Madam Speaker, I am pleased to participate for a few moments on Bill C-45, presented by the Minister of Justice. It is an act to amend the Criminal Code dealing with judicial review of parole ineligibility at report stage.
I have listened carefully to the debate. Not being a lawyer, I want to understand a little bit more about the essence of the bill and about the issues. I certainly do understand the emotion which has been expressed over the last many months. We have had private members' initiatives with regard to section 745. We have had presentations and submissions from the Minister of Justice.
It shows this is an issue which responds to the needs of Canadians to have this matter addressed in a way which will best serve the judicial system.
As I listen to the debate it follows a very typical pattern that many of the bills which come before this place have followed where the extreme positions are taken and continue to be repeated in a sense to paint a picture which is not very reflective of the reality of the bill and of the issues.
It would be very interesting, if all members were to rise and speak on this bill, to see how many people would take a particular position and say: "I am going to spend my entire speech talking about Clifford Olson and what a terrible person he is and what he has done and why this bill is the wrong way to go. Section 745 should be eliminated totally because of Clifford Olson". It simply states the extremes where we have a situation of a mass murderer who is the subject matter of the discussion.
In that case I do not think there is anyone in this House and probably in Canada who would defend Clifford Olson's need to be released early from jail. I think all Canadians would say that Clifford Olson should never come out of jail. That is the bottom line.
We are talking about section 745 of the Criminal Code which deals with a very touchy subject in a sense that it actually stems from the capital punishment debate of many years ago. I will keep this simple and not in a judicial or justice fashion.
Section 745 came in as a compromise and as a by-product of that capital punishment debate. When the Parliament of the day decided it could not at that point support capital punishment in Canada, 745 came out of that where it basically states that after serving 15 years of a 25 year sentence an application can be made by the criminal who has been accused and who is in jail for early parole. It is not to apply to get out early. It is a two stage process. I have not heard very much about the actual mechanics of that in debate.
So that some members will understand, I will explain this in the way it was explained to me by the briefing we got from officials. Someone in jail would actually make an application for a judicial review and that review would be done by a jury of Canadian citizens. Actual people would form the jury and review the application of someone to proceed along this route. Only after a jury of peers would have decided whether this was eligible or this was a case that it could be argued that there was true remorse and there was no useful purpose being served by having that person fulfil the last period of their sentence would it then go to the parole board.
The interesting thing that has not been mentioned when someone talks about getting rid of 745 is that there is a process of judicial review done by a jury of peers, ordinary citizens.
The other aspect in this bill, which I think is an important change being proposed by Bill C-45, is that another step has been added which will eliminate any nuisance factor or improve the productivity of the system whereby in the first instance a judge of the courts will determine whether a particular proposed application has any merit. This means that if someone who is serving time decides after 15 years to make application it is first going to be determined whether the application is worthy of moving forward through the process. It has to be dealt with by a judge. It has to be an honourable person of the court who determines, on the history of the case and from the recommendations by the jury at the original trial, whether this application is worthy of going forward.
This is where people like Clifford Olson would be stopped, totally. He may ask for it, but there is no possibility in our society that people like Clifford Olson will ever get any breaks to get out of jail early or at all for that matter.
The second process is to go to a review by a jury of peers. Again, ordinary Canadians would be given all of the facts, all of the circumstances, and it would be up to Canadians, our neighbours, our friends from right across Canada. They would decide whether a case would merit consideration of shortening a sentence or having early parole.
If that were successful, it would then have to go through the ordinary process of a review by the parole board. There is a very comprehensive and extensive approach to it. The question comes down to is there a case of someone who has been convicted of first degree murder and who was sentenced to 25 years in prison that
should be considered for a reduction in sentence? It is a very tough question.
Many members will say first degree murder is first degree murder. The murderer has taken a life and they should serve the total of 25 years and that is all.
I asked justice officials to tell me about some of the cases where application was made and granted. I found that we were not talking about Clifford Olsons, we were not talking about Hell's Angels members who killed people and were getting out on early parole.
Many of the cases were domestic problems where an abused spouse in reaction or emotion killed their spouse. There were cases where disputes within families led to one family member killing another family member. It is tragic and awful in our society. But as we all know, there are circumstances that create pressures and stresses on people which make them make very bad mistakes. They have to live with those mistakes for the rest of their lives. They are very remorseful. It serves Canada and society as a whole no benefit to have them incarcerated for that additional period.
A better result may be achieved if those people are shown clearly, based on a review by judges, by juries of their peers and by the parole board, not to be a threat to society as a whole. The incident had complicated or mitigating circumstances associated with it but on the technicalities of the merit of the case it did in fact constitute first degree murder.
I raise the issues to make sure all hon. members know the argument is not a Clifford Olson argument. There is no question that all hon. members of this place want to ensure those situations do not tie up the courts and do not particularly raise the kinds of problems that have been raised here.
It is a constructive change that has been raised in Bill C-45. I support it and I know this House will look favourably on the bill because it is the right thing to do.