House of Commons Hansard #115 of the 40th Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament's site.) The word of the day was jury.
The House resumed consideration of the motion that Bill C-36, An Act to amend the Criminal Code, be read the third time and passed.
Paul Calandra Conservative Oak Ridges—Markham, ON
Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to Bill C-36 now that it has been reported back to this House by the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights.
Bill C-36, the serious time for the most serious crime bill, will amend the Criminal Code to repeal the so-called faint hope regime for all those who commit murder after the legislation comes into force. Importantly, it will also toughen the procedural requirements to make a faint hope application for the approximately 1,000 already convicted murderers now serving life sentences in Canada's prisons who presently have the right to apply for faint hope, or who will have the right to do so after serving 15 years.
I am pleased to note that after hearing from several witnesses, the standing committee reported Bill C-36 back to the House with but a few technical amendments that will better harmonize the English and French versions of the bill.
Allow me to recap the nature of the substantive Criminal Code amendments contained in Bill C-36 for the benefit of hon. members.
As most hon. members are aware, high treason and first and second degree murder are all punishable by life imprisonment with the right to apply for parole after a stipulated period of time. Section 745 of the Criminal Code stipulates that the earliest possible parole eligibility date for those convicted of first degree murder and high treason is 25 years. It is also 25 years for second degree murder, where the murderer has been convicted of a prior first or second degree murder, or of an intentional killing under the Crimes Against Humanity and War Crimes Act. Otherwise, the parole ineligibility period for second degree murder is automatically 10 years and can be up to 25 years as determined by the judge under section 745.4 of the Criminal Code.
Serving up to 25 years in prison without being eligible for parole is obviously a very long time and it is deliberately so, for murder and high treason are two of the most serious crimes in Canada's Criminal Code. Nonetheless, the faint hope regime provides a mechanism for offenders to have their parole ineligibility period reduced so that they serve less time in prison before applying to the National Parole Board for parole.
The current faint hope process is set out in section 745.6 and related provisions, and has three stages.
First, an offender must convince a judge from the jurisdiction in which he or she was convicted that the application has a reasonable prospect of success. The courts have already told us that this is not much of a hurdle and almost all applications are eligible to go to the next stage.
Second, if the judge is convinced, the applicant can bring the application to a jury of 12 ordinary Canadians, whose role is to decide whether to reduce the applicant's parole ineligibility period. This decision must be a unanimous one.
Third, if the applicant is successful with the jury, he or she may apply directly to the National Parole Board. At that point, the applicant will have to convince the board that, among other things, his or her release will not pose a danger to society.
The faint hope regime has been around since 1976 when capital punishment was abolished. The data indicate that between 1976 and the spring of this year, there have been a total of 265 faint hope applications. That is an average of eight applications a year. Of the 265 applicants, 140 obtained reductions in their parole ineligibility periods. Thus, 103 applicants with 25 year ineligibility periods obtained reductions of 1 to 10 years, and 37 applicants whose ineligibility periods ranged from 15 to 24 years obtained reductions of 1 to 5 years.
Ultimately, the National Parole Board granted parole to 127 applicants. In short, nearly half of the 265 faint hope applicants were ultimately granted parole before the expiry of the parole ineligibility period imposed on them at the time of sentencing.
The existence of the faint hope regime and high success rate of applicants has led to a great deal of public concern, particularly among victims' advocate groups. This has in turn led to a series of amendments to restrict access to the faint hope regime and to make better arrangements for the needs of the families and the loved ones of murder victims.
Thus, government amendments to the faint hope regime in 1995, which came into force in January 1997, toughen the application procedure, first, by entirely barring multiple murderers from applying if one of the murders occurred after the coming into force date of the legislation; second, by requiring a judge to conduct the review already mentioned whereby the applicant must show a reasonable prospect of success before the applicant may go to the jury; and third, by setting the high standard of jury unanimity that I have already mentioned before the applicant's parole and eligibility period may be reduced.
I wonder if I might ask for unanimous consent to share my time with the member for Oakville. I neglected to do that at the beginning of my speech.
The Acting Speaker Conservative Barry Devolin
Does the hon. member for Oak Ridges—Markham have the unanimous consent of the House to split his time with the member for Oakville?
