Bill C-47 (Historical)

Technical Assistance for Law Enforcement in the 21st Century Act

An Act regulating telecommunications facilities to support investigations

This enactment requires telecommunications service providers to put in place and maintain certain capabilities that facilitate the lawful interception of information transmitted by telecommunications and to provide basic information about their subscribers to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, the Commissioner of Competition and any police service constituted under the laws of a province.

Disposition of Abolition of Early Parole Act

[Alexandra Mendes, Liberal, Brossard—La Prairie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to participate in the debate on the motion to prevent debate on the content and substance of Bill C-59. I find it rather odd that the Bloc has supported the government's attempt to stifle any attempt at debate on the substance of this bill.

No one in the House can accuse the Liberals of not supporting the idea of eliminating parole eligibility after one-sixth of the sentence is served for economic crimes. Two years ago, my colleague from Bourassa, our candidate in Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert and our member for Lac-Saint-Louis participated in a press conference with several of Earl Jones' victims to call on the government to quickly bring forward a bill to eliminate parole eligibility after one-sixth of the sentence is served, especially for criminals who commit major fraud and have multiple victims.

No one can accuse the Liberals of not supporting that idea. I think it is really dishonest of the government to make that kind of accusation when it knows very well what the Liberals' position is. This was pointed out by my colleague from Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine.

Now I would like to talk about the debate and the fact that the Conservatives and the Bloc members want to limit the scope of the debate. Just seven months ago the members of the Bloc rose in the House to criticize the government for doing the exact same thing it is doing now with Bill C-59. The government moved a motion to block debate.

Last June, the member for Saint-Maurice—Champlain rose in the House to criticize the government for moving a motion to block debate on the Canada-Colombia Free Trade Agreement Implementation Act. The Bloc member for Hochelaga also rose to oppose a government motion to block debate on Bill C-9, the Jobs and Economic Growth Act, by imposing time allocation.

We are opposed to this time allocation motion because we believe that Bill C-59 addresses a very important issue. Furthermore, for two years now, the Liberals have been calling on the government to eliminate parole eligibility after one-sixth of the sentence is served for economic crimes like those committed by Earl Jones, Vincent Lacroix and others.

I think it is a shame that some would have people believe that the Liberals do not want to protect victims. That is simply not true. When the government introduced Bill C-21 on economic crimes and it was referred to committee, the Liberal justice critic proposed an amendment to the bill to eliminate eligibility for parole after one-sixth of the sentence in cases of economic crime. The Conservatives and the Bloc defeated the motion.

Every MP is entitled to his or her opinion on bills that we are called on to debate in the House. It is a fundamental aspect of the democratic process. The operative word here is “debate”, and the collusion between the Conservatives and the Bloc is preventing us from acting as responsible parliamentarians.

We would like to hear from experts. We want to know how this bill will truly address a gap in the law, how it will do justice to victims, how this bill will improve the chances of rehabilitation for those who once lost control of their lives.

Perhaps we should indeed eliminate parole after one-sixth of a sentence for offenders who have committed serious economic crimes and left a number of victims.

However, for non-violent criminal acts that are not fraud, we believe that evidence has shown that parole after one-sixth of a sentence has been very effective and that the rate of recidivism is much lower.

We will never know what the experts might have said since this closure motion eliminates any chance to consult experts. With this government so eager to control everything, it has become somewhat of a tradition to just pass a bill without any idea of the facts that might call it into question.

The Liberals are against this closure motion. It is not justified, and we regret that the Bloc has decided to join the Conservatives to limit the debate on this bill. As far as the substance of the bill is concerned, in the past and still today, no one could accuse the Liberals of not showing their support for eliminating parole after one-sixth of the sentence for economic crimes.

In order to illustrate the government's intellectual dishonesty, I would like to present a chronology of the Conservatives' failures in their so-called fight against crime.

I am referring here to the various bills that have died on the order paper for all sorts of reasons or that have remained in the House or at committee indefinitely.

Here they are. Bill C-15, An Act to amend the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act and to make related and consequential amendments to other Acts, died on the order paper when Parliament was prorogued; Bill C-19, An Act to amend the Criminal Code (investigative hearing and recognizance with conditions), died on the order paper before the House had a chance to vote on it; Bill C-26, An Act to amend the Criminal Code (auto theft and trafficking in property obtained by crime), also died on the order paper. It is certainly not the opposition that forced the government to prorogue Parliament.

Bill C-31, An Act to amend the Criminal Code, the Corruption of Foreign Public Officials Act and the Identification of Criminals Act and to make a consequential amendment to another Act, died on the order paper, and Bill C-36, An Act to amend the Criminal Code, on the faint hope clause, died on the order paper before being brought back this session. One committee meeting was held on Bill C-46, An Act to amend the Criminal Code, the Competition Act and the Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters Act, before it died on the order paper. Bill C-52, An Act to amend the Criminal Code (sentencing for fraud), which is related to Bill C-59, the bill we are dealing with today, died on the order paper when Parliament was prorogued. Bill C-58, An Act respecting the mandatory reporting of Internet child pornography by persons who provide an Internet service, died on the order paper. The prorogation of Parliament killed many bills.

Among the bills introduced by the Minister of Public Safety was Bill C-34, the Protecting Victims From Sex Offenders Act, which also died on the order paper. The bill to deter terrorism and to amend the State Immunity Act died on the order paper. Bill C-43, An Act to amend the Corrections and Conditional Release Act and the Criminal Code, died on the order paper. Bill C-47, An Act regulating telecommunications facilities to support investigations, died on the order paper. Bill C-53, An Act to amend the Corrections and Conditional Release Act (accelerated parole review) and to make consequential amendments to other Acts, died on the order paper. Bill C-60, An Act to implement the Framework Agreement on Integrated Cross-Border Maritime Law Enforcement Operations between the Government of Canada and the Government of the United States of America, died on the order paper.

To date, no meetings have been held to discuss Bill C-16, An Act to amend the Criminal Code. Bill C-17, An Act to amend the Criminal Code (investigative hearing and recognizance with conditions), was given first reading 51 days after Parliament was prorogued, and the committee still has not met to discuss that bill.

Bill C-21, An Act to amend the Criminal Code (sentencing for fraud), was fast-tracked at committee in just one meeting and still has not reached second reading. Bill C-22, An Act respecting the mandatory reporting of Internet child pornography by persons who provide an Internet service, was given first reading 64 days after Parliament was prorogued, and the government delayed it for 26 days at report stage because of the debate on the short title.

Bill C-48, An Act to amend the Criminal Code and to make consequential amendments to the National Defence Act, was given first reading 89 days after Parliament was prorogued, and we are still waiting for the next step. Bill C-50, An Act to amend the Criminal Code (interception of private communications and related warrants and orders), was given first reading after 94 days, and we are still waiting. First reading of An Act to amend the Criminal Code, the Competition Act and the Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters Act took place 243 days after Parliament was prorogued. Bill C-53, An Act to amend the Criminal Code (mega-trials), was given first reading and nothing more.

Bill C-54, An Act to amend the Criminal Code (sexual offences against children) only made it to first reading. Bill C-5, An Act to amend the International Transfer of Offenders Act was introduced at first reading by the Minister of Public Safety 15 days after prorogation. Two committee meetings were held and nothing has happened since. As for Bill C-23B, An Act to amend the Criminal Records Act and to make consequential amendments to other Acts, we are still waiting. After a few meetings on the subject, the minister was supposed to come back with amendments that he felt were necessary in order to make the bill more comprehensive and definitely more respectful. Bill C-39, An Act to amend the Corrections and Conditional Release Act and to make consequential amendments to other Acts was introduced for first reading 104 days after prorogation and we still have not met in committee to discuss it. Bill C-49, An Act to amend the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, the Balanced Refugee Reform Act and the Marine Transportation Security Act was introduced for first reading 232 days after prorogation and there it remains. Bill C-52, An Act regulating telecommunications facilities to support investigations was also introduced for first reading 243 days after prorogation and we are waiting for the next step. The Senate introduced Bill S-7, An Act to deter terrorism and to amend the State Immunity Act for first reading 49 days after prorogation and we are still waiting for the next step. Bill S-10, An Act to amend the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act and to make related and consequential amendments to other Acts was introduced for first reading in the Senate 60 days after prorogation. Bill S-13, An Act to implement the Framework Agreement on Integrated Cross-Border Maritime Law Enforcement Operations between the Government of Canada and the Government of the United States of America was introduced for first reading 237 days after prorogation.

