Georgina · East Gwillimbury · King  .
 
Bradford West Gwillimbury · Innisfil  .

As Public Safety Minister, I work closely together with Justice Minister Rob Nicholson to fight crime.  A big part of that is changing our laws to help the police and to create real consequences for criminals.

Together, we have proposed new laws to do things like ending early parole for murderers, combatting auto theft, combatting organized crime and making prisoners earn their parole.

But as was the case in the previous Parliament, the Liberals are again blocking initiatives designed to fight crime.  There is a pattern.  They support the bills when the media are paying attention in the House of Commons.  But when the cameras are turned off, the Liberals use delay and amendments to obstruct the proposals from becoming law.  They do this at Parliamentary Committees and in the Senate - where the media rarely follow events, and cameras are not permitted.

We saw this in the previous Parliament.  Then, we had to threaten an election three different times by making our mandatory prison sentences for gun crimes bill a confidence matter.  I'm sure that if we had not raised the stakes in this fashion, the bill would never have become law.

Now, the same thing is happening again. 

One bill being blocked by Liberal Senators seeks to end a tactic criminal lawyers use to shorten prison sentences for criminals.  Judges have developed a system of giving criminals bonus credits for the time they serve in jail before they are convicted.  Usually, it is a two for one bonus.  That means, a criminal who spent a year and a half in custody before he is found guilty, is credited as if he has already served three years of his sentence.  Some judges are giving three for one credits. 

Enterprising lawyers are running up legal aid costs by dragging out proceedings with motions, and other tactics.  This is to lengthen time in custody - and shorten the ultimate sentence thanks to the bonus credit.

Our bill to end these bonus credits for criminals was supported unanimously in the House of Commons.  But in the camera-free Senate, Liberal Senators gutted the bill amending it to make it almost meaningless.

 The Canadian Police Association said members are "dismayed and concerned" by the Senate committee's proposed amendments.    "We are astonished that members of this Senate committee would side with the interests of convicted criminals and provide them with a codified get-out-of-jail card," said Charles Momy, the CPA president.

Yet the Liberal Senators are doing the same thing on our proposed law to crack down on major importers, exporters and major manufacturers of illegal drugs.  After Liberals supported the laws when the cameras were on in the House of Commons, they are now trying to block the changes at the lower profile Senate.

People ask me why we keep saying we are tackling crime, yet progress is so slow.  The past week's games by the Liberals in the Senate answers the question.  It's not easy tackling crime, when the Opposition Liberals keep finding new ways of blocking change.

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