Mr. Speaker, I listened to my colleague's comments and am very interested to hear his viewpoint on a couple of things he brought forward.
First, he said that there was a groundswell across Canada against this bill. I was actually one of the members of Parliament who had a protest outside my office. There were 10 people and the majority of them were affiliated with special interest groups, some involved with the New Democratic Party and some with, let us say, original points of view on drug use.
The member said that we needed more police officers on the streets. Members know that we provided money for 1,800 more front-line officers, but the NDP voted against it. I know the gentleman is a new member, but he does not realize that his party's stance on this is way out of touch with Canadians.
He talked about the program cut in his community. We established these programs, but they are not meant to exist forever. Then New Democrats want us to extend programs that they have already voted against.
Could he address the fact that there are differences in the criminal justice system? There are hard-nosed criminals who repeat offences and the best thing we can do for victims is keep them off the street instead of allowing them back on the street and coddling them.