“Over the past two years, our government has been working tirelessly to make these important changes to Canada’s criminal justice system,” said Clement.

On May 1, it was announced that three areas of the Tackling Violent Crimes Act would be expanded to include raising the age of protection from 14 years of age to 16, providing tougher sentences for serious gun crimes and ensuring that bail provisions better protect the public from gun violence.

As of July 1, two additional provisions will be made to the act including providing more effective sentencing and monitoring to prevent dangerous, high-risk offenders from further offending, as well as having new ways to detect and investigate drug-impaired driving and stronger penalties for impaired driving.

“Ever since the last election campaign, practically every week I’ve heard from constituents (that we should) tackle crime more aggressively,” said Clement. “This is a high priority for my constituents with this new legislation going into effect. We’re protecting our kids from unwanted sexual stalking and for the first time in our country’s history, we have mandatory jail time for serious gun offences. We had to make this a matter of confidence to get (the legislation) passed and so we threatened an election. The Liberals dragged it out in the House of Commons and dragged it out in Senate because they weren’t going to pass it. The Liberals talk a good game when it comes to crime but they never follow through.”

Clement went on to say that another reason why he welcomes the provisions is because the onus has been reversed for drivers caught impaired.

“Reversing the onus means that if you’re charged with impaired, the onus is on you,” stated Clement. “If you want bail, you have to show the public that you’re safe rather than the Crown proving you’re unsafe. Before there was a two-beer defence created by the Supreme Court of Canada and that meant if you could prove you only had two beers, then charges could be dropped. But they’ve removed that defence. That’s big. All this helps protect the public and it proves that government wants to be tougher on criminals and that’s why this is so important.”

While the government has taken comprehensive measures to tackle violent crime to make Canadian communities safer, it has also introduced legislation to tackle property theft, which includes the serious crime of auto theft. Legislation has also been passed to increase penalties for those convicted of street racing and to end conditional sentences (house arrest) for serious personal injury and violent offences, such as sexual assault.

The government has also introduced a national anti-drug strategy, which includes legislation that would provide mandatory jail time for serious drug crimes, strengthened the Youth Criminal Justice Act and announced a comprehensive review of this act in 2008, introduced legislation to protect Canadians against identity theft and invested in crime prevention community projects across Canada that target youth.