Bill C-2 (Historical)

Tackling Violent Crime Act

An Act to amend the Criminal Code and to make consequential amendments to other Acts

This enactment amends the Criminal Code by
(a) creating two new firearm offences and providing escalating mandatory sentences of imprisonment for serious firearm offences;
(b) strengthening the bail provisions for those accused of serious offences involving firearms and other regulated weapons;
(c) providing for more effective sentencing and monitoring of dangerous and high-risk offenders;
(d) introducing a new regime for the detection and investigation of drug impaired driving and strengthening the penalties for impaired driving; and
(e) raising the age of consent for sexual activity from 14 to 16 years.

Canada Elections Act

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, if I had the time for a question I certainly would want to enquire about some of the current cases before Parliament.

Bill C-29 aims to establish a system of improved accountability for candidates to report loans taken out during election campaigns. Its key elements include creating a uniform and transparent reporting regime for all loans to political parties, including mandatory disclosure of terms and the identity of all lenders and loan guarantors; ensuring that total loans, loan guarantees and contributions by individuals should not exceed the annual contribution limit for individuals established in the Canada Elections Act; and allowing only financial institutions and other political entities the capacity to make loans beyond the annual contribution limit for individuals and only at commercial rates of interest.

Tightening rules for the treatment of unpaid loans is also important to ensure candidates cannot walk away from unpaid loans by ultimately holding riding associations responsible for unpaid loans taken out by their candidates.

The bill was first presented to the House during the first session of Parliament as Bill C-54 and reintroduced in November of last year with essentially the same content as Bill C-54. The bill was very seriously examined during meetings of the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs. Members worked hard and agreed upon different elements, not the least of which was a significant improvement which now calls for unpaid amounts of the loan to be considered contributions after three years after the day on which it was made. The original government proposal was to make that period only 18 months. Now the government House leader is presenting motions that would completely disregard the other amendments that were passed at committee.

Government Motion No. 1 would delete the Liberal amendment to allow for annual contributions to a leadership candidate. Under this motion, for example, a person would be allowed to donate $1,000 to a leadership candidate in each calendar year until the leadership candidate paid his or her campaign debt and formally closed his or her leadership campaign.

Government Motion No. 2 would make it necessary for loans to be repaid annually rather than at the point when the loan becomes due. Effectively, this would prevent candidates from taking extended repayment loans. It makes no sense to set up an artificial limit on repayment.

Considering the fact that elections can be called at different times during the year, whether it be January, April or October, it is unreasonable for someone to be asked to pay off a loan before the time limit established by the loan contract. We see that the government is pushing hard on its perception of accountability.

Furthermore, as members of Parliament will know, once we are elected our focus shifts to doing our job, not to running in elections or raising money for elections. It, therefore, would be an absolute hindrance for anyone to have to focus on repaying by the end of a fiscal year if that is not the date that was agreed upon with the lender.

Government Motion No. 3 would delete the Bloc amendment that would have removed liability from registered political parties for loans taken by candidates. This motion would set up a system or a responsibility for registered political parties and riding associations, regardless of whether or not they are aware that the candidate has taken out a loan. Making one entity responsible for the personal debt of an individual does not sound responsible under any criteria.

The government waited for the original version of this bill to die with prorogation so that it could present new motions to completely obliterate the changes that had already been agreed upon democratically at committee.

There are some five bills in Bill C-2, many of which had progressed substantially through the legislative process. In fact, many of those bills would have been law today had the government taken the opportunity it had to reintroduce those bills at the same stage they were at when prorogation occurred.

As a consequence, we now find Bill C-2 as an issue of debate in this place simply because the government suggests that it should happen quicker. However, it engineered the delay in those pieces of legislation. Therefore, it is very similar to what has happened with regard to this bill.

Through this tactic, Canadians have seen that the government is clearly not interested in really working with the other parties to come up with sound legislation. It is only interested in continuing to pursue a philosophy of “my way or the highway” kind of legislative process. It is only interested in presenting political jabs disguised as draft legislation, and we have seen that time and time again on many bills.

While the government continues to repeat that Bill C-29 will finally stop the undue influence of wealthy contributors who were supposedly skirting Elections Act donation limits through the use of personal loans, the bill is clearly designed to disadvantage the Liberal Party of Canada financially and to limit access to the political process for many Canadians.

The fact is our party has demonstrated, in good faith, that we want to work to improve election laws. After all, our party was the one that passed the bill to limit the role of corporations and unions in election financing in Bill C-24 in 2003.

Our party also initiated the most significant contribution limit reduction in Canadian history. Furthermore, during our last leadership campaign, all candidates publicly disclosed all loans made to their campaigns and went above and beyond the requirement set out in the Canada Elections Act in this regard.

The Prime Minister still refuses to fully disclose the complete scope of financing of his own 2002 leadership campaign. Clearly the government is running a “Do as I say, not as I do” kind of operation. How can Canadians believe a government that does not want to practise what it preaches.The Liberal Party supports measures to make Canadians more confident in their politicians by seeking to improve the accountability of the electoral process.

We support the bill, as amended by the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs, which includes the measures that were approved democratically by all of the parties.

Let me refer also to the activity within the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs to which many important issues are referred and is represented by all parties. What happens is it is sometimes very dysfunctional in terms of deciding to do things or not to do things. In the case of the so-called in and out scandal, a filibuster has been going on since late October or early November on the ruling by the Chief Electoral Officer that the Conservative Party had breached the Canada Elections Act by transferring loans into and then out of candidates accounts. This kind of issue is very serious and the Chief Electoral Officer found that it was improper. The issue still is not out of procedure and House affairs committee. It is still not progressing because the government is filibustering.

For those who may be watching, a filibuster occurs when a party decides that it will continue to talk. There are no limits on talking when a motion is made. If the chair of that committee permits it to get too broad, effectively what we can do is continue to talk. When one member is finished, another member can get up and continue to talk. Therefore, we have a filibuster whereby the question before the committee never gets voted on and no action is ever taken.

We have seen that time and time again as a tactic. As members know, the government members were given a binder for their committees on how to disrupt the business of committees. Amendments were made to the bill at committee. Now they are being changed. There are all kinds of tactics, which I think Canadians would find very distasteful, with regard to respect for the rule of parliamentary procedures and law and how matters are handled.

I believe parliamentarians on committee, in reviewing the matter before us, did their job. They agreed upon the amendments. These have been tampered with yet again by the government to show bad faith in terms of respecting the fact that this is a minority government. It is important that we move now to make good laws and wise decisions. It does not include the changes proposed by the government.

Tackling Violent Crime Legislation

[Joe Comartin, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I agree with the assertions the member for Malpeque made at the beginning of his question. In my address to the House, I said that the delay was on the part of the government. There was no reason at all for the Conservatives to back this up, prorogue and then not allow the bills to go back to the same stage, as the three opposition parties proposed.

Despite the fact that I do not have a crystal ball, I have done an analysis of how crime bills have gone through the House under the current government and under the previous Liberal administration. Three of the five in Bill C-2 would be through and I think the fourth one would be as well. Only the dangerous offender bill would probably still be before the Senate at this point in time. Since that bill went to the Senate, for most of the time the Senate has not sat and neither has the House.

I will make one final point with regard to the Senate and the government. If the government were really serious, it would not be this motion before the House. The government would have a motion something similar to, “we call on all the senators to resign and we call on the Conservative government to initiate a process of constitutional reform to abolish the Senate for the future”.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

Mr. Speaker, I thought the member for Windsor-Tecumseh was very direct, as he always is. If there is anybody's counsel in the House I respect, it is his.

He said that the delay was really caused by the Conservative government itself, not by the Senate. I heard the remarks of the member for Wild Rose. Yes, there are differences of opinion in terms of the various bills, but the fact is several of these bills were to the Senate before. The debate was held in here and passed with the approval of the House of Commons.

There is no reason in the world why these bills had to be pulled back and then regurgitated into one single bill, named tackling violent crime, other than for political purposes. I think that is what the member was pointing out. Would the member agree with that comment?

