Mr. Speaker, I am pleased that the minister does not have clients within the Conservative Party. It might lead to more questions about what need they would have for the legal advice from one of Her Majesty's Queen's Counsel and the Attorney General of Canada.
Regarding the concept of sentencing in general, I want to hone in on the prospect in this bill of adding deterrence and denunciation to a youth justice bill. I want to ask him in general if he agrees with the proposition that in the Criminal Code of Canada when it comes to sentencing, all of the factors are tempered by section 718.1, which says that proportionality is the overriding principle of sentencing.
I say that because Supreme Court Justice Morris Fish recently opined from the bench, in a very interesting decision I was watching involving mandatory minimums, that section 718.1 oversees all of the other sentencing principles.
Does the minister agree with that with respect to the Criminal Code? More important, does he see that the concept of proportionality is actually in the Youth Criminal Justice Act itself?