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Crucial Fact

  • His favourite word was grain.

Last in Parliament October 2019, as Conservative MP for Cypress Hills—Grasslands (Saskatchewan)

Won his last election, in 2015, with 69% of the vote.

Statements in the House

Business of Supply October 2nd, 2018

Madam Speaker, I talked about this earlier and I am not sure if he heard that when I mentioned it.

The healing lodge is in my riding and has been operating for decades now. It is an institution that I have visited. It has had open houses. There have been ceremonies and different things to get programs in place. There is a horse program, programs on counselling, programs on teaching basic life skills and those kinds of things. It is an essential component for people reintegrating into society to learn those kinds of things. However, when somebody is 13 years away from qualifying for parole, it is probably not the right place for that person.

Business of Supply October 2nd, 2018

Madam Speaker, the interesting and I guess humorous thing about members on the other side is they are only too willing to try to blame everybody else for the things they have done. We have seen this all the way along. We just saw it earlier today in question period around NAFTA and those kinds of things. Wherever they stumble, they try to blame somebody else.

The Liberals do not need to go back to 2014 to make this decision. They can make a decision today. Let us take her out of the Okimaw Ohci Healing Lodge, put her back in Grand Valley Institution and this whole thing is solved.

The Liberals want to do a complete review. How long is a complete review going to take the Minister of Public Safety to do? By the time this gets done, we will probably be past the next election. This is just an excuse for them to put off making a decision, to leave things the way they are and avoid the responsibility.

Business of Supply October 2nd, 2018

Madam Speaker, just because the member continues to repeat inaccurate facts does not make them more accurate.

The reality is that she was in a maximum security prison. She was moved to Grand Valley Institution, which is a maximum/medium security prison. We do not know what part of the prison she was in. She has now been moved to a minimum security prison in my riding. There is no fence around this institution. If people chose to, they are free to come and go, and we trust that does not happen.

I do not know if the member opposite is aware of this, but in 2015-16, staff members were basically held to account because they were found to have endangered their own children by bringing them to the Okimaw Ohci Healing Lodge. It is completely inappropriate that this woman is in a place where there is access to children. We do not have to go through the graphic details of what she did. We do not know why she did it, but given her history, I do not think those children are safe. We do not want her in that institution. We want her transferred back and put behind bars so those young people will be safe.

Business of Supply October 2nd, 2018

Madam Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the member for Battle River—Crowfoot.

The member for Saanich—Gulf Islands said that this was a most wrenching debate today and that it was covering a topic that many of us would wish we did not have to address. I have to agree. I do not think I have ever seen so much wiggling and whining from the government side of the House as I have today, its contortions in trying to justify why it is going to oppose this motion. The Liberals can do better than that.

I want to put on record the motion, because we need to understand what we are talking about. When the Liberals start with their excuses, people need to understand that this is actually a simple choice. This is not a complex question of process over people. We have seen the Liberals talking about policy and processes all day and they have refused to put this little girl's interests and the interests of her family ahead of their own commitment to policy and process.

The motion simply says:

That, given Terri-Lynne McClintic was convicted of first-degree murder in the horrific abduction, rape and murder of eight-year-old Tori Stafford, and was moved from a secure facility to a healing lodge without fences and where the government has confirmed the presence of children, the House condemn this decision and call upon the government to exercise its moral, legal and political authority to ensure this decision is reversed and cannot happen again in other cases.

It is a simple request for the government to exercise the authority it has been given and reverse the decision. We know that can happen. The Correctional and Conditional Release Act, in two places, recognizes the minister has the power to do this.

As I mentioned earlier, this has been a day of are we going to put people first here or are we going to put policy and processes ahead of them. I would argue that we need to take a look at the personal side of this and do the right thing in this situation.

Tori Stafford was an eight-year-old little girl. She was walking home from her first day of school unaccompanied. She was picked up and taken out into the country, tortured, raped, murdered, buried there. Terri-Lynne McClintic was tried in 2010 and found guilty of first degree murder.

This young lady had a history of serious issues and abuses in the past. One of the reports talked about how she had microwaved her dog, so this is not a person who engaged in bad practices, as the minister mentioned earlier. She was sentenced to 25 years. In 2012, she had a violent encounter with another inmate. Apparently she was going to a mentoring appointment and decided that she was going to take it out on another inmate. Her only regret was that she had not hurt the other woman more than she had.

