Maria Mourani

[Disposition of Abolition of Early Parole Act, February 14th, 2011]

Madam Speaker, I thank the member for his question, which is quite broad. We cannot deal with crime with a single bill or a single resource. It must be comprehensive.

We are talking about a provision that we could abolish, which would mean that fraudsters—whom I call economic predators—could remain in prison and take those famous reintegration programs the member mentioned. Yes, the police are in need of resources to conduct investigations, but is that a reason to sit back and do nothing when we see a problem? Of course not.

The problem here is the issue of parole after one-sixth of a sentence is served. Will this provision not penalize other people who are not at risk of committing serious offences? The accelerated parole review process is automatic, like it or not. Why is that? I worked as a parole officer for a long time. There are very specific rules regarding parole after one-sixth of the sentence is served. On a first federal sentence for a non-violent crime, we must take into account that the offender must be released after one-sixth of the sentence is served. Sometimes, as officers, we would determine that an offender should not be released, that it made no sense, but we were forced to release him because it was the law.

What we are doing here is not preventing offenders that are less violent from getting out of prison, but we are allowing officers and the National Parole Board to make that decision. It will not longer be automatic, that is all.

[Disposition of Abolition of Early Parole Act, February 14th, 2011]

That is exactly why they did it in a press release.

The Bloc Québécois does not care whether the Bloc or the government sponsored the bill. However, this does seem to be important to my colleague, the Liberal public safety critic. That is not what is important. What is important is that we abolish the one-sixth rule, that we get rid of accelerated parole review, and that we stop undermining our current justice system and people's confidence in our ability to protect them.

The Conservatives have not yet grasped that people do not want harsh sentences, they want sentences that are served. They want sentences to be served in their entirety. Therefore, this Conservative negligence is further proof that this government is, in my view, more concerned with putting on a show than anything else.

However, I am assuming that this goodwill could perhaps shed a little more intellectual light on their view of public safety. I invite them to support other Bloc bills that are currently in the works, effective bills that will ensure public safety and victim protection.

The first Bloc Québécois bill, Bill C-343, would support the families of victims of crime. I will not repeat it, but this bill has received a great deal of support, and I invite them to support it. Another Bloc bill, Bill C-608, would amend the Criminal Code to make it an offence not to report to the authorities instances of sexual or physical abuse of children. I invite them to support this bill as well as my bill on human trafficking, which would make it possible to impose consecutive sentences on traffickers and pimps and also to seize the assets of these criminals. Let us keep the momentum going: I invite them to support our other worthwhile bills.

And now I would like to discuss the urgency of this situation. Why pass this bill quickly and therefore limit the time for debate, given that there is obstruction on all sides? They would prefer to talk about it for days, months, or even years. The question is “"Why?” The answer is: Because it is urgent. We now know—and we all know it—that this provision is absurd, that it makes no sense and that it should be eliminated. We all know it. Yes, it is true that Earl Jones will soon be eligible, but he is not the only one. There are many guys like him that the media do not talk about, who get away with it and discover that crime pays well, because they are making money. They go to prison for a few months and then they are out again.

The Liberal Party of Canada and the NDP are saying that we have plenty of time to study this bill and that the overall system needs to be looked at. That is not true. When we look at Bill C-39, which is currently before committee, we see that not witnesses have yet been heard. And so, debate on the bill at committee stage is far from complete and it still needs to be sent back to the House. I can assure you that at this pace, we can expect Earl Jones and all the others like him—in Quebec, Canada or elsewhere—to have been released.

We cannot forget that Bill C-39 includes a number of provisions. It will clearly take longer to study than Bill C-59, which has only one provision.

It would be untrue to say that splitting Bill C-39, as we did, is wrong and should never be done because it would be dreadful. That is hypocritical. In fact, last summer we split Bill C-23, much to the pleasure of the Liberals and the NDP. We kept certain provisions. Other provisions are currently being studied in committee.

