Mr. Speaker, I was quite interested in the hon. member's statement. The sense I get from across the way is that one person wrote the same speech for everybody. Much of the same misinformation seems to be passed along from one member of the Reform Party to the next.
The hon. member stated that this was an eastern Canadian problem. I am wondering where he gets that information. The hon. member knows this was a major problem in Alberta. There have been a number of complaints by people from all over the country. Smuggling was a problem in every single province.
Other hon. members on the other side suggested that we failed in this matter. The hon. member said yesterday that smoking had gone up because of this. I found that quite interesting so I called Statistics Canada. Statistics Canada reported that Canadians smoked approximately 3.6 billion cigarettes in the year ending April 1994 compared to approximately 4.3 billion smoked in the year ending April 1993. That seems to suggest that smoking has gone down dramatically. A lot of it has had to do with the policies brought in by this government, especially the hard work done by the Minister of Health in this area.
These hon. members seem to always suggest that this is just a native problem, that somehow we have two systems of laws in this country, one for native Canadians and one for other Canadians. From people who obviously have not spent a lot of time with natives in this country, I find it quite distressing hon. members would even suggest that. There is no two tier system of laws in Canada. We have one set of laws for all Canadians.
There was a problem before we became the government. The RCMP was having problems dealing with specific situations on certain reserves. I wish hon. members on the other side would visit some of these places. It is not so easy to send in a whole bunch of RCMP officers and expect them to solve a situation. These people are good people. They are Canadians and the majority of them on these reserves respect the laws. The people on the reserves want all Canadians to know they are law-abiding citizens. Yes there are certain problems on the reserves. Certain individuals on the reserves do not follow the law.
We as a government made a commitment when we brought in this bill to make sure the RCMP went into these areas and dealt with the problems. To suggest, like the other side is suggesting, that we somehow militarize these places, send in the forces, knock them all around and that somehow we will stop the smuggling is all wrong.
What that would do is create animosity, create mistrust and it would not be a good way to set a good standard for all Canadians to live by.
I want to ask the hon. member if he really believes there are different levels of laws in this country for certain Canadians or is it just the rhetoric of the Reform Party that he is being pressed into saying this. Does he really believe that there are Canadians-