Keith Martin

[Corrections And Conditional Release Act, September 28th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, these individuals should not be in jail. The people who should be incarcerated are those who have proven to be a threat to society, who have victimized innocent civilians, usually in a violent fashion.

There is a trade-off here. Should we save money by discharging people into the community who would pose a threat to society, or should we tell the Canadian public that its rights and safety are the most important things? I believe everyone in the House would think the latter. The member's point with respect to saving money is perfectly valid and I have given him a very concrete reason for doing this.

He mentioned that I did not know anything about the costs. It is $60,000 a year for an inmate in a federal penitentiary and $90,000 for a youth in a young offender institution. That is too much money.

We have been presenting solutions on how to get inmates to work for their keep which in turn would cut costs. Again we must get those individuals who are violent offenders and who might be a threat to society and those who are incarcerated for non-payment of fines to work for their keep.

Another thing the hon. member mentioned was recidivism rates. The recidivism rate is 33 per cent for adults on parole. What is the recidivism rate for adults once they are off parole? No one can give me those figures. One thing is for sure, it has to be higher than 33 per cent.

With regard to young offenders, the recidivism rate is 40 per cent to 50 per cent. Those are the facts. That number is far too great. Obviously a 40 per cent or 50 per cent recidivism rate does not serve society and it certainly does not serve the kids who are young offenders very well.

We have to find a better way. I hope the hon. member will look at some of the concrete suggestions I have made which do not necessarily need to cost more if they are organized properly. I know members in this party would be happy to help anyone on the other side to make our justice system better for all Canadians.

[Corrections And Conditional Release Act, September 28th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to bring the hon. member back for a reality check.

I used to be a correctional officer and I also worked for seven years in both adult and young offender jails. I have a little experience on these issues.

If the hon. member wants to cut costs, I will give him a concrete way to cut hundreds of millions of dollars from the budget every year. One-third of all individuals incarcerated today are there for non-payment of fines. Those are the facts.

[Corrections And Conditional Release Act, September 28th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate that.

As I said before, we simply cannot deal with young offenders and make sure they do not reoffend if they go back to the

environment they were in before, regardless of how much money is poured into counselling and counselling services.

A better idea is to incarcerate them for a longer time in an area away from their former environment where they can focus on work and education in a disciplined environment. It is essential to remove them from their former environment if we are to ensure these kids do not become adult offenders in the future. A ounce of prevention is a pound of cure. It is a worthwhile investment in our time. It need not cost us more money but it is something we desperately need to look at now.

We have to look at a new approach for dealing with crime and punishment. Oftentimes we see the precursors to criminal behaviour very early on. They are often rooted in cases in which there is a terrible environment of violent sexual abuse and neglect. These children need to be identified and picked up very early on.

Furthermore, it would serve many departments well if they were to work in collaboration with the educational department, particularly grade school, in trying to identify families at risk, by bringing the parents into the educational system so that they can also learn the fundamental aspects of being a good parent and what is considered to be reasonable behaviour. They in turn can help when the kids go home and the children will have an environment that will be conducive to building the pillars of a normal psyche.

There has been some interesting work done on this in a number of areas. The early data show that this is a very worthwhile investment of our time. If we can focus more on children when they are three, four and five and early on to identify families that are in crisis when a lady is pregnant, if we can have early intervention into these areas it will pay off in spades later on.

Therefore I strongly implore the government to show a leadership role in working with its provincial counterparts to try to address these problems which will decrease the cost to our justice system, our social programs and make a healthier and safer society for all Canadians.

[Corrections And Conditional Release Act, September 28th, 1995]

Oftentimes they do get it.

They are eligible for full parole after serving two-thirds of their sentence. They only serve a maximum of two-thirds of their sentence because automatically they are awarded with good behaviour. A better idea is to ensure that every convicted criminal will automatically serve the full sentence and that sentence would be pulled down based on the behaviour of the individual in jail. Let us not assume that there has been good behaviour, let us make sure it is earned. There are many ways that can be done.

Furthermore all moneys an individual earns in prison should go to the state to help offset the $60,000 to $100,000 that it costs to have someone incarcerated and also moneys to the individuals themselves.

