Pat O'Brien

[Petitions, September 21st, 1994]

Madam Speaker, it is my pleasure today to present a petition to the House signed by a number of my constituents as well as Canadians throughout southwestern Ontario.

These petitioners call on Parliament to vigorously enforce the Criminal Code of Canada to prohibit assisted suicide and they further call on Parliament to make no changes in the law which would sanction or allow the aiding or abetting of suicide or active or passive euthanasia.

I present this and most heartily concur with these petitioners.

[Corrections And Conditional Release Act, September 20th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to speak on Bill C-45 brought in by the Solicitor General as part of the strategic framework of initiatives to which the government committed itself in the red book during the last campaign. It seeks to implement the safe homes, safe streets strategy which is being very much demanded by Canadians from coast to coast to coast as we in all parts of the House know.

The bill recognizes the all time low level of confidence Canadians have unfortunately demonstrated in our courts and in our current parole system. I must confess that this low level of confidence is justified and as a Canadian I certainly share it to a large extent.

Contrary to some opinions we have heard today from other members of the House, the bill is worthy of support. It is a major step in the right direction. It puts forth several important initiatives much awaited by Canadians and I would like to speak to them briefly today.

It adds several offences to the list of serious crimes for which people can be required to serve their full sentence such as drinking and driving and drug offences, to name two.

There is an important initiative in that the bill would seek to increase the accountability of the National Parole Board by establishing a mechanism to discipline and remove members that have performed in an unacceptable and indeed incompetent manner in some cases. Unfortunately we know that this could be the case and the provision is badly needed.

The bill seeks to strengthen rehabilitation programs for sex offenders. This is one of the most important initiatives undertaken. All too often repeat sex offenders such as pedophiles come out of the institutions in which they were incarcerated just as unbalanced individuals as when they entered incarceration. This is simply unacceptable and must be addressed. The bill seeks to do that.

The bill increases the authority of officials to make deductions from the income of offenders to help defray the increasing costs of incarceration. This is something which Canadians will applaud no matter what is their overall view of the bill. It is obviously a very important initiative and makes good common sense.

In my personal view the most important guiding principle in our system of criminal justice should be that violent criminals will be considered in a category altogether separate from non-violent criminals. Violent criminals should be experiencing stricter sentences from our courts and much stricter conditions for early release.

It is my view that the almost automatic release after one-third of the sentence of criminals has been served, even the most violent criminals, is a big mistake. Violent criminals, whether they be sexual offenders or non-sexual offenders, should be serving much closer to the full sentence. I would hope to see the day when repeat violent offenders will be serving the full sentence.

Bill C-45 moves substantially in that direction. It permits the retention for full sentence of criminals that have offended against children. While I applaud it as a step in the right direction I hope to see the day when such heinous crimes will be met with a mandatory serving of a full sentence for violent criminals, be they sexual offenders or non-sexual offenders. This is very important in the case of someone who has demonstrated a pattern of repeat violent offence.

Canadians know, and we in the House know, that in many cases sentences have been too light and out of all proportion to the nature of the crime and to the incredible harm inflicted on the victim, be they children or adults. For any adult who has been a victim of violent crime, particularly violent sexual crime, it is an horrendous experience to try to live through.

Bill C-45 requires an offender on parole who reoffends to serve at least one-third of his or her sentence for the latest crime before being eligible for parole. I applaud that. I say again I hope to see the day when repeat violent offenders serve their full sentence and not one-third. I hope to see the day when they forgo any opportunity for early release if they have established a pattern of repeat violent offences. The bill is a major step in that direction.

The issue of the serious harm provision against children is very important. The bill removes that condition and states it is not required for serious harm to be demonstrated. This makes good sense. For me personally violent crime is by definition serious crime. It inflicts serious harm on the victim especially if the victim is a child. Violent crime of a sexual or a non-sexual nature against an adult obviously is serious and should be treated in such a manner.

I very much applaud Bill C-45 and the Solicitor General for the initiatives he has undertaken. It is not a perfect bill. I suppose we see very few of those in this land or any other. I personally hope to see the day when we will go further, when we will be stricter on repeat violent offenders whether they be sexual or non-sexual offenders, and when we will be much more vigilant on early releases than what we have been.

The bill is a major step toward the stricter approach being called for by Canadians from coast to coast to coast.

[The Environment, June 21st, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, Canadians have become more conscious of their responsibility to protect our environment. For my constituents this includes a safe and proper destruction of PCBs.

