Mr. Speaker, I hope that all members understand that it is absolutely not the case. Judges must respect some criteria. I did enumerate them earlier and I will spare you a repeat of the list.
There is no automatic sentencing. As I said, it is not because a judge wakes up in a good mood one morning that he or she will be lenient and give out conditional sentences. That is not the way things work. Sentences are determined by such criteria as the type of crime and, of course, the individual who committed it.
I suspect that without the right-wing republican conservative movement that we have observed since the beginning of the 21st century, we would still be in a society that wants to give a second chance to people who really deserve it. In fact, that is what a judge does. He or she takes the criteria into consideration and decides if the person found guilty will be given a conditional sentence that will allow that person to be returned to society under supervision. We notice that that supervision has become more rigorous since the beginning of this century. Judges have followed current events and noticed the right wing tendency that exists in Canada. They then realized that supervision had to be enhanced and that has been done.