Mr. Speaker, I concur with the member about the importance of the severity of the punishment and in terms of his referencing the American legislation, which we examined, with regard to the sentencing principles that we follow.
I might add that three new indictable offences to address human trafficking would be created by the legislation. The main offence, which is trafficking in persons, would prohibit anyone from engaging in specified acts for the purposes of exploiting or facilitating the exploitation of a person. The key things to that would be that it would carry a maximum penalty of life imprisonment where it involves kidnapping, aggravated assault or sexual assault, or death, or 14 years in all other cases.
On the matter of giving expression and reflection to this global slave trade when it is dealing with the kidnapping, aggravated assault, sexual assault, things short of murder, when that is involving that kind of exploitative trafficking, the maximum penalty here is life imprisonment.
The second offence would prohibit anyone from receiving a financial or other material benefit resulting from the commission of a trafficking offence and they themselves are not the perpetrators of that offence, that would be punishable by a maximum penalty of 10 years' imprisonment.
The third offence would prohibit withholding or destroying documents, such as identification or travel documents, for the purpose of committing or facilitating the commission of a trafficking offence and would carry a maximum penalty of five years' imprisonment.
We have created a framework for severe punishment to reflect the gravity of the offence to which we have referred as a global slave trade. We did consult the American legislation. I met with the former attorney general, Mr. Ashcroft, on a number of occasions with regard to this legislation. We held inter-ministerial meetings not only in Canada but between our two countries. We believe we have an appropriate and proportional sentencing and punishment structure for this most heinous of crimes.