Mr. Speaker, I think it is misleading when a member rises in the House and suggests that any member here is trying to encourage the smuggling of firearms by changing legislation that has to do with the punishment associated with that.
At the end of the day, what it really comes down to is determining who is best to cast judgment on individuals in terms of what their sentence should be. I am not an expert in this field. I do not feel as though parliamentarians are in a position to cast a single brush stroke over all criminal activity. Rather, the position from this side is that we charge those who are responsible to hear a case to hear the prosecution, to hear the defence and then determine what the best sentence is based on that information. They are the ones who are there to receive the evidence, hear the facts and make their determinations based on that.
How can the member suggest that members of Parliament are better suited to make those decisions than those who are actually charged with the responsibility of upholding justice?