House of Commons Hansard #330 of the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament's site.) The word of the day was prison.

Topics

Opposition Motion—JusticeBusiness of SupplyGovernment Orders

4:15 p.m.

Conservative

Kevin Waugh Conservative Saskatoon—Grasswood, SK

Madam Speaker, as we know, when this heinous crime was committed, she was placed in a maximum security prison. Then we heard that in 2014 she was moved from the maximum security prison to another prison that has bars. That was the situation back in 2014.

I want to talk about this healing lodge because it is in Maple Creek, in the southwest portion of my province. Even Alvin Francis, chief of the Nekaneet First Nation, is shocked that Terri-Lynne McClintic was transferred to his lodge. He had no idea. He says it is not acceptable that band members are forced to trust federal prison officials to make the right decision.

He does not feel the officials made the right decision transferring her to the healing lodge on his first nations property. Therefore, there is an instance here where we have to feel for the first nations band. As we have all said here today, the healing lodge has children, and he does not think it is acceptable.

Opposition Motion—JusticeBusiness of SupplyGovernment Orders

4:15 p.m.

Liberal

Mark Gerretsen Liberal Kingston and the Islands, ON

Madam Speaker, I have a brief question. We have heard that the Conservatives were not aware of what happened in 2014, when the convicted person was moved from a maximum to a medium security prison. Given that information, I am wondering if the member can provide his feedback as to whether or not he thinks it should be politicians making these decisions, or the trained individuals who are currently making the decisions.

Opposition Motion—JusticeBusiness of SupplyGovernment Orders

4:15 p.m.

Conservative

Kevin Waugh Conservative Saskatoon—Grasswood, SK

Madam Speaker, the officials should be qualified enough to make decisions. However, when we have a situation like this, and I have just read a few of the concerns from my constituents with respect to this individual being transferred to the healing lodge, it is time for the public safety minister to stand up, make the right move, and make it quickly. He should not be saying that the government will be looking at it and studying it and may take weeks or perhaps months to make a decision.

Members have heard from my constituents in Saskatoon—Grasswood that moving her from Maple Creek cannot happen soon enough.

Opposition Motion—JusticeBusiness of SupplyGovernment Orders

4:20 p.m.

Conservative

David Anderson Conservative Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK

Madam Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the member for Battle River—Crowfoot.

The member for Saanich—Gulf Islands said that this was a most wrenching debate today and that it was covering a topic that many of us would wish we did not have to address. I have to agree. I do not think I have ever seen so much wiggling and whining from the government side of the House as I have today, its contortions in trying to justify why it is going to oppose this motion. The Liberals can do better than that.

I want to put on record the motion, because we need to understand what we are talking about. When the Liberals start with their excuses, people need to understand that this is actually a simple choice. This is not a complex question of process over people. We have seen the Liberals talking about policy and processes all day and they have refused to put this little girl's interests and the interests of her family ahead of their own commitment to policy and process.

The motion simply says:

That, given Terri-Lynne McClintic was convicted of first-degree murder in the horrific abduction, rape and murder of eight-year-old Tori Stafford, and was moved from a secure facility to a healing lodge without fences and where the government has confirmed the presence of children, the House condemn this decision and call upon the government to exercise its moral, legal and political authority to ensure this decision is reversed and cannot happen again in other cases.

It is a simple request for the government to exercise the authority it has been given and reverse the decision. We know that can happen. The Correctional and Conditional Release Act, in two places, recognizes the minister has the power to do this.

As I mentioned earlier, this has been a day of are we going to put people first here or are we going to put policy and processes ahead of them. I would argue that we need to take a look at the personal side of this and do the right thing in this situation.

Tori Stafford was an eight-year-old little girl. She was walking home from her first day of school unaccompanied. She was picked up and taken out into the country, tortured, raped, murdered, buried there. Terri-Lynne McClintic was tried in 2010 and found guilty of first degree murder.

This young lady had a history of serious issues and abuses in the past. One of the reports talked about how she had microwaved her dog, so this is not a person who engaged in bad practices, as the minister mentioned earlier. She was sentenced to 25 years. In 2012, she had a violent encounter with another inmate. Apparently she was going to a mentoring appointment and decided that she was going to take it out on another inmate. Her only regret was that she had not hurt the other woman more than she had.

Correctional Service Canada has now transferred her from the Grand Valley Institution for Women. We have been misled all day by the Liberals' language. They know that Grand Valley is a combination maximum and medium security prison. They have not talked about what part of that prison Ms. McClintic was in. She was moved from a maximum to medium prison, and the website for Correctional Service Canada defines the prison that way, to a medium to minimum security prison.

Okimaw Ohci is in my riding. I have been there many times. I do not know what the definition of medium security prison is, but this prison has no walls around it and has no fences. It is in the rolling hills southwest of Maple Creek. The things that most Canadians would think accompany a medium security prison are not present at the healing lodge.

