Garry Breitkreuz

[Petitions, April 16th, 1997]

Madam Speaker, the next group of petitions I rise to present are signed by Canadian citizens from the province of Saskatchewan.

They request that Parliament amend the Criminal Code to ensure that sentences given to anyone convicted of driving while impaired or causing injury or death while impaired reflect both the severity of the crime and zero tolerance by Canada toward the crime.

[Petitions, April 16th, 1997]

Madam Speaker, the next group of petitions I am pleased to rise today to present are signed by concerned citizens across Canada.

They oppose the inclusion of the phrase sexual orientation in the Canadian Human Rights Act. These Canadians believe that freedom from discrimination is already protected in the human rights act without this amendment.

[Petitions, April 16th, 1997]

Madam Speaker, I beg the indulgence of the House. I have quite a few petitions which I have grouped into several categories.

I am overwhelmed by the show of public support for my parental rights Motion No. 300. In just a few months I have received 41 petitions with 940 signatures which I am pleased to present to the House today.

The petitioners draw attention to their concerns that the government has used the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child to create legislation, programs and bureaucracy which undermine the fundamental rights and freedoms of parents.

These concerned Canadians request that Parliament support Motion No. 300 which would add parental rights and responsibilities to section 7 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

[Criminal Code, April 15th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, I have been listening to the debate all morning. It is passing strange that Reform members are the ones who seem to be concerned mainly with justice issues. It is very strange we are the only ones who are critiquing the bill. There are other opposition parties in the House. Why are they not addressing it?

I attended the NDP national convention in Regina this week. It did not convert me. I am still a Reformer. In fact I am probably a much stronger Reformer than before I went there. It was interesting a party that claims to be a national party did not mention justice issues at its convention. Somehow they were forgotten. There was no mention of unity issue other than a mention that social programs would keep Quebec in Canada and democratic issues were not important to Canadians. I beg to differ.

The NDP claims to be a grassroots party. It neglected the important element of making sure its constituents were represented. To omit that subject in a national convention was a gross oversight.

Members of the NDP did not talk about the Young Offenders Act. In the province of Saskatchewan crime is a major problem. People will commit crimes, wreck vehicles, do all kinds of things and write on the windshield of vehicles: "Thank God for the Young Offenders Act". We have a huge problem. They openly hide behind the legislation. That should have been mentioned at the NDP convention.

They forgot to talk about capital punishment, something that 80 per cent of the people would like to see come back. Of all things they omitted discussion on gun control. I wonder why. I guess there is a big split between the national NDP and the provincial NDP on the issue so they do not want to talk about those things. The forgot to talk about consecutive sentencing.

Many issues need to be discussed, but let me come to my primary point this morning. What is the primary purpose of government? We should be dealing with that fundamental issue. Everyone in the House will agree the primary purpose of government is to provide for law and order in society, to protect citizens,

to protect the weak and vulnerable and to protect those at risk from the criminal element taking advantage of them. That is fundamental. That is foundational. That is what we should be doing.

The purpose of government is to restrain evil within society so that we can continue to enjoy freedom, move about freely and pursue various things in our lives that we think are important. The government must provide for that and it is not happening the way it should. Bill C-55 is a very good example of a Liberal government half measure to control crime.

I have no illusions about the limits of government. To some extent we can pass the best laws in the country and it may not change people. We can pass laws. We can enforce them. We can control evil to some extent. However we cannot make people good.

Reformers recognize the need for strong families in society to allow for the transmission of values, for cohesion and stability. Families are the basic building block. Without strong families all the best laws in the world will not do any good.

That is why the third part of our election platform deals with that important aspect. We need that balance. Much of what government is doing is eroding the emphasis on the value of family in society. We need that.

How important is the issue of justice? Let me give an example from my experience in my own town. My children have all attended the local high school. They describe to me what it is like to sit and listen to young offenders who return to school the next morning and boast about what they did the night before, the exploits for which they received no punishment. They mock the justice system. They laugh at it. They openly ridicule it.

How serious is that? It affects good children in the school. People who respect the law and are trying to do their best begin to say that it does not matter what they do. They ask why they should try to do their best, study or do well at their jobs. They see justice not being enforced and the law being openly disregarded and mocked. That is why government has to do its job. That is why I am addressing this issue.

Let us look at some of the problems. I have a whole series of articles on problems within the system that directly relate to Bill C-55, the half measure the Liberals are trying to push through in the dying moments of Parliament. It is a piece of legislation that needs to be fixed.

One headline "Deviant Justice: He raped, served his time and is coming to a neighbourhood near you". Violent sexual offenders are being set free in society. No wonder people are questioning what is going on. No wonder they are asking why the government does not do more to control crime? We need to do more. Bill C-55 is a half measure. Criminals still have more rights than their victims. That is a serious problem.

