If there's one problem that we've observed over the years, it's that plea bargaining, that is negotiations between the Crown prosecutor — which was a very well-paying livelihood for Mr. Lemay in his previous life — and the defence obviously considerably reduces the impact of the sentence, in terms of length of sentence. You heard the eloquent presentation by Ian Lee, who explained the statistics he had compiled on the effects of these minimum sentences, and on the reasons why we need them.
As you know, if we can find a way to reduce the crime rate or to prevent people from reoffending, we'll be the first to support that approach and to tell you to adopt that way of doing things rather than another. I was listening to Mr. Chartrand's presentation. Yes, indeed, we advocate prevention, therapeutic programs and all that. We understand that, and we're ardent promoters of that method, but, when that doesn't work, when the person, despite everything we've offered him, nevertheless decides to use a firearm, that's when we need bills like this one, Bill C-10.