With respect to my friend Mr. Housefather, he said that he was feeling out the line and was comfortable with the line being here, or perhaps not here but over here. He said that he was fairly comfortable. What, in effect, Mr. Housefather is suggesting is an arbitrary line—and I think he's nodding in agreement. I'm glad we agree on this point, because we should not be drawing an arbitrary line when it comes to sentencing. We have enough faith in the judges to exercise discretion. No one is taking away that discretion. The safety valve adds it, as you say.
I can't believe that somehow we would now here apply a line of turpitude to the guilty mind, where we say that, on this guilty mind, we throw the book at you, but on that guilty mind, you can have an off-ramp without looking at the specific circumstances of the case. An aggravated sexual assault is an aggravated sexual assault. I don't even want to describe the elements of that case. Applying this arbitrary approach, in our respectful suggestion, is incorrect.
To Ms. Khalid, we are well within our rights to use hypotheticals, because we make the law, for better or for worse, and judges apply it. That's our entire job description. For better or for worse, Parliament is supreme. We get to write the statute, and judges get to apply it. We should not shy away from that duty. We should embrace it.
Most importantly, no one is saying that somehow stiff sentencing will eliminate the need for wraparound services or rehabilitation. Of course rehabilitation is another very important component of all of this. All I'm saying is, let's not forget the most important principle of sentencing, and that is deterrence. Sitting here, if we have the opportunity to deter aggravated sexual assault in Peel and we don't avail ourselves of that, then I think we've failed in our duty as legislators.
Thank you.