Mr. Speaker, I have listened with interest to the comments of my colleagues from all parties represented in the House on Bill C-55. I would like to indicate that there are good portions in this bill. However, we do not think it goes far enough and I will be dealing with some of those aspects during my speech today.
On September 14 of last year an article appeared in the Financial Post containing figures from Correctional Services Canada. These figures, the author said, and I concur, are worrisome and clearly indicate the system does not protect the public from convicted murderers and other dangerous predators. These figures demonstrate a need for additional Criminal Code changes which go far beyond Bill C-55.
According to a chart furnished by the solicitor general to Diane Francis, editor of the Financial Post , between 1989 and 1994 no fewer than 78 people committed murder while they were on conditional release. This means 15 innocent people were killed each year in this country during that period of time by people who were on conditional release.
The same figures reveal that some 4,960 persons convicted of a lesser violent offence such as child molestation, manslaughter, rape or attempted murder repeated their crimes while on conditional release. Miss Francis concluded: "Those figures are awful". I concur.
Statistics do not provide an adequate picture of how repeat offenders become progressively more violent. Therefore, I would like to provide the House with evidence that supports a need not only for Bill C-55, but a need for additional Criminal Code amendments as well.
Since 1975, Allan Wayne Walsh of Mission, B.C. had more than 60 convictions for kidnapping, confining women, sex crimes, robbery and weapons offences. In 1983, he was convicted of 26 offences, including two counts of rape, and sentenced to 25 years in prison. Ten years later he was out on parole. Within months he used a knife to try to rape one woman and then raped and robbed another. On September 21, 1995 he was convicted of seven new offences, including sexual assault, which led the crown to have him declared a dangerous offender.
These seven additional offences never would have occurred if Walsh had served his full 25-year sentence. Seven innocent people would have remained unharmed if this dangerous offender had served out his full sentence of 25 years. I ask the question: Why do we continue to release high risk offenders into society to go on to reoffend?
Reform believes in truth in sentencing for violent criminals in the absence of a dangerous offender designation. Truth in sentencing means that if a 25-year sentence is imposed a 25-year sentence is served. In essence we support no parole for violent offenders; no reduction in the term decided by the court on consideration of the facts.
Why would government members want a court, a judge, perhaps a jury to consider all of the facts and the circumstances and impose a penalty based on those facts and circumstances and then have a parole board second guess them and reduce the time that a violent offender spends in jail? They will not answer that question.
Ronald Richard McCauley, another B.C. rapist, was sentenced to 17 years after two vicious rapes in which the victims were left for dead. At the time of sentencing McCauley had a criminal record dating back to 1969. When McCauley came up for parole in 1992 he admitted to the parole board that if he had not been caught he would have become a serial killer like Clifford Olson. The board, noting that McCauley appeared to benefit only superficially from treatment, turned down his request for early parole.
In 1994, two years later, McCauley got statutory release. According to a September 25, 1995 newspaper article, Mr. McCauley is now a suspect in the murder of two Vancouver prostitutes.
The Reform Party proposes that Bill C-55 be amended by eliminating statutory release. Melanie Carpenter would not have been murdered if Mr. Auger had not been free on statutory release.
In 1983 James Ronald Robinson of Ottawa was convicted of manslaughter in the stabbing death of Roxanne Nairn, a 17-year-old grade 12 student. He was sentenced to three years on a manslaughter conviction, but was released early, despite being caught trying to smuggle hashish into jail while returning from an unescorted temporary release.
In 1990 Robinson spent two years in jail for raping and threatening to kill a woman he had lived with after his release from prison. On March 6, 1995 he was charged with another count of sexual assault.
Despite having consecutive sentences adding up to 27 years and despite having committed crimes while on parole, Claude Forget was given an escorted pass to visit his sister in 1993. He escaped. Two months later he shot two police officers.
In September of 1995 he was up for parole after serving only a fraction of his sentence because the parole loophole required any new sentence to be merged with an existing sentence. In Forget's case this meant he was eligible to apply for parole almost as soon as he was convicted of the attempted murders. Forget was granted a full parole hearing in December of 1995.
In 1986 Martin Dubuc, a Montreal hockey coach, was convicted of molesting team members. After his release from prison he did not let a lifetime ban on coaching in Quebec stop him. He changed locales, becoming a coach and eventually president of the minor hockey association of southwest Montreal. As well, three different school boards in the Montreal area hired him as a substitute teacher. In September of 1995 he pleaded guilty to using the telephone to threaten boys aged 10 to 13.
More and more of these types of cases will occur unless additional amendments are made to the Criminal Code that go beyond the scope of Bill C-55. There will be no discernible impact on repeat offender rates unless the government is willing to go the extra mile.
The Liberal's soft on crime approach to justice is not working. What we need to do is implement zero tolerance for violent and sex offenders, which means we come down hard on those criminals who prey on the weak and vulnerable members of our society.
Under Bill C-55 high risk offenders will still be released back into society and Canadians will still remain at risk, even though there are some minimal forms of supervision in place. The only way to truly protect Canadians from high risk offenders is to keep them locked up where there is absolutely no risk of them reoffending. In the case of any serious personal injury, all of those convicted should serve out their full sentences.
