Mr. Speaker, since his election to the House, the member for Mississauga South has done some important work on the very difficult issue of fetal alcohol syndrome. He has become one of the leading voices in the country on the issue. He knows a great deal about it. He does a great service to the country when he brings it up in this House and works on it in the rather effective way he does.
The member correctly noted the importance of not restricting unreasonably the discretion of a sentencing judge to consider all of the factors of the case. That is why when we decided to support Bill C-25, we did so pleased that the minister and the government had in fact preserved some aspect of judicial discretion, allowing a judge perhaps to go to one and a half days for every day served in custody, as long as the judge accepts his or her obligation to make that transparent.
No legislation would purport to specifically enumerate examples where a sentencing judge may choose to exercise that discretion. The member identified fetal alcohol syndrome and the difficulty in rehabilitation. I do not disagree whatsoever with his view that that may in fact be an appropriate circumstance for a judge to consider in sentencing.
What will happen, as a practical reality, is once this legislation is passed and then proclaimed, sentencing judges, when they decide to exercise that discretion and, for example, go to one and a half days for every day served, they will, by having to explain those reasons, develop a body of common law and jurisprudence across the country. This will then guide trial courts in the future, and ultimately courts of appeal and perhaps the Supreme Court of Canada will identify what are appropriate circumstances for that discretion. That process will take some time.
I have no doubt the issue the member identified will be one of those examples that the courts will want to consider.