Part of the motion today reads, “and that in the opinion of this House, the Senate majority is not providing appropriate priority to the passage of BillC-2”. Whether one agrees or disagrees that there be a Senate, that wording is an attack on reality. We were adjourned for most of the time, yet the government talks about the number of days since the House adjourned for the Christmas break. Could the member comment on that as well?

[Joe Comartin, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

Mr. Speaker, this motion by the government is unprecedented in the history of Canada. We can go back through almost 141 years of Confederation and we have never had a motion like this one in front of the House.

In substance, the motion says to the Senate, “We are telling you from the House of Commons if you do not pass Bill C-2 by the end of March 2008, we are going to bring down the government”. The Minister of Justice was on his feet in the House repeating in his speech this afternoon exactly the same threat.

I want to start with the height of hypocrisy that this motion represents on behalf of the government. Before I do that, I want to deal with the basic lack of logic of this motion.

What are we hearing? We heard from the Prime Minister in the fall when Bill C-2 was put before the House, and I will come back to some of the history leading up to Bill C-2, that he was going to bring the government down if this bill was not passed. It was passed in the House and now the government is doing the same thing in the Senate.

The logic escapes me because behind the threats, the bombast and the macho image the government is trying to portray on crime is a totally illogical position, which is that we need this legislation right now, that we needed it years ago. That is what we hear from the government. There is some validity to that in the case of a number of parts of Bill C-2, particularly those that the NDP supported as a political party and which the Liberal government in previous administrations would not pursue.

The Conservatives are saying, “We need it right now, we are way overdue on a number of these amendments and provisions, but we are going to go to an election”. They threatened it last fall and now they are threatening it again.

This resolution from the House has absolutely no impact on the Senate. We do not have the ability constitutionally to deal with this. It is totally illogical. If it comes to fruition, that is, if the government falls, or brings itself down is a better analysis of what is going on here, over this issue, Bill C-2 will die on the order paper. It will not get through the House of Commons or the Senate until the end of 2008.

Where is the logic behind this? Although it is a rhetorical question, the obvious answer is there is no logic. This is not about dealing reasonably, realistically and effectively with crime in this country. This is all about political posturing and nothing else on the part of the government.

Why are the Conservatives pushing it right now? The answer to that is very obvious. They lost the agenda on making crime the primary issue they want to run on in an election. The Conservatives think that is where they have their best chance of gaining support in the country. I think it is an analysis that is faulty, but that is where the Conservative Party and the Conservative government is coming from.

What has happened in the last several months is that the Conservatives' agenda around the crime issues has been completely pushed aside because we passed that bill before the House recessed at the end of last year. Any number of other issues that have been before the House and the country have taken prominence, issues that the government is very afraid of. Let me mention a few of them.

Obviously, at the top of the list right now would be the economic straits we are in, in particular in the manufacturing and forestry sectors, compelling the government, in spite of the blackmail it tried to pull on the House, to move $1 billion into those sectors and communities in order to deal with the dire economic crises that a number of those communities are facing. That pushed it off its agenda.

Obviously, the Afghanistan war, and in particular, the way Canada is handling detainees in Afghanistan, has pushed the Conservatives off their agenda in that regard. The firing of the head of the nuclear safety commission has pushed them off. Of course, there is always the Schreiber-Mulroney scandal. In the last couple of weeks, there has been the issue of the finance minister not following the rules of the Treasury Board with regard to letting contracts. There is the in and out scandal on the part of the Conservative government, the only party in the House that has been charged by Elections Canada with having in effect breached the election financing law.

There are all of those issues, none of which are favourable to the government. We are seeing, as a result of all of these issues, that the government is falling in the polls. The Conservatives believe that they can hijack the agenda in this country by trying to get back on to the crime agenda.

Let us look at what the Conservatives have done historically in the last 12 months or so. Last spring, just before we broke for the summer, three of the five bills that comprised Bill C-2 had passed this House and were in the Senate. I say without any hesitation that by the end of 2007, had the government not done what it proceeded to subsequently do, those bills would have passed the Senate. I say that on the basis of the way the Senate has handled other crime bills since the Conservative government has been in power. The bills would have passed. I assume, if the government were really serious about doing anything about crime, the bills would have received royal assent and they would have been law.

All three of the bills would have been law by January 1, 2008, if not earlier. Those three parts of Bill C-2, the mandatory minimums on serious violent gun crimes, the age of consent, and the impaired driving bill, all three of those have been through this House. Let me correct that. The impaired driving bill was the one that had not gotten through. It was at report stage. It would have had third reading. It would have passed the House in the third or fourth week of September, when we were supposed to come back. The third one was the bill on the reverse onus on bail hearings which was to keep people in custody if they were facing serious charges involving guns.

Those three bills, the age of consent, the mandatory minimums, the reverse onus, would have been law by now. I believe, quite frankly, the impaired driving bill would have been law by now, because it would have passed the Senate quite quickly in late September or early October, but for the action of the government.

I guess we all know that what the Conservatives did is they did not have enough to do, that is, they did not have their political agenda. They thought they would have fallen as a government, as they probably should have, before the fall of 2007, so they prorogued Parliament. All of the bills on the order paper died. We had to start all over again. All of these bills were off, including the ones in the Senate.

I want to be very clear on this. All of the opposition parties were prepared in the fall when we came back in October after a month's delay to reinstate all of those bills at the same stage they had been, that is, three in the Senate and one here for a quick passage because there was the consent of all of the parties.

Again, with just a little bit of luck, we would have had all of those bills through the Senate by the end of the year, that is, before the year-end break, and if not, we would have had them in the first few weeks of January or February of this year, all of them. Instead, we have had this lengthy delay caused by the Conservative government, not by the Senate.

As members well know, my party and I are not supporters of the Senate. Regularly and consistently since the existence of our political party back in the 1940s, we have been calling for the abolition of the Senate. I am not here to defend members of the other place. We saw last week the kind of delay on Bill C-13, the meddling they do all the time. It is an unelected, unrepresentative, and I think oftentimes an irresponsible body. I am not here to defend them, but by the same token, at this period of time the delay for this legislation lies squarely, entirely in the lap of the government.

If the government were really serious about fighting crime as opposed to, as Lawrence Martin said in the Globe and Mail this morning, using it for, to quote him, “cheap politics”, if the Conservatives were not doing it for that purpose, if they were really serious about the need to deal with serious violent crime in particular and some of these other issues around impaired driving and the age of consent, if they were not seeing it just as a methodology to try to get re-elected, we would have moved quite a bit further along. It is to their eternal shame that we are at the stage we are. Let us look at that stage.

It was interesting in the early and middle part of last week. The government, in the speeches its members were giving in the House, and in some of the addresses they were making to the media, began to sound almost desperate for an election. In that regard, if we have an election, we are going to be in the same situation. The bill is going to die, as all the others will that are on the order paper, and we will not see any of this legislation in place for the use of our police officers and judiciary across the country to apply and fight the various aspects of criminal activity that the bill would allow them to do.

The Conservatives are pushing that button, not because they are really serious about fighting crime. That is not their primary motivation. Their primary motivation is to use this as a political tool to try to save their seats, to try to get re-elected as a government. It is probably a faulty assumption on their part that it is going to work, but that is what their motivation is, not the best interests of the country and not the victims of crime. It is the Conservative political party that this is all about in trying to save their skins in the next election.

If we look at history, it is the height of hypocrisy for them to stand in the House and argue that they are tough on crime. It is simply not the reality when one looks at it.

The other point that I want to make is that if they were really serious about being effectively tough on crime, they would not have broken their promise with regard to the 2,500 police officers that they promised in the last election, and on which they have not delivered. In fact they misled Canadians in the last election. The Prime Minister, the Minister of Justice, the former minister of justice, all of them across the country were trumpeting the 2,500 additional police officers they would see put in place.

What has happened? Number one, they did not tell the Canadian people that they were expecting the provinces to pick up most of the tab for those 2,500 police officers, money which the provinces do not have. To some degree, at least a number of the provinces have already moved on with regard to promises they made in elections to increase the number of police officers. They have already put some money into it and now the federal government is coming to them, johnny-come-lately, and saying, “Oh, by the way, although we promised this in the last election and we didn't tell the Canadian people we were going to do this, we want you, the provinces, to pay a big chunk, in most cases at least 50%”. That is not within the financial capabilities of most of the provinces, nor should it be their responsibilities when the promise was made without that condition by the government.

