Bill C-20 (Historical)

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

Criminal Code

[Darrel Stinson, Canadian Alliance, Okanagan—Shuswap, BC]

Madam Speaker, I rise today to debate Bill C-20 and the amendment to the bill. I also want to congratulate the hon. member who just spoke on his new grandchild.

I have a big problem with what exactly the government is trying to do with regard to the bill. We all know, or should know, and maybe the problem is that we do not all know, that the government's first and foremost responsibility is the protection of its law-abiding citizens. However it seems that the government has decided to take an easy way out of this. I should explain this to the people at home.

We now have in Canada what is known as judge made laws. The government has allowed that to take place because it lets the government off the hook. Governments are supposed to make laws, judges are to interpret them and lawyers are to debate them. It is easier now for the government to say that it did not intend something to happen in a law and that it was the judge who was at fault for giving that type of sentence.

Therefore, as a member of Parliament, the government in its own stupidity--I cannot put it any other way--decided to give me an out as a member of Parliament when I go home and have to face some tough questions from my constituents, such as the Sharpe decision in regard to child pornography. I can now go home and say that it was a judge who made that decision, not the government.

The fallacy is that we can now lay the blame on the judges, even though the government appoints most of them, because they are not accountable. They do not have to come up for re-election. They do not have to be voted in. They do not have to explain to the population why a decision was made.

[Ken Epp, Canadian Alliance, Elk Island, AB]

Madam Speaker, I have a couple of things to say on the bill. I think it would be appropriate for me to begin by making a very important announcement.

One hundred and seventy-five hours ago we saw another Epp baby come into the world. I am a grandfather for the fifth time. I will use a term which is unparliamentary but not offensive, it is my name. In the Epp tradition, the baby came into the world just perfectly. He even had a little hair over his ear to match grandpa's, which was very nice.

This grandchild is little Micah. He is the baby brother of Noah and Hannah. When I see him and his older sister and brother I cannot help but think how totally deplorable and depraved it would be for anyone to engage in any activity of a sexual nature with these innocent, young, beautiful children. Nor can I can understand how anyone would get any pleasure whatsoever from depicting, either by written words, by pictures. cartoons or whatever, that type of activity.

I find that totally deplorable. In fact, I do not know of any words in the English language or in either of my other two languages that come anywhere close to describing the absolutely horrific nature of such an activity.

Along come the Liberals and they say that they will introduce Bill C-20. It is a Criminal Code amendment designed to safeguard children from sexual exploitation. It is a very hapless title. It reminds me of the days when I drove a truck. I used to haul big loads with a big rig on the highway. Every once in a while we did not have a back haul. I would be driving the big truck empty simply to get to another destination. I had no load.

That is what the bill is. It has a fancy title but the bill is empty. It does not begin to address the issues that are before us as a society and as lawmakers in this country.

I want to be very specific because I know this is actually a bill that was brought forward to make political hay. The Liberals brought forward the bill with nothing in it to protect children so that we in opposition will have no choice but to vote against it. We will vote against it because it is ineffective. The bill does not do anything to protect children.

In the next election we probably will have brochures in our ridings asking why people would vote for that Canadian Alliance member when he voted against the protection of children. That will be the Liberals' messaging. I find that almost as offensive as the bill itself. I have seen this happen in previous election campaigns.

For the Liberals to use children in such a blatant way shows how really empty they are of any principles at all. I am really distressed about this.

We have, for example, in the bill a move that is supposed to make it easier to actually convict child pornographers. How will we do that if we stand in front of the same judges trying to make the case? In the past we went there and said that something was bad that the person should be convicted of a crime. The defence would argue, no, that this was in keeping with community standards.

It turned out that community standards basically allowed almost anything to go through because it is very difficult to define community standards. They changed that in the bill calling it “public good”. That may be a little more difficult to prove. Maybe community standards sometimes are contrary to public good but, as I see it, they are almost identical in the eyes of a judge in a law court.

The public good could be argued to be served if we simply fail to stop somebody from writing this junk. They would say “that is the public good”, and they would be arguing free speech. I am not against free speech but limitations to a certain degree are valid. In my humble opinion, when it comes to protecting our beautiful, innocent, young children, we stop at nothing.

I would be totally content to say that to depict child pornography in any form whatsoever, written, hand drawn, definitely photographs or films or videos, but even the written stuff and the hand created cartoon stuff, if it depicts children being abused, it is wrong.

We ought to have a law in this country that says that no one can do it. I would even go so far as to write into the legislation “notwithstanding anything in the charter” so that defence could not be used. I would say “notwithstanding anything in the charter, this bill provides that no one may produce or possess, in any form whatsoever, any form of child pornography”. Then perhaps we could stand tall and say that we are doing something tangible to protect our children.

I cannot let my time slip by without making a comment on a glaring omission in the bill, and that is the age of consent. I do not know how it happened in our country that we allowed the age of consent to slip down to 14.

Our goddaughter had a birthday yesterday if I am not mistaken. I know she just turned 12 but that means she finished her twelfth year of life and she is into her thirteenth year. Again, there is absolutely no justification anywhere, anytime for anyone to talk a child of that age into sexual activity. It just is wrong.

Here we have a bill that says we are going to protect children but does nothing with the age of consent. I need to explain this for anyone who may not know what it means. It means that an adult cannot stand up in court and say “I am innocent because she agreed to it”. That is all it means. No one cannot persuade a 13 year old in this country to have sex and get away with it because that is not permitted, but if she is 14, they can. I say that is way too low. The very serious omission in the bill is that it does not address that problem.

