Thank you, Chair.
Just following up on Mr. Morrison's comments—and I think I reiterated this several times in my interventions on Tuesday—this particular point and this particular section of the code are probably the most topical right now in our country. They have been topical for the last 10 years. It's what strikes at the heart of community concerns and safety. I just worry about the message that this particular Parliament is sending to like-minded individuals who would be so cavalier with the lives of innocent victims as they carry out their vendettas in a gang-by-gang type of warfare. As I reiterated many times on Tuesday, they are very poor shooters. They shoot at random, quite often from moving vehicles, and innocent victims are impacted.
To my colleague Mr. Morrison's point, we need to send an appropriate deterrent message to the Department of Justice officials. I am sure if I were to pose the question directly to them, they would agree with me that the primary sentencing features and focus of this type of offence are denunciation, deterrence and removal from society. We already have a problem in terms of that messaging with mandatory minimum penalties already on the books. It's abundantly clear that these like-minded violent recidivist criminals have absolutely no regard for criminal law and the penalties that flow from it. Now, once it is heavily advertised that this is the new law, that Bill C-5 would actually make it easy for them to prey on each other and to impact communities, we are definitely going to see a spike in crime.
I certainly want to go on record, as a former Crown attorney who fought daily to ensure that my community was as safe as possible, who fought daily to hold these recidivist criminals to account for their behaviour, that I certainly do not want my DNA on any part of Bill C-5 that supports this amendment. I will be voting against it.