Bill C-20 (Historical)

An Act to amend the Criminal Code (protection of children and other vulnerable persons) and the Canada Evidence Act

Supply

[James Lunney, Canadian Alliance, Nanaimo—Alberni, BC]

Mr. Speaker, we are addressing a very difficult subject this afternoon, but it is a very important one. I would like to congratulate my colleague from Wild Rose who has a passion for this issue. He has been the one leading the charge in the House of Commons and in our caucus. He wants to see the government do something to protect our children.

We have heard discussions today about Bill C-20. The hon. member for York West said that members on that side of the House have worked hard to make Bill C-20 as tight as possible in order to protect children. However, we have some real problems with the efforts that the government side has made and with the justice minister's defence of the glaring loopholes in Bill C-20.

I live on Vancouver Island and represent 114,000 constituents. Robin Sharpe was in our area in Vancouver, 35 kilometres across the strait from Nanaimo. Judges in British Columbia refused to prosecute cases of child pornography for some months because of the constitutionality of the artistic merit defence in the John Robin Sharpe case.

The outrage in our community was palpable. People in my community, who I am sure are not that different from most Canadians, felt a sense of outrage that someone would justify the most vile depictions of sexual activity with children as being some form of artistic merit. People found it incomprehensible that these vile acts would go unchallenged by our courts. For months to follow, no cases of child pornography were prosecuted because of the glaring loophole of artistic merit in our law.

Bill C-20, which is supposed to protect our children, simply takes the artistic merit defence and replaces it with something the public was not familiar with, something called public good. This was done because the public was sensitized to artistic merit and was outraged by that term.

It is not good enough to simply have smoke and mirrors. It is not good enough when we are talking about protecting our children from abuse that will scar them for life. With counselling and with help, they may overcome these horrors and may live successfully. Many have, thank God, been able to overcome the horrors of abuse as children. Many carry those scars for life and many, sadly, carry them into their relationships in the future.

The consequences of seeing our children being abused costs society greatly. We on this side of the House are very concerned about it. I know members on the other side have genuine hearts of compassion and are concerned about this issue as well.

Unfortunately, we have not seen a response from the executive branch of government giving law enforcement the teeth that are needed to address this vile and degrading aspect of abuse that happens in our society.

Representatives of the Toronto police department came to the House a year or so ago. The member for Wild Rose was there as well as a number of our members. These representatives were apologetic for the material they had to present. Even their toughened officers that are trained in enforcement in criminal matters had a hard time dealing with the content of what is available today in the trafficking of pornography and the vile images of children being abused.

They apologized in advance and told us that some of us may have a hard time relating to the subject material. Many members had to leave the room as the presentation started because it was the kind of thing normal people do not want to imagine. The activities that are going on today and things that are being distributed throughout our society are so vile that the average citizen is really not aware of how evil they really are. These police officers were crying out to us as members of Parliament to do something.

With the volume of material they had to go through, these seasoned officers sometimes had to excuse themselves from the file. Sadly, some of them even had to take leave because they were so disturbed after spending hours going through that kind of stuff in order to build a case to see those people prosecuted.

On this side of the House we do not believe that a public good defence is good enough. We do not believe there should be any defence for feeding on this kind of vile material.

There is an ancient proverb, and one which I think is reliable, that as long as this world remains, seed time will follow harvest and harvest will follow seed time. I believe that principle to be a very sound one. A farmer might plant oats and get partway through the season and decide he should have planted wheat because it has a better price. He cannot just change in mid-season; he has to wait for that crop to come in.

I am concerned as to where this crop that is being sown in society is taking us, and it will bring a crop. We need to do some crop eradication here. This is not the kind of thing that leads to a healthy society. It does not lead to healthy individuals.

The people who feed on this kind of vile material will act on it eventually. It is not good enough to think it is for their personal use and it keeps them from acting something out. People who feed on this kind of thing will bring a crop, sadly on the people on whom they act out their vile intentions.

The public good defence is simply not good enough. It is not good enough for Canadian society. It is not good enough for our children. It should be stricken down. It should be stricken from the law as a defence for child pornography.

There are other concerns. The government is touting that it has toughened things up because it has increased the maximum penalties for criminals who are involved in this type of activity. I do not know that Canadians can continue to be misled by this toughening up because the courts hardly ever impose maximum sentences. What is the point of having maximum sentences if the courts never impose them?

