Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I thank both witnesses for your testimony today.
Bill C-54 imposes a number of mandatory minimums, or actually expands a number of mandatory minimums. I couldn't be more empathetic, Professor Van Gijseghem, because it's very clear that the mandatory minimums are in the code already, have been for a long time, and there have been a number of them introduced, but it's very much a matter of calibration as to whether people think they go overboard, go too far, or don't.
If you look at the Library of Parliament's documents, you will read that those who like mandatory minimums say they act as deterrents and they perform an educational purpose by clearly communicating society's disapproval, and those who don't like them say that there's no deterrent effect and it's an inflexible penalty structure.
I'm going to ask you both your opinion on where your matrix is in this case. Do you think they're educational in purpose? Would they reduce sentence disparity across Canada? For instance, you might have some people getting lighter sentences in parts of the country for the same offence. But I want to ask you about the context here. When I look at this Criminal Code, it's like a textbook, and we try to order the offences by the degree of severity. Part 5 of our code is truly outdated, because it talks about very serious offences—sexual touching, invitation to sexual touching, sexual assaults, and so on, very serious—and we go down to around section 170, public nudity, which I'm not suggesting is good or permitted or whatever, but clearly is not as egregious as sexual touching. But there's an interim part under “Corrupting morals” that now contains our child pornography offences. And this is really the battle here: we realize in this day and age that there's a proliferation of child pornography. And child pornography is even a title that's out of date. It's the capturing on film or in media of an abusive act towards a child who is defenceless and cannot consent to that act. That's a crime of the highest order in this whole section, I would say, this part.
If you take it that we feel the child pornography aspects, the child abuse images, are the worst parts of the crimes in this section, do you not think it might be appropriate under these aims for mandatory minimums to torque them up a bit? That is what this bill does in large regard. It moves things from 14 days, minimum, to 90 days in some of these very serious offences. It creates new offences about the reality of people procuring meetings with minors and so on. As academics, do you see a balance there? That's the first question.
Secondly, you talk about a pedophile as having a preference. I'm not sure if I understood that; perhaps you want to expand. Is it a condition that can be treated, can be cured, or is it as varied as any answer might be in that regard: it depends on the patient and it depends on the client?
Those are the two questions for each of you. I think you'd each have about a minute and a half or so.