That is the truth. It is the honest to goodness truth, and the hon. member knows it. Six hundred billion dollars in debt and his grandchildren will never pay it. That is the truth.
If hon. members say that is not the truth, then let them call it a lie. If it is not the truth then it is a lie and we have $600 billion of debt.
I am sure the people who helped implement the policies which created that debt are not going to pay it back. They would not even want to try.
It is the same way with the justice system. If they want to try to reverse the system they had better start getting on track and doing something about it instead of using rhetoric which sounds like it was taken from some futuristic generation that did not know what death was. That is what we are talking about.
When I stand at the graveside of one of those murdered people I know there is an imprint on that family for its entire life. Nobody can erase it no matter how the criminal is rehabilitated. The impression on the memory is there.
I will tell the House how I know this. My grandmother, who came out of the Russian revolution, reminisced day after day before she died about the tragedies she had faced. She died while in a coma. These families that have murder victims in their families will never forget it no matter how rehabilitated the criminal is.
If that is not a message that should go to everyone's heart I do not know what else I can say. Does anyone want to see that vision in their dying days? Does anyone want to lay there in a coma thinking: "I was there and I helped defend the criminals instead of going after the protection of the victims and the citizens"?
We heard a Bible quote from someone which stated we should forgive. I also know a Bible quote which states that the government has been given the sword to exercise it. That does not mean just to defend its borders. The government is there to exercise that sword to protect its individual citizens, which is one thing this government is not doing. It is weak-kneed and arrogant and will not listen to the general public.
If we went to a referendum today on capital punishment, if any indication of my constituency has an effect over the country, it would pass by 85 per cent to 95 per cent. Why are we afraid to go to a binding referendum? Why do we not give the people in this country a chance to say what they feel? Why do we not finally listen to the grassroots people and do what they want us to do? No way. That is too easy. We would rather sit here day after day and joke about the problems we have in this country.
It is not a joke anymore when we have hundreds of people murdered every year and hundreds of thousands of people on welfare who cannot find a job because we have spent the future they deserved. What else can I tell this Parliament? Disband and have an election? No, we do not want elections too often because that is costly, I agree, but I am sure that a lot of these issues will not be talked about in the next election. They will be hid underneath some other political rhetoric.
What are we going to do about that? After 60 years in this country I have seen the good times and the poor times, but I hope we get better times. In 1972 when we had probably the most fluent times in the farming industry, when wheat went from $1.50 to $5 or $6, my mother said you will see starvation in this country. This is exactly what happened in the Soviet Union in 1912 to 1914. People got rich. I said it could never happen. Today I have seen it. I have seen food banks which I have never seen before in every city and every town, something we thought could never happen in this country.
There have been drive-by shootings which we thought could never happen in this country. We have had mass murders to an extent we had never seen before and we are saying that the price of justice is not a deterrent. Punishment is not a deterrent. Why are we implementing any legislation? Why are we giving speeding tickets? Why are we giving this and that? Abandon them. If punishment is not a deterrent let us forget it.
I appreciate these few moments. I hope I have a few members thinking.