Debates of Sept. 23rd, 1996

Criminal Code

[Paul Crête, Bloc, Kamouraska—Rivière-Du-Loup, QC]

Madam Speaker, I had the opportunity to speak on this bill at second reading. At the time, I raised the issue of attitude toward this bill, which is an important issue.

I think the remarks I made then are still valid, as the government did not bring in the amendments we thought it might make to the bill to enhance the Canadian system.

From the outset, I must say that this is a bill that draws on the responsibility of the law makers. It does not deal with details, but with important matters affecting human beings, the lives of human beings, people, not only criminals, but also the victims' families. It makes deciding the issue all the more difficult.

We are dealing with a bill to amend the rules for setting the parole ineligibility period for individuals sentenced, say, to 25 years in prison and who, under the existing rules, after serving 15 years, may apply for a reduced sentence and be released early.

We can either give way, as the Reform Party did, to anecdotal accounts, individual cases, the kind of stuff that makes the first page of newspapers. Our first reaction may be to say: "The system should be much more repressive, to give people who commit such heinous crimes no chance of ever getting out of prison".

That is the first attitude, the first reaction we may have, but I think that, as law makers, we have a duty to look further, beyond this first reaction. We must go and see what the reality is for the people in these situations.

As of December 31, 1995, 175 prisoners were eligible for this program. Of these, 76-already fewer than half-had applied for a reduction in their number of years of imprisonment without eligibility for parole.

Of these 76 cases, 39 were granted a reduction. And at December 31, 1995, out of this total, there was only one repeat offence, a case of armed robbery. This was not a repeat offence involving assassination or murder, but armed robbery.

Therefore, overall-those listening to us know this-there is no perfect system that would completely eliminate errors. In all human endeavour, there are forms of error. What we must do is evaluate whether the system now in place has given and continues to give satisfactory results, and then find ways to improve it.

I think the situation needs to be looked at very carefully. In this regard, the Minister of Justice perhaps gave in too quickly to representations that I would call a bit more election minded. We are seeing the Reform Party's relentless pursuit of this issue. The justice minister, perhaps knowing that an election was coming up, gave in a little too quickly. And since he knows that the system is working reasonably well, he said: "We will table a bill with amendments that are neither fish nor fowl and that will not really improve the situation".

Therefore, rather than adopting this attitude and resorting to a litany of examples, as the Reform Party is doing, or to simply try to gloss over the situation, as the bill does, I think that we must look further for the attitudes to adopt and the positions to take.

First, we must ask ourselves whether our goal is to punish these people, who are in prison for prolonged periods, some up to 25 years. Is our goal to rehabilitate them? Is our goal to ensure society's safety? In the end, are we not trying to do all these things? And must we not try to find a satisfactory balance?

Let us remember how it works at the present time. Under the act, when someone applies-as we know, 76 of the 175 eligible have applied-he appears before a jury, 8 out of 12 of whom must agree. These jurors are members of society who have agreed to decide, based on their abilities and on the information before them, whether the person should benefit from a shorter ineligibility period than the one originally set. In other words, the person could be paroled at an earlier time than originally set out, at the time of sentencing.

Let us not forget that this process comes into play 10, 12, 14, 16 or 18 years after the sentence was handed down. A distinction must be made between the time a person was sentenced and the time his ineligibility is reviewed. These are two very different issues. To be sure, there are times when a person changes his behaviour to the point where he could reintegrate society. Statistics tell us that this is often the case.

However, under the current system, victims, who are an important factor in the equation, do not have enough of a say in the process. The relatives of victims live a very difficult situation. When the victim is a young person, a brother or a sister, the grief is such that the survivors look for a way to alleviate it. One such way is to think that this unfair, terrible and unacceptable death was caused by another person and it would not be humanly correct to let this person benefit from a situation where he would not be made to realize the seriousness of his action.

We agree that there should be greater representation of the families of victims. This could be an option for the future, one that should have been examined more thoroughly and that should have been included in this bill.

The minister now wants a unanimous decision. This means that not 8 out of 12 but 12 out of 12 jury members will have to agree to reduce the ineligibility period. This means that everyone on the jury must keep an open mind, that no one must decide a given application can never be approved on principle. Otherwise, the bill would, perhaps not hypocritically but somewhat artificially, close all the doors, eliminate any possibility of rehabilitation, without actually using the word.

On this point, I think the minister is hiding behind a smoke screen. That is one of the reasons why we cannot support the bill as it now stands, because the government maintains that the decision should be approved not by 8 out of 12 but by 12 out of 12 jury members. Could a compromise have been reached? Maybe, but the government has made no move to that effect.

The other criterion is the link to multiple murders. Someone held responsible for the murder of more than one person would not be eligible. I do not think there is a causal link. Is a double murder more serious than a single one? Are there not other elements that must be considered, such as the circumstances surrounding the case, that are as important as the number of people killed if not more so?

It is not an easy situation. It is not easy to evaluate. We have to study the present system, and ask ourselves whether this system is working as it should, whether there are improvements to be made and whether there is anything that should be studied a little more in depth.

We made representations. We tabled them in the House. However, the government did not accept any amendments. I think this is one area where we should move carefully. We have to make sure that the decisions we make represent a strong consensus within society. These are things which have a bearing on us as human beings.