We could talk about many other things in the bill but I guess I will have only time for one more in my last minute and that has to do with minimum and maximum sentences.

In the bill the maximum sentences have been increased. Fine, but will the courts use them, or will they continue to give continual sentences?

I had a letter from an individual who actually chastised me for calling for minimum sentences. She said that she did not want minimum sentences for those creeps. She said that she wanted maximum sentences. I wrote to her and told her I understood what she was saying. She wants to punish them to the max, which is right, but, unfortunately, if a maximum sentence is given in the law it prohibits a judge from giving any sentence greater than that. A minimum sentence means that a sentence must be given of at least a set amount.

We should have minimum sentences in a bill that purports to protect children but it is not in the bill. Therefore I will be voting against the bill and my reason is that I truly want to protect children.

[Greg Thompson, Progressive Conservative, New Brunswick Southwest, NB]

Madam Speaker, I am delighted to speak to Bill C-20. I want to thank my colleague from Pictou--Antigonish--Guysborough, our justice critic, for his help on this issue. As members know, he is now campaigning to become leader of our party, which I hope he does. I do want to put some comments on the record on his behalf and on behalf of my party.

Bill C-20 is basically the Liberal answer to the John Robin Sharpe case, the pornographic case which became famous in Canada.

There are some aspects of the bill which we take some comfort from in terms of what it will do. For example, clause 5, which amends section 161(1) of the Criminal Code to expand the definition of those convicted or discharged on the conditions prescribed in a prohibition order, can be seen as a positive step. We do not dispute that.

We also believe that positive amendments have been brought forward with regard to sections 151 and 152 maintaining the indictable offence maximum of 10 years while increasing the level of punishment under summary conviction by directing the court to incarceration not exceeding 18 months.

Fundamentally, this debate and this legislation must centre around the harm caused to those most vulnerable in our society, our children. Underlying this, we must give thought to the role of the court in the context of judicial policy making as it pertains to the supremacy of Parliament. We must show how this new legislation will eradicate child pornography. It is our belief that the new legislation will not do that.

We are talking about eradicating child pornography within the context of the artistic merit defence. Unfortunately for Canadians, the legislation does not go far enough and could once again be subjected to judicial interpretation putting our children at risk. There will definitely be constitutional challenges under Bill C-20 if it is passed.

There is an inherent danger to society as a whole when we fail to recognize the detrimental effect child pornography can have at a base level. No one is suggesting that the literary works of Nabokov, who is the author of Lolita or Plato's Symposium , be removed from circulation based on the promotion of sexual contact with minors. Indeed the charter of rights provides sufficient protection for freedom of thought and expression. However the question of what constitutes a reasonable limit is central to this debate and to Bill C-20.

Clause 7(1) of Bill C-20 amends subsection 163(1) of the Criminal Code, defining child pornography to include any written material, the dominant characteristics of which is the description for a sexual purpose of sexual activity with a person under the age of 18 years of age.

While the addition of a clearer section for the purpose of specifically defining what constitutes child pornography is welcome, I suggest that the definition be altered to remove foreseeable subjectivity.

As a definition, child pornography should not be open to interpretation through intent or any other means. The thought process behind the writing and whether or not the work was produced for a sexual purpose should be of no consequence. We need simply state the definition of what is acceptable and what is not. With this clear definition, the judiciary is removed from the public-private nature of the debate. As a remedy to that, a clause was placed in the bill, within section 163, saying that:

No person shall be convicted of an offence under this section if the acts that are alleged to constitute the offence, or if the material related to those acts that is alleged to contain child pornography, serve the public good and do not extend beyond what serves the public good.

We understand the intent of the minister's legislation. I fear the manner in which it is presented will not be sufficient to protect the abhorrent creation of pornographic material depicting children. The public, along with child advocacy groups and members of the House, have called upon the government to produce a clear, concise piece of legislation which would remove completely the chance that materials of this nature would see the light of day. Once again the minister has left open to interpretation by the courts a matter that strikes at the very heart of our democracy.

The intent of this bill is to protect children from all forms of exploitation, including child pornography, sexual exploitation, abuse and neglect. Unfortunately, the definitions of public good will be vague and no level of objectivity exists which will allow a court to decide what is pornographic and what is not. Once again it will be a question of acceptability to the individual. Obviously, an argument as to what constitutes the public good will predominate leaving our children once again vulnerable.

We ask the minister why it has taken so long, and how the legion of lawyers has produced yet again an obviously flawed piece of legislation. This bill has been laying around this place for a long time but they have yet to get it right.

The overall effect of the Sharpe decision by Mr. Justice Shaw had many in society recoiling with dismay. We have heard that today in the House. That a learned judge would in fact open the door to potential pedophiles and those who take advantage of youth, who denigrate images and engage in writings that have a very corrosive effect on social norms, is a travesty.

Works of this nature go against the very fabric of what is acceptable in a moral and just society. There can be no denial that a direct correlation exists between the fantasies of sick individuals and the harm created to children. Why risk the potential danger, when the collective will of the people would see this material stricken from existence?

In handing down the Sharpe decision, Justice Shaw effectively broadened the interpretation of the current exemption or defence of artistic merit.

