Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for his question. It is reasonable. As I have appeared before audiences all across certainly my constituency and other parts of Alberta I am quite prepared to appear before any committee or any assembly or any audience to put forward my concerns and my reasons for opposing section 745 of the Criminal Code.
The premise on which my concern is based is that it was a betrayal of the people of Canada at the time capital punishment was being removed from the Criminal Code. We were promised that the substitution would provide the protection that society was looking for and that substitution was life imprisonment with a minimum penalty of 25 years.
I have heard individuals, including open-line commentators, express outright disbelief when they heard about section 745 and its implementation. Now these murders come forward and use it in order to gain early parole.
My concern and my opposition is to the whole of the bill, of course. However with the time limit, I focused only on that one particular area and other members will focus on other areas of this bill.
My specific concern is that section 745 should never have been implemented in the first place. It was a betrayal of the honest people who are prepared to give this whole idea of the removal of capital punishment from the Criminal Code an opportunity. That was based upon a life sentence with a minimum term of imprisonment for 25 years.