Mr. Speaker, on February 29 this year I seconded Bill C-201, introduced by my hon. colleague from Prince George-Bulkley Valley, and I would like to thank him at this time for the opportunity to speak to and support the bill.
This is the second reading of the bill. It has been deemed votable by a committee of the House. The bill essentially would amend section 255(3) of the Criminal Code of Canada to impose a minimum seven year sentence for a person convicted of the crime of impaired driving causing death.
This is a piece of legislation known as a private member's bill and it really deserves the support of every person in the House. I really and sincerely hope the Prime Minister will allow a free vote on this and that every member of the House will look at this piece of legislation and throw their political affiliation aside and listen to the debate and hopefully support it.
Before I go into many of the reasons here, I would like members to imagine for a moment what we must do in order to seriously consider drunk driving as a very serious type of behaviour, something we should not tolerate in our society.
We have done a lot of educating of members of the public to make them aware that they should not drive while impaired and much of that education has been taken to heart, but education in and of itself does not do it all. Other signals must be sent to society to illustrate how serious this is, something that no one should ever do, something akin to manslaughter. To take the life of someone while impaired is unacceptable.
This bill has the potential to save lives, much more potential than some of the other legislation that the justice department has brought down. I would like to make the point that good laws and punishment do not necessarily make people good but they do restrain evil, unacceptable behaviour and that is why this bill should be supported.
A drunk driver going down the highway is very much like a hand grenade lying on a playground with a timing device that has an arbitrary time on it. This hand grenade has had the pin pulled but the timing device as to when it will explode is completely unknown. We do not know if there is going to be someone in that playground when it goes off or maybe it will explode in the middle of the night when there is no one there. Maybe it will go off when there are a lot of people around.
That is what it is like when a drunk driver is going down a highway unable to completely control his vehicle and react appropriately to something that may happen very quickly. We would not tolerate someone placing a hand grenade in a playground not knowing when it would go off anymore than we should tolerate a drunk driver going down the highway. That is why this bill is really important.
Here are some of the reasons why I second this important piece of legislation in addition to what I have just said. Three times the number of people are killed by drunk drivers than are murdered. That is a lot of people in comparison to the number of murders. Even though the Criminal Code provides a maximum penalty of 14 years for drunk driving for killing someone with his car, the actual sentences are only one to four years. I ask members of this House is that all a person's life is worth?
We have to send a signal through our courts to people in society that this is very serious and they should obey the law. Such low sentences do not provide a meaningful deterrent to those who continue to drive while drunk, while out of their minds. Such low sentences do not reflect the public's concern for this type of crime. Impaired drivers are responsible for 90 per cent of the fatal car crashes in which they are involved. That is an unacceptably high level.
One of the main reasons the carnage on our highways does not stop is the present leniency of our courts. Imposing a minimum sentence of seven years for killing a person while driving drunk will send the strongest of messages that the lethal consequences of driving while impaired will not be tolerated by society.
Here are some other facts which I think need to be repeated. Forty to seventy per cent of impaired drivers have had prior alcohol related offences. They know they have a problem. It takes between 200 to 2,000 incidents of driving while impaired to produce one arrest, not a conviction, just an arrest. And 57 per cent of those charged had at least one similar offence in the previous five years. Impaired driving charges are dismissed or reduced in 40 per cent of cases. Our courts need to deal more seriously with these things.
Bill C-201 has had the support of many organizations. Here are some of them: Mothers Against Drunk Drivers, Canadian Youth
Against Against Impaired Driving, Ontario Students Against Impaired Driving, Nepean Committee Against Impaired Driving, Friends and Family Against Drunk Driving.
I understand there has been material circulating in the government benches disputing the support of Mothers Against Drunk Drivers, MADD Canada. Let me quote from two letters sent to the hon. member for Prince George-Bulkley Valley. On March 20, 1996, Mr. Jim Wideman, executive director of MADD Canada wrote:
On behalf of the Board of Directors of MADD Canada, I would like to reaffirm our support of Private Member's Bill C-201. I am aware that other correspondence has been made to Mr. Rock's office. Let me reiterate that the National Board of MADD Canada, our Chapters and Members wholeheartedly support Bill C-201.
On May 16, 1996 Jane Meldrum, president of Mothers Against Drunk Drivers Canada, wrote:
It is my understanding that during the last hour of debate that [the hon. member for Prince Albert-Churchill River] rose in the House of Commons and referred to the letter from MADD Canada indicating that MADD did not support this bill. This letter was written by a member of the Board of MADD Canada and was the opinion of this person as an individual and not of that of the Board. This letter was not approved by the Executive Committee of the Board of Directors and was not approved to be sent on MADD Canada letterhead. This individual has been advised of this and has been requested to retract his statement.
I would like to now respond to a couple of other criticisms of this bill in the short time I have remaining.
We have heard that some Liberal backbench MPs oppose this amendment because the minimum sentence would be inconsistent with the sentencing provisions of other sections of the Criminal Code, in particular section 220, criminal negligence causing death.
While we thank our hon. colleagues for pointing this out, the solution is not to oppose this bill but to propose an amendment or introduce another bill that would make sentencing provisions consistent.
We heard another concern that the mandatory minimum sentence might discourage accused drunk driver killers from pleading guilty and thereby typing up more time in the courts and causing more pain for the families of the victims. One of the most important principles of our criminal justice system is that the punishment must fit the crime. It is clear that drunk drivers who kill are quite literally getting away with murder.
If the average sentence for those convicted of impaired driving causing death was half the maximum sentence of 14 years, permitted under section 255(3), I would say let us leave well enough alone, but this is not the case. The average sentence for impaired driving causing death ranges between one to four years. I think the majority of Canadians would agree with me that this punishment does not fit the crime.
As for the rights and interests of the victim's family, the most important issue for them is to ensure there is a sense of closure to the case and, above all else, that the sentence equates with real
justice. The victim's family also needs to know that the death of their loved one served some purpose, that the punishment of the crime will in some way prevent someone else's death. This is what a mandatory minimum sentence will do. This is why thousands of Canadians have told us to support this bill.
Finally, our critics tell us that the minimum sentence of seven years for killing someone will be challenged under the charter of rights and freedoms because it is cruel and unusual punishment. If anyone really thinks that this sentence is cruel and unusual punishment, I would ask them to conduct a poll of all the families that have had a loved one killed by a drunk driver and ask them what they think.
While there are lawyers out there who would love to make some money bringing forward a charter challenge, and while the Liberal government is even willing to pay the lawyer to bring the case forward under the reinstituted court challenges program, and while there are judges who might agree with their claim regarding seven years in jail for impaired driving causing death, the government will lose the case in the most important court, the public opinion of this land.
Frankly, I believe we need to support this bill. I think I have put forth some good arguments and hopefully all members will be open to it.