Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to participate in the debate on Bill C-27, An Act to amend the Criminal Code (dangerous offenders and recognizance to keep the peace).
With this bill, the government purports to make it easier for crown attorneys to obtain dangerous offender designations. I will support the bill so it can go to committee.
Unfortunately, the bill is not tough enough on dangerous offenders, and I am surprised. We always hear from our Conservative colleagues across the floor that they are the group that will get tough on crime.
This is a pretty weak bill. It does not deal with the issue of dangerous offenders completely enough. I will come back in a moment to the reason why I say that and why I will support our party's proposed amendments if it does get to committee. Our amendments would strengthen the bill and make it more difficult for dangerous offenders to create havoc in our communities and make our streets unsafe and our communities less secure.
I think of circumstances in Toronto and Etobicoke North and Rexdale in my riding. Unfortunately, there has been a long history of gun related crimes tied to drugs and gangs. Fortunately, in the last year there has been a decrease in that because of some raids by the police, in which 100 people were arrested. We cannot let our guard down. There is still a lot of work to do. I will come back to this in a moment.
One case that comes to mind happened in 2005 in Mayerthorpe, Alberta where four RCMP officers, Constable Brock Myrol, Constable Leo Johnston, Constable Peter Schiemann, and Constable Anthony Gordon, were regrettably and tragically killed. James Roszko, who took his own life, was the perpetrator of that horrific crime. That 46 year old man was a convicted pedophile and had a long history of violence and mental illness. People in the community called him a ticking time bomb. If I recall correctly, the police and the crown prosecutors had tried to have him put away as a dangerous offender or a long term offender, but were unsuccessful.
Hindsight is 20/20. If we had the provisions in this bill and the amendments, which our party will introduce to toughen it up, perhaps this unfortunate and tragic incident would not have occurred, but of course we do not know that for sure. That is why I will be supporting the bill.
I mentioned earlier that the bill does not go far enough and is not tough enough in a number of respects, and I will give the House a couple of examples. My colleague, the member for Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine, talked about a couple of them.
The bill is deficient because the decision to pursue the dangerous offender designation is entirely within the designation of the Crown. There is nothing that mandates that a crown attorney must seek a designation either for repeat offenders or for specific types of offences. We should insist on an amendment that would create a provision that the Crown must seek a dangerous offender hearing for those who have three convictions for serious offences. We should be looking at mandatory offender hearings for those who are involved in certain crimes like violent gun crimes.
That would help my riding in Toronto where we unfortunately have repeat offenders, people who are involved in gangs, drugs and have handguns. They commit offences, are taken to court, released in many cases on bail and they reoffend. Then they are arrested and convicted again. These people are not really a benefit to the community while they are engaged in that type of behaviour. For certain types of violent gun crimes, we should look at mandatory hearings as dangerous offenders, and I will support that.
Another flaw in the Conservatives' legislation is this. Some people are on long term offender supervision orders. Some will violate the provisions of that order. In other words, they might be required to report to a parole officer, or they might be required not to go to certain areas such as parks, swimming pools, public places, or there could be a whole range of provisions. If they violate the terms of their order, it is my view that we should allow crown attorneys to order a new dangerous offender hearing for those types of individual. This is an area where the bill could be toughened up to make it more difficult for dangerous offenders to create havoc in our communities.
Our party is supporting the increase in the age of consent. We support mandatory minimums for certain targeted offences. For gun crime offences, we support mandatory minimum sentences. That is why we have proposed an increase. This is in line with the changes.
When we were the government, before the last election, we tabled those types of changes to the mandatory minimums for gun related crimes from one to two years for certain offences and from four to five years. It is important to do that. We should not get carried away with mandatory minimums. The research it is quite clear that mandatory minimums do not always have the kind of results that people would like to see.
The other thing we need to do, in dealing with criminals and violent crime, crime of any sort, is to approach it in a way that is multi-faceted. We cannot only toughen sanctions. We need to toughen the penalties as well. We also need to look at how police operate. We know more visible policing in the community has an impact. We also know community policing is helpful, where the police can work closely with young people in the schools and develop relationships. That is then used to build trust and to help young people, who could find themselves getting into trouble, and to prevent crimes. We should really be focusing on preventing crime. When we formed the government, we brought in the national crime prevention strategy and the national crime prevention program, and I was pleased about that.
In my riding of Etobicoke North, we have launched a whole range of programs over the years that help young people to get out of gangs and stay out of them or to not get involved with gangs at all. They give them an alternative to guns, drugs and violence.
It is a tragic development that the Conservatives on the other side want to scrap the gun registry. That is a big mistake. All we have to do is look at the events in the United States recently where access to handguns is almost as easy as buying a pizza. We need to keep reinforcing the need for people to licence and register guns. We need this multi-faceted approach. That is why I will support the bill, to send it to committee, to toughen it up, to make it a better bill and to ensure that dangerous offenders do not create problems in our communities.