I would like to remind the Liberal and NDP members that, if their current irresponsibility were copied by the majority of parliamentarians—which I hope will not be the case—it would lead to the possible early release of another economic predator, Mr. Jones.

Moreover, Judge Hélène Morin had the following to say about Earl Jones. She gave the example of the case of one of Mr. Jones' victims, Ms. JD—her real name has not been released. The story is quite tragic and shocking. Ms. JD's husband was killed by mass murderer Valery Fabrikant at Concordia University in 1992. While she was in mourning for her husband, she turned to Earl Jones for financial and management advice. She had accompanied her husband to a financial planning session in Pointe-Claire a few years previously.

To Ms. JD, Earl Jones seemed incredibly comfortable managing money, an area with which she was not very familiar. Over the years, she began to allow him to make decisions on her behalf more and more frequently.

This woman suffered unbelievable grief as a result of the actions of mass murderer Valery Fabrikant and then she found herself the victim of another predator, this time a financial one, Earl Jones. Can we put ourselves in this woman's shoes? Can we imagine how she must have felt when she found out that this man was going to get out of prison after only a few months? Do we agree that this is not right? And since it is not right, this partisan attitude is even less appropriate. Such an attitude should not prevail here. The public interest should be our priority.

Judge Morin said that Ms. JD was upset when Earl Jones made the headlines. The media described him as a financial predator but she believed that he actually cared about her and her family.

I am not making any of this up. It is normal. Those who commit a fraud of this magnitude and even those who commit smaller-scale fraud are very skilled manipulators.

Judge Morin added that, after all, Mr. Jones had counselled Ms. JD following the death of her husband. Before abandoning him, Ms. JD wanted to know the truth. As she wrote in her statement, the truth was that he had abandoned them, her and the others. He did not have any pity for his clients regardless of their age or needs. In addition to having to deal with the tragic death of her husband, she also had to deal with being a victim of the accused.

This guy was absolutely merciless. And he is just one of many. Fraudsters of that ilk, and even small-time fraudsters, show no mercy for their victims. For them, it is a way to make a fast buck. We can imagine how important it is to keep these people in prison in order to rehabilitate them and to reduce the factors that led them into crime. If they get out after a few months, how can we work with these men and women—for there are also women who do this—and rehabilitate them? It takes time.

However, when a law states that they must be transferred to a halfway house after one-sixth of their sentence is served, how can they participate in any programs on the inside? Is it safe to say that all risk factors have been reduced at that point? Have they worked on their criminogenic factors? Not everything is being considered here.

The petty politics that the Liberals and NDP are playing are only going to help people like Earl Jones and Vincent Lacroix, who are merely symbols; there are many others. The Liberals and NDP are going to allow their release, even though such criminals have not necessarily had the opportunity to take programs that target their criminogenic factors.

In my riding, in Montreal and Laval, we also had our fraudster. There have been a few, but one really stands out: Leon Kordzian. He unscrupulously cheated 25 people in Montreal and Laval out of $1 million.

He speaks several languages and is very intelligent. He defrauded a number of people of Armenian, Lebanese, Iraqi, Greek and Italian origin. He recruited them at a small, well-known, local coffee shop. He had contacts. It is even said that he might have had a contact at the bank. These people lost everything: their retirement, their homes. They are living a nightmare.

At the end of January, the leader of the Liberal Party came to my riding and was five minutes away from the coffee shop where Mr. Kordzian had operated. Did the Liberal leader meet with any of this fraudster's victims? Will he meet with them to explain that, because of his petty politics, this fraudster might get released after serving one-sixth of his sentence? Whether this happens in Ahuntsic, in Canada or in Quebec, the Liberals and the NDP will have to be accountable for this.

In closing—

[Disposition of Abolition of Early Parole Act, February 14th, 2011]

Madam Speaker, I am sure it is no surprise to hear that the Bloc Québécois will be supporting this government motion.

I am pleased to be speaking in the House today to share our reasons for supporting this motion to limit the time set aside for the consideration of Bill C-59 at various stages. As we all know, this bill would eliminate accelerated parole review or, in other words, eliminate automatic parole for a non-violent offender after one-sixth of the sentence has been served.

