Mr. Speaker, one of the sad parts about this whole debate is the fact that the Liberals appear to have completely forgotten about the victims and the victim's families. There is a lot of talk about the rehabilitation and release of the convicted murderer. There is a lot of talk about the rights of the criminals. I have gone through Hansard and I have not come up with anything that has been said by a Liberal in this debate that deals with the issue of the victim's families in any substantive way. It is for the living that we speak.
I was interested in the speech of the member for Kingston and the Islands last evening. He said: "In my opinion the bill goes counter to the principles governing the treatment of offenders and that is why I am against this bill". He said earlier in his intervention that in fact he was planning on voting against the bill.
What about the treatment of the victim's families, not what about the offender? Further he said:
I would like to go back to the four principles of sentencing that I talked about. I mentioned first, the protection of the public; second, the punishment of the offender; third, the rehabilitation of the offender; and fourth, the deterrence to others. I believe those are the four principles on which any sentencing bill ought to be judged.
His comment makes my point does it not? His comment is: How are we treating the offender? It has been said many many times by
my colleagues that we are not talking about a crime of passion. What we are talking about here is premeditated first degree murder. We are not talking about an incident that just happened to happen. We are talking about the most vile offence that one human being can commit on another human being.
It is therefore strange that while the Liberal government, the justice minister and indeed the whole party would be spending time on Bill C-45, which is an anaemic response to the demand of Canadians for the repeal of section 745 of the Criminal Code, they spend no time talking about victims or victims' rights. It was the Reform Party that brought to this floor under the very careful guidance of my colleague from Fraser Valley West, a motion to which the justice minister agreed by the way, that the House was going to consider a victims bill of rights. That has not happened. Quite frankly, I think it will probably be a sunshiny day for bikinis in the Arctic on December 25 before we ever see the victims bill of rights in the House.
The member for Kingston and the Islands also said in his speech last night: "On the other hand, there are a large number of persons who have committed murder who pose no danger, who are remorseful and who wish they had never done it and, in my view, ought to be released and become contributing members of our society again".
Is that not wonderful. People have intentionally and willfully taken the life of another human being and have left behind them the shattered lives of their victims' families. The shattered lives of mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters, relatives. Their lives will never, ever be the same again. Their lives have been so twisted and distorted by this heinous crime, yet the member says, and I will read it again because it is just so, so outstanding. "On the other hand, there are a large number of persons who have committed murder, who pose no danger, who are remorseful and who wish they had never done it and, in my view, ought to be released and become contributing members of our society again".
I ask members opposite: What are we doing here? Why are we spending this amount of time on a meagre repeal of some parts of section 745 and spending no time looking after the victims' families? Why are we doing this? I would love to have an answer from any Liberal member. Why do we spend so much time mollycoddling the criminal and ignoring the victim? Why do we do that? Any answers? I would love to have an answer to that question because I do not think there is one.
Last evening the government whip also displayed an attitude toward the Reform Party, which has attempted to bring the concerns of the people of Canada to the floor of the House, that is really an example of how many if not most of the Liberals feel toward our representations. I will quote him now referring to the Reform Party: "They think they have a monopoly on the truth. Canadians know what they are all about. It is a game of fear and hatred that they are trying to promote, Canadians one against the other. That is wrong".
Those are not only spiteful words. Those are words of distortion. I have said so many times in the House and I will say it again. There is more common sense in the average coffee shop in Canada than we will ever have in the House of Commons.
When the comments of concerned Canadians are spoken on this floor in plain 25-cent English words, for the government whip to stand and say: "Oh, it is hatred. They are trying to pit Canadian against Canadian", no we are trying to represent the views and the wishes of the people in Canada's coffee shops. We are trying to represent the views of the people in the living rooms and kitchens of Canada. We are not falling over, the way the justice minister has fallen over to the people in his justice department and doing all of the things that are politically correct. We are trying to correct something in this nation and get the focus where it should be. The focus again is that we must return to consideration and respect for the citizens of Canada and not just the criminals.
This is a bill that is going to pass. It will pass because that is the wish of the Prime Minister and that is the wish of the justice minister.
It will not pass as a result of the wish of the majority of people in Canada. The Liberals have the arrogance and the audacity to come to this Chamber and say: "We know what is best for the people of Canada, so we are going to turn, we are going to twist and we are going to give a little puffery and a little image and we are going to make it appear as though we are actually responding to the current concerns of the people of Canada".
Time will tell. There was a time when the people of Canada were prepared to buy into the big old parties, buy into the Liberals and the Conservatives, which is where the old thing of "Liberal-Tory, same old story" came from. They are the same old story.
We had wonderful prognosticators like Dalton Camp on television last night saying: "People want to have choices, but they want to have a narrow band of choices". There are the Liberals here and there are their kissing cousins, the Conservatives, there. They want to be able to make those choices within that narrow band. The problem for many of the Liberals, particularly for the government whip, is that we offer choices outside the narrow band of this cosy little club. We offer choices that people in coffee shops are asking for. We offer choices to Canadians in ordinary plain English.
This bill is inadequate. This bill will pass, unfortunately. This bill will be a minuscule improvement, but when the Reform Party forms the government in Canada we will make this bill right.