Madam Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to speak today to this particular bill.
I work with the Bloc member, who spoke earlier, on my committee, and he asked what the Conservative government's plan was. I can assure him that the Conservative government's plan and priority is to protect victims of crime, not to stand up for criminals but to stand up for Canadians and Canadian families and ensure victims are protected and future crimes are avoided.
The Bloc would like to join us in this particular agenda, and I would welcome them. I have noticed as well, from the questions of some of the NDP members, that they are also interested in moving forward with the Conservative government to protect victims and to ensure that criminals actually pay for the crimes they commit.
As one famous Canadian said, the Liberals, however, are so confused, they are stabbing each other in the front right now. So, I am not sure where they sit, although they have said that they will join us in this particular agenda. I would welcome them to join us in future agendas to protect Canadians and Canadian families.
This bill contains six measures, all of which are designed in some way to enhance the sentencing process for offenders convicted of fraud. Indeed, many families are devastated as a result of fraud, especially serious fraud involving tens, if not hundreds of thousands upon millions of dollars of pension funds. Many Canadians are affected by this. We as a government are committed to ensuring that this practice will stop as much as possible and that those people who do commit these crimes actually pay, so we discourage future criminals from committing those crimes.
The first of these elements is the mandatory minimum penalty, which is so popular with most Canadians. Canadians are most concerned about large scale frauds, as I mentioned, that actually wipe out people's life savings and demonstrate the extreme greed of the criminal and indifference to others. To address this concern, the bill includes a mandatory penalty of a minimum of two years imprisonment for any fraud or combined frauds of over $1 million.
We should mention that this mandatory minimum penalty acts as a floor to ensure that there is some consistency with judges and justices throughout this country and that people who do commit this crime have a clear message from the government that they will do the time if they commit the crime.
The second element is in relation to aggravating factors. This is an excellent case of where the government is taking some common sense approaches to ensuring we protect victims and punish criminals. There are currently four statutory aggravating factors for fraud under section 380.1 of the Criminal Code, and the bill would add new aggravating factors to the list. We believe, as a government, that these new factors would go further to deterring criminals and ensuring victims are considered in all aspects of these matters.
The first factor is the impact of the fraud on its victim. The victims would prepare a victim impact statement and provide that to the court so that the court can see first-hand how this particular offence and how this particular criminal has affected them, their family, their friends and their future life.
In my past life as a litigator for some 11 years, I saw this impact directly, not just on individuals, Canadian families and seniors, but also many times on clubs: curling clubs, skating clubs and many non-profit groups that actually rely on these funds and then find out, after they have appointed somebody to a position of trust to manage these funds and take care of them, they find after three or four months, sometimes even years, that all of a sudden all the money is gone and all that is left is paperwork. The criminal has spent it either on gambling, which many times is the case, or just simply on a lavish lifestyle. That would be the first of the new aggravating factors to be considered by justices and judges across this country.
The second factor that is important for today is the complexity and magnitude of the fraud itself, because these criminals are becoming much more adventurous, much more intellectual as far as the crime itself and how they go about committing it. We want to ensure judges consider this in the sentencing provisions themselves.
The third aggravating factor is the failure of the offender to comply with the applicable rules and regulations as set out by the particular situation they are in, and, off course, that speaks for itself.
Finally, the fourth statutory aggravating factor that would be added to section 380.1 of the Criminal Code would be any attempt by the offender to conceal or destroy records relevant to the fraud, which obviously shows the offender's bad faith and intention to try to get away with the crime even after he or she is caught.
All of these issues are extremely important. Criminals and victims themselves should recognize that this Conservative government is standing up for them and ensuring their priorities are met.
The third measure is what judges have considered as aggravating and mitigating circumstances. This would require the sentencing court to state on the record, which is very important, which aggravating and mitigating factors it has applied. The reason for this is to ensure consistency. As we know, we have a system of law that relies on case law and precedents to ensure that judges that make future decisions are able to examine what past judges have done and make decisions based upon that to ensure consistency across the country from province to province and coast to coast, which is very important. This is also to ensure transparency in the decisions themselves made by the judges so that when they make a decision, which may not be normal or may fall outside of the boundaries, they state it clearly on the record.
These factors will in part be very effective to ensure that future criminals will not consistently--