Mr. Speaker, that is very unfortunate for many reasons.
The Liberal government is refusing to enact legislation that will make our streets, our communities, our society a safer place and which will send a message to the criminal element that using firearms to commit serious crimes is not something we are prepared to tolerate in our society.
The Liberals should not care that it is a Reform member who introduced the bill. I do not think that is relevant. They should look at the issue and understand the facts and say this is a good idea.
Why are they refusing to allow this bill to be votable? Are they ashamed that their own justice minister did not think of it? Or are they ashamed that their own justice minister refuses to get tough on crime and instead engages in namby-pamby bills such as the young offenders amendments that we were speaking about today in the House? The changes to the Young Offenders Act are merely a paint job on the old act but will still do nothing to target the deficiencies in that act.
Or is their reason because they are obsessed with alienating Canadians? On Tuesday we debated in the House all day the alienation of the regions in the country. I spoke on behalf of the residents of Saskatchewan and I spoke about the Liberal alienation committee.
Here we have yet another example of alienation. A member from Saskatoon, myself, has introduced a get tough on crime bill in the House. It is a law that would improve our society by getting tougher on criminals who use firearms instead of targeting the law-abiding citizens like the Liberals are so intent on doing with former Bill C-68, the firearms registration act. They do not allow the committee to deem it a votable item and they do not even allow me the consent in the House.
For the benefit of Canadians watching, the significance of that is at the end of this hour, debate on this bill will collapse and that will be the end of it. They will not have to vote on it. That is probably another reason that they refuse to allow this to be deemed a votable bill. They do not want to stand up and let Canadians from coast to coast watch them vote against a bill which targets the criminal use of firearms. They seem to be intent on firearms registration, targeting law-abiding firearms owners.
Today we spent the day in the House of Commons debating some very flimsy changes to the Young Offenders Act. Why is the Liberal justice minister so preoccupied with bringing useless legislation before the House instead of meaningful legislation like the 10-20 life law? Why does she not introduce bills like that?
Instead of tinkering with the Young Offenders Act, why does she not introduce a victims bill of rights? Why does she not establish that the rights of victims supersede any rights that a criminal has? I will answer that question. It is because the Liberal soft approach to crime is something they are obsessed with and they refuse to let it go.
Canadians will not get proper legislation dealing with criminals and fair legislation dealing with private ownership of firearms until we have a Reform government.