Kevin Sorenson

[Business of Supply, November 28th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, it is not working as well as what I think it will in the next few years given that this government has put such a high priority on health care and that it seems to have much of the formula that is needed to deliver health care properly.

I see the wait times guarantees as a tremendous bonus for the people of rural Alberta and rural Canada because this tells them that regardless of whether they are a block from the University Hospital or a major city hospital, or two or three hours from a hospital, there is a wait time guarantee.

More to the point that the member has made as to what we can expect in the future, we can expect a lot more in the future because over the past 13 years we have fallen to such a low standard that we recognize that the waits have just become unacceptable.

It must have taken years for our once strong system to become as dilapidated as it clearly has. It has not taken decades. It has taken maybe 12 or 13 years. Millions or billions of dollars in taxpayer money must have been diverted from it. That is what most people think. Did the former government soak out billions of dollars from health care? No, not hundreds of billions, only $24 billion or $25 billion, which is why it is not at the level that it could be if it had proper commitment all down through those years.

Here we are today debating a motion penned by a Liberal from Ontario basically asking to strip it of its partisanship. The motion reads “That, in the opinion of the House, the Conservative government--” should “--reduce medical wait times and...provide the necessary funding and resources to achieve the goals of the First Ministers' accord on health care renewal”.

That was not the opinion of the Liberal government when it was in power for 13 years. Now, all of a sudden, the Liberals found this idea for a supply day motion and decided to make it look like they believe in what they are talking about.

[Business of Supply, November 28th, 2006]

The hon. member across the way said that we would do it right away. Right away, we got together with the provinces. Right away, we sat down with all territories and provinces and said that the wait time guarantees was the first step in solving much of the problems with health care.

Provinces are buying into it. Jurisdictions are recognizing this all around the world. I read an article this morning from Sweden. The Swedish government took a look at how health care was delivered. It said that certain benchmarks had to be attained. The very first step it took was to say that if people could not get health delivery in a hospital, they could pick any hospital around the country to get it.

We immediately sat down with the provinces and the territories to talk about wait time guarantees. We also, almost immediately, consulted with the provinces and said that we wanted to begin pilot projects. The member for Yellowhead stressed that three things had happened. We sat down with the provinces, we made wait time guarantees a high priority and we have brought forward with pilot projects, which will be come forward very quickly.

[Business of Supply, November 28th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague is wrong. Health care was either the top priority or the second priority during the election of all parties. First, most people were talking about the corruption of the former government, of the Liberal Party of Canada, because of the sponsorship scandal. However, health care is always an issue when it comes to elections.

The member is partly right when he said that we made it a priority and that we made certain clear commitments during the election that this was what we would do. The Conservative Party did make it health care a priority. After 13 years of neglect, the Conservative Party said that there were certain things we should come to expect in health care. One of them was timely delivery.

The Conservative Party also recognizes that there are jurisdictions and that delivery of health care is the responsibility of the province.

[Business of Supply, November 28th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, it is a real pleasure to speak to the motion that has been brought forward by the opposition. The motion deals with one of the institutions that Canadians have come to expect to be strong and secure, and that is our health care system.

I will begin by commending the Minister of Health, a new member of Parliament who came here with a great deal of expertise, tenure and experience as the former health minister for Ontario. We have certainly appreciated the leadership he has provided. Canadians have been enriched because of it. I also want to thank others who for a long time have been advocates for strong health care. Certainly in the six years I have been here, the member for Yellowhead has done remarkable work. He is a strong advocate for a health care system that must deliver results to Canadians. The parliamentary secretary to the health minister, the health committee and the Conservative Party have made this the number one issue and priority. Those three specifically must be commended for their hard work.

Canada's new government understands that Canadians expect all levels of government to work together to get things done for families and taxpayers. Canadians understand that there are different levels of governments and that they may be from a different partisan perspective, but Canadians expect these governments to work together where and when they can to provide services.

Canadians expect practical health care programs. Canadians not only expect that programs exist and that there is help when they need it, but that the programs are properly managed. There is no doubt that our health system works for many Canadians. When Canadians get sick, they go to a doctor or clinic and they receive the attention they need. When they need medicine, they can access prescribed drugs.

Canadians have a degree of confidence in the system that we enjoy in Canada. Canadians believe that strong health care is one of the institutions that makes Canada what it is. It is a publicly funded health care system that can deliver when needed. They have a degree of confidence in the system, but full confidence is what Canadians deserve.

