How many? Why did she not tell us how many? She commented during her remarks that there have been more than 18,000 times since September 3, 1996 that conditional sentencing has been used by our courts. But she did not say how many times it was used in cases of rape, how many times in cases of drug trafficking. How many times? How many of the 18,000 were for rape? How many were for violent offences? How many were for drug trafficking? Because if it is one, then it is one damn well too many.
For this government to say it will leave it up to the courts, leave it to the judges to decide or it will appeal, there can be no doubt that the Liberal Party of Canada and the government is made up mostly of lawyers. They want to perpetuate this type of nonsense. They want to keep the courts busy. They just want to keep appealing it instead of correcting the problem. Even if there is one person who does not serve time in jail, and I am not talking about four star hotels where they can flex their muscles and exercise, I am talking about putting them to work, I am talking about real justice and punishment that will deter these people from doing it again.
The parliamentary secretary in her comments said, and I wrote this down maybe not word for word but something close, that the government is willing to work with the provinces to monitor and see whether further changes are needed. To monitor. That is about all bloody well good this government is for, to monitor. It certainly is not intent on making any meaningful justice changes, any meaningful justice reform.
I see I am about out of time. That is unfortunate. The member for Scarborough—Rouge River says that they wanted to rely on the judges when they passed Bill C-41 to draw the line because there is always an exception to the rule. That is what he said. Yes there are always exceptions to the rule. I can say that less than two months after these conditional sentencing provisions came into effect in September 1996 I raised the issue of how it was being inappropriately used in cases of rape.
There was a young mother whose ex common law spouse broke into her home and raped her on the kitchen floor. He was found guilty and convicted but the judge did not give him any time in jail. One of the conditions he imposed upon this criminal was that he felt it would be better for the mother and the children if this individual continued to pay his child support. That was one of the conditions. That is what conditional sentencing does. It imposes these harsh conditions on rapists.
I want to thank the hon. House leader of the Progressive Conservative Party and my hon. colleague from Surrey North for their participation in the debate. I want to say to everyone watching this debate at home tonight that I and the victims of these crimes are absolutely appalled at the parliamentary secretary's callous disregard for meaningful justice reform.