Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I hope you don't think I'm trying to get in the back door what I couldn't get through the front door, but if this bill had been properly characterized and coloured as a bill dealing with mandatory minimum sentences and not as a bill that was quintessentially about escalating mandatory minimum sentences, and if 718.3 included some discretion for a judge in these, I would suggest, greyer instances of offences, I would be happy to have kept them in. But we're dealing with three groups of offences, I would say.
The first, which we all agree on, which most of us agree on, that should be subject to mandatory minimum sentences escalating—some of them—are those that, even in the best light, in the best light of the facts of the case, deserve those mandatory minimums. These, however, in their best light, might not deserve the mandatory minimums this law will put forward.
So I just wanted to point out that by virtue of what I think is a logical flaw in the rulings of your predecessor, Mr. Hanger, and you—this is not personal, it's just my view—I will be supporting Mr. Comartin's amendments.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.