The other aspect—and I'll move on to debate—is that, unless you're living under the proverbial rock, people in this country know that, when you're in possession of a weapon, it is a highly regulated device. In fact, Canada leads the world in terms of the licensing requirements: the courses that you have to take, the costs associated with them, the rules and regulations with respect to purchasing the firearm, registration of that, transporting that from the place of purchase to your home, the storage, the makeup of the container in which you store it and the separation of weapon and ammunition. All of that is widely known across this country. The reason this is important for this committee to hear is that I heard, as a new parliamentarian, when this bill was introduced that it was targeting the low-risk, first-time offender. This isn't what section 92 talks about.
In fact, just today in question period, my colleague Mr. Anandasangaree talked about not punishing those first-time offenders, those low-risk offenders. There is a built-in safety mechanism already legislated in the Criminal Code. A first-time offender, to Gary's point, the the Attorney General's point, to the Minister of Public Safety's point, the points of all the other ministers I've heard from, the back bench I've heard from.... There is a built-in safety mechanism, because a first-time offender who finds himself mysteriously in possession of a weapon, loaded or not, without being a licensed holder, which could attract the attention of the police and hence a charge, is not going to jail on a first offence.
The section talks about the maximum being 10 years. The language in the case of a first offence to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 10 years should never be synonymous to the non-lawyers on this committee as being applicable to a starting point of jail. It doesn't talk about that, and in my version of the Criminal Code...and I always use Tremeear's because I find it extremely helpful. There are annotations, case law, charter analysis—