Mr. Speaker, in 17 years as a member of Parliament, that is the first time that has happened while I have been giving a barnburner of a speech. I did not realize that somebody would pull the fire alarm because it was such a smoking speech.
I was talking about the concern that the Liberals are trying to push through the back door what they would not be willing to bring through the front door: something very much like a registry, if not an actual registry of the kind we had. Make no mistake: when Allan Rock established the long-gun registry in the 1990s, my constituents were against it and have been against it since then. When the Conservatives were elected under the Right Hon. Stephen Harper, it was one of the commitments we made, and we did it. We said we would get rid of the long-gun registry, and we did. We said that we would get rid of all of the data so that it could not be brought up again, and we did.
Now the government is saying that if we do not have the ability to do it here, let us do it somewhere else, and the United Nations stands as a beacon for an opportunity to bring forward some type of registry. Conservatives say no. We are not going to take the chance. Liberals give us platitudes and tell us to worry not and fear not, but we have seen this show before and we are not going to stand for another registry.
In closing, I would ask this one question. When red tape is added, do members believe that will make the export and import of firearms more expensive or less expensive? If somebody bringing firearms into Canada now has to deal with all of this paperwork and red tape, will it make it more difficult to bring them in? Is it going to drive the cost of firearms up?
The Liberal government is going to do all it can to punish lawful firearms owners in this country, and Conservatives will have nothing to do with it.