House of Commons photo

Crucial Fact

  • Her favourite word was justice.

Last in Parliament March 2011, as Liberal MP for Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine (Québec)

Lost her last election, in 2011, with 32% of the vote.

Statements in the House

Public Works and Government Services November 26th, 2010

Mr. Speaker, last December, the Minister of Natural Resources promised to table a report on the progress of the West Block. Now, a year later, after being riddled with scandal, we have yet to see the report.

We heard of the kickback scheme last Tuesday, with Mr. Sauvé paying hundreds of thousands of dollars to Conservative Party insiders in order to secure a contract on the West Block.

Why will the Prime Minister not call in the RCMP and fire the minister? He had no trouble kicking to the curb his female minister when she got into trouble. Therefore, why does he not do it with that minister?

Public Works and Government Services November 26th, 2010

Mr. Speaker, last Tuesday, Paul Sauvé answered a question about whether or not the Conservative Party receives kickbacks by stating, “I believe so. The system is completely ridiculous.” Mr. Sauvé had to pay 3% of his contract to a friend of the Conservatives in order to obtain the contract.

Why did the Prime Minister not call in the RCMP to investigate this Conservative corruption? Why did he not suspend the minister in question? Why?

Ethics November 25th, 2010

Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister is visibly trying to sweep those revelations under the rug. There is talk of corruption in the construction industry and it seems that the Conservative Party is running the show.

How can the Prime Minister tolerate this kind of organized corruption within his own party? Why has he not asked the RCMP to investigate this and why has he not suspended the Conservative operatives, staffers and minister who are implicated?

Ethics November 25th, 2010

Mr. Speaker, Paul Sauvé testified under oath about a kickback system within the Conservative Party. He had to give 3% of his contract to a friend in the Conservative regime, and the minister then asked him for a new cashmere coat. Paul Sauvé even had to hold fundraisers for the Prime Minister's party.

How can the Prime Minister turn a blind eye to these practices within his own party instead of calling the RCMP?

Veterans November 18th, 2010

Mr. Speaker, last week I had the honour of attending the national Remembrance Day ceremony with my uncle, a veteran of the second world war, Sapper René Garand. My uncle joined the Canadian army in 1941. He served as a gunner throughout Europe until the end of the war.

My uncle shared with me a horrific story of when his unit, the 14th Armoured Canadian Regiment of Calgary, was ambushed in Italy in 1943. The four tanks ahead of his had been bombed and were burning. He was in the fifth tank, which was also hit. Due to the courageous efforts of his comrades and his own, they were able to save their own lives and the lives of many other Canadians.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank all our veterans and current members of the Canadian Forces for their courageous dedication and sacrifice in protecting our country.

I would also like to thank my uncle René, who is well loved by our entire family.

I stand with my colleagues in this House in saying, “Lest we forget”.

Protecting Canadians by Ending Sentence Discounts for Multiple Murders Act November 15th, 2010

Mr. Speaker, I thank my Bloc Québécois colleague for his passionate speech and for the points that he raised about this bill.

I have a question for him regarding the short title.

The member said that in my speech I said that the government should not attempt to play political football with this bill. That was a very accurate summary of what I said about this issue. I was talking about the content of this bill.

I appreciate the fact that he did not twist my words like the Conservative members have done many times.

I think the government is trying to gain political capital with the short title and is trying to mislead the public. It is trying to make the public think that this bill fixes something that it does not.

I would like to know what the member thinks about that. I know that the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights already removed the short title of Bill C-22 because it was a politicized title that had nothing to do with the content of the bill.

I would like to hear what the member has to say about that.

Protecting Canadians by Ending Sentence Discounts for Multiple Murders Act November 15th, 2010

Mr. Speaker, my colleague from the NDP has raised an important point and that is the respect Canadians have for our criminal justice system.

One of the problems with our criminal justice system is it has been close to 40 years since there has been a major comprehensive overhaul of the entire criminal justice system with well organized, dedicated consultations with stakeholders, communities, experts, non-experts, people who live in communities where crime may be a real issue, people whose family members have been swept into crime and pulled into the criminal justice system, others who have been victims of crime.

One thing we have to remember is when we go into neighbourhoods where there is a high crime rate, there are families that may have members who were victims of crime and they may also have members who were the perpetrators of the crimes, not necessarily against a family member but within the community. There are families who are grappling with both issues.

This is something the government is not looking at. A comprehensive overhaul and reform of our entire criminal justice system is needed. We have to bring it into the third millennium. We cannot do so piecemeal because when it is done piecemeal, we are increasing the chances of commiting errors, resulting in unintended consequences one piece of the system may not work well with another piece. If we do a comprehensive overhaul, we are going to be looking at everything. The member raised a serious question. It is the kind of issue I would like the House to debate rather than piecemeal legislation, which is what we are getting from the government, unfortunately.

Protecting Canadians by Ending Sentence Discounts for Multiple Murders Act November 15th, 2010

Mr. Speaker, I am so pleased to be asked that question because I believe that part of the current government's policy is very shortsighted and wrong.

