Debates of Sept. 28th, 1995

Corrections And Conditional Release Act

[Keith Martin, Reform, Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC]

Third, as my colleague from Wild Rose said, if a person is on parole and commits an offence they must serve the remainder of their sentence before they are sentenced again, and the sentencing must run consecutively, not concurrently.

Fourth, the bill supposedly deals with restitution. It proposes that up to 30 per cent of what an incarcerated individual makes should go to the state. What about the victims? Who gives money to them? There is no ample compensation for victims, particularly for those

who are victims of violent crime. It would be far more productive if the individual who has committed the offence knows full well that he will have to pay directly to the victim moneys to compensate for the harm he has done.

The bill deals with sentencing. We have spoken about criminals being eligible for parole after serving one-third of their sentence. Karla Homolka will be eligible for parole after serving three years of her sentence. The public may not be aware that individuals are eligible for day parole after serving one-sixth of their sentence.

[Peter Milliken, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Presuming they get it.

[Keith Martin, Reform, Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC]

Oftentimes they do get it.

They are eligible for full parole after serving two-thirds of their sentence. They only serve a maximum of two-thirds of their sentence because automatically they are awarded with good behaviour. A better idea is to ensure that every convicted criminal will automatically serve the full sentence and that sentence would be pulled down based on the behaviour of the individual in jail. Let us not assume that there has been good behaviour, let us make sure it is earned. There are many ways that can be done.

Furthermore all moneys an individual earns in prison should go to the state to help offset the $60,000 to $100,000 that it costs to have someone incarcerated and also moneys to the individuals themselves.

Work and training should be obligatory for individuals who are incarcerated. The training would go a long way to decrease the recidivism rate of those in our jails. It would enable people to get the skills necessary while they are incarcerated so they can become active and productive members of society. Not enough of that is done now. Furthermore it is not obligatory which it ought to be, if someone were to have the wherewithal to do that.

Number six is sentencing. We spoke about section 745 which should be repealed now. It shows the lame inability of the government to deal with significant issues of justice by not addressing section 745.

My colleague from Scarborough mentioned that when people are sentenced to life they serve life. That is absolute nonsense. I have a list that is pages long of individuals who were convicted of first degree murder and because of section 745 their sentence has been commuted to 15 to 17 years. That includes people who have killed police officers in cold blood. I am happy to share that list with anyone in the House.

Is that justice? I hardly think so. That is not the case at all. Section 745 should be repealed now. The government would be showing that it is truly committed to justice if it would take heed of what my colleagues have been saying for so long.

Number seven is young offenders. The government has promised to deal with the Young Offenders Act and has done virtually nothing. I implore members of the government to speak to police officers who are working on the street. Their hands are tied. They are frustrated with the inability of the justice system to back them up when dealing with young offenders.

Having worked with young offenders in jail I can say they receive very little penalty, very little deterrence to committing offences. That is why we see the terrible rate of recidivism among young offenders.

Here are a few concrete suggestions. Publish the names of young offenders. It would send a very clear message that they cannot engage in these activities with anonymity. Have the stiffer penalties that my party has been putting forward for a long time. Make work and school obligatory in their incarceration.

Part of the sentencing problems that we see are because the justice department and all departments are hamstrung because of a lack of funds. That is why we see people being released very early on, earlier than they should be. The trade-off is that the justice department due to a lack of funding is releasing people to save money at the expense of the safety of Canadians from coast to coast. That is not justice.

We have a couple of concrete solutions. We cannot take individuals who are young offenders, who often grow up in tragic and terrible home situations, put them into closed custody for a period of a few months, then put them back in the environment that they were in and expect things to change. It will not happen.

They are usually in an environment in which there are terrible cases of substance abuse, physical and sexual abuse and violence. If they are in this kind of milieu, it is impossible, no matter how much counselling is given to these kids to actually move forward-

[An hon. member]

Put them in the military.

[An hon. member]

Military training.

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. Kilger)]

Colleagues, I am quite aware there are some strong views on both sides of this issue. However I remind you that when members are sitting close to the person who has the floor time the microphones are open. I am having a difficult time hearing the intervention of the hon. member. I ask you to keep that in mind.

[Keith Martin, Reform, Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate that.

