Thank you, Madam Chair.
Minister, good afternoon to you and your officials. Thank you for your time this afternoon.
You spent many minutes touting your so-called positive track record. Like my colleagues, I completely disagree with what you said. When we look at your government's track record since 2015, we see that violent crime is up by 55%; homicides are up by 30%; sexual assault is up by 76%; extortion is up by 330%; vehicle theft is up by 25%; hate crime is up by 258%; and gun crime is up by 130%. I think you are jumping on the bandwagon a bit late in the game.
I would like to draw your attention to the issue of firearms. You launched your ideological gun confiscation program. Unfortunately, through the program, you're targeting hunters, sport shooters and indigenous people. I would remind you that there are approximately 300,000 hunters in Quebec and 2.3 million in Canada as a whole. I would also remind you that 91% of gun crimes involve illegally owned firearms. Meanwhile, you know very well that hunters, sport shooters and indigenous people are in good standing and have all their licences.
In addition, you are providing $750 million for first-come, first-served buyouts. We know that people are going to lose a lot of money.
You also stated to one of your tenants that you didn't believe in the program and that, if you had to do it over again, you would do things a lot differently. You said that you tried to convince the Prime Minister to go in a different direction and that you failed.
Are you denying or confirming that you said that to one of your tenants?