Debates of Oct. 5th, 2010

Standing up for Victims of White Collar Crime Act

[Sukh Dhaliwal, Liberal, Newton—North Delta, BC]

Madam Speaker, first I would like to thank the member for Richmond Hill for sharing his time with me. It is always wonderful to work with him as part of a team.

I rise to speak to Bill C-21. This legislation, after dying on the order paper when the Prime Minister decided to prorogue Parliament last year, is finally being revived by the government. This bill is so important and has such an urgency because of the trail of victims that white collar crime has scattered across North America in recent years.

In the United States the infamous Bernie Madoff, while serving as a stockbroker, an investment adviser and a non-executive chairman of the NASDAQ Stock Market, operated the largest Ponzi scheme in history, ripping off thousands of investors for more than $65 billion.

Canada has also had its share of fraud. The highest profile case came to light last year in Montreal. Earl Jones took more than $50 million from dozens of victims in a 20-year long Ponzi scheme. The victims included his own brother to the tune of $1 million.

For too long white collar criminals have received only slaps on the wrist for their crimes. In 2007 there were 88,286 incidents of fraud in Canada. Of those cases, approximately 11% of those responsible were found guilty for their actions. Of that 11%, only 35% received jail sentences and over 60% received probation or a lesser penalty.

The rate of conviction and record of punishment is unacceptable. Because these individuals do not use a gun or a knife, in the past they have been treated with kid gloves. This is absolutely ridiculous because the impact of these crimes is often far more damaging than a simple assault. We are talking about people whose entire life savings, their long-term plans for retirement, their hopes and dreams for the rest of their lives have been taken away from them.

We are dealing with a class of criminals that have no regard for their victims. If a potential victim has to take a mortgage on his or her house to invest in a sure bet, get-rich quick scheme, no problem. How about a senior who has spent 50 years saving for retirement only to have his or her trust broken by someone who guarantees that the senior will never have to worry about his or her money again. Maybe it is a young couple who have saved for their children's education and who are taken advantage of because of their hope to build a better life for their son or daughter.

These are the kinds of stories that have been emerging from these massive frauds for years. They also represent the people who have watched their fraudsters walk over the justice system without any kind of adequate penalty or restitution.

Bill C-21 is a good start toward correcting these voids in our system. It proposes a minimum two-year jail term for fraud over $1 million, and it proposes additional aggravating factors for sentencing. It proposes consideration for victims' impact statements and requires consideration of imposing restitution for victims. It proposes to allow the court to prohibit an offender from assuming any position, volunteer or paid, that involves handling other people's money or property.

I would like to point out that many of these ideas emerged from this side of the House when a group of Liberal MPs from Quebec met with the Earl Jones victims committee and presented nine immediate action items. The spokesperson for the group stated that the Liberal MPs presented for the first time a concrete plan. From the very beginning the Liberal Party has pledged that we will co-operate with the government on the bill in terms of input and fast passage.

Once again, if the House had not been prorogued by the Prime Minister, we would already have a law in place to protect Canadians. Nonetheless, on this side of the House we are pleased to see that the government chose to reintroduce the legislation this past spring.

I would like to make some clarifications of my support for the bill. I would point out the necessity for the bill in its current form to go to the committee stage for scrutiny. There are some huge holes that must be addressed.

Sentencing is important, but so too are the investigations and preventive measures that can be taken before crimes even occur.

Investigators across the country are under-resourced badly and in spite of calls for more funding, the government has ignored this aspect of tightening things up.

Parole for white collar crimes has not been addressed in any way, leaving it unclear whether the fraudster deserves jail time or should go back into the community.

Finally, the one-sixth accelerated parole provisions are outrageous, as they allow these criminals to serve a fraction of their sentence before being eligible for parole. The government has done nothing to correct this glaring error.

Those are the deficiencies in the bill that demonstrate how much work it needs before it becomes the law of the land.

In closing, this is a bill that is a long time coming and one which the Liberal Party was instrumental in helping to craft. For that reason, we are working with the government to get the legislation passed. That being said, we need to ensure that the bill is correct and airtight when it comes to the methods it prescribes for dealing with white collar crime.

This is why I am supporting sending the bill to committee for fine-tuning and improvement.

[Chris Charlton, NDP, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

Madam Speaker, I know that many people who are watching the debate today will be very concerned about white collar crime and in particular, their own protection against those kinds of criminal activities.

We need only to think about things like Enron or the case of Conrad Black and the prosecutions that happened south of the border, and here in Canada, many seniors were impacted negatively by what happened around Earl Jones. We have a government that is reacting to a huge public outcry. However, it is not good enough for the government just to say, “We are a law and order government, so trust us, our bills will be perfect and they will be the cure for whatever ails us”. It is important to take a very close look at the legislation that is before us.

It strikes me as legislation that was quick to come forward, but is short on innovation and on real teeth. For example, if we look at the provisions about compensation, the bill says “shall consider making a restitution order under section 738 or 739”, but it does not compel offenders to compensate their victims. I think that for people who have been defrauded financially, this legislation would be very inadequate in terms of meeting their needs.

The question I want to ask the member has to do with things that are not even in the bill, in particular, environmental crimes. This is one of the areas that has to be looked at much more closely and ought to be included in the bill. I wonder if the member would agree that those kinds of provisions have to be part of this legislation before it receives third and final reading.

[Sukh Dhaliwal, Liberal, Newton—North Delta, BC]

Madam Speaker, I certainly would support those kinds of suggestions. As my Liberal colleague, the hon. member for Richmond Hill stated, on crimes to do with the environment, whether to do with money or substance, they are equally important. That is why we on this side of the House are supporting sending the bill to committee, to let the committee make those changes and make the bill airtight and to take into consideration issues such as the ones the hon. member mentioned.

[Jim Maloway, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Madam Speaker, I was reading an article on Canadian Business Online from September 24, 2007. The headline was “...Canada's losing war against white-collar crime”. The author was talking about the RCMP's launch of the integrated market enforcement team, IMET, which was an elite squad of investigators who were supposed to work together to crack down on white collar crime, but the results were extremely disappointing.

