Mr. Speaker, this motion is typical of the Reform Party and the nonsense we have had to put up with from this group and its obsession with law and order issues. It is obsessed with the notion that if we lock people we will solve the crime problem of the country; lock them all up and we will not have any crime.
Unfortunately we have lots of experience in world affairs in the last 300 or 400 years, and probably a good deal longer, indicating that policy does not work.
The Reform Party, however, sticks its head in the sand, goes back to the middle ages and takes the view that if we lock people up, whip them, chain them and beat them to death, somehow we will solve the crime problem.
Crime has been a problem throughout human experience. It is not something that just happened in 1995. It is not something that just happened in 1993 or whenever it was the Reform Party formed itself. It has been a problem with human existence since Cain and Abel.
Hon. members opposite might have forgotten the story of Cain and Abel, but I will not recite it for them tonight. There was a murder then. There was no death penalty. I do not recall that Cain got the death penalty. He got punished but he did not get the death penalty.
Hon. members opposite rant and rave about locking people up and throwing away the key. The hon. member for Wild Rose stood up this morning to introduce a private member's bill that would take away the right of parole, the right of statutory release and all kinds of things that are what we call carrots to try to get people to improve their behaviour while in prison. He wants to take that away, lock them up for the maximum time we can lock them up and hope that when we spring them on society after 12 or 25 years in prison somehow they will be reformed and that society will not suffer.
Some of us happen to know better than the hon. member for Wild Rose. If he would listen to some reason once in a while instead of spouting the constant nonsense he does from his seat he might learn something from the experience others have had with the criminal system.