Bernard St-Laurent

[Prisons And Reformatories Act, September 17th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, the purpose of this bill is to amend the Prisons and Reformatories Act.

First of all, you may recall that this bill evolved in connection with a task force formed in 1993. The bill is the result of recommendations made by a federal-provincial, and of course also territorial, task force appointed by Correctional Services to recommend amendments to the legislation regulating temporary absences for offenders in provincial or territorial custody.

Amendments were made by the ministers of Justice last May in 1996. These amendments were proposed in response to requests from the provinces and territories. Their purpose is to remedy deficiencies in the legislation and to give the provinces and territories increased flexibility in administering their temporary absence programs.

Provincial and territorial authorities had for some time expressed the need for updating the Prisons and Reformatories Act.

This bill was read the first time on June 18, 1996. Since then, the Bloc Quebecois has thoroughly examined all the ramifications of this bill. The Bloc will now propose improvements in committee, since we assume the bill will pass second reading as is more or less customary, because on the whole, the bill seems quite acceptable. However, the Bloc would have-in any case I will make that suggestion to the Bloc and of course we have talked about it a little-three points which I think should be given closer consider-

ation and perhaps amended if possible, but in any case considered more closely. There are some important elements that in my opinion were more or less overlooked.

The principle of protecting society, which predominates in the Federal Parole Act, is absent from the general principles of this bill. It is included as one element among many others in section 7.1 of the bill.

In my opinion, it is ethically incorrect to claim all of a sudden that protecting society has now become of secondary importance in the formal legislative process. I think we should ask ourselves what should come first, if not protecting society, in this kind of legislation.

Everything that we do here, all the legislation that we vote on, has as its purpose to improve the lot of society or to better protect it, which in the end comes down to improving the lot of society. When, as here, the term "protection of society" is relegated to a subclause in the bill, I think this is a bit dangerous.

As you know, all good pieces of writing are the product of thought, but when there is an error in thought, we must question the material it gives rise to. It therefore seems important at this time to be sure, when using the term "protection of society", to include it in the basic general principles of Bill C-53. This is something that, in my opinion, the proposers should not have much trouble approving.

I will now move on to a second aspect, which I will call Liberal subtlety. I would propose changing "lieutenant governor" to "lieutenant governor in council", and therefore more specifically the provincial cabinet. This choice of term represents the reality and leaves provincial governments with complete discretion in this area. The present wording of the bill is confusing.

Using the term lieutenant governor means that one person appointed by the Prime Minister of Canada, if memory serves, will be making the decision about, or at least will have a large say in, what happens to paroled inmates. At a time when there is talk of decentralization, when the Liberals are talking about decentralization, mark my words, the Bloc Quebecois will give the Liberals a golden opportunity to put their money where their mouth is and give the cabinet of each province, rather than the lieutenant governor as provided in the bill, the right to determine certain questions.

This is, therefore, an excellent opportunity to stop merely talking about delegation and redistribution to the provinces, and to actually do it, by just adding the words "in council" after "lieutenant governor". It ought not to be difficult, either. We in the Bloc Quebecois do not consider it a difficult thing to delegate to the provinces, naturally, but we shall see. Let us just let things take their course.

The third element is a little more complicated and takes a bit more explaining. In clause 7.4(1), the duration of a temporary absence is lengthened from 15 to 60 days. I must admit that I have a little trouble living with that, and the Bloc will have to work on this in order to propose proper modifications for, as it stands, with my own personal experience in this area, and judging from what my contacts have had to say, I can see that this does nothing to improve the quality-we are back to where we were just a while ago-of protection for society.

The principle is that an individual is given parole, and has to report every two weeks so things may be assured of working out properly and developments monitored. The individual must change, must learn to live in society as well.

So, a follow-up is done every two weeks; that is the case now. The new act calls for this to be done every 60 days, a period four times longer, when already the individual can get round things now. I will provide you with some interesting statistics. I have figures for a number of years, but I will limit myself to those for April 1, 1995 to March 31, 1996, because of the time.

It will be seen that 73 per cent of paroles are successful. In other words, 73 of every 100 people released are successful. That is all very nice, but what about the other 27 percent?

