I'll focus perhaps a little bit on the issue of the different strategies we can use. I'd like to make it clear right away that given the impact that gun and gang violence has had on the African Canadian community, we certainly are in favour of strong laws that do protect us from people who are using guns. We are a community that has been primarily impacted by gun violence, and I think I would do a disservice to my community if I said to you that it's not important to us. However, I think what we need to do is think critically about what we're trying to accomplish here. What we are trying to accomplish is safety for communities.
You did mention the importance of safety for victims as well. What we're trying to do is accomplish that through mandatory minimums, which is a system that we know does not work. So it's very hard for us to give suggestions on something that we know doesn't work. I think that's fundamentally the problem right now. You're asking us to give you some sort of idea of how we can improve a piece of legislation that fundamentally is flawed. As I said, we need to step back from that, and we need to look at the criminal justice system as a whole, as an important part of this process, because it is important, and recognize that we also have systems in place within the criminal justice system that are working. Part of that, as Mr. Kulik said, is the idea that judges are there to judge and can make decisions, in particularly heinous crimes, that somebody needs to be locked up.
It's not that I'm against that; it's just that we have to look at the processes we're using to make sure they are going to be effective, to make sure that our communities are safe. And we believe that Bill C-10 doesn't do that.