That is fundamentally misleading. It gives an impression that we are actually toughening things up, that we are doing something to protect society from perpetrators of this type of evil but we really are not. When we look at the implementation, many of the sentences are conditional sentences served at home, in spite of the tough maximum sentences that appear to be there. There are minimum sentences and many of them turn out to be simply conditional sentences. That is not good enough.

All of us probably know people who have been through situations of abuse. I know some personally. I know the tragedy it causes in their lives and the difficulty they have, sometimes for many years, in recovering.

In my riding I have had quite a response over time to this issue. I have presented numerous petitions in the House. At least two of them had over 1,000 signatures. I have had a lot of letters from constituents.

Hilda Higgs of Lantzville wrote that she is appalled that someone would see anything artistic when it comes to child pornography. Members opposite would say that we do not have an artistic merit defence any more, but we do have the public good defence which amounts to the same argument for the lawyers.

Gerald Hall of Lantzville wrote that the minds of our children are too precious to allow misguided individuals like Mr. Sharpe to overturn perfectly common sense laws that are in place to protect society.

Marilyn Burrows of Port Alberni wrote expressing her concern that the decision would set a dangerous precedent for our children.

I do not believe that the concerns of these constituents have been adequately met.

Dr. Maureen Keane of Qualicum Beach wrote and asked that the age of consent be raised and that the artistic merit defence be removed. Dr. Keane raised a point about the age of consent. I know other members have addressed it as well. We have one of the lowest ages of consent in developed countries at age 14.

We feel that for an adult to subject a girl or a boy of that age to enticement, perhaps with money, perhaps with goods, perhaps with lifestyle benefits, is not good enough. The age of consent should be raised. There are other jurisdictions that have dealt with this issue, such as the U.K., Australia and most U.S. states, which have a close in age exemption. We are not talking about teenagers that might be involved, whether we approve of that or not. We are talking about adults who abuse children, to make the point clear.

The point about the age of consent is one which I think has to be recognized. There are many serious concerns about children being abused. It is time for the House to take action.

Madam Speaker, I should have mentioned at the beginning that I was sharing my time with the hon. member for New Westminster—Coquitlam—Burnaby.

It is a serious issue. I hope all members of the House will want to take action on it.

[Judy Sgro, Liberal, York West, ON]

It is not as simple as someone wanting it or someone else not wanting it. No doubt there is some reason that it is where it is and Liberal members are maintaining it where it is.

Certainly, those are issues that matter and have been thought through. The Liberals have worked very carefully to ensure that Bill C-20 and the legislation is as tight as it can be to protect the children.

[Myron Thompson, Canadian Alliance, Wild Rose, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I have a quick question for the parliamentary secretary.

Would the member be willing to help some of us lobby the justice minister to include raising the age of consent in Bill C-20? The age of consent is not in the bill. Why?

Raising the age of consent is something that 90% of Canadians want to see happen immediately. Will she help us get that done? The Liberals have voted against that in the past. I am assuming they will quit doing that.

[Myron Thompson, Canadian Alliance, Wild Rose, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the member for participating in the debate and for her remarks.

In fact, I would like to thank all members who spoke on this particular motion today. I especially want to thank the member for Edmonton North when she put the fire into the spirit about this critical issue that needs to be addressed.

We had the Minister of Industry in the justice portfolio for a while. The present Minister of Health was there for a while and now this minister has been there for a while. I find it amazing that in 10 years this had not been seriously looked at, and even before that. If I were the Minister of Justice, I would be aware of what is out there. I would walk into the House and make an announcement that today we are getting rid of this filth and evilness that is happening to our children. I cannot believe it is taking forever and ever.

It has been said over and over that Bill C-20 must be fixed if it is going to do the job of eliminating child pornography from the face of our country. I am sure the member would agree that it should be gone. Who needs that kind of junk hanging around? We can do it.

I am going to ask the member, is she prepared--and I know this may pass unanimously and that would be great--to join me and other colleagues in the House to dog this justice minister until it is done? I do not want her to just say yes to that and then let it sit like so many other motions. Let us dog him until it is done. Will she help me do that?

