Tom Wappel

[Petitions, October 18th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, the second petition contains the signatures of approximately 150 people, primarily from the province of Ontario, praying that Parliament act immediately to extend to the unborn child the same protection that is extended to born human beings.

[Petitions, October 18th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, I have three petitions today. The first petition contains some 450 signatures from across Canada.

It prays that Parliament ensure that the present provisions of the Criminal Code of Canada prohibiting assisted suicide be enforced vigorously and that Parliament make no changes in the law that

would sanction or allow the aiding or abetting of suicide or active or passive euthanasia.

[Witness Protection Act, October 18th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, I do so for the following brief reasons.

Members will recall that my private member's bill was debated and passed unanimously at second reading in the House of

Commons and referred to the justice committee. Since that time my government has brought forward Bill C-78 on exactly the same subject.

In my judgment the bill contains virtually the same items that are in my private member's bill. It is designed to protect and relocate witnesses to crimes in Canada. As such, it seems a waste of time to proceed with two bills with identical material. Accordingly I am quite prepared, with the consent of the House, to have my private member's bill withdrawn.

I ask for unanimous consent of the House that the order of reference to the Standing Committee on Justice and Legal Affairs for the consideration of Bill C-206, an act to provide for the relocation and protection of witnesses, be discharged and the bill withdrawn.

(Order discharged and bill withdrawn.)

[Witness Protection Act, October 18th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, I seek the unanimous consent of the House to withdraw my private member's Bill C-206, an act to provide for the protection and relocation of witnesses.

[Witness Protection Program Act, October 5th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, I knew my decision to yield the floor to my hon. friend from Dartmouth would be the correct one. His speech was peppered with his usual enthusiasm, a very interesting case study of why we need the program. I also thank all the speakers on the bill who mentioned my name in a positive light today. It is such a refreshing change and I really appreciate it.

I will talk about the history of witness protection and how I developed an interest in the subject to let Canadians know a bit about the need for a legislated witness protection program.

About three years ago when I was the official opposition critic for the solicitor general a gentleman came into my office. He was fearful, nervous, literally looking over his shoulder in apprehension. He was also very frustrated. He was a witness and an informant to a serious crime. He had in his view co-operated with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police in an investigation. In his opinion he had been offered certain protection and certain financial incentives which would help him to relocate and get away from the wrath of those he had reported to the authorities.

Unfortunately because nothing was in writing or because there was no real mechanism provided, there was a dispute about what had been agreed on and how long the protection would be afforded. Suffice it to say he felt abandoned. He felt adrift. He felt at the mercy of those he had informed on.

It was a courageous thing for him to do. These were vicious people. He feared for his family, his wife and children, not just for himself; perhaps more for his wife and family than for himself.

I could see why he was in fear but why was he frustrated? He had gone to the RCMP and did not seem to get any redress there. He had gone to his local police department and did not get redress there. He had gone to the Ontario Provincial Police and did not get redress there. He went to his local member of Parliament. His local member of Parliament was unable to help, not because his local member of Parliament did not want to help but because we were now entering into the nether world of witness protection in Canada.

He went to the minister of the day who along with his officials begrudgingly admitted there was such a program but they were not about to talk about it. They were not about to discuss it. They were not about to give details and they certainly were not about to talk about his case.

In desperation he came to me, the official opposition critic for the solicitor general. That piqued my interest in the subject and I began to investigate. I found that since 1970 a federal witness protection program has been run by the U.S. marshall service in the United States. Prosecutors in the United States have said that the program was one of the most effective assets they utilized in law enforcement.

The population of the United States of America probably approaches 300 million people now. That U.S. witness protection program currently protects approximately 500 witnesses per year, which is not a very large number of witnesses considering the size of the population.

That says it is used in extreme circumstances for extreme cases. In a way that is good because there is only so much money. Generally speaking it has a fairly good success rate in solving crimes except the most dastardly kinds of crimes, the ones where people do not think twice about snuffing out a life in order that the person not be a witness in a proceeding against them.

I am talking about drug related offences. I am talking about organized crime. I am talking about gang warfare. The last thing those people are worried about is the value of a single human life. It is simply a matter of money. Nowadays one can get somebody to kill another for virtually a song. What a sad commentary in general on society.