Paul Calandra Conservative Oak Ridges—Markham, ON
I thank my colleagues, Mr. Speaker.
In 1999 the Criminal Code was amended again in response to the concerns set out in the report of the Common's Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights entitled “Victims' Rights--A Voice, Not a Veto”.
As a result, under Section 745.01 a judge sentencing someone convicted of first- or second-degree murder or high treason must declare, for the record and for the benefit of the surviving victims or their representatives, the existence and nature of the faint hope regime.
Given the controversial history of the faint hope regime, the rationale for Bill C-36 is very simple. Allowing convicted murderers a chance, even a faint chance, of getting early parole flies in the face of truth in sentencing. With its alternate title, this bill indicates that truth in sentencing means that those who commit the most serious of crimes must do the most serious time.
This is what the proposals in Bill C-36 aim to do. They aim to restore truth in sentencing for murderers and to protect society by keeping potentially violent offenders in prison for longer periods of time.
I am pleased to note that Bill C-36 would fulfill a long-standing commitment of the government to repeal the faint hope regime for future offenders and to tighten up the current application procedure in the interests of families and loved ones of murder victims.
Bill C-36 would bar all those who commit murder or high treason after the legislation comes into effect from applying for faint hope. In effect, the faint hope regime will be repealed for all those who commit murder in the future.
Bill C-36 would also toughen further application processes for those already sentenced as lifers with the right to apply for faint hope by setting a higher judicial screening test. From now on, a judge will have to be satisfied that there is a substantial likelihood that a jury will unanimously agree to reduce an applicant's parole ineligibility period. Moving from a reasonable prospect to a substantial likelihood will likely screen out the most undeserving applications.
There are also longer waiting periods for reapplication in the event of an unsuccessful initial faint hope application, a minimum five years instead of the present two.
Most important, Bill C-36 would impose a new three-month time limit for an offender to apply or reapply under the faint hope regime. The three-month time limit would apply in the following situations.
First, it would apply to those offenders who have served at least 15 years of their sentence and have not yet applied. There are many offenders in prison now who have served 15, 16, 17 or more years but who have not yet applied. These offenders will have to make an application within three months of the coming into force of the legislation or wait an additional five years.
Second, it would apply to those offenders who are now serving a sentence but who have not yet reached the 15-year mark. For example, they may have served four years, eight years, or ten years when this bill passes. At exactly the 15-year point in their sentence, all of these murderers will have three months within which to bring an application.
There is also a new five-year waiting period during which an offender may not apply at all if he or she does not apply to a judge within the three-month time limit.
These new longer time limits are explicitly designed to reduce the number of applications that someone may make, in order to spare the families and loved ones of their victims from having to rehash the details of the crime every time a particular applicant applies for faint hope.
In closing, Bill C-36 would eliminate the faint hope regime for all future murderers and would ensure that murderers now in prison would have a much tougher time accessing the regime.
None of these substantive aspects of Bill C-36 have been amended in any way by the standing committee. As I mentioned earlier, there are a few highly technical amendments that have no impact whatsoever on the substantive provisions that I have briefly described.
The reforms to the faint hope regime proposed in Bill C-36 will accomplish two worthwhile goals: first, they will allow us to meet the concerns of Canadians that murderers do the time they have been given and stay longer in prisons than they do now; and second and equally important, they will help ensure that families of loved ones and murder victims are not forced to rehear the details of these crimes every two years as they are sometimes required to do under the current regime.
I support this bill and call on all members of the House to do so as well.
Marc Lemay Bloc Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC
Mr. Speaker, I will try to go slowly in order that the interpreter and my colleague may fully grasp what I am saying.
I do not understand—and perhaps you could explain this to me—why you are changing something that works perfectly well. The faint hope clause works perfectly well. We have all the numbers from the solicitor general and the parole board. All the numbers show that among all the prisoners released as a result of the faint hope clause, none reoffended by committing an offence as significant or serious as murder. There has been no failure.
There are currently 4,000 prisoners serving life sentences at a cost of $100,000 each. If you do the math, it costs several hundred million dollars a year.