However, we must not forget that the remaining 27 per cent must be divided in two. There are people who breach parole for technical reasons. For instance, someone who was prohibited from being in a bar, in a drinking establishment, is seen there and returned to custody because he breached his parole. He did not commit a crime, let us be clear on that. It is not a crime to be in a drinking establishment although it may be prohibited as one of the terms of parole. It is merely a breach of parole, so it is a technical misdemeanour. There is no danger to society.

Seventeen per cent of offenders fail in this respect. We have the remaining 10 per cent whose parole was withdrawn because they had committed a crime. Imagine. This is where I make the connection between 15 and 60 days. These people were seen every 15 days, and the authorities were unable to find out when they were about to commit a crime. Ten per cent, and we are talking about 2,500 people, that is a lot.

So I do not think the results will be better if we take this fifteen-day period and multiply it by four. I find it very hard to believe that society will be better off, that the individual himself will be better off and that consequently, citizens will be better protected.

Unless we find a miracle solution, and a number of solutions have been tried within prison walls, I can guarantee you that, the problem will not be solved by leaving people who need supervision to their own devices. Of course they should not be oversupervised, since they need some time for themselves in order to become part

of society again, to become part of the normal processes in a society. But they must be supervised just the same.

At the present time, it is estimated that every two weeks requires a certain amount of staff, but there are results. Multiplying this period by four will only save on the number of people working for the solicitor general. There will be fewer parole officers to follow up each case. I feel the loser in this case is society. And also the individual who needs a leg up to get back into society and needs some supervision in the process. He is not being helped either. He is not being helped at all, but is being left even more to his own devices, and society as a whole is paying the price.

One favourable improvement is noted, however, a rather obvious one. I am referring to clause 7.6, which I will take the time to read, as it is very short:

7.6 (1) A designated authority who suspends, cancels or revokes a prisoner's temporary absence, or a person designated by that authority, may have a warrant or notice of suspension, cancellation or revocation issued for his or her apprehension and recommittal.

In order to review briefly what used to happen, let us take the case of an individual, one of whose conditions of parole was not to enter a drinking establishment but who was seen in such an establishment. When the individual reported to his officer, every 15 days, if he was assessed by the officer, he would have had to go before the parole board to determine whether or not he had breached the conditions of his parole; the group in question decided that there had, in fact, been a breach. At that time, if the individual was not present, for example, he was deemed to have been in breach, but all that came out of it was a document, a report from the board. This report stated that the individual in question was in breach, and was no longer eligible to be on parole, but he was no longer there.

They tried to give this to the police, who told them that it was just a report from the board and not a warrant, and that they could not execute it. It is worthless to law enforcement officers, it is of no use to them.

With this new change, the document from the board in question has the force of a warrant, the force of law. It can be given to a police authority and the officers will be able to move quickly to arrest the individual who has breached his conditions of parole.

Briefly, in my opinion and in the opinion of some members of the Bloc, this is the essential point. We have looked into this, and will have to do so again, in order to put the final touches on a presentation to the committee that will be looking at Bill C-53 in second reading. The Bloc will, as a minimum, be looking at the three elements I have just spoken to you about, in order to verify whether it would be possible to improve the bill a bit.

As you will have concluded, the Bloc Quebecois gives its support, in principle, to Bill C-53, but this does not mean we are dropping the three elements I have referred to, particularly the last, which strikes me as the place where it will get hung up, if anywhere. This is where the two parties may not see eye to eye, because the jump from 15 to 65 days is a bit too much.

As for the first element, all that is required is to insert the term "protection of society" in the general principles of the bill, instead of later on, where it gets lost in the shuffle. I imagine it ought to be rather easy for the proposers to support such a proposal. The other change is to add "in council" after "lieutenant governor", which would enable the provinces to decide fully, rather than the lieutenant governor.

These are the key points the Bloc considers to be real improvements to Bill C-53. If we are passing it, let us take advantage of the opportunity. The books are already open, so let us take advantage of the opportunity to add the right words in the right places. The Bloc supports Bill C-53 in second reading, and gives its agreement in principle.

