Mr. Speaker, I want to make a comment in support of what my colleague from Burin-St. George's has been saying for the past 10 or 15 minutes. Let me relate a little experience I had during the campaign.
Repeatedly the polls in my riding said that people were in favour of capital punishment by 80 or 85 per cent. Throughout the campaign I was asked about 50 times whether if I was elected to Parliament, would I support my constituents and vote according to the majority and for capital punishment. My answer was no, that I was against capital punishment on a matter of principle and I would not vote for capital punishment. I said that if they felt strongly enough about this issue, they had one choice, not to vote for me.
Lo and behold when the ballot box came in, I had 60 per cent of the votes. If my arithmetic is right, even if I had the whole 20 per cent of the people who are against capital punishment voting for me-I doubt that because a lot of them are NDP-I still had 40 per cent of the people who are for capital punishment.
I feel I have a mandate to come in the House and make my own decision and vote against capital punishment. This is real democracy.