Mr. Speaker, I want to take this opportunity to congratulate you on your election. I am absolutely confident that you will make a fair minded and wonderful Speaker.
I also want to thank the electors of Scarborough East for returning me to this Chamber to offer their views on these important issues.
A throne speech is really only a document that gives direction. It is necessarily less specific than some would wish. However, Canadians should really only see the throne speech as a book with a number of chapters to follow. I will comment on one of those chapters which deals with strong and safe communities.
Until now Canada has enjoyed a relatively buoyant economy. Interest rates are relatively low. People's real incomes are rising. We have reduced the national debt and interest rates are down.
The level of prosperity may or may not continue. Some say that it will not. However, with the prudent assumptions of the government we are hopeful that our buoyant economy will return. We are much better positioned to weather a downturn in the economy if and when it comes. For the time being, we can still dream dreams and address some of the pressing needs of our people.
Yesterday I listened to the Leader of the Opposition in his reply to the Speech from the Throne. He was talking tough on crime. He went on to talk about how criminals seem to have all the rights and that victims do not have any.
I would like to take the opportunity to correct the mistaken impression that the Leader of the Opposition may have unintentionally left, namely that criminals have all the rights. All Canadians enjoy exactly the same rights when faced with a criminal offence.
It is simple minded rhetoric to say that criminals have all the rights and victims have none. All Canadians are presumed innocent. All Canadians have the right not to self-incriminate. All Canadians have the right to present a full defence. All Canadians have the right to have the crown prove its case beyond a reasonable doubt. Those rights, among many others, are enjoyed by all Canadians charged with any crime and therefore, in my view, it does a disservice to victims to speak of victims' rights and criminal rights in a cheap rhetorical flourish.
It is a pity that the hon. Leader of the Opposition has not reviewed the work of the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights from the last parliament. Had he reviewed the work of the committee he would have come across Bill C-79, commonly called the victims' rights bill. The genesis of that bill was in the committee's report called, “Victims: A Voice not a Veto”. The report was unanimously put forward to the House by all members, of which one of his members, particularly the member for Surrey North, made a significant contribution.
The bill arose out of that report and was introduced into the House. It came back before the committee and was quickly returned to the House because it incorporated many of the suggestions contained in the report. I have yet to hear any person who represents victims that advocates that the bill is substantively flawed in any way.
The hon. Leader of the Opposition would also have been interested in the work of the committee on drunk driving. Again an all-party committee produced the bill, which, among other things, substantially increased the penalties for drunk driving. His own members contributed to the drafting of the bill. The Minister of Justice was gracious enough to introduce the bill into the House because she was persuaded of its merits. Included in the bill was a potential life sentence for those convicted of drunk driving a third time; three strikes and they would be gone.
I do not think it can be tougher without getting into issues of disproportionality. On this side of the House we are plenty tough on crime. We are not so foolish, however, as to skewer the entire system of justice and the criminal code just to show how tough we really are. If he still wishes to be tough he should look at the committee report on organized crime. Our report was very detailed on how we as a committee felt that organized crime should be dealt with. I was pleased to see that the Speech from the Throne picked up on that issue. It said:
The Government will focus on safeguarding Canadians from new and emerging forms of crime. It will take aggressive steps to combat organized crime, including the creation of stronger anti-gang laws and measures to protect members of the justice system from intimidation.
I, for one, look forward to the opportunity to review our initial work on organized crime and spend time making suggestions to the government with respect to specific amendments to the criminal code and enhancements to the authority of police officers and people in the justice system.
Justice is more than just getting tough. Any fool can be tough, and we may even have some examples in the House. Justice is far more subtle than just merely being tough. A society that incarcerates aboriginals at rates vastly disproportionate to the rest of the population is a society that must look itself in the mirror.
I remember questioning a judge from the Northwest Territories, a former professor of mine at Queen's University, who was gracious enough to come before the committee on Bill C-3. I asked him about the disproportionate incarceration rates of aboriginal youth. His answer was ultimately quite sad. Tragically many justices incarcerate aboriginal youth because they have no real alternatives. Youth homes are either dysfunctional or do not exist at all.
The thinking is that throwing the kid in jail is actually doing him a favour. I submit that this is the brutal indictment of our own society. The throne speech read:
It is a tragic reality that too many Aboriginal people are finding themselves in conflict with the law. Canada must take the measures needed to significantly reduce the percentage of Aboriginal people entering the criminal justice system.
I agree with the throne speech and the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister has set a generation bar of 20 years to reduce the number of aboriginals in conflict with our criminal justice system.
I have said that justice is more than just getting tough. Justice means that there will be a sentence after a conviction, not before as some would like. When that sentence is served the convicted person will return to the street, with the exception of those serving life sentences.
Everyone returns to the street some day. One way or another they will return to us, to society, to their communities and to their families. Getting tough by throwing someone in jail, walking away and throwing away the proverbial key creates a lifetime criminal. Since everyone returns to society some time, we either manage the reintegration and rehabilitation or just walk away and leave the criminal to make out as best he or she can. I prefer a system which stands beside the person on the way to completing his or her sentence.
Getting tough with rehabilitation and reintegration is just plain stupid. It is in society's best interest to try to assist individuals so that recidivism rates will be reduced. If an offender is let back on the streets a bit at a time, it only makes sense that the chances of him or her returning to a lifetime of crime are reduced, rather than simply pitching the criminal over the proverbial walls of the jail and hoping that he or she makes out and saying in effect “You are on your own, buddy”.
I look forward to the Minister of Justice following up on the commitment in the Speech from the Throne to reintroduce the youth justice bill, which will:
—encourage alternatives to custody for non-violent offenders, emphasizing rehabilitation and reintegration into society, while toughening consequences for more violent youth.
In closing, any fool can be tough. Being tough on crime is merely a rhetorical flourish, but it is far more difficult to be just. The record of the 36th parliament showed us getting tough on drunk driving, getting tough by taking DNA samples from certain convicted criminals, getting tough on organized crime, and getting tough on child prostitution and sex tourism. In some respects that is the easy part.
The greater challenge is to be just. I believe we have taken some steps in that direction with the victims rights bill and the youth justice bill. It remains to be seen whether parliament will be serious about aboriginal crime, organized crime and youth justice.
I am hoping that over the course of the next number of years the House will have the opportunity to be serious about being just.