44th Parl. 1st Sess.
September 18, 2023 11:00AM
Mr. Speaker, after eight years of this Prime Minister, the cost of living is going up because of an inflationary tax that the Bloc supports and that they want to drastically increase. The cost of living is also going up because of inflationary deficits.
It no longer pays to work and the cost of housing has doubled. The desperation that these policies have caused is leading to a crisis of homelessness, drug use and crime. That is the situation after eight years of this Prime Minister.
Today, we are rising in the House of Commons to talk about the utter chaos that the Prime Minister has unleashed on our streets with his changes to the bail system. He introduced Bill C-75, which was passed. That law allows criminals who have been charged dozens of times to be released on the very day they are arrested.
That bill was supported by the Bloc. Yes, voting for the Bloc is not worth the cost. A vote for the Bloc is a vote for Liberal policies that cause crime in our streets. What are the consequences of that Liberal-Bloc policy?
After eight years of this Prime Minister, violent crime has increased by 39% and homicides by 43%. Gang-related homicides are up 108%. Gun crime is up 101%. I will stop there for now. The Prime Minister thinks that fighting gun crime means banning hunters’ weapons. He stated in his comments that he wanted to ban firearms that are used for hunting. That is what he proposed in Bill C-21, to which he added 300 pages containing the list of hunting weapons he wanted to ban.
The Bloc Québécois was beyond happy, it was ecstatic. The Bloc said it wanted to adopt that list and that it had been waiting many years for this major ban on hunting weapons. Now the Bloc leader is trying to do an about-face, trying to make the people in Quebec's regions forget that the Bloc betrayed them with its agenda of banning hunting weapons. The Bloc Québécois also voted in favour of a law that allows criminals who use firearms to commit violent acts to return to our streets on the day they are arrested.
That approach did not work. We Conservatives will protect hunters and put the real criminals in prison. We will allocate resources to the border to prevent weapons from entering the country illegally from the United States.
Moreover, we see that assault causing bodily harm has increased 61%. Sex crimes against children increased 126% after eight years of this Prime Minister. Car thefts increased 34% after eight years of this Prime Minister.
This is the record of this government’s approach of freeing the most violent criminals while banning hunting weapons. This does not actually work. It does not make sense. That is why the Conservative Party is the only party in the House of Commons that had the common sense to oppose this and stand up for the rights of hunters. We are going to put criminals in prison and protect law-abiding citizens.
We know that the Conservative approach works, because when we were in power the crime rate decreased by 26%. We targeted the most violent and vicious criminals and made sure that repeat offenders were sent to prison. All the other parties said that this would increase the prison population. In fact, the number of prisoners decreased by 4.3%. There were fewer people in prison and less crime on our streets. In addition, we were able to eliminate the gun registry to protect our hunters.
Our approach works because by targeting the most violent criminals and denying their release to prevent them from committing the same crimes again, we can protect society and deter crime by others. We will take that common-sense approach again when I am prime minister of Canada.
Today, we have a bill that partly reverses the damage that the Prime Minister has caused. We all know that after eight years of the Prime Minister, life costs more, work does not pay, housing costs have doubled, and crime, chaos, drugs and disorder are common in our streets. We know that his policy of freeing repeat violent offenders the same day they are arrested came to us in Bill C-75, supported by both Liberals and their coalition partners. In fact, the NDP wanted to go even further.
What are the consequences of their catch-and-release policy? Violent crime is up 39%. Homicide is up 43%. Gang killings are up 108%. Aggravated assault is up 24%. Assault with a weapon causing bodily harm is up 61% increase. Sexual assault is up 71%. Sex crimes against kids is up 126%. Kidnapping is up 36%. Car thefts are up 34%. These crimes are almost always committed by a very small minority.
The good news is that we do not have a lot of criminals in Canada. The bad news is they are very productive. They are allowed to be productive because of the catch-and-release policies passed in Bill C-75 that allow an offender to be arrested often within hours of their latest crime. In Vancouver, the police had to arrest the same 40 offenders 6,000 times, because the police and the system required them to be released under the Prime Minister's bill, Bill C-75.
