Mr. Speaker, first I want to comment on the government House leader. He walked into the chamber and declared that he does not have the ability to negotiate with the House leaders of the opposition parties. Once again, he gave notice of time allocation, which is another form of closure, preventing members from having debate and asking questions on important legislation.
This is indeed important legislation. The Province of Quebec sees value in the gun registry. It says that if Ottawa wants to cancel the gun registry, it still wants to go ahead and have a gun registry for that province.
What does the member think his constituents would say if the Prime Minister said we could give the data bank to Quebec, but instead, we are getting rid of it? The Conservatives would spend millions of dollars to get rid of the data bank. Yet the Province of Quebec would have to spend millions more dollars to regenerate that same data bank. The taxpayers in his riding say that is a waste of tax dollars.
Does he not see the waste of tax dollars? Does he not see that money could be better spent providing more community police officers in the province of Quebec?