Madam Speaker, it is a great privilege and an honour, as always, to rise on behalf of the people of Elgin—St. Thomas—London South. I will be sharing my time with the hon. member for York Centre.
When I was first elected, I was shocked at how quickly crime became the issue I had to contend with as a member of Parliament, because it was the significant issue that galvanized the community of St. Thomas this summer, in many respects. A rather historic building, which happened to be my campaign office in the last election, that was 140-some odd years old was burned down by a serial arsonist out on bail. This was a symbol of a problem that Canadians have seen in communities large and small across the country, which is rampant repeat offenders unleashing what police have called chronic criminality and prolific offending onto the streets.
If we talk to any police service across the country, as I have with the police chiefs in my riding and others through my work on the justice committee, we will hear that a small number of offenders, sometimes 100 people or maybe even fewer, are responsible for 80% to 90% of the calls the police must respond to. A small group of prolific offenders is taxing communities, taxing and straining police resources, and terrifying and terrorizing communities.
They are making it so people do not feel safe walking streets they once could comfortably, safely and freely walk down at any hour of the day or night. People do not feel comfortable letting their children go out to a mall. People are forced to take other forms of transportation because they do not feel safe on public transit.
Just this morning, I saw that London, Ontario, is promoting police officers being on public transit. I am grateful to the brave men and women in the London Police Service, the St. Thomas Police Service, the Aylmer Police Service and the Ontario Provincial Police who are forced to deal with this, but they have had to deal with a problem that has by and large been a consequence of federal government policy.
We have heard testimony for several weeks now from police associations, police chiefs and victims' rights groups, and almost all of them have pointed directly to Bill C-75. This was legislation from the Liberal government that, among other changes, codified something called the principle of restraint, a provision of the Criminal Code that makes it easier for repeat offenders to get out on bail under conditions that are very lax.
I bring this up because for months, when we have raised these issues in this House, the government has said not to worry and that bail reform legislation is coming, but this was not a significant priority to the extent that other bills were. We saw Bill C-9, which was the first priority, as far as justice legislation goes, of the government. That came out and was tabled in this House weeks before the bail legislation was. Now we see Bill C-14.
I will say first and foremost that I am grateful the Liberal government recognizes there is a crisis unfolding in our criminal justice system. I am grateful that the Liberal government has finally responded to the calls from law enforcement, municipal governments, victims' rights groups, ordinary citizens and Conservative members of Parliament that action is needed.
What the Liberals have delivered falls short in some very key areas, and I think this is important because they said they needed time because they wanted to get it right. They needed time because they wanted to cover all the bases. We had before the justice committee on Tuesday the commissioner of the Ontario Provincial Police, Thomas Carrique, a very decorated officer. He is also the president of the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police, and commissioner Carrique said that he was disappointed the legislation did not tackle sentencing in a meaningful way.
The bill was supposed to tackle bail and sentencing, and with the exception of beefing up the penalty for contempt of court, it has not really touched sentencing head-on when we are talking about sentences for violent offences. That is a key shortcoming of this bill.
On the principle of restraint, we have another key issue, which is that the bill offers, and I will read it precisely, the following language on the principle of restraint:
For greater certainty, section 493.1 does not require the accused to be released.
The Liberals are basically giving a little asterisk for judges and police officers to tell them not to worry and that the principle in the Criminal Code that says we must release people at the earliest opportunity and on the least onerous conditions does not mean they have to release them at all.
Everyone knows that. No matter how critical someone is of the justice system, they know that 100% of people do not get bail, although the Liberals have certainly tried to get as close to that figure as possible it seems. This is a clarifying note; it is not a meaningful change. The Liberals are just saying that it does not mean what we think it does, that this section does not mean what police officers have been saying it has done to them and what attorneys are saying it has done to the justice system.
To be fair, the Liberals made some acknowledgement that there is a problem when they expanded the reverse onus. This is something I welcome, but when this bill goes before committee, it is incumbent on the Liberal government to accept the very significant measures Conservatives have already proposed in this House that would be genuinely and seriously tough on crime, measures that would provide real solutions, real resolutions and concrete reforms to fix the Liberal bail system.
For example, the principle of restraint needs to first and foremost be a principle that makes public safety its primary obligation, not the rights of the accused but the right of the public to feel safe and secure in their own communities. This is very important, and it is a direct response to months and months of consultation by Conservative members with law enforcement officials, who have said they feel ignored by the government and that morale has taken a massive hit. Officers feel it is not even worth arresting people, knowing that under the law on the books right now, they are just going to be released.
For years, Liberal government members, when we have sounded the alarm about this, have said that it is not really an issue. They have attempted to gaslight Canadians into thinking the problem is not as a bad as it, which makes me ask the question about Bill C-14 of why now. Are the Liberals finally acknowledging that they got it wrong with Bill C-75, Bill C-48 and Bill C-5?
With each of these bills, there has been a trend. Some members of law enforcement have looked at them and said they looked like they had some good things in them, but years later, when they see the application of them, they realize they did not actually deliver on the promises made and what the government said it would do. That is, of course, a concern I have with Bill C-14, as with any legislation. We need to make sure these are not just things that exist on paper that do not translate in the real world.
We have given the government the answers. We have provided three pieces of legislation in this House already. While the Liberals were still trying to figure out where they wanted to go with Bill C-14, my colleague from Oxford introduced the jail not bail act, Bill C-242. It would put front and centre the role of public safety when talking about bail. It would also prohibit someone from serving as a surety to help other accused offenders get out on bail if they themselves have been convicted of a serious criminal offence within the last 10 years. Reform of the surety system does not appear at all in Bill C-14, which is another shortcoming that has already been identified by witnesses testifying before the justice committee in its bail study.
We also have, from my colleague from Lethbridge, Bill C-246, which would put consecutive sentences in place for sexual offenders. Heinous criminals who have been convicted should be serving their sentences consecutively, which is a proposal we offered to the government. I ask the Liberals to please take our idea and put it in law if they are serious about these measures.
My colleague from Kamloops—Thompson—Nicola introduced Bill C-225, which would create new offences pertaining to intimate partner violence, provisions that Jennifer Dunn of the London Abused Women's Centre told the justice committee yesterday should be passed by the House of Commons to protect women. Victims are being failed by the justice system as it is now, and Ms. Dunn said in her testimony that many of the women she sees do not even refer to the justice system as the justice system anymore.
I am committed to working with government members if they are serious about wanting to reform and genuinely fix these problems, but they need to acknowledge their role in creating them. They need to acknowledge what law enforcement has been saying, which is that so much of what we are dealing with on the streets now, which has led to Bill C-14, is a consequence of Liberal laws, notably Bill C-75.
I am committing to the people of Canada, the people in my riding and the members of this House that I will work in the justice committee to beef this bill up to what it should be, but Canadians deserve more.
