Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have the opportunity to rise to speak to Bill C-45.
Let us examine what this bill is about. Of course the amendment which the Bloc put forward is to give the bill a rest for about six months so it can be studied in even greater depth. Quite frankly, I agree with the motion, except that it does not go far enough. We should give this bill a rest, period. We should throw out this useless bill. Let us get back to talking about a criminal justice system in which sentences fit the crime and in which the sentences are designed to protect society by not allowing criminals to get out early to commit another crime. That is what we are talking about.
We listened to the hon. member for Kingston and the Islands verbally assaulting us out of the view of the cameras. I would like to talk about some of the comments which he made yesterday in his presentation.
"The point is most murders, from my limited knowledge", and I will certainly agree with that, "in this area are crimes of passion. I do not think the offender sits and thinks of the consequences of his or her acts when a murder is taking place". What a profound statement. The fact is many murders are committed in this country with premeditation. That is what we are talking about, premeditated murder, first degree murder. We are talking about cold blooded murder.
Do we accept the philosophy of the hon. member for Notre-Dame-de-Grâce, the philosophy of the hon. member for Kingston and the Islands, the philosophy of the Minister of Justice and the philosophy of the Liberal government and a good majority of its members? Do we accept that philosophy as being how we should deal with people who commit cold blooded, vicious murders? Should the Liberal philosophy be the guiding light as to how we treat these people? Or should it be how Canadians, how our society, how law-abiding citizens feel about this? That is the question we have to ask here today.
Surely one can see from the bill that the Minister of Justice has set himself up as some sort of king who is going to decide all. This is quite astounding. He has the audacity to determine unilaterally that in this country there are good murderers and bad murderers. If someone commits one murder they are, in his mind, a good murderer and they get to apply for early parole after 15 years. If they commit more than one murder they serve a life sentence of 25 years.
There are two points I would like to make. First, how does he have the audacity to suggest that the crime of killing one victim is any less severe than someone who kills two or three people? How can he make that judgment? Could he tell the family of a victim that the killer was in fact classified as a good killer and someone who killed three or four people was a bad killer? Could he actually say that? I think not.
The other point I want to make in talking about multiple killers is that in his philosophy and in most of the Liberals' philosophy, a multiple killer should serve a life sentence of 25 years. I would hazard a guess that most Canadians would prefer that a multiple killer serve a life sentence of 25 years for every murder he or she has committed.
In other words we are talking about consecutive sentencing as most other countries have. The governments of those countries try to reflect in the criminal justice system what society wants. If we were to carry that line of thought into this debate, then certainly we should not be talking about whether or not a killer gets out early if they kill one, two or three people. If we were to truly reflect the feeling among the Canadian people when it comes to first degree premeditated murder, then we would be talking about capital punishment in this House today.
Poll after poll, survey after survey has shown that a majority of Canadians first of all would support the return of capital punishment for first degree murder in this country, but most important, an
even higher majority of the people in this country would simply like to be asked. That is what the Reform Party has been pushing for.
If this government had any intestinal fortitude, any sense, any brains, or any sense of democracy, it would take that question to the people of Canada. If the government is afraid to deal with that question, then let us let the government off the hook and take that question to the people of Canada in a national referendum. Ask them if they would like to have the return of capital punishment in this country. Just ask them. The government will not do that because it knows what the answer will be. The answer will be an overwhelming yes and that does not align with the Liberal philosophy.
The member for Notre-Dame-de-Grâce when he was justice minister was the one who put through section 745. A companion to that bill was to eliminate the death penalty and replace it with life sentences and the early parole application. That was a reflection of the philosophy of the Liberal government of that day and it is apparent in this group of Liberals sitting here today.
The minister has set the quota at one life, should at some future time the killer want the opportunity to make an application to reduce his or her parole. It is disgraceful and reprehensible that the justice minister, who really was elected only in one riding and was given a little bigger job once he got here, has set himself up as judge and jury as to how the criminal justice system is going to work without regard for the real jury out there which is the Canadian people.
Where do the Canadian people fit in this scheme of the justice minister's? Quite frankly, they do not count. That is very clear in this bill.
We talked about consecutive sentencing. If the minister is so determined that people who commit premeditated multiple murders should serve a life sentence, why do we not see something in the bill that says a life sentence for every life someone takes? Where is that in the bill? If someone kills two people, it should be two life sentences. If someone kills four people, it should be four life sentences. Consecutive sentences. That would be the thing that would keep these people in prison. Consecutive sentencing puts a value on the taking of each and every life in the case of multiple killers.
Clifford Olson should have received 11 life sentences. He killed 11 people. Premeditated and pre-calculated, he killed 11 people. As a matter of fact one of the victims was the daughter of the man who gave me my first job. That has no relevance to this except to point out that I have some personal knowledge of the savage acts Clifford Olson committed and he should never ever even have the opportunity to apply for early parole.
The U.S. uses consecutive sentencing. Some states have abolished their parole boards which would be a good idea given the record of our parole boards in this country. They have abolished them to ensure that criminals serve their entire sentences. However that is not in the philosophy of the Liberal Party, the Minister of Justice and cohorts from governments past, the cohorts in this bill. It is not in their philosophy.
The Liberals are too busy looking after criminals and placing them on the same plane as their victims. This government believes that the rehabilitation of criminals should have as much attention and as much respect as the victims of crime themselves.