Well, I think the issue is whether you want to do something that's effective or whether you want to do something that might, for a moment, look good. It seems to me that the evidence is overwhelming that what you're going to be doing if you pass this bill is telling the public that something effective is being done when the evidence is clear that we're working in the other direction.
Why does the public want mandatory minimums or tougher laws and so on? They want them because they've been told repeatedly by this Parliament and others that mandatory minimums are the way to solve the problem of crime. This is not a party issue. All three national parties have endorsed mandatory minimums at one point or another. I'm against all three of those parties for that.
I think what one has to do is to ask what it is we can do that will actually do something. So again, to repeat what was just said, getting the gangs and the guns off the street has nothing to do with sentencing. We all agree that's good. We all agree that the sentences that are available in the Criminal Code allow people to be put away for serious crimes for a long period of time.
What you're asking is whether the promise that is explicit in Bill C-10 is a legitimate promise. I am telling you it is not.