Madam Speaker, I listened intently to the hon. member's speech and I am pleased to hear that his party will at least support sending this very important bill to committee.
He raised the issue of mandatory minimum penalties. Of course, we have heard this from the Bloc before, but I am a little confused because a few weeks ago when we were debating Bill S-9, the bill on auto theft, there was a mandatory minimum penalty of six months for a third conviction offence of auto theft. In the House a member of his party, in fact I think it was the justice critic for his party, said that the Bloc was not rigidly ideologically against mandatory minimum penalties, and as an example, the Bloc was going to vote in favour of the bill because those members think six months is reasonable. Then when the bill went through committee, the Bloc moved a motion to have that deleted because the Bloc members decided they were in fact ideologically opposed to mandatory minimum penalties.
Perhaps the member would like to explain why including a mandatory minimum penalty for accessing child pornography and sexual exploitation of children and moving the minimum on summary conviction up from 14 days to 90 days, and on indictment from 45 days to six months is outrageous. Perhaps he could also comment on the impact on people's faith and confidence in the justice system when they see child sexual predators spend a minimum of 15 days in jail.