I began to work on a witness protection bill for Canada because what I found out about this nether world of witness protection was that first, no one would talk about it. Hardly anyone would acknowledge that it existed and there was no legislative base for it.

As a lawyer, this concerned me. How can the law enforcement agencies give a person a new passport? How can they give someone a new social insurance number? How can they give someone new background documents and resumes of work that never existed to get the person back into the workforce with no legal basis to do so? It worried me that our law enforcement agencies with the best of motives to protect witnesses might be doing something contrary to the law by issuing these kinds of papers and these kinds of new identities without a legislative base.

I felt they needed this legislative base. I discussed this with the solicitor general of the day. Thousands of people across Canada presented petitions to the government of the day asking that a national witness protection program be brought forward. In a response to one of those petitions, the Hon. Doug Lewis, the minister at that time had this to say:

Witness protection is indeed a very important function of law enforcement and, equally, a crucial service to witnesses who are at risk of retribution as a result of giving testimony in court.

It is accurate to say that, presently, there is not a national, legislated program as exists in the United States, for example. My officials are currently examining the state of witness protection in Canada, which necessitates consideration of the witness protection requirements of not only the law enforcement community, but also the witnesses themselves. Also, integral to this process is a review of the efficacy of the legislated program and its application in Canada.

Bearing in mind the complexity of this issue, a thorough review is required before a decision can be reached on the best possible witness protection program for Canadians.

Rest assured that your views, particularly your request for a legislated program, are being given serious consideration and I would like to thank the petitioners for expressing their views on this matter.

That was a very nice response but I was getting the same feeling as John Doe who had come into my office of being pushed from pillar to post, study after study. Yes, there is no legislative program. Yes, it is a good idea. Yes, we need it, but we have to study it.

What changed? If I do say so myself, what changed was there was an election and with the election the appointment of a new solicitor general, the hon. member for Windsor West. Very shortly after becoming Solicitor General of Canada, among the various other initiatives that he came up with, the solicitor general recognized the merit and the need for a legislated witness protection program which would be offered nationally.

In consultation with his officials, he very kindly sat down with me and discussed my bill and the work that I had done up to that point. Of course the solicitor general has more resources than an ordinary member of Parliament. He did everything that was required of him. He talked to the U.S. marshall service, found out about the flaws and the pitfalls of the program. He talked to the various solicitors general of the provinces to see how the program could be most effective in a federal system where we pass the criminal laws, but they are enforced by the provinces.

He did not drag his feet. After having done the work and keeping me informed at all times so that I was convinced that the work was proceeding, he brought forward the legislation, Bill C-78.

In my judgment the bill is historic from a number of perspectives. Not only will it go a long way in protecting witnesses and informants in the future but it will help solve crimes.

Between 1980 and 1992 there have been 1,455 unsolved murders in the country. That is an incredible statistic. Never mind 1,455 murders, but 1,455 unsolved murders. No doubt there are people out there who know who was the perpetrator in many of these murders but they fear for their lives or they fear for their families' lives. They fear to come forward because they have no way of knowing they will be protected. Because of the nether world, the shadowy world of witness protection before the bill, people were not aware of it. They did not know whom to approach.

Did the House know that right now there are approximately 15 police forces across the country that offer witness protection; the RCMP, the OPP, the Metropolitan Toronto Police, some other police forces? Each has its own program. They have different rules. They have different standards. They have different budgets.

What good is it to a person who witnesses a murder, shall we say in Sudbury, if the Metropolitan Toronto police has a witness protection program? That budget is for the residents of that city. What good is it in Calgary if the OPP has a witness protection program?

The key is that it has to be a national program because our criminal law is national. We have a national police force, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, which has a presence in every province and territory. It has a witness protection program so it is only logical that it administer a national witness protection program and the bill provides precisely for that.

It provides that those other police forces or any police force can contract through the RCMP to provide protection for witnesses in investigations that it is conducting. This is good financially as well because those police forces can budget for witness protection. They can pay the RCMP for the services that the RCMP will be giving,

but then they will have the expertise and uniformity that the RCMP will offer under the bill.