It is surprising that this person has the privileged status of being transferred to this healing lodge. It has been operating in my riding for years. The point of the lodge is to help young women to be reintegrated into society, to learn some of the skills they will need when they go back into society. Programs are in place. There is a horse program, classes, counselling and so on. There are aboriginal ceremonies. I have been part of those. I have also attended some of its open houses and we have eaten together.

It is an open facility. It is called an open campus. There are individual cabins that inmates can spend their time in and they can have their children with them as well. It is a real privilege for offenders to be transferred to a facility like that. It is a surprise to me that this decision has been made. I do not know how it could come about so quickly when this lady has 13 years left in her sentence before she is even eligible for parole.

When this came to light, people in my riding responded and reacted very quickly to it. I had calls from a number of leaders in communities, asking what they could do to get this reversed. They said it was crazy that this person would be moved to this facility.

Neighbouring towns and the administration of Maple Creek have called to express their concern. I have had calls from young mothers in Maple Creek saying that their children play out in their yards, and since the inmates of Okimaw Ohci get day passes into Maple Creek, they are asking if they need to change the way they look after their children. This is a result of the Terri-Lynne McClintic's being in their community.

It has been fascinating to see the contortions the Liberals and NDP have gone through today to try to excuse their inability to support the motion we have put forward. It is my understanding that the Ontario legislature has already dealt with this unanimously and said that this decision needs to be reversed.

We can talk about the human cost. All of us have seen the letter from Tori Stafford's father requesting the Prime Minister do what fathers across this country would like to be done, and reverse this decision and put this lady back into the institution where she was before.

I have been most disappointed by the public safety minister. He gets up in the House and talks about all the policies and processes that need to be in place before he can move forward, and he announces a review. We know that the government specializes in consultations and reviews, but this is not a situation where we need to wait for a review. Canadians have been clear on this. Both the Liberals and the NDP are finding out from Canadians how far offside they are on this issue. Every response I have received is that one would have to be crazy to think this person can be left in an unsupervised setting, given her record and the things she has done in her life. We need to do something. We need to get this decision reversed.

Yesterday we are talking about putting a victims bill of rights into the military code. As I spoke yesterday, the questions from the other side were all about the offenders. For example, they said we needed to find special ways of letting offenders off, to find ways in which they were not treated in the same way, and that we needed to find a different way of sentencing small groups.

Today, when I was listening to the debate, all of the focus of the other side seemed to be on the offenders. That is a constant. There is very little thought about the victims. This morning, I heard one of our Liberal colleagues imply that to reverse this decision would affect the charter in some way. He said that it would be similar to having the RCMP monitoring and harassing MPs, and that somehow there is a parallel between the government taking its responsibility seriously and it just saying that it is going to reverse this decision. He sees doing that as having some sort of great impact on every Canadian's life. We need to have this decision reversed. We need to have it reversed as quickly as possible.

Actually, it is time for the minister to step up. Those of us from Saskatchewan have been disappointed time and time again by the fact he seems to fail to represent Saskatchewan's interests. He is the person who comes from Ottawa back to Saskatchewan and tells us what Ottawa has told him. In this situation, it is time for him to really take some leadership for a change and step forward. As minister, as the person who has been given the responsibility for this, he needs to make a decision and reverse this decision.

I want to talk a little about the authority that the minister has. The other side has left the impression that the government cannot make this change. We know that it is very simple. Under subsection 6(1) of the Corrections and Conditional Release Act, the minister has the authority to direct the commissioner of corrections in all matters. It is written clearly into the act. There is no room for excuses. There is no room for his saying he cannot do it, because he does have the moral, legal and political authority to correct this issue. That can include issuing a directive that a broad class of offenders, such as those convicted of the murder of a child, not be allowed to be transferred to such a facility. I heard the members opposite suggesting earlier that that was something they thought should be done.

Okimaw Ohci is a minimum security prison. It is a prison where women go to be able to be reintegrated into society. It is not a place for Terri-Lynne McClintic. We need the government to do the right thing here. We need it to reverse this decision and put her back in the institution where she was before she was transferred to southwest Saskatchewan.

Opposition Motion—JusticeBusiness of SupplyGovernment Orders

4:25 p.m.

Liberal

Mark Gerretsen Liberal Kingston and the Islands, ON

Madam Speaker, I am using the opportunity provided by this motion today to try to understand how things occurred the way they did when this particular inmate was moved, which might help inform us of how we could create better policies so this does not happen again.

We have heard from others members that the Conservatives were unaware in 2014 that this person had been moved from a maximum to a medium-security facility. However, we did hear about it this time. We heard about it because a family member came forward with the information. Does the member think there could be a better way to make sure that information is moved around so we do not have to rely on this way of finding out? Is there a way to change the policy so this would not happen again in the future?

Opposition Motion—JusticeBusiness of SupplyGovernment Orders

4:30 p.m.

Conservative

David Anderson Conservative Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK

Madam Speaker, just because the member continues to repeat inaccurate facts does not make them more accurate.

The reality is that she was in a maximum security prison. She was moved to Grand Valley Institution, which is a maximum/medium security prison. We do not know what part of the prison she was in. She has now been moved to a minimum security prison in my riding. There is no fence around this institution. If people chose to, they are free to come and go, and we trust that does not happen.

