Leon Benoit

[Employment Equity Act, October 17th, 1995]

Liberal logic.

[Employment Equity Act, October 17th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak on Bill C-64. I had prepared a speech for this bill some time ago but a lot of what I had intended to say has been said. However, there are some things about the legislation which I must present to the House today.

The stated purpose of the legislation is to put equality in the workplace and to correct some conditions which are in the work

place or had been in the workplace in the past and are unfair. That is the stated purpose of the legislation. Who could speak out against that as a goal? All of us in the House would like to correct the unfair situations in our society, particularly those concerning employment. None of us wants discrimination and none of us is willing to tolerate in any way discrimination in the workplace based on race, gender, or any other factor. The stated intent of the legislation in terms of the problem which it is meant to fix I do not believe is a problem for any of us.

Bill C-64 is oppressive legislation which is not only unnecessary in today's society but is very damaging. What is in the legislation disturbs me and many of my constituents and others across the country to whom I have spoken about the legislation. It bothers a lot of people. Polls have shown of course that people across the country do not support the concept of employment equity or affirmative action, call it what you like.

There are two schools of thought when it comes to employment equity. The first is that legislated programs are necessary to fix a wrong, especially wrongs that were in the workforce in the past. The second is that employment equity is flawed because it advocates hiring of individuals based on personal characteristics, not on merit. Those are two opposing schools of thought.

A third view I have heard expressed is that possibly sometime in the past there was the need for some type of affirmative action or employment equity legislation. It was necessary sometime in the past because of discrimination in the workplace. That position is tolerated by a lot more people than the position of bringing this piece of legislation forward today, where conditions are not nearly as they were in the past. Empirical evidence and good information has shown that there is much less discrimination in the workplace now than there was in the past.

I repeat that there should be no tolerance of discrimination in the workplace, period. I do not and will not tolerate it and I do not believe any member of the House will tolerate it.

I will read five points to lay out the Reform position briefly. First, all Canadians are equal before and under the law and all workers have the right to be free of discrimination in the workplace. Again, I do not think anyone in the House and hopefully no one across the country would argue with that point.

Second, the market will provide solutions to a representative workplace in the private sector. The hon. member from Fraser Valley West who spoke before me and others of my colleagues have spoken to this issue. Business which is practising good business will hire people who can best relate to the customers. That in itself

should mean there will be people from all visible minorities hired in the workplace in a way that makes sense, not because of quotas.

Third, the role of government is to ensure equality of opportunity rather than to determine equality of employment outcomes in the public sector or beyond the public sector. Equality of opportunity, that is a role of government, but a government cannot ensure equality of outcome, nor should it try.

The fourth point Reform puts forth with regard to employment equity is that the workplace should be free from arbitrary obstructions to hiring and promotion. Merit must be the sole hiring criteria. I believe this and evidence has shown that a majority of Canadians believe in this. That would mean that Canadians do not support Bill C-64, the employment equity bill.

The fifth point is that employment equity legislation is coercive, discriminatory in itself, unnecessary and costly and it should be discontinued. Bill C-64 should be thrown out. The vote this afternoon should throw this legislation out because it is bad legislation. Not only that, employment equity legislation from the past should also be thrown out.

I congratulate the Mike Harris government in Ontario for promising to do exactly that. I sincerely hope the Ontario government will carry through on that promise. I believe it will.

What do various groups involved in the workplace have to say about employment equity? First, when it is known that employment equity is involved in the hiring practice, employees going about and working in the workplace look across the room. They see another employee from one of the groups designated in the employment equity legislation and they have to wonder was that person hired because they were the best and most qualified for the job, or was that person hired to fill a quota under an employment equity program?

What kind of a work environment is that? It is not a healthy work environment at all. Fellow employees would always have that doubt in their minds that members of visible minorities and so on were hired based on quotas rather than merit. It is not fair to them and it does not make for a healthy environment.

What about the very groups that are targeted to fill these quotas in this employment equity legislation? What about the visible minorities, women and others who are targeted in these quotas? How do they feel about legislation like this? Although I cannot say how many, I can say that many people from these designated groups this legislation is intended to help have said to me they want no part of it for two reasons.

