Mr. Speaker, I guess the member for Niagara Falls has not been reading the budgets, because if he had been, he would know that this government has invested over $9 billion in public safety and security initiatives since 9/11. In fact, in budget 2005, if the members opposite would support it, there would be even more money for public security and the RCMP.
I want to raise the point that the members opposite severely miscast what this discussion is about. Those members are calling for the Parliament of Canada and a standing committee of Parliament to run the day to day affairs of the RCMP. This is not how it works. Parliament enacted the RCMP legislation, which gives the commissioner of the RCMP the authority to deal with the operational decisions of the RCMP, and that is what this is: when some detachments are closed to bring in a critical mass of officers so we can fight more effectively against organized crime and terrorism without having scattered little operations that have no impact.
This is what this is about. The commissioner of the RCMP came to the committee and spoke many times about why this was required for operational reasons to make Quebec and Canadians safer. That is exactly what he said, so how can the members opposite now become the instant experts on security and law enforcement? That is my question.