Mr. Speaker, when the government came into power, it promised it would increase the number of local police in many of the large cities to deal with gun and gang violence. I asked this question of the minister in the House and now I am asking the minister to please explain to me why that promise was broken.
When we look at British Columbia we will find that metro Vancouver has fewer police officers per capita than any other big city. Data from Statistics Canada tells us that the case burden, compiled with the number of officers per a population of 100,000 puts Vancouver at the bottom of the pack. We all know that there was a promise of more police officers, which never materialized. The promise was repeated in the 2006 budget. It was repeated in the 2007 budget and it never came to fruition. The money has not actually been seen.
We know now that it waited. As per usual with the government, nothing happens until a crisis occurs. When we look at what has been happening in Vancouver since January, with large numbers of murders and drive-by shootings, all of a sudden this came back on the agenda three years later. This could have been done. It could have assisted the Vancouver police to deal with some of the problems they are facing with regard to guns and gangs.
My question is obviously to the minister. I know that the minister will tell me that the money was put in this budget and that there are now new bills that are coming forward to deal with the issue of guns and gangs. However, I need to tell the minister that the police are not so sure about this money that is forthcoming. They want to be sure that the money that does come is going to be adequate and sustainable. In other words, they want to be sure that the money is not going to be there for six months and then disappear again.
There needs to be a continuing assessment of the needs of the populations with regard to police in some of the large cities in Canada. As we can see, Vancouver is one of those cities. The police are asking for long-term, sustainable federal funding for police officers to give them the tools they need to keep them up to date. They do not want that money to be used to replace police officers who are now at the right age to retire, et cetera. They want new police officers. Twenty-five hundred new police officers were promised for Canadian cities. Twenty-five hundred new police officers have to be there, not filling in the gaps and replacing those who have been lost.
The other thing is eligibility. The police have told me that one of the big problems they have is that this money has suddenly been handed to the provinces. That money is sitting somewhere and the provinces have yet to move this money forward to the police forces. They are really concerned that this is not going to be used for new police officers. They are concerned that this is going to be used as a replacement for police officers and for the attrition of police forces.
My question to the minister is this. Why did the Conservatives not keep their promise to replace the police force and put in new police officers to deal with guns and gangs as it did in 2006? Now that they have done it, why are they not doing it in a way that will make it sustainable and ensure that there are new police officers?