To me that is a very positive thing. I believe we will be able to solve crimes when we are able to offer proper legislated witness protection to people across Canada.

Goodness knows, there are enough crimes that need solving. Hopefully we will get people to come forward and offer their evidence in exchange for being protected from those very vile people in society who do not care about snuffing out people's lives.

The hon. member for Dartmouth used a descriptive term for these people. He called them demons. In order for us to exorcise our demons from society, our criminal demons, this will be one of the excellent tools we can use in that regard.

The bill is deceptively short considering what it is going to do. It only has 24 relatively short paragraphs. Perhaps we lose sight of the fact that sometimes shorter is better. It is deceptively short yet not lacking in anything.

When I drafted Bill C-206 I spent a lot of time thinking about all the different angles. I thought I had them all covered. I was very gratified when the House unanimously approved it at second reading. However, as is probably most often the case, the bureaucrats examined the bill and found certain things that were not in it and put them into a recommendation to the solicitor general. He, to his credit, accepted those recommendations. Bill C-78 is an improvement on my Bill C-206 and covers ground that is not covered in my bill.

One other thing I want to mention is the use to which the witness protection program has been put. For example, in 1986 approximately $500,000 a year was being spent by the RCMP on witness protection in all of Canada. In 1993 that amount has ballooned to $3,800,000. This is money well spent because it is money used for solving crimes perpetrated in Canada, crimes that might otherwise go unsolved. That demonstrates to me the efficacy of a national witness protection program and the need for Bill C-78.

One thing that was lacking before was openness, light shining on the witness protection program, publicity about the witness protection program. The program has been ongoing for quite some time. I am very pleased to note in clause 16 of Bill C-78 something that was not contained in my private member's bill but is very important, an annual report.

The commissioner of the RCMP, who will be in charge of the legislated national witness program, will file a report with the minister. That in itself is very important, as the minister will be apprised of what is going on with witness protection, how much it is costing, how many witnesses there are and its success rate in solving crimes.

The minister has gone further because not only will he receive the report but the clause provides that the minister shall-not may, not think about, but shall-cause a copy of the report to be laid before the House of Commons. We in the House of Commons and the people of Canada whom we represent will have an opportunity on a yearly basis to hear about the witness protection program and thereby publicize it, to examine how much is being spent on it, to know how many people are being protected by it and to understand how many crimes are being solved by the use of the witness protection program as a tool of law enforcement.

To me this is important because it will publicize the program. It will give people an opportunity to come forward and say they saw something, know something or heard something and say they will come forward if they have protection in the circumstances. It will be for the commissioner to decide whether or not in the circumstances of the particular case witness protection should be afforded. That is as it should be because it is a tool for law enforcement to use for the protection of witnesses who will help to solve crimes.

All in all, Bill C-78 is an excellent bill. I am delighted to support it. I am delighted that it apparently has all-party support. That indicates to me that it will receive quick passage through the House of Commons so we can get on with the legislated witness protection program, get on with publicizing it, get on with solving crimes and get on with trying to find the perpetrators of the 1,455 unsolved murders between 1980 and 1992.

There are a couple of areas in the bill on which I would like some clarification. Hopefully these will be clarified by the officials in their appearance before the committee when the bill is studied at committee.

I draw specific attention to a lack of a provision to authorize emergency steps. For example, if the commissioner believes that there is some urgent need to protect someone to get them out of harm's way before the technicalities of the bill kick in, it would seem that there should be some sort of mechanism specifically provided in the bill for that purpose.

The bill will help Canadians. It will protect Canadians. It will help solve crimes. That is fairly obvious because of the all-party support the bill is receiving. Members on all sides of the House of all different political persuasions and of all types of views on justice issues recognize that witnesses and informants need to be protected if we are to help solve and fight crime.

It is refreshing to see that there is such unanimity on such an issue in the House. Canadians can feel reassured that the House of Commons cares about them, cares about their personal safety, cares about the fact that crime exists and must be controlled and eradicated, and cares about the fact that witnesses and people who come forward to help in the enforcement of the law will be protected by society in a legislated way, in an open way, not in some quiet and shadowy backroom without possibility of appeal,

without possibility of redress in the event that there is some misunderstanding.

