Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today in favour of Bill C-252, introduced by my colleague, the member for Okanagan--Shuswap.
This legislation aims to shift the priorities at Correctional Service Canada toward a greater concern for public safety and victims' rights. Unfortunately, during the past few years of the Liberal government's tenure we have seen a steady slide in the opposite direction, indeed, giving greater priorities to the rights of dangerous criminals with the federal government's club fed style prisons. They also include release quotas and laws such as statutory release that the bill seeks to remedy.
Recently I received a letter from a constituent who said he was concerned that dangerous criminals in Manitoba have been receiving overly lenient sentences. Clearly the issue of overly lenient sentences is a question that the courts need to address, but one thing parliament can address is the issue of parole. In this case, an individual was beaten to death and the accused received a sentence of two years less a day. Whether or not one agrees that the sentence was appropriate for the beating death of that man, in the end the man served only five months in prison before being let out on parole.
In response to the inquiry from my constituent, I said that early release from prison must be earned. It has long been the position of the Canadian Alliance and its predecessor, the Reform Party, that it should not be the right of dangerous offenders to expect and automatically receive reductions in their sentences. Unfortunately the government does not agree, preferring instead to allow criminals to automatically receive early release from prison. Where a criminal presents a continuing danger to law-abiding Canadians, an automatic reduction of prison sentence by parole officials brings the entire system of justice into disrepute.
Our parole system requires a number of changes to prevent convicts from being released prematurely into society. The bill brought forward by my colleague would amend the Corrections and Conditional Release Act and would be a solid step in the right direction.
Statutory release is a law that gives most federal inmates mandatory release after serving two-thirds of their sentence. We know that aside from mandatory release prisoners are given additional time off depending on the category of offence. For example, there are some offences that the parole officials, through government direction, have categorized such that a convicted person receives parole after serving one-sixth of the sentence.
In a recent visit to a federal penitentiary, I raised this issue with one of the guards. He said not only was that true, indeed, prisoners who go through an orientation to come into the prison so that the officials can categorize them and determine where they should be going are released after serving a minimum amount of time even before the orientation program in fact is completed. What they are doing by statutory release provisions or administrative quota systems is moving people through, even though they do not know what dangers these individuals could pose.
We all know that statutory release has resulted in numerous offenders being released back into society before the authorities have even had a chance to attempt to rehabilitate these individuals. In that process, ordinary Canadians, law-abiding, taxpaying Canadians, are being put at risk.
Although an inmate may be detained until the end of his or her term, under certain circumstances Correctional Service Canada and the parole board only review violent offences in this context. Even in such cases we know that sometimes the most dangerous offenders are paroled early and are given a second chance to commit a violent assault, to prey on children or as we have been learning very recently, to shoot police officers.
The bill would amend the law so that offenders who are given statutory release would be subject to a mandatory supervision order as well as a requirement for rehabilitation. Most important, statutory release would not be automatic. It would have to be earned.
The need to overhaul Canada's prison and parole system has long been championed by our top law enforcement officials. Just last week the Canadian Police Association and the Ontario Police Association launched a nationwide petition to parliament to strengthen Canada's system of sentencing, corrections, parole and release.
In its policy resolutions the Canadian Police Association has taken the position that statutory release must be repealed. This has also been the position of the Ontario minister of correctional services, Mr. Rob Sampson. In a December 2001 letter, he called on the minister to immediately repeal the statutory release law, or the discount law as criminals refer to it.
The recent shootings of four police officers underscore the urgent need to overhaul our system.
Just last week a 28 year old police officer was shot near Cornwall, Ontario. His bullet resistant vest saved him during a shootout that left one person dead after the car was stopped for a traffic violation.
Montreal Constable L'Ecuyer, age 29, was shot and killed during a chase with a speeding car on February 28, 2002.
In Manitoba RCMP officer Mike Templeton, age 30, survived after he was shot in the face while attempting to pull over a suspected stolen vehicle near Oakville, Manitoba.
RCMP Constable Dennis Strongquill, age 52, was fatally shot after pursuing a stolen car in Russell, Manitoba on December 20, 2001.
In many of these tragic cases, the suspects involved were either out on parole or were wanted for parole violations. In many cases our parole officials say that the breach of parole was not that bad. They knew the individual was already in breach of parole and they said that it was not that bad.
What message are we sending to criminals when not only do they get mandatory statutory release, which they now consider their due, but we say to them that these are the conditions but if they breach them and they are not that serious, we will let them stay out? We are sending the message that the law does not need to be respected. The message is that law enforcement officials are being put at risk because of a blind adherence to an ideology that puts the rights of criminals ahead of the rights of our law enforcement officers, ordinary citizens and those who work hard to make Canada a safe place.
The solicitor general's policies defy common sense and put Canadians at risk. Criminals simply should not be awarded a get out of jail free card.
I support my colleague's bill. It is important legislation. We need to see that it becomes law.