Two senior opposition politicians say partisan politics are behind the Conservative government's aggressive pushing of its crime legislation.
The Tackling Violent Crime Act contains some bills that moved through the last session of Parliament. "Seventy-per cent of this omnibus bill ... we agreed to fast-track months ago," Liberal MP David McGuinty told CTV's Question Period.
He believes the Tories' approach is "be afraid. Make everybody afraid of crime, security and terror ... and deflect attention from other issues."
NDP House Leader Libby Davies said she saw the same pattern with the bills. "I feel like we're in some kind of weird 'Twilight Zone'."
Davies said four of the five bills had already passed the House of Commons before Prime Minister Stephen Harper prorogued Parliament.
"The Harper government is actually taking us back to square one," she said.
However, the government has declared the bill to be a matter of confidence, meaning an election would likely result if the bill is defeated.
"Those bills sat around ... without getting through," Conservative House Leader Peter Van Loan told Question Period.
"What we find is the opposition parties, particularly the Liberals, like to say they are tough on crime ... but when it comes time to actually deal with them, they tie them up in committee and then in the Senate and they never become law."
Van Loan said the government wanted to "shine a spotlight" on the crime issue with the omnibus bill.
The only bill the NDP thinks needs more work is one dealing with dangerous offenders, Davies said, but the others could have been reinstated as written.
Justice Minister Rob Nicholson said last week that if dangerous offenders are "the hill they want to die on ... that's their decision."
"We think the bills are fine just the way they are," the minister told Question Period. "We've indicated all along this is a priority for our government."
Van Loan "invited" the opposition parties to fast-track the bill and get it to the Senate as quickly as possible.
Security legislation
The Conservatives will be introducing bills in the coming days that will deal with national security certificates and will reintroduce an attempt to extend certain provisions of Canada's anti-terror laws.
Van Loan said the security certificate bill will be introduced in the House of Commons and the anti-terror legislation will be introduced through the Senate.
Nicholson said it would be up to the prime minister to decide if the anti-terror bills would be matters of confidence in the government.
"These are priorities of our government," he said, adding, "you can draw your own conclusions."
Davies said the Supreme Court ruled the certificates unconstitutional in a decision released last February.
The country's highest court didn't strike the legislation down immediately, but gave the government a year to fix the legislation.
"We'll be examining it very carefully from the point of view of protecting people's rights," she said.
On the anti-terror legislation, McGuinty said the Liberal government of the day "sunsetted" some clauses.
Provisions allowing for investigative hearings of material witnesses and giving police the power to detain people suspected of planning to carry out a terrorist attack for 72 hours.
Those two clauses expired on March 1 after Parliament voted in late February against extending them.
Some Liberals voted with the government for retaining the clauses.