I do not know if the member opposite is aware of this, but in 2015-16, staff members were basically held to account because they were found to have endangered their own children by bringing them to the Okimaw Ohci Healing Lodge. It is completely inappropriate that this woman is in a place where there is access to children. We do not have to go through the graphic details of what she did. We do not know why she did it, but given her history, I do not think those children are safe. We do not want her in that institution. We want her transferred back and put behind bars so those young people will be safe.

Opposition Motion—JusticeBusiness of SupplyGovernment Orders

4:30 p.m.

Winnipeg North Manitoba

Liberal

Kevin Lamoureux LiberalParliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons

Madam Speaker, my colleague made a really important point on which I want to seek clarification. The Minister of Public Safety has indicated very clearly that we are doing a complete review, which will even go back to 2014 when the decision was made under the Harper government to transfer her from maximum security to medium security.

A couple of members of the Conservative caucus have now said that the Conservative government at the time had no idea that it had actually taken place. That is an important aspect of the review itself. The member across the way was part of the Conservative government. Could he say, to the very best of his knowledge or does he agree with his colleagues, that the Harper government had no idea the transfer had taken place?

Opposition Motion—JusticeBusiness of SupplyGovernment Orders

4:30 p.m.

Conservative

David Anderson Conservative Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK

Madam Speaker, the interesting and I guess humorous thing about members on the other side is they are only too willing to try to blame everybody else for the things they have done. We have seen this all the way along. We just saw it earlier today in question period around NAFTA and those kinds of things. Wherever they stumble, they try to blame somebody else.

The Liberals do not need to go back to 2014 to make this decision. They can make a decision today. Let us take her out of the Okimaw Ohci Healing Lodge, put her back in Grand Valley Institution and this whole thing is solved.

The Liberals want to do a complete review. How long is a complete review going to take the Minister of Public Safety to do? By the time this gets done, we will probably be past the next election. This is just an excuse for them to put off making a decision, to leave things the way they are and avoid the responsibility.

Opposition Motion—JusticeBusiness of SupplyGovernment Orders

4:30 p.m.

Liberal

Robert-Falcon Ouellette Liberal Winnipeg Centre, MB

Madam Speaker, could the member tell us his views on healing lodges? Is it appropriate to have healing lodges within our corrections system and is it appropriate to have that type of system within Canada?

Opposition Motion—JusticeBusiness of SupplyGovernment Orders

4:30 p.m.

Conservative

David Anderson Conservative Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK

Madam Speaker, I talked about this earlier and I am not sure if he heard that when I mentioned it.

The healing lodge is in my riding and has been operating for decades now. It is an institution that I have visited. It has had open houses. There have been ceremonies and different things to get programs in place. There is a horse program, programs on counselling, programs on teaching basic life skills and those kinds of things. It is an essential component for people reintegrating into society to learn those kinds of things. However, when somebody is 13 years away from qualifying for parole, it is probably not the right place for that person.

Opposition Motion—JusticeBusiness of SupplyGovernment Orders

4:35 p.m.

NDP

The Assistant Deputy Speaker NDP Carol Hughes

Order. It is my duty pursuant to Standing Order 38 to inform the House that the questions to be raised tonight at the time of adjournment are as follows: the hon. member for Nanaimo—Ladysmith, The Environment; the hon member for Essex, International Trade; the hon. member for Saskatoon West, Public Transportation.

Resuming debate. The hon. member for Battle River—Crowfoot.

Opposition Motion—JusticeBusiness of SupplyGovernment Orders

4:35 p.m.

Conservative

Kevin Sorenson Conservative Battle River—Crowfoot, AB

Madam Speaker, I rise today to partake in this debate, but I do so with a very heavy heart. I had the opportunity to sit in the House all day today and listen to both sides of this debate. I say both sides because, certainly, my Conservative colleagues have all shared their disgust and horror that we have had to resort not only to this debate but that we have had to bring forward this debate in order to get some action. I am shocked, as are many of my constituents and Canadians all across this country, to witness yet another failure by the Liberal government. The Liberals have failed to do what is right. They have failed Tori Stafford's family. They have failed to protect the most vulnerable members of our society. They have failed our children.

Nothing in this life is as important as the innocent, vulnerable children. As a father and soon to be grandfather, I have sat today putting myself into the position of a number of people, first, of Tori Stafford as the vicious rape and murder took place, and also of her parents. We must do absolutely everything and anything we can in our power to protect them. I repeat, the government has failed, and that is totally and frighteningly unacceptable. I strongly believe that a majority of Canadians, particularly parents and grandparents, would agree with me, and we are hearing from them. Countless numbers have emailed and called.

We brought this motion to the floor today because of the deaf ear of the Liberal government. Why do we have to call upon the government to exercise its moral, legal and political authority to ensure the decision to move Terri-Lynne McClintic is reversed and cannot happen again with others? Why does this murderer remain in a healing lodge without fences and with the presence of other innocent children, innocent children like Tori Stafford was? Why has the government not done the right thing and directed the commissioner of corrections to move this murderer back into maximum security to serve out the rest of her life sentence without eligibility for parole for 25 years? Why? That is the question that not only the opposition is asking but it is the question our constituents and Canadians are asking.

