I believe I was, Mr. Speaker. I was referring to a member. I certainly did not intend to speak directly to her. In light of the comments she made, I really do not want to speak to her. If I made that mistake, I apologize.
The member from the Bloc Quebecois rose in the House to question the motives and the whole concept of how the hon. member for Surrey North approaches this problem. If there is a member in the House that has a right to be bitter and enraged about the way the system works, it is he. I have never found a more reasoned person trying to make honest changes. I am absolutely disgusted that any member of the House would rise to put forth the unmentionable types of statements she made.
I will look at some of them. She talked about how this would be so unfair to these poor prisoners because it would give them additional time in prison. May I remind her that when people are sentenced to eight years in prison it is intended that they be in prison for eight years. Parole is a privilege, not a right. They should have to show they have earned parole. Manipulating the system is certainly not a good way to earn parole.
I am absolutely shocked that someone from Quebec of all places that has such a huge problem with organized crime would stand in this place to start defending the rights of people in prisons who further twist the system once they have been caught and convicted. It is no wonder there are so many problems with criminals in the province of Quebec when people like that represent the criminals themselves. I think it is disgusting. As far as the fact that she was bothered by other conversations, I think it is pretty obvious I was bothered by hers.
I would also like to address a couple of comments that were made by the parliamentary secretary. He talked about the wonderful things the government was doing for victims. It has developed a policy centre for victims of crime. What is the good of having a policy centre if it does not listen to what those very people are saying and does not provide the help that they plead for when they come before the parliamentary committee of the House?
I heard these people and they did not ask for a lot. I was a member of the committee that reviewed the CCRA. They did not come in pounding on the table, frothing at the mouth and making demands. They came in with quiet reasoning, with a great amount of sadness and heaviness in their hearts. They said there were problems in the system which they hoped the government would try to address.
I had the privilege of sitting with the hon. member for Pictou—Antigonish—Guysborough. I was happy to have his support because there was scant support on that committee. The hon. member from the Bloc Quebecois joined the committee later as a replacement member. I do not know if her attitude would have changed if she had seen the whole thing and had an opportunity to see what we did while we studied the issue. I would like to think it would have, that she had some misplaced ideas rather than a strange point of view overall.
The parliamentary secretary said that they were striving for more opportunities for victims to be heard. That is what this is all about. We want more opportunities for these people to be heard. The problem occurs when they come in, in keeping what the government has said, to avail themselves of greater opportunities to be heard, only to have someone who wants to manipulate the system cancel the hearing at the last moment. That is not in keeping with what the parliamentary secretary says the government wishes to do. Ironically all we are doing with the bill is trying to help him keep his own word. We work very hard to try to keep them honest over there.
I think we need a much better look at the issue. One of the points made today was that sometimes when good ideas come forth in this place from the Canadian Alliance there is an automatic, and I do mean automatic, rejection of those ideas.
We would be more than happy to have the government steal the idea and bring it out as its own. We would be happy to applaud it for doing so. We do not care how it gets out. We do not care who gets the credit for it. We just want the system to work better and to be fair.
As I mentioned earlier, these victims did not come forward with great demands. They came forward very humbly and did not ask for a lot. They came forward knowing that they would not be able to make great changes but hoping the government was listening and would address the serious problems.
The parliamentary secretary said that there would be minor inconvenience for the parole board and really no cost. What about the victims? Maybe it is not a great cost to him if he has to travel across the country, only to have the plan cancelled at the last minute, because he has more time for something else.
Victims do not look at it in that way. They plan leave from their business, place of work or employment. They may use their vacation time, not for a vacation or to do something that relieves their lives and helps them to rejuvenate themselves but to immerse themselves back in the horrors of the original crimes.
During that time they make a commitment and prepare themselves mentally to undergo the ordeal. They commit time from their employer. They may buy a ticket, a non-refundable ticket, to travel. To have offenders cancel a hearing without good cause, sometimes as victims are literally walking into the room, is not a small hardship for victims. It is a massive one.
The government believes what it says. If the parliamentary secretary believes in the things he said a few moments ago, that he would like more opportunities for victims to be heard and the system to be fairer, the bill must go ahead.
It should be amended to give more flexibility to the parole board in terms of how much time or when exactly it should be impacted, but government members should not turn their back on it. They must do something with it. It is not a partisan issue. The parliamentary secretary knows that if anyone is non-partisan in trying to fix the problems of the parole system and the justice system, it is the hon. member for Surrey North. I ask those members to consider the matter, not as members of government, not as members who are whipped into a particular position by their party, but by their own conscience. I urge them to try to place themselves in the shoes of victims and try to imagine, even just for a moment, how they would feel if they were in these circumstances.
There are few over there, if they honestly did this, who would not support the bill or at least something very close to it. Victims have rights. Those rights should far outweigh the rights of the people who made them victims in the first place. It should not even be a major consideration on the part of government.
This is a good bill. It is a bill that has been brought forward with honourable intentions by someone who has worked very hard to see that the system is balanced and balanced fairly. I urge members to consider allowing the bill to go ahead.