It is a full two years after the election and this broken promise is still hanging over their heads. If the Conservatives were serious about it, they would not be bringing this kind of useless motion in front of the House. They would be moving a motion in the House to see to it that money was put in place, that a budgetary item was put in place. We should have seen this last fall, we should have seen it in the budget in February and we should have seen it in the budget in the previous February.

Today we hear that the next budget is coming. Let me assure the House that there will be nothing in the budget for those 2,500 police officers. The Conservatives are going to break that promise on an ongoing basis and they are not going to fulfill their commitment to the Canadian people.

With regard to that, whenever we look at dealing with crime effectively, we have to look at it from three perspectives.

First, we have legislation, as we see with Bill C-2, that deals with specific problems under our Criminal Code and other legislation. We are working on that against the delays caused by the government because it wants to keep it as a hot button item. It does not want the legislation passed because then it will be behind us. Therefore, we have done that to a great extent. There is still more that needs to be done.

The other two legs of that three-legged stool, if I can use that analogy, is prevention. The big item there is to move programs into our local communities, funded by the federal government. Again, the provinces do not have the taxing power or the revenue capability to fulfill all this. However, we literally have to move $100 million a year to the provinces and the municipal local levels of government, to provide programming that will keep young people, in particular, out of the youth gangs and generally fight the drug culture and keep them out of those parts of our communities that advocate the use of drugs. That money needs to be spent. There is absolutely nothing beyond a very inconsequential amount that the government has done in this regard. It is minuscule. In fact, most of the time the government does not know what to do with it.

I come back to those 2,500 police officers. We know that in those areas of our cities where we have seriously violent crimes, we need to put more police officers on the street. We simply cannot deal with that in any effective ways, even if it is in an interim measure, for the next number of years. We need more police officers on the streets fighting that kind of crime, street level crime, particularly in the youth gangs where so much of the gun crime resides at the present time. The government has done nothing on that and it has done a minuscule about on the prevention side.

Therefore, if the government were really serious, we would see that. We would not see the sham that this motion represents in the House at the present time. We would see concrete action. Most of this is looking at programming that would be successful. There are all kinds of examples of it in Canada and in other communities across the globe that we can look to and adopt, but we have to fund them. The government has been refusing to do that, just as it is refusing to fund those 2,500 police officers, as it promised in the last election.

Where are we at? On a silly waste of time today debating this motion. It is going to have absolutely no effect. The government, whether it is over this, or over the budget or over Afghanistan, is looking desperately to bring itself down, to force the opposition parties to bring it down.

However, in this case it is not even asking the opposition parties in effect. It is saying that we should pass the motion and then if the Senate does not move, it will go to the Governor General and say that it does not have the confidence of the House, even if the motion passes. That is the stupid part of the motion. Even if the House passes it, and it looks like perhaps the Liberals and the Bloc appear as if they will support it, the government would still come down at the end of March, if the Senate, the other house over which we have no control, decides will not pass Bill C-2 by March 31.

It is absolutely silly. It is the height of hypocrisy. It is really the height of demagoguery as well when we look at what has gone on in the House over the last few months around Bill C-2. It is a shame. The government members should really bow their heads and apologize to the Canadian people for it.

Tackling Violent Crime Act

[Dean Del Mastro, Conservative, Peterborough, ON]

Mr. Speaker, when the 39th Parliament comes to an end, the member for Wild Rose will retire, sadly, bringing to an end an incredible political career.

The member for Wild Rose has devoted his career to making our streets and communities safer. The age of protection component of Bill C-2 is tribute to his many years of hard work on the justice file.

This brings us to day 74 of Senate obstruction on Bill C-2, the tackling violent crime act. Last week, while our government stepped up the pressure on the unelected, unaccountable Liberal Senate, Liberal senators struck back with stunning defences for their inaction.

Let us consider the comments of Liberal Senator Carstairs, who apparently believes that passing the new age of protection component of the act may force 14-year-old and 15-year-old prostitutes underground, preventing them from getting testing for HIV and STDs.

She should want to stop this sexual exploitation. Bill C-2 does that.

I stand here today and join my government in demanding that the Senate stop obstructing Bill C-2 and in thanking the member for Wild Rose for his tireless efforts.

Tackling Violent Crime Legislation

[Pierre Paquette, Bloc, Joliette, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for her question.

My reply is as follows. It is precisely so we do not fall into the trap set by the Prime Minister and the Conservative government.

If this is treated as an important vote, people may be panicked into an election over a motion which, in the end, does not have a great deal of legitimacy. In fact, the Bloc does not believe that the Senate has legitimacy. Furthermore, we voted in favour of Bill C-2.

In our opinion, we should quickly deal with this motion in order to get back to what is really important. For the Bloc Québécois, the best way of neutralizing and dealing with it is to vote for it and not to create a false crisis that will distance us even further from the real debate about the economic situation, which is deteriorating with each passing day.

That is why we will vote in favour of this motion. When there are substantive issues, the Bloc Québécois will be there to force an election, if warranted. However, I remind the House that we were in favour of Bill C-2, even though we were uncomfortable, as stated just now, with reverse onus.

Therefore, in weighing the advantages and disadvantages,—which we must often do in this House—we believe that it is better to vote in favour of Bill C-2 and the motion before us.

[Pierre Paquette, Bloc, Joliette, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I will not say that I am pleased to take part in this debate because I believe that this is a debate that we could very well have done without.

However, it will give me an opportunity to highlight some elements, including what we expect to see in the budget. In recent days and weeks, we have had the impression that the Conservative government and the Prime Minister have been attempting to blow all issues out of proportion and, if not for the purpose of triggering elections, at least in an attempt to apply pressure on the opposition parties perhaps as an attempt to show in an artificial way, some kind of leadership.

In this regard, I believe that the Bloc Québécois has the responsibility to denounce these manoeuvres that hide the real problems by focusing attention on the motion before us early this afternoon. For those listening, I will repeat the motion:

That, given the government has declared the passage of Bill C-2, An Act to amend the Criminal Code and to make consequential amendments to other Acts, as a matter of confidence, and, that the bill has already been at the Senate longer than all stages took in the House of Commons, and that all aspects of this bill have already been the subject of extensive committee hearings in Parliament, and that in the opinion of this House the Senate majority is not providing appropriate priority to the passage of Bill C-2, a message be sent to the Senate calling on the Senate to pass Bill C-2, the Tackling Violent Crime Act, by March 1, 2008.

I will start by saying that we will support this motion even though, once again, I believe it is merely a diversionary tactic. The Bloc Québécois was in favour of Bill C-2 when it was voted on in this House. I would remind the House that Bill C-2 was an omnibus bill of sorts, since it consisted of five bills from the previous session. We were in favour of four of the five bills, and since the House had already voted and we had lost the vote, we thought the debate was over and the vote in the House was legitimate. Thus, from the beginning, we had expressed our agreement with four of the five bills, even before the government talked about making this a confidence vote.

We were, and still are, uncomfortable with one aspect of the fifth bill, that is, the notion of reverse onus for some repeat offenders. That said, after weighing the advantages and disadvantages, our caucus decided that it would be better to vote in favour of the bill, since it contained more aspects that we were completely comfortable with and that we supported. Bill C-2 does not pose a problem for us.

As everyone knows, the Bloc Québécois considers any institution associated with the British monarchy to be completely obsolete. In our view, the Senate, as one such mechanism left over from a time when Canada was a British colony, is completely outdated. Clearly, we kept up this British parliamentary tradition—and many among us are attached to it—but, that said, some vestiges need to be abolished. And the Bloc Québécois makes no secret of the fact that, although it is not a priority for us, the abolition of the Senate would not bother us, I can assure this House.

Since it is an institution made up of unelected parliamentarians, we would have no problem with that, since we do not see any legitimacy in that branch of the Parliament of Canada. As I said, given that we do not see any legitimate reason for the institution and that we would like to see it abolished, clearly, for us, voting on it in the House should be the end of the debate, instead of referring the bill, having it passed by a majority of the members of the House of Commons and sending it to an unelected Senate.