The first reason is that they have doubts as to whether they were hired because they were the best qualified or whether they were hired to fill a quota. Imagine what it would do to a person in the workplace, feeling that they were well qualified for a job but always having that doubt, wondering whether they were hired to fill a quota rather than because they were the best qualified. That is not a healthy work environment for those people either.

What about that other group, the people excluded from jobs because they do not fill one of those categories set out to be filled by quota? For example, I have had several people say to me that they do not like not even being eligible to apply to the RCMP. Employment equity has been in the RCMP for some time. White males simply are wasting their time if they apply to the RCMP and this is one example.

How do those people feel? They feel resentment against not only the body that has put these rules in place but against the groups targeted through quotas. That is sad and unacceptable. This kind of thing must end. It is not a healthy environment for that type of person. They can never find their way into that working environment.

There are a couple of people I have come to know well since I have been involved in politics. It is only because they talk to me about being part of the excluded group. They are indeed upset. Both of these people whom I have talked with many times on this issue have been excluded from what they want to do with their lives. They are young males, 25 years old. They want to join the RCMP but have been excluded because of these quotas. It is sad. It is wrong and it is unacceptable.

Another group in the workplace affected in a negative way by these quotas is the employers. Other members from my party have made it clear these are quotas we are talking about. The companies will be affected by this legislation. They have been affected in the past by previous employment equity legislation. How do they feel about this?

I have talked with a couple of companies in my constituency that depend to some extent on government contracts. They have been excluded in the past, before the new legislation, because they simply could not get the proper mix required under the quota system to qualify for jobs from the federal government. They could not fill the quotas.

These companies are upset not only about the fact that they could not get the contracts but because it costs them money. These are not extremely large corporations but they are large for the area. It cost them money to hire someone to see how they were doing with regard to quotas, to keep track and to hire people to fill the quotas. It is damaging to the employers as well.

I have gone through the list. I think everyone in the workplace falls into these four groups. I ask members of the governing party in the House and members of the not so loyal opposition why they would support this piece of legislation when none of the groups think it is good legislation. There is not a good answer.

It is sad that we will pass the legislation. Because of the dictatorial style government across the Chamber I know it will pass. Those members will not dare vote against the government position so legislation will pass that very few people want.

[Employment Equity Act, October 6th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, the member who just made her presentation spent some time talking about discrimination in Canada, saying that members of the Reform Party deny that there is discrimination. I do not think one Reform member of Parliament could be found who would deny that there is discrimination and that it is not a problem. I do not deny it and I do not think any of my colleagues would deny it.

If discrimination finds its way into the workplace, as members of the Reform Party have said, it should be dealt with in a tough manner. We do not tolerate it and we must not tolerate it.

The member also gave statistics to show that legislation is needed. I present a few statistics and ask the member to respond to them. These are from the 1994 employment equity report. The report said that 570,000 people are currently regulated by the present Employment Equity Act. The member spoke about this not being new legislation, that there is an Employment Equity Act in place. Of this number 45.6 per cent are women. In the Canadian workforce about 45.9 per cent are female. The difference between those in the employment equity program and those outside is .3 per cent.

In total, women occupy 47 per cent of government jobs, while 47.3 per cent are available for work. Again, a .3 per cent difference. The civilian staff of the RCMP is 82.6 per cent female; Citizenship Canada, 74 per cent female; Transport Canada, 75 per cent male. What are we going to do in these departments? Are we going to make sure we get the right quotas, get rid of women in one department and get rid of men in the other? What are we going to do?

The overall statistics in government and outside government show the employment equity program has very little effect.

Before the member responds to these statistics, the polls consistently show that Canadians are against employment equity. Approximately 70 per cent to 80 per cent of Canadians are against employment equity programs, such as this Liberal program.

I want to ask the hon. member how the Liberals can totally disregard the will of a large majority of Canadians and ignore these polls on the issue when they are so willing to accept the results of their own polls on other issues?

[Point Of Order, October 6th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, the parliamentary secretary to the minister of agriculture in his response to my question earlier stated that Reform MPs were counselling farmers to break the law regarding some of the oppressive actions of the Canadian Wheat Board. That is totally untrue.

Reform MPs have never counselled farmers to break the law and I think it is important I set the record straight on that.

[Canadian Wheat Board, October 6th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, panels, studies, commissions and reports, and it has been two years and nothing has been done.

