Very briefly, Mr. Chair, under current law in Canada, if there's a sentence of over 10 years as a maximum penalty, a judge does not have the discretion to impose a conditional sentence. The proposal here is to reduce the 14-year maximum sentence to nine years for the sole purpose of allowing a judge to give a conditional sentence. This would reduce incarceration rates in this country in appropriate cases, and it would provide for judicial discretion. The Liberals, I believe, voted against the legislation introduced by the previous Conservative government to take away the conditional sentencing options from judges for sentences of 10 years or more. By the way, it's not for sentences over 10 years, it's any section of the Criminal Code where the maximum potential penalty is more than 10; automatically the judge loses the discretion to give a conditional sentence.
Given the shared belief by the Liberals and the New Democrats that judges should have the discretion to impose conditional sentences, then I would imagine that we would want to do that in this clause here. That's the spirit behind my moving this. Fourteen years is arbitrary. Does anybody really expect that anybody gets a 14-year sentence for distributing 50 grams or 100 grams of cannabis to someone else? I doubt it.
By the way, we also heard that nobody is getting nine years for trafficking, anyway. They're getting 18 months and two years, anyway, so why not make this clause under the 10-year limit so we can actually cure that deficiency of the conditional sentencing shackles that are currently placed on judges in this country. I would hope that I get support particularly from my Liberal colleagues to reduce the 14 years to nine years, or at least hear a cogent argument as to why not.