Mr. Speaker, I only wish that the government had the same zeal to combat poverty and other social inequities.
I have read the bill and I want to say to the member directly that any attempt to withhold any constitutional protections to any Canadians will be met with great opposition. We will not be bullied any more with suggestions that we care about criminals and not victims. It is simply not true.
Any effort to limit the rights of any Canadian, regardless of how we might find the reasons for their incarceration deplorable, will be objected to. We cannot allow Conservative fear to erode fundamental rights and natural justice.
I realize that these concepts do not play well with the right wingers over there. For them, it is lock them up, shut them up, and throw away the key.
Any prisoner convicted and serving time is an individual who is there for a reason and he or she should be there, given that a decision was rendered by a judge or jury after a due process. However, it does not mean that once incarcerated his or her fundamental rights as a human being are expunged, as much as the Conservatives would like to think so.
If a prisoner has a legitimate complaint, one that is serious, if he or she is mistreated or abused, then there should be no law that would prevent him or her from seeking a remedy.
We know that even at the worst moments of war, when we think of the great wars, there were international rules as to how we treated prisoners and evil people who did great harm or damage, and for good reason. It is called the Geneva Convention. We do not want a system that disregards the essential dignity of all human life, regardless of the deplorable nature of his or her crime.
We will review the bill, we will scrutinize it, and we will ensure that it meets the test of the charter, a document that many on the other side, deep down, oppose. However, we will do our job to ensure that the intention of the bill is not to stomp out legitimate complaints of prisoners.
In closing, I really do find all this crime propaganda troubling. I really wish the members across the way would look at themselves in the mirror and see how angry they appear.