Madam Speaker, it is always interesting and entertaining to listen to the Liberal backbenchers explain to Canadians on behalf of bureaucrats and deputy ministers of the government why a good idea cannot go forward.
I rise on behalf of the constituents of Okanagan—Coquihalla to speak to Bill C-211, an act to amend the Criminal Code as it applies to the arresting and detaining of individuals who breach their condition of parole or statutory or temporary release.
I am proud to say I do this because my constituents have asked me to do it. Indeed Canadians from coast to coast to coast have witnessed problems with the parole system in their areas. This is a serious problem and the Government of Canada insists on saying that the status quo is fine and everything is okay. I am here to say that it is not fine. It is not okay. Things have to be changed.
I congratulate the member from Langley—Abbotsford for introducing to the House this very important piece of legislation. The bill does what the parole system fails to do. It takes steps to ensure the safety and security of all Canadians. I would like to ask government members and people watching today who the parole system is for. We will hear the government argue today that it is for people who commit crimes, people who have violated our codes and our laws. I will put forward a different argument today. I will put forward the view of grassroots average Canadians.
As members of Parliament it is our duty to provide citizens with a safe environment for them to raise a family, to feel secure when their children are playing at a local playground, to have them go to school, to walk the dog at night, to go to a grocery store or to visit a shopping mall. This is what Canadians want from the government. This is the reason behind such legislation as the Criminal Code, Corrections and Conditional Release Act and government agencies like Correctional Service Canada and the National Parole Board.
Bill C-211 will do two things. First, it will amend the Criminal Code by making a breach of condition of parole or statutory or temporary release an indictable offence. This means that the police will have the ability to arrest without warrant a parolee who the police believe on reasonable grounds—that is very important—to be in breach or about to breach conditions of parole.
Second, the bill will amend the Criminal Code by giving the parole board the power, following the arrest of an offender, to release him or to ask a judge to keep him in custody until a warrant is issued.
Almost weekly Canadians are subjected to news concerning parolees who commit unspeakable acts of violence. In my home town of Summerland, British Columbia, just this past year there was a tragic murder of a mother and a grandmother which sent shockwaves through a community that had not had a murder in over a decade.
Kevin Machell, on September 5 of last year, was on day parole and failed to report to his Calgary halfway house. Authorities of Correctional Service Canada did not issue a warrant until some 24 hours after his failure to report. The normal policy of Correctional Service Canada on such tardiness with respect to halfway houses is that action be taken within 10 minutes to one hour. No one will deny, even Correctional Service Canada, that was not done. Why? We do not know. The system is broken and has to be fixed.
The inaction by officials of Correctional Service Canada gave Machell the time he needed to drive to Summerland, British Columbia, and allegedly murder his estranged wife and her mother in front of their two preschool children aged 2 and 4, witnesses to this heinous crime.
The event is made even worse by the fact that the victim had obtained a restraining order against Machell and had written the National Parole Board asking to be told of a change in status for Kevin William Machell. The victim was not notified and remained unaware of Machell's escape until it was too late.
The events leading up to this horrific event call into question the entire parole system, Correctional Service Canada and its policy toward parolee violations and the failure of the National Parole Board and Correctional Service Canada to inform the victim of Machell's escape. Correctional Service Canada failed the victim in this case and it has failed Canadians time and time again.
Machell had in the past made threats on the victim's life. These threats of violence had been taken seriously enough by the B.C. supreme court that it issued a restraining order against Machell, yet Correctional Service Canada made no attempt to inform the potential victims, who turned out to be the murder victims, of Machell's disappearance.
Why was this potentially violent criminal given the opportunity to even be out on parole? This heinous crime could have been prevented in so many ways. The lines of communication were obviously blurred or flawed between Alberta and British Columbia and of course the third link, Correctional Service Canada. The victim should have been notified and she was not.
Machell was on the loose for 24 hours before a warrant was issued for his arrest. Under the current law, even if Machell would have been stopped in Alberta, maybe on just a routine check by police officers, the police could not have detained him. What kind of parole system do we have when even if he was an absentee, he was tardy from his half-way house, and stopped in the province of Alberta on the highway, they could not have detained him?
Bill C-211 would change that. It should be changed. There is no reason for this not to go forward.
Liberals defend the justice system time and time again. They pretend it is working just fine the way it is. They want the status quo. They say it is their priority to protect citizens, yet they are ignoring Canadians who want tougher justice laws and rules and they are ignoring the facts. They ignore the fact that 30% of federal inmates reoffend with a significant proportion of those offences being violent. They ignore the fact that convicted criminals seldom serve the prison time they are given. According to the National Parole Board even the most violent offenders serve on average only about half their time. They ignore the fact that in the past 35 years violent crime has increased 350%.
Canadians are sick and tired of the government's lack of action toward criminals and toward crime. They want a justice system that puts their rights ahead of the criminals. They want a system that will ensure parole is limited, earned and tightly monitored.
Last September I introduced a motion in the House that instructs the government to adopt a zero tolerance policy concerning parolees' unexplained tardiness in reporting to their half-way houses. This motion will instruct Correctional Service Canada to automatically issue a Canada-wide warrant for parolees who are more than 10 minutes late to their half-way houses and will make it a priority of the correctional service to immediately notify those who are in danger due to a parolee's absence.
At the start of this intervention I asked the House, and I asked Canadians, who is the parole system for? The government and the bureaucrats would stand to defend it and say it is for the likes of Kevin Machell who violated his parole. The answer that my constituents and all Canadians are telling the government today is that is not the case, that the parole system should put the victims of crime first.
Cecilia and Tammy Grono were murdered. Two pre-school children now do not have a mother or a grandmother. The system should be for law-abiding citizens of this country, not for those people who have violated the laws of this country and have shown that they have disdain for the laws and good order. This bill will accomplish that.
This bill is a good piece of legislation that should go forward today and I urge all members of the House to support my friend and colleague from Langley—Abbotsford in passing Bill C-211.