Thank you very much, Chair.
Thank you to all of our witnesses for coming to be with us this Friday afternoon as we continue to hear testimony on Bill C-5.
Mr. Sauvé, I am going to direct my first question to you. I met this week, as part of Lobby Week, with two sergeants from the Halifax police association. We had a great discussion. The conversation included a discussion of mandatory minimum sentences. They gave me a pamphlet—I'm not sure how many MPs met with them too—with three recommendations, one of which, when I read it, tied exactly into Bill C-5, and I told them that. It dealt with mandatory minimum sentences.
The sergeants I was meeting with didn't know anything about Bill C-5. They were lobbying us in government—obviously, as it's called Lobby Week—to exempt officers and to allow the mandatory minimum sentences that allow judicial discretion when officers discharge their service weapon in the line of duty. Would you argue for that same change? Can you discuss the importance of flexibility for judges to craft sentences that fit whatever unique circumstances?
Given what we're doing, I found this one very important, so I'll ask you that question.