In this regard, I object to the statement by the Reform Party, which said a while ago: "If you were in such a situation, if a member of your own family had been killed-"

I think this kind of attitude is very dangerous. We are not in such a situation, we are legislators, in a Parliament, who have to make decisions for the society as a whole.

Here is another example: If I do not keep to the speed limit on the highway, I may be highly indignant at the consequences, such as being arrested or the like, but it does not necessarily mean that I am right.

In the case of murders, where relatives of the victims are emotionally deeply wounded, it is very difficult to ask people in that situation to be objective. I do not think it is up to them to determine what the sentence should be. It is up to us as legislators to take on our responsibilities and evaluate the situation.

When judgment is passed, when a person is found guilty of a murder and is therefore a criminal, we have to determine, then, the sort of person involved and the kind of sentence we are going to impose, and it is normally 25 years. But 10, 12, 14 or 15 years later we have to review what happened and current circumstances, taking into account the behaviour of the person in jail.

I believe we must also take into consideration the opinion of the family and find a way to allow for the best possible judgment in as many instances as possible. In this area, the present system has produced some interesting results. It is true enough that there will always be crimes which grab the headlines and which we will find abhorrent. Yet I think we should also-and I believe it is an obligation for the legislator-go and look at all the other cases. If among the 39 reductions of the ineligibility period there is only one case of recidivism, it means that 38 of these people did not re-offend.

That means that a number of these people are back on the streets and do not constitute a security risk in our society. We have managed to reach one of our goals I just mentioned, securing rehabilitation without endangering society. We have to make sure our actions do just that.

Should we have simply referred this bill back to committee to hear more experts, study various cases again, evaluate this situation once more and look for some compromise? Should we have amended the bill so that families can be heard when a review of parole ineligibility is requested? Should we have raised the ratio of jurors from 8 to 9 or 10 out of 12? Is this something we should have looked at?

These are important aspects which the government has refused to consider, so that we are now heading for a dead end. The government knows the present system gives fairly good results, but it has to deal with electoral pressures. Reform members have been talking about petitions with thousands of signatures asking for harsher treatment of criminals.

But the responsibility of government members in this area is not to give in to voter pressure, but to ensure that the systems they set up are effective and will properly meet the objectives of our criminal justice system.

It is true that individuals must be very conscious of the consequences of their actions and that punishment must be proportionate to the offence so they understand the consequences and know what they are exposing themselves to, but, we must also ask ourselves if we are able to rehabilitate some of the individuals we put in jail and if we must keep in jail those we cannot rehabilitate because they pose a threat to society.

I think that, as legislators, we have that kind of responsibility, and the bill before us does not improve in any way on the current situation. If we adopt this bill, we will not be in a position to say, five or ten years from now, that we improved the possibility of rehabilitation and our society a safer place.

We consider the bill to be incomplete and in need of more fine tuning, that is why the Bloc Quebecois cannot vote for it unless the government amends it in a way that brings it more in line with the objectives set at the beginning of the process. The government should also take this opportunity to study the whole question of violence in our society to be able to avoid simplistic solutions, because the solutions put forward by the Reform Party will not solve the problem and will not reduce criminality.

There will not be fewer murders because people will not have the possibility of getting a reduction of their parole ineligibility period. This is not the way things are decided at the time the crime is committed. As legislators, I think we have to review this issue, to refine it or, if absolutely necessary, to maintain the current legislation, which still has given interesting results, and introduce new legislation only when we have been able to put on the table solutions that will really improve the situation. That is why the Bloc members will vote against the bill.

[Jake Hoeppner, Reform, Lisgar—Marquette, MB]

Madam Speaker, I ask the hon. member how many individual families he knows that have suffered this trauma of having somebody in their family murdered, what the consequences were for these families and how they coped with this situation.

I know a few such families and I find it almost unbelievable that we do not address this issue. We looked more or less at the issue of rehabilitation rather than at the trauma these people have caused in the communities.

[Paul Crête, Bloc, Kamouraska—Rivière-Du-Loup, QC]

Madam Speaker, for each of the bills we vote on, we have not necessarily personally experienced the situations facing the people whom we have to make decisions on.

Except that, in the present situation, perhaps because of my age, we have had to give much consideration, in the past 20 years, to the objectives we were aiming at with the justice system. We put in place some things that are aimed at a form of rehabilitation and I believe we were pretty successful. No one challenged the statistics that were given on that. These are official statistics.

Of the 175 people eligible as of December 31, 1995, 76 applied for a reduction of their parole ineligibility period; 39 got a reduction and only one committed another crime. The crime was armed robbery, not murder.

So, this information tells us the current system is still working pretty well. There are certainly things we must look at more closely, and one of the elements that was not put forward in the reform to insure better rehabilitation is the issue of consulting the families when we decide whether or not to reduce the parole ineligibility period. We should add that, we could put it in more specifically, we could give them a more important voice in the process, and I am part of that.

It is important to understand all the psychological process that these people undergo. The evidence is there: the families of victims do not suffer any less. It is not because the murderer is going to serve 25 years that the victim's family is going to grieve less. There is no direct link in this respect.

Nobody has ever proven there was one. If we have proof, I would like to see it. I understand that, for someone in such a situation, for a victim's parents, life is very hard, but the way to alleviate their sadness is not necessarily to make sure that the individual who has committed the murder, the criminal act, is punished. It will not make them feel any better.

