SoVote

Feb/2/23 11:08:02 a.m.
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First, Mr. Speaker, I wholeheartedly share my colleague's concern about the loss of Officer Pierzchala. I grieved with his family and the entire OPP community. That was the fifth in a series of months last year, and it was among the most difficult functions that I exercise in this office. I assure the member, and I hope she takes it at face value, that I understand the trauma, the grief and the suffering that is being felt not only by the law enforcement communities but by communities right across the country, including indigenous and racialized communities that have been systematically marginalized as a result of policies whose design and intent was to do just that. That is wrong. With regard to the member's specific question on bail reform, I hope she will have heard the Minister of Justice, and I will reiterate it, that we are in direct lines of communication with law enforcement. I have spoken to the president of the CACP. I have spoken to other senior leadership in law enforcement. We are going to sit down and look at those proposals very carefully in a specially convened meeting of federal, provincial and territorial partners. That is where the work will be done on the merits. However, it is not the only thing we need to address. We also need to address the other preventive strategies that I discussed in my remarks as well.

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Context: House Hansard - 152 - Feb/2/23

Ms. Leah Gazan (Winnipeg Centre, NDP)

Feb/2/23 12:33:08 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, being called a radical by folks who hang out with far-right radical extremists and take photos with people like Jeremy Mackenzie, who is now facing criminal charges, threats with criminal harassment, and saying that they stand onside with law-abiding citizens, not victims, is pretty rich. I am pretty complimented about that. The members talk about listening to law enforcement. In the City of Winnipeg, the Winnipeg city police came out in support of harm reduction as a crime reduction strategy. The Conservatives pride themselves on being tough on crime. Will they agree with the Winnipeg city police and support harm reduction approaches?

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Context: House Hansard - 152 - Feb/2/23

Mr. Alex Ruff (Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, CPC)

Feb/2/23 6:31:43 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I am here tonight to elaborate on something that is related to our opposition day motion today. It was a question I put to the government back in November about violent crime, Bill C-5 and the current Liberal government's soft-on-crime approach, which is not doing anything to make Canada safer. In particular, I talked about how violent crime has risen 32% since the Liberals formed government, which equates to over 124,000 more violent crimes since they have been in government. I talked about local headlines of people “arrested again” for participation in a criminal organization, failure to comply with a probation order, 11 counts of knowledge of possession of a firearm while prohibited, two counts of disobeying a court order and two counts of breaching a weapons prohibition. I am going to provide more local statistics from my own riding, because this is a prevalent problem. We see the media coverage all the time in our urban centres, but this problem of repeat offenders committing crimes is pervasive right across Canada. Here is something from December 16, 2022, in my riding: “Charges laid in drive-by shooting”. Charges included possession of a weapon for dangerous purpose, careless use of firearm, assault with a weapon and discharging a firearm with intent. The key point is possession of a firearm contrary to a probation order. This individual also faces an attempted murder charge after a shooting in my riding back in August. Here is another one: “Man suffers fractured skull in Hanover hammer attack”. I know the Prime Minister likes to speak about banning assault weapons. Well, guess what. A hammer used in an assault is an assault weapon, and good luck trying to ban all the hammers in the country. I do not think that is going to achieve much for public safety either. This happened at a convenience store. There were seven different charges, including several counts of breaching probation. I have another one here, just miles from my own farm. It required significant resources from our law enforcement in the local area. A 53-year-old woman and a 48-year-old man were each charged with countless drug trafficking issues. The woman was additionally charged with two counts of disobeying a court order and failure to comply with a probation order. The man was additionally charged with two counts of breach of a weapons prohibition. The fourth example is of a man in my riding. He has 25 weapons charges, with 15 different counts of a restricted or prohibited firearm and two breaches of a firearms prohibition. Finally, I have one more example that required multiple police units to be involved. A 40-year-old man, a 63-year-old woman and a 24-year-old woman all got drug charges, and one was in possession of a firearm contrary to a prohibition order. What is the government's solution? It removed mandatory minimum sentences for repeat offenders, including 10 of the 12 that were introduced by two former Liberal prime ministers, Trudeau senior and Chrétien. I do not know what the Liberal government had so wrong back in those days, but now we have seen every premier in this country table a letter to the government demanding bail reform. We also have police groups calling for stricter rules against these violent repeat offenders. When are the Liberals going to repeal portions of Bill C-75 and Bill C-5 and stop targeting law-abiding firearms owners, sport shooters and farmers?

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