Mr. Speaker, in his work Zadig; or, The Book of Fate, Voltaire said, “It is better to risk saving a guilty person than to condemn an innocent one.” This is a principle that exists in all democracies, in all developed societies around the world.
Keeping an accused person in jail rather than making efforts to release them under the presumption of innocence goes against all the basic rights that we stand for in democratic societies. Some countries, however, would disagree. North Korea, China and Iran do this, among others, but here in Canada, it is not part of our values.
Does my colleague still believe in a democratic system and in our core values that we follow and respect here in Quebec and Canada?