In Canada we have a pretty good system where people pay their taxes and governments provide most with satisfactory health care. Canadians have lived up to their side of the deal. They pay their taxes year in and year out. Canadians know that come the end of April, their taxes are due. There are forms to fill out and accountants to visit. Canadians understand that they have responsibilities as citizens of this country to keep records of income and expenses. They fill out their tax forms and pay their taxes on time. They understand that if they do not pay their taxes on time, there will be repercussions. Canadians know that certain measures are in place so that people will pay their taxes on time.

Canadians have not been getting the value that they deserve for their money. That is why every other day we read in the newspapers about the health care system, the need for more money, the lack of doctors, the wait times and all those kinds of things. One of those indicators has been very clearly that health care wait lists are still too long. We have talked about it. The opposition, the former government, has talked about it, but these health care wait lists are still too long.

Canadians deserve better. That is why the government is working with the provinces and territories. That is why the government is working with all our health care partners to establish patient wait time guarantees, to establish a framework where individuals will understand that they can receive the help that they need.

By doing this our health system will be more accountable to patients, not process. The health system will be more accountable to the health care consumers, the patients, not to the providers. Canada's new government is committed to a patient centred approach when we refer to the delivery of health care in Canada.

What exactly is a wait time guarantee? The wait time guarantee has two basic elements. First of all, there is a specified timeframe in which medically necessary health care services are delivered, a timeframe that says this is what can be expected. Canadians have paid in to it through their taxes and they will receive health care by such and such a time. Second, there is recourse. This says that alternative options for care are offered to patients if the system fails to deliver medically necessary health care services within the specified timeframe.

Obviously, different patients in different situations will have different needs. In all processes a certain degree of flexibility is needed. There should be a maximum acceptable wait time based on the anticipated clinical outcome.

We need to bear in mind also that wait times can occur at different points in the treatment process. This is not a wait time from the time the patient goes to the clinic or the doctor for the first diagnosis. This is different times in the process where waits or a logjam, so to speak, can occur.

The wait for an appointment with a specialist after referral from a family doctor may be one area where a wait time can begin. Another one is the wait between the specialist appointment and surgery. The patient has gone to the family doctor and has been referred to a specialist and there is a logjam to see the specialist. If the patient needs surgery, there may be a wait time to see a surgeon. The patient may have had one or two wait times already. Another is the wait for diagnostic imaging.

There are all those different places in the system that can frustrate and hinder Canadians as they seek medical attention. To the patient, undue delay at any of those steps is unquestionably stressful and maybe even more than that, it might be a detriment to their health.

For that reason, patient wait time guarantees must be based on three things. First of all, they must be based on certainty, they must be based on timely access and they must be based on recourse. Given that Canada has only recently taken on the challenge of seriously reducing wait times, many people may not be familiar with the terms as we use them. Let me define them for Canadians.

Certainty seems to be a fairly straightforward concept. It means that Canadians feel confident that they will get the care they need. They will get the care they need regardless of the diagnosis before them. Certainty means that they will get the care they need regardless of where they live.

We could spend a great deal of time talking about the frustrations of rural delivery of health care, where many of these individuals are required to travel two or three hours to the capital or to a large centre where they can find that type of service. Again, this all adds to the frustration of wait times.

Certainty means that they can feel confident they will get the care they need. Timely access means that Canadians feel confident they will get the care when they need it. It is important in health care not only that we assess the difficulty, diagnose the problem, but that they get the care when they need it.

Recourse means Canadians know that should their wait for care be at risk of running past medically acceptable wait times, the system will respond by evaluating the care needed and/or offering alternative options, such as transferring doctors or facilities.

At the present time, probably every member of Parliament has received letters or calls from individuals who are caught up in these wait times. They question what recourse they have. They question if they should be running here or running there and if somebody is watching out for them. Are their family doctors on their case file? Are they aware of the frustrations that individuals are going through? What recourse do they have?

There are two kinds of recourse. One is patient triggered recourse which we see when, for example, patients, who are forced to wait too long for services, file complaints with the tribunal. They file complaints because, in some cases, they fear what their diagnoses are and the amount of time they have had to wait. Others feel that this is not right, that we have a health care system in which we should have confidence. Therefore, they file complaints with the tribunal because they want the system fixed. This is patient triggered recourse. This recourse can be needlessly stressful for those individuals who are trying to fix something in the midst of trying to heal or to get relief from the disease, the pain or the needs that they have.

