Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. friend from Montreal who has repeatedly demonstrated in the House her deep interest, expertise and experience in the issue of crime prevention.
I would like to address a couple of points. I am glad she mentioned the Reform Party's attitude toward gun control. If the gun control bill, Bill C-68, would make our streets safer this party would vote for it. I looked at all the data in this regard very carefully. In fact, I appeared before the House standing committee on justice. I would be happy to speak with the member on this matter, to deal with the facts and to have good discourse with her. We feel very strongly. We would do anything to ensure that guns were not in the hands of 11 and 13 year olds.
We are completely in favour of responsible gun control. We would fight along with the government to ensure that firearms are not in the hands of children and to ensure that automatic weapons are not in the hands of criminals. We want restrictive gun control laws to ensure that guns and weapons which are not useful to hunters and such would not be in their hands. We have fought very hard for that. Unfortunately Bill C-68 would make our streets less safe by taking money out of the judicial system to put into gun registration.
We wanted to divide the bill into two sections. We supported the good parts of the bill but wanted to get rid of the bad parts that would make our streets less safe. We wanted to support the government in its pursuit of a bill that would make our streets safer. My colleagues and I would be very happy to speak to the member about that issue.