Bob Rae Liberal Toronto Centre, ON

Mr. Speaker, that is absurd. Of course we are all against violent crime. I have not met anybody in the House who is in favour of violent crime. That is not what the debate is all about and the minister knows that. He is an intelligent person and knows perfectly well that is not what the discussion is about.

The debate is about whether these measures will actually have the effect that the government says they will have. Does he not appreciate and understand the impact that these measures put all together would have on the administration of justice?

The bill would not only have a dramatic effect on the size of our prisons and the prison population but it would also have a significant impact with respect to the administration of the courts. It would have a huge impact on how crown attorneys do their job. It would have an enormous effect on whether plea bargaining could ever take place. It would jam up the courts and cost the provinces and the country billions of dollars. It would not add to the security of Canadians with respect to criminal activity. That has to do with a crime prevention agenda to deal with the root causes of crime.

The minister is simply carrying us down a road that has been tried in the American states and has been abandoned by most of the American states that have tried it. It has been criticized by people from all sides of the political spectrum, from the right, left and centre, and from anybody looking at this in a rational way.

Why is the government persisting in taking this country down a path in which wherever it has been tried has been eventually rejected by the people and governments of those places because they have found that it simply does not work?

The government is dumb on crime and it would have a terrible effect--