Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for his comments.
First of all, he mentioned that homicide rates are down. I believe that is a fact and it is important to note that.
I think he will also acknowledge that youth crime has been increasing in this country and a lot of it is violent youth crime. That causes me a lot of concern. While homicide rates are down, I do not think we should allow this whole debate to go to sleep. We need to continue to discuss it.
Following up on that, it points to the fallacy of the government's argument with respect to the gun registry, that somehow guns are the reason we have the level of homicides that we have in the country. The gun registry is yet to be put in place and, if I recall, homicide rates are down to a level equivalent to 1969. That absolutely explodes the fallacy we heard from the government that the gun registry was going to be the thing that would cause homicide rates to go down.
The member asks whether or not I was in the courtrooms. It is a good question. In the case of the Vickers family, to whom I referred to earlier, I was not in the courtroom. However, I have carried on a long discussion with the Vickers family and also with the crown prosecutor through correspondence. I have not talked to him directly, but I have seen his responses to the family with respect to some of their concerns. The crown prosecutor, whom I know personally, is an extraordinarily intelligent crown prosecutor. He presented a very fair case when he was scrutinizing for the Vickers family what had gone on. I am convinced that in this case he was being nothing but absolutely accurate in his depiction of what happened in the courtroom.
I left out some of the details of this case because I did not want to exaggerate what had gone on. There are a number of things that are being alleged that I have not mentioned simply because I do not want to exaggerate what happened in that particular case.