moved that Bill C-251, an act to amend the Criminal Code and the Corrections and Conditional Release Act (cumulative sentences), be read the second time and referred to a committee.
Mr. Speaker, volume discounts for rapists and murderers, that is the law in Canada today. It is called concurrent sentencing. It means that serial predators can serve penalties for multiple crimes at the same time and be out on the street in only a fraction of the total sentencing.
Concurrent sentencing cheapens life. The lives of individual victims are erased from the sentencing equation. The suffering, the pain and the death of the second, third or eleventh victim is of no consequence to the courts. The minimum penalty always applies for even the most prolific killers.
For the third time in two years I am presenting a bill which offers parliament the opportunity to correct one of the justice system's most jagged obscenities. My bill, now called Bill C-251, asks that Canada stop giving volume discounts to its rapists and murderers through concurrent sentencing.
On this third attempt my bill has finally been deemed votable and for that I extend my heartfelt thanks to the 166 members of the House from all parties who lent their names in that cause. Their support will give all members the opportunity to weigh the arguments and determine whether consecutive sentencing will bring our justice system a little closer to justice.
The current penalties for murder were imposed over 20 years ago. Yet I can find no record of any minister or member of Parliament for that matter who spoke in the House in favour of concurrent sentencing for Canada's most vicious criminals. As near as I can tell, it was never discussed and certainly never available for public debate.
I believe it is time for the people's representatives in parliament to determine whether serial killers and rapists deserve special leniency they are currently afforded under the law and by our courts.
Bill C-251 has as its purpose three simple objectives, to reduce our inhumanity to the families of victims, to restore some truth in sentencing and to stop gambling away lives on the chance that a multiple murderer or serial predator will not attack again. It seeks to achieve these ends not by increasing the penalty for any one crime but by ensuring that these penalties have meaning by being served consecutively.
We do not have concurrent sentencing for parking tickets. If one parks illegally 10 times, one pays 10 tickets. One does not get a volume discount.
My bill seeks the same proportionality for the most serious and vicious crimes committed against Canadians. I believe very simply that justice is about proportional penalties, about relief for victims and about protecting the safety of citizens. Clearly, concurrent sentencing runs counter to each of these principles.
In the five years that I have been working on this issue, I have seen the human consequences of the current legal framework which is indifferent to the crimes committed against the second, the third or the eleventh victim of a serial predator.
I have talked to the families of victims and to victims themselves, some of whom never had their case prosecuted because the crown determined that any additional sentence would only be washed away by concurrent sentencing. Many of these victims have mustered the courage and drawn purpose from their personal horror by trying to change the system which treated them with such callous indifference. They journey here to Ottawa thinking that MPs, that parliament, will listen and spare future victims.
In the summer of 1996, not just one but two multiple murderers were free on parole in Mississauga. Concurrent sentencing had given these repeat killers volume discounts for their crimes.
For John Lyman Kehoe, the second child he murdered did not affect his sentence so he was free to create yet a third victim. On July 2, 1996, Kehoe and another paroled multiple murderer ambushed a real estate agent by the name of Wendy Carroll, slashed her throat and left her for dead. She survived, but no thanks to the justice system or the parole board which opened the cages of her assailants.
Wendy Carroll's life was nearly erased because our sentencing system erases victims. Had John Kehoe served a second consecutive term of parole ineligibility for the second child he murdered, he would not have been free to prey on Wendy Carroll or anyone else. Wendy Carroll wrote to me, after narrowly surviving these predators. She wrote:
For some reason our politicians have decided to grant rights to violent criminals who have taken every right away from their victims. What are they thinking? How many people must endure the horrific and extremely painful experience I did in fighting criminals like these for my life? How many more innocent people must die before parliament decides to make some changes?
Wendy Carroll cannot understand how two predators who had been convicted of killing four people between them could have been set free to attack again.
Albert Einstein once noted that “the world is a dangerous place to live in, not because of those who do evil, but because of those who let them do it”.
