Bill C-13 (Historical)

Protecting Canadians from Online Crime Act

An Act to amend the Criminal Code, the Canada Evidence Act, the Competition Act and the Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters Act

This enactment amends the Criminal Code to provide, most notably, for
(a) a new offence of non-consensual distribution of intimate images as well as complementary amendments to authorize the removal of such images from the Internet and the recovery of expenses incurred to obtain the removal of such images, the forfeiture of property used in the commission of the offence, a recognizance order to be issued to prevent the distribution of such images and the restriction of the use of a computer or the Internet by a convicted offender;
(b) the power to make preservation demands and orders to compel the preservation of electronic evidence;
(c) new production orders to compel the production of data relating to the transmission of communications and the location of transactions, individuals or things;
(d) a warrant that will extend the current investigative power for data associated with telephones to transmission data relating to all means of telecommunications;
(e) warrants that will enable the tracking of transactions, individuals and things and that are subject to legal thresholds appropriate to the interests at stake; and
(f) a streamlined process of obtaining warrants and orders related to an authorization to intercept private communications by ensuring that those warrants and orders can be issued by a judge who issues the authorization and by specifying that all documents relating to a request for a related warrant or order are automatically subject to the same rules respecting confidentiality as the request for authorization.
The enactment amends the Canada Evidence Act to ensure that the spouse is a competent and compellable witness for the prosecution with respect to the new offence of non-consensual distribution of intimate images.
It also amends the Competition Act to make applicable, for the purpose of enforcing certain provisions of that Act, the new provisions being added to the Criminal Code respecting demands and orders for the preservation of computer data and orders for the production of documents relating to the transmission of communications or financial data. It also modernizes the provisions of the Act relating to electronic evidence and provides for more effective enforcement in a technologically advanced environment.
Lastly, it amends the Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters Act to make some of the new investigative powers being added to the Criminal Code available to Canadian authorities executing incoming requests for assistance and to allow the Commissioner of Competition to execute search warrants under the Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters Act.

Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I move that the first report of the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics, presented to the House on Wednesday, February 5, 2014, be concurred in.

I always say what an honour it is to rise in this institution, but as I reflect on the government's response to the report on the Conflict of Interest Act, I have to say that I am not proud of what has been taking place in this Parliament.

We have what is being presented to the Canadian people as a Potemkin democracy. It is a false democracy. Democracy does not really happen here anymore. It is a sideshow that Canadians are being exposed to on a daily basis in a House that has become a circus, an ugly circus, a vicious circus.

What we see here is an overall attack by the government against the institutions that are supposed to maintain the credibility of the Westminster tradition, a continued unmitigated attack on the various institutions that are supposed to bring accountability to this place. As Canadians watch the daily circus show and the silliness and the way the government has dumbed down important issues into little buttons that it can press at a given moment, what we see is the bigger issue that is being deflected that the Canadian public is not seeing, which is the attack on the credibility of the institutions that would hold some level of accountability.

Let us go through the standards that are supposed to be there to ensure a functioning democracy.

We hear of MPs who go back to their ridings and when people ask about the circus that they watch on TV, they will say, “Oh, yes, but committees are where the good work is done.” When I was elected 10 years ago I used to think that. I used to think that maybe on a given day it may be fairly mediocre in the House, but in committees, by and large we were there to do relatively good work, even if it was sometimes very partisan. Sometimes it was not the brightest. This is a democratic system after all, and it is what it is, depending on who is elected. However, the notion of the committee had a place. That is not true anymore. Committees have become circuses. They have become kangaroo courts. It is all done in camera or it is done to use the notion of majority to undermine even legislative positions that have existed since the Westminster tradition.

In England, in the U.K. Parliament, it is considered a failure of the committee if there is not unanimity, if one has to bring forward a minority report. Unfortunately, we are having to bring forward minority reports all the time.

Nowhere is that clearer than in the circus of what happened at the ethics committee with the review of the conflict of interest guidelines. We heard from witnesses from across the political spectrum about the need to develop a coherent set of conflict of interest guidelines to hold government and the public office holders to account. What was delivered to the Canadian people in this report was an absolute democratic fraud.

The recommendations that were brought supposedly through the committee were never even raised by a single witness. I will get to the key recommendation, the number one recommendation that the government found in dealing with issues of conflict of interest. The conflict of interest review had raised all manner of issues, such as the need for administrative monetary penalties of a substantive nature, to ensure compliance with basic due diligence so that people were not just doing things for their friends or their pals, that there were clear rules to ensure that insiders did not have access, and that public office holders were acting in the public interest.

The number one recommendation that came out of this committee, and I want to say again it appeared in the report when we were examining it without a single witness having brought it forward, was that the definition of “public office holder” be changed. The government's notion of who will now be under the Conflict of Interest Act are the members who collectively bargain with the Government of Canada. They will now be public office holders.

What is a public office holder? A public office holder, according to the act, is a minister of the crown, a minister of state, or a parliamentary secretary. They will now have the same provisions around their conflict of interest as someone who does the vacuuming in a public office building for the federal government. Someone in Scarborough who works in a call centre for the federal government answering the phones is now going to have the same legal obligations as a minister of the crown.

Members of ministerial staff, all the little boys in short pants who write all those notes so the marionettes in the front row do not look so slow on a given day, and someone working in a secretarial function in an office in Calgary for the federal government will be treated as having to have the same responsibility for reporting their behaviour as the men in the little short pants who work for the Prime Minister's Office. A ministerial appointee under the Governor in Council will be treated the same as someone working at a Service Canada outlet in Moose Jaw, Kenora, or Timmins. That means there would now be between 240,000 and 300,000 people who are under the Conflict of Interest Act, whom the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner has to oversee.

