Mr. Speaker, my first answer is that one just needs to look at the track record of the ministers who have exercised this discretion, more limited as it is under the current legislation.
The second point is that judges exercise their discretion by imposing mandatory minimums generally with one or two exceptions. Judges exercise their discretion within the principles that are set out in the Criminal Code. We have had sentencing principles for 30-plus years and we exercise, as judges, restrictions within that. Our courts of appeal, all the way up to the Supreme Court of Canada, supervise that the judicial discretion they have is exercised properly within those guidelines that we as parliamentarians have given them having gone through the democratic process.
We also have judges who have been trained, both as lawyers and as judges, to understand how they are supposed to exercise that discretion. We obviously do not have that in the ministers in the government. Now my colleague is saying that we will give them even more discretion.
I would not give this discretion that is in the bill to a judge. I am not prepared to say that any judge in this country should be able to take into account any other factor that he or she considers relevant. I am not prepared to give that to anybody. We operate under a rule of law. We set the guidelines and we expect them to interpret those and apply them, not go off on some whim.