Mr. Speaker, before I get started on this particular bill, I want to remind the minority government of neo-cons that in fact more people voted against them than voted for them. Sometimes that is just a little lost on members opposite. If we were to look at the polls today, even fewer would vote for them than voted for them during the election. The consequence of that is that the new minority government has to solicit the cooperation of the parties opposite.
I want to note that the government dropped 11 bills on the floor of this House and the Liberal Party consented to six of them. Like that, we consented to six of them, largely because they mirrored legislation that was put forward by the Liberal government in the last Parliament. Poor fellows, like they cannot take success. Is that not what it boils down to? They cannot take success. They got six free bills.
The Conservatives talk about being tough on crime. Well tough does not mean stupid on crime at the same time. This is one of those bills that is just plain stupid because it will not survive any kind of constitutional challenge. It is a classic.
The Conservatives whip up a fear, get people all wired about how dangerous it is out there, that the whole nation is just going down the tubes, and then put forward another dumb bill. Here we have one more dumb bill that somehow or another is going to save the nation from this massive crime rate.
I listened to the member for Wild Rose being rebutted by the member from the Bloc Québécois because the member for Wild Rose is absolutely convinced that we are in fact under a massive crime rate in this country. The statistics of course do not bear him out. They have not borne him out for the last decade, but that really does not much matter to him. It does not seem to much matter to the members in his party because they basically traffic in fear and smear. They get the population worked up about something that does not exist and then propose a solution to a problem that does not exist. They then run away from it because the crown attorneys, the defence counsel, the accused, the victims, and the judges will have to clean up the mess afterward.