My question is: why change something that works just fine?
Paul Calandra Conservative Oak Ridges—Markham, ON
Mr. Speaker, at the outset let me suggest that we are not going to be putting a price tag on justice in this country. One of the things the hon. member misses is that each time a faint hope application is brought forward, the victims have to relive the crimes over and over and over again.
The hon. member talks about liberating people who have been convicted of murder. The victims' families will never be liberated of the burden that they carry from these actions. Last week in my constituency office I had the honour of meeting of someone whose sister was murdered. A number of years later the family is still torn up over what happened to their sister. She will not be coming back after 15 years. She will not be applying for early parole.
The hallmark of the justice system is that it is a justice system, and people are required to do the time when they commit some of the most serious and heinous crimes. The member should reflect on that. He should put the families of the victims first and should not put the criminals ahead of them. As I said earlier, I would suggest to the hon. member that we cannot put a price tag on justice. It is important that we do what is right for Canadians. Canadians have said loud and clear that they want this provision repealed. I am very proud to do so, and I hope the hon. member will reflect on that and come on board and support the bill.
Linda Duncan NDP Edmonton Strathcona, AB
Mr. Speaker, the bill is puzzling to me because an amendment in 1997 actually required that it be the unanimous decision of a jury to even recommend that the Parole Board hear the faint hope application. What is puzzling to me is the government is proposing that what it is doing is representing the views of the public who do not want these people released. It seems to go against the grain of the fact that under our system we recognize a jury of peers, who are people, where the offence occurred. In that process they actually allow for statements by the victims' family.
I wonder if the member could explain why he would want to replace the views of a jury of citizens from the area where the offence occurred.
Paul Calandra Conservative Oak Ridges—Markham, ON
Mr. Speaker, let me clarify for the hon. member that the bill actually repeals the faint hope clause. It is pretty clear. All of those who are convicted of some of the most serious crimes will no longer have the ability to apply for early parole. In fact what the bill does is respect the people who made the initial sentence. When someone is convicted to 25 years in jail for a crime of murder, the jury that has convicted that person assumes the person will serve 25 years for the act that they have been convicted of.
The faint hope clause sets aside the earlier decision of a jury of the person's peers and seeks to go back and see if they cannot change their mind. We are saying that is not appropriate, that we are going to change the way that justice works, we are going to put victims ahead of criminals and we are going to make sure that people who do the most serious crimes will do the most serious of time.
Terence Young Conservative Oakville, ON
Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the member for Oak Ridges—Markham for sharing his time with me today.
It is my pleasure to speak in strong support of Bill C-36, amendments to the Criminal Code that will put an end to the faith hope regime.
Saturday morning was Oakville's Santa Claus parade. I rode in a convertible with Frosty the Snowman, erstwhile Sheridan College student, Jaclyn Seer, as thousands of joyous adults and children waved and cheered along the curbs.
Towards the end we passed a police officer holding his radio microphone while he was chatting with another. “Look what I picked up”, he commented to the other officer. Alongside was a little boy about eight years old, still smiling, with a red foam ball attached to his nose, part of his Rudolph costume, apparently waiting for the officer to find his parents. I immediately wondered what might be going through his parents' minds. No doubt it would be worry that would grow exponentially as time passed, sadly with good reason.
I thought back to when I was a child in the 1950s and early 1960s. Even in Toronto, Canada's largest city, parents could allow their children to go out and play in the parks without fear, without fear they would be kidnapped, tortured or murdered. Today that is not true. Parents have to actually train innocent children against stealthy predators, both male and female. Tragically sometimes the predators still succeed.
I have to conclude that past governments have simply not done their best to protect our children and other vulnerable people. They have spent more time and effort worrying about the criminals in the system. As we passed that officer and little boy, I thought about why the people of Oakville sent me to Parliament. The first duty of any government is to protect its people, especially vulnerable people. That is my first duty to my constituents in Oakville. By voting for this bill, I am fulfilling that first duty.
Bill C-36 will ensure that those who commit the serious crimes of murder and high treason will serve the time that was imposed on them by the court that heard their case, serious time for serious crime, instead of getting some special break after 15 years and a paper review.
