Thank you. Good question, Mr. Thompson. I appreciate the work you've done in this area over the years. You've been consistent in your very clear support of laws that would protect children. I think that's wonderful, and your dedication is very much appreciated.
You will recall that in the last Parliament there was a bill brought forward in respect of certain sentencing, and we were able to bring in certain mandatory minimum prison sentences on certain crimes involving sexual assaults on children. We brought in those mandatory minimum prison sentences and we worked very well with the Bloc at that time to impose weak, even week-long, mandatory minimum sentences, because as soon as we've created a mandatory minimum, a conditional sentence is no longer applicable. So my point was that although I would have liked to have seen stronger mandatory minimum prison sentences in respect of those horrendous crimes, that was all we could get through that Parliament in terms of those, but at least we eliminated conditional sentences for those.
There are certain offences that will involve sexual assault that would still be eligible for conditional sentences under this scheme because they are only punishable by five years. So conditional sentences would not be applicable. But in most of those cases, as I understand it, a crown attorney could, if it's a serious case, proceed by way of indictment, which would then foreclose the possibility of a conditional sentence or house arrest. So we'll have to rely on the discretion of the crowns to ensure that in those serious cases they do proceed by way of indictment. It's a discretion we give to our crowns in many contexts, and I'm not concerned that they are going to exercise that discretion improperly.
So that was perhaps one of the disadvantages about drawing that sentencing line at ten years, because some of these did fall through the cracks in that sense, but there are remedies that the crowns could use in order to ensure that in serious cases the conditional sentencing option simply is not open.