I believe that, as lawmakers, we have to take the whole situation into account. We have to look more into what human reactions are in such situations and act accordingly. At the moment, the way things are handled, I believe that the status quo is much better than the amendments proposed by the government or a rigid approach, which would not solve anything.

[Tom Wappel, Liberal, Scarborough West, ON]

Madam Speaker, in the last sentence I think we were getting to what I am interested in, which is the actual position of the Bloc Quebecois on this section. Is it that the status quo is what the law should be or is it that the status quo is better than the amendments that have been proposed? Exactly what is it?

The hon. member in his speech said that maybe we have not taken into account the perspective of the victims. Maybe the hon. member has not read the bill. I draw his attention to page 4 of the bill, section 745.3(1), subparagraphs c and d.

One thing the jury shall consider-it is mandatory-is the nature of the offence for which the applicant was convicted. That deals with the hon. member for Nanaimo-Cowichan's problem that the jury does not know how heinous the crime was.

Second, sub (d) states that any information provided by a victim at the time of the imposition of the sentence shall be considered by the jury. That is, any information provided by a victim at the time of the imposition of the sentence or at the time of the hearing under this section. It is obvious that the victim's perspective is dealt with in subparagraph (d). The jury is required to consider any comments that the victim's family made at the time the sentence was imposed or at the time of the review under this section. Perhaps the hon. member could explain why he feels this bill does not deal with the victims.

Could the hon. member please, in one sentence, tell us what the position is of the Bloc Quebecois so that the people of Quebec know? Is the position that the current law is just fine? If it is, say so. If it is not, what precisely is wrong and what would the Bloc Quebecois suggest should be in the bill?

May I remind him in closing, while he is thinking about an answer to those two questions, that he and some hon. members, in my opinion, are confusing section 745 with sentencing. This has nothing to do with sentencing. Sentencing is imposed by the law. Life imprisonment is the sentence. Section 745 deals with how long a person has to stay in prison before they can apply for parole. When the jury decides that it will be 15 years instead of 25, it is not deciding to let the person out, it is deciding that the person will have to serve 15 years before they can make an application to the parole board. It is the parole board that will decide under the appropriate legislation whether that person will be released.

Let us stick with the legal realities of what we are talking about. We are not talking about sentencing. We are talking about how long the term will be before a person can apply to the parole board.

What I am really interested in is what the heck is the position of the Bloc Quebecois?

[Paul Crête, Bloc, Kamouraska—Rivière-Du-Loup, QC]

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.

[Tom Wappel, Liberal, Scarborough West, ON]

Madam Speaker, I am very pleased to have the opportunity to address the House on this very important issue at third reading stage.

To approach the issue I will take a little walk through history and have a look at where this section came from, how it came about, why there is a problem and what the Liberal government proposes to do about it. I support the legislation and I will explain why. I will try to indicate why I do not think the criticisms that have been levelled against the legislation really stand up to logic.

Let us go back to 1976 when Parliament abolished capital punishment. There was a huge debate. The representatives of the people in this House decided for whatever reasons that capital punishment was going to be abolished.

Once we abolish capital punishment for high treason and for first degree murder, what are we going to do with people who have committed high treason or first degree murder? We have to do something with them. There are really only two things we can do. We can either put them in jail and throw away the key and never look at them again, which is life in prison, period, full stop, or we can put them in prison for life with an opportunity to apply for parole at some point in time if they have demonstrated a number of things, including that they will not reoffend and that they have been rehabilitated.

If society opts for life in prison, full stop, that is it, there is no need to discuss when these people might get parole because they are not going to get parole. Back in 1976 our society decided not to take that approach. That is a fact. That is a 20 year fact. So we are dealing with facts, not how we would like things to have been in 1976, but how they are in 1996. We have to deal with what has happened over the last 20 years.

What did Parliament decide? Parliament decided not to go with life in prison, period, full stop. It decided to go with life in prison with a chance of being considered for parole after 25 years. Some might argue that should have been where it stopped. But there were people who were concerned back in 1976, as there are people today-and we just heard one of them speak-that this is an awfully long time and that people do change, that they do rehabilitate, that they do become different people and that the quality of mercy we should extend to them.

Those people said there might be circumstances where a person has committed a first degree murder for one reason or another and has served 15, 16 or 17 years, and maybe there will be cases where that person deserves to be allowed to apply for parole.

So a line was drawn by the parliamentarians of that day in 1976, and that line said if you commit first degree murder, you will be sentenced to life in prison. You will have the opportunity to apply for parole after you have served 25 years. By the way, you do have a faint hope of applying for parole before 25 years if you take the section 745 route.

What is the section 745 route? Murderers have to serve at least 15 years. Once they have served their 15 years they then apply to

have a jury consider what, whether they deserve a retrial, are not guilty or are a different person? No. It is for a jury to decide whether the person should be allowed to apply to the parole board at any time between 15 and 25 years. That is what the jury is deciding in that case.

The person goes before a jury of his peers, ordinary citizens of the community who have been brought in under the juries acts of the various provinces, and the community thereby is consulted, which is exactly what the Reform Party wants. It wants the community consulted. What better consultation is there than members of a jury from everyday Canada listening to the application of a convicted murderer?

Let us not forget we are not talking about refugees here. We are talking about convicted first degree murderers, people who have killed people, people who have done the worst thing that we can think of in society, which is why they must spend the rest of their lives in jail unless they are paroled. That is the reality. They must spend the rest of their lives in jail unless they are paroled, which is the worst sentence we can give short of hanging in this country.

