It's interesting, Mr. Rathgeber. You talked about victims groups, and I've met with a lot of them over the last three years as justice minister. A group that I very recently met with were people who were victims of white collar crime, or people who advocate for tougher sentences against white collar crime. I pointed out to them that these people who are convicted of white collar crime, serious fraud, are eligible for conditional sentences, and to a person they disagreed with that. I guess that's the point we're making here.
It's recognized by just about everybody that these are very serious offences, the most serious offences, quite frankly, in the Criminal Code--the ones for life, 14 years, 10 years. We were specific. Criminal harassment, sexual assault, kidnapping, forceable confinement, trafficking in persons.... We can argue about it, but I think most people would say if you're proceeding by indictment against these very serious offences, these people should be ineligible to be sent home afterwards.
Now, Monsieur Lemay says don't worry about them, nobody will send them home. Well great, then we're all agreed, if these people aren't going to be sent home. The Criminal Code will be just stating the obvious, and what I think is apparent to everybody is that if you get convicted of the most serious crimes in Canada within Canada's Criminal Code, you shouldn't be eligible to be sent home. And that's great; then we can move on. Let's get to other constructive things we can do to try to rehabilitate these individuals.
But as you say, we have to reach out to these victims who are looking to Parliament to recognize their legitimate concerns. I have every sympathy with them. And you're quite correct that I, my parliamentary secretary Rob Moore, Monsieur Petit, and you and others have taken a very active interest in reaching out to these victims. I commend you for that, and I thank you for the question.