Mr. Speaker, I welcome my colleague back to the House.
I was a police officer for many years in the member's riding. It is a riding that, unfortunately, is fraught with crime. However, when he talks about people wanting us to reduce crime, it was his party that voted to make house arrest available to criminals so they could be back in his community. It was his party that ran on a platform that had zero allocated for youth crime prevention programs and had no intention of renewing the gang prevention programs that our government had put forth.
Our platform was very clear. We are renewing those programs. We believe in those programs and we are listening to the police officers, including the Canadian Police Association, who say very clearly that those programs are necessary. They endorse what our government has done. The money has been allocated in budget 2011.
The member should question his own party as to why it insists on putting criminals back on the streets on house arrest and ignore the need, and the budgetary need, of these programs and these children.