Mr. Chair, I'll be relatively brief.
As Mr. Baber correctly said, there's general agreement among most members of this committee that the use of reasonable hypotheticals—which created a poor decision in the Senneville case—is something we want to eliminate as a variable to the court's striking down of the mandatory minimum sentences Parliament adopts.
As a result, we've arrived at a situation where we have a suggestion in Bill C-16: a safety valve. I think that is a very good suggestion. It would prevent the use of reasonable hypotheticals to strike down mandatory minimum sentences for a class. It may lead to one problematic decision on one offender in a certain case, but it would not lead to the whole class being thus exempt from mandatory minimum sentences.
I understand. Everybody is reasonable in terms of where they're coming from. The way the legislation now works is, I think, a reasonable way to deal with things. Where the mandatory minimum sentence is life, the reasonable hypothetical would very likely never be used to strike anything down. It hasn't been by the courts. We're saying, “These sentences are the highest because they're for the most serious crimes, so we will not allow judges discretion on those. For everything that is not a minimum life sentence, we're allowing the safety valve to apply.”
The Conservatives, reasonably, are saying, “For this sentence or that sentence, we don't think this should be.” The line is here. The line could be there. Different people have different lines. Different people will take different charter risks. They'll say, “I accept this level of charter risk” or “I accept that level of charter risk.”
Again, I think we're all in agreement on the concept. As you said, we're in a different place with the line we're choosing to take on this. I think we're all here in good faith. I'm going to be voting against this amendment because I'm comfortable with minimum life being the line and threshold, and with where the charter risk would be if you start adding one. There are also the variables. There are many heinous crimes that don't have minimum life. If I take one, why am I not taking another one? Then that line gets blurrier and blurrier. You might say, “It's for any sentence that's 20 years, or any sentence that's 15 years, 10 years or 14 years.” It's difficult.
Again, I get it. I respect my colleagues and where they're coming from on this, but I'm going to vote against this one.