Mr. Speaker, one of the Liberals mentioned a program he had seen or knows of that deals with the harsh situations in east Vancouver. I have family and friends who live in that city. He mentioned that he thought there were benefits to the program in highlighting some of the drug use issues and the prostitution that exists in that neck of the woods and making the rest of Canadian society aware of this.
I posed a question previously about how much money we spend on these things. Let us pull a number out of the air. Let us say, for example, that a program on an issue like that costs $10 million. I think that is probably a fair guess. When we look at how many police officers that could actually put on the street at $50,000 per police officer, that is probably about 200 police officers.
I wonder what would be better for that community. Would it be to have their plights and their problems glamorized on TV and have actors and actresses portraying drug users and prostitutes spread out across the rest of the country serving as an example? Or would it be to have 200 police officers, law enforcement officers or maybe even social workers on the street in that community? That $10 million could be applied to the drug use problems and the crime that goes on there to try to end the cycle of drug use and crime. That might be a better use of money. I pose that question to the member.