Correctional Service Canada has now transferred her from the Grand Valley Institution for Women. We have been misled all day by the Liberals' language. They know that Grand Valley is a combination maximum and medium security prison. They have not talked about what part of that prison Ms. McClintic was in. She was moved from a maximum to medium prison, and the website for Correctional Service Canada defines the prison that way, to a medium to minimum security prison.

Okimaw Ohci is in my riding. I have been there many times. I do not know what the definition of medium security prison is, but this prison has no walls around it and has no fences. It is in the rolling hills southwest of Maple Creek. The things that most Canadians would think accompany a medium security prison are not present at the healing lodge.

It is surprising that this person has the privileged status of being transferred to this healing lodge. It has been operating in my riding for years. The point of the lodge is to help young women to be reintegrated into society, to learn some of the skills they will need when they go back into society. Programs are in place. There is a horse program, classes, counselling and so on. There are aboriginal ceremonies. I have been part of those. I have also attended some of its open houses and we have eaten together.

It is an open facility. It is called an open campus. There are individual cabins that inmates can spend their time in and they can have their children with them as well. It is a real privilege for offenders to be transferred to a facility like that. It is a surprise to me that this decision has been made. I do not know how it could come about so quickly when this lady has 13 years left in her sentence before she is even eligible for parole.

When this came to light, people in my riding responded and reacted very quickly to it. I had calls from a number of leaders in communities, asking what they could do to get this reversed. They said it was crazy that this person would be moved to this facility.

Neighbouring towns and the administration of Maple Creek have called to express their concern. I have had calls from young mothers in Maple Creek saying that their children play out in their yards, and since the inmates of Okimaw Ohci get day passes into Maple Creek, they are asking if they need to change the way they look after their children. This is a result of the Terri-Lynne McClintic's being in their community.

It has been fascinating to see the contortions the Liberals and NDP have gone through today to try to excuse their inability to support the motion we have put forward. It is my understanding that the Ontario legislature has already dealt with this unanimously and said that this decision needs to be reversed.

We can talk about the human cost. All of us have seen the letter from Tori Stafford's father requesting the Prime Minister do what fathers across this country would like to be done, and reverse this decision and put this lady back into the institution where she was before.

I have been most disappointed by the public safety minister. He gets up in the House and talks about all the policies and processes that need to be in place before he can move forward, and he announces a review. We know that the government specializes in consultations and reviews, but this is not a situation where we need to wait for a review. Canadians have been clear on this. Both the Liberals and the NDP are finding out from Canadians how far offside they are on this issue. Every response I have received is that one would have to be crazy to think this person can be left in an unsupervised setting, given her record and the things she has done in her life. We need to do something. We need to get this decision reversed.

Yesterday we are talking about putting a victims bill of rights into the military code. As I spoke yesterday, the questions from the other side were all about the offenders. For example, they said we needed to find special ways of letting offenders off, to find ways in which they were not treated in the same way, and that we needed to find a different way of sentencing small groups.

Today, when I was listening to the debate, all of the focus of the other side seemed to be on the offenders. That is a constant. There is very little thought about the victims. This morning, I heard one of our Liberal colleagues imply that to reverse this decision would affect the charter in some way. He said that it would be similar to having the RCMP monitoring and harassing MPs, and that somehow there is a parallel between the government taking its responsibility seriously and it just saying that it is going to reverse this decision. He sees doing that as having some sort of great impact on every Canadian's life. We need to have this decision reversed. We need to have it reversed as quickly as possible.

Actually, it is time for the minister to step up. Those of us from Saskatchewan have been disappointed time and time again by the fact he seems to fail to represent Saskatchewan's interests. He is the person who comes from Ottawa back to Saskatchewan and tells us what Ottawa has told him. In this situation, it is time for him to really take some leadership for a change and step forward. As minister, as the person who has been given the responsibility for this, he needs to make a decision and reverse this decision.

I want to talk a little about the authority that the minister has. The other side has left the impression that the government cannot make this change. We know that it is very simple. Under subsection 6(1) of the Corrections and Conditional Release Act, the minister has the authority to direct the commissioner of corrections in all matters. It is written clearly into the act. There is no room for excuses. There is no room for his saying he cannot do it, because he does have the moral, legal and political authority to correct this issue. That can include issuing a directive that a broad class of offenders, such as those convicted of the murder of a child, not be allowed to be transferred to such a facility. I heard the members opposite suggesting earlier that that was something they thought should be done.

Okimaw Ohci is a minimum security prison. It is a prison where women go to be able to be reintegrated into society. It is not a place for Terri-Lynne McClintic. We need the government to do the right thing here. We need it to reverse this decision and put her back in the institution where she was before she was transferred to southwest Saskatchewan.

