Senator Batters: Senator Gold, since you did reference that particular mandatory minimum being used for pepper spray in your speech, could you please get us that number and provide it to this chamber when you have it?

Hon. Denise Batters: Senator Gold, in your speech you referenced a one-year mandatory minimum sentence for a prohibited weapon, which, you said, includes pepper spray. Senator Gold, come on. We both know that before that charge even gets to court, police and Crown prosecutors would lay criminal charges appropriately. Such a criminal charge would not probably even be laid if it were not appropriate. But since you used that example, how many criminal convictions have there been in the last five years in Canada for pepper spray where the accused has received a one-year mandatory minimum sentence? I would guess that number might hover somewhere around zero.