Mr. Speaker, I do not have any doubt that the Conservative want the additional police officers. However, I want to be very clear, because I went through those elections, too, in 2004 and 2006. In both cases, the Conservative Party was very clear it would put these additional police officers on the streets of our country and it would increase the number of RCMP officers. I do not think the Conservatives understood what that meant at the time, in terms of the points my colleague just raised, such as the length of time it take to train. We did not have, and we do not yet have a training centre in Saskatchewan that was large enough to take in the additional trainees we needed for the RCMP. It is in the process of completing that.
There are other things the Conservatives could be doing with the RCMP that would also make it attractive for people to join, one of which would be to stabilize where people are sent, as opposed to them and their families being moved all over the country, oftentimes on whims that do not make a lot of sense.
The other thing, though, that really bothered me, and still bothers me, is that throughout those elections, including in 2008, the Conservatives never said that they would spend the money, but it would have to matched by the provincial governments for the additional police officers for municipal and provincial police forces. Any number of provinces said that they could not do it. The negotiations went on for over a year.