Mr. Speaker, I listened carefully to the minister. He talks a lot about messaging. I would like to talk more about criminal sentencing. I see a lot of areas of concern in the bill he has tabled. He talks about seriousness and sentencing.
In this country we cannot very often find a car that would retail or sell for under $5,000. We have a situation in this bill and I am wondering how the minister would justify it. I will give the minister one good example. I will call to your attention the fact that as this bill is written now it is possible for someone convicted of a sexual assault to receive a conditional sentence if the prosecutor chooses to proceed by way of summary conviction, but it is absolutely impossible for anyone convicted of a vehicle theft over $5,000 to have a conditional sentence.
How does the minister justify that to Canadians? Here we have a sexual assault versus an auto theft and you have them so that one is more serious than the other. I think there is some mix-up in the thinking there. I do not understand why property rights seem to get more than personal injury.
I believe there are, as I have stated, some areas where we can find agreement, but I also see that some of the logic has been given over to just getting a simple message out. The criminal law should be nuanced. The justice system is nuanced and, as members know, we have very good actors, people who work day in and day out, whether they are prosecutors, defence counsel or the justices in the system. They listen to the facts of the case. More than anything else, the message really being sent is that judges are not doing their jobs, in the minister's opinion, because they are the ones who usually take the input from the counsel and the prosecutor and give the sentences.
You are fettering discretion with this bill. I believe that we should have respect for the people in this country who are paid to actually interpret the law, listen to the facts and rely on the evidence. I would ask the minister to deal with that one example that I gave of auto theft not being eligible for conditional sentencing and somebody that is going to get a summary conviction sexual assault being ineligible.