Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the sincerity with which the member made his remarks but in making his remarks he betrayed some of the lack of understanding of the west with respect to Ontario and central Canada.
There is wilderness in central Canada. I am one who for many years has canoed and camped in the wilderness, oftentimes in Algonquin Park which is only a few hours north of Toronto. Tens of thousands of people use Algonquin Park and the area around Muskoka. There have been two fatal bear attacks in the last 10 years in Algonquin Park.
This very weekend I was surrounded by wolves on an island as I camped with my son. At my cottage in the summer, I killed a three foot rattlesnake. My cottage just happens to be in the range of the only poisonous snake in Canada.
To use the member's logic, everyone who goes to Algonquin Park, everyone who goes to Muskoka, and there are thousands and thousands of them coming from Toronto, Hamilton, Waterloo and Cambridge, should go with a firearm every time they get in a canoe. We in Ontario do not feel that is acceptable. It is not necessary.
Surely the member opposite will admit that an attack by a wild animal, whether it is a cougar or a grizzly bear, is indeed a very, very rare eventuality and we do not have to go armed into the wilderness every time we want to go away for the weekend.