Mr. Speaker, I listened with great fascination to my colleague's dissertation. He talked about the whole notion of treating young people separately, the historic jurisprudence behind it and how the Conservatives are saying no, they will treat the 12 year olds the same as they treat the 25 year olds.
There is one area where the Conservatives are very clear about treating one group of people very differently and that is the first nations people. I invite any of the get tough on crime people from the Conservatives to come to the James Bay coast or to the Nishnawbe Aski Nation territory where the police are woefully understaffed, where they are in situations that are just plain dangerous. Not a single officer in any of the non-native forces would ever put himself or herself in the situation the NAPS officers are in on a daily basis.
For example, in the community of Attawapiskat there are 2,000 people with only two police officers on duty. If one officer has to take someone out, that leaves one officer in a community of 2,000. In other communities like Moose Factory, the police station has to shut down at a certain point during the night because the officers are not getting paid for overtime.
The Conservatives believe that these people can be treated differently, that their crimes can be treated differently, that their police officers can be left with no support, no help and that for the victims of real crime, who are mostly our impoverished first nations, it is too bad, so sad. Meanwhile, the Conservatives are running around telling us that we are going to get tough on every little punk who is walking the streets in Ottawa or Toronto.
I would like to ask the member why he thinks that the government shows such casual disregard for the first people of our country and refuses to support the police in those communities with the adequate resources not only to ensure the health and safety of police officers but to ensure that the first nations communities are being kept with the same measure of safety that other Canadians take for granted.