Alberta farmers are being asked for their opinion on the issue because the Alberta government believes that farmers have the right to make this decision. Who will have the last word on whether farmers should have the freedom to sell their wheat and barley into all markets? Will it be the farmers or will it be this father knows best minister of agriculture?

[Canadian Wheat Board, October 6th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, in November the Alberta government will ask grain farmers whether they are in favour of having the freedom to sell their wheat and barley to any buyer, including the Canadian Wheat Board, into domestic and export markets-yes or no?

In response, the federal minister of agriculture states the Alberta plebiscite will not be the last word on this issue. When will the minister of agriculture give farmers the last word on this issue and have a plebiscite across the whole Canadian Wheat Board area to settle this issue?

[Criminal Code, September 21st, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, it gives me a great deal of pleasure to speak on the bill presented by the hon. member for Surrey-White Rock-South Langley. I hope all members of the House recognize the merits of the bill and support it.

As Reformers we believe public safety is the number one priority. Our goal is to prevent violent crime while not unduly restricting the activities of legitimate firearm owners. I firmly believe the existing controls on law-abiding, responsible firearm owners are more than enough and no further controls are necessary to ensure public safety. I reiterate that I do not think further controls are necessary for law-abiding gun owners.

The bill focuses on the criminals who use guns and replicas of guns during the commission of crimes, not on law-abiding gun owners. The hon. member is to be commended for presenting such a common sense bill which focuses on the root cause of crime, criminals. The justice minister should take note.

The bill, if passed, will send a clear message to criminals that the use of guns in the commission of crimes will not be tolerated. It increases the minimum penalty for a first offence from one to fourteen years, as it is now, to five to fourteen years and the sentence is to be served consecutive to the sentence for committing the crime. On the second offence the penalty increases from three to fourteen years to ten years to life.

It sets out a new offence for the theft of a firearm punishable by a penalty of three to fourteen years. It states that subsequent sentences are to be served consecutively. That is a key difference between this bill and Bill C-68 where there is no consecutive sentencing but rather concurrent sentencing. For that reason those sentences are not really what is indicated.

As well the bill provides for a new offence for unlawful importation of firearms for the purpose of selling or using them in the commission of an offence. The penalty is three to fourteen years. This common sense bill will help to prevent and deter crime.

Why am I so sure of what the bill will accomplish? As I said earlier, it focuses on the root cause of crime. How many times have we heard the Liberals talk about focusing on the root cause of crime? Usually the root cause of crime according to the Liberals is a whole series of things having to do with the background of the criminal. However the root cause of crime is one thing, the criminal, and the bill focuses on the criminal.

Once again I am reminded of Ted Byfield's editorial in the September 11 issue of the Alberta Report . In the editorial he refutes the notion that criminals are not responsible for their actions and that society is to blame. He cites the example of New York City and the dramatic decrease in crime experienced as a result of a police crackdown on petty crimes.

The police took the advice of two criminologists-it is very unusual to group criminologists together-who believed that cracking down on so-called petty crime would send a message on what behaviour would or would not be tolerated. The new chief of police in New York City focused on the root cause of crime, the criminal.

When the experiment worked-it worked extremely well-the old school criminologists were less than pleased because it meant that crime is somehow a voluntary action and therefore the criminal can control what he or she does, contrary to what the Liberals have been saying for some time in the House over the past 30 years. This completely blew their theory that a criminal is not responsible for their actions right out of the water.

I want to relate this bill back to Bill C-260. This bill focuses on what I also believe is the root cause of crime, criminals. This bill sends a clear message to criminals that the use of guns in the commission of a crime will not be tolerated.

Thinking about this common sense bill I am reminded of the other gun legislation debated in the House quite a lot over the past year. That legislation, Bill C-68, focused on guns and law-abiding citizens who use and own guns. The cornerstone of this legislation, the national gun registry, will not affect criminals.

I know of very few criminals who will register their guns. Instead of dealing directly with criminals, the justice minister's legislation ignores the criminals completely and concentrates on the law-abiding citizens.

Should not the purpose of legislation be to deter and prevent crime? If this is the case it will come as no surprise the Liberal gun control bill will not help to reduce or deter crime. The justice minister on several occasions has been asked to demonstrate to the House that the gun registry would actually reduce crime.

Despite repeated requests in the House during debate, during question period and by letters from groups in my constituency and in other constituencies across the country the response from the justice minister has been that the answer should be sufficiently obvious. This is his favourite phrase. It should be sufficiently obvious that a gun registry will help to reduce crime.