In the United States, the justice department there racked up more than 1,200 convictions against high-level executives from Enron and other companies like that in the last five years, and the IMET had only managed to get two. There were 1,200 in the United States and only two in Canada, and both of them were against the same person.

It went on to say:

Just ask people on Bay Street who they are afraid of. It’s not the cops, it’s not the [Ontario Securities Commission]. It’s the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission because they have real teeth.

In spite of all of that, President Obama in the United States is re-regulating because he and the Americans do not feel that their system is adequate, and our system is so much worse than their old system was.

When does the member think Canada is going to get tough on white collar crime?

[Sukh Dhaliwal, Liberal, Newton—North Delta, BC]

Madam Speaker, Bill C-21 is long overdue, but as I mentioned earlier, it would have been the law of the land today if the Prime Minister had not prorogued Parliament so many times.

The Liberals are willing to support the government to pass this bill and make this a law. Now the bill is on the floor and we on this side of the House are supporting sending the bill to committee and making sure that it takes care of the victims of these frauds.

[The Acting Speaker, NDP, Denise Savoie]

Resuming debate.

Is the House ready for the question?

[Some hon. members]

Question.

[The Acting Speaker, NDP, Denise Savoie]

The question is on the motion. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Acting Speaker, NDP, Denise Savoie]

Motion agreed to. Consequently, this bill is referred to the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights.

(Motion agreed to, bill read the second time and referred to a committee)

Serious Time for the Most Serious Crime Act

[Lynne Yelich, Conservative, Blackstrap, SK]

moved that Bill S-6, An Act to amend the Criminal Code and another Act, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

[Bob Dechert, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice]

Madam Speaker, it is a great pleasure to rise today in support of the important Criminal Code amendments contained in Bill S-6 that will fulfill the government's platform commitment to repeal the Criminal Code faint hope regime.

As hon. members may be aware, the so-called faint hope regime is found in section 745.6 and related provisions of the Criminal Code. Basically, it allows those convicted of murder or high treason to apply to be eligible to seek parole as soon as they have served 15 years of their life sentence, no matter how many years of parole ineligibility remain to be served in the sentence originally imposed upon them.

Before going on I should note that because the National Defence Act incorporates by reference the faint hope regime in the Criminal Code, all the changes proposed in Bill S-6 would also apply to any member of the armed forces convicted of capital offences under that legislation.

Allow me to discuss for a moment the reasons these amendments have been brought forward and why the government places such importance on seeing them brought into law.

From the inception of the faint hope regime in 1976, the availability of early parole eligibility for convicted murderers has been a source of concern for many Canadians. These early concerns became more concrete as greater numbers of sentenced murderers began to benefit from early parole in the early 1990s. This in turn led to a citizens' petition for its repeal in the mid-1990s and to considerable negative newspaper commentary.

The passage of time has not alleviated those concerns. Many Canadians continue to be of the view that the existence of a mechanism that allows convicted murderers to short-circuit the lengthier period of parole ineligibility imposed at the time of sentencing offends truth in sentencing and appears to allow for overly lenient treatment of murderers.

In addition, victim advocacy groups argue that faint hope applications add to the trauma experienced by the families and loved ones of murder victims by forcing them to both live in dread that a convicted killer may bring an early application and then require them to relive the details of their terrible losses, during the faint hope review process and any subsequent parole board hearings. The measures proposed in Bill S-6 are in direct response to these concerns.

In this regard, let me briefly recap the current situation regarding parole eligibility for those who commit murder or high treason. I will not go into detail because Bill S-6 is virtually identical to Bill C-36 in the last session of Parliament and hon. members will already be familiar with the broad outlines of what is being proposed.

The Criminal Code currently provides that conviction for the offences of high treason and first degree and second degree murder carry mandatory terms of life imprisonment coupled with mandatory periods of parole ineligibility.

For high treason and first-degree murder, that period of time is 25 years, while for second degree murder it is 10 years except in three situations: first, it is automatically 25 years for any second degree murderer who has previously been convicted of either first or second degree murder; second, it is also automatically 25 years for any second degree murderer who has previously been convicted of an intentional killing under the Crimes Against Humanity and War Crimes Act; and third, it may be anywhere from 11 to 25 years if a judge decides to go beyond the normal 10-year limit in light of the offender's character, the nature and circumstances of the murder, and any jury recommendation in this regard.

However, the point to be made is that all first degree and at least some second degree murderers must spend at least 25 years in prison before they are eligible to apply for parole. While this may seem like an appropriately long time, the reality is that the faint hope regime provides a mechanism for offenders to apply to have their ineligibility period reduced so that they serve less time in prison before applying for parole.

What this means is that murderers who are supposed to be serving up to 25 years in jail before applying to the parole board are getting out of prison earlier than they would be if they had to serve the entire parole ineligibility period they were given at sentencing.

Before I go on to describe the current faint hope application process and the changes proposed by Bill S-6, I would also like to set out the changes to the faint hope regime that have been implemented since 1976.

The original procedure was for the offender to apply to the chief justice in the province where the murder took place to reduce the parole ineligibility period imposed at the time of sentencing. The chief justice would then appoint a Superior Court judge to empanel a 12-person jury to hear the application. If two-thirds of the jury agreed, the offender's ineligibility period could be changed as the jury saw fit.

Upon reaching the end of the ineligibility period, the offender could then apply directly to the Parole Board of Canada according to the normal standards for parole. By 1996, of the 204 offenders then eligible to apply for faint hope relief, 79 had done so and 55 had seen their parole ineligibility periods reduced. In other words, of those who applied, a full 75% had been successful.

In response to the public concerns and petition I mentioned earlier, the faint hope regime was amended in 1995, with the amendments coming into force two years later. These amendments had three effects. First, they entirely barred the access to faint hope regime for all future multiple murderers. Thus, since 1997, the faint hope regime has effectively been repealed for any post-1997 multiple murderer. This includes those who were convicted of murder prior to 1997 if they had committed another murder after that date.