As I said before, we simply cannot deal with young offenders and make sure they do not reoffend if they go back to the

environment they were in before, regardless of how much money is poured into counselling and counselling services.

A better idea is to incarcerate them for a longer time in an area away from their former environment where they can focus on work and education in a disciplined environment. It is essential to remove them from their former environment if we are to ensure these kids do not become adult offenders in the future. A ounce of prevention is a pound of cure. It is a worthwhile investment in our time. It need not cost us more money but it is something we desperately need to look at now.

We have to look at a new approach for dealing with crime and punishment. Oftentimes we see the precursors to criminal behaviour very early on. They are often rooted in cases in which there is a terrible environment of violent sexual abuse and neglect. These children need to be identified and picked up very early on.

Furthermore, it would serve many departments well if they were to work in collaboration with the educational department, particularly grade school, in trying to identify families at risk, by bringing the parents into the educational system so that they can also learn the fundamental aspects of being a good parent and what is considered to be reasonable behaviour. They in turn can help when the kids go home and the children will have an environment that will be conducive to building the pillars of a normal psyche.

There has been some interesting work done on this in a number of areas. The early data show that this is a very worthwhile investment of our time. If we can focus more on children when they are three, four and five and early on to identify families that are in crisis when a lady is pregnant, if we can have early intervention into these areas it will pay off in spades later on.

Therefore I strongly implore the government to show a leadership role in working with its provincial counterparts to try to address these problems which will decrease the cost to our justice system, our social programs and make a healthier and safer society for all Canadians.

[Peter Milliken, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member made a good speech in the sense that he set out, apparently very clearly, six or seven alternatives to the current bill.

I am surprised he is not supporting the bill because all his colleagues know the bill goes some way to meeting the complaints they have raised regarding Canada's justice system. Yet because it does not go far enough, they say they are going to vote against it, which has to be the silliest logic I have ever heard. I will set that aside for a moment.

I want to talk about the six or seven points that he raised. Frankly, they were sugar coated. I think he will admit that because although he said he wanted to look at sentencing again, he wanted to revise sentencing here and he wanted to change the rules there to make things a little different, the underlying message in almost every one of his points was that he wanted people locked up more often and for longer.

At the very end of his speech, having said nothing whatsoever about the cost of incarceration of inmates or persons in prison, he said: "Of course if we did these other things we would reduce the cost of the system". However, if he does all of the things he listed at the beginning he will increase the costs enormously. To incarcerate an inmate in maximum security costs something like $60,000 a year. It is an extremely expensive process.

What will he do to reduce the cost of the justice system? He says the government is spending too much money. The Reform Party has as its policy drastic cuts. Where will it cut in our justice system if it is to keep throwing people in jail or keeping them there for much longer?

I urge the hon. member to come to Kingston and tour the prisons. I will be glad to show him around. I think he would benefit from learning the way our justice system works and that part of the purpose of the justice system is to rehabilitate offenders so when they are released they do not reoffend. We have had remarkable success, quite frankly, in that. The hon. member should be pointing out those successes and giving figures.

If the member looked at the day parole statistics, for example, and he talked about the evils of letting people out early in their sentence on day parole, he would find that over 95 per cent of them-possibly 98 per cent but I do not have my little book here to recite the figures for him-or more are successful. It is a very successful program. It works and it helps reintegrate inmates into the community which is important for the long term development of our communities. We just cannot spring somebody at the end of a 20-year sentence and expect them to readjust to life outside. People lead a different life in there.

I am not saying that incarceration is not necessary. It is in certain cases. However it is not necessary to lock everybody up for life which is what the Reform Party seems to be urging.

Will the hon. member take a tour of prisons in Kingston and learn something about our prison system before his next speech on the subject? I know the hon. member for Wild Rose has done that. I congratulate him for it but obviously it did not work.

Finally, with respect to his own points, will he admit that what he was proposing would drastically increase costs for our prison system and greatly increase sentences for offenders in Canada?

[Keith Martin, Reform, Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to bring the hon. member back for a reality check.

I used to be a correctional officer and I also worked for seven years in both adult and young offender jails. I have a little experience on these issues.

If the hon. member wants to cut costs, I will give him a concrete way to cut hundreds of millions of dollars from the budget every year. One-third of all individuals incarcerated today are there for non-payment of fines. Those are the facts.