National Defence Act October 1st, 2018

Mr. Speaker, actually, this is not theoretical. We can come back to Bill C-75, the reduction of sentences bill that aims to reduce 26 various criminal offences from indictable offences to summary conviction. One is the offence of belonging to a terrorist organization, or to a gang, and a whole host of others. There are 26 different offences it is saying we need to reduce the sentences for.

He would probably say the same thing here, that we have talked about this too much and let us just get on with it, but Canadians need to hear these things and understand that the Liberal government is committed to watering down any kind of protection that victims have in our country. We need to keep saying that again and again until it soaks into the Liberals' thick skulls that they need to start figuring out some way they can step forward and protect victims, instead of always taking the side of the offender against those people who have paid the price for these people's bad and illegal behaviour.

National Defence Act October 1st, 2018

Mr. Speaker, something else that I pointed out at the beginning of my speech is that this is the only opportunity that I have had to speak to this, and there are others in that same boat. I do not know if the member opposite is on the defence committee or not, but if he is, then he has the opportunity to speak here. He is going to have the opportunity to sit on the defence committee hearings with witnesses. That is all great, but the rest of us do not necessarily get those same opportunities.

I am thankful to be able to come here. I am sorry that he has sat here long enough that he seems to think that he is hearing the same things again and again, but I believe we have touched on some relevant things that not everyone else has spoken about this afternoon. I think that last point I made about focusing on victims instead of finding ways to let offenders off in some various ways is something that we need to come back to again and again with the government and remind it. Some people pay the price for other people's bad behaviour.

National Defence Act October 1st, 2018

Mr. Speaker, I find it interesting that our discussion has veered off victims again and back to offenders. How do we treat offenders? Do we treat different offenders differently, or whatever?

We are talking about a victims bill of rights as being applied to the military. Once again, as soon as we start talking about victims, the Liberals seem to want to talk about offenders and giving some special breaks to people of some sort so that we do not have to treat crimes seriously. It does not just happen with the bill before us but kind of a way of thinking, I think, on that side of the House. Every time we turn around, with every bill that comes through here, they have some kind of expectation that we are going to be concerned first about offenders and then we will begin to consider the situation that victims find themselves in.

Thankfully, Bill C-77 is not that. It has a different direction to it. I will point out that it would do a number of things. It would enhance access to information. I mentioned the victim liaison officer before. That is a good thing. It will be an appointment of an officer so that people will be able to get extended and enhanced access to information. There is enhanced protection for victims and not for offenders in the bill. It is for victims. There are new safety and security provisions. There are new privacy provision in the bill that would be applied. There is enhanced participation for victims and, again, not for offenders to come and say to let them off. This is supposed to be for victims, allowing them to give impact statements at sentencing. Again, the offenders would be held accountable for what they have done, and it is not about finding ways to let them off and lessen those sentences. The other thing we talked about a little earlier was enhanced restitution, the possibility of restitution that exists in the legislation, and courts martial can be required to consider making restitution for losses suffered by victims.

I want to refocus this back to the fact that the bill is about dealing with victims, giving victims a better standing, a better status and a better opportunity to have their say. It is not about offenders, how we might find other ways, and multiple ways, of letting offenders off, letting them have easier sentences and letting them not pay the price for the offences they have done.

National Defence Act October 1st, 2018

Mr. Speaker, this bill obviously covers a fair amount of territory and a number of areas, but in this situation, it comes back to whether we want different structures applied to different people. Do we want similar structures applied across the board within the military? What is it that the board within the military does? What is it that the government and the Canadian military need to have in order for the military to be able to operate fairly with its members directly and be effective?

We spent years on the Victims Bill of Rights talking to people across this country about what we needed to put in place in order to put a decent victims bill of rights in place, and it seems to have struck the balance it needed. Now, those provisions are being applied to this bill, and as far as I can tell, most of those things would actually apply very well to the military level as well. It is good that we are talking about getting this to committee as soon as possible. I think everybody would like to see that. It is where that discussion will take place, if there are amendments. There is opportunity for amendments at committee, as well as once it gets to the other place for debate.

National Defence Act October 1st, 2018

Mr. Speaker, I think this has been addressed earlier today in terms of the notion of military culture. What is it that people want in their military? When people are training together they are all basically under one system, one structure, and they are expected to adhere to that command structure. Do we want various interpretations of that? Do we want everybody to be working together to the same ends?