I wonder who it is sufficiently obvious to. Certainly not to the people who talk to me in my constituency and right across the country, most recently in Prince Edward Island. The people of

Prince Edward Island made it abundantly clear to me last weekend they do not see the connection between a gun registry and preventing crime as being sufficiently obvious.

I have an article from the Globe and Mail dated September 20 entitled ``Gun registration won't stem crime'':

A federal council on crime and safety supports universal gun registration but doubts it would do much to stamp out criminal activity. The national crime prevention council said that it backs the federal gun bill, including the plans to register all owners and their firearms.

The crime prevention council is a group of Liberal appointees. This is a quote from the submission from this Liberal group: "The system is, however, a costly and complicated proposal which may have a relatively limited impact on the prevention of criminal activity or victimization". This is from a submission by this Liberal commission-Liberal thinking at its best. I have heard an awful lot of that over the past few months in the House.

This clearly sums up the difference between the Reform Party and the Liberal Party and their special interest groups. Reform targets criminals who use guns; the Liberals make criminals out of law-abiding citizens. On the one hand the government has presented us with a bill that wants law-abiding gun owners to register their guns. These same law-abiding gun owners will face punishment if they do not register their guns, and many of them will not register their guns. No government can force people to obey a law they never wanted. Who asked for this law?

Bill C-260 is a common sense bill which focuses on criminals who use a gun in the commission of a crime. It sets out harsh penalties for the offences and thus sends the message that this type of behaviour will not be tolerated.

I am proud to support the bill, presented by the hon. member for Surrey-White Rock-South Langley. I thank her on behalf of Canadians across for the effort. I look forward to support from all parties.

[Corrections And Conditional Release Act, September 21st, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, I listened to the debate on the amendments and I felt I had to say something on behalf of Canadians, particularly those in my constituency whom I met with over the summer and Canadians in Atlantic Canada whom I met with recently.

Canadians are saying they want our justice system changed to give more protection to its citizens. They never talk about changing the system to give more protection to the criminal. They do not want that. They are not particularly concerned about spending more money to rehabilitate criminals although most want rehabilitation to take place where possible. Canadians want a justice system that protects the people.

The amendments presented by the hon. member for Wild Rose provide more protection at least for a certain group of people, in this case, children. The amendment should certainly be supported by all members of the House. I just do not believe that all members of the House are not willing to put in place an amendment which would allow more protection for children. I find it hard to believe that they would not pass this amendment.

Specifically these amendments would put information on a police computer system, CPIC. It would allow information to be entered in the computer system on the modus operandi used by sexual offenders who commit sexual abuse on children. That is what the amendment would provide. It would make this information available to all peace officers across the country.

In that way, if police were investigating a sexual offence against a child, they would have quick and ready access to information across the country which would point out if a similar type of a crime had been committed in another part of the country in the past.

Also the amendment would give information to peace officers again on CPIC. Specifically it would give the location of the prisons in which offenders are imprisoned and the date of release of any offender who has committed a sexual offence against a child. Because the information would be on CPIC it would be readily available to all police officers across the country.

Therefore it is very difficult for me to understand why the amendment would not be supported by all members of the House. For that reason too I thank the hon. member for Wild Rose for bringing the amendment forward.

There is much more that can be done. It is necessary to clearly redefine the priorities in our justice system. Through a conscious effort made by Liberal governments starting in 1972 with Solicitor General Goyer, the priorities of the justice system were shifted from a system that put the highest priority on the rights of the people in the country to be safe and to feel safe to the rights of the victims. They shifted the priorities to a situation where the top priority has become the rights of the criminal, the poor criminal; we have to do everything we can to protect the criminal, the rights of the criminal and the rehabilitation of the criminal. I do not think most Canadians believe the criminal should be the top priority in our justice system.

The amendment proposed by the hon. member for Wild Rose will do something to shift the focus back again to the victims. For all the talk I have heard across the country about the need to care for the victims, I have not seen legislation in the House that has done much in terms of giving the victims more say, making them a higher priority within our justice system.

