Mr. Speaker, we have heard Liberal members say life is life and that all we are discussing here is where the life sentence shall be served, whether it is in custody or in the community under parole supervision. Certainly if someone has been released on parole they will still serve their life sentence. They will be on parole for the balance of their life.
As a former parole officer I can talk about the limits and the difficulties of trying to enforce a useful parole supervision, especially on particularly manipulative offenders. People must understand what parole supervision is. The average parole interview is a half-hour interview in an office every month.
If we are to look at intensive supervision, perhaps a half-hour to an hour interview once a week in a community office with the odd check-up on someone's place of residence or where they are employed, and when we are talking about sophisticated serial killers out on parole, people have to understand what community supervision means. It means checking up to ensure the person is also going to their drug and alcohol program or seeing their psychologist.
However, it is of great concern that those who get out on parole have very intensive supervision and that they will serve their life sentence on parole. The public has to understand the nature of that supervision.
This bill proposes that the initial merits of the application to change the parole eligibility date from 25 years down to something lower will go before a judge. The judge will have to rule and give reasons for judgment. Does that mean now, because we are in a court process, the rule of law applies because it certainly brings in the element of appeal? One side or the other can appeal and if there are errors in law, we all know how lawyers can split hairs on those issues. They can always find some error in a law that makes it perhaps an avenue for appeal. Will we have nearly every one of these being appealed all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada? Of course in those kinds of situations would not the taxpayer be paying for all the court costs of the offenders?
This whole element of appeal is undefined, as far as I am concerned, and I want to know if the member has any further explanation as to the possibility of that.