Mr. Speaker, what a wonderful thing I just heard, all the great things that are being done for victims across the country. That is just not true.
All we need to do is visit any victim, as I did yesterday, the family of Louis Ambas in Scarborough. Tell me one thing that has been done by the government for the family of that individual, the orphans and the widow. Nothing has been done.
I get tired of the same old rhetoric about the wonderful things being done for victims. Wonderful things are being done for the criminals. Their rights are looked after so much. Boy, are we going to treat them and help those poor guys and ladies. We are going to really do our best to make sure they are well looked after.
I will say it again, nothing is being done for victims, nothing. If I knew how to say it in French, I would make sure I said it once more.
For the last two years the government has brought forward legislation such as Bills C-37, C-41, C-68 and now C-45. All this legislation reminds me of an old motto of my mother, and probably your mother too, Mr. Speaker: "Put a little spoonful of sugar with the medicine and it will go down". That is what the government has done with every one of these pieces of legislation. It has sprinkled in a little sugar in Bill C-37, very little mind you, but some would say that is not a bad idea. After looking at the whole bill there are so many rotten things in it that we just cannot support it.
Bill C-41 is a really good example. There are some things in it that are not bad. Then we get petitions tabled here, letters from all across Canada about Bill C-41 saying: "Do not include sexual orientation in section 18.2. If the government includes that section, don't vote for it".
I know these people across the way table many of those petitions. I know that many of those people across the way have tried to amend that section. Some of them really made a big effort. Some of them voted against the bill and got punished because they did what Canadians wanted. Is that not a shame? I think you know what I am talking about in that regard, Mr. Speaker. What a shame.
However, we are the bad guys. We did not support Bill C-41 because of all the fine things it is going to do. We tried to amend them. Members from the Liberal Party tried to amend the bill and make it better. It did not happen. If they voted against it, look out.
Along comes Bill C-68. That sucker is that thick, about 167 to 180 pages. The government sprinkled some sugar on about 17 pages that addressed the criminal. The rest of the bill addressed the duck hunters, deer hunters, rabbit shooters, gopher shooters, target shooters, gun collectors; the legal, the law-abiding citizens, the taxpayers, the hard working people that pay those wonderful pensions Liberal members all took, with the exception of a few who I am glad did not. That is what that bill attacks. Seventeen pages of the bill have a little sugar and we are supposed to support it because of those 17 pages. Why can we not pull those out and give us an opportunity to do that?
The government really makes it tough when it creates legislation like that. Is it a game being played in the justice system? If we took Bill C-37 and piled it on top of Bill C-41 and piled Bill C-68 on there and piled Bill C-45 on that we would have a stack quite high. They took millions of dollars to create. They are written in a bunch
of gobbledegook that a guy like me who has 16 years of education does not have the vaguest idea of what one-tenth of it means. Therefore, we rely on the help we can get. We get researchers to help us out. We even go to the justice committee and ask some of our colleagues from the other party who are really good at doing that. I really appreciate their efforts. They are able to tear into that legislation. I really appreciate when some of the members of the Liberal Party come forward with amendments that will make the legislation better. Add more sugar in there, I like that. Let us do that.
However, if a Liberal member is effective on a committee like that and dares to vote against the front line on any issue that he or she might disagree with, then he or she is out of that committee. They are bad boys or bad girls because they did not vote with the government. Democracy? Democracy in a pig's eye.
That is what makes it so hard. That is why when we look at some parts of Bill C-45 we say: "Darn, that is a good idea. I would really like to support that". However, the government makes it impossible with all of the other gobbledegook that is put in there.
I listened to the justice minister, who challenged me to join with him in helping to make the country safer. However when I stand here and move a motion that asks why we want to limit dangerous sexual offenders to only those who offend children, why not everyone, what happens? Who can argue with the fact that we should not keep dangerous child sexual offenders in jail? Who can argue against that? I cannot. However, should it make any difference that the one they are keeping in has offended 13, 14, 15 or 16-year olds and the one they are not going to keep in has offended against 19, 20 and 21-year olds, grown woman or 85-year olds? That is what does not make any sense.
Therefore, we stand and move a motion. I defy anyone to tell me there is a big difference between raping a 17-year old and raping an 18 or 19-year old. Tell me there is a big difference. We moved a motion to amend that. Did we get support? No, not one bit. The little boys on the front line probably passed the word that the backbenchers were not allowed to vote for it. When their strings are pulled the puppets jump up and the arms vote the way they are told because they do not want any more punishment. If they get any more punishment they lose the ear of the government. I have news for them, the government is going to lose the ear of the public. It is sick and tired of it.
