Thank you, Mr. Chair and honourable members. We appreciate this opportunity to appear to express our views on Bill C-266.

For those who are not familiar with the Canadian Criminal Justice Association, let me take a minute to tell you that we are a voluntary sector organization. We were originally founded in 1919 and are celebrating our 100th anniversary this year, so we've been around for a little while.

We have approximately 700 members across the country and we represent all aspects of the criminal justice system: lawyers, academics, the police community, correctional officers and victim support officers. We are one of the few voluntary sector organizations working in the criminal justice field—and working to improve it—that attempts to accommodate all perspectives on the criminal justice system. I think that makes our views stronger.

At any rate, with respect to the matter at hand today and with the greatest respect to victims—including the families of those who have suffered tragic events like the ones contemplated by the bill—I must say that we are opposed to this bill.

In our criminal justice system, all persons convicted of murder are sentenced to life imprisonment. This means that anyone convicted of murder, whether or not they are ever released on parole, will be under the control and supervision of correctional authorities for the remainder of their natural lives. There is no warrant expiry for an offender serving a life sentence.

For first degree murder, as you know, the mandatory 25 years specified is not the sentence imposed by our courts but the period of parole ineligibility that the offender must serve before being considered for parole. After that time, the decision on whether or not to gradually release and reintegrate the offender into society is made by the Parole Board.

It is our view that if we don't have confidence in the parole system's ability to get this decision right, we should look at improving the parole system for the sake of all parole decisions, rather than look at amending the sentence for first degree murder, as is proposed in Bill C-266.

If Parliament does amend the law for this type of case, we could easily be caught in an endless cycle of amending the law to further increase the parole ineligibility period to respond to yet another case presenting even more horrific facts. Regrettably, it is always possible to imagine a more horrific fact pattern. I won't delay you with details, but I suggest as an example that if you add to the circumstances contemplated in this bill, torture or extreme brutality are not necessarily covered. Do we keep increasing the parole ineligibility period? In the case of criminal harassment, an intentional killing committed in the context of criminal harassment is not covered by this bill. If this bill is passed, will we see on the order paper more bills suggesting we increase it to 50 years?

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