Thank you, Mr. Chair.
My question is for Minister Nicholson.
I believe that all honourable members here wish to do everything possible to protect our children from harm. As a parent, it's certainly a great fear of mine any time that I hear that a child has been hurt or could be.
Children are particularly vulnerable to sexual abuse and exploitation and are in fact, as I understand it, the majority of victims of all police-reported victims of sexual assault in Canada. Children represent 59% of all police-reported sexual assault victims, which I believe is about 13,700 children under the age of 18 in 2008 alone. My source for that is StatCan's Centre for Justice Statistics' uniform crime reporting survey.
Minister, is there a risk that implementing mandatory minimum penalties might result in more plea bargaining?