Sadly, Mr. Speaker, once again we see a fundamental philosophical difference between the Liberal Party of Canada, unfortunately the government of today, and the Conservative Party, the next Government of Canada.
I hope that people who are watching this debate at home tonight can clearly see this. I think it was exemplified by the comments made by my colleague across the way.
Very clearly, when it comes to protecting the most vulnerable in our society, our children, my colleague is more interested in excuses, in providing discretion, in providing room to manoeuvre for the judges. At the end of all of that, his question was whether there was any chance that some modification could be made to the discretion already given to judges to take into account the fact that the trafficking might have been done close to schools.
I already have said in my speech what the reality is: we do not even have any statistics. We do not even know how much of the trafficking that is currently taking place in this country takes place within 500 metres of a schoolyard.
He asked, and I suppose quite rightly, what about a playground or all these other places? But we have to start somewhere. I am sick and tired, after 12 years of being in this place, of hearing the answer every time somebody in this House or this party raises an issue like this that it is too restrictive or that it is only one change to protect one group.
Why do we not start somewhere? Why do we not start with schoolyards?
There is a sense over there on the Liberal Party side that they are so concerned about the criminals' rights and they do not care about the children, for God's sake. I cannot believe they would not want to enact this legislation in order to provide some real deterrence.
If the member had been listening to my speech, he would have heard me say that the average sentence handed out to traffickers was four months, if they receive any jail time at all. As I said, no statistics are kept so we do not even know how much of that trafficking took place with children close to schools.
The average sentence was four months when the traffickers got any jail time at all. Four months. Is that the message we want to send? Is that how much we are willing to protect our children? By suggesting that the deterrent for these animals to prey on our children by pushing drugs at them will get them four months' incarceration? In some cases, they just get a fine.
I do not think so. I do not think that is the message we want to send. I think the average parent understands the need for mandatory sentencing to take away the discretion from judges so that these people go to jail.