I am not asking anyone for a straw vote on this. In any event, I have friends in every party.
Let us look a little more closely at the statistics, including the crime index. Property offences account for 50% of crimes, according to the figures reported by Canada's police services, while violent crimes account for 12%. Certainly there are still too many violent crimes. But it is important to keep things in proportion.
On the question of homicides, for example, I repeat that from 1991 to 2004, the homicide rate fell constantly, except in 2003. In 2003, there was in fact a slight resurgence in homicides. That might suggest that there is a trend. However, I think that it would be very wrong to try to take one year in isolation and call it a trend.
There is another matter of concern. That is the firearms registry. We have to be grateful to all parliamentarians who voted for that registry. This is not a matter of partisanship.
I have examined the statistics for Canadian and American society. First, the United States is the society with the highest rates of incarceration. For every 100,000 people, 723 are imprisoned in the United States. What is the incarceration rate in Canada? It is between 114 and 116 people per 100,000. And yet, even though the United States incarcerates more people than Canada, three times fewer homicides are committed in Canada than in the United States.
Why is this? When we look at serious studies of the issue, we see that it is not so much sentences that deter people from committing offences, but rather the possibility of getting caught and being taken to court.
For that reason, we have to agree with the Conservatives who want a greater police presence in communities and more prevention and programs for young people. That is a kind of discourse we can support. On the other hand, we cannot support the discourse typical of the Republicans, who advocate mandatory minimum sentences in all circumstances, without distinction. That makes no sense. We cannot follow the Conservatives down that road.
As well, if we want to fight crime, we cannot forget that there is a correlation between crime and the poverty rate. In fact, it is significant that the present Prime Minister never once mentioned social housing during the election campaign. The only time he did, it was to announce, like the good Conservative he is, that he intended to offer tax credits for builders. Do we not think that our communities need to have socially affordable housing built?
Three announcements were made in the past on this subject. The former minister, Mr. Gagliano, had announced $800 million, to which a further $320 million was added. While that was not enough, nonetheless it was over $1 billion that made it possible to build some social housing .
I am very worried that the Conservatives want to reduce crime without taking the question of poverty into consideration. In our opinion, Parliament must not join the chorus calling for minimum sentences, but rather must call for generous crime prevention programs and programs to fight crime, while putting heavy emphasis on social housing.
My time is up. I would have had so much more to say, but I do not want to abuse the House’s time. I hope that my colleagues, and in particular the member for Outremont, will have questions for me.