The majority Conservative government will introduce comprehensive law-and-order legislation on Tuesday to combat crime and terrorism, sources have told CTV News.
Conservative insiders told CTV's Ottawa Bureau Chief Robert Fife that the government will launch an omnibus bill combining elements of 10 justice and public-safety bills the government had not managed to pass into law while in a minority position early this year.
The exact content of the bill was not revealed but two of the failed bills offered mandatory minimum sentences for various drug crimes and would have granted police wider latitude on electronic surveillance.
The new bill will include tougher jail terms for child predators and it will end house arrest for violent offenders.
A senior government official said the bill will be called the Safe Streets and Communities Act.
Tory insiders say one-quarter of Canadians have reported being a victim of crime, according to a Statistics Canada report in 2009, but that only 31 per cent actually reported the crime to police.
They also cite statistics that show there were 2.2 million crimes in the country that year, 440,000 of them violent crimes.
But critics have opposed tougher legislation at a time when Canadian crime rates are dropping.
The 2009 figures showed a 3 per cent decline in the rate and severity of police-reported crime over the previous year and a 17 per cent drop from a decade earlier.
A political showdown over the cost of the new bill was in part what triggered the May election that returned the Tories with a majority.
The Conservatives had told the Commons that the 18 crime bills on the table before the last election would cost an estimated $631 million on top of a $2-billion plan for prison expansion.
According to the sources, the government is fulfilling its election promise -- reiterated in the June Throne Speech -- to better protect families and stand-up for victims of crime.
"The government of Canada has no more fundamental duty than to protect the personal safety of our citizens and defend against threats to our national security," Governor-General David Johnston said in the Throne Speech.
"Our government will continue to protect the most vulnerable in society and work to prevent crime," Johnston said. "It will propose tougher sentences for those who abuse seniors and will help at-risk youth avoid gangs and criminal activity. It will address the problem of violence against women and girls."
With files from The Canadian Press
