Mr. Garfield Dunlop (Simcoe North): Today I'm very pleased to welcome to the Legislative Assembly of Ontario the Ontario Association of Chiefs of Police. The association is currently headed by Chief Armand La Barge of the York Regional Police Service. Our leader, John Tory, and myself met this morning for over an hour with Chief La Barge and about 30 other chiefs, representing police services from a wide variety of communities across our province.

Clearly they are an organization extremely frustrated with the lack of action from the McGuinty government. As an example, today the association announced the formation of a blue ribbon justice reform committee. They will be working together with police, government and community leaders to seek solutions to issues that hinder the efficiency and effectiveness of our criminal justice system.

There are numerous issues facing our police leaders, including the growth in criminal areas such as gang violence, gun violence, crystal meth and other illegal drug operations, child pornography and Internet luring, lack of police resources and of course the potential cuts of up to $300 million from the justice ministries.

On behalf of all Ontarians, I thank the OACP for their continued commitment to making Ontario a safer place to live in spite of a government that does not consider community safety a top priority. I would like to have everybody in the House give a warm round of applause to the folks who are here, and particularly to my chief of police in the Midland Police Service, the former president of the OACP, Paul Hamelin, and his group of friends.