Mr. Speaker, I sat here until 11.30 last night. I just sat and listened to all of the debate. I laid my speech aside.
We often refer to this place as the highest court in the land. We should all be setting aside our ideology and our politics. We should be examining every bill to see whether it is good legislation. We are making the laws of the land in this place. As I sat and listened to the debate last night, I attempted to do it with an unbiased mind which is difficult to do but that is what should be happening in this place.
I am not an expert on all of the things that are going on here, it is impossible. I have been working a lot on Bill C-68. However, I listened to the various experts, people who analysed Bill C-41. Many of them come from the other side of the House and I listened to what they had to say. There is a variety of people in this place and there are some very serious concerns with this bill which have not been addressed.
Having listened to the debate and the arguments, I have come to some conclusions which I am going to share with the House. We really need to have democratic reform in this place. I have come to that conclusion in the last few weeks as I see the processes which are taking place. That is something which is desperately needed.
We stand and debate these laws. We look at them. Recently there has been the attitude to just get through with the debate; summer is coming so let us get this stuff through the House. Millions of Canadians out there will have to live with these laws forever more. We should not have the attitude of simply getting this done, having an arrogant, almost cavalier attitude about what is taking place here and just getting it out.
The negative impacts about this legislation were related yesterday. Canadians have expressed many concerns to us. Even people in the legal profession who have analysed this bill, lawyers at the top of the justice system, have seen the flaws and we continue to push this bill through. That causes me grave concern.
As I listened to the debate last night I saw some of the members opposite trying to portray themselves as being more compassionate than some of the other people in this House. They were trying to show that they were more tolerant.
In the end we have to look at the nitty-gritty, the facts, the very reasonable things people are saying about this legislation. We must not let ideology or politics blind us. Common sense must not be thrown out the window. We cannot play on people's emotions.
When the dust settles we are going to have to live with the facts. We are going to have to live with the content of Bill C-41. We are trying to explain our intentions in this bill, but good intentions do not necessarily make good legislation. That is why we are here discussing this and debating it and doing all the things we are doing. We have to listen to each other.
I have a question for the last speaker. I was listening to the debate his colleagues presented yesterday. The hon. member said that we are protecting the rights of all Canadians. If we are protecting the rights of all Canadians, why do we need a list of categories? Why do we need to even include this? It does not make sense to me. Do not all victims deserve equal protection? Why do we have to have categories of victims? If someone is assaulted by someone who is doing it just for fun, that is no different from doing it for some other motive.
I am going to speak on behalf of my constituents this afternoon on some of the things they have told me. I have received hundreds and hundreds of letters over the last year and a half on the issue of including the term sexual orientation and many other concerns. That is not the only concern they have with this bill but it is one that keeps coming up again and again. We need to listen. I have the honour and the privilege to speak on their behalf as I believe all members in this House should have.
To limit this debate to six hours is a travesty of justice and of democracy. I hope it is not an example of an arrogant dictatorial Liberal government, but I am afraid that is the way it is coming across.
I said I have the privilege of representing my constituents in this debate on Bill C-41. Many members of Parliament will be denied that so I consider it to be a privilege.
Voters have sent me to Ottawa to be their voice in Parliament. What we do is very important. We must not take anti-democratic measures as has been done. We would all be willing to go well into the summer to listen and analyse all of the aspects of this Bill C-41 debate. It makes me very sad. It should make every Liberal member who did not oppose this abuse of power sad as well.
The Liberals have the majority. They can use that majority to do almost anything they want to and voters can do nothing to stop them, until the next election. By forcing time allocation the Liberal government has declared its highest priorities to be gun control, MPs pensions and including the term sexual orientation in the sentencing legislation.
Personally I do not believe these controversial issues are priorities with the people of Canada. I am sure that if people knew how democracy was getting a kick in the teeth here in Ottawa today, a lot more concern would be expressed. Most people are not following all the debate here. I wonder if Liberals are hoping that voters will forget this by the time the next election rolls around.
There are some provisions of this bill for which I give my conditional support. I heard the reasons behind them and they are good. I support them particularly with respect to the restitution orders and victim impact statements. There are some excellent aspects to the bill.
Unfortunately, we have a long way to go before the victims of crime are treated with as much respect as the criminals. To this end I will continue to work on my victims bill of rights which I spoke about previously.
I support the Reform amendments to delete section 717 regarding alternative measures and to delete section 745.6 regarding the application for judicial review for premeditated murders.
The most controversial idea we are talking about is section 718.2(a)(i) and the reason the Liberal government has waited so long to get the bill before the House and why it had to invoke closure in order to get the bill through the House of Commons. This provision will call for greater penalties to be imposed if there is evidence the crime was motivated by bias, prejudice or hate.
We complained a lot about the term hate, but what about bias and prejudice? These things can be construed in many different ways. We do not know five or ten years down the road what will happen with bias, prejudice or hate based on the race, nationality, colour, religion, sex, age, mental or physical disability, or sexual orientation of the victim.
My first choice would be to support the Reform amendment to delete the section entirely. Reformers believe that the courts already take aggravating or mitigating circumstances into consideration when determining the length of the sentence to be imposed on a convicted offender. I agree with my colleagues that this is an attempt by the Minister of Justice to get the unnecessary and undefined term sexual orientation into a piece of legislation so it can be used as justification for amending the Canadian Human Rights Act.
Reformers believe in true equality and that all Canadians are equal before the law. Every time the government divides us into different categories it creates the politics of envy, which divide us rather than unite us. We should not have all of these groups mentioned in our legislation.
Back on March 24 the Globe and Mail editorial writers made the statement: ``The real problem with section 718.2 is not that it refers to homosexuals but that it is proposed at all''. They go on to give many other valid points.
Because of the time allocation I will not have a chance to finish my remarks.
We need to take a serious second look at this matter. The Liberals are opening a door with this legislation which should remain shut. We should take more time to look at this because the concerns which Canadians have expressed to me are real and legitimate ones which need to be addressed. I wish I had more time to do that.