Second, for those murderers who retained the right to apply for faint hope, the procedure was changed to require the Superior Court judge named by the chief justice of the province to conduct a paper review of each application beforehand to screen out applications that had no “reasonable prospect” of success. Only if an applicant could meet that new standard would a jury be empanelled to hear the application.

Third, the amendments also set a higher standard of jury unanimity as opposed to a mere two-thirds majority before the parole ineligibility period of an offender could be reduced. In 1999, the Criminal Code was amended yet again in response to the report of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights entitled “Victims' Rights—A Voice, Not a Veto”.

As a result, a judge sentencing someone convicted of first or second degree murder or high treason must state, both for the record and for the benefit of the families and loved ones of murder victims, both the existence and the nature of the faint hope regime. In short, families and loved ones of victims are now at least made aware of the faint hope regime in order to allow them to prepare themselves psychologically in the event that an offender decides to apply later.

Despite these piecemeal attempts to address the criticisms of the faint hope regime raised by concerned Canadians over the years, the faint hope regime remains problematic, nor have parliamentarians been immune from this controversy. Many have also voiced their concerns over the last few years and at least half a dozen private members' bills have been brought forward in that time seeking to repeal the faint hope regime in its entirety.

In the face of the continuing controversy surrounding this issue and the concerns that have been raised both inside and outside the House, it seems clear that this is the time to deal once and for all with the faint hope regime. In this regard, the bill before us today has to two fundamental purposes. The first is to amend the Criminal Code to bar offenders who commit murder and high treason after the date the amendment comes into force from applying for faint hope.

In short, Bill S-6 proposes, effectively, to repeal the faint hope regime entirely for all future offenders. Bill S-6 would thus complete the process begun in 1997 when all multiple murderers who committed at least one murder after the coming into force date were entirely barred from applying for faint hope.

After Bill S-6 is passed and comes into force, no murderer, single or multiple, will be able to apply for faint hope and it will effectively cease to exist except for currently sentenced offenders and anyone who may be convicted or committed murder prior to that date. They will continue to be able to apply until they have reached the end of the original parole ineligibility period imposed upon them.

In this regard, hon. members are no doubt aware that it is a fundamental constitutional principle that a sentence cannot be changed after it has been imposed. Both the mandatory parole ineligibility periods I described earlier, as well as the availability of faint hope, form part of the life sentence imposed on an offender found guilty of murder or high treason.

Repealing the faint hope regime as it applies to the more than 1,000 already incarcerated murderers in this country would be a retroactive change in sentence that would not survive a court challenge under the charter. That does not mean, however, that stricter faint hope application procedures cannot be applied to those who will continue to have the right to apply once this bill becomes law. Thus, the second thing Bill S-6 would do is to tighten up the three stages in the current faint hope application procedure, with the goal of restricting access to these offenders.

Let me now go through the current three-stage faint hope application process in order to highlight the significant changes proposed in Bill S-6. First, as I mentioned earlier, applicants must convince a Superior Court judge in the province where the conviction occurred that there is a reasonable prospect that their application will be successful.

If this threshold test is met, the judge will allow the application to proceed. This is a relatively easy threshold to meet. Bill S-6 will strengthen it by requiring applicants to prove that they have a substantial likelihood of success. This should prevent less-worthy applications from going forward.

At present, applicants rejected at this stage may reapply in as little as two years. Bill S-6 will increase this minimum waiting period from two to five years. An applicant who succeeds at stage one must then convince a jury from the jurisdiction where the murder occurred to agree unanimously to reduce his or her parole ineligibility period. An unsuccessful applicant may reapply in as little as two years. Bill S-6 will also change this waiting period to five years.

An applicant who is successful at stage two of the process is able to apply directly to the Parole Board of Canada. Bill S-6 proposes no changes in this area.

The net result of the change in waiting period from two to five years at stages one and two of the current process will be to reduce the overall number of applications that any offender may make. At present it is theoretically possible to apply every two years once 15 years have been served, for a total of five applications: after having served 15, 17, 19, 21 and 23 years respectively.

In normal circumstances, Bill S-6 will permit no more than two applications: after having served 15 years and once again after having served 20 years. Five years following the second rejection, an offender will have served the full 25 years and his or her parole ineligibility period will have expired.

However, this is not all that Bill S-6 will accomplish if passed into law. As things now stand, convicted offenders may apply for faint hope at any point after having served 15 years. The possibility that an application may come out of the blue with no prior warning causes great anxiety to the families and loved ones of murder victims.

For that reason, Bill S-6 will change this by requiring applicants to apply within 90 days of becoming eligible to do so. This means that applicants will have to apply within three months after completing 15 years of their sentence, and if rejected, within three months of the expiry of the next five-year waiting period.

The goal is to provide a greater degree of certainty to the families and loved ones of victims about when or whether a convicted murderer will bring a faint hope application.

Before closing, allow me to address briefly a criticism of Bill S-6 that was raised in the other place, namely that it ignores rehabilitation in favour of retribution. This criticism is misplaced for it appears to assume a role for Bill S-6 in the parole application process that it does not have.

As I have already mentioned, Bill S-6 does not change in any way the third stage in the faint hope application process for successful applicants of applying directly to the Parole Board of Canada.

There is nothing in this bill that in any way affects the ability of convicted murderers to rehabilitate themselves and to apply for parole in the normal course once the parole ineligibility period imposed on them at the time of sentencing has expired.

The bill simply insists that, for all future murderers, the full time in custody to which they were sentenced following conviction be served prior to making an application for parole. In the same way, for those who will continue to have the right to apply after 15 years, the bill simply insists that they follow a stricter procedure in the interests of the families and loved ones of their victims.

This government is committed to redressing the balance in Canada's criminal justice system by putting the interests of law-abiding citizens ahead of the rights of convicted criminals and by ensuring that families and loved ones of murder victims are not themselves victimized by the justice system.

