Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for Selkirk--Interlake for his question.
The question regarding car theft, particularly in the city of Regina. Members who are not from Saskatchewan may know the rate is high and has remained high for some time. Not being a psychologist I do not know what would make a person, young or old, want to steal a car and drive it around for a while then deliberately drive it into a tree, a creek or something of that sort and total the vehicle. However it is happening.
I touched on community policing. This is one of the things I picked up on in my meetings. There are large areas on the prairies that are not populated where one goes some distance between communities. The feeling is that there are not enough police in those communities to apprehend people either before they commit crimes or after the fact.
The provincial governments in both Manitoba and Saskatchewan are aware of the situation. The justice critic for the hon. member's party was lamenting the fact that there are insufficient resources. A lot of this is being downloaded to the provinces to pay for the additional policing that seems to be required.
In terms of whether the legislation would work or make a difference, that remains to be seen. Based on my first hand observations Canadians will be watching extremely closely as to whether it is more effective than the legislation it is replacing.