Mr. Speaker, I enjoyed my colleague's speech and I appreciate his experience and expertise.
Let us try to do our best not to engage in flights of rhetoric that can sometimes be very moving, given the emotional nature of the topic, but that can also lead us off track from our common objective of finding the common good. How can we do that?
I understand the government member's explanations. Maybe one day he will be a minister, but he has only a year left to get there, because the Conservatives will certainly take power after that. Let's smile a little during this very emotional debate.
Let us come back to reality. The reality is that the law makes it possible for the person to be assessed by public officials who then make recommendations. The law also gives the minister the discretionary power to act.
In this case, all Canadians recognize that this is a terrible situation, that a horrific crime was committed, that good Canadian common sense must prevail and that the minister must use his discretionary power, what I personally like to refer to as “the power to use common sense”.
Why does the government member not tell his minister that he made some unfortunate remarks? I am sure the member agrees with me on that. Talking about bad practices in reference to the appalling crime that was committed is completely unacceptable. He made a mistake and now he is paying the price.
In my opinion, this situation could be quickly resolved using good Canadian common sense. We just need the minister to stand up and use his power to put the individual in question back behind bars.