Madam Speaker, I listened quite attentively to the member for Dartmouth and I take exception to some of the things he said. He suggested the Canadian public is fickle, that it reacts and then thinks. I take exception to the minister's put down of Canadians and their ability to assess the happenings of the time.
Canadians get on with their lives. That is not to say they do not carry the seriousness of what they read in the paper the previous day or what they heard. They do care very much and they feel very strongly when they hear of these vicious crimes.
I point out to the member for Dartmouth that in my riding I took a survey, not at the time when there was a vicious crime. The survey did not reflect any particular event that took place in society at the time. It was a survey asking my constituents what they thought about capital punishment if they could be assured that capital punishment would affect only heinous crimes, mass murders, after all appeals had been exhausted.
I had 45,000 households in my riding at that time and had a return of 2,680 replies, 4.6 per cent. That proves what the member has said is not true, or is not always the case, because these Canadians feel so strongly even though they did not have a paper reaction right in front of them. Under those terms 87 per cent said we should look at capital punishment. The hon. member for Dartmouth can be assured that if we are talking about getting rid of parole, life is life for those kinds of crimes, they would certainly definitely say repeal section 745.
The member speaks in contradictions. He said he has been in this House a long time. That when young girls were raped he immediately came to their defence and tried to change the laws. That is exactly what Reformers are doing. Why put down Reformers and Canadians who are responding to the needs of this society, and yet say he has done the same thing himself? I am interested in his response.