Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank all members for participating in the debate and for their consideration of the important issues contained in Bill C-393. Its goals are straightforward and they deserve our support.
The bill will break the escalation of violent knife crimes by applying deterrent measures, including for the act of criminally carrying a concealed weapon. It will end the abuse of judicial discretion that results in career criminals and bail violators being rewarded at sentencing and ensure crime victims are kept properly informed and not subjected to procedural abuse in their interaction with the National Parole Board.
These measures are intended to deal with systematic issues that are not theoretical or ideological. Their origin comes from the current realities of crime and the justice system in Canada.
When the bill was debated on April 11, I was surprised to hear some members opposite suggest that it was the response to a single case. In fairness, the member for Burnaby—Douglas did ask if there were other examples, and while I mentioned some in general terms during my original remarks, let me now provide greater details.
Members no doubt took note of the recent release of the youth crime stats which reported that youth homicide rates have risen 41% since 1997. About 44% of homicides committed by youth involved a knife, while 17% involved a firearm. Violent crime has risen 30% since 1991.
In preparation for this debate, my office did by no means a complete media scan. We started back on October 24, 2007, and ended just the other day on May 25. I have assembled clippings, and I stress that they are not complete, but we have recorded 170 stabbings or robberies with a knife and 44 separate homicides with a knife.
To be more precise, since our last debate on the bill on April 11, we have noted 45 stabbings and 14 knife homicides in just six weeks. These incidents involved swarmings, home invasions, robberies and assaults, and fights tragically escalated through the use of a previously concealed knife.
There are other systematic factors involved in at least some of the cases, but having the House send a deterrent message, a preventive message such as recognized recently by the Supreme Court of Canada, is a positive step to make this country a safer place.
The same clipping survey details cases of violent offenders, who were denied bail because of their past criminal records, being rewarded with not only credit for the time they earned in precustody but with double and in one case even triple credit for their ongoing criminality.
In one case extra credit was awarded for a vicious knife attack, even though the offender had his bail revoked when he was charged with being an accessory to murder while on bail for the stabbing.
The law does not require such credit, but I would suggest that the law needs to be changed to prohibit in these narrowly defined circumstances.
My background is not in criminal law, but working on the bill has shown me that we need more than just a legal system with rules to be followed without question. We need a justice system where those rules actually support the principles of justice, like past misconduct not being rewarded when it is followed by continuing criminality or consequences for breaching court orders.
Bill C-393 is limited in scope and in purpose. I welcome suggestions about how it could be improved to achieve its goals. I have already received several constructive wording suggestions which I think will do exactly that.
This is the rationale and mandate of our committee system. I urge members to vote to send the bill to committee so we can do the work that we do best.
The bill has received public support from the Canadian Resource Centre for Victims of Crime and from Commissioner Julian Fantino of the Ontario Provincial Police. Let me quote from his remarks, “It is a regrettable but undeniable reality that the carrying of criminally concealed knives and violent knife crime itself has increased dramatically in Canada recently, with all too often deadly consequences. I am confident that your bill will prove to be a deterrent to such actions for some offenders”. He also said, “I am very pleased to see that Bill C-393 also addresses a development of sentence calculation which has crept into our justice system”. He has offered to appear at committee.
Finally, I recently spoke with the Moffitt family who are visiting Ottawa again today to let them know what was going on with the bill and to update them about the bill. I was again overwhelmed with the quiet dignity of this family who wanted to know how they could help make these improvements a reality. Mrs. Moffitt summed up all the deficiencies that her family had to encounter over the years when she said, “tell them we can do better than this”. She is right. We can do better and now is our chance to do so in these specific areas.