Not everybody knows this about me, but over the course of my career as a police officer, I have spent a lot of time working with academics, social workers, and people who were on the front lines trying to help children. I actually was one of the founding members of the original street crime unit, which was the first of its kind in Canada. It was a community-based, education-enforcement hybrid. We worked very hard with local communities and schools to try to get kids before they ended up in prison. We put substantial effort into getting them on the straight and narrow. There was a lot of work involved. Sometimes we were successful, and other times we were not. It's something I'm very proud of. It seems like ancient history now, but certainly the legacy has taken root across the country and there are many police units much like that.
Having said that, there is also another bunch of folks who, for whatever reasons, have run off the rails. When they're sentenced to periods of incarceration, it's either because they already have very lengthy criminal records or they've done something pretty serious.
My experience in and out of court rooms over 30 years is not one of throwing the book away. I see that these judges really work hard not to throw the book at people. So I don't see this sort of sensible half measure for Bill C-9. Parliament has said it's ten years or more. I suspect when they created those maximums.... I know for instance that Mr. Lee and other members of the Liberal Party worked hard to introduce many bills to increase the maximum. So here we are. I guess they saw them as sufficiently serious crimes.
Citizens have lost faith in the criminal justice system. I see this as a natural first step, and like Mr. Thompson, I agree that it's just one piece of it. We have a lot of work to do in terms of our parole legislation and some of our other dangerous--