In this case, the cages were flung open by volume discounts applied to their sentences which disregarded all but the first victim and left two predators eligible for parole in half the time. Of course the National Parole Board proved to be no barrier between predator and prey.
Bill C-251 does not ask the parole board to be any less irresponsible. It does not increase the penalty for any crime. What it asks is that penalties that currently apply to each murder or rape conviction be served and not be written off as part of a bulk rate for carnage.
The consecutive sentencing approach proposed by my bill is an uncomplicated attempt to restore a degree of truth in sentencing. It recognizes that each sentence applies to a specific crime, an individual victim, a personal horror. It insists that the price for murder must not be marked down.
Last summer I had occasion to witness the obscene spectacle of Clifford Olson's 745 hearing. His remarks reinforced my resolve to continue to resubmit this bill until the issue was dealt with by this parliament. Olson read out a letter from his lawyer advising him to admit to all his murders at once. This way, the lawyer indicated, Olson could take full advantage of concurrent sentencing. Olson mocked in the court “They can't do nothing. They can only give me a concurrent sentence”.
Today we have to answer why Olson and other predators should only be given a concurrent sentence, and why our justice system should continue to offer a bulk rate for brutality.
The only persons negatively affected by my bill are future serial killers and serial rapists. This is not a bill that affects shoplifters, tax evaders, drug dealers, vandals, or petty thieves. Concurrent sentencing will still be available to all but our most vicious criminals.
I ask members of this House to place their compassion where it is deserved. There is no compassion in inflicting a lifetime of parole hearings on a family already destroyed by a serial killer.
Just two weeks ago I was visited by a father in my own riding who begins each and every year by going to a parole hearing to prevent the murderer of his 11-year old daughter from getting back on the streets. He owes it to his daughter to keep going because he knows that without his intervention the parole board would release her killer on to other victims. This father suffers from legislation that is focused on the welfare of killers rather than compassion for victims.
In the debates over the past two years I have heard no compelling arguments being offered by those who support volume discounts for serial predators.
In Hansard members will find it argued that we have too many people in jail and that we have to double bunk a quarter of all the inmates. I am not kidding. This was raised in this place just last year as a reason to give serial killers early release. I would hate to tell Wendy Carroll that she was nearly killed by two paroled multiple murderers just to increase the percentage of single cells. That sadly is what has been argued in this House.
It was also argued that we cannot have consecutive life sentences. Canadians are gradually catching on to the deception of life imprisonment. Half of all those convicted of second degree murder and sentenced to life are released after less than 12 years. Denis Lortie, who machine gunned three people to death, was released after serving only 11 years, about three and a half years of lost freedom for each person he murdered. That is the bargain basement price of life in our courts and under our parole system.
Sickeningly, Denis Lortie was not an exception. He was representative of the fact that the only meaningful part of his sentence is the period of parole ineligibility. The rest of the sentence is just an option, an option our system allows to revictimize the parents or the relatives of the victims. It potentially forces them to join countless other victims in having to dredge up gruesome memories just to provide impact statements and petitions to keep the cages closed. But the quality of mercy is not strained.
It has been argued in this House that concurrent sentences “counter any need to reduce sentencing dispositions for individual offences in order to achieve an overall just result”. It is never a just result to reduce a sentence for rape or murder just because the victim was not the only victim of the predator involved.
It is worse yet for the courts to mask the fact that they do discount sentences in precisely that way time and time again through concurrent sentencing. There is no more justification for disguising a volume discount than there is for giving one.
The courts should not be able to placate victims by hiding the ugly truth behind their decisions. They should have to impose consecutive sentences when the crimes are as devastating as murder and sexual assault.
The argument has also been made in this House to suggest that we give volume discounts for rapists and murderers so that we can be different from the United States. I quote “I question whether we want to follow the American example of building more prisons”. This is the kind of hyperbole and exaggeration that protects an utterly flawed system with respect to Canada's most dangerous offenders.
I think the most efficient use of our prisons is to keep those predators who have killed or have sexually assaulted multiple victims securely away from future victims. If space in prison needs to be found, more creative forms of punishment and rehabilitation should be found for non-violent offenders guilty of property or commercial offences.
