Mr. Speaker, just recently the Minister of Justice made an excellent presentation to our justice committee. He spoke of the generational changes that have taken place in our society. Today, we lock our doors, we are more watchful over our children, and we have to recognize new dangers such as swarmings, drugs and gangs.
Some of the Liberal members on the committee mocked this. They claimed we were practising the “politics of fear”, saying that if we simply maintained a balanced approach to justice, society would be just fine. No sooner were these comments made when, later that week, we all listened closely to the TV as it was revealed that an 11-year-old girl from Armstrong, B.C. was abducted by a transient.
Fortunately, due to the excellent police work of the local RCMP and the community, she was found alive. This story of an innocent child riding her scooter to the store to rent a video and being grabbed is not the “politics of fear”. This is reality today.
The only ray of hope is that our justice system is about to change significantly under this Conservative government. We have vowed to restore safety and security to our communities across the country. I know that Canadians are eagerly waiting for us to succeed.