In my view, with all respect, that's a political solution to a public safety issue, and that doesn't work. Regionalization has not worked in the United Kingdom. It has not worked in Canada. It has been a huge failure everywhere.
Bigger is not better. What regionalization does is cause a disconnect between the police and their communities, and we're not trying to disconnect; we're trying to close the gap. That's a huge issue for all of us. Police and community working together is the best way. That's what we're talking about with community-based policing--working with our communities.
There's a difference here that we have to understand: there's specialized policing that deals with the complex organized gang issues and there's working with our communities. This is not all about gangs. Somebody has to go to the fatal motor vehicle accidents. Somebody has to go to the break and enter, the theft from auto, and the stolen bicycles. There are different areas here.
This is not about regionalization. It's about putting some funding into specialized policing to deal with the complex things. We'll look after our communities, thank you very much. We can do that.
Also, and I say this with all respect, you talked to Mayor Watts about Bill C-15, but the picking away at and the piecemeal approach to the laws is not the answer. I think what we're saying, and what everybody and all of these groups are saying, is why don't we take a minute to step back and look at the law to see what's working and what isn't working? Then we can attack the problem holistically rather than with a one-year minimum sentence for marijuana grow-ops of more than 500 plants.
We still have to deal with disclosure. We still have to deal with lawful access and all of those things. In my view, those are the big-ticket issues that would serve us well, but regionalization is just not the solution. Again, it's never worked anywhere else, so why would we do it now?