I think there are some quite serious consequences contained within the legislation. But first of all I have to thank you for your support. You've been very supportive of our tough-on-crime agenda, and not just with this bill--I have to be fair--but right across the board. I know you are in touch with your constituents. They are rightly concerned, and I appreciate that you have brought those concerns to me.
You're quite right that by reclassifying, some of these judges...we bring them within the ambit of what we are trying to do here. As I said to Ms. Davies, we want to send a clear message to people who want to get involved in this, because they're in the business of destroying people's lives. People who are importing narcotics into this country are in the business of destroying people--that's what it's all about--or taking advantage of other people. That is why I make no apologies for the fact that these people can expect to end up in jail if they want to get involved in this activity. We don't want them to get involved in that. I hope nobody would wish that upon anybody else.
I'm pleased that we take a comprehensive approach. The national anti-drug strategy is a perfect example of getting the message out, particularly to young people, to not get involved in this. But we need to have a very clear message, and I don't think people got a clear message. Over the years, in the late 1990s and the early part of this century, somehow they got the message that some of it was okay; you could take it and we wouldn't charge you; and maybe we were going to decriminalize it. That was the wrong message, in my opinion.
We have to be consistent, and this government will be consistent. We will bring in the list of penalties I have indicated. We're after those people who are in the business of trafficking; the people who are in the business of producing these drugs; the people who are in the business of taking advantage of other people; or, as they told me in British Columbia in very clear terms, the gangsters and the gangs that are making a living off this. We have to direct this legislation at them.
You've been supportive of not just this legislation but gang legislation and other pieces of legislation. So again, thank you very much for your concern on that. It has certainly been noted and appreciated by me and all of us in the government.