Mr. Speaker, I am sure we will all want to take that admonition to heart.
With all due respect to my hon. colleague opposite, for whom I have a great deal of respect, I am a little disappointed at some of the rhetoric he has thrown into his response to the Speech from the Throne with regard to two particular issues: first, he called the Conservative child care approach misguided; and second, his comments on the gun registry.
First, with regard to the child care plan, I am surprised that the member continues to tout what Canadians themselves, parents of young children, have said when asked what type of child care they prefer for their children. He continues to endorse and promote what Canadians rate as the fifth choice. Canadian parents prefer to manage their children as much as possible by themselves, or with a close family relative, or a neighbourhood day care, or a workplace-oriented day care. I am surprised the member would continue to ignore what statistics show us, which is Canadians prefer to have control of their child care.
Second, with regard the gun registry, the member referred to the great number of hits that the police have on the gun registry and how useful it is to them. Frankly, that information is so misused. We know that to get hits, every time officers stop cars for speeding, or for going through a stop sign or a red light, or for any check at all, they punch in the licence place number and it automatically accesses the gun registry, which officers at the side of the road completely ignore. However, they get great numbers according to the hits on the registry. It is totally useless and misguided. How could they possibly have spent $159 million on computers for a registry that has produced so little value to actual policing or reducing crime or violent gun crime in the country?
We have elderly citizens who are concerned. I had a man In my community approach me just this week on this subject. He has guns he inherited from a family member. He does not hunt himself, but they are family heirlooms. He is being told that if he does not register so far ahead of his birthday, not only will he lose his registry, he will have to go through the whole application again, and it will cost him another $60 to register, if he can get the registry in on time.
Why would the member continue to endorse a program that everyone recognizes as a complete and utter failure?