Mr. Speaker, I would never second-guess the hon. member in articulating on behalf of his constituents, or for that matter, any MP here. That is what we are here to do. I have worked with the member on the justice committee. We do not always agree, but most of the time we do and it has been a good run over a number of years.
However, I wanted to ask two questions. The first one is really a comment. In the matter involving the grain farmers who were ultimately jailed, as I recall it, I believe they were fined by the court. When they came back to court, not having paid their fines, not because they could not afford to but because they refused in protest to pay the fines, I believe the court had no alternative but to resort to either imprisonment or contempt. The court resorted to the short jailing. So the member is correct. It happened, but the sequence involved more than just selling grain and going to jail. It was more complex than that.
Does the member not think that in this House from time to time we are forced by reason of the federal jurisdiction to focus on only two things when it comes to response to criminal activity? The only thing we can do federally is write the Criminal Code and from time to time set the sentencing range. That is all we get to do.
With criminal activity there has to be an offence, an investigation, it may need police intelligence gathering, a charge, a conviction, and a sentence, but we only write the law and deal with the sentencing. The provinces and the cities do the policing, the investigation, and the prosecution is done by the provinces. So, we actually may be kind of frustrated from time to time that we do not have a greater role on the ground in the components.
Does the member not think that out of frustration from time to time we federally may tend to overemphasize our role in that whole complex thing with just the law and the sentencing?