One could make much of the fact that it is a 25 year sentence, but that is not true. It is a life sentence. We should deal with reality, not rhetoric.

The murderer goes before a jury. We know this is happening but why is it coming up? Finally since 1976 more than 15 years have passed and these first degree murderers are starting to make their applications. Without quibbling about the numbers, the numbers I have show that out of 2,085 murderers currently in the prison population as of December 1995, 574 of them are first degree murderers. I am concentrating my remarks on first degree murderers. Of those 574, 175 have already become eligible to apply under section 745 as it currently exists. Out of those, a whopping percentage, one might say, has been successful in getting some reduction. That is the problem because this gets people all upset.

We have people who have killed police, children, mothers, fathers, some of them are killing their own children, name the horrendous crimes, and some of them are being allowed by a jury of ordinary Canadians to what, get out of jail? No. They are being allowed to apply to the parole board to demonstrate why they should be allowed out on parole.

Some would have the section abolished. I was one of those who supported at second reading the bill from the hon. member for York South-Weston that would have abolished section 745. I want to address this because the Reform Party has made a lot about all these people who supported that bill and who are now supporting this bill. Let me tell members why.

At the time the hon. member's bill was brought forward this bill was not here. Section 745 as it is written is no good, plain and simple. Therefore if we do not fix it we have to get rid of it. There was nothing by way of fixing on the agenda. I do not want it in the Criminal Code as it currently exists, which I will explain in a moment. In the absence of a suggestion to make it better, stronger, to tighten it up and look after some of the loopholes that I think are there, there was no alternative but to vote in favour of a bill that would call for its scrapping, which is exactly what I did.

Now in response to the obvious desire of the House of Commons to do something about section 745, the Minister of Justice has come up with this bill. Let us look at it. What was one of the problems with section 745? Personally I have a problem with the fact that only eight out of twelve jurors can make the decision to allow for a reduced period of time before applying for parole. The hon. member for Kingston and the Islands does not agree with me. It should be unanimous. The hon. member who just spoke from the Bloc Quebecois does not agree with me. He does not think it should be unanimous. It should be.

It is the crown representing the people that must convince a jury beyond a reasonable doubt, all 12 of them, that the person is guilty. That is a very onerous burden. The crown must convince a unanimous jury that this person, beyond a reasonable doubt, is a murderer, has done the most heinous thing that this country knows about, that is kill, take another life. That is a very high burden.

Once the crown has met that burden and has demonstrated to a jury, beyond a reasonable doubt, unanimously, that the person is a murderer, it is not too much to ask that the murderer demonstrate to a unanimous jury on a lesser burden, balance of probabilities, that the murderer deserves to have an opportunity to apply for parole before serving 25 years.

Why should it be that it is only the crown who must convince a jury unanimously? Why should the convicted murder, who in effect is seeking clemency, not be required to show a unanimous jury that he should be entitled to clemency, that he should be entitled to that which he is not entitled to by law because he must serve 25 years.

That is why there is a real problem. It is not fair that the convicted murderer has a lesser burden than we in society who are trying to be protected from that person. That person lost his rights, as far as I am concerned, when he took another human life.

He has to serve the penalty imposed by society unless society decides to give him a second chance. How does society decide? The section 745 process. It is society by way of a jury. It is not some judge. It is not the Minister of Justice. It is not the House of Commons. It is a jury of peers.

A person must wonder, if you are in the Reform Party, with the greatest respect, how it is that 80 per cent of applications have been allowed by juries, not by judges, but by ordinary Canadians. Eighty per cent of them have been allowed. These people are insurance brokers, neighbours, in the lawn bowling league, grocers, clerks and car salesmen in your community sitting on a community jury making the decision. It may have been only eight out of twelve. Four did not want it and fought really hard. Eight out of twelve was good enough. How wrong have the juries been? Anybody can fool around with statistics.

We have already heard that of the people who have been granted parole by a jury, by the community, one has reoffended. Out of 50, one has reoffended so far. One is too much. That person was sentenced for armed robbery. As far as I am concerned, one chance and you are gone, buddy. You had your chance. You were sentenced to life. You have committed armed robbery. I will never see you again. Take care. Enjoy Kingston prison. One out of 50 is as close to perfect as we can get without being perfect, in terms of whether or not they have convicted another crime.

There is another aspect to it and that is denunciation. That is a fair question and is a reasonable thing to ask about. What is a human life worth? Is it worth killing the killer? Some would say yes. Is it worth locking the killer away and letting him or her rot in prison? Some would say yes.

How far do you go? Why not just give them bread and water, hard labour, or put them into a military camp? Why not send them up to the Arctic? There are all kinds of approaches that people can take but society as a whole has decided that short of hanging, murderers are going to spend the rest of their natural lives in prison, in reasonably human conditions, with food, water and amenities unless they can demonstrate why they should get out.

In my opinion this bill plugs the loophole of requiring unanimity. That reflects the same considerations that the community gave in convicting the person of the crime in whether or not they should receive clemency. That is really what we are talking about under a different word, clemency.

Are we going to make murderers sit in prison for the rest of their lives, or at least 25 years of it, or are we going to give them an opportunity to try to demonstrate to the parole board prior to 25 years that they should be let out? Remember the parole board has the legislative ability to decide whether people should be let out or not. If a person is in prison for life the parole board can only let that person out as the legislation states.

