Yes, Chair. Number one, there was the anomaly, where for the more serious offence there wasn't a minimum sentence. This is for people dealing in the trafficking of a person under the age of 18, and with the further factors, punishable by a maximum life imprisonment, of kidnapping, of aggravated assault or aggravated sexual assault, or of causing death to the victim during the commission of the offence. We're dealing with a very serious offence.
The spirit of the legislation is to provide a mandatory minimum penalty, and it does in fact do that for the less serious offence, which is punishable by a maximum of fourteen years, a minimum of five years. This mandatory minimum is six years.
We look at the other offences. We've had a five-year minimum for certain gun crimes, escalating to a seven-year minimum for a second offence. There's no escalation in this one; it's the six-year minimum. I think it's quite an appropriate number. It recognizes that there's a difference between the first and the second scenario. There is also no provision for second and third offences, which we had in our previous legislation dealing with gun crime, where it was five, seven, and ten, which was reduced to five, seven, and seven.