Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe for his question and also for his work on the justice committee.
If I might say, it is the typical Liberal attitude: homicide is down so let us not do anything about homicide. In my opinion, if there are homicides in Canada, if there are adults who are exploiting young people, if there is drunk driving causing carnage on the streets, whether it goes up or down one year to the next, our goal as parliamentarians should always be for it to go down. I and this government will continue to work to ensure that we have a reduced crime rate, that we have reduced homicides, that we have reduced recidivism. That is one of the things that the bill addresses.
The hon. member mentioned Bill C-27 on dangerous offenders. The people of Canada can read the committee transcripts. We are dealing with individuals who are repeat serious offenders of a violent or sexual nature. Sometimes when we speak of it here, we cannot fully grasp what is involved. We read these horrific stories in the newspapers. There are cases that have been in the news recently involving repeat violent offenders, repeat sexual offenders. What happens? Our system is unable to keep them where they should be, which is behind bars, due to their recidivist nature.
We all agree we want to give people a chance, but when someone has proven that he or she is a menace to society, and there is a very high likelihood that that person is going to reoffend and has met the threshold of being a dangerous offender, then we feel that person belongs behind bars.