This means under this government many of our most dangerous criminals will be off our streets for 10 years longer, and others will think twice about their criminal plans. This will be real deterrence.
It is important to note that these are not troubled teens who stole a car to go for a joyride. They are not people who broke the law by mistake. They are the worst of the worst, people who have planned and carried out the worst crimes against innocent victims, crimes that are so horrible people would not even discuss them in front of children.
The faint hope clause was conceived in 1976 as a wish, an experiment by Liberal Justice Minister Warren Allman. It was supposed to provide an incentive for long-term offenders to rehabilitate themselves and at the same time increase security in prisons. It was good for the criminals but bad for the victims and their families.
I have heard some of the members opposite talk about studies that supposedly show that longer prison sentences do not deter crime, but how are these studies done? They are carried out by interviewing the people who have demonstrated they lack morals and have the highest motivation to lie, the criminals themselves, or they use selective statistics or they quote figures from the U.S., a largely different culture, regarding poverty, guns and crime.
Of course longer sentences reduce crime. The police and crown attorneys who deal with violent criminals will tell us that murderers are generally very well aware of the penalties they face if caught. Time in prison is what it is all about for these people. It is our most important tool in the justice system. The faint hope clause is a way that the worst criminals try to beat the system one more time. This is to say nothing of the huge cost to the taxpayers of the reviews and the hearings.
From victims' statements it is clear that the average person can only imagine the fear that the victim's families bear year after year that the person who murdered their loved one will obtain early release and kill again, or the continuing nightmare that they may one day meet the criminal face to face on the bus or in a lineup for a movie.
They have another dread, that one day after 15 years they will receive a letter in the mail requiring them to relive their terror and grief in order to make sure the criminal who stole the life of their loved one serves the full sentence he or she was given, because Parliament decided over 33 years ago to allow criminals to revisit that crime and sentence every two years. Why is that so? Is it because the perpetrator has been well-behaved in prison and he or she wants out?
There is no parole for the families. There is no early release for murder victims. The Liberal minister, who first introduced this clause in 1976, was concerned about the waste of the offender's life being in prison for 25 years, but where was the concern for the wasted life of the victim when the murderer chose to snuff it out? Who cared that the families were asked to relive their nightmares, in some cases every two years, by appearing at hearings for these criminals to tell their tragic stories over and over, effectively preventing them from leaving their pain behind and having any kind of closure?
Those of us in the Conservative Party care. There is an old expression that a Liberal is a Conservative who has not been mugged yet. There is an essential truth to that expression. Victims of violent crime on the whole have a vastly different view of crime and sentencing than those who have never been a victim. They see things much differently. That is because they have had the joy sucked out of their lives, at least temporarily, and their eyes are open. For some of them, life is never the same.
People who have looked into the eyes of a serial murderer or rapist and lived offer a unique perspective on a criminal's claim that 15 years in prison will change the criminal sense of right and wrong. All criminals want is for everyone to forget about their crimes. All the families of the victims want is for everyone to remember it. For justice, pick one.
The NDP member for Burnaby—Douglas claims that the system is working because, from 1997 to 2009, of 991 criminals who were eligible under this clause, only 131 were released and only four of them were caught in a similar crime. How incredibly naive that is. That statement is based on the ridiculous assumption that all crimes are solved and that all criminals are caught. Yet, we know there have been 3,400 unsolved murders in Canada since 1961. Over 500 native women have vanished in the last 30 years.
Clifford Olson was convicted for killing 11 children. Tragically, we have serial killers in Canada. Why would any clear-thinking person assume that the 101 faint hope parolees still out there are all perfectly reformed? When the time came to decide if Clifford Olson could apply for parole, however unlikely it was that he would get it, literally thousands of family members of those children and of those 500 missing women suffered a new man-made cruel and unusual punishment, this process of faint hope, as they relived their own losses.
We are keeping our promise to get tough on crime and hold offenders to account. If passed, Bill C-36 will bar all future murderers from applying for faint hope. This will effectively repeal the entire regime.
