Mr. Speaker, where I come from, Acadia, we certainly recognize that the Court Challenges Program has brought many cities, villages and provinces along with the federal government in interpreting the charter toward increasing the rights of francophones, primarily as the minority in New Brunswick, to have access to government services in the language of their choice.
I was a little dismayed when I heard the Minister of Justice say that he has a large francophone portion in his riding, he understands francophones, he cannot speak French, he represents them, he cares about them, he was an attorney general, and all that sort of thing. Yet, he cannot recognize that although the charter of rights gave entrenched rights to francophones and anglophones to have trials in the language of their choice in 1982, we are in 2006 realizing, after having been tested through the Court Challenges Program, that this needed to be ratcheted up a bit as this section would do.
How is the minister, from rural Manitoba, going to find out about other holes in charter rights across the country if he does not have court challenges or the Law Commission? I am not sure he is going to get it from the members opposite. I have not seen minority language rights as the storefront democracy document that the Conservatives are using. They are using the scare tactics of justice on the streets and they are using hyperbole, which will not get the job done.
As a result of court challenges and because of the Law Commission, which have now been obliterated by this government, it is very clear to Canadians that there is one side of the House that cares about justice, and that is this side, and one side of the House that does not care about justice. The Conservatives are not concerned with justice issues.
The Minister of Justice should be aptly renamed the “minister of what's popular in a scare tactics world”. That would be too long so we could make it an acronym. But the bottom line is that this minister and this government are only interested in very shallow bills that have a great ability to get on the six o'clock news.
The people of Canada should be aware that they are breeding a false sense of security out there because these bills are not supported by any facts or any studies, and the Conservatives are not doing the best they can to protect the victims as we are doing on this side.