Mr. Speaker, I want to raise two concerns with the member. The first one is probably more a commentary than a question.
The government sitting across the way continually tells the House that it is tough on crime and that it is getting down to serious work, yet if we look at the history of this bill, the first time we saw it was in 2006. We saw it again in 2008. Then we had prorogation and we had to start all over again.
People in my community of Hamilton Mountain were upset about the prorogation for a whole host of reasons, but one of them was that we keep repeating the same work, over and over again, instead of finding the time to deal with the real economic issues that are so hurting our communities. We should be talking about job creation. We should be talking about how to stop foreign takeovers. Yet what are we doing? We are debating the same bill for the third time.
Let me get to the question that I want to pose to the member.
I find the provisions in this bill with respect to mandatory minimum sentences troubling, and in particular, the fact that they would not kick in until after the third offence. I think we can think of a number of scenarios. When a person has been convicted for the third time, six months might be the mandatory minimum sentence. That is a ridiculously low sentence, especially if it involves individuals who are involved in organized crime and the theft of autos.
I wonder if the member could elaborate on his views both with respect to mandatory minimums in this bill and mandatory minimums in general.