Mr. Speaker, my colleague from Esquimalt--Juan de Fuca, like many Liberals, stood in his place and talked about the many things the Liberals did when they were in office with respect to mandatory minimums.
I find that rather strange. I remember that when we were over on that side of the House, we stood in our places and asked the Liberal justice minister to implement mandatory penalties. He said they would not work, that they would not work anywhere, and that he was not going to do it.
Since that time, of course, we know that members of Parliament on all sides have stood up and talked about tragedies that have happened all across the country. The one that sticks out in my mind is the young lady who was shopping with her parents on Boxing Day in downtown Toronto and was killed by a stray bullet fired by a street gang. She got killed. So my response for the member for Esquimalt--Juan de Fuca is that whatever he and his party over there have done has not worked. Street gangs are proliferating in all of the cities across this country, whether it be Montreal, Toronto or Vancouver. It is a tragedy.
They talk about crime prevention and the poor darlings who have had an unfortunate background, and that is true. We do need to spend some time with respect to these young people, generally young men, who have had bad backgrounds, but what about the victims? What about members of the public?
Does my colleague think that in the past we have spent too much time and placed too much emphasis on crime prevention when we should be thinking about members of the public, the people who are suffering from these street gangs and violent crimes?