Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise today to speak to this bill. Much of what needed to be said has already been said by my caucus members.
I am very disappointed that the government side is not entering into this debate. This bill is a very high profile bill. It is supposed to be one of the jewels in the justice minister's crown, or he would like it to be one. Why the Liberals are not entering into this debate is a sad commentary on this process.
I will start by talking about the process itself, about what we are dealing with today, about the amendment to section 745. We should not be debating this bill today. What we should be debating in this House today is the bill brought forward by the member for York South-Weston. It was a private member's initiative brought forward in good faith to the House of Commons, adopted on second reading, in other words in principle by this entire House, sent to committee and ordered to report back to the House.
One of my jobs as party whip is to encourage my members to be on committees, to structure our caucus so that all the committee work is covered and so on. It is a very disheartening exercise when the members of our caucus find their hard work on private members' bills, their hard work on committee on amendments, their initiatives in committee to bring and raise the profile of important issues to the House of Commons are merely deep sixed in committee.
My heart goes out to the member for York South-Weston on this issue. His bill is just one of the very high profile examples. We have some in our own caucus. Our member for Mission-Coquitlam has had the same thing happen. It is very demoralizing and it is a travesty of the democratic process when something is passed in this House by members of all parties only to be sent to committee where the government used a roundabout way to send it off into never-never land. That is a real travesty and should never have happened.
On this issue, these questions bear repeating. What is the purpose of the justice system? What are we trying to accomplish with the justice system and the Criminal Code? What messages are we sending to the Canadian people? What are we as legislators hearing from the Canadian people? How are we reacting to what we hear?
People are getting hold of me in my office and one of the things they are asking me is what is the cost of the proposals of the Minister of Justice. How much does it cost to let people like Olson and others reintroduce their legal cases in an effort to get early parole? We do not know. cost. There is a royal recommendation in the bill, but we do not know the cost. I do not think the minister knows the cost. However, it is a significant cost.
It sends the message to the victims of crime that yes, these murderers are going to get legal help and all the help available through the system. The victims do not get any help. If they want they can make a presentation at the hearing, but they do not get any help. There is an actual financial cost involved, let alone the cost to the victims.
Many people are coming to me and saying they thought that what Parliament passed in the seventies when it did away with capital punishment meant that somebody who was sentenced to 25 years imprisonment without parole would serve at least 25 years. Parliament was sending a message to the Canadian people and to the world that Canada placed a high value on human life and would not trade a life off for anything less than 25 years. Many people would argue that it should be a life for a life, that there should be a death penalty. Many people said: "I will accept 25 years without
parole if you can guarantee me that is where that man or woman is going to stay".
The statistics are very sad. The statistics are that about 78 per cent of the people who apply for early parole are successful. Canadians are none too pleased with that. They are none too pleased that this bill will continue to allow all the backlog of deviants and multiple murderers to continue to apply. It is not retroactive. These people will continue to apply for early parole. They will continue to drag the victims through the mire of reliving the horror. The bill will not eliminate that. It will make it a bit tougher, but it will continue.
What are Canadians demanding? I will give the House two examples. In the next little while I will be presenting in the House a petition initiated by some people in my riding. It has to do with a criminal who is currently in the prison system. This man is a sexual deviant who has been convicted of pedophilia. He has ruined many a life. These constituents came forward with a whole series of requests. They want a national registry for sexual pedophiles. They want no chance of parole for people who have been convicted of violent sexual crimes. They want many things.
What is most telling about this is that they are not struggling to get a few names on a petition. It is not them and the family trying to get together to gather 40 or 50 names on a petition. So far there are 15,000 names on the petition and more names continue to be mailed into my office on a daily basis.
I wonder if the government is listening to this. This is just one example in one riding of the depth of feeling on the issue of criminal justice reform. They are saying that serious crimes deserve to be treated very seriously in order to send a message both ways, to the criminal element and to the victims of crime. The message will tell the victims that yes, they are important and that yes, their situation takes priority and that the government will ensure they receive adequate redress.
One of the reasons my colleague from Fraser Valley West has brought forward his victim's bill of rights is that the victims need to have the protection which they do not have today.
That is the big picture. That is the picture of 15,000 names. That is just one example.
We have heard many examples and I would like to give a personal example. I had a father and daughter come to my office in my riding with concerns about the criminal justice system. The daughter had been abducted and stabbed repeatedly by her estranged husband. There was a restraining order against the husband, he was known to the police, he had threatened violence and had stalked this woman for some months.
I bring this up as an example because the father sat in my office and said: "What am I supposed to do when the criminal justice system does not treat this case seriously? This man attacked my daughter, stabbed her repeatedly and was charged with aggravated assault and did a couple of years in jail. What am I supposed to do?"
The man would come and tap on the lady's window with a butcher knife to wake her up. The father said: "Mr. Strahl, mark my words. I will tell you what I am going to do when this animal gets out of prison. When that guy gets out and taps on my daughter's window with a butcher knife I am going to blow his head off because the criminal justice system will not deal with it". The justice system peddles away these serious charges and says to get a restraining order. It is not good enough to say get a restraining order. This woman lives her life in terror and this guy is out on the streets again.
Here is the irony. I said: "If you do that to protect your daughter, you will do 25 years in jail because that is premeditated. The gun was out and you shot the guy". He said: "Chuck, I do not care. What am I supposed to do if the criminal justice system will not protect my family? I will have to do it myself. I do not want to do it myself. I wish you would do something different".
That shows the frustration in the country over these kinds of cases where serious crime is not treated seriously. There is no more serious crime than murder. The message is not can we rehabilitate criminals. The message is not is some guy sorry he did it. I am sure many murderers are sorry that they committed the crimes afterward. The message we need to send that is not being sent by this bill is that murder is a serious offence. It is 25 years in jail at least.
The Reform Party said there should be a national referendum on capital punishment. We will leave that for another day. Today, be assured that a crime like murder is going to get you in jail and you are not getting out for 25 years. This bill does not do that. This bill should have done that. We should have been dealing with the elimination of section 745, not tinkering.
I am disappointed. I wish the government and the minister could sit in my office and listen to the people that tell me the truth about what is going on. They want changes and they want them now.