This morning I listened very closely to the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Public Safety and her defence of her government in allowing Correctional Service Canada officials to determine the placement or transfer of offenders. She said it was not the elected officials' job to make this determination. If the Canadian public overwhelmingly believe that an error has been made, it is the government's responsibility to stand up and be counted.

Clearly, under subsection 6(1) of the Corrections and Conditional Release Act, the minister has the authority to direct the commissioner of corrections in all matters. This would include issuing a directive that a broad class of offenders such as those convicted of murder of a child are not eligible for transfer to a minimum security facility or to a minimum-medium security or to a healing lodge, and as we have heard, one without fences, without bars, and without what we would expect from a normal maximum security penitentiary.

Furthermore, the parliamentary secretary pointed out that it is our job to draft and approve legislation that provides clear guidelines and directives. It is our job as policymakers to propose and pass Criminal Code and Corrections and Conditional Release Act amendments to respond to the concerns and the demand of our electorate. However, in this particular case, those demands are for first-degree murderers to be placed and kept in maximum security facilities where they belong.

Under subsection 96(z.6) of the Corrections and Conditional Release Act, the government could immediately pass regulations setting out the eligibility requirements for minimum security facilities and healing lodges. This could include prohibiting those convicted of murder involving a child. The government could do that, but unfortunately, we are having this debate here today because it will not, just as it will not vote in favour of this motion, as so many of my colleagues have implored it to do throughout this debate today. Why would the government not do that? It will not because, as previous Liberal governments have done, it has always and will always allow the scales of justice to be tipped in favour of offenders.

I will have been in the House for 18 years as of this coming November. I served in opposition as the public safety critic from November 2000 until January 2006. I repeatedly stood in the House in that capacity to oppose legislation after legislation introduced by the previous Liberal government, legislation that created conditional sentencing which resulted in rapists and other violent offenders serving time at home. That is correct for those who are watching. Violent offenders were doing their time at home.

I opposed legislation that made rehabilitation and reintegration the guiding principles of sentencing, as opposed to the protection of society. Reintegration and rehabilitation are much needed; that is unquestionable. We want to prepare those individuals as they go back into society, but our guiding principle must always be the protection of society.

I could go on to make the point that successive Liberal governments have prioritized the rights of offenders over the rights of victims.

It was the Harper government that created the office of the victims ombudsman, wrote the Victims Bill of Rights, eliminated section 745 of the Criminal Code, which gave murderers early parole eligibility and allowed for consecutive parole ineligibility for those convicted of multiple murders. It was fought the entire way by the Liberal opposition.

It was a Conservative government that restored the scales of justice in favour of victims. Unfortunately, the present Liberal government has once again tipped the scales in favour of offenders, and murderer Terri-Lynne McClintic remains in a healing lodge. That is proof enough.

How should politicians respond in a short period of time? There may be legislation that needs to be rewritten and amended, but what could politicians do? That is the question our constituents are asking us.

Yesterday, the Ontario legislature at Queen's Park found a way. Yesterday, it unanimously passed a motion calling for the transfer of this individual to be reversed. This murder, this rape, this kidnapping took place in Ontario. Provincial MLAs heard the public's outcry, and all parties in the legislature in Toronto responded together, unified, unanimously. I commend them for that.

Will the government, will the Liberal Party join with the provincial Liberals, NDP and Conservatives in condemning this decision? I very much fear that the answer will be no.

Opposition Motion—JusticeBusiness of SupplyGovernment Orders

4:45 p.m.

Liberal

Mark Gerretsen Liberal Kingston and the Islands, ON

Madam Speaker, when the member asked a question earlier, he commented on the fact that he was unaware that in 2014 under the Conservative government the change had happened from maximum to medium security.

I also want to tap into his wealth of knowledge and information from his time as a parliamentary secretary. No new policy has come along that has set a new scenario for the transfer of this individual. The policy that created the environment for this transfer to occur has been around for quite a while and this Liberal government never changed it.

Given the member's extensive knowledge on policy, could he tell me how we could change the policy so that this does not happen with somebody else in the future?

Opposition Motion—JusticeBusiness of SupplyGovernment Orders

4:45 p.m.

Conservative

Kevin Sorenson Conservative Battle River—Crowfoot, AB

Madam Speaker, again, I was not the minister of the day, but as was said earlier, there are hundreds of transfers a day within our federal penitentiary system and within the corrections system. For many of them, the minister is not made aware of who are being transferred where. However, there are other occasions when the Liberals today have muddied the waters, so to speak, because they have kept talking about, in 2014, McClintic being moved to a medium-security penitentiary.

