Sadly that is the case.
Would people believe that Reform is suddenly jumping on this bandwagon? As I have indicated, we have been very consistent with our position on the issue. We fought it at committee. We fought it in the House of Commons. We used every procedure to bring the issue to light. We proposed an amendment to the government that would have ensured alternative measures and conditional sentencing were not used in case of violent offences. We were assured during debate that would not happen. However we were concerned about it and consistently raised the issue.
Bill C-41 which contains those clauses came into effect on September 3 of last year. On November 4, after learning of some very disturbing cases and rulings by judges which utilized conditional sentencing, I came to the House of Commons and asked a question of the justice minister. I read from Hansard or November 4, 1996:
A man in B.C. was just convicted of sexual assault. What was his punishment? He is on conditional release, scot free.
I had referred to a couple of other cases but I continued:
These lenient decisions in three different provinces have set dangerous precedents. Section 742 states that a conditional sentence is not an option when there is a danger to the community. Are women not a part of the community?
That is the question I posed. I continued:
Will the minister responsible for the legislation clarify this for women and, more important, for judges? He talks about a tool of the courts. He talks about appropriate cases. Will he clarify whether a conditional sentence is appropriate for rape?
In his response the hon. justice minister went on at some length about past studies having shown that once Canadians were apprised of all the circumstances involved in a case they believed that sentences by and large were too harsh. He ended his dissertation by saying:
The reality is that when the court looks at the offender and the offence and takes all the circumstances into account the court does a pretty fair job of determining appropriate punishment.
When referring to me he said:
Obviously the business of this member is not to worry about the facts or the reality but to use fearmongering to make his squalid point.
The parliamentary secretary heckles and says that is right. In other words we are just making a squalid point. The parliamentary secretary, the hon. member for Prince Albert-Churchill River, has the audacity to sit over there and heckle. Will he stand and join in this debate? Will he defend this position to the women of Canada? Not a chance. He knows it is indefensible and that women are living in fear. Women are being raped and judges are letting the offenders off scot free.