I sat beside Marie King Forest during the parole hearings of Darrell Crook a couple of months ago. She could not understand why the justice minister allowed the man who had murdered her husband to continue to torture his victims by coming before a jury and appealing his sentence to reduce it to 15 years. She could not understand the pain and agony that the justice system puts the victims through. It is not acceptable.

Mr. Crook was able to talk to the jury openly and to explain what a wonderful person he had become. The victims could not speak openly to the jury. What they had to say was censored. They had statements they wanted to read and those statements were censored. Why? It was because criminals have more rights than victims. Mrs. King Forest's son could not read his statement because the judge said it might influence the jury in its decision.

For Heaven's sake why do we have these hearings? I cannot understand. There is something seriously wrong with our justice system when criminals have more rights than their victims. It tears my heart out to see the pain and agony the victims of murderers have to go through when they attend parole hearings and listen every couple of years. There is something seriously wrong and we need to correct it.

Many more topics need to be dealt with. The fundamental problem is that government is not doing its job. It is not protecting the citizens. It is allowing violent rapists and murderers to be on the street. I hope at some point we address this matter further.

[Criminal Code, April 14th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the member's comments and I appreciate his desire to solve some of the problems we have in Canada.

I think he has zeroed in on one of the key concerns that we as Reformers have as well. It is one of the top three parts of our election platform, to make families in Canada a priority. I will come back to that in a minute.

The hon. member said that crime is going down in Canada. Stats Canada has just released its report. Criminal Code offences have increased 400 per cent since 1962. I am not sure where the member is getting his information from.

I would like to come back to the family for a moment but I see I am being signalled that my time is up. The family is the basic building block of society. Much of the legislation in the House has harmed the family. It has not allowed parents to take the responsibility for their children which they must take.

We need to emphasize the family. All legislation in this House should be checked to see what effect it has on the family. The taxation policies of this government have harmed the family to the point where both parents have to be outside of the home, one to pay the taxes and the other to put bread on the table.

I could give members a speech on how government has undermined families. We need to make families a priority. I agree that is a lot of the problem. We cannot just punish crime. We also have to make it so that there is an avenue to transmit values from one generation to the next and allow community organizations and churches to do their part by having them work through strong families.

[Criminal Code, April 14th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to deal with the first point raised by the hon. member.

Parliament is not working. If there are concerns in the community and the highest court in the land does not address those concerns and is not responsive to them, Parliament is not effective. That is the bottom line.

I related to the House one of the problems we have in society. I appealed to the government to do something. For the government to come back and say that it does not want to interfere with free speech when it comes to pornographic material, I can hardly believe my ears. I can hardly believe that we have people opposite who are defending some of the things which are causing child prostitution. They are making it worse. I cannot believe it. It is absolutely unacceptable.

If there is a choice, as the hon. member outlined, victims rights come first. We always put victims rights first. Criminals do not deserve the same rights. This government has it all backwards.

[Criminal Code, April 14th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, sometimes at the beginning of a television program, there is a little warning that it will be sensitive material, that perhaps children should be restricted from watching. I would like to put that warning at the beginning of my speech today.

I will deal with a topic that will be offensive to some, however, it needs to be talked about now. We have done quite a bit of research on this lately.

Forcing children into prostitution and forcing them to participate in pornographic acts is a horrific violation of the innocence of our youth. It needs to be punished to the full extent of the law.

Unfortunately, only Reformers seem to be listening and acting on what the people want. We heard the previous speakers emphasize this over and over. While a succession of Liberal and Tory governments have taken a few tentative steps to improve the law, the Criminal Code provisions regarding child prostitution, child pornography and the definition of obscenity need to be strengthened.

Better enforcement will help us bring more criminals living off the avails of child prostitution and child pornography to justice but mandatory minimum sentences are necessary to deter the criminal element from getting into this sick business in the first place. Recent cases involving importation, possession and distribution of child pornography on the Internet demonstrate the need to crack down and crack down hard.

A point that needs emphasis is that child prostitution and child pornography are inextricably linked. One cannot be looked at without looking at the other. The two issues are completely tied together.

Our research shows-this should be alarming to all those listening-that there has been a 170 per cent increase in sex offences since 1984. In a Canadian study of male inmates convicted of rape, 86 per cent of the subjects admitted to being regular or habitual users of pornography. That ought to tell us something very clearly.

A survey of Canadian use of pornography indicates that young persons aged 12 to 17 years are the primary consumers of pornography. Less than 10 per cent of pornographic materials depict vaginal intercourse between one man and one woman. The majority of pornographic products are the hard core variety

depicting one or more of the following: group sex, bestiality, torture, incest, bondage, urination, defecation, sado-masochism and sex with children.