We also have system triggered recourse, and that is different. Under a program of automatic system triggered recourse, when a patient's wait time extends past the medically acceptable treatment timeframe for his or her condition, the system itself flags the case. At that point, the patient's condition could be re-evaluated and the patient offered alternate options, such as another doctor, another facility or another jurisdiction. This is the kind of patient centred approach Canadians want to see. It takes the frustration out of the hands of the individual, who is going through this difficult time, and it puts it on to a system.

Imagine a system in which, once a patient requires care and is put on a waiting list, different mechanisms are automatically initiated by the system and they become available as a patient's wait time increases.

First, patients are put on a centralized waiting list. Appointments with various health care professionals are clustered together. Electronic call backs are automatic. Patients have access to a patient navigator, a real live human being who is watching their case for them, perhaps a clinical nurse. This navigator lets them know where they are in the queue and advocates for them any adjustments to their position in the queue, based on their health status. They ensure that they are there for the patients as well as the system, which is very aware of their frustrations and their needs.

The good news is that system not as far off as we may think. A number of provinces and territories have already begun to move this way. They are providing some of those forms of system triggered recourse, such as centralized wait lists and patient navigators in certain clinical areas.

My colleagues today have risen in the House and have spoken about how Canada's new government is investing in health care for Canadians.

Budget 2006 reaffirms the government's commitment to provide predictable and growing funding through the Canada health transfer to the provinces and the territories. The annual 6% escalator on the Canada health transfer means that the government will provide an additional $1.1 billion to provinces and territories this year and $1.2 billion on top of that next year, and that will continue to grow thereafter.

This funding is leading to reduction in wait times across the country. It is not going to completely solve the wait times. Money does not solve every problem, but there are some very positive examples in every region of the country where this government's efforts, in collaboration with provinces and territories, has made a real impact.

My colleagues have also spoken of the government's commitment to work with provinces and territories, to recognize the jurisdictions that those provinces have and to help establish patient wait time guarantees.

Some people wonder how we can move ahead with guarantees at this time. To that we answer, how can we not move ahead with guarantees? This was one of the priorities on which the government campaigned. This was one of the priorities that we will deliver.

We say to all governments across Canada that wait time guarantees are crucial. Wait time guarantees need to be part of every equation when provinces come to deliver health care. Wait time guarantees are the next logical step to providing patient centred care and they clearly build on the reforms and innovations already under way in all jurisdictions.

We are in a situation in Canada in which the legal context of providing timely health care has shifted. After last year's Supreme Court decision on Chaoulli, new legal challenges will undoubtedly emerge in the future. Already an Alberta resident is challenging provincial legislation that does not permit private insurance for publicly insured health services and alleges a denial of his charter rights. The point there is obvious. A guarantee, or wait list or access to a wait list is not access to health care.

If progress is not made on improving patient wait times, Canadians will see the courts as their only recourse. This will leave the courts to manage our health care system based on individual circumstances rather than on the health interests of the public at large.

It is clear to us that governments now have a chance to take effective and distinct action to mitigate this risk on their own terms. I believe governments, not the courts, should be setting health policy in the country. It is clear to us that governments have a chance now to take effective and distinct action to mitigate this risk on the government's own terms, on Parliament's terms.

It is important to protect a strong public health care system. It is important to recognize patients at the centre of that system. By setting defined lines for guarantees and by offering recourse options to patients whose waits exceed these timelines, governments can provide certainty to patients in their access to the health care system. They can offer Canadian system supported options for timely care, ones that do not involve seeking legal counsel to turn to the courts for assistance. I strongly believe that declaring guarantees with recourse is the best way to move forward.

Canadians deserve to feel that they receive excellent health care and also certain that they will be provided with options for recourse when wait times become an unreasonable risk to their health.

We will continue to work with provinces and territories to reduce wait times for Canadian families and taxpayers through properly managed programs. The Minister of Health has invited health officials and experts from across the country to the sharing success conference this fall, where they will have the opportunity to share best practices and important learnings gleaned since 2004.

