The inconsistencies are of great concern to us. They're going to result in several kinds of offences that do not seem so serious being lumped in for the same serious treatment as those that call for a maximum sentence of ten years or more. We think it is not the right way to proceed on the basis of maximum time. It might sound good on paper, but it's going to result in several offences, like break and enter in a residence, fraud or false pretenses over $5,000, and many cases of welfare fraud being treated more seriously than other things that Canadians would consider very serious.
So the real-life implications of the proposed changes, in practice, are bound to defy the notion of justice held by most reasoning Canadians, if they realize that these are the kinds of results that these proposals will and will not give us. Most Canadians don't know that, but you do know that. You have this information in front of you, and we've elected you to make those decisions responsibly on our behalf.
We think that judicial discretion is extremely important. There's a process of human discernment and judgment that should not be removed from the actual knowledge of the case; no general law can give us the equivalent of that. To do it on the basis of the meaningless criteria proposed is to degrade us as a society. It debases the very noble human aspiration to justice, which is very important.
If there's concern that the existing provisions have been applied inappropriately, those decisions can be appealed. Policy directives and guidelines can be given, but the simplistic blanket solutions proposed are not appropriate.
In conclusion, we urge you to withdraw Bill C-9, and we'll talk about Bill C-10 another time. We know it may be difficult to find the political will to do that. It's so important, and there's one amendment that you might want to consider, and that's to make it presumptive rather than absolute. If you do not find the political will to withdraw the bill completely, at least leave a door open so that even though it's presumed that certain offences will likely not be eligible for a conditional sentence, there is room for a judge to make an exception to the contrary if the case is put before him.