Mr. Speaker, we have consistently been hearing the question of why the government has been rolling out its crime agenda, slowing things down, proroguing the House, delaying the passage of bills, starting the bills over again and then, of course, ramping up the attack on everyone else in this House that they are somehow soft on crime. The record in this House is that we have a government that has perhaps not a great interest in actually seeing these bills passed.
I would suggest that my hon. colleague read the book What's the Matter with Kansas. It is an excellent analysis of how the republican party has used hot button issues to continually drum up support in its hard core base and create the notion of wedge issues.
Of course, the analysis of how it uses the hot button issues shows that these issues are never to be settled. It does not matter how many crime bills come forward, there will always be another drunk driver. There will always be another punk that grabs a handbag at the bus stop from the sweet little old lady. There will always be a reason for the backbenchers of the Conservative Party to stand up and say that not enough is being done on crime, regardless of how much this House deals with crime issues.
I would ask my hon. colleague, does he not feel that all members of this House and the members who sat on the committee have certainly tried to work with the government to get some usable, workable crime legislation passed? What we have seen is that his work has continually been cheapened by the sloganeers in the Conservative Party.
I ask my hon. colleague whether or not this crime agenda will actually ever come into law because of the stalling that the Conservatives seem to be doing on these bills?