Mr. Speaker, I am glad my colleague brought up Mr. Daubney, a well-respected citizen of this city and also respected in our country for his work.
The member is asking me to crawl inside the mind of certain people, but I can only observe the outcomes as opposed to what their intrinsic motivations are.
Let me quote the following:
—the experience with mandatory sentencing legislation in a number of countries has shown that these laws do little to promote public confidence in the sentencing process....minimum sentences are not an effective sentencing tool: that is, they constrain judicial discretion without offering any increased crime prevention benefits.
That is in a report from the Department of Justice. It is a telling report and we should be guided by it.
I thought my colleague from Ottawa South was warming up to quote someone who was the champion of mandatory minimums, and that is Newt Gingrich. He said that it was a total mistake and to stay away from it because it had failed completely. It is an odd day, but there are days when I agree with Newt Gingrich.