44th Parl. 1st Sess.
February 6, 2024 10:00AM
- Feb/6/24 12:10:14 p.m.
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- Re: Bill C-5
Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with my colleague and good friend, the member for Oxford.
Since 2015, the Liberals have pursued a systematic agenda of dismantling Canada’s judicial system and undermining the rule of law in this country. They have not only done so with their repeated ethics violations and blatant disrespect for the charter but have also done so through more legitimate means, like through acts of Parliament. Thanks to Liberal bills that passed under a former justice minister, committing crimes has become easier and more common than before.
It seems that under the current minister, the streak will continue, given the responses we have heard in the House already, along with some colourful language of course. At every step of the way, Liberals have placed the rights of offenders over the rights of victims, and their woke, out-of-touch ideology over common sense and safety.
With respect to deterring crimes, the Liberals' Bill C-5 eliminates mandatory minimum sentences for dangerous crimes such as robbery with a firearm, sexual assault and drug trafficking. There are others. Not only that, but it also allows hardened criminals to serve their reduced sentence in the comfort of their own home, to serve time while watching TV in their living room, sleeping in their own bed and enjoying the privileges that all those who have not committed crimes enjoy.
With respect to arresting criminals, the catch-and-release practices now mean that it is nearly impossible to keep dangerous offenders in jail for more than a few hours. They are then released back into the world, free to commit crimes, sometimes even the same crimes and on the same day, over and over again. The revolving door spins, cycling through a rotation of hardened, merciless lawbreakers who face no accountability. They are free to break the law over and over again, putting the public at risk and propagating unnecessary harm on communities, innocent victims, families and neighbourhoods.
Finally, with respect to prosecuting criminals, after eight years of the Liberal-NDP incompetence, the government has decayed our justice system and made it just a shell of its former self. It takes months to get a court date. Resources have been stretched to the limit, which makes it harder to catch criminals, and it is harder to keep them accountable. Therefore it is no surprise that our streets are more dangerous and that Canadians are worried that their once-safe neighbourhoods are subject to crime, chaos, drugs and disorder. Every single day we see new, outrageous headlines about individuals who are putting communities in danger and about a system that is failing Canadians.
Just last week, a 43-year-old man stabbed a total stranger with a syringe in broad daylight in downtown Toronto. The man was out on bail for previous assaults and has had more than 40 convictions in his lifetime, including failure to comply with the court and failure to attend court dates. The incident was in the middle of the day in Toronto. However, thanks to the Liberal policies, we know he will get bail one more time and that the cycle will continue again and again.
Stories like these add up; that is what makes Canadians feel unsafe. It is not just a feeling; it is based on empirical data and evidence. The stories not only add up to broken communities, broken victims and broken families; they also a story about the state of our country. Since 2015, gang crimes have doubled and violent crime is up 37%. Canada’s murder rate is the highest it has been in 30 years, since the last time there was a Liberal government in power, and nowhere is the story more out of control and more apparent than when it comes to auto theft.
Too many people wake up, look out the window and see that their car that was sitting in their driveway the night before is no longer there. It is gone. It was taken while they were sleeping in safe communities like mine, where, at one time, nobody locked their front door. Since 2015, car thefts have tripled in Canada. More than 100,000 vehicles are being stolen every year, including nearly 10,000 in Toronto alone. That means that every six minutes in Canada, a car is stolen. Gangs and criminals profit from the criminal activity and use it to finance even more criminal activities, like more car theft, arms trafficking, human trafficking and drug trafficking.
Do not listen to me; the Prime Minister actually admitted it in his own press release. It costs every Canadian who drives almost everywhere more to pay for this. It cost the insurance industry a billion dollars in 2022. Everyone in the province is now paying more to drive. In Ontario, car theft claims, just in the first half of last year, were up 329%. That accounts for $700 million in losses. It means $130 more for every Ontario driver on insurance.
Why is this happening? Let us lead ourselves back to the dangerous catch-and-release policies that unleashed crime and chaos in communities. Bill C-75 allows repeat violent offenders to be released on bail within hours of arrest. They then often re-offend. Last year, even Mayor Steven Del Duca, who is the mayor of Vaughan and probably a familiar name to many on the other side, wrote to the Prime Minister, calling on the federal government to urgently modernize Canada’s bail system to ensure that dangerous offenders are kept off our streets for committing crimes ranging from gun violence to home break-ins and auto thefts.
The mayor wrote to Canada’s then public safety minister, asking about auto theft specifically and asking that CBSA protocols be tightened for screening and inspection of exports leaving our country. It fell on deaf ears. There was nothing until last week from the government's member of Parliament who represents a riding in Vaughan. The letter was written in January, after the problem got so out of control that the council had to step in to demand action for something it had been asking for.