Within one year's time, our Minister of Health believes provinces and territories should be in a position to state their intention to establish a guarantee in critical areas such as cardiac care where progress has already been made. Then too, we expect to continue to make progress the following year as well.

By spring 2008, legislation requires the federal Parliament to review progress in implementing the 2004 health accord. We believe that by that date all jurisdictions should be making progress toward establishing wait time guarantees for other essential health care needs.

The opposition brought this motion forward because it is the group that has caused more frustration to health care over the years than anyone else. That is why it is a pleasure to stand in the House today and offer the opposition measures in which health care can be improved.

[Canada Elections Act, November 6th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, with all due respect to my colleague, I do not foresee that as a major problem. I understand what he is saying and I think it could lead to problems where there would be an extraordinary amount of money being spent, but certainly, when different groups come forward, we call that freedom of the press, they could be pushing governments or members of Parliament with policy ideas, encouraging them to accept this.

Doing a campaign, I think, is very much a positive. Engaging Canadians, making sure that they are more aware of the frustrations of all groups around, those campaigns are going on right now even as we speak. I see that as a positive.

[Canada Elections Act, November 6th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, I have news for the House. I am already campaigning and I am sure the member is as well. As members of Parliament even this past weekend we were around our constituencies trying to do as much as we could.

When we talk about prolonged campaigns, in some ways we would still be set to that period of time of 36 days or however many days it would be before the election date, because we have caps for financing elections. We have caps on what we are allowed to spend. Regarding some of the questions he asked about a prolonged campaign for months on end, we would not be able to do that if it meant we were going to be running campaign material. All that would have to be accounted for in what we submit to Elections Canada as the dollars spent.

Many members of Parliament are door knocking on weekends right now. That is positive. That type of prolonged campaign is good, to be out where the people can hear and see us, and they can come up and talk to us.

This weekend, for example, one of the events that I was at was in Donalda. There is a tremendous museum in Donalda and a fundraiser was held there. As we went around, it felt like campaign time again. People were coming up. They were excited about what was going on. Some were concerned about some of the things that were happening around the country. Many of them were asking questions about the leadership race in Alberta. It felt like a campaign. As members of Parliament we always have to keep that in the back of our minds, that we are always in a campaign.

As far as the other point on prolonged campaigns is concerned, there are a number of countries that have a degree of flexibility with it. They have set election dates, but they also have some flexibility. We could come up with ideas that if this House were to lose confidence in the government, we would go to the polls.

[Canada Elections Act, November 6th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to stand in the House once again and support a bill that has been a long time coming, a bill for which I think the Canadian public has generally been asking.

Canada's new government has brought forward this legislation today to set election dates at the federal level in Canada. This would mean that Canadians would know the date of the next federal election. It would be scheduled four years from the previous election date.

With Bill C-16, the Conservative Party is taking action and implementing another one of its promises, another one of the planks of the last general election.

We promised to change the way government does business. We promised to bring accountability to the ways we govern ourselves. We pledged to improve on our democratic system wherever possible. Bill C-16 would do exactly that.

This bill is in the third reading stage, the final stage of debate in the House at this time. All parties have spoken in favour of the bill. It has not been amended since being introduced by the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons and Minister for Democratic Reform. He spoke eloquently about the bill at second reading and has told us what it would do. He brought the House up to speed earlier today on the progress and on what this bill would accomplish.

Why does Canada need Bill C-16?

Over the past six years, since I was first elected, I have been a member of the official opposition and I have seen elections, and how they were called or not called, at the convenience of two Liberal prime ministers. We have seen the power to call elections abused in provincial jurisdictions, as well. It is frustrating for elected officials and for voters.

Bill C-16 proposes to improve our democracy by addressing the downside of our parliamentary system that allows the prime minister the exclusive authority to call an election, sometimes a snap election.

What would Bill C-16 do and what are its attributes?

Bill C-16 is modelled on British Columbia and Ontario laws requiring fixed election dates every four years, except when a government loses the confidence of the House, in which case, an election would be held immediately and the subsequent election would follow four years after that. This would improve governance as I believe it would result in higher voter turnout rates and it would assist in attracting qualified candidates to public life because Bill C-16 would bring some predictability and stability to our electoral process.

Voters would get excited and they would gear up for the election date knowing that it was coming at a certain time. New candidates would be able to decide whether or not to throw their hat in the ring because they could decide if they are able to prepare for a certain date in the future.