The rationale for the bill before this House is very simple, that allowing murders, those convicted of the most serious offence in Canadian criminal law, a chance to get early parole is not truth in sentencing. Truth in sentencing means that those who commit the most serious crime will do the most serious time.

I am proud to support this historic measure. The government promised Canadians that it would get tough on violent crime and hold serious offenders accountable for their actions. The measures proposed in Bill S-6 offer further proof that this promise has been kept.

The reforms proposed in this bill have been many years in the making and are decades overdue. They reflect a well-tailored scheme that both responds to the concerns raised by the public and by victims' advocates that the faint hope regime as presently constituted allows for far too lenient treatment of murderers and measures those concerns against constitutional standards.

Bill S-6 proposes to effectively repeal the faint hope regime for all future murderers, as well as to require that currently sentenced offenders who may choose to make an application in the coming years do so according to stricter standards that fairly balance their rights against the legitimate interests of the families and loved ones of their victims.

These reforms are tough but they are fair and they are long overdue. For these reasons I support the bill and I call on all hon. members of the House to do so as well.

[Brian Murphy, Liberal, Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe, NB]

Madam Speaker, I look forward to continuing to work with my friend on the justice committee. Scooping our position in our speech, we will support this to go to committee.

I would ask the member for some preliminary response from the government side with regard to one of the questions that we will ask at committee. The overall aim of all parliamentarians is the security of the public, without question. What about the argument posited by some penitentiary officials, officers who tend our prisoners and society advocates in general, that a murderer who is not given the faint hope of getting out on parole under supervision, if he has seen to his rehabilitative goals while in prison, becomes completely without hope and, therefore, an extreme danger to the good men and women in our penitentiary and correctional facilities?

What about the argument that if there is no hope of parole when a person has been rehabilitated and, therefore, in the judgment of officials, not harmful to the community, we are doing a disservice to the primary goal of security to the public?

[Bob Dechert, Conservative, Mississauga—Erindale, ON]

Madam Speaker, I also look forward to working with the hon. member in the future on the justice committee.

As he will know, for current offenders the faint hope regime will continue. They will still need to apply for parole and in order to achieve parole would need to show some rehabilitation. For future murderers we are simply saying that they would serve 25 years and that, at the end of that 25 years, they would still need to apply for parole when the parole eligibility period expires. If they want to be paroled at the end of 25 years they would need to show that they have been rehabilitated.

[Brian Murphy, Liberal, Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe, NB]

Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure to speak to this bill and give a few comments.

In response to the parliamentary secretary's speech, I have said that the official opposition, the Liberal Party, will be supporting sending this bill to committee for examination to see how it might be improved upon or at least made clearer.

However, because this is Parliament, we ought to debate or bring out subjects that perhaps are not top of mind for every Canadian and every parliamentarian, and that is the whole regime of how we treat prisoners and how we treat convicted murderers in Canada today versus the rest of the world compared to other periods before the death penalty was abolished, and how we might be treating convicted murderers in the future if this bill continues.

The first crime that I would like to speak to is the fact that this bill, Bill S-6, had a predecessor, which was Bill C-36. It went through the usual steps of being introduced, particularly with the present government in control, with multiple national news conferences to inform, excite and educate the Canadian public of the fact that help was on the way with respect to convicted murderers. They would not be given the chance of getting out and that the government would do something. However, it did not. Four years and eight months after it was first elected--and I will say that P word again--we were prorogued and the bill did not get passed.

This is the first crime we have to speak to from a justice point of view. The government must be held to account for not bringing forward good legislation that people were looking forward to getting at, improving perhaps and getting on the books.

This seems to be justice week. One of the topics is car theft. No one in this House is going to say that car theft is good. Another topic is white collar crime. No one in this House is going to say that white collar crime is good. Another topic is the security of the public by not having convicted murderers prematurely out on the street. No one is going to say that is not a good thing. However, all three of these subjects have not been addressed on a timely basis by the government and it is the government's fault because we were prorogued.

Specifically, with respect to the context of convicted murderers, we need to remember that in this country we had executions. I remember my grandfather talking about the last public execution in the province of New Brunswick. My family has been in the legal industry for a long time. I remember my uncle, a provincial court judge, talking about executions. I remember that he was part of a previous generation's set of mind that public executions happened and that executions for serious crimes took place. However, this generation, I believe, if I am speaking to the Canadian public, would not know that political milieu and that philosophical mindset.

The current generation of Canadians, the mainstream of Canadians, would not be amenable to the death penalty. It does not exist. Let us not talk in a vacuum. It is not part of the laws of Canada. It was in fact the law of Canada until it was abolished. However, when the capital punishment debate took place and capital punishment was abolished for murder, the compromise on this point was to institute a faint hope clause, the reason being that capital murders, as they were called then, would quite often end with no chance for parole whatsoever because there might be executions.

In this case, the idea of life meaning life or life meaning 25 years served was met with the idea that there would be no chance of rehabilitation if a person were to be subject to the death penalty, but there might be a chance of rehabilitation, which is very much a pillar of the Criminal Code of Canada, if a person serves up to 25 years without the eligibility for parole.

What the government and the Parliament of the day decided to do was insert the faint hope clause. The faint hope clause in simple terms means that a person convicted of a murder in Canada should be given an opportunity to rehabilitate himself or herself and therefore be returned to the public as a non-threat to the public. Having taken into account the principles of sentencing, rehabilitation, which is incredibly important because we cannot keep everybody who has done something wrong in handcuffs, which seems to be the mentality of the party opposite, must be a cornerstone goal. We also need to have an idea that the person understood and has been remorseful with respect to the crime that has occurred. Proportionality is always the case with respect to crimes and a sentence needs to be proportional to the crime committed.

