Increasing complexity in the Criminal Code is always something that should be avoided. If there's a solution to an existing problem in the Criminal Code, I don't think it gets us further ahead to add sections that duplicate what are already there.
A good example of that is seen with the sexual assault against children provision. It is a new offence and has a mandatory minimum attached to it. Essentially the mandatory minimum is the only difference between that and the existing provision. Of course, when a judge, in my experience, is dealing with a sexual offence against a child, positions of trust and authority and the age of the victim are often very aggravating features in sentencing that are already taken into account.
On the other offences, the grooming offences, I don't think we take any issue with criminalizing that sort of behaviour. Having said that, I don't think it's a section that will arise very often in terms of its application. It may well be captured by existing language in the Criminal Code, for example in the attempt section--it's an attempted sexual assault, or attempted sexual interference. But as far as the new offences being created, we don't have much of a problem with doing that. It seeks to regulate something that's undesirable from our perspective as well.
On the new probationary conditions that can be imposed, I'm happy there will be discretion to allow prohibitions against using the Internet or going certain places. It's interesting that the government seeks to allow judges to have discretion to put in those exceptions, so I'm happy to see that judicial discretion is left intact, at least to a small extent, in that area. But from my experience in convictions registered on these types of offences, prohibitions against going to certain places where children may be found, having contact with children, or using the Internet are often conditions that judges already incorporate into probation orders, and those probation orders can run up to three years.
So I'm happy that some discretion is left in the probation orders, as they're dealt with in this legislation. I'm not as pleased to see increasing complexity in the Criminal Code. It makes it less accessible to the general public, which isn't good from an educational or even a deterrence standpoint.
My position on the mandatory minimums is quite clear. That's the main difference when we look at the child sex assault provisions versus the sexual assault provisions we already have on the books. As I said, the age of the child, the circumstances of the offence, positions of trust and authority, if there was any grooming involved--those are all aggravating factors that are routinely and I dare to say always taken into account when the judge is crafting an appropriate sentence.