Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Parliamentary Secretary, it's puzzling to me why you're making this offer at this time. I take you at your word and in the best of faith with which the offer has been presented. Echoing what my colleagues have said, we can't walk away from mandatory minimums; I gather they've been on the books since 1996. We've studied them, and they've been effective. The idea was to ratchet them up in appropriate areas and to meet the concerns of citizens across the country that there seems to be a rash of gun-related crimes. On the other hand, you've gone too far in this bill, which was what virtually all of the witness testimony said. I never saw any wavering from anybody. I would not expect Mr. Thompson to waver; he stuck to his guns totally—pardon the pun. But the minister, the previous minister, never wavered, and you never wavered in any of the discussion made here. Now we're talking at the eleventh hour of an offer to save the bill, which might be in jeopardy.
I guess what I'm asking quite bluntly, Mr. Parliamentary Secretary, is if this is a real offer—again I take you as a gentleman and the parliamentarian you are—are you prepared to look at, for instance, Mr. Comartin's amendment, the last amendment to subsection 718.3 of the act, which restores some judicial discretion, which we've been very adamant about? We've been very adamant about the quality of our judges and the importance of judicial respect and discretion. Are you prepared to look at appeasing or addressing the issue with respect to the unique situation of over-represented incarcerees, our aboriginal population? Are you prepared to look at anomalies like the paucity of provisions for repeat crimes involving shotguns or long guns? Are you prepared to look at the disproportionality of ten-year sentences being subject to charter challenges and therefore the possibility of your new law, which makes great news but bad law, being struck down by the courts eventually?
How open are you to changing your long-held view that this was just a perfect law when first introduced?