[Peter Milliken, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Nonsense. Not in federal prisons.

[Keith Martin, Reform, Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC]

Mr. Speaker, these individuals should not be in jail. The people who should be incarcerated are those who have proven to be a threat to society, who have victimized innocent civilians, usually in a violent fashion.

There is a trade-off here. Should we save money by discharging people into the community who would pose a threat to society, or should we tell the Canadian public that its rights and safety are the most important things? I believe everyone in the House would think the latter. The member's point with respect to saving money is perfectly valid and I have given him a very concrete reason for doing this.

He mentioned that I did not know anything about the costs. It is $60,000 a year for an inmate in a federal penitentiary and $90,000 for a youth in a young offender institution. That is too much money.

We have been presenting solutions on how to get inmates to work for their keep which in turn would cut costs. Again we must get those individuals who are violent offenders and who might be a threat to society and those who are incarcerated for non-payment of fines to work for their keep.

Another thing the hon. member mentioned was recidivism rates. The recidivism rate is 33 per cent for adults on parole. What is the recidivism rate for adults once they are off parole? No one can give me those figures. One thing is for sure, it has to be higher than 33 per cent.

With regard to young offenders, the recidivism rate is 40 per cent to 50 per cent. Those are the facts. That number is far too great. Obviously a 40 per cent or 50 per cent recidivism rate does not serve society and it certainly does not serve the kids who are young offenders very well.

We have to find a better way. I hope the hon. member will look at some of the concrete suggestions I have made which do not necessarily need to cost more if they are organized properly. I know members in this party would be happy to help anyone on the other side to make our justice system better for all Canadians.

[Andrew Telegdi, Liberal, Waterloo, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to follow up on the question raised and the answer given by the hon. member.

First, people are not in federal penitentiaries for non-payment of fines. It is important for people to fundamentally understand that and not to allow the red herring being thrown out by the Reform Party to confuse the issue.

Second, the member mentioned that he worked in the justice system with young offenders and adults for seven years. I have worked in that system and I also worked with young offenders, adults, victims and victims' groups for 20 years. The hon. member's example of not incarcerating people for their inability to pay fines was addressed in Bill C-41.

That is something the hon. member with his colleagues voted against. We on this side and the government supported it. It is important for people to understand that there is the option now where somebody does not get incarcerated because they are unable to pay a fine. If they refuse to do the alternative, then they get incarcerated. That is a correction which was made to the sentencing process and which was long overdue.

The member for Wild Rose, a member of the party who promised to do things differently, calls that socialism. I am amazed at the shallowness of the member's understanding on this very complicated issue.

There is a very important point to be made. I wish my colleague from the islands would put his mind to it that prisons are very expensive, federal penitentiaries being even more expensive.

Surely the people in prison should be relegated there because they are a danger to the community and are not able to follow the conditions of their probation or parole for other crimes. Surely the member would agree that prisons should be reserved first and foremost for the small numbers who are a threat to public safety and second for those people who are given alternative options, say, for a property offence and not making restitution, not following the probation order then of course one cannot do much else but enforce the law that way.

[Keith Martin, Reform, Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am very happy the hon. member agrees with us. I hope he crosses the floor on this bill.

We believe individuals in a federal penitentiary should be those who pose a threat to society. There are many ways one can argue a threat. There are threats in terms of violence and also threats in terms of those individuals who wilfully cause damage in other fashions to individuals. It is not only individuals who have been incarcerated for violent offences.

I hope the hon. member will work with us in devising new and innovative ways in which we can actually decrease the costs by not necessarily having individuals incarcerated in expensive, closed custody, federal penitentiaries. We want new ways in which we can send a clear message of deterrence to criminals, make sure that there is a penalty for individuals who are committing an offence, to deal with the issue we have been trying to deal with in trying to garner some restitution for the victims and the state, and ensure that individuals will not continue to reoffend.

We can identify the reasons why they reoffend, address those reasons and provide individuals with the ability and wherewithal to become a productive employed member of society. If we work together on these issues, we will make Canada a safer place.

[Roseanne Skoke, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I rise in the House today at third reading of Bill C-45 to address the principles, objectives and effects of the legislative changes proposed by Bill C-45.

