Justice Committee on Feb. 2nd, 2011

[Joe Comartin, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Minister, for being here.

I want to go back to Mr. Rushfeldt. When he was here, he indicated that about a year ago his agency submitted a brief to your department and never got a response. He was here with the Canada Family Action Coalition. They had submitted a brief to your department about a year ago and never got a response. It's on the same issue that Mr. Murphy had raised.

Are you prepared to make that brief available to the committee, so that we can see it? When Mr. Rushfeldt was here, we asked him for some other information. We didn't ask him for the brief.

[Rob Nicholson, Conservative, Niagara Falls, ON]

I'll certainly check into that for you and I'll find out why there hasn't been a response to that.

[Joe Comartin, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

Would you also provide a copy of the brief to the committee?

[Rob Nicholson, Conservative, Niagara Falls, ON]

I have no problem with that.

[Joe Comartin, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

Thank you.

With regard to the information he gave us, which was great because of the short time we had with him, he indicated that in spite of the wording that is generally accepted—as you've already indicated, at the UN level—that either New South Wales or Queensland in Australia have actually passed that type of wording that he is proposing, the abuse type of wording, into their law.

I asked him, and he couldn't give us an answer if they had any indication of whether it had been challenged in the courts and if it had been more effective in dealing with it than the current wording of child pornography that we are using in our legislation.

I'm wondering if your department has looked into what the experience has been in Australia.

[Rob Nicholson, Conservative, Niagara Falls, ON]

Ms. Morency looks into everything--

[Joe Comartin, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

I was actually going to address that question to her, because I figured she probably would know the answer, more so than you.

[Rob Nicholson, Conservative, Niagara Falls, ON]

Thank you very much for that compliment.

The input that I have received, and this has been consistent over the last few years.... I go back in this area to 1993, when we passed the first bill regarding the downloading of child pornography. I remember the briefings I received 18 years ago on this that the words “child pornography” captured a wide range of activity exploitive of children. I haven't changed my opinion on that.

With respect to the meetings that I've had with G-8 justice ministers, the term “child pornography” is in wide use.

I'm interested that you raise this. One of the things we are doing is trying, as much as possible, to facilitate the transfer of information between different countries. I like the idea that we use the same term because among each other we can encourage each other to get information as to people who are involved with this business. So among the reasons why I wouldn't want to change it is the fact that I don't want to further complicate that by starting to change the definitions that Canada has. The term “child pornography” works for the reasons I have said, and my recommendation to this government is to continue with that.

[Joe Comartin, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

And with regard to you not analyzing the situation in Australia as to whether it's been useful there?

[Rob Nicholson, Conservative, Niagara Falls, ON]

Perhaps I'll ask Ms. Morency.

For the most part, they use the term. But you've indicated that a couple of Australian states have changed the term, and she might be able to give you more background on that.

[Joe Comartin, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

They've actually included it in their statutes, Mr. Minister.

[Carole Morency, Acting General Counsel, Criminal Law Policy Section, Department of Justice]

My understanding is that his reference was to something in Australia. In what I looked at between Monday and today, I think his reference was to the Commonwealth criminal code on Internet offences. It's a criminal law that applies to all of Australia, although criminal law is a state power.

In that statute of federal law they do use both “child pornography” and “child abuse material”. I'm not sure if that was what he was referring to because he didn't, as I understood from Monday, table any documents, but for different purposes. That law does in fact still use child pornography in a broad sense, as our definition does as well. They use “child abuse material” to refer to, in my understanding, a different form of material, which depicts children under 18 as victims of torture, cruelty, or physical abuse. There is quite a difference in approach.

Again, I say that with caution, because I'm not sure that's exactly what he was referring to, but that's what I'm aware of.

[Joe Comartin, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

Perhaps, Ms. Morency, I should ask one more question. Was the brief that they submitted considered when this bill was drafted? I'm asking within the people who actually drafted the bill. Did they consider the brief?

[Rob Nicholson, Conservative, Niagara Falls, ON]

I can just tell you in general. They obviously look at other like jurisdictions of other Commonwealth jurisdictions and other countries with respect to this, and again, the term is consistent with what we've always used in this country.

[Joe Comartin, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

Those are all the questions I have.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Fast]

Thank you.

We'll move to Mr. Dechert for seven minutes.

[Bob Dechert, Conservative, Mississauga—Erindale, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Minister, thank you for being here today and thank you for introducing this legislation. I can tell you that I've been getting an incredible number of e-mails and telephone calls from my constituency, from victims, victims groups, and the general public telling me how important they think this legislation is. As a member of Parliament, I think there's nothing more important that we can do than to protect children. So I want to thank you for bringing this forward.

I was amused and rather pleasantly surprised to hear my opposition colleague Mr. Murphy talk about the timing and his concern about moving quickly with legislation. You know, as we review all the criminal legislation that our government's been putting forward, he and his opposition coalition colleagues are consistently slowing things down. They like to debate the short titles of bills. They want them to be very precise, and they're willing to spend hours debating the short titles of bills. They like to move commas back and forth, from paragraph to paragraph, and spend a lot of time doing that.

[Brian Murphy, Liberal, Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe, NB]

Point of order.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Fast]

Mr. Murphy.

[Brian Murphy, Liberal, Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe, NB]

Chair, you've previously correctly steered people towards questions and discussion regarding the bill that is before us, not diatribes on previous bills.

[Bob Dechert, Conservative, Mississauga—Erindale, ON]

I'm actually, Mr. Chair—

[Brian Murphy, Liberal, Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe, NB]

Does he have the floor or do I?

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Fast]

You have the floor right now.

[Brian Murphy, Liberal, Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe, NB]

I think in the interest of moving forward with this bill—I'm sorry everybody's hurt by the fact that this bill's only coming here five years after you were elected, but if we all want to work together on this bill let's discuss this bill.

He's talking about all kinds of other bills, and I believe that's out of order.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Fast]

Well, I'm going to rule it's not out of order at this point in time. I'm prepared to allow him to continue.

Mr. Murphy, as you may recall, I also allowed you some leeway in terms of addressing—