Mr. Speaker, we know that between 2009 and 2014, the Conservatives cut the RCMP budget by $420 million. That is a fact. I wonder how Conservatives square that with their need for this bill. Between 2012 and 2013, CSIS itself had its funding cut by $44 million. Therefore, bleed them of resources, bleed them of expertise, and claim that there is a crisis so great that we have to trample over the rights of Canadians. That is the situation that the Conservatives have claimed.
Parenthetically, my disappointment, the only word I can use properly today, with where the Liberals stand on this is devastating, simply because I am looking for the justification as to why a party that brought in the charter, with our help and support, is now so willing to join with the Conservatives in taking out vast sections of the charter with the bill. The Liberal leader said that this conversation might be different if we were not months from an election campaign, but we are. Therefore, there is is a political element to this entire conversation that is worrisome.
We can do much better than this. We can defend the rights of Canadians and protect Canadians from threats. Those two things have to happen at the same time as they are born from the same root. It is what Canadians expect legislators to do, rather than play the kinds of politics that we see the Conservatives doing day in and day out.