Or when they are golfing or riding their horses. Maybe they jump over the fence. Who knows? When they get out, they commit another crime and then nothing else happens. The public says “He certainly will get punished for raping my daughter. After all, this guy is a rapist”, but nothing happens. They are given a concurrent sentence, which means no additional time. It says on their record that they committed another rape or another murder.
Is this what the Liberal government wants? Was this the agenda all along? It did not care about this issue. When Liberals were standing up in the House voting for it, they lied to the Canadian public. That is what they did. They gave a false impression that they support this kind of stuff but as soon as they get out of the House of Commons, hey, bury that thing.
It is really too bad. It is just sickening for somebody in a community who has seen more than his share of this kind of thing happening. I have recently been working with a victim, an individual who was raped by an inmate who was out on a unescorted temporary absence, a UTA.
We know what that inmate will get. We know he got his pound of flesh and the legal system will give him a concurrent sentence. That is what this bill was all about. It was all about showing inmates that just one crime or as many crimes as they want are punishable by the same sentence. That indeed is wrong.
I can say from personal experience that every time I come into the House on these kinds of issues I get a little more disappointed in how the Liberal government operates. How long did we wait for the Young Offenders Act to be amended? We came in here in 1993 and pushed and pushed again. There was minor tinkering and lots of press announcements by the group over there. It was tabled after two sessions of parliament. Even that is not adequate enough today.
It is not hard to see that the public wants a change in the country. If the public wants real meaningful change it will not get it from the government and it should understand that all the rhetoric will not in any way get or deliver justice in this country.
I remind the House and all those who are listening of three things. First, the Liberal government save three people in the House of Commons passed on second reading the bill I have here. I will read the contents of the bill once again.
Second, after getting it to a committee, it deliberately behind closed doors told its members on that committee of which it has a majority to squash it. It deliberately misled the Canadian public on this.
Third, the good intentions of this private member's bill have been lost. They are gone. The process now may well take another two or three years to get this back and that is sad because I can guarantee there are many people who will become victims of crime, the subject of this bill.
I want to read it once again and remind everybody what the Liberal government has done. The bill said the following:
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.
It is so very serious that it has been turned down like this in this shady way. I want the member for Mississauga East to be present in the House and she is not available at the moment. Therefore I move:
That the debate do now adjourn.
I wish debate to be adjourned until the member for Mississauga East is in the House so we can talk further on this bill.