Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the hon. member for Yukon for his clear and concise presentation. I very much appreciate him mentioning the committee that could not find expert witnesses in favour of this bill. I also appreciated it when he talked about the 37,000 jurists from the Canadian Bar Association who are opposed to this bill.
This leads me to my question for the hon. member. Is this not a vote-seeking bill? The minister seemed to be saying earlier that the Conservatives introduced this bill because they promised they would. That seems very much like electioneering to me.
With this kind of bill, judges no longer have free will. Could the hon. member for Yukon tell us—in aboriginal communities in particular—how a judge can truly assess a person's situation when he is forced to impose minimum sentences under the law? We keep hearing exactly the same thing, but I think the hon. member could give us a different and clearer explanation.