Thank you very much.
I'm going to talk in French; it's better for me.
Minimum sentences are also a message that is sent to victims. There are several of us around this table. Overcoming what happened represents an enormous challenge for victims. As a victim and the representative of a victims' association, I interact with individuals, hundreds of men, fathers and grandfathers who were assaulted as children. The people we deal with, who write to us or speak to us, express a profound disgust for society.
Throughout our lives, that is to say from childhood until the age we are now, when a sentence is handed down that constitutes an injustice, we are disgusted. You can see that in a schoolyard just as in the adult world. When you leave a courtroom, and see that the consequences on the life of an individual are enormous and that the whole debate centres on how the private life of the individual who assaulted the child can be protected... Whenever that individual decided to assault someone, he did so voluntarily. He targeted his victim. He knew there would be consequences, but he decided to commit the assault. What is the point of saying that we won't help that individual stop committing crimes if he is given a minimum sentence, and if consecutive sentences are imposed rather than concurrent ones?
When people act that way, they are only looking at one side of things. From where you sit, you don't see things the way I do. The message would be different if everyone could sit on the other side and wonder what we are doing for the victims as well the members of our society who see these things. The message would be that we have to stop thinking that it is necessary to focus on the person who assaulted someone else. That is often what we see in courtrooms and this gives rise to profound disgust.
If you tell me that there will be fewer assaults, I will feel that I have obtained redress. But as for my personal case and that of many others, I do not have the feeling that that redress was obtained.
When I went before the parole board again and exposed the lies that individual told six months before, in a civil case, while he was in prison, people were very kind to me, but what happened? The individual was released that very evening, and he was in a halfway house in Montreal by 8:00 p.m.
The fact that people are saying “be careful, let's avoid minimum sentences” is a big problem for me. This is the message you are sending society. When you only look at the abuser's side, you say that there will not be any impact, but if you try to see things from the other side, you will see that the impact felt by the victims and by society is important.
Have I answered your question?