Mr. Speaker, I have included the age of consent provisions in this bill because I want to get them passed. I guess that is the whole point of what is going on here. It is easy enough to say that it probably would have been passed at some point in the process. The fact is it was not passed. As I said to my colleagues, Canadian youth were not as well protected this summer as they should have been by the passage of that.
In his comments with respect to provincial enforcement and police officers, the hon. member said that they all appreciated toughening up the laws, and that is good. I want their support on that. This is exactly what we are trying to do across a whole host of provisions in the bill. If the New Democratic Party supports us on this, I welcome that.
I was very fair about this when I talked about Bill C-10, which is the bill that would give mandatory prison terms for people who committed serious firearms offences. I said that the NDP cooperated with us to getting most of them into the bill. That was in stark contrast to the Bloc and to the Liberals.
This is the day to day nuts and bolts of getting these things through. Forget the comments that members might have heard from the Liberals in the last election. As we saw, the Liberals did not support that legislation. However, to their credit, I think five or six members of the Liberal Party, who could not stomach the position that their party was taking in opposing mandatory prison terms for people who committed serious firearms offences, supported the government, and we could check the record on that. I appreciate his suggestion that they will help on this measure.
I am sure he has read the Speech from the Throne provisions with respect to extra policing, which is the responsibility of my colleague, the Minister of Public Safety.
I look for the support of all members to get this legislation through. All Canadians want it. All Canadians deserve that kind of protection.