From the outset, let the record show that the people of my riding of Central Nova support the principles and objectives of Bill C-45. My constituents appreciate the government's response to the legitimate concerns of all Canadians who are demanding a higher standard of public protection from high risk, violent offenders.

The proposed government reforms as set forth in Bill C-45 will restore public confidence, close gaps in the corrections system and respond directly to identified shortcomings in our present system to give further protection to our children.

The legislative changes introduced in Bill C-45 require amendments to the Corrections and Conditional Release Act, the Criminal Code of Canada, the Criminal Records Act, the Prisons and Reformatories Act and the Transfer of Offenders Act. The legislative changes in Bill C-45 are clearly in the best interests of all Canadians.

In my riding of Central Nova, many constituents, the police, parents, the public at large and organizations, including the newly formed organization of Child Safe of Pictou County, have raised time and time again legitimate concerns regarding sex offences against children. The purpose of Child Safe of Pictou County is to educate the public, to promote a sexual abuse free environment for children and to enhance the services for sexually abused children. These services are provided by an organization that certainly has the best interests of our children at heart. Therefore they applaud this legislation.

For the information of my constituents, Bill C-45 introduces legislative provisions that will make it easier to detain sex offenders who victimize children in penitentiary until the end of their sentences by removing the requirement that serious harm must be established as a criterion for detention in these cases.

Let me emphasize the government recognizes that all sexual offences are serious. The current Corrections and Conditional Release Act already authorizes the National Parole Board to detain offenders beyond the normal statutory release point if they are considered likely to commit an offence causing death or serious harm before the end of their sentence.

The vulnerability of individual victims is an important consideration in any release or detention decision. However the effectiveness of current legislation is limited because the serious harm criterion is difficult to establish in cases involving children.

Experience has shown that unlike cases involving adult victims, it is often difficult to establish serious harm where the child victim must provide the evidence because often the child cannot articulate the personal impact of the experience. Further, research has shown that the impact of such a crime on a child may not always become evident until many years later.

The legislative changes in Bill C-45 are in keeping with the government's desire to improve the protection of our children from high risk violent offenders and sex offenders. Bill C-45, in its treatment of the definition of serious harm for sex offences against children, will require the National Parole Board only to establish that a sex offence was committed which victimized a child and that a further sexual offence against a child is likely to be committed after release. This legislative change is long overdue and is welcomed by our Canadian families which hold sacred the security and protection of the person of all children in our country of Canada.

In addition to the prolonged detention of sex offenders and high risk violent offenders the government has introduced a legislative change to enhance and expand treatment programs for child sex offenders while in penitentiary. Correctional Service Canada presently carries out institutional treatment for sex offenders but resources are limited. The introduction of additional resources would strengthen treatment programs and are intended to improve public safety.

Speaking of public safety, in my capacity as member of Parliament I had the opportunity in May to visit the maximum security penitentiary in Renous, New Brunswick. For those who are familiar with this institution, it was here in May 1989 that Allan Legere escaped custody, committed four murders in the community and was then recaptured in November 1989. This was certainly a tragedy for that community.

Since 1989 considerable improvements have been made to this maximum security facility. The present warden, Mr. Jon Klaus, provided me with an opportunity to meet the correctional services staff, to visit with inmates and to see firsthand the maximum security institution. I was impressed with the high level of security and the latest surveillance technology being utilized at that facility.

The penitentiary concentrated on rehabilitation, upgrading, training, counselling, and there was segregation of high risk violent offenders from the other inmates. There is no question about it, Renous is a maximum security penitentiary that is state of the art. It provides the inmates with comfort, security, and every opportunity to rehabilitate their criminal behaviour. At the same time, it exists to protect the public from high risk offenders.

The criminal justice system and the penal correction system are interrelated. The general public must come to understand that it is the judiciary that has judicial discretion to impose sentences upon high risk and dangerous offenders, while Correctional Service Canada and its officials and staff are charged with the custody and rehabilitation of the high risk violent offenders while incarcerated. Then it is the National Parole Board that has the authority to release these offenders from detention.

The success of our criminal justice system and our penal correction system does not primarily rely on legislation. The fundamental success of our criminal justice system relies on the ability of man to administer justice without abuse of authority and power and the ability of man to administer justice coupled with equity and mercy.

