Thank you, Minister, and to your officials, for being here this afternoon.
When you were making your preliminary remarks, it brought to mind a witness we had before our committee who represented the Vancouver Board of Trade. I believe his name was Mr. Rezac. When the issue of mandatory minimums came up, he said that has been a widely held misconception, that there is no evidence that they work. He made reference to the United States and the fact that actually it was. So we have a person, who is independent of the political realm, whose organization has done some investigation into this.
My question has more to do with the worst of the worst. Minister, you also made reference to that. You said that at least near the end of their term there are 10 more years, I think you said, when they're not out on the streets. By the way, Mr. Rezac used the same terms, that there are people who aren't going to be victimized either in their stores or on the streets, and whose daughters are not going to be worried about walking on the streets at night. When speaking about hardened criminals, the fact is that these people are not average Canadians.
We want to make sure that the rights of average Canadians are upheld and that the rights of all Canadians are upheld. But we want to see those who are recidivists and those who commit crimes of violence related to organized crimes and street gangs behind bars. Those are the people Bill C-14 is dealing with, to ensure the worst offenders are unable to endanger the lives of Canadians.
I wonder if you could make a comment on some of those issues.