Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for her question. What she is looking for quite reasonably is a list of particulars, a good solid list of specific initiatives that can be brought to bear to address the issue of public safety and crime.
She has already noted some of the generic hot buttons, if I could put it that way. Let me acknowledge right away that the references in the throne speech are purely generic and in fact I read one sentence that perhaps covers a couple of pages of particulars. It is not possible to put into a throne speech all of the particulars that one might want.
However, I note that the whole area of sentencing is yet to be dealt with by a federal statute. There has never been a codification of sentencing in this country. That is still to be done. There was a bill in the last Parliament. It was consensually not proceeded with because members from both sides believed it was not a good and effective bill.
I would look for a sentencing bill relatively soon. I would look for a bill to modify elements of the Young Offenders Act. All of the areas have been discussed publicly. What the justice minister will bring forward remains to be seen. I hope the hon. member will create her own list and send it immediately to the justice minister.
There needs to be changes in the Parole Act, the Corrections and Conditional Release Act. We need to pass very specific amendments to the area involved. Most of it involves accountability.
A very interesting and useful meeting was held during the last Parliament between the outgoing chairman of the National Parole Board and members of the justice committee. The chairman had to get the permission of the minister to appear before the committee to tell us personally what he believed should be done for the parole board to better perform its job. He spoke to us very frankly at that meeting which was held in camera but all of what he said was duly noted.
We have covered the Young Offenders Act, the Corrections and Conditional Release Act. There are elements of the Criminal Code that need to be refined. We are just beginning to deal with long run strategic crime prevention. Regrettably it requires a bit of money to get into this area but it is a long running investment on a long running basis to make everybody in society a stakeholder and reduce the tendencies to break the law.