Mr. Speaker, my colleague and I have been at a couple of committee meetings lately. I have not had a chance to agree with him much. I will take the opportunity now to say that I do, very much.
I have served, like my colleague, not just here, but provincially, and I am not sure if he served municipally. Provinces deal with a lot of municipal issues because municipalities only exist by virtue of provincial legislation.
I agree with him entirely. The shame of it is that when we are here at the federal level, these issues seem awfully far away, yet by not providing framework and using legislation that is a federal responsibility, it leaves the provinces with less ability to do anything. It certainly leaves those municipalities that have to deal with the fact that people are dying in their communities, and they would like to do something about it. When they turn to the province, it says it is willing to get on board with the municipality, but it needs the feds.
There are an awful lot of examples of things that are only properly dealt with when we have the co-operation my hon. friend talks about between the federal, provincial, and municipal levels, but in so many cases, the feds have to provide the leadership.
First, the federal government has more means to money and access, but also a lot of the legislation. In this case, it is federal legislation that allows whether that can exist, because we are bumping up against the Criminal Code.
In order for municipalities, the ones that are grappling with this day by day and looking these individuals in the eye, rather than them being left alone, leadership could and should be provided from the federal level to bring those other two partners together so we can work together.
They are Canadians. It does not matter whether we are talking municipal, provincial or federal governance for them, they are Canadians.