Serge Ménard

[Protecting Children from Online Sexual Exploitation Act, June 16th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, I am a bit surprised that I am not being given a chance to give my speech. I was told that we would have 10 minutes for speeches, without a period for questions. But if there is a period for questions, I have a question for the member who just spoke.

[Protecting Victims From Sex Offenders Act, June 14th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, the member who spoke before indicated off the top that this is an old, non-partisan bill that not only received the approval of all parties in the House but was also tested in various provinces and supported by the attorneys general. I do not believe that this is true. The current bill does not establish a system; instead it improves on the system established in 2004.

If there is unanimous support for improving this system, why have they waited so long to pass the bill? If a minority government wishes to adopt bills, it should start with matters supported by the other parties. In this case, not only has it taken a long time for the government to present amendments to the Sex Offender Information Registration Act but, in addition, after it was adopted in committee, the government decided to prorogue and thus kill the bill. Now, it has waited for the end of the session to present it again to the House of Commons, after a major detour through the Senate.

This shows, once again, that when this government introduces crime bills, it does not care what effect they have on crime. All the government cares about, as the member for Ahuntsic explained very well, is scoring any election points it can. By introducing a bill several times, the government has the opportunity to make speeches to show the public that it is fighting crime. But the previous speaker made it quite clear that the government has only one idea: increasing penalties.

It is funny to hear the Conservatives talk about Sébastien's Law. Normally, when we name a bill after someone, after a victim, it is because we are providing a solution for the crime in question. I am very familiar with the case of Sébastien Lacasse, who lived in my riding. This case is a perfect example of how the current Young Offenders Act works very well, and the member knows it. Youth crime has decreased. So what needs to change?

Violent crime has increased in some parts of the country, but overall, it has gone down. If Canada were the country I dreamed of before I became a sovereignist, the majority would, from time to time, get its inspiration from what the minority was doing right in solving its problems. The fact that we are so divided is yet another example. The Conservatives do not know that the model for treating young offenders in Quebec has had spectacular results. There is approximately 50% less youth crime, not just in terms of charges against young offenders, but also in terms of overall crime. Crime is measured the same way across the country, with uniform crime reports, which are filled out whether or not charges are filed.

The Conservatives are ignoring the success in Quebec. They do not want to do the same thing as that province. Another great example of failure. There are problems in the west, and they could be looking to Quebec to help solve them.

The Conservatives would rather turn to the southern United States to see who has won elections handily. They see the Republicans in the south who are tough on crime. That is their solution instead of being smart on crime.

This time around the Conservatives have our support for this bill because it is truly smart on crime. It is only smart if the registry is used as a way to track certain criminals and provide protective measures, but not if it is used as additional punishment for those already convicted of sexual offences. When I listen to the Conservatives, I realize that is the part they are latching onto again. To them, criminals do not receive harsh enough punishment from judges. It is not enough to have harsh sentences; there needs to be something more. Sex offenders need to be registered somewhere so that the police force is aware of them, with the hope perhaps that the police will go and bother them once in a while.

However, I know that measures will be taken. They are even in the legislation that was passed, not by the Conservatives, thank heavens, but by the Liberals. They thought about it and they stipulated in the legislation that only police forces need to know who is registered.

When this was passed the first time, we told them this would increase the burden on the DNA registry. DNA is not like fingerprints. It is much more complicated. It requires trained technicians. I believe it even requires a university science education or certainly advanced college training. Not just anyone can enter the registration and do the scientific processing correctly so that a proper analysis can be made the next time they see the same DNA. It is quite complicated. I am not talking about DNA samples because anyone can collect DNA samples.

It is too bad I do not have the information in front of me, but I think it requires at least 18 months of training to collect samples, and it takes years to develop the necessary skills to testify in court.

Someone before me already mentioned how insignificant these budget increases have been. They are just pretending. It is another example of the Conservative attitude: they claim to be doing something but the money does not follow. They introduced this bill at the end of the session; it will most likely disappear. Perhaps there will be another prorogation in the fall, or perhaps an election will be called. And finally, this bill, which would have had everyone's support, will once again die on the order paper. And if ever the Conservatives are in power again, they will have a fourth opportunity to introduce it again and give the impression that they are doing something to fight crime.

They also want to increase the number of offences. That can be done, but I told them when we discussed it that instead of increasing the scope of the registry, perhaps we should provide the resources to deal with the registry's backlog because it is enormous already.

