Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to be able to participate and ask questions of my colleagues because these are the issues that Canadians have sent us here to deal with. These are serious issues with profound implications.
My Conservative colleagues keep talking about how we have to walk the walk by getting tough on crime, yet over the last four years they have dragged bills out, let them die and then bring them back. This is a bit of a circus for them.
This is not about getting tough on crime. The Conservatives use these days to get tough on the taxpayer. They take people's statements out of context and then they use taxpayers' dollars to send attack mailings to trash people's credibility and to trash them personally.
Every day my constituents ask me what kind of people make such cheap, dumbed down attacks, and then expect taxpayers to pay for them. I tell them the former defence minister cannot seem to stand on his own two feet and say anything credible in the House. He is attacking the Liberal leader. I have no problem with someone attacking the Liberal leader, but I do not think the former minister should be using taxpayers' dollars to do that.
I would like to ask my hon. colleague why he thinks we have seen this endless parade of crime bills and dumbed down crime talk? Why are taxpayers' dollars being used to fund a Conservative attack campaign in every riding in this country? Why are Canadian taxpayers paying for Conservative personal, vitriolic and embarrassing attack mailings? This is embarrassing for Canadian politics.