To remind members, section 1 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms guarantees the rights and freedoms, “subject only to such reasonable limits prescribed by law as can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society”. The contention that section 1 limits are justifiable in this case are correct when weighed against the potential harm to children and the intent of Parliament to protect the rights of those most vulnerable. Simply put, it is my belief that the Supreme Court erred when it favourably interpreted the Shaw decision. Unfortunately I do not think the minister's lawyers understand that.

The Progressive Conservative Party has been supportive in the past of the law enforcement community victims' groups and child advocates who are constantly tasked and constantly struggling with a lack of resources available to them. We desperately need legislation that will protect children. We believe that this legislation is not strong enough. I urge the government and the minister to consider some of the arguments being put forward in the House today.

Again, the objective of this new bill is to protect children. It does not do that. Please allow some of the amendments suggested by this side of the House to be considered by the government. Do not just categorically deny the opposition that simply because we are the opposition.

The Government of Canada is here to protect children and that is what we want it to do.

[Dick Harris, Canadian Alliance, Prince George—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Madam Speaker, in February 2002, Mr. Justice Shaw of the Supreme Court of British Columbia, using whatever logic or rationale that may have prevailed on that particular day, ruled that the written works of acknowledged pedophile Robin Sharpe, which depicted young children in various sexual poses, depicted young children as victims of sexual violence, and depicted young children being brutally exploited sexually by adults, “had artistic merit” and acquitted Robin Sharpe of the charges of possession and distribution of child pornography.

This came as an absolutely unbelievable court decision to millions of Canadians. It fuelled the fires of doubt about whether their justice system was working for society. It fuelled the storm of protests over the decisions that we see coming out of our justice system. It fuelled the storm of protests over the mounting judicial activism that has been happening in our country for the last 10 years because governments, such as the Liberal government, do not have the guts to make controversial law and legislation in this Parliament, but rather they would take the cowardly way out and leave it to the judges to make these decisions and expect Canadians to just sit back, abide by some very sick decisions, such as this one here, and accept that because it came from the courts it must be right.

This has not happened by accident. I believe that the push to get controversial or publicly sensitive legislation out of Parliament started way back when Pierre Elliott Trudeau was the Prime Minister of Canada. He and his government put through legislation and he led the charge through the Charter of Rights and Freedoms so that Parliament would never have to make controversial decisions that would make it uncomfortable or nervous. It would be left in the hands of the courts to decide.

The government now brings in Bill C-20 that is supposed to fix this. The defence that it is trying to fix is that the representation or written material has artistic merit or is for educational, scientific or medical purposes. It was certainly the defence used in the case of Robin Sharpe, which Chief Justice Shaw accepted, for whatever insane reason, and certainly, not for the good of society.

Now instead of using the artistic merit, educational, scientific or medical purposes defence, the new bill, which is supposed to fix this thing, proposes that this defence be repealed and replaced by the defence that the material alleged to constitute child pornography serves the public good. This is amazing.

Every sane person in the country could understand that we simply could not attach the phrase “serving the public good” to materials that depict the sexual exploitation of children or the brutality of children by sexual predators either in drawn form or written word. My God, how can we imagine that Canada could accept that a defence could be used that could describe child pornography as serving the public good?

Only a Liberal government that has failed Canadian on so many justice issues since 1993, could come up with a bill like this.

They are not alone. The Liberals on the other side who support the bill, will stand up and say that we have to be careful and that we have to try to determine that maybe there might be some public good in child pornography. They will stand up and vote for the bill. They will be joined by their friends in the NDP party. The member for Palliser has already given notice on this. January 27, the member for Palliser said, and he believed that his colleagues shared his opinion, that:

--if it has not specifically hurt a minor in the production of it, if it is created by people's visual imaginations and if the main purpose of it is not simply about pornography and sexual exploitation, then under the laws people do have a right to their own imaginations and thoughts, however perverse...

That reflects the opinion of the member for Palliser and as he said, “I believe it will be shared by a majority”, of whom, I do not know. It is certainly not rational thinking Canadians but maybe that does not include supporters of the NDP party. However it will shared by a majority if not all of his colleagues. Therefore we are talking about not rationally thinking Canadians.

Mr. David Matas of Winnipeg wrote an opinion on child pornography and artistic merit. Apparently this person is a Winnipeg lawyer. He argued the Sharpe case in the Supreme Court of Canada for an organization called Beyond Borders, which is a leading fighter against child pornography in Canada. He is a very knowledgeable person.

Mr. Matas said that the defence of artistic merit, which is in the legislation now and in the court system now, needed to be narrowed so that only in the case of police officers using child pornography that was drawn or written as evidence in a case against the child pornographer or cases like that could it be allowed. Certainly not the possession by some of these perverts that are running around our country preying on our children.

I am absolutely disgusted at the lack of knowledge that the Liberal government has about how society feels about child pornography. It is a disgusting lack of leadership by the government and we certainly cannot support the bill.

Speaking of disgusting acts, I cannot sit down before I tell the House about something that happened the last two nights in the Bell Centre in Montreal. Some of the fans were booing the American national anthem and booing the presence of American based teams playing in Canada. This as one of the most disgusting and embarrassing things I have ever seen Canadians do. One has to wonder where their priorities are--

Child Pornography

[Vic Toews, Canadian Alliance, Provencher, MB]

Mr. Speaker, the Liberal government may talk about protecting children, but it does exactly the opposite.

