The Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice is heckling me. At that time he had a chance to give us one shred of evidence and could not do it. Now he can heckle while he is off camera. He had his chance. We even had the Parliamentary Secretary to the Solicitor General stand in the House during debate and say that n Canada people must consider it a privilege to own a firearm. We are talking about legal property.
We could embellish on that. If it is a privilege to own a firearm which is legal property, is it also their opinion it is a privilege to own a car or a house or any other kind of private property?
Reading from the Constitution, 1982, which Mr. Trudeau put in place, one wonders whether there are any rights of individual Canadian citizens to own property anyway: "not to be derived thereof without due compensation or process of law". The Constitution took care of that in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, so to speak. That is an oxymoron.
In the same way the Minister of Justice failed in respect to the amendment being debated today, he failed in Bill C-68 miserably. Let him try to sell that on the election trail, particularly in the Prince Albert-Churchill River riding.
The Liberal government and the Minister of Justice failed on Bill C-226, a private member's bill put forward by the Liberal member at the time for York South-Weston who was kicked out of the party because he would not toe the party line. We do not blame him on this side of the House.
Bill C-226 was unanimously adopted in the House. It was a private member's bill that would abolish section 745 of the Criminal Code. It would ensure that life meant life for someone convicted of the highest crime in the land, the crime of murder. The bill would suspend the Liberal version of life imprisonment with 25 years without chance of parole.
We have introduced the Reform version of life imprisonment in the House in which life means life. We have also introduced a private member's bill to allow the people of Canada to debate, to have a referendum on the return of capital punishment. The Liberal government shot that one down even though a huge majority of Canadian people would not only like to see the return of capital punishment in Canada but would like the chance to voice an opinion on it. The Liberal government would not allow that to happen because it did not fit into its philosophy.
What is the job of members of the Liberal Party opposite? Is it to represent their constituencies or to represent the philosophy of the Liberal Party? One wonders what is more important to Liberal members. There are some Liberal members in the House who have their heads on straight and are very sensible when it comes to criminal justice. Unfortunately the member for Kent is not running for the Liberal Party in the next election. We are very sorry to see him leave the House because when it came to justice issues there were at least two or three sound thinking Liberals on the other side. We are very sorry to see that.
I would encourage the Liberal government and the member from Prince Albert to go to the polls tomorrow, try to run on their justice positions, and let the Canadian people decide who they want to choose. I think they will be in for a big shock.