For what happens after offenders have been convicted, the government did not let it stop at Bill C-75. Bill C-5 gives convicts house arrest, even those with long, storied histories of stealing multiple cars. This means that they can just walk out their front door, be on the streets again and start stealing cars and terrorizing neighbourhoods when they are done doing whatever they do in the comforts of their own homes.
One last thing is that the federal government controls our ports, the places where organized crime is taking place: en route to federal ports and at federal ports. Stolen cars are waiting at federal ports to be shipped overseas.
It is time for a new approach. It is time to start increasing mandatory jail time to deter the actual crime and not to have people keep doing it over and over again. We propose three years for three thefts, and of course ending house arrest for car thieves while also increasing sentences for gang-associated car thieves.
Police, insurance associations, community groups and business organizations have been sounding the alarm bell about this for years. Our own constituents send us videos of it happening right in their front driveway, but their concerns have fallen on the deaf ears of the Liberal government, which in the meantime still continues to stand with lawbreakers instead of with law enforcement.
Now the calls have reached a breaking point, and the Liberals are finally going to do something about it. What is that something? Are they going to increase the punishments? No, they will not. Are they going to end catch-and-release policies that turn repeat violent offenders back onto our streets? Are they going to crack down on the incompetence at Canadian ports that allows thousands of cars? Nope, they will not.
They are going to have a summit. They are going to sit around a table. They are going to have a meeting. They are going to come out with a press release. They are going to take some photos. They are going to talk about it, after eight years, this problem that has gotten out of control.
They had a summit on food prices; food prices went up. They had a summit on housing; housing prices have doubled. I can hardly wait to see the results from this summer. In fact, I think Canadians would beg them not to have a summit. Instead, they should start cracking down on the violent offenders, keep them behind bars when they re-commit, stop the house arrests and actually get serious about fighting crime in every single neighbourhood across the country.
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- Feb/6/24 12:20:35 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, violent crime in this country has gone up by 32%. Gang-related crime has gone up by over 90% in this country. There needs to be something done about it, and that is exactly what we are talking about right here. We are talking about the solutions that we are going to put in place to keep repeat violent offenders in jail.
The member can talk about whatever he wants, but this motion today is about, frankly, keeping our cars in our driveway and putting the bad guys in jail. I do not know why that is such a novel concept in this country.
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- Feb/6/24 12:21:56 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, this is a constant refrain that has been coming up in the House. The Conservatives actually spent less money, and the rate of crime was lower than it is today. We have had a 300% increase in car theft in Toronto since the Liberals took power. Yes, we probably did spend less money as a Conservative government, but does the member know what is worse than failure? It is expensive failure, and that is exactly what we see from this government.
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- Feb/6/24 12:23:34 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the member does have one thing right. We are the tough-on-crime party. We are the only tough-on-crime party in the entire House.
The truth is that I am not the one who needs to explain to my constituents why I am propping up a government, at every single opportunity and in every single confidence motion, that has let the rate of crime rise in this country to 32% higher on violent crime, to 100% higher on gang-related crime and to 300% higher on auto theft.
Hundreds of thousands of cars are being stolen in this country, and the member who just asked me the question is supporting a meeting and supporting tougher measures by car companies, placing the blame on car companies instead of the government that he supports at every single measure, no matter how hard it has failed in this country.
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- Feb/6/24 12:25:08 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, we are talking about repeat offenders doing the same thing over and over again. What is woke is allowing this to continue to happen in this country with absolutely no recourse, no punishment and no jail time, and I do not think Canadians will stand for it.
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- Feb/6/24 2:31:13 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, after months of feigned outrage and apologies on behalf of everyone else, a new report from The Globe and Mail shows that the Prime Minister's Office invited a Nazi to his diplomatic reception in Toronto. The Prime Minister blamed the Speaker, saying that he acted alone. The Prime Minister is saying he had no idea about any of it. He called for the Speaker to take responsibility. He watched him resign, and yesterday he tried to blame the Ukrainian Canadian Congress.
After all of the embarrassment all over the world, why is the Prime Minister above the rules he applies to everyone else?
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- Feb/6/24 2:32:28 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, what an embarrassment it must be for the House leader to have to clean up the Prime Minister's mess every day. The invitation had the Prime Minister's name on it. It came from him, and for months he said only the Speaker invited Hunka. That turned out to not be true. The Prime Minister's own House leader said that the invitation merited a Speaker's resignation. The Speaker resigned because of him, and all of the Liberals watched him do it.
Will the Prime Minister be subject to the rules he imposes on everyone else?
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