Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you to our witnesses.
Clearly with Bill C-43 we are trying to keep foreign criminals out of our schools, out of our parks, out of our shopping centres, out of our neighbourhoods. We are trying to keep them away from our families.
The notion that somebody who breaks into somebody's home just to have some booze is not committing a serious crime can be quite extensively debated. The real crime is that you're breaking into somebody else's home. If your child were in that home when that break-in happened, it would create, in my opinion, potentially lifelong irreparable damage to your family because that 20-year-old decided to break into your home. He didn't walk into a store and take a pen and not pay for it. He broke into somebody's home. I would suggest that is not a good example in your case.
Neither is the case of invoking the name of Nelson Mandela, I might add, because we can get into a whole debate about that and about whether or not we as Canadians were supportive or not of apartheid in the incredible crime that was done against the good people of South Africa.
Having said that, I'm going to refer to Mr. Tom Stamatakis from the Canadian Police Association. He said that in his experience, criminals who receive a custodial sentence of six months or more have committed very serious crimes and are quite often repeat offenders.
Do you agree or disagree with his analysis?