Mr. Speaker, like the other opposition parties, I rise to indicate, although a private member's bill, that I expect the NDP as a caucus to be supporting Bill C-277. It addresses an issue that is quite valid and needs attention with regard to putting some proportionality into the sentencing of the offence of luring a child by way of the Internet.
I was reading over my notes when I originally spoke to the bill at second reading. I had said to the member who presented the bill that it was a good endeavour on his part because of the proportionality issue he was addressing.
It would be helpful if we the current government, and quite frankly the previous government as well, could have done the same thing. There are all sorts of other sections within the Criminal Code where the issue of proportionality is not addressed properly.
We have offences that any objective observer would say this is the range of penalties that we should give our judges discretion to impose. In another context of the code, we have other crimes that are of a similar nature, but the ability of the court to give a wider range of sentences is not available. That permeates a number of sections of the Criminal Code.
Although the bill addresses the issue with regard to this charge, I take this opportunity not only to express my support for the bill but to encourage the government to look at the code overall. Hopefully at some point, as I have said to the point where I am even irritating myself in having to repeat this, we will have an omnibus bill that would correct these types of anomalies in the code.
Again, I congratulate the member who has moved this and pushed it through the committee. He was persuasive at the committee in convincing us it was an issue that needed to be addressed, and it has been addressed appropriately. I look forward to seeing it passed in the House, perhaps even unanimously.