We in Parliament are tasked and trusted to protect vulnerable people. Each of us in this place asked for this trust and we must fulfill it. It should make no difference that the prison is in an unpleasant place. Our priority must be victims and their families and deterring violent crime.
I believe every member of the House should vote on the bill with one question in mind. If it were my child or spouse who was raped and murdered, how would I vote? We owe our constituents the same level of protection we would provide for our own families and nothing less.
Marlene Jennings Liberal Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine, QC
Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the hon. member for Oakville for his speech. I would like him to clarify something.
During his speech, the member for Oakville said that the current system, under the Criminal Code, for an offender to apply for the faint hope clause was a “paper review”. It is my understanding that if the judge finds there is a reasonable prospect of success on an application, the judge then orders that a 12 member jury be constituted. That jury hears from the offender, the families of the victims, should they so wish to testify, and from other expert witnesses. Is the member not incorrect when he calls it a “paper review”?
Terence Young Conservative Oakville, ON
Mr. Speaker, what I have said is there is no new evidence regarding the crime presented. If a jury is put together, the judge looks at paper. What they are essentially doing is revisiting a criminal trial that took place 15 years prior or earlier than that.
I ask my friend opposite where she stands. I would like her to listen to what families have said.
Heidi Illingworth, with the Canadian Resource Centre for Victims of Crime, said in the National Post, on June 6, “The process is tantamount to cruel and unusual punishment for survivors”.
Ed Teague, whose 18-year-old daughter was murdered, said, “My sons will have to end up going to those parole hearings. I don't want them to have to go through that on a regular two-year basis like has happened in the past”.
Carolyn Gardner, whose sister was murdered, said, “He can waive it”, a faint hope application, “but we don't have that option, to say 'we don't want it', If we don't go, there's no voice for my sister, for their daughter”.
Theresa McCuaig, whose grandson was murdered, said, “It's going to be very difficult for our family to go through court three times in one year for each criminal, and if they don't get it they are allowed to re-apply every second year after that. So we're going to go through this hell every second year”.
I ask the member opposite to listen to the families and help us repeal this provision.
Marc Lemay Bloc Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC
Mr. Speaker, when I hear such things it makes what little hair is left on my head stand up. I am certain that the hon. member has never appeared before the board to have someone released. That is not really how it works. Only someone with experience can tell it like it is and properly inform the public.
Exactly 127 inmates have been released and none has reoffended by committing murder. I can assure hon. members that the parole board is not going to release the likes of Clifford Olson or Paul Bernardo. Get real. You have to be ridiculous and dim to think that the board would be so reckless.
I have a question for the hon. member. What is his beef with the 1976 act that gave faint hope to an inmate? Why destroy something that has been working so well since 1976?
Terence Young Conservative Oakville, ON
Mr. Speaker, we on this side of the House are concerned that the victim does not get one last chance. The victim does not have a voice, and we are primarily concerned about the families. Not many of these people are released anyway, but the families, as we have heard from the quotes, go through a living hell and for no good reason.
Let me quote Darlene Boyd, who said, “You don't have to relive it every time they feel like going through a judicial review or parole—that's hard on families”. I have quote after quote from people who are suffering because of this unfair system.
Marlene Jennings Liberal Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine, QC
Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to speak on behalf of my party. I will state outright that my party, based on the recommendations of our justice critic, will support the legislation at report stage and third reading. However, I would like to make a few points.
It is becoming more disconcerting to listen to the Conservative government and its MPs use fallacious statements and facts in order to bolster its position. There are many times when all members of the opposition or one or another party of the opposition support a particular policy that the government has put forward. Yet the government seems to be unable to help itself in either quoting out of context, in order to put a false conclusion on it, or in giving misinformation. The best example of that was right during the last speech.
The Liberals will, as I said, support Bill C-36 at report stage and third reading. We have concerns about the legislation. However, we would like to stick to facts because we believe, if we are solid on the facts, that they will support whatever conclusion or policy a government or a party puts forward and that there is no need to quote fallacious information, or to misquote people or to take things out of context in order to bolster one's position. That is inherently dishonest. If one is convinced of the rightness of one's position or the solidity of one's position, then there is no reason to undertake that kind of argument.