Currently this is an important issue in the city of London in the county of Middlesex. Full meaningful public involvement is a must in resolving this serious issue. No community must be forced to host a destruction facility against its will.

I commend the government's efforts to make pollution prevention a national goal. I urge the government to improve upon the imperfect plan we have inherited by developing a national program for the destruction of all PCBs in Canada.

[Petitions, June 21st, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 36 I am pleased to present a petition on behalf of a number of Ontarians, some of whom are my constituents. These petitioners pray that Parliament act to extend protection to the unborn child on the same basis as there is protection to born human beings.

[Parole, June 17th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Solicitor General.

Many people in my riding of London-Middlesex are greatly concerned with the reintegration of repeat violent offenders into our community. The parole system is our only mechanism to return offenders to the community with controlled supervision and support, however it is not without some flaws.

Could the minister inform the House of the steps that will be taken to improve our current system of parole?

[Young Offenders Act, June 16th, 1994]

Madam Speaker, it is my pleasure to join in this debate on the Young Offenders Act and on a much-needed new bill to improve that act.

First of all let me congratulate the Minister of Justice for this bill. It offers to Canadians, as part of a two-step plan, some interim improvements to the youth justice system. It is important as members that we recognize and acknowledge this will be a two-step process. This is not the final and finished product if you will. If it were I would simply say to the minister that it does not go far enough in the ultimate sense but for now it is very good and major step in the right direction.

It is important to note that the second phase will be a thorough review by a parliamentary committee and by a federal-provincial task force on the whole youth justice system. There will be considerable public input in that review process, as there has been so far to this point. Obviously it is very important to involve provincial legislatures and provincial justice officials because the legal system is administered at both the federal and provincial levels.

The bill offers some very badly needed improvements. The original Young Offenders Act had an excellent rationale in my view. It was simply to recognize that society ought to deal with the young offender in a way different from a more mature offender, that the penalties ought to be different, and where incarceration is required that there ought to be different facilities. Canadians generally recognized and accepted that rationale.

Unfortunately as we know on all sides of the House and as Canadians from coast to coast to coast know, the Young Offenders Act has been, in at least a minority of cases, somewhat badly abused.

You see young offenders on national television telling Canadians that they consider the Young Offenders Act to be something of a joke and that they feel when they are incarcerated it is kind of like going to camp. When you hear that on national TV from repeat young offenders, there is no doubt in my mind that Canadians feel, and rightly so, that there are some problems with the current legislation. Obviously that is why the minister is seeking to put forward these improvements as step one of the ultimate act we will have in place.

If I might briefly consider the improvements that are offered in the proposed legislation, one of the major improvements is the provision that would put the onus on a 16 or 17-year old offender convicted of a violent crime, especially murder. The onus will now be on that individual to convince the court why he or she should not be dealt with as an adult criminal in adult court and subject to the tougher penalties of law.

That is an important change because under the current legislation we seek to amend, the reverse is true. A 16 or 17-year old convicted even of murder is dealt with on a much more lenient basis and is not tried in adult court. This legislation will correct what most Canadians consider to be a gross inequity in that area.

The provision or penalty for murder, I would remind hon. members and Canadians generally, started out at a mere three years for first degree murder. In my riding of London-Middlesex we had a sad situation a few years ago when one young offender murdered I believe three people-it was certainly more than one person-yet was subject to a maximum total penalty of three years. That was clearly not just and clearly not adequate for a serious crime like murder.

The penalty went from three years within the last short period of time to five years but this legislation would allow a doubling of that maximum penalty up to 10 years.

Some might still say that for first degree murder 10 years is inadequate and I suppose that is a debatable point, but it certainly is far more just than the five-year penalty that it will replace.

The under 16 and 17-year old offenders in that age category will not be eligible for parole as early if convicted of murder. In other words, a young offender convicted of murder will now find it much more difficult to earn parole than he or she has under the current legislation. Again, I think that is just common sense and simple justice.

As I say, Canadians know that there have been problems with the Young Offenders Act. They are crying out for improvements. I think the minister has offered major improvements as the first step of a two-step process.

As our red book stated during the election campaign and as the minister, the Prime Minister and members on this side of the House have continued to say since the election of last October, public safety must be the top priority as we address this issue.

Let me be completely fair and say that I have heard that statement from all parts of the House. I agree that public safety must be the first consideration when we are considering the justice system, in any part of the justice system, and that includes those offenders who are young Canadians. It seems to make that as its first priority.