Reform proposes that Bill C-55 be amended for greater certainty to require courts to automatically place a dangerous offender finding on any person who commits on two or more separate occasions an offence constituting a serious personal injury offence and subject them to an indeterminate period of incarceration.
Reform also recommends, in support of our colleague from Surrey White Rock-South Langley private member's Bill C-254, that Bill C-55 be amended to allow for dangerous offender findings to be made at any time after sentencing. The crown must be given the right to seek dangerous offender status for persons convicted of serious crimes causing serious personal injury at any time during that offender's penitentiary sentence.
Why would we release an offender if it is clear that offender has not been rehabilitated and will go on to target innocent children or adults on release? That is what Bill C-55 will do.
Reform also supports amending Bill C-55 to expand the list of criminal offences on which a dangerous offender application may be brought to include pedophiles and other sexual predators. There is probably no crime short of murder that offends the sensibilities and the values of a community more than the sexual assault of children. In many ways it is the most unconscionable of criminal acts because it victimizes the weakest, most vulnerable and most innocent among us.
It is not surprising that the public recoils in horror with the news that a pedophile is being released into the community after completing his jail sentence, particularly when the convicted pedophile is considered a high risk to reoffend.
In December 1995 Manitobans were warned about the danger of a released sexual offender who police claimed was a high risk to reoffend. The Winnipeg police were concerned Osborne could either attack someone he knew or simply attack a stranger. Douglas James Osborne was released from Stony Mountain Institution on November 23, 1995 after serving a three-year sentence for sexual assault. He was not to be under any supervision on his release.
Also in December 1995 the York Regional Police in Ontario issued a public alert warning to York and Durham residents of the release of Donald John Jones. The police considered there was a high risk that this sexual sadist, as termed by the police, would attempt to attack other women. Jones refused to take treatment for his sexual deviance while incarcerated in Kingston Penitentiary. He had a criminal record dating back to 1970 when he was sentenced to five years for sexually assaulting a 59-year-old Whitby woman in 1981. Jones attacked an 18-year-old convenience store clerk in 1986 while on a pass from the Kingston pen. He also sexually assaulted a 78-year-old woman in 1987 while out on another temporary pass. Is it not wonderful that these people are allowed passes before there is any assurance they have been rehabilitated? They go on and on to commit offence after offence against innocent people.
Reform proposes Bill C-55 be amended to eliminate any type of temporary release for sexual offenders. As stated earlier, we propose Bill C-55 be amended to include sex offenders in the dangerous offenders designation. We also propose that the review of indeterminate sentence of sex offenders include the examination and recommendation of at least two psychiatrists.
Sex offenders, especially child molesters, have a high repeat rate. The only way to keep our children safe, the only way to prevent sexual predators from taking victims and destroying the life of another innocent child is to keep them locked up, keep them incarcerated, keep them away from those they wish to target, keep
them incarcerated indefinitely as dangerous offenders until there is absolutely no risk of them reoffending.
I do not think there is anyone in Canada, certainly not in this House, who would want to see someone after they have served their term of imprisonment, on being completely rehabilitated, kept in prison. That is not the point. The point is that we must protect society by ensuring that those who have a high risk to reoffend are not released back into society.
No one should be released from prison if they exhibit signs or evidence they will reoffend. We have the power to protect the Melanie Carpenters of this country. We have the power to protect all the citizens of this country. Bill C-55 moves in that direction but it does not go far enough.
In closing, I would like to read for members of this House an Edmonton Sun editorial written by Linda Slobodian:
On July 16, a 36-year-old Edmonton man was sentenced to 71
2 years in jail for repeatedly sexually assaulting two relatives when they were little girls. He was found guilty on numerous sexual offences.
Yet less than three months later he's back out on the street. Little wonder one of his victims, now 26, says she feels "betrayed" by the court system.
"I felt justice had been served", says the victim who testified the assaults started when she was three or four, soon progressed to intercourse, and lasted a number of years.
"Now that he's walking free, I feel it was a waste of time getting up there and mutilating ourselves in front of everyone at the trial. It was so difficult, embarrassing giving all those details", she says.
Court heard the convicted man's abuse of the other victim, her sister who is now 24, started when she was about four and also progressed to intercourse.
The convicted man faces more charges, involving other young relatives, for which he's scheduled to go on trial in the middle of this month.
How can it be that someone who gets such a heavy sentence for deplorable crimes against children gets out so soon?
He put in an application for an appeal. He's not get been granted one but on Sept. 27 he was released on bail.
That isn't all that unusual in our justice system.
The victims received a call Tuesday from his parole officer advising them he'd been released a few days earlier.
"I flipped out" says the victims' mother. "He was found guilty of rape, among other things. We phoned (Justice Minister) Brian Evans. His staff said, `That's the justice system"'.
This is the justice system we are presently burdened with in this country and that we speak out against and implore the justice minister to do something about. It is due to the bleeding heart
mentality which continues to exist in this place to place the rights of the criminal ahead of the rights of those two innocent rape victims. It is due to the fact that we have a federal justice minister who, in the words of one grieving father whose daughter was murdered, is a friend of the criminal. The justice minister has now been labelled by citizens of this country as a friend of the criminal.
Reform proposes we drastically overhaul the justice system. Our first priority will be to make the protection of society and the rights of the victim the guiding principles of justice in this country.
