John Cummins

[Fisheries, April 14th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, the March issue of Treaty News , a publication of the Federal Treaty Negotiation Office, tells us that treaty negotiators must come to terms with some basic questions about the B.C. fisheries resource, including the types of access First Nations should have to fish and in general how fish should be allocated.

These questions have been settled by the Supreme Court of Canada. The court has acknowledged an inherent right to fish for food and for ceremonial and religious purposes. It has denied an inherent right to a commercial fishery unless it can be proven that sales were an integral part of a band's culture prior to contact with Europeans, something neither group participating in the pilot salmon sales projects was able to establish.

The court has ruled that the right to sell does not exist in isolation. Others, non-aboriginals, also have rights.

Questions about the allocation of fish have already been answered by the courts. They should not be renegotiated behind closed doors by federal bureaucrats operating under a secret mandate which ignores the Supreme Court of Canada.

[Criminal Code, April 8th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, we are talking about Liberal inaction in justice matters and there is no promise of things improving in the near future. Victims know it and my colleagues know it. My colleagues from Fraser Valley West, Crowfoot and Wild Rose have been working on this issue for a long time and have made a real impact on our awareness of it not only in the House but from coast to coast.

Chuck Cadman's son was brutally killed recently just because someone did not like the hat he was wearing. HopefullyMr. Cadman will be elected to the House in the next election, letting people know what it is like from firsthand experience to be a victim of crime.

The fact is the debate this morning was not necessary. My colleagues proposed amendments in committee and if they had been accepted at that time by the Liberals there would have been no reason for this debate.

An amendment was proposed to limit the use of alternative measures for non-violent, non-serious offences. That amendment was defeated in committee by the Liberals. An amendment was proposed which would have allowed verbal impact statements. That amendment as well was defeated.

It is unfortunate when we are debating these kinds of issues that somehow we cannot rise above politics and really look at what it is we are addressing. It is the people we are serving whom we should be concerned about, not which party put forward an amendment.

I would like to tell the House about a few more things which we have proposed to try to make our streets safer.

We have been talking about bringing a balance to the justice system so that the rights of the criminal and the rights of victims and law-abiding citizens are brought back to a favourable balance. Victims of crime should be put first. We would provide people with legal rights within the justice system which would allow for that.

We believe there should be the right to be informed at every stage of the process, including being made aware of available victims services.

These things were proposed by my colleague from Fraser Valley West in his victims bill of rights. That piece of legislation, which passed second reading, is now languishing in committee because the Liberal government does not want to deal with the very positive proposals which he put forward.

The member for Fraser Valley West also suggested that there should be the right to be informed of the offender's status throughout the process, including but not restricted to plans to release the offender from custody.

This problem occurred in my constituency. A young man of 17 was killed by a hit and run driver. His parents had nothing but grief in trying to track the whole mess through the court system. In the end they were appalled at the light sentence which the victim received. Even though there was an indication that this gentleman had been drinking and driving, the issue was never resolved to their satisfaction. The written details of the whole process were kept from them.

We are proposing the right to choose between giving oral and/or written victim impact statements at parole hearings, before sen-

tencing and at judicial reviews. That is important. It is difficult for many people to write about their feelings. In some of these matters the most effective way to deal with them is to listen to what the people have to say to really have a sense of their despair and hurt. It only seems right that if the accused has their day in court that the victim also have their day in court so they can let the court decide an appropriate punishment based on their grief.

We suggest as well the right to know why charges are not laid, if that is the decision of the crown or police. Again it may seem a simple matter, but victims of crime should have the right to know why the crown decided, in its wisdom, not to proceed with charges. That is a right that should not only prevail for indictable offences but for any offence.

I can speak from experience as I have been ticketed by the fisheries department. Then the government refused to proceed with charges simply because it knew full well it would not be successful. That kind of behaviour brings the justice and legal system into disrepute when it cannot be honest and open and make us all aware of what just what the circumstances are and why they did not proceed with certain charges.

We all have a right to be protected from intimidation, harassment or interference. These kinds of things are obvious and yet again this government obviously does not place much stock in righting those wrongs because it has allowed this bill, put forward by the member for Fraser Valley West, to sit in committee, languish there and hurry through the process or at least acting on it in a reasonable manner to ensure it would provide the protection people need.

We should also talk about the right to be protected in situations of family violence. It seems a common sense hope that in situations where there is violence people would have some protection, that they would not have to put up with ongoing violence. Yet again, this is something the government cannot seem to get a grip on.

Another is the right to know if a person convicted of a sexual offence has a sexually transmittable disease. Why would we want to keep that kind of information secret? Why should someone have the right to keep that private if they have been bothering or if they have violently offended somebody else? It is beyond all reason to know that.