[Public Service Staff Relations Act, June 18th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, Bill C-30's aim is essentially to overturn the Federal Court of Appeal's decision of March 10, 1994 in the Gingras case. You will recall that the appeal court had concluded, at the time, that RCMP members, most of them law enforcement officers, are members of the public service and must submit to the rules of Treasury Board. And also that RCMP members are entitled to the bilingual bonus of more or less $800 per year.

In May 1994, the government announced that it had no intention of appealing the Supreme Court of Canada's judgment and that consequently it would pay the bonus to RCMP members, including

for some of the years during which the government had illegally refused to pay that bonus. In total, retroactive payments amount to approximately $30 million.

It seems that RCMP management is disturbed by this Federal Court of Appeal's decision since it means, according to some people, that the other rules of Treasury Board would also apply to the RCMP and its law enforcement officers, namely those concerning pay equity, the enforcement of official languages laws and working conditions, except the right to form a union.

But before going further, it would be appropriate to determine the time context as well as the particular group concerned. What is the RCMP? Maybe we should start with this definition. There are 15,500 regular members and special constables, about 2,000 civilian members and also 3,400 public service employees.

The 15,500 regular members are in fact law enforcement officers, the policemen of the RCMP. They are not unionized. The 2,000 civilian members hold support positions such as laboratory technicians, general technicians, specialists in various fields, airplane pilots, and there are a indeterminate number of administrative support staff. The administrative support employees are not unionized either.

The 3,500 public servants are members of the administrative and support staff, such as clerks, secretaries, custodians, etc. They were all hired by the Public Service Commission or came from other departments.

What is worrisome about this bill is the roundabout way it is trying to achieve what is basically forbidden by the legislation. In the case of Bill C-30, the authorities are annoyed because, for a number of years now, there have been pushes inside the RCMP to unionize the agency.

However, three times already, these attempts have failed. Unionization in 1996 is not supposed to be a barbaric act that must be opposed. It is the free expression of a group's desire to protect itself and to present a united front to the employer.

Bill C-30 aims to overturn the Gingras decision of March 10, 1994. Through Bill C-30, members of the RCMP would be excluded from the public service and could not therefore unionize. However, they would be allowed the bilingual bonus, a more or less roundabount way to take into account the Gingras decision.

But what do members of the RCMP think of this bill? On June 14 I received a copy of the magazine Action published by the RCMP's staff members association in Quebec. It is probably the special spring edition. It refers to all kinds of documents. This special edition is mostly about Bill C-30. There is even a paragraph and a half where the editor gives his opinion on the bill, and I quote: ``By introducing Bill C-30, the government is trying to reintroduce Bill C-58, the very one which gave such grave concerns to the association and the public. In light of its background, one would have thought the government would have abandoned and pigeon-holed it. To our great surprise-I am still quoting the editor here-we learned that only a few days after meeting with you in Toronto the government was introducing Bill C-30 which contained the same provisions as its predecessor, Bill C-58, and announced that the bill was at the report stage. The adoption of Bill C-30 would represent a big setback in labour relations at the RCMP and it would seriously affect the rights of RCMP members''.

These last words concerning the very rights of RCMP members are rather interesting. RCMP members are asked, of course, to protect the rights of taxpayers but when their own rights are involved, they are litterally sent packing.

In Quebec, the provincial government has just put in place a very interesting program aimed at letting public servants who, in a show of economic and social maturity, deliberately decide to honestly and sincerely discuss what could seem a terrible waste of public monies, a misuse of public funds in order to cut down operational costs without affecting the quality of services provided. In today's discussion, that would be the quality of services provided by RCMP members to Canadian taxpayers.

Bill C-30 obviously snubs all efforts made by these people to expose in the most honest way the abuses committed inside their organization. Bill C-30 confirms that the government wants to turn them into little robots in the service of a small group of individuals whose only aim is to control situations and therefore influence events and the people responsible for fabricating these same events.

In Quebec, the provincial police force is unionized, as are the Montreal and Quebec City municipal forces and many others. The RCMP, however, is not interested, thank you.

According to rumours, the employees tried on three different occasions to unionize. They failed all three times.

This completely flied in the face of the charter of rights but, in Bill C-30, this devious strategy is so well disguised that an official complaint cannot even be made under the charter claiming that the federal government does not want, or is trying to prevent, the unionization of RCMP employees.

