Mr. Speaker, I listened to the hon. member's comments. At one point she accused us of a petty partisan agenda. I can assure the member that in my riding people of all political stripes are asking us to take action on the matter of criminal offences in Canada. For a long time, people have been aware that the system is out of balance in terms of taking into account the victims' needs.
She also commented that the violent crime rate has dropped by 13%. That may be true or it may not be true. My question is this: if in her riding the murder rate was 100 per year and then dropped to 87, would that be acceptable? Would the rate of sexual offences dropping to 87 still be acceptable?
Is it not true that we still have an obligation to deal with an unacceptably high incidence of these kinds of situations where young people are being exploited and sexual offences continue to occur? We are talking about this happening after three convictions, not just accusations. I think it is time for us to act. Canadians are asking us to act. I would appreciate the member's response.