Mr. Speaker, my colleague, the member for Malpeque, is a former attorney general. I do not have to tell him that sentencing has more than one purpose and one goal.
The first element of sentencing has a punishment and a consequence element to it. However, there is also a rehabilitation element, hopefully. If these people will be on the streets again some day, we want them to get the services that rehabilitate them. The third point I want to dwell on is that there has to be a deterrent factor.
I come from the riding of Winnipeg Centre. On a hot summer night, there is gun play every night. Kids, with a cavalier attitude toward guns, use them more and more frequently. Families will not sleep in the outside rooms of their houses; they sleep in the inner rooms. They are worried about a stray bullet coming through their houses.
From a deterrent point of view, what is wrong with mandatory minimum sentences in a crimes committed with guns, a violent crime perpetrated on the streets of Winnipeg where a gun is used?
We want the message out there that there is a deterrent so kids will take it more seriously. Instead of fooling around with guns in the back lanes, we want them to know that there is a serious consequence to that in my riding.