moved that Bill C-246, an act to amend the Criminal Code (sexual exploitation of children outside Canada), be now read the second time and referred to a committee.
Mr. Speaker, the subject of my bill, child sex tourism, has already been debated in the House last June, during second reading of Bill C-27.
When I tabled my bill on November 30, 1995, the government was not yet talking about sex tourism. It was only in April, 5 months later, that the government finally moved and tabled its bill to amend the Criminal Code in order to be able to take legal action against Canadian citizens who travelled abroad and exploited children in countries other than Canada.
Since last spring, topics related to the exploitation of children have often been in the news.
There was the Stockholm conference, where representatives from aound the world analysed the problem of the sexual exploitation of children and the best ways of combatting it.
There was the Dutroux case in Belgium; everyone was horrified to learn the details of the activities of this man and his accomplices. The newspapers carried stories of a very active pedophile network. Can we think for one instant that such a network exists only in Belgium? Can we imagine that we are safe from such events in Canada or in Quebec?
There is the current campaign by Mrs. Anne-Claude Girard, the mother of a family in Jonquière. Her young daughter was the victim of a well known pedophile in Quebec who had been sentenced for several crimes against children. Mrs. Girard is circulating a petition calling for a number of actions in order to ensure that society is protected against pedophiles and that there is adequate assistance for their victims. I believe that Mrs. Girard has collected over 15,000 signatures in various ridings in Quebec, and she will be circulating her petition in other parts of Canada.
There is the investigation now under way in South Africa, where the police and the FBI are investigating a case similar to the Dutroux affair. A pedophile is apparently linked to the disappearance of five young girls, who it seems were assaulted in Pretoria or "exported" to other regions in Africa.
There is another case in Peru, where a man presumed to have raped and killed 12 young girls was recently arrested.
There is the retired Greek, who has just admitted raping 30 teenage girls.
There is the Austrian network dismantled early this month: 70 Czech and Slovak minors were being exploited in this network.
There is the case in Romania, where the police have just questioned a 60-year old man accused of committing depraved acts on six young girls.
There was also the case in Poland, a favourite new site for pedophiles, where over 400 people, including numerous foreigners, were sentenced last year for having sex with minors under the age of 15.
There is Italy, where minor girls are forced into prostitution by networks, some of them Albanian. There is Argentina, where authorities are worried about an upsurge in prostitution among poor children.
You will note that this perversion of adults having sex with children confronts us everywhere. Sex tourism, of course, is just one aspect of an environment that includes incest and other forms of preying on children.
The purpose of my bill, which is designed to protect children, all children, is to make it possible to take action against adults guilty of such behaviour abroad as well as in Canada and in Quebec.
The so-called tourists who travel to other countries to take advantage of children are pedophiles. Le Petit Larousse defines pedophilia as: ``Sexual attraction of an adult for children''. When a man goes to Bangkok to pay a low price for the sexual services of a child, be it a boy or a girl, he is engaging in pedophilia. Cases updated over the summer have established a very explicit link between pedophilia and the networks built up by pedophiles in order to be able to act freely.
These networks operate primarily in the area of pornography. For example, a German was arrested in Romania after obscene videos featuring children between the ages of five and ten were discovered. The same scenario was repeated in Poland, where two men are now on trial for films involving boys aged 12 or 13.
Early this month, an article in Agence France-Presse reported that, in Seville as well, the legal system is worried about images appearing on the Internet, an offence for which two men have already been sentenced to jail in England.
In Quebec, the head of the sexual offence section of the Montreal Urban Community police department declared this summer that pedophile networks are now rampant in the city and that the advent of the Internet, which allows pedophiles to obtain pornographic material and to seek out children anywhere in the world stands to contribute to the spread of the problem.
The experts at the Stockholm conference on the sexual exploitation of children evaluated at one million the number of pornogra-phic images and at 40 million the number of Internet pages now devoted to child pornography. Forty million pages.
Those same experts reported that more and more pedophiles armed with video cameras film their relations with children across the world and sell their pictures on the Internet to pay for their trips. Sex tourism becomes a vicious circle, as it were.