I will point out that there is an unelected minister, Mr. Fortier, who, I repeat, promised to run in an election at the first opportunity that came up. But since then, there have been at least three byelections in Quebec, and we would have been very happy to see him step up to the plate in order to truly have democratic legitimacy and to be in a position to make decisions affecting the day-to-day lives of Canadians and Quebeckers.

We feel that the Senate has no legitimacy and should be abolished. So we have no problem with the motion. But once again, we find it a bit childish that this is being debated in this House.

The Bloc Québécois will not prolong this debate, nor do we expect the Senate to follow up on this message by March 1, since it is a relatively short deadline. As I said, we are not about to give credibility to this institution inherited from the past.

However, I think there is something more fundamental behind this motion, and that is the government's, the Prime Minister's desire to create a diversion. I would even say that we have the exact same elements in the motion concerning Afghanistan. I do not want to say that the future of Canada's mission in Afghanistan is not important, far from it, but I, and a number of observers—including all members of the Bloc and several opposition members, since I seem to recall hearing the Liberals' national defence critic mention that it should not be a confidence issue—believe that the debate on this issue should be as non-partisan as possible.

By making this a confidence motion, the government, the Prime Minister, has decided to use this debate to create a political crisis and to trigger, perhaps indirectly, an election. In any event, it is a tactic to divert attention from the real problems Canadians and Quebeckers are currently experiencing.

Among those problems, there is one that the Prime Minister, the Minister of Finance and the Minister of Industry are being particularly silent about. I am talking about the ongoing situation in the manufacturing and forestry industries. That is what we should be debating today, not some message to the Senate on a bill we all agree on.

To me there seems to be something somewhat unhealthy about the Conservative government and the Prime Minister wanting to dramatize or show us who is boss, even though they are a minority government. They have never understood that and it is not something we should forget. In my opinion, today's debate should have been about improving the aid plan, the first small step announced by the Prime Minister. He tried to use exactly the same tactics there that he is using today and with Afghanistan.

First he tried to make the aid plan, the creation of the community development trust of $1 billion over three years—which is not very much—conditional on passing the budget, thereby blackmailing the opposition parties. We do not know what will be in the budget. It may contain other completely unacceptable items. I would not be surprised to see such items in the next budget. Making this conditional on the budget puts pressure on the opposition members. But worse yet, the people who are in need of assistance in the regions affected by this crisis in the manufacturing and forestry industries, were also being held hostage by this government.

Fortunately, because of pressure from Quebec, and the consensus among Premier Charest of Quebec and all the opposition parties in the National Assembly, namely the Parti québécois and the Action démocratique du Québec, the unions, who unanimously condemned the tactic, the business community—particularly those currently under pressure in these industries in crisis—editorial writers, a number of observers and the opposition parties here in this House, the Bloc Québécois in particular, the Prime Minister saw the light.

Last Monday, as we all know, we had the opportunity to vote on the first part of this inadequate aid plan. I want to be very clear that this means Quebec will get $216 million over three years, even though most of the jobs lost in the manufacturing sector in 2007 were lost in Quebec.

Nobody has taken a close look at the specific job loss numbers in some sectors in the Quebec regions. I believe that is true for Ontario too, and for some regions in the Atlantic provinces. It is clear that the Prime Minister's blackmail tactics were reprehensible and that the figures announced were just not enough.

We were hoping that the Prime Minister would take advantage of his meeting this weekend—not with Bonhomme Carnaval, but with the Premier of Quebec, Jean Charest—to announce improvements to the plan. We were hoping that we would be here today to talk about a bill that would fix things. However, that is not what we are talking about. We are talking about Motion No. 3, and I have already said enough about that.

Nevertheless, I would like to point out that the problem with the $1 billion over three years is that it is to be distributed per capita, not on the basis of need or jobs lost. Furthermore, there is an additional basic $10 million envelope per province, regardless of whether that province is Prince Edward Island, Ontario or Quebec, which is just bizarre. I will come back to that in more detail and give some numbers. In the meantime, in case I run out of time, I want to point out that Prince Edward Island will get about $100 per resident thanks to this Conservative government initiative, while Quebec and Ontario will receive just over $25 per resident, even though 75% of the manufacturing sector is concentrated in Ontario and Quebec.

Therefore, what the government announced was not an aid package but a very broad-based economic revitalization plan. As we know, Alberta will receive its share. I do not think that anyone in the House seriously believes that Alberta, at this juncture, needs a little boost to reinvigorate its economy. Its problem is an overheated economy, which the government has encouraged. In particular, there were the tax cuts in last November's economic statement. For the time being, they are benefiting very few in the manufacturing sector but many in the oil and gas sector.

I will show just how inadequate this Conservative government's first step is and that it needs to be improved. I will simply mention a few articles that I collected here and there during the past week.

For example, last Monday, the Premier of Quebec, Mr. Charest, said:

More needs to be done, among other things, with respect to taxation,...research and development as well as assistance for older workers.

He was speaking specifically of the assistance plan that needed to be bolstered.

Mr. Benoît Pelletier, Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs, added that Ottawa is awash in surpluses and that the aid given to Quebec, almost $200 million, represents only 10% of amounts advanced by Quebec.

That is what is written but we know that it amounts to $216 million.

The Government of Quebec invested almost $2 billion to help the forestry and manufacturing sectors. I know that this is being debated in Quebec because some feel it is not enough. We are talking about 10% of this aid, approximately $216 million. Obviously, the financial situation of the Government of Quebec and the federal government are in no way alike. For the Government of Quebec, it is clearly not enough and there has to be more.

The following day, it was the CSN's turn to make its views known. I will read an excerpt from its press release entitled “The Prime Minister must act now and abandon his partisan interests”:

—the time for action is now. As it is, the support announced by the Prime Minister reflects neither the seriousness of the situation nor the means at his disposal. In the past four years, more than 15,000 jobs have been lost in the paper and forestry industry, and some 130 sawmills and pulp and paper plants are currently inactive, depriving 31 of 250 municipalities of their main economic activity. Thousands of families in Quebec are in crisis.

The CSN represents 300,000 workers. It is an extremely important labour congress in Quebec and is very well established in the regions. I know a thing or two about the CSN, because I served as its general secretary for eight years.

I am also very fond of my friends in the FTQ, who weighed in on February 6 in the form of a press release from FTQ president Michel Arsenault, a former head of the steelworkers' union for Canada.

Mr. Arsenault had this to say:

The fact that this government, which is literally awash in our money, with a surplus worth billions of dollars, has given up on tying its measure to the adoption of its next budget does not make the measure any more acceptable.

The despicable blackmail by the government and the Prime Minister had ended, but the president of the FTQ, which has 500,000 members in Quebec and a strong presence in the paper and forestry sector, added this: “Quebec is not getting its fair share. The sectors that are worst off are not getting their fair share—”. He was speaking in Abitibi-Témiscamingue, and he said, “Abitibi-Témiscamingue is not getting its fair share”. I would add that Saguenay—Lac-Saint-Jean is not getting its fair share, Mauricie is not getting its fair share, Gaspé is not getting its fair share, the Lower St. Lawrence is not getting its fair share, northern Lanaudière is not getting its fair share and the Outaouais is not getting its fair share. None of the regions of Quebec is getting its fair share. I will prove this in a moment. I am not finished. Unfortunately for us, groups are still having to exert pressure on this insensitive Conservative federal government.

Last Thursday, the Forest Products Association of Canada announced that it had been very affected by the crisis. It said that there were more than 12,000 jobs lost in Canada in 2007 alone, and that more than 100 mills had shut down. The association called on the federal government to intervene and introduce measures, a number of which were proposed by the Bloc Québécois, the Standing Committee on Finance and the Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology. I will give only one, otherwise I will run out of time, but this particular one calls for a refundable tax credit for research and development. When a business, such as a paper mill, is not generating a profit, it does not benefit from the generosity of the Conservative government, which cut taxes for businesses earning a profit, but there is still research and development to be done. If these companies, Tembec, Domtar, AbitibiBowater or whatever, continue to do research and development, they cannot benefit from refundable tax credits because they are not generating a profit. They cannot benefit from the tax cuts announced by the finance minister in the economic statement because they are not generating a profit. They need help to be able to keep investing in research and development, which is essential to innovation and competitiveness, so that once this crisis is over, they can compete in North America and throughout the world.