The parliamentary process is being used to take certain fundamental rights away from people. But strangely enough the people whose fundamental rights we are trying to take away are the very ones who are responsible for ensuring that the fundamental rights of all Canadian taxpayers are respected.

To recap, employees who are in a position to find out about abuses committed by certain people and various branches are considering forming a union, so a bill is tabled in order to isolate the only people who have access to documents that might be compromising.

I am sure that, by the end of this Parliament, the Liberal Party will have managed to push through this bill putting the RCMP under the same banner as CSIS-that is, with many millions of dollars to spend, but without taxpayers ever knowing how the money is being spent, and even less who is spending it, and on what.

I fully agree with the motion moved by the hon. member for Bellechasse, who wants to strike out certain provisions of Bill C-30.

[Tribute To Steeve Dignard, June 14th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, in 1980, a constituent of mine, Steeve Dignard, risked his life to save those of Claudette Bourque and Patrice Dignard, who were about to drown in the icy waters of Rivière-au-Tonnerre, in my riding.

On May 3, at 4 p.m., again at Rivière-au-Tonnerre, Diane Pagé-Touzel lost foot while working on a crab fishing boat moored at the dock. The icy waters, the eddies and the current were making any rescue attempt almost impossible. Showing once again tremendous courage, Steeve Dignard did not hesitate to risk his life to save that of Diane Pagé-Touzel. The exhausted rescuer and the woman were eventually helped to the shore.

I congratulate this man of exceptional courage, and I support his nomination for the Cross of Valour.

[Criminal Code, May 31st, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, in order to briefly discuss Bill C-224, presented by my colleague from Wild Rose, I propose a rather cursory, and somewhat simple, analysis. First, we shall analyze the difference between what should happen by the book and what happens in real life. Then, we shall attempt to address the problem in order to take some position on it, even though the bill is not votable at this time. There is, however, nothing to stop us from having an opinion.

First of all, the question of arrest without warrant. Although it is a rather cursory way of looking at a bill, that is more or less what it comes down to. This situation is of enormous concern to us.

Let us look at how things are done. A policeman arrives at the scene of the crime, and runs into an individual whom he suspects to be in breach of parole for instance. If there is some doubt in his mind, he can take the suspect to headquarters, question him and try to check out the situation.

If everything checks out OK, he releases him, but if something is wrong, he can charge him. However, real life seldom goes by the book. Let us imagine the most common and most critical situation, perhaps the one that led to this bill.

Same scenario. A police officer arrives on the scene of a crime, on a Friday night, and stops an individual. We know that parole officers who could inform the police work 9 to 5 weekdays and are off during the weekend. Very often, problems arise the night and police officers must wait till the next day. The thing is, on weekends, it means they must wait till Monday morning. The police officer stops an individual and, if he doubts his innocence, takes him to the police station.

Police officers already have the power to detain an individual for 24 hours without a warrant. They already can do that. Of course, if a crime-other than breaching the conditions of parole-is committed, the main crime takes precedence. A charge will be laid.

Let us imagine that the only crime is a breach of the conditions of parole, as is often the case. I know because I worked for some time in this field. Let us say that this individual is forbidden to be in such and such a place and is seen there by the police. This is the main issue. The only crime committed by this individual is to be in this place.

Since it is Friday or Saturday night, the probation officer cannot be reached. Even with the current 24-hour period, the police must release the individual since it is still not enough time to reach the probation officer who only returns to his office on Monday morning.

I understand that, in order to solve that problem, correctional services have developed an emergency response system allowing a police officer to get a probation officer to fax him warrant in short order, thus enabling him to arrest a parolee who has violated a probation order or a condition of parole.

A very specific and touchy situation was described. We realize that the issue has been somewhat simplified as regards what could go wrong. The computer-since everything is done by computer, fortunately-could break down, the communication system allowing us to check whether the individual is committing an offence could break down. In that case, the police officer would need a bill like this one. We agree on that point.

Let us say there is a vote and the bill is passed, then arrests without warrant will be allowed. The Bloc Quebecois does not agree with arrests without warrant for very obvious reasons; tomorrow we might ask for searches without warrant. I think that people who must enforce the law want to protect the public and ensure its security. I think they have enough tools right now not to need this one.