I am pointing this out to prove that it is not the opposition parties that are slowing the process down. For all sorts of unknown reasons, the government introduces these bill and then goes no further with them.

To conclude, I would like to question the justification for Bill C-59 and the fact that the Conservatives and the Bloc felt this was urgent enough to warrant this closure motion, which is an affront to parliamentary dialogue.

Protecting Victims From Sex Offenders Act

[Maria Mourani, Bloc, Ahuntsic, QC]

Madam Speaker, it is a great honour for me to speak today on Bill S-2, which is an exact copy of Bill C-34 as amended by the Standing Committee on Public Safety during the last Parliament.

We were in favour of Bill C-34 in principle and the witnesses we heard—I was also on the committee at the time—reinforced us in our position. We proposed some amendments that were adopted. By the way, I would like to congratulate my colleague from Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, with whom I worked on this file.

The Bloc Québécois is in favour of this bill on the sex offender registry. It is further proof that when we work on bills, we work on them one at a time in a constructive spirit, without engaging in the demagoguery and Conservative grandstanding to which we have become accustomed.

First, I would like to remind the House that the current Sex Offender Information Registration Act came into force on December 15, 2004.

Bill S-2 is intended to make the sex offender registry more effective and helpful to police forces in their preventive efforts as well as during investigations of sex crimes.

It aims, therefore, to register more people convicted of sex crimes and to include more information about them, especially their DNA.

Bill S-2 also imposes further obligations on the individuals listed in the registry if they move or expect to be absent from their homes for an extended period.

Some changes were made. Specifically, in addition to adding more offences that result in inclusion on the registry, clause 5 of the bill changes the procedure through which the courts order inclusion on it.

In the case of what are called direct sexual offences, the current system gives the crown attorney a choice of whether or not to ask for the person to be included on the registry after being convicted of the offence.

With the new registry in Bill S-2, this is no longer in the hands of the Crown. As soon as someone is convicted and sentenced for a sex crime, he or she must automatically comply and be included on the registry. I want to make it clear that this applies to sex crimes.

Furthermore, the new clause eliminates the exemption that applied when the offender established that the impact of his or her inclusion on the registry, including on personal privacy or liberty, would be grossly disproportionate to the protection of society.

In other words, when a direct sexual offence is committed, registration is automatic. Individuals convicted can no longer justify that their inclusion on the registry would be disproportionate to the penalties they would suffer in their private lives or regarding their liberty.

For other designated crimes, those known as serious crimes or conspiracy to commit a sex offence, thus more indirect crimes, at that point it is up to the Crown prosecutor to determine whether to ask the court to include the individual on the sex offender registry.

Clause 40 of Bill S-2 also makes an important change regarding how the registry can be used. Under current legislation, the registry can only be used when there are reasonable grounds to believe that a sex offence has been committed. Bill S-2 allows police to consult the registry for prevention purposes.

In addition, if this bill passes, there will be a correlation among offences that lead to inclusion on the sex offender registry and the sex offender's obligation to provide a sample of bodily fluids in order to add his or her DNA to the national DNA data bank.

Now I would like to talk a little about money. As my Liberal colleague and my colleague from Marc-Aurèle-Fortin mentioned, this will call for a lot more analyses, whether for investigations or for prevention.

In its last budget, the government announced $14 million over two years for DNA testing. In fact, in April 2009, in committee, we met with the directors of two major laboratories, one in Quebec and the other in Ontario. The third laboratory in Canada is the RCMP laboratory. Mr. Prime, from the Centre of Forensic Sciences, and Mr. Dufour, from the Laboratoire de sciences judiciaires et de médecine légale, told us in April 2009 not only that was there no agreement with the federal government, but that they also had to do a huge number of tests with very little money. Unfortunately, it might take over a year to get results.

On March 18, the minister met with us at the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security. We asked him questions about this, but we did not get many answers. I have also spoken with a few officials, who have confirmed that there was still no agreement with Quebec and Ontario. They were not even able to tell us how much of the $7 million would be going to the laboratories in Quebec and Ontario.

If we look to previous funding, it was approximately $2 million per laboratory. We might imagine that there is really no increase. With this bill, whether or not it is intended, there is going to be a major problem if we do not invest more money in forensic laboratories. We are certainly going to see increases.

I will be told that this is nothing new. We see all the bills they are introducing. We see people being increasingly treated like criminals. They want to have longer sentences, but they are investing billions of dollars in just anything, be it for a G8 or for a G20. Obviously we will have to invest billions of dollars in correctional services and for public safety. When a decision is made to incarcerate people, they have to be sent somewhere. I hope it will not happen as it usually does, that they will invest in bricks and mortar, but nothing will be put into programs. In correctional services, at present, 2% or 2.5% of the total budget is allocated to programs.

I will continue on the subject of Bill S-2. The present legislation provides that the database may not be used where there are reasonable grounds to believe that a crime of a sexual nature has been committed. With Bill S-2, the database can be searched. But it will cost, and it will cost a lot.

The Bloc Québécois believes that police forces must be given tools that, on the one hand, effectively prevent and fight crime and, on the other, do not trample the fundamental rights of Quebec and Canadian citizens.

The proper protection of our children requires a number of tools. One of them, which is important and seems fundamental to me, is the Internet. Unfortunately, it is also the tool of choice for the child pornography industry. I will provide some statistics in support of my comments.

It is estimated that more than 65,000 people—I find this to be a conservative figure as I believe the number to be much higher—exchange child pornography, both photos and videos, on the Internet. In February 2009, the Ontario Provincial Police dismantled a child pornography ring involving 31 people in different Ontario communities.

Mr. Stewart, of the OPP child sexual exploitation section, stated: “Unfortunately, I believe there's thousands of children we're not getting to, and that's particularly difficult.”

In 2004, 480,000 child pornography sites were identified in the world, compared to 4,300 in 1996. In addition to movies, more than five million images of sexually abused children are circulating on the Internet. The pictures are becoming increasingly explicit and feature younger children and the use of violence. Many movies are shot live for the entertainment of pedophile clients and they show abominable sexual abuse of children under the age of seven.

In addition, it is estimated that there are between 50,000 and 100,000 organized child pornography rings, with a third operating in the United States and a portion in Russia. Are we immune to it? No, and I will cover that. We also have a large number of these types of sites. I am not talking about individual sites or images put on the Internet by a “family man” who abuses his child. I am not talking about amateurs, but about organized professionals.

According to research conducted by Cybertip.ca from 2002 to 2009, 57.4% of images on Internet sites containing child pornography depicted children under 8 years of age; 24.7% showed children aged 8 to 12; and 83% were of girls. More than 35% of the images analyzed showed serious sexual assaults. Children under 8 were most often depicted being abused through sexual assault (37.2%), and 68.5% of extreme sexual assaults occurred against children under 8. Canada is in the top three. That is amazing. According to Statistics Canada figures, we rank third in the world among countries that host child pornography sites. The United States ranks first with 49.2% and Russia, second with 20.4%. Who is in third place? We are, with 9%.

We also have people who produce child pornography in Canada. A police officer told me he had even seen images of assaults on newborns. We have to wonder.

I mention this because Bill S-2, which is a rehash of a previous bill, is not the only bill that targets this sort of crime. There are also Bills C-46 and C-47, which still have not been reintroduced here in the House.

Since 1999, police forces across Canada have been calling for a law that would respect human rights, of course, but would force Internet service providers to reveal the IP addresses of their pedophile clients and to have the technology to keep that information.

On April 22, during his testimony before the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security, Mr. Sullivan, who was then the Federal Ombudsman for Victims of Crime and who had been appointed by this government, answered my question. I asked him what he thought about the fact that these bills still had not been reintroduced. He answered, “...if I were the Prime Minister today the Internet bill would be my absolute priority; it would be number one in the justice reform areas.”

