Mr. Speaker, I am going to offer to the House a personal experience today on how section 745 has affected my life.
Fourteen years ago, one block from my home at a convenience store a young woman about the age of the young pages we have with us in the House was abducted. Her disappearance from that convenience store that night put my small community in a state of panic. No one knew what had happened to Laurie Boyd. She had disappeared.
The panic our community felt was something that touched me personally. My wife was afraid to leave our home and travel the short distance to Calgary. My daughter who was about the same age, within a year, was afraid to walk to school.
Laurie's body was found by a good friend of mine and it was unrecognizable. I was the personal physician of the Boyd family. I knew them well. I had treated them, counselled with them and looked after them in sickness, and so I anguished personally with them over their loss.
There were rumours in Okotoks about what had happened, rumours that some criminals had an undercover police car and a police light they were using to attract and murder individuals. There had been two murders in our community.
One of my colleagues in High River hospital had a patient that tried to commit suicide. Under the effect of the drugs he had tried to commit suicide with he confessed to the two murders. He and his partner were then apprehended. The story of the murder of Laurie Boyd is something I will never forget, the story of how they enticed her to go to the back of the convenience store and clapped her in a van. They took her out to an abandoned gravel pit, forcibly raped her, promised her they would let her go, stabbed her repeatedly with a screwdriver and then poured on her dead body gasoline and made her unrecognizable.
I guess I will never forget it because with the family I went over that specific issue in my mind, in my eye and in counselling with them. When the court proceedings went through the horrible crime, these two beasts-and I say that word harshly but that is how I felt-received the most serious penalty anyone could receive in Canada. They were guilty of premeditated, first degree murder. I and the family felt some small satisfaction in that penalty. Life without chance of parole was the sentence from that judge.
The Boyds then went on to try to recreate their lives, Trevor the son, Darlene and Doug. We stayed in close touch and they did rebuild their lives.
I then found myself as an MP some years later. I had a call from my old friend, Darlene. She said: "I have to talk to you, Grant". She came to my office and said: "Tell me this isn't so. Tell me that Jim Peters cannot get out in 15 years. Tell me that section 745 is not true". I said to her: "Darlene, it is true but there is hope. There is a member from another party who has a private member's bill on the table and it received support in the House of Commons to go to committee. There is hope that 745 will be tossed in the dustbin of history. It is at the committee stage. I am pretty sure that because of the unanimity that exists in the House the bill will be passed and we will see 745 gone. The one remaining beast, as the second one killed himself in prison, will not get out".
Darlene said: "Thank you, Grant. Thank you for that reassurance. Thank you for that advice". It was not too long after that when she came back and said: "I hear that private member's bill is not going to make it. What should I do?" "Well, Darlene, campaign for the abolition of 745", was my advise.
Darlene Boyd resurrected the trauma in her life to do just that. She personally was responsible for the names in the Calgary Sun , the chorus of people crying for the abolition of 745. She has travelled at her expense throughout Canada to get 745 abolished.
I have to stand in public and say to her: "Darlene, I am sorry. I think the government of this day will not do what must be done. Section 745 in my view should be abolished but I do not believe that it will be abolished with this government".
What happened to the other members who with me said the bill from the member for York South-Weston should go to committee and should be considered carefully? What happened to those individuals who agreed in principle with abolishing section 745 of the Criminal Code? I have listened to some of them speak here and they say Bill C-45 is enough and that it will still provide a glimmer of hope. I have heard them say it does not bother the victims' families to go through this.
My message is simple and clear, as I have counselled again with the Boyd family on this issue. The individual who tore their lives apart, who will have his hearing in February, has torn their lives apart again.
I know the justice minister has compassion in his heart for Jim Peters. Jim Peters, who perpetrated this crime and who was sentenced to 25 years without chance of parole, a major sentence in
Canada, is being treated with leniency. Darlene Boyd and her family are not. I believe that is wrong.