The member says “absolutely rubbish”. The government has done nothing else.
I could go on and on with stories from prison guards who talk about those who have been shot at or who are being threatened. Their families are being threatened in their homes and they are afraid to react against the gang activities in the penitentiaries because of the dangers it imposes upon their families.
We put up a drug detector machine, a fancy several million dollar machine. I forget what it is called but it has a name. They put that machine in the penitentiaries. I have been to practically every penitentiary in the country and to many of them several times, visiting of course. I have always insisted that I should go through this drug machine. I am very fortunate that I passed all the time. I asked who was tested by the machine. I was told that the guards, the people who worked there, the volunteers and the lawyers who work for the inmates were not, but the visitors were. Guess what they told me at one penitentiary when I asked what it did when drugs were detected on a visitor? The answer was “Go home, clean up and try again tomorrow”.
What kind of regulation is that? That is what they are telling me in the penitentiaries. Then we wonder why drugs are so heavily prevalent in these penitentiaries. There are more drugs inside the prisons than there are on the streets.
I am really tired of the constant rhetoric that comes from that side of the House about the wonderful things that the government has done. Yet the problem goes on and on. One member would say “rubbish, it does not”. Talk to all the victims of people who have died from these kinds of activities. There are thousands of them. It is not so easy to see when the only thing the member does in the House is jump from seat to seat to get camera attention.
It is late and I do not want to keep us here any longer than we have to. There is one more thing that I want to say. I want to quote from an article in the Ottawa Citizen from RCMP Commissioner Philip Murray who retired not too long ago. He said:
Organized crime in Canada is now so pervasive that police have been reduced to putting out isolated fires in a blazing underworld economy. Canada is particularly vulnerable to drug trafficking, the principal source of revenue for most organized crime groups, according to the Drug Analysis Section of the RCMP. Smugglers are attracted to Canada because of the low risk of arrest due to limited police resources that have stymied investigations, relatively light penalties and our sprawling, largely unmonitored borders.
All these comments are coming from police commissioners, the police association, prison guards, victims, the cries from Quebec and the number of lives that are lost.
Can somebody suggest to me that the charter is not a barrier to good justice in this land? I would suggest that it is time to review that statement. It is time to open up that debate. Let us not protect this document to the point that it allows all of these problems to continue to exist. Let us heed the words of the supreme court justice who said it is time to review this after 15 years. Is it having the effect of its intent when it was brought into being? I am not going to attack it and I do not think the hon. member across the way would attack it, but I think he would be willing to discuss it and see if we can improve it. At no time do I believe for a moment that Prime Minister Trudeau intended this document to be a political protective paper for the worst criminals of all kind. I do not think he intended that, but it is happening.
The provinces do their best. Alberta passed legislation to take 11, 12, 13, 14 and 15 year old prostitutes off the streets of its cities. Not to arrest them, not to convict them, but to get them off the streets and try to help them. A complaint was laid and it was determined by our courts that under the charter of rights it is unconstitutional to do that. If my hon. colleague and I were driving down the street and we saw an 11 year old girl on the street prostituting and we did not try to help her get off the street, I would be disgusted with him and I am sure he would be disgusted with me. That is what they are trying to do and we are letting a document such as this stop that kind of activity. That cannot continue.
We will let the courts decide that it is okay for a 56 year old man to own, possess and enjoy child pornography. It was only going to be a temporary thing. It would not take long. We are still waiting two years later. Why? Because of one document.
I love Canada. I love our freedoms. I have the greatest respect and regard for the soldiers who died to build and protect those freedoms. If we are ever going to lose any freedoms, it is because of our failure as parliamentarians to implement the most elemental duty that we have, and that is to provide protection for the safety of our citizens. We had better start doing it.