Mr. Speaker, the government believed that the very title of the legislation, the “safe streets and communities act”, alone validated the legislation and made it self-justifying.
The government also believed, as I said, that it had a mandate. It keeps repeating it as a mantra: it had a mandate for this legislation. Therefore, why would it not bundle all nine bills together into one bill?
The government believed we had already debated these bills, so why should it not rush the bill through in 100 days? The very first piece of legislation in that bundle, the justice for victims of terrorism act, had never been presented in this House, regardless of what the government says. We never debated it in this House.
With respect to other bills, there are new members of Parliament, as the member for Gatineau mentioned, who ought to have the right not only to debate this legislation in Parliament for the first time, but also to consult their constituents with regard to this legislation. This was disrespect not only for the parliamentary process in this chamber, but also with respect to consultation with our constituents and to the policy process as a whole.
As well, it is the responsibility of a government, through its Minister of Justice, to certify that the legislation it is proposing has been shown to comply with the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
The fact is that those amendments by the government could have been tabled in this omnibus bill. The constitutionality being as suspect as it is raises for me, as a former minister of justice, some question as to whether they were properly filtered as to their constitutionality, let alone the bad policy contained in them.
I do not want to question the good faith of the government; I want to question the manner in which it proceeded, and that goes to the whole question. The government believed it was acting for victims and believed it was seeking to protect safe streets and communities; however, that cannot be done without appropriate consultation, without appropriate debate, without allowing members to engage with constituents, without filtering for constitutionality and without allowing the evidence-based considerations that underpin such policy legislation to be addressed and, where appropriate, to be acted upon through amendments and the like.