In my opinion, such a measure would open wide the door to taking certain liberties and maybe even lead to abuses much worse than those which might occur because this small detail is missing.

The House will recall the famous firearms bill that was introduced. I do not remember the specific clause, but the initial bill specified, in terms that were almost clear, that police officers could, if they thought there were firearms in someone's home, seize them without a warrant. In the end, even the minister and therefore the government amended this provision because they felt it went too far. It went too far because quality of life is included in individual rights. There are ways to do things and, for a start, police officers must learn to do them right, with the tools they are given, of course.

In my opinion, it is when these things happen on a weekend, returning to the example I gave at the start, that there is likely to be a major problem. Then it becomes a conflict between the parole officers' collective agreements and the government. Here, instead of creating legislation to deal with this problem, they are putting the cart before the horse, or however you might like to put it. Legislation ought not to be altered to compensate for shortcomings in collective agreements. Instead, the government should say: "One parole officer will be on weekend duty in such and such a region, because it has a higher incidence of weekend incidents". I have no problem with its passing legislation to that effect, but legislation ought not to be altered because of flawed collective agreements. Instead, the collective agreements must be brought in line with the legislation. That is more or less the logic of this.

Someone also mentioned overpopulation. As you are indicating that I have two minutes left, Mr. Speaker, I will not move on to the next topic, although I would dearly have loved to.

I will conclude simply on this point by repeating that we could not have given our approval, even if this bill had been voted on, because it would permit arrest without warrant thereby opening the door to searches without warrant, which would be totally unacceptable.

Finally, in our opinion, it is much more a problem of lack of availability of parole officers, and therefore a collective agreement problem, and a law does not adapt to a collective agreement, but rather the reverse.

[Québec-Téléphone, April 22nd, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to make a few brief remarks to give the House an idea of what is going on in the regions with regard to important issues such as the one raised by my colleague from Rimouski-Témiscouata, namely the granting of a broadcasting licence to Québec-Téléphone.

Such a licence would put regions such as the North Shore more or less on an equal footing with the large cities as far as communications are concerned. I will start by giving a quick overview since my colleague covered the subject in more detail.

Québec-Téléphone was founded in 1927 by Jules A. Brillant. It is important to note that in 1966, in order to have access to the capital he needed to modernize and develop his network, Mr. Brillant gave up his interest in the company. GTE Corporation became majority shareholder, which allowed to keep the head office in Rimouski. That was done to protect the regional character of the company.

To better understand the difficulties Québec-Téléphone faces, it is important to know the context in which it operates. The territory it serves extends over 72,000 square kilometres, which is 40 per cent of Quebec's total area. Québec-Téléphone is independent in its decision-making and in the choice of its suppliers. One important detail I want to mention is that French is the company's only working language.

During my speech, I will talk a lot about the regions because Québec-Téléphone is essentially an image of the regions and of the kind of service that can be offered and obtained in the regions. It must be noted also that the company is technologically advanced, offering affordable digital service to all its clients in the regions.

Of course, the company is proud of offering equal access to advanced services such as teleforum, videoforum, cellular telephony, 911, Internet, which is very popular right now, and I would add that the information highway is the key to the future.

I was just reading a document describing the information highway as a way of putting all regions at the heart of economic activity. It said it gave access to "cybervillages", a typical term in this field.

What is Québec-Téléphone's contribution from the economic point of view? There is mention of close to $75 million in salaries in 1995, paid to nearly 1,700 employees spread out more or less

across the area. Despite difficulties in covering the territory, there are 1,700 workers, 600 of which are also share-holders. This is a figure worth noting.

There is also more than $800 million worth of property throughout the area, as well as modern tools for communicating with customers.

Québec-Téléphone contributes to social and cultural development through such means as promoting culture, particularly via its directory, which always features the work of local artists.

Financial support to the arts is a very important aspect, and one not shared by other regional businesses: close to $100,000 in funding to museums, theatre and music in 1995, for example.

