Our Conservative government strongly believes that the justice system should put the rights of law-abiding citizens ahead of the rights of criminals. Since first taking office in 2006, we’ve strived to restore balance to a system that all too often concerns itself first with the perpetrators of crime rather than their victims.
In five years of minority government, we managed to pass a number of important laws that are making our streets safer for Canadians. For example, we’ve toughened sentencing and bail for serious gun crimes; ended sentence discounts for multiple murders; abolished the faint-hope clause that granted early parole for murderers and cracked down on auto theft and trafficking in stolen property, to name just a few.
Unfortunately, however, progress on our law-and-order agenda just as often fell victim to the soft-on-crime ideology of opposition parties. Prior to the recent election, many of our government’s bills faced co-ordinated obstruction by opposition parties who are apologists for criminals. In the election, Canadians showed their support for our government’s efforts to put victims of crime first. Our government’s renewed majority mandate means we can now proceed with common-sense reforms to protect law-abiding Canadians.
Canadians have waited long enough for these measures. We promised during the election that a majority Conservative government would bundle and pass into law our outstanding and delayed justice bills within Parliament’s first 100 days and that is just what we intend to do.
This comprehensive legislation will include new measures that will: crack down on organized drug crime; end house arrest for violent criminals and sexual offenders; eliminate pardons for serious criminals; establish tougher sentences and mandatory jail time for sexual offences against children; strengthen the handling of violent and repeat young offenders; give police and courts the tools they need to investigate and prevent acts of terrorism; and streamline long and complex trials, to ensure justice is delivered swiftly.
The comprehensive bill is in addition to new measures we outlined during the election that will combat drug use in prisons, combat human trafficking, crack down on elder abuse and strengthening laws on self-defence for citizens.
Our government believes that punishment should fit the crime and is moving quickly on outstanding measures to protect the vulnerable and to better hold criminals to account.
