Mr. Speaker, to answer the hon. member, I do not disagree with jury consultation. The problem I have in connection with Bill C-45 and section 745 of the Criminal Code is: What information will the jury be given? Will they get all the information about the pain, the anguish inflicted on the victim? Will they get the real impact of what has happened to the victim's family and friends? The answer to that is probably no. The real thing about a jury, and it is right that the member raises it, is: What information will they get and what will they base their judgment on except all of that information?
Let us go back to another comment made by the member, that the only thing we are looking at here is life imprisonment. I had Private Members' Bill C-261 in the House on Friday. That bill, after having consulted with the people of Nanaimo-Cowichan, addressed the matter of the death penalty. Consulting with my community I found that the majority of people expressed an interest and a desire to revisit the whole business of the death penalty in Canada.
That again has been taken away from the people by the elites in this country, going back to 1976 specifically by my predecessor, an honourable and noble parliamentarian by the name of Tommy Douglas. Having heard the people of Nanaimo-Cowichan, he said that yes the majority wanted to keep the death penalty but he came to the House and said that he must vote his conscience.
This is one of the basic problems we have in the democracy of this country: Who is listening to whom and who is acting on whose behalf? Are we listening to the people or do we, you the elite, know better?