Welcome, Ministers, and support folks.
I do have some familiarity with the development of the sex offender registry. I was a minister in 2002 when we got the federal-provincial agreement to go forward with the sex offender registry. I think it was two or three years after that before the government finally got it into legislation.
There's no question we firmly believe we have to do all we have to do to protect people from sexual crimes. But as I go through this bill, and I think the parliamentary secretary in part mentioned it, there are two sides to the equation. There are penalties and prevention, and there is also rehabilitation. I know that's not possible in all cases.
This is not my regular committee, as you would know. This bill seems to me to be mostly about putting greater penalties, more consecutive sentencing, and those kinds of things. You did mention child advocacy and the good work they do. Is there anything else that the government is doing on the healing side and the rehabilitation side to deal with this problem other than the increased penalties and consecutive sentencing? Is there anything proposed in this bill that will do that, that I have not spotted?