Mr. Speaker, I, too, was taken aback and floored when I returned to Ottawa yesterday and I read Newt Gingrich's article of Friday, January 7. I would recommend it to anybody in the House or in the country to read. His article reflects what has actually been going on.
In Texas, Republican and Democrat politicians, both right wing and left wing, got together as far back as five years ago and decided to be smart on crime, to do what worked. They could not sustain the increasing costs to the system because the crime rates were not going in the right direction. There were two things that did not work right. In the case of, I believe, North Carolina the same issue has been going on, with the Republicans and Democrats getting together and saying that it is not working.
That is why we have called on the government to set up a multi-party committee of the House and do a complete revamp of our Criminal Code, which is 100 years old. It should not be reformed on a piecemeal basis. It should be done in a concerted way.
Maybe the government should proceed with an all party committee and have people go to North Carolina and Texas to see what works there, so we can try to avoid some of the problems the government wants to take us into. It is behind the times. It is still following Ronald Reagan. Americans gave up on the Ronald Reagan approach a long time ago.