However, I recognize that there are some good things that show, once again, that this bill is smart on crime. It will make some improvements. For example, there has been no information about the offender's vehicle in the registry. It is good that the police can track the vehicle when an offender is on the move.

The legislation also provides for sharing this type of police information across the country, which is also useful. And that was the key, by the way, to the success of operation Carcajou.

Those were measures that made a difference in the fight against crime. They are not the same as simply giving longer sentences all the time. That was another good thing about it.

One improvement has to do with removing the restriction on using it only during sexual crime investigations. The best example of when that can be critical is when a child is kidnapped.

Police officers might find it useful to be able to look up whether a person on the sex offender registry lives near where a child was kidnapped. The police could then quickly check with those people to make sure they were not involved. We were given a remarkable demonstration of the software that supports that kind of lightning-fast search in Ontario. It is good to know these things right away. In the vast majority of cases, I believe in 90% of cases, when kidnappings are not solved within 48 hours, they will never be solved.

In most of the Conservatives' bills—this one is a big exception, and that is why we will vote in favour of it—they ignore the issues that need to be dealt with. Everyone in the House agrees, and the general public is nearly unanimous that Parliament made a mistake—I was not here, so it is easier for me to talk about it—when it decided to amend the law to allow those convicted of non-violent crimes to get out on parole after serving one-sixth of their sentence.

We are totally opposed to this. I even introduced a bill on it myself. It does not need to be very complicated for the simple reason that the legal provisions allowing for release after one-sixth of the sentence has been served apply to only two sections in the Criminal Code. These sections were added at the last minute in one of those marathon sessions on omnibus bills. I do not think the government realized, in its haste, what it was doing.

We are often against minimum sentences and undue increases in sentences. When it comes to incarceration rates, Canada ranks in the middle of the list of 175 countries. That is the reality and we do not see the need for increases, except in individual cases. In the matter before us today, we would like to see more incarceration.

We think, though, that sentences must be individualized and pronounced in full knowledge of the law by an impartial person who has had an opportunity to hear both parties before making a decision and who must, we should note, also apply around 20 criteria already provided in the legislation. We think it is rather insulting to say an individual can be released after serving one-sixth of his sentence after an impartial judge has taken all these precautions and rendered a decision. When this is done, it does not reflect the work the judge did and the decision that has been made.

I would like to ask them again what they have done to help victims other than providing for heavier sentences.

In the Bloc Québécois, we are concerned with fighting crime. It is not about the political shows that the hon. member for Ahuntsic described so well, but about really helping victims. That is why one of our colleagues, the hon. member for Compton—Stanstead, tabled a bill that would give crime victims and their relatives about the same benefits they get under the Quebec legislation.

In Quebec we give two years to people who have been affected by a crime, either as the victim or because a relative of theirs was victimized and they have to care for that person. Her bill would therefore provide the same benefits for things that fall under federal jurisdiction. The federal government also has one very full treasure chest that is still running surpluses, from which it pinches a bit occasionally and from which it took an awful lot during its first attempt to reach a zero deficit, that is to say the employment insurance fund. A measure like this would not greatly increase the employment insurance payouts.

What is the government waiting for to enact this bill, which would genuinely help victims? Compare the federal ombudsman for victims of crime, the material and psychological assistance that victims are offered, to the satisfaction they might get from seeing the person who committed the crime serving an additional few months or years in prison. I think a majority of victims would much prefer to get the help we could provide for them, as in fact is done in Quebec.

And then my colleague from Ahuntsic has done a remarkable job of advocating for bills C-46 and C-47, other measures that create an obligation for Internet service providers to report pornography on the Internet.

Everyone supports that, except perhaps Conservative campaign contributors who own Internet service companies. Everyone supports it, including the police across the country. In fact, coincidentally, a counsellor with a Quebec police force was just talking to me this morning and asking me what had become of Bills C-46 and C-47. But they are not doing it.

In this case, the Conservatives are showing us that they can sometimes propose laws that do more to combat crime. In such cases, they can count on the Bloc Québécois to support them. We may have a few comments to make in committee about things that are extreme, but I have not found a lot. We will be able to discuss it in committee. They can be assured that when we do that, it is not because we are eager to stand up for criminals; it is because we want the laws to be written properly so they will be just.

In this case, this bill is smart on crime, and so we will support it. That shows that the Conservatives can count on the Bloc Québécois when they introduce something that truly and effectively combats crime and is not just intended to show that they are tough on crime.