There was a rally last night in Scarborough of nearly 500 people. They are fed up to here. Simplistic is a guy who jumps up like a puppet and does not vote for his constituents. Simplistic is when you do not think for yourself, stand on your own feet and represent Canadians. Instead, you represent the front row, that is simplistic. What an easy way to earn $64,000 a year. It is real easy.
Let us look at Bill C-45, the bill dealing with dangerous offenders. What about the parole boards? We have a serious problem in this country. We are going broke. However, we are going to put in more things to help these criminals. We are going to give them more treatments. We are going to keep the parole boards active. The parole boards cost quite a bit of dollars.
I hear over and over again from the people who work closest with the criminals that it really should be handled at their level. Maybe now would be the time to consider there not even be a parole board, that releases should be determined by the case workers, the guards, the psychologists and the people who work in the prisons closest to the inmates. Why not consider that?
Wait a minute. If we got rid of the parole board, guess what? A whole lot of positions would disappear. Some people would not be appointed to it so they could stick their snouts in the trough. We cannot have that. It is the traditional way. We have been doing it for 30 years. Let us not do anything different.
I asked the government to make it mandatory that bad decisions by parole boards be totally reviewed. In Bill C-45 it may be done. We wanted it to be mandatory. It makes sense. The ordinary Joe on the street anywhere would say: "Sure, why not?" What is wrong with a little accountability?
I do not think there is a person in this place who did not come from some job somewhere where they had to be accountable in that job. Why should it be any less now in government or in an appointed position? That is all we were asking for. The answer was no. The Liberals would not vote for it.
I asked for mandatory restitution. There is a clause in Bill C-45 that says 30 per cent of the wages earned in prison are to be paid back to the government to pay room and board. Nobody can argue with that. It is not a bad idea. I realize that is not a great amount of money but even a little bit helps. I simply wanted a motion that said: "How about taking that 30 per cent and giving it to the victims, to the widows, helping them out?" After all, the government is looking after the victims. No. No. That could not be considered. I really do not understand.
Then all of a sudden I do understand. There are probably quite a few people on the backbench who would like to support it but the boys in the front row pull the strings and up jump the puppets and away we go again.
When I look at the legislation that has been written, that stack, I wonder why it cannot be in a little better language, something that an ordinary guy could sit down, read and maybe understand what we are doing. Or does it have to be produced that way so we can keep all those ants running around the justice building over there, all those senior bureaucrats making a lot more money than we are, so they can continue to put this stuff together and make sure not to get to the meat of the problem. Just make sure to sprinkle a little sugar throughout the whole thing so that we would look like fools if
we did not support it. That way we can keep those fellows employed all the time.
It is wonderful. Just wonderful. A bunch of bureaucrats running around, do nothing bureaucrats creating a bunch of stuff the ordinary Canadian, including the member across, cannot understand. It cannot be read nor understood. I am just trying to make sense out of it.
Instead of spending millions of dollars putting stuff like that together, how about taking that money and putting some guards down at Port Erie where the trucks drive through. Customs cannot even stop them because they do not have enough help.
The attorney general for Ontario says that trucks are coming through driven by criminals. What do we do? I am sure they are over there working on it right now. There will be another Bill C-926 or whatever it will be called. It will be thick and full of gobbledegook. It will not be as simple as saying: "Look, there is a problem. Let us fix it". That is not the way it is done. The game is not being played right.
I am tired of playing the game. I have been here two years and I have been listening to nothing but games. We ought to be able to accomplish something in the House. Instead, the best thing that has yet happened is the legislation on DNA testing. The only reason that happened is this party put the Liberals in a corner and they had to do it. They refused it for a year. Then all of a sudden out of the blue they decided it was a good idea, after I had asked for about the tenth time.
I do not know how members of that party can sit opposite to us and laugh, thinking this is all a big joke. I wish they had spent an afternoon with me talking to a few widows and orphans. I would bet they probably do not know what a victim of crime looks like.
I wish they had been with me when I spoke with the mother of the five-year old girl who was found in a garbage dumpster in Calgary with her throat cut. She is a single mother with no income, barely making ends meet. She has not received one penny's worth of help and has two other people living with her. The best they come up with over there are giggles and laughs.
Somebody is going to wake the government up. I am trying to. I am sure I will not accomplish it but I will guarantee there are Canadians all across the country. Your day is coming. You guys at the pig trough talk about 1.5 million kids starving in this country. I have news: Let us all give up our pensions and steer that money toward those starving children. What is wrong with that? You are too greedy.