Prominent human rights lawyer David Matas has recently stated that Bill C-20, the proposed child pornography legislation, goes in exactly the wrong direction. Instead of narrowing the defence of artistic merit, indeed it broadens the defence.

When will the government finally find the courage to protect children, rather than siding with the interests of child pornographers?

Criminal Code

[Monte Solberg, Canadian Alliance, Medicine Hat, AB]

Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to rise and debate Bill C-20 today. I want to say at the outset that members of the Canadian Alliance have spoken out forcefully on this and that is because we reflect where our constituents are at. Many of us have received petitions on this issue. People are very concerned about court rulings that seem to indicate some kind of a tolerance for child pornography in some form.

However, I want people who are watching today to understand that the Canadian Alliance feels it is completely wrong to give any kind of nod of approval to any form of child pornography, any form. I want to underline how pervasive the attitude is, at least among some people, that it is okay to tolerate some kinds of child pornography by pointing to something that was said in this place back at the end of January by a member of the NDP. This is what the member for Palliser said:

Mr. Speaker, in response to the member's specific questions, the position that I take, and I believe would be shared by a majority if not all of my caucus colleagues--

These are his colleagues in the NDP.

--is that if it has not specifically hurt a minor in the production of it, if it is created by people's visual imaginations and if the main purpose of it is not simply about pornography and sexual exploitation, then under the laws people do have a right to their own imaginations and thoughts, however perverse the member and I might think they are.

My concern, which I think is shared by police officers across the country, is that if we open the door a crack to allowing these “artistic” versions of child pornography or what the courts have ruled are stories that may have artistic merit, then really we give the seal of approval to child pornography.

We want to shut that down. We are saying that there is no such thing as child pornography having any kind of public good. That of course is what is at the heart of the debate over Bill C-20 and we want to make it very clear that our party is completely opposed to that notion.

This is such a broad subject and there are so many different aspects to it, but suffice it to say that the Alliance believes that child pornography in Canada today is a scourge. We know that there has been a lot of publicity about this issue recently. There has been a worldwide crackdown by police forces on child pornography.

One of the things that concerns us, beyond the flaws in Bill C-20, is the fact that the police are not given adequate resources to deal with the issue of child pornography. When we had the recent crackdown around the world, which resulted in people being charged in the United States, Great Britain and some in Canada, we found that in Canada we had a woeful lack of resources when it came to having enough people to go out and check on people who initially were caught with child pornography, to check and make sure that we actually had enough evidence to prosecute them.

That is a concern. If the government maintains, and I think that it would, that the protection of children has to be the highest possible priority of a police force and a justice system in Canadian society, then they have to have adequate resources to do that. They need to have good laws and they need to have adequate resources. I am afraid to say that we have neither in Canada today.

The idea of artistic merit as a defence for child pornography, or even now the idea of public good as Bill C-20 states, I think to most people is contrary to common sense.

The government has not just failed when it comes to those issues, but it has failed in other ways as well, which are related to this. Some members already have spoken about the government's failure to adopt legislation that would raise the age of consent for engaging in sexual relations. Right now the age is 14, which I think would strike most people as being too young. We are talking here about relations between adults and children as young as the age of 14 and that is what concerns us.

Last year when we brought this forward as a motion in the House of Commons I was surprised, in fact, very frustrated, that the government voted against our motion to raise the age of consent from 14 to at least 16. The government trotted out all kinds of red herrings that it had not been able to get the provinces onside and that it was working with the provinces. That is a red herring because it is the federal government alone that sets the Criminal Code. The provinces administer it, but it is the federal government that has sole responsibility for changing the laws when it comes to the Criminal Code of Canada. We are concerned about that.

Another indication that the government does not take these issues seriously enough is its ridiculous sex offender registry which it is now proposing to bring in. The sex offender registry would only list people as of now who have committed a sexual offence. They would be the only ones who would be listed.

If somebody had been guilty of all kinds of sexual offences in the past, they would not be listed in the sex offender registry. That calls into question the government's commitment of ensuring that the public's protection is put ahead of the protection of privacy for people who have records as sexual offenders. To me that is simply wrong.

We are concerned that the government is not taking seriously enough what should be the first priority of any government which is the protection of its citizens. Why were governments formed? They were formed to protect the rights and freedoms of citizens and one of those freedoms is the freedom to not be interfered with, sexually. The government has not addressed these issues in a serious enough manner. There have been thousands of names on petitions that have come into the House. These people say they want these sorts of laws strengthened.

For reasons that are not apparent to me, the government drags its heels at every turn and comes up with all kinds of excuses for not doing it. I think that is simply wrong.

I want to make reference to an article that a previous member mentioned that was written by a Winnipeg lawyer who talked about the artistic merit defence and the new legislation, Bill C-20. He argued that the artistic merit defence, or the old legislation governing child pornography, was actually stricter than the new legislation that the government is bringing in. He pointed to all kinds of possible ways that the government could put some strict limits on child pornography to ensure that the next time this law is challenged it will not be thrown out again by the courts.

I would argue that if the government is not prepared to listen to the opposition then it should listen to people like David Matas, a Winnipeg Lawyer. He has provided some common sense suggestions for ways to limit the current definition of child pornography to ensure that we do not have to go through this again and that Canada's young people are protected.

About a year and a little bit ago my colleague from Lethbridge and I went down to the Canada-U.S. border and spent some time with customs officials on both sides of the border. One thing that came up on both sides of the border was how they have to be so vigilant today to ensure that when young people are travelling across the border with an older person, that they are not doing so because they have been lured by older people for the purposes of sexual exploitation. The impression they left with me is that this is not just a problem, it is a crisis.

