Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of my colleague's private member's bill. It is a good bill. Therefore it is regrettable that it has not been deemed votable. When my hon. colleague from Wild Rose asked for the support and consent of the House, two people said no, the member for Prince Albert-Churchill River and the member for Windsor-St. Clair.
We are very secure as we sit in this House. We have security all around us. We cannot go anywhere in this building without seeing the security. If we were threatened in any way in this House you had better believe we would hasten to enhance the power of those people who provide for our security. Yet we are not prepared to do that for the people we represent which is absolutely regrettable and unacceptable.
When I hear the hon. member for Windsor-St. Clair, who sits as the chair of the justice committee, making the kinds of comments she made against the principle of this bill, of giving peace officers the right to arrest someone who they find in violation of their parole conditions, I cannot believe it nor can I understand it.
During debate on Bill C-68 the justice minister said this: "If you want to learn something or if you need information about health care, ask doctors. If you need to know something about law, ask lawyers. If you need to know something about policing, ask police officers". Police officers were the motivation for this bill. However, the justice minister and his colleagues obviously only want the input of police officers when it suits them, not when they are making a recommendation which will help them to protect society.
Back home in my constituency a person said to me: "What we want you folks to do is to stop the fighting and just get on with the business. We need changes in our legislation in a number of areas, including the area of justice".
What is wrong with giving a peace officer the power to arrest someone at four o'clock in the morning who is violating the conditions of his or her parole? Why are these members prepared to deny the police the power to protect the abused wife, to protect children and to protect society from people who have demonstrated by their past behaviour that they can be a threat to society under certain conditions?
When people are out on parole, the conditions of that parole are such that they must avoid sitting in a bar or being in the vicinity of a playground or children. Why is it that these members are not prepared to grant the police the power to take those people into custody when they have violated the very conditions which have allowed them freedom from prison? I cannot understand it.
The mugwumps I have heard today have spoken against the bill which is surprising and disgusting to me. They pretend that they have the best interests of society at heart and they want to create conditions which will protect society from those who, for one reason or another, are a threat.
I have seen the justice minister stand time after time in the House to say that he has done this, he has done that and he has done the next thing to make society safer, and yet a very simple amendment to the Criminal Code that would grant peace officers the power in the middle of the night to protect an ex-spouse, children and society is being denied. For what reason? It is regrettable.
The Liberals campaigned on a promise to give backbenchers more weight in the government through added private members' bills. That was the promise. I suppose it was a bit like the GST promise, which they simply broke.
By admission of the Liberal member for Mississauga East this promise has been broken. The government backbencher accused the Liberal dominated, four-member committee that determines which private members' bills will be votable of short circuiting controversial bills. The Mississauga East MP said: "We supposedly have open government, but we have secret committees and I'd guarantee that no member of that committee would oppose the bill openly. They were just encouraged in secret. I'm not suggesting it's a kangaroo court, it's more like a cockroach court. You can't see them at work and they run".
My hon. colleague, who is the chairman of the justice committee, spoke about the four private members' bills that have made it through the House and now sit in committee. Where are they? The bill that would eliminate section 745 of the Criminal Code has been sitting there for a year and a half.
I told the member in committee that I respect every member of that committee, but if that private member's bill is still lying dormant by the time Clifford Olson has the opportunity to spend between $200,000 and $1 million of taxpayers' money appealing to have his parole ineligibility reduced, I will be ashamed of the committee and its work. Those bills are there, but they are being let lie. Yet when Bill C-33 came along, it was rammed through the committee in eight days. I am wrong. It was not rammed through the committee in eight days; it was rammed through first, second and third reading, all stages in eight days.
If we wanted to move on those four private members' bills that are languishing before the justice committee we would move on them. They are good bills and they should come back to the House and be considered by the members of this House. Why are we not moving on them?
Mr. Speaker, you ought to sit with us in the steering committee that makes those decisions and then come back when the steering committee's recommendations come before the committee. We get our marching orders. I have said to the committee that when the people of Canada elect a majority government, it has a mandate. I do not debate the mandate. I do not challenge the mandate but I sure challenge the manner in which that mandate is used.
I am not going to challenge our committee to push these private members' bills through. There is no point in doing that. It is incumbent upon us to move those bills through but they are not being moved. They should be back in front of the elected representatives of the people.
Concerning the bill that deals with section 745, over 70 members of the Liberal Party stood and voted in this House on second reading in support of the bill. Why has it been almost a year and one-half and the bill still has not come back to the House?
I can go along with the mandate of the government, but I cannot support the marching orders it seems we have in some of the committees. We set up a procedure. I acknowledge what the member for Windsor-St. Clair said. We looked at that and set up a procedure so that the bills would not languish. If that is the case, why are they still languishing? Why are they still there? That is the question everyone in Canada should know is being asked in this House and there is no answer.
Why has the bill sat for a year and one-half? It is a bill that caused people to come to public meetings across the country by the hundreds and thousands because they are concerned. They do not want to see first degree murderers like Clifford Olson and Paul Bernardo given the opportunity to waste taxpayers' money in an attempt to reduce their parole eligibility after serving only 15 years of a so-called life sentence.
What are we doing here today? We are talking about an issue and we do not have any hope of moving it forward. Number one, they would not deem this bill votable; number two, members of this House who are present here today when unanimous consent was requested, denied it. They denied it not only to the sponsor of the bill but also to the people represented by the bill in Canada: the police officers who know what they need to protect us, who know what they need in the middle of the night or on a weekend when a parole officer is not to be found as the hon. member from the Bloc pointed out.
What do the police officers do? They see a person on parole who has committed dangerous and violent offences sitting in a bar at two o'clock in the morning contrary to the parole conditions. What does that police officer do to protect society, to protect that person's children or that person's ex-wife who may be in danger because of his intoxication? What does that police officer do? This bill would give the police officer the authority to arrest that person because he has violated the very condition he agreed to to get out of prison and to live a peaceful life. He has violated it.
What has happened in this House today is disgusting to me. We will take this message into that constituency called Windsor-St. Clair. We will take it into Prince Albert-Churchill River. We will tell the people: "This is what we tried to do but this is what your member refused to allow us to do".