Mr. Sullivan perfectly described the problem resulting from the fact that this legislation is not on the books. I will read what he said. It is horrible.

Right now, depending on where you are in the country and what ISP company you're working with.... Some ISPs will actually cooperate with law enforcement, and some won't.

We've heard about cases from law enforcement. They have an IP address. They actually are able to trace the guy to where he lives, and they go, because he's trading in child pornography.

They actually found and arrested the person. He had with him his 11-month-old son, who he was sexually abusing. Now, law enforcement had no information that this was taking place. They had no idea that this child was in that situation. Had they not tracked him down, that child today, four years later, would still be undergoing sexual abuse. The longer we delay these initiatives to give law enforcement the tools, the more kids are going to be abused. I think that makes everybody angry.

I find that disappointing, especially since we know how many years it can take to develop a bill. It is high time that this be passed.

The former victims' ombudsman lamented the fact that in 2007 the former public safety minister and member for Okanagan—Coquihalla did not want to follow up on repeated requests from the police to adapt investigative tools to the current Internet reality. However, in fall of 2009, the Conservative government finally introduced Bills C-46 and C-47 to respond to this Internet loophole. And what did the Prime Minister do? He prorogued the House and these bills died on the order paper. How convenient. It was put off until fall and then they prorogued a few months later, as if by chance. And they did not reintroduce them.

The Conservatives say that pedophiles are a priority and that this is a serious issue. As usual, they are serving up the same old announcements, about victims and children. They are grandstanding for everyone, trying to score political points. They are not really fighting crime. Have they reintroduced the bills? No. Why? That is the million-dollar question given that this government says that it wants to protect children and fight against crime and criminals.

Here is the question we must ask ourselves: what interests are preventing this government, which claims to be a champion when it comes to cracking down on pedophiles, from bringing back the old bills C-46 and C-47 so that we can study them in committee and improve them? Police forces have been waiting for 10 years now, and this government, despite advice from the former victims' ombudsman, has still not dealt with an issue that the ombudsman and I both believe could save children's lives. Ask any police officer; they will all say the same thing.

There is something else that just does not make sense. In my riding, and probably in other ridings in Quebec and Canada, the government is letting pedophiles live in halfway houses and community correctional centres near elementary schools and daycares. That makes no sense. I have asked three different public safety ministers about this. Three public safety ministers later, nothing has happened. That is absurd. Can a government that makes a huge show of introducing big, important bills not send a simple directive to community correctional centres through Correctional Service Canada? These centres are not even private; they belong to the CSC. The government cannot even send out a simple directive to ensure that there will no longer be pedophiles near elementary schools.

The government is waiting for another scandal to break out. Then they will react, just as they did with Olson and Karla Homolka. They will react by saying that the matter is very serious and that they want to introduce a bill.

That is shameful. According to the former ombudsman, every month that goes by, children could have been saved, as I said before.

As we speak, children are being attacked on the Internet, and pedophiles are living near schools. I would like to know when the government will take real action to properly protect our children.

[Chantal Bernier]

In the legislative drafting, sometimes we are consulted, but in the case of Bill C-46 and Bill C-47, we had been consulted throughout the years in the preparation of this legislation. But then it was tabled and we reacted after it was tabled.

[Chantal Bernier]

In Canada, of course, as you know, the efforts in that regard took the form of Bill C-46 and Bill C-47, which died on the order paper. That would not allow interception of communications without a warrant. What that would allow is for an Internet service provider to give the law enforcement authorities or national security authorities the customer name and address behind an IP address. That is the effort that the Canadian government has made to have some widening of—

[Chantal Bernier]

Yes. For instance, the first step in our analysis of former Bills C-46 and C-47 was to sit down with them and ask them to justify the powers conferred to them under the bills. So numerous meetings were held, experts who were no longer necessarily at the agencies—so who had a certain perspective—performed an analysis and people in academia were consulted.

We formed our own opinion, we did our own analysis of the bill, and we wrote to the chair of the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security. And we sent a copy of that letter to the chair of your committee. In the letter, we raised some real questions about the two bills.

[Chantal Bernier, Assistant Privacy Commissioner, Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada]

What we did was set up four task forces to really focus our efforts on the four priorities, which, as the commissioner said, were chosen for their relevance and because they represent the biggest risks to privacy today.

The national security task force worked hard and made significant strides in a number of areas, in terms of expanding our knowledge and understanding of the issues, and forging stronger ties with national security and law enforcement agencies to ensure we really understood everything involved. Internally, we also carried out more in-depth analyses. We focused on analyses addressing all aspects of national security, including the FINTRAC audit. You will recall that the audit was published recently. Our analysis of former Bills C-46 and C-47 is another example.

We organized workshops to discuss the issues surrounding genetic technologies. It is an area where a lot is still unknown. We did so of our own accord and in cooperation with Genome Canada. In terms of information technology, there again, we strengthened our capacity by engaging experts and keeping a very close eye on all technological developments.

Lastly, in terms of identity integrity, most of our focus was on public education and youth outreach, in order to ensure that Canadians are able to protect themselves against identity theft.

[Maria Mourani, Bloc, Ahuntsic, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Sullivan, your Every Image, Every Child report is key. Right now, children are being sexually assaulted, and at a younger and younger age. The violence they suffer is increasingly brutal, and the images are being shown on the Internet. The report says that 750,000 pedophiles are online at any given time, and that 37% are family members and 36% are acquaintances. So they are people who can be caught easily. They are not in Thailand or other countries where they cannot be located.

Correct me if I am wrong. In the 1990s, almost 5,000 images were said to be on the Internet, and today there are millions of images and videos. Currently, police officers have to make a request to obtain an IP address. IP addresses are essential. Let's talk about Bills C-46 and C-47. Bill C-46 sought to require Internet service providers to have the technology to keep information, and Bill C-47 made it possible to obtain IP addresses. Both bills died on the order paper, Mr. Sullivan.

As we speak, children are being assaulted. Police have been waiting for 10 years, and nothing has happened. Are you angry? I am, because these two bills did not come back up. Do you think that is normal?

[Maria Mourani, Bloc, Ahuntsic, QC]

I read your report entitled Every Child, Every Image, and I have to tell you that it really struck me. I have done a lot of work in the area of child abuse. I have long been criticizing the fact that IP addresses are not automatically available to the police. They should be. Bills C-46 and C-47, which we supported, should have been referred to the committee for study, but they died because Parliament was prorogued, and they did not come up again. Law enforcement has been waiting on them for 10 years.

What do you make of this government's willingness to implement these bills in order to give police access to IP addresses?

[John Baird, Conservative, Ottawa West—Nepean, ON]

A good outcome; that's right. That's one thing the member for Ottawa--Vanier and I can firmly agree on.

Mr. Chair, members of the committee, I would like to thank you for your invitation to discuss the Air Canada Public Participation Act. Before I begin, I would like to take a moment to congratulate you for your excellent work on the official languages file.

While I am here to talk about Air Canada, I understand that your committee also considered official language obligations at airports last fall, so I would like to take a minute to clarify the federal government's role in those.

All national airport authorities have official languages obligations by virtue of the Airport Transfer Act and the Official Languages Act. The President of the Treasury Board is responsible for the Official Languages Act, while the Office of the Chief Human Resources Officer of the Treasury Board Secretariat is responsible for defining, monitoring, and enforcing language obligations. Later this month, I understand, the Office of the Chief Human Resources Officer will be issuing clarifications with respect to the official languages obligations of airport authorities. I look forward to seeing that work.

Now let us focus on Air Canada. As you know, when Air Canada was a crown corporation it was subject to the Official Languages Act. While the Official Languages Act itself is very broad in scope, two provisions are of particular interest when speaking about official language obligations of Air Canada: one, the duty to provide service to the public in both official languages; two, the rights of employees to work in their official language of choice.

When Air Canada was privatized in 1988, official language obligations were maintained on the company through the Air Canada Public Participation Act.

