Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure for me to speak on Bill C-41. I am very pleased we are now dealing with the subject of amendments to sentencing and other aspects dealing with crime.
It is surprising when we look at the economic difficulties this country has that the public's concern on economic issues is pretty well at the same level as its concern on crime and public safety. We have to ask ourselves why that is happening and what the reason is for this concern.
First we have to say that on reflection our criminal justice system is working quite well. A lot of things need to be changed and that is what the Minister of Justice and this government hope to achieve in this Parliament. Then we will be able to say to the people in the next federal election that we have done a great deal to add to public safety.
Before starting down that road however, we have to say that our system operates quite well. We could bring forward statistics which say that crime is not increasing to the level some people would have us believe but frankly, when it comes right down to it statistics are of limited value.
What we have to face is the public perception of what people feel is their relative level of safety. That is what we have to deal with. Canadians must tell us what their concerns are and we have to listen. In that respect we have to dialogue with Canadians. We also have to bring forward laws that are going to work for Canadians, that are meaningful and are going to have an effect. This bill is very standard in that regard. The people of Canada have expressed concerns. This piece of legislation goes a long way in addressing those concerns.
I want to mention some of these concerns and how this legislation has addressed them. First, the very question of balance is paramount. We have to balance the needs of Canadians with good judicial legislation. I think we have done that here.
Bill C-41 addresses directly the purpose and principles of criminal sentencing. No such statement currently exists in the Criminal Code. There is no statement in the Criminal Code which deals directly with the purpose and principles of criminal sentencing.
We compare that with other areas of activity in this country. For instance we compare it with taxation, international trade, or unemployment insurance. All of these areas deal with very important subjects. In one way or another all of them have purposes and principles set down as to what has to be achieved and how the desired effect is going to be achieved.
That is as it should be. Bringing into this bill and bringing into the criminal justice system the purposes and principles in sentencing is paramount. In sentencing we are dealing with the very question of incarceration. There can be no greater infringement on the lives of individuals frankly, than to incarcerate them. So the very least we can do is to have purposes and
principles of criminal sentencing in the bill that deals with that very important subject.
Sentencing is an area around which the whole court system revolves. When someone is charged and brought before the courts, the whole exercise revolves around the sentence this person is given. We have listened to the counsel on both sides, the prosecutor and the defence counsel; we have read the laws and the briefs they presented. We have tried to understand the societal implications. We are familiar with incarceration and the other penalties. With all of this knowledge, background and experience in our criminal justice system, we then bring forward a sentence. That sentence is vital. That sentence is tremendously important in the future of our community safety. If we do not sentence properly, we are not only abusing the system but we are not doing society a favour.
If we incarcerate someone who perhaps could be rehabilitated, a young person who has not committed a violent crime, we are not really doing that young person justice nor are we doing society justice. Incarceration might make that young person bitter. Perhaps by putting that young person to work in a community program he or she could achieve a better understanding of his or her place in society. That is very important.
This bill does another important thing. It sets out a number of objectives for the sentencing process. For instance, in this bill one of the objectives is that we denounce unlawful conduct. We also speak of separating the offender from society where necessary. I say where necessary because it may not be necessary or even preferable in certain circumstances.
We also talk about rehabilitation of the offender. Regardless of how people feel the offender should be punished, in most cases that offender is going to leave incarceration and will be back in society. Part of our system has to cast an eye to that time when that offender is back on our city streets. We have to try to anticipate what kind of a person will be released back onto the streets. If we can make that person someone who is less likely to offend then that is also something we should consider.
Another objective in this bill is reparations. This bill says that it is important to fine somebody, but it is also important to give that person an appreciation that while they cannot get away with the crime, that going to jail may not be the greatest punishment for them.
Maybe it is where they can do it that they should be made to pay back a certain portion of what was stolen or damaged that will give this person a true appreciation of exactly what the victim has lost. That may seem rather simplistic and silly but sometimes when people commit crime they do not put themselves in the place of the victim.
They are only doing what they think they want and what they want to achieve. They do not in the heated moment when the crime is committed think of the victim and the ramifications for the victim. In that regard it is important that any person where possible who is going to be punished be made to think of what the victim has suffered and as distinctly and as carefully as possible that offender should be put in the place of the victim.
Reparations would do that by having to pay back. It should not be necessary that the victim have to apply to a court that these reparations be made. The court should consider it and we are saying that these reparations should be a consideration as an objective of sentencing. The victim should not have to apply.
We also in that same vein are trying to promote responsibility in the offender. We are trying to make the offender more responsible from that point forward. We are also saying that an objective is that the penalty should be proportionate to the seriousness of the crime and the degree of responsibility of the offender.
