We're very happy to stick to the motion. The motion is whether or not we should allow this type of debate. I wanted to give some examples of the issues that are at large here, to emphasize and underscore the point that this is clause-by-clause consideration of a very complex bill. I pointed to one example on the issue of clause 39 to talk about how a substantive debate on that for a clause-by-clause consideration is not something that can be dealt with easily in a period of five minutes, particularly when we have sitting before us the experts in the justice department who played a role in developing this legislation. They are here to be consulted by members of Parliament on this legislation and to answer some of the questions that we would expect to be answered in an objective fashion about the consequences of legislation--why this particularly wording was chosen, how they have any satisfaction that the interpretation that would be placed on this by the courts is meaningful in any way, and, as was pointed out by another speaker earlier, what degree of satisfaction they have that some of these provisions can actually meet the test of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
We have grave concerns about what can amount to arbitrary sentencing when a minimum mandatory sentence is imposed on everybody who happens to fill and to fall into the particular category of having been convicted of a particular crime, without any opportunity for the judge to consider exceptional circumstances that may relate to the individual or to the offence itself. The experience of the courts has been that there are an awful lot of individuals who run afoul of the law by virtue of either being in the wrong place at the wrong time or having diminished responsibility for one reason or another.
We've heard discussion this morning about mental health and the concerns we have for that. Those of us who are lawyers know that there is a defence of no criminal responsibility if the person is so affected by a mental disease that they don't appreciate the nature and quality of their act. You can't convict somebody of a crime if they didn't know what they were doing, literally. If they didn't have the mental capacity to know whether it was wrong, then that person is not convicted. The way it works is they are found not guilty by reason of insanity.
Then there are also very many others who don't meet that test, but yet the reason they find themselves before the courts does have to do with some diminished capacity that could be caused by a mental illness, or could be caused by an intellectual deficiency, perhaps, or by some other disease.