moved that Bill C-274, an act to amend the Criminal Code and the Corrections and Conditional Release Act (cumulative sentences), be read the second time and referred to a committee.
Mr. Speaker, volume discounts for rapists and murders is the law in Canada today. It is called concurrent sentencing. It means that serial predators can serve penalties for multiple crimes at the same time and be out on the streets in only a fraction of the total sentencing.
Concurrent sentencing cheapens life. The lives of individual victims are erased from the sentencing equation. The suffering, the pain and the death of the second, third or eleventh victim is of no consequence to the courts. The minimum penalty always applies for even the most prolific killers.
Canadians cannot forget the spectacle of Denis Lortie after he machine gunned three people to death in Quebec City. It would have been hard to imagine at the time that he could be back on the street today after serving only three and a half years for each person he killed. That is the bargain basement price of life in our courts and parole system.
Denis Lortie is an unusual case, not because he is a multiple murderer or because he was released after a wrist slap of a prison term. Denis Lortie's case is unusual because the public is aware of it.
The majority of murderers and serial sex offenders are returned to neighbourhoods without publicity or warning. Trials and convictions do attract publicity and attention and the public is always lulled by the hoax of a life sentence they read in the morning paper. But 10 years later they really hear the truth. The parole board has short changed justice, written off the victims as yesterday's news and freed up a bunk bed for the next killer.
But Canadians are gradually catching on to the deception of life imprisonment. Half of all those convicted of second degree murder and sentenced to life are released after less than 12 years. For first degree murder the median has historically been 14 years. Life only means life for the murder victim who is not there to protest his or her sentence and is never eligible for parole.
The predator has also dealt a life sentence to the victim's family. For them the comforting illusion of safety in our society has been shattered. They have to live with the stark truth that the only law that protects them is the law of averages, the chance that none of the predators roaming our communities will get around to you today.
Sharon Rosenfeldt had the courage to recall her personal tragedy in support of my bill. She writes:
Concurrent sentencing is appalling. My son was one of the eleven children murdered by serial child killer Clifford Olson. The fact that he is serving eleven concurrent life sentences is ludicrous. As the mother of one of Olson's victims, I have difficulty in dealing with the reality that he is serving the equivalent of one life sentence instead of the eleven life sentences he should be serving.
Why is it justice for Clifford Olson to serve no additional penalty for murdering 10 additional children? Why can the victim's families not have peace of mind and never have to hear from Clifford Olson again?
My bill would have spared them the revictimization of having even the slightest concern that Clifford Olson would be paroled as his combined parole ineligibility would have and should have been 275 years, not the 25-year bargain given by our current system. How can a civilized society be so tolerant and generous toward the savagery of a Clifford Olson and be so dismissive of the death sentences forever served by his victims.
The justice minister not long ago observed that victims have been the orphans of the justice system and how right he was. That is why so many victims groups exist. Among those who support my bill are Debbie Mahaffy's Taking Action for Victims, CAVEAT, Victims of Violence, Citizens United for Safety and Justice, the Canadian Resource Centre for Victims of Crime and the Canadian Police Association.
But our institutions are mostly responsive to lawyers, lobbyists, inmate advocates. Criminals can rely on the system that orphaned their victims. The murder victim has no representative, no lobbyist and no lawyer because the victim is dead. The only argument we will hear about the victim's lost rights will come from family and from people who recognize the injustice and obscenity of the current system.
Let us face it, the predator protection industry is part of our modern economy. Justice cannot compete with currency. But the victims of Canadian justice, though unpaid, refuse to be unheard.
Priscilla de Villiers writes:
It is an absolute insult to victims of violent crime that each murder, subsequent to the first murder of an offender is considered to be free.
Why is it that the second murder victim does not count? Very simply, Canadian justice offers a bulk rate to murderers and rapists. One 25 year so-called life sentence is the penalty for premeditated murder no matter how many victims, and a mere seven years in prison is the maximum parole ineligibility for a rapist, again no matter how many victims.
But columnists advocating inmates' rights will argue that nothing is served by revenge, that we should have to prove that each predator is a continuing risk to society and not waste the lives of reformed carnivores.
It has become groupthink these days that we should be generous to murderers who only killed an abusive husband or smothered an infant child in a domestic dispute. My bill is not focused on these much pitied murderers. It deals only with multiple killers and rapists, criminals like Clifford Olson, people who plan, stalk and destroy young lives.
