My friend across the way is saying that they do not support it. We know very well that the Canadian Police Association, again and again, has indicated its support. As recently as this year it supported the bill. It supports the program and it wants us to maintain it.
In my comments earlier I quoted from several occasions when police officers and representatives of the chiefs of police and the Canadian Police Association have spoken strongly in favour of the bill. I do not know who my colleagues are listening to but it certainly is not the police association or the police across the country.
We know the program recognizes the important role that firearms play, especially in rural Canada, for hunting, predator control, wilderness protection, target shooting and other legitimate purposes.
One of the things I hear from people who hunt is not just that they like to go out and shoot things but that they enjoy being out in the woods. They enjoy not only the pursuit in looking for deer, rabbit or whatever it is they are hunting, but they enjoy being out, the exercise, the fresh air, sometimes the camaraderie of being out perhaps with their friend, with a son perhaps, or with someone else who they want to spend time with, and it is valuable to have that time in the woods and to have that time together.
There has been a lot of talk from the opposition members to the bill, a lot of suggestions that what the government is trying to do is to create a situation in which guns can be confiscated. I find it offensive that members across the way and others who are opposed to this bill, rather than stick to the real issues in the bill and what it deals with, try to create these bogeyman about the fact that the government supposedly will come and take all their guns, which is absolute nonsense, and they know that. They know that is absolute nonsense and yet they continue to spout this kind of stuff and try to foment upset across the country.