Madam Speaker, if the member would pay some attention to the facts, he might understand my argument.
The Johannesburg police force is just rebuilding itself. In Colombo the police force has remained reasonably intact, reasonably effective, so we do not see any corresponding levels in crime increase between those two. Colombo has it under control; Johannesburg is still trying to build its police force so it can do it.
The key is prevention and getting the message out. If we want to get a message out from government, from authority, it is that if a person commits a crime, he or she will get caught.
It was interesting to listen to the member for Langley cite some of the statistics from the insurance bureau of the stereotypical individual who commits a crime: 27 years of age, usually with some significant addiction, whether it is alcohol or drugs. A minimum fine, a minimum court time means absolutely nothing to that criminal. That person will not give one iota of thought to whether he or she will get a $1,000 fine, as the bill proposes, three months in jail or some other penalty. It will not even cross that person's mind.
If we were really serious about dealing with this issue, we would be funding our police forces so that they had enough officers on the street to deal with this type of crime.