Madam Speaker, I have heard my colleague speak like this before, and I understand he was a police officer. I also understand that he was often faced with violent situations other than domestic crime. As I mentioned, however, handgun murders in Canada at the moment are slightly exceeding long gun murders, at roughly 100 a year. However the two are still in the same ballpark. That is 10% of the murders from guns of all sorts, so he is talking about 10%.
Second, he is talking about illegal guns. I would point out that car theft is a serious problem. It is a problem which sometimes when people joyride or otherwise results in death and injury. I understand that. However I would suggest to my colleague that if the cars were not registered, there would be far more cars stolen and there would be far more accidents from cars having been stolen than there are at present.
I am not suggesting that one piece of legislation can cure all these problems. There always will be illegals. My colleague should talk about long guns instead of handguns. He would agree that handgun murders are down because of handgun regulations, incomplete though they are. I hope he would agree that long gun murders and other deaths will go down as this other registration system and the associated licensing system become complete.
I hope he will vote for the additional moneys today so we do not throw away an already good program simply because, as I have accepted, it has been mishandled financially.