To this day, it is the only carrier in Canada subject to the Official Languages Act. However, all carriers must provide safety and security information in both Official Languages. In 2000, Air Canada acquired Canadian Airlines International, which had a largely unilingual anglophone workforce. At that time the Air Canada Public Participation Act was amended to ensure that Air Canada subsidiaries providing air services to the public did so in both official languages. The effect of this amendment was to require Air Canada to ensure that its subsidiary, Jazz, met legislated requirements to serve the public in a bilingual way.

Then, in 2003, Air Canada filed for bankruptcy protection. After significant restructuring, the carrier successfully exited from bankruptcy protection on September 30, 2004, with a new corporate structure that reflected a strategy focused on maximizing the value of the individual components of the company.

Coming out of restructuring and to this day, the Air Canada Public Participation Act continues to apply to Air Canada, including full official language obligations. Similarly, any future Air Canada subsidiaries will continue to be bound by the official languages obligation under the Air Canada Public Participation Act as currently constituted. However, as a result of the organizational restructuring, official languages obligations no longer apply with respect to operations that have been moved out from under Air Canada. For example, the Air Canada Public Participation Act does not apply to ACE Aviation Holdings Inc., which had been the parent company of Air Canada since its restructuring.

On June 15, 2006, your committee tabled a report regarding the application of the Official Languages Act to Air Canada and ACE Aviation Holdings Inc. The report called upon the government to reintroduce legislation that would be similar in scope and effect to Bill C-47 which died on the order paper the year before.

Late in 2006, our government introduced amendments to the Air Canada Public Participation Act through Bill C-29. The bill was designed to maintain full official languages obligations for former internal divisions of Air Canada that had been spun off and were controlled by ACE Aviation Holdings Inc.; to extend obligations to provide bilingual services to the public, to Jazz, and any future affiliates of Air Canada that provided air services, as long as they were controlled by ACE Aviation Holdings Inc.; and to ensure that ACE Aviation Holdings Inc. provided communications to the public in both official languages.

Bill C-29 died on the order paper when Parliament was prorogued in September 2007. It was reintroduced as Bill C-36, with no further amendments. Bill C-36 died on the order paper on September 7, 2008, as a result of the 2008 election.

Although many years have passed since Air Canada was a crown corporation and much has happened in the interim, official language obligations at Air Canada are still viewed by many Canadians and by our government as important. Our government is committed to upholding the Official Languages Act and protecting and promoting both official languages.

As articulated in the Speech from the Throne, Canada's two official languages are an integral part of our history and our government will continue to strengthen Canada's francophone identity.

We also should consider that the best way to maintain and advance official language rights in aviation is to ensure a healthy and viable industry. The airline industry is and has been facing significant economic challenges, such as the long-term impacts of September 11, 2001, high fuel costs, as well as the effects of communicable diseases such as the H1N1 virus.

However, amid these practical challenges, Air Canada has clearly demonstrated significant efforts to uphold its official language obligations, as indicated by various committee testimonies. The Commissioner of Official Languages tells me that in the lead-up to the Olympic Games they did a lot. This demonstrates that when they make a concentrated effort they can do better. The number of complaints received by the commissioner also indicates that they need to do better.

At a 2009 meeting of this committee, Ms. Louise McEvoy, General Manager of Official Languages and Diversity at Air Canada, reiterated the airline's commitment to improving bilingual capacity throughout the human resources cycle, including recruitment, hiring and training.

In preparation for the Vancouver Olympic Games, Air Canada held mandatory sessions for Vancouver employees not qualified in French, and planned similar sessions for employees in other cities. The goal of these sessions was to ensure that the official languages rights of all Air Canada consumers were respected, including in instances where employees were not officially qualified to do so.

I'm told that Air Canada has mounted publicity campaigns to attract additional bilingual candidates across the country and has noted in comments to the committee that attracting some individuals in certain regions has been difficult. I understand that some of you provided suggestions to improve that recruitment strategy, and I hope the suggestions will yield improved results.

Air Canada's testimony speaks to its dedication to upholding its official languages obligations under the Official Languages Act. Furthermore, following a recent discussion with the Commissioner of Official Languages, it is important to note the efforts made by Air Canada during the Olympic Games and that the efforts and investments made by this carrier paid off.

I would also like to note that my discussions with the Commissioner of Official Languages touched on the subject of strengthening Air Canada's compliance with its linguistic obligations. I was pleased to learn that his team will conduct a detailed audit regarding Air Canada and its obligations to provide bilingual service to the public. In meetings with employees and unions, this study will carefully examine the hiring practices, the designation of bilingual positions and the linguistic training of the Air Canada personnel in order to determine the underlying reasons for the complaints pertaining to official languages. I not only commend the efforts of the commissioner but I am also eager to review the conclusions of his study.

I am mindful that continuing to trace official language obligations to parts of an organization that are increasingly independent creates practical challenges. ACE Aviation Holdings and Air Canada, as private companies, can and likely will continue to modify their organizational structures for both corporate and economic reasons.

For example, Air Canada Cargo, which was spun off after the 2003-04 restructuring, has since been repatriated within Air Canada and is once again covered by the Air Canada Public Participation Act and the Official Languages Act.

I have also discussed with Commissioner Fraser the issue of Air Canada contractors such as Jazz and have noted the concerns of the member for Acadie--Bathurst who provided a personal example from one of his trips aboard Jazz.

In this context, I would like to note that I have also asked the commissioner to obtain more information on the nature of complaints that have been received regarding Jazz. Given that Jazz is a private company contracted by Air Canada, Air Canada, therefore, under article 25 of the Official Languages Act, has an obligation to ensure the services provided to the public on its behalf are in both official languages.

Because Jazz is not a federal institution under the Official Languages Act and has not been a subsidiary of Air Canada since 2008, the official languages commissioner has informed me that he cannot intervene directly with Jazz, but can only intervene with Air Canada, who is responsible for the official languages obligations.

I have asked my officials and my office staff to obtain more information from Air Canada to know how it maintains its obligations under the Official Languages Act with contractors such as Jazz and how it will work to enhance this practice in the future.

I am proud of the accomplishments of our Conservative government in the official language file. Our concrete actions, such as our funding for official languages, clearly demonstrate our commitment to preserve bilingualism in Canada.

I admit that the Air Canada file is a complex one, however, it is nevertheless important that we stay the course and keep working with the key stakeholders, such as the Commissioner of Official Languages, the carrier, my cabinet colleagues, such as the Minister for Official Languages, and you, members of the committee, to find solutions to the challenges that I have just mentioned.

It is important that Air Canada continue to meet its obligations under the Air Canada Public Participation Act and the Official Languages Act. I welcome the advice and thoughts of this committee and welcome the opportunity to have a dialogue.

Thank you. Merci.

[Brent Rathgeber, Conservative, Edmonton—St. Albert, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to all the witnesses for your attendance today and for the jobs you perform in keeping Canadians safe.

I just really have one line of questioning, and that is with respect to two pieces of legislation that were before the House and are likely to be reintroduced in some form. They appear in your paper, Superintendent Shadgett, and that's the old Bill C-46, the Investigative Powers for the 21st Century Act, and Bill C-47, the Technical Assistance for Law Enforcement in the 21st Century Act. They were good bills, in my view, but they were not without their problems as they made their way through the House and one of them into committee. They are going to be reintroduced, and what I am concerned about is whether they contain everything that law enforcement needs.

I ask that question with somewhat of a futuristic perspective in mind. I know technological advances in the BlackBerry are happening every day, and it's hard to keep up with the e-criminal and his or her ability to encrypt messages. Getting a warrant and then trying to decrypt them in time, often you are falling behind. Before we put these pieces of legislation back in the House, do they need to be improved? Is there something missing?

[Superintendent Peter Shadgett, Director, Criminal Intelligence Service Ontario]

Good afternoon. I'm Peter Shadgett. I am pleased to be here to talk about organized crime issues in the province of Ontario from the perspective of Criminal Intelligence Service Ontario.

I received a call from the director of Criminal Intelligence Service Canada on Tuesday. He asked me to talk specifically about the uniqueness of CISO in relation to all the other criminal intelligence services across the country, so I thought I would start with that today. If you're following along in my document, you'll see, a couple of pages in, “An Integrated Response”. That is where I'll begin.

