Madam Speaker, I want to add a couple of comments in support of the member for Lakeland who has brought this bill forward. He has brought a couple of good private member's bills forward in the past. The one I particularly liked sought to get expensive tools for mechanics deductible. I applaud him for doing that. This bill is another example of a good bill that has been well researched.
However the problem is that this bill is not votable. After debate today it will be dropped from the order paper and nothing will be done with it. All the work that has gone into preparing this to bring it forward, all the legal angles that have been looked at, goes for naught because it will not be voted on. Any private member's initiative should be. As members of parliament this is one tool we have to bring forward our issues.
The bill refers to Bill C-68 concerning gun laws. I want to make sure people understand that a Canadian Alliance government would repeal this law and replace it with a law that would respect private property rights and target the criminal use of firearms, not the lifestyles of law-abiding citizens.
The idea of a peace officer going into a person's home without cause or without provocation to search the premises without a warrant is something we should not have to discuss. The criminal code does allow for such entry but it should not be allowed on a routine basis.
The most intrusive part of Bill C-68, which people feared and opposed the most, was that a peace officer could enter into their home and take their private property without reason. People brought this issue to our attention time and time again. I am glad this was brought forward for discussion because it should not be a part of Canadian law. We only expect to hear things like that happening in the Soviet Union or some place with a dictatorship or a communist state.
If peace officers do enter our premises and, in the process of their search, damage our property, whether it is the property they are looking for or collateral property, they should provide compensation. The member for Lakeland had examples of where this has happened and where the people suffering the damage had no recourse.
Those two issues, the unwarranted search of private property and the lack of compensation for damage done during a search, needed to be addressed in Bill C-68. Bill C-245 would do that. However, the bill was not made votable so we will not be standing in the House to show our support.
The only way we can show our support for the bill is to say a few comments and get them on the record. We must also say again that hundreds of millions of dollars have been spent on the gun registry system and we see no end in sight to the cost of registering every firearm in Canada. Nobody knows how many there are. To intrude into the lives of private, law-abiding citizens and not specifically target the criminal use of firearms is wrong.
Bill C-68 needs to be repealed and replaced with comprehensive legislation that deals with those issues.