moved that Bill C-215, an act to amend the Criminal Code (section 227), be read the second time and referred to a committee.
Mr. Speaker, it is amazing and perhaps even sad that Bill C-215 is necessary. There remains a badly flawed section of the Criminal Code which is section 227. In response to that, the private member's bill drafted by the member for Wild Rose in specific content says this: “The enactment provides that a person commits culpable homicide or the offence of causing the death of another person by criminal negligence or by means of the commission of offence under subsection 249(4) or 255(3) of the Criminal Code, regardless of the time within which death occurs at the time of the occurrence of the last event by means of which the person caused or contributed to the cause of death.”
That sounds like a convoluted phraseology but I will try to explain it.
The law says that an individual commits criminal negligence causing death, and if the individual then commits an assault, the person is in the hospital and dies after a period of time, the perpetrator is not culpable. The perpetrator cannot be charged because their victim took too long to die.
The ironic fact is that on September 4 the justice minister announced that she planned to introduce the exact same legislation as this bill. Why the Liberals would not support this proposed legislation is nothing short of political manoeuvring. Waiting for the government to draft new legislation has resulted in more time being wasted. It could have allowed another perpetrator to go free.
Bill C-215 called for the scrapping of section 227 of the Criminal Code because section 227 now states that no person can be convicted of a homicide if the death occurs more than a year and a day from the time of the offence. The private member's bill would have changed this in order to allow charges to be laid if the assault resulted in death, no matter how long the victim was able to hang on to life.
The reason for this bill stems from the death of Marvin Ward from Manitoba. This gentleman never regained consciousness following a savage baseball attack in May 1995. It took Mr. Ward 14 months to pass away and the suspects then could not be charged.
It is apparent from the cases such as this that section 227 of the Criminal Code does not recognize modern medicine's ability to keep people alive for an extended period of time. The private member's bill would allow for those to face charges if the assault resulted in death, no matter how long the victim is alive. There would be no time limits. If the bill were passed, it would ultimately have meant that Mr. Ward's death would not have been in vain. It would have proved that we as legislators can effectively change a badly flawed section of the Criminal Code.
The member for Wild Rose has followed this issue since last October and had this private member's bill drafted in March of this year. It was fortunate that it was picked in the draw for Private Members' Business but this is where the good fortune ended because the committee that looks at private members' bills did not deem it to be votable.
On September 4 the justice minister announced that she too was scrapping section 227 of the Criminal Code as early as this fall, fulfilling a promise made by the former justice minister in March. On this premise alone the private member's bill should have been made votable but perhaps we can let the media decide or those who follow these issues can have a conversation about that.
So we present the private member's bill in different manners. First of all I would like to present it in a way that is based on the criteria that the standing committee for Private Members' Business sets for the selection of votable items. Perhaps we can let the people who are listening today be the judge to see if this bill meets the guidelines and should have been made votable today.
There are 11 criteria that must be met in the selection of votable items. The first criteria is the private member's bill must be of national, regional or local significance. It cannot be highly contentious, controversial, trivial or insignificant. Certainly this bill would be considered to have national significance since it affects the Criminal Code of Canada and in no way is this bill contentious, controversial, trivial or insignificant. It involves the death of individuals and the consequences thereof. It is essential then to change the section of the Criminal Code and not allow perpetrators to go free.
Criteria number two, the bill must not appear to discriminate or favour for or against a certain area or region of the country. In no way does this bill discriminate in favour of a certain region or area of the country. This bill would be applicable right across the country. This is federal legislation.
Criteria number three, the bill cannot be with regard to electoral boundaries or constituency names. Obviously that category does not apply here.
Criteria number four, the bill should not require obvious amendment because it is substantially redundant with the law or is fundamentally ineffective to implement its own intent or is unclear in its meaning or is otherwise defective in its drafting. Bill C-215 is not redundant with the laws that already exist, nor is it ineffective in its intent and meaning. It is very clear. It is a very short bill. It has a simple concept and is not defective in its drafting.
