Sometimes I wish the viewers at home understood what actually happens in this committee, the legislation that comes before this committee and what this Liberal government is doing. The whole premise of Bill C-16 is to address a number of offences that should have been addressed a long time ago, but most importantly mandatory minimum sentences that are being struck by judges every day. We all know basic Criminal Code language. If you commit offence X, then you shall be sentenced to a minimum of Y or a maximum of Z. We have seen, time and time again, judges strike down the mandatory minimum sentence.
Here come the Liberals with the attorney general and justice minister to say, they're going to fix the fact that judges are striking down mandatory minimum penalties every day, and they're going to do it with the so-called safety valve. That, in my view, is the most critical piece of this Bill C-16 legislation.
What the justice minister says and what the Liberals would have us believe is that the safety valve allows judges not to look at a reasonable hypothetical, a non-existent scenario before them and then go ahead and strike down a mandatory minimum sentence for being cruel and unusual when it's applicable to that hypothetical scenario. Instead, they look at the accused before them and say that under the circumstances it would be cruel and unusual to impose the mandatory minimum sentence. The Liberals say that, by virtue of the existence of this safety valve, mandatory minimum penalties will actually be preserved.
Now I want to go to the officials.
Mr. Taylor, am I correct that the policy of the justice department and of the government is that the safety valve put before us is going to strengthen mandatory minimum penalties, yes or no?