The parliamentary secretary to the solicitor general has said that the amendment cannot possibly go through because we cannot afford it. We have to always be very conscious of spending. The Reform zero in three plan which we presented across the country during the 1993 election campaign laid out in some detail a plan which would lead to a balanced budget in three years. In that plan we allowed for spending in the justice area. If we are to have the deterrents in place and the deterrents sometimes are longer prison sentences-other deterrents can be used as well-it costs money. It is a matter of priorizing spending. In our zero in three plan we did that. Justice is such a high priority that we allocated money to it.

In our taxpayers' budget presented before the finance minister's budget last February we put aside money to put in place systems like the one proposed by the member for Wild Rose.

We are always conscious of spending money but we also know how to priorize. It is important to know where Canadians are willing to spend money and where they are not. In most cases the government has those priorities completely turned around. It does not know what is important to Canadians and it does not know in what areas Canadians are willing to spend money and what areas they are not.

It will take a continual reminder from us on this side of the House for government members of what is important to Canadians. It seems the government is out of touch. Perhaps I am being a little unfair when I say that all members of the governing party are out of touch, because I believe it is mainly the cabinet, the old boys who have been around for years that are out of touch.

Unfortunately in the old party system that is all that really matters. If the leader of a party wants it done this way it will be done this way. We have seen party discipline that is way beyond democratic. It is anti-democratic. We have seen party discipline used in the House over and over again, to the extent that the members of Parliament who know what the people want are completely ignored and are not even allowed to vote for what their constituents want.

The system is in collapse and it must be fixed. Until the system is fixed I suspect the legislation in the area of justice will do very little to improve the system.

Positive proposals like those presented by the member for Wild Rose will continue to be ignored in spite of the fact that many members across the floor, those who are still in touch with their constituents, know they should be passed. The Prime Minister says that they are not going to support it, the whip cracks the whip and those members have no voice.

I do not care much that members of Parliament have no voice, but I do care that their constituents have no voice. It is time that was changed. The changes to the justice system that we need, the changes that Reform has proposed in the House over and over again, will not happen until the system is fixed. We have to fix it. We have to fix it quickly, but I am afraid it will not happen with the government that is in place.

[Corrections And Conditional Release Act, September 20th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, not only is that opposition party trying to take Quebec out of Canada but it is also disrupting the House, and I see no need for it.

I referred to the amendment of the hon. member for Wild Rose, the amendment we are debating today. It is absolutely and totally unjustified that the member from the Bloc would interrupt me after I made the connection.

The amendment of the member for Bonaventure-Îles-de-la-Madeleine which we will be debating later calls for full term detention for those convicted of sexual offences against children because serious harm is understood. For all other cases serious harm must be proved in court. It is time serious harm is understood for more of these serious crimes.

I fully support the amendment of the member for Wild Rose. His amendment will put some of the much needed common sense, accountability and responsibility back into our justice system. His amendment takes into account the rights of the victim, an individual who is all too often forgotten in our so-called justice system.

The Reform Party believes that the rights of victims instead of the rights of criminals must receive the highest priority in our justice system. When the rights of the victim and the rights of the criminal are in conflict, the rights of the victim must in all cases be given the highest priority.

The amendment calls for the offender to pay 30 per cent of his or her income as restitution or for psychological counselling for the victim of a sexual assault, aggravated assault or sexual assault with a weapon. This common sense puts some responsibility where it belongs, with the offender. Thinking about this amendment, I wonder why on earth the offender even gets a salary in the first place.

When we talk about common sense and accountability in our justice system, I am reminded of an interesting editorial written by Ted Byfield in the September 11 issue of the Alberta Report entitled ``Memo to Allan Rock: Please check out what's going on in New York City''. The editorial deals with the opposing concepts of the root cause of crime. I quote from it because it sums up the Liberal philosophy and shows why our justice system is in such a mess. The editorial discussed effective deterrents to crime as does the hon. member's amendment:

Back in the '60s our sociological experts made an amazing discovery. Crime, they found, is caused by poverty and social circumstance. Criminals are therefore not responsible for what they do; "society" is responsible. Any notion of "blame" for a crime was thereafter reflected, or at any rate, any blaming of criminals. The idea of "punishment" was summarily jettisoned. Crime called for counselling, understanding, sympathy, not punishment. No longer must we think primarily of protecting the public from the criminal; we must protect the criminal from the public.

This type of thinking has been the theme of the politically correct and is still held by the Liberal government as it was held by the Conservatives and the NDP before.

