Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I take the comments of my colleagues. I am from Peel region as well. Mississauga—Erin Mills is the best riding in the country, which I appreciate and it happens to be part of Peel region.
Mr. Gill is absolutely right. We do have a significant increase in intimate partner violence over these years. There have been ways in which we've been trying to deal with that. There is no flip of a switch where you can just say this law is done, this judge's discretion is taken away and now all of a sudden we are going to find solutions. Locally, Peel Region has created a safe centre where victims and survivors of intimate partner violence are able to go to get that full, covered support, whether it is police, child services or transitional housing—whatever support they need.
When we talk about removing discretion from judges, what we are really missing is the fact that a crime that has been committed against an intimate partner doesn't get its justice from the time that there's a conviction or there's a sentencing. The support that a victim and a survivor need has to start from day one of their having faced that. That requires all levels of government jumping in and providing the support that the intimate partner and her family and kids will need.
We talk about protecting our kids here at this committee. It's not mandatory minimums that are protecting kids. It is the local support, the collaborativeness with all levels of government, that is going to help us get there. Taking away judicial discretion is not the way. In my opinion, that will ultimately take away the context for why the case is where it is and how things have progressed over the entirety of the entry into the judicial system with the victim and the survivor. Taking that context away is going to hurt the victim further, not help them.