Mr. Speaker, Bill C-41, the sentencing bill, starts out with good intentions but fails to carry them out. I like the part that mentions reparation to victims and the promotion of a sense of responsibility to offenders. It is about time victims were mentioned in legislation. I would even like to see that portion of this bill strengthened.
However, the bill goes down hill from there. The alternative measures section allows authorities to choose individual offenders for special sentencing deals. Already sentences for similar crimes vary from place to place within Canada and they even vary from the city to the country. If one is to kill someone in this country, as the hon. member for York South-Weston pointed out earlier, statistically one should probably do it in Quebec because one gets far less time in jail than in other parts of the country. I find that incredible.
The alternative measures section will make it easier on some criminals, which is the trend in our justice system, to blame all wrongdoing on society and remove the need for punishment. People do not want more leniency. They want the opposite. Imagine the return of the lash that was suggested 10 years ago as a legitimate element in our justice system. Now we hear calls for it in some parts of the country nearly every day. I am not convinced that is the answer but it shows me people are crying
out for action from the government. They demand action and justice but they are not seeing it in this bill.
Tomorrow I hope to meet with the justice minister to talk about a case in my constituency in which a woman was stalked for five years and finally when she was caught by her estranged husband and stabbed repeatedly her husband received two years less a day in jail. That is a shame. I am sick and tired of sentencing bills that allow this kind of discrepancy. That person should have been put away for a long time and this woman protected. Instead they are allowed to come back into society in a few short months. It is disgusting.
When we get to the hate crime section of the bill we see some more inequalities. It allows a stiffer sentence if a crime is motivated by hatred against certain groups. If aggravated assault is perpetrated on me because somebody wants my money, it hurts just as much to get punched in the eye no matter what group I am from. The whole concept of identifying Canadians by groups instead of as individuals is a disturbing trend in Canadian society.
Too often the government wants to label people by ethnicity, colour, race, gender and now by sexual orientation. People should be labelled in one way, Canadians. They should be entitled to all the privileges, responsibilities and protection every single Canadian deserves.
This section also marks a basic shift in our legal system by starting to criminalize thought. We have always punished people for the wrong things they do, not for the wrong things they think. I have zero tolerance for hatred and I think we should continuously speak out against hatred whenever we see it. We cannot stamp it out by pretending to read people's minds and then sending them to jail for it. It sets a bad precedent for the future because hatred is so hard to define and to know what goes on in someone's head is almost impossible.
In a previous debate some months ago when the member for Central Nova stated in her opinion that homosexuality is immoral, her words were characterized by the member for Burnaby-Kingsway as hateful, bigoted comments that have absolutely no place in the Chamber and certainly not in the Liberal Party of Canada.
One member's moral opinion, granted, is seen by a leading homosexual in the country as an expression of hatred and bigotry. It is a dangerous trend to label people like that. Where could this take us?
Maybe members are not familiar with this but British Columbia right now is contemplating a law called the bubble law that will make it illegal to even voice protest against abortion within a certain distance of an abortion clinic. Every day an elderly priest stands in front of the House and wears or puts up a sign that says abortion is wrong. That is his opinion. If the law in British Columbia passes it would be illegal to do that. Someone could sit on a park bench within 100 feet of an abortion clinic with a sign around their neck saying they are against abortion and they would be totally in contravention of the law.
That is the trouble because it starts to infiltrate and impugn motives on people. They could not even stand on the corner with a simple sign hung around their neck saying they are against abortion. One day if this trend continues legitimate opinions that express the morality of homosexuality on either side may be viewed as illegal or hateful. I think that is a very dangerous trend.
The hate crimes section does not yet entrench this but it takes a step in that direction. By establishing a principle in Bill C-41 we are paving the way that it is all right to punish thoughts with jail terms.
I would like to remove the entire hate crimes section. The second best option would be to remove all the enumerated groups. My third preference would be to remove the phrase sexual orientation from the bill. If this amendment also failed in this group I would at least think the terms should be defined.
Why would I remove the phrase sexual orientation? Other speakers have elaborated that it is simply not necessary. Homosexuals or people of whatever sexual orientation are already protected against violence, as they should be, like all other Canadians because they are protected by the Criminal Code.
The Canadian Bar Association said to the committee that when someone can show they have been assaulted or somehow abused in all cases prosecutions followed, and so they should. That is why it is unnecessary to include phrases like this.
Why should sexual orientation be defined? When the Prime Minister was the Minister of Justice he said in committee in 1981:
I am not here to determine what sexual orientation means. It is because of the problem of the definition of those words that we do not think they should even be in the Constitution.
On July 14, 1993 the Canadian Human Rights Commission said:
We should be wary of coming to a complete definition. I propose to analyze this case from the point of view of what I believe to be a minimal definition of sexual orientation, namely, the capacity, or perceived capacity, to be sexually attracted to persons of one's own gender.
Homosexuality is a minimal definition. The commission left it open ended. Let me read some very recent quotes from the standing committee on justice. John Conroy of the Canadian Bar Association said on November 24 last year:
That has certainly been the definition I've always understood: homosexual, heterosexual or some other sexual orientation. It could be any kind of sexual orientation, and it could be something that, as you say, is illegal.
Listen to Dr. Stephen Wormith, chair of the criminal justice psychology section of the Canadian Psychological Association last November:
Sexual orientation is a crucial factor of paedophilia; a fundamental component of a true paedophile is his or her sexual orientation. Certainly sexual orientation is a key and fundamental component of paedophilia.
On February 9 of this year, Robert Wakefield, the director of the Ottawa region of the Criminal Lawyers Association, said this about sexual orientation:
Psychiatrists use it. They will say somebody is heterosexual, or gay, or lesbian, or a paedophile. There are other sorts of deviant sexual behaviours that they regard as an individual's sexual orientation.
Finally, Dr. Greenberg, assistant professor of psychiatry at the University of Ottawa and staff forensic psychiatrist at the Royal Ottawa Hospital, said in February of this year:
Sexual orientation is a descriptive term. It basically defines what attracts a person to a stimulus. In other words, just like a compass-
A member asked him: "So necrophilia would be a sexual orientation to you?" "A deviant sexual orientation, yes," he answered.
I cannot believe that the Minister of Justice wants to open this can of worms. He is not listening to the experts. I am ashamed to have to stand here in Parliament and tell the Canadian people what the government is doing. If people are concerned about what this bill could mean, then they should get on the phone or the fax and get in touch of their member of Parliament or the Liberal government and tell them that of your concern about what this could open up if this bill goes ahead as it is written.
I regret that with time allocation there are only a few hours left before this bill will become law if the government pushes ahead. I ask the government to reconsider, to listen carefully to the amendments that will be proposed later and do the right thing to eliminate this section altogether.