The so what is that come June, junior boy or girl graduates from high school and throws a party. There are 300 people in that house and a fight breaks loose. Members are laughing. We are talking about possible victims and they are laughing. When the fight breaks out and the police are called they say: "Give us a break. Give us a chance. Before we knock on that door we want to know if there are 300 guns downstairs". And these members laugh.
This legislation is just a small piece of a large puzzle. All members of Parliament take their jobs seriously, even my colleagues from the Reform Party. I know they take their jobs seriously. I do not think their motives are correct, but I think they believe in them so they are doing the best they can.
I take this very seriously. Gun control is very serious. Guns are serious. However it is not the most pressing problem in my life. I want to deal with this, I want to pass it and I want to get it done.
Then I want to move on to senior citizens who are losing their ability to support themselves, some of whom are lonely and addicts dying alone. I want to deal with people who cannot find jobs. I want to deal with children who go to school in the morning with cramps in their bellies because they do not have food. I want to move on. When we deal with these issues I hope my colleagues will have the same vigour they have when they take so much pleasure in talking about guns. What a fun thing to talk about.
I want to deal with family violence. I want to deal with the deficit. I want to deal with the debt. For Canadians to be part of a democracy, if the price they have to pay is to register their guns and their long arms then I am prepared to do it. I will be the first to line up to register mine.
Reform members say that registration will not eliminate all serious crimes so we should not do anything about it. They do not worry about how many guns people have. They do not worry about the kinds.
The Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police say that we need gun registration. The police association says: "We support registration. Help us do our job". The Reform Party says: "They do not know what they are talking about". The police officers want it. Their associations do too.
The Reform Party spoke of motions that were presented by towns and municipalities. The FCM represents all municipalities in this country and it supports this. But the Reform Party says: "They do not know what the heck they are talking about". The list goes on. I will not name them all because it will take up my 20 minutes.
Nobody knows anything about anything, only the few members of Parliament here on the Reform side who do not even agree with the majority of people in their own ridings.