Madam Speaker, it is safe to say that parliamentarians reflect their constituents' beliefs. I think that we would find consensus that hideous crimes are being perpetrated in society far too often. Sexual offences, in particular against children and persons with disabilities, are indeed hideous crimes. They cause so much damage to our society.
An occurrence can take place over hours. Often, more than the hours of the actual incident, the effects could be prolonged for days and in incidents of captivity they could be much longer than that. People seem to forget that the consequences of being a victim of such a crime go far beyond the time of the incident: they stay with the person for the rest of their lives.
It is important that we as legislators understand and appreciate the impact these types of crimes have on victims, their family members and friends. Having that appreciation and understanding puts us in a better position to take action.
I used to serve on a justice committee. I want to bring two perspectives from that. It was a youth justice committee, and I was its chair for a number of years. We had this discussion about minimum sentencing, or minimum dispositions, as there was an increase of people who were stealing cars. People on the committee said that no matter who the person was who stole a car, we needed to ensure that youth had a minimum sentence or an assessment where he or she, most often he, would have to fulfill x, y and z requirement plus whatever else they would have to assign. Other members of the committee had a different approach, saying that we needed to allow the honorary probation officers dealing with youth some discretion.
As a justice committee, we never dealt with sexual offences, but the principle of judicial discretion was something on which we had a very healthy discussion. When the committee first formed, some individuals with the hardest attitudes toward ensuring there were the toughest consequences came to believe that minimum sentences were not what we should be putting into place.
I say this because I believe that, if we were to canvass our constituents, everyone would agree that sexual offences, in particular against children and persons with disabilities, upset people significantly. We have a difficult time understanding why an offender would do such a thing and the initial reaction is to put them in jail and throw away the key. We, as legislators, understand and appreciate that is not necessarily the answer.
Yes, there needs to be a consequence, an element of punishment, but we also need to look at the bigger picture. That is not to say, as the introducer of the motion has put on the record, that former Liberal ministers have come forward and said yes to minimum sentences for certain types of crimes, this being one of them, nor does it mean we have to outright oppose all minimum sentencing; what it does mean is that we need to give special consideration to the types of things that are happening in our communities.
Whatever members think of minimum sentencing, as my New Democratic friend pointed out, they should think of judicial independence and the laws we have in place today. The Criminal Code covers most of everything, if not everything. I have not gone through the details of the private member's bill that has been provided, but it seems to cover, in one fashion or another, what we are having to face today. We might find the odd example that would challenge it to a certain degree, but I think we have to be very careful not to recognize the importance of judicial discretion. That is part of the fear I have. When we talk about systemic racism and look at incarceration and the role it has played, at least in part, it would be irresponsible for us as legislators, any time we talk about minimum sentencing, to not take into consideration the impact it may have on other issues where there could be a correlation. I find some crimes more upsetting than others.
From a personal point of view, the issue of exploitation is something I do not think we could ever do enough about with respect to discussions, debates and looking at ways we can combat it. I do not believe it has been getting better over the last number of years or back over the last decades. In part, that is because of the amount of exploitation taking place on the Internet today. I applaud the ministers of the government who I know have been doing a tremendous amount of consulting on this issue. We have a Prime Minister with a teaching background, who understands the importance of young people and making sure they get the best chances at life. When we start talking about sexual exploitation and those who are vulnerable in our society, we need to be there so we can provide that extra level of protection. There are things we can do. I believe the Government of Canada has been very proactive on that file.
I am hopeful we will see a downturn. Some of what we hear as a direct result of the pandemic on the issue of sexual exploitation is making a lot of people nervous, because we know the cost of one offence is horrendous, not to mention the impact it has on the victim. The costs go far beyond the dollar value. The bill talks about how we want—