Here are some recent news headlines that should alarm everyone. The first one comes from Montreal Gazette of September 6, 1996:

B.C. school principal charged with creating child pornography. If the allegations are true we have seen a grave violation of trust of parents and students.

The next one is datelined Vancouver:

The arrest of a Burnaby elementary school principal on child pornography charges sent shock waves across British Columbia yesterday. Inspector Ken Doern said police would be sifting through a large amount of material, including videos, audio tapes, photographs and written material.

Another one comes from the Ottawa Sun of August 27, 1996:

Pedophiles "shop" the Internet for victims. "The Internet has become a shopping centre for pedophiles", says a local investigator. Regional police Detective Keith Daniels, of the child abuse-sexual assault unit says the worldwide web has given predators a larger, more dangerous outlet to find victims.

It includes child prostitutes, I might add. The third one I would like to quote is from an article in Maclean's of November 18, 1996 entitled ``A mountain of smut-Police make an arrest in a child porn ring on the Internet'' and reads:

Each printout is a colour photograph of one or more naked children, some in sex acts with adults, some with their genitals displayed, sifting through 30,000 computer files in what may be the world's largest ever seizure of computer child pornographic files. Jim Carrol, the co-author of the Canadian Internet Handbook says, "And the problem is going to get worse. If the police think they have a challenge today, they haven't seen anything yet".

The government's amendments proposed in Bill C-27 fall far short of providing the public protection and severe punishment Canadians are demanding for these despicable crimes.

The Liberal proposals include making it illegal to attempt to procure sexual services from someone under 18; a new offence for aggravated procuring that would carry a five-year minimum sentence which would apply to criminals who live off the avails of child prostitutes, use violence and assist in carrying out prostitution related activities; allowing the child victims to testify from behind a screen, by video tape or closed circuit television; and, last of all, encouraging rigorous enforcement of Criminal Code provisions focusing on pimps and customers.

Unfortunately the government has not proposed any amendments strengthening the child pornography provisions of the Criminal Code. It should include strengthening the definition of obscenity in the Criminal Code. There should be a restricting of the use of artistic merit as a defence by those who produce child pornography. There should be a placing of the onus on the accused in any child pornography case to prove the so-called art passes the community standard of tolerance test. Those items should be included in the bill.

I also point out a major weakness in the government's child prostitution legislation. Bill C-27 creates a new offence for aggravated procuring which would carry a five-year minimum sentence.

The lawyers from the Library of Parliament explained it this way in their legislative report on Bill C-27:

-the new offence is applicable to anyone living to any extent on the avails of prostitution of a person under the age of 18 and who, for profit, aids, counsels, or compels that person to engage in any prostitution and uses, threatens or attempts to use violence or intimidation against him or her.

As with most laws the Liberal government rams through Parliament, it sounds good but it does not do the trick.

This section means that the police has to prove that the pimp profits from the actual prostitution and that the young girl was threatened with violence or intimidated.

What about the pimp who bribes and seduces a young girl? What about the pimp who intentionally seduces a 14-year old girl into a personal relationship and then bribes, tempts and tricks her into trying prostitution as a way of making extra money or simply pleasing him? As long as the 14-year old girl consents to have sex with her pimp, there is no criminal law against this disgusting recruiting process. It is happening today and it has to stop.

A February 5 Globe and Mail article described pimps who cruise the malls looking in:

-the food fair for children (they look for young teens who smoke and are chubby, two signs of insecurity) to recruit kids to work in the "baby stroll", which also is known as "popcorn alley" (where the youngest prostitutes work).

I agree with Alderman Bev Longstaff of Calgary who was quoted in Don Braid's February 9 column in the Calgary Herald :

When you're only 14, it's pretty hard to realize what impact your actions are going to have on your future.

Braid's column stated that it was Longstaff's idea to amend the Alberta child welfare act to allow police to apprehend underage hookers and charge the johns with child abuse.

While the Alberta amendments are great, the problem of the luring of kids into child prostitution by pimps could be better addressed simply by raising the age of consensual sex between an

adult and a child from 14 to 16 or, as some advocate, 18 years of age would be even better.

I agree with the Calgary Sun editorial which stated:

It's time our laws clearly state that it's impossible for a child to have consensual sex.

Bill C-27 is a missed opportunity to do just that. The Liberals pass laws that say 16-year-olds cannot buy cigarettes, but they leave a law on the books which says that it is okay for an adult to have sex with a 14-year old child. Does that make sense? Obviously not.

As with most things in Ottawa, if the Liberal government will not do what is right we have to do it ourselves. Therefore I will be working with my colleagues to amend the Criminal Code to raise the age of consent from 14 to 16.

Here is what Reform's blue book policy states:

The Reform Party recognizes that child abuse and family violence attack the very foundations of organized society. The party supports enacting, communicating and enforcing laws that protect family members against such acts. Effective programs aimed at prevention of family violence will be a priority.