Public safety in Ontario does not depend primarily on federal agencies but upon the actions and activities of local municipal, regional, provincial, and federal police and on those public sector agencies responsible for enforcement and investigation. This is particularly true in the current intelligence-led policing environment.

CISO is the critical element in the Ministry of Community Safety and Correctional Services efforts to address organized crime at the local, provincial, and national level through participation with other provincial bureaux through CISC. It's the oldest criminal intelligence service in Canada, and due to its partnership with law enforcement and its reporting relationship to the Government of Ontario, it is also the most flexible and unique. Created in 1966 as a partnership between the Government of Ontario and the provincial law enforcement community in response to concerns expressed in the Ontario Royal Commission on Organized Crime, CISO was established to ensure central co-ordination of intelligence data on individuals and organizations involved in organized crime.

The mission is to promote intelligence-based unified action on organized crime in Ontario. Its vision is to promote a unified intelligence enterprise across the province and ensure safer communities for all the citizens of Ontario.

Our strategy is to unify and transform police, regulatory, and special interest group information into intelligence products and services that promote knowledge-based action by policy-makers, police leaders, investigators, and intelligence personnel.

CISO is the conduit by which criminal intelligence pertaining to serious and organized crime in the province is shared, analyzed, and communicated through its various databases and among its 120 partner agencies.

Mandated by a constitution, CISO is composed of a governing body, representing the executive decision-making level in the form of chiefs of police or managers of various member agencies; an operating body, representing the various intelligence unit commanders or their designates; and a provincial bureau, which is in effect a dedicated all-source fusion centre from which it strives to provide to its 120 partner agencies a strategic situational awareness on organized crime and other serious criminal offences.

In order to facilitate this free flow of criminal intelligence information, the CISO provincial bureau is positioned within the Ministry of Community Safety and Correctional Services. The director reports to both the assistant deputy minister for public safety for administration and to the governing body operationally.

The provincial bureau is uniquely situated because of its ability to apolitically analyze and disseminate criminal intelligence based on information forwarded to it by various member agencies at the federal—both Canadian and U.S. agencies—provincial, and municipal levels.

The provincial bureau administers a number of program areas on behalf of CISO and the government dedicated to the continuous evolution of intelligence-led policing across Ontario. These include but are not limited to a dedicated intelligence training program, which facilitates the development of a cadre of professional intelligence officers, technical officers, and covert operatives and analysts for all police agencies in Ontario; a technical resource program dedicated to assisting partner agency collection efforts through the provision of highly sensitive, highly technical, and highly expensive surveillance and collection equipment; the Ontario-based administration of the ACIIS system; the provincial undertaking to digitize historic and current operational intelligence files; the only dedicated joint forces funding program in Canada, a program that oversees the delivery of annual funding to organized crime investigations and related joint forces projects, by which CISO funds up to 50% of all operational expenses related to organized crime investigations, with at least two other funding partners from the policing community funding the rest of the operating expenditures, as well as salaries for investigators, analysts, et cetera. Also, there's the integrated analytical services program, designed to provide a tiered, strategic, all-source analysis to partner agencies on provincial and national priorities relating to organized crime.

The public policy objectives of the government are enhanced by providing for a province-wide coordinated response to community safety and security matters arising from organized crime. The local and provincial policing priorities and needs are best met through joint and cooperative action developed throughout the CISO partnership.

As one example of how this partnership works, I would like to draw your attention to the CISO training program. The Government of Ontario's contribution to this program, its investment in this program, is the funding of three full-time equivalent employees to manage it. These FTEs are positioned at the CISO provincial bureau and deployed to the Ontario Police College. However, the human resources required to stay on top of critical and emerging training priorities, including significant expansion of the number of intelligence training courses and the implementation of a province-wide outreach program that provides training for 300 students annually, could not be handled by these three FTEs alone. The partnership supports the training by providing instructors and/or lecturers free for each course as it is delivered. It also commits to mentoring and developing newly trained police officers upon their graduation from the training.

This method of sharing and integrating the cost of training across the CISO partnership is the cornerstone of success of the CISO program. It is but one example of how CISO has maintained a high-level rating for service delivery, consistently achieving a 100% satisfaction level, based on the provincial customer satisfaction survey results.

CISO endorses three main priorities, which are key to the effective and efficient disruption and suppression of organized crime networks.

Similar to the OPP practice in terms of lawful access, the Investigative Powers for the 21st Century Act, Bill C-46, and the Technical Assistance for Law Enforcement in the 21st Century Act, Bill C-47, passed first reading in June 2009. These are important developments in the area of lawful access and are integral to the success of ongoing police efforts to combat organized crime.

Intelligence-led policing requires police agencies to work together at the operational, tactical, and strategic levels and to share responsibility, authority, and accountability at each of these levels. It requires a strategic approach to anticipate, prevent, deter, or efficiently respond to routine front-line policing requirements and to more sophisticated threats, such as an escalation in street violence and organized crime. Making sound decisions on the basis of incomplete information is inherently problematic, and the more imperfect the information, the more difficult it will be to make good decisions. Sharing of information in this environment is an imperative critical to the success of police efforts.

Accordingly, CISO strongly endorses the ongoing use of the automated criminal intelligence information system, or ACIIS, as an interim measure. The platform supporting the system is antiquated, which leads to data entry, support, and retrieval difficulties. The proposed Canadian criminal intelligence model and the newly proposed Canadian criminal intelligence system as a national intelligence base with ongoing research and development are very welcome initiatives. However, funding is always an issue, and as this is inherently a national police service initiative, it is CISO's position that it should be funded appropriately at that level.

Additionally, there are still-valid arguments that suggest that the institutional model under which police services operate is too compartmentalized and has proven to significantly hamper the flow of information from federal police agencies such as the RCMP to other federal, provincial, and municipal partners. Specifically, matters of federal security clearances, national security databases, and restrictive reporting structures inhibit true integration and effective information sharing. This needs to be remedied to ensure that full intelligence sharing takes place.

Finally, CIROC, the Canadian integrated response to organized crime, was established in 2007 as the operational component of the Canadian law enforcement strategy to combat organized crime. The mandate of the CIROC program is to coordinate a strategic plan for fighting organized or serious crime through the integration of Canadian police efforts at the municipal, provincial/territorial, regional, and national levels. The goal is to operationalize intelligence produced by CISC in partnership with the CIS provincial bureaux.

A key objective of the CIROC program is to increase inter-provincial cooperation as it relates to intelligence sharing and operational coordination in Canada. CIROC is building the foundation that will enable law enforcement agencies across the country to share information in a more timely, reliable, and efficient manner. It is expected that this improved communication will translate into enhanced operational success.

The Ontario pilot project took place over the past year. This project is part of a joint undertaking between Criminal Intelligence Service Canada, CISO, and the CIROC national committee. As with any new initiative, operationalizing the Ontario CIROC project has been a dynamic learning process, requiring the fine tuning of original concepts along the way as stakeholders adjust to the new ways of doing business.

The pilot has revealed a number of key findings that have pointed the way to critical steps to be taken. Among these lessons are the need to establish a communications strategy that reflects the complex nature of the CIROC project as it unfolds; the need for a greater number of police services to adopt intelligence-led policing as an all-encompassing operational strategy, as opposed to strategy utilized by simply an intelligence unit; and the need to clarify and expand the role of the local CIROC liaison officers, who are integral to the success of the project, and any other staff or officers involved in the process.

CISO fully endorses the continuation of the pilot in Ontario, with continued support from CISC, and suggests the development of further pilots in other provinces across Canada.

In summation, informed decision-making is the ultimate goal of intelligence. Combined efforts in Ontario continue to work toward bridging not one single intelligence gap, but rather multiple intelligence gaps. A more comprehensive picture of the impact of organized crime and the development of strategies to disrupt it requires that law enforcement achieve a more complete understanding of the criminal actors involved, the connections between and among criminals and their organizations, the activities carried out by those criminal actors and their organizations, as well as the social and economic conditions that motivate them and create opportunities for offences to be committed.

CISO is a model for alternative service delivery that should be viewed as a potential model for other government and policing operations and recommended as a partnership prototype for other provinces in the battle against organized crime.