We have a consensus—in Quebec anyway—and I am sure that in Ontario it is the same thing. The billion dollars in aid announced by the Conservative government is definitely not enough. A lot more money than that is needed immediately and they could use the existing surplus and they know it. The surplus is not being used to help the industries, the regions and the workers who are dealing with the manufacturing crisis, because it is being put toward the federal debt. Some might think that is a good idea, but I would remind them that the Government of Canada's federal debt is the lowest of the G-7 countries. It has not been this low since 1984. Why would anyone insist on paying off their mortgage when they have just lost their job and their children are starving? That is precisely what is happening. Not only is that not enough money, but the allocation of this money defies logic and is completely unfair. Earlier I gave the example of Prince Edward Island, but I could go on.

Take Alberta for example, which represents 7.8% of manufacturing jobs. It will receive 10.4% of the aid, while Quebec, which represents 27.6% of the jobs in the manufacturing industry, will receive just 21.8%. It is essential that this be corrected and the aid allocated according to need.

I will close by reiterating the measures the Bloc Québécois is proposing. We propose investing at least $500 million in a new Technology Partnerships Canada program, with $1.5 billion as a repayable contribution for new manufacturing equipment, a forestry economy diversification fund that could very well be the $1 million from the community development trust, and $1.5 million for improving employment insurance and the older workers program. To stimulate economic activity in the municipalities—that could be saved for the budget—there could be a $1 billion increase in the excise tax transfer to the municipalities. What we are asking for right now is $3.5 billion from the $10.6 billion surplus projected for March 31. The government can do it and if it does not, it will pay the price in the next election.

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Wetaskiwin, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I listened with some interest to my hon. colleague's comments. The claim about the eight days that the bill has been in front of the Senate is simply a fallacy.

If we take a look at the precursor bills to Bill C-2 in the previous Parliament, those being: Bill C-10; Bill C-22, age of protection; Bill C-27, dangerous offenders; Bill C-32, impaired driving; and Bill C-35, reverse onus on bail for gun offences; four of those five bills had already passed through the House and had spent a significant amount of time in the Senate. The only one that had not was Bill C-27, which had been to committee and had been amended.

We were a very accommodating government, I thought. We basically bundled all of that legislation as it appeared in the previous session of Parliament, with the amendments, put it back in a bill, put it before the House and now it is sitting in the Senate.

We are not asking for anything that is extremely onerous.

My colleague also brought up the fact that she wanted to get her numbers right on something. Well, it is very clear from the information that I see, whether it is on TV or through various polls, that 70% of Canadians support tougher legislation against crime.

Is it sheer incompetence of her leader and her party, or wilful incompetence of her leader and her party, that they cannot get the Senate to pass the legislation?

[Marlene Jennings, Liberal, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine, QC]

Mr. Speaker, it is not a claim that the official opposition on two occasions made formal offers to fast track some of the bills that are found in Bill C-2. That is not a claim; that is a fact. That is the first thing.

The second thing is that the member talked about the Liberals being soft on crime. No, the Liberals are not soft on crime. We attempt to develop, when we were in government and now as the official opposition, Liberal justice policies that are effective on crime, that will actually reduce crime, that are smart on crime. Let me give one very concrete example of that. No, let me give two.

One is the issue of minimum mandatory penalties for gun crimes. Guess which government brought in the first minimum mandatory penalties? It was a Liberal government.

Let us look at the long term offender system. A Liberal government brought that in. People might ask what the difference is between a dangerous offender and a long term offender. As I have to cut my answer short, I would encourage any Canadian who would like to know how the dangerous offender system and the long term offender system work to communicate with my office. The telephone number is 613-995-2251 and the email address is [e-mail].

[Marlene Jennings, Liberal, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine, QC]

Mr. Speaker, let us look at what some of the witnesses had to say at committee. They came before the committee on Bill C-22, age of consent. They came back for the impaired driving bill, Bill C-32. They came back for the reverse onus on bail hearings for firearm related offences bill. They came back for the dangerous offender bill. They came back for the mandatory minimums bill.

Let us hear what a representative from one of these associations had to said. This was on November 14, 2007, on Bill C-2, in front of the House of Commons legislative committee. It was the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police. The representative said that quick fixes and band-aids were no longer sufficient, that a comprehensive national but locally focused strategy was required to really tackle crime and that the legislative priority for the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police were guns and gangs, child predators, as two example.

The Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police said that because of its legislative priorities, it had asked and pleaded with the Conservative government for modernization of investigative techniques. The association said that the Modernization of Investigative Techniques Act, also called MITA, under the previous Liberal government, died as a result of the election. The association pleaded with the Conservative government to bring it back. It waited all through 2006. The government did not act. It waited again all through 2007. The government did not act.

It is now February 11, and the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police is still waiting for the government to bring in the legislation for which it has been begging and pleading, that it says it needs in order to deal effectively with violent crime, gun crime, gang crime, sexual predators and child sexual predators. The Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police has asked the government to bring in legislation modernizing investigative techniques for over two years now. What has the government done? What has the government's response been to the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police and the Canadian Police Association?

First, the response has been not to bring in any legislation on that. Second, the government has refused to fast track my private member's bill that would do exactly this. I offered the government to take it over if it wanted the credit for it. It is more important to get it into the law and to give our law enforcement officers the investigative tools they need in the 21st century when they try to fight crime committed through our cyberspace. The government again, as it did with the Liberal offer to fast track the age of consent and the bail reform bills, as it did with virtually every attempt on the part of the official opposition to make Parliament be effective and efficient and put Canadians and their safety and security of Canadians first, turned its head and ignored the opposition. The government acted as though it heard nothing.

The government, through this motion, is trying to put the blame on the Senate. The Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada continues to say “the Liberal dominated Senate”. What he does not say is Bill C-2 only went before the Senate on December 12, 2007. Two days later the House adjourned and only came back on Monday, January 28.

Had the government been serious that Bill C-2 and its elements were of such importance to the government, that it was a matter of confidence and that the government was ready to go to an election because Canadians safety and security was of the utmost importance to the government, then why did it not put forth this kind of motion when it sent Bill C-2 to the Senate? The same power and authority and the same rule that allowed the government to put this motion, which it tabled on February 7, before the House to have it debated and then voted on could have been done last fall.

Again, I have to ask if it is sheer incompetence or wilful incompetence on the part of the Conservative government, the Conservative Prime Minister, the Conservative Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada, the Conservative Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada and all parliamentary secretaries who sit on the government side.

The Senate received Bill C-2 on December 12, 2007. The government tabled this motion on February 7. This means the Senate had the bill for two days in 2007, December 13 and 14, and then on January 28, January 29, January 30, January 31, February 1, February 4, February 5, February 6, and February 7, for a total of eight days. On the ninth day the government tabled its motion saying that the Senate majority was not providing appropriate priority to the passage of Bill C-2, when the government in fact was obstructing its own legislation.

All of the bills in Bill C-2 would have been law over a year ago and one of them would have been law for close to two years had the government not obstructed its own legislation either through sheer incompetence or through wilful incompetence.

Let me see how good I am at math. One year is 365 days. Two years would be 730 days, not counting the 31 days in January, 2008. If I go to February 7, when the motion was tabled by the government, that is 31 days plus 7, which is 38 days. The Senate has had the bill for literally eight sitting days. The government obstructed its own legislation for 730 days.

Who did not give appropriate priority to the age of consent legislation? It was Conservative members. Who did not give appropriate priority to the impaired driving bill? It was Conservative members. Who did not give appropriate priority to the dangerous offender bill? It was Conservative members.

Who did not give appropriate priority to the bill concerning conditional releases? It was the Conservative government. It was not the opposition. It was not the Bloc Québécois. It was not the NDP. It was not the official opposition. It was not the Liberals or Liberal senators in the upper house. It was the government itself. Imagine that.

