Mr. Speaker, it is a fact that, in certain circumstances, the government, despite the compassion we know it has, has been hypocritical—and I hope that that is parliamentary. It is a fact that I, myself, met with the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police during their lobby day on Parliament Hill. They told us that, basically, the Conservatives had committed to allowing the provinces to hire 1,000 new community police officers and that, unfortunately, they had not yet fulfilled that promise, which was creating a lot of problems in certain communities.
It has always been our belief that when choosing between creating mandatory minimum sentences and making it possible for police investigations to be resolved more quickly, we obviously want to give more power to the police. So I share the analysis and concern of the hon. NDP member.