We heard earlier today that the institution that she was transferred to was a medium-maximum security facility. Therefore, she may have gone from a maximum-security facility into the maximum of the penitentiary that she was transferred to in 2014. That would be normal. Those things can happen, and for a number of reasons they happen. They may happen because of programming. They may happen because of safety of the offender. There is a host of reasons. In taking someone from a maximum-security facility and cascading her down to a minimum-medium security healing lodge in Maple Creek, Saskatchewan, undoubtedly there will be the public outcry that we are hearing today. Therefore yes, our motion calls on the government to bring forward legislation so that this cannot happen again.

Opposition Motion—JusticeBusiness of SupplyGovernment Orders

4:45 p.m.

Dan Vandal Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Indigenous Services, Lib.

Madam Speaker, let me say that as a father and as a grandfather I cannot begin to understand or recognize the pain that the family and the parents must be going through in this horrible situation, and my heart is with the family.

However, as our minister said clearly, we are doing a review of the entire situation, including the decision that was made in 2014 by the Harper Conservatives to move the offender from a maximum-security penitentiary to a medium-security penitentiary. I know that at the time the hon. member for Bellechasse—Les Etchemins—Lévis, who was minister of public safety, when questioned about this situation and/or similar situations, responded, "I do not control the security classification of individual prisoners”, just as we are saying now we do not control it. We agree with the then minister, the hon. member when he said, “I do not control the security classification of individual prisoners”.

Our public safety minister has already announced a thorough review of all the decisions in this. I wonder if the hon. member can offer his commentary on the quote from the former minister under the Harper government.

Opposition Motion—JusticeBusiness of SupplyGovernment Orders

4:45 p.m.

Conservative

Kevin Sorenson Conservative Battle River—Crowfoot, AB

Madam Speaker, I just warn the Canadian public that when they hear a member stand in this place and say that they will conduct a thorough review, to get ready because the wheels of justice will turn very slowly. That is exactly what the Liberals are telling us. They are saying that yes, there is an outcry, yes, the Conservatives are bringing this and yes, Queen's Park has unanimously said to take her back, but that they will do a review.

To be quite frank, the other thing the Liberals are saying is they are going to go back to the time when the Right Hon. Stephen Harper was the prime minister and see why he transferred her from a maximum to another medium-maximum facility. All the Liberals do is play the blame game. They need to stand up and be counted for their decisions, or lack thereof.

Opposition Motion—JusticeBusiness of SupplyGovernment Orders

4:50 p.m.

Conservative

Todd Doherty Conservative Cariboo—Prince George, BC

Madam Speaker, I will be splitting my time with my hon. colleague, the member for Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman.

I listened to this debate all day long. This is an emotional debate. There are no two ways about it. This is very similar to the debate we had last week with respect to Chris Garnier, a convicted murderer behind bars, receiving PTSD treatment through Veterans Affairs, essentially stepping in line ahead of our veterans and first responders who are being told to get back in the line, or they are having to wait.

This debate is about a convicted child killer, Terri-Lynne McClintic, who heinously murdered Tori Stafford, an eight-year-old, and whether she should be serving the rest of her time in a healing lodge. This is not about the effectiveness of healing lodges or whether we feel they should be part of our corrections system. It is about doing what is right.

Our colleagues across the way will stand up and say their hearts and prayers go out to the families of the victims, whether it was Catherine Campbell last week or Tori Stafford this week. Then they go on and say it was our government, and Stephen Harper was bad and evil and did this and transferred all this stuff. This is about action. That is what I said last week. It is not about “could have, would have, should have” and hypothetical questions. This is about doing what is right.

The Liberals say we are politicizing this. Catherine Campbell's family does not think we are politicizing this. They have written to us and talked to us. They think the minister and the Prime Minister are shamefully politicizing this. Rodney Stafford also does not think we are politicizing this. He wrote a letter through social media to plead with the Prime Minister to reverse this decision.

Who else does not think we are politicizing this? It is the families of Cynthia Maas, Natasha Montgomery, Jill Stuchenko or 15-year-old Loren Leslie, who was the final victim in my riding of Cody Legebokoff, Canada's youngest serial murderer.

The Bjornson family does not think that. Their son was beheaded earlier on, and they do not think we are politicizing this. They are saying that finally someone is providing a voice for victims. Where has that voice of victims been? Someone has to stand up and share their voice, and that is what we are doing.

We are asking for the Minister of Public Safety to make a decision. We know it is within his purview to do that. In section 96 of the Corrections and Conditional Release Act he has the authority to step in and review this and act. That is what we are asking for, action, not the blame game. He has the ability to do this.

Imagine waking up to when we call murder a bad practice. Imagine waking up and hearing about a convicted murderer in jail who never served our country, yet he is stepping to the front of the line ahead of those who signed up to serve our community and our country. We know that is the case now.

Imagine a time when we cannot even call someone who crosses our border illegally an “illegal border crosser”. We cannot even say that word “illegal”. They call it “irregular”. How far have we fallen that we are so worried about hurting someone's feelings that we cannot call a murderer a “murderer”, and we cannot call the act they did a “murder”. It is a bad practice, and those who are crossing our border illegally are irregular crossers. We are now erring on the side of criminals.

