Mr. Speaker, I did say in my remarks that I support, as does my party, the existence of mandatory minimum penalties for drunk driving offences. Those penalties, of course, start off with a mandatory fine and then the offender will do time after a second offence. The person will not do seven years, but the person will do a few weeks, although I do not recall exactly how many weeks. The point is that with the mandatory minimum the offender will do time. There is an escalator for a third offence and the offender will do more time. However, we are talking about doing time as opposed to doing years and years of time.
The reason I would object to the escalating three, five, seven and ten-year type escalation is that the three, five, seven and ten years have never been shown to provide any more public safety. If it is necessary to keep the individual in jail because the person is a very violent offender, then the judge should impose a lengthy sentence of that nature.
However, I object to the automatic, structured, built-in, no exception mandatory minimum in the bill running up to seven years.