- Member of Parliament
- Member of the Joint Interparliamentary Council
- Conservative
- St. Albert—Edmonton
- Alberta
- Voting Attendance: 67%
- Expenses Last Quarter: $119,185.60
- Government Page
- Jun/2/23 12:09:01 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, Logan Hunter and Jaxon Joseph had their lives taken in the Humboldt Broncos bus crash. Because of the reckless, criminal actions of one man, 16 people are dead and 13 more were injured. The perpetrator, a non-citizen, is fighting to stay in Canada. Logan's and Jaxon's parents want to know, if committing a crime of this consequence is not enough to get someone deported, then what is?
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Madam Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the hon. member for Banff—Airdrie.
I rise in strong opposition to Bill C-21, the latest ideological, evidence-free attack by the Liberals on law-abiding firearms owners.
Canada is facing a crime wave after eight years of this disastrous Liberal government. Violent crime is up 32%. Gang-related homicides have nearly doubled, up a staggering 94%. An unprecedented 10 police officers since September have been murdered in the line of duty. Random violent attacks on public transit and on the streets are now commonplace in cities right across Canada. More and more Canadians are feeling less safe in their communities, and that is because more communities that once were safe are no longer safe or are less safe now than when the Liberals took office.
By contrast to the staggering 32% increase in violent crime under the Liberals, under Prime Minister Harper's Conservatives, violent crime went down 33%. In fact, the Liberals have managed to do something that no government has done, which is to reverse a 30-year trend in which Canada, until the Liberals came to power, saw a downward spiral in crime. Now it is up 32%.
I say that because this violent crime wave did not happen in a vacuum, it did not happen by accident and it did not even happen as a result of inaction on the part of the Liberals. It happened as a result of very deliberate and very specific policies regarding Canada's criminal justice system embraced by the Liberals.
The Prime Minister has embraced, full stop, a series of virtue-signalling, woke criminal justice policies. These are policies that the Prime Minister has imported from the United States. They are disastrous policies that have been implemented south of the border by radical, left-wing, big-city mayors and district attorneys. They are policies that have resulted in large swaths of once great American cities, such as Chicago, San Francisco, Seattle and Portland, Oregon, turning into crime no-go zones. It is these American-style policies that the Prime Minister is importing to Canada.
Let us look at the disastrous record of the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister, in 2018, was responsible for passing Bill C-75, which established catch-and-release bail. Thanks to the Prime Minister, a judge is now required to make it the primary consideration that an accused be released at the earliest opportunity with the least onerous conditions possible. This has resulted in a revolving door. It has meant that, in many instances, criminals are released back onto the streets and are out committing crimes the very same day they were arrested for the crimes they committed. That is catch-and-release Liberal bail.
Let us look at some of the statistics as a consequence.
In the city of Vancouver, 40 hard-core criminals are responsible for 6,000 arrests a year. That is 150 arrests per offender. Liberal catch-and-release bail has meant that a small number of hard-core criminals are overwhelmingly and disproportionately responsible for a significant number of criminal incidents.
In Edmonton, a community I am proud to represent in this place, a young mother, Carolann Robillard, and her 11-year-old daughter, Sara, are now dead thanks to Liberal catch-and-release bail. Carolann and Sara were brutally murdered, stabbed to death at a park, of all places, at an elementary school.
They were brutally stabbed to death by who? It was a total stranger who happen to be a hard-core violent criminal, who, thanks to Liberal catch-and-release, had been released on bail just 18 days prior. Who was this violent offender who stabbed to death an 11-year-old girl and her young mother outside an elementary school? He was someone who had a 14-year rap sheet of committing violent attacks.
He had been convicted multiple times of serious offences such as aggravated assault, assault with a weapon, multiple robberies and assaulting a correctional officer. Last year, he attacked a 12-year-old girl on an LRT in Edmonton. That is who was released thanks to Liberal catch-and-release bail. He never should have been released. He should have been kept behind bars. He never should have been on bail. It is outrageous that he was.
It is outrageous that the folks across the way can so sanctimoniously defend a series of policies that are indefensible. They are putting lives at risk and endangering public safety. How dare they.
It is not just catch and release. This is a government that, last year, passed Bill C-5, the fourth piece of legislation the government introduced in this Parliament. It is obviously a top priority for the government. What does Bill C-5 do? It significantly expands house arrest for some very serious offences, including sexual assault, kidnapping and human trafficking. In other words, criminals convicted of such offences will not have to spend a single day in jail.
What about firearms? We hear a lot about the Liberals' professed concern about firearms. It seems they are obsessed with firearms as objects, but they have not figured out that firearms do not commit crimes; criminals with firearms commit crimes. What have the Liberals done about criminals who go out and commit offences with guns? Bill C-5 actually eliminates mandatory jail time for serious gun crime, including robbery with a gun, using a firearm in the commission of an offence, discharging a firearm with the intent to injure and weapons trafficking. That is the approach of the Liberals.
It is a policy of the woke. It is a policy grounded in absurdity. Compounding that absurdity is Bill C-21, which is now before the House. It is a bill that does not take illegal firearms off the streets. It does not keep repeat offenders behind bars where they belong. Incredibly, it goes after law-abiding, licensed firearms owners, who are among the group of Canadians least likely to commit a crime.
Those are the people the Liberals are going after. It could not be more absurd. The government's set of priorities could not be more backwards.
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- Feb/3/23 11:08:47 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, after eight years of the Prime Minister, Canada is facing a crime wave. Since the Prime Minister was elected, violent crime is up 32%. Violent gang crime is up a staggering 92%, and in 2021 there were 124,000 more violent criminal incidents compared to 2015 when the Prime Minister was elected.
