Mr. Speaker, it is always a pleasure to rise on behalf of the great citizens of Brantford—Brant South—Six Nations. It is particularly poignant for me given today's topic and given my prior history in the criminal justice system. I dare say that one of the driving forces for me to leave behind, at that point, almost 28 years in criminal justice to become a legislator was that I saw first-hand, daily, the tragic consequences of the failed, soft-on-crime agenda of the Liberal government.
It started in 2015; changes were then made in 2019 with Bill C-75 and Bill C-83 and later, in 2023, with Bill C-5. The cumulative effect is that Canadians are now living in a state of fear. Canadians are waking up every single day to read, see and hear about one heartbreaking story after another, usually about someone who has been killed, wounded, maimed or injured; someone who has had their car stolen or their home invaded; or someone who has been subject to sexual assault. Lo and surprise, individuals committing these offences are on numerous releases and are classified by police services as being well known to them, because they are repeat violent offenders.
That is the reality Canada is facing. This was not the reality prior to 2019. In 2019, there was a balance in our criminal justice system, in which the constitutional rights of the accused, such as the right to be presumed innocent and the right to reasonable bail, were balanced evenly with community safety and the safety of victims. We saw more releases and more detention orders, and people had a level of confidence that things were working as they were supposed to.
In 2019, the government decided to lie to Canadians. Justin Trudeau and his former ministers deliberately lied to Canadians by saying—