Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure to speak to this amendment to Bill C-17. I do not know what I can say that my hon. friend has not already said in a very forceful way. I would argue that if anyone speaks out for Canadians who are concerned about crime in this country it is the hon.
member for Crowfoot and his colleagues on the Reform Party's criminal justice team.
One concern I have when I look at how the justice system is administered is that the government seems to fail to learn from its mistakes. My friend has pointed out two instances that we know of where judges have decided that rapists should walk away from a conviction, spending no time in jail while their innocent victims sit in their homes fearful that this crime will be perpetrated again, that the offenders will rape again.
Who among us in this place has not at one time or another considered what it would be like to have that happen to someone in our families. People do think about it in horror. Thankfully, most of us come to our senses and realize that it did not happen to us. But for a second we understand what those people go through. In a very small way we come to understand.
That is why as legislators we should always be attentive to what these people go through and it should be the basis on which we make some of the laws that the justice minister is ultimately responsible for bringing about.
In this situation, has the justice minister really tried to put himself in the shoes of victims? I do not think so. Somehow he has decided against what he probably feels in his own stomach. Who for one second could side with the criminal in a situation where two men have raped women and walked away without even spending a day in jail?
I would suggest it is implied that when the justice minister brings forward legislation, the legislation is the most important piece of legislation to the minister. Considering all the things he could do, he has decided that this one piece of legislation is the most important to him based on whatever input he receives and what he considers to be important.
However, for some reason the minister has decided that the most important piece of legislation he can bring down right now is a caution to judges to consider all the various things they already do consider when they sentence violent criminals.
The answer is not to caution judges again to pay attention to the details. That already happens in Bill C-41. Rather obviously some judges cannot be trusted to use their God given common sense to not release violent criminals back into society without spending a single day in jail.
My hon. friends from Crowfoot, Wild Rose, Calgary Northeast and Fraser Valley West, members of the Reform Party criminal justice team, have suggested over and over again to the justice minister and to the people who are willing to listen that the answer is to not allow violent offenders to walk out. There should be no latitude for judges on issues such as this.
What is the government supposed to do? The first thing the federal government should do is uphold the law of the country. It should protect the public from violent criminals. The federal government with its budget of $120 billion odd, not including all the interest paid on the debt, does numerous things. Probably the first thing that a government should do is ensure there are proper laws and that the public is protected. That should be the greatest priority of a government.
I would argue that this government has failed. There are so many examples of how the government has absolutely ignored what is common sense that it is simply beyond belief that it can be allowed to enjoy any support from the public.
How is it that convicted mass murderers can come before the public again to torment the families of the victims, such as in the Clifford Olson case? How can they do that? The government can sit idly by doing virtually nothing except, as we get close to an election, respond in a kind of fearful way because it realizes that maybe the public is upset and it is going to pay a price at the polls.
That is not acting from conviction. That is opportunism. That is simply not a good enough motive. I just cannot say enough in opposition to what the government has done.
As my hon. friend pointed out, Reform members will support the government. We will do anything we think in some tiny way may send a message that we will not tolerate the ridiculous problem with crime. I say ridiculous because it is counter intuitive. It is contrary to common sense how we treat criminals considering especially how poorly so often we treat victims.
We will support the government amendment but we do it with the caveat that from here on in the government must pay attention to what is going on out there. It is simply not good enough at the last moment to try to come up with some window dressing to try to fool the public so that they will believe that the Liberal government is actually concerned about crime.
When we look at the role of the federal government with respect to these sorts of issues, one of the things that strikes me is that for the last 30 years there has not been a party that has been dedicated to the idea that criminal justice should be a key issue in an election campaign. Previous to that just about every government took a common sense approach to criminal justice. People understood intuitively, they had common sense, that criminals must be treated in a way they deserve to be treated. They should have consequences for their actions.
However, in the last 30 years that has been thrown out the window. For some reason people got it into their heads that the criminals were the victims. All of a sudden they started to get all of these rights. We saw perhaps the climax of that notion in the form of the government's approach to conditional sentencing where it allows judges the latitude to release people who are violent
offenders, people who have gone out and raped people. That happened under this government.
That speaks more eloquently to the government's priorities with respect to criminal justice than anything I can say in this place. I ask people to examine the record of the government, not just in the last couple of days when it is trying to jam things through, but on the issues that really count. When people needed it I can guarantee that the government did not stand up for them. It was deaf to the cries of the victims and the people who demanded that there be real justice in the justice system.
It is with some reluctance that we support anything that the government does with respect to criminal justice, knowing its sorry record with respect to hearing what victims have to say and with respect to respecting the wishes of the great majority of law-abiding citizens.