At that time, the faint hope clause was put in place with many safeguards. My hon. friend went through the history and the details of the faint hope clause regime as it exists now. It should be very clear to parliamentarians and Canadians that the faint hope clause is very faint in achieving, because, first, there is the chief justice who selects the Court of Queen's Bench judge, who then empanels a jury which then determines whether there is a reasonable likelihood of release on parole for the person based on their rehabilitation achievements. It is then sent further. There are all kinds of gates before a person can even be considered for parole.

Before I get into the details of faint hope, I want to ensure that people understand the context of time served for murder convictions. I think we will have a bit of a moral debate at the committee on this, but it is important to understand, right or wrong, how long people serve upon being convicted for murder. The following are some averages. An international comparison that was done in 1999 showed that Canada sat at some 28.4 years served for first degree murder. We might ask ourselves whether we are ahead, behind, serving more or serving less than other countries across the world.

The average in the United States, not surprisingly, is 29 years life sentence without parole, which is slightly more time than us. However, what I found interesting, not being a criminal lawyer with 24 years of experience, and not necessarily comforting and led me to ask many questions about other countries, frankly, is that other countries have much lower years of sentences served for convicted murders. They are New Zealand at 11, Scotland at 11.2, Sweden at 12, Belgium at 12.7 and Australia at 14.8. The United States has 18.5 for life sentence with the eligibility of parole.

As we get into the debate and as we will be sending this legislation to committee, we need to ask ourselves what is so different between Canada and the countries I have mentioned. Do we consider ourselves that different from any other British found Commonwealth like New Zealand and Australia? I do not think we do. Do we consider ourselves on a social level that much different from European countries like Sweden and Belgium? In some ways I do not think we do. We need to examine why their regimes render much lower time served for convicted murderers.

As I said, when the death penalty was abolished in 1976 and replaced with mandatory life terms of imprisonment, the faint hope clause was seen as a necessary safeguard to a sentencing regime without capital punishment to encourage rehabilitation. It was not left there in 1976. It was amended in 1997 by the Chrétien government to require judicial review and the unanimous consent of 12 jurors as a prerequisite to the National Parole Board application process. So further gates or controls were added to the faint hope clause situation.

Like everything in politics, sadly, there is a bit of a slip from reality and importance to what is perceived to be urgent and important. When we go to committee, we would like to know the actual number of convicted murderers sitting in our prisons now. I also think knowing the actual number who have applied and failed would be reassuring to Canadians. Does faint hope mean faint hope in practice as in law? The actual number of people who get out on a faint hope clause in a long process is a very small number.

However, what happens in politics is that the notorious cases get the attention. As I said, it has been four years and eight months since the government brought this forward as a campaign promise. It is something it felt very strongly about but did nothing about it until the introduction of the bill, and it will be over five years before it becomes law.

It has been brewing for some time. I think one of those instances was Colin Thatcher, who was granted parole through the faint hope application. He was convicted of killing his ex-wife in 1984 and sentenced to life in prison with no chance of parole for 25 years. He was granted full parole in 2006 and that process certainly brought the faint hope clause aspect to the fore.

As I mentioned, with Bill S-6, having been through the Senate and having had now the second eyes look at it, there can no longer be the argument on the other side that the Liberal dominated Senate upheld the bill. In fact, we have many speeches on record from Conservative senators outlining the same history of the faint hope clause. The bill was sent to the Senate to be dealt with rather than having started it in the House of Commons.

There has been a revolution on the other side. The government now welcomes the Conservative dominated Senate in proposing bills. I do not know if this is a debate for another day, but I guess the other side has concluded that the work of senators and the work of the Senate, in general, is worthy, because we are sitting here discussing a Senate bill. Yet it is a reintroduction of previous House of Commons work in Bill C-36, which died on the order paper in 2009.

There is no doubt that serious crimes deserve serious time and that the desires for victims' groups for retribution must be balanced by a sense of justice toward all Canadians, including those who have committed crime. The statements of the minister and the statement by the parliamentary secretary would indicate that all we should be concerned with are the rights of victims. By implication, they are saying that we have never been concerned about the rights of victims. This is not true.

Victims like people convicted of murder and non-involved citizens of the public are all part of a rubric of public safety and public security. There is not a member of the House who does not believe that our community should be safe and that public safety and public security are the most important thing we do as parliamentarians.

This brings us to the main debate that we will have at committee with respect to the faint hope clause amendments. Is it really in the public's interest to deny convicted murderers of any chance of ever getting out on parole directed by parole officers? Carte blanche we may say yes. I am sure a victim might say yes.

However, as a footnote, many times, through the committee's experience since the time I arrived here, we would be surprised to see the number of victims' families and families of prosecuted persons in the organized crime milieu or in the gun control debates who would say that we should turn the other cheek and ensure that this crime, for instance, does not happen again. This type of violence is very much predicated on items that we believe very strongly on this side, such as early intervention, emphasis on rehabilitation, the idea that someone who commits a crime is someone else's son or daughter. Someone who commits a serious crime is a Canadian person usually brought up in our community somewhere and is deserving of an attempt at least to have he or she meet not only these serious consequences of crime, but have a chance to rehabilitate and reintegrate into the community as well.

I would hope that would be the goal of all parliamentarians and I would hope that these tightening provisions on the faint hope clause regime would not deny, even if it is one person, a person who committed a heinous crime but who has been rehabilitated, to get back into the main stream of the community under supervision.

Numerous briefs and calls have been made on the idea that if we have an inmate who knows he or she has no chance whatsoever of getting out of prison, even though he or she has made strides toward rehabilitation, that person might lose hope. Talking about faint hope of getting out, that person then has no hope of getting out and no real desire of keeping the peace and being on good behaviour while in our system. That presents a number of difficulties.

I was a difficult student in school and the nuns in Grade 8 told me that I was difficult and to go out into the lobby and read the encyclopedias, which I did. Therefore, it worked out for me. However, it is a lot more complex in the prison and correction systems in Canada because a difficult inmate sucks up resources that should be used otherwise within the facility. It is not only a matter of resources; it is a matter of attending to the other incarcerated individuals, many of whom will not be there for 25 years, but could benefit from the proper spreading out of the budgets of correction facilities. Therefore, corrections officers and their organizations will be before us to ensure that there is a balance here.