Justice, law and morality are inseparable. If a moral society existed there would be no need for criminal sanction. It is a requirement of this criminal sanction in our society that necessitates this government to deter, to punish, to rehabilitate its members of society.

It is the human element that determines the success or failure of our criminal justice system and our penal correction system. The human element includes ourselves as individuals who are expected to be law-abiding citizens; the community at large, which develops public opinion; the role of our law enforcers, which is to enforce law; the role of our prosecutors administering justice within the system; the role of defence counsel defending and protecting the rights of the accused; the role of the judiciary rendering a decision; the role of our probation officers, psychologists, social workers, health care professionals, penal institution employees, our clergymen regarding the rehabilitation of the accused; and the role of us here today, the legislators enacting the law.

In my 18 years of practice as a litigation lawyer I have experienced firsthand the oppression, manipulation, and abuse of many people arising from the abuse of power, abuse of authority, and abuse of the process within the systems of government. These abuses I am referring to not only are in relation to the victims of crimes, but also in many cases the accused defendant as well.

It can be legitimately argued that the system of government is not working as it should. The legislative, the executive, and the judicial branches of government require reform from time to time to ensure justice and equity are meted out to all Canadians.

With respect to the legislative branch of government, it is time we as legislators put responsibility and morality back into the law. Justice, law and morality go hand in hand. They are inseparable.

With respect to the executive branch of government, which administers the law, it is time to diminish the authority, power, and discretion of the bureaucracy and make it more accountable for decisions and attitudes that affect individual Canadians.

With respect to the judicial branch of government, which interprets and enforces the law, it is time that consideration be given to electing our judiciary. The people must live with the decisions of courts. Therefore, it is time we give consideration to electing those who make these decisions.

Constituents of Central Nova have also raised the issue concerning the jurisdiction, power, and authority of the National Parole Board, an administrative tribunal with immense power and authority in relation to our high risk offenders. It is submitted that the government should seriously give consideration to ensuring maximum public input in the selection process of the National Parole Board members and that this selection process should be opened to public scrutiny. This legislation is not intended to address this issue.

Bill C-45 does establish a mechanism for the discipline of the National Parole Board members. The Corrections and Conditional Release Act is to be amended to allow the chairperson of the National Parole Board to report situations to the solicitor general that cause concern about the appropriateness of a board member's conduct or performance. Then if the minister agrees, a judge will conduct an inquiry focusing on whether the board member had met the responsibilities of the position. Grounds for the inquiry include incapacitation, misconduct, failure to execute duties, and being placed in a position incompatible with the execution of the member's duties. A judge could recommend that a member be suspended without pay, be removed from office, or he could recommend other remedial measures. This recommendation would be put before the governor in council.

The proposed mechanism will be modelled on a process found in the Immigration Act for the Immigration and Refugee Board. This enhanced accountability will be supported by increased training for the National Parole Board members in risk assessment and management of high risk sex and violent offenders.

Presently it should be noted that there is no formal mechanism for the discipline or removal from office of any National Parole

Board member in specified circumstances. Therefore, Bill C-45 is implementing legislation that is necessary in Canada today.

It is respectfully submitted that this discipline mechanism is imperative. However, it is further submitted that until a procedure for appointments to the National Parole Board is subject to maximum input from the general public at large in the selection process of appointees, there will be continued problems and a continual public outcry for the decisions that are being made by the National Parole Board. Likewise, it is submitted that it is time we give consideration that our judiciary-the decision makers, the interpreters of law, the imposers of sentences after conviction-should be elected to their positions by the public at large.

I further support the additional legislative proposals in Bill C-45 and in particular the legislative change that will modify the system of sentence calculation to ensure that all offenders on conditional release who receive new custodial sentences are returned to custody and that all offenders serve at least one-third of a new consecutive sentence before being eligible to be considered for release.

In addition, I support Bill C-45's expansion of the list of offences for which an offender could be referred for detention until the end of sentence. These offences would include serious drinking and driving and criminal negligence offences that result in bodily harm or death, criminal harassment, also known as stalking, and conspiracy to commit serious drug offences.

A further legislative proposal in Bill C-45 I support is to broaden the authority of Correctional Service Canada to make deductions from an offender's income to help offset a portion of an offender's room and board costs.

