moved for leave to introduce Bill C-257, an act to amend the Criminal Code (conditional sentencing).
Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague from Provencher for seconding the bill. I am very pleased to re-introduce it into this Parliament. It is a private member's bill that I have introduced in two previous Parliaments.
This legislation addresses the frequent misuse of conditional sentencing provisions in the Criminal Code of Canada. If passed, the bill will ensure that certain serious and violent offences such as murder, assault, sexual assault, kidnapping, drug trafficking, manslaughter, et cetera are excluded from consideration for conditional sentencing. This means the convict must and will serve jail time.
When the government passed into law the conditional sentencing provision in 1995, it ignored warnings, without clear instructions to judges, that killers and other violent offenders could literally get away with murder. As we all know, this is exactly what has been happening across Canada ever since.
It is bad enough when those convicted of crimes such as break and enter and theft are granted conditional sentences, there is no punishment, no consequences, nothing to prevent them from offending again. Yet when a killer, or a rapist, or a drug dealer receives a “get out of jail free” card, for their victims and their victim's families, it is like being assaulted again.
Just over a week ago in the House the Deputy Prime Minister suggested she was willing to look at aspects--