Mr. Speaker, I am pleased but also rather concerned about having to speak on this very serious bill on judicial review and parole ineligibility.
When dealing with these issues, we must be careful not to become excessive, as the Reform Party tends to do, but we must also avoid giving in to what I would call election-related pressure. This is not an issue that must be influenced by election-related pressure or constraints. Rather, it calls for a serious and thorough review that will allow us to see if the measures that have been part of the Criminal Code for quite some time are good. Have these measures been effective? Have they provided interesting results? Do we need to change them?
This is also an issue about which we must be careful not to become emotional but, rather, rational. Let us look at the overall situation in terms of those affected by this measure.
As of December 31, 1995, there were 175 eligible inmates; 76 of them had applied for a judicial review of their parole ineligibility. In other words, these people wanted to have the opportunity to be paroled after the 15th year and before the 25th year of their sentence. Of these 76 applications, 13 are pending, while a decision has been made in the other 63 cases. A reduction was granted to 39 inmates. It is important to mention that only one of them reoffended. And it was not murder, but armed robbery.
One has to realize that this is not all black and white. We need to ponder this issue carefully and make a balanced judgement instead of resorting to anecdotal evidence. It is really a terrible situation when a crime is committed. The impact on the family members and relatives of the person who has been killed is horrendous. We often tend to look for remedy for the guilt and the grief by demanding a severe punishment for the murderer. Maybe not as severe as the crime itself, but a sentence long enough to make sure the murderer is not back out on the street.
It has been proven that families who have this ultimately quite natural reaction do not experience a lessening of their grief because the murderer has been severely punished. It has been proven both in Canada and in the United States. The grief for the lost one remains, and there is no connection whatsoever with the punishment.
We have to get to the bottom of this issue and see whether the steps taken have given the anticipated results. For example, I am told that 39 inmates got a reduction, that 38 have not reoffended and that not one of them has been convicted for a new offence. This means that the vast majority of the people have been able to come back out into society and to make a positive contribution.
Therefore, we now have to determine the real purpose of our criminal justice system. Among the offenders sentenced to 25 years in prison, there are career criminals, but also people who have committed a crime, who have made a terrible mistake under some kind of impulse, an act that was not necessarily premeditated.
We also have to know what direction the system is taking. Is there an increase or a decrease of the crime rate in Quebec and in Canada right now? The figures show that the crime rate is declining everywhere, at least in Quebec.
We need to compare what we have with the other systems where the measures taken are getting tougher and tougher. We can often compare ourselves to the Americans in this regard. The way the
system works in Canada, how it ultimately affects the crime rate, the reintegration of people into the society and the costs of the system. I think our approach, that is, the one which was developed in the last 15 or 20 years, compares favourably with the one that has been developed in the United States. I think we must build upon our successes.
The real objectives of the government can be called into question. When we look at the statistics and see that of the 73 individuals who asked for a review, 63 obtained one and 39 were granted a reduction in their sentence and only one committed an offence subsequently, one has every reason to wonder why the government introduced such a bill.
This bill appears to have been introduced in reaction to pressure and ultimately will not solve much. We can see what has been proposed for multiple murders. This will create terrible confusion and injustice. It is not the fact that a person has taken one or two lives that is important, it is the type of crime that has been committed. The number of victims seems totally irrelevant to me.
The other element concerns the decision committee. Again the government appears to be closing the door completely without having the political courage to say so. It should take a clear stand in favour of abolishing this provision or say that the present system is working well and prove it to all Quebecers and Canadians so they can judge for themselves.
I also think that it is typical of politics nowadays. It is very easy to slip into demagogy. It is very easy to say that we have a typical example, a horrible situation, the kind of things we occasionally see in the newspapers. It is terrible to see and to experience this kind of thing; it stirs up lots of emotions. It is a personal situation that can be very difficult to go through.
We are not here to make a sensation. We are here to pass laws that will have a real positive effect and that will, ultimately, make our society more equitable and less violent, more evolved and more aware of new ways of rehabilitating criminals.
Even if tomorrow we could arrange for nobody to be eligible to have their ineligibility reviewed, we would not have solved the problem. There is no link between murders that have been committed in the past and those that will be committed in the future. People who are in such situations of violence are not calculating whether, if caught and sentenced, they will be able to apply for a review of their situation after 15 years. This is not how it works. This is not what is going through their head. These situations are more likely to arise after a number of years in prison, when individuals have lived through more, and have had the idea that they are capable of reintegrating into society. There is a whole process provided for the assessment of these cases.
I feel that the present model needs more thinking and more study before we come up with measures such as the one the government is proposing or, even worse, such as the one the Reform Party was advocating. If we were to adopt very tough legislation or this bill, we would have the feeling that we had done our job, but with the corrective measures, those that will come in the future, will we, five or ten years down the road, be able to say that we truly improved the situation?
Rather, might we not try to hide things a bit, saying that, in the end, all those measures we took did not settle anything or improve the situation, that the recividism rate cannot really be lower than what it is. We have to make sure that those who must act in these decisions may do so rapidly.
I will conclude on this. It is important that we make a balanced judgment. I encourage the government to do its homework. If there are changes to be made in this section, they should be made after more careful study with no regard to the temptation put in the way by the Reform Party, which wants to create a mockery of justice. I do not think it is in the interests of Canadians and Quebecers that things be done this way.