One of the key problems encountered, and one for which no one can be blamed, it is just a regional reality: some, if not most, of regional businesses merely siphon off local funds, perhaps even taking away raw materials. Not all of them do so, and not all of them do so to an indecent extent but, if we look at businesses in the regions and compare the value of what is taken out of the region with the sums ploughed back into the region, investment in culture and young business entrepreneurs, for example, true implication is a fair exchange. Québec-Téléphone has earned good marks in this regard, for it has no other investments to protect and to build up elsewhere. Think Québec-Téléphone and you think North Shore, the Gaspé, all those areas my colleague for Rimouski-Témiscouata has just mentioned.

Québec-Téléphone is therefore in the vanguard as far as efforts invested in cultural and social development are concerned.

There is also mention of a $350 000 donation in 1995 to the east Quebec cancer society, over 7 years.

Furthermore, its employees are involved in education, health care, culture, socio-community activities, sports, economics and politics, areas in which they put some 26,000 hours back into the region in 1995. This is a huge amount of time. I know from experience that the corporation vigorously encourages its employees to get involved in the arts. I know that many are involved, not only politically but socially and in the community, pretty much everywhere. The company often provides flexibility in terms of working hours in order to offer organizations in these areas some help.

Québec-Téléphone contributes more than $1 million a year to research and development. It has an endowed chair in optical telecommunications at Laval University, a French language research centre on organization automation, and so on.

As time is moving along, I will shorten my next point, which concerns the high rate of unemployment and the exodus of young people in fringe areas. Therefore it has to be shown that the company wants to continue to increase regional development.

With the famous information highway connecting our regions, it helps outlying regions like eastern Quebec, which encompasses a considerable area. Things are made so much easier that, through these technologies, progress is being made at essentially the same rate. Regions are not necessarily at an advantage, because that would mean they have more, but they are more or less on the same footing.

The problem for everyone in the regions is the transmission of information, getting up to date more quickly. With the new capabilities Québec-Téléphone is asking for, this problem would be resolved with a totally regional flavour, something that would not be guaranteed with outside firms. Québec-Téléphone has proven itself in this area and, I am sure, will continue to do so.

I will conclude by saying that the firm has demonstrated its ability in this regard. I think all Bloc members would endorse what would be, in my view, a justified swing of the pendulum in its favour while ensuring the region served by the company is well represented in its future development.

[Witness Protection Program Act, March 28th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise in the House today to speak to Bill C-13, concerning the protection of witnesses. This is a topic of some interest to the police, naturally, and it is also an important factor in helping the judicial system not just to track down criminals, but also to pursue individuals involved in organized crime. It is also a very sensitive topic, open to controversy. By its definition, organized crime involves a number of people, a very close-knit group that it is extremely difficult for RCMP or CSIS agents or anyone else to penetrate.

One of our duties is to assist the judicial process, to facilitate legislation and the application of legislation for those who must apply it on the front line, in most cases, police officers, of course.

It is important in 1996 that Canada have such a law. It has been needed for a long time, but whatever the reasons for the delay, we are finally debating it today.

The objective, let it be remembered, is to improve the quality of life. You do not pass a law for the sheer pleasure of it, you pass a law to facilitate the process, and Bill C-13 is ultimately about

improving the quality of life and improving respect for the law, which becomes more effective as a result. It is simply a work tool, not a revolution in itself, as we have seen elsewhere.

Experience has shown that turning to witnesses to provide elements of proof or help with police investigations at the risk of endangering themselves or their families, is often one of the most effective means available to our justice system in the fight against crime, particularly organized crime. The objective of the witness protection program act is to ensure that our federal witness protection program continues to offer the best protection possible to sources and potential witnesses.

It is hardly surprising that Bill C-13, which itself flows from Bill C-78 tabled by the Solicitor General, is to all intents and purposes the same as a bill already passed by this House on September 26, Bill C-206, tabled by the hon. member for Scarborough West, and passed at first reading on February 1, 1995.

In fact, the only noticeable changes are that witnesses can be better compensated under a bill as introduced. Also, under Bill C-13, the commissioner of the RCMP will now have to make the necessary arrangements with witnesses, or their solicitor, to ensure their protection.

As I was saying earlier, under Bill C-206, as passed on December 26, the solicitor general had the authority to reach agreements with witnesses. That, of course, made it easier, under our parliamentary system, to ensure control of government activities through ministerial accountability.

