Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the hon. member.
What we are trying to find out here is the price of a human life. The member has said that in her mind it is 15 years. If somebody plans to murder another person, first degree murder, that person would get only 15 years. In my humble opinion that is far too low.
When this whole debate took place 25 or 30 years ago in the 1970s when they changed from capital punishment to a new sentence for life, it was life subject to parole after 25 years. That was the sentence. That was the trade-off. That is what the politicians of the day thought they had agreed to. Life with parole after 25 years was the price for taking a life.
Where is the truth in sentencing, the deterrent to or the punishment for taking a life, instead of capital punishment, which obviously the member abhors and says would not be a deterrent? There are lot of people who share that point of view, which is fine. The replacement was a life for a life. We will not take another life but we will put a person away for life, away from society. "We do not want you to do that. You cannot do that. Your punishment is life. However, if there is a chance that you can be rehabilitated, we will take 25 years to find out if you have learned your lesson and if you can make a contribution to society again".
Now the person gets another lowered tier opportunity to enter society after 15 years. The judge heard the evidence and pronounced a sentence. Where is the truth in sentencing when after the judge and the jury have declared the punishment for the crime, life subject to parole after 25 years, when the criminal after serving time in jail can apply to a parole board which had nothing to do with the case or the trial, was not there when the evidence was given, was not caught up in the emotion of the situation but which can then after 15 years decide to lower the sentence or let them out earlier?
That is an injustice. It is cruel and it is placing the lowest possible value on a human life. We need truth in sentencing. If we do not favour capital punishment, then a life sentence should mean a life sentence and 25 years should mean 25 years. This 15 year stuff has to go.