Canadians must ask themselves the same question that I have been asking myself for the past two years: Is this Conservative government simply incompetent or wilfully incompetent? When one looks closely at the facts concerning all these justice related bills, when one looks closely at the actions and decisions that this Conservative government has taken, or has failed to take, one can only conclude that it is either simply incompetent or wilfully incompetent.

In closing, I would like to thank the members of this House for their attention. I would be happy to answer any questions they may have. If I do not have the answer, I will be frank. I will say so and try to address the issue with that member outside the House.

[Marlene Jennings, Liberal, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine, QC]

Mr. Speaker, there is a member on the government side, I believe from the Ottawa area, who seems to be very active in my discussion and my speech. I suggest that if he knows so much about the issues we are talking about, he might want to explain to his constituents why he approved his own government's obstruction of its own legislation. He should go back to his riding and explain why 14 and 15 year olds are still vulnerable to predators for over a year now. Why? it is because he and his government wilfully obstructed their own legislation.

I suggest that he might want to address that in his own riding rather than attempt to destabilize the member for Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine. He has been here long enough and he should know that I am able to drown out and block out nonsense.

Bill C-27 had one improvement to the dangerous offenders system that we find again in the dangerous offender section of Bill C-2. What was that? It was that somebody who has already been deemed a long term offender and who commits a breach of the conditions ordered by a judge or who commits another serious crime will automatically go before a judge as a dangerous offender. That was an amendment by the Liberals.

Is it simply that the government is so incompetent that it did not understand how the dangerous offender system and long term offender system actually operated? By the way, the long term offender system was actually brought in by a Liberal government n the late 1990s.

Is the government simply incompetent or is it wilfully incompetent?

I repeat, is this government simply incompetent or is it wilfully incompetent?

I talked about the prorogation of Parliament. In proroguing Parliament, the government killed the age of consent bill, the bail reform bill, its mandatory minimums bill, the impaired driving bill and the dangerous offender bill. Then when the government brought Parliament back with the new throne speech, it announced to great trumpeting and chest beating that tackling crime would be a major plank in its policy, its agenda and action plan. What did it do?

The government could have reinstated those bills where they were, which was in the Senate. If the government were so concerned about the Senate possibly taking too long to deal with it, it could have brought in a motion, as it did last Friday, giving a deadline to the Senate for dealing with the age of consent bill, the impaired driving bill, the dangerous offender bill, the mandatory minimums bill and the bail reform bill. It did not do that.

Therefore, one again has to ask if it is shear incompetence on the part of the government or wilful incompetence.

My parents raised me, and I am sure many people in the House, if not all were raised the same, to give people the benefit of the doubt. However, my grandmother also used to say, “The first time is a mistake. The second time is a bad habit”.

The first time the government did not take up the Liberal offer in October 2006 to fast track the age of consent bill, to raise it from 14 to 16 years old, one could say that was a mistake. However, when it again refused to take it up in March 2007, that was no longer a mistake. That was a bad habit.

When the government decided to kill the age of consent bill by proroguing Parliament in the summer of 2007, that was not a mistake. I have come to the conclusion that the government's incompetence is not shear incompetence, but it is wilful incompetence.

Then that begs the question. What would be the reason, the justification, for a government to be wilfully incompetent? I am not at a point where I can answer that. While I developed the—

[Marlene Jennings, Liberal, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to take part in this morning's debate. Throughout 2007, I was the justice critic for the official opposition. And throughout 2006, I served as deputy House leader of the official opposition, which is also my current role.

Thus, since the Conservative government's Speech from the Throne in 2006, I have been listening to the Conservative rhetoric, which I have weighed against the actions put forward by this government.

The motion we are debating today is:

That, given the government has declared the passage of Bill C-2, An Act to amend the Criminal Code and to make consequential amendments to other Acts, as a matter of confidence, and, that the bill has already been at the Senate longer than all stages took in the House of Commons, and that all aspects of this bill have already been the subject of extensive committee hearings in Parliament, and that in the opinion of this House the Senate majority is not providing appropriate priority to the passage of Bill C-2, a message be sent to the Senate calling on the Senate to pass Bill C-2, the Tackling Violent Crime Act, by March 1, 2008.

The Minister of Justice and Attorney General is applauding. Well, I wonder. The Minister of Justice made a big point about how in the 2006 throne speech the Conservative government made tackling crime a priority. It is one of five priorities of the government. Let us look at the record of the government prior to when it prorogued the session that began in the winter of 2006 after the 2006 election. Let us look at that record.

The Liberal record is that we supported the vast majority of the Conservative government's justice bills. The fact is that the Conservative government has needlessly delayed its own legislation. The fact is there has been no opposition obstruction, not from the official opposition, not from the Bloc Québécois and not from the NDP. The only obstruction has been from the government. Let me give an example.

The government talks about the age of consent legislation. In the previous session, the age of consent legislation was Bill C-22 . It is now found in this new tackling crime bill, Bill C-2.

Bill C-22, the age of consent legislation, was originally tabled by the government on June 22, 2006, some four and a half months after the government came to this House and opened Parliament with a throne speech. The House adjourned for the summer months one or two days later. I do not have the exact date with me but at the most, it was two days later. We came back on the third Monday in September 2006.

Did the government then move second reading of the age of consent bill? That is the bill that would raise the legal age of consent from 14 to 16 years. The government had an opportunity, its very first opportunity to move second reading. For Canadians who are listening, no one but the government can move government legislation from one stage to another.

The government tables its bill under parliamentary rules, House of Commons rules. It moves first reading and the motion is automatically deemed to have been adopted. The bill then goes on to the order paper and it stays there until the government moves second reading. We waited through the month of September 2006 and into the month of October 2006. The government did not move second reading.

That is the same government with a Minister of Justice and Attorney General who says that he is concerned, who says that victims, particularly our children who are victims of sexual predators, are among the Conservatives' first and main priority, and the government did not move second reading on the age of consent bill in 2006.

What did the Liberals do? Because that was a bill that we supported unconditionally, our House leader, who speaks on behalf of the official opposition, offered to fast track it.

Again, for those who do not understand the rules of procedure of the House of Commons, and possibly some of the government members who may not understand the rules of procedure of the House of Commons, the Standing Orders, when there is a majority in the House of Commons, whether it be the government only, or the government and another party, the government can fast track a bill.

We offered to fast track the age of consent legislation in October 2006. The government did not take us up on the offer. It ignored our offer. It did not even deign to officially respond to our offer. However, what this did was bring pressure to the government and several days later the government finally moved debate at second reading on the age of consent bill.

For a government, a Prime Minister, a Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada, his parliamentary secretary and every single Conservative sitting on the government benches in this House of Commons to say that children, our children, are a priority and then to refuse to fast track the age of consent bill is unconscionable.

That bill could have been law by December 2006. We would have now had 13 months of better protection for our children and that government refused. This is what the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada is not telling the Canadian people. That bill could have been law.

Let us look at another bill that we find in Bill C-2. Let us look at the bill about which the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada attempted to eloquently dis the official opposition. That bill used to be Bill C-35, regarding reverse onus on bail for firearm related offences.

That bill received first reading on November 23, 2006. Guess what? It sat. The government did not move second reading debate through the end of November 2006, the entire month of December 2006 and the entire month of January 2007. That government did not move second reading of the bail reform bill until February 13.

Is it not a coincidence, that is a bill which we offered to fast track. That is a bill that could have been law. It could have been law for over a year now, and that government did not take us up on it.

That is a government that sends ten percenters into ridings of my colleagues in Manitoba, in Ontario, in British Columbia, claiming that the Liberals are obstructing the government's justice agenda. The government obstructed its own agenda.

I have to ask myself the following question: is this simple incompetence on the part of the government or is this government being wilfully incompetent?

Is that pure incompetence on the part of the government or is it wilful incompetence in delaying its own legislation?

Those are just two things that we find in Bill C-2 which could have been the law for over a year now had the Conservative government actually been truthful to its claim about victims being its main priority. Had that been the truth, the government would have taken the Liberals up on our offer to fast-track the bill and the age of consent would have been 16 years old December 2006 and reverse onus on bail for firearm related offences would have been the law over a year ago.

