Madam Speaker, the hon. member kind of half made his point when he said we should put the test in place first, in other words, bury our heads in the sand. When is the test going to be available? Will it be two months, will it be two years?
I would encourage the member opposite to go to downtown Vancouver's east side, and see and talk to some of those individuals, see the loss of human potential there, and see the lives that are being virtually destroyed. How many more lives must be destroyed before we deal with the problem? Waiting for the test implies that we are basically sitting back and waiting another little while.
The bill and the national drug strategy will put in place funding for research work and for the training of police officers. We did not always have a breathalyzer test for alcohol. In my time, we used to have to walk the white line, but eventually a breathalyzer test came along. The police forces used to use observation and training to detect if people at that time were driving under the influence of alcohol. The same training could take place for being under the influence of drugs.
The member opposite accused me of articulating the problem but not proposing solutions. He obviously did not want to hear what people had to say. He did go to great lengths to emphasize that people are coming to him and saying that there are problems in high schools. He is blaming it on what he claims is the decriminalization in this bill.
As I said earlier, this is not about decriminalization. If the Conservative Party would go to western Canada and tell the people what the bill is really about, that it is about changing penalties, then maybe those young people would not have to come to him. They are coming to him on the basis of the misinformation that is put out by the Conservative Party. That is the problem.
The bill talks about changing the penalties, doing a better job, education, getting people off drugs, increasing the penalties and closing down marijuana grow operations, and about finding the solution to roadside testing. If he were to state those facts then maybe young people in the schools in his riding would recognize that the bill moves us forward and then they would not need to come to him.
If he were to put out the right information instead of the wrong information, we would be moving forward.