Mr. Speaker, the simple answer is yes. The sentence for a crime should reflect the seriousness of it, whether or not the offender is a first time offender, the denunciation factor which I had referred to earlier. Clearly, there are actually seven or eight different criteria set out in the legislation for sentencing. Right up there near the top is the denunciation factor. In other words the state and the people are saying that if individuals do that which is so serious, we will take away their liberty and they will be incarcerated for a period of time.
Running along with the denunciation are the other factors which I have referred to, which are in the legislation. That is there for everyone to read also. We are doing reasonably well at it.
I know the member would like to have more statistics that would enable him and police communities, who are working across the country to protect us, to show the sources of what they regard as the persistent crime that irritates them so much and I hope they can find that.
The connections between the propensity to commit a crime and the causes all relate to the poverty issue raised by the hon. member, the lack of success in school, and what happens to a young person growing up. Just because one is poor does not mean one is a thug or a crook. Of course it does not.
Half of Canada was poor during the depression, but the country did not grow up with thugs and crooks. It is the disadvantaged among us who are more likely be drawn into crime. It is that group that our social spending should be aimed at. That is what we should keep in mind as we discuss public policy in sentencing.