“Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to have a chance to take the floor to ask a question of my colleague from Milton East—Halton Hills South. I am distressed. I certainly agree with all the sentiments. We need to make sure that we are acting to protect people from the crimes that we have talked about, including intimate partner violence. However, we are falling back on rhetoric in the absence of evidence when we start echoing the notion that mandatory minimum sentences are somehow great at preventing crime, because there is no evidence for that at all. Empirical studies from all around the world, particularly from the U.S., where they were used a lot in Texas, prove conclusively that they do not deter crime. What deters crime is the risk of being caught, not longer sentences.”
Statement grade
A–
The average of Signal, Relevance, Respect and Clarity.
Average 86 / 100
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Procedure 13%Claims 76%Reasoning 10%
This view breaks the statement into its steps and names what each one does.
Mr. Speaker, Procedure · 18 wordsit is a great question about mandatory minimum sentences.We had great discussions about that in this House.ProcedureClaims · 102 wordsI do agree that the research on justice does tend to show that mandatory minimum sentences do not necessarily deter crime.However, they do provide more trust and more confidence in the justice system.What our government is trying to do here is find that middle ground where we can ensure that folks have confidence in justice, Vague promiseand I believe there is some element of deterrence there as well, but at the same time we are making sure that we are compliant with the charter.Vague promiseAs we know, there have been a lot of charter challenges with respect to mandatory minimum penalties, 1Reasoning · 14 wordsand this is a balance that we have to negotiate here in this House.