As a father, I know that Canadian parents will do anything within their power to protect their children. As a society, our commitment to protecting Canada’s most precious and vulnerable citizens must be equally unwavering.
There is no more reprehensible kind of criminal than one who would harm an innocent child. Our Conservative government is intent on strengthening the power of Canadian law to safeguard children from exploitation by sexual predators.
The title of the new legislation that our government has introduced sums up our goal. The Protecting Children from Sexual Predators Act aims for nothing less than deterring the sexual abuse of children by bringing serious new consequences to bear against the heinous deviants who would target, attack and harm children in this vile manner.
Our legislation ensures that punishments imposed in child sexual abuse cases better reflect the extremely serious nature of these crimes. We are enhancing safety for vulnerable youth by establishing mandatory prison sentences for a range of offences, such as luring a child, sexual assault and aggravated assault, as well as possessing and accessing child pornography and sexual exploitation.
Those who harm children should not expect coddling from our corrections system. Measures in our new legislation would remove the possibility of conditional sentences, such as house arrest, for any of these offences against a child victim.
Our bill would also make it illegal to provide sexually explicit material to a child for the purpose of committing a sex offence, and punishes those who use the Internet to arrange to commit an offence against a child.
To protect children from re-offenders, our law would require judges to consider barring sexual offenders from any unsupervised contact with children, and any unsupervised use of the Internet.
These proposed reforms build upon other criminal law amendments already introduced by our government to better guard children against sexual exploitation, and which are currently before Parliament.
Through these efforts, our Conservative government is sending criminals a clear message that child sexual exploitation in any form will not be tolerated. Predators that hurt children can expect to receive punishments that will reflect the brutal nature of their crimes.
