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Decentralized Democracy

House Hansard - 219

44th Parl. 1st Sess.
September 18, 2023 11:00AM
Context: House Hansard - 219 - Sep/18/23
Ms. Elizabeth May (Saanich—Gulf Islands, GP)
  • Sep/18/23 4:54:59 p.m.
  • Watch
  • Re: Bill C-48 
Madam Speaker, I hope my hon. colleague from Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo had a good summer. I know his area was also affected quite heavily by smoke. I heard the exchange with the hon. member for Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke. I know it is tempting in this place to paraphrase what another member has said, and in some way, make their comments seem less responsive to public will. I just know that when my colleague from Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke commented about offenders who were shoplifting, it was not to trivialize what they were doing. Rather, it was to clarify a statistic used earlier in this place by a different member, who categorized a large number of offences as due to violent crimes. The member for Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke was merely providing a factual context that a lot of those crimes were not violent. I do not think he trivialized them.
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Context: House Hansard - 219 - Sep/18/23
Mr. Frank Caputo
  • Sep/18/23 4:56:06 p.m.
  • Watch
  • Re: Bill C-48 
Madam Speaker, in response, I do not believe that my hon. colleague who mentioned this was providing any sort of evidentiary basis or any sort of statistics to prove that. Whether something is trivialized is obviously in the eye of the beholder. My point was that, when we talk about different things, it is my view that these types of offences can become very serious. We are not talking about dealing with people who have one-off offences. Nobody is asking to lock people up and throw away the key for somebody who messes up. We are looking at a subset of serious offenders who disproportionately commit a significant number of offences. I believe our leader will be the next prime minister. When he says we should be targeting these people who have committed a disproportionate number of crimes, that is not something to trivialize. Those are the people we should be addressing in our legislation.
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