The right to be informed in a timely fashion of the details of the crown's intention to offer a plea bargain before it is presented to defence is an issue that comes forward many times in the court system, whether it is a drinking driver in a hit and run accident or whatever. The victims should have knowledge of the government's intentions if it is going to allow someone off the hook for a crime committed.

Perhaps the most disturbing notion before us when we talk about crime is the increase in violent crime by young offenders. It is something that is doubly disturbing because it means that we somehow as a society have failed, that somehow families have failed when our young people are moved to criminal acts. It is an issue that requires some action here and it is not just an action where we are looking at punishing those people, and certainly punishment is appropriate. If you are capable of a violent crime, you should obviously do the time for it.

What can we do to prevent these kinds of things from happening? That has to be a big concern and yet I have seen nothing, no action on this by this government at all.

[Criminal Code, April 8th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, the debate this morning is essentially about violent crime, rapes and sex crimes against children, and the government's inaction on these issues.

Our obligation is to put in place laws that protect society. Unfortunately the current justice minister is having difficulty doing it. The government has failed but now with an election in the air it is at least trying to right a couple of wrongs.

This morning the government proposed two amendments to Bill C-17. Essentially the amendments correct deficiencies in Bill C-41. The first amendment proposed concerns conditional sentencing. It cautions judges to use conditional sentences only if public safety is not threatened. As pointed out earlier it seems we are legislating common sense. It is remarkable that such a motion would be put forward yet that is the case.

The second amendment concerns the provision of automatic victim impact statements, something that was denied earlier by the government.

The difficulty is the justice system has been too lenient on people who perpetrate violent crimes. Bill C-41 sprang to life in September 1986. The courts were encouraged to be relatively lenient on first time offenders and to attempt to keep them out of jail. I find this particularly amusing and curious, given the pace with which the government has put people guilty of fisheries offences in jail. It has put farmers guilty of shipping some grain south of the border and attempting to fight for their rights in jail and has kept them there. The government has in place some legislation that is attempting to keep people out of jail because the facilities are too crowded.

Originality it was intended that an offence would carry a penalty of less than two years if the offender was not a danger to the community. We seem to have forgotten that in our sentencing policies the notion of a deterrence to repeat a crime or to commit crimes should be part of the notion of sentencing. In other words, we are not simply sentencing someone for the commission of the crime but what we are trying to do is deter others from engaging in these sorts of activities.

When Bill C-41 was brought before the House it introduced a scheme of alternate measures to deal with this issue. Some of the alternatives to incarceration which were put in place included such things as performing a number of hours of community service or even receiving counselling. Somehow that would be sufficient to encourage people not to commit the crime.

The issue which should be addressed this morning is where we ended up with Bill C-41. I would like to read into the record some instances in which Bill C-41 has been used to keep people out of jail.

The first instance I would like to refer to took place in British Columbia. My colleague from the Okanagan referred to it. In that instance a man was convicted for abducting and sodomizing a single mother. The judge, however, was impressed with the man's behaviour while on bail. He suggested that it was exemplary and that psychological assessments indicated that the man was unlikely to reoffend.

Psychological assessments are just that. The assessments are a good guess. The fact is that the crime was heinous and deserving of a prison term. With this sort of crime, consideration should not have been given to letting the man walk the streets freely without serving some time and receiving psychological training.

In another instance, two Ontario off-duty police officers were convicted of forcing their way into a woman's home, threatening her with death and robbing her of a small amount of cash. Why men convicted of a cruel and violent crime will never spend a day in jail is beyond me, but it is easy when the justice minister creates that possibility. These two supposed defenders of society walked away without spending a day in jail.

This instance was referred to earlier as well. A Gatineau man was recently convicted for repeatedly forcing his young step sons to perform sexual acts on their hypnotized mother. Along with that, this gentleman also forced the boys to masturbate one another while he watched, and to masturbate him and perform oral sex on him, and yet somehow the judge thought that the man should not spend any time in jail. One of the victim's, a step son, said this: "He just keeps on trucking. He walks away, goes home and enjoys Christmas. It is unreal. But that is the justice system. We have done a lot of crying, gone through a lot of agony, all for nothing". All for nothing because our justice minister saw fit to put the plight of the criminal ahead of the victims.

The justice minister was warned about this. The hon. member for Crowfoot warned the justice minister that violent criminals might avoid proper punishment if he proceeded with Bill C-41. He ignored my colleague.

Two members of the justice committee at that time also warned the justice minister that these sorts of things could happen, and yet again he ignored two members of his own party. In fact, one member was eventually shown the door for trying to hold the government accountable on another matter.

Justice requires that violent offenders be punished. It also demands that victims and their concerns be addressed. We are going through this business on section 745 of the Criminal Code where the beast of B.C., as Clifford Olson likes to call himself, is going to have his opportunity to grill the families of his victims again, 15 years after those crimes were committed.

