Mr. Speaker, I listen with interest, as always, to my hon. colleague's speech. I seem to have heard the gist of it repeated a number of times because he is very focused on this issue, and I respect him for that.
We are talking about a bill that would protect citizens from gun crimes and how to best do that. We have had this discussion before. How do we balance public protection and rights. Rights are not something to be discarded or seen as for the weak kneed. Rights are fundamental in our society.
Earlier the member talked about the issue child pornography. Every member in the House, just as the vast majority, or 99% of the people watching, would see this as a very fundamental issue in terms of protection. I do not think that Canadians take that issue lightly.
The member spoke about how inaction by the House had created a billion dollar a year child pornography industry. I do not think those are the numbers in Canada. Also, because of a judge's ruling on some guy's material on whether it was art or pornography, this created a situation where every piece of child pornography had to be reviewed for its artistic merit. That is a rash statement. I simply do not think it is true.
So people back home do not panic, our police services are out there all the time fighting child pornography issues. They know they do not have to worry about whether it has artistic merit. That line of argument is frankly bunk and it is not true.
I am correcting the record and reminding the member that he is impassioned about this issue, but he has to also recognize that every member in the House takes that issue very seriously, just as we take the issue of protecting our citizens seriously.
The question that we are bringing to the House is how to go about that in a system that works, that is deliverable and that does not, at the end of the day, hurt our society.