I absolutely think so; otherwise I would leave it to the discretion of the judges.
I think the importance of this approach is that it's very similar to the hate motivation circumstances where, if you look at the strict parameters of the event.... Let's say it's an assault that causes no permanent injury, for example. If it's in an environment where there's been a breach of trust and it's their own son hurting them, and there's a loss of their sense of composure and their dignity and so on, under normal circumstances of a judicial decision they might say, well, it was an assault, but there was no permanent physical injury, and in such a circumstance, there may be no sentence whatsoever.
When you recognize that there was a betrayal of trust, with a complete downward spiral for the victim of that circumstance due to that imbalance in age and due to the trust and dependence on the family relationship, then there is a justification for increasing the sentencing. That's why having the added requirement to consider those circumstances—that imbalance and that vulnerability—is an appropriate additional provision to what we already have in the Criminal Code.
I do believe it will make a difference. We tend to watch public opinion a lot. While we might hear that, agreed, nobody is in support of elder abuse, the average person only notices it when something like a really stiff penalty filters down to their awareness. Then they see. Then they look back and see, well, maybe in this circumstance this is a real representation of society's collective disapproval of this kind of behaviour, and if they don't stop themselves, at least they might realize that they might get caught and be punished.