Mr. Speaker, in response to the catcall from the Conservatives in terms of shame, there is a bit of a shame to this because the second part of the bill has a great deal of merit. In fact, I believe it would attract all party support in terms of dealing with a problem that existed even when I used to practise a lot of criminal law 30 years ago. It has to do with the use of the recognizance or what is more commonly called the peace bond, and the weaknesses in the code with the use of those instruments and the limitations that were imposed by the initial promulgation of those sections.
Coming back to the shame part, it is so typical of the Conservative government that it has combined two provisions in this one bill. The Conservatives badly want one of the provisions in order to keep their political agenda going. They are not really dealing with the reality in the streets, in our courts, of crime, nor dealing with criminals in a serious, effective and efficient way, nor the protection of our society and of all our citizens.
If the Conservatives were really serious about that they would not combine the two provisions. They know full well that constitutionally under the charter, and just about all the legal opinions that I have seen and which opinions I share make it clear that the approach that is being taken in this bill with regard to requiring accused persons to prove they are not dangerous offenders will be challenged. This bill requires accused persons to prove they are not dangerous offenders. This provision is simply not going to be sustained in our courts. It is going to be challenged immediately and at every level. I expect if it goes all the way to the Supreme Court that it will be struck down.
We have to understand from where those opinions flow. It is not only reversing the onus and reversing a long-standing tradition of a person's right as an accused party or even a convicted party to have the onus of both the accusation against him or her to be proven beyond a reasonable doubt, but also on the balance of probabilities to have his or her sentence imposed proven by the state, or by the Crown in our jurisdiction.
Most of the Conservatives do not appreciate how significant this is, that once found as a dangerous offender there is no time limit on when the offender would be released. There are opportunities to reapply, again proving that the person should be released under this system. The finding of a dangerous offender, that determination, means not only life as it is known for murder, manslaughter, attempted murder, treason and other such charges where there are definitive times when a person will be released, but if a person is found to be a dangerous offender, the person will stay in jail for the rest of his or her life.
We are changing a long-standing provision, and we are talking about 300 or 400 years of jurisprudence within the common law system and the criminal justice system as it evolved out of England, the presumption of innocence, the requirement of the Crown to prove beyond a reasonable doubt. We built that as a bulwark against abuse by the state. Imagine with the new provision, a judge sitting there and saying, “They are asking me to find that it is okay to do that, that it is within our accepted jurisprudence. And on top of that, if I do find that the person does not prove he or she is not a dangerous offender, I am then going to confine that person to prison for the rest of his or her life”.
Any objective person who understands how our court system works can see that it is highly unlikely that our judges are going to do that, whether it is a trial judge, an appeal court judge or a justice of the Supreme Court of Canada. They are all going to be of the same mind. Any opinions that we are hearing from the Conservative Party and the government to the contrary have to be looked at in that context and with a great deal of suspicion.
What we have here is a government that is quite prepared to say, “It is likely that we are not going to get this bill through now, but in the next election, whenever that comes”--and given the way the Conservatives have approached the administration of this portfolio in particular, we would hope that an election would be fairly soon and the Conservatives would be turfed from office because of their ideological bent and quite frankly the abuse they are making of the system. Having said that though, what they are saying is they want to be able to win those elections to keep pushing those hot button items and say, “We are tough on crime”. Of course they are not smart on crime and this bill is a classic example of that.
More important, this bill is a very jaundiced, cynical approach by the government. The Conservatives are saying, “We know we are going to lose this but we also want to be able to say we tried to deal with the recognizance and peace bond issue. Out on the hustings we will be able to tell people that the three opposition parties are soft on crime, that they do not know what they are doing and that they voted this bill down”.
The provisions with regard to peace bonds are badly needed. Perhaps the most significant provision is to extend the use of peace bonds from one year to two years. I can say from my own experience in the courts over a number of years, both with regard to criminal cases and matrimonial cases, these are used most extensively where there is a dispute between partners in spousal relationships. Oftentimes, because of the procedures within the court and being slow in getting them started, my experience has been that most peace bonds are only effectively in position for about nine to maybe as little as six months by the time the paperwork gets done, the accused person understands what they are and the rest of it. It seems to take about three months, minimum, to make them effective. They really are only useful in deterring misconduct on the part of the person who is subject to those peace bonds for about six to nine months.
What the government is proposing, and I salute the Conservatives for that, if it was not for their cynical approach, is to extend it to two years. That would be a much more effective use of this tool in terms of controlling misconduct. A person is simply ordered by the court to be subject to this recognizance, which the person signs. If the individual breaches it, there are penalties that flow from that in terms of additional criminal sanctions.
There is another thing it does, and again this is a major plus that we need in our courtrooms just to make it possible for the police, prosecutors and judges to do their jobs in terms of controlling this kind of conduct. It gives substantial additional powers to the judiciary in terms of conditions that can be imposed on the people who are subject to peace bonds, including requiring them to wear a bracelet that identifies where they are at all times. We know from a number of cases across the country, and I can think of some in my home province, where there has been the need for that kind of a tool in order for the judiciary and police to monitor people. This would give them the authority to do that.
I want to conclude by saying I have made a proposal to the minister, which I will make more formal shortly, that we split this bill and allow this legislature to vote on both aspects of it. It is possible procedurally to do that. I am suggesting that may be the way out of this very inappropriate approach that has been taken by the government with regard to these two issues.