It is without question that the positive changes proposed to be implemented in Bill C-45 have my support and the support of my constituents. I am urging all hon. colleagues to lend their support at third reading to Bill C-45.

[Myron Thompson, Reform, Wild Rose, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I was pleased to hear that speech. I was pleased especially because the hon. member kept referring to the fact that her constituents were in support of the bill. We do not hear that very often from that side of the House, so I appreciate hearing it. That is what it is all about.

The hon. member suggested that we ought to consider electing judges. I wonder if she might expound on that a bit more. Should it possibly go further and apply to other positions in the government that are traditionally appointed positions?

[Roseanne Skoke, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

Mr. Speaker, it is certainly not the first time I have raised the issue in the House of giving serious consideration to the election of our judiciary.

I realize that appointment of our judiciary from our barrister societies and from our law profession across the country has been the tradition. However, I am calling on the government to give serious consideration to the fact that the responsibility the judiciary has is very important. Over the last two years that I have been in the House of Commons we have seen the effect judicial decisions have on what we enact in law and how we respond to the precedents they set.

Also, we understand that the role of the judiciary is not only to enforce the law as it comes before them, but to interpret the law. Those judges are in positions of trust and their decisions affect the daily lives of individuals. In my mind, I feel it is imperative that we move forward and take the necessary steps to ensure that our judiciary is elected by the public at large.

With respect to administrative tribunals and appointments to boards, I have some reservations with respect to board appointments and the selection process and also the functions of those boards. That is due to the fact that administrative tribunals do have a judicial function and a role to play in the country, and an appeal of the decisions administrative tribunals make is very difficult. Appeals can only be made in the event there is an error in law on the face of the record. Therefore, they are primarily predicated on ensuring that natural justice takes place at the board level. It goes without saying that the appointments to the boards are of crucial importance to our country.

[Grant Hill, Reform, Macleod, AB]

Mr. Speaker, when I came to the House I had strong hopes that I could support legislation that was moving in the right direction. Bill C-45, I admit, does just that.

I would like to be able to vote for the bill. I would like to be able to stand in the House and say the government is doing an excellent job with Bill C-45. However, like my colleague from Esquimalt-Juan de Fuca, I look at the bill from a slightly different perspective.

I do not want to talk about myself, so let me talk about the hon. member for Esquimalt-Juan de Fuca. As was mentioned in his answer, he is an individual who has had experience in the prison system. He served for some seven years as an officer and dealt directly with criminals. He also has had occasion in his life to be on the receiving end of the results of violence. He has dealt with raped kids. He has dealt with lacerations. He has dealt with gunshot wounds. He has dealt with body bags. He has served in an emergency department of a very busy community hospital. He has consequently dealt more with victims than I think most individuals have. I am afraid he approaches this bill with that perspective: Does it go far enough for victims?

I do not think it does and I am going to reflect on a couple of very specific parts of the bill. The first part is how sexual offenders are treated under the bill. It attempts to improve the sentencing for

sexual offenders. It takes a child who has been sexually assaulted and gives the offender, because when it is a child harm does not have to be proven but presumed, the full sentence. I say great. How could a physician argue with a full sentence for a sexual assault on a child? Great.

However, it goes on to state that an adult who is sexually assaulted and has serious harm must prove the harm. That is wrong. There is no serious sexual assault committed on a man or a woman that does not have serious harm.

In my own practice I had a 47-year old woman who originally came from South Africa. She had problems in her life: depression, anxieties, suicidal impulses, a host of serious problems. She had unhappiness in her marriage and had actually attempted suicide at one point in her life. Over a fairly long period of counselling with this lovely, sweet woman, her story was told. It came out in a way that is difficult to describe publicly, but she told how how she had been sexually assaulted in her youth by a member of her family. She had been unable throughout her life to ever divulge that to anyone. With tears streaming down her cheeks, with anguish in her heart, shaking and miserable, she divulged that to me.

What had that done to her, that one single episode of sexual assault in her life? She had frigidity in her marriage. She was unable to respond properly to affection. She was distant to her male children. She could not get close to her boys. She was fine with her little girl who she gave love and affection, but she could never ever respond properly to her boys, the children she bore.

I mentioned the depression and the anxiety. The end result was a broken marriage. She never got over that assault. That proves to me that a sexual assault on a child is devastating.

