Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to hear that the Liberals will be supporting the bill being sent to committee. Hopefully at committee they will continue to work with us to get this passed quickly. It is an important piece of legislation.
My colleague talked a lot about prevention, and I am wondering if he is aware of several initiatives that our government has funded in regard to crime prevention. First, there is the police officer recruitment fund, a one-time injection of funds for provinces to use. It was $400 million, and they have used it very well. Police departments have added police officers. That is one of the initiatives.
Another one is our national crime prevention strategy, $40 million. I am not sure if the member is aware of this, but he might want to let his constituents know that we are funding $7 million annually to go directly to helping stop young people, who are maybe vulnerable, from getting involved in crime and gang activity. This is a specific fund that deals directly with anti-gang strategies for young people.
I am not sure if the member was aware of those initiatives. Also, today the Minister of Public Safety announced another call for applications to our security infrastructure funding, which is helping different organizations. If they are being threatened for a number of reasons, we are helping fund them so that they can be protected.
These initiatives are helping to stop crime, whether it relates to gangs, drugs or guns. Sadly many times the opposition does not support this. I am wondering if the member was not aware of this funding, and why he would not have supported it when we brought it forward? His constituents were actually signing petitions on this issue.