By the way, that is another good point. There will be written reasons given by the commissioner if people are turned down so they are not left out there with their heads spinning, unable to comprehend why the system did not protect them.

I support the bill. I am very grateful the House supports the bill. I am grateful to the minister for bringing it forward. As I began, I am grateful for all the kind comments that have been made about me by members of the House.

[Witness Protection Program Act, October 5th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, it would be my delight to hear what the hon. member for Dartmouth has to say.

[Corrections And Conditional Release Act, September 28th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, I only passed over it because there is really not much in it. It is merely a regurgitation.

There will be circumstances where persons change so dramatically in life-and they will be few and far between-that they should be given the opportunity to put their situation before a jury of their peers, not a judge but ordinary citizens like us.

My problem with the current section is that the persons only have to convince two-thirds of a jury. When they were convicted the jury had to be unanimous that they were guilty. However under the current provisions of section 745 they have to show two-thirds of the jurors that they should be allowed to apply for parole before they serve 25 years.

It should be a unanimous requirement. If they cannot convince a jury unanimously that they are entitled to early parole eligibility, they should not get it.

In the absence of an amendment saying that, I do not support section 745 as it is currently drawn. The hon. member for York South-Weston has moved a private member's bill in that regard which I supported at second reading and which I support now.

[Corrections And Conditional Release Act, September 28th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for Wild Rose for his question. I believe the hon. member was not referring to consecutive sentences but rather to multiple sentences contained in section 139 of the Corrections and Conditional Release Act. If there is a section of the Corrections and Conditional Release Act which might qualify as the word my friend used in his previous speech, gobbledegook, it is that section.

We struggled with the section when we initially went through the Corrections and Conditional Release Act. We had flow charts. We had chiefs of police showing us what would happen if someone sentenced to 20 years for armed robbery committed another robbery while on parole. He would get out even before he ended up serving any time on the first offence.

The solicitor general at the time, Mr. Lewis, acknowledged there was a serious problem, that there was a lot of difficulty, and that he would set up a commission or a group of people to examine the matter and come back with some recommendations.

My understanding is that it has been dealt with to some extent in Bill C-45. However I think there is a lot of room for improvement with respect to the multiple sentence calculation. As I said, we missed the Wray Budreo situation but when that situation arose we dealt with it. Tragically it may very well be that the amendments to multiple sentencing, the changes to the calculations, have not dealt with all the problems. It is a very complicated section and a very complicated area of the law.

However if a case comes down that slips through the cracks or exposes an egregious error in the calculations that Canadians simply cannot abide, we will have to come up with an amendment. I am certain the government of the day will do so. No government is in the business of permitting loopholes to legislation. No government is in the business of wanting wild animals to walk the streets to threaten ordinary law-abiding citizens.

We have made an effort to change section 139. I do not know that it is perfect. If it is not perfect we will soon know about it. Whatever government is in power at whatever time will make whatever changes are necessary to tighten the multiple sentence calculations.

I cannot sit down without a word about the Bernardo case, which my friend has raised a number of times. Canadians may not like the reality of the law, but it is that Paul Bernardo has been sentenced to life in prison. I am not talking about when and if he will ever be paroled. He is under a sentence of life and as long as he lives he will be under a sentence of life imprisonment. As the law currently stands-and never mind the 15-year faint hope clause for the time being-he cannot even be considered eligible to apply for parole until he serves 25 years of his sentence. When he applies for parole, assuming he does, after that 25 years there is no guarantee he will get parole. The parole board can refuse him parole for the rest of his natural life and he can spend the rest of his natural life in prison.

Even if he gets parole 25 or 30 years from now, he is still under a sentence of life imprisonment. If he breaches any of the conditions of his parole at that time, 25 or 30 years from now, he can be brought back into the prison system to serve the rest of his sentence.

I want to make it clear that it is incorrect to say that persons who commit first degree murder is sentenced to 25 years. That is false. They are sentenced to life in prison and they have the opportunity to apply for parole after 25 years.

It is up to the parole board to decide on a case by case basis whether or not a particular murderer should be granted parole. For my part I certainly hope that neither Bernardo, Clifford Olson nor the people who murdered Emanuel Jacques, the shoe shine boy, ever get out of prison. I hope they rot in their cells, daily remembering the tragedies they have wrought.

