With all due respect to my colleague, Mr. Housefather, I could not disagree more with his analysis.
Members of the Liberal Party of Canada stand on their soapbox and claim that they're the party of the charter, yet they completely dismiss the utility and application of section 33, which is the notwithstanding clause.
Let us not forget that the charter would not be in existence but for section 33. That is a fact.
What we're dealing with here is not a simple, willy-nilly application of the notwithstanding clause. It reflects the abhorrence that I would think every parliamentarian should have with respect to child sexual abuse material.
I want to comment on my colleague Mr. Lawton's intervention, when he spoke briefly about the sentencing judges in the Senneville case, who essentially—I think this was Mr. Lawton's comment—undercut the mandatory minimum penalty.
He didn't provide specifics, but I have the actual decision before me. I want to remind all of my colleagues here what the nature of the collection was for both Senneville and Naud. Senneville admitted to possessing “475 files, including 317 images of children.... Of those images, 90 percent were of young girls between 3 and 6 years of age” having sexual relations with adults and minors. The sexual relations depicted involved “penetration and sodomy”. He admitted that he had possessed this filth for over a year.