Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak on Bill C-41 which is an amendment to the Criminal Code regarding sentencing.
I want to focus specifically on what the hon. member had touched on in his speech, that is, section 745 of the Criminal Code. This bill leaves section 745 in the code which makes a mockery of the term life imprisonment.
In 1976 the government abolished the death penalty and assured us that society would be protected by sentencing murderers to life imprisonment with no chance for parole for 25 years. However Bill C-84 which was to accomplish this contained a little known clause which created section 745 of the Criminal Code.
Section 745 nullifies the term life imprisonment and grants murderers the right to apply for parole eligibility after serving only 15 years of a life sentence. Section 745(1) of the Criminal Code reads: "Where a person has served at least 15 years of his sentence he may apply to the appropriate Chief Justice in the province in which the conviction took place for a reduction in
his number of years of imprisonment without eligibility for parole".
This section makes a complete mockery of the so-called life sentence which was a trade-off for the elimination of capital punishment in our statutes.
One parliamentarian in support of section 745 called it "a glimmer of hope if some incentive is to be left when such a terrible penalty is imposed on the most serious of all criminals". This parliamentarian reflects the typical, irresponsible, unaccountable, bleeding-heart mentality that underlines so much of the legislation passed in this House over the last 25 years, including our parole system, our Young Offenders Act, our Immigration Act. The same mentality has created the federal debt of half a trillion dollars and produced a budget that will add $100 billion to that debt in the next three years.
This irresponsible, unaccountable, bleeding-heart mentality has ignored the rights of the victims of crime, their families and society. This is the type of mentality that has betrayed our country. What murderer ever gave a victim a glimmer of hope when he or she viciously tore life from the victim?
Did Norman Clairmont give the 19-year old Potts girl a glimmer of hope when he brutally and savagely murdered her in 1978? No he did not. Did Larry Sheldon extend a glimmer of hope to the nine-year old girl he raped and murdered in 1974? No he did not. Did Charles Simard offer a glimmer of hope to the two teenagers he murdered in the province of Quebec? No he did not.
Now these murderers are lining up to take advantage of a glimmer of hope they denied our sons and daughters, our brothers and sisters, a glimmer of hope provided by irresponsible politicians and governments.
Murderers, rapists and vandals lose all their rights the moment they launch their deadly attack upon the life of another. In spite of this undeniable fact, we have watched the bleeding-heart politicians restore the rights of these criminals through legislation devoid of common sense, legislation like section 745 of the Criminal Code.
In a judgment rendered on April 28, 1994, Judge Demetrick of the Alberta Provincial Court declared that portions of the definition of a firearm contained in section 84(1) of the Criminal Code is so convoluted as to be "legal fiction" and "twice removed from reality".
How is it possible that the Government of Canada is producing legislation so convoluted that it is declared by our courts to be fictitious and twice removed from reality? The answer to this question is that the thinking that is producing this type of legislation has to be equally fictitious and twice removed from reality. It is the kind of thinking that comes from an ivory tower mentality, the kind of mentality that produced the Young Offenders Act, the Immigration Act, the national debt, this government's approach to gun control legislation. It is the kind of mentality that produced section 745 of the Criminal Code which returns rights to the murders of Canadian citizens.
In March of this year the hon. member for York South-Weston introduced a private member's bill to get rid of section 745 of the Criminal Code which gives convicted killers the right to apply for early parole. I can tell the House that this member has a great deal of support from our party and I believe from Canadians all across Canada. We will watch to see how much support he has from his own governing party.
We will see if the ivy tower mentality, the twice removed from reality mentality identified by Judge Demetrick still controls the agenda in the Liberal caucus. If it does, then the only alternative the people of Canada have is to wait until the next election and remove this government from power as decisively as they removed the Tories from office in the last election. I stand in opposition to this bill.