Mr. Byfield went on to explain that this type of thinking has placed us in the mess we find ourselves in today. He cited the experience of William J. Bratton, a former police office who was the security director for the New York subway system and is now the police commissioner of New York City. Mr. Bratton took the advice of two rogue criminologists who advocated cracking down on petty crimes because it would send a firm message on what kind of behaviour would and would not be tolerated.

When Mr. Bratton was the security director for the subway system he began cracking down on so-called petty crimes like graffiti and panhandling. The incidence of crime on the subway fell almost immediately.

After five years, Mr. Byfield writes, serious felonies fell by 64 per cent and robberies by 75 per cent.

By giving harsh punishments for serious crimes, this also sends a message to criminals that serious crimes will be met with serious punishments. This is the theme the hon. member for Wild Rose carries into his amendment.

Mr. Bratton continued this policy as police commissioner and the city experienced very similar results. The drop in crime has been very dramatic. Yet as Mr. Byfield explains, the criminologists were not pleased with the results. In the words of one criminologist it would verify the contention that crime is somehow a voluntary activity, that crime does not represent in any way the drives and forces and compulsions that are beyond the individual's control.

This is a quote from a criminologist speaking out against the view that we should be tough on crime. To repeat, in the words of this criminologist, being tough on crime would, with the results found in New York City, in the subway system and later in the city, verify the contention that crime is somehow a voluntary activity, that crime does not represent in any way the drives and forces and compulsions that are beyond the individual's control.

This reminds me of the Liberal idea that crime is motivated by poverty and other socioeconomic factors; society is at fault, the criminal is not responsible for his or her actions. On the other hand, Commissioner Bratton's view about the root cause of crime is very simple. Mr. Byfield believes the root cause of crime is criminals. I agree with him, although I recognize there are individuals who have experienced abuse and neglect which may lead them toward a life of crime.

However, ultimately it is their own conscious decision to commit a crime. It is within the limits of our self-control to choose not to commit a crime. The choice is made by each one of us, every day, and each one of us should be held accountable for our actions and decisions. The law must be changed to recognize this, that each individual has the freedom of choice when it comes to committing crime.

As a result of the focus on the rehabilitation of criminals instead of protection of law-abiding citizens, our society is living in fear of criminals.

If we are looking to point a finger of blame for the breakdown of our justice system, or maybe it should be more accurately called our legal system, we could point to a lot of people. When looking at our law makers, members of Parliament who have sat in the House, we can point to all of those members who have supported legislation based on the politically correct but incorrect assumption that the cause of crime is anything but the criminal and that the criminal somehow does not have the power to choose not to commit a crime.

If I were to pick a pivotal time and a pivotal statement, I would look to a former Liberal solicitor general, I believe in 1972, Jean Goyer, who consciously changed the focus of our justice system from a top priority of the right of citizens to feel safe and be safe and the rights of the victim to a new focus in which the rights of the criminal and rehabilitation of criminals were given top priority.

This is a sad commentary not only on the Liberal government of the time but on all governments since that time. I believe it is time now for a political party that is willing to change the focus back to the right of citizens to feel safe and to be safe to take control.

If the government does not do what Canadians want and if it refuses to change the focus back to what it was before the Trudeau government, we will be the government that will make this change. It will happen sooner than most of the members across the floor would like to believe.

I support fully the amendment of the hon. member for Wild Rose.

[Corrections And Conditional Release Act, September 20th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, I rise to speak to Bill C-45, an omnibus bill which amends the Corrections and Conditional Release Act, the Criminal Code, the Criminal Records Act, the Prisons and Reformatories Act and the Transfer of Offenders Act.

I am pleased to support the amendment put forward by the hon. member for Wild Rose. It deals with placing responsibility and accountability for crime on the criminal, something which is sorely lacking in our justice system.

We are debating the bill as a result of Reform's focus on law and order and our belief and the belief of millions of Canadians we have received this message from that the rights of Canadians should be put first before those of the criminals.

The bill is not the government's idea. It borrowed the bill from the previous government and even watered it down somewhat. It contains some provisions that will help strengthen the justice system, for example the detention of offenders who commit sexual offences against children. However this provision does not go far enough. Why should offenders who commit sexual offences against women or even men be exempted from full term or continued detention? Are these not considered serious offences?