This is not a coincidence. Whether it is the Liberals' catch-and-release bail policies, eliminating mandatory jail time for serious gun crime or drastically expanding house arrest for such serious offences as sexual assault and kidnapping, the crime wave is a direct result of failed soft-on-crime Liberal policies.
The only way to defeat this violent crime wave is to defeat this soft-on-crime Liberal government and elect a Conservative government committed to standing up for victims and holding violent criminals to account to the fullest extent of the law.
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- Sep/22/22 3:00:09 p.m.
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- Re: Bill C-5
Mr. Speaker, Canadians expect that criminals convicted of sexual assault, kidnapping and human trafficking serve their sentence from behind bars, but not these soft-on-crime Liberals, with their do no crime Bill C-5, which incredibly allows criminals convicted of these and other serious offences to serve their sentence from home.
Could the Liberals explain how letting loose into the community the likes of sexual predators, kidnappers and human traffickers protects public safety?
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- Jun/9/22 5:16:17 p.m.
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- Re: Bill C-5
Madam Speaker, I rise to speak on the Liberals' do-no-time, soft-on-crime bill, Bill C-5. This do-no-time, soft-on-crime Liberal bill eliminates mandatory jail time for serious firearms-related offences and serious drug offences, and significantly expands conditional sentencing orders, otherwise known as house arrests, for an array of violent and other serious offences.
Yesterday in the House, the Minister of Justice, in an effort to defend this soft-on-crime bill, said something truly remarkable. He said not to worry about it, because Bill C-5 targets “situations where public security and public safety are not at risk.” Really? Perhaps the minister should read his own bill because if he did, he would learn that Bill C-5 eliminates mandatory jail time for such firearms offences as robbery with a firearm, weapons trafficking, extortion with a firearm, using a firearm with the intent to injure and using a firearm in the commission of a crime, among other serious firearms offences. However, the Minister of Justice says that Bill C-5 targets “situations where public security and public safety are not at risk.” Is he kidding?
I think Canadians would be absolutely shocked if they knew that the Minister of Justice thought that robbery with a firearm, using a firearm in the commission of an offence and discharging a firearm with the intent to injure constitute crimes in which public security and public safety are not an issue. We literally cannot make this stuff up, yet there he was in this place asserting that with a straight face.
It goes on. As I noted, this bill significantly expands house arrests. With the passage of Bill C-5, criminals convicted of such offences as kidnapping a minor, arson for a fraudulent purpose, assault with a weapon, impaired driving causing death and sexual assault would be able to serve their sentences at home, instead of behind bars where they belong. There we have it. These are offences such as sexual assault, kidnapping a minor and arson for a fraudulent purpose, but the minister says that Bill C-5 targets “situations where public security and public safety are not at risk.” As I said, we cannot make this stuff up.
I will tell members who disagrees with the minister: Many of the key witnesses who came to the justice committee, representatives of law enforcement, victims' advocates and community leaders. They have a very different take on the impact that Bill C-5 is going to have.
Take the crime of sexual assault. Jennifer Dunn, of the London Abused Women's Centre, came before the committee and said now that perpetrators of sexual assault would be able to serve their sentences at home, the victims of sexual assault, particularly women, were going to be put at even greater risk because they were going to be stuck in the same communities, often, as the perpetrators. No kidding. This is a news flash to the minister.
Then there is André Gélinas, a retired detective sergeant from the Montreal police service who characterized Bill C-5 as “a race to the bottom”.
He went on to say:
It is paradoxical and totally dichotomous to think that abolishing mandatory minimum sentences that apply to criminal offences involving firearms will have a beneficial effect on our communities.
Staff Sergeant Michael Rowe appeared before the committee representing the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police. With respect to the mandatory jail times involving serious firearms offences that Bill C-5 seeks to repeal, he said that these specific mandatory jail times “hold significant value when addressing public safety and gang-related violence”.
Anie Samson, a former Montreal municipal councillor and mayor of a borough in the most multicultural part of Montreal, which has unfortunately been ravaged by serious gun and gang violence, said that Bill C-5, in eliminating mandatory jail time for serious firearms offences, “exacerbates impunity”.
There we have it. Contrary to the Minister of Justice's ridiculous assertion, key witnesses before the justice committee said very clearly that Bill C-5 would in fact undermine public security, undermine public safety and put victims at risk, particularly victims of such crimes as sexual assault.
Do members know who would also be hurt and put at risk, contrary to the talking points of the Liberals? It would be persons struggling with addictions and vulnerable Canadians. The Minister of Justice, at second reading, spoke about the fact that we have an opioid crisis in Canada, and he is quite right. He spoke about the need, in order to address that crisis, to implement measures around education, treatment and rehabilitation. He would not find argument on this side of the House on that point.
However, Bill C-5 would do none of those things. What Bill C-5 would do is eliminate mandatory jail time for the very people, the very criminals, who are profiting from putting poison on our streets that is killing 20 Canadians a day and 7,000 Canadians a year in the opioid crisis. Those are the people who are going to benefit from Bill C-5, because Bill C-5 would eliminate mandatory jail time for producers and pushers of schedule 1 and schedule 2 drugs under the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act. These are drugs such as fentanyl and crystal meth.
I challenge the Minister of Justice to explain how it is that simply eliminating mandatory jail time for the producers and pushers of these killer drugs would make anyone safer. It simply would not. This bill really does speak to the priorities of the Liberal government or, I would submit, the misplaced priorities of the government. The government's priority is to put criminals first, public security, public safety and the rights of victims be damned.
This is a reckless and dangerous bill that would undermine safety in our communities, put victims last and put vulnerable Canadians at risk. That is why we on the Conservative side of the House will continue to fight this bill every step of the way.
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