[Protecting Victims From Sex Offenders Act, June 14th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, it seems that the member and his party believe that increasing sentences—threatening people with longer sentences—is the only way to help victims.

Does my colleague believe that, with our help, he could identify other ways?

[Protecting Victims From Sex Offenders Act, June 14th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, in this session we were often told by the Conservatives that they were looking after the victims and that the opposition was only thinking of the rights of criminals. That is obviously the height of partisan propaganda. Asking for fair and balanced laws does not mean that we are somehow in favour of crime.

I would like to ask the member if he could identify one bill, introduced in this session, that will help victims. They reason that by increasing sentences they are helping the victims. However, it is of little comfort to victims to know that sentences will be harsher. Can he indicate another bill that helps victims?

[Protecting Victims From Sex Offenders Act, June 14th, 2010]

Madam Speaker, I would first like to say how much I appreciated the member’s speech. He is very eloquent—he has quite a talent—and he bases all his arguments on facts that he has verified. He clearly demonstrated that in his speech.

I worked with him in the study of this bill a year ago when it was Bill C-34. Since that time, I have moved to the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights, but he will certainly remember some relevant facts he did not have time to mention, in particular regarding the DNA data bank that they want to use here once again. In fact, in the course of our study, we learned that the time for getting a DNA result is now more than a year, I believe. Certainly if there is a very urgent case, at a crime scene, they can be had faster, but the number of times the DNA data bank is used means that it takes an extremely long time. With this bill and the amendments being proposed, an even heavier load will be put on the DNA data bank.

We also learned, if I recall correctly, that training a DNA technician to be able to testify in court is something that takes years. Perhaps the member still recalls the exact time. I would not want to give inaccurate figures. I do not like to give figures when I have not verified them.

However, it strikes me again how the Conservatives have this habit of always making a show of how they are really doing something to tackle crime. Are they not going to extremes that will mean that at some point we are going to be unable to administer these laws, and so they will not be very useful to victims?

[Eliminating Pardons for Serious Crimes Act, June 7th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to be very brief and say that we will see once this goes to the committee. We should not go overboard with fingerprinting because we might end up fingerprinting everyone.

I am sure that Ms. Stoddart will explain to us in detail which rules apply. But I know that back in the day when I was practising law, when people were acquitted, they could have their fingerprints destroyed. I think that there were good reasons for that, and for those same reasons, we should not be fingerprinting everybody all the time.

[Eliminating Pardons for Serious Crimes Act, June 7th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, because we will be studying it in committee, I believe we should study it thoroughly by looking at the success stories, the statistics, the jurisprudence in cases where it was granted and the jurisprudence established by the decisions of the National Parole Board. We have to look at the details so that the public understands how the system works rather than just remembering one thing, the Graham James case.

The public may perhaps compare the case of Graham James to that of Robert Piché, the pilot who was pardoned and today flies commercial aircraft. This excellent pilot who flew aircraft under difficult conditions was at one point a drug trafficker. However, he went back to work, and did an exemplary job when two of his airplane engines failed in mid-ocean. He managed to land safely and today they are making a movie about him.

That is one person who benefited from a pardon. It is not just about Graham James. I believe there are more people like Robert Piché who have been pardoned than there are people like Graham James.

[Eliminating Pardons for Serious Crimes Act, June 7th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, I completely agree with what was just said, and with what was said by the previous speaker. There needs to be a balance between justice and mercy.

Why was this bill introduced? Because one event was sensationalized and very poorly received. In showing that it is tough on crime, the government is not looking for an appropriate way to reduce crime in the future; it is looking for more votes at election time. It is tough, but it need not be as tough as the United States, which has proven that it is tough on crime to the point of being stupid about it.

[Eliminating Pardons for Serious Crimes Act, June 7th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, our goal is to ensure that there are fewer victims, and rehabilitation is the best way to do that. The hon. member for Abbotsford said we do not often talk about the victims. That is not true; we talk about them all the time. I started by talking about everything I have already done to combat organized crime. There is absolutely no doubt that when we fight organized crime, we are helping reduce the number of victims.

Besides, he has seen the statistics, just as I have. In Quebec in 2001, after operation Carcajou was over, the number of gang murders went down from 38 to 7, and 15 the next year. Now those are results.

The government talks about victims all too often, and always in a way that plays with people's emotions. It is as though, if we do not say the word “victim”, it means we do not care about them. Clearly, when we fight crime, we want fewer people to become victims. I completely agree that we need to balance mercy and justice.