How far we have fallen. Imagine waking up one day and finding out that the government has paid a convicted terrorist $10.5 million. After all he is a Canadian, a convicted terrorist. That is what we are dealing with here. Canadians are outraged. They have seen this time and again from those across the way, erring on the side of just bad people.

I had an opportunity to speak at length with Catherine Campbell's family and it is disgusted. I had an opportunity to speak with Eileen Bjornson earlier today, the mother of Fribjon Bjornson, who time and again during the whole process felt victimized.

Listening to this about Terri-Lynne McClintic just re-victimizes the families of these victims. It is not about again going back to the healing lodges. The Liberals want to throw it out that it was the Conservative government that transferred Terri-Lynne McClintic to a medium security. It was maximum/medium security and it had bars.

An executive director of a healing lodge has just come out in defence of healing lodges. Healing lodges really are not on trial here. However, the director described the healing lodge this way, “They aren't on lockdown, have keys to their rooms, and the lodge feels more like a university dorm than a jail.” Tori Stafford will never get to experience a university dorm.

Healing lodges are for people who have served 20 years in prison and need to come out slowly. We need to teach them how to ride a bus, how to live in the community and how to get along with other people. Terri-Lynne McClintic still has 13 and a half years left. She was convicted of society's most heinous crime and she has laughed about it the whole way. She has shown violent tendencies while being institutionalized.

This is not about whether healing lodges work or do not work. They are not the ones that are on trial. What is on trial is this lack of action and the Liberal government's way of blaming everybody. If the Minister of Public Safety stood before the House and thanked us for bringing this to his attention so he could immediately review it and take action, the argument would be out.

However, guess what a full review would mean? It will be months, if not another year, before this happens, and all the while Terri-Lynne McClintic is not behind bars.

The government is seeing very quickly the public outrage on this. As it does with everything, it wants to assign blame and point fingers here and there. It is shocking, and I have said this all along.

The Liberals have been in government for three years now. We see time and again that whenever there is a problem they blame those who were the government before them. Whenever it is something good, they will pat themselves on the back. Last week, shamefully, our colleagues across the way stood and defended Chris Garnier, who is in jail. He is a convicted murderer receiving treatment through Veterans Affairs. The Liberals patted themselves on the back and then gave three sentences about their hearts, thoughts and prayers went out to the victims' families. If their thoughts and prayers truly went out to the victims' families, they would be pressuring the minister to act, not just spewing out garbage. They know better. I like to think there are good people on all sides of the House.

Canadians are speaking out and they are saying loudly that this is wrong.

I want to leave my colleagues with one thing, which is this.

Rodney Stafford wrote to the Prime Minister, and I will not read the whole thing. The question he asked the Prime Minister was this. ”I would like to ask you, with no ill will, one question though if I may. “From father to father...could you kneel before your child's headstone, knowing how they spent the last 3 years of their life?” I will not get into the rest of it. To hear him ask that is heartbreaking.

Opposition Motion—JusticeBusiness of SupplyGovernment Orders

5 p.m.

Liberal

Mark Gerretsen Liberal Kingston and the Islands, ON

Madam Speaker, in the discussion that has ensued today about the transfer of Ms. McClintic from a maximum security facility to a medium security facility, the Conservatives have been talking about a medium-maximum security facility as though there is some kind of hybrid model that exists between a medium security facility and a maximum security facility, when in reality, on one property there may be both medium and maximum security facilities, but the inmates are treated differently within the different units. The reality of the situation is that this individual is in a medium security facility now.

Would the member at least agree that there is a clear distinction between a medium security facility and a maximum security facility and that there is no hybrid somewhere in between?

Opposition Motion—JusticeBusiness of SupplyGovernment Orders

5 p.m.

Conservative

Todd Doherty Conservative Cariboo—Prince George, BC

Madam Speaker, I absolutely agree with my hon. colleague across the way. However, the facility that Terri-Lynne McClintic has been transferred to, as I read earlier, is run by an executive director within the healing lodge system. It is more like a university dorm than a jail. People are free to come and go when they are not doing their healing practices. That is considerably different from being behind bars in a medium security facility or a maximum security facility. That is completely different, being out in the open, being free to come and go and having a key to their own accommodations. It is shocking. I did not get into this in my speech, but even the first nation where the healing lodge is located said that this was not the intended purpose of the healing lodge.

I misspoke when I read the quote from Rodney Stafford when he was pleading with the Prime Minister and asked, as father to father, if he could kneel before his child's headstone knowing how she spent the last three hours of her life. I would implore every one of my colleagues in the House to read that. That is absolutely heartbreaking.

That is what this is about today. It is about doing what is right. The minister has the tools at his disposal to act now, and that is what Conservatives are asking him to do.

Opposition Motion—JusticeBusiness of SupplyGovernment Orders

5 p.m.

Conservative

David Anderson Conservative Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK

Madam Speaker, my colleague from Battle River—Crowfoot, in answer to a question earlier, noted that ministers are not informed of every single transfer that takes place. In a situation like this, is there any excuse for a minister not to exercise his or her legal and political obligations and reverse the decision? Can he think of any reason that should not be done?

