In our exception provision that we suggested to you, we left treason and murder as the only ones. What we did was go out on a limb and say that you don't need minimum sentences. You can have a judge decide in the particular circumstances whether or not the minimum sentence should be imposed. If you reject that because you're not looking at the reconstruction of the Criminal Code and refer to firearms, that's fine. But we would respectfully submit to you that we don't know of the evidence that says minimum sentences solve the issue. Education on culture might solve the issues. We've put that in there.
Quite frankly, to be absolutely honest with you, I would rather say to a court that this offence and this offender are not the same as that offence and that offender, because the circumstances are different. In my respectful submission, judges need to be able to judge. They need to be able to make the decision. We don't think minimum sentences that take away the discretion of the judges solve the problems.
I really believe we have to recognize across the country that a judge has to sentence someone. My respectful submission to you is that the judges reflect the climate we live in. The periods of incarceration are going up for serious offences. The evidence that they aren't, I would respectfully submit, is anecdotal.
And just to answer your question about higher provisions or higher ceilings, what about corrections? Where is the money going to come from for building the jails? I'm sure you're going to hear from the people at corrections about the domino impact of filling up jails, if that's what going to happen. The jails are overstretched. I understand that the minister said we're going to need millions of dollars to build more jails, but that's just not addressing the issue. You can build the structures, but then you have to man them and you have to put the programs in, because in this country, we know we believe that people will eventually be released from jail.