Mr. Speaker, the government has brought in crime bill after crime bill as if that were the single issue facing Canadians. Whether it is in the midst of good times or bad, in the midst of a recession, threats of climate change or other issues, all the Conservatives can see on the horizon is yet another crime bill.
The irony is that many of the crime bills have been killed repeatedly by the government itself through its use of prorogation. Some of these crime bills are on their third and fourth lives because the government keeps putting them up almost like unwanted children and then knocks them off right away. We wonder about its sincerity of getting the legislation through.
This particular bill is a bill that Parliament has seen before. Changes were made at committee based on witness testimony. I have two concerns about this.
One is that the very notion of rehabilitation or alternative sentencing works. The government likes to continually cast aspersions and has the idea that the only way to serve justice is by the traditional forms of punishment first invented several thousands of years ago, whereas everything we have learned since then is that we want to be as concerned about the person coming out of prison as we are about the person going to prison. It does not work.
The second piece seems to be a fundamental disrespect for the judiciary. It is a subtext through all of these bills and notions about what kinds of sentences are being handed out, or not. The Conservatives want to put handcuffs on our judiciary. If they are good enough to sit on the bench, one would think they have the capacity to rule, judge and hand out punishment for certain crimes. The government does not seem to believe that the judges who sit on our benches are capable of interpreting the law and handing out sufficient punishment for crimes committed.