Opposition Motion—JusticeBusiness of SupplyGovernment Orders

5 p.m.

Conservative

Todd Doherty Conservative Cariboo—Prince George, BC

The short answer, Madam Speaker, is no, there is not. It is the decent thing to do and the right thing to do.

I do not have the benefit of being able to say that I was in the previous government, but I can say that when ministers found out about issues, and there are recent incidents in other files, they acted, and the Conservative government did the same. It is about action and doing the right thing.

As I said earlier, victims do not have a voice. Who is here to speak on behalf of Tori Stafford? Who is here to speak on behalf of Catherine Campbell? Who is here to speak on behalf of Fribjon Bjornson or Loren Leslie and all of the victims of heinous crimes in the past? The Liberals say that the Conservatives are politicizing this. We are standing up for those who do not have a say, who do not have a voice. It is the right thing to do.

The minister could act, we have said this before, under sections 6 and 96 of the Corrections and Conditional Release Act. He has the tools to immediately intervene and review this. It is not about what a previous government did before or what the government of Stephen Harper did before. Those are exactly the talking points and deflection that the government does all the time when something is wrong and it has to find an excuse. It is not about that. The government should just act and do the right thing. Canadians expect it.

When the Liberals were campaigning, they promised to be different. They are being different, but they are not acting. The Conservatives would have acted. It is the right thing to do. Canadians expect it and so do we.

Opposition Motion—JusticeBusiness of SupplyGovernment Orders

October 2nd, 2018 / 5:05 p.m.

Conservative

James Bezan Conservative Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB

Madam Speaker, I want to thank all of my colleagues on the Conservative benches today for their interventions on this motion. It is incredibly disappointing that we even had to bring this motion forward, because the Liberals will not do the right thing.

It was so disconcerting to sit here all day and listen to Liberal after Liberal get up to feign their condolences and so-called sympathies for the family, but then defend the decision by the public safety minister not to intervene in this situation or rectify a decision that was callous and, in my opinion, broke the law under the Victims Bill of Rights. They really demonstrated to Canadians that they would rather advocate for the convicted, that they would rather stand up for the criminal, that they would rather hug the thug than show compassion and reason toward the family members who have suffered from these terrible, brutal murders. These victims have rights and they deserve respect, compassion, understanding and information from the Government of Canada. Some of the arguments that have been presented today are just ludicrous. For the Liberals to continue to try to hide behind a bunch of rhetoric, talking points and so-called statistics does not right the wrong. It does not justify this decision.

We have to look at the situation here. The court system has passed judgment. Justice needs to be served now. Terri-Lynne McClintic was given a life sentence without parole for 25 years, and all the research that I have done on these very sadistic, deranged murderers such as Terri-Lynne McClintic is that they never do get parole. They serve out their life sentences as incarcerated convicts.

I have been in contact with families over the years who have had to deal with the loss of loved ones because of convicted killers like Clifford Olson, Paul Bernardo and Robert Pickton. These people will never make parole. The parole boards will never grant them the opportunity to re-enter society. Therefore, this idea that we are going to move this convicted murderer, this child killer, Terri-Lynne McClintic, into a minimum security facility to make sure she is properly rehabilitated many years before she ever will even stand a chance of standing before a parole board for a hearing is ridiculous. She needs to serve her time. Everything I have seen in the news is that she has not been a model prisoner. This is a lady who continues to brag about how she killed Tori Stafford. This is a lady who has assaulted and stomped on other inmates she is incarcerated with.

Some people in this chamber, such as the NDP and the Liberals, talk about the poor family going through this. I can tell them that if they read the Facebook page of Rodney Stafford, they would see that he has been posting about this ridiculous idea that Terri-Lynne McClintic deserved to go to a healing lodge. He has helped organize a protest for Tori Stafford on November 2 here on the Hill. He wants all of us to go out there and promote it if the Liberals do not back down. He is giving an opportunity to the Minister of Public Safety to reverse this decision. He has given him a month to change course here.

We are seeing no leadership here from the Prime Minister and the Minister of Public Safety. For them to suggest that we review the situation and the decisions made by Correctional Service Canada is ridiculous. When there is public outrage like this, all he has to do is to follow the example set by our current Minister of Agriculture when he served as the solicitor general under Jean Chrétien back in 1998 when a similar situation occurred when a mass murderer was being transferred to a lower security prison. The public screamed in outrage and disgust over it.

He immediately, as the solicitor general, changed that decision. He intervened and showed leadership. What we are seeing here is passing the buck. The Minister of Public Safety is just pushing it off to the bureaucrats and saying, “You guys figure this out.” He is not taking any role whatsoever or accepting responsibility for what has happened. That, to me, is not accountability. It is not at all the role of government. If we look at our rules and procedures in our rule book, it clearly stipulates that accountability lies with the minister of each department, so the Minister of Public Safety has to face the music on this one, and we are not seeing that.