Bill C-36 would repeal section 745.6 of the Criminal Code, known as the faint hope clause. That section is applicable to offenders who have been sentenced to life imprisonment without possibility of parole for 25 years. Under that section, those offenders can apply at the 15-year mark of their sentence for an earlier parole eligibility date. There is a process that has been put into place. It initially began in the 1970s. In 1997, under the previous government, it was tightened up.
The judicial review for an earlier parole date is not a paper review. It is not simply a question of rehashing whatever evidence was put in before a court on the original charges of first degree or second degree murder, depending on which charge it is, or high treason. For members of the governing party to claim that it is, is simply not true and does not bolster their case. In fact, it weakens their position because it makes people then suspicious about every other statement of so-called fact and just how valid it is.
In fact, the current process is that at the 15-year mark of having served a first degree life sentence without possibility of parole until 25 years has been served, offenders can apply for an earlier review as to whether they are eligible for an earlier parole. That application form is quite substantive and unwieldy, as has been testified to before the committee by justice and public security officials, by Correctional Service Canada and by various groups, psychiatrists, criminologists and offenders themselves. One person who benefited from that clause came before us and explained the conditions and the process.
As was rightfully explained by the first member of the Conservative Party who spoke to this, the standard of proof that a judge on a judicial review of this application has to base his or her decision upon is that proof has been established that there is a reasonable prospect of success.
If the judge is of the opinion that this standard has been met, the judge then orders that a 12-member jury be constituted. That jury does not simply look over the evidence of the previous trial that led to the first degree murder conviction, but actually hears from witnesses. It hears from the offender. It hears from the victim's family and relatives, should they wish to testify. It hears from the members of the Correctional Service of Canada who have seen and handled this offender, and who will come to testify as to the conduct of the offender since.
When the member for Oak Ridges—Markham claims it is a paper review, that member is being disingenuous and does not bolster the case of the government. It actually weakens the government's case because it then leads people to believe that the government is trying to hide something. I would urge the members opposite not to be disingenuous, but simply to base their arguments for the bill on the facts.
What are the facts? The facts are that the overwhelming majority of offenders sentenced to life imprisonment without possibility of parole for 25 years for first degree murder, or 15 years served for second degree murder, do not even apply. They do not apply because they know they do not even meet that lower standard that exists right now, which requires a “reasonable prospect” of success.
Clearly, if the overwhelming majority do not meet the lower standard, it is clear that even fewer will meet the higher standard that Bill C-36 puts into place, which requires a “substantial likelihood” that a jury would unanimously approve the request for a hearing for earlier parole.
There is no reason for the members opposite to obfuscate the facts. That is my first point.
My second point is that it repeals the faint hope clause for those offenders who will be found guilty after the bill receives royal assent. For those who are currently serving, or will have been convicted and have begun serving their sentence prior to the day of royal assent, they will still benefit from Section 745.6 of the Criminal Code. So it is very important that the members opposite do not attempt to play a hoax on most victims.
The minister came before committee and basically said that the reason he was bringing the bill forward was to ensure that no victim's family would ever have to relive testimony, et cetera. I asked him if there was a retroactive effect to this legislation, and he answered honestly, thank goodness, that no, it would only be repealed going forward. Therefore, I said to him that in fact the family members of victims who have already been murdered, and for whom the murderer has already been found guilty of first or second degree murder, will likely continue to have to face the prospect of testifying, should the offender apply under the faint hope clause. To that point, the minister said yes.
I beg the minister to please stop obfuscating the truth. What he should have said was that he was unable to garner a sufficiently strong argument to justify retroactive application of section 745 and, therefore, he has tightened up the possibility of limiting the application time of those offenders for whom section 745.6 will continue to apply, and has provided more security and certitude for the family members of victims.
I find it amazing that as a member of the official opposition, I am having to provide the government members with solid arguments to justify the government's own legislation because they have not done their homework. I am finding that is the case more and more.
We asked the commissioner of the Correctional Service of Canada for information, which was supposed to have been brought to the committee beforehand. That information dealt precisely with the actual statistics, whether or not anyone who had benefited from the faint hope clause had in fact gone on to reoffend and commit murder again, first or second degree, or high treason. We asked because those are the only charges to which the faint hope clause actually lends itself to a review and the possibility or faint hope of early parole. I have yet to see that information.
