Mr. Speaker, it is a great privilege to speak on the important piece of legislation before the House today.
We have heard a lot about the legislation. I asked myself three questions when I looked at the nature of the legislation. First, what does the legislation do? Second, is it necessary? Third, are there any unintended or unfortunate consequences arising out of the legislation? We have heard a lot of talk about some unfortunate things that might arise out of the legislation.
What does the legislation do? It is a comprehensive revision of the nature of sentencing, something that has been advocated by law reform commissions, jurists and criminologists for the last 20 years. We have called out for a comprehensive, important revision of the standard under which sentencing will be conducted. This is an omnibus bill that addresses those issues. It is an extremely important bill that results from studies to grasp the nature of punishment that will prevent crime and at the same time rehabilitate. The bill is directed to that.
It is most unfortunate that discussion in the House has turned around section 718.2 which requires the court to take into consideration whether a crime was motivated by bias, prejudice or hate based on national origin, language, colour, race, religion, physical disabilities, sexual orientation or any other similar factor. Since third party members have spent their whole time talking about nothing but this and accenting it, let me turn to that question and deal with it.
Is there a need for this provision? Yes, there is. We have heard the parliamentary secretary speak. We live in the century of World War II and of the Holocaust. We can look at the former Yugoslavia about which we have debated in the House. What is taking place in Bosnia today is based on years of hatred brought on by sectarian strife, by people hating one another and holding one another in contempt. In the foreign affairs committee we heard from the B'nai Brith that knows something about this matter. You might listen to this, over there in the third party.