The focus of CISO is centred on a number of activities central to combatting organized crime, and if you implemented this across the country, you would include analysis and interpretation of organized crime enforcement operations; exchange of intelligence information at the operational level through program delivery and electronic databases; funding and specialized support for joint force multi-jurisdictional criminal investigations; ongoing development of expertise and best practices through a centralized intelligence training program; undercover operations support; proactive development investigator knowledge as it pertains to legal developments, trends, and methods pertaining to lawful access; and providing a coordinating mechanism for the police community and the government to work together to address organized crime problems.

Thank you.

[Graeme Norton]

Yes, there could also be device manufacturers.

That's not necessarily something we oppose. If there's information that's disappearing into the ether and there's a legitimate interest in that information, there may be a valid purpose for building that type of capacity into the infrastructure. It could hold that information, at least as long as required, to conduct legitimate law enforcement investigation.

There are provisions in the previous Bill C-47, I believe, that would require companies to have that capacity. In Bill C-46 I believe there was legislation that would create a preservation order power that would allow that information to be preserved until law enforcement could go to a judge and determine whether or not they should appropriately have access to it.

We don't have a problem with the preservation aspect, as long as it's for a short period of time. After that it will be destroyed once the decision has been made whether or not there needs to be access by law enforcement. If there does and there's an appropriate test met to meet that standard, then that's fine. If it doesn't, then the information can be destroyed as it otherwise would have been. It doesn't need to be retained for six or seven years.

Child Protection Act (Online Sexual Exploitation)

[Joe Comartin, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

Madam Speaker, I rise to speak to Bill C-58 today with mixed emotions. We have been dealing with this issue in the justice committee since late 2006 or early 2007. It has been better than three years now. We actually had some consideration of it in Parliament in 2004 and 2006 as well, so it is going on five years.

I rise with mixed emotions because I am concerned. We are supportive of this legislation as far as it goes. Our major concern with Bill C-58 is that there are a number of other issues that should have been addressed long before this. Some of them have now been addressed in this bill, but there is a number that have not been addressed.

Addressing those issues and building a framework so that our police, prosecutors and judges would have greater ability to try to stamp out child porn on the Internet and the technological transmission of it would be a major step forward. We have not gone far enough on this and I am going to address at least some of those points.

I do want to set this in its historical context. When we were dealing with the legislation that dealt with the luring of children over the Internet, what came forward at that time was a good deal of evidence from various police forces, particularly from the Ontario Provincial Police and the Toronto Police Service. I do not want to disparage other forces, but at that period of time they were probably the most advanced forces in trying to combat child porn on the Internet.

The problem that we are now addressing came forward three to five years ago. We are addressing it to some lesser degree in Bill C-46 and Bill C-47, which are now before the public safety committee. The problem is getting at the service providers, which are in most cases the methodology, mechanism and technology by which the producers and traders of child porn are using to trade and sell this child porn.

What came out in the course of those hearings was that a number of service providers were refusing to co-operate with police forces both here in Canada and internationally. As a result of a number of fairly strong comments that came from members of that committee at the period of time when we had to deal with this, we have seen an increase in co-operation from the service providers in terms of giving police officers information, putting them on notice when they identify child porn on their service technology, and co-operating as fully as they can with the police.

That is not universally true to this day and that is why we are seeing this legislation. We really should have seen this legislation at least three years ago because it was very clear at that point that we had a problem. It was only because of some of the threats that came out of the justice committee at that time that we got greater co-operation from the service providers here in Canada.

It is still a major problem when we try to deal internationally. There are certain countries who are very co-operative with us and are actively engaged in trying to shut these sites down and to prosecute those who they trace the child pornography back to. However, there are other countries in the world that have no mechanisms at all to deal with this.

In that regard, I think it is worthwhile to note the assistance we got from Bill Gates and Microsoft. They assisted the police forces in developing a technology at quite a substantial expense to that corporation. It was in the range of about $10 million in human resources to develop the technology and the actual expenditure of funds to produce it.

It is important to note, both with regard to this bill and just generally, how child pornographers work. They put the information on one service provider and then skip it through a number of service providers. We have been told in some cases this material will go through up to as many as 50 service providers around the globe.

Through this technology, which was developed by Microsoft, through the Toronto police force's initiative, and funded by Mr. Gates, we are generally able to trace the material back to the source. So we may skip through a whole bunch of service providers, but we can eventually get back to the source and get the site shut down. We have seen at least several major busts in Canada as a result of this technology being deployed. A number of people were charged and in some cases convicted. Other cases are still working their way through the courts.

The technology was crucial and it was the first time it had been developed in the world. We are now sharing that technology with other countries with whom we are cooperating so they can use it to track things back to the child pornographers.

That was a major step forward. It was interesting to see in the media this week that some of the other technology that we have been working on in order to be able to register sites has not been developed. We had a five-year program that I think was initiated in the 2004-06 Parliament. We are close to the end of that. Under that program, people identify the site and advise the police, and then we have a registry of that.

That registry is still not up and running, because of technological problems. According to the article in the Chronicle Herald on November 25, as much as 40% of the budget that was allocated over that five-year period has not been spent because we do not have enough police officers actually working on this, and we do not seem to have been able to put enough resources into fully developing that technology.

That five-year period is just about up. I have no idea what the government is going to be doing in terms of continuing that funding until the service is up and running effectively. It is quite clear from the article that more police officers should have been specifically trained and designated to work in this area, and that has not happened.

With regard to the bill itself, one of the concerns I have is that, as is typical with the government, the government is out front, promulgating the notion that this is the be-all and the end-all. I am being a bit too harsh on them and I will admit that, but the reality is that the real work that needs to be done by government is to fund our police forces.

There are very few large police forces in this country that do not have at least one or two police officers specifically designated to deal with child pornography, mostly on the Internet but in print as well. We need more of those officers. We need a lot more of those officers in order to be able to deal with this problem.

This is a growth industry. It continues to grow because of the Internet. We have always had child pornography in print and even in paintings. We can go back hundreds and hundreds of years, maybe even millenniums. The explosion occurred with the Internet, which provided for easy transmission of this pornography, and it tapped into a substantial market that was unavailable before, crossing international boundaries and making it very difficult for national police forces to be able to deal with it.

I have to say this, and it is not just about the current government but also about the previous Liberal government and also about a lot of other countries. There are very few countries we can point to, England may be one of the exceptions, that have in fact dealt with this problem in an efficient manner, that is by moving enough human resources into combatting this.

We know that the province of Manitoba was one of the provinces that moved on this by establishing a snitch line. England has done the same thing and has funded it. It seems to be fairly effective in getting the public, when they are scanning various websites, to identify child pornography and to get that information to the police. The police can then deal with it in an efficient and rapid fashion, to shut the sites down and to try to track the producers of the sites.

It is working in that regard, in that we have a methodology, but we do not have enough resources. It is really a shame that our police forces are still struggling with that, because they have nowhere near the capacity to combat the sheer volume of what they have to deal with on the Internet.

In that respect, I urge the government in this coming budget to take another look at this area in particular. If we are really serious about protecting our children, we need to put more resources into doing that.

This legislation will help a little. I do not want to deny that completely, but it is a very small step in comparison with how much more effective we would be in combatting this scourge if there were more police officers working on it and also on developing technology. Police officers need training and they need companies like Microsoft to come into the field and cooperate with them to try to develop better technology to track this right back to its source. That is the only way we can effectively shut it down.

With regard to the bill itself, I have some concerns. There was a lot of debate before the bill got to the House over whether service providers would have a legislatively mandated responsibility to monitor their sites.

Going back to the bill on child Internet luring, the committee heard some evidence to the effect that it was going to be difficult for the smaller service providers to do that. On the other hand, it might, quite frankly, be possible to develop technology so that the computer would do the monitoring.

There are any number of other technologies and services that we use on computers that can do the search on a random basis. That technology needs to be developed and deployed. Maybe that is something we have to impose on the industry.

However, we have just given up. This bill does nothing to require the service providers to do any monitoring at all. All it requires is that if somebody tells them there is a site on their technology, the ISPs have to report it to the locator and a police force. They are under no affirmative obligation to monitor the websites using their technology.