Of course, he calls this murder by Terri-Lynne McClintic her “bad practices”. I will tell members what bad practice is. First, it is his lack of leadership. Second, the Correctional Service of Canada did not respect the Victims Bill of Rights. The victim, in this case Rodney Stafford and his family, has the right to information about the goings-on of the accused, this being Terri-Lynne McClintic. He has the right to information through the entire judicial process as well as through the entire time she is serving her time for the crime. Here we are, nine months after the fact, before the public even found out that she was transferred to the healing lodge, a minimum security facility.

We are going to hear from the Liberals who say that we had healing lodges. Yes, I think minimum security facilities are necessary. I have in my riding Stony Mountain Institution. It has maximum security, it has minimum security and it has medium security. By far, most of the inmates are in the medium security facility. Only those who are in transition to be released back into the public and who have been model inmates get to go to minimum security.

If we tour minimum security, what used to be what we called the farm, the guards are not knocking on the door every hour. Inmates are allowed to wander the yards. The inmates actually live in an apartment-style complex, where they are expected to cook for themselves. They have to go to the store, and they are supposed to do a job while they are there, whether they are working in one of the trades they are teaching there or are going to school. That is what happens in minimum security. In medium security, the inmates get to mix during the day within their ranges, but in medium security, they are still behind a fence, they are behind a wall, and at night, they are behind bars in their cells.

What is happening here to Terri-Lynne McClintic is, as was pointed out by my colleague, more like living in a university dormitory than like actually being in jail. She does not deserve to be there, as a child murderer, as someone who has assaulted other inmates. All I hear is a lack of compassion and a lack of common sense and the defence of the convicted coming from the Liberal benches.

Other ministers of public safety have shown leadership on these files before and have reversed decisions. When Vic Toews was the minister of public safety and when Stockwell Day was public safety minister, they had similar situations happen, and they intervened and corrected the course of their departments.

The member for Winnipeg Centre got up and actually suggested that some of us over on this side were going to say to bring Terri-Lynne McClintic in here and hang her from the gallows. It is outrageous that a person would come in here and make that type of comment. That is egregious. He should apologize for that. I am a person who is very convicted in my morality. I am pro-life. I would never advocate for capital punishment in any way, shape or form. For him to accuse me or anyone else on this side of wanting that is something that he needs to be held accountable for, and I demand an apology from him.

I was incited by the murder of Tori Stafford. It broke my heart, so shortly after the murder, I brought forward a bill in 2010. I tabled it in this House, and it is actually up for second reading next month. It is Bill C-266, the respecting families of murdered and brutalized persons act. It is to make sure that those individuals who are incarcerated who have abducted, sexually assaulted, tortured and murdered their victims should not be allowed to reach parole eligibility for 40 years. Terri-Lynne McClintic is one of those persons. She should not be allowed to move around, have her sentence reduced, or apply for parole and re-victimize those families. We have to respect the families, and in this case, the Stafford family.

Opposition Motion—JusticeBusiness of SupplyGovernment Orders

5:15 p.m.

Liberal

Mark Gerretsen Liberal Kingston and the Islands, ON

Madam Speaker, I get along quite well, I think, with the member for Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman. We are on the defence committee together. Most of the time I can agree with him.

However, I took great exception to one comment he made. That was when he referred to the sympathies from this side of the House as “so-called sympathies”. When I hear the stories of what happened to Tori Stafford, I immediately think of my three children, my 14-year-old, my two-and-a-half-year-old and my two-month-old. It absolutely pains me to think of what it would be like if I were in that position.

I can say wholeheartedly that at least as it comes from me, my sympathies are genuine and real, as I imagine those are from the rest of this side of the House. I would ask the member to withdraw his comment that the Liberal sympathies are “so-called sympathies”.

Opposition Motion—JusticeBusiness of SupplyGovernment Orders

5:15 p.m.

Conservative

James Bezan Conservative Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB

Madam Speaker, I am not saying that he is not being sincere, but if he actually wanted to follow through on those sympathies, then he should read Rodney Stafford's Facebook page. He posts that what he does is also for all our children. He wants to make sure that they are always safe.

The member for Kingston and the Islands has an opportunity tomorrow after question period to stand in his place and vote with the Conservatives to make sure that the Minister of Public Safety rescinds the transfer of Terri-Lynne McClintic to the healing lodge, putting her back into a medium-security facility.

The member has the chance to do the right thing. If he is sincere about how he feels about this case, then he will stand in his place and vote “yes” to the motion.

Opposition Motion—JusticeBusiness of SupplyGovernment Orders

5:15 p.m.

Dan Vandal Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Indigenous Services, Lib.

Madam Speaker, I just want to reiterate what the hon. member pointed out in his first question.

I am a father of four. I am a grandfather to a six-year-old. I cannot begin to imagine the pain that the family, the parents are going through with the tragedy that happened to Tori Stafford. What the hon. member from Manitoba said was that we had “so-called sympathies”, that we were feigning sympathy. That is insulting.

I totally support what the member for Kingston and the Islands said. The member for Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman should apologize. He should take back those comments. He should stop playing politics with this issue.