Mr. Chairman, it is remarkable, no matter what the subject, how the hon. member somehow finds a gun in it somewhere. Such is his dedication and his passion of commitment to opposing gun control in Canada. It is regrettable.
I happen to think the hon. member is completely out of step with the vast majority of Canadian people who want to see us take military type assault weapons off the street. I think the vast majority of Canadians support the fact that we banned the future sale and import of most cheaply made handguns called Saturday Night Specials that have killed so many police officers in the U.S. We do not want them in Canada.
The majority of Canadians support gun control which gives police officers the tools they need to take guns out of the hands of people who should not have them. It is regrettable that no matter what the subject, the bill, the measure or the objective, the hon. member will find some way to bring it back to his passionate commitment to oppose gun control which is so broadly supported in the country. It is odd and curious, but it is something I have to live with. In living with it let me do the best I can to respond to the question in which the hon. member has laboured to make firearms somehow relevant to anti-gang legislation.
I do not think the example given by the hon. member could possibly be. I suppose we could invent facts to make it happen, but he is talking about individuals acting on individual occasions and not respecting the law passed by Parliament. I hope all Canadians would respect the law passed by Parliament. He may know some people who do not or will not. That is interesting.
Let us get back to what Bill C-95 is all about. Let us get back to what the anti-organized crime bill is all about. It is all about those who band together in groups or associations to ruthlessly dedicate their lives and their efforts to profit at the expense of others and sometimes at the expense of the lives of others.
It is about giving police tools to deal with those who would put at risk the lives of families and of children by battling over turf for illegal drug distribution. It is about finding a way to deal with hardened criminals, career criminals who over the last five years have committed a series of serious criminal offences and are committing indictable crimes punishable by five years or more in prison.
This is the hard core of organized crime in Canada. They are at war right now in the province of Quebec. The cost has been measured in human lives, in the peace of mind of communities. I met people from towns and cities in Quebec who are not able to take their children for a walk down their own street, who tell me they are afraid to go to parks in their towns and who feel their communities are under siege.
They live in fear in their communities. This is unacceptable in Canada. The conditions described by the people who live in these towns and villages in Quebec cannot be tolerated. I met with the mayors of some of these communities. They told me straight off that these conditions were unacceptable, and I agree with them. That is why we took action. We have now done our share to amend the Criminal Code and to propose measures that will help our police forces fight these offences.
That is what this bill is all about. As much as the hon. member might use his creativity to imagine ways to make his opposition to gun control relevant to an organized crime bill, it is interesting, creative and mildly amusing. It is even charming in a way because the hon. member has made such a career out of it. However, it is hardly relevant, not helpful and it is broadly off the point.