We hear Toronto police officers talking about the crisis that they are facing now with respect to child pornography. We hear people talking today about the fact that Canada is becoming somewhat of a destination for sex tourism.

This is a serious issue and I am concerned that the government is not taking its responsibilities for protecting young people seriously. We have laid down a number of examples today of how it is failing in those responsibilities. Not only does it have to do with Bill C-20, but it has to do with its inability to summon the courage to raise the age of sexual consent from 14 to 16 and it is has to do with bringing in a sex offender registry that captures on that registry people who have committed sexual offences in the past and not just as of today.

I will conclude by urging the government to consider these remarks and to change this legislation.

[Keith Martin, Canadian Alliance, Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure today to speak to the amendment to Bill C-20.

Our problems with the bill are many and varied. Let us back up for a moment. If the objective of our justice system is the protection of innocent civilians, then surely the protection of children must be at the forefront of our justice system.

For 10 years people in my party and in others have asked, pushed, cajoled and coerced the government to implement solutions that will protect children from that most egregious crime: the sexual, violent abuse at the hands of a predator or a pedophile.

To understand why we are so adamant about this, let us look at pedophilia for a moment. It is an incurable problem. Pedophiles, by and large, are not cured of this. When somebody comes before our justice system to be tried and sometimes convicted for these offences, it is usually not the first time the person has sexually abused a child. In fact, studies show that when an individual comes before the court charged with the sexual abuse of a child, generally the person has abused at least 12 children before that.

Hon. members should think about that for a moment. When a person comes before a court for the very first time, the person has sexually raped and abused at least 12 children, not once but generally over a prolonged period of time. As my colleague has mentioned, that has profound implications upon the life of a child for the entire length of the child's life. It is something that they never, ever get over.

As a result, we are aghast and appalled that the government has not adopted the constructive solutions that we put forth that would have strengthened our justice system, protected children and enabled our courts to do the job they were supposed to do: protect the Canadian public.

It is also without a doubt the responsibility of the courts and our justice system to implement solutions that will help in the rehabilitation of the convicted. We make no dispute about that and, in fact. we encourage that. How can we have a society where those who have made mistakes and who have committed offences do not have the hope of retribution or of being cured of their problem?

Pedophilia is in a category very different from all others, with the exception, I would say, of individuals who commit violent sexual abuses against other individuals. Violent sexual behaviour, pedophilia, is in a class unto itself. Most of those people do not get cured. It is true that most of those people, it is sad to say, have endured sexual abuse, violent or otherwise, themselves. That is a profound tragedy and we have great sympathy for those individuals. However it does not exonerate them from committing acts of violent sexual abuse against others during their lives.

Therefore it is our responsibility here in the House to ensure that our justice system, our courts and our police have the tools to not only protect civilians, but also to ensure that to the best of our ability we can give the individuals who committed those offences as much treatment as possible to ensure that when or if they get out we can be confident that they will not reoffend again.

Herein lies the problem. The court system gives individuals a sentence. They finish their sentence and then they are released. We are fairly confident that some of those people will not reoffend but, having worked in jails, I can tell the House that a lot of those people, whether they are sexual predators or violent offenders, are being released with the full knowledge and awareness that they will commit that type of offence again. Those who work in our penal institutions, those who are part of our court system and those who are part of our police forces are aghast, appalled, saddened and often demoralized by the fact that our system does not at the end of the day, at its heart, protect our society from those individuals who commit the most violent, appalling and egregious offences against innocent civilians.

These people are predators. I will provide an example. Friends of mine, a couple, were living in Vancouver. An individual moved in beside them and befriended them. He came over with gifts and food. One day the wife of this friend of mine was at home and suddenly found their next door neighbour in their home, uninvited, with candies for their daughter, who was seven years old at the time. Subsequent to that they found out that this individual, their neighbour who they thought was perfectly fine, had a long history of violent sexual abuses against children. He was and is a predator and was an individual who was trying to sexually abuse their seven year old daughter.

When this friend of mine went to the police, the police said they could do nothing about this since the person had not committed a crime. What do we have to wait for? Do we have to wait for that individual to rape that seven year old girl so the police can say they have a crime and therefore can incarcerate that individual?

Certainly a crime has to be committed before someone is incarcerated, to be sure, but on the other hand, does that family not have a right to know that the person living next door to them is an individual with a long history of violent sexual abuses, an individual who the police know is fully expected to reoffend? Does that family not have a right to know that its next door neighbour has a very high chance of sexually abusing another child? The hands of the police were tied in that case, as they are tied in other cases around the country.

We understand and are fully cognizant of the fact that all individuals have rights, but at the end of the day the rights of a child have to trump the rights of a sexual predator. That has to happen. That is what we in our party are trying to do. We are trying to change the laws of the land to ensure that children are not going to be preyed on by pedophiles who have a long history of these actions and, by and large, as I said before, are incurable. Some can be controlled and should be allowed out after serving their sentences, but those who cannot should be kept in jail until such time as the judicial system is confident that these individuals will not reoffend.

We also know that on the international stage there are pedophile tours. These adults, working underground, get together to go on tours to Colombia and southeast Asia where they are taken to brothels and children are presented in front of them so that they can rape them. That is what is happening now. It is an underground system. The international judicial system is aghast and appalled that collectively we have been unable to prosecute these individuals who go on these tours to sexually abuse the children of people in faraway countries.

