Mr. Speaker, I guess it is more of what is not there than what is there which bothers me. I talked about dangerous offenders. I hope the message went out that I feel it should not apply to the offenders of children only. It should go beyond that to a great extent. Because my time ran out I did not get a chance to talk about a couple of other things that should be in the bill.
For example, drugs are a very serious problem in our prisons. I am sure hon. members including the member for Scarborough West would agree that they are a serious problem. I am trying to figure out why we have not brought in legislation which says there will be no more drugs in the prisons that they will be out of there. Does it make any sense when 70 per cent of the people going in there have a drug problem? Yet they are sending them to a place where drugs are more accessible than they are on any street. We are going to rehabilitate them while they are in there. Think about that.
Here is a guy who is going to prison. He represents about 70 per cent of the prison population in that he has a drug problem. That is why he got into trouble to begin with. We are sending him to a prison where drugs are more accessible than they are on the streets. To help him we will give him the bleach program or sterilized needles. Then in four years we will let him out and he will be rehabilitated. We might as well take an alcoholic and sentence him to a wine cellar for six months and see how well he is fixed when he gets out.
It is not so much what is in the bill, but it is a lot of what is not there that should be. There are some things in there we would like to support, but why do we always have to make the tough decision about supporting something we do not want to in other parts?
I know the hon. member struggled with Bill C-41. There are some good things in Bill C-41. Should we support it? That is the decision which is always tough. They could do better when it comes to the gobbledegook. Why do we not stick to what Canadians want? Why do we not listen as parliamentarians to what Canadians say? My people are saying: "We want this; we want that. Now write the laws". Is it so difficult that these guys over there are so smart that they cannot write in common English, French or a language we can understand?
The hon. member is right. We had better understand it. I am trying to make every effort I can to understand it. It is too bad we cannot pick up a lot more by ourselves without having to get a bunch of help to do it. I do not know if it is possible, but if it is not impossible let us fix it. Let us give a direction to the authors of our laws that from now on when they write income tax laws or criminal justice laws they are written so that the farmer in Alberta or the bushman in British Columbia can sit down, look at them and understand them. That is simplistic according to some members but to me it is common sense.
Why do we not take the good things that the people want? Let us listen to them and talk about them as parliamentarians. We should put our differences aside and say: "Here are some things we have really got to fix". Why do we not go into committees together,
work together and get this done? Because it is not the Liberal way. It is not the Conservative way. It is not the way we do it in Canada. Maybe it is time to change.