Mr. Speaker, I am interested in some of the comments by the member for Mississauga West. Certainly having been raised in a family in which the father was a police officer would give her some insight into the concerns police officers express when it comes to criminal activity. Seeing if nothing else the breakdown in our laws and the effectiveness of what a police officer can or cannot do any more is a story in itself.
I am also interested in the comments relating to the smuggled weapons and the use of illegal weapons, that the illegal gun market would literally dry up once we have a good registration system in place and some supposed criminal sections that would deal with that.
I do not believe the member has ever been over to the Fort Erie border crossing to look at the extent of what we have as security at the border crossing. There is a joke among the customs officers and the people who live in that area. If a boat comes across from the American side and it rides low in the water, it is full of alcohol. If it rides halfway down in the water, then it is full of guns. If it rides high in the water, then there are drugs in that particular boat. When it gets over to the other side to the Canadian shore there is no one there to stop it to see what really is in the boat because our border security is at a minimum.
Resources at the front line have been cut back to the nth degree. Police departments right across the country are suffering now because of a lack of being able to hire the adequate number of police officers to look at it.
How will the illegal gun market dry up through a registration system when the front line cannot even stop the smuggling problem in this country, which is way out of hand and our police departments do not even have a finger on it? Even if they did they could not do anything about it.