I cannot believe that the Correctional Service of Canada does not have that information, but I have not seen it. I have to question whether or not my colleagues from the Bloc and NDP who sit on the justice committee received that information. It would be curious to note whether or not the Conservative members who sit on that committee received that information.
I am offended when I am being asked to evaluate, study and review proposed government policy and legislation and the government does everything it can to keep information from members of the committee and parliamentarians. It does not bolster the government's case at all. It lends itself to making other parliamentarians less open to even listening to the government when it comes up with other new policies, because past behaviour is, in many cases, a predictor of current and future behaviour.
We have seen how the government has absolutely no qualms about misinforming people and taking information out of context, and when confronted about it, refusing to even acknowledge it was in the wrong. Then one has to call into question the government's good faith, because if someone unknowingly misquotes or quotes something out of context and it is brought to his or her attention, if that person has good faith, he or she will publicly apologize for getting it wrong. I have yet to hear this government or any of its members apologize when they have been confronted clearly with misinformation or misquotes.
The government has proposed repealing the faint hope clause after royal assent of the bill for anyone who is convicted of first degree murder, second degree murder, and high treason. Liberals will be supporting that. The government could not make it retroactive, and even on that I have concerns whether or not that was the case, because I have asked the question already. The minister did not table any legal opinions that would have demonstrated that a constitutional case could not have been made to make the repeal retroactive. I asked that question because I know this very well from when I was parliamentary secretary to the then solicitor general, now the public safety minister portfolio. At that time, when we were looking at creating a national sex offender registry, the proposed legislation first brought to us by the departmental officials was not retroactive.
At that time, I said that in my view there was a solid constitutional argument that would withstand a charter challenge and allow us to make the sex offender registry retroactive. I asked the officials to go back and do their homeworker. I did my own homework on the jurisprudence et cetera. When they came back, the Department of Justice officials admitted there was a solid argument that would allow the creation of a retroactive sex offender registry that would withstand a court challenge.
I asked the minister whether or not that work had been done for this particular legislation, and while he said yes, he also refused to provide any kind of documentary evidence, legal opinion, or research, et cetera, showing they could not make it retroactive in this case.
I have said all I need to say on this matter.
Marc Lemay Bloc Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC
Mr. Speaker, I listened carefully to what my colleague had to say, and I would like to congratulate her on her speech, because what she said was accurate. I will talk about this in more detail when I speak in a few minutes.
I am a bit surprised, though, and that it what my question is about. In 1976, if memory serves—and I hope it does—the Liberals were in power. I believe that Mr. Trudeau was Prime Minister at the time, but I am not certain. If I recall correctly, the Liberals abolished the death penalty in Canada in 1976 and introduced the faint hope clause. I will come back to this in a few minutes in my speech.
I have a question for my colleague, who seems to be a lone voice among her Liberal colleagues, who will likely vote in favour of Bill C-36. I am looking for just one good reason why she should vote against it.
The party opposite should not talk about the victims. It does not understand the victims. We will talk about the victims later. I would like to know why the Liberal Party, which brought in the faint hope clause and knows how the system works, would vote for such a bill, which will take the last hope away from certain hand-picked inmates who have proven that they may be eligible for parole. I would like to understand.
Marlene Jennings Liberal Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine, QC
Mr. Speaker, I must tell my colleague that his memory serves him well.
In fact, in 1976, the Liberal Party of Canada was in power. It formed the Government of Canada at the time, and the Right Honourable Pierre Elliott Trudeau was Prime Minister. My predecessor in my riding, the Hon. Warren Allmand, was Minister of Justice at the time.
If I were to behave like the Conservatives, who are forever labelling everything with their logo, their big C and the colour blue, I would say that that was the year the red Liberal Party of Canada abolished the death penalty and brought in section 745.6 of the Criminal Code, which gave inmates very faint hope, but one last chance nonetheless.
I am a Liberal. I am a good Liberal. When the official opposition justice critic recommends that my caucus vote for or against something, I try to be a good Liberal.
