Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to stand today and speak to Bill C-27. The constituents of Newton—North Delta are fully aware of my full support of any legislation that punishes violent or sex offenders, which is why I will be supporting the bill at second reading.
However, my colleagues and I have serious concerns about the constitutionality and the strength of this bill.
Since being elected, I have consistently supported legislation that is both tough on crime while supporting an activist social agenda that seriously addresses the causes of crime.
I support tougher sentences so that those who commit serious crimes do serious time. However, at the same time I support creating more social programs, which include child care spaces as well; all efforts aimed at poverty reduction and substance abuse; and any legislation that will help take guns off our streets. We must strike a balance between the two to be effective. We must try to see the big picture.
These changes cannot be debated in isolation, as the government does. With this legislation being debate today, before the accused can be found to be a dangerous offender, we must ensure that the offence is not an isolated occurrence. We also must establish that the pattern is very likely to continue.
Even after this, the court still has the power not to designate the offender as dangerous or to impose an indeterminate sentence. However, the dangerous offender section that we currently have in this country, which has put 360 dangerous offenders behind bars, is charter-proof and is working.
In fact, the former Liberal government 1997 created the long term offender designation. This was targeted at sexual and violent offenders because many sexual and violent offenders required special attention even if they did not meeting the criteria for a dangerous offender. This was a necessary change because, as of June 2005, we had 300 offenders under the long term offender designation in Canada.
The Liberal Party strongly supports real efforts to protect Canadians and punish offenders who represent threats to the safety of our communities across Canada. However, any changes that we make to the current system must be done in a manner that would not jeopardize the victims' rights.
Changes proposed should not back up the courts. If there are charter challenges, the courts could be jammed for years. Our amendments to Bill C-27 are not designed to weaken the bill, as the official Liberal critic spoke earlier in favour of this, but to make it stronger and effective, which can only be done by being non-partisan. By doing that we would ensure that the criminals are sentenced and put away as fast as possible.
We would like to introduce provisions that allow crown prosecutors to seek a dangerous offender hearing if someone currently considered a long term offender violates any term of the supervision order. This would toughen the law from its current version and keep career criminals off the streets.
There is no reason we cannot have mandatory dangerous offender hearings following a third conviction for serious crimes. This would be more effective than the current reverse onus provisions in the bill. Once again, this would toughen the bill from its current version. It is not efficient if the reverse onus legislation cannot pass a constitutional challenge. We just back up the appeals process by doing that.
I would now like to focus on the issue of the constitutionality of Bill C-27. The bill has proposed sections on which legal experts have big questions with regard to their constitutionality. The bigger problem with many of the reforms in the bill, as many of us know, is that the administration of justice falls within provincial jurisdiction. It is beyond the jurisdiction of the federal government to impose statutory duties on provincial prosecutors. We cannot step in and control how justice works in the provinces and regions, particularly where those duties are meant to influence the prosecutor's discretion.
In the view of the legal experts, that could make a significant part of the bill unconstitutional and, by making this unconstitutional, we are putting victims at risk.
Unfortunately, I predict that rather than working with the Liberal Party to fix these problems, the Conservative Party will instead try to say, with its usual bluster, that we are gutting the legislation and being soft on crime.
I would say, first, that this is an issue that the citizens of Canada expected a far more serious dialogue from their elected representatives; and second, that if the Conservative Party tries to push this legislation through without taking the very serious concerns raised with respect to the charter, not only will this demonstrate that it is soft on charter rights, it will potentially put the entire section of the Criminal Code, which it is seeking to amend, in jeopardy.
What does that mean? It means that more victims will get shortchanged. I can tell the House that when I speak to my constituents of Newton—North Delta, that is not what they want. They want a real, effective crime prevention strategy but that is not what they are seeing in the present government's agenda. They want to toughen the laws to keep the violent and career criminals off the streets.
It is not just my constituents of Newton--North Delta. All Canadians are looking for tougher measures to stamp out crime, but not flawed legislation that puts this aim in jeopardy.
I hope the justice committee will work in a diligent and bipartisan manner to ensure that this flawed legislation is amended to take into account the concerns of my constituents, Canadians and the legal experts across the country to make the toughest and most effective crime legislation in the country.