Thank you, Chair.
Witnesses, I want to thank you for coming today.
I want to state that on this side we're very happy to see a piece of legislation like this. There's substantial agreement with the legislation. We've been here...we just passed our fifth anniversary, and we haven't seen this legislation before. There was a precursor in Bill C-46, which talked about some of the investigative powers that Mr. Naylor was talking about, but by and large we haven't seen a lot in this area. So we're five years down the road and we're tackling this issue.
By way of history, you know that previous Liberal governments brought in I think it was nine offences, mandatory minimums. So this ought not to be a political thing. It ought to be something where we realize that society has grown more in exponential fashion.... Criminals have become more sophisticated and there's a plethora of crime out there that the code is way behind on. I think we can agree with that, at least.
I'm very interested in some of the concepts. There won't be enough time to cover them. One is the definition of child sexual abuse materials. The definition this legislation hinges on is sexually explicit material for the two new offences, and I applaud the Department of Justice, I suspect, for the two new offences and how they're crafted. Normally we have the minister here first and the Department of Justice officials, but we'll get into that on Wednesday. I guess what I'm getting at, my first question, would be do you foresee, Mr. Rushfeldt, that child sexual abuse materials could be combined with sexually explicit material? That would be a question.
I know how these things run--we usually run out of time--so I'll get both of my questions on the floor.
On a different topic, Ms. Dawson, what you argue all made sense to me, frankly, but some of what you say might argue in favour of retaining conditional sentences. We've heard over the years that conditional sentences, as they stand now, allow judges to craft a sentence service that frankly has more conditions on the offender with a view toward rehabilitation or treatment than even a parole situation, and certainly more than at the end of a sentence situation, where a person serves 90 days and is done.
So once we're finished with Mr. Rushfeldt, would you give me your opinion on whether conditional sentences should be omitted entirely or what vehicle you see, other than longer sentences, for the conditions in the community, in treatment, to put into effect the very wise things you said to the effect that you're warehousing an offender with a problem for 90 days--I think a number of people said that--and he's back out on the street without really taking the danger away from himself and from the community.
So perhaps we could hear from Mr. Rushfeldt for a couple of minutes and then Ms. Dawson after.