I guess it is a discussion the committee is going to need to have about how many variations of military discipline and structure we want in the military in order for it to function properly. In this case, it is the application of the military criminal code to people who are facing sentencing. Do we want different applications of it? It is something the committee is going to have to take a look at, have a good discussion about, and I think will probably make recommendations on that issue.

National Defence Act October 1st, 2018

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleagues for being so interested in this issue. I heard the Liberals say that they wanted this to leave the House immediately, but some of us do not have a lot of chance to speak to bills that are outside of our portfolio area. I am not on the defence committee, so that is not a place where I will be able to participate. Therefore, this is my sole chance to participate in this debate.

I hope my colleagues opposite understand that we are not ragging the puck here. We just want to give people an opportunity to speak to the issues.

These are important issues that come out of a number of different areas. I want to talk later about the Victims Bill of Rights, what it means and how much it has improved and changed the lives of Canadians. That has been the foundation of what we are doing. Bill C-77 tries to apply that bill of rights to the military as well.

My colleague who spoke previously basically had the same opening as I did. He talked about imitation being the sincerest form of flattery. It is interesting that on the things the government has succeeded in, it has had to copy us. The things the Liberals have not copied us on have been pretty much a disaster. If we think about electoral reform and so on, their own initiatives have not gone anywhere. However, the ones we had done the work on and laid the foundation and the groundwork for, the Liberals have had some success.

Apart from this bill, I think of things like CETA, the trade agreement with Europe, which was pretty much handed to the Liberals, but they almost messed that up. They took it back and started messing with some of the text. The next thing was the Europeans wanted to open that whole agreement up again. The government had to fight and struggle to ensure it was implemented the way that we had negotiated it.

We are seeing the same thing with TPP. The agreement basically was finished and handed to the Liberals. We are sitting here two and a half years later and still do not have it through the House even though we were the ones who did the work on it. It is a good agreement and it should be implemented as soon as possible.

We saw the struggles the Liberals had around NAFTA, where they insisted on taking the agreement that worked very well and came so close to making a complete mess of it. Canadians need to understand that we were saved at the last minute by the fact that the U.S. auto sector stepped in and said that it needed to get the agreement done, that the negotiators could not be serious if they allowed the President to put tariffs on autos. Finally, our government realized it had better quit playing games, trying to make the President look bad, fooling around that way, and decided to get the agreement done.

Interestingly enough, the Liberals really did not gain anything with it. It barely held the ground that we had in the past. That seems to be the way the government operates.

That brings us back to Bill C-77, hopefully something that will be much easier for the Liberals to get through in the form it is in right now. We have heard debate about it. At this point, we will support the bill at second reading to go to committee as soon as the debate is done in the House. The point of it is to align the military justice system of Canada with the Criminal Code of Canada. It is a good and important objective. As I said before, it centres around the Victims Bill of Rights that was passed in 2015. It takes that and enshrines it in the National Defence Act.

Many people talked specifically about Bill C-77 and what is included in it. However, I would like to back up a step and talk about the Victims Bill of Rights, which lays the foundation for the discussion we are having today and for the bill that is being presented here today.

Obviously, the Victims Bill of Rights created a clear set of rights for victims of crime. It requires those rights to be considered during the trial processes and it provides four rights for victims in Canada. Those rights are the ideas of information, protection for their rights of participation in the system and then some aspect of restitution.

Some of it seems to be common sense, but perhaps is not in the courts. Canadians will understand that every victim should have the right to request information that he or she needs with respect to the system and the role the victims play in that, the services and programs that are available to them. Victims should be aware of the fact that they have the right to file complaints if their rights are being violated.

In investigations, victims have the right to ask about the status and outcome of the investigations. They have the right to know where the location of the proceedings are taking place. They have the right to ask for information about any kind of reviews that are being done under the Corrections and Conditional Release Act.

For the last week we have been talking about an issue in western Canada, actually in my riding. A young “lady”, and I use that word very loosely, participated in the kidnapping, rape, torture, murder and burial of an eight-year-old girl. She was convicted of first degree murder and sentenced to 25 years in prison. Then about a week ago we found out she had been moved from a maximum security prison to medium security prison a couple of years ago. In the last few weeks, she was moved to what was basically a minimum security prison.

I am familiar with the Okimaw Ohci healing lodge. It is in my riding and I have been there several times. I have been there for its open days and have enjoyed going there. However, this is not the appropriate place for someone like that.