Let us talk facts. These people are under sentences of imprisonment for life.

[Corrections And Conditional Release Act, September 28th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, I have been listening attentively to the debate. I have listened attentively to the Reform Party and its position.

It is difficult to be in opposition. The Reform Party sometimes forgets that our party was in opposition for nine years. It is not as if we do not know what it is like to be in opposition and how difficult it is sometimes.

I gather basically that what the Reform Party is saying is there is nothing wrong with Bill C-45 per se; what is wrong is there is not more in it. I take some solace in that. There is nothing wrong with Bill C-45 specifically. Everything can be improved. We can always do better. There can always be suggestions coming forward based on what happens in certain cases. That is no reason not to support a bill in which there is nothing really wrong, other than that it is not thick enough, I guess would be the way we would put it.

In my brief time I will concentrate on two aspects of Bill C-45 in the context of how individual members of Parliament can make a difference to the legislative process. This is reasonably relevant in view of the member's comments about puppets. There is an unfortunate belief pervading Canada that the individual member of Parliament cannot do anything, cannot contribute, does not make a difference.

I will talk about the history of this bill and what happens when individual members of Parliament take an interest. What piqued my interest in this topic was what one of the Reform Party justice critics said last Wednesday, September 20, 1995, the hon. member for Crowfoot, with whom I have worked on the justice committee. On page 14658 of Hansard :

Canadians can no longer tolerate the likes of Wray Budreo, who psychiatrists diagnosed as a sadistic pedophile having a 30-year history of molesting children, being released unsupervised from a maximum security prison because correctional services did not have the power to detain him even though the parole board ruled him likely to reoffend. They cannot tolerate it because the cost is far too high.

I have had an intimate relationship and knowledge of that particular section of the previous act and of the Wray Budreo case, which I am about to relate. I thought my friends in the Reform Party might be interested in the facts of that matter. They do not quite gibe with the quoted comments of the hon. member for Crowfoot.

While we were in opposition I was the official opposition critic for the solicitor general. As such, I was charged by my party with watching over Bill C-36, the Corrections and Conditional Release Act. I struggled with my party with the very points my friends in the Reform Party have brought up today. Ultimately, we voted against the bill.

I put in something like 20 or 30 amendments, which were accepted and which in my view strengthened the bill. In the end, in our view there were sufficient problems with it to vote against it. In a parliamentary democracy we lost the vote and the bill proceeded. It is now the law of the land. It has been implemented. Correctional services asked us to give the bill a chance to work and if we found any errors we would plug them, thus Bill C-45.

Before Bill C-45 we came up with the problem of Wray Budreo, and that is specifically section 130 of the act. My friend will know how things go in these deliberations. We go over it with a fine tooth

comb, line by line, word by word, comma by comma. Fifteen or nine or however many members of the justice committee who were there at that time missed something. We did not purposely overlook it; we simply missed it. That was the serious harm clause which states that by statute every prisoner must be released after serving two-thirds of their term.

I am not talking about a life sentence here. Generally, if there is a fixed term then after two-thirds of that term you must be released unless certain things happen. One of those is a reference to the board. If the board finds that an offender, if released, is likely to commit an offence causing the death of or serious harm to another person before the expiration of the offender's sentence, according to law the board can order that they be kept in for the balance of their sentence.

We read that, agreed with it and passed it. I did not offer any amendments. What happened was that the Wray Budreo case pointed out to us that we had missed something. What happened? Wray Budreo is not, I suppose, depending on how you use the words, a sadistic pedophile, which implies what we might call actual physical assault on children. Wray Budreo is a pedophile, there is no doubt about it; but as far as we knew from the profile he did not sodomize young boys. What he liked to do was in effect pet them on the abdomen. This caused him sexual pleasure.

The board took the interpretation that petting a child in that manner, not even touching the sexual area, just the abdomen, was not serious harm as defined in that section. Serious harm was deemed to be, for example, sodomizing a young child. Of course, a petting would not be an offence likely to cause death.

