Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak to Bill C-489, An Act to amend the Criminal Code and the Corrections and Conditional Release Act.

I would first like to congratulate my colleague, the hon. member for Langley, on his initiative. We in the NDP understand that steps have been taken for both victims and witnesses. We understand where he is coming from on this. We know he met with people in his riding who went to see him to explain what a real problem this is.

As long as I have been a member of the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights, along with my hon. colleague from Gatineau, we have seen a great deal of discussion and many bills on this matter. Quite frankly, having moved over to the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights from the Standing Committee on Finance, we can understand much better and see the concrete impact this could have on victims.

The NDP has always been in favour of victim protection and we still are, which is why we are supporting the bill. We want to study it at the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights.

Why do we want to study it? We are seeing more and more private members' bills being used to advance the government's agenda. We are not the only ones to say so. It is being widely reported in the media. Why is the government doing that? That is what we want to know and we think it is worth looking into the process. Again, this is not about taking away from or attacking the member for Langley's bill, but about how the process is being used.

This bill addresses something rather important in that it would amend the Criminal Code and related legislation. In this case, we know that the Conservative government is being sued by Edgar Schmidt, who used to work at Justice Canada. He claims that the government was not obeying the law and not fulfilling its obligations to ensure that government bills are consistent with the charter.

What is more, with the Conservatives, the cost of justice is at a record high because the government has to defend its bills in court. We are talking about $5 billion. That is quite a bit of money just to get the government to fulfill its legal obligations.

Again, we want to know why a private members' bill is being used to introduce something that is already part of the government's law and order agenda.

The Minister of Justice has really pushed this agenda. It is not necessarily the government doing this. It is backbenchers who are introducing these bills.

To come back to Bill C-489, I want to say that it has good intentions in that it seeks to protect victims. The bill would ensure that a judge hearing a case is required to impose certain obligations. The judge would have to make an order prohibiting certain offenders from being within two kilometres of a dwelling house where the victim is present without a parent, say, the father. This is very important, as it was something that was raised by the Office of the Federal Ombudsman for Victims of Crime.

In his report it was mentioned that “...it might help a victim to feel more at ease if they were informed of a local instruction placed on the offender that prohibited him or her from going within a certain distance of the victim's residence.”

One thing that we will need to look at is how the two kilometres would apply. I heard the member of Parliament for Langley mention that he went from five kilometres to two kilometres. When we look at what happens specifically in certain regions, two kilometres basically means that the person would have to be evacuated from where he or she lived. This is something we need to look at in the justice committee.

Again, I applaud and commend the member for thinking of victims. On this side, we also understand that we need to protect victims and we will look at the bill in more detail in the justice committee.

Hoang Mai

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Private Members' Business

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