With this bill, Elections Canada would no longer need to be election ready every year all year long. It would not need to be prepared to go at the whim of a prime minister who decides to call a snap election. Taxpayers would save money because they would not need to pay to keep Elections Canada at the ready all the time.

Fixed election dates would help all political parties. It is not that it would only help the government or just help the opposition. It would help all parties as they would have equal opportunities to make preparation for the upcoming election campaign.

Today we have a situation where the governing party has a remarkable advantage of knowing when the next election will take place. In fact, it may know several months in advance. It may have plans that would be well before the time that we would normally see an election call but it will have looked at the polls and it will be able to make, as the parliamentary secretary mentioned, a decision based on what would be to its advantage. This is not fair.

Bill C-16 says that the next election will be on Monday, October 19, 2009. That is the date unless, in this minority Parliament, the opposition would decide that the government has lost the confidence of the House.

I think an October election would be the best possible time here in Canada. The weather in October is optimal for an election. We could prevent having an election over Christmastime like the last election. We would not be abandoning our holidays in the prime of the summer months to engage in campaign activities, to work those long hours pounding the pavement and knocking on doors to find that most people are not at home.

This would give the candidates and the parties the opportunity to ensure the public was informed of the policies and that they knew the people and the parties that were running in their local constituencies. I believe voters would appreciate that.

Bill C-16 would ensure that constitutional requirements are respected. The bill does not in any way change the requirement that the government must maintain the confidence of the House. Monday, October 19 is the date that is most likely to maximize voter turnout and it is least likely to conflict with cultural or religious holidays or with elections in other jurisdictions.

Bill C-16 even offers an alternative election date in the event of a conflict with a date of religious or cultural significance, or an election being held in another province. This would allow a bit of flexibility. Bill C-16 would empower the Chief Electoral Officer to recommend an alternate polling day to the governor in council should he or she find that a polling day was not suitable for that purpose. The alternate day would be either the Tuesday or the Monday following the election date as stipulated in the bill.

How does Bill C-16 work? Under Bill C-16, the prime minister would retain the prerogative to advise dissolution to allow for situations when the government has lost the confidence of the House of Commons. This is a fundamental principle in a democracy. Currently, it is the prerogative of the prime minister, having lost the confidence of the House, to select what he or she regards as an opportune time for an election to renew the government's mandate and to advise the Governor General to dissolve the House in time for that election.

Under the new system proposed in the bill, federal elections would be held on a fixed date. This would not affect the right of the prime minister to advise dissolution at any time prior to the stipulated date. In a case like what we have right now, in a minority government, that would not mean that the House would sit right up until 2009. If the opposition were to decide that it was time, the Governor General would be called and the election would take place. Canadians would have the right to choose.

Let us look again at the key advantages of a fixed election date.

The first advantage would be fairness. I think it is unfair that the governing party should be permitted to time an election to exploit conditions favourable to only its re-election, especially when it is not listening to the people and is not recognizing the people but looking at itself in the polls. It realizes what it wants to bring somewhere down the road as far as policy and it has an advantage over every other party. This bill would bring fairness back to this democratic system.

The other point I would like to make relates to transparency and predictability. Fixed election dates would provide transparency as to when general elections would be held. Rather than decisions about election dates being made behind closed doors just with the cabinet and the prime minister, general election dates would be public knowledge.

On October 19 everyone would have the opportunity to build on that minority government or to work for their local candidate. It would allow more people to get involved in the electoral process. I think this is something that has been frustrating all members of Parliament. They realize that we are seeing a detach, especially among our younger Canadians. When we look at the statistics and voter turnout, we recognize that one of the demographics that is quite often very low in voter turnout is our young, eligible voters.

I really believe that this would give a sense of certainty so that we could engage people, university students, high school students, college students, to get involved in the process.

I look around this House of Commons and see, especially on this Conservative side, many young Canadians, and even our Speaker sitting in the chair. I am not certain how old he was when the good people of his constituency elected him, but with this type of election date, we will see young people come forward knowing the election date, knowing the policies they want brought forward, being able to get in touch with their member of Parliament or even deciding to run themselves. We would applaud having the issues of young Canadians brought forward.

I commend you, Mr. Speaker, in your youth, for the great degree of experience that you have shown and also for the way you represent your constituents.

