Bill C-9 (Historical)

An Act to amend the Criminal Code (conditional sentence of imprisonment)

This enactment amends section 742.1 of the Criminal Code to provide that a person convicted of a serious personal injury offence as defined in section 752 of that Act, a terrorism offence or a criminal organization offence prosecuted by way of indictment for which the maximum term of imprisonment is ten years or more is not eligible for a conditional sentence.

The House resumed consideration of the motion that Bill C-9, An Act to amend the Criminal Code (conditional sentence of imprisonment), be now read the second time and referred to a committee.

The House resumed from May 31 consideration of the motion that Bill C-9, An Act to amend the Criminal Code (conditional sentence of imprisonment), be read the second time and referred to a committee.

Criminal Code

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

moved that Bill C-277, An Act to amend the Criminal Code (luring a child), be read the second time and referred to a committee.

Mr. Speaker, it gives me great pleasure to rise in this House today to speak on Bill C-277. This is a bill which would toughen up prison sentences for those who lure children over the Internet for sexual purposes.

As members know, the proliferation of the Internet has opened up a whole new world for Canadians. The Internet has delivered the potential for tremendous good and has created an information explosion. Unfortunately, as with many other good things in life, the Internet also has its seedy side.

Canada is the most Internet-savvy nation in the world. Almost all Canadian children either use the Internet regularly or have easy access to it. Communicating over the Internet has become commonplace to the point where millions of children spend countless hours every day sending e-mails to each other, participating in news groups and message boards, and engaging in public and private discussions in chat rooms.

It is also true that most Canadian parents mistakenly believe that their children are entirely safe when surfing the Internet. Sadly, nothing could be further from the truth. Many parents have no idea where to place computers in their homes or how to apply parental controls to protect their children.

For all the good the Internet has brought to life on earth, it has also caught the attention of people who sexually exploit children. The Internet allows sexual predators to hide behind false names and false ages as they bring innocent children into their confidence. Their methods are many, but their goal is always the same: to get children to trust them, to slowly but surely engage them in sexual banter, and eventually to encourage them to leave their homes to meet the predator, where it is the predator's intention to sexually exploit and abuse the child.

I cannot imagine a more horrific act than the callous abuse of a vulnerable, unsuspecting child.

Prior to 2002, Canada had no means of prosecuting the sexual predators who were enticing our children to meet them off line. This meant that these criminals, in order to be convicted of an offence, would have to physically meet with the child and engage in a sexual offence as defined by the Criminal Code. Essentially, a child had to be physically victimized before a crime took place.

What was the previous government's response? I want to be fair and give credit where credit is due. In July of 2002, the former Liberal government responded to the ever-increasing threat of children being lured over the Internet. It enacted section 172.1 of the Criminal Code, which makes it a crime to use interactive, online communication to lure a child for the purpose of sexually exploiting him or her. The offence does not require an offender to actually abuse the child. Simply communicating with that child with the intention of luring the child is enough to be convicted of that offence. That was clearly a bold new step.

Since the proclamation of the luring law, there have been numerous convictions under section 172.1, some with prison terms of up to three and a half years. The problem, however, is that when offenders receive sentences of less than two years, the judge has the discretion of imposing a conditional sentence.

In layman's terms, a conditional sentence means that the offender serves the sentence either in the community or often in the comfort of his home. Sadly, there have been a number of cases in which convictions resulted in conditional sentences, where offenders were permitted to serve their sentences at home or otherwise in the community. Let me tell members about one of those cases.

The case involved a 35 year old man who communicated with a person he believed to be under the age of 14. He used a false name. The Internet chat conversations became sexual as the man suggested that this girl engage in sexual acts and meet him at a predetermined location.

He told the girl they could get in trouble for what they were about to do because of her age, a clear indication that he knew what he was doing was against the law. He then drove 22 kilometres to meet the girl and was arrested at the meeting spot. The man received an 18 month sentence. However, that sentence was to be served in the community--house arrest.

To me it is incomprehensible that a sexual predator of this nature would be allowed to serve his sentence in the community, where he could have potentially unrestricted access to the Internet and to children if he desired to break the conditions of his sentence.

There is something else compounding the apparent inconsistency in sentencing. That is the fact that the courts have not yet had to deal with repeat offenders due to the short history of this luring offence. It is highly likely that in the future there will be those who will become repeat offenders for this crime, yet the maximum sentence currently available is only five years.

The weight of scientific and medical literature indicates that many sexual predators, especially pedophiles, are not treatable and represent a lifelong threat to our communities. Allowing these offenders to serve their time in the community, with relatively easy access to computers and children, represents a grave danger to our young children.

That is where Bill C-277 comes into play. This bill changes the law by increasing the maximum prison sentence for a child luring offence from 5 years to 10. On the face of it, it is quite simple. However, that is not the end of the story. As we know, the government has tabled another criminal justice bill, Bill C-9, which would remove the availability of conditional sentences, including house arrest, for serious crimes. Clearly, luring is a serious crime.

Typically, serious crimes have been defined as crimes for which the maximum sentence is 10 years in prison or more. Increasing the maximum sentence for child luring to 10 years will also trigger the provisions of Bill C-9, if enacted. This will ensure that those convicted of luring a child will spend hard time in jail and not have a cushy existence in the comfort of their homes.

Protection of the most vulnerable people in our society, our children, is the objective of Bill C-277. The threat to our children who use the Internet is rising, so much so that the Government of Manitoba has implemented a program called Cybertip, an Internet and telephone tip line for suspected sex offences against children.

This program allows citizens who suspect that children are being targeted by online predators to notify the authorities, either by registering a tip on the Internet or by telephoning Cybertip. It also educates parents in the dos and don'ts of Internet usage by children and on how to protect their children against Internet luring. The program compiles statistics and data to assist governments, criminologists and police authorities in cracking down on the sexual exploitation of children.

