Mr. Speaker, as always, it is an honour to rise in the House on behalf of the people of Calgary McKnight. I want to speak specifically to this bill today because the safety of Canadians is something I am very passionate about, as I am sure many of my colleagues, members of the House, are as well.
I believe that along with the cost of living crisis, the increasing crime level across Canada is the most important issue needing to be tackled by the current Parliament. This rising wave of crime is not just something I have observed; recent reports by Stats Canada tell the same story. Since the Liberals were elected in 2015, violent crime is up 55%, gun crime is up 130%, sexual assaults are up 76%, homicides are up 29% and extortion is up 330%.
In Calgary, roughly 75 repeat offenders are responsible for a large chunk of the crime calls all around the city. A Calgary police superintendent said that the same 75 criminals commit hundreds of disturbances, from assault with a weapon to store robbery and illegal drug use. We have heard stories like this from all across the country. In Vancouver, the same 40 offenders have been linked to over 6,000 negative police contacts. Calgary police inspectors say that these criminals just cycle through the system and continue to recommit offences upon release.
In my riding in northeast Calgary, there were five attacks on transit workers over the course of this summer. In one incident, a bus driver was pepper-sprayed and then beaten so badly that they were sent to the hospital in critical condition. In another case, a bus driver was stabbed and beaten, and, again, was taken to the hospital with life-threatening injuries.
This summer in Kelowna, a woman was murdered by her ex-husband just three hours after his assault conviction. He was supposed to have been released for a 10-week period while waiting on delivery of a psychiatric report, but only four kilometres away from the courthouse and only three hours later, he attacked his ex-wife and another woman with a hammer, ultimately killing his ex-wife.
Just last month, a mother of four was gunned down by her ex-boyfriend outside a Brampton strip mall while he was out on bail. Another man who was out on bail committed a mass stabbing in Manitoba this September and even killed his 18-year-old sister. The stories go on and on.
I commend the effort and bravery of our police and other first responders in fighting the rise in crime, but I am disappointed by the Liberal government's agenda to limit the ability of our justice system to keep dangerous offenders behind bars. The rise in crime has come in large part due to Liberal Bill C-75 and Bill C-5.
Passed in 2019, Bill C-75 forced judges to release offenders at the earliest possible opportunity and under the least onerous conditions. To make matters worse, in 2022, Bill C-5 further weakened deterrence by repealing numerous mandatory minimum sentences for serious offences like sexual assault. It also repealed mandatory jail time for serious gun crimes like extortion with a firearm.
Extortion has turned into one of the fastest-growing crimes in Canada. Police across the country have reported waves of threats against small business owners in communities like Brampton, Surrey, Vancouver and Calgary. Families in their homes are regularly shot at, firebombed and threatened. Just last week while I was in my riding, four separate constituents approached my office for help after receiving extortion calls. South Asian communities have faced the brunt of extortion cases in Canada, and authorities in B.C. even had to establish a special task force dedicated to these incidents.
Extortion has gotten so bad that over half of Canadians no longer feel safe in their homes. That is why, last year, my Conservative colleague, the member for Edmonton Gateway, introduced Bill C-381, the protection against extortion act. The bill would have delivered stricter mandatory minimums for extortion and treated arson as an aggravating factor. Shamefully, the Liberals watered it down and left Canadians stranded without the protection they desperately need.
More recently my colleague, the member for Oxford, introduced Bill C-242, the jail not bail act. Bill C-242 would prioritize public safety and the rights of survivors rather than the freedom of criminals. It would introduce tougher bail rules for major crimes like gun offences, sexual assault, robbery, kidnapping and human trafficking, and it would require judges to take an offender's full criminal record into account. Most importantly, Bill C-242 would stop the revolving door of bail by blocking repeat violent offenders from being released over and over again.
Now it seems that the Liberals are finally starting to listen to mayors, premiers and police associations from coast to coast calling for an end to the failed catch-and-release bail experiment. After Conservatives campaigned for four years to scrap Liberal bail, the Liberals have finally accepted the reality that the rights of survivors are more important than those of criminals.
Bill C-14 would expand reverse onus bail rules for certain violent and weapons-related offences and would ask judges to more intently consider community safety and an offender's history, but it would still keep the existing principles of restraint and the foundation of the bail system.
Considering the state of fear that Canadians currently live in and the fact that Canada's violent crime severity index has gone up by 41% in the last 10 years, I do not believe that Bill C-14 as it currently stands would go far enough to address the issues of bail reform or to restore the trust in our justice system to keep the public safe.
A Conservative plan for bail would prioritize public safety over the principle of restraint. We would restore mandatory minimums for firearms, sexual assault, kidnapping, human trafficking, robbery, extortion with a firearm, arson and other serious violent crimes. We would exclude people who have committed robbery, gun violence and trafficking, as well as property offenders, from being eligible for conditional sentencing. We would also mandate the consideration of criminal history instead of just encouraging judges to keep it in mind.
I believe that unless these changes are made, serious and dangerous offenders will continue to be released onto our streets to pose a threat to our communities.