Madam Speaker, I certainly do not need a lecture from the member opposite on how to read the mood of the Canadian public.
As far as the Canadian public being fickle, I would caution the member to look at the results from the last election with respect to the Reform Party and see where the Reform Party currently sits in the polls.
She says the Canadian public sticks to the topic. I will stick to it as much as she did when she talked abut capital punishment which, by the way, is not covered in this bill.
The member opposite said that 4.6 per cent of households responded, and 87 per cent agreed that capital punishment should be reinstated. I think we have to be very careful here. I remember when the gun legislation was forwarded. I know what the numbers were in my riding and I would like for each of the Reformers to tell me what the numbers were in their ridings.
In my riding 87 per cent indicated they felt very strongly that the gun control legislation put forward in this Parliament by my government should be passed. There was a very small percentage that believed we should not put gun control and the rest did not have an opinion.
The member opposite says I read it wrong. I did not read it wrong at all. If I had just gauged it from the letters that came in from organized lobby I would have thought that everybody in my riding of Dartmouth wanted no part of gun control legislation. Nothing could be further from the truth. We cannot govern by polls, which is what the member opposite is telling us we should do.
When you are elected to this place, to the highest court in the land, you take your responsibilities seriously and understand when you stand in your place in this House that it is not just your opinion that you carry but the opinion of the people in your riding. I can tell the hon. member opposite that I do not need polls to tell me what is the right thing to do.
I talk to the people in my riding and I understand that the people in my riding have the same type of aversion to horrible crimes as I have. I do not need to be misquoted by the member opposite. What I indicated was that after there is a particularly horrible crime the Canadian public immediately will probably come up with opinions as to how best deal with it, which are not the opinions in the light of day they would have three, four or five days later.
Rather than having knee-jerk reactions to the administration of justice my government has made a decision to go about this in a very methodical manner to ensure the individuals, the victims, people in the judicial administration are consulted and that we hear from Canadians. Where appropriate, laws are introduced into the Parliament of Canada to adjust those elements of our criminal justice system that need adjusting.
What we will not do, and I hope it will never be done, is that we will become so controlled by extreme knee-jerk reactions, no matter how appropriate at the time, in response to a horrible crime that we start introducing legislation in this place which I believe would do a disservice to the evolution of the criminal justice system in Canada. I will continue to stand in this place on behalf of the good people of the city of Dartmouth and represent them to the best of my abilities.
I think the Reform Party opposite, rather than constantly taking positions for the minority, should think about governing responsibly in opposition, playing a responsible role and start speaking for the majority. The poll numbers lately would certainly tell Reformers they have not been doing that.