Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleagues for their warm welcome.
I must first point out that I will be sharing my time on Bill C-32, An Act to enact the Canadian Victims Bill of Rights and to amend certain Acts, with the member representing the good citizens of Hull—Aylmer.
I would like to mention that we will be supporting the bill at second reading stage because, as we have said a number of times and as we repeat every day, the NDP is a strong advocate for victims' rights. We will continue to support them and defend them in the House. I am certain that the government is also showing good faith in all of this with this long-overdue bill of rights.
I had heard about the bill of rights in the past. A number of groups in Sherbrooke had talked to me about it even before the bill was introduced. The Conservative government had been promising this Canadian victims bill of rights since 2006. Stakeholders and experts had already expressed a number of concerns.
My colleague from Pontiac mentioned a little earlier that the provinces also have an important role to play in this discussion. In fact, they are responsible for the administration of justice. They must be consulted as much as possible and their views must be considered in the process leading up to the drafting of such a bill. Perhaps that is why it took eight years. I hope not, because if it really were a Conservative priority, the bill would have been brought forward well before 2014 because they have been promising this bill of rights since 2006.
We have to admit that this bill of rights is nonetheless a step in the right direction because it will give victims of crime certain rights. They really should have these rights because, no matter the crime, it will haunt them for the rest of their lives. Regardless of the sentence handed out to the wrongdoer, victims of crime will remember the event, which will stay with them and affect them perhaps for the rest of their lives.
This bill focuses specifically on victims' rights in relation to the legal system and legal proceedings. That is good. It talks about broadening the definition of the word “victim”. It also talks about amending the Corrections and Conditional Release Act to give victims the right to see a photograph of the offender. It would also give victims a lot more information once the offender is released, as well as more information during parole hearings. Victims are given a lot of rights, and that is a very good thing because they deserve to have that information. The bill is generally positive despite the flaws I will talk about shortly.
It is important to give victims these rights within the legal process, but it is also important to support them for the rest of their lives when they experience problems because of these crimes. It is so important for the government to support these people who did not choose to be victims.
The government needs to do more. This bill of rights is a good thing, but it is not the solution to all of the problems. The government has to work even harder to support victims of crime, who have to live with that crime for the rest of their lives.
I cannot give a speech about victims of crime without talking about preventing crime too. Crime prevention is the best possible solution. The government has to do much more to prevent people from committing crimes.
The best way to help victims is to prevent them from becoming victims. I think we can all agree that one of the best ways to help them is to prevent crime. The Conservatives are much more about punishment, so they introduce new punitive measures. Those are necessary, because we will never completely eradicate crime. It is practically impossible. Still, the government should introduce measures to prevent crime in the first place. That is an important solution. That was a digression.
There are many worthwhile things as well as many flaws in this bill, as I mentioned earlier. Among those flaws is a lack of funding for this bill of rights. Promises and fine speeches abound. The minister sends out multiple press releases and gets a lot of political mileage, so to speak, from this bill. However, there still is no funding, despite promises from the Prime Minister himself, as my colleague from Alfred-Pellan pointed out. No one has seen that money yet. We hope it will be part of the next budget. There may even be supplementary estimates. Who knows? Only the government can say. We hope that the promised funding will show up eventually, so that the bill of rights can go beyond mere words and have some clout once it is passed by Parliament. This bill of rights must be more than well-meaning, empty promises. Victims want the rights set out in the bill of rights, and they must be able to exercise these rights.
Earlier, the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness said that the provinces have many programs available. The entire problem cannot be shifted to the provinces, even though the Conservatives have a habit of doing just that. The government needs to shoulder its responsibilities as well and help victims directly.
Many people have commented on the Conservatives' bill. Not all of the comments were positive. Mr. Sullivan, the first federal ombudsman for victims of crime, had nothing but good things to say about the bill.
He thinks it is a good bill. However, he feels that the biggest problem is that the Minister of Justice promised the bill would put victims at the heart of the justice system, and it falls very short of that.
He is also unhappy about the fact that the government made promises about the charter but, in the end, nothing come of them.
He also stated that the charter is somewhat positive but that it basically just codifies what is already happening within the justice system. The practices are already in place, but now they will be codified. They are already being followed in different provinces. Mr. Sullivan added that all this really does is bring it in line with provincial laws.
The government promised something totally new but, ultimately, this looks a lot like what is already happening in the provinces. It is positive, but it is not what we were expecting. The government did not keep its promises. It has been talking about this since 2006.
Finally, it is here and let us just say that the more we learn about the bill, the more disappointed we get.