Mr. Speaker, clearly the Conservatives want us to believe that murderers are lined up to get out after 15 years. In fact, as has been pointed out, less than 25% even apply under the faint hope clause and very few actually get out. In Canada the average time in jail is 28.5 years, not the 25 years that is commonly thought of. The faint hope clause does what it is supposed to do. It encourages good behaviour in the prisons.
We only have to look at the best practices of other countries to see how much time is spent in jail. In 1999 an international comparison was done on the average time served in custody by an offender given a life sentence for first degree murder. It showed that the average time served in Canada was 28.4 years, greater than all the countries surveyed. In New Zealand the average time served was 11 years. In Scotland it was 11.2 years. In Sweden it was 12 years. In Belgium it was 12.7 years. In Australia it was 14.8 years. In the United States it was 18.5 years.
I would think these would be countries with which we would want to compare favourably. They are not countries that we look down on the world as having systems that are extremely different than ours. They are our peers.
If these countries are all considered best practices, then why are we out of line with them?