Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I was not talking about the substance of the bill. I was talking about the very principle of reinstating it within the context of the fact that the current Prime Minister came to office saying that he had a bold, brand new agenda. As I mentioned in my first comments, his bold, brand new agenda has nothing whatsoever to do with any of the bills that are being brought back into play here.
I would think the former House leader, one of the most ardent defenders of the former prime minister and one of the most ardent opponents of the current Prime Minister, would certainly agree with the things I have to say because I know deep down in his heart, perhaps not that deep down, if we just scratch the surface, he is in wholehearted agreement with my assessment of the current Prime Minister and his non-agenda for Canada.
I have spent a tremendous amount of time in my riding, reading correspondence and talking to constituents. There is very little either in the throne speech or in the reinstatement motion by the Prime Minister that has in my constituency even the least bit interested or re-inspired about Canadian politics or about the government.
Again, this Prime Minister told Canadians that he had a brand new, bold vision. What is the very first thing he does? He invokes closure. He puts in time allocation. He reinstates old legislation from the ancien régime. He wants to cut off debate. He does not have any brand new ideas to put forward on the table.
We have an Auditor General's report that will come down tomorrow. It will talk about how the Prime Minister and the government are not dealing with the democratic deficit, that they are not dealing with cleaning up the scandals of the past, that they are not moving the ball forward and making the country a better place in the grand vision that he had for this country.
With the very idea of replacing one prime minister with the new Prime Minister should come a sense of renewal. Instead what do we see the government putting forward? We have Bill C-35, an act to amend the National Defence Act (remuneration of military judges). We have Bill C-38, an act to amend the Contraventions Act and the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act.
I can assure the member for Glengarry—Prescott—Russell that was not on the platform on which he was elected, and it certainly was not part of the agenda on which new Prime Minister ran. He said to elect him as prime minister. He said that the Liberals would have to go to the Air Canada Centre in downtown Toronto, that they would bring Bono and Cirque du Soleil there and that they would have a grand old time. They would pack half of Air Canada Centre and do all that great stuff. If he had said if they elected him, the very first thing he would do was bring back all the old, bad legislation that was from the old guy the Liberals had just got rid of, I am quite certain he would not have had nearly the ovation he did at the convention. Canadians would be scratching their heads and asking what happened to that new deal for cities. What happened to addressing the democratic deficit, bringing back the old ideas from the old regime, the very ideas that he criticized and could not be a part of at all? How is that addressing the democratic deficit, bringing forward bold new ideas and a new vision for cities and a new agenda for municipalities? That is not what this is about.
When somebody runs for office, whether as a member of Parliament, or a cabinet minister in the back rooms or to become party leader, one has to have a bold, brand new agenda, something like building a bigger economic pie. Particularly, if one runs for party leader of the incumbent governing party, one has to have new ideas that have to be addressed and that need to be put forward in the country, ideas for which there is an urgent need.
Putting forward, as one's very first action in the House, Motion No. 2 to reinstate all the legislation from the ancien régime is hardly a new beginning and a fresh start for Canadians. It is not what people had in mind. It is not what people expected from the Prime Minister.
I stood on the floor of the Air Canada Centre and I heard the current Prime Minister's speech. It was one of the longest nights of my life. He did not mention bringing anything back. He said that the first thing he would do was bring back legislation to give Canada the most liberal marijuana laws on the planet, making it far more liberal than even the most liberal marijuana laws that they have in Amsterdam. If they brought him back, he would reinstate and put in place the legislation that pumps billions of dollars in corporate welfare back into Bombardier and VIA Rail. If they brought him back, he would bring forward all the legislation, all the stuff for which he said the former prime minister was drifting and not doing anything about, not going anywhere and was not addressing the big concerns of this country. He said if he was brought back and put in power, he would promise Bono, U2 and Cirque du Soleil. If he was put in as Prime Minister of Canada, there would be a bold new agenda.
Again, persistently we have failed to see that. It was the government members and the member for Yukon, who spoke just prior to myself, who mentioned the throne speech. He said that this was a precursor for the government really addressing the throne speech.
The throne speech was full of platitudes and empty rhetoric. The new deal for cities is an empty deal. There is virtually nothing there at all. It further complicates, as I said, the tax code, it makes the GST less efficient and it does not give a steady stream of financing to municipalities.
One broad area that is of particular concern to my constituents and to the constituents of British Columbians is the area of crime. The throne speech had precisely 4,662 words in it. Not one of those words mentioned crime or criminal justice reform. The whole subject matter was deleted. For that matter, neither were the fisheries, the fishing industry, agriculture or anything to do with agriculture mentioned.
The province of British Columbia has serious problems with regard to crime. It has street racing, grow ops of marijuana, parole reform and the idea of conditional sentencing. It is the idea of not having consecutive sentences for violent criminals.
We have one sad story of Darcy Bertrand, a guy who on Thanksgiving Day, I believe in 1995, attended a church service where he pulled out a knife and murdered his mother-in-law, father-in-law and his wife right in front of his kids. He was convicted of the murders a year later. He pled guilty to three counts of second degree murder and was convicted a year later on all three of those counts. After five years in a medium security prison, he was transferred to a minimum security facility that does not even have a fence. This facility is 20 minutes away from the surviving family members.
This raises all kinds of questions when these kinds of concerns are there. There is no criminal justice legislation at all in Motion No. 2. The previous government did not put forward any legislation of that kind. None of those three bills deal with anything serious.
The member for Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, who is now quickly becoming an apologist for the current Prime Minister, the very Prime Minister who he opposed becoming Prime Minister, says that there are three bills dealing with justice reform in Motion No. 2. None of them deal with the substantive concrete issues that are of concern to Canadians.
How is it that members of this Liberal government are so dramatically out of touch that, for example, in the very case of Darcy Bertrand, a guy who walks up in broad daylight and murders his wife, his mother-in-law and his father-in-law in front of his kids, and after being found guilty of three counts of murder, he goes to a medium security prison? If that guy does not deserve to be in a maximum security prison, I wonder who does. He was put in a medium security facility and after five years he was sent to a minimum security facility with no fence at all and 20 minutes away from surviving family members. It is a facility from which people have walked away freely in the past.
Putting forward Motion No. 2 will not address the concerns of Canadians. Not putting forward any legislation to address criminal justice reform or even mentioning criminal justice reform in the throne speech does not address the real issues and concerns of Canadians and does not address the priorities that people in my community and in my electoral district have. The people in British Columbia want criminal justice reform issues addressed. They do not want these sorts of games.
When someone steps forward and says that he is going to run for public office, that he will be the new prime minister of Canada because he has a bold, new agenda, he must deliver. He has to actually come forward with some brand new ideas, not some retread old ideas from the very prime minister that people said had to be done away with because he had no new ideas. This is the ultimate contradiction.
The current Prime Minister has failed again. He has failed to give a new vision. He has failed to give new ideas. He has failed the democratic deficit challenge. He has failed to give a new agenda for cities. He is giving the same old agenda that will not work and will not give Canadians the fresh start they need.