Green amendment 17, which has been ruled in order, removes the mandatory minimum penalty even if the offence is in association with a criminal organization, so I think we're starting to peel back some of the layers on the rationale on this piece of legislation.
We've already made it abundantly clear on other offences that there's significant concern around guns in Canada and that the crimes being committed are being committed not by law-abiding farmers, duck hunters and sport shooters but by the criminal element.
This amendment takes things one step further and specifically references criminal organization and repeat offenders. Most of these offences that we're dealing with involve criminal organizations, and some of the amendments we spoke to do specifically reference recidivism and repeat offenders. In fact, we discussed a particular Criminal Code provision that provided for escalating penalties, as there should be, on second and third offences. This Green amendment 17 relates to a criminal organization or an accused who is a repeat offender. It's for those reasons that I will be voting against Green amendment 17.