Mr. Speaker, I asked a question in the House and the answer really did not address the question at all.
One of the key comments I made was that the Minister of Public Safety was strong on spin, but weak on crime. Now what I need to add is he and his government are tough on police. That is an unfortunate reality of the decisions and the policies of the Conservative government.
Is it not enough that the government has broken its promise to put 2,500 more police on the street? I had a visit from representatives of the police and RCMP. They advised me that the funding, which would not have covered 2,500 police in either case, was not tied to any additional police being hired. Therefore, the funding the Conservative government claimed was for more police, had no accountability that it would actually deliver more police. I could not get any clarity as to whether one additional police officer or RCMP officer had been hired, based on the promise made by the government. That is simply not good enough. We know how critical police are to apprehending criminals and also to preventing crime, an important objective. This is another broken promise.
Second, the approach of the Conservative government to strangle the gun registry is completely not supported by evidence. It is not supported by members of the public. It is not supported by the Association of Chiefs of Police. Police officers use this gun registry 9,000 times a day. More than 5,000 affidavits have been provided by the Canadian Firearms Registry to support the prosecution of firearms related crime and court proceedings.
Having a gun registry, according to the police, is a matter of personal safety for their officers. If a policeman is entering a residence in a building and does not have access to an up-to-date accurate registry to find out whether he or she can expect that he or she will face a gun, that police officer's safety is compromised.
Guns used in tragedies, like the rampage through the École Polytechnique de Montréal in which 14 women lost their lives, would have been registered by the long gun registry.
Finally, the government is opposing the rights of police officers, and that is enough to make me shake my head. The government rolled back its promise on the wages for RCMP officers, would have brought them to a level that was at parity with other police officers in Canada. Now the government is opposing collective bargaining rights for their front line officers, whose lives are at risk on a daily basis through their activities.
I would appeal to the government. Yes, strong laws for those who are guilty of series crimes is important, and the Liberals support that. However, we need strong prevention measures, including supporting our police forces and RCMP, rather than being tough on police.