I know that the Thai government and the Malaysian government are aghast because many of these pedophiles selectively go there to sexually abuse children. This cannot be allowed to happen. Our Minister of Justice must work with other ministers of justice and international policing organizations to develop a system for the identification and prosecution of individuals who actively go after children on these international sex tours.

My colleague has mentioned the issue of child porn. I will not belabour the issue because my colleagues have spoken eloquently about it. Suffice it to say that we are not talking about some individual who accidentally pulls something off a computer. We are talking about individuals who have a long history of pulling up and using child pornography. What adults do among themselves is adults' business, but when people are actually buying child pornography, attached to that must be victims, and the victims are children who had absolutely no say whatsoever in being part and parcel of those movies or photographs that show them being sexually abused by adults.

As for solutions, we have spoken about heavier penalties and minimum sentencing for people convicted of pedophilia. Release should be conditional upon the knowledge that individuals who are pedophiles, and I would extend this to people who commit rape, are violent sexual offenders. We must be certain that those individuals and people who commit pedophilia and sexual and violent offences are not going to reoffend. That category of offences is very different from others because at the end of the day the victims of those offences are individuals who have to sustain and endure terrible penalties that they have to live with for the rest of their lives.

Dangerous offender status should be more liberally applied to those individuals who are pedophiles. As I said before, it is an incurable problem.

I know my time is up, but I hope the government listens to the constructive solutions my party has put forward. We are very willing to work with the government to implement a constructive Bill C-20 that will protect our children from predation by violent sexual offenders.

[John Duncan, Canadian Alliance, Vancouver Island North, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak today to Bill C-20, which is the government's attempt to deal with the issues of child pornography and sexual exploitation of children.

Almost one year ago the Canadian Alliance put forth an opposition motion that was debated in the House. I believe it was last April 23. At that time, the government defeated what I think was a very informed motion. I will read that for the benefit of people who are watching today. That motion reads:

That the government immediately introduce legislation to protect children from sexual predators including measures that raise the legal age of consent to at least sixteen, and measures that prohibit the creation or use of sexually explicit materials exploiting children or materials that appear to depict or describe children engaged in sexual activity.

We went through an extended period of time where we continued to pressure the government to come forward with legislation to address these very pressing issues. We had the overwhelming national interest in removing the exploitation of young children, particularly by sexual predators, pimps and others. The movement toward raising the age of sexual consent from 14 to at least 16 had prompted hundreds of thousands of letters, e-mails and petitions.

On the day of the debate of the motion last year, and I can recall, Mr. Speaker, you were in the chair, I had 8,681 petitions on my desk to present. Of course that was denied by members on the government side, but they did end up in the minister's office later that day.

The point is none of those people are satisfied with the current legislation. The current legislation continues to fail to address the issues appropriately, those issues of the fact that artistic merit continues to be an adequate defence and a huge loophole, which basically makes child pornography a continuing problem in the country.

In terms of the police, victims, advocates, all kinds of other organizations, the enforcement of our laws preventing the exploitation of 14 and 15 year old children is completely inadequate. Until the government raises the legal age of sexual consent, this situation will continue.

What this legislation actually does is create a very complex and convoluted set of terms of reference. Opinions of many experts and common sense would indicate, first, that the existing defences of child pornography are actually broadened rather than narrowed by the legislation. What has really happened is there is not a substantive difference between this defence in this legislation and what was in the previous legislation on artistic merit.

The other defences have been rolled into something called the public good defence which now has several avenues in which the Supreme Court will have great difficulty unless the normal avenues of defence used by defence lawyers are addressed. They are not addressed. They are simply one broad thing called the public good test.

Therefore, what we really have is a very unacceptable situation, a situation that will lead to a vacuum in the courts from the standpoint of the ability of police to enforce the law, uncertainty in the courts and a cornucopia of opportunity for lawyers and for people who would carry out activities that are not in the public good and exploitive of children. Those situations will all occur.

The most mind-numbing of all is the fact that the age of sexual consent has not been raised from 14 to 16. What has happened is that we have another very complex arrangement, totally subject to the whims of judges or others. What we really need is what we call a truth in sentencing. We need to eliminate statutory release. We need to eliminate conditional sentencing for sex offenders and we must have minimum sentences in order to deter child predators.

There is one aspect of the bill that I think we all concur in and that is the fact that it creates one new offence called voyeurism and the distribution of voyeuristic material. This is obviously a positive step and has been done on a relatively timely basis.

What is so puzzling is that Canada remains one of the only western democratic jurisdictions that continues to pursue a minimum age of consent of 14. This is clearly unacceptable.

I want to read what the large social conservative organization in Vancouver, which sent me last year's petitions, had to say about all of this after our motion failed last year. It stated:

Parents, police and social service agencies are hindered in protecting children as young as 14 who are coerced into sex with adults. Children as young as 14 can be exposed to the risks associated with sexual activity such as emotional distress, unwanted pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases including AIDS. Recent years have seen a significant increase in crimes of a sexual nature against children. Child prostitution, child pornography etc. are increasing at an alarming rate. The low age of consent encourages societal acceptance of early sexual behaviour and appetite for pedophiles. Problems associated with low age of consent to sex are deep emotional and mental health problems, STDS, cervical cancer, teen pregnancies, school drop-outs and criminal behaviour.

