Thank you, Madam Chair.
I'll go to Minister Nicholson, if I could. Personally, I want to say, with respect to the bills we were just discussing, it was the prorogation of the House that killed them for a while. We did offer to fast-track those. In addition to that, there is protection for children that exists in law. It may not be as black and white, but the protection is there.
I want to go to questions that I started with earlier.
Minister Nicholson, you referred to me earlier with respect to legalizing brothels and so on, and that was not my point at all. I'm completely on the other side of things.
I have three full recommendations that I really need to focus in on. The first one has to do with criminalizing the user and decriminalizing the prostitute; this is really what it's about. Let me just read to you. Sweden, the Swedish Parliament actually, in 1998 passed legislation criminalizing the purchase of sexual services. Under the act, which came into effect in 1999 in Sweden, prostitutes do not face criminal prosecution for engaging in prostitution; however, the consumers of prostitution can be fined or sentenced to up to six months, and then it goes on, of course, with respect to pimps, and we also have legislation for that.
Essentially what they have done is reversed the coin. Instead of charging the prostitutes when they're offering, they're charging the user. They've had major, good success. We met with them. Their success has been actually tremendous, because the traffickers and the pushers go to countries like Germany, where they've actually legalized it; it's the opposite. So we're seeing it differently.
My first question is, is the government looking at all of this in terms of criminalization?
Following that, of course, is recommendation 7, which basically reinforces recommendation 6. It says that the Criminal Code be amended to include a criminal offence of purchasing a sexual service. To support that further, recommendation 9 then refers to the defence act to be amended to include new offences of purchasing a sexual service, which is to then become compliant with that.
The question is, is the government looking at that at all, in terms of going in the direction this committee has recommended?