Mr. Speaker, throughout the debate today the hon. member for Kildonan—St. Paul has been posing questions that would seem to indicate that this seeming contradiction between a two-year increase in sexual offences at the same time that mandatory minimums are being increased can be explained away by the phenomenon of more people reporting.
I would like to invite the member to expand on that. She has a theory that the reason these offences are increasing at the same time as mandatory minimums are going up is that more people are reporting. Is there some empirical evidence to support that statement, or is that simply an impression that she has developed as a result of people phoning and e-mailing her? I would be interested to know whether there is any evidentiary basis for that assertion.