Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise today to discuss this issue.
Over the 20 years that I served on city council as a councillor and mayor, two murders occurred in our community. One of the most difficult things I had to do was talk to the family of the person who had been murdered, to try to comfort them at an unspeakable time of horror, and to try to assure them that our justice system would work effectively for them.
Like every member in the House, my heart goes out to the family of Tori Stafford and to her friends. My heart goes out to her entire community, because the community is affected when a horrible crime like this occurs.
No member has a monopoly on virtue. Everyone in this place supports victims. Everyone in this place thinks that Terri-Lynne McClintic committed a horrible crime and rightly deserves to spend her life behind bars with no eligibility for parole for 25 years. No party in the House would disagree.
I also understand how the family of Tori Stafford must feel about the transfer of Terri-Lynne McClintic to a healing lodge, that it was not an appropriate location for her. I can understand the sense of outrage that Canadians feel, and this government is taking it seriously. We are looking at what policies need to be changed to potentially prevent this from happening.
However, the House of Commons should not substitute itself for a court or the Correctional Service of Canada. We live in a country where we have decided that no matter how unpopular one individual is, no matter how unpopular one group is, that individual or group is still entitled to equal treatment under our laws. Members are arguing here today that there should not be equal treatment under our laws.
We are being told today that the House of Commons and a minister should pronounce on an individual case. That is not how our system works. If someone is sent to trial, should the House of Commons vote before the trial whether or not that individual should be convicted? Should the RCMP be dictated to by a minister to investigate someone? Do we want our political enemies investigated by the RCMP, because the law relating to the RCMP is identical to the law with respect to the Correctional Service of Canada? It is being argued that the minister should tell people what to do. That is not appropriate. That is not the Canada we live in.
It is really easy in a populist environment to score political points by talking about horrible criminals. I understand that scores points, but that is not the system in which we live.
I would be happy to talk directly to Mr. Stafford. I feel his pain.
I agree that many things could potentially be done. If this opposition motion did not tell us what to do in a specific case, but rather proposed actual policy changes, I might have been tempted to support it. For example, let us look at all of the things that could have been looked at.
First, are healing lodges appropriate? Healing lodges were introduced in 1992 by a Conservative government. Thus far, committees of the House have found them to be appropriate. Perhaps asking if they should be used is a legitimate question.
Second. Should non-indigenous offenders be sent to indigenous healing lodges? If the motion said that non-indigenous offenders should not be eligible for healing lodges, I might well have supported it. That is not what this motion says.
Third. Should medium-security prisoners be transferred to healing lodges? Maybe these facilities should only be for people who are not in medium security institutions. Maybe only people who are close to release should be in those lodges. Had that been a legitimate policy option applied equally to all offenders and proposed in this Conservative opposition day motion, I might have supported it.
Should there have been a question as to whether or not first degree murderers should be eligible to go to healing lodges, or the motion have said that people convicted of first degree murder or people who are child murders should not be eligible to enter healing lodges be a policy, I might well have been tempted to support it.
Should the motion have said that people who are first degree murderers and 20 years into their sentences not be eligible for healing lodges because they are not close to going back into society, perhaps I could have supported that as well.
I have already had a conversation with the minister and given him my point of view. I personally do support a policy that would deny first degree murderers ever being eligible to go to healing lodges, because we have heard the pain this has caused in this one individual case, and maybe it has happened in other cases we do not know about. Maybe it has been happening for years that first degree murderers have been sent to healing lodges.
Now that we are aware of this, the minister has rightly said we will look at all policies surrounding this. However, what cannot happen in our society is to change one unpopular person's sentence and not change policies at the same time, so that every single person is equally treated, because in Canada, people have a right to equal treatment under the law.
It is very important that, here in Canada, where we have a Charter of Rights and Freedoms and a Constitution, we have laws that apply equally to everyone, all across the country.
That to me is the core issue here. Let us move away from looking at this as an individual case. The role of Parliament is not to legislate individual cases and to say that one prisoner should be here, there, or anywhere. The role of Parliament is to legislate and create rules of general application for everyone in this country.
I do support the idea that first degree murderers should not be eligible to go to healing lodges, and I will continue to advocate for that within my caucus and my party. I would think we would all be best served by looking at how these rules can be changed, not only to deal with this one individual but also to ensure that equal application under the law exists and that everyone is treated equally under the law.