Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Sarnia-Lambton has been belabouring the Americans again. I do not know what that has to do with our gun debate.
Since he has raised it, I would like to mention the situation where I live in western Canada on the prairie, very close to the U.S. border. We have great cultural similarities and great economic similarities with the people on the other side. We walk back and forth. As a matter of fact, we have more in common with each other than they have with drug dealers in New York or I have with silver spoon lawyers from Toronto.
Is it not interesting that over the last 15 years the homicide rate in the four northern states adjacent to the prairie provinces has been 16 per cent lower than on the Canadian side? It is 3.1 per hundred thousand per year on the Canadian side and 2.7 on the American side. Is that not interesting? Of all the states in the union, these are the four that have the most wide-open gun laws. You can carry anything short of a bazooka down there. But it is not a great big shooting gallery where they run around shooting one another. There is a cultural factor, which this government never takes into consideration, and it should.
I believe the hon. member has a few seconds to respond.