Mr. Speaker, it gives me pleasure to speak to this private members's bill. I commend my colleague from Portage—Lisgar for getting this item to the floor and calling it to the attention of the House to debate and when the time comes, for the committee to take a close look at.
Back in 1996 when this first became part of the Criminal Code, I spent a couple of years following it in Indian affairs work, going across the land with grassroots natives and trying my best to help at that level wherever I could. What the last speaker from the Conservative Party and the previous speaker from the NDP neglected to think about or to consider is what I heard following the inclusion of that particular statement in the Criminal Code.
It was the aboriginal women particularly across the country. My colleague from Okanagan—Shuswap was there and he heard the same thing. The cry was from the victims who are the majority of the people who are offended by aboriginal offenders. It is usually another aboriginal individual who suffers from the crime that has been committed. They were quick to respond to this particular inclusion in the Criminal Code with, “Why are we treated as second class citizens? Offenders are people who offend us, people who violently attack us. Why are we not considered as important as someone who is not aboriginal and is a victim of crime?”
That is a very good point. It is a point that the last speaker from the Conservative Party completely pushed aside. He did not talk about that.
Today in the parking lot that my colleague from Okanagan—Shuswap and I had the opportunity to meet a couple of ladies we had worked with in the past in regard to accountability on the reserves. They were in front of the Parliament Buildings and we talked with them. I mentioned that this was coming up again. They were quite pleased that there would once again be an effort to try and bring some equality in for them.
This is about equality. It is not about that judges should not take into account the past and the backgrounds of everybody who gets charged with a crime. They do that. Generally speaking they do that across the board for everyone and they should. Certainly as the member from the PC Party said, there are big differences in some of those backgrounds. There is no doubt about it. They do have to take them into account.
I attended one trial on behalf of some families from Saskatchewan back in those years when that first came out. A young aboriginal person, 18 years of age, had hit a carload of youth from Saskatchewan and had killed four people. He was charged with driving while intoxicated and negligence causing death. After many months of being in court, the young fellow was found guilty. He even pleaded guilty but it took quite a while to get the conviction. Then they waited for the sentencing. They wanted a pre-sentence report.
When the families came back to see what was going to happen to this young fellow, the judge called to their attention that this particular clause had been added to section 718 of the Criminal Code and even he was not sure what it meant. His words were, if I remember them correctly “I am going to have to delay the decision because we have this new inclusion in 718 and I am not sure what it means”. All the families had to go back home to Saskatchewan and then return in 30 days while he considered the fact that the offender in this case was aboriginal.
During this time, people, including the aboriginal people I was dealing with, could not understand why someone who would break the law would be given any kind of consideration based on their race, that it was a race based inclusion, that yes, the background of the individual who is being charged should be examined.
What can we do to help prevent these things in the future? That has to be part of the big picture. That was what we were trying to do when we went from reserve to reserve looking for solutions that would help solve the problems of severe poverty, underemployment, drug addiction and all that.
There is no doubt that has to happen. We want it to happen. It also has to happen in other communities that are non-aboriginal. I know that we have problems in our major cities across the land in certain areas. A lot of times the background contributes to people committing an offence.
All hon. members should remember that the fact remains that the majority of victims of aboriginal perpetrators are aboriginal people. These victims are the ones who have asked “Why are we treated differently? Why is it somebody who offends us is treated in a softer manner if he is aboriginal?” They are right. I do not think anyone who has spoken from any other party has even thought about that. They certainly did not mention it in any of the speeches that I heard today.
The member for Portage--Lisgar has heard this very cry from the people who live on reserves. Why should the criminal be treated any differently because the victims are aboriginals? Why should they be second class victims, were their words. I have to agree with them.
I commend the member for Portage--Lisgar for bringing this issue to our attention. I hope that the House and the people who have spoken will stop to consider all aspects of this and the problems it is causing. It is not necessary. I certainly support the private member's bill as presented.