Mr. Speaker, actually I thought I had talked fairly extensively about the support we were giving to the bill because it is needed in a number of circumstances.
My colleague from Wild Rose asked if I see him using this for political gain. I do not. I respect him as he does me. We disagree all the time. I cannot say the same thing about a number of other members of his party, including the former justice minister. However, this is just being completely partisan on my part.
Putting that aside, this is really about passing laws that are effective in protecting the Canadian public and will, in fact, be used.
I want to go back to the two examples that my colleague gave to my friend from the Bloc about the woman who was sexually assaulted and the robbery in the corner store. It is really interesting to compare these stories with what we heard from Chief Blair in Toronto. Using the same system, ramping up the services with no new laws, just using the existing ones, he shut down three street gangs in his city.
When I heard the story the member gave us with regard to the woman who was sexually assaulted, I could not help but ask why the prosecutor did not have a condition on the bail release for that alleged perpetrator to not be anywhere near that address. That would be a very common clause. In defence of that prosecutor, it was probably not put in because he or she was so over-worked that the point was missed. That happens a lot. If the prosecutor did put it in, the police should have charged that person immediately. Chief Blair did that and he did it very effectively without new legislation.
The NDP is obviously very concerned about protecting Canadians. We just want to do it effectively. We think there are parts of this bill that will do that.