Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise today and speak to Bill C-375, an act to amend the Criminal Code, to require that a pre-sentence report contain information on any mental disorder that an offender may have.
I understand and am sympathetic to those who suffer from mental health disorders. I proudly supported the private member's bill of my colleague from Niagara Falls, Bill C-233, which sought to address the challenges of Alzheimer's and other dementias on a national level. However, I am deeply concerned about this bill. This bill, when taken together with other legislation introduced and passed by the current Liberal government, continues a long and disturbing pattern of favouring the protection of criminals over the protection of the victims of crime.
Just last week, I stood in this place and compared the record of the last Conservative government on crime with the record of the current Liberal government. They stand in stark contrast. From day one of their mandate, the Liberals have demonstrated both an appalling indifference to victims and a disquieting compassion for criminals. We have seen this time and again. This is the government that willingly gave a $10.5 million payout to unrepentant convicted terrorist Omar Khadr, who killed American medic Sergeant Christopher Speer in a firefight in Afghanistan in 2002. Further, Tabitha Speer, Sergeant Speer's widow, was awarded a judgment of $134 million by a court in Utah against Omar Khadr. The Liberals could have, and I would suggest should have, waited to allow the courts to rule on an injunction for Mrs. Speer. Instead, they rushed payment to Khadr, making enforcement of the judgment unlikely.
What of our Canadian veterans who need help? To them, the Prime Minister had one thing to say, that they were asking for more than he was willing to give. However, for ISIS fighters, it seems the cash never stops flowing. The Prime Minister pledged to use taxpayers' hard-earned money to de-radicalize terrorists through such tried and tested means as reading Canadian poetry.
The Minister of Foreign Affairs, for her part, refuses to use the term “ISIS terrorists”, instead choosing to use the vapid term “foreign fighters”. When pressed on her plan for these so-called foreign fighters, she offered this gem of an insight:
With respect to the foreign fighters, I think we need to remember why they are where they are right now.
We all remember why they are where they are. We remember that they left Canada to engage in horrific war crimes against innocent men, women, and children halfway around the world, crimes like beheading innocents, throwing gay people off buildings, and stoning women to death for the crime of being raped. According to the Prime Minister, these hardened terrorists can be “an extraordinarily powerful voice” in Canada. One wonders what those voices are saying.
The Conservatives have fought this disturbing hippyesque Kumbaya session with criminals and terrorists every step of the way. When Bill C-75 was introduced, it weakened the penalties for many crimes, including terrorism-related charges, to possibly as little as a fine. The Liberals spent months defending this decision before finally backing down and supporting Conservative amendments that ensured that terrorists would face the consequences of their actions. It took months of pressure and hard work to make this one obvious change. However, even now the bill remains deeply flawed.