Mr. Speaker, when the delegation of the provincial government arrived in Ottawa in September 2007, as the member said, it included Attorney General Chomiak, the leader of the provincial Liberal Party, the leader of the opposition in Manitoba, and several people other with interest in this issue.
They were asking in 2007 that the government provide stronger penalties for youth involved in serious crimes, especially those involving auto theft. They wanted first degree murder charges for gang-related homicides. They wanted to eliminate the two-for-one remand credits that we are still dealing with. They wanted to classify auto theft as an indictable, violent offence. We are dealing with this today: making shooting at a building and drive-by shootings indictable offences.
This blows holes in the government's argument that the opposition is soft on crime. That is absolutely untrue. Some of these initiatives have come from the provinces, not from the federal government, so the government should be giving credit to the province of Manitoba for taking this initiative.
With respect to gang suppression, we looked at the immobilizer issue, because we thought that if we could immobilize the cars they could not be stolen in the first place. But that was only part of the problem. The other problem was identifying the 50-odd people who were stealing almost all of the cars. The police gang-suppression unit was formed, and officers monitored and followed these people. By the way, they used a bit of Nova Scotia technology in the process: they adopted a monitoring bracelet that was attached to the offenders' legs. They tested it for a year, and I believe it is still in use in Manitoba right now. But these are the reasons we have had a reduction in auto theft in Manitoba.
I am wondering why this has not spread across the country, why other jurisdictions have not adopted this reasonable approach. Our program to bring more immigrants into the province was very successful. Officials from the province of Nova Scotia came to Manitoba to study it, and I think they implemented it, because it was very successful. I am wondering why other provinces have not stepped up to the plate and followed Manitoba's example in this area, because this is a very serious problem, and it is going to take a number of years for it to resolve itself. I would like to ask the member if he has any further comments on these matters.