Madam Speaker, I spoke on this earlier in the day and the member stood and questioned me, so I would like to return the gesture and favour to him.
One of the things he pointed out in his speech, which I appreciated, was his indignation toward the fact that the courts were giving certain sentences and in just a few short months, in some cases, these individuals were being returned to the streets. I am quite pleased to hear that the member would have that type of indignation towards such a fact.
There is statutory release in this country. In some cases, two-thirds of the way through sentences offenders can be sent back out on the street. His party has for a long time been on record as supporting those types of policies that would allow criminals to be given what we call early or statutory release. My question to him is whether he would support measures to get rid of statutory release. There is ample opportunity in this place to do that.
He also mentioned the Bloc Québécois in his speech and talked about Bloc members bringing certain facts forward. They questioned earlier whether anyone was getting under two years for fraud charges. I will take the member back to the sponsorship scandal in Regina v. Coffin, where the person pleaded guilty to 15 counts of fraud, totalling $1,556,625. There were aggravating circumstances and he received 18 months.
As he suggested, in many of these cases the sentences the offenders receive and what they actually serve are two different things. Would he support measures to have what we call truth in sentencing, whereby if someone is sentenced to six or eight years, that is what they serve?