They never will because they have been promised and denied so many times. They remember little things like the gun registry, the invasion on their civil liberties, and their rights and freedoms.They look at things like the national energy program. They remember things like the payout on the home heating fuel that went to prisoners and people who did not even live in the country. They look at these guys as poor fiscal managers. That point is getting nailed home.
I look at polls and they show the Liberals at 38% in Saskatchewan. That means that all three people voted because that is how many people in Saskatchewan get called when they do a sample of the country. I guess all of them were Liberals, but in my riding we would be hard-pressed to find anybody who would stand and say “I am a Liberal and I like it”, because the family is under attack, the sex offender registry does not go anywhere because the Liberals will not make it retroactive and it does not protect our kids.
The DNA database that the police are crying for is not retroactive and never will be, so we have a bunch of blank sheets of paper. What good is that? We have Police Chief Julian Fantino from Toronto saying to take the money from the gun registry, put it into a sex offender registry, and make it work. He runs the largest police force in the country. He just had a huge tragedy in his area and he realizes what needs to be done. We have to get it done. A majority government can do these things.
The Solicitor General stood up in reply to a question in the House today and said that a motion I introduced totally scuttled Bill C-23, the sex offender registry. That is a David and Goliath story if I ever heard one. As if I took down a majority Liberal government. I would like to pass a couple of other motions on a few other things if it were that effective. However, he did not read the other half of the motion which said that Bill C-23 should be withdrawn until it is made retroactive. It is useless until we have some names in the registry.
Even when the government does implement the half measures it is talking about, the offenders can still apply to a judge and say that they cannot have their names there because it is not in their interests. Well of course it is not. It is in the interest of the poor victims out there who suffer again and again at the hands of these perverts. These guys just cannot help themselves.
We took many years to make a few changes to the Young Offenders Act and then it was softened because one province said it was too strict. The other nine said it was not strict enough, so the majority did not rule. Democracy does not count for a darn thing in this place at times. It is political will.
We see that in the helicopter replacement procedure. The government keeps crying that there is no politics in this replacement procedure. History shows that it was politics that cancelled it, it was politics that debundled it, and it was politics that bundled it again once the government saw a consortium coming together that it wanted. Now it is politics that says the specifications are all watered down.
During the late show last night I presented all of the things that have been changed, such as payload requirements and the potential for crash landings. The Liberals can lose the aircraft and nobody is concerned because that is how they have dumbed down the specifications. That is not good government. That is not good practice at any level in the private sector or government organization. We cannot do that. We cannot play politics with major procurement systems like that. We cannot play politics with sponsorship programs or job creation funds. They all hit the proverbial fan.
People in Canada are finally starting to keep a scorecard, saying “This is where it went off the rails. This is where it went wrong. This is why we have to hold these guys accountable”. That has to be done and there is a political price to pay for all of this tap dancing that we see around the edges.