Mr. Speaker, it is always a pleasure to speak when you are in the chair.
I thank my colleague, the member for Charlesbourg. I am sure you will not mind my pointing out that he is certainly one of our more talented members. I think my colleagues would give him a boisterous round of approval.
Two points must be made. As the member for Beauce is apparently not up to it, I will make them myself. First, there is a concern that must be noted, and that is the concern over organized crime. We have spoken about this on several occasions. The member for Berthier—Montcalm pointed out how, somewhere around 1995—you were already in the House of Commons, Mr. Speaker—we fought for anti-gang legislation.
We got it, not only because of our perseverance and our powers of persuasion in those days, but because we convinced the government that it was not possible for us to win this war without the help of lawmakers.
I will tell you one thing that could be done, and I would like to hear what my colleague thinks of this. The Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police, which is a fairly neutral group—the member for Beauce will agree that we are not talking about a pocket of sovereignists or a breeding ground for indépendantistes—has asked the government to take one thousand dollar bills out of circulation because this denomination encourages money laundering and is obviously of no use to the average citizen.
If I did an informal survey and asked those hon. members who have $1,000 in their pockets to raise their hands, it seems to me I will find few Conservatives, no Bloc Quebecois members and probably no government members either.
All this to say that we made a very reasonable suggestion to the government to fight organized crime and the underworld, but the government did not act on it. I think the hon. member for Charlesbourg, who is quite familiar with this issue, will agree that there are no concrete measures.
Why should we agree—and this is the real issue—to support the budget proposed for a department that did not have the courage to take the necessary measures to fight organized crime?
I want to ask my nice, attractive colleague from Charlesbourg whether he agrees that the government could, among other things, have acted on the proposal made for the past two years by the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police and withdraw the $1,000 bank notes. If the hon. member has other ideas, I wonder if he could share them with us.