If worse comes to worse,--in the wisdom of the people who developed the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and put in a clause that says notwithstanding--if we come to a point where we cannot seem to accomplish anything else unless we use that clause, is she prepared to do that as a bottom line? Will she follow-through on these issues?

[Judy Sgro, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Public Works and Government Services]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to this issue today and, specifically, to follow my colleague on the other side of the House from Edmonton North. It will be a sad day when we no longer have her in the House standing up and arguing issues that matter to all of us.

The motion on the Order Paper today is about how we can better protect children from all forms of sexual exploitation, including child pornography. Protection of our children from such exploitation is a continuing priority for the government as reflected in last year's Speech from the Throne, and I think we will see that reflected in the vote that will happen in approximately one hour from now.

The motion on the table today calls upon the government to protect children from further sexual exploitation by immediately eliminating all defences for the possession of child pornography which allow for the exploitation of children. When we look at some of the things that people use as a defence for what they call art and various other things that they try to get away with and say that it is not sexual exploitation, any of us who have actually looked at some of the stuff know clearly that it is. The sooner we eliminate any portending avenue of defence the better.

Child pornography is an issue that concerns all Canadians. The making of a child pornographic image is in fact the making of a permanent record of the sexual exploitation of a child being depicted in that image. That same child is further exploited with every subsequent distribution and viewing of that awful image.

Child pornography in all its forms harms children and all segments of Canadian society by portraying children as sexual objects.

Today's motion therefore speaks to an issue that is a priority for both the government and for Canadians, and it is long overdue.

As the Minister of Justice has already stated, Bill C-20, which he introduced in December 2002, proposes child pornography reforms consistent with today's motion. This just brings it along a little faster. Bill C-20, an act to amend the Criminal Code, which is the protection of children and other vulnerable persons, and the Canada Evidence Act, proposes a broad range of criminal law reforms that seek to better protect children against abuse, neglect and sexual exploitation, including child pornography.

The opposition's motion today would strengthen Bill C-20 and help move it in the direction in which I think we all want it to go. Bill C-20 proposes strengthening reforms to ensure that the maximum penalties for offences against children better reflect the serious nature of offending against children. Bill C-20 proposes reforms that will facilitate testimony by child victims and witnesses, and other vulnerable victims and witnesses in criminal justice proceedings. It also proposes the creation of a new offence of voyeurism.

The bill proposes two child pornography reforms that are consistent with the motion today and which respond in a very direct and meaningful way to issues highlighted by the March 2002 case involving Robin Sharpe. In that case, as many members know, Robin Sharpe was convicted of possession of photographic images of child pornography but acquitted of possession for the purpose of distribution or sale of written stories describing child sexual abuse on the grounds that these stories did not meet the current definition of written child pornography. I am glad I was not involved in that case because I certainly would not have agreed with that decision.

Bill C-20 proposes to broaden the definition of written child pornography. Currently, written child pornography is defined as written material that advocates or counsels unlawful sexual activity with a young person under the age of 18. Bill C-20 would broaden this definition to include written material that describes prohibited sexual activity with a child, where the written description of the activity is the dominant characteristic of the material and the written description is done for a sexual purpose. Significantly, this proposed motion recognizes the risk of harm that such material can pose to society by portraying children, as a class, as objects for sexual exploitation.

Bill C-20 also proposes to narrow the availability of the existing defences for child pornography. The Criminal Code currently provides two defences: one for material that has so-called artistic merit, or serves an educational, scientific or medicinal purpose; and another for material that serves the public good but does not go beyond what serves the public good. I think that is an area that is still up for much debate and discussion.

Bill C-20 proposes to merge these two defences into a single public good defence and in doing so would introduce an important new second step in the analysis of when a defence to a child pornography offence would be available for all child pornographic materials and acts.

Under Bill C-20 a court would be required to consider whether the act or material in question serves the public good. If it does, then the court must consider a second level of analysis: does the act or material go beyond what serves the so-called public good.

Stated in another way, the second test asks whether the risk of harm that such an act or material poses to society outweighs any potential benefit. If the risk of harm exceeds the public good, for example,--because it allows for the exploitation of children as condemned by today's motion--then no defence would be available or should be available.