The bill before us today partly and modestly reverses the catch-and-release bail system that the Prime Minister created, but it does not go far enough. Our policy is very clear. A common-sense Conservative government led by me will bring in jail and not bail for repeat violent offenders. Those offenders with a long rap sheet who are newly arrested will be in our jails today.
When we brought in policies of this sort under the previous Conservative government, we not only reduced crime by 25%, but we actually reduced incarceration rates. That was against all of the rhetoric of the radical left that said that we would have to build mega prisons to accommodate all the criminals. In fact, our laws were narrowly targeted at the worst repeat offenders and they scared the rest of the criminals away. We actually had fewer criminals, less crime and, therefore, fewer prisoners. That meant safer streets.
The Prime Minister has unleashed a crime wave over the last several years.
I was just in Whitehorse yesterday at Antoinette's restaurant. The owner told me that his restaurant had been robbed 12 times in 18 months, multiple times by the same offender who was released again and again. In fact, police officers told him they were going to stop arresting the offender because it was not worth the time of having him arraigned and being released almost immediately. It was easier and more cost-effective to just leave the thief on the streets and let him do his business.
That is how broken our criminal justice system is after eight years of the Prime Minister. Now he has appointed a radical justice minister who says that crime is all in the heads of Canadians, that their imaginations have gone wild. However, the data proves otherwise.
It turns out that Canadians and Conservatives are right. A common-sense Conservative government will fix the mess the Liberals made. It will fix what is broken with jail and not bail. Now, let us bring it home.
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Mr. Speaker, yes I was. In fact, I would have undone the Liberal bail law in Bill C-75 six years ago, the day it was passed.
Not only did the minister go on vacation before addressing bail, but he also went to a radio station and claimed that we were holding up the reversal of Liberal bail policy. He thought no one would find out about this. In fact, he was on vacation and had allowed Parliament to rise without bail reform occurring in the first place. Let us not forget that what little good this bill would do is just undoing the damage his party already did.
Finally, I would ask the minister to stand in his place and apologize to Canadians for trying to gaslight them and tell them that rising crime is just a perception issue. I have given him all the data published by his own government, which shows that violent crime has raged out of control after eight years under the Prime Minister. These are data points. These are facts. Will he admit it and apologize for gaslighting Canadians?
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Mr. Speaker, now the Bloc Québécois wants me to talk about them in English. Bizarre.
Here are the facts. The Bloc Québécois supported the ban on hunting weapons. Their MP on the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights received the 300-page list of hunting weapons banned by the Liberals. He thought it was excellent and said that people had been waiting for this ban for years.
Now, perhaps the Bloc Québécois leader has forgotten how his party voted. Speaking of the carbon tax, yes, it does apply in Quebec.
We moved a motion in the House of Commons to cancel this tax. The Bloc Québécois voted to keep the tax. One Bloc member said it should be drastically increased.
I, for one, am going to stand up for Quebec taxpayers, not add to the burden that the federal government has put on them.
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Mr. Speaker, we are the only party that has been serious about this for the last eight years.
This member, along with the NDP, has voted to release repeat violent criminals into his community. He has helped unleash a crime wave on Vancouver Island. NDP and Liberal policies have brought about tent cities, chaos and drug overdoses; the member's only solution has been to ban the hunting rifles of the decent, hard-working, law-abiding people who live on Vancouver Island.
The NDP is totally out of touch. Common-sense Conservatives will stand up against crime and for hunters on Vancouver Island.
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- Sep/18/23 2:28:04 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, after the summer the Liberals have had, even the Prime Minister must admit that he is not worth the cost.
Eight years after he promised to make housing more affordable, he doubled the cost. Then he said that housing was not his job, panicked when he plummeted in the polls, and recycled promises that he had broken more than six years earlier.
