Madam Speaker, if I may just correct the member, I was not merely a member of the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police; I was the president.
The member purports to value evidence-based policy. I just want to share with him some of the membership details of the people who participated in the government's task force. It had a number of distinguished Canadians, eminently qualified Canadians from the fields of public health, public safety, justice, and problematic substance use. They included, for example, the chief medical officer of health from the province of British Columbia, a former deputy commissioner of the RCMP, a neurologist, and the CEO of the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health in Toronto, one of the most internationally, eminently recognized addiction facilities in the world.
I also wanted to very quickly remind my colleague of my experience as a police officer. Three decades ago, police services across the country were busy enforcing gambling laws in every jurisdiction, and governments began to regulate that activity through regulation of lotteries and then casinos.
Today, there is not a single police service with a standing gambling unit, because that activity is now completely regulated through government regulation, and organized crime has been driven from it.