Madam Speaker, I would like to congratulate you on your position as Acting Speaker of the House. It is an honourable position, which I am sure you know. We extend our thanks to you in advance for your impartiality, your fairness and the important role which you will play in keeping us all in order and on topic.
With respect to the topic today, we have been spending quite a bit of time on this side of the House talking about justice issues. Today I was able to table a private member's bill which deals with a problem in my riding, joy riding. Other members of the Reform Party have tabled an alternative legislative package for Canadians to consider when they see what it was the Liberals did not do on justice issues and what the Reform Party would like to do and would do if and when it has the chance to form the federal government.
In August when the justice minister was before the bar association she spent some time detailing her priorities for the coming session. She said that her priorities were changes to the Young Offenders Act, that she would toughen it up and make it tighter. She said that she would deal with Canadians' concerns that the Young Offenders Act has become a leaking sieve rather than a catch basin which would look after our justice problems.
She said she was going to get tough on the parole system. She said she would look after the people who are slipping through the cracks and being released when they should not be.
She said she would deal with violent crime. She said she would find ways to take violent criminals off the street and out of society and that public safety would be the number one concern.
Last, I remember her saying clearly that she was going to deal with victim rights.
None of those things are in the throne speech. That is why the Reform Party today has spent a good deal of its time questioning the government about its priorities and about its sincerity in dealing with the issues that the new justice minister said in August were going to be the priorities of this government. That is why we see the alternative package.
The Reform member who just spoke gave a global picture of what is wrong with the justice system. He talked about the theoretical problems, the problems that will plague the government until it fixes them. He also talked about some of the principles which guide us.
I know he has extensive personal experience in the field. This is not simply a theoretical exercise for him. He has experience dealing with juveniles, working in the justice system, and he has some expertise and some inside knowledge of what needs to be fixed in the justice system.
I wonder if the hon. member would like to expand a bit more on his thoughts on what needs to be done, with some specificity, so that we can take those ideas to heart, knowing his expertise.