Mr. Speaker, I am not certain that I take any pleasure in joining in today's debate because the only person being served today is Clifford Olson and I am deeply saddened about that.
I am a father. I come to this point in life somewhat later than most. My children are four and two. I cannot find within myself the ability to imagine how I would feel if my children suffered what some of the families of the victims of Clifford Olson and some of the others have suffered. I cannot imagine the visceral pain and rage I would feel having been a victim to that. However, I want to ask the members of the Reform Party to stop and think a little bit about what they are doing.
Some years ago I was involved in a survey in the area that I now represent, just talking about issues that were important to people, how they felt about their community and things like that. One of the things we noticed early on was that elderly people, particularly elderly women, and young women, felt unsafe walking the streets. They identified a fear of going out after dark. This surprised us because the area that I represent and live in is a very comfortable, respectable and quite a decent community with a very low crime rate.
After I became the member for the area, we repeated some of this survey just to see what was happening. We found that it had gone up. Women were locked in their houses because they were afraid to walk down the street in what, by any standard, is one of the nicest residential communities in this country.
A little while ago I had dinner with the new police chief in Winnipeg. I was talking to him about this. He pointed out that in the last few years crime in Canada, certainly in my community, has gone down. Instead of there being an increased reason for people to feel unsafe in their communities there was a reduced reason.
When we got into this and looked at what was happening at home and on the streets in the southern part of Winnipeg, we found that there was no evidence at all to support the kind of outrageous allegations that the Reform Party brings to the House on a daily and weekly basis. However, the people in the riding feel fear because the chamber that they look to for some leadership or some sense of what is happening in the country is seized ever so often by the members of the third party talking about the most gruesome, horrible, nasty, violent events that they can possibly bring here, giving an illusion or a sense that we are awash in crime.
The situation with Clifford Olson is a serious and despicable one. I think the member for Vegreville put it very succinctly when he made his comments to the member for Rosedale. He said: "We are going to use that event. We are going to attempt to profit from the pain, the suffering and emotional feelings that circle around someone's killing of children". I personally feel that is wrong.
There has been a debate. A great deal of work has been done and a great many changes made. The members know that they cannot have the change that they want.
It is not that members do not want to have it happen but because it requires a constitutional change. Despite this, the day before a day when we will be one more time forced to be dragged through the most unfortunate point in our history, the members choose to do everything they can not to soften the impact on the victims but to heighten it. It is time that we reflected on what we are here for.