Thank you, and I do want to respond to your earlier comments about the crime rates. I will file these statistics because these are all Canadian stats.
The proportion of violent crimes involving firearms has increased about 10% in the last few years. It is particularly critical for handgun crimes. Handgun homicides have increased about 25% since the late 1990s. Increases in the use of handguns are also reported by the police in robberies, extortion, and miscellaneous violent crimes. In 1993, victims of gang-related homicides as a portion of all victims of homicides made up 2.1%. They now account for 15.3%. These are just some of the statistics. So handgun violence and gang-related violence are clearly on the rise.
I can repeat the statistics that I gave earlier with respect to sexual assault, for example. Here are some interesting statistics. Sexual assault rates increased significantly after the legislative changes in 1983. From 1983 to 1993, sexual assault rates increased 158%, averaging an increase of 10% per year. In 2004, 98% of all sexual assaults were classified as minor sexual assaults. I don't understand what a minor sexual assault is. I would consider a sexual assault to be a sexual assault. For the whole 35-year period--that is 1970 to 2004--rates of sexual assault increased 45%. That's 1.1% per year. So, again, statistics have not shown that these crimes are going down. The numbers of violent and serious offences keep on rising.
I just want to put that on record, and I'm willing to dispute those bold assertions that somehow crime is dropping. Ask people in downtown Winnipeg, north end Winnipeg, what they think about crime 20 years ago, 10 years ago, and today. Ask people in downtown Toronto whether the crime situation with respect to violence is getting better. It's in fact getting worse.
I was very pleased to see the NDP come on board during the federal election with mandatory minimum gun sentences of four years, and to hear your own comments stating that sentences between five and seven years were constitutionally acceptable for violent gun crimes. So I'm very pleased that I could bring forward legislation that corresponds to some of your comments. Certainly, by the third time someone is convicted of a youth gun crime, 10 years is not an inappropriate sentence. Imagine a person being caught with a firearm in a violent crime three times in a row and 10 years not being a sufficient penalty. I'm pleased to see that you're supportive of that direction, if not the specifics of the legislation.
With respect to the two bills, Bill C-9 and Bill C-10, I'm very pleased that in my conversations with provincial attorneys general, while we haven't had a discussion regarding any particular impact of those bills, they have generally been supportive. In fact, the NDP attorney general in Manitoba has been calling for exactly these measures for years in order to deal with the gang problem that is spiralling out of control in areas like Winnipeg and Toronto and moving into other cities.