Mr. Speaker, the hon. member made some good points. One of them was that many of the witnesses questioned the effectiveness of mandatory minimums. Why does he not take his other point, that a party should not be dogmatic on ideology and hold to its position after hearing scientific evidence to the contrary, which is exactly what his party has done in this bill.
Because the member is new to committee, I want to update the House on what actually happened in committee. The points he mentioned were good, but over and above that the Liberal Party proposed, when all the mandatory minimums had been eliminated by the committee, that more mandatory minimums be put in very similar to our previous bill and the Conservatives rejected those.
If they are really serious in wanting mandatory minimums, they could have had some, but they voted them down. They would not accept the mandatory minimums in committee. That is what happened. It is perplexing if the party is really interested in mandatory minimums.
Why does the member not follow his own advice, forget ideology and listen to the witnesses who he so correctly quoted in his speech?