We lagged considerably behind others, in particular our American neighbours, who have had witness protection legislation applying to all 50 states of the union for 25 years now. That legislation is well known by the general public, which is thus aware of its rights.

The system was made necessary because what is happening today is that police authorities are using a piecemeal approach, dealing separately with each informant they want to see testify in court.

This makes things somewhat ambiguous for these people, who have a law to enforce, for a variety of reasons, including the media aspect. But on what basis are they going to negotiate these piecemeal agreements?

I do not believe we can settle for a piecemeal approach, with decisions depending on the whims of whoever is responsible for policing at a specific time. I feel that instead we need to have legislation that will apply all across Canada as this will improve the situation of witnesses, particularly in criminal cases, and more particularly in cases involving serious crimes.

The process, as it is currently applied, does have a few flaws. These events are always surrounded by publicity, which taints the true purpose of the mandate outlined in Bill C-13.

Law enforcement officers bargain with criminals, often for money, but also for reduced sentences. On the subject of reduced sentences, there was a case recently in Ontario, in Toronto to be more precise, that draw a great deal of media attention for all kinds of reasons. Naturally, in this matter-this is as good an example as any, since it is often how it works-it is quite clear that, without the help of the informer witness-in this case, a woman-it would have been almost impossible for the judicial system to get a conviction for extremely serious crimes.

Witness protection is not afforded indiscriminately either. It has been used in many instances. I think that every member of this House has learned about such cases through the media or through personal experience. The problem is it could be subject to interpretation. Will giving informer witnesses money or reduced sentences have the effect of encouraging crime? That is one way of looking at it, but we must look a little further than that, we must take a slightly more serious attitude and admit that, ultimately, it has the effect of encouraging informers to come forward, which, in turn, leads to the arrest and conviction of individuals and often groups of individuals.

Some would say this is rooting out individuals whose sole reason for belonging to our society is to abuse the system, certain advantages or the kindness of some organizations, but that is part of a bigger picture. Let us not kid ourselves here. Without the protection afforded by the law, informers would just not come forward.

Big time criminals never operate alone, or only very exceptionally. As for those who operate alone and are still out there, have not been caught yet, we do not hear much about them either. They are therefore of no great concern to us. But those who operate in gangs, the big time criminals involved in drug trafficking or money laundering, to name but a few of their activities, they are the ones that worry us. This is the kind of cases that are reported on almost every week on television.

And every week, there is all this information on all sorts of crimes: currency counterfeiting, card counterfeiting, large scale credit card theft. Land is bought in foreign countries with money to be laundered and then resold. The list goes on and on.

We are talking about organizations. These activities cannot be conducted by a single individual. A person alone cannot go out and buy equipment with clean money while carrying dirty money obtained from a drug deal. This is simply not possible. There are steps to follow. There are a number of people involved and, among

these, we sometimes find informers, who deserve to be protected when they testify.

Let me tell you about a case on the North Shore, in my riding, more specifically in Sept-îles. Several tonnes of hashish were seized. At the time, a big wig was arrested, namely Vito Rizutto, the mafia boss. An informer was involved. As I recall, 18 people, from sailors on the ship to the big boss himself were in that small jail, in Sept-îles, which has room for 23 people in total. Needless to say that this group of 18 pretty well filled up the place.

There was also an informer inside, a ship captain. I remember him very well. Since then, he has been keeping a very low profile, particularly in view of the fact that the investigation fizzled out for all sorts of reasons that would be too long to explain.

I remember that, at the time, the informer was offered police protection, including a new identity and possibly some money. Because of this arrangement, he was prepared to testify. He confessed. At the time, I was a correctional services officer and had the opportunity to speak with him, with all of them, but I asked him the following question: Would you give yourself up if you did not have this system?

Naturally, they offered to protect his family, him as well, give him a new identity and so on. He was adamant, it was out of the question. He would say nothing at all, if nothing else was offered, if this protection system was not offered, which is not surprising in the times we live in, if we want to catch the big criminals.

All the more so as we are not looking at 100,000 people wanting money to talk, 100,000 people to protect, who need new identities. I listened to the remarks of my colleague across the way earlier, and he said, if my memory is correct, that the average was $30,000 per person, and often $20,000. It is very unusual. I once saw approximately $100,000 in British Columbia a few years back. I think that this idea dies hard.