The board felt its hands were tied and it would have to let Wray Budreo out after he had served two-thirds of his sentence. It agreed he was likely to reoffend. It agreed he was likely to find other children and touch them on the abdomen and various other places. It also agreed he was not likely to cause death and he was not likely to cause serious harm as that section had been interpreted.

When that hit the papers, perhaps to use some of the rhetoric of my friend, I went ballistic. I brought this matter before the justice committee, which at that time was chaired by Mr. Bob Horner, a Conservative. The committee was controlled by Conservatives. I asked the committee to review this section and see if we could come up with a suggested approach for the government. All of the parties agreed, and the New Democrats were represented on that committee as well. We undertook a study of section 130 in specific reference to the Wray Budreo case and we came up with a unanimous report, which we tabled in the House of Commons.

Sadly or perhaps happily, depending on whether we are looking at it politically or in terms of solving this problem, we were approaching the end of the Conservative mandate. There was not enough time for the Conservative government to react to this unanimous report.

The current solicitor general reacted to it immediately. As soon as he was appointed solicitor general one of the first bills he brought in was Bill C-45, the government's response to what I have just laid out as what happened in the Budreo case.

I will now quote from the amendment to section 130, contained in section 43: "The board may order that the offender not be released from imprisonment before the expiration of the offender's sentence according to law, where the board is satisfied", among other things, "that the offender is likely if released to commit a sexual offence involving a child before the expiration of the offender's sentence according to law".

That is a direct response to a private member's initiative, which plugs the Wray Budreo loophole. That is a response brought forward by the government in direct response to the entreaties initially by me and ultimately the justice committee. It addresses a wrong and a loophole we did not notice in our initial examination of the bill.

That is the history behind that amendment. That is why the amendment has been brought forward. It still leaves in place the requirement of death or serious harm for other circumstances, but it protects children.

Often the very damaging serious psychological harm takes 20 or 30 years to manifest itself. While touching the abdomen of a young child might not be considered serious harm in a physical sense, it might be serious harm in a psychological sense 20 years later. That is the whole purpose behind this particular section.

This is an example of what individual members of Parliament on a committee can do in terms of strenghthening legislation.

Clearly this is an amendment that needs to be supported. If it is in a bill that has all kinds of other terrible things in it, obviously we cannot support it. If it is in a bill that for all intents and purposes is not criticized except for what is not in it, it can be supported and still go after what is not in the bill in amendments by members at committee and in private members' bills. Sometimes the germ of the idea of a private member's bill gets accepted by the government of the day.

The second aspect I wish to talk about in Bill C-45 pertains to section 743.6 of the Criminal Code. I relate it to private members and what I talked about in my question to my hon. friend about the courts, whether we tell the courts what we mean or whether they tell us what we mean.

According to law you must be released after serving two thirds of a fixed sentence unless certain things occur, which I just talked

about. In the same way, you are automatically by law eligible to be considered for parole after serving one third of your sentence.

In some circumstances, and I am sure my friends in the Reform Party will agree, there are egregious cases in which people say no, there should not be automatic eligibility for parole after one third of your sentence.

A section was passed in the Criminal Code which in part says: "Where an offender receives a sentence of imprisonment of two years or more for an offence set out in schedule I or II to that act", that is very serious offences, prosecuted by way of indictment, "the court may, if satisfied, having regard to the circumstances of the commission of the offence and the character and circumstances of the offender, that the expression of society's denunciation of the offence or the objective of specific or general deterrence so requires, order that the portion of the sentence that must be served before the offender may be released on full parole is one half of the sentence or 10 years, whichever is less".

What does all that mean? It means that if a judge sees a case that he thinks requires that the offender serve at least one half of his time before being eligible for parole then he can so order under this section. In my view, it is pretty clear what the House of Commons meant by "the objective of specific or general deterrence so requires". What do I know about what is clear?

On February 20 of this year there was an article in the Toronto Star about a drug trafficker. The trial judge, quite rightly I think, thought it was a pretty bad crime, that we did not want drug traffickers, particularly in heroin. The gentleman was sentenced to only three years, but the court ordered that he serve one-half of his sentence before he be considered eligible for parole.