I think the government backed down too much. At the very least, we should be looking at imposing some responsibility on them. It appears obvious that this bill is going to go to committee, and I am hoping that the committee can look at this again and perhaps strengthen the bill in a meaningful way to impose some responsibility.

I want to make a point about the penalties in the bill. The penalties assume that service providers are all corporate, so there are only fines in the bill. We need to take a look at that and see whether we should be pulling back the corporate veil.

I know the test will not be easy from a legal standpoint, but where we have been able to identify service providers that are abusing their responsibility to protect children, we should be pulling back the corporate veil, and police and prosecutors should have the ability to prosecute individual members, whether they are part of the executive or the board of directors, of those companies for these crimes.

We have been able to identify that in some cases it was quite clear that the corporate entity knew about the sites and did nothing about them, simply allowed them to continue on. If we have that kind of a scenario or that kind of conduct, then we in fact should be going after individuals and not just the corporations.

[Joy Smith, Conservative, Kildonan—St. Paul, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased today to stand in the House of Commons with parliamentarians from all parties to talk about Bill C-58. In this Parliament probably one of the most important things we are doing is addressing the protection of our most vulnerable citizens, our children.

Bill C-58 would provide a level of certainty for all those who supply an Internet service to the public that they would be held to the same reporting standard with regard to child pornography. We have heard in the House that child pornography is on the increase. The images that are displayed are becoming more and more violent. Our government recognizes the efforts of major Internet service providers in voluntarily reporting this type of material.

However, creating a uniform mandatory reporting requirement with respect to Internet child pornography on all who supply Internet services to the public across Canada will strengthen our ability to protect children from sexual exploitation.

As I have listened to the speeches, there has been a thread throughout and this thread has been that all members feel that this is a horrendous crime against children. Mr. Speaker, you have small children and I know that it must touch your heart because our children are our most precious gift.

The bill would improve the law and improve law enforcement's ability to detect potential child pornography offences and help reduce the availability of online child pornography. It would also facilitate the identification of victims so they may be rescued and help identify and apprehend offenders. This is a very important piece of legislation. We have heard in the speeches that there are 1,400 police reported child pornography incidents of which 440 resulted in charges, and that is not even up to date. There are more today in the year 2009 going into 2010.

Many good people across this nation are watching and putting the lens on what Parliament is doing in terms of protecting our children. Traditionally speaking, Parliament is a place that sometimes can go wonky. Even though a good bill is presented, sometimes it does not get passed. We have a lot of unnamed people making a lot of unnamed speeches that sound good, but in the end the laws sometimes do not get passed.

As we know, after we deal with the laws here in the House of Commons, they then go into the Senate where they must be examined before they can receive passage.

I want to talk about people across the country who have made a big difference and who are watching what our government is doing in terms of child pornography. I am proud that our government also introduced related bills that have supported Bill C-58. So there is a concerted effort with our government to address our most vulnerable citizens and to protect our children.

Our government recently produced three hard-hitting related bills and one is Bill C-46 which was brought forward on June 18. That bill would require Internet service providers to provide police with email and ISP addresses of those viewing child pornography. It also would require ISPs to freeze child pornographic data for 21 days. It also would require cell phone companies to assist police in tracking child porn on cell phones and BlackBerries.

Again, Bill C-47, which was passed on June 18, was a bill that permitted police to obtain information about clients from ISPs and requires companies to acquire the technical ability to allow police to intercept information. Bill C-58 is just another building block on this foundation that helps protect our children.

In my travels over the past decade, I have met many of the people working on this issue of human trafficking and child porn in our country. As a mother of six children and the mother of an RCMP officer who used to be in the integrated child exploitation unit, I have seen first-hand the cost that a lot of these police officer have paid. They sat there and viewed those images. They went out and tried to get the bad guys. I pay honour and respect to all the police officers who have done that.

Many of the projects across the country outside of Parliament Hill have really put pressure on all of us as members of Parliament to stop this horrific crime. When we talk about child porn over the Internet, it brings to mind Mr. Brian McConaghy who was the founding director of the Ratanak Foundation. He is a forensic scientist with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and has served with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police for 22 years. He worked tirelessly to help build the case against Donald Baker. For 19 of those 22 years, he performed his duties with the RCMP while setting up and running this foundation. After that, he continued on.

I was talking to Mr. McConaghy yesterday. He and I work on different things.

When we are talking about the Olympics, human trafficking or child porn, they are all connected. What makes these police officers and front line workers who work with the victims of Internet child porn so special is their heart.

The Baker file has been forgotten in some cases but other files keep coming up. They come and go. They are horrendous and yet they are forgotten. I know everybody remembers the Willie Pickton file in B.C., which was a horrendous case that hit the front pages. The RCMP officers and the police vice officers who were working on Internet child porn and on these cases were deeply touched by the victims of this crime.

When we have people watching these images on the Internet and when they go across the ocean and act on those images and fantasies, they come back and continue that appetite for acting on the fantasies because they have allowed themselves to go into that dark place that human beings often have with child pornography.

We talk about the front line officers and we talk about the victims but I want to talk about one victim just to impact our Parliament today so that we understand.

Serena Abbotsway was killed by Willie Pickton. She was a kind young girl who was on the streets helping young people who were victims of human trafficking and child pornography. She underwent many beatings in trying to rescue people because she herself was a street person.

Mr. McConaghy is off to Cambodia right now but when I was talking to him the day before yesterday, he was telling me, as a forensic scientist, how he became attached not only to the cases but also attached to the victims.

He told me what it felt like to look at the skull of Ms. Serena Abbotsway and to look at the picture he had of her. She was baptized at a church on the east side. She worked on the streets and was involved in all kinds of different things. There, before him, was her remains.

He treated her remains with respect as he went through her particular case. When he finished doing his forensic science work, he put her skull away and said goodbye to her. He told her that he would never forget her and that he would do the best he could to ensure that other victims were not hurt.

We can talk about people like Matt Logan. In Parliament the public needs to know about these unsung heroes who work so hard every day. Matt Logan is a recently retired RCMP officer. He has penetrated the psyches of countless psychopaths, pedophiles and hostage-takers. He has spent time in the jail system assessing predatory sex offenders. He is one of only seventeen people in North America who are both police officers and qualified psychologists, and one of even fewer who specialize in the criminal mind.

The member opposite mentioned the toll it took on the police officers. I know many police officers who have taken that toll because of their work. Matt Logan knows an awful lot about pedophiles and about their minds. He knows how to get into those minds and how to rescue the victims.

Staff Sergeant Logan has done so much to bring this issue to the forefront on our national scene. He said that he had a hard time believing that, given an opportunity, the child predators, when after watching victims, would not act on their fantasies. He said, “Child pornography exists primarily for the consumption of predatory child molesters”.

It is the beginning of something that can grow. Logan, who is a criminal psychologist in the RCMP's behavioural science group, has done extensive work with sex offenders. He has been called on more and more to consult on child exploitation cases.

RCMP Matt Logan describes two types of child molesters, the situational and the preferential. He says that most molesters fit into the situational category. He says that means most are male and are indiscriminate with victims, committing sexual assault based on accessibility to a victim. If they have a pornography collection, child porn is usually a small portion of it. He says that the preferential child molester can be of any age, driven by fantasies centred on a specific age, gender or even the look of a child. Most gravitate to prepubescent. Is that not shocking?

RCMP Logan said that although he had worked with some whose fetish was newborns, preferential child molesters also had a long-term pattern of behaviour and almost certainly collect child porn. He says, “The images and erotic stories fuel the fantasies that “drive the bus” to hunting and molesting a child”. This is a statement from a seasoned 22-year RCMP officer who worked in this area.

Bill C-58 is extremely important.

Talking about close to home, my son is an RCMP officer and is in the ICE unit. On his days off, he goes all over the country, talking to associations and groups about how to protect their children against child molesters. In fact, next Friday night he and I will do a joint presentation at one of those locations.

There are other people, like Lianna McDonald, who is the head of the Canadian Centre for Child Protection. She does so much to try to get the cybertip lines up and running. She works hand-in-hand with Beyond Borders, with Roz Prober.