Today's motion addresses an important issue and calls upon the government to act immediately. Bill C-20 is currently being reviewed by the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights. Hon. members can give immediate effect to this motion by supporting Bill C-20 at the justice committee, getting it into the House, and ensuring swift passage.

I wish to congratulate the opposition for moving this agenda forward and assisting the government, and ensuring the safety of our children.

[Deborah Grey, Canadian Alliance, Edmonton North, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate my friend from the other part of Saskatchewan splitting his time with me.

This is kind of a sad day. I have been sitting on House duty since 10 a.m. listening to the discussions on something that seems to me should not take a whole lot of discussion. We should have been able to put this through before morning coffee. We have been talking about it six ways to Sunday. We have been comparing it to Bill C-20. Surely we could just get this done.

Why in the world do we need to discuss perhaps the merits of Bill C-20, the merits of artistic merit, the merits of what the public good is when we see that sexual predators are allowed to do the stuff they do because they think it is all right? This is absurd.

We talk about the artistic merit of something. We could go to an art gallery. It seems to me that if we checked the heart rate and the heartbeat alone of people who are looking at art on the wall versus this kind of junk, child pornography, that ought to be enough to do it.

Some of these discussions today make me think we are talking about some volumes in the Library of Parliament. There has been so much sort of academic chat about this filth, that does not deserve to be talked about, as if it is academic stuff. Let us put it where it belongs. It is filth. It is disgusting. It is disgraceful.

I do not think we should be wasting a whole day in the House of Commons on it quite frankly. It is a sad thing that it has had to come to that.

Why can we not just pass the motion and say absolutely. However, that someone is allowed to go through the courts like Robin Sharpe and say that is just for his good, at whose expense? It is always the child who is the victim.

I can hardly believe that we would need to get into a discussion about this, about whether it is really okay or whether it is not, whether it will get distributed or whether it will get sold. Why do we need to waste time on this? I bet the people who are sitting in here can hardly believe it. Yet the minister today said Bill C-20 would look after all that.

He could turn this political and say that the opposition is just creating havoc or making a fuss. My friend from Wild Rose has been talking about this year after year after. Yet the minister does not need to worry about us. Let him listen to the Toronto Chief of Police for starts or the Canadian Bar Association. These people are not politicians. They are operating on the front lines and seeing this filth day after day.

When Paul Gillespie showed members of Parliament the kind of stuff that police officers had to look at every day, it was sickening. Somehow we can just treat this as though it is academic volumes. Shame on this House of Commons. Shame on the member over there who said earlier that with public good the cops could not have shown us that kind of stuff, that they would have been charged with it. There is some kind of logic.

Forgive me, I am blond, but I am not that dumb that they would be charged with the public good. They need this in there for defence, for showing members of Parliament how despicable this stuff is. No, they do not need any defence for public good. They need to show us that. If every member of Parliament watched this for about 45 seconds, we would not have wasted a day of debate here.

We can get this thing under control right now. When the police say that it will not curb it and when the bar association says it will not solve the problem, that is good enough for me frankly. Praise God, I do not need to look at that stuff every day.

I tell the members this. With stepchildren and with the many foster children whom I raised, I am just sick to death to see these people. These are people who these young kids know, who they are related to but most of all who they trust. These people abuse trust day after day.

Before I came here I taught school for 10 years. I understand the position of being an adult and working with children in a position of trust. I see this trust being blown apart by these people every single time they commit these wrong criminal acts. Let us put it right where it belongs. This stuff is filth. There is no way anyone can convince the victims that this has artistic merit. One just has to look at the kids who are being subjected to this. Is this somehow in the public good? I do not think they would say that.

Let us solve this today. Let the government go ahead with Bill C-20. It can trump whatever it likes. I do not care who gets credit for this. All I know is that these kids, who are innocent victims, have any number of pathetic implications that go on for the rest of their lives: sexual dysfunctions, addictions and psychological problems.

I do not know how we can stand here and have this little discussion saying that maybe Bill C-20 will be the answer if the cops and the lawyers say that it is not the answer and we should not worry about what the politicians on the other side say. We should take their word for it and do something about it.

For goodness sake, let us make sure that we call a spade a spade. It is filth. It is disgusting. These people collect it like stamps or baseball cards or something like that. It is wrong. It is criminal. It is evil. We should stand up in this place and say that it is enough already. Let us move forward with this tonight. Let us not talk about it like it is some artistic work.