Because I do not rely on what is in the newspapers I did some research by pulling the court of appeal decision in the case and finding the trial judge's reasons which stated:

The most important factors of sentencing that ought to be brought to bear in my mind on this case are the factors of individual and general deterrence. General deterrence means that the sentence should send a message to other persons in like situations, or who are considering becoming involved in like situations, that this is likely what you will receive.

The trial judge got it right. That is exactly what the House meant when we passed the legislation. It was as clear as a bell to me and I thought it was clear in the words of the section.

Along comes the court of appeal of the province of Ontario to state the following:

Unfortunately the wording of section 741.2 provides the judge with very little guidance to determine when this exceptional authority over parole eligibility should be exercised.

It also states:

The presumption is that Parliament intended section 741.2 to have some additional purpose.

I thank the court of appeal. Of course it did. It then states:

It then falls to the courts to give the section meaning and function.

When I read that I said that it was wrong. It is up to us to tell the courts what we mean when we pass a statute. Therefore I brought the matter to the attention of the justice committee. My friend from Wild Rose was on the justice committee at that time. I pointed out that was not the intention.

The court of appeal overruled the trial judge and stated that the section could only be used in the rarest of circumstances and that in all cases rehabilitation of the offender must be paramount. That was not the intention of Parliament. I was here and I know what the intention of Parliament was. We heard the debates, which were obviously not read by the court of appeal.

The court of appeal states:

In my view section 741.2 should only be invoked as an exceptional measure where the crown has satisfied the court on clear evidence that an increase in the period of parole ineligibility is required.

There is no onus in this section for the crown to shown anything. There is no requirement on the crown to prove anything.

Therefore I asked the justice committee if it would consider an amendment for the sole purpose of overturning the Court of Appeal's interpretation of what Parliament meant when it passed that section. The result of my request to the justice committee is subparagraph (2) of that section, an amendment in Bill C-45 which states:

For greater certainty, the paramount principles which are to guide the court under this section, are denunciation and specific or general deterrence with rehabilitation of the offender, in all cases, being subordinate to these paramount principles in this section.

If that is not clear to the court of appeal, we had better send it back to school.

There was unanimous recommendation of the justice committee. The government accepted the recommendation and the amendment. It has already been passed in Bill C-41. It will pass if we vote for this bill. It is another example of how individual members of Parliament on their own initiative, working with others in committees, can make bills better.

I support the bill. We know from the other party there is nothing wrong with what is in it. We can understand there should be more things in it. They can work for those, but they should not throw the baby out with the bath water. I urge members to support the bill.

[Corrections And Conditional Release Act, September 28th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member in his usual folksy and entertaining way has made a speech in which, of course, he has managed for the most part to stay away from the subject matter before the House today, Bill C-45. He has ranged over the Young Offenders Act, MPs pensions, his travels throughout the country, but what has he really talked about? Has he really addressed the issues of Bill C-45?

The reason I am up is that yesterday the hon. member visited the very nice community of Scarborough of which I am privileged to be one of the five members of Parliament. Five hundred and fifty thousand people live in the city of Scarborough. I hope we made the hon. member feel welcome as a member of Parliament and that he had the opportunity to express his point of view which in a democracy everybody is entitled to do.

I want to talk about Bill C-45 and ask the hon. member a question. He talked about gobbledegook. He talked about how laws are written in gobbledegook. That may be if one is not a lawyer.

What we do in the House is write and pass laws. If we do not understand them, somebody has to understand them. We hope that they are the lawyers in the justice department. If they do not understand them, then as has been done in the past, the courts will tell us what they mean. I will be referring to that very topic in my speech in a few moments. We do not want to be told by the courts what we meant. Therefore we had all better make an effort to understand this gobbledegook because if we do not understand it, then we are at the mercy of the lawyers.

The previous speaker from the hon. member's party gave the nub of the problem of the Reform Party which is that there is really nothing wrong with Bill C-45. It is actually kind of good. It actually does some good amending to former Bill C-36. However the Reform members dare not support it because, in the words of the hon. member for Medicine Hat, that might be enough and we will not go any further.

I recall the Reform Party members, when they came here, saying they would do things differently. They were not going to oppose for the sake of opposing. If something was good, they would support it. What is really wrong with Bill C-45 that the member cannot support it while still making the points he makes about the various other topics he spoke about?