Thank you.
Good afternoon everyone.
Our unqualified support for Bill C-26 is not only ideological, it is also based on a series of painful personal experiences. Our objective is not to punish the abusers more severely, but to offer better protection to the victims, to see appropriate sentences imposed on child sexual predators, and to see provisions that will mean that they will really serve their sentences. Children who have been assaulted have to be given greater consideration and respect. The protection of children is both the spirit and the letter of Bill C-26. It is not simply a matter of months or years.
I would like to give you a personal account. Twenty- three years ago, the person who assaulted my colleague Alain Fortier was given a 90-day prison sentence. The person who assaulted me, who had abused 13 victims, was given a 3-year prison sentence. The case was appealed by the Crown, and the Appeal Court reversed the judgment unanimously and imposed a 5-year prison sentence.
At first glance, one may believe that it is good to see some evolution. People have understood that the sentences should vary according to the cases. My aggressor had assaulted 13 victims and was give a 5-year prison sentence. As for Mr. Fortier's aggressor, he received a 90-day sentence.
Things are not quite what they seem, because in the past 20 years, there was no evolution whatsoever. The devil is in the details. Let's go for a brief visit to hell, so to speak. As I already said, my abuser was given a 5-year sentence after assaulting 13 victims. He was released in March 2014, after having served only 26 months of his prison sentence. If you divide 26 months by 13, that is equivalent to two months of prison time per victim.
I launched a class action suit against my abuser and his organization. During the civil trial, he mentioned that he had assaulted me at least 80 times. In Canada, that is not how the justice system works, I know. However, in my head and heart of abused child, Raymond-Marie Lavoie, my sexual abuser, was given 60 days of detention for having imposed 80 nights of love on me. That is the sentence Raymond-Marie Lavoie received.
How have sentences evolved in the past 20 or 30 years? To my way of thinking, my abuser was given 60 days of prison for having imposed 80 nights of love on a child of 13. Do we want to keep things the way they are? Is that what Canadians want?
Bill C-26 would allow for a recognition of wrongs, in order to protect children. Our support for Bill C-26 and its reforms goes beyond the simple mathematical proportion between the sentences and the harm inflicted. It is based on the recognition of a disaster experienced by the victims during their childhood and the immense efforts these people have to make to free themselves.
Bill C-26 finally recognizes the harm inflicted on abused children by showing greater consideration when the motion is dealt with, when their abuser is being sentenced, and by ensuring better protection through the creation of a public database on child sex offenders.
I will conclude by saying that all of us still have an inner child. That is the case for all of us. However, when that child was violated when young, this makes the victim, male or female, a broken person.
VASAM was created to come to the assistance of these people who were destroyed when they were children. By passing Bill C-26, you will be telling society that you want to protect the children that are still within us, even if we have grown up.
Vote in favour of Bill C-26.
Thank you.