The first thing that is good about this bill is that unanimity is required. It is going to tighten up applications and fewer people are going to get out. That is exactly how it should be because this is a faint hope clause. In my opinion, it should be the exception who has demonstrated beyond a shadow of a doubt, at least to a jury, that he deserves the clemency of society notwithstanding that he took a human life. This person has spent a period of time in prison and as a result has learned a lesson and will never commit this crime again. There are a whole series of reasons why this is done.

One hon. member was quite right in saying that no matter how long a person serves in prison, the victim's family will never feel better. That is true. The victim is dead but that is a circular argument. Except with money crimes a person can never put anybody back in a situation that that person was in before a crime was committed.

If you are assaulted, Madam Speaker, and somebody gets two years in jail, I am sure if somebody asked you if you would prefer never to have been assaulted and had your nose broken and your eyesight destroyed or whatever the case may have been, or should the guy have gotten five years, you would say you would never have had the crime in the first place.

Obviously we are reacting as a society to things that people would rather not have had happen. People kill people so we have to deal with them. Being human beings there are a variety of reasons for this.

The first thing to do is to tighten section 745. We live in a political world, a political place and we have to recognize when something is or is not doable. For a variety of political reasons at this point in the history of this country abolishing section 745 is not doable. Members can rant and rave all they want, it is not doable.

If that is recognized as the case then the next best thing is to make the best of what is offered. Everybody in the House except for a few hon. members would argue that there is something wrong with section 745. Some would say get rid of it, others would say tighten it and then there are various planes in between. Very few would say that it is perfect the way it is although some would.

In a real world if you are not going to get what you want you go for second best. Second best to abolishing is fixing. To say that I did not get abolition therefore I am going to oppose it under all costs is shortsighted.

In my opinion what should be done is to make suggestions for betterment. That was my suggestion before the justice committee a year and a half ago. It was roundly dismissed by the justice minister. A year and a half later there it is in the legislation. So you can do that.

The screening process, unanimity of the jury and nobody who is a multiple murderer will ever have an opportunity to apply for parole are enough for me to support this bill.

[Gilbert Fillion, Bloc, Chicoutimi, QC]

Madam Speaker, first of all, I want to clear up some misconceptions. At the beginning of his speech, the hon. member gave us the historical background of the judicial review, but forgot to mention certain things. Indeed, the judicial review came into force in 1976, when the Trudeau government wanted the death penalty to be abolished. That much is true.

But why was the judicial review established at that time? To ensure a majority to vote in favour of the death sentence. That is why in 1976 the government tried to amend what is contained in Bill C-45. To get the votes. It is important to understand how things stood at the time. There was a little bargaining going on at that time, one vote on one thing for a vote on another thing. I will give you this if you give me that. In politics, that is essentially what the Liberals do regularly: "Vote for me and I will vote for you some other time".

As for the present legislation and the three proposed amendments, it is obvious that, despite the rhetoric we just heard, these three provisions will not improve the legislation.

Let us take, for example, the first amendment, which requires unanimity instead of the support of two thirds of the jury. If one member of the jury says no, the judicial review application will be rejected. The Bloc Quebecois has proposed changes to these amendments, which were brought forward by my colleagues at second reading.

The second amendment concerns the removal of the right of multiple murderers to apply for judicial review. This amendment is totally arbitrary and unfair. I think we could have focused on these words instead of relating facts that we continuously read about in the newspapers.

As for the third amendment, will it increase access? This amendment will restrict access to the judicial review. It will become practically impossible for anybody to use it. We have suggested that this whole issue be sent back to committee for further study.

Here is the question I want to ask my colleague: Is he willing to defend this bill before his caucus, to send it back to committee and to stop relying on the emotional reactions that this bill has created because it was introduced in the House following certain events?

Therefore, why not suggest that his caucus do a more detailed study, and, in particular, that ordinary Canadians, who could give this bill more credibility, be consulted?

In closing, I would tell him this: The public would be happy to have its say on this amendment to the act. I would also tell him that using this bill to play politics is political opportunism and not the best way to ensure a good bill.

[Tom Wappel, Liberal, Scarborough West, ON]

Madam Speaker, it is interesting that the member calls for consultations. I would remind him that Bill C-41 is before the House. A section of that bill got a lot of headlines and a lot of debate in this House. One of the sections that was dealt with in Bill C-41 was section 745. Surprise.

I was on the justice committee then. A lot of people had the opportunity to make whatever submissions they wanted to make on section 745. A few did. A few did say to get rid of it and a few said to keep it.

There was ample opportunity for consultation with respect to section 745. That is exactly where I moved my amendment to require that the jury be unanimous in reaching its verdict. When I say verdict, I should not use that term legally; I mean in reaching its decision of whether or not to allow for reduced eligibility for parole.

There was a lot of consultation on section 745. As it happens it is a huge bill which also contains the words "sexual orientation" and everybody started talking about that, except the people on the justice committee who were doing their jobs. We looked at every section and talked about a whole host of sections and made amendments. There were consultations.

Also, I have no problem at all, none, in saying that if there is one single member of a jury who says no, then it is no. Just as the convicted criminal has no problem if one single member of the jury says not guilty and the other 11 say guilty and he walks free. He has no problem with that. I have no problem with one saying no.

