Madam Speaker, I did listen very respectfully to my hon. colleague's comment and the discussion. I believe that he and I want to make sure that community safety is improved in this country, that our neighbours are living in communities that are as safe as they can possibly be, and that we adopt policies for that. If we both agree that is our premise, then obviously what we need to do is look at the evidence. The evidence says that judges are allowed to look at an individual situation, which, by the way, means that they can actually give a sentence that is greater than the mandatory minimum, but it means they might give one less than that if they determine it is not in the best interests of public safety and rehabilitation to have that higher sentence.
What we have seen, particularly for vulnerable people, is that if they are incarcerated for a long period of time, the likelihood of them reoffending is much higher.