Pedophile networks are therefore active in the area of sex tourism. The same article reported that this activity, already widespread in Asia, is increasing in countries like Brazil, Cuba and South Africa. It refers to various charges that have been laid for sex tourism. One case involved two men from the Netherlands guilty of having sexual relations with 16 year-old minors in the Philippines. Another concerns a 69 year old Swede, sentenced to three months in prison for sexual assault of a 13 year old Thai girl.
In my speech last June, I gave a few examples of this practice. I will not elaborate on these now. I also analyzed the various ways those who participate in sex tourism try and justify their abject behaviour. I will not elaborate on that either, because I am short of time. However, we know that the phenomenon exists, that it is becoming increasingly widespread and that it is unacceptable.
I was very pleased last April when the government tabled a bill with basically the same purpose as mine. I also listened carefully to statements by the Minister of Foreign Affairs about the present government's intention to work with other countries throughout the world to put an end to this shameful practice.
Since the government tabled its own bill and since that bill is very similar to mine, I decided against asking the House to vote on my bill. However, in order to improve our chances of achieving the purpose of the legislation, I suggested an amendment to the bill introduced by the Minister of Foreign Affairs. This is what I would like to see amended.
My bill contains provision for the conviction of persons who either directly or indirectly encourage this kind of behaviour.
I am referring more specifically to carriers, travel agencies and advertising agencies. We do not find this provision in the government's bill, and I find that disappointing.
The government will probably reply that the general interpretation provisions contained in the initial sections of the Criminal Code are broad enough to allow for legal action against peripheral intervenors such as carriers and travel agencies. That may be. It may be true from a strictly legal point of view. However, I could give a few examples where Parliament was less reluctant to elaborate on "being a party" in the case of other offences.
In this respect, there are two definitions that might help us. The first one is the definition of being a party to an offence, provided under section 21 of the Criminal Code, according to which being a party includes actually committing an offence, doing or omitting to do anything for the purpose of aiding any person to commit it or abetting any person in committing it.
The second definition, in section 22, is that of counselling someone to commit an offence. Counselling is defined so as to include procuring, soliciting or inciting. Finally, the definition of accessory after the fact is given in section 23.
Why then, if the presence of these general principles is sufficient, for example, to charge persons involved in the commission of an offence, was the text of section 240 concerning "an accessory after the fact to murder" passed? Could section 23 not be used?
Perhaps it was judged that the offence was of a serious enough nature to assign it special status.
Why, then, do we find in section 245 the words "everyone who administers or causes to be administered to any person or causes any person to take poison"? Why could sections 21 or 22 not be used to obtain a conviction?
Why does section 212 specifically punish a person who, and I quote "procures, attempts to procure or solicits a person to have illicit sexual intercourse with another person"? Here again, could the sections previously referred to not have been used to obtain a conviction?
It is a pretty sure bet that, if one were to go over the Criminal Code with a fine toothcomb, one would find other examples where the legislator felt it wise to repeat certain elements, in order to clarify his intent. It is recommendable, in my opinion, for the same thing to be done in the case of those indirectly involved in sex tourism involving children.
I would also like to add that my bill is similar to that passed in Australia in 1994. In addition to the clients of sex tourism involving children, those who promote, organize or profit from it are covered expressly by the new Australian legislation.
I know that legal systems differ from one country to the next, but Australian criminal law is, nevertheless, based in large measure on Common Law, as is the Canadian system. If Australian law has been able to accommodate a clarification such as the one I am proposing, perhaps Canadian law could do the same.
Perhaps protection of children is worth a few concessions by the legal purists. While grateful for the government's having reacted within a reasonable length of time, I am inviting it to reconsider my proposal with the greatest of care.
Individuals, all individuals, involved in the sexual exploitation of children need to know that they will be brought to justice and punished in a manner suited to the odious nature of their act. We have promised to join the war against the exploitation of children. Now we must use all of the tools available to us as fully as possible.