The parliamentary secretary in his remarks did strive for balance. I take him at his word, as a lawyer of some years, that the government is trying for balance. However, the rubber will hit the road at committee when we determine exactly where the balance would be and whether the removal of faint hope would be too far.

The bill itself has three provisions, which my friend went over.

No offender convicted of murder or high treason after the coming into force of the legislation would be eligible for early parole. An important footnote is that people already in the regime would have the rights that accrued from the previous legislation.

There are certain serious crimes. We have no doubt of that. However, we must consider the reasoning behind the introduction of the clause. It is designed to encourage prisoners to reform themselves, as I mentioned, and prison guards will be before us to say that there are some dangers presented by that.

As well, we know there is opposition from the Canadian Council of Criminal Defence Lawyers, Barreau du Québec, the John Howard Society and the Elizabeth Fry Society to the bill. We have to listen to the opposition with respect to the bill and why they oppose it. After four or five years, members of the justice committee, and the Conservative side in general, think that all the organizations I mentioned have nothing to say. Clearly if the first question asked of a John Howard Society or a Elizabeth Fry Society representatives is if they believe in greater security for the public, I cannot imagine them saying no. In fact, I can imagine them saying yes, that it is precisely for the greater security and safety of the public that they oppose the bill or have recommendations to amend it.

The provisions of the bill, which would permit early release, are very strenuous as is, and we will see that at committee. We will see it is not an easy wicket to get through to get out under the faint hope clause regime. We will have the exact numbers. We are well served by Statistics Canada, and I do not want to bring up the census debate, and juristat provisions in the Department of Justice working with Statistics Canada. They will be able to give us the updated numbers of persons who are eligible, who have applied and who have succeeded under the regime. I think we will see that this is a very small number of people.

As mentioned, amendments have been made to faint hope along the way. There were restrictions in 1997. It is very fitting in this day and age, when judicial discretion seems to be under attack, that the regime, as it was set up, relies on the wisdom of 12 men or women, Canadian citizens, to determine, at the first instance, whether there will be eligibility. Thankfully, that remains. Under this regime, if successful, a jury will be responsible, on a unanimous basis, as to whether an inmate deserves of early parole. Only following that unanimous decision would a judge decide that the file would be moved to the national Parole Board.

The reasonable prospect provisions, which will remain, would not be changed. It is just a matter of the time limits, the review, the degree of discretion involved that we must look at in committee.

We will support the bill going to committee and I very much look forward to a rigorous debate and I welcome questions.

[Bob Dechert, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice]

Madam Speaker, I take this opportunity to thank the hon. member for he and his party's support for this very important bill, Bill S-6.

The member asked for some statistics. If he had an opportunity to catch all of my speech earlier, he would remember that I mentioned there were currently approximately 1,000 murderers incarcerated in our country. In 1996, 204 offenders to that point were eligible to apply for the faint hope clause, 79 had done so and of those 79, 55 were granted early parole, which represents an approximate 75% success rate. Perhaps he will find that interesting and will get updated information in committee.

I listened to the hon. member's speech with great interest and I did not hear him mention much about the impact of the constant possibility of faint hope parole hearings on the families and loved ones of victims. Could he perhaps comment on what impact that would have on people constantly worrying about having to relive the tragedies in their lives?

[Brian Murphy, Liberal, Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe, NB]

Madam Speaker, there is a case in my riding involving that. There is no question that the periodic fear and re-aggravation of the pain that was once inflicted is very hard on the Davis family from Riverview.

A side issue that the government has control of, however, is how the National Parole Board deals with the families of deceased with respect to the reinstitution of hearings of any sort. Some of them are not faint hope. Some of them are just regular Parole Board hearings, where the families are not treated very well at all. They are told that a hearing is to take place, that they will be reimbursed for their travel expenses, but the expenses will not be provided upfront. The government nickels and dimes them on every expense. If an adjournment is requested, they will not be told. If an adjournment is granted, they will not know and they will fly, take the train or drive, in some cases as far away as Atlantic Canada, to a hearing that does not take place.

The government should take some measures toward simplifying that process and really thinking of the victims with respect to the National Parole Board.

[Marc Lemay, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Madam Speaker, I will have the opportunity to talk about that when I speak about this bill.

Perhaps the error is due to faulty interpretation—I listened to the remarks in both English and French—but unlike the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice, I am not sure that the Liberal Party will support the bill in its current form right up until it is passed. I do not want to put incorrect words into my colleague's mouth, but I believe that the Liberals simply agree that this bill needs to be studied by a parliamentary committee, even if we will not support it. I will tell you why we oppose it in a moment.

I would like to ask my colleague a question and quote from the hon. member for Windsor—Tecumseh, who sits with us on the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights:

And what if the lack of hope crushed the desire for rehabilitation of the convicted and increased violence and the problems in prisons?

[Brian Murphy, Liberal, Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe, NB]

Madam Speaker, one thing is certain: the Liberal Party will support sending this bill to the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights. In committee, everything will depend on the evidence and new statistics. The parliamentary secretary's statistics only cover up to 2006. I hope that we will have more up-to-date statistics than that.

As well, in my speech I said that that it is very important to strike a balance between the hope of an imprisoned man and public safety. I believe that public safety is the top priority for all members of this House.

[Brent Rathgeber, Conservative, Edmonton—St. Albert, AB]

Madam Speaker, the hon. member opened his debate by bemoaning and, I would suspect, criticizing the government for its inability to pass Bill C-36. He cites prorogation as the cause. He would no doubt know from sitting on the justice committee that there is another bill before that committee, Bill C-4. We are having a difficult time getting this bill out of committee because of the endless number of witnesses that his party and the other parties in the opposition keep supplying.

