Madam Speaker, I have a great deal of respect for my hon. colleague who speaks on behalf of the Bloc. He is certainly quite knowledgeable and he has spent a fair bit of time on the justice committee.
He spoke briefly about minimum mandatories, the numbers of minimum mandatories and whether members of Parliament, let alone criminals, knew about minimum mandatories, et cetera. One of the truisms of minimum mandatories is it increases the prison population, not to any discernible effect on the rate of crime. It would be reasonable to anticipate that this bill would increase the prison population.
In his capacity as the justice critic for the Bloc and as a long-standing member on the justice committee and as a former practising lawyer in Quebec, has he any idea whether the government has shared any data as to what the impact of this bill might be on an increase in the prison population?