Madam Speaker, that is very interesting. I do not have any information to add to that nor do I have a comment.
However, I would say that there are other circumstances that concern me about the bill and I will take the opportunity to give one now.
The bill would provide mandatory minimums of two years, not only for the person who perpetrated the fraud but for any accomplices. What would happen if there was an office where the Ponzi scheme was being operated out of and there happened to be an employee who was a single mom with three kids and somebody said that she knew or ought to have known that this was not legal and that she was being charged as well? There would be no restitution for that mom. This legislation would put that mom in jail for a minimum of two years and maybe more. I am not sure whether that has been taken care of.
When we put in a mandatory minimum and we deal with names of seniors and so on, we are talking about human beings where there may be exacerbating circumstances or mitigating circumstances. This legislation would not provide for that. It is unfortunate but most people who have spoken to the bill have basically said this is not a very substantive bill. It is tinkering with sentencing.
However, I hope the judicial system will have sufficient discretion to ensure that people who are somehow drawn into this, either coerced or otherwise, unwittingly do not have to suffer two year mandatory minimum sentences through no fault of their own. It is a dynamic and it is one of the reasons that I have some difficulty with mandatory minimums.
The courts have always had the discretion but the government does not trust the courts. As a consequence, it believes that the solution to all problems is mandatory minimums and fill up the jails with unreported criminals.