Mr. Speaker, I could not help but notice from the lobby the member's speech. He was saying that he did not want to restrict hunting and that he did not want to cause problems for hunters.
I do not know if the hon. member owns firearms himself. I will let him know that his government has spent in excess of $600 million so far of taxpayer money. If I divide that by 30 million people, that is $20 for every man, woman and child. Not every man, woman and child owns a firearm. Looking at the number of firearm owners, we could be looking at $100 per firearm owner.
Looking at what firearm owners are spending independently; looking at trigger locks the government is telling them they have to use; looking at a firearm's acquisition certificate, which is something I have applied for; and looking at the hunter education courses the government asks people to take, that is all money as well. A person is looking at several hundred dollars for owning of one firearm.
For the hon. member to stand in the House and say that even though he wants to impose a restriction of several hundred dollars for any firearm owned, that somehow that is not a restriction is ludicrous.
By the same token, I will lay the blame at his feet for some of the criminal problems in the country. His government dabbles around with criminal justice instead of coming up with a sex offender registry. It does not go ahead and get rid of early parole for rapists and other types of offenders. It does not change the law. His own members in the House want to come up with consecutive sentences so that people who commit multiple crimes do not serve one single sentence but instead serve multiple criminal convictions one on top of the other for their offences. When it will not act on some of the various criminal provisions, it in a sense creates a hothouse environment for criminals to breed in, to be attracted to. Hence we see those types of people abusing those laws.
His government will not go ahead and crack down on child pornography and pedophilia. It allows people to possess these things and to profit from keeping the avails of these types of activities. It only encourages these types of activities.
How could he say that several hundred dollars for owning one firearm is not a restriction? How could he claim that he is doing a good job on criminal justice when all these other provisions for getting at the real problem of crime are let go by his government?