Mr. Speaker, I will make my remarks short because I know other people want to speak and private members' business is sort of a sacred time and people want to get on.
I want just to say that despite the cost overruns of the firearms registry, and I do agree that something went badly wrong, I can tell the member opposite and the person moving this motion that this is one MP that still very much supports the program.
Very quickly, Mr. Speaker, the member should put in context what the registry does. What the registry does is it tracks long guns which are capable of killing not only animals at a distance but capable of killing people at a distance.
Since September 11 the security situation has so drastically changed that we need to control and destroy long guns that exist in society that are not being used by proper gun owners, by registered gun owners. Because the one thing that we do not want to see in international affairs particularly in countries like Iraq, we do not want to see terrorists acquire guns that can kill people at distances.
Right now what is happening over there is that basically the firearms that are in circulation in the Middle East and in other areas of terrorism across the world are automatic weapons that are only effective at close range. It changes everything for those American soldiers in Iraq if those American soldiers can be killed at 100 yards, 300 yards or 500 yards. The type of weapons that the registry is designed to collect and destroy are long guns that pose an enormous threat to the stability in the world if they get out of North America.
So, Mr. Speaker, there are other reasons why the gun registry is very important but at the very least, everyone in this House and particularly those members of the opposition who are constantly saying that we should support the Americans well, I will tell you, Mr. Speaker, we should certainly support the Americans by putting all the controls on the distribution and black market collection of long guns. And with this gun registry that we have here in Canada, at least we will know that if long guns suddenly turn up in places like Iraq, they will not be coming from Canada.