnel. I mentioned earlier that corrections officers are very carefully screened. Among the many qualifications these people must have, there are some that everyone should have, including honesty and impartiality. I think we can assume every upstanding citizen has those qualities, but he must also have above average judgment and tremendous self-control.
He must also have very acute powers of observation. His personal safety and the safety of his colleagues and the public depends on it. And last, but not least, he must pass an impressive battery of tests to determine his personal and interpersonal strengths. Government personnel departments, also known as human resources, invest many months' worth of tests, analyses and studies in each case before they select the individual or individuals best suited to perform the duties of a corrections officer.
Do you know that at the Port-Cartier penitentiary, which opened in 1988 or 1989, more than 23,000 applications were received and processed? Port-Cartier has about 250 employees, including 188 corrections officers. The selection process took more than 20 months, from the day the initial advertisement was published in the media to the first day on the job.
In the same area, the Government of Quebec regularly takes from 16 to 20 months to complete its selection process. I am sure this also applies to the nine other provinces as well.
We must not wait until something terrible happens to take the proper action. We must act now, as soon as the bill goes to committee, to consider the impact some clauses may have. You do not wait until a book is published to correct the proofs.
About the proposed deductions from inmates' income mentioned in cluases 21 and 26, it seems inmates might see the cost of room and board deducted from their income. How would this measure be implemented? That is a question Bill C-45 fails to answer. What would it cost to introduce such a measure? Here again, the bill does not deliver.
Finally, and this may be why the bill does not provide an answer, how much will these measures save the Treasury? We
cannot afford to introduce measures for their own sake. Getting four quarters for a dollar is certainly not worth the trouble.
On the subject of parole, the bill proposes that individuals serving a second sentence for the same offence should not be eligible for parole. We must look at this very carefully. People complain that some individuals were poorly assessed before their release on parole. If we deny an individual the opportunity to be released on parole, this means there will be no evaluation, either negative or positive, in his file. Once he has served his sentence, he will be forced back into a society he has not seen for months or, in many cases, years. He will be on his own in a world that has continued to evolve and grow and which will certainly have changed. Do we have the moral right to do this?
In concluding, I wish to say that we in the Bloc Quebecois will work on improving this bill, in committee and in the House. We will do our utmost to make this bill as transparent and, above all, as efficient as possible.