Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend for his question. I note that he is a former crown attorney. He certainly has some knowledge of the criminal justice system. I very much enjoy working with him. Unfortunately he missed my opening comments where I actually talked about gun control, the position I took in the last election campaign and why I supported it. To recap, victims wanted us to pass it and they supported it. My community virtually demanded it.
There is the issue that law-abiding people will register guns and criminals will not. As a crown attorney, the member will know that at some point this week there will be a raid on a motorcycle club some place. Chances are there will be all sorts of guns around. When a police officer is able to say “This gun is not registered and you have committed an offence,” then we have done something good.
I also mentioned that it is too easy to obtain guns in this country. We do not want to repeat some of the mistakes made south of the border where children are killing children and their teachers. We must have control of firearms. During the election campaign I was very up front. At the conclusion of my remarks I said if you do not support Bill C-68, if you do not believe we should have gun control, do not vote for me, vote for the New Democrats, the Conservatives or the Reform Party. There was a lot of support for it in my community which was attested to by the results.
The member talked about the expensive cost of crime. He knows that the cost of crime in Canada is $46 billion. What we spend at the government level is $9.6 billion. What we are talking about in terms of crime prevention is really a small amount of money. We are talking $32 million.
The member will know that I have lobbied the justice minister that we should reallocate some of the money that we have now allocated under the federal government budget. Thirty-two million dollars represents 1% of the federal budget for justice and the solicitor general. Let us reallocate something like 5% over the coming years. Let us help communities to come up with the plans, the strategies and the projects to battle crime and to work on crime prevention.