For the first time, businesses across the country are putting money toward organizations that are fighting child trafficking and child porn. One of those organizations is The Body Shop. It has recently launched a huge initiative about hand cream. My Christmas baskets are going to be filled with its hand cream because of its support for the protection of child victims from human trafficking and from child porn.

I want to talk about Paul Gillespie. Paul Gillespie was on the streets protecting children, victims of child abuse. He worked on the ground with many of these young women. I have met some of the young women whom he has rescued. Now he is with KINSA, the Kids Internet Safety Alliance. He works with Canadian law enforcement and other partners to deliver training and build capacity among the police of developing nations to help them find and rescue victims of child abuse, whose images are shared on the Internet. Once rescued, he helps the victims and their families receive support to help them heal through the Mothers Online Movement, MOM. It is a powerful community network. These are the unsung heroes who are listening today to what is going on in Parliament.

Paul Gillespie, a former police officer, built and led the child exploitation section of the Toronto Police Service Sex Crimes Unit. He has become widely known as a world leader on this issue. I consider him a very good friend of mine and someone who is one of those unsung heroes. He has never been brought to the forefront for his work. Today I want to do that and to thank him.

Then we have the small groups that are springing up all over our nation, those groups that do not receive any money from anyone, but they find out about human trafficking and child porn. They go out and educate people. I have always said that education is our greatest tool.

We can talk about Naomi Baker from Canada Fights Human Trafficking. She has brought so many people together and educated many of them on how to protect their children.

We can talk about Natasha Falle. She is my hero because she was a victim of trafficking and was the daughter of a cop. She is off the streets now. She has helped so many people. She now runs Youth Unlimited. We will never find a more articulate, more beautiful, more grounded person than Natasha Falle. She is the poster girl for getting programs in place that will protect and help these victims because they can be rehabilitated.

We can talk about the beautiful Temple Committee Against Human Trafficking in Montreal, started by Rabbi Lerner.

Many people are working so hard to ensure that this horrendous crime is suppressed. Even today in the other chamber, Bill C-268 is awaiting the passage by the Senate. We look forward to all senators supporting that bill.

Over and over we hear in Parliament that this issue has to be a non-partisan one. When it comes to the protection of our children, parliamentarians have to work together. It is so important.

The Olympics are coming upon us in a very short time. I happen to know the bad guys now are getting all the girls together. I know some towns from where they have taken some of these girls.

We cannot sit and wait. This is Canada's hidden secret. This is one of our darkest spots in history when child sex slavery is allowed and when child porn has become something of a joke to some of the people in our country. We have to take this seriously. We have to speak out. As parliamentarians, we cannot afford the luxury of in house bickering. We can only afford the luxury of the privilege of putting laws forward that will protect our most vulnerable victims.

[Pierre Lemieux, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Agriculture]

Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Leeds—Grenville.

I am proud to rise in the House today to speak to this important piece of legislation which would enhance Canada's existing measures to better protect children against sexual exploitation through child pornography.

As the father of five children aged from six to 20 years of age, I can tell the House there is nothing more important to a parent than ensuring the safety of our children and protecting them from dangerous Internet predators. That is one of the top priorities for parents in this new digital era.

Bill C-58 would do so by creating a new national statutory requirement for providers of Internet services to report online child pornography to designated authorities. Ultimately, this new reporting requirement would improve the ability of law enforcement to detect potential child pornography offences, thereby helping to reduce the availability of online child pornography. It would facilitate the identification and rescue of child victims, and help identify offenders for the purpose of investigation and prosecution.

Although Canada's criminal law has specifically prohibited child pornography since 1993 and strengthened these prohibitions in 2002 and 2005, the full impact of the role of the Internet in facilitating the demand for and distribution of this material is really only now becoming better understood. The anonymity and instantaneous worldwide access to such despicable material offered by the Internet are real challenges.

Bill C-58 would apply to those who provide Internet services to the public, requiring them to report to a designated agency tips they receive regarding websites where child pornography may be available to the public. It would also require them to notify police and safeguard evidence if they believed that a child pornography offence had been committed using their Internet service.

Failure to comply with these duties would constitute an offence punishable by graduated fines up to $1,000 for a first offence, $5,000 for a second offence and for subsequent offences the possibility of a fine up to $10,000 or six months' imprisonment or both, for individual offenders. If the offender were a corporation the graduated fines would be up to $10,000, $50,000 and $100,000.

I would highlight that nothing in the legislation would either require or authorize any individual or company to actively seek out incidents of child pornography. In other words, providers of Internet services will not be required to monitor their networks for this type of material.

Our government recognizes the efforts of Canada's major Internet service providers, or ISPs, as they are known, in addressing this serious problem. Most Canadian ISPs have adopted acceptable use policies that outline the rules for using Internet accounts, the conditions for access privileges and the consequences for violating those rules and conditions. Most of these policies allow the ISPs to terminate accounts in cases of unacceptable online behaviour.

Organizations such as the Canadian Association of Internet Providers have also helped to develop standards for the industry, including a code of conduct. In 2003 some Canadian ISPs and police agencies formed the Canadian Coalition Against Internet Child Exploitation to assist law enforcement in addressing online child pornography. One important initiative to come out of such collaboration with ISPs is Project Cleanfeed Canada, which aims to block access to websites that host child pornography. Because the focus of Cleanfeed Canada is on limiting accidental exposure to such images, Cybertip.ca provides to participating ISPs a regularly updated list of Internet addresses associated with images of child sexual abuse.

Most of the major ISPs providing service to almost 90% of all Canadian Internet subscribers are participating in Cleanfeed Canada under a memorandum of understanding with Cybertip.ca. Efforts are being made to expand Cleanfeed Canada to the ISPs that service the other 10% of Canadians. Requiring all providers of Internet services to report child pornography websites will undoubtedly enhance the efficiency of the Cleanfeed Canada program.

Bill C-58 also ensures that all those who provide Internet services to the public are be held to the same reporting standard when it comes to reporting online Internet child pornography.

I would highlight that we anticipate that this new legislation should have a limited impact on the business practices of providers of Internet services who already voluntarily report cases of online child pornography. Bill C-58 was drafted in a manner that closely reflects the current practices of Canada's major ISPs.

Bill C-58, however, covers more than just a typical ISP. The term ISP, or Internet service provider, usually refers to someone who provides access to the Internet. This act applies to all those who provide an Internet service to the public. While this does include access providers, it also includes those who provide electronic mail services such as webmail, Internet content hosting services and social networking sites.

This legislation complements our existing comprehensive strategy to combat child sexual exploitation in Canada. This strategy includes an impressive array of existing Criminal Code provisions as well as recent legislative initiatives currently before the House such as Bill C-46, An Act to amend the Criminal Code, the Competition Act and the Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters Act, and Bill C-47, An Act regulating telecommunications facilities to support investigations.

If adopted, these proposed pieces of legislation would help ensure that law enforcement and national security agencies have the tools they need to fight crimes such as child pornography in today's high tech environment. This government also recognizes that more is needed to combat this scourge than just strong criminal laws.

That is why, in December 2008, we renewed the federal government's national strategy to protect children from sexual exploitation on the Internet. Initially launched in 2004, this national strategy is providing $42.1 million over five years to the RCMP's National Child Exploitation Coordination Centre to provide law enforcement with better tools and resources to address Internet-based child sexual exploitation, enhance public education and awareness and support the 2005 national launch and ongoing operation of Cybertip.ca as a national 24/7 tipline for reporting the sexual exploitation of children on the Internet.

As announced in budget 2007 and rolled out in 2008, our Conservative government has allocated an additional $6 million per year to strengthen initiatives to combat the sexual exploitation and trafficking of children. These funds are being used to augment the overall capacity of the NCECC as well as to specifically enhance its ability to identify and ultimately rescue child victims through the analysis of images seized from sex offenders that are captured on the Internet or received from international law enforcement agencies.

I hope the House understands just how important this legislation is. Bill C-58 will further enhance collaboration between the Internet service industry and law enforcement, resulting in greater protection for our children from online sexual exploitation in today's technological environment. I urge the House to give this bill its full support.