Mr. Speaker, it is certainly amusing to hear that we cannot get involved in areas that are not our responsibility when the previous government continually talked about a new deal for municipalities. Municipalities are not within the domain of the federal government. Certainly if we work with the provinces and the municipalities, as I mentioned, it is one of our platform goals to hire more police officers by giving the resources to those who deal directly with this.
In the last government, mention was made that there were 1,059 vacant RCMP spots. That is unacceptable. This government not only wants to hire officers for those positions and provide the resources to do so, but to work with municipalities to hire 2,500 police officers across this country. As much as we may want to talk about reasons why the status quo is acceptable, which I do not believe is the case, if we look at the statistics for 2004, homicides went up 12%. Last year everyone in the House would have been mortified with some of the tragic incidents that happened.
I find it unacceptable to simply accept the status quo of the current Criminal Code. It does not offer adequate deterrents. To make up excuses why we cannot act would not do justice for the people who have fallen to tragic deaths over the last year. This government needs to act. The Prime Minister will act. It is an honour to be part of this government.