Mr. Speaker, I appreciate my colleague's comments. There has been what I hope is just confusion about the scope of the bill.
The parliamentary secretary suggested earlier that privately held service dogs were not covered by the bill. The definition seems to include some but not all. I am not 100% sure. That is one issue.
The other issue is the whole notion of mandatory minimum sentences and consecutive sentences, which contaminates the justice system. Right now we trust our justice system to get it right. We have judges who have immense training and who have the right to make decisions about how laws are to be enforced and what is an appropriate sentence.
By creating a mandatory minimum, we create situations, such as for persons who might face deportation, in which the justice system may choose to back off on prosecuting a charge under Section 445.1, because the threat of deportation is much greater a punishment than should be afforded. Therefore, they cannot, in fact, prosecute.
This notion of these conflicting parts of the new laws that the Conservatives put forward, plus the notion of mandatory minimum sentences, may contaminate our justice system. Would the member like to comment on that.