Where perhaps I differ as a Liberal from some hon. members in the House is this. This party, this minister and this legislation seeks to find a balanced approach to this serious problem of youth crime. It is not enough to just simply say: "Let's throw them in jail for as long as we would any other adult, throw away the key and let them rot in jail". That is not the answer. We have not heard that attitude too much in the House, but I have detected that kind of approach by certain hon. members. I would find it shortsighted because it is not a balanced approach.

Legislation alone will not solve this problem. It is certainly a key component of addressing this issue but it is not enough in and of itself. I think that we are very shortsighted as a nation if we do not seek to treat the root causes of youth crime, the poverty that many if not most young offenders experience, the very real poverty that most Canadians do not experience but which a high percentage of young offenders have experienced in their lifetime. They have experienced repeated family violence, themselves often the victims of this violence both sexual and non-sexual.

Racism is unfortunately a real problem. There are young offenders who are from a minority group. When you analyse their background and why they committed crime, racism is a repeated theme in young offenders from minority groups.

The whole question of illiteracy and dropping out of school is another problem. As an educator for 21 years, the first signs to show that you may have a potential young offender on your

hands, and teachers will tell you this, are exhibited in classrooms at the youngest ages and the lowest grades. Obviously, as with criminals of all ages, substance abuse by young offenders is a major factor in their reasons for being involved in criminal activity.

If one were to summarize these root causes in a brief phrase, I think we could do no better than describe the dysfunctional family or the breakdown in the family and of good family values in this country, I hope in a minority of families. An analysis of young offenders will show that an overwhelming percentage of them come from dysfunctional families where there is not proper parental supervision and where there is not proper inculcation of values with these young people. In effect, as a society we reap what we sow. This party seeks to find a balanced approach.

I applaud the minister and the legislation, and I applaud the fact that he says time and again when he speaks to the House that we have to treat the root causes of crime otherwise we are not ultimately going to come up with an improvement in this important area. Sure we will lock away young offenders for a longer time at great cost to the nation, but that will not solve the problem which we ultimately hope to improve upon.

What we ought to do as a country and what the legislation seeks to do in my view is, while improving the legislation and coming up with more realistic penalties, not only be reactive to young offenders but to put preventive action into place.

The sharing of information among professionals such as police officials and school authorities will be an important part of preventive action. As a teacher, I say that any teacher in this country knows there are young offenders and in some cases violent young offenders walking around the halls of a particular school.

It is important that educators know that in the interests of the safety of the other students in that facility and indeed staff in that school. It is a fact that there has been an increase in violent crime in schools in this country. It concerns all of us.

I am pleased to join in the debate today. I applaud the minister for the legislation. It is a major first step in the right direction and we will await as all Canadians do the ultimate improvements in the Young Offenders Act.

[Religious Leaders, June 16th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to pay tribute to the many thousands of Canadian men and women who devote their lives and their work to the service of God. These religious leaders, both Christian and non-Christian alike, serve God through serving the Canadian people. By so doing, they help to mould and shape this nation for the better.

In particular today I wish to thank the Society of Jesus, the Jesuits, a brave and dedicated army of men who have done so much to serve the peoples of this land for over four centuries.

I welcome Fathers Charles Sitter and John O'Brien to Ottawa and thank the men and women of all faiths who serve God so well, through serving Canadians so selflessly.

[Petitions, June 15th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 36, it is my pleasure to present a petition signed by 150 residents throughout southwestern Ontario. These petitioners pray and call upon Parliament to amend the National Energy Board Act in order to provide intervener funding when residents are involved in proceedings relative to a pipeline.

[Recall Act, June 14th, 1994]

It is illogical.

[Literacy, June 8th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, congratulations go out to Katie Johnson, the grade one pupil at Centennial Central elementary school in Arva who recently placed first in a CBC radio story writing competition with her story entitled "Henry". Katie exemplifies the importance of the ability to read and write and the personal rewards they can bring.

As an educator, I recognize there are people in every walk of life who, through no fault of their own, may not be able to read to their children or be able to fill out a job application.

I wish to commend the work of the organizers of the National Adult Literacy Database which is located in my riding of London-Middlesex. I praise the efforts of all of the individuals who are working hard to provide literacy training to thousands of Canadians. Their work and the restoration of the national literacy fund by the government will significantly improve literacy skills.