Madam Speaker, in general we are supportive of this measure.
When my colleague was giving his overviews of the legislation he brought out something that was very interesting. He used a term “ratted out”. One of the main ways in which peace officers are able to apprehend those who have committed crimes is because thieves rat out on other thieves. They only do it under certain conditions.
In consultation with senior officers in the United States, who work with our own agencies, they that the great deficiency in the Canadian system was that there was no leverage that arresting officers or apprehending officers could apply to criminals to get them to rat out because we did not have high mandatory sentences for crime. This is reflected by other policing forces around the world.
In the United States a criminal may face 25 years mandatory for the types of crimes about which we are talking. We are not even talking about murder. We are talking about certain other types of crime. In the interrogation process those officers are able to say to people that they will go away to prison for 25 years unless they give the officers information and “rat out”. That type of information has helped the United States break not just gangs, but significant circles of organized crimes.
As important as this is, is it not necessary that the government have a companion to the legislation which is significantly higher mandatory sentencing? Then we can get the ratting out to happen. Then we can get these people and not just take away their goods, which they can accumulate quite quickly again through illegal processes, but get them behind bars where they belong.