I do not understand some modern art. Sometimes I stand and look at it and wonder what it is. However I would recognize every single piece of smut that is child pornography for what it is. It is wrong. It is disgusting. It is evil. Let us stand together in the House of Commons as 301 people and do something rather than just yap, yap, yap about it. Let us get this job done.

[Larry Spencer, Canadian Alliance, Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I think the government can figure out better than we can how to speed things up. We see it doing it all the time with its stuff.

The smoke and mirrors that goes on is the first thing that needs to go. The government needs to have willingness to recognize some weaknesses in Bill C-20, fix it immediately and get it on the table in a way that will actually provide the kind of protection for which this motion asks. The fastest way I know is to put the right stuff in the bill, which is already in the process, and get it moving.

[Lynne Yelich, Canadian Alliance, Blackstrap, SK]

Mr. Speaker, in Bill C-20 the government proposes public good as a defence. It is such a vague term that I think it could take years for that to be defined. Experts at committee have said that the problem with putting a very vague defence into the law is that it does not serve as a deterrent and that we are going to have the courts clogged up with defendants saying that they are not guilty because they think there is a chance of public good. Would the member care to comment on that?

[Larry Spencer, Canadian Alliance, Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre, SK]

Mr. Speaker, it is not always a privilege to have to stand in these kinds of debates, but it is a privilege to stand on behalf of the children of our nation. I will be splitting my time with the hon. member for Edmonton North.

First of all, I want to talk a little bit about the reality of child pornography. There was a headline story on CTV News on January 16 about a global pornography investigation covering more than 2,300 people in Canada. That is only one investigation and that is how many people they found connected in our country, so we cannot dismiss this problem as being somewhere else in the world.

As a part of the conference entitled “Rethinking The Line: The Canada-U.S. Border”, Dr. Max Taylor of the University College, Cork, Ireland, said that each week his team collects about a thousand child pornography images from 60 different Internet news groups and that there is quite a number of children being added to these sites every week as time goes on. It is a growing problem and we need to remember that.

Bill C-20 has its weaknesses. The bill does not address sufficiently how to get the convictions and how to cut down on this international problem.

We sometimes forget about the plans of the pornographers. We pass over that and we talk about things such as community good or artistic merit.

However, the plans of the pornographers are these. Number one is to familiarize, to familiarize the community and familiarize children with these kinds of scenes because that leads to desensitizing them. The children become less sensitive to those kinds of things. They begin to accept them as normal. In other words, they sanitize. They familiarize and desensitize and then they sanitize it until it seems like that is what everyone else is doing, which then makes it more normal.

So the guard comes down. The red flags are buried. The pornographers can then move on to tantalize and actually tempt people to move into sexual experiences with other kids, with adults and in all kinds of situations that are set out. There is no reason for this kind of pornography to be made other than to use it as a tool to recruit and enlist other victims.

The results of sexual abuse on children are so awful and so terrible that we are very hesitant many times to speak about that. I want to make that the major part of what I want to say today.

I will read a quote for members, the source of which is a book by Tsai and Wagner, 1984:

Sexual victimization may profoundly interfere with and alter the development of attitudes toward self, sexuality, and trusting relationships during the critical early years of development.

It interrupts the development of a child.

Then, from Whitlock and Gillman, in 1989, there is this quote:

Sexuality is regarded not simply as a part of the self limited to genitals, discrete behaviours, or biological aspects of reproduction, but is more properly understood as one component of the total personality that affects one's concept of personal identity and self-esteem.

There is a great impact, in other words, on the life of a child who has experienced sexual abuse.

I asked Kathy Broady, the clinical director of AbuseConsultants.com, for a quick, short list of consequences observable in children who are suffering from sexual abuse. Let me give part of that list and then follow with a quote from Ms. Broady.

She wrote as number one: fear, mistrust, abandonment issues, intense clinginess to the safe person, and no trust in people. Number two: withdrawal from friends or no friends, no normal play, not smiling, and not happy, and the withdrawal from society continues in comparison to how serious the abuse is. Number three: depression, suicidal thoughts and behaviour, anger, acting out, and serious misbehaviour. Number four: eating disorders, self-injuries, and addiction to drugs, alcohol and other substances.

