Thank you.
Mr. Chair, it seems to me that it's a little interesting to note that typically the opposition members are telling us that judges should be given greater discretion and are actually, in most cases, in disagreement with the government's view that there should be mandatory minimum penalties in various parts of the Criminal Code because they feel that the courts properly and validly exercise their discretion on a regular basis. Yet in this particular amendment, it appears that the opposition would like to restrict the court's discretion.
My personal view is that this provision is meant to be part of a penalty that is imposed on a person who has sexually exploited a child. It's clear from the context that any Internet or digital network use that is being referred to as part of the conditional sentence on that individual is meant to refer to use of the Internet or a digital network in a situation that would potentially sexually exploit a child.
I think it's highly unlikely that any court in Canada would say to a convicted offender, “You can't set the security alarm on your home because that's a digital network and we don't want you to use digital networks”. It's obvious that the person was convicted because they had in fact sexually exploited a child using the Internet or other digital network, so this is simply a condition that will hopefully prevent them from doing that yet again.
For those reasons, I would urge the committee to reject this amendment.
Thank you.