There are no mitigating circumstances for a predator. There is no need to rehabilitate a predator. No predator is a safe addition to any neighbourhood no matter what his therapist might say.
One of my constituents is a teacher in Brampton. One day some years ago the rehabilitation poster boy, Joseph Fredericks, was invited to his school, a shining example of a reformed sex offender. This devastating product of rehabilitation went on to attack and kill Christopher Stephenson.
By being convicted, serial predators have identified themselves as threats to society. No term in prison, no therapy, no treatment can make a predator an acceptable risk. Yet parole boards will continue to gamble with the lives of children and others by letting predators loose on the buffet of victims in Canadian communities.
Why is it that parole boards can take such risks so liberally? There is no risk to the parole board. For every 100 sex offenders released, 30 women and children are victimized. That is not just a stat. It is a guarantee. Parole does save a few dollars admittedly, but it ruins many lives.
The Metro Toronto Zoo is currently suffering budgetary difficulties. One might ask why it does not save money by emptying its cages and letting its untamed animals loose on the streets of Toronto. Why not? They are not the parole board and they can be sued for recklessly endangering citizens.
Prisons represent less than 1 per cent of federal spending. Protecting the public from predators would hardly bankrupt the nation. We can afford a little more justice.
Collette writes in support my bill:
This issue is very dear to me and my family. In 1991, four members of our family, Maurice, Susan, Islay and Janello Mandin were murdered by young offender Gavin Mandin. He was tried in adult court, and received a sentence of life with parole eligibility at ten years. One sentence, one parole eligibility.
Four lives erased, 10 years in prison. Oh, but wait. The murderer can change in prison. He can become a better citizen, get an education and even start a family through the conjugal visits of the jailhouse Jenny program. As always, resources are showered on the criminal, now called a client, but precious little is done to support the victimized families.
As with all other victims, and victims groups who support my bill, Collette Mandin-Kossowan asked to know the result of my vote.
But Debbie Mahaffy, the mother of Leslie Mahaffy, who died at the hands of Paul Bernardo, was more cautious, having had more experience with how justice can be obstructed, how justice is too rarely a votable item. She is used to the lip service, the feigned support, the photo ops and then the secret opposition that thwarts it all. Mrs. Mahaffy writes:
I fear there will be too much opposition because consecutive sentencing is so sensible, so no-nonsense, so uncomplicated, it may be too simple for some to understand.
I owe the groups that have supported this bill a reason for why it was thwarted by the subcommittee on Private Members' Business. The committee does not give reasons. It operates in secret, each member swearing silence except to the press when convenient. The transcripts of my presentation to the committee should lend some insight.
The committee offered not a single question about Bill C-274. They rendered no opposing comments, no objections, no rationale for the bill not being votable. At the time, I recalled the words of the Minister of Justice who said in the House that "too often, through insensitivity the interests and personal stake of the victim are overlooked".
How each of the four members of this committee voted is not a closely guarded secret. Only the public and the victims groups are denied the truth. They are used to that. Victims groups once again have reason to conclude that Parliament is not a trustworthy ally in their pursuit of justice.
Consecutive sentencing is uncomplicated. It would restore a degree of truth in sentencing. It recognizes that each sentence applies to a specific crime, an individual victim, a personal horror. It insists that the price for rape and murder must not be marked down.
Under my bill, Denis Lortie would have had to serve 10 years for each life he took and Debbie Mahaffy would never have to plead with any parole board to keep Paul Bernardo in jail where he belongs.
As life sentences are a hoax, the only meaningful part of a sentence is the period of parole ineligibility, the period for which the murderer is guaranteed to be behind bars, the period before the victim's family must relive a nightmare. That is the only sentence that is remotely real, remotely believable.
For Paul Bernardo and Clifford Olson that is 15 years. The rest of their sentences are just an option, an option our system allows to revictimize the parents of the victims, potentially to force them to join countless other victims in having to dredge up some gruesome memories just to provide victim impact statements and petitions to keep a cage between the predator and the prey.
However, the quality of mercy is not strained. Parliament still has an opportunity to narrow the gap between the justice system and justice. Does any member here stand in support of volume discounts for serial rapists and murderers? I would like those who think a second murder victim does not count to stand up and be counted. I would like to restore Mrs. Mahaffy's faith in this institution by asking for unanimous consent in the House to make Bill C-274 a votable motion.