Work and training should be obligatory for individuals who are incarcerated. The training would go a long way to decrease the recidivism rate of those in our jails. It would enable people to get the skills necessary while they are incarcerated so they can become active and productive members of society. Not enough of that is done now. Furthermore it is not obligatory which it ought to be, if someone were to have the wherewithal to do that.

Number six is sentencing. We spoke about section 745 which should be repealed now. It shows the lame inability of the government to deal with significant issues of justice by not addressing section 745.

My colleague from Scarborough mentioned that when people are sentenced to life they serve life. That is absolute nonsense. I have a list that is pages long of individuals who were convicted of first degree murder and because of section 745 their sentence has been commuted to 15 to 17 years. That includes people who have killed police officers in cold blood. I am happy to share that list with anyone in the House.

Is that justice? I hardly think so. That is not the case at all. Section 745 should be repealed now. The government would be showing that it is truly committed to justice if it would take heed of what my colleagues have been saying for so long.

Number seven is young offenders. The government has promised to deal with the Young Offenders Act and has done virtually nothing. I implore members of the government to speak to police officers who are working on the street. Their hands are tied. They are frustrated with the inability of the justice system to back them up when dealing with young offenders.

Having worked with young offenders in jail I can say they receive very little penalty, very little deterrence to committing offences. That is why we see the terrible rate of recidivism among young offenders.

Here are a few concrete suggestions. Publish the names of young offenders. It would send a very clear message that they cannot engage in these activities with anonymity. Have the stiffer penalties that my party has been putting forward for a long time. Make work and school obligatory in their incarceration.

Part of the sentencing problems that we see are because the justice department and all departments are hamstrung because of a lack of funds. That is why we see people being released very early on, earlier than they should be. The trade-off is that the justice department due to a lack of funding is releasing people to save money at the expense of the safety of Canadians from coast to coast. That is not justice.

We have a couple of concrete solutions. We cannot take individuals who are young offenders, who often grow up in tragic and terrible home situations, put them into closed custody for a period of a few months, then put them back in the environment that they were in and expect things to change. It will not happen.

They are usually in an environment in which there are terrible cases of substance abuse, physical and sexual abuse and violence. If they are in this kind of milieu, it is impossible, no matter how much counselling is given to these kids to actually move forward-

[Corrections And Conditional Release Act, September 28th, 1995]

Third, as my colleague from Wild Rose said, if a person is on parole and commits an offence they must serve the remainder of their sentence before they are sentenced again, and the sentencing must run consecutively, not concurrently.

Fourth, the bill supposedly deals with restitution. It proposes that up to 30 per cent of what an incarcerated individual makes should go to the state. What about the victims? Who gives money to them? There is no ample compensation for victims, particularly for those

who are victims of violent crime. It would be far more productive if the individual who has committed the offence knows full well that he will have to pay directly to the victim moneys to compensate for the harm he has done.

The bill deals with sentencing. We have spoken about criminals being eligible for parole after serving one-third of their sentence. Karla Homolka will be eligible for parole after serving three years of her sentence. The public may not be aware that individuals are eligible for day parole after serving one-sixth of their sentence.

[Corrections And Conditional Release Act, September 28th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, nothing strikes a chord more deeply in the heart and soul of Canadians than the issues we are discussing today. Crime, punishment and safety are essential to their feelings of security.

Bill C-45, an act to amend the Corrections and Conditional Release Act, deals with many very important issues such as detaining sex offenders of children, a system to remove parole board members, a system to deal with reoffenders while on parole, and a system to deal with restitution to the state. All these are integrally important changes that must be made to our justice system.

However, tragically we see again a lost opportunity. Another opportunity we have had to deal with these very important issues and make a significant impact upon our justice system has now passed us by because the government has done what it usually does, that is nibble around the edges.

I will make some constructive suggestions which my colleagues in my party have been working very hard on, issues that we have tried to convince the government to enact for the betterment of all Canadians. Once again it has failed to do so.

The first deals with sex offenders and it only deals with sex offenders of children. Sex offences involving anyone is a crime. Whether it is done to adults or children, by men or women, it is a crime and it needs to be dealt with very severely.