I am curious if he will guarantee swift passage of Bill S-6 out of committee and back to this House for third reading. Canadians demand that this legislation be passed.

[Brian Murphy, Liberal, Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe, NB]

Madam Speaker, I thank the member for his question on Bill C-4. He knows that it was my motion in June, which he supported, that called upon the Minister of Justice to deliver the report, memoranda, or even the minutes of the 2008 round table meetings on youth criminal justice. They were held across the country and the Minister of Justice headed them up. But the justice committee has received no record or report of these meetings. The Government of Canada and the Minister of Justice went all across the country, found out what everybody thinks on Bill C-4, but never reported to us.

I ask the hon. member to get his Minister of Justice to table those reports and he will have a version of Bill C-4.

[Thierry St-Cyr, Bloc, Jeanne-Le Ber, QC]

Madam Speaker, I am always fascinated by the Conservatives' double-talk when it comes to justice issues. They say they are going to get tough on crime, yet they leave more guns in circulation. All police officers are calling for the gun registry to be maintained, but the Conservative government will not listen to them.

Of course they always quote some “Constable Smith”, a traffic cop in some unknown town, saying that he is against the firearms registry, yet every police chief of all major Canadian police forces and associations told us that the firearms registry was needed.

Does my colleague not find that there is something hypocritical—and I will connect the dots—about saying they will get tough on crime and give criminals longer jail sentences, and the fact that they want to make things easier for criminals and undermine the work of police officers by trying to destroy the firearms registry?

[Brian Murphy, Liberal, Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe, NB]

Madam Speaker, certainly there are a number of contradictions.

The first one is that between five and six o'clock on the nightly news the government is tough on crime.

The government has not delivered any bills. It has not achieved anything on this issue. I think it is positively criminal that it took the government nearly five years to introduce any such bills.

The Conservative Party and all members of this House agree that the public needs all members of this Parliament to work very hard every day in order to improve public safety.

That is the crime that has occurred here. It has now been almost five years and the government did not get its bills through on important subjects like white collar crime, auto theft, and what we are speaking of today. If it is that big a threat, why did it not deliver the goods sooner? That is the crime of today.

[Marc Lemay, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Madam Speaker, if my colleague from Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe stays, he will hear the most recent statistics. My colleagues in the official opposition and the Conservative Party would do well to remember them. Today we are going to talk about what is really going on, and what this government is trying to do at this time.

I will present many statistics to explain why the system is working so well at present. It puts victims first, unlike what the Conservatives are presenting with Bill S-6.

As of April 9, 2009, of the 265 applications submitted for a reduction in the parole ineligibility period, 140 had been granted. The National Parole Board granted early parole to 127 applicants, 13 of whom later returned to prison. To answer the question on everyone's mind, none of these 13 people went back to prison for the same offence, murder. All of them returned to prison for lesser offences, such as violation of their parole or the conditions of their release, shoplifting or auto theft. So 13 out of 127 people went back to prison. There were 140 originally, so the number went down. Three people were deported, 11 died, one was out on bail and another was in temporary detention. Ninety-eight out of 127 complied with their parole conditions.

More up-to-date figures will be available in the coming weeks, but as of November 4, 2009, 1,023 prisoners who were likely to apply for early parole were in custody. Of this number, 459 had already served at least 15 years of their sentence and 542 had not yet reached the 15-year mark, but will be able to apply in future. On average, every year, 43 of these 1,001 offenders will become eligible to apply for early parole.

The death penalty was abolished in 1976. I know that some of my colleagues opposite would like it to be restored, but I believe that Canada is smarter than that. We will not bring back the death penalty, and we will not let them bring it back. In 1976, when the death penalty was abolished, the famous faint hope clause was introduced. It has always been known by that name. A new classification system for murders was brought in, with first, second and third degree murder.

I would like to explain how this system works for the people who are watching. I am a criminal lawyer, and I can say that a first degree murder is when someone plans a murder and carries it out, killing another person. A first degree murder is premeditated and carries a sentence of 25 years. An offender cannot apply for parole after two years, but has to wait 25 years before being able to apply for eligibility for parole.

Second degree murder is not premeditated. I often give the example of a man who comes home and finds his wife's lover. He takes a gun and kills the man. That is non-premeditated murder.

In that case the offender has to serve at least 10 years of his sentence before he is eligible for parole. Then what happens? The faint hope clause was implemented when the death penalty was abolished. This was done for a number of reasons. I will read an excerpt to prove that I am not making this up. I am citing the Department of Justice and therefore the government:

It had three main purposes: to offer some hope for offenders who demonstrated significant capacity for rehabilitation,—I will come back to that in a moment—to motivate good conduct in prison, and to recognize that it was not in the public interest to continue incarcerating certain offenders beyond a 15-year period.

This is going to hurt because at the end of 15 years they are going to say blah, blah, blah. These three principles are extremely important, including the very first one, “offer some hope for offenders who demonstrated significant capacity for rehabilitation.” We are going to settle this once and for all for those across the way who do not understand anything. It is clear that no one has a right to apply for parole before the end of their prison sentence. That is clear. That person has to have made an effort and demonstrated a capacity for rehabilitation in society. In prison, people are monitored for a very long time before they find out whether they are eligible to apply. Not just anyone can apply. What is more, victims are considered in all this. In my career I had two clients who made this type of application. I told one of them to just forget it. He had no chance because he was not ready. The current system would not release an individual like him, who shows no remorse for his crime.

Our Conservative friends should accept this once and for all. The Parole Board of Canada and the correctional service closely monitor and prepare those who are eligible to apply. As I said earlier, of the 140 eligible persons, only 127 could apply. How does that happen? They tell us that we do not care about the victims.

I will not cite all the Criminal Code provisions, but all the corresponding sections are in the Code. An offender who wishes to file an application must first apply to the chief justice of the court in which his or her conviction took place. That is the first step. For example, the prisoner applies to the Chief Justice of the Superior Court of Québec. In that court, there was a trial with jury. What does the Chief Justice do? The Chief Justice appoints a judge. What does the judge do? The judge has the individual appear without witnesses. The judge asks the offender to convince him that, if 12 people formed a jury, those 12 people would be likely to unanimously recommend that the sentence be reduced.

