Senator Boisvenu: I would remind you that if consecutive sentencing had been in place in 2015, when Bill C-452 passed third reading in Parliament, it would have prevented court cases like this one. The Liberal government deliberately refused to bring this legislation into force because it considered consecutive sentencing to be “cruel and unusual.”

However, what is truly disproportionate, cruel and unusual: the hell that these pimps put their victims through or the requirement to impose consecutive sentences on these criminals?

Hon. Pierre-Hugues Boisvenu: Senator Gold, a pimp previously convicted of sexually exploiting an 18-year-old woman from 2007 to 2014 was re-arrested in Montreal last weekend for the same crimes committed against two victims from October to December.

His record shows that he was guilty of considerable violence towards his victims, causing them significant bodily harm. The purpose of Bill C-452, which received Royal Assent on June 18, 2015, was to combat human trafficking and set out significant consecutive sentences for offenders convicted of both human trafficking and sexual exploitation. This measure in Bill C-452 was repealed by your government, and this regularly leads to cases like the one I just mentioned, where pimps put their victims through hell and often get off with minor sentences.

Senator Gold, why is this measure, which should have been taken by order-in-council after Bill C-75 was adopted, still not in force in Canada?