Mr. Speaker, in a society governed by the rule of law people should be judged on the basis of their characters and actions, not on personal characteristics such as race.
I had the pleasure of living in the United States for a good portion of the 1960s. I watched with interest the civil rights movement that took place during that era in the United States and the struggle that people went through. There are two main focuses of the civil rights movement that I would like to raise in this context today.
The first part of the civil rights movement was a full, frontal attack on laws that separated American citizens on the basis of race. It confronted Jim Crow Laws and segregation laws wherever they were found. They were found through all segments of American society, predominantly in the south. The movement was also based on high ideals. It abhorred segregation and it believed in a great society of integration where everyone would participate in that larger society, regardless of race or other personal characteristics.
Martin Luther King was clearly the leader of that movement. The clear goal of Mr. King's famous and memorable speech “I have a dream” , which was delivered in Washington before hundreds of thousands of Americans, was his passion that his children and grandchildren would live in a society in which they would be judged on the basis of their characters and actions and not on the basis of the colour of their skin.
This government has created far too much public policy based on separating Canadians on the basis of race. With this proposed amendment, we will be clearly judging people on the basis of race rather than on their characters and actions.
A little while ago we lost a very special Canadian, Mr. Justice Willard Estey. In my view, Justice Estey has been one of the many great gifts that Saskatchewan has given the country. As a law student at the University of Saskatchewan in the 1970s, Justice Estey used to make an annual pilgrimage to the University of Saskatchewan and provide special lectures to the students. He was a very friendly individual but also a very provocative individual who stimulated thinking.
Justice Estey underscored the importance of the rule of law and equality before the law. He saw these principles as fundamental to justice and the justice system, these principles that separated the Anglo-American tradition from many of the tyrannies and less tasteful societies in the world.
I would ask everyone to please note that the proposed amendment to our criminal code is a significant departure from the rule of law and equality before the law. When we depart from these principles, especially in the area of criminal law, we are creating unfairness and injustice. We are laying the basis for some very serious, negative, unintended consequences.
I intend to use a simple hypothetical to illustrate the importance of the rule of law and equality before the law.
Three people appear in magistrate's court on a Monday morning with identical charges, all parking meter charges.
The first person appears before the judge. The judge says that this is not a serious matter and he is assessed the minimum fine of $20.
The second person steps up before the judge and receives quite a lecture on the matter. The judge says that this is getting out of hand and that he is hearing this too often. He is assessed a fine of $100.
The third person appears before the judge with the identical charge. The judge says that this thing is becoming epidemic, that there are far too many people in the community who are breaking this sort of law and that he has to send out a clear message of deterrence to the community. The third individual is placed in jail for a week and is fined $500.
I think we can all see what Mr. Justice Estey was talking about when he talked about the importance of equality before the law and the rule of law.
Another problem with this approach is that it undermines what I think are some of the main features of our criminal justice system. The purpose of the criminal justice system, first and foremost, is to provide security and protection to law-abiding citizens. In this sense, it clearly sends out the wrong message. The strong likelihood of being caught and the fear of consequences are two of the best deterrents to crime anywhere.
In New York City, Mayor Giuliani developed an amazing reputation before September 11 as a mayor who came to one of the most crime-infested cities of the world. Central Park was a danger zone night or day and was run by gangs. There were areas of New York where one would not go into.
What did Mayor Giuliani do with this crime problem? He hired more police officers. He put them in the areas where there were high crime rates, at the time that the crime rates were taken. The criminals soon realized they were going to be apprehended. He returned to community policing, where neighbourhoods got to know their local police officers on a first name basis and saw these people as their friends and their protectors.
Excluding September 11, and I think my figures are accurate, New York City now has a lower crime rate than any city in Great Britain with a population of 500,000 people or more. This has been quite a remarkable accomplishment.
If this government really wants to reduce the crime rate it should focus on some of the things Mayor Giuliani did in New York. Give more resources to police officers and police work. That would help deter and prevent crime in the first place.
Criminal law is not a suitable instrument for correcting social ills. Nor is the failed policies of past Liberal governments in the areas of Indian and aboriginal affairs. The main aim of the criminal justice system, as I stated before, is to protect society from criminal wrongdoers and to deter others from committing such crimes in the first place. On both counts, the bill is a total, absolute failure.
A high rate of crime among ethnic groups is not an indictment against our court system or our criminal justice system. It is like blaming the barometer for the bad weather outside or blaming the justice system or the court system for a high rate of convictions among a certain ethnic group. It is a damning indictment on failed Liberal policies on Indian and aboriginal affairs. The Liberals approach, basically for 125 years, has been a dismal failure.
The bill is an example of the government's ability to competently manage the decline of the country. We have seen a lot of drift, decline and decay with the government. With this bill the law itself would be the cause of injustice, division and intolerance.
I ask Liberal members to seriously look at what we are doing. We are attacking a fundamental point of the Anglo-American judicial system: equality before the law and rule of law, especially in the area of criminal justice. This is the last area we want to get into with this sort of thing. I encourage Liberal members to talk the government into withdrawing the bill and taking a hard look at it.
I will use another example of the failure of dividing people on the basis of race and other social engineering. I often wonder what a Liberal government would have done in the 1980s if it had been managing the National Hockey League. The Edmonton Oilers had an outstanding team. I did not cheer for it because it beat my team quite badly, but it was a powerhouse of a team. It had Messier, Anderson, Kurri, Coffey, Grant Fuhr and, on top of it all probably the greatest player who ever played the game, Wayne Gretsky. It was an awesome hockey team. To watch it play was outstanding.
If the government had been involved with the NHL at the time I am sure it would have expanded the net for the Edmonton Oilers, given opposing teams a smaller net, limited Wayne Gretsky to maybe 12 minutes a game and made him play with a shorter stick, and allowed other teams to have an extra forward on the ice. It would have done this to balance it out so the score would be even at the end of the game.
This is what these kinds of policies are doing to our economy, our society and our criminal justice system. If we stand back and look we can see it is what the government is doing. Its policies are penalizing winners and often rewarding losers, leading to a society of mediocre performance, drift and decline. Some people say Canada will be Argentina north with these sorts of policies. They say we are slowly managing ourselves into a decline with lower expectations and a lower bar. I do not see what purpose the proposed law would serve.
When we have aboriginal youth before our court system who are in gang situations, people with Somalian or other immigrant backgrounds may also be involved with the gangs. How in the world is a judge to know who is aboriginal and who is not? Is there a medical test that can be performed? Is there a blood or DNA test which could be taken in court to determine who is aboriginal and who is not? Do we want to get into that sort of thing?
It is amazing that in this day and age a Liberal government would contemplate this sort of thing. Let us imagine the mental gymnastics which would be performed in our courts to deal with it. How much aboriginal blood would it take? Would it be 1%, 3%, 5% or 10%? What percentage would become the bar? Would Metis people be involved or only status aboriginal people? A whole lot of problems are inherent in the bill.
William Shakespeare said many years ago that the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Quite seriously, this piece of legislation is all about good intentions and would cause a whole lot of problems. If we continue down this path it will get worse and worse.
I remind members in the House of what Dr. King said in the 1960s, probably weeks or months before he was assassinated. He said he wanted to see a society in the United States where his children and grandchildren would be judged on the basis of their character and actions and not the colour of their skin.
Unfortunately with this bill we would be judging people by the colour of their skin. That is a serious problem. I did not think a Liberal government in the year 2002 would be doing the exact thing Martin Luther King fought against in the 1960s, but that is what the government is doing. It is creating an apartheid type regime in the criminal justice system. I find that most unfortunate.