However, it gets even better. The government says that the Senate has now had Bill C-2 longer than all stages in the House. The government is counting on the fact that most Canadians will not know the parliamentary agenda and calendar. Bill C-2 was sent to the Senate on December 12, 2007. Parliament adjourned December 14, 2007. Parliament did not resume until Monday, January 28, 2008. The government tabled this motion claiming that the Senate was wilfully obstructing the government's tackling crime agenda.

Had the government been so concerned with Bill C-2 and so concerned about victims and about getting the legislation that it claims is the cornerstone of its priority and agenda, why did it not table a motion last fall for a message to be sent to the Senate informing the Senate that when it receives Bill C-2, we expect it to be reported back to us by x date? The government had all the authority and power to do that last fall but it did not.

Again I must ask whether it was mere incompetence. Is it because the government after two years still does not understand the Standing Orders, which is what we call the rules of this House? Is it wilful incompetence? The government understands full well the authority and powers it has under the House of Commons rules but chooses not to use them in the hopes that most Canadians will not know that it is the government that is actually obstructing its own agenda.

Let us talk about another obstruction. I mentioned how most of the bills, except for Bill C-27, which is the dangerous offender piece of Bill C-2, had already moved through the House and had been referred to the Senate late May, early June, late June of 2007. The Senate only had a couple of days, according to the parliamentary calendar, before Parliament adjourned for the summer. We were scheduled to come back the third Monday of September 2007 but the Prime Minister, in his wisdom, or in his incompetence or in his wilful incompetence decided to prorogue Parliament.

What does that mean? Under the rules and procedures and Standing Orders, it means that every piece of legislation in front of the House of Commons or in front of the Senate automatically dies. The government killed its own age of consent bill, its reverse onus on bail bill and its impaired driving bill, which is interesting because that is the bill we supported wholeheartedly.

I wonder if MADD, Mothers Against Drunk Drivers, understands that if the impaired driving bill is not the law today it has absolutely nothing to do with the official opposition or with the Liberal senators, but has everything to do with the government's own decision to obstruct its own legislation, not to move its own legislation through the House of Commons in a timely fashion and then to prorogue and kill its own legislation. That legislation could have been the law for almost a year now had the government not wilfully obstructed its own legislation.

Let us take the dangerous offenders bill. The Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada talked about how that legislation would ensure that Canadians who commit violent, egregious crimes will not be free on the streets because of the changes that it brought to the dangerous offender system.

One of the things that the government is not telling Canadians is that the way the system worked before the government brought in Bill C-27, the crown prosecutor had full discretion as to whether he or she would apply for a dangerous offender hearing. The government has done absolutely nothing to change that with its tackling crime legislation. The crown will still decide. It does not matter if it is someone who has committed heinous crimes one time, been sent to prison, served the sentence, comes out, does it again, is found guilty and serves another sentence, the crown can still decide whether it will apply for a dangerous offender hearing.

What was the Liberal response to that? The Liberal response was that there should automatically--

[Ron Cannan, Conservative, Kelowna—Lake Country, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my hon. colleague for his excellent presentation this morning. I am hopeful that the Senate can expedite Bill C-2 through the Senate as soon as possible.

As my colleague mentioned, I do not think there is an issue that resonates more through constituencies across the country, through all 308 ridings, than reforming our justice system. We had a forum in our riding on Friday and yesterday we had a mother calling us. We need to toughen up the legislation and give the tools to our RCMP and police services across the country.

We have a catch and release program with our justice system and I want to help our enforcement agencies. As mentioned, I want to give some help to those who are victims, and also to people who have done wrong, by giving them the ability to have some training within the penal system.

Could the minister briefly update the House on drug impaired driving? How will this change from the present legislation?

[Rob Nicholson, Conservative, Niagara Falls, ON]

My colleague says “bon”. Yes, you bet.

This is exactly why MADD Canada has come forward and is urging us to get this passed. Again, we are not talking about people who are employed by the Conservative Party. These people are dedicated to the best interests of this country. They have come forward and have asked us to please get these things through. There are improvements there.

There also are improvements to the dangerous offender legislation. How often do we hear about some individual who clearly should have been labelled a dangerous offender, who does not get that designation, for whatever reason, and who gets back out on the street and is then charged with additional crimes?

Then the cry goes out as to why the government is not tightening up the dangerous offender legislation. We have done that here. That is what Bill C-2, the Tackling Violent Crime Act, does. It does that specifically. It responds to the concerns of Canadians with respect to dangerous offenders.

I think that what we are asking this Parliament to do is infinitely reasonable. As I said, Parliament has had these provisions, all of them, since 2006. We have listened to some of the concerns from the opposition parties. We have made changes to the components of this legislation as it was originally introduced in the House of Commons. We are simply asking Parliament to do something that is reasonable.

At one time the members of the Liberal Party said they would like to fast track justice legislation. That is great. They can get hold of their friends down the aisle and tell them to fast track it, to get it done by the end of February. That is not unreasonable. Let them do it. Let us get it done.

I am absolutely convinced that the people of Canada support what we are trying to do to fight violent crime in this country. My colleagues have made it clear that if the opposition parties, or anybody else, want to make this an issue, go to the Canadian people and say that their soft on crime approach and their delays on these things are justifiable, they can make that case to the people of Canada.

However, I am absolutely convinced that if given the opportunity the people of this country will support what we are doing as a party and as a government, because I firmly believe, and I always have believed, that we are certainly acting in the best interests of all Canadians.

[Rob Nicholson, Conservative, Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to begin this debate in the House of Commons and I am grateful to my colleague, the leader of the government in the House of Commons, the Minister for Democratic Reform, for making this a priority and sending a very clear message on a very important piece of legislation of this government.

To indicate just how important this is, let me reiterate something that I said in the House of Commons when Bill C-2 was introduced for second and third readings. I indicated to the House at that time that the government considered tackling violent crime and the provisions of that particular act so important, that if there were any attempt to sabotage that, derail it or gut that bill, we would consider it a confidence motion.

Again, I was pleased that it passed the House of Commons in November of last year, and then it was on its way to the Senate. Interestingly enough, there were a number of people whom I ran into at the Christmas break who said, “Congratulations, you got your bill through. You must be very happy”. I said, “Well, it has gotten through the House of Commons. It has not gotten through the Senate yet. That is not quite the same thing”.

Nonetheless, I remained optimistic. I want to see the bill passed. We got to January of 2008 and the bill had been in the Senate since the end of November.

One of the things that got me very nervous was when the Liberal Premier of Ontario, Mr. Dalton McGuinty, approached the Leader of the Opposition and indicated to him that he wanted to see this passed because this was good for the province of Ontario, this kind of thing had support in the province of Ontario, just as it had support right across this country.

When the Leader of the Opposition sort of hummed and hawed, and he was not sure about mandatory jail terms for people who commit serious gun crimes, that is when I started to get very nervous because I had this feeling that the Leader of the Opposition might get the Senate to do the dirty work that he did not want to do in the House of Commons, and I think that is very wrong.

I was prepared the week before last and was scheduled to go before the Senate committee to address the issues, then my appearance before the committee was cancelled. The committee said it could wait an extra week, so I went last Wednesday, but I made it very clear to the committee members that these issues had been around for a long time and that these were important issues for Canadians.

I was quite frank with them, as they were with me. I indicated to them that if this bill could not be passed by the end of this month, if they could not expedite this, if they could not fast-track this bill to get it done by the end of February, that I believed I had no choice except to advise the Prime Minister that I thought this to be a confidence measure and I would leave it in his capable hands.

We have not received the kind of help that we would have liked from the Liberals in the House of Commons, and we are not getting it right now from the Liberals in the Senate, and that is too bad because I think I have been very honest about this bill.

The components of this bill have been before the Senate before. The provisions that would protect 14 and 15 year olds from adult sexual predators have already been before the Senate. I remember when it did not get passed by the Senate last June. I remember speaking to a reporter in my hometown of Niagara Falls and I said I was disappointed that 14 and 15 year olds were not as well protected as they should be from adult sexual predators because this bill did not get past the Senate.

That was in the summer of 2007 and when I went home for Christmas, again the provisions that protect 14 and 15 year olds that are in the tackling violent crime bill were in the Senate, so I had to say the same thing over again, that 14 and 15 year olds were not as well protected in this country as they should be. That is a shame.

