Mr. Speaker, that has been exactly my point for the last five years. That is why I have been calling for mandatory minimum prison sentences.
I stood up today and said that even under the Liberal bill dealing with serious sexual assaults, rapists can get house arrest. How can that be? We need to send the message to the judiciary that those types of sentences are not acceptable. The way Parliament properly does that is through the establishment of these mandatory minimum sentences.
The Minister of Justice has just recently flipped on his stand on mandatory minimum sentences. As late as August and September he was telling the House that there is no beneficial effect for mandatory minimum prison sentences. This weekend he came around, but he only goes half way. He will not do it for drug dealers. He will not say that those who are peddling this poison to our kids deserve to go to jail.
What needs to be understood about the rising gun violence in the streets of Toronto is that it is all drug related. This is a struggle for the drug trade and guns are used in order to increase a gang's market share.
If we are just going to deal with guns, that is a good start, but we need to deal with drugs. Those who are peddling the coke, the meth and the heroin deserve to go to jail. That is what Canadians are saying. Then we will see an end to this gun violence on the streets of Toronto and elsewhere.