Mr. Speaker, that was quite a rant. I will try to respond to some of the issues the hon. member raised.
At the outset when he rose to speak in response to the speech made by my hon. colleague from Langley—Abbotsford, he suggested that my colleague was smearing all judges. I think I dealt with that fairly extensively in my presentation.
The hon. member indicated what he was getting at was that the official opposition, the Reform Party, should show some responsibility. I would contend that we are being responsible for the reasons I gave in my speech.
If we cannot raise these types of issues here, what does he want? Does he want us to sweep it under the carpet? That is what the Liberals have been doing for many years. They have been turning a blind eye to these things. They say “We cannot raise that. We cannot criticize judges. Who are we to criticize the decisions made by judges?” Well, if not us, then who?
The hon. member said I stumbled upon the issue of justice during my speech. I think I laid it out quite clearly.
My colleague talked about the death penalty. Obviously that does not sit well with the hon. member. We Reformers have communicated our position on the death penalty very well, ever since the party was formed. We believe, unlike the government, in bottom up democracy. We believe there should be a national referendum held at the time of a national election so there would be a very small cost to it. Then we would have the will of the people on the issue of the return of capital punishment. I personally support that. Ever since I have been an MP I have brought forth private members' legislation to reinstate capital punishment. The Reform Party's official position is that the people should make decisions on moral issues such as this, not the politicians.