Mr. Speaker, as a former member of the Toronto Police Services Board, we often dealt with this issue. When we are dealing with large urban centres, especially, a lot of policing time goes into apprehending criminals and various items like houseboats, trailers, homes and so on. A lot of money is spent by our local police forces both in the investigative time and numerous other things they have to do to lay charges against individuals.
I have always felt that money from the sale of those individual items should go right into the local police services. It is a much more effective way of acknowledging they put out all this money. Currently they have to wait several years for any money spent as part of an investigation to come back to them.
Granted there would be an imbalance from our large urban centres to some of the smaller centres but, clearly, proceeds of crime, things that can be liquidated, should go back into the local police services so they can have more money to do additional investigations and ensure the safety of our community.