I'm not going to take it personally, so I'm not hurt. But this is a genuine effort to preserve the intent of the drafter of the bill while addressing, I think, almost every concern that I heard raised by opposition members. The only minimum in this bill as amended would be on a third conviction, a six-month minimum. I think that's entirely reasonable. If the opposition's position is that a six-month minimum on a third conviction for auto theft is not reasonable, I think that is beyond reasonable.
We are making an effort to try to have some consensus. I listened to the questions on Tuesday. We did address it on the first and second penalty. I did hear that we felt that auto theft should be included, and that this bill preserves it as a distinct offence under the Criminal Code.
I can't support completely what is, in my view, gutting the bill so that there's no minimum at any point. Someone can have three, four, five, six, multiple...and we won't even, as parliamentarians, say that's deserving of a six-month sentence? These are not first-time offenders. They're not second-time offenders.
This is a major move from what Mr. Scheer had presented, in an effort to compromise.
I'll leave it at that. I can't, as a member of Parliament, support anything that would go lower than where we're prepared to go. I ask members to give one more consideration to this, which I think addresses 90% of the concerns I've heard mentioned.