I am appalled that such a crucial and important issue, which deals with the fundamental fabric of our society, is being treated so dismally by the government.

I want to talk a little about the child pornography legislation as well. When the Supreme Court of British Columbia in February 2002 found that the written works of Robin Sharpe had artistic merit and acquitted him of the charges this created a vacuum.

I see my time is up, therefore, I move:

That the motion be amended by deleting all the words after the word “That” and substituting the following therefore:

Bill C-20, an act to amend the Criminal Code (protection of children and other vulnerable persons) and the Canada Evidence Act, be not now read a second time but that it be read a second time this day six months hence.

Business of the House

[Don Boudria, Liberal, Minister of State and Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, this is almost an open House leaders' meeting this afternoon. I am pleased to inform the House that this afternoon we will definitely continue with the opposition day motion. Let the record be very clear about that fact.

Tomorrow we will call Bill C-20, the child protection bill, followed then by Bill C-23 respecting sex offenders. On Monday we shall have an opposition day or an allotted day. That is also the case with next Tuesday.

Pursuant to an all party agreement on concurrence in a ways and means motion to take place on Tuesday and the subsequent introduction of the budget bill, it would be my intention to call on Wednesday the budget bill 2003. Insofar as anything else that may occur, I am pleased to inform the House that the government fully intends to comply with all Standing Orders.

Criminal Code

[John Williams, Canadian Alliance, St. Albert, AB]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to speak to Bill C-20 because I am pleased to be recorded as standing up for the young people in this country. They are wonderful, naive, innocent and darling young people. They are cherished, not all the time, but most of the time our children are that way. We go through the terrible two's and stuff like that, but apart from that we want to protect our children because they are innocent and vulnerable.

There are perverts out there who take advantage of our young people in the most despicable ways. They do despicable acts against our children. They make videos, photographs, and other material so they can continue in their warped, senseless mind to derive some kind of enjoyment from what they perpetrate on these innocent young people. It is shocking. I have never seen any of that stuff myself. I have only heard that it exists. I cannot imagine how bad that stuff is, and how shocking and revolting it must be.

One would think that in a democratic society that cherishes the values and the human rights of our people, and the fact that we have a charter of human rights which guarantees our freedoms and protects us, there would not be a debate in the House about protecting our children. My colleague from Wild Rose has worked on this issue for many years. He has been trying to get the government to move the agenda forward. This has been worse than pulling teeth for my friend from Wild Rose. The government then comes along with a little bill that, when analyzed by our critic, is neutral on the family impact assessment. It does not move the ball forward and it does not move it back; it is neutral. That is shocking.

We depend upon the courts to protect society. There was a case in Vancouver a couple of years ago where the pervert who produced child pornography was told by the court that because it was artistic merit it was okay for him to possess it.

Photographs, videos and all that stuff was created by some little kid's pain. It was created to give some guy with a warped mind some kind of titillating enjoyment. I cannot understand why we must keep asking to shut this down. We should just shut it down. It is fairly clear to me that if there is some kind of offence against a child, be it a photograph or a video depicting a child in some kind of demeaning situation, be it violent or brutal or some kind of sexual exploitation, that is wrong and illegal. The individual involved should be prosecuted and sent away for a long time. It seems fairly straightforward.

As responsible adults we have been charged with writing the laws for this country. Why do we have this big problem with protecting our children? The perpetrators know it is wrong. We know it is wrong and the courts know it is wrong. Somehow or another the courts did get it wrong because they said this guy's rights were violated because he was being prosecuted for owning this stuff. How many kids were violated in order for him to produce that stuff? It was artistic merit so therefore he was entitled to keep it.

We have allowed this society to get pretty sick. Maybe society is getting a bit too perverted and tolerant of the anything goes lifestyle where any kind of sexual lifestyle is tolerated. Perhaps we are even going to give it the blessing of some kind of legal status. If we end up with same sex unions and other kinds of unions, the next thing we know it would be polygamy and people would say it is their right to have two wives, five wives or ten wives.

If it is okay for people of the same sex to have some kind of legal union, what is wrong with people saying that they would like to have two or three wives? They would say it is their right to have that too. The court would say yes, and then we would have turned full circle. We would be right back to exploitation and domination of women which I had thought we had left behind.

I cannot understand why the government cannot just say if it involves kids, it is pornography. It is wrong and illegal, and that is it. There is no defence. It is that simple. We must protect our kids and I hope the government gets the message.

[James Rajotte, Canadian Alliance, Edmonton Southwest, AB]

Madam Speaker, if you check the record, you will see that I have not yet had the opportunity to speak to Bill C-20.

As my colleague from Yellowhead pointed out, this is one of the most important bills that we will deal with in this Parliament because it deals with one of the most fundamental issues of any state or society, which is the protection of children.

We know that the most fundamental purpose of any state, according to any political philosopher throughout history, is the protection of it citizens. The protection of citizens and their property is the foundation of civilization and the first purpose of any state. We can take that further. The protection of the most vulnerable citizens of society is even more important.

I am very pleased to speak to Bill C-20, which is an act to amend the criminal code, protection of children and other vulnerable persons and the Canada Evidence Act.

For the record, I would like to go through exactly what the bill would do. To be fair, we in the opposition should recognize that there are some good intentions behind the bill in trying to address the protection of children. However, we obviously feel that the bill does not go far enough in truly addressing those needs. Therefore, I would like to describe what the bill does.

