Madam Speaker, in response to my colleague's question the easy part of my answer is that we certainly do not want the Liberal wishy-washy approach. This is very clear.
They claim they want to change things, to make them better, but in the end they just make suggestions that slam the door, because they do not have the guts to clearly say what they want, because they are influenced by right-wing attitudes and the Reform's approach. To save some votes, they do something which is neither here nor there. For instance, compared to the way things were before, requiring unanimity in the jury is tantamount to slamming the door.
When you think that screening by a chief justice will be required before any application is submitted to a jury, this means that
chances of parole are almost non-existent. To exclude all those committing multiple murders is trying to close the door on something that has no basis.
The Bloc is not ready to put up a smokescreen with such purely cosmetic amendments. If the government wants to make changes, it should propose real fundamental changes; once they are on the table, we will examine them and see if they would really bring about some improvement.
As the member knows, statistics show that the present system is far more efficient than the one they are proposing. They have submitted a bill with a little window dressing in order to be able to say to people: "Look. We have done something about that issue; the results are not so important; we put a bill to the House and we hope to score some political points with that."
That is unacceptable on the part of a supposedly responsible government.
As far as confusing sentencing, I think the member missed part of my presentation. This is exactly what I explained when I said we had to make a fundamental difference between the sentence given by a judge and the evaluation of the ineligibility period, or the eligibility later on.
When time comes to decide if, after 15, 18 or 20 years, someone will be eligible for parole, the situation is entirely different from the initial one, because years have gone by and circumstances have changed. I think our position on this point is quite clear.
Finally, I think we could go further in consulting the families.
Indeed, I think that the measures proposed in the bill do not go far enough, that they should be strengthened. With what we know today about the rules that govern human activity, I think we could go much further, because we have to rise above the anecdotal and demagogy and try to draft a bill that will improve the situation.
Instead of voting for this tarted up legislation, the Bloc Quebecois would much rather keep things as they are and continue to trust the people who gave us what we have now, so that in a number of years we will have scrutinized this whole issue. No one in the Bloc ever said that we were not ready to reflect upon this. We should go back to the committee, go back to the drawing board and come back will a truly finished product.