Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise in the House to speak in support of Bill C-258 as moved by the hon. member for New Westminster—Coquitlam—Burnaby.
This bill is consistent with Progressive Conservative policy to repeal section 745 of the Criminal Code, better known as the faint hope clause. It is also consistent with a motion that I tabled in the House last year similarly calling for the repeal of section 745.
It is sadly ironic today that the Liberals are defending the faint hope clause since yesterday we heard their defences of Bill C-68, which should be henceforth known as the false hope clause.
The Liberals have truly shown themselves as more than happy to give faint hope to convicted killers such as Clifford Olson, as previously mentioned, while giving false hope to Canadians worried about crime committed with firearms.
Although the amendments proposed in the bill by the hon. member would not apply retroactively, it would at least ensure that murderers are fully held accountable for the crimes that they commit. Accountability is a very important principle in our justice system and one which many feel has been neglected of late. From the Prime Minister's recent performance in the House, it would seem that accountability is also being neglected in the Chamber.
An injection of accountability into our justice system is something most Canadians would surely welcome. This would be taken into account with other principles of rehabilitation, as has been mentioned by friend from the Bloc; general and specific deterrents; other sentencing principles; and principles of justice and fairness.
In early 1997 the Liberal government of the day amended the Criminal Code to restrict the provisions for judicial review. Three fundamental changes were enacted at that time. First, offenders who committed multiple murders would no longer have the right to apply for section 745.6 under the Criminal Code.
Second, applicants, including those serving time for murder at the time of the amendments coming into force, would no longer have the automatic right to a section 745 hearing, going instead to a superior court judge to decide whether the applicant could then show a reasonable prospect for success before the application moved any further.
The third amendment to that section would require that a jury reach unanimous consent to order a release instead of the previous threshold of only a two-thirds majority.
While those amendments were certainly well intentioned, they contained a number of flaws. The new provisions implied that a single murder should be considerably less serious than multiple murders. Since multiple murderers convicted after January 1997 would be ineligible to apply for judicial review under section 745 at the time, it brings into question the overall fairness when one considers it from the victim's point of view.
As they would later do with the hepatitis C victims, the Liberals apparently drew an artificial line in the sand with respect to multiple murders as opposed to single premeditated murders. I would suggest that all premeditated murders should be treated equally under this provision. Does it not degrade the memory of the murder victims and the suffering that was inflicted upon them and their families to draw this sort of distinction?
My second criticism of those amendments was that the government's much touted amendments of section 745 amounted to no real changes with respect to the way judicial review hearing processes were conducted.
I am sure all members will agree the process is extremely important in that the hearings for early parole eligibility remain with the very limited information about the crime committed by the offender. To seriously restrict information with respect to the crime committed during these hearings is akin to restricting information with respect to the crime itself during the original trial and sentencing proceedings.
The Liberal amendments also created another level of bureaucracy, that is the government's decision to replace the criminal's absolute right to a hearing with an absolute right to apply for a hearing which might also lead to further appeals within the system.
One of the arguments the Minister of Justice, the solicitor general and their respective departments advanced at this time against the over reliance on incarceration is therefore lost. The Liberals make this contention while they create another level of bureaucracy to facilitate the release of convicted killers.
It is a sad and telling statement on the priorities of the government. It provides different ways for murderers to get out of jail while victims of crime still to this date have no voice, no advocate within the criminal justice system at this level. The Minister of Justice and the solicitor general can only scratch their heads and wonder why Canadians continue to have a cynical and distrustful view of our justice system.
Section 745, regardless of the Liberal government's amendment a year and a half ago, continues to force families of victims to relive the murders and to relive them at the cost of the taxpayer. Some would say that the lack of a death penalty is the hallmark of a civilized society, but there are certainly many Canadians who would suggest it is certainly uncivilized to force the families of murder victims to once again go through this type of judicial revisiting of the offence itself. We certainly witnessed that just over a year ago with Mr. Olson's hearing in British Columbia.
Perhaps the families of murder victims should launch a legal challenge under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms on the basis that a section 745 Criminal Code hearing violates their section 7 charter rights that everyone including these victims have a right to life, liberty and the security of persons and a right not to be deprived thereof except in accordance with the principles of fundamental justice.
Is a section 745 hearing in accordance with the principles of fundamental justice? I doubt it. I challenge any hon. member in the House who supports section 745 to rationally assert that this is fundamentally just. I fear that it might come to that and that the victims of crime and their families will have to go to court to get a judicial opinion with respect to this piece of legislation.
The Reform Party has often made its views very clear in the House about judicial activism. I suggest there is a graver danger at work, that is legislative pacifism where society's most vulnerable individuals, victims and in many cases children, have no other public forum to have their views addressed by the courts. What are we doing in the House if we are not doing everything to protect those persons?
Therefore I would suggest that section 745 needs to be repealed, and the sooner the better. We in the House need to reflect upon the wishes of those individuals who are unable to speak for themselves. This is why I put forward the premise and the suggestion that the government should be establishing an independent ombudsman for victims which would also be in accordance with the government's repeated position that it wants to do more for victims. This would be consistent with that wish. Victims would be given a greater voice within the justice system. They would be given an independent person, a place of appeal, for information, a place where they could go to have their voices heard.
I urge all hon. members of the House, especially the government members who spoke so passionately in favour of victims rights, to justify their support for Bill C-68, to join with opposition members in supporting the bill. As such, at this time I move for unanimous consent to make this bill deemed a votable item.