I have heard of how some of these children act when they are being sexually abused; they can be very young and do this. Sometimes we might see a child sitting alone, sitting in a corner or sitting in a private place, and we might see that child rocking. We might see that child displaying nervous symptoms or slapping itself, hitting itself on the head or pulling its own hair. Sometimes that is what happens when children are being subjected to sexual abuse, and that abuse does not even have to be severe.

Ms. Broady has given me this quote:

Severe childhood sexual abuse literally steals a lifetime of productivity, happiness, fulfillment, and peace from its victims.

The Internet and child pornography on the Internet and in other forms is a recruiting tool to reach children and to bring them in to the sex trade on many occasions.

Children who have been severely sexually abused and sold into the sex slave industry experience a great number of negative impacts. I am going to give members only a few of those listed by survivors in a survey that was done by AbuseConsultants.com, a survey, by the way, in which those impacts cover 50 pages in a book. I will give members less than one page.

The first category was “constant fear and no sense of safety or security anywhere, any time”. The survivors listed these points:

One: Constant fear about something, anything, always. Two: No peace, no ability to relax, constant hyper-vigilance. Three: Inappropriate or extreme responses to problems. Four: Always waiting and anticipating the next bad thing that will happen. Five: Very fatalistic thinking, preparing for doomsday--because “bad stuff” did happen so frequently, repeatedly, it was the one constant that could be expected, therefore, “it's best to always be prepared for and expecting the worst”.

Those were comments made by abuse survivors. There is one more category: self-harm. It may come as a surprise to some as to what actually can happen. It is as follows:

One: Cutting--wrists, arms, legs, stomachs, breasts, genitalia, face, absolutely anywhere. Two: Burning--by cigarettes, fire, stoves, scalding water. Three: Stabbing--legs, stomachs, vagina, abdomen.

Mr. Speaker, I remind you, these are the things these victims are doing to themselves. It is not the abuse; it is what they do to themselves because of the abuse.

Also included are:

Five: Slapping face, legs, private areas, anything anywhere. Six: Mutilation of any sort in any place by any means. Seven: Scraping layers of skin off the entire face or genitalia. Eight: Strangulation, hangings. Nine: Overdoses of drugs and alcohol. Ten: Jumping off bridges or throwing themselves in front of traffic.

This problem creates some horrendous repercussions. I will quote from a book by about five authors, not all of whom I will list:

Early identification of sexual abuse victims appears to be crucial to the reduction of suffering of abused youth and to the establishment of support systems for assistance in pursuing appropriate psychological development and healthier adult functioning. As long as disclosure continues to be a problem for young victims, then fear, suffering, and psychological distress will, like the secret, remain forever with the victim

I say that because there is something that resides there and so many people deny the awfulness of this.

What is the responsibility of Parliament? It is the protection of the citizens, protection of the vulnerable; it is to deal with the truth and make value judgments, making sure that the laws of this country are the very best possible.

We cannot allow Bill C-20 or any other bill that would address child pornography to fall so far short of dealing entirely with the situation and that would be to do. In the words of my colleague from Wild Rose, let us stamp out child pornography.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I listened to the member's speech. I know he is a lawyer. When we went through some of the debates on Bill C-20, the issues of artistic merit and public good, these nebulous ideas, came up. I wonder if the member could give us his comments about balancing the interests of two parties, that is, the need to protect the public good and the need to protect those who might argue artistic merit. If there is no rehabilitative progress demonstrated by people who have a preponderance or propensity to be possessors of pornography or to be pedophiles or whatever, is there in our system a bias which would say that if we are going to err, then we should err on the side of protecting the children before the rights of another?

[Myron Thompson, Canadian Alliance, Wild Rose, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I want to clarify one thing. I hope I did not hear the hon. member correctly. He can correct me if I am wrong. I heard him say that public good ought to stay in as a defence. He must not have heard the opening comments on the motion and he must not have read it carefully, because there is one key word in it, and that word is exploitation. There is no public good in exploiting children through pornography. That is the whole point of the motion. It simply means that public good would not be a defence for anyone who chooses to exploit children.

Surely he does not believe that the police who would have possession of these items would exploit children. Surely he does not believe that psychiatrists or psychologists who have these items would exploit children. They are not included in this. We are talking about individuals in possession of this material and who dare to exploit those children through that. That is the clarity, but it did not come across that way in his speech.

