Mr. Speaker, I had the pleasure almost a year ago of attending a conference on crime prevention and community safety. It was chaired by a member who is no longer with us, Mr. Horner, I believe.
I was very impressed when I went to the conference because it was an all-parliamentary committee that produced a unanimous report. The committee took the approach that crime prevention could be best handled through better enforcement as well as social development.
I bring that up because in this past campaign I tried not to play politics with the whole issue of crime, justice and law enforcement. What impressed me was that there was all-parliamentary agreement. Every member of each political party had the same position in the committee when the report was finally put in place.
I would really hope that approach will continue with this bill. The reason I say that is that the problem of crime is a complex one which the committee report stated very ably.
If we as a country, not just political parties, are going to be able to deal with the issues of crime we cannot look for simplistic solutions. We have to understand the complexity of it. It behoves us all to try to give it the serious consideration it deserves.
If one looks at models in different communities or different countries, when Canada is compared to the United States of America, we are an incredibly good model. Our communities are a lot safer, there is a lot less crime, we have fewer people in prison and we do not execute people. We have a much safer community than they have in the United States of America.
We have to look at the issues as to why that is. It is important that as much as possible we take the politics out of it. Partisan politics are dealing with issues that have such an impact on our nation and our communities. We have to work together to solve the problem.