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Decentralized Democracy

House Hansard - 303

44th Parl. 1st Sess.
April 19, 2024 10:00AM
Context: House Hansard - 303 - Apr/19/24
Mr. Joël Godin (Portneuf—Jacques-Cartier, CPC)
  • Apr/19/24 12:01:08 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, this Liberal government has been in power for nine years. We already know, but it bears repeating: It is not worth the cost. In Montreal, it is the wild west. Criminals do not respect authority. On Wednesday, car thieves, behind the wheel of their stolen car, crashed into highway patrol. Is that normal in a civilized country like Canada? Will the Prime Minister of the Liberal-Bloc coalition end his soft-on-crime policies and throw repeat car thieves in jail?
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Context: House Hansard - 303 - Apr/19/24
Mr. Kevin Lamoureux (Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons, Lib.)
Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise and add a few thoughts on Bill C-351. It is one of the planks the Conservative Party's members talk about. If we remember, there are four things that they talk about, saying these are the things they would do if they were, heaven forbid, to form government. One of them is to abolish crime. I am not too sure exactly how they are going to abolish crime. I think they have some sort of wand or, through legislation, they are going to make it illegal to commit a crime and, therefore, if it is illegal to commit a crime, crime will go away. I suspect that is what they are thinking. I say that somewhat sarcastically, but when I look at this bill, it reinforces the need to maybe chastise the Conservatives and their approach in terms of how they like to say one thing when they are in opposition and do something else when they are in government. I was surprised when going over the summary. I would ask my friends across the way to follow along. I am sure they would agree with me that there is quite a bit of hypocrisy they might be witnessing first-hand. I will read the summary of the bill. It states that Bill C-351 seeks to amend the Corrections and Conditional Release Act to require that inmates who have been designated as dangerous offenders or convicted of more than one count of first-degree murder be classified as a maximum-security offender and be confined, and this is the really important part, in maximum security by Correctional Service Canada. There are many thoughts that come to my mind regarding what is being proposed. I could talk about the technicalities of trusting the people in place who are professionally trained individuals and have done a fairly incredible job in our jails, correctional facilities and so forth, and of having more faith in them. I could comment on that, but, rather, I want to point out and expand upon the comments I made about the hypocrisy issue. Many members will recall the horrific brutality of the killing of Tori Stafford and the abuse and murder that ultimately took place. In fact, it was not that long ago when we heard a regurgitation of it by a number of Conservative members of Parliament, who were raising the issue in fairly graphic detail at times. They were doing that because Terri-Lynne McClintic was transferred to a healing lodge. The Conservative Party was absolutely outraged because that had taken place. A number of Conservatives took it upon themselves, as I said, to graphically explain what happened to the victim, somewhat referring to the family. Even to this day, I extend my most sincere condolences to them in recognizing the horrific actions that took place. The family and the community are still living with that tragedy. Having said that, we were soundly criticized. I believe Ralph Goodale was minister of public safety at the time and he was being criticized because of this transfer. I remember it quite well because it was being debated and I commented on the issue. As the debate went on, one of the things we found out was that it was actually Stephen Harper's government that saw Terri-Lynne McClintic transferred out of a high-security prison into a medium-security prison, which enabled her to be transferred to the healing lodge. With a little more research, what can be found is that this is not the first person. When the Conservative Party was in power, we saw a mass murderer actually being transferred out of high-security into medium-security prison. Now we have a private member's bill that is against what Stephen Harper and his government did. They allowed the professionals, the individuals charged with the responsibility for issues such as jail conditions, the type of incarceration and so forth, to make the decisions. Stephen Harper did what was expected of him as prime minister. Where were the Conservative voices back then? The leader of the Conservative Party was actually in Stephen Harper's cabinet. I am sure members could appreciate why I am a little skeptical of how the Conservatives are now taking the position that they want high security and that it is absolutely mandatory. At the end of the day, it is all about the votes for the Conservative Party. It is not about the issues, and they have demonstrated that. It is interesting. The Conservatives recently started talking about auto thefts. Now they are being critical of the government, and we have taken tangible actions on that. I think back to 2007-08, although I might be off by a year or two, when I was in the provincial legislature in Manitoba. The prime minister was Stephen Harper, and today's leader of the Conservative Party was with him. At that time, no province in the country had more auto theft than the province of Manitoba did, and it was by a long shot. This was not even on a per capita basis. On a per capita basis, it would have been an astronomical difference. We had a serious issue. What got Manitoba back on the right track was when law enforcement, the federal government and the province came together to come up with a solution to deal with auto theft in the province of Manitoba. It was very effective once it really got going. One should not quote me on the numbers, but we are talking about thousands of vehicles. If we look at Manitoba, with a population base of under 1.2 million back then, and Ontario, with 14 million-plus people, we still had more vehicles being stolen. It took the governments coming together to make a difference. That is what we are seeing with Ontario and Quebec in trying to deal with this very serious issue. Therein lies the difference between the Conservatives and the Liberals. As a government, we are prepared to work with other jurisdictions in order to have their backs and support Canadians in whatever way we can. We can contrast that with the Conservatives, who are more interested in bumper stickers than they are in resolving problems. That is how I see Bill C-351, which is actually a flip-flop on the position Conservatives held when they were in government and Stephen Harper was the prime minister.
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