Lastly, let me say that I appreciate the member's support, but Bill C-20 must immediately react to the motion today if his party is going to support this motion. It must happen immediately.

[Peter Stoffer, NDP, Sackville—Musquodoboit Valley—Eastern Shore, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I would hope that the hon. member for Hillsborough is not saying that the mover of this motion is being opportunistic in bringing forward this issue while we are debating Bill C-20 in another forum. I am not in that party, but I know the member for Wild Rose has been raising this issue time and time again. Any time we can talk about this issue in the House of Commons to bring light to this very serious illness that faces our country, it is a wonderful way to go.

The hon. member for Hillsborough indicated that we should do all we can to stamp out child pornography. I have a private member's bill on Internet pornography that would make providers of Internet services partially responsible for what they provide in terms of Internet services. It means that they themselves would also have to take part in monitoring the sites to ensure that any child pornography that they picked up was immediately sent to the RCMP or local police forces for investigation. Would the member support that type of initiative?

[Shawn Murphy, Liberal, Hillsborough, PE]

Mr. Speaker, there is no priority to rights or freedoms expressed in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. These rights and freedoms are for all Canadians. There is no priority in it at all.

I will be the first to admit that Bill C-20 is not perfect. If we could do it, we as parliamentarians would like to enact legislation that would stamp out child pornography today, but unfortunately, we do not live in a perfect world. We are dealing with all sorts of technology, devices and difficulties in prosecution. I believe that Bill C-20 is effective and it is certainly a big improvement over what is presently there.

[Peter Goldring, Canadian Alliance, Edmonton Centre-East, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I have a question and a general comment on the member's speech. My feeling is that the member's support and encouragement for Bill C-20, based on a broader definition and narrow offences, is not supportable on this side. It still is very confusing. This has been recognized by most all authorities.

The question I want to ask the member more specifically is on the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. It appears that the rights of the criminals to be free and the rights to somehow clarify and save from litigation freedoms of expression and artistic merit seem to carry much more weight in the expression of the speech he has just made, but what about the right of our children to be secure and the right to be protected from harm? We seemingly are decreasing continually the rights of our children to safety and security while the criminals seem to have more and more rights and weaker and weaker penalties. Whose rights are more important?

How does Bill C-20 alter the provisions in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms to better protect our children at the end of the day? Perhaps the member could answer that question.

[Shawn Murphy, Liberal, Hillsborough, PE]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to this very important motion. We have heard it during the debate and it goes without saying that the issue of child pornography is a concern for all members of the House and indeed for all Canadians.

All child pornography exploits children. Any defence that would allow for the further exploitation of children should not be tolerated. I believe that the House is unanimous on this issue. We as parliamentarians must do everything within our power to eliminate child pornography in our society.

We are also dealing with some very challenging and complex matters on the whole issue of child pornography. We are dealing with the Internet. We are dealing with emerging technologies. It takes tremendous resources just to keep up with what is going on in society. We are also dealing with the interjurisdictional transfer of pictures and images which makes law enforcement that much more difficult to deal with.

The priority of the government, as was reflected in the Speech from the Throne, is child pornography. Despite what sometimes appears to be a divergence of opinion, which the last speaker talked about and we are going to get that every day here, on the best way to protect children against sexual exploitation, I think all hon. members share the common concern and objective that we all want to better protect our children against this form of sexual exploitation.

The child is exploited when the picture or image is taken and the child is exploited each and every time that picture or image is transmitted wherever. There is no question this is of great harm to our children and it is of great harm to our society.

As I understand today's motion it seeks to respond to the issues that flow from the R. versus Sharpe decision. Similarly Bill C-20, an act to amend the Criminal Code (protection of children and other vulnerable persons) and the Canada Evidence Act, which the Minister of Justice tabled on December 5 last year also responds directly to the issues flowing from the Sharpe decision.

It is my view that Bill C-20 directly responds to the issues raised by today's motion. It is appropriate to consider Bill C-20 and this motion together, which is being done. They are parallel situations.

We want to protect children against sexual exploitation. We are seeking sentence reforms. Bill C-20 facilitates the testimony of children and it creates a new offence of voyeurism.