[Myron Thompson, Reform, Wild Rose, AB]

Madam Speaker, I heard in the speech by the hon. member that he still referred to this clause as the faint hope clause. I would suggest that after 80 per cent approval of some of these applications it has become the sure bet clause, not the faint hope clause.

He also said that through the use of a jury the voice of the people would be represented through a unanimous decision. If he is really concerned that the voice of the people is heard, then he would probably support a referendum on capital punishment. A national binding referendum would certainly give the voice of the people a chance to be heard.

I know the gentleman from our work together on the justice committee. I would say that he is a real fighter but I find it amazing that he would fight for second best. Apparently he believes abolishment would be first best. He said that fighting for second best is what we need to do.

I remind the member that if he is going home at night not to go only half way or he will never get there.

[Tom Wappel, Liberal, Scarborough West, ON]

Madam Speaker, I know the gentleman from my days on the justice committee and I know him as a fighter as well.

Faint hope. One reason there is an 80 per cent success rate is that it is 8 out of 12. I think when there is unanimity it will get back to where it should be, the exceptional case and not the rule.

On a binding referendum. I do not agree with referendums, generally speaking.

[Jake Hoeppner, Reform, Lisgar—Marquette, MB]

Do you believe in elections?

[Tom Wappel, Liberal, Scarborough West, ON]

Yes, I do believe in elections. As a matter of fact that is why I am sitting in this seat. When I first ran in 1988 I told the people of Scarborough West that I did not believe in capital punishment. I have never believed in capital punishment, ever since I found out what the heck it was. I stood up and I said that and I am here for my second term. If they want to get rid of me on that issue, I am not going to change my mind. I do not believe in capital punishment. I do believe in life incarceration unless it is demonstrated that society should grant clemency. That is where I draw the line.

Concerning accepting second best, I do not think that section 745 should be abolished because I do think there is the occasional person who would benefit from this. Everybody, depending on the facts, will show mercy in a certain set of facts. That is the point of this clause: to show some compassion in certain circumstances. If we shut the door completely to compassion and hope, what is left in life?

[Jake Hoeppner, Reform, Lisgar—Marquette, MB]

Madam Speaker, it has been a lively debate and time is drawing on.

It is very obvious that the Reform Party believes that all persons convicted of first degree murder should be imprisoned for life with no chance for parole or conditional release in any form for 25 years. Consequently, section 745 of the Criminal Code should be repealed.

I remind the hon. gentleman from Scarborough West that when a criminal or a murderer is before the justice system, he gets convicted or he gets released. If the sentence he gets is not to his liking, he can appeal the decision and he can keep appealing the decision until he reaches the Supreme Court. We have seen in the last decade or so that anyone convicted of murder receives the best judicial people in the world to defend them. If we have gone through the process and the person is given a life sentence, it should mean life.

It is only because some weak-kneed politicians have refrained from making decisions which would benefit this country that we are $600 billion in debt today which our future generations will probably never look after. Weak-kneed politicians, out of convenience, have said that punishment is not a deterrent. I would like anyone to prove to me that punishment is not a deterrent.

I wonder why the government is continually bringing forward bills which introduce severe punishment for society. The non-compliance bill is definitely one which tries to infer that stiffer punishments will deter violators. If it works in monetary bills and in other bills, why will it not work in the justice system?

The Reform Party mirrors very well Canadians' displeasure with the current weak justice system. Criminals are brazen and tough and do not respect the justice system.

During the weekend of September 16 in Winnipeg a senior of 75 years of age found herself with two intruders in her bedroom at night. What did these people do? They rolled her up in a blanket and made sure she could not move. They tried to take off her wedding ring. They said if they could not get the ring off they would cut it off. Finally they tore off the chain which was around her neck. They went through her premises, ravaged about and took what they wanted. Then they stabbed her in the neck and in the shoulders and left her for dead.

What happened? This lady managed to get to a telephone. She called the police to tell them what had happened to her. What happened within 15 or 20 minutes after the police arrived? The same criminals came back to the same house looking for more stuff to plunder. They thought they had probably killed the lady and she would not have been able to phone the police. They were brazen enough to take the chance to return to take more items.

I suggest to the House that these people probably felt that if they got caught they would be better off inside the prison system anyway, so why would they not go back to see if there were more things in the house? Is this the type of society we want to protect or that we want to encourage to develop in future generations?

What happens to the victims and their families? Fortunately, I have not had to stand at too many murder victims' graves. I have never seen any faint hope clause for them. There is not one single instance where those victims will take another breath of fresh air. Those people are put six feet under the ground and all the families have to remember of that person is a mound of dirt and a headstone.

I listened to the family who had their 16-year old daughter abducted in the middle of the afternoon. She was tied up, thrown into a storage shed and froze to death. After 15 years I have never heard those people say: "We don't wish that our daughter was back".

It appalls me when I hear some people in this House say that we have to rehabilitate these criminals. The person that committed that

crime was never found. These people have never had to think about how they would feel toward that criminal, but every time they talk to a community or share their experience, all they have left are the positive memories that child provided for them. This teenage girl had a tremendous influence on her class and on her community, and her life was snubbed out without any consideration.

Now they want to tell me it is some chemical imbalance that makes people do something like this. Never in my 60 years had I even thought of considering that. The people who commit some of these heinous crimes have never had any discipline. They have never had any punishment. They have always had their way and they only think of one thing: themselves. They would not hesitate to put a knife or a bullet into somebody else if they thought they could get some advantage from it.

