Mr. Speaker, I thank the member opposite for his work on the committee and for his role as vice-chair.
The amendment proposed by the member for St. Albert—Edmonton, which I noted in my opening remarks, was critical in terms of having the sex offender registry include, for the first time, bestiality simpliciter offences and that such offenders be registered in the same registry we have for other types of sexual assault not involving animals. That was a critical amendment, and that was committee work at its finest. There is agreement on that.
With respect to the point about the time taken, there was private member's legislation in the first year of our government's mandate. That legislation received a considerable amount of support but not enough to get it across the finish line. Our government took lessons from that. We went back to stakeholders. We heard from stakeholders about what was needed and gathered consensus where consensus could be found. There were 10 different important stakeholder groups, including veterinary groups, hunting groups and agriculture groups. They came forward and said that it was something they support, and we moved forward on that basis. In the interim, there are other provisions that arise in the Criminal Code that can address some of the lacuna the member opposite pointed out. Those are the charges that currently exist for sexual interference, sexual exploitation, corrupting children and indecent acts.
In the interim, prior to the advent of this bill, all those provisions have remained in force and continue to remain in force to address the important issue that both the member opposite and I share, which is an important issue to address.