I must say that I am extremely proud to be a Bloc member of Parliament and to be part of a political party that puts the interests of Quebeckers above all else. We listen to what Quebeckers have to say about each and every aspect of their lives. Not only do we listen to them, but we also speak for them here in the House. Today we are speaking on behalf of Quebec's small investors, people who have been victims of white collar crime. We are also speaking for the seniors who have been tricked by these kinds of fraudsters, not all of whom are necessarily like Vincent Lacroix and Earl Jones. We are speaking for all these people so that they can be heard today in the House.

This debate has shown once again that neither Quebec nor the rest of Canada can count on the Liberals or the NDP. But before I get into why it is important to pass Bill C-59 as quickly as possible, I would like to give a little bit of history.

I find this situation very ironic, since twice, on September 14, 2009, and March 3, 2010, the Conservative government refused to support the fast-tracking of the Bloc's Bill C-434, which had the exact same purpose as Bill C-59: to abolish accelerated parole review. At the time, the Liberals and the NDP were not at all opposed to fast-tracking our bill. They supported us twice. Last Thursday, in good faith, I asked for the unanimous consent of the House to fast-track the government's bill, but the NDP and the Liberals refused. That is odd. Now, these two parties want to slow down the process and could bring about the release of a number of fraudsters, not just Earl Jones, who have destroyed entire lives in Quebec and all over Canada. Once we start the debate on Bill C-59, I will give examples from several ridings.

They say that they want to spend more time looking at the bill, but that is odd because they had no problem with passing it quickly in September 2009 and March 2010. I think that they are simply opposing the motion for the sake of opposing it. They have decided to play petty partisan politics at the expense of the victims, and that is not something I say often. All they want is to stall things. It is not a matter of democracy. Earlier we heard them say that they felt that their right to speak was being trampled on, that they were not being allowed to debate and hold committee meetings to talk endlessly about something they had strangely already agreed to in September 2009 and March 2010, without any debate and without asking any questions about the costs, as the Liberal critic was doing earlier. It is as though, in this case, all that the NDP and the Liberals want to do is to childishly annoy the government.

If they want to annoy the government, then they can go right ahead, but not at others' expense.

This is an extremely serious issue, and the attitude of these two parties is irresponsible and despicable. In his speech, the Liberal public safety critic said he was disappointed that the government did not consult the Liberals. That is so childish. They are annoyed that the government consulted the Bloc and not them. That level of childishness is not even found in the schoolyard.

Even though the Conservative MPs and their government introduced this bill and are now supporting the abolition of parole after one-sixth of a sentence, which is more than necessary for justice in Quebec and in Canada, they are responsible for the early release of economic predator Vincent Lacroix. They twice refused, once in September 2009 and once in March 2010, to support a unanimous vote to fast-track the Bloc's bill. The early release of Vincent Lacroix goes completely against the idea of public safety and damages the credibility of our justice system, where a 13-year sentence can turn into 15 months of incarceration.

Through blind partisanship—it is nothing more than that—the Conservatives have contributed to the release of Vincent Lacroix. If we leave it up to the Liberals and the NDP—I am glad we can join forces for a majority and prevent this from happening—then in December it will be the turn of Earl Jones and all those who have not been in the media but have stolen thousands and millions of dollars from people who saved their whole lives only to end up with nothing. It is not just money that vanishes, but entire lives. There are people who lose their homes and the financial cushion that allows them to survive. These are seniors who are no longer able to work and are ending up with nothing. That is unacceptable.

I would like to read to all parliamentarians, all our colleagues, a few excerpts from what the honourable Judge Richard Wagner said on October 9, 2009, about Vincent Lacroix:

The evidence shows that the acts with which Vincent Lacroix was charged and of which he pleaded guilty led to a shortfall of close to $100 million for 9,200 investors, rocked the structure of financial markets, and caused serious moral damages to the victims of this financial scandal, which was unprecedented in the annals of Canadian legal history.

