Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for a very well put message with regard to the safety of our youth and as a matter of fact the safety of a lot of people.
I have many small towns in my riding with police detachments. I went to these detachments through the summer and I was shocked to find the number of confiscations of goods, drugs, guns, knives and paraphernalia for this and that taken out of the hands of small town residents in Alberta over this last little while.
Police have expressed to me their strong concern about the safety for all concerned, especially the youth but even about themselves. They feel that society as a whole seems to have turned its back on them as being a substance of protection. They are constantly being abused verbally by these organizations outfits. It is getting to be a very serious problem. It is not just in big city Canada. Crystal meth, this lacing of marijuana with this drug and the lacing of ecstasy is all across the country.
All of these things are getting out of control. I do not think the government understands that it is in our small communities.
I want to talk about a young fellow who is in trouble. I had a family from New Brunswick phone my riding telling me about a young fellow who came to my riding to work in the mountain parks region. They were quite concerned because they had not heard from him and had reported him missing. I went to visit the police and they began to look for this young fellow. The police found him but he was in hiding. He was hiding from people who were after him because of his involvement with drugs and underground goods. The police are keeping his whereabouts quiet for his own safety.
I wonder what the member thinks about all this. Do we want to live in a country where we need to hide our children or have them protected by the police so no one gets to them or do we put those who might get to our children behind bars where they darn well belong? We had better start acting like it.