Thank you.
Clauses 9, 10, 11, 12, and 14 all include increases to mandatory minimum sentences that were already increased once in Bill C-10.
This is the Einstein argument: the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. You have all heard that the rate of incidents of these types of crimes has gone up since Bill C-10 has come into effect. The mandatory minimums that were put into effect in Bill C-10 clearly didn't work, so the solution you've come up with is to increase them again.
You've heard incontrovertible testimony before the committee time and time again that there is absolutely no empirical evidence that mandatory minimums will result in fewer victims. You've heard that they do not deter crime. You've heard that they contribute to prison overcrowding. You've heard that they disproportionately discriminate against aboriginal Canadians. You've heard that they are an unjustified attack on judicial discretion.
Yet these clauses, the clauses that I've just set forward, are an example of increasing mandatory minimums that were already increased once in your mandate. Therefore, I would respectfully submit that these clauses ought not to be passed for the reasons that you've heard in the evidence, and for the reasons that I've just put forward.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.