Mr. Speaker, I will start by saying that we will be voting in favour of Bill C-26. Based on the questions raised since this morning, the other side is still undecided.
As several of my colleagues mentioned this afternoon, the bill deals with the incarceration of sexual predators. We seem to be forgetting about the children. Children who have been abused are scarred for life. Clearly, incarcerating sexual predators is a good thing. However, the ideal solution would be to prevent sexual predation. As the member who spoke before me said, there is nothing in this bill to prevent sexual predators from committing the abuse. Of course they will not be able to do so once in prison, but there will be other sexual predators, because this type of abuse has always existed. We have to treat these people.
I am in a good position to talk about the damage done to abused children. My sister provides emergency foster care for youth protection services. She fosters children who must be taken away from their families on an emergency basis. Quite often the children she cares for have been taken away from their family because they were sexually abused by their own parents. These children believe that they were taken away from their families because they did something wrong.
This could all be avoided if, instead of introducing a bill to put sexual predators in jail, the government tried to prevent this type of abuse at the source.