Mr. Speaker, has the NDP given up entirely on combatting the presence of illegal drugs?
Our forces spent 12 years in Afghanistan, fighting the Taliban, a terrorist group that was partly funded by an illegal drug trade. Yes, there has been progress made in Colombia, even in many parts of Afghanistan, against this trade. It does not have to be that way. It does not always have to be there. It would not be inevitable that illegal drugs like heroin result in addiction around the world on the scale they do. If human beings, with Canada central to the effort, would only come together we could do something about it.
Why does the member opposite want to give heroin free to people in downtown Vancouver? Why does he think it is acceptable to have prostitution, crime, poverty, all of the phenomena that the members on that side have admitted are there on this scale, with a drug addiction problem at the centre? Could we not do better? Could we not do better for the people of East Hastings, the way we do for almost every other community in our country?