Mike Wallace Conservative Burlington, ON
Mr. Speaker, based on that last comment, I just cannot let it go.
I appreciate the presentation by the member opposite. I know she is active on the justice committee and has been dealing with these issues for a number of years. The minister clearly indicated the charter issues with retroactivity. The member may not agree.
I am asking the member a question. Where is the member going? Is she allowed to leave? It is time for questions and comments. Is that what a good Liberal does? Avoids questions and leaves the House. Is that what happens? I will make it simple.
The member was at committee. The member voted against the legislation at committee. That is my understanding. Has she changed her mind and what has made her change her mind?
Marcel Proulx Liberal Hull—Aylmer, QC
Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. May I recommend that you suggest to the hon. member to be somewhat respectful.
The Acting Speaker Conservative Barry Devolin
I am not sure that is a point of order. However, I would remind all hon. members that we ought not to reference colleagues who are or are not in the House and whether they are coming or going.
Marlene Jennings Liberal Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine, QC
Mr. Speaker, if the member actually read the transcripts of the justice committee, clause-by-clause voting, he would not see my name appear either in favour or opposed.
Therefore, when the member says that he has been told that I, the member for Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine voted against Bill C-36 at second reading, clause-by-clause, he has been misinformed.
I would beg the member, in future, not to repeat the same misinformation because I have seen members of the Conservative Party sitting in the House giving out misinformation, be corrected about it, and continue to repeat it as though they had never seen the actual facts shown to them and proven to them.
Joe Comartin NDP Windsor—Tecumseh, ON
Mr. Speaker, I have a quick question. I shared with my colleague the concern when the minister came before the committee and the only argument he had, because it certainly was not based on any facts on how this section has worked, was that he wanted to be sure that victims' families would never go through this again. He seemed ignorant of the fact, based on the bill, that they would go through it not once but twice both at the time for the review, which could happen under this bill two or three times, and then again before the Parole Board.
I am wondering if the member has any concerns that we are going to see another attempt by the government either to reintroduce the death penalty, because the only way we can do away with reviews is to actually have the state execute convicted murderers, or the other possibility is, which the government may be considering, having a provision where there is no possibility of parole at all which poses some major constitutional problems under the charter.
I wonder if the member would comment on those two alternatives and where she might see the government going on either one of them.
Marlene Jennings Liberal Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine, QC
Mr. Speaker, the question that has been asked by my colleague from the NDP, who also sits on the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights, is quite serious. I will not speculate on what the government's future intentions might be.
As to the issue of the appropriate sentencing for first degree and second degree murderers who have been convicted of those charges, I can say that I have been in the House since 1997 and there were members of the previous Reform Party who did, in fact, express a wish for the return of the death penalty. I do not believe that they sit in the House at this time. I believe that some of them have been defeated, either at their nomination conventions or in an election, or have retired.
I am not going to speculate on what the government's medium- and long-term intentions on that should be, but I am dismayed when we have a minister, whom I actually respect and I cannot say that for many of the Conservative ministers, who comes before the committee and does not appear to be intimately aware of, understanding of, and knowledgeable about his own legislation that he is bringing forth.
The member is entirely right. The Minister of Justice, when he came before our committee with the arguments that he gave wanting to save victims' families from having to relive the pain, the anguish and, I can imagine, the terror over and over again, had to be informed by members of the opposition, myself included, that in fact his bill did not remove that reality because it was not retroactive.
That was the point at which I asked the minister about whether or not he had considered the possibility of making the repeal retroactive, period, finished, if he were that concerned about the victims' families.
Mike Wallace Conservative Burlington, ON
Mr. Speaker, the answer that I got indicated, based on the response, that my integrity was impugned and that I was not following the rules.
I am happy to put this on the record in the House here today. In the minutes of the proceedings of Monday, November 16, the question, “Shall the bill, as amended, carry?” has the yeas and the nays listed. The previous speaker's name is listed under the nays. I was doing exactly what I had done in terms of research on what was happening.
The member indicated that I did not know what I was talking about and impugned my integrity, saying I had not done my homework. I want to put on the record that this is not true and the member of Parliament who spoke owes me an apology.