I have also had the opportunity, over and over again, to deal with sexual assault on young women and young men. It is not commonly known that sexual assault takes place against young men as well. There is not one single instance in any of those assaults that the assaults were harmless.

To have to prove harm when sexually assaulted is wrong. There is no excuse and no reason to have to prove physical harm, none.

The second issue in this bill is the way drunken driving is handled. I am a teetotaller. I do not drink. I am a fellow who believes alcohol can have harmful effects. Many of my chums have a beer or two and do not have a problem. However, drunken driving is considered to be a very serious problem in our society. Damage to someone when drunk is treated with vigour.

This bill says that serious injury due to drunken driving demands the full sentence. It will come down hard on those individuals that drive when they are drunk and hurt someone. However, an adult woman hurt seriously by a pervert once again has to prove harm with no necessity of a full sentence. There is an inconsistency in this law in this regard.

On one hand we have a premeditated perverted act. On the other hand we have a disease. Surely we understand that alcohol and the problems with alcohol are treatable and can be righted. On the other hand, we have perversion that generally cannot be treated.

There is a medical treatment for sexual perverts which is very specific. However, in our society we do not contemplate castration for a sexual pervert. I also want to bring to the attention of members and those who are watching that even if an individual who has a sexual perversion decides he wants to be surgically or medically castrated, he cannot.

There was a recent case of a sexual criminal in Quebec. He said: "I know that I am going to reoffend". He requested of his physician to have those impulses taken away. He said: "I want to have my hormones changed so this will no longer be the case". Not a chance; it cannot be done. Human rights activists come along and say he cannot even make such a decision on his own.

I believe in our society. We have constantly talked about not having solutions for problems. I raise this specifically as a solution for certain sexual crimes for certain sexual criminals. It is quite possible to make a little incision and inject a tiny amount of medication repetitively in the arm of an individual who has these sexual problems and stop the perversion. Give protection to our children. Give protection to our mothers and yes, protection to our sons.

I have another specific solution. I have heard from a number of members opposite that Reformers would like to throw everybody in the clink and toss away the key. There are a number of young offenders that do not need incarceration of any kind.

In my own community I asked practical, solid citizens: "What would you do to prevent a youngster from recreating their criminal behaviour". I am going to propose an idea that has come to me from these sensible common folk. They do not want to give these young people a job that will take work out of the workforce. They want to give them a job that is hard physically but does not take work and money from somebody that has done nothing wrong. What sort of a job is there like that? The job they came up with is rock picking.

I live in an area where there has been a little glacial activity. Every time the farmers in my community plough up their fields they turn up a new bed of rocks. Young men and women that have done wrong should be rock pickers. They should go through the fields, pick the rocks, pile them on the side. Nice rocks might be usable by a mason for fireplaces. The next year the farmer ploughs the fields up again and guess what? More rocks appear. There are not too many people who want to pick rock. There are not too many people who need to pick rock. This is a project for youngsters to

teach them-a bit of the boot camp idea-hard work, discipline and a useful job.

In my part of the community we freeze in the winter and rock picking does not work well then. I have other ideas about what they could do in the winter but I will stop there.

There is one more solution for victims. Remember that I come down harsh on the criminal and really easy on the victim. This bill does not do that. Thirty per cent of a prisoner's income going to treatment of victims would do a lot for a women such as I described. She could not afford a psychologist. She could not afford to do anything but go to her family physician for counselling. Time and space are very limited for that. She could well have been helped by restitution from the person who harmed her. These solutions would improve the bill.

I have listened to members opposite say: "You do not like everything in the bill. It is going on the right direction. Support it". I ask members opposite, how did they vote when this exact same bill came before the last Parliament? The record shows they voted against the law and order bill that was presented by the Tories. Reformers are saying this is a bill moving in the right direction, some parts of it flawed, some parts fair.

We are saying to the Canadian public as plainly as we can, until the rights of the victims are placed well above the rights of the perverts and the criminals there will never be satisfaction with our justice system.

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. Kilger)]

Is the House ready for the question?

[An hon. member]

Question.

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. Kilger)]

Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[Some hon. members]

No.

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. Kilger)]

All those in favour of the motion will please say yea.

[Some hon. members]

Yea.

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. Kilger)]

All those opposed will please say nay.