These objectives are very important. It is a checklist for judges and those involved in the criminal justice system. We should be looking for and achieving this. As I said initially we should be looking for this balance in our criminal justice system so that there is repudiation and punishment but there should also be a benefit to society in reparations, fines and in the fact that when that person goes back to society we have looked to that day and tried to do everything we possibly could to make that person more acceptable and more responsible in society.
No one would deny that punitive acts should be deterred by incarceration and that incarceration in most cases is a deterrent. There is no easy cause and effect relationship between the crime and the deterrent as to the value that is going to have. There is no magical formula which says that certain punishment is going to be the best way to deal with certain crimes.
There are these intangible factors in dealing with human beings in our criminal justice system that do not allow anyone to make a hard and fast rule. This is the reason we have to allow the flexibility in the courts. This is why we need the best minds possible on our benches in Canada.
We need the best judges we can possibly have and we need the best support system for these judges. We also feel, as I mentioned, that restitution be given priority in the courts. We think this is something that has to be considered.
We have also looked in this bill at section 745 of the Criminal Code which allows for a review of life sentences and allows the person serving a life sentence to apply for parole after 15 years.
We have not said that we are going to do away with that provision. We have said, however, that we want to include in that review victims' impact statements. Those impact statements
have not been a part of the review before now and the Minister of Justice certainly feels very strongly that they should be.
I and the minister think that this is going to have a tremendous impact on the hearings and on final decisions on these section 745 reviews.
We also state in this bill that where a victim impact statement is provided to a court the court shall consider the statement. That is not something that is just shoved in with exhibits and literature in a court hearing. The actual victim impact statement has to be taken into consideration.
This is important because most people in the House have been conscious of the fact that victims certainly have not received the attention they should. Certainly victims have brought forward that message loud and clear. We have to in our legislation look more to the victims and what they are suffering, the loss that they have endured and how we can possibly make their point of view known at the time of the hearing and have the impact of what they have gone through and what they have lost impressed upon the mind of the judge and all of the pertinent officials.
We also, where possible, need alternatives to incarceration. We can look at that from various points of view. The first thing is that one-third of all the people incarcerated in this country are incarcerated because they have not paid a fine or some other sum of money that they have been required to pay. In a lot of cases the people do not have the money to pay the fine or the required sum of money. We are putting these people in jail.
We are also saying that people who commit sexual assaults or violent crimes need to be punished for longer periods of time. If we are saying that we want to keep some of these people who have committed violent crimes in our penitentiary system for longer periods, we have to look to our correction system. To put people in a penitentiary because they have not paid fines in this day and age really has to make us wonder, particularly if they cannot afford to pay.
There has to be a better way of doing it. One of the ways would be public service. If they cannot pay the fine then why can they not be allowed or forced to provide some kind of public service?
A second area that we are recommending is the curtailment of provincial services. If a person has not paid his or her fine then perhaps they should not be issued a hunting licence or a driving licence until that fine is paid. These are things that we with the provinces should look at to perhaps get away from incarceration for non-payment of fines. This would go a long way not only as far as having a better result, but it would give more respect to our criminal justice system.
Another thing that we want to try as a result of Bill C-41 are conditional sentences. At the present time we have the process where a person is put on probation. If they reoffend they are brought back and charged, they go through the court process again and they are once again sentenced. Here we are saying that through conditional sentences a sentence will be levied on the person. The person then will be granted freedom to act in a diversion program in their community or an alternative to incarceration but the sentence has been imposed.
If the person violates the terms of his or her sentence while they are in one of the alternate processes they are then brought back to court and it is determined if in fact they have broken their conditions. If it is determined by the courts that they did then what they must do is finish the unfinished portion of their sentence that was imposed on them initially. You do not go through the whole trial re-evaluating or reappraising their past history. The sentence is there. If it is proven that they have violated the conditions of that conditional sentence then the unfinished portion of their sentence has to be served. I think that will do a lot to ease the burden of our court system and once again be more meaningful to those involved.
We are also saying to those who are on probation that if they break probation they break the trust of society. They are not only breaking the trust of the criminal justice system. They are breaking the trust of society that wants to give them a chance. We do not want to impose incarceration. We want to give them the benefit of the doubt as much as possible because we think they are worth it. Now if a person violates probation then he or she is breaching that trust.
We are saying in Bill C-41 that there should be harsher penalties for those who breach their probation. We are also saying, as was brought up earlier, that if there is a hate factor in the committing of a crime then this is an additional motivating factor and should result in a harsher penalty. We are saying this unequivocally. We are saying this as a result of a good deal of dialogue and consultation we have had with minority groups and different religious groups all across the country. This is something they want very badly and which they feel is needed and it is something to which the Minister of Justice agrees.
I think this bill is going to go a long way to help us fight crime in Canada and get back a lot of the respect for our criminal justice system that we have lost and will give the people of Canada more confidence that the government has control of the fight against crime and the restoration of safe streets in this country.