When it comes to serial predators, public safety must be our first concern. We know that each convicted serial predator is capable of more horrific crimes. Their actions have identified them as a permanent threat to society. To ignore that threat is to negligently endanger innocent lives.
A corrections research and development study from the Department of the Solicitor General showed that released child molesters who targeted boys had a 77% recidivism rate. That means for every 100 of these child molesters released, at least 77 more children are victimized. If a children's toy had that record, it would be banned.
The National Parole Board considers its record, its annual slaughter to be a success story. I have heard it argued that the National Parole Board is fit to decide what predators should be released, but the fact that the average murderer can get full parole within two years of eligibility illustrates that our parole system has lost its balance.
The Olson hearing proved to everyone who witnessed it that absolutely any predator can appear with a corrections worker who will attest to his good character and press the parole board for release. I was amazed when the corrections worker responsible for Clifford Olson testified in court as an Olson witness and talked of how he was more concerned with Olson's safety than he was his own, and how he relied on Olson to keep him informed on current events.
This Corrections Canada employee was even a member of the prison program planning board. He told the court that Olson was a diligent worker who did a good job. Addressing Olson directly, the same corrections worker said “Most of our interactions were done in an open room sitting side by side at a table. I never saw you as a threat to me. My main concern was more for your safety than for my own”. He went on “I am sure everyone is well aware that you are considered a jailhouse lawyer. They consulted you for advice. You gave them advice. You helped them prepare documents and by the peer group, you were well thought of”.
The corrections worker added later “I always found you very interesting to work with as a matter of fact, for several reasons. One is you are well read. Because I live in a rural part of Saskatchewan, I do not have television facilities and you had several channels on television. You kept me informed of what was going on”.
If Clifford Olson can get such an endorsement from Corrections Canada, every other murderer must deserve the Lady Byng trophy. That experience was a demonstration of the distorted picture parole boards must be given on a regular basis. If Clifford Olson can find champions among corrections personnel, so can any criminal.
Some time ago I watched a television debate where one of the commentators suggested that consecutive sentencing for Clifford Olson, which would amount to genuine life imprisonment, would amount to nothing more than revenge. This sort of hyperbole is common in the predator protection industry. Life imprisonment is not some form of revenge.
If the families of the Olson victims were to hack him to death with a rusty axe, that would be revenge. Sentencing Olson to life in prison where he can educate corrections workers on current events is not revenge but very civilized and measured justice in response to a series of vicious crimes.
It has always been the tactic of those who earn their living defending predators to accuse anyone who opposes the early release of serial predators of being emotional, vengeful and of giving in to their primitive instincts. They think instead it is somehow superior to test their pompous theories by releasing known serial predators on to an unsuspecting public.
By far, the most distasteful argument I have heard in the defence of the status quo also had the most impact. When I first brought this bill to the House, one of its chief opponents told me that he could not support my bill because he did not want to create a victims industry. That is right. He did not want public policy to result in a victim's industry that would continuously challenge established legal practices. In short, he wanted to preserve the silence of the lambs.
Instead it is the predator protection industry that is supported. It is that industry that thrives on the endless parole process that annually threatens to unleash the chained savagery of predators, consuming untold tax dollars while dismembering the future of victims.
Let me summarize the arguments to defend volume discounts for rapists and murderers. They say we need concurrent sentencing because we do not want to double bunk predators. We do not want to reveal the fact that the courts are discounting sentences for individual crimes. We want to be different from the United States. We do not want to be emotional. Most importantly, we do not want to create a victim's industry.
That is all I have heard in the past two years to defend a system that cheapens life, revictimizes the families of the dead and recklessly exposes every Canadian to unnecessary risk from released predators.
I am asking members of this House to reach beyond the grasp of a legal system that not only fails victims but fails us all. I ask them to smooth the barbed face of Canadian justice and allow victims to find justice in our laws. I ask them to defy the predator protection industry by ending volume discounts for rapists and murderers.