Mr. Speaker, like the hon. member, I too was a member of the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security, which considered the issue of abolishing the long gun registry. My remarks or my question will not make him change his mind. On this side of the House, we are aware that the Conservatives are so convinced that they are right, and their position on the registry is so ideological, that we would be wasting our breath trying to get them to listen to reason.
However, there is one thing I would like to say to the House. The Conservatives often go out of their way to say that the NDP members who voted for the registry must respect the mandate they received from their constituents. But I am wondering if the hon. member is aware that these members were re-elected on May 2, 2011, after changing their minds because they were convinced that the hon. Jack Layton's position was well founded. He said that we were going to improve the registry so that hunters did not feel singled out, and that is what we did. Unfortunately, the Conservatives did not listen to anything we had to say.