In our view, the bill rightly seeks to ensure that cases involving kidnapping of children by strangers are treated with the severity they deserve. This goal is laudable and merits support. We know that although stranger child abduction happens fairly rarely—thank goodness—the consequences are dire, as abducted children are often sexually assaulted or murdered.
Offenders must be punished severely for such crimes, in our view. However, there is a concern that the way it's presently worded the proposed mandatory minimum penalty could apply to a parent or someone in loco parentis. With respect to that person, there might be an issue of preventing that child from seeing the other parent in the context of a custody or access dispute. We know that parents involved in such disputes have been charged with kidnapping of their own child.
Of course, parental child abduction is a serious issue, as well, for all involved, but we don't believe this bill's intention is to impose severe penalties in these types of situations. The Criminal Code currently criminalizes kidnapping of children through a number of different offences: subsections 279(1), kidnapping, and 279(2), forcible confinement; and sections 280 to 283, which contain four child-specific abduction offences.
Maximum penalties for these offences range from five years to life imprisonment, but only the kidnapping offence, in subsection 279(1), imposes mandatory minimum penalties in certain circumstances, for example, where a firearm is used or where organized crime is involved. Although sections 282 and 283 deal exclusively with parental child abduction, sections 279 and 280 can apply to cases involving both stranger and parental child abductions.
Therefore, Bill C-299's proposed mandatory minimum penalty could, as presently written, apply to parents. To prevent this unintended result, the proposed friendly amendment—which Mr. Wilks has also stated he would accept—would exempt parents and persons standing in place of parents from the application of the proposed mandatory minimum penalty.
Whether or not this amendment is supported, I certainly hope the bill will receive the support it deserves and that we all move together to seek sanctions on those who would seek to harm our children.