The bill amends the Criminal Code to, first, amend the child pornography provisions with respect to the type of written material that constitutes child pornography and child pornography defences. This is an issue that has certainly risen to the public's attention in accordance with many of the recent court cases in which people feel that people are using defences that should not be used in the possession of child pornography. On this side of the House, we feel that even the possession of child pornography is exploitation of children and that should not be allowed to happen.

Second, the bill amends the Criminal Code to add a new category to the offence of sexual exploitation of young persons and makes additional amendments to further protect children from sexual exploitation.

Third, the bill increases the maximum penalty for child sexual offences, for failing to provide the necessaries of life and for abandoning a child.

Fourth, it makes child abuse an aggregating factor for the purpose of sentencing.

Fifth, it amends and clarifies the applicable tests and criteria that need to be met for the use of testimonial aids, for excluding the public, for imposing a publication ban, for using video recorded evidence for appointing council or for a self-represented accused to conduct cross examination of certain witnesses.

Finally, it creates an offence of voyeurism and the distribution of voyeuristic materials.

We in the Canadian Alliance have a few main problems with the bill. The legislation is complex and needs to be studied in detail, which I am sure members will do at committee.

We have two main concerns. First, there is no substantial difference between the existing defence of child pornography which, for the record, is artistic merit, educational, scientific or medical purpose and public good. What the legislation does is reduce it to the single broad defence of public good. In our view, this is not sufficient. The previous defence of the community standards test was not sufficient and was in fact rendered ineffective by the Supreme Court in the 1992 Butler case . We think this is the most serious flaw in the legislation because it is not addressed.

The community standards test, just like the public good defence, was 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.

That raises the important relationship between Parliament, where we make laws, pass laws, debate and amend them and the judiciary, which interprets the law. Therefore, when the judiciary has already rendered a decision on one law and found it to be ineffective, we in Parliament should take that as counsel that we ought not to then use the same type of defence.

The courts in this case have made a decision. One can agree or disagree with that decision, but we certainly have to respect it and with this legislation obviously move beyond that defence to be truly fulfilling the purpose of protecting children.

The second concern I want to raise is this. It is clear that the artistic merit defence, while it may have been eliminated on paper or may be missing on paper, may still apply in practice. We obviously have some serious concerns with people using that defence for the possession of child pornography. In our view the minister has simply renamed and repackaged the artistic merit defence.

Additionally, I want to raise a point about the age of sexual consent because the bill does not raise the age of consent for sexual activity between children and adults, and it is important to be specific. The bill creates a category of sexual exploitation with the intended aim of protection of children between the ages of 14 and 18, but it does not raise the age of consent for sexual activity between children and adults. On this point, I do not understand the government's hesitancy in introducing age of sexual consent between children and adults and moving it up to 16. I do not understand the opposition to this.

We have raised this during question period many times. I see the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice is here. Some of the defences I do not understand, such as the concern about how it would impact cultural considerations in different cultural communities and that we would have to take this into account. I was astounded and did not understand that response to that series of answers by the justice minister and others.

In conclusion the bill does not go far enough, particularly with regard to the artistic merit defence in the possession of child pornography and the age of sexual consent. We need to go much further if we are to fulfill the basic responsibility of the state to protect its citizens, particularly the most vulnerable, our children.

[Rick Casson, Canadian Alliance, Lethbridge, AB]

Madam Speaker, we are dealing with Bill C-20 and--

Business of the House

[Don Boudria, Liberal, Minister of State and Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to make the business statement and I will have two motions which relate to that immediately afterward, with the permission of the House.

This afternoon we will consider the Senate amendments to Bill C-12, the sports bill. I understand this will be brief. This will be followed by third reading of Bill C-15, the lobbyists legislation. If time permits, we would then turn to Bill C-20 on child protection, and then possibly Bill C-23, the sex offender registry. I think by then the day will probably have exhausted.

Tomorrow our plan would be to commence with Bill C-2, the Yukon bill, which would then be followed by Bill C-6, the first nations specific claims bill.

When the House returns on March 17 we will complete the budget debate on that day. I will have a motion to offer to the House in a few minutes to defer the vote on that.

March 18 shall be an allotted day, as shall be March 20. I will give an update to members of the House in terms of legislation to be called on March 19.

Mr. Speaker, there have been consultations among the parties and I wish to seek unanimous consent for the following motion. I move:

That, if on March 17, 2003, a division is requested on the main motion for government order, ways and means proceedings No. 2, the said division shall be deferred until the conclusion of the time provided for government orders on March 18, 2003.

For the benefit of members, that refers to the budget motion.

Petitions

[Jay Hill, Canadian Alliance, Prince George—Peace River, BC]

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 36 I am pleased to present a petition containing some 55 signatures from constituents of Chetwynd and Fort St. John in my riding of Prince George--Peace River.

The petitioners call upon Parliament to take all the necessary steps to eradicate every form of child pornography in Canada. Since a clear majority of Canadians are opposed to child pornography, they feel the government should introduce legislation that outlaws all forms of pornography involving children in Canada; that Bill C-20 does not accomplish this; that more needs to be done to protect our children; and that we should act now.

Criminal Code

[The Speaker]

The House will now proceed to the taking of the deferred recorded division on the amendment to the motion at second reading of Bill C-20.

(The House divided on the amendment, which was negatived on the following division:)