Now I hear the humming and hawing from the Leader of the Opposition to his colleague, the Liberal Premier of Ontario. The man is not in the business of trying to help us get our legislation through. He has his own agenda, but is there anybody in this country who thinks that the Liberal Premier of Ontario is intervening just to help out the federal Conservatives? I do not think so. He is doing it because it is the right thing to do.

I say to members of the Liberal Party that they do not have to listen to me. We have made it very clear, the importance we place on this. The Liberals should listen to some of their colleagues. Mr. Chomiak, the Attorney General of Manitoba, has told me on a number of occasions how important these provisions are to him. He has made it very clear. We do not share the same political party, but we share some of the concerns about crime in this country.

As I have said to members of the opposition, fighting crime is not something that takes place when there is a disaster or a murder on the streets of some of our largest cities. That is not when we wake up to the tackling violent crime agenda. It is not something that can just wait until the election comes. We get all kind of support during the election when everybody wants to be tough on crime. I say be tough on crime between elections. That is what I want to see. We should stand up for law-abiding Canadians, for victims, between elections.

That is what I am asking members to do and this is why I am so pleased that my colleague, the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons and Minister for Democratic Reform, has introduced this very important issue.

We have been very clear throughout this process. We made it a priority since the beginning of 2006. In the very first Speech from the Throne that we presented to Parliament, we said that tackling violent crime was our priority and that victims come first. We want Canadians to know that there are a group of individuals in Parliament who stand up for law-abiding Canadians because people are worried about their communities, worried about safe streets, and worried about the sometimes forgotten individual when crimes take place.

I was very pleased and very proud to introduce the first federal ombudsman for the victims of crime. My colleagues joined with me and others in our government in pushing that initiative. Why? Because there is somebody who speaks for everybody in this town. There are more special interest groups than any of us could count, but my colleagues asked, who is here to stand up for victims of crime, who is that individual, where is he or she?

That office did not exist until this Conservative government created the first office of the ombudsman for the victims of crime and appointed the first ombudsman. That is a tremendous step forward in standing up for those sometimes forgotten individuals.

I believe that Canadians do support the approach that the federal Conservatives are taking, that our government is taking. I have found it more than just passing interesting that within the last week there was a CTV strategic council poll that said that an overwhelming majority of Canadians believed Canada's justice system was too lenient on repeat offenders. This reiterates and underscores what we have been saying on this side of the House, that we have to have a criminal justice system that responds to the legitimate concerns of Canadians.

I indicated when I began my remarks, that the Liberal Premier of Ontario supports us. Mr. Chomiak, the Attorney General from the New Democratic Party in Manitoba supports what we are doing. We have had very good support from the N.S. justice minister, Mr. Murray Scott and his successor. He is very supportive of what we are trying to do. Indeed, right across this country, we have people at the provincial level who have spoken up and who are very interested in seeing legislation of this type passed.

There are many components of the tackling violent crime act, but other individual groups have come forward as well. Mothers Against Drunk Driving, MADD, has come forward. It wants to see the bill passed and become law. The Canadian Police Association, Ottawa Police, the Canadian Resource Centre for Victims of Crime, the Centre for Substance Abuse Awareness, thousands of Canadians right across this country have written expressing their opinions that they want to see the bill passed.

We are not asking Parliament to do anything that Parliament has not had the opportunity to have a look at in depth. I have pointed out on a number of occasions that every single component of the bill has been before Parliament since 2006, never mind 2007. Every single component of this has been before Parliament since 2006.

The mandatory prison terms for serious gun crimes was one of the first pieces of legislation we introduced. On the age of protection, we recommended changes in 2006. The provisions with respect to dangerous offenders, the impaired driving provisions and the reverse onus on bail for serious gun crimes are all elements that have been before Parliament for quite some time.

This is not something new. People say we are trying to push this through. We are not trying to get the thing through in a hurry. It has been here a long time, too long. This should be the law of the country.

When people ask me why we put it all together, I say it is very simple. We did not get it passed when we had it in five different components. Half of the provisions ended up in the Senate and were lost. Nothing happened. The Senate went home for the summer and these things did not get passed, I think to the detriment of Canadians, and the other couple of bills were here in the House of Commons.

In the fall of 2007, since we did not get any of the five pieces of legislation done, I said, “Let us put them all together and see what our chances are”. We underscored the importance of this to our government by indicating that we would consider it a confidence measure if there were any attempt to sabotage the bill.

What is it that we have? What are we asking Canadians to accept? Indeed, Canadians are buying into it, but what are we asking the House of Commons and the Senate to accept? Let us have a look at some of the things we are saying.

For illegal firearm possession and use by persons involved in criminal gangs, we know that type of activity is increasing. We are saying there will be a mandatory five year sentence if one is in the business of using a gun or associated with gangs. What kind of offences are we talking about? We are talking about attempted murder, sexual assault with a gun, aggravated sexual assault, kidnapping, robbery, extortion and hostage taking. This is not jaywalking.

I remember standing here when we introduced the bill. I had one opposition member say to me that he did not understand that a lot of the people who commit those crimes do not understand the consequences of their actions. I said, “that is where I want to help”.

We want to ensure that any individuals who want to get involved with these serious firearms offences will have the opportunity to focus on the consequences of their actions. We are prepared to do that and any individual who does not get the message after the first five year sentence, we will continue to help by making it a seven year mandatory prison term. This is exactly what the country wants and what the country focuses on.

We hear it when people pick up a paper and read about a drive-by shooting in one of our major cities. They start calling for this type of legislation. I tell them the same thing, that it is already here before the House of Commons and the Parliament of Canada. Our job is to get it passed and that is what we are asking this Parliament to do.

We are going to strengthen the bail provisions with respect to gun offences. We are putting the onus on those alleged criminals to show that they do not pose a threat to public safety and that they will not flee before trial.

Why is it necessary? There are a number of reasons. I think it is only a matter of fairness. If someone wants to get involved with some serious gun crimes, if a person has a pattern of being involved with serious gun crimes, if a person is involved with guns and gangs, particularly in our major cities, what is wrong with putting the onus on such a person to show why he or she should be back out on the street?

There is an interesting product of this particular provision. I have had police officers in both Montreal and Toronto, as well as other law enforcement agencies, who have mentioned something very interesting about that provision. They tell me that this would send out the right message. They say that if individuals who have a pattern of gang-related or serious gun crime offences, if they are back out on the street in a couple of hours, guess what?

That sends out the exact wrong message to the victim. It sends out the wrong message to potential witnesses. Indeed, if that individual is back out on the street, it sends out the wrong message to the neighbourhood. This provision is exactly what we need and it is what this country wants. We are determined to provide it.

I indicated as I began my opening remarks, as I have mentioned on a number of occasions, that one of the important provisions of this bill is that it will raise the age of protection in this country from 14 to 16. Canadians ask why this not been done. I tell people quite honestly that this is not something out of the 20th century; this is something that should have been changed in the 19th century.

That is how long this has been around, and what happens is that it allows adult sexual predators to prey upon individuals as young as 14 and 15 years of age. That is absolutely reprehensible. It is exactly what our party has to take a stand against. That is exactly what we are doing here.

One police officer gave me an example. He told me that they had encountered some character from Texas, about 40 years old, who struck up a correspondence by email with a 14 year old. He comes to Canada and has sexual relations with a 14 year old and the police cannot do anything about it. They cannot do anything.

I have had police officers ask me what they are supposed to tell parents when their 14 year old or 15 year old is being victimized by some of these predators. It is cold comfort to say to parents that we are sorry, it is not the law of Canada and these predators can do that in Canada. That is absolutely wrong and we are absolutely determined to change that.

I appeared before the Senate last Wednesday. I can tell members about some of the feedback I received. Someone said that this would drive youth prostitution underground. I did not know what that was all about. Another point was that this would discourage young people from reporting sexually transmitted diseases. I have no idea where that is coming from.

We are talking about protecting 14 year olds and 15 year olds from sexual predators. This is exactly the kind of law this country should have.

There also are provisions to tighten up and improve Canada's impaired driving laws, providing the framework for the drug recognition expert program to be effective.