Madam Speaker, I think the motion that the hon. member has brought forward addresses this issue. I think it is so important because the reality is that amnesty sends the message that it is okay to not follow the law, that this is not an important law, that we can skirt this one, that we can ignore it. If anything, it makes the job for police even tougher. This is what we hear back from police officers, that the amnesty allows these individuals to think this is not an important law.
Imagine if we said to people with respect to registering their cars that we were going to give them amnesty, that they did not really have to register their car, that it really was not that important. It sends the wrong message.
The message we should be sending is that this is an essential tool, that it is a tool that police are using, and using to great effect, to make our streets safer. We should be working with legitimate gun owners to explain the importance of the program, why registration is a good idea. What we should not be doing is playing politics and trying to divide them against each other to play partisan political games, because all that does is make the registry less effective. It weakens public safety and it confuses individuals as to the importance of why they should register. That confusion and that fog is deliberate. It is done for political reasons. It is most certainly not done to increase public safety.