It is true that Vincent Lacroix did not use physical violence in perpetrating his crimes.... While Mr. Lacroix's crimes were not accompanied by direct physical violence, however, the court is of the opinion that his crimes caused his victims and their families considerable moral violence because of the stress, insecurity, and uncertainty experienced by those who lost their life savings intended for their retirement.

The Conservatives did not assume their responsibilities in time to avoid this mess, but we must acknowledge that they are assuming their responsibilities now. The Conservatives' failure to take responsibility was so blatant that they were publicly called out on it many times by the Bloc Québécois and by Vincent Lacroix's victims.

It took some nerve on the part of the Minister of Public Safety and that Conservative senator, who fancies himself as an elected member even though he is afraid to run, to say in a press release last Wednesday that they “called on all members of Parliament to pass the Harper government’s legislation to abolish accelerated parole for white collar criminals”. I do not wish to name the senator, but everyone knows who I am talking about.

They managed to say it with a straight face. Unbelievable. I can assure you that they are good actors.

[Kyrgyzstan, February 14th, 2011]

Madam Speaker, from June 10 to 14, 2010, southern Kyrgyzstan was rife with violence.

According to the International Red Cross, 356 people died and 92,000 people fled to Uzbekistan in June and July 2010.

The Red Cross estimates that in Kyrgyzstan, there are some 375,000 displaced persons, all of whom are Uzbeks and most of whom are women, children and seniors. Witnesses report numerous kidnappings and the rape of women and children. What is more, Kyrgyzstan's own security forces turned a blind eye to it all. That is unacceptable.

On October 10, 2010, an internationally recognized election was held in Kyrgyzstan. Let us hope that the new political situation will ease the ethnic tensions in that country and that the Government of Canada will actively encourage this budding democracy to respect human rights and the rights of minorities.

[Disposition of Abolition of Early Parole Act, February 14th, 2011]

Thank you, Madam Speaker. If I understood the translation correctly, my NDP colleague said that justice is doing what you say you will do. Yet in September 2009 and March 2010, her party was willing to support a Bloc Québécois bill that aimed to do exactly the same thing as what Bill C-59 aims to do.

Why will they not keep their word?

[Disposition of Abolition of Early Parole Act, February 14th, 2011]

Madam Speaker, if I understood the translation of what my NDP colleague said earlier—

[Business of the House, February 10th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, I seek the unanimous consent of the House to adopt the following motion:

That, notwithstanding any Standing Order or usual practice of the House, Bill C-59, An Act to amend the Corrections and Conditional Release Act (accelerated parole review) and to make consequential amendments to other Acts shall be deemed to have been read a second time, referred to a committee of the whole, deemed considered in committee of the whole, deemed reported without amendment, deemed concurred in at report stage and deemed read a third time and passed.

[Canada-U.S. Relations, February 7th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, while the Conservative government is negotiating a secret security perimeter with our American neighbours that would facilitate the movement of goods and people, it is cutting services at border crossings in the Eastern Townships and the Montérégie area. Some border crossings have even been closed down. That makes no sense.

When will this government listen to reason and abandon its plan that jeopardizes public safety and the economic development of our regions?

[Canada-U.S. Border, February 3rd, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, the government claims, as it just did, to want to enhance border security and facilitate mobility. However, a number of border crossings in the Eastern Townships and the Montérégie area are going to be shut down or will cut back on services. The Minister of Public Safety is completely out of touch with reality. He did not even bother to respond to the letter I sent him on this.

How can the government negotiate an agreement with the United States when it is shirking its own responsibilities by cutting its border services?

[Canada-U.S. Border, February 3rd, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, the government continues to keep mum about the creation of a Canada-U.S. security perimeter. The public and parliamentarians are not getting any information. The government even refuses to confirm that talks are already under way. Yet this week we learned that a working group will be created to define the new common border policy.

Why is the government refusing to be transparent? What does it have to hide?