Mr. Speaker, it is good to speak to this issue. It is one that is very important, as the last few months have testified in the House with the tabling of literally of hundreds of thousands of names of Canadians who are concerned with this issue. We support their concern.
The government had an opportunity with Bill C-20 to address some of those concerns but unfortunately once again the government has missed the boat.
If the bill was intended to safeguard children, it certainly has not done that. It is more complex, it is more cumbersome and that is something we see as a rule of thumb with the government. Any time a bill comes forward, instead of being simple and straightforward in getting to the task at hand, it becomes more complex, more cumbersome and more open to interpretation in the wrong way.
One thing the bill does not do is give the police forces or the prosecutors the tools that they need to deal with child pornography and to bring pedophiles and child pornographers to justice.
There needs to be a national strategy to deal with this and it needs to be supported with adequate resources. Right now this is not happening. Police officers are telling us that they do not have the time nor the resources to deal properly with this issue. The way that the evidence has to be prepared when a child pornographer is charged is that absolutely every image that person has in his or her possession has to be catalogued and presented in court. This ties up hard-working police departments for months and months at a time on one case while other cases are going unprosecuted.
The Liberal member who just spoke mentioned the material. Pedophiles use some of these writings and images to brainwash children to normalize them. No consideration should be given to the artistic merit of literature that has been handwritten and has been used to brainwash children so that they think child pornography and some attacks upon them are normal. That is how they use it. They have admitted it. I have heard the comments of a famous pedophile in B.C. who has said that it is exactly what they do with it. They use it to prey and lure children into their grasp.
We have spoken a lot about the artistic merit aspect, whether it is educational, scientific or for medical purposes and so on. Now the government has taken all this and put it into one broad defence called public good. This is not sufficient. We all know that when that aspect gets to court the lawyers will have a heyday with it which will just further contribute to the lack of protection for children.
First, there is no substantial difference between this defence and a previous defence, the community standards test, which was rendered ineffective by the Supreme Court in 1992, the Butler case. We spoke at length about that on many occasions in the House.
The community standards test, just like the public good defence, is concerned primarily with the risk of harm to individuals in society. There is no positive benefit in recycling laws that have already been discredited by the courts. Why would we bring forth a part of this bill that has already been discredited in the Butler case? It just will not stand up.
Second, it is clear that the artistic merit defence, while it has been eliminated on paper, may still apply in practice.The minister has simply renamed and repackaged the artistic merit defence under the public good. We stand here today and say that is what will happen. I believe in a few years time if this is not changed, then we will be able to stand here again and say “We told you so”.
However we should not have to do that. We have an opportunity now. If we cannot as legislators and elected officials come together, all parties, and do what is best for our children, then in my mind we have no business being here. Some of the comments which I heard the other day from members of the NDP party and previously from some of the members of the Liberal government are absolutely unbelievable and disgraceful. Any mind that could get around the fact that any kind of child pornography has some kind of public good or artistic merit is absolutely unbelievable.
On this bill, one of the things we have been after for years is to raise the age of consent. That was one of the issues that the hundreds of thousands of people who put their signatures on petitions wanted. They wanted the age of consent raised from 14 to 16, and some of them wanted it raised to 18. Is that too much to ask?
The argument about 14 and 15 year olds learning about the birds and the bees does not stand up. A clause could have been put in to do away with that really easily. As the member from Port Moody said earlier, that one issue of raising the age of consent from 14 to 16 would protect one million more children in this country, that one simple thing, yet there are still arguments about why that should not be done.
Those people are children and we are not doing our job to protect them. That is a shame.
We have brought this issue to the House. I myself brought in a private member's bill to amend the Criminal Code to give the police one more tool of confiscation upon conviction. That was picked up by the government and put into law. For that I am thankful.
We should not have to go around and around on these things. We should be able to look at legislation like this and come up with the absolute best shot right off the top without any further fiddling around.
Regarding the whole position of the trust or authority clause which has been put in, it is already against the law for a person in a position of trust, or with whom a young person between 14 and 18 is in a relationship of dependency, to be sexually involved with that young person. That is already in there and it is no big shakes to have that put in again.
I have listened to the arguments on the issue of the age of consent. I have heard members from all parties put forward their ideas. I cannot for the life of me understand why the members of the Liberal Party and some others do not want to do the right thing to protect children.
I see 14 to 16 year olds who come to Ottawa occasionally on different tours. Some of them are very mature and some of them are not, but they are all still children. We have to do what we can to protect them at all times.
Regarding the issue of sentencing, the maximum sentences were raised. That is always something that looks good, that the maximum sentence will be raised to 25 years. Well big deal, the maximum sentence is never given out. It is the minimum sentences that need to be enforced. Staying at home and being locked up on the weekends away from the community is not enough. A message has to be sent to pornographers that if they prey upon children, they will go to jail for a long enough time to make them think about what they have done.
We know that there is recidivism by pornographers. They are almost incurable, and still we put them under house arrest. It is the minimum sentence that needs to be addressed, not the maximum. Certainly in extreme cases the maximum sentences should be severe, but let us look at the other end to ensure that the minimum sentences are enough to deter pedophiles and pornographers, those animals that prey upon our children.
To conclude, I want to restate that when it comes to protecting our children, surely we as legislators and elected officials looking at the most vulnerable in our society can all work together, do it now, put everything else aside until we have this one thing right in this country. Let us bring in some legislation which truly does that. If we cannot do that, we might as well stand back, wave the white flag and give up.