As hon. members will recall, John Robin Sharpe was convicted. A lot of people forget that. He was convicted on two counts of possession of pornographic photographs of children. Unfortunately he was acquitted on charges of possessing written child pornography for the purpose of distribution or sale on the basis that these writings did not advocate or counsel unlawful sexual activity with children as required by the existing definition of written child pornography.

In the alternative, the court went on and found that Mr. Sharpe could avail himself of the defence of artistic merit. Quite correctly and quite rightly there was a public outcry over that decision. Like many of the members who have spoken on debate today, I found the decision disgusting. It certainly was not in accord with Canadian values as we know them.

Bill C-20 was introduced last December. It proposes a number of criminal law reforms that will provide children with increased protection against all forms of exploitation, including against sexual exploitation through child pornography. Two child pornography amendments are proposed that directly respond to concerns flowing from the Sharpe decision.

First, Bill C-20 proposes to broaden the existing definition of written child pornography to include not only material that advocates or counsels sexual crimes against children under 18 years, but also written material that describes prohibited sexual activity with a child where the written description of this activity is the dominant characteristic of the material and the description is written for a sexual purpose. In this way the proposed amendment to broaden the existing definition of written child pornography recognizes the very real risk of harm that such material can pose to children and to society by portraying children as a class of objects for sexual exploitation.

Second, Bill C-20 proposes to narrow the available defences. As has been stated here this afternoon, we currently have two defences, one for material that has artistic merit or serves an educational, scientific or medical purpose, and another for material that serves the public good.

I would suggest that there may be some misunderstanding of what the public good defence does, what it means and what it does not mean. Its meaning may not be immediately obvious to some, particularly for those less familiar with criminal law. It is nonetheless a defence that is known to courts in Canada. It is also a defence that has recently been considered by the Supreme Court of Canada in the specific context of child pornography.

This defence certainly does not mean that child pornography is good. I do not think any of us would ever say that. It does mean that in certain circumstances a person should not be convicted of a child pornography offence where the act or material in question serves the public good and, this is important, the benefit of that actual material to society outweighs any associated risk of harm.

The last speaker talked about being at a meeting with police officers and I understand there was another meeting held in the House and there was obviously possession of child pornography. Pictures were shown which were repulsive and disgusting, but it was obviously in the public good. They were just trying to show how disgusting this material was and how we as parliamentarians should do something. If the public good defence were not available, I submit that the police officers could have been charged and put in jail, as could the members who were present at the meeting. It would create a strict liability offence. Hon. members should think about it. What is their defence?

It will benefit Canadian society to enable police to possess the child pornography for these purposes which, and I come back to my second test, clearly outweigh the risk of harm that such possession possesses. The law must take into account all possibilities. Bill C-20 does exactly that.

While this again has been debated this afternoon, it still may be possible, although I cannot visualize it myself, for art to be considered under Bill C-20's public good defence. Bill C-20 proposes a different test from the existing test for artistic merit which was talked about in the Sharpe case. Under the existing artistic merit defence, material that is objectively shown to have artistic merit benefits from the defence of artistic merit. That is under the existing Sharpe decision. Nothing further must be shown.

However, under Bill C-20 such material must also undergo a second level of analysis such that even if the material in question can objectively be shown to have some artistic value, it will not have a defence where the risk of harm that such material poses to society outweighs any potential benefit that it offers. I cannot visualize how anyone like Robin Sharpe or a similar offender would benefit from this defence. No defence will be available for any material or act that does not satisfy both branches of the public good defence.

Bill C-20 is not perfect. We do not live in a perfect world, but I submit that it responds effectively to real concerns about child pornography. There appears to be no dispute in the House about the need to deal with this issue and Bill C-20 is a vehicle to make the necessary reforms.

Bill C-20's proposed child pornography reforms directly respond to concerns that were expressed following the Sharpe decision. As I said at the outset of my remarks, I believe this is what today's motion seeks to do. As well, like the other speakers, I want to congratulate the member for Wild Rose for bringing this motion forward and having this debate today because this is a very important and significant issue for all Canadians.

The timing of this motion is opportune as I understand that Bill C-20 is presently before the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights.

In closing, I want to suggest that our support for Bill C-20 will in effect help us realize our support for today's motion.