[Eliminating Pardons for Serious Crimes Act, June 7th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, I want to begin by making it clear that I am absolutely convinced that all members of the House support public safety and want laws that keep people safe. However, we have differences of opinion about how to achieve that goal.

Our differences of opinion are reflected in North America as a whole. Down south, in the United States, those who supported extreme punishment won. Right now, their prisons are home to over one-quarter of the prison population worldwide. That is bankrupting some states. They have to release people from jail without even looking at individual cases because they simply do not have the space to keep them locked up. Their crime rate is much higher than ours. One is three and a half times more likely to be a murder victim in the United States than in Canada, and five times more likely to be murdered in the United States than in Quebec, by the way. It is a fiasco. I think that we need to adopt a more intelligent approach because the debate is lacking in intelligence.

The fact that we are against anti-crime provisions does not mean that we are in favour of criminals' rights or that we do not care about public safety even though they say that this is about being tough on crime.

I believe that, in my career, I have done a lot for public safety. I think that I have done a lot more than many people here, and probably more than our Minister of Justice. I worked with chiefs Duchesneau and Barbeau to create the Carcajou squads. When we came up with that approach to policing, I believed that if police officers pooled their information about crime, they would make remarkable progress. I was not thinking just of what was part of the official record, but of the information in their heads. That is what made Carcajou so original, and it produced remarkable results with officers from different police forces working two by two on cases. That model has often been used in Canada and even in other countries.

At the end of this three and a half year process, 321 members of organized crime were arrested. There was never any criticism of the way the evidence against them was gathered and they were all convicted. They received various sentences depending on the seriousness of the crimes they had committed, but especially on their involvement. No one ever complained about this aspect.

I believe my past shows that I was concerned about and capable of fighting organized crime, but I remain convinced that imprisonment is a serious measure that needs to be used in moderation. There are certainly other ways to get people to correct their behaviour.

We are currently discussing pardons in this House. People commit crimes because they are not perfect. Nonetheless, we have to realize that it is also very important that people have a goal to achieve that provides some sort of benefit, that they not be guided solely by the fear of punishment.

Napoleon understood that. He handed out vast quantities of medals because he knew that people are motivated more by reward than by the fear of punishment.

When a person has been sentenced and has served that sentence and will have a hard time reintegrating into society, is it not good to think he could be provided a goal to achieve, the goal of being pardoned, which would be recognized by the community if he proves over a set period of time that he is worthy of it?

It is a long period of time nonetheless, much longer than what the previous speakers stated. We must consider that the clock starts once all conditions added to the sentence have elapsed.

In the majority of sentences handed down, if not all of them, the judges specify a term of imprisonment plus the requirement to keep the peace and to comply with certain conditions for a period of at least three years. In the case of criminal offences, where the time is five years, it is not five years after release from prison, but five years from the time all conditions have elapsed.

Very often, if a sentence of five years is handed down and parole is granted, the clock does not start at the end of the five-year sentence but at the end of the two additional years imposed by the judge. The same principle applies when it is three years.

In my career, I saw how the system worked when these laws did not exist. The law created the possibility of granting a pardon. I believe that is the term used in the first law, which was subsequently amended. This possibility was created because it was understood that it was very difficult for a person who had served time in jail or received a criminal conviction to reintegrate into society. They have difficulty finding work and face many obstacles on the road to rehabilitation. It was deemed to be a good idea.

Society believed that a pardon could be granted after a certain period of time, which was fairly long nonetheless. It is not five years. It is five years plus the period of time during which they must comply with certain conditions. Seven years is almost as long as the time required to complete classical studies, which last eight years. That is rather long. It gave the person a valid reason to respect the law and to change their behaviour.

They want to change the terminology again. We are now considering the term “record suspension”. Why are they so afraid of the term “pardon”? As far as I know, forgiveness is a value that is taught by all major religions. I received a very religious education, but I am no longer religious. In fact, I have often described myself as being agnostic.

I am at a point in my life when I am beginning to have doubts. I wonder if I should continue to be agnostic or return to religion. At a certain point in my life, I was very interested in the origins of the world. Science gave more of an explanation than religion did.

The doubt sown in me by Albert Camus when I was young remains deeply entrenched. In La Peste, he wrote that God cannot be both infinitely just and infinitely powerful; otherwise, he would not allow children to suffer. When I was young I was told that the ways of the Lord were unfathomable.

I still have my doubts. I am not practising, even though I was married in the church and my children were all baptized and they, in turn, have had their children baptized.

