Mr. Speaker, I think it was the Prime Minister who assured all Canadians that there would not be a nuclear problem because there could not be an earthquake. I do not think members of other parties have a crystal ball to make those kinds of comments.
On the question that he asked, I understand very clearly the frustration in seeing the drug use in many cities across Canada. I also think that kind of frustration should not drive us to poorly thought out policies that by all reports, and not just ours, but even reports from the justice department, are shown to be ineffective.
Instead of a knee-jerk reaction of wanting to incarcerate more people, which incidentally, brings about its own costs that are quite incredible, one of the answers may be to reconsider some of the policies that are at the source of these problems of the kind of hopelessness that we see and the increasing poverty that is prevalent in our communities. In my riding 25% of the population is living at or below the poverty line. These are the kinds of issues we might consider in terms of good social policy that might help.
Again, I want to stress that enforcement has to be a part of the solution to address those hardcore cases that the member just referred to, but to go beyond that and talk about using mandatory minimum sentences for the kind of situation that he has raised of robbery is just plain--