Thank you.
Thank you for coming back again today, Minister. You're a bear for punishment.
My first question, so you can prepare while I'm doing my preamble, will be on aboriginal people, and I would like you to answer that particular question.
I'll start out by saying that although we're not against the principle of mandatory offences--we've put in a number related to gun crimes already--we're definitely against this bill for a number of reasons, some of which are from the esteemed previous Justice Minister Irwin Cotler. First of all, we would dramatically increase the incarceration of aboriginal people in this country. The wide evidence provided by experts in previous references already in the House show they don't work. Any media or anyone here who wants details of that should go to the debate of June 12, page 2225 of 2006. I'll make just one quote from there: “The story of the failure of mandatory penalties is at least three centuries old, said Michael Tonry in 'Crime & Justice: A Review of Research', University of Chicago Press 1992.”
My speech on that page goes on to explain that even the evidence brought forward by the minister proves exactly the opposite, that it just doesn't work. And the minister, fortunately--I'm very happy--said in the first ten words that he seeks to protect public safety. But if you look at my speech in the House, I have ten reasons why this would actually reduce public safety.
So my first question is related to aboriginal people. As I said, we all agree that aboriginal people are already disproportionately incarcerated in our system. This would increase it dramatically. It would aggravate the problem, and it may even be contrary to the principle of sentencing, paragraph 718.2(e) of the code, which sets aside special sentencing for aboriginal people now and to take a look at their situations and their conditions.
If you make these sentences mandatory, so that there's no option for the judge to look at those options, that's against the principles of the Criminal Code. I would like to ask the minister for his comments on this. We're removing the judge's ability to act on this principle in the Criminal Code.
What are he and his department doing to reduce this problem--I'm sure all parties agree--of the inordinate proportion of aboriginal people incarcerated in Canada?