Mr. Speaker, I come from a city in central British Columbia where we have a tremendous problem right now. Some young people that hang around together think it is fun to walk down the street and beat people. They do not take time to discriminate and find out what colour the person is. They do not take time to determine if the person happens to be a homosexual or take the time to check out the religion of their victim. They just beat people up.
Members of the Reform Party have been trying to say that the assaults they are committing are of no less severity than if they take the time to find out what religion their victims are, whether it is a homosexual or some other little group the government wants to put people into.
The member is trying to tell us that indiscriminate beating on someone just for the sake of beating, because they happen to like beating someone up, is not as severe an action if it had been someone who fits conveniently into some Liberal category. This is absolute nonsense.
I am led to believe that the member is apparently an intelligent person. How on earth can the member stand and tell us because a victim fits into some category the Liberal government wants to dream up because special interest groups got to it, that an assault in that category can be any more severe than an assault on any other category?
The problem is, when the Liberals were on their so-called fact finding mission, they took the time to invite every special interest group they could possibly think of to come and talk to them about the criminal justice system. They forgot one thing. They forgot to talk about Canadians as a whole. I use the word Canadian proudly. Everyone who lives in this country is a Canadian and is entitled to equal justice under the law no matter what colour or religion, whether they are homosexual, a Protestant or a Catholic.
For the government to suggest that because of a person's preference or religion or whatever, that a crime committed against them should be more severe than a crime committed against someone who is an ordinary Canadian is absolutely ludicrous and serves only to garner favour with special interest groups that put the government in power. Average Canadians are going to throw the government out in the next election.