Mr. Speaker, before I begin, I would like to take a moment to thank all of my colleagues in the House for this last four years and a bit. This has been a great session of Parliament. I know a number of people have made a decision not to come back, but I would also recognize some of those people who have made decision to come here, in spite of ill health, to serve the country and their constituents. It has been a real pleasure to be here with them.

I rise today to talk about our government's highest purpose. What should that purpose be of any government? It is the protection of Canadians, ensuring our streets and communities, and our country are safe for honest, law-abiding people as we live, work and raise our families.

At all times, our government has endeavoured to ensure that our system of criminal justice reflects both this high purpose and the values and priorities of Canadians more broadly. For example, to give victims of crime a stronger voice we introduced and passed our Victims Bill of Rights Act. For too many years the welfare of the criminal was held up as a highest priority of criminal justice. This historic legislation, the Victims Bill of Rights, puts innocent victims back to where they should have been all along, at the very heart of our system of justice.

We have also changed laws regarding people deemed not criminally responsible for violent acts, ensuring that while dangerous offenders with mental illness receive the care they need, we also take care of the safety of the public.

Reflecting the values of Canadians also means that both the gravity of the offence and the need to protect Canadians must be considered in sentencing. That is why we got rid of the faint hope clause that allowed killers to apply for early parole. That is why when the criminal kills more than one person, under our law, judges can now impose consecutive sentences and take every lost life into account. That is why we have made it easier to deport foreign criminals from Canadian soil and have made it more difficult for them to enter the country in the first place. That is why we have made it easier to remove dangerous foreign criminals from Canada's shores and to make it more difficult for them to even get here in the first place. That is why we have toughened penalties, including creating mandatory prison sentences for many serious violent offences, in particular sex crimes against children.

When we say all of these things, let us be clear: we desire the rehabilitation of all criminals. However, certain criminals are too cruel and too dangerous to be released. When people break the laws and pay their debt to society, our hope is always for permanent rehabilitation. No one wants to see anyone degenerate into a lifetime of crime, but there are some criminals, the most dangerous and violent offenders, whose actions mean we cannot risk putting them back on our streets. However, as the law stands, sometimes we do.

Bill C-53 would end this practice, specifically for criminals who prey on society's most vulnerable, plotting kidnapping or sexual assault that ends in murder; criminals with such contempt for law and order that they kill correctional or police officers charged with that protection; criminals who so despise our values and our way of life that they carry out deadly acts of terrorism and high treason; and criminals whose crimes are so horrific that they shock the conscience of the entire community. The freedom of these criminals would compromise the freedom of everyone around them.

The suffering of the victims of such horrific crimes and the suffering of those who love them is bad enough. However, when the whole truth is known, they find out that the crime could have been prevented in the first place, that the crime should have been prevented but it was not, that the perpetrator was someone who could have been, should have been, securely behind bars. When that is discovered, at that moment their anguish, compounded by disbelief, becomes outrage, not just to them but to the entire country. Then we are all left to wonder what justice really means.

Canadians ask, rightly, why the most dangerous killers once in prison should ever be free again only to threaten our children, our families, our friends, our neighbours and our fellow citizens. It is very hard to argue with that, and our government has no intention of arguing with it. This sort of thing must end in our country.

The fact is that there are certain criminals who should never be allowed to walk the streets, where we and our neighbours live and work, or in the streets where our children play.

Dave MacKenzie