Madam Speaker, I was saying that there are four items of misinformation and I will name them right off. Then I will give them the right information.
The case of the pedophile. The case of the person who is on probation and ordered to stay out of bars, and ends up drinking in a bar. The individual who is impaired and is arrested by a police officer, who can do nothing because the person is on parole. That is another such case. The thief who cannot be arrested even if caught in the act. These are all inaccuracies.
As far as the pedophile is concerned, if there are conditions attached to his parole and he is found by a playground, it is false to say that the police can do nothing. The police officer will use what I have here, the Criminal Code. Maybe I should give them a copy, as they seem not to have one.
It indicates very clearly—under section 497—that a police officer, in fact, any person may arrest another person if he has reasonable grounds to believe that—
Provision is made in the Criminal Code for pedophiles and for a person in a bar too. On top of that, the Corrections and Conditional Release Act contains a mechanism respecting individuals released under certain conditions or on statutory release, who fail to meet the conditions. There are revocation mechanisms, the police can go and get them and so on.
The worst I heard concerns being under the influence. When an individual is on parole or statutory release and drives under the influence of alcohol, the arresting police cannot take him to the police station even if he refuses to take the breathalyser test.
Did the Reform Party recount anything more inexact or grosser this evening? I do not think so. Under the Criminal Code, under all the provisions pertaining to driving under the influence, anyone refusing to take a breathalyser test is committing an offence and can be taken to the station and charged with refusing to obey police.
Is it usual to twist the facts in such a way for political purposes? I think it is for political purposes.
The final example is theft, and breaking and entering. It is very true that the police may arrest an individual, as may anyone under section 494, whether or not he is a police officer, who notices an individual in the act of committing an offence arrest that individual, and particulary if he is a police officer. I think that there is a misunderstanding, or that they are deliberating distorting the meaning of these sections.
That having been said, I do not want to repeat what the parliamentary secretary to the Solicitor General said regarding the mechanism envisaged. It can perhaps be improved.
As I said at the outset, there is undoubtedly room for improvement, but this is not the kind of improvement needed. The more I listen to the Reform Party members, the more I can see where they are headed. In the end, what they want is a justice system that is a bit like a robot, that is programmed to apply the right sections. The judges would be replaced by a computer. All the evidence would be fed into the computer and out would come the answer, an inhuman answer that does not take into account every relevant fact and serves but one specific goal: scoring political points.
I may be a sovereignist, a nationalist, a Quebec nationalist, still I can recognize that some things work in this system. I think that, all in all, as flawed and imperfect as it may be, these things we should work at improving over time, our justice system is an excellent system.
I do not think that amendments like the one proposed in Bill C-211 before us this evening will do much to improve on the current system. On the contrary, I think it would confuse the courts, complicate things to achieve what the Criminal Code and the relevant legislation already provide for.
For all these reasons, the Bloc Quebecois will vote against private member's Bill C-211.