The Conservatives must stop panicking. It is not true that the person is released if the application is successful. The sentence is reduced but the offender is not released. If the sentence is reduced, the offender may apply to the Parole Board.

I will now come back to the judge. The judge listens to the offender, who must convince the judge that he or she can—not just might—convince a jury. The offender must convince the judge first. That is the first step. If they do not get past this first step, it is game over. The offender must wait another two years before re-applying.

No victims are called, nor do a murder victim's relatives attend. There is no one.

Let us look, for example, at someone who gets past the first step. The judge sees that he has made an effort in prison, that his character has changed, and that it is perhaps worthwhile. The judge summons a jury in the judicial district where the murder was committed. It is not true that people are brought to the prison where the individual is being detained. It all takes place in the judicial district where the individual was convicted.

If a jury does not care about victims, I do not know who does. The individual makes it past the first step and the jury is summoned. The 12 people sit down, and it is the individual, through his lawyer, who must prove, beyond any doubt, that he can get his sentence reduced. He better be up good and early, be prepared, and have done some assessments. This is where the psychologists and psychiatrists come into play. If the Conservatives do not understand that, it is not my fault because I tried. It is clear that the individual who is requesting a reduced sentence must express a degree of sensitivity for the victims of the murder he committed. That is clear.

If he answers the first question by saying that he is not remorseful, his case will go no further. If he says that he would do it all over again, obviously, it will go no further. And at that point, we can say that we did the right thing. What the Conservatives do not understand is that a lot of work has been done with the victim's family before reaching the jury stage. Unfortunately, the murder victim, as far as I know, is dead. This process is far more relevant to those close to the victim.

Not just anyone can apply. The hearing may take hours or days because the individual has to convince the jury. He has to convince 12 people from the judicial district where the murder took place 15, 17, 19, 20 years ago. I know that people in Montreal, Ottawa, Calgary or Vancouver might not remember, but I can tell you that people still remember a murder committed in Abitibi 20 or 25 years ago. I still remember very clearly a murder committed by two individuals; they killed two little aboriginal girls. I know that they are still in detention, even though they applied. Their applications were denied, of course.

In the end, the jury must agree unanimously. It cannot be 10 to 2 or 11 to 1. All 12 people on the jury must agree that the person has convinced them. And if they say yes, what happens then? The jury has been convinced, which means that the individual can apply for parole. The best example is the case of lawyer Michael Dunn. He was charged with and found guilty of first degree murder in the death of his colleague, a lawyer named McNicoll. This happened in Lac-Saint-Jean. He was sentenced to 25 years. He served 17 or 18 years before applying for and being granted parole under the faint hope clause. Today he is an in-reach worker helping criminals reintegrate into society. He is a good person.

Why should we not want to have this type of person rejoin society? Why not keep the faint hope clause? Why change a system that works well?

We asked the Minister of Justice these questions. When he appears before the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights, I will ask him again to provide just one example of a case that did not work out. I just want one. There is not one. There are none because we have ensured that those individuals not ready to return to society are not released. It is that simple.

Individuals get past step one before a judge. They get past step two by convincing a jury. Then they move on to step three. Once leave has been given to have the application heard before a jury, and once the jury has approved the application, the parole board must be convinced. That is step three, and for some it is very difficult. The offender must convince the Parole Board, the board that is responsible for protecting society, enforcing sentences, and ensuring that the offender is ready to return to society. What is the National Parole Board's priority? Protecting society. Is that clear enough?

Hence, it is wrong to say that we do not care about the victims. It is an outright lie that the Conservatives have been spreading in an attempt to ram through Bill S-6. It is false. Not only do we care about protecting victims, we also do everything possible to ensure that an offender does not return to society if not ready.

What happens after that? When an offender applies to the National Parole Board, they must convince the Board that they have a release plan. The Conservatives are not familiar with release plans. They should tour the penitentiaries now and again to see how they work. A release plan is established when an individual is preparing to leave jail. An offender does not go before the National Parole Board and claim that he should be released because he was allowed to apply and appear before the board.

That is not how the system works, not at all. The offender has to submit a release plan. What is a release plan? It is a document that indicates what education the offender has received. Has he taken any training? Has he been rehabilitated? Does he empathize with his victims? What is he going to do if he is released? Does he have a job? Does he have a place to live? We have to remember that we are talking about people who have served 17 to 25 years for first degree murder and a minimum of 10 years for second degree murder, so there has to be a plan for their release.

Now, let us look at how this works. The former Bill C-36 has become Bill S-6 because the Conservatives want to sneak it in through the Senate. I have looked carefully at the bill. The Conservatives are saying that people can make multiple applications. That is not true. The Conservatives are saying that victims are forced to travel for no reason, that they have to go through things that make no sense and that it is not right to bring them back. I want to say one thing about that. An offender who does not make it past the first stage has to apply to a judge. There are no witnesses.

Now, if someone is told by a judge that he cannot go before a jury, he cannot re-apply for two years from the date his application is dismissed. What happens then? The offender has served 17 years of a 25-year sentence. After 17 years, he submits his application. The judge says yes, but the jury says no. The jury is not convened the very next week.

I will conclude by saying that we cannot vote for this bill. If the bill is sent to committee, we will ensure that it is in line with the faint hope clause.

[Joe Comartin, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

Madam Speaker, I do not know if the Conservatives are aware of this, but I think my Bloc colleague knows that this legislation was put in place because the death penalty was abolished in Canada in 1976. At the time, people looked at what was happening in other countries around us. There was a report on what was happening in Australia, Belgium, Denmark, England and two or three other countries. It became very clear that offenders should not have to wait 25 years before they could apply for parole, but rather 15 years.

I wonder if my colleague thinks we need to look at the work done by other countries when it comes to this kind of bill.