Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the member for his hard work in this place.
Thanks to a private member's bill that passed with the backing of our Conservative government, public transit operators, including taxi cab drivers, now have added legal protection from assaults. With the passing of Bill S-221, a court will have to consider it an aggravating circumstance for the purpose of sentencing if the victim of an assault is a public transit operator engaged in the performance of his or her duties. This means that finally those who commit threats or assaults on our transit operators will face a penalty that matches the seriousness of the crime.
Canadians can trust our government to hold criminals to account and to stand up for hard-working Canadians.