Thank you very much, Chair.
Thank you, Mr. Muise.
I'm new to this committee, but I do want to follow up on some of the comments made by my colleague Mr. Comartin and my colleague from the Bloc on the cost, particularly the cost of incarceration.
I'm assuming that you are aware of Peter Whitmore. Peter Whitmore, of course, is a serial repeat sexual offender. I recall having this debate in the House, when Bill C-27 was first introduced, and responding to a line of questioning--or a line of debate, I suppose--from one of the Bloc members, who was stating in his terms of debate that he was opposing this legislation because of the cost of incarceration.
I pointed out to my colleague the case of Peter Whitmore, who had offended several times before. His MO was to abduct small children, small boys, and sexually abuse them. He was out either on parole or for whatever reason and came to Saskatchewan—he's not a Saskatchewan resident—abducted two small boys, one from Saskatchewan and one from Manitoba, held them captive for three days, inflicted God knows what abuse upon them, before the RCM Police, acting on a tip, finally apprehended him in a small farm house just outside of Broadview.
I asked my colleague from the Bloc if he could please come out to my constituency and to my province and explain to the parents of those young children that the cost of incarceration was more than the security of their children was worth. I do not think—and I'm not trying to embarrass anyone here—that there is any cost too great to protect our children from that type of torture, that type of abuse.
I'd just like to get your comments on that, because there seems to be a prevalent theme here about costs.