As I pointed out, the rights of victims require that those who have suffered have the opportunity to find out what is going on in the system. When Tori Stafford's father found out what had happened, he appealed to the Prime Minister. He said that it was crazy. The person had murdered his daughter and he had to live with that every day of his life. He said that the Prime Minister had sent her to a minimum security prison. Not only was it not a prison, but it was in a treed area. It was like a park setting with small cabins arranged in small units. Not only did it not have a fence around, or have restrictions or whatever, but children were allowed to go and spend time with their mothers.

My constituents have made their opinions clear to me. They agree with our position over the last week that this needs to be reversed.

The reason we know about it is because there is a Victims Bill of Rights and that is the foundation for the changes being suggested in Bill C-77.

Victims are allowed to attend hearings that are open. With respect to protection and security, people have the right to have their security considered. In the criminal justice system, they have the right to protection from intimidation and retaliation. We have talked about that today in regard to Bill C-77. They have the right to have their privacy considered and having their identity protected as well. They also have the right to request any kind of help they might need when appearing as witnesses in proceedings.

There are other things around participation. Victims have the right to give their views about decisions to be made by the appropriate authorities in the criminal justice system that affect their rights. They have the right to speak up. We think that is an important right.

We are all familiar with victim impact statements and the role they play. In some court cases, victims are allowed to give victim impact statements, how the criminal impacted their lives, how this activity has destroyed, for example, the lives of their families.

The Victims Bill of Rights also talks about restitution orders and the fact that victims have the right to have the court consider making restitution to them by the offender.

There are a number of other things in the Victims Bill of Rights, but that lays the foundation for us for Bill C-77. The bill is about enshrining that Victims Bill of Rights in the National Defence Act. It also puts a statute of limitations of six months on summary hearing cases.

We heard this morning about the various levels of discipline and how the defence minister , if we trust him, was trying to make some changes that would speed up some of the discipline cases on lesser offences. We are hoping that what the Liberals are saying is actually true.

This is virtually a copy of something that was presented three years ago by the former Conservative government just before the last election. I guess the good thing is, as I mentioned, the Liberals have taken this on and have decided that they are going to bring the bill forward in much the same fashion and structure that it was before and introduce those changes.

There are some differences. We have talked a bit about them as well. One of the main differences in this bill, and probably will be one of the main things that will be discussed at committee, is the addition of the Gladue decision in the National Defence Act. For those people who are not familiar with that, it instructs the courts to take into consideration an aboriginal person's background when he or she is sentenced. On occasion, when that is applied, it may mean that the sentencing itself or the sentencing process will be different for that individual than it would be for a non-aboriginal person.

People have questioned whether this should be considered in the military. Is it appropriate that in the military, where everyone is subject to the same structures of discipline, where we try to bring about equality and equal participation, someone would have a different sentencing structured or a different level of punishment than other people would based on these kinds of considerations? I am sure we will be bringing forward those issues and asking those questions at committee.

Our government made it a priority to stand up for victims. That is why we brought forward the Victims Bill of Rights. That is also why we saw our Bill C-71 come forward prior to the election, in pretty much the form being presented by the current government. We know that the priority of government, on this side of the House anyway, should be to protect the safety of its citizens. We take that responsibility very seriously.

Putting the rights of victims back into the centre of the criminal justice system was important to us. It was something we spoke about many times and made it the centre of a number of different pieces of legislation, the guarantee that victims would have the right to have a more effective voice in the system and that they would be treated with courtesy and compassion. I think we are all familiar with situations in the past years where often victims seemed to be harassed more than they were treated with compassion and respect when they came forward with charges. We were determined to try to reverse that trend and ensure people were treated with respect, while keeping our streets, our cities and communities safe for Canadians and their families. That was why we took so many concrete steps to hold people accountable for their actions. We are glad to see this being extended to the military as well.

The question I need to ask is this. Are the Liberals really serious about this bill? They say that they want it to go to committee as soon as possible, and we hope that is true. However, what we have seen in the past is that they are far more interested in PR when it comes to issues of criminal activity than they are in the content. We see that in this Parliament.

I think of Bill C-71, the firearms legislation. The bill has come forward. The government has made a declaration that it wants to deal with the crimes with respect to gangs and the illegal use of firearms. The bill does not mention either of those things but creates massive problems for legitimate firearms owners. It is almost as if the Liberals looked at what the PR side of it was, decided they could make it an attack on legitimate firearms owners, convince the media country that it was a good thing and they did not have to do the hard work of trying to solve the gang situation and getting illegal guns off the street.