It is time that we in this House and members opposite in particular and the justice minister take pains to recognize that some of these violent criminals will never be rehabilitated and that the best we can do is protect society from them. It has been proven time and time again that people who offend children cannot be rehabilitated. Yet we put these people into jail with short sentences. They come back out on probation and so on and reoffend.

Those people cannot be rehabilitated. Our duty is to ensure that society is protected and we should be taking immediate action to see that it happens.

[Petitions, March 21st, 1997]

In the last petition, Mr. Speaker, the petitioners draw to the attention of Parliament that38 per cent of the national highways system is substandard and they request that Parliament join with provincial governments to make the national highway system upgrading possible.

[Petitions, March 21st, 1997]

The next petition, Mr. Speaker, notes that the availability of reasonably priced energy helps Canadians offset the high cost of transportation in a geographically disperse country and that mobility is a basic right and economic necessity.

The petitioners respectfully request that Parliament not increase the federal excise tax on gasoline and strongly consider reallocating its current revenues to rehabilitate Canada's crumbling national highways.

[Petitions, March 21st, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, I have several petitions. In the first the undersigned citizens of Canada state that whereas incidents of serious personal injury, crimes and sexual offences involving children are becoming more and more frequent, the petitioners request that Parliament enact legislation to amend the Criminal Code to allow for the post-sentence supervision and/or detention of those who have been convicted of sex offences involving children or of serious personal offences.

They ask that we establish a procedure of public notification of such offenders being released, that we establish a central registry

including fingerprints of all convicted sex offenders, that we amend the Criminal Records Act to prohibit pardons for those convicted, and that the Criminal Code also be amended to prohibit for life all those convicted of sex offences against children from holding positions of trust and responsibility.

The second petition has to do with Canadian law not prohibiting convicted criminals from profiting financially from writing books, setting up 1-900 numbers and producing videos.

The petitioners request that Parliament enact Bill C-205, introduced by the hon. member for Scarborough West, at the earliest opportunity to provide in Canadian law that no criminal profits from committing a crime.

[Fisheries, March 21st, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, there is no unallocated herring in B.C.

After hearing petitions from all parties, the Supreme Court recommended a judicial process to establish the limits of the Heiltsuk right. Why has the minister sought to subvert the judicially established process to develop constitutional law on the issue of native fishing rights, given that the fishing industry has spent millions of dollars on litigation to defend their rights and to establish sound, legal principles on which to allocate the fisheries resource.

Why has the minister replaced the law book with the red book?

[Fisheries, March 21st, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, department of fisheries officials in Vancouver tell me that four additional herring roe-on-kelp licenses have been created for the Heiltsuk band as a result of the Supreme Court's decision in Gladstone.

Could the minister confirm that the court's decision in Gladstone led to the creation of these licences?

[The Budget, March 21st, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, no doubt the inequality promoted by the aboriginal fishing strategy has driven wedges between communities which have been able to get along for the last 100 years. There was harmony, people worked and played together and now wedges have been driven between these communities.

The industry has no faith in the department. In fact, it has been treated better by the courts than by DFO in the past. Many in the industry say it is preferable to litigate because the courts hear and take into account the arguments of non-aboriginals when dealing with the issue, something the department has refused to do.

[The Budget, March 21st, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend for the question. The cost to the Canadian taxpayer for these court cases has been absolutely remarkable. We know that just the operation of this fishery which is operating beyond the law with the consent of the minister has cost Canadian taxpayers well over $100 million in the last few years.

The actual legal costs to the government I cannot recall at the moment. I do know that industry has spent over $1 million of its own money representing itself in an intervener status in pursuing these cases through to the Supreme Court of Canada. That is a huge amount of money.

What is most serious about it is in focusing its energies on this issue, the department is not able to manage the resource for other fisheries. I have an example at hand here right now which we are currently petitioning the minister about. That has to do with the eulachon fishery in the Fraser River. It is a small fishery. There are probably only 25 to 35 participants in it in any one year. This year there were 20 tonnes allocated to that eulachon fishery on the Fraser River.

Because the department could not get a management plan in place to operate this fishery it shut it down this year. It shut it down in spite of the fact that the participants committed that they would pay for an observer to monitor the fishery so that it would not go over the total allowable catch and so that it would not cost the

department any money. Yet the department has refused. It has shut down that small fishery this year and said it cannot fish because the government cannot get a management plan in place.

How outrageous is that? It is like saying to a farmer "you cannot plant your crops because there may be a snowstorm in the Fraser Canyon that is going to prevent the trains from getting to the coast". It is absolutely outrageous. Yet this is the kind of thing that goes on in this department time after time. Time permitting, I could give the House example after example just as outrageous as this one.