Yet, I still remember that this religion was the foundation for my values, and I think it is the same for everyone. Does anyone here remember Christ's last words upon the cross? “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” Christ's last living words were words of forgiveness.

Another thing that left a significant impression on me was the film Gandhi, a wonderful film by David Attenborough, or perhaps his brother. At one point, someone reveals to Gandhi that he has done something horrible. During some sort of protest, he got carried away with hatred for the people of the other religion. He took a baby and hit it against a wall until it was dead. Obviously, it was a despicable act. Gandhi told this man that what he had done was horrible and that his punishment was to take an orphan Muslim child—the man being Hindu—and raise the child as his own son. Again, there was that belief that is espoused by all major religions.

During my life, in my travels and in the readings I have done before travelling, I have noticed that major religions—Islam, Hinduism, Sikhism, Buddhism—all preach not only love for one's neighbour, but also pardon. Why are we afraid of using that word?

It seems to me that telling someone that he can be pardoned after at least seven to nine years serves as a goal that promotes rehabilitation. I use those figures because there is the five-year period, plus the customary two- to three-year period during which the judge requires the offender to keep the peace, plus the investigations, which take from 18 months to 2 years. But honestly, now we are going to tell someone that we are going to give him a record suspension. Good God, the people who came up with that were not educators. I do not think it will encourage many people. Moreover, when people have been told the impact of a pardon and what comes from it, I have heard them ask themselves why they would apply for one if it has virtually no impact.

I believe that it does have an impact and that that positive goal acts as an incentive for rehabilitation.

The government has taken a specific case and, as it has done with so many bills during this session, it has extrapolated it to a large number of cases. The public may be concerned about the Graham James case, because it involves sexual offences. But I would remind the House that there is no absolute pardon in such cases, because records of sexual offences are kept apart and can be consulted if the offender wants to volunteer or work in a place where he would be close to children or even close to adults if he is working in a health care centre.

The government says that the automatic granting of pardons needs to be reviewed. Personally, I do not believe that pardons are granted automatically. Some are denied. We have been told that more than 800 are denied every year, after an investigation is conducted.

Once again, the government has taken a specific case and blown it out of all proportion. I can give at least two examples that I feel are more important. There is the supposed law against child trafficking.

Obviously, everyone thinks that someone found guilty of child trafficking must receive an extremely harsh punishment. However, if we actually read the bill, which very few people have done, we see that, other than in the title, it does not mention trafficking. It talks about the exploitation of persons under the age of 18 years. There is a minimum.

The minimum is certainly appropriate for child traffickers, but obviously it would not apply as well to all cases where persons under the age of 18 have been exploited. Exploitation can refer to the exchange of money as a salary— but few children earn a salary, and for income received for services. The law's target is a dreadful crime, but the legislation has not been carefully worded so that it specifically addresses this crime. Instead, all kinds of other crimes are being included.

The same thing is being done with Bill C-16, which would restrict the availability of conditional sentences for violent and dangerous offenders. Fine, but the legislation already allows for a judge to refuse to give a conditional sentence, to be served at home, if public safety is at risk. Am I the only one who thinks that granting a conditional sentence to a violent and dangerous offender jeopardizes public safety, and that judges should not do that?

I would like to come back to child trafficking. I recognize that this trafficking is a form of exploitation, but not all exploitation comes in the form of child trafficking. The sentence that is appropriate for child traffickers is not necessarily appropriate for other forms of exploitation, which can last a day or a few hours.

How is the success of a pardon project measured? We are told that 97% of people who benefited from this type of pardon, which is not actually a pardon because it involves public recognition of that pardon, have not committed other criminal offences and they respected the conditions imposed on them. That seems like a very good success rate, 97%.

Perhaps we are very different in Quebec. The Québec Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms recognizes that we must not discriminate on the basis of a criminal record.

However, it is true that the case of Graham James is an example of leniency or premature pardon for people who have committed criminal acts of a sexual nature. As I said, we know that these files are under wraps. That is why they are approved. Part of the public seems outraged, but that is not the case with Manon Cornellier, who was so well quoted by the member for Ahuntsic, who spoke before me. I am convinced that people are outraged because they do not know the success rate and the time it takes. They are unaware of the minor nature of the material consequences of granting pardons.

If these people look at the basic tenets of their religion, whatever that religion may be, they will see that granting a pardon, after this time period and on these conditions, is a way to honour their religion and is good for public safety.