Madam Speaker, I certainly did not attempt to stand in the House and only fearmonger. When I say that a person like Clifford Olson is not a dangerous offender, it is not to fearmonger, it is a fact. When I say that Paul Bernardo, as horrific a crime as he was involved in, is not deemed a dangerous offender, I think the Canadian public wonders why not?
I have laid out our approach. We have simply said that when someone has committed two sexual offences against a child, that we automatically deem him a dangerous offender.
The member said that we leave it up to the courts. I believe, in many cases, we would question the courts but how do we hold the courts accountable? The Conservative Party and our party have said in the House before that protection of society needs to be the number one guiding principle in our criminal justice system.
We heard from the member today the Liberal approach. She said that these people have been victims themselves when they were growing up and they need help and therapy. I agree with her. Part of having someone deemed a dangerous offender is that they will be put in prison. If they were to have that dangerous offender status removed, they would have to go through treatment programs.
We have individuals right now who are incarcerated and who have refused treatment. Karl Toft is a prime example of someone who has refused treatment. We are not helping the children.
When we allow these offenders to get out and be pushed back on to the streets without treatment programs, without going through counselling in prison, we are doing them no favours. If we really believe we can help them while they are incarcerated, we need to ensure that if they are to get parole they can show that they have taken the treatment programs.
I believe the Liberal way of doing this is hurting the children, our society and the offender. This is the Liberal approach. We can see it in other ways with drug addicts. Instead of saying that we need more detox centres and more help for individuals on hard drugs, what are the Liberals throwing at society? They are throwing safe injection sites; they are throwing heroin maintenance clinics because heroin is dirty on the streets, so let us give out clean heroin; and they are throwing needle exchanges. They have really bought in to a defeatist attitude. I would ask them to correct that today.