Mr. Speaker, I listened with interest to my colleague's discussion and he clearly laid out the issue. The issue before us is the need to balance public safety, which is something we as New Democrats are very strong on, particularly in light of the proliferation of guns and the concern about gun violence. We need to send a clear message that gun violence is not going to be tolerated in our society.
I would like to juxtapose that with the Conservative Party's cheapening of the suffering of crime victims in order to make political messages. The Conservatives send stuff into other people's ridings saying that so and so is soft on crime, or so and so supports all kinds of nefarious and disgusting activities because so and so does not have the extreme views of the Conservative Party on many things.
This legislation comes to us as something to deal with the threat of gun violence, so of course there is support for it. As with pretty much any bill the Conservatives bring forward, they make it so big that we could drive a Mack truck through it. They are trying to sweep up into their net many other crimes while scaring the general public about crime.
What steps does the hon. member think need to be taken to ensure the public interest is protected? What steps need to be taken to ensure that the Conservative Party does not use bills like this for cheap partisan purposes?