Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to present this petition.
When I was first elected almost seven years ago now, I raised the issue of the government toughening the laws with regard to date rape drugs. I have a petition that was put together by several constituents and folks in Abbotsford who were inspired by their own tragedy to spread the word and cause that all governments should do everything they can to protect women from the cowards who use date rape drugs to abuse women.
If I had to guess, I would say that this petition has somewhere between 750 and 1,000 names on it. It calls upon the government to increase penalties, have date rape drugs treated more seriously in our Criminal Code and to take a number of specific actions against those who use date rape drugs.
Our government has taken action on a number of these things but we can never do enough to protect society from those who would do us harm through a number of means, not the least of which is, frankly, the gutless cowards who use date rape drugs.