Mr. Speaker, in his presentation, the member pointed out the fact that this legislation was introduced under very tough circumstances in 2001 but that it did have, and rightly so, a sunset clause after five years, which legislation of this type usually has and should have. However, when it did expire after not having been applied or used, no movement was made to renew the legislation.
We have provisions under the current laws to deal with these sort of situations. As the member pointed out, we have the situation in Toronto with people being caught and charged with terrorism. We have a similar situation in Ottawa. I would also like to point out that only a few years ago in Manitoba when the Queen visited, there were two or three people who made some threats and I was told that they were simply picked up and removed for the period of time of the Queen's visit. I do not know where they were taken or what the police did with them but they just disappeared from the scene for a period of hours. Clearly, under the current laws in this country, there is ample provision for dealing with threats. We have been dealing with this issue for years.
This is a lot of window dressing on the part of a desperate government that is sinking fast in the polls and trying to recover. It comes up with some boutique crime bills that it hopes will translate into some gains in the polls. The government should know by now that it did not work in the past, that it does not seem to be working right now and that it probably will not work in the future. It should look back to the minority Parliament of Lester Pearson where, in roughly the same period of time of six years, the Lester Pearson government worked with the opposition and brought in a new flag. It joined the armed forces, brought in medicare and did many progressive things. The sooner the current government figures out that it should start working with the opposition we then could have some new initiatives for this country, but nothing is happening because of the Conservatives' belligerent attitude toward the opposition and to Parliament.