I do not know what it will take for politicians to realize that in the past 25 years this country has become a worse place to live in, not a safer place. Twenty-five years ago we had been farming for about a dozen years and we never thought of locking the door. We never thought of locking our gas tanks. We never thought that we should stay at home at night because there could be somebody loose and on the prowl. My in-laws who lived in town never dreamt of locking their doors.

Today people dare not go away. If they do not get robbed or if their buildings are not ransacked, something is wrong. I wonder if this is the type of society we have come to appreciate and accept. As long as I am in this House I will speak against this type of society. I have been to countries and have seen what has become of societies that have to protect themselves from the criminal element. They put steel fences around their property and they keep the criminals out, not in.

If this government does not start to realize that is the direction we are going in, it will not be too many generations before we are doing the very same thing. We can see the start of it in some communities already. Rather than protecting their homes from criminals, they are protecting themselves so they cannot get out into society.

One Monday morning in early September I turned on the radio and heard of a young girl named Megan Ramsay. She was five years old. Her mother's common law husband smashed her head in with a baseball bat. A five-year old kid. How can a human being be so degrading that they can do that?

I had to put down animals when I farmed but I never had the heart to use a stick or a bat to kill them. I would go for some kind of instrument that put them away quickly. Here in a family situation a stepfather used a baseball bat. And when he was arrested he was charged with second degree murder. Tell me ladies and gentleman, how can we put second degree murder on somebody who uses a baseball bat to kill a five-year old girl?

That is how insensitive we have become to this type of conduct. We have come to the point where we know it is going to happen every day. If it has not happened to us personally, we say that we are lucky. But there is no place in this country where it is safe anymore. Twenty-five years ago I did not know what a drive-by shooting was. Today we see it in rural communities like Miami and Altona, Manitoba, areas where there was practically no crime 25 years ago. What has happened to this country? We have representatives in this House who really do not care in what direction we are going as long as it buys them a vote and they will be back here.

I hear members say that society has made these decisions. I have never seen a referendum on capital punishment. I have not seen a referendum on section 745 to circumvent the judgments the judicial system puts on the criminal or murderer.

If we are going to stand up in this House and use rhetoric that seems to suit our ears instead of addressing the issues, we will not make very many decisions to benefit this country.

Why am I so dead set against reversing sentences when they have been pronounced by our judicial system? If we circumvent one law we can do it in other laws.

There is a situation right now in my province where a farmer has gone to jail for selling his own grain for the best price he could. That is not the worst violation, but we also have a farmer who has been benefiting tremendously by keeping his mouth shut and not opening up to say what really happened. If this is justice we are going down the wrong track.

When we are going down the wrong track it is only a matter of time before we have a derailment. The derailment of the justice system over the last 25 or 30 years is something everybody saw coming as soon as capital punishment was done away with, without going to the people for their advice. It was politicians who thought they knew better. They knew what the country needed. Today I must say we have gone a long way toward that derailment and sooner or later the whole train will crash.

We have seen it in different countries where that has happened, Rwanda, Africa and other countries in Asia. We can name one after another.

We still have a democracy where we can change things, but if we are going to address our problems the way we have in the last couple of sessions, I do not have very much hope that we are going to avoid catastrophes.

Hon. members across the way know that when we came in here and said zero in three they threw up their hands and said "no way, we don't need to balance our budget". If they had done it three years ago as we asked them to do we would have money to spend

on rehabilitating some of these minor criminals, not the major criminals.

[An hon. member]

Tell the truth.

[Jake Hoeppner, Reform, Lisgar—Marquette, MB]

That is the truth. It is the honest to goodness truth, and the hon. member knows it. Six hundred billion dollars in debt and his grandchildren will never pay it. That is the truth.

If hon. members say that is not the truth, then let them call it a lie. If it is not the truth then it is a lie and we have $600 billion of debt.

I am sure the people who helped implement the policies which created that debt are not going to pay it back. They would not even want to try.

It is the same way with the justice system. If they want to try to reverse the system they had better start getting on track and doing something about it instead of using rhetoric which sounds like it was taken from some futuristic generation that did not know what death was. That is what we are talking about.

When I stand at the graveside of one of those murdered people I know there is an imprint on that family for its entire life. Nobody can erase it no matter how the criminal is rehabilitated. The impression on the memory is there.

I will tell the House how I know this. My grandmother, who came out of the Russian revolution, reminisced day after day before she died about the tragedies she had faced. She died while in a coma. These families that have murder victims in their families will never forget it no matter how rehabilitated the criminal is.

If that is not a message that should go to everyone's heart I do not know what else I can say. Does anyone want to see that vision in their dying days? Does anyone want to lay there in a coma thinking: "I was there and I helped defend the criminals instead of going after the protection of the victims and the citizens"?

We heard a Bible quote from someone which stated we should forgive. I also know a Bible quote which states that the government has been given the sword to exercise it. That does not mean just to defend its borders. The government is there to exercise that sword to protect its individual citizens, which is one thing this government is not doing. It is weak-kneed and arrogant and will not listen to the general public.

If we went to a referendum today on capital punishment, if any indication of my constituency has an effect over the country, it would pass by 85 per cent to 95 per cent. Why are we afraid to go to a binding referendum? Why do we not give the people in this country a chance to say what they feel? Why do we not finally listen to the grassroots people and do what they want us to do? No way. That is too easy. We would rather sit here day after day and joke about the problems we have in this country.

