Mr. Speaker, today the Conservative member of Parliament for Fort McMurray—Athabasca is presenting his bill, another bill on crime.
I want to state from the outset and for the record how troubling it is to be presented with yet another private member's bill related to crime. I will not suggest today, though, as I often do, that the bill was prepared by the PMO and disguised as a private member's bill. I do not think even the PMO would have suggested a bill that does so little. I honestly believe that this is a solution seeking a problem.
Would it not be nice if, just for once, someone over there would use the opportunity of private members' business to place before the House a proposal that would actually make a difference for people, such as do something that would signal a nod to poverty or inequality, or acknowledge the fact that crime is often rooted in poverty and in mental health issues? Would it not be great if, just for once, someone over there would do something that was decent, rather than focus on or be motivated by an obsession with crime and punishment?
Would it not be great if the Conservatives would put some of that energy into actually helping to prevent crime by supporting community programming to help young people who, through no fault of their own, grow up in systemic poverty, who come from troubled families, and who are often exposed to addiction from early ages? Would that not have been a much better use of time and effort?
Instead, we get this, which is another so-called crime bill tinkering around the edges of the Criminal Code.
Why, I ask, did the member not present a bill that would tackle a real issue, such as the overrepresentation of aboriginals in the prison system? Why did he not put forth a bill calling for a national strategy to tackle poverty, which is again the root of much of the crime he and his party are so obsessed with? Why did he not put forth a bill that would help tackle addiction among young people, which is again the root of much of the crime he and his party are so obsessed with?
Why did he not put forward a bill to encourage more support for our veterans who suffer from PTSD?
Why did he not put forward a bill to address youth unemployment, which is so rampant in Canada, and which the government has done so little to address?
Why did he not produce a bill to remove political control over government to advertising and call for an independent watchdog so that we could finally do away with the over $500 million, and counting, of wasted government propaganda and unprecedented abuse of taxpayer money, all for the benefit of the Conservative Party? Why did he not put forward a proposal calling for sweeping changes to election fraud to put an end to the shenanigans his party now stands accused of?
Instead, we get another pointless bill that does nothing to help.
Such is the manner in which the Conservative government and its compliant backbench operate. They are so obsessed at showing themselves as being tough on crime that at times they seem to practically fall over one another to prove themselves.
To listen to the Conservatives, one would think that crime is rampant and that riots are breaking out across the country.
The Conservatives peddle in fear and propaganda for political party purposes. Part of peddling falsehoods about crime in Canada and part of the real purpose for all these crime bills is to raise money from the narrow-minded group they call their base.
The House knows the group of which I speak. It is the group of right-wingers who constitute the backbone of the Conservative Party. They are the people who loathe the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. They loathe it so much that when Canadians sought to honour its 30th anniversary, they ignored them. Instead, they issued a belated press release, and that was it. They issued a press release to honour the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. There was no year-long celebration of the charter, unlike the effort to worship the War of 1812, an exercise in propaganda that wasted millions of dollars in doing so. There was not a chance they would honour a document like the charter that actually makes a difference to Canadians, but for any 200-year-old wars used for propaganda purposes they would give $12 million.
What we have here are amendments to the sentencing provisions of the Criminal Code. As we have heard, these amendments create a new aggravating factor, one that fixes a number of three persons as the level at which something goes from not being an aggravating factor to being an aggravating factor.
Why three? Why not four? Why not two? Why not some other number? There is a real sense of arbitrariness that defies explanation.
The bill creates a new category of aggravating factors, a super-category called “serious aggravating factors”, and it lifts two of the aggravating factors presently contained in the code and elevates them to another level. They relate specifically to organized crime and to terrorists. Again, I say this is a solution in search of a problem. There is no indication, no evidentiary basis, on which to suggest that sentences for organized crime or terrorism are too light. If there were, why not increase the sentences?
We are tinkering with a coherent sentencing regime that is set forth within the Criminal Code, and this tinkering could have unintended consequences. By creating a new super-category, are we suggesting that in all cases a mobster is worse than a neo-Nazi? That is essentially the type of argument that this bill is bound to produce once it runs through the test of everyday litigation.
We in the Liberal Party believe in evidence-based policy-making. There is absolutely no evidence that sentences for organized crime or for terrorists are too low. In fact, the most recent example of a case involving a terrorist conviction and sentencing in terrorist cases is the Khawaja case in Ontario. In 2006, at trial, Mr. Khawaja was sentenced to 10 years. When it went to appeal, the appeal court found that the sentence was too light and sentenced him to life. That sentence was upheld before the Supreme Court of Canada, so there is no empirical evidence to suggest that there is a problem here.
We are concerned that an otherwise coherent sentencing regime is being tinkered with solely for political purposes. This is so that the opposition parties can be goaded into voting against a bill that is arbitrary and redundant for the sole purpose of appealing to the base. We support measures that deter organized crime and terrorism—everyone does—but the bill is redundant and arbitrary. It misses the mark.
I am pleased to hear the member say that he is open to suggested amendments from the government side and from the opposition benches. I hope he is genuine in that regard, because when this matter gets before committee, I expect we will be going on that search for some empirical evidence to justify what has been put in the bill with respect to the Criminal Code. If we do not find it, I would hope that the bill is going to be scrapped. If there is some other way to address what is a real evil, not a perceived evil, my hope is that we will have opportunity to deal with that.
The obsession with crime within the Conservative ranks is indeed troubling. Just recently we heard the Minister of Justice suggest that on arrest, we should be able to take a DNA sample prior to any conviction. This, of course, would undoubtedly be found to be wholly unconstitutional, but it sure would make the Conservative base happy as we gear up for what is likely to be a pending leadership.
This obsession with looking tough on crime, I would submit, should be of grave concern to the House and to Canadians. When will the Conservatives get tough on fighting poverty? When will they get tough on fighting climate change? When will they get tough on fighting for health care? When will they get tough on helping the most vulnerable? When will they stop putting ideology over facts and evidence? The only thing the government is tough on is the truth, and it is Canadians who will suffer as a result.