Mr. Speaker, I will be speaking to this in 40 minutes or so, but before I do that, I need to have a couple of questions answered. The penalties we see here in this bill are life, 10 years and 5 years, maximum. Members opposite know that in the courtrooms today these maximum penalties are being minimized, mainly because of the antics of the judges and lawyers in the courtroom.
I am very concerned. Just because government puts on maximum penalties does not mean that we are going to get tougher on these issues. It very likely means that life will go on in the courtroom the way we see it now. I am really reluctant to go with maximum penalties these days. I think we should be dealing with minimums. That goes for a lot of laws, such as drug laws and hit and run offences and so forth. I would like the hon. member to address that.
I also need some clarification about how most of the bill addresses the trafficking of people outside of Canada. I work with a lot of people who are being forced into working for drug gangs. They are being used as muscle, for driving cars, or for whatever the drug gang wants. The threats are that the gang will kill the person's brother, sister, mother, father or grandfather and so on. I just want to make sure for my own edification that this bill will surely cover those kinds of incidents as well as trafficking and prostitution outside the borders. We are into a new day and age when these drug gangs, which I will speak about in a few minutes, are coercing young people right out of school to work for them.
I would like those two questions answered before I get into this subject, because I really do not want to make any mistakes on where I am going with it.