Mr. Speaker, if the government had not chosen to enact time allocation I am sure all of us would have enjoyed hearing the remainder of the hon. member's speech on this issue. He can thank his own party for cutting him off in that sense.
We are talking about effectiveness of this impending legislation. Every time we try to raise concerns about it in this House we are accused of trafficking in fiction. The government says that the people of Canada have to trust it. It will draft these regulations. We have not seen what they are yet. We have to trust the government that once it gets the regulations in place it will effectively address the issues.
I want to briefly read into the record the following:
Registration pertains to things-guns in this case-not people. It records the description, serial number and ownership of each item or weapon. For extremely lethal and easily hidden weapons such as handguns-which in Canada are restricted and of which there are relatively few-it is a workable and relatively effective system that screens owners and weapons alike and inhibits casual purchase. However, for the ten million long guns in Canada I believe that a registration scheme would be unworkable and impractical in comparison with its potential benefits.
This quote was from the hon. member for Notre-Dame-de-Grâce, Hansard , Commons debates, page 12627, April 8, 1976, the hon. member who currently sits as the chairman of the Standing Committee on Justice. This is the very hypocrisy Canadians are concerned about, where members seem to change their opinion. They are concerned that this legislation will be simply one more step in the ongoing erosion of the rights of law-abiding firearms owners. I would like to hear the hon. members address that concern from Canadians.