Criteria number five, the subject of the bill should be different from specific matters already declared by the government to be on its legislative agenda. This bill does not affect the government's legislative agenda at all. That is the problem. This bill is here because the government is failing to act. It was drafted long before the government even talked about looking into the matter.
Criteria number six, depending on the context of political issues and events, the number of times a topic has appeared in the House may be of significance. This topic, as far as I know, has never appeared in the House of Commons before. However, it does not mean that it is not an issue of interest to Canadians and many of the victims' associations across the country.
Criteria number seven, all other factors being equal, lower priority should be given to motions which deal with matters which the House can address in some way other than through another procedure. All in all this bill should receive a high priority since this cannot be dealt with through another procedure. It is my opinion that it is essential that this bill be dealt with now as it already has let four killers go free and potentially more still exist because of the flaw in the Criminal Code.
Criteria number eight, motions couched in partisan terms should not be selected. There is really nothing partisan about this bill whatsoever.
Criteria number nine, bills will be set aside in this selection process if they are clearly unconstitutional in that they infringe upon provincial legislative authority, the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms or other entrenched constitutional rules or if they impede or are contrary to normal federal, provincial or international relations. This is not the case either.
Criteria number ten, bills relating to a question that is substantially the same as a question already voted on by the House in the session should not be selected as votable items. This issue does not relate to any question that has been voted on by this House.
Criteria number eleven, items relating to a question that is substantially the same as a question contained in an item already selected as a votable item in the session should not be selected. Once again, no bills were selected as votable that appear the same as this one.
I hope that all can see how important this would have been in restoring the word justice to our justice system. Some say that we have merely a legal system in Canada rather than a justice system. We as legislators have the ability to change this flawed piece of legislation and Mr. Ward deserves to rest in peace knowing that the killers were paying their dues and not walking free due to a legislative loophole.
In researching this issue, we found that we were not the only ones who recognized the need for this legislation. Upon hearing of the subject of the private member's bill, we received a number of letters of support and I will highlight just two of these.
The Canadian Resource Centre for Victims of Crime is an organization dedicated to victims rights and public safety. They were pleased to support this bill and gave another example of how the Criminal Code has produced more victims.
Steve Sullivan, Executive Director, wrote:
I met a woman during the 1994 CAVEAT Safetynet conference whose brother was beaten so badly that he ended up in a coma. Almost two years later Rick Gall's family made the heartbreaking decision to remove his life support.
Kevin Fougere, the individual who beat Mr. Gall, could not be charged with the murder and was sentenced to 18 months for an assault related charge. Fougere was clearly responsible for Mr. Gall's death.
At that time, the justice minister said that he was not considering amending section 227. Earlier this year he made comments suggesting that he would amend it and those sentiments were recently repeated by the current justice minister.
They go on to say in writing:
Your bill would bring the law up to date with modern medical technology. It amends the section 227 so as to remove the requirement that the victim must die within one year and a day for homicide charges to be laid. It is simply a recognition that people must be held responsible for their actions and the consequences of them.
Please accept this letter of support for Bill 215. I hope that this bill is deemed votable and the government supports your initiative.
Victims of Violence also wrote to me, stating:
Please be advised that we strongly support your initiative with Bill C-215. For too long we have had to explain to families of homicide victims the stupidity of the law that allows killers to escape proper charges and sentencing even if the death of the victim occurs as a direct result of the criminal's act.
As you are no doubt aware, the Criminal Code has simply not kept up with modern medicine. Severely injured people are being kept alive for extended periods of time today with possible hopes of recovery. The families of these victims are sometimes faced with the dilemma of allowing life support to be continued at a cost of having the murderer walk free if their loved one lives beyond one year and a day but still dies as a direct result of the injury.
Bill C-215 is just a common sense bill to bring the Criminal Code in tune with the reality of modern medicine today. It will undoubtedly save the families of some murder victims additional grief and suffering. We commend you for this effort.
I think those are very clear sentiments. In view of the 11 criteria that I have laid out, I would like to move a motion to receive unanimous consent of the House that this bill be made votable.