Bill C-71 is an example of where the Liberals do not seem to take this issue of crime seriously. I hope they are with respect to Bill C-77. I asked a question of the minister this morning and I trust he answered it honestly.

With respect to Bill C-71, another issue we had was the misuse of statistics. The Liberals take an extreme statistic, apply it, then say that is the average and that they will operate using that as a starting point. However, anyone who knows the statistics knows that the year they were using, 2013, was such an exceptional year and it did not really fit into the normal trend. There is a lot of attack on regular citizens it seems, particularly in Bill C-71, and not much that would actually protect victims of crime.

We brought forward a number of other bills when we were in government: the Safe Streets and Communities Act; the reform of the not criminally responsible legislation, which was needed for many years, and we were happy to bring that forward; and the laws against sexual exploitation and cyber intimidation.

It is good to see these changes are coming forward. I know there have been some changes made since 2016, even within the military. The government talks about the fact that the director of military prosecutions has changed the way that it does things, the way it approaches these issues. There are a number of things in the government's document. It talks about how it has already introduced changes, such as providing information proactively to victims on the choice of jurisdictions in a sexual misconduct matter. Therefore, if there is a charge of sexual misconduct, the victim now has more say in what jurisdiction he or she wants it looked at. It has some information that it can provide that will help. Victims are kept informed throughout the investigation and throughout the trial process. That did not happen before in the military. The DMP, in its overhaul of the way it has done things, has included this as one of the things it thinks is important.

Now the DMP has started to consider the views of victims in determining the public interest in these cases. Is there public interest in moving forward with the prosecution of the cases? It is allowing victims to participate. I know that witness preparation has been improved. It is spending more time with witnesses, finding out what they will be testifying to and if they are prepared to be competent witnesses. It is assuring victims' comfort and security. I am told it is one of the key considerations. In the past, as I mentioned, people have been intimidated, even by the way the system is set up, so this is set up to be much more fair to them.

It is making efforts to make sure that in sexual misconduct cases, victim impact statements are relevant and considered. It is trying to get consistency with the prosecution and prosecutors so that each of them approaches the issues in the same way. That is probably an important consideration in that there needs to be consistency within the military itself and the way it deals with and addresses these issues. That is part of what Bill C-77 is trying to do: to bring the consistency provided in the Victims Bill of Rights into the military part of the justice system. Another thing is that sexual misconduct cases are being expedited in the military courts to try to get them out of the way.

There are a lot of things going on. As I mentioned, there are the indigenous sentencing considerations. We heard earlier today that there are changes to the summary trial process and the way summary charges are handled. There are a number of other areas around the victims rights at courts martial as well that have changed. They have a different perspective and a different opportunity. A victim's liaison officer would be put in place to give victims an opportunity to get this information and go to somebody who can work with and help them.

I come back to the concern that Liberals are honest about dealing with victims. We have heard over the last three or four weeks in the House of Commons about a gentleman who murdered a female police officer, desecrated the body and was sentenced to jail. Then he applied for Veterans Affairs benefits and the government has been providing those benefits to him. Those benefits, I am told, can be provided by Correctional Service Canada, but the government has made the decision that he deserves veterans benefits. Conservatives have argued that he does not. There are people who have served who receive them, but he has not served or spent a moment of time in military service and yet he is getting these benefits.

The government said it would cut them off for now, but we need a better response than that from the government. That was a bad response in that case. Now with Tori Stafford, we have heard the comments made by the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness this afternoon. It is another slow response, a bad response to people who have been victimized in the worst ways by crimes and the best the ministers of the government can say is they have given it to somebody who will review it for a long time and when that person gets back to them, they will let us know how it turns out. In the case of Tori Stafford, by the time that happens, how long will that woman have been in the Okimaw Ohci Healing Lodge, being able to do whatever she wants to do, having access to children and wandering off the property if she wants? She is not eligible for parole for another 13 years. What does she have to lose should she decide to do something inappropriate in Okimaw Ohci?

That is an example of the government not being willing to react to these issues. We hope that when this bill goes to committee, Liberals will deal seriously with it, and when it is implemented, they actually treat it seriously, because they do not have a history anywhere else of dealing fairly and honestly with victims. Hopefully, in this situation, they will and we look forward to when this bill is passed.

It is a good bill, Conservatives wrote most of it, and we are looking forward to the government applying it and hopefully, it will take care of many of these issues that people have faced at military trials and those kinds of situations.