Senator Gold, the only logical plan is coming from Poilievre’s Conservative opposition, and you refuse to accept it. In the meantime, crime is up. We now have police unions from two of Canada’s largest cities fact-checking your government, pointing out that violent gun crime is up 116% after nine years of Justin Trudeau. That isn’t the opposition; it’s Canadians. They’re directly blaming your repeal of mandatory sentences and bail reform for making it easier for violent offenders to be released.

At the same time, we have more and more people dying of drug overdoses because of your government’s “acting like a drug lord,” as one grieving mother put it yesterday during a House of Commons hearing. She has already lost one child because of your unsafe policies, Senator Gold, and is on the verge of losing another.

Senator Gold, without giving us your typical talking points, talk to those Canadians directly. Explain to them why you think it’s okay that they’re eating rotten food, that more and more violent criminals are walking our streets and that their loved ones are dying from drugs that your government is providing to Canadians.

Thank you for your question.

The deaths of Canadians, whether by gun violence, drugs or other circumstances, are a tragedy. Every life is sacred, and the loss of any life is, as my tradition teaches, the loss of a world.

The government’s criminal law policies are focused on evidence-based research and a serious analysis of the consequences of different policy options, including some of the very evidently failed policies that were in place when this government first took office.

Although your talking points are clearly well prepared, it is not the case that this government is indifferent to the suffering Canadians face. Nonetheless, it believes that its approach to the safety and security of Canadians is the right one.

Senator Gold, your talking points are not well prepared, and I can tell you the only tragedy over the last nine and a half years has been this government.

Senator Gold, can you tell this chamber and Canadians one thing that the Trudeau government hasn’t broken? Point to one thing. Immigration? Broken. Housing? Broken. Safety and security? Broken. Cost of food? Broken. I challenge you, Senator Gold, to come up with one thing your government hasn’t broken.

The government steered Canada through a series of existential crises. That includes a renegotiation of CUSMA. It includes trade negotiations with Donald Trump as President. It included the pandemic. It has safely navigated our economy to the point that inflation has fallen and the Bank of Canada was able to reduce its key benchmark rate by 50 basis points.

I challenge you to come up with something more than empty slogans.