Mr. Speaker, my hon. friend from Kootenay East suggested in his remarks that retribution is not vengeance. I looked it up in the Concise Oxford Dictionary . According to the dictionary, retribution is vengeance.
He was indicating that one of our members was treading on dangerous ground. When the member stands up and suggests that we should be basing our criminal justice system on retribution as opposed to basing it on the rule of law, he is treading on very dangerous ground.
I want to make one other point, his arguments with respect to hate crimes. He is arguing as have other members of the Reform Party that we should not be drawing any distinction when it comes to crimes based on hate.
We should all remind ourselves that this great country of ours is a multicultural country. It is made up of peoples from all around the world and that is one of the reasons why this country is so great and so strong. We have the best peoples from all parts of the world.
We also have to say to all these people from all parts of the world that they are equal, they will not be the targets or objects of contempt, hate or prejudice, and that when we witness contempt, prejudice and particularly the acts of hate, the acts of violence of hate, we will express our dissent and our loathing in a very strong fashion.
There are different kinds of violence and different kinds of crimes. Surely my friend from Kootenay East would not suggest that violence that comes from a drunken brawl is bad and no worse and no better than violence that comes from hatred.
It seems to me that whether it is a woman, whether it is a person who belongs to a religious group or a so-called ethnic group harmed, and they are the victim of terrible violence only because that person belongs to a particular group, we as a society have to condemn and contend that strongly. That is why I disagree with the member from the Reform Party.