Mr. Speaker, the number one responsibility of government is to keep its citizens safe: safe in their homes, safe in their businesses and safe in their communities. It is not partisan and not optional; it is fundamental, but right now that promise has been broken.
Under the Liberals' Bill C-75, our bail system was rewritten. Judges were ordered to apply a so-called principle of restraint. That means repeat violent offenders, people who are known to police and who have a record of crime after crime, are put right back on our streets. It has left my community of Cloverdale—Langley City living in fear. Today, I want to share three stories, not from some faraway place and not from a textbook or report. These are stories from my own backyard of businesses, families and seniors who have paid the price for Ottawa's dangerous experiment with catch-and-release justice.
First, picture a wedding banquet. Families are gathered. Music is playing. Parents are dancing with their children. That is what a banquet hall is supposed to be: a place of joy and community. However, in Surrey, at the Reflections Banquet Hall, that joy was shattered. Instead of wedding bells, there were gunshots. Instead of safety, there was fear. The hall became a target of an extortion network that has been terrorizing South Asian businesses across the Fraser Valley.
In early June, the owner, Satish Kumar, received a voice mail demanding $2 million and threatening his family. Within days, shots were fired at three businesses connected to him. This is what organized extortion looks like: anonymous calls, threats against children or warning shots at the door if they do not pay. It is not just one victim. It chills a whole corridor of small businesses. Weddings get cancelled, bookings dry up and an entire community starts looking over its shoulder.
Here is the core failure: a legal environment that emboldens criminals. When the consequence for violent intimidation is a quick release, the message that sends is to keep going. Liberal Bill C-75's principle of restraint and Bill C-5's repeal of mandatory jail time for serious gun crimes, including extortion with a firearm, have combined to lower the cost of terror for gangs and raised the cost of living for everybody else. The banquet hall was not just a building; it was supposed to be a safe place for families while the law did not protect it.
Then there is the tragic story of Tori Dunn. Tori is not just a name in the newspaper. She is a daughter, a friend. She is one of us, and she was attacked brutally by a man who never should have been free, a man with a record, a man known to police, a man who, under any system that valued the safety of women and the safety of families, would have been behind bars, but because of Liberal Bill C-75, he was not. He was out on bail, and Tori paid the price.
When I talk to people in my riding about Tori's story, they do not just shake their heads; they clench their fists and ask how this could happen and how our justice system could look at his record and set him free. She was 30, an entrepreneur, a daughter and a friend, and she was brutally killed in her own home in Port Kells in 2024. Her murderer, Adam Mann, was already facing eight other charges, including aggravated assault, from just a week earlier.
We do not need a law degree to see the pattern. The Liberals told the courts to restrain themselves, the courts complied, a dangerous man was back in the community, a young woman is dead and her family is left asking how a system could see the risk and choose release.
This is not complicated. When Parliament says to err on the side of release, people like Tori carry the risk. This is not just about Tori, though. It is about every woman who wonders if she is safe walking home at night. It is about every parent who wonders if their daughter will make it home. It is about whether the justice system values the safety of our families or the comfort of repeat offenders.
Let me tell members about something else that happened just down the road from my place in the heart of Langley. It was early morning, June 1, on the Fraser Highway. The sun had barely risen. A woman was standing by the curb, when out of nowhere she was shoved into the street. She fell really hard, and before she could even get her bearings, she was kicked and punched again and again. All of it was captured on video. This was not a scuffle. This was not a misunderstanding. It was a brutal, unprovoked attack. The man responsible, Hugh Mason, is no stranger to police. He is already known for violence and already known for breaching the law, yet he was there on our streets free to lash out at an innocent woman.
Here is what makes this hit home even worse for me. This was not just any street corner. This was steps away from the seniors home built by my own church community, the home where my grandparents lived. It is filled with seniors who worked a lifetime, who built this country and who should be able to walk outside without fear.
Imagine the conversations after that crime, with seniors asking their grandchildren to walk them to the pharmacy because they do not feel safe alone. That is not the Canada they helped build. That is not the promise they earned, yet here we are because a bail system tilted in favour of the offender gave another chance to a man who had already burned through all his chances, and because Bill C-75, by the Liberals, told judges to restrain themselves, even when restraint meant danger for everybody else.
This is what catch-and-release looks like in real life. It is not just a line in a bill, but fear in the eyes of our grandmothers and grandfathers, our opas and omas. That fear, my friends, is something we have the power and the responsibility to end.
At the end of the day, this is not about politics. It is not about left and right. It is about whether a mom can walk her child to school without fear, whether a small business owner can open his doors without an extortionist calling at midnight and whether a senior, like our omas and opas, can sit on a porch without looking over their shoulder.
The Conservatives have put forward the jail not bail act, not because it sounds good on paper but because it puts people first. It says that public safety is the priority. It says that if a person commits a major crime, like pulling a gun, breaking into a home or assaulting their neighbour, they do not just stroll back onto the streets the next day. This bill would tip the scales back to where they belong. It restores balance. It protects victims. It puts common sense back at the heart of justice.
I say to the Prime Minister that if he is serious about restoring peace to our communities, he will back the bill. He will correct his justice minister, and he will reverse his party's failed bail laws, because Canadians deserve better than ideology. They deserve safety.
Let us do the right thing. Let us stand together. Let us pass the jail not bail act, and let us give our communities back their peace.
