I hear my colleague from Yorkton—Melville agreeing with me. I want to commend him on the great work that he has done to stand up against this useless gun registry and to stand up for putting those resources into front line policing where they can actually help eliminate or cut down on crime in our society instead of having this useless registry.
The member for Kildonan—St. Paul alluded to the fact that the Youth Criminal Justice Act in this country is a joke. I could not agree with her more. This country's young offenders do not fear the consequences of their actions. I believe they need to have five separate charges before there might actually be consequences for their actions. This is just unacceptable.
Let me turn to an issue that is very near and dear to my heart and should be near and dear to the hearts of everyone in this chamber. That issue is the policy toward drugs and drug use in our society, which is of great concern to families, parents and all Canadians.
On many occasions I have pushed the government to reschedule crystal meth, to change it from a schedule 3 to a schedule 1 drug, and to toughen the penalties on crystal meth. This summer the Minister of Justice actually made that change after being forced to. Everyone was in unison on that. The only people who disagreed were the crystal meth traffickers.
However, it still troubles me a great deal today. I saw a recent statement from Larry Campbell, the Prime Minister's most recent appointment to the Senate. I will quote Mr. Campbell. He said that seeing crystal meth addiction as an epidemic is exaggerated and a knee-jerk reaction. “This idea that there's a huge crystal meth disaster happening in this country is garbage,” he said. Mr. Campbell said this at a forum on the city's plan to prevent drug use. Mr. Campbell said that paranoia is feeding into some calls to restrict sales of cold medicine, an ingredient in the making of crystal meth.
This is unbelievable. Everyone in the country now appreciates the threat that crystal meth poses. This is the Prime Minister's most recent appointment. Perhaps the Prime Minister agrees with Senator Larry Campbell's assessment of the threat of crystal meth. It is unbelievable. It is another sign of the government's slack policy on getting tough on crystal meth traffickers. We furthermore know that the government wants to decriminalize marijuana.