Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member from Surrey-White Rock-South Langley and the other members of our caucus will be on during the time allotted for 20 minutes.
It gives me great pleasure to rise in the House today to address some remarks on Bill C-41 that deals with sentencing in our criminal justice system. The Minister of Justice is to be congratulated for bringing the bill forward at this time and for his other attempts to deal with young offenders and with restrictions on firearms.
While we may not always agree with the minister's proposals on this side of the House, there is no question that he is giving us food for thought. I cannot help but think that if the current Minister of Finance was working this hard on behalf of the Canadian people the deficit would be well under control.
In any event, we are here to address the various aspects of Bill C-41. I would like in my remarks today to address some of the positive aspects of the bill and then deal with some of the deficiencies-at least deficiencies as I see them-that hopefully can be cured when the bill is dealt with in committee.
As my colleagues have pointed out, one of the most important, positive elements of the bill is that for the first time a statute will contain a statement of the purpose and principles of sentencing.
There is nothing new in this statement, but it does codify the existing law and will provide explicit direction to judges in our criminal courts on the principles that must be applied in each individual case. While this is a positive aspect to Bill C-41, there are a number of negatives that I hope will be addressed in committee.
When I talk to my constituents about the criminal justice system the comments I hear most often concern the lack of predictability about sentencing. This lack of predictability can range from comments on different lengths of sentences being imposed for similar crimes, to comments that sometimes express outrage at the short amount of time some criminals have to spend in prison.
People feel that like crimes should be treated alike. That is, if a white collar criminal steals through breach of trust he or she should receive the same sentence as any other person convicted of theft. I know that in some cases white collar criminals do receive stiffer sentences than others, but because of the way our system operates most of the sentence is served on the street and not in prison.
White collar criminals should spend their sentences in prison. This is the deterrent aspect of sentencing: accountability or being held responsible for our actions. Our criminal justice system must send a clear message to all who are contemplating the commission of a crime that if you do the crime then you must do the time. It is time spent in incarceration with no special treatment.
The second issue raised by constituents deals with the length of time served in incarceration. We are all aware of anecdotal evidence of people being sentenced to long prison terms and then in a very short time they are back on the street. Our system seems to be full of opportunities for criminals to manipulate it so they do not spend nearly as much time in jail as the judge or those who are victims originally believed the convicted person would spend in jail.
Bill C-41 addresses this issue to some extent by allowing victims to make representations at early parole hearings.
Why should we put victims through this trauma? Indeed, why should there be early parole hearings at all? When a person has been sentenced to 10 years in prison, what is wrong with that person serving at least seven or eight of that 10 years before looking at parole or other means to put the person back on the street?
This raises a question. Should offenders of violent crimes be paroled at all? Should their sentences be reduced? Today more than ever before we are made aware of the anger of all Canadians when offenders of violent crimes are out on day passes or paroled at a very early date or receive a reduced sentence and a violent crime is the result. One death from the hands of a violent
offender who should not be out on the streets of our country before his or her sentence is up is one death too many.
The people of Canada want to see some measure of certainty in the system and this bill does not provide it for them.
Another point that I take issue with is the aggravating factor of hate in relation to the sentencing for some crimes. We in the Reform Party believe that we are all created equal. No group should have more rights than others. It makes no sense to me to grade severity of punishment on the basis that the victim belongs to a protected class. Can it be any worse to kill or wound a person of a protected group than to kill or maim someone who is not in a protected group? I do not think so. If a crime is committed, the criminal should be punished and the public should know that if you commit crime x then you get y years. Maybe that is too simple for our seemingly complex society today but it is the way we see things on this side of the House.
I heard Tuesday in this House that if a crime is perpetrated as a result of hate against the individual, there should be a harsher sentence, a stronger sentence. As I understand the example given, it was a member of the gay community who was brutally beaten causing death.
I ask the House to consider the senseless death of a 31-year old Coquitlam man, I believe it was Mr. Niven, who outside a convenience store was brutally kicked and beaten to death just recently. Is there any difference in the savagery of such a crime? Can we really state that one is worse than the other?
Does one deserve a harsher penalty than the other? Has not in each case a man been brutally beaten to death? Is one life worth less than another? I sincerely hope not. Is not all life precious and of equal value? I sincerely hope so.
We are also concerned that this bill allows provinces to establish alternative measures programs. Again, such a system while in theory its goals may be laudable will create unevenness in the system. Some crimes in some provinces will be treated differently than similar crimes in other provinces. Again, there is enough uncertainty in the system. Let us not introduce more uncertainty.
One glaring omission from this bill is that when a crime is committed and a firearm is used, a longer sentence should be automatically required. The Minister of Justice talked about this in relation to gun control. So have those who are lobbying for stronger restrictions on the use of firearms.
At this point, I want to refer to the recent report released August 25, 1994 by the Correctional Service of Canada. After it had completed its investigation report into the escapes from Ferndale Minimum Security, which happens to be in my riding, two prisoners, Timothy Denis Cronin and Michael Kelly Roberts, walked away from the institution May 3.
They were subsequently picked up in Salem, Oregon and charged with the murder of an American, all within the short time they had been free. Both men had been convicted of violent offences, each having used a firearm in criminal offences for which they were convicted. Why were these two inmates in a minimum security institution?
One of Robert's psychologists in 1979 stressed that Roberts should remain in a maximum security institution.
These are the findings of the investigation: "The board concluded that, notwithstanding the best judgments of staff and the advice of psychologists and psychiatrists in the cases of Roberts and Cronin, their placement in a minimum security institution was inappropriate and in one case was based partly on an assessment tool being incorrectly applied".
I am pleased that the error was admitted to and recommendations made to try to prevent such happenings in the future. I quote statement number eight of the report: "The Correctional Service of Canada should adopt an approach which incorporates both intensive supervision and clinical service for new arrivals and higher risk cases in minimum security".
This is the action plan: "No offender who is generally of high risk should be in minimum security". I wish it had ended there. It went on to say: "However, it must be recognized that some offenders who are suitable for minimum security require more attention than others".
I find problems with that. Upon reviewing the percentage of the types of crimes committed by the inmates of Ferndale I found that 43.8 per cent of the inmates in Ferndale institution are still there and they are violent offenders. I would presume as murder or violent death formed over 29 per cent of these offences that many of these crimes would involve a weapon, more than likely a gun.
Who will be the next high risk offender to walk away from Ferndale? When will we start to put the rights of law-abiding citizens ahead of the rights of criminals? Again I stress that if one more high risk inmate walks away from Ferndale minimum security prison in Mission, as they can easily do, and another death of an innocent victim is the result we are paying too high a price.
This bill would have been the ideal place to put in a provision which requires longer, harsher sentences for crimes committed with a firearm. This is perhaps the only restriction on the use of firearms which directly affects those who use firearms the most, criminals. It is high time we addressed this part of the gun control issue. I hope the government will make the bill stronger.
In closing I believe it is time that we had a comprehensive bill dealing with sentencing and, as I have said, this is a good start. In the months to come I look forward to receiving other initiatives from the Minister of Justice, perhaps in the areas of appointment of judges and proposals to reduce the tremendously high cost of our legal system. These will have to wait for another day.
