Mr. Speaker, I am pleased as always to have an opportunity to rise and speak to private members' business.
I listened carefully to the parliamentary secretary and the Department of Justice line he trotted out, the gobbledegook in support of the government's position to reject statutory release as an amendment to the current Corrections and Conditional Release Act. He gave many of the same criticisms that we have heard in debate in the past in regard to changing the way in which we automatically release prisoners into society by virtue of the statutory release provisions of the Corrections and Conditional Release Act.
In many ways the hon. parliamentary secretary answered his own criticisms. He spoke of public protection being so engrained in the act, yet it is public protection that is very much at risk as a result. He trotted that out as is often the case when he is questioned.
Mr. Speaker, representing the riding of Kingston and the Islands, where we have one of our largest and most secure facilities in the country, the Kingston maximum security prison, you are well aware that by virtue of this legislation, subject to very few restrictions prisoners are automatically given the keys to their prison cell by virtue of just doing their time. Therefore, I would suggest, prisoners have no incentive to rehabilitate and reform themselves. They have no incentive to partake of prison programs. There is no incentive even to behave, which is what I think is most crucial. There is no encouragement to dissuade and deter prisoners while they are doing time. In instances where prisoners find themselves in the Kingston pen doing time for the most serious and heinous offences, such as sexual assault, murder, invasion of a person's property and person, by virtue of statutory release they simply do their time.
The sentiment and the purpose behind having mandatory supervision apply by virtue of the adoption of such a change to the legislation, in essence doing away with statutory or mandatory release and putting in place a system of earned release, which used to exist, let me be quick to add, tells federal inmates and society generally that when persons have been convicted, have availed themselves of due process and appeals and all legal avenues have been exhausted, and they are then incarcerated, they will be encouraged, nay, they will be required to behave and earn early release rather than simply pervert the judge's sentence which in essence says they will serve a set period of time. The parole board, the Corrections and Conditional Release Act, allows for that sentence to be undermined and, in many instances, watered down.
This very simple change to the Corrections and Conditional Release Act contemplated in the hon. member's bill, Bill C-252, this very subject matter, was the subject of a discussion that took place in a review at the justice committee. It was alluded to by the parliamentary secretary. I was part of that committee. Many Liberal members on committee at that time were prepared to support those changes. They were prepared to embrace the idea of earned release, earned remission, encouraging individuals to actively pursue programs which would demonstrate that they were rehabilitating themselves and ready to re-enter society instead of simply sitting in their prison cells and, I will be graphic, engaging in incredibly inappropriate activity involving guards, such as throwing feces at them, swearing at them, engaging in fighting and all sorts of other inappropriate activity with other prisoners, thereby posing a real threat to the brave men and women who serve in the correctional system and to other inmates. That is not the way we should be operating our prison system in Canada.
To suggest somehow that we have the most effective correction system, the envy of the world, as the hon. member opposite referred to it, that is not the case. We have a lot of problems to deal with, including the amounts of drugs and inappropriate activity that are still very prevalent in Canada's corrections system. Having a system of earned release would address that. It does not say that the person would not be released early. It does not contemplate that an individual would not be entitled to early release. It says that people have to play by the rules, that they have to behave appropriately and avail themselves of programming which demonstrates that not only are they mentally prepared to go back into society but they are actually taking part in their own rehabilitation.
Therefore this is not the type of legislation that would cause a major shift in the current numbers who would be released. What it would do is put clear restrictions in place for individuals who, while doing time, have demonstrated through their actions that they are not ready to be reintegrated, that they are not prepared to go back into society and behave in an appropriate way, a non-criminal way.
I would suggest that the hon. member, by bringing forward his private member's bill, is following the path of common sense and bringing forward a change to our current Corrections and Conditional Release Act that would do away with this perversion of the sentencing process. It would do away with making it automatic that we use some randomly determined, and in many cases inextricable, formula to decide who is and who is not released from our prisons.
Not only would the merit system proposed by this type of amendment benefit the offenders through engaging them in their own rehabilitation process, it would certainly benefit the guards, the frontline correctional services personnel. Most important, it would give society some indication that the parole board and Corrections and Conditional Release Act was being followed.
As it currently stands, the individual just simply has to show up, and he has to because he is in jail, but that individual has to do nothing. The judge says “ten years in jail” and a person is out in four. That is the way it works today. That is not the type of general and specific deterrence judges speak of every day in courts across the country, and yet that is a word that seems absolutely perverse. It seems that one never wants to hear that word uttered on the other side of the House. Liberal members do not like the philosophy of general deterrence. They do not want to hear about it. They think it should not be part of the system, even though it is there. It is omnipresent every day in courts across the country.
There would be a financial cost, some would suggest, if offenders did not or could not meet the new requirements of release, if they had to be held to a higher standard. Hon. members on the Liberal side would say it would cost too much. What is the cost when somebody is released early and goes out and shoots a police officer or strangles a child or sexually assaults someone? That is the human cost that is intangible, that we cannot even contemplate when prisoners are released prior to demonstrating that they are ready to be back on the street.
No, it is not a perfect system. No, there is no way to predict human behaviour in every instance, but one way to predict human behaviour is to study the previous behaviour that landed somebody in jail in the first place. Judges determine sentences based on the evidence, on the victim impact statements, often on psychiatric evidence, on what they hear in the courtroom, the circumstances and facts of the case. When a judge makes a decision and the correctional system and the parole board conspire to put that person back on the street, it is a very serious and damaging outcome for society.
This simple amendment would ensure that things are tightened up, that those currently in the system would ensure firsthand that individuals would not be back on the street before being ready. Surely this is the most prominent, relevant and important way to protect society. We hear about the protection of society all the time from the solicitor general, the commissioner of corrections and from the RCMP. Let us do something about it and actually make changes that would bring that sentiment to fruition.
Members of the Progressive Conservative Democratic Representative Coalition support this initiative. We thank the hon. member for the opportunity to bring this matter back to parliament. The recidivism criteria should always be taken into consideration for those eligible for accelerated parole. One of the most perverse things is that the current youth criminal justice system will bring statutory release, conditional sentences and some of the worst perversions of justice in the adult system to our youth system. That is what we will see happening instead of seeing things going in the opposite direction, the way this private member's bill would move our legislation.