Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to speak to this bill. It gives me no pleasure at all to make some of the points that I have to make today.
I was the one who seconded the bill that the member for York South-Weston brought to this House. I laid aside partisan politics. It did not matter that he was a member of the Liberal Party at that time. I felt the issue was important and deserved to be supported.
I would appeal to every member in this House to do what we have been sent here by our constituents to do, which is to look at every piece of legislation, to listen to the debate very carefully and to decide whether or not it is a good law.
I would submit that the evidence that has been presented, all the speeches that have been given on this would indicate to the members in this House that section 745 should be repealed.
As my constituents have sent me to Ottawa to be their voice, I want to express my complete and utter opposition to the amendments and to this bill. My constituents have told me this: If a criminal is sentenced to life imprisonment without parole, then that is exactly what the sentence should be. I believe that no one can reasonably second guess a decision made by a judge and jury 15 years earlier, nor do I think our laws should ever permit them to do so.
Eighty-six per cent of my constituents say that it is time to return to capital punishment as a punishment option for judges. Eighty-six per cent. At every public meeting I attend, from virtually everyone who deals with criminal justice issues there are demands not only for capital punishment but also for corporal punishment to be reinstated.
These are the things that my constituents are saying. I wholeheartedly agree with them. I have looked at the evidence. I have examined the issues. They are right.
Given my constituents' thoughts on the return of capital punishment, members can understand their determination to ensure that premeditated murderers are required by law to serve their full sentence. Twenty-five years without parole should mean 25 years without parole. Section 745 must not be repealed and not be amended.
The question that I want to discuss very briefly is, why should we be listening to the people out there in regard to this criminal justice issue. Is it important or do we somehow feel we think at a higher level than the people around us? I do not believe we do.
Justice is fundamental to maintaining the fabric of a society. That is why we should listen. The laws that are put in place by a Parliament in a democratic country should reflect the values of that society. If they do not, the very fabric of society begins to unravel.
I want to give an example. The Young Offenders Act has become a revolving door for many young people. I have fairly close connections with the high school in the city of Yorkton. I have had my own children going through that school. The effect of not having a young offender properly dealt with is that it begins to affect everyone else in society. That is what I mean by the fabric of society beginning to unravel if we do not have true justice in
society. If the people do not perceive that justice is being served their whole attitude toward the law begins to decline. That is why section 745 needs to be repealed. The people in our country are beginning to develop a very cynical attitude toward the law.
In the high school in Yorkton that I am referring to, when these young people are not dealt with properly the rest of the young people in that school begin to take the attitude: "It does not matter what I do. It does not matter. I can do as I wish". It even goes so far that the quality of work produced by the students begins to decline. Therefore justice does not affect the attitude toward the law but it begins to affect everything else in society.
If we want to maintain a quality of life within our country, we must listen to what the people of Canada are telling us. It is fundamental to maintaining a structured, healthy, vibrant society. That is why I submit that we as politicians, as parliamentarians, should be looking at the overall effect of the laws in our country and what they do.
If we underestimate the impact this section is having, I ask members to please keep in mind this fact. In the next 15 years approximately 600 killers will become eligible for judicial reviews to have their sentence reduced by up to 40 per cent. Six hundred killers will have the opportunity of having their sentences reduced.
Currently section 745 hearings are biased in favour of the criminals. When I went to some of the investigations and some of the prisons across Canada I could not believe the system and how it does not work.
These hearings are preoccupied with the interests and rights of the criminal to the detriment of the interest and rights of the victim and the victim's family. At these hearings the criminal has more rights than the victim. Victims are currently not even allowed to appear as a witness and give evidence at these hearings.
The bureaucrats who are running the prisons get to select what information is given to the judge and jury about the inmate. They say they cannot release negative information about the convicted killer because it would invade their right to privacy. Can anyone believe this? A killer has the right to privacy. I believe that when someone commits a heinous crime like murder, some of those rights are lost. I especially believe the right to privacy is forfeited. They have failed our society. I question the need for killers to have any rights when they are in jail.
I know my constituents are making these demands and it is time for the government to listen to what Canadians are saying. It is so fundamentally important that justice be the thing we focus on in the House.
The hon. member for Macleod gave an example and, time permitting, I will also give the House an example. This is not an isolated case. We must understand that every murder committed in this country has a story surrounding it. Here is another one.
In 1994 an early parole hearing for a murderer was held in Saskatoon. The victim's family was not allowed to appear before the judge and jury. The victim's story was never told. Here are the facts of a premeditated, cold blooded murder.
In 1978 Constable Brian King was working alone in the Saskatoon detachment area. He was married to Marie and had three small children. He stopped a car with no rear licence plate, something he had done hundreds of times. But this time there were two men inside the car that had only one thing in mind: they were going to kill a cop.
Greg Fisher and Darryl Crook had been partying earlier that night and had told people they intended to kill a cop that very night. They removed the licence plate from their car so that the unsuspecting police officer might stop them. When Constable King stopped their car, Crook threw a beer bottle into the ditch. As King went to pick up the beer bottle the two killers got out of the car, jumped King, stole his gun, handcuffed him, forced him into the car, drove him to the bank of the South Saskatchewan River, made him kneel down and shot him twice in the head at point blank range.
They were caught later that night by the Saskatoon city police. Both Fisher and Crook were convicted of first degree murder, which means premeditated murder, and they were both sentenced to life imprisonment with no eligibility for parole for at least 25 years. It was not 15 years, but life imprisonment with no eligibility for parole for 25 years.
This information and all its gory details had to be part of any hearing regarding the possible reduction of the sentence. Every juror at the hearing must feel the horror of Constable King's last minutes on earth. Only in this way would they understand why these killers were sentenced to the maximum sentence allowed by law.
I and the majority of Canadians only wish that capital punishment had been an option for the judge and jury in this case. It should have been.
There is another part of the victim's story that these hearings are denied, the pain and suffering the victim's family had to go through because of the callous disregard for human life that Fisher and Crook had for the victim. The judge and jury in these cases must understand all of the consequences of these senseless murders before they rule on reducing the sentence by even one month.
When Mr. Fisher's hearing came up early this year it was suggested by Mrs. Marie King-Forest that they might just want to stay at home and not even attend the hearings. After all, what could be gained? Mrs. King-Forest said: "How can it be that my entire family is forced to go through this all again? This is wrong. He was sentenced to life with no parole for 25 years. That is the penalty for killing Brian. There should be no shortcuts".
To Mrs. King-Forest's credit she was able to mount such a high level of public support for her situation that the judge granted a hearing mistrial because of media coverage and police attendance at the hearing. She later appeared before the federal Minister of Justice to ask him to repeal section 745, but he gave no indication leading toward such changes.
This is one more story to underline that we must repeal section 745.