There are studies that have been done in Canada and in other countries that definitely show that if government puts resources into appropriate social policy, when it comes to the issues of drug use and drug trafficking, we are going to be helping people get off drugs. It means supporting projects like Insite in Vancouver rather than fighting in the courts to try to shut it down. It means putting more resources in communities to deal with these issues. It means drug rehabilitation programs and detox programs being more available not just in urban centres but in rural and remote communities as well.

We need to establish drug courts so that there is a team in the judicial system that is expert in dealing with people who have drug problems, who are not big time traffickers but have become hooked on drugs and need help to get off them.

Yes, I think Canada should be looking at progressive examples that are effective and actually work like what is happening in Portugal and in other jurisdictions, including some jurisdictions in the United States.

Protecting Canadians by Ending Sentence Discounts for Multiple Murders Act November 15th, 2010

Mr. Speaker, the member is quite correct that this is a government that talks big and loud and beats its chest on how it is the party of law and order, that it is the only party interested in protecting Canadians from criminals and helping victims of crime and it is the only party that actually supports law enforcement. It is also the party that campaigned and in a throne speech committed to 2,500 new police officers across Canada, which still has not materialized. It is also the party that, in several throne speeches to date, given the prorogations and elections called in violation or disrespect of its own fixed election date legislation, represents Canadians.

The member asked me why that is. I cannot explain it, except that when one looks at the amount of advertising that the government does using taxpayer money in order to, in my view, pull the wool over Canadians' eyes, highly partisan advertising, which is unusual with a government, that may be part of the reason.

Protecting Canadians by Ending Sentence Discounts for Multiple Murders Act November 15th, 2010

Mr. Speaker, this is the first time I have risen in regard to Bill C-48, a government bill on the parole inadmissibility period of offenders convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison with no possibility of parole for 25 years.

This bill would change the current parole inadmissibility system so that judges can sentence offenders convicted of multiple murders to consecutive rather than concurrent life sentences.

This government took power on January 23, 2006, and it is now November 15, 2010. We are therefore almost in the fifth year of its term. I really wonder now whether this government is serious when it comes to criminal justice, whether it is serious when it says it stands up for the victims of crime, whether it really is a party of law and order, a party that wants to protect Canadians and ensure public safety. Looking at just this bill—although it is virtually the same as nearly all the other criminal justice bills the government has introduced—I can only conclude that the government is playing political games with crime victims and with the lives and safety of Canadians.

The government originally introduced this bill in the previous session. Instead of immediately suggesting we go to second reading so that there could be a debate and vote at that stage, the government left the bill lingering on the order paper for 64 days. On the 64th day, instead of suggesting a debate at second reading, the Prime Minister went instead to see the Governor General to ask her to prorogue Parliament, knowing full well that he would thereby kill all his own bills. So the bill was killed by the Conservative Prime Minister when he prorogued Parliament.

Giving him the benefit of the doubt, one might say he did not realize he would be killing this bill. One might think that as soon as Parliament resumed after the throne speech, the first gesture of the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada would be to rise at the first available opportunity under the Standing Orders, reintroduce the bill, and suggest going immediately to second reading.

Do the people listening to this debate have any idea how many days the Conservative government took after the resumption of Parliament and the Speech from the Throne to reintroduce its own bill? It took 216 days. This party likes to pat itself on the back and say it is the only one that speaks up for victims, the only party interested in law and order in Canada.

In actual fact, it is the party that plays political games with the safety of Canadians, our fellow citizens. It is disgraceful that we have had to wait 216 days for the Conservatives to reintroduce their bill. Not a thing has changed. All that has changed is the number of the bill, and the government has no say on that. All the government had to do was reintroduce its own bill, but it waited 216 days to do it.

We Liberals do not play political games with people's lives, and so far as I can see, the other opposition parties also do not. We Liberals want serious time for people who commit serious crimes, murder for example, with limited eligibility for parole. However, we are not sure that sending people to prison for 50 years without any possibility of parole is a good way to rehabilitate them and ensure that Canadians are protected. That is the first thing.

If we look at the actual facts, people convicted of multiple murders generally are not granted parole as soon as they become eligible. This bill addresses a relatively minor concern, therefore, and would affect relatively few people.

For this reason, we Liberals are prepared to vote for the bill to send it to committee, without being able to say whether we will support its purpose. We want to know what statistics and data the justice department has on the number of cases to which the bill would apply. We also want to know who would be primarily affected if it passes. We also want to know how many offenders have received parole after committing more than one first degree murder and receiving a life sentence without any possibility of parole for 25 years. If they did get parole, how many years did they serve first? That is the information we want to have.

We think it is contrary to the principle of rehabilitation to completely eliminate any possibility of parole in sentences that could reach more than 50 years. That being said, though, we are keeping an open mind. We want to hear the witnesses, the minister himself, the experts in the justice department and at the Correctional Service of Canada, and the Union of Canadian Correctional Officers, which represents the people who work day after day, 24 hours out of every 24, with offenders convicted of first degree murder and sentenced to life in jail, to find out whether they think this bill is going in the right direction.

As I said, we want to study it in committee to see whether it really responds to an urgent public safety concern.

