He says he will not learn it from me. All right. Never mind taking it from me. Take it from the experts, the people who work in the system. If the hon. member would listen to them he would not be spouting the nonsense he is spouting now and that he was spouting earlier.
He has obviously convinced the very gullible member for Surrey-White Rock-South Langley who has swallowed his line, hook, line and sinker. The poor soul has been totally distracted by the hon. member for Wild Rose and his silly nonsense on locking people up and throwing away the key. That is all we ever get from
the Reform Party. We had it earlier today. Now we have got it in this motion.
Let me turn to the motion before the House. What we have now is a system where under the Criminal Code if a person has committed a particularly serious offence and is known to be a dangerous offender or there is some risk that the person may be a dangerous offender, we give a discretion to the attorney general of the province in which the prosecution is taking place to bring an application to have the offender declared a dangerous offender.
That discretion is given to the attorney general of each province who is an elected official, a member of the cabinet in the province. Presumably, he or she is a person who has won the trust and confidence of the people, and a lot more trust and confidence than has been earned by the hon. member for Surrey-White Rock-South Langley. The hon. member's party has not been elected as a majority party anywhere and is not likely to be, so she may not have the advantage of being elected attorney general. I must say I would pity the people in the province in which she ever became an attorney general.
Nevertheless, the discretion is now given to the attorney general of the province to decide whether to bring this application. The hon. member wants to take away that discretion. She wants to put the discretion in the hands of a group of psychiatrists and if the psychiatrists say the person cannot be cured or has a particular kind of problem, bango, you lock him up and throw away the key.
The hon. member for Calgary Southeast wags her head. I am correct in what I am saying. The hon. member for Surrey-White Rock-South Langley is not wagging her head. She knows I am right. She knows I have accurately described the motion she has put to the House. Frankly, it is a very sad commentary in this day and age, considering that the age of enlightenment which took place 200 or 300 years ago came upon mankind and gave us some notion of justice and fairness, that members of Parliament are now giving this idea that locking up people solves the problem.
I know the Minister of Justice will likely come out with some of these figures in his speech a little later. However, I want to point out to the hon. member for Surrey-White Rock-South Langley that the United States take the policy that she advocates fairly seriously. They lock people up and they throw away the key.
The hon. member will find, if she looks at the figures and I know she does not like to do this because facts are always a problem for the Reform Party. Mr. Speaker, you know that as well as I do. There is nothing worse than a set of facts to face some of the hon. members opposite. It makes them quail and shake because facts are something they do not want to know about.
In the United States the imprisonment rate for persons convicted of criminal offences is four times what the rate is in Canada.