Thank you.
They recommended more study, and they also indicated, as you have outlined, that there certainly are a lot of situations where people who exhibited the symptoms had the same symptoms when the taser was applied and there was a subsequent death. These people are dying in hospitals and elsewhere without application of the taser.
So the question is, is there a correlation between the use of the taser and these pre-existing symptoms? Would these people have died anyway, but for the taser? That's a question that has not been answered yet, and the experts in the interim report and in the final report have recommended training, as you say, further study, testing of the instruments, national standards to be set. I tend to agree with you that some of the issues that are being raised are not necessarily the problem with the taser. We'll find out whether it's a problem once it's been tested and when there's more medical evidence.
The biggest problem, in my respectful view, is the inappropriate use of the taser in situations where it was never intended to be used. When the honourable member, Mr. Dosanjh, mentioned that when he approved it in British Columbia, I believe in 1999, which was its first use, the idea was that it be used for less-than-lethal force, in other words as an alternative to lethal force. I'm not surprised he indicates that's the basis upon which it was approved in British Columbia.
But over time, it has become used more frequently for less and less serious incidents because it's been a convenient come-along tool, as it were. You understand the temptation for inappropriate use. It works and it works very effectively, but there is that risk area for certain people that brings this matter to the public's attention.
If YouTube showed police officers shooting somebody, it would also cause an outcry. We equip police officers with lethal weapons for a purpose. If a taser is one of those, where does it fit in the use-of-force continuum? That's the issue.