Reformers have already promised to make this a priority issue in the next election campaign, whenever the election is to be called. Reformers believe:

Current laws dealing with child prostitution, child pornography and obscenity in Canada are too weak. While both child pornography and child prostitution are illegal, currently laws are insufficient to check the exploitation of children.

A Reform government will:

Set a minimum 10-year sentence for living off the avails of child prostitution;

Introduce tougher sentences for anyone convicted of producing, peddling or promoting child pornography;

Set a minimum two-year sentence for customers of child prostitutes; and

Redefine "obscenity" to include the exploitation or glorification of crime, horror, cruelty or violence in materials aimed at children.

A Reform government will always hold families in high regard, and will do everything possible to protect the people within them. There's no better investment in the future of our country.

We are living in the dying days of this Parliament. The situation I have just described throughout my speech is intolerable. It should be corrected immediately.

The facts speak for themselves. Even though there are laws on the books, the problem of child prostitution and child pornography that are inextricably linked will get worse. Canadians are demanding their politicians take action. They will not be satisfied with half-hearted measures put in place by the government.

In conclusion, this has been a very interesting time for me. It has been a great learning experience. I have worked on many issues. I guess I have been a thorn in the side of the government on many occasions. I will not apologize for that because I feel very strongly about the issues I have spoken on. I sincerely believe the government is off the rails on many of the topics I have addressed, especially the major areas of justice, democracy and finance. These three areas concern my constituents a great deal and need to be corrected.

When we came to Parliament the first speech we made is called a maiden speech. What do we call probably one of the last speeches at the end of a Parliament?

A lot of emphasis and a lot of attention has been paid to the maiden speech. Now that I have been here for 3.5 years I would like to find the name of the speech we give once we have acquired the wisdom and experience of being in this place.

One message needs to be emphasized over and over and over. Big centralized government control has made people feel their participation in Canadian politics, the running of their country, is futile. I have recorded many comments as I have gone door to door about how useless people feel this place is. We need to fix it so that we address the issues I have related in the past 20 minutes.

People feel they cannot change things. They are becoming very cynical about this place and about any promise that politicians make to change things. They want to have more control over the affairs in their local communities, but they are being held back by Parliament and by the things we do here.

We need to change this. We need to address their concerns. The concerns I have related on child prostitution and child pornography is one of the concerns of many people that needs to be dealt with.

[Justice, March 18th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, I wish every Liberal MP had been in Saskatoon last Thursday night to listen to a speech by Mrs. Marie King-Forest, the wife of RCMP Constable Brian King who was executed in 1978 by two cold blooded murderers.

Here is a sample of Liberal justice. Marie said: "Victims' impact statements are difficult to write and read but worse yet, these impact statements were edited and some were not even allowed because the content would inflame the jury".

Here is part of Ashley King's impact statement which was ruled too inflammatory: "People do not know the feelings I experienced every time I had to cross one of the bridges in Saskatoon and see the South Saskatchewan River, a river stained by my father's blood. To this day I cannot stand to see that river".

Marie King-Forest responded: "How dare the system let the jury hear only what someone deems relevant while Darryl Crook got on the stand and spoke freely".

On behalf of Marie and her family I ask all Liberals where is the justice in section 745?

[Canadian Charter Of Duties And Responsibilities, March 18th, 1997]

moved for leave to introduce Bill C-388, an act to establish a Canadian charter of duties and responsibilities.

Madam Speaker, one of the main problems I have identified in my research is that there are legal documents which describe the rights of Canadian citizens in great detail, but no legal document which describes their responsibilities. Consequently, Canadians are becoming more and more preoccupied with their rights, which is creating an unhealthy entitlement mentality in our society.

Today I am introducing a private member's bill entitled the Canadian charter of duties and responsibilities. My long term goal is to improve the balance between self-interest and public interest and to encourage a sense of trust, responsibility and generosity of spirit among all Canadians.

The specific purpose of my bill is to remind Canadians, every time they apply for a federal program, of this simple reality: we cannot continue to enjoy our rights until and unless we continue to fulfil our responsibilities.

My bill describes in very general terms 16 fundamental duties of citizenship and every time a citizen or permanent resident of Canada seeks any financial assistance from the federal government they will be required to sign a statement of duties and responsibilities. This routine process will serve as a regular reminder that the benefits of being Canadian also mean meeting one's obligation to our country, our communities and our families.

My bill will also ensure that all federal legislation is consistent with the principle that rights and freedoms must be balanced with duties and responsibilities.

(Motions deemed adopted, bill read the first time and printed.)

[Justice, March 17th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, I remind this House that it was Liberals who brought in section 745.

Are the Liberals trying to rehabilitate Clifford Olson by allowing him telephones, fax machines, word processors and early parole? Are you trying to rehabilitate-