You've touched on a very important point, Mr. Petit. That is the role of victims. People want to have confidence in our criminal justice system. If they believe that people who do terrible things to them...if they are the victims of kidnapping, forceable confinement, trafficking in people, sexual assault, criminal harassment, luring a child, and they hear that these people are eligible for house arrest, it hurts the criminal justice system. It hurts people's confidence in the criminal justice system. It's a bad idea to continue this.
What we have to do in the Criminal Code is respond to that. We have to respond to what we believe is our own good common sense as to what is serious and what is the appropriate measure to be taken with that, and it has to be reflected in the Criminal Code. You asked if people want to have confidence in the criminal justice system. Of course they do. They want to have that. And our job is to do that. Is this bill going to restore people's confidence? I say it's part of what it will.
I was actually careful in my opening comments. I said this will “help” on these things. We have about a dozen bills before this Parliament right now. All of them are moving in the same direction, to help restore people's confidence in the criminal justice system or help them to continue to have confidence in the criminal justice system. These are what we have to do. We know that criminals are becoming more sophisticated, and this particular one is not always directed at people who are into sophisticated crimes--some of it is. When people are into arson for fraudulent purposes, yes, you could get some sophisticated operations in there. But people want this to strike that balance. They want these individuals to get the help they need, but they want to send out the message that we take these matters very seriously in Canadian society and that there have to be meaningful consequences that these individuals are eligible for when they commit some of these terrible crimes.
Again, in an objective look at this bill that you have before you, I think people say that this is a reasonable compromise between less serious and more serious offences, and that yes, these are serious offences. When you start talking about a sexual assault prosecuted by indictment, we're talking about a very serious business, and people, I think right across this country--I'm completely confident--do not want to see these people eligible for house arrest under any circumstances.
So that is the job we have before us, striking that appropriate balance. I think this bill, among all the bills that this committee has had a look at and introduced before Parliament, strikes that appropriate balance.