Mr. Speaker, the last petition I would like to present also comes from petitioners from Saskatchewan and from across Canada.
The petitioners cite that the violent crime rate is a major concern and that all law-abiding citizens want safer streets regardless of whether they live in a big city or a rural community. The 1997 report by the Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics showed that 1994 represented the largest annual decline in police strength since it has been surveying and that the number of police on the streets is a serious problem.
In an attempt to do something about the criminal use of firearms, the government passed Bill C-68 into law in 1995 and now is wasting hundreds of millions of dollars on it. The petitioners ask that Parliament repeal Bill C-68 and redirect the hundreds of millions of tax dollars being wasted on the licensing of responsible firearms owners and registration of legally owned guns by doing something proven to be more cost effective at reducing crime and improving public safety, such as more police on the streets, more crime prevention programs, more suicide prevention centres, more women's crisis centres, more anti-smuggling campaigns and more resources for fighting organized crime and street gangs.