Mr. Speaker, I mentioned there were several bills that unfortunately did not pass for various other reasons. However, Bill S-221 would make it an aggravating factor for the purposes of sentencing if the victim of an assault were a public transit operator.
How would this bill accomplish this? The bill would add subsection 269.01 to subsection 269 of the Criminal Code, which would state that when a court imposed a sentence for an offence referred to in any of sections 266 to 269, common assault, assault with a weapon, aggravated assault and assault causing bodily harm, it shall consider as an aggravating circumstance the fact that the victim of the offence was, at the time of the commission of the offence, a public transit operator engaged in the performance of his or her duty and shall give primary consideration to the objectives of the legislation and the tenets of the conduct that formed the basis of the offence.
This bill concentrates on one of the sections of the Criminal Code that deals with aggravated assaults. Therefore, it has a certain purpose, and that is to provide clarity in the Criminal Code.