First things first, Madam Speaker. I will remind my colleague, with whom I get along quite well and quite enjoy his company, that I gave him a sincere opportunity to tell Canadians what the bill actually meant in terms of dollar figures, which is always a consideration of a government, regardless of the legislation.
Second, and I preface this by saying I quite like my colleague, how dare he suggest that the loss of life of that young woman in downtown Toronto would have been prevented by the bill. How dare he use the loss of life and the suffering of Canadians to suggest that the bill would have done otherwise.
How dare he use the victims of crime as some sort of political football to throw around this place, to suggest that the bill his government has presented will do anything for them, when he knows it will not and when he has no evidence whatsoever, presented in this place or anywhere else, that it is true.
If he has the evidence, then he should bring it forward. Otherwise, how dare he speak to those families, with no evidence in hand, nothing other than pure political opportunism, and use this moment to talk about the victims of crime and suggest that the bill, which has been shown and proven to be ineffective, will do anything for those families, will do anything for those victims, and will do anything for that young woman who was shot down in the streets of Toronto. How dare he.
He is a person of intelligence and, I thought, integrity. He needs to understand that if we go into this issue, we approach it with intelligence and integrity. If he has the evidence, he will not bother talking to his colleagues. He will stand up and say that here is the evidence that will prevent this from happening again. Here is the situation that he knows will be avoided because of the bill, because they have looked at it and researched it.
This has got to stop, this use of stories and victims to somehow justify draconian law with no evidence whatsoever. It is pathetic and it is beneath this place. The hon. member knows better, and he might leave, but the facts remain the same. He must present evidence. He must make logical statements based on fact, not on just anecdotal stories that are brought up to somehow convince Canadians that he is on the right track, even though he cannot present a shred of evidence otherwise. It is wrong. He knows better.