Respectfully, I have a different point of view from my honourable colleague on the value this bill is going to offer more broadly. I take the closing comment in his question as an endorsement of at least some measures within the bill, if not the provisions that apply to mandatory minimum penalties.
On the issue of mandatory minimum penalties, though, there's a particular piece of context we need to understand. I know the member asking the question believes the government should adopt laws to protect against the harms he's enumerated. I share that desire sincerely. We all want strong penalties for serious crimes, but we have to ask ourselves what the value is of a mandatory minimum that exists on paper but is not recognized by law after a decision by the court to strike down that mandatory minimum. If our laws written into the code are not enjoyed in our communities, then those laws are not worth the paper on which they are written.
Today, mandatory minimums, including those that were subject to the Senneville decision, offer no force of protection for Canadian victims. We might feel good about what the code says, but if the court is going to strike down those provisions and not incorporate them into the sentencing regime, we can't say there is a functioning mandatory minimum regime today. We made a decision to restore those mandatory minimums, taking the constitutional guidance from the court, so they will actually be put in place and will demand reasons from the court in circumstances where it deviates from the mandatory minimums.
Keep in mind that we're not dealing with some widespread discretion. We're dealing with circumstances that are “so excessive as to outrage standards of decency”, in the court's words, or that would be “intolerable” to society. We think we've found the right approach.