Madam Speaker, I am very happy to respond to the question of the hon. member opposite. The multi-disciplinary approach is the integration of all departments of the government and all levels of government. An interdisciplinary approach could be health.
When I was visiting Vancouver recently I made a trip to a core city public school. That school not only served breakfast; it also served lunch. I venture to say that was most of the nutritional value those children received. It was a very difficult teaching environment. It brought home to me the multi-disciplinary approaches that were required in the classroom, literacy training being one. I saw a divergence of cultural backgrounds. That school was very different from many schools in my riding.
We must not manage all our problems with individual lines where departments do not talk to each other. Health must talk to education and education must talk to employment. We have to understand that poverty is the link to a lot of crime. Violence begets violence. With family destruction and its changing nature it is impossible to have the same family picture as a "Leave it to Beaver" commercial for a TV program when I grew up. It does not exist.
There are many poor families in the country in which children are not properly cared for and are left unattended. There are many single parent families where the wife leaves an abusive situation and takes her family with her into a poverty situation. That is what is happening.
It does not matter whether we are talking about guns because there are multi-disciplinary aspects to justice. Maybe it is time to re-evaluate gun control legislation so that they are not around to create devastation for families and victims.
I must say no one party in the House has ownership of concern. We are all concerned as parliamentarians about the victims in society. They are regarded with respect by this side of the House.
It is important to remember we must deal with all the facets of this problem, and there are many. We will have time to deal with that in this Parliament. I certainly will be making it one of my aims to work very actively in this area.