Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for his good work on the justice committee and for his intervention on the bill. He referred to the bill as being a fairy tale bill but then he went on to talk about some of the good aspects of the bill. I hope his support of the bill is because of its substance. I would hope that the Liberal Party would not be on record as voting in favour of fairy tale bills.
However, to get to the substance of the member's comments, he referred to the issues of denunciation and deterrence, which are some of the principles of sentencing that our courts apply. He attacked the bill because of its mandatory minimum sentence of two years and said that it would do nothing to deter crime.
The one principle of sentencing that he did not refer to, hopefully not deliberately, was the whole issue of incapacitation, in other words, the prophylactic effect of mandatory minimum sentences on criminals. In other words, taking serious criminals out of society for longer periods of time so that during their period of incarceration they do not continue to commit those crimes and hopefully get some help.
I would invite the member's comments on the whole issue of incapacitation and the impact that mandatory minimum sentences have on ensuring that serious criminals are taken out of society in order to protect society against their ongoing crimes.