Transparency and predictability would also mean improved governance. A fixed election date would allow for better policy planning. Knowing that It would be facing an election four years down the road, the government may decide to have long term policies and to build on those policies so that Canadians could have a sense of stability and of knowing exactly in which direction the government is going.

For example, members of Parliament would also be able to work their committee structure. They could set out their own agendas well in advance, which would make the work of committees and Parliament as a whole more efficient.

As the chair of the foreign affairs and international development committee, one of the frustrations that we had was that there were a number of reports where the committee in the past Parliament did an amazing amount of work on different issues and then we had an election call, a snap election, an early election, and those reports were not finished.

We now have a new Parliament. As a new committee, we come back to this place and we see all the work that the previous committee had done, but we have new committee members. They say that they are not ready to sign on to a report until they have heard from the witnesses who were before the former committee and until they have done their due diligence. They want to go back over all this. We see so much duplication. We see this in all committees as we come up to speed on what the past Parliament did and then decide whether or not we want to sign on to this report, engage in another study or perhaps even scrap a report.

A lot of the business that is done at committees and in Parliament sits on a shelf because snap elections were called and policy was not completed. The ideas were never put to the government or laid on the table here in the House of Commons. Having fixed election dates certainly would improve governance.

I believe this legislation would bring about higher voter turnout rates. We have looked at a number of countries around the world. We have been encouraged when we have seen new struggling states and new countries go into a democracy. We have had a tremendous election in Afghanistan, an election in Iraq and elections in other places where perhaps democracy has been tried for the first time. We are amazed when in some of those jurisdictions the voter turnout is higher than it is here in Canada.

I think a lot of people are not attached to the system any longer, and they are pushing back and asking, “What is the use?” Holding elections in October, other than when a government loses the confidence of the House, I believe would improve voter turnout.

Bill C-16 takes the element of political manipulation out of our federal electoral system. In my view, only the natural governing party, as the Liberal Party of Canada likes to think of itself, could object to Bill C-16.

[Criminal Code, November 3rd, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, I listened with some interest to my colleague as he talked about his friendship with the justice minister. I know the member has served on the committee in years gone by and that he is a member of the committee who takes it seriously.

Some of the comments we are getting from Quebec and Montreal are from people who are very concerned about home invasion, break-ins and people coming into their homes. Seniors and others are very concerned about the increase in home invasion.

Earlier this morning in my speech, I mentioned the case of R. v. Bratzer where the offender had committed three armed robberies in a period of one week. The court heard that the individual planned the armed robberies, put on a mask, picked up the weapon of choice and carried out three planned robberies. He had a history. It also came out in the court that the individual loved and anticipated the rush that he would get from carrying out this criminal offence. Despite all the information that came out in court, the court sentenced the accused to a conditional sentence, to house arrest, to no prison term, to no incarceration and to go home to his living room for two years less a day.

Given the increase in home invasions in Montreal, why does the member not stand up and say that it is time that we deal with this to prevent this type of sentencing structure for people who are criminals and who get a rush from this type of criminal activity?

[Petitions, November 3rd, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, I am honoured today to present this petition signed by individuals from my constituency of Crowfoot, from Coronation, Brownfield, Castor and Houssar. They feel that marriage should be promoted in this country and defended as the lawful union of one man and one woman to the exclusion of all others, and they call upon Parliament to reopen this issue.

As well, they feel that a child has a natural right to know and be raised by his or her father and mother. They also feel that the decisions of courts and legislative bodies should be made in the best interests of the child.

[Criminal Code, November 3rd, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, when I go to my constituency, I meet with seniors. I ask them if they feel safer today on the streets than they did 15 or 20 years ago. The answer is no. I also have asked them if they feel safer today when they go into the mall or when they park in an underground parkade and then make their way into the mall. Every one of them says no.

They recognize that gang and drug crimes are up as are many other criminal activities and they do not feel safer. In fact, most of them say they do not feel safer in their very own homes today. The question specifically comes from a premise that crime is down. Violent crime, gang crime, drug crime and gun crime are up.

One of the things I am also very much troubled about is property crime. More and more people are saying that the police do not have the resources or the time to investigate. They are saying that they are not even going to report those crimes.

In fact, when we look at some of the sexual assaults, even more troubling than property crime not being reported, many young men and young women are saying that they are not going to go through the system to even report because the government turns a blind eye to the offender--