Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to speak to the bill and to follow my colleague from Palliser. I know his commitment to fixing the problems in our criminal justice system is probably second to none, certainly in this House. I congratulate him on his fine analysis of the problems with the bill.
I want to begin my discussions on the bill by framing the Liberal strategy with crime prevention in general. Whenever the Liberals put forward a bill where they pretend they are going to make our communities safe or that they are going to protect Canadians from criminal elements, we have to remember where their priorities are.
I have had many of my constituents tell me that they do not consider it a justice system any more. It is more like an injustice system. It is referred to more as a legal system because that is where the focus is. It is not on enacting justice on those who do wrong in our society.
Let us remember where the number one focus of the Liberal government is in terms of crime prevention strategy, and that is the $2 billion gun registry. Members heard a few of our speeches today refer to this. It is one of the most horrendous wastes of public money in Canadian history.
It is difficult to talk about the gun registry in under 10 minutes. There is really nothing right with it. Everything about it is wrong. The Liberals have pumped $2 billion into a big black hole that has not prevented a single crime or solved a single murder.
Let us take a look at who would actually register guns. Farmers, hunters and sports shooters, being honest Canadians, want to comply with the law. Therefore, they register their guns. They know the waste involved and they understand that it is a violation of their rights, but they are honest Canadians and they do not want to break the law.
However, people who are going to commit a crime, especially one with a firearm, are not concerned about violating registration requirements. Drug dealers who have smuggled drugs into the country, who sell them on the streets, who decide to get involved in some kind of gang warfare, kill their competitors and move in on their turf will not stop and think about registering their guns first so they can abide by Bill C-68. We know they do not do that. Registration is useless. The best way to keep criminals from using guns illegally is to keep criminals in jail longer. That is the simplest way to do it.
All the money wasted on the registry could have been put toward front line police services. That money could save lives. According to the gun registry, the money may have created some bureaucrat jobs. It may have funnelled money through to Liberal-friendly firms. However, it has not saved any lives. That $2 billion put into front line resources and into investigative resources is where we can save lives in a crime prevention strategy.
The bill deals with street racing. It is part of a package that the Liberals have introduced to deal with crimes related to cars. They also have one on the order paper dealing with tampering with vehicle identification numbers of stolen cars. These kinds of issues are very important to me. Car thefts are such a serious problem in Regina and, moreover, in the province of Saskatchewan.
The Conservative Party understands that to have one's car stolen is a serious breach of one's personal security and a violation of one's personal property. Someone's car is a vital part of someone's life. For many families, it is the only way that they can get to and from work. For students who cannot afford to live close to universities, it is the only way that they can get to school. It is a huge quality of life issue.
When someone's car is stolen, it throws one's life into turmoil. It affects insurance premiums. Car thefts cost the government and consumers over $1 billion annually. This is felt most harshly in the form of higher insurance premiums. When premiums go up, it is a severe hardship for most working Canadians, especially for people living on fixed incomes. It affects their quality of life. Therefore, politicians should treat the theft of an automobile as a very serious crime.
However, the Liberals and the NDP just do not get it. They voted against every attempt on the part of the Conservative Party to enact tough minimum sentences for car thieves. I do not understand that. How many times do people have to steal cars before they are considered a threat to the community?
I absolutely understand that perhaps it is not the best idea to send a first time offender, a young person who made a mistake, to jail to make them a better criminal, which is a lot of the terminology thrown out by opponents of minimum sentencing. They say that if we send young people to jail, they will come out better criminals. They say that it is not the right thing to do for first time offences. That is where some judge's discretion can come into play.
However, my patience quickly runs out when someone is stealing their third or fourth car. Then they are no longer just young kids making mistakes. They are now car thieves and they need to be in jail. They need to be away from people's cars for long periods of time. Each time they steal a car, that period of time needs to be longer and longer.
It is easy not to steal cars. Yet the government continues to have a revolving door policy for repeat offenders. We are putting our friends and families at risk by not imposing serious consequences on repeat offenders.
However, we should not be surprised that the Liberals do not take car theft seriously. The Liberals constantly downplay the risk of allowing habitual offenders early release. When it comes to crime and other serious problems facing Canadians, the Liberals completely have their heads in the sand.
My colleague from Palliser mentioned the case of Liberal Larry Campbell, mayor of Vancouver and one of the newest Liberal senators. He does not even believe that crystal meth is a serious problem in our country. This is what he said in the Globe and Mail on Monday, October 17. He said, “This idea that there's a huge crystal meth disaster happening in this country is garbage”. He said that at a forum on the city's plan to prevent drug use.
I want every Canadian who has suffered through an addiction to crystal meth or who has had a friend or family member's life destroyed by this horrible drug to consider that statement, that crystal meth being a threat is garbage. That is a slap in the face to every Canadian who deals with the horrible impacts of crystal meth.
Despite the fact that chiefs of police around the country, provincial premiers and provincial attorneys general have all agreed unanimously that crystal meth is one of the most dangerous drugs on the streets of our nation and that we need an aggressive strategy to fight the production, distribution and consumption of this drug, the Liberals say that such talk is garbage.
Car theft is a plague to society. The Liberals think that is garbage. Crystal meth destroys people's lives. The Liberals think that is garbage. We in the Conservative Party do not think it is garbage. We think it is a horrible problem that the government needs to address immediately.
Then we come to the bill at hand and the Liberals again are pretending that they are doing something serious about crime. They are pretending that they are enacting a part of Chuck Cadman's legacy, but there are no minimum sentences in the bill. It is a far cry from what Chuck originally intended.
I only got to know Chuck very briefly. His time in this Parliament was brief and he was often unable to attend sittings of the House. The few times I was able to meet him, it was always very quickly in passing and just a brief hello. I was not here when he first started his crusade against this, but a lot of colleagues in my caucus were here. They remember the conviction and the passion that he brought to this place to fight on these kinds of issues, to fight for quality of life issues, for safer streets and safer communities.
Again, the Liberals have twisted that and have omitted any reference in the bill to minimum sentences and escalating minimum sentences for repeat offenders. They are a bit twisted on this. We heard the parliamentary secretary earlier explain that there were some minimum sentences in the Criminal Code. He said that the Liberals were doing a great job on minimum sentences. They even have a bunch of them in the Criminal Code regarding people who use guns in crimes. However, on September 27 in the House, the Liberal Minister of Justice said, “Minimum sentences have no effect. They do not deter and they result in unnecessary incapacitation and unnecessary costs to the system without protecting security”.
This is another Liberal flip-flop. On the one hand, the Liberals say that have minimum sentences, that they are fighting crime and that these are good minimum sentences. On the other hand, they say that minimum sentences do not work and that is why they are against them. The Liberals are contradicting each other day by day.
I want to tell the House something important about deterrence when it comes to minimum sentences. When we enact a tough minimum sentence for a repeat or violent offender, we are deterring the most important person in regard to that, which is the offender himself because he cannot re-offend if he is in jail. That is one of the most important reasons why we do have minimum sentences. It is not just so we provide a warning for other Canadians who may be considering doing illegal acts, although that is important. It is to keep the person away from society, away from the people he might harm and to prevent him from re-offending.
I want to tell a quick story. When I was campaigning in the last election, I visited a house in the north central part of Regina. A woman answered the door. I was struck by the fact that on every window there were bars and security measures all around the house. She opened the door only a tiny way and peered out. She had a security bolt on the door. She was afraid, in the middle of the afternoon in Regina, to open her door because of the neighbourhood she lived in.
I do not believe that law abiding Canadians should have to live behind bars. I believe criminals should have to live behind bars. That lady should be able to open her door at any time of the day.
