Mr. Speaker, it was an interesting speech by the member for Etobicoke North. To hear him talk, one would think that like his leader, the new Prime Minister, the speech is all things to all people. Certainly in some respects it tried to do that.
He started out his remarks by bragging about the role of all Liberal members, including backbenchers--and he actually even referred to the members of Parliament from what he referred to as the rump--having input into the throne speech. Yet last night we saw a very important and I would l say critical debate in this chamber about BSE and the mad cow crisis that is affecting not only western Canada but indeed the entire country.
My first question to the member for Etobicoke North is, how is it that with 170 members of Parliament all providing this input into this throne speech no one found it important enough to have the BSE mad cow crisis mentioned at all, let alone an action plan laid out in the throne speech or at least outlined so that beef producers could take some heart?
The second thing he referred to which I want to ask him about is his use of the term, quite derogatorily I might add, of western style shootouts in Toronto. We all understand they have a very serious criminal firearm problem in Toronto. I wonder if this has caused him to rethink his support for the failed gun registry and if those millions of dollars that continue to be spent or wasted on this gun registry would not be better spent putting more police officers on the streets in Toronto.