Mr. Speaker, I listened intently to the hon. member's speech, specifically when he talked about the value as opposed to the cost. I would remind the hon. member that costs and values are not always aligned. A $2 billion cost does not mean it was worth that.
I picked up on one comment. The hon. member said that some police officers have spoken off the record. Let me quote from a letter sent by a constituent of mine who encouraged me to read this. It states:
I am a serving Policeman and have been for over 23 years. I am a front line cop whose career has been dedicated to hunting and capturing society's worst. For the past 12 years, I have worked exclusively on a big city (SWAT) Team and have arrested countless rapists, armed robbers, armed drug dealers, violent gang members, and murderers...I know very little about running a Police department, writing traffic tickets, lifting fingerprints, or investigating shop-lifters...I do know about hunting armed violent desperate men--and I do it very well. The long gun registry does ZERO to help me do my job. 99% of front line cops that I know feel the same way.