Madam Speaker, things are not going well for the Reform Party, because a second member has just dissociated himself from the party. Things are not going well. There are another four or five who may do the same.
That said, the bill put forward by the member for Prince George—Peace River has two parts to it. The aim of the first is to reinstate capital punishment and that of the second is to ensure the maximum prison sentence for offenders, people who have committed serious crimes. The crime is no less serious, but people under 18 years of age who have committed first degree murder, for example, would serve a life sentence.
They are amending the Criminal Code by replacing section 235 of the Criminal Code—and I think it important every word of this bill be understood—with the following:
Every one who commits first degree murder is guilty of an indictable offence and shall be sentenced a ) to death, where the person was eighteen years of age or more at the time of the commission of the offence; or b ) to imprisonment for life where the person was under the age of eighteen at the time of the commission of the offence.
As we can see, there are two elements to be amended, namely, the Criminal Code with respect to capital punishment and the Young Offenders Act.
In the case of the Criminal Code, all of us in this House know that there was a big debate on the subject in 1975-76, when Canada still had capital punishment. They wanted to amend it. There was a moral debate, with the church involved, a political and a social debate. I think there was a very important debate in 1975-76 on that. A compromise was reached, because they abolished capital punishment. The compromise was life imprisonment, with the possibility of parole after 25 years. It was perhaps not the best formula, but it was the most accurate representation of the will of the people at the time.
You have to understand that people, that a society, that a country can change. Maybe not the Reform Party, but everyone else. Today we do not think exactly the same way we did 25, 30 or 40 years ago. I think it is normal in a free and democratic society to deal with this, especially since with the help of experts and the people involved, we can review much more objectively the whole situation, which is rather unpleasant, I must admit. There is nothing pleasant about first degree murder. When we read the newspapers, there is nothing pleasant there neither, but I believe that in a society like ours, we had to get to the bottom of this. That is what we did during those years and we arrived at a rather satisfactory formula.
However, we improved it over the years. Recently, I think we solved still other problems by amending the Criminal Code so an individual can be declared a dangerous offender and denied the possibility of parole. Perhaps there will be further improvements over the years, but it surely will not be by going to extremes, as the Reform member wants to do this morning with Bill C-212, and by imposing capital punishment for first degree murder.
I would like to read to you some of the objectives we have here. Why did we go from capital punishment to the system we have today? France and other European countries had the same social debate we had here and finally adopted legislation resembling Canada's.
The judge should base his sentence on the objective and subjective seriousness of the offense so that the sentence is fair and in line with the offense and the offender. He should think about the objectives to be achieved by imposing a sentence. The sentence should be a deterrent for the accused and set an example for the people in the community, the region and even, in some cases, the province. But the sentence should also consider the actual or potential rehabilitation of the offender. The objectives that the judge has to consider are the following: the protection of society, retribution, deterrence, example, and the social rehabilitation of the offender and his protection against other sanctions. Considering all this, I believe that the present system strikes a balance and, as I was saying earlier, further improvements can always be made.
Another reason to oppose this bill—and I am saying this on a personal basis today, but also, knowing rather well my colleagues from the Bloc Quebecois, I believe there are a number of them that agree with me—is the possibility of an error in the judicial system. This is an extremely important reason and I think that even though our judicial system has proven itself, it is not infallible. No one in this House is infallible either. No judge is infallible, and I think there may be cases where individuals are found guilty who are not really guilty.
In Canada, we have seen people spend 5, 10 or 15 years in jail who were later found to have been unfairly convicted and who were released after their files were reopened and a new investigation was conducted.
I know that with the progress made in the medical field and in other fields, we can make the judicial system better or try to reduce the risk of mistakes being made, and I am referring here to deoxyribonucleic acid analysis, better known as DNA analysis. Such analyses may be used to link a given individual to a murder based on evidence found on the scene of the crime.
But even the best techniques will not prevent mistakes from being made and individuals from being convicted of murder in the first degree. If this House passed the hon. member's bill, these people would be executed, when it may be found ten years down the road that they were not guilty of the crimes they were accused of.
Also, before taking a stand on this bill, I did what I had done before taking a stand on the bill introduced by my Reform colleague during the 35th Parliament: I read what had been written about it and checked what the experts had said. Criminal lawyers are not unanimous, but the vast majority of them, including Gisèle Côté-Harper, Antoine Manganas and Jean Turgeon, say that capital punishment does not have a deterrent effect in the case of first degree murder.
To conclude, as far as young offenders are concerned, the proposed amendment to the Young Offenders Act would completely upset the balance of this legislation. For these additional reasons, I am opposed to the hon. member's bill.