Thank you.
I'm pleased to be able to speak to this amendment. I wish to announce that the Liberals will not be supporting this amendment. We do believe that it was and is in fact within the scope of the bill; however, Liberals in previous governments established minimum mandatory sentences for these sexual offences that we find currently in the Criminal Code, sentences that the current government wishes to raise.
We are in favour of minimum mandatory penalties in very targeted areas. One of those areas, as everyone knows, is firearms-related offences, for which we brought in minimum mandatory penalties. We're also in favour of minimum mandatory sentences for sexual offences committed against children. The proof is that the existing minimum mandatory penalties for those types of offences, which the Conservative government now wishes to increase, were in fact brought in by Liberal governments, so we will not be supporting this amendment of the Bloc.