Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to enter the debate on this matter.
I was here this morning when the Minister of Justice gave his presentation. He talked about the members of the third party trafficking in fiction. If the member who just spoke had been here he would have been the beneficiary of some of the information, in particular the cost of registration.
The minister was very clear in pointing out we cannot compare the registration cost of handguns to long guns because with handgun registration there are police investigations, et cetera involved which makes it much more expensive.
We also had the member for Wild Rose telling the House there is no difference in crime rates between the United States of America and Canada. Let me tell the Reform Party that is trafficking in fiction and Canadians will not buy that line.
Members of the Reform Party say we have had registration of handguns which has not lowered the crime rate. Let me suggest to them that when a police officer arrests an individual who is carrying an unregistered handgun and he does not have a permit to carry that gun, the police officer can now arrest that individual for the possession of a restricted firearm. He can take him to the police station and no doubt the investigation will reveal that many crimes have been committed.
Let me also use another example that was cited by the Minister of Justice this morning. It relates to an incident where police officers can raid a motorcycle club where they will find 20, 30 or 40 long guns. Under the present legislation there is no way for the police to determine whether those are illegal guns.
It is important to get all the facts. This legislation is trying to move toward maintaining the kind of society Canadians have come to accept. We do not believe in mirroring the Americans and their crime rate.
On Tuesday, June 6, an article Second Opinion appeared in the Kitchener-Waterloo Record . The author of this article was John Dadds of Kitchener who was an OPP police officer for 20 years
and previously was with the metro Toronto and London, England forces.
This former police officer took aim at the Ontario Handgun Association which produced an 84 page booklet called "Politics of Panic". In his article he says that what he wanted to do was to make sure that the police have the ability to control the spread of guns, the police have the ability to control the use of guns and to make sure that the United States does not become a model for this country.
In closing, I have a question for the member. We have heard often enough from members of the Reform Party about commissioned 1-900 calls to hear what their constituents have to say. With the exception of three members who are a bit more enlightened than the rest, when are they going to come clean and actually start listening to their constituents and not say to us, as was said earlier on by the member for Crowfoot, that they do not believe in polls. You guys promised to represent-