Mr. Speaker, it is a privilege to participate in the debate on this private member's bill, Bill C-437, sponsored by the member for Saskatoon--Humboldt. I want to congratulate my colleague from Humboldt for bringing forward this private member's bill. It is a timely piece of legislation.
The bill aims to amend the Corrections and Conditional Release Act to prevent any unescorted temporary absences, day parole, full parole or statutory release being granted to an individual who has committed a child predator offence and who has been found to be a child predator under the new provisions of the criminal code. In other words, if the bill were ever passed, child sex predators would have to serve their full time in custody. That is a novel idea: making rapists and other sadistic predators spend their entire sentence behind bars where they can no longer pose a threat to children.
I would respectfully recommend to the member for Saskatoon--Humboldt that this or a similar bill go even further and eliminate the statutory release for all offenders and that day parole and escorted absences be used much more discreetly. Unfortunately the bill is not votable and therefore will not become law. It is highly unlikely that this or any other measure aimed at eliminating statutory release or limiting day parole and escorted temporary absences ever will be a reality with this government at the helm.
There is ample reason to support measures such as those that we find in the bill. Correctional Service Canada figures from 1989 to 1994 reveal that some 4,980 persons, or 60%, who were convicted of violent offences such as child molestation, manslaughter, rape or attempted murder repeated their crimes, that is, they repeated their crimes while they were on conditional release from the penitentiary.
Statistics do not provide an adequate picture of how repeat offenders become progressively more violent. Therefore, I would like to provide the House with a few prime examples of why statutory release, day parole and even escorted temporary absences for sex offenders, particularly child sex offenders, need to be eliminated or restricted. Here is one example:
Since 1975, Allan Wayne Walsh of Mission, B.C. had more than 60 convictions for kidnapping, confining women, sex crimes, robbery and weapons offences. In 1983, he was convicted of 26 offences, including two counts of rape, and sentenced to 25 years in prison. Ten years later he was out on parole. Within months he used a knife to try to rape one woman and then raped and robbed another. On September 21, 1995 he was convicted of seven new offences, including sexual assault, which led the crown to have him declared a dangerous offender. These seven additional offences never would have occurred if Walsh had served his full 25-year sentence. Seven innocent people would have remained unharmed if this dangerous offender had served out his full sentence of 25 years.
Seven families who were devastated would have remained unharmed.
The Canadian Alliance believes in truth in sentencing for all violent and all dangerous offenders. We do not have truth in sentencing today. Truth in sentencing means that if a 25 year sentence is imposed, a 25 year sentence is served. In essence we support no parole for violent offenders, no reduction in the term decided by the courts upon consideration of the facts.
Another example that exemplifies my point is that of Ronald Richard McCauley, another British Columbia rapist who was sentenced to 17 years after two vicious rapes in which his victims were left for dead. At the time of sentencing, McCauley was another one who had an extensive criminal record. In 1992 when McCauley came up for parole he told the parole board he felt that had he not been caught he would have become another serial killer like Clifford Olson. The board, noting that McCauley appeared to benefit only superficially from treatment, turned him down, but two years later in 1994 McCauley got statutory release and was out. In 1995 McCauley was under investigation in the murder of two Vancouver women.
In another instance, in 1983 James Ronald Robinson of Ottawa was convicted of manslaughter in the stabbing death of Roxanne Nairn, a 17 year old grade 12 student. He was sentenced to three years on a manslaughter conviction, but again, he also was released early despite being caught trying to smuggle hashish into jail while returning from an unescorted pass. In 1990 Robinson spent two years in jail for raping and threatening to kill a woman he had lived with after his release from prison. On March 6, 1995, he was charged with another count of sexual assault on another victim whose life was hurt and damaged.
In another instance, despite having consecutive sentences adding up to 27 years, and despite having committed crimes while on parole, Claude Forget was given an escorted pass to visit his sister in 1993. He escaped. Forget forgot how to get home and two months later he shot two police officers. In September 1995 he was up for parole after serving only a very small fraction of his sentence because parole loopholes required any new sentence to be merged with any existing sentence. In Forget's case, this meant that he was eligible for parole almost as soon as he was convicted of the attempted murders because there was no consecutive sentence. Forget was granted a full parole hearing in December 1995.
I will give the House yet another example, one from 1986, and one which we have read about in many of our papers. Martin Dubuc, a Montreal hockey coach, was convicted of molesting team players:
After his release from prison he did not let a lifetime ban on coaching in Quebec stop him. He changed locales, becoming a coach and eventually president of the minor hockey association of southwest Montreal. As well, three different school boards in the Montreal area hired him as a substitute teacher. In September of 1995 he pleaded guilty to using the telephone to threaten boys aged 10 to 13.
More and more of these types of cases have occurred and will continue to occur unless amendments are made to the Corrections and Conditional Release Act, amendments such as those contemplated in this private member's bill, Bill C-437.
There will be no discernible impact on the recidivism rates unless the government is willing to go the extra mile. The Liberals' soft on crime approach to justice simply is not working. What we need to do is implement zero tolerance for violent offenders and zero tolerance for sex offenders, which means we have to come down hard on those sadistic criminals who prey upon the weak and vulnerable members of our society.
The only way to truly protect our children from sex offenders is to keep those offenders locked up for their full sentences, then closely monitor them following their release and have their names and whereabouts registered on the national sex offender registry that the government has promised for months although we see no evidence of any registry coming forward.
There is probably no crime short of murder that offends the sensibilities and values of a community more than that of sexual assault on a child. It is most unconscionable when criminal acts such as these take place because they victimize the weakest, they victimize the most vulnerable and they victimize the most innocent among us as a society. Yet the government seems to remove itself from any type of remedy for the problem.
I therefore stand today to again congratulate the member for Saskatoon--Humboldt. I am fully supportive of this private member's bill, Bill C-437.