Mr. Speaker, I listened to the debate this morning on Bill C-45. Of course, my attention was drawn to the report by Willie Gibbs who appeared before the Standing Committee on Justice and Legal Affairs. He informed us that last year 15 people were murdered in this country after their murderers had been released on either early release or parole. That is a horrible statistic.
Fifteen people have been murdered as a result of a mistake made by our officials which has to do with the early release or parole of people who have committed offences, lesser offences than first degree murder. Nevertheless the officials released them. My concern is that is the very parole board that will have to make a decision on the first degree murderers if they jump through the hoops the justice minister is allowing them to jump through and end up before the parole board. It is the same parole board that allowed the release of those people which resulted at least in part in 15 innocent people being murdered. Does the member have any comments on that?
Not only were 15 people murdered, which is more than one per month, but there were 15 attempted murders, 22 sexual assaults, 21 major assaults, 71 armed robberies, in all 165 serious crimes. Since 1987 criminals out on some form of early release killed 206 people and tried to kill another 162 people. In all, 2,097 very serious crimes were committed by them in that period of time.