Yes, thank goodness.
I cannot comment in depth on whether the notwithstanding clause is the answer to getting around the problem the system has with the charter. A step in the right direction would be the motion by the member for Fraser Valley West to enact a victims bill of rights to offset some of the power and to provide some guidance for judges when they bring down their rulings. I believe that would
help but it would not be the whole answer, as I am sure the member for Fraser Valley West recognizes. I am not sure that enacting the notwithstanding clause would be the whole answer either.
Surely something that can be done. I sense the frustration that my colleague from Crowfoot feels. As we have raised these justice issues the passed three years we have constantly been getting this nonsense thrown at us from the other side: "We cannot do that. We would like to do that but we cannot do it because it will invoke a charter challenge". There is this bogeyman that if we go too far then the charter challenge is going to come down and stop us.
We on this side of the House have often remarked that if we cannot do something about it in this place, good god, where in hell are we going to do something about it? That is what the people are asking us.
The people are telling us that there are problems in the system when rapists are walking free. The government gets up and says there are no problems because the crown is appealing it. That is the nonsense that we have heard from the justice minister for the last week on the fallout from Bill C-41 and conditional sentencing. That is what the Canadian people have been listening to and have had to put up with.
The reality is that those victims should not have had to go through an appeal. Goodness gracious, if the system was working properly, no one can tell me that a judge would rule that a rapist who was found guilty should walk out of the courtroom scot-free. It cannot be so.
People in my riding say to me all the time, as do people in every other riding to their members of Parliament: "Tell me it cannot be so". The minister's response is that the crown can appeal. That is absolute nonsense.
There would not have to be an appeal if the sentence was appropriate to begin with. If the sentence was appropriate, the only appeal would be on the part of the criminal. He would appeal because he believed it was too harsh. It should not be the crown appealing because the sentence was too lenient for rape.