As has already been mentioned here in terms of what is the current law, today a conviction for first degree murder carries with it a parole ineligibility of 25 years. The individual found guilty of first degree murder is sentenced to life imprisonment with a possibility of parole after having served 25 years.

Someone today who is found guilty of second degree murder is sentenced to life imprisonment with a possibility of parole after serving 10 years and no more than 25 years. That does not mean that the individual gets parole but that he or she can go before the National Parole Board and seek parole. As of now, the sentencing judge has the discretion to determine the precise length of ineligibility for parole in the case of second degree murder.

Under the current system, individuals convicted of multiple murders serve their life sentences concurrently and are therefore subject to only one 25-year parole ineligibility period. Bill C-48 would tack on further parole ineligibility periods. It would amend the system so that judges would have the discretion, and that is important to repeat, judges would have the discretion to ensure that parole ineligibility periods run consecutively. The judges would make the decisions, and the judges in making that decision, whether to apply a second parole ineligibility period to run consecutively or not to do so, would be obliged to provide reasons for their decision.

In the current law, the only exception to the single parole ineligibility period rule occurs when a convicted murder commits another murder while in prison.

That is very interesting, if our criminal justice system has already been adjusted to ensure that if an individual has already been convicted of first degree murder or second degree murder and therefore is already under a parole ineligibility, and that individual while serving the sentence in prison commits another murder, is found guilty of another murder, the parole ineligibility of that individual for the new sentence will run consecutively.

If that already exists in our current law, there is justification to look at the possibility that Parliament and society may wish to extend that current practice to other cases. However, as I said, we wish to see if this is a real problem and if it will ensure better safety for Canadians. That is why Liberals will support sending this bill to committee.

In terms of stakeholders, we have already heard from defence lawyers who point out that very few serial killers, if any, are actually released after serving 25 years of their sentence. According to them, this bill is window dressing for a problem that really does not exist.

The Correctional Service of Canada and Statistics Canada, who provide the legal or criminal statistics, are the ones who will be able to tell us whether these defence lawyers are right, whether there have been or have never been serial killers released after 25 years, and if there have been cases, what were the circumstances of the case.

As well, anyone who has been declared by a judge a dangerous offender is held in custody indeterminately. Normally, if we are talking about a serial murderer, a multiple murderer, someone who has killed more than one person and is accused of more than one first degree murder charge or even second degree murder charge, one would hope that the prosecution would have looked at all of the circumstances to determine whether it would be appropriate to apply for a dangerous offender designation.

What is quite interesting is that prior to the 2008 election and shortly afterwards, the government had actually brought in legislation to amend the dangerous offender system under our Criminal Code, and with all the hoopla that the government built around it, it was still not mandatory for the prosecution to seek dangerous offender designation in certain cases.

I actually brought forth amendments to make it mandatory and the government did not support it. Go figure. It would have ensured that our prosecution, in specific cases, would have had no choice but to apply for dangerous offender designation, and the government and the members who were sitting on the justice committee at the time did not support those amendments.

Someone who has been declared a dangerous offender by the courts will never see the light of day. So, in a way, this bill may be a bit of smoke and mirrors.

According to testimony from justice department officials before committee just last month when we were looking at the bill regarding the faint hope clause, which is a whole other issue, the average amount of time that someone spends in prison on being convicted for murder in Canada is approximately 28 years. So even under our current system where someone convicted of first degree murder is sentenced to life imprisonment with no possibility of parole before 25 years, the actual facts are that, on average, those first degree murder offenders will spend 28 years before they actually get parole. When one looks at the average in other developed countries, they spend 15 years.

If any of the government members wish to disagree with me, I would urge them to go back and read the transcripts of the Standing Committee on Justice hearings, the witnesses from the Department of Justice on the faint hope clause legislation. They are the ones who provided these statistics.

The Liberals will be supporting sending this bill to committee because we believe the issues need to be further studied. We want to hear from the experts. We want to hear the actual facts, because facts and figures are important to us. We believe solid government policy, social policy and criminal justice policy should be based on facts and statistics, scientific facts or facts that have been established in a scientific manner.

We know sometimes it is inconvenient for the government and therefore it throws facts by the wayside, but we as Liberals believe it is important if we want sound, effective social policy, particularly in the area of criminal justice. Therefore, we have no objection to studying this issue further, and again, it makes me wonder why it took the government 216 days after prorogation to reintroduce this bill.

There is another point that I wish to touch on. The parliamentary secretary to the minister talked about how his government was really concerned about victims and that is why it is bringing forth this bill and that is why the issue of criminal justice is a priority, along with the economy, for the government. I find that interesting.

I find it interesting that the government's words with regard to criminal justice do not seem to support its actions.

The crime rate is dropping. Government wants to spend billions of dollars on ineffective megaprisons. In the last full year of a Liberal government, the National Crime Prevention Centre supported 509 crime prevention projects in 261 communities, for a total of $57 million.

Under the Conservatives, we now have 285 fewer projects being funded and the actual spending on crime prevention has been slashed to just $19 million. I would ask government members, the Minister of Justice and the Minister of Public Safety, if the issue of public safety for Canadians is so important, why have they slashed funding to crime prevention and support for our victims? Why?