During its first two full years of operation, Cybertip received over 1,200 reports of child exploitation, 10% of which involved the sexual luring of children. The program has been such a resounding success that it has now become our national tip line.

A number of different studies reveal some shocking statistics. Fourteen per cent of children surveyed admitted that they had chatted with strangers while online. Parents reported that 4% of their children had had an off-line meeting with someone they had first encountered on the Internet. In fact, in a survey of 300 Canadian youth, one in five admitted meeting face to face with people they had first met on the Internet.

Other nations with high Internet use rates have also found it necessary to enact legislation to deal with child luring over the Internet. The United States, for example, has a federal child luring law that is broader in scope than our own. It criminalizes luring that occurs in any form, not just via a computer system, and it places a mandatory minimum sentence of five years on the offender, with a maximum sentence of 30 years' imprisonment.

The United Kingdom has a luring law which was enacted in 2002 and targets adults who meet a child they have contacted over the Internet for sexual purposes. This law enables police to conduct sting operations and apprehend sex offenders who show intent to meet with an underage child. The maximum penalty for that offence is 14 years in prison.

In Australia, the law against luring is captured by a new “grooming” offence. It makes it an offence for adults to target children over the Internet or through any form of telecommunications and attempts to show that this country is going to become tough on crime. The maximum penalty is 12 years' imprisonment. However, if the child is under the age of 16, the maximum penalty increases to 15 years.

As we can see from these three comparative jurisdictions, Bill C-277, even with a maximum sentence of 10 years, is still the least severe of all of them.

The gravity of this problem of luring cannot be understated. Sexual predators are engaging in grooming techniques where they first gain the child's trust, empathize with their home situation and gradually acclimatize the child to further sexual situations and eventual meetings with the predator. It is widely reported that children with depression, low self-esteem and difficult home lives are especially vulnerable to the attention of adults on the Internet who pretend to care.

This makes the act that much more repulsive.

Sexual predators who seek out and target the most vulnerable children in our society deserve severe sentences in jail, not in the community. Raising the maximum penalty for their crimes to 10 years in prison is fully justified and is necessary in order to deter these offenders and send a clear message that luring a child over the Internet will come with swift and certain justice.

Clearly Canada needs the most effective legislation possible on luring in order to prevent it and condemn it in the strongest terms.

What does the bill achieve? It does three things.

First, by raising the maximum sentence for luring to 10 years in prison, the bill sends a stronger message to our community that we as a society will not tolerate the exploitation of our children.

Second, the bill ensures that those convicted of an indictable offence under the luring section will spend hard time in jail, away from the community and from those who are at risk from the offender.

Third, Bill C-277 brings the penalties for luring in line with most of the other sexual offences listed in part V of the Criminal Code. Most of those provide for maximum sentences of at least 10 years and up to life in prison. I think all of us can agree that the luring of a child for sexual purposes is no less an offence.

Does Bill C-277 completely address the problem of sexual exploitation over the Internet? Of course not. I want to close by challenging parents to take ownership of their children's computer time, to learn about parental control programs on their computers, to place their child's computer in a highly visible area where supervision is readily available and to spend time learning how to make their child's Internet experience a safe one. Above all, they should get to know their children better and share their personal struggles and challenges with them.

When the Liberals enacted section 172.1 of the Criminal Code, it was a good start. Bill C-277 is another step in the right direction. It is my hope that this legislation will be enacted quickly on a multi-partisan basis. Our children truly are worth it.

The House resumed from May 29 consideration of the motion that Bill C-9, An Act to amend the Criminal Code (conditional sentence of imprisonment) be read the second time and referred to a committee.

The House resumed consideration of the motion that Bill C-9, An Act to amend the Criminal Code (conditional sentence of imprisonment), be read the second time and referred to a committee.

[Vic Toews, Conservative, Provencher, MB]

Mr. Speaker, in answer to the member's first question, the role of a judge is to interpret constitutionally appropriate law and apply the law. This is the role of the judge. It is the role of Parliament to establish policy, including sentencing policy.

With respect to my colleague's suggestion to simply appeal these cases, quite frankly that has been tried on numerous occasions. In fact, when I was the Attorney General of Manitoba, I sent a number of cases not only to the Court of Appeal, but beyond the Court of Appeal, to the Supreme Court of Canada. On impaired driving causing death or injury, the Supreme Court of Canada said it is appropriate to give conditional sentences or house arrest.

We have seen manslaughter cases now given conditional sentences. We see cocaine traffic dealers regularly getting conditional sentences. These are all at the Court of Appeal level.

As we know, as a general rule, the Supreme Court of Canada does not hear appeals on sentencing. Therefore, in many provinces the bar has been established. Quite frankly, that bar is too low. The responsibility now of this Parliament is to reset that bar.

In respect of the suggestion that somehow all discretion is now taken out of sentencing, this is, quite frankly, wrong. My colleague knows that suspended sentences and probation orders are still available.

I heard one comment that in a probation order a person cannot be told not to drink alcohol. That is a standard condition of a probation order. If we need to work on how to improve probation orders, then that is another issue. Conditional sentences simply are not appropriate for the kinds of matters that the government has brought forward in Bill C-9.

[Vic Toews, Conservative, Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada]

moved that Bill C-9, An Act to amend the Criminal Code (conditional sentence of imprisonment), be read the second time and referred to a committee.

[Vic Toews, Conservative, Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada]

moved for leave to introduce Bill C-9, An Act to amend the Criminal Code (conditional sentence of imprisonment).

(Motions deemed adopted, bill read the first time and printed)