Mr. Speaker, a short time ago the member for Kingston and the Islands was waxing eloquent with quotations from Hansard . You could ask, Mr. Speaker, why he quoted so eloquently from Hansard things that were said by Reformers in this House supporting the views of Canadians across the country but he never bothered to quote from the victims' families, the people who have suffered from the crimes of these people the member for Kingston and the Islands is trying to protect. He did not bother to quote from the people who suffer because of his liberal minded rules about law and order.
Since the member for Kingston and the Islands is so fond of quoting from the printed word, I would like to quote a few things that he said. I have here an article from the British Columbia Report of July 15 of this year in which the member for Kingston
and the Islands, when talking about the protection of VIA Rail tickets that members in the House had, said: "I think we were hoodwinked by the people who introduced the bill". The people behind the alleged plot are members of his own Liberal government, reports the reporter in the article.
The member for Kingston and the Islands said: "I think we were hoodwinked by the people who introduced the bill". On this bill before us I would venture to say the member is being hoodwinked again: "The MP for Kingston and the Islands suspects faceless bureaucrats were negligent in their duties although he is not quite sure who is to blame for introducing the bill but he says `I don't know anyone who reads every bill. I don't"'.
No wonder he is so easily hoodwinked. He does not even read the bills. Since he does not read the bills I can tell that he also does not bother listening to his constituents or he would know that repeal of section 745 is supported by an overwhelming majority of Canadians coast to coast. We do not have to be a rocket scientist to find that out.
Just as they support the repeal of section 745, they also support a complete and effective overhaul of the Young Offenders Act. They want a referendum on the return of capital punishment. They are totally dissatisfied with the Liberal's performance on justice issues.
These Liberal trained seals on the other side of the House support a closure motion to shut down meaningful debate on an issue of great importance to the people of Canada. They stand there and call us extremists for speaking the minds of Canadians coast to coast. That is too bad. The real extremists in this place are the people who sit on the government side. They are the ones responsible for a debt that will hit $600 billion on November 22; 600 billion of debt on the shoulders of our children and our grandchildren. They are the extremists who let murderers and sexual offenders out of prison early so they can commit more crimes.
There is ample evidence that letting these people out before they have served their sentences causes a great many more crimes. I am going to quote some bureau of justice statistics of 1989 from a study that was done in the United States between the years 1973 and 1989. In 1989 the bureau of justice statistics issued some estimates of how many crimes are prevented while criminals are locked up rather than walking the streets.
Analyst Patrick Langan concluded that higher incarceration rates between 1973 and 1989 cut the number of rapes by 66,000, robberies by 323,000, assaults by 380,000, burglaries by 3.3 million, and that imprisonment clearly contributes to major cuts in the number and cost of violent crime.
Those Liberals can stand there and call us extremists, but they are the extremists. Because of their policies, Canada has probably
suffered tens of thousands more rapes, tens of thousands more violent crimes, hundreds more murders and God knows how many million more burglaries; simply because of their wishy-washy justice approach.
Over the past 20 years or so our justice system has tended to concentrate on this wonderful theory of rehabilitation and treating the root cause of the crime. Everybody has had this terrible childhood. "Oh, my God, the reason I am such a bad guy is that I had this terrible childhood. Nothing ever went right for me. I did not win the Lotto 649. It is just dreadful". Some of these people have to start taking responsibility for that they do.
Everybody in Canada, except the people who sit on the other side of the House, are sick to death of this "oh, dear the poor things". It is time for some justice.
I would like to mention another experiment that took place in the United States. The police commissioner for New York, Mr. William Bratton, was quoted shortly after he was appointed security director for the subway system in 1990: "Eureka, we have discovered the root cause of crime. It is criminals".
He adopted a hard line approach in addressing the problems of graffiti, fare evasion, panhandling and assaults that were taking place in the subway system in New York. He said: "The way to get this thing under control is to take a hard line approach of zero tolerance on graffiti, spitting on the sidewalk, all of that sort of stuff". He took this hard line approach where he insisted and the security people clamp down on any incidents of panhandling, graffiti, spitting on the sidewalk.
Within one year there was an impressive improvement. Robberies were down 75 per cent; serious felonies on the subway, a drop of 64 per cent.
Mr. Bratton subsequently became the police commissioner for New York where his methods have resulted in a 31 per cent drop in murders, a 25 per cent drop in car theft and a 22 per cent drop in robberies. How much evidence do we need?
The people who were flagrantly disobeying the rules of law, when they discovered there was zero tolerance for minor crimes, realized that there would be zero, zero tolerance for the major crimes and they stopped committing them.
As long as they were getting free counselling and free rehabilitation and were told how terrible their childhood was, they just kept disobeying the law. For God's sake, we are such patsies. When are we going to get real? It is time to get tough. Not a day goes by, and I believe this applies to members on the other side as well, that I do not get phone calls and letters to my office telling me people are sick and tired of this pandering to criminals. They are sick and tired of it and it is really time we started to do something.
On May 11 this year the Ottawa Sun reported that during a meeting of the attorneys general, Alberta, Manitoba and Ontario pushed for the total repeal of section 745; Ontario, Manitoba and Alberta.