Mr. Speaker, this year we celebrate the charter's 30th anniversary, a landmark occasion to demonstrate respect for the Constitution and the rights of all Canadians. Yet the government continues to enact and enhance mandatory minimum penalties even though, as an Ontario judge said yesterday, they may violate the charter's prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment.
In this 30th year of the charter, will the government respect the Canadian and international evidence that mandatory minimums are unfair, injurious, ineffective, unconstitutional and a failed criminal law policy?