Mr. Speaker, I rise today to debate Bill C-15, amendments to the transfer of offenders act. This legislation was first introduced as Bill C-33 in the last Parliament and was debated almost a year ago.
In fact, I stood in the House on April 29, 2003, condemning the Liberal government because it came forward and provided less than 24 hours between the time we received a copy of the bill and had a first chance to look at the legislation and the time we were asked to first stand and debate the bill. It was less than 24 hours later that we were asked to debate the bill.
I said that the government's move to force debate was “indicative of its inconsideration” for Parliament and of its “disrespect” for Parliament and also for the opposition. It was totally inconsiderate of the government to provide so little time for us to digest the content of this legislation before initiating debate. In my mind, the only rationale for such inconsideration and such an irresponsible move was that the government was devoid of any other meaningful legislation. In other words, I said then, the government's agenda was “empty”.
Now, a year later, the agenda remains that way because this government has yet to seek a mandate to govern. Quite obviously the government is in neutral, or worse, it is coasting backwards. It is losing ground. Nothing has changed since April 2003, when the Prime Minister, then only a leadership hopeful, said:
But in recent times a kind of complacency--a certain amount of drift--has set in. We've lost some of the energy and enthusiasm that Canadians are looking for.
He was talking about Parliament. The member for LaSalle--Émard, now the Prime Minister, after months of silence on his government's agenda and his own plans for moving the country forward, at that time was chronicling his predecessor's lack of achievement and inaction.
Pointing toward Ottawa's strained relationship with the United States administration over the war in Iraq, the lack of focus on the waiting lists in the health care system, and the outbreak of SARS, the member for LaSalle—Émard said that these areas required immediate attention.
Well, Mr. Speaker, this Prime Minister has now been the Prime Minister for over four months and he has not moved the agenda forward at all. We are still in limbo because, again, this Prime Minister does not have a mandate to govern.
With regard to the legislation before us today, Bill C-15 repeals and replaces the old Transfer of Offenders Act to expedite the transfer of Canadian citizens serving sentences in penal institutions abroad from those institutions to penal institutions in this country. It also provides for the expedited transfer of foreigners serving sentences in Canada to their home countries.
Bill C-15, in my opinion, is nothing more than a reaffirmation that public safety and the rights of the victims are not priorities at all with the government. Bill C-15 is but one more attempt by the government to tip the scales of justice in favour of the offenders.
Clause 3 of Bill C-15 states:
The purpose of this Act is to contribute to the administration of justice and the rehabilitation of offenders and their reintegration into the community by enabling offenders to serve their sentences in the country of which they are citizens or nationals.
In a press release on Bill C-33, the former solicitor general stated that the Transfer of Offenders Act was more than 20 years old and only authorized the transfer of offenders between Canada and recognized states. Furthermore, he stated:
...this bill is significant from a humanitarian perspective. Conditions of confinement in some countries impose severe hardships on Canadians.
If Bill C-15 were about humanitarian efforts, if it were to ensure that Canadians would not be subjected to inhumane treatment, we would support the bill. We would support it because the fundamental principle within our justice system is the right to a fair trial and the right to humane treatment. However, as members will note, even if we look at the summary of Bill C-15, that is not what this is about.
If we look at the purpose and principle section of Bill C-15, the legislation is not about humanitarian efforts. This legislation is not only about allowing Canadian citizens who commit crimes in other countries to serve their sentences in more humane prisons, it is about bringing them home and, in some cases, putting them in prisons that are club fed types of institutions, resorts. It is about reducing the sentence imposed by another country.
Bill C-15 sets an alarming precedent in its attempt to impose the norms of the Canadian criminal justice system upon crimes committed and adjudicated somewhere else.
Clause 14 reads:
Subject to subsection 17(1) and section 18, if, at the time the Minister receives a request for the transfer of a Canadian offender, the sentence imposed by the foreign entity is longer than the maximum sentence provided for in Canadian law for the equivalent offence, the Canadian offender is to serve only the shorter sentence.
This is because under clause 13 it states:
The enforcement of a Canadian offender's sentence is to be continued in accordance with the laws of Canada as if the offender had been convicted and their sentence imposed by a court in Canada.
In essence what we have here is that a Canadian citizen could go to another country, commit a crime for which there would be a much more substantial penalty, and be transferred home to serve a lesser sentence. What this could amount to is immunity of Canadian citizens. In my opinion, that is wrong. It flies in the face of recent Supreme Court of Canada jurisprudence.
In Kindler v Canada, Justice McLachlin, writing for the majority, observed:
The simple fact is that if we were to insist on strict conformity with our own [criminal justice] system, there would be virtually no state in the world with which we could reciprocate. Canada...would be the loser.
Furthermore, in the United States v Burns, the Supreme Court of Canada made the following observation:
A competing principle of fundamental justice is that Canadians who are accused of crimes in [a foreign jurisdiction] can ordinarily expect to be dealt with under the law which the citizens of that jurisdiction have collectively determined to apply to offences committed within their territory, including the set punishment.
I agree that if a Canadian citizen commits a crime in another country, that person should pay the price--