Mr. Speaker, when one hears the minister stand in the House, take advantage of the right he has to make a ministerial statement and put forth the ongoing ideological rant from the Conservatives about being harsh on crime in this country, they should look at the history of what has happened to see how serious they really are.
We wasted a whole year. The justice committee did not meet for a whole year, from March 11, 2008 until March of 2009. In every case, it was because of an action by the government. Initially, the chair of the committee filibustered and refused to call meetings. We wasted the whole of spring 2008 on that.
In the fall of 2008, the Prime Minister unilaterally decided that he would call an election, in breach of his own law. In December 2008, the government took the position that it would prorogue because it was afraid of what the opposition parties would do to it.
At any of those times, did the Conservatives ever ask themselves about the legislation that was needed to deal with crime right across this country? No, they did not. We have them up here again today. This year, they have been really slow at introducing any new bills into the House and then getting them to committee.
The committee missed a whole year of being able to do anything and every one of those delays was because of the conduct of the government, not any lack of work or co-operation by the opposition parties. When he stands in the House and says those things, we should look at his credibility.