Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his very relevant question. The bills we have been passing here, under this Conservative government, are increasingly being struck down by the courts and by the Supreme Court. I do not need to remind members of what has happened in some very recent cases. Once again, we need to remember that as parliamentarians, we have a duty to consider the constitutionality of the bills before us.
Pursuant to section 4.1 of the Department of Justice Act, the Minister of Justice has a duty to verify whether the bills introduced in the House are consistent with the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, for example. This also applies to issues associated with aboriginal rights.
I also want to remind members that when we impose minimum penalties in bills, as is the case here, we seem to forget that this often has consequences on both the judicial system and the prison system. We cannot forget that. As it seemed to be the case at one point, the government only seems to want to build prisons in this country, when we should be building houses in first nations communities.