It took the Prime Minister eight years to cause this housing hell. How long will it take him to fix it?
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- Sep/18/23 2:29:41 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, there is no well-being for people living in tents.
After eight years under this Prime Minister, the cost of housing has doubled. Interest rates are rising faster than at any other time in our country's economic history. Even former Liberal finance minister John Manley said that the Prime Minister's inflationary deficits are behind the rising interest rates, which are preventing people from building and buying homes.
Will the Prime Minister finally get rid of the inflationary deficits that are causing interest rates to go up and keep his promise to balance the budget?
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- Sep/18/23 2:31:00 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, after the summer the Liberals have had, even the Prime Minister must admit that he is not worth the cost. Eight years after he promised to make housing more affordable, he doubled the cost: doubled the rent, doubled mortgage payments and doubled the needed down payment. Then he said that housing is not his job. Then he panicked when he plummeted in the polls, and he recycled promises he had broken six years earlier.
It took him eight years to cause this housing hell. How long will it take to fix it?
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- Sep/18/23 2:32:07 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, he is building bureaucracy, not building homes. In fact, his inflationary deficits drive up interest rates, according to former Liberal finance minister John Manley. That ensures that it is harder not only to buy homes but also to build them.
Today we got the devastating news that not only are we not increasing home building, but also home building was down in August, 18 months after the Prime Minister's accelerator was brought into place.
When will he realize that he is not worth the cost, get out of the way and build homes, not bureaucracy?
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- Sep/18/23 2:33:21 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, all he has delivered is an economy that built fewer homes last year than were built in 1972. This year, housing construction is expected to drop further, by 32%. Data from August showed that home building was down again. His inflationary deficits drive up interest rates, which makes it harder for builders to finance their construction and harder for Canadians to afford a mortgage.
Will he finally do what he promised to do eight years ago, and that is to balance the budget to bring down interest rates and inflation?
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- Sep/18/23 2:40:21 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the NDP has now been in government for almost two years, during which time, by their own admission, both grocery prices and grocery profits have gone up. That is the result they get. Now they are supporting the Prime Minister's plan for a carbon tax that will rise to 61¢ a litre on the farmers who make food and the truckers who ship food. Their response to all this was to hold a big photo op today.
The Prime Minister claims food will be affordable by Thanksgiving, so by Thanksgiving, will lettuce be back down from its 94% increase because of today's meeting?
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- Sep/18/23 2:41:29 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, it is not just a single carbon tax. There is a second carbon tax that the Prime Minister wants to slap on Quebeckers. Yes, it will apply to Quebeckers—Quebec farmers and truck drivers who deliver our food. The Bloc supports that tax and wants to increase it “drastically”. This will only make food prices skyrocket.
Will the Prime Minister agree with the Bloc's request to drastically increase the carbon tax on the backs of Quebeckers?
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- Sep/18/23 3:30:04 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, moments ago, the Prime Minister made me aware of intelligence from his authorities linking the Indian government to the killing of Hardeep Singh Nijjar. Before going any further, let me offer my condolences to the family of Hardeep Singh Nijjar in the loss that this represents and the outrageous murder that brought it about.
If these allegations are true, they represent an outrageous affront to Canada's sovereignty. Our citizens must be safe from extrajudicial killings of all kinds, most of all from foreign governments. Canadians deserve to be protected on Canadian soil.
We call on the Indian government to act with the utmost transparency as authorities investigate this murder, because the truth must come out. We must know who performed the assassination and who was behind the assassination. The Conservatives will continue to work to get these answers.
All Canadians now stand with diaspora communities of Indian origin. It is now in this time that the official opposition makes an appeal for calm. We are all Canadians. This is our country. We must be united for our home and for each other.
Let us all lock arms and join hands in condemning this murder, standing with the family and friends of its victim. Let us all put aside our differences to stand up for the rule of law, one law for all of our people, a law made in this chamber by Canadians for Canadians.
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