The deputy across the way was right to point out that the majority averaged $30,000. Do we say this is good, or not? This is, after all, being given to someone who has committed a crime, let us not forget that. Nor should we stick our heads in the sand. I say it is a compromise we have to make if we want to improve the legal system as it now stands, and particularly its application.

Improving the legal system, legislating for the fun of it, these are things anyone can do. In order to get elected, we create laws, but these laws must be easy to apply for those on the front line, the police officers who make arrests and conduct investigations. They must be given the legislative means authorizing them to do so, so that they will no longer find themselves stuck in situations as they are today, where there is a considerable risk of finding their pictures on the front page of some tabloid, with the claim that they offered some criminal this, that or the other.

There must be better protection than there is at present. I feel that C-13 goes a long way toward providing that protection.

When we speak of witness protection, it has been pointed out, and I repeat, that this involves some 80 to 100 individuals, a figure which includes family members.

It must be kept in mind that, like the rest of us, these people have families. If we commit some act, we do not want our families to pay for it. Of course, we need to have a sense of responsibility, but nobody is perfect. We must face up to our responsibilities.

A criminal who has been informed on will automatically get at the informant where he or she is vulnerable, if at all possible, so if only the individual is protected and not the family, the whole protection process is useless. At this time, among of the 80 to 100 individuals protected, and justifiably so, by the criminal justice system in this way , there are family members, children, wives and husbands.

The system is not perfect, I will admit, but it is a pretty good one. It is not perfect because it was created by people, and none of us is perfect, no matter who we are. But our lack of perfection is compensated for considerably by our efforts to improve.

Problems often arise in the period immediately following the commission of the crime. When someone is arrested, a lot of things go on in his or her head. This is logical and normal considering what is going on. The person is questioned by the police, offers information, a million questions are asked. It is not hard to imagine the panic such people can be in. It is absolutely incredible.

But, careful, time is a factor. If individuals were not given protection, the criminal world would eventually get to them, directly or indirectly, and they could be asked perhaps to simply forget certain facts when it came time to testify in court.

Let us say that Bill C-13 is a memory booster. It is a bit odd to put it that way, but if the witness protection system were dropped, I am sure people would forget a lot. However, when they are protected, they forget less quickly and co-operate more, and the legal system is better protected.

It is also important to realize that this society has to be protected by the laws we make, and there is nothing wrong with using the same methods as the criminal world, which works on weaknesses in finding these people and stops at nothing to achieve its ends.

Therefore, and I will conclude on this point, we support Bill C-13. It is not perfect, of course, but it is a significant step forward, which helps us catch up with other countries that have already incorporated this sort of measure in their legislation.

[Correctional Services, March 22nd, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, according to Statistics Canada, there were 14,016 adults in federal penitentiaries as of March 5, 1996. There is a prison overpopulation of 1,553 inmates in Canada.

The number of prisoners increases annually by 6 per cent. Before long, the Solicitor General will have no choice but to build new prisons or renovate existing ones in order to absorb this population increase.

Overpopulation in prisons threatens the lives of correctional officers and leads to conflicts between inmates. I call on the minister to put his intention to work with the provinces into effect to reduce the costs of inmate imprisonment and of prison overpopulation by signing an agreement with the Government of Quebec to use the facilities offered by the new provincial prison in Rivière-du-Loup.

[Correctional Services, March 8th, 1996]

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

In her study on the Correctional Service of Canada, Janet Laishes indicates that almost half of the suicides committed by inmates in federal penitentiaries in the last four years occurred in the province of Quebec.

Would the minister therefore acknowledge that the shortage of correctional officers to supervise inmates is one of the main causes of this problem?

[Petitions, March 6th, 1996]

Madam Speaker, 1,828 people have put their names on the 250 sheets that I table today. These people argue that the grandfathering granted Québec Téléphone under the Telecommunications Act be extended to the Broadcasting Act.

[Speech From The Throne, March 1st, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, on the same issue falling under the minister's responsibility, what possible courses of action is the minister contemplating to resolve the problem of prison overcrowding without jeopardizing at the same time the safety of the public?