It is not a joke anymore when we have hundreds of people murdered every year and hundreds of thousands of people on welfare who cannot find a job because we have spent the future they deserved. What else can I tell this Parliament? Disband and have an election? No, we do not want elections too often because that is costly, I agree, but I am sure that a lot of these issues will not be talked about in the next election. They will be hid underneath some other political rhetoric.

What are we going to do about that? After 60 years in this country I have seen the good times and the poor times, but I hope we get better times. In 1972 when we had probably the most fluent times in the farming industry, when wheat went from $1.50 to $5 or $6, my mother said you will see starvation in this country. This is exactly what happened in the Soviet Union in 1912 to 1914. People got rich. I said it could never happen. Today I have seen it. I have seen food banks which I have never seen before in every city and every town, something we thought could never happen in this country.

There have been drive-by shootings which we thought could never happen in this country. We have had mass murders to an extent we had never seen before and we are saying that the price of justice is not a deterrent. Punishment is not a deterrent. Why are we implementing any legislation? Why are we giving speeding tickets? Why are we giving this and that? Abandon them. If punishment is not a deterrent let us forget it.

I appreciate these few moments. I hope I have a few members thinking.

[Don Boudria, Liberal, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

Madam Speaker, I listened attentively to the remarks of the hon. member across the way. I want to tell the House how profoundly I disagree with many of the things he said. He is making this country appear uncaring. He is making us into something other than Canadians, and he is wrong. All Canadians are proud of the great record that we have in terms of our crime rate, which is much lower than many others, and so on.

Some people across are going to heckle.

The crime rate has fallen 1 per cent for the fourth year in a row. Violent crime fell 4 per cent, the third decline and the largest drop since 1962. The homicide rate has dropped 3 per cent, reaching its lowest level since 1969. Minor assaults have dropped 3 per cent. Sexual assaults dropped 21 per cent. Homicides involving firearms dropped 10 per cent.

We heard comments from the hon. member across, somehow trying to draw a parallel between the situation in this country and the civil war that occurred in the Soviet Union under the white and red Russians. That is what he said.

Yes, the member across the way has said it, it is so much rhetoric. That is what we have just heard from the member across the way.

Finally, he told us that the situation in Canada resembled, or could resemble, that in Rwanda. Such statements are insulting.

Some hon. members across are displaying, by a show of hands, the number of murders occurring in a given community. They want to stop others from speaking, and that is typical of the Reform Party. They think they have a monopoly on the truth.

Canadians know what they are all about. It is a game of fear and hatred that they are trying to promote, Canadians one against the other. That is wrong. That is not the type of country in which we live. Notwithstanding the best efforts of the Reform Party, it is not the country in which we will live.

The hon. member who just spoke talked about capital punishment, about having a binding referendum on capital punishment.

[An hon. member]

Where did this guy come from?

[Don Boudria, Liberal, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

I know where I came from. I came from my constituency. I was elected by my electors eight times. The day after tomorrow it will be my 20th anniversary in public office. The member across who is still wet behind the ears in this House should have a bit more respect.

The hon. member's colleague in his speech was a bit more polite than the one who is heckling now said about capital punishment that we should have a binding referendum in Canada. The member is free to campaign on that if he wishes.

I have spoken on the debate in this House against capital punishment. I have, following that, made copies of my speech and sent it to every elector in my constituency. In the subsequent election, which is the last one, they sent me here with 82 per cent of the votes in my riding.

[An hon. member]

Not on that issue.

[Don Boudria, Liberal, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

The member may say not on that issue, and perhaps he is right. The point I am making to him is that if he thinks he can get elected on that issue alone, I will tell him that he is wrong.

Instilling that kind of hatred in Canadians is not going to work. It is wrong. Does the hon. member or any of his colleagues know, for instance, that a country could not even be admitted to the European Economic Community if it had capital punishment?

Does he know, for instance, that the country with the lowest murder rate in the western world is Belgium, which has no capital punishment and has not had for decades and decades? It was probably the first European jurisdiction to be that way.

Does he know that the country with the second lowest murder rate in the western world is the Irish republic? It does not have that either. Does he know? Does he care? No, because it does not fit into that kind of hate pattern they are trying to instil in Canadians.

It is not going to work in this country because Canadians are smarter than that. They will not fall for that kind of nonsense.

[Myron Thompson, Reform, Wild Rose, AB]

Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order. It is improper and unparliamentary to start referring to us as hate pushers of any nature. I would ask this member to retract it.

[Jake Hoeppner, Reform, Lisgar—Marquette, MB]

Madam Speaker, I would like to respond to the hon. member.

[The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Ringuette-Maltais)]

We still have two minutes for questions and comments. Had the hon. member completed before the interruption of a point of order?

[Don Boudria, Liberal, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

Madam Speaker, I will continue my comments very briefly about the crime rate in Canada and about what this government is doing.

This government has taken the proper approach. This government has seen one party across the way say we should send this bill a lot further down the road. The other party said we should not have done anything at all. The government did not do either with the propositions. We did the right thing.

[Randy White, Reform, Fraser Valley West, BC]

Madam Speaker, I thought a point of order was called. I do not think it was addressed at all here. Are you going to have the point of order addressed?