Mr. Speaker, I want to get back to something that is very serious indeed and I will forget the heckling of the minister of the government from Vancouver.
This is the private member's bill that was passed in this House. I will read it so that everybody will understand.
This enactment provides for the imposition of consecutive sentences where a person commits sexual assault and another offence arising out of the same events or where the person is already serving another sentence at the time.
The enactment also provides that a person sentenced to life imprisonment for first degree murder or second degree murder is not eligible for parole until the person has served, in addition to the portion of sentence that the person must serve for murder, one-third or a maximum of seven years of any other sentence imposed on the person in respect of an offence arising out of the same events or that the person is already serving. The mandatory portion of each life sentence imposed on a person who is convicted of a second murder must be served consecutively before the person is eligible for parole.
I have to ask, what in blue blazes is wrong with that? This is an issue that all sides of this House felt was very important to Canadian society.
I live in an area that has seven federal penitentiaries and numerous provincial penitentiaries around it. In our communities of Abbotsford and Langley, and throughout Mission where some of my colleagues live, in Chilliwack and, indeed, throughout the lower mainland, people are walking out of prison, and in some cases, like the Sumas Centre, just walking out of prison and committing such crimes as rape and murder, very serious offences. What happens? They go back, get tried and, if they are lifers, nothing really happens. They get a concurrent sentence with no additional time added to their sentence.
One might say that they are serving life anyway, so why does it matter?
The fact is that life does not mean life in Canada. First degree murderers, for goodness sake, can be out after 15 years under the faint hope clause, section 745. The problem is that this Liberal member for Mississauga East introduced a completely logical private member's bill. And we applaud her for that.
It is so typical in this House where it is a logical issue that the justice minister or the solicitor general, who I appreciate is listening today, says that yes, that is logical and we do not want to fight this one publicly, because if we do the public will ask what is wrong with that and they may not vote for the government, and therefore we better be concerned because the general public is concerned.
What happens? Ministers stand in the House of Commons on second reading on a private member's bill such as this and they say that as a cabinet they will support it; that, indeed, they are the champions of the rights of Canadians and the protectors of law-abiding Canadian citizens; that they will see this goes through second reading of the House of Commons, that it goes into committee and everybody will be happy.
We took the word of the ministers on that. What happened yesterday in committee? It took all but three minutes plus a few odd seconds for Liberal members to go clause by clause through this private member's bill and nix, negate, forget, throw away, quash every darned word of this bill. There were no amendments, nothing.