We should be imposing sentences which have as their primary purpose the protection of society and innocent civilians. What we have seen in the criminal courts for decades is that the rights and protection of innocent civilians have not been held in as high a regard as they could have been. In many cases we have seen the rights of the criminals being held in higher regard than the rights of innocent civilians. The innocent civilians have paid the price, tragically at times with their lives, because the justice department has not done its job.

There is the case in my riding of Robert Owens. He is a pedophile. He used to be a principal in a school. He had committed over 1,000 sexual offences. The reason they know that is he used to make a record on a Garfield calendar every time he committed a sexual offence on a child. His sentence was for 13 years. He served eight and a half years and is now living among his victims in my riding near a school. When we brought this to the attention of the authorities they said: "We are sorry. Our hands are tied. That is the law". If that is the law, the law is not doing a good enough job of protecting those victims living in that community.

I ask any member of the House to put themselves in the shoes of those victims. They have to completely change their lifestyle. The system does not address it but my colleagues have been putting forward constructive suggestions to address it.

We also need a better system to deal with parole board members. There have been numerous tragic situations brought up by my colleagues. There are some constructive things which we can do.

First, do not make them appointments, make them public service jobs.

Second, I was appalled that the parole board members, who are in effect acting like judges, go into the job often having no knowledge of justice issues. I find that absolutely incredible. How can we have parole board members who are appointed to positions making decisions with respect to people who could pose a significant threat to Canadian society when they have very little or no knowledge of the justice system? Make those people public servants and ensure they get the job based on merit.

[Corrections And Conditional Release Act, September 28th, 1995]

Sixty-two rapes, plus, plus, plus.

[Oceans Act, September 26th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for his intervention. I would like to set him straight on some very important issues in western Canada, on the coast. The member mentioned we do not have a problem with shellfish. That is simply untrue.

Shellfish stocks on the west coast are being pillaged. They have been pillaged for years. Even with abalone, which was banned in 1989, there has been widespread poaching of abalone all over the coast, in Nanaimo, in Victoria, in Sooke. Stocks of mussels and various other subspecies of shellfish, geoducks, abalone, are being pillaged all over the west coast.

DFO officers have been told to look the other way when this is happening. This is a problem of low level management. They have been told not to enforce the laws in fisheries.

The ministry cannot even handle two miles out of the country, let alone 200 miles. I suggest it get its act together now, otherwise we will not have any fishery left on the west coast.

I ask the hon. member what he and his ministry will do to help the decimated subspecies of groundfish, of salmon and of shellfish on the west coast so we can avert an east coast disaster, because we are close to that.

[Health Care, September 22nd, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, the ministers of health met in Victoria this week to supposedly save medicare but instead they chose to sling insults at each other. All the while Canada's health care system continued its decline with increasing waiting lists, rationing of essential health care services and the massive exodus of expensive and highly trained professional staff.

We all care about medicare and want to see it continue. However an aging population, expensive technologies and an economic crisis have all combined to make medicare as we know it unsustainable. We must look at other new ways to preserve the intent of medicare which will ensure that all Canadians regardless of their income have essential health care services covered in a timely fashion.

The public does not accept the flawed logic of this government which prevents it from gaining access to medical services of their choice. All Canadians must be free to have medicare and a choice to ensure that the health care needs of all Canadians is met.

[Criminal Code, September 21st, 1995]

moved for leave to introduce Bill C-348, an act to amend the Criminal Code (mines).

Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure to introduce this bill that will ban the production, export and import of land mines and anti-personnel devices within Canada.

There are over 100 million land mines and anti-personnel devices seeded throughout the world. The world produces over a million of these land mines and anti-personnel devices every year and over 100,000 people are maimed or killed by these devices every year, 40 per cent of whom are innocent women and children.

The purpose of this bill is to have Canada take a leadership role in banning these devices which have no place in modern warfare.

If we can pass this private member's bill which I know has a lot of support from across this floor, we will be able to send a clear message to other countries that it is unacceptable for these devices to continue to be produced, wreaking havoc in so many areas of the world and rendering millions of acres uninhabitable for decades.

I hope we will be able to have some cross-party support for this private member's bill so that Canada can take a leadership role on this very important issue.

(Motions deemed adopted, bill read the first time and printed.)