The government approved this. Members of the government thought this was a good recommendation. They are laughing at us. They are laughing at the Canadian people. This is an absolute fraud of democracy when they decide that a minister of the crown, who can be bought and sold if there are not clear rules for lobbying and for conflict of interest, would be held to the same code as a person who goes into a government office in Winnipeg in the evenings and sweeps and cleans.

The Conflict of Interest Act was one of the key provisions of the Conservatives' commitment to have themselves elected in 2006. It is notable that the Conservatives made this promise that they were going to clean up the corruption of the Liberals in 2006. Their electoral platform was to give the ethics commissioner the power to fine violators—wrong; to enshrine the conflict of interest code into law—wrong; to allow members of the public, not just politicians, to make complaints to the ethics commissioner, which did not happen; to make part-time or non-remunerated ministerial advisers subject to the ethics code. It does not say anything about making 250,000 Canadians apply under the same code, a code that has no provisions for holding these ministers to account.

There is another fascinating recommendation that the government has brought in. If one of its ministers is under investigation, it has to be kept secret. It has to be kept secret to protect their reputation. It is a government that believes in maximum secrecy for its members while insisting on maximum transparency for average Canadians. That is a fundamental failure of accountability.

We had a Conservative member from London the other day who said that if people go to a public demonstration, why should the government not be able to keep tabs on them? The Conservatives believe that being able to spy on Canadians is their right, but if their ministers are under investigation, good luck investigating them because the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner would be absolutely swamped with the 250,000 civil servants she would have to deal with. We asked the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner what she thinks of this report and she said she is extremely disappointed. Of course she is, because it is making a mockery of her position.

The conflict of interest office is just one of the attacks the Conservatives have been making. Let us look at a few others.

We saw what they did with Marc Mayrand and Elections Canada and the attack on him personally. The insinuation was that Marc Mayrand in doing his job was doing it for partisan reasons. They wanted to make it illegal in Canada for Elections Canada to be able to tell Canadians about their rights to vote. International observers said that if Canada went down this route, it would fundamentally undermine the basic notion of democratic accountability.

We saw how they attacked the Parliamentary Budget Officer. Kevin Page, one of the most respected civil servants I have met in my career, was regularly ridiculed and undermined and attacked. His job, which was to provide members of Parliament with basic financial data, was interfered with every step of the way. I have to tell people back home that the House of Commons does not oversee the spending that is going on. It is a shell game that happens here. Billions of dollars are spent in all manner of categories, and yet the government makes sure that they keep members in the House of Commons in the dark. It's as though they were raising mushrooms on what they are feeding the House of Commons when it comes to actual information.

The one office to provide basic financial accountability, the Parliamentary Budget Office, was considered a threat and Mr. Page had to go. That is another one of the officers of Parliament that has been undermined.

There was the latest appointment of the Privacy Commissioner. The Prime Minister ignored the recommendations of all the experts and picked Mr. Therrien, a lifelong civil servant, but one with no expertise in the privacy field. He was appointed over all the qualified people. Mr. Therrien was given a poison chalice with this appointment. As soon as Mr. Therrien was approved, the government attacked his credibility, because even Mr. Therrien, without the necessary expertise, recognized that the government's bills, Bills C-13 and S-4, on warrantless access and snooping on Canadians, were very problematic and probably were not legal.

The Privacy Commissioner was undermined. The Parliamentary Budget Officer was undermined. The Elections Canada office was undermined. Now with this report, the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner's office is being turned basically into a farce. She said that she has no ability to keep track of the 244,000 civil servants across this country when her job is supposed to be keeping an eye on a government that is mired in corruption.

These are respected institutions that provide accountability to Canadians when government does not want to be accountable. There is another key element, and that is the access to information office. The government now routinely tells the access to information officer that it will not comply with requests. It will give delays of 300, 600, 900 and 1,000 days on basic rights to access to information. Canada was a world leader on access to information 15 years ago. Now it is behind tin-pot dictatorships and third world countries in terms of providing information to citizens. The President of the Treasury Board runs around like some two-bit flim-flam artist talking about data sets and open government on his Twitter account. It is a farce. The Conservatives are making sure that the real key information that Canadians need is not being made available to them.

The Department of National Defence, the CRA, the justice department, and Indian affairs routinely stonewall and shut down the attempts of citizens and journalists to find out why decisions are made. If we do not know who was in the room when a decision was made or what source provided the information, we have no idea whether or not we are getting accountable government.

The government undermined the other institutions. We can talk about Rights and Democracy. We can talk about the round table on the environment. We can talk about Census Canada. I do not know what he is the minister of now, but he was the minister of immigration, and he is now running around trying to explain why he blew it so badly on the foreign worker program and saying he did not really have any data to go on and is having to look it up on Facebook and Kijiji. It is the same party that ridiculed and laughed at the Census Canada information that was considered the gold standard for information around the world.

There is another institution that the Conservatives attacked and undermined, and it is the one institution that so far has stood up to them. That is the Supreme Court.

I will not mention the Senate. We were taught in school that legislation goes from the House to the so-called chamber of sober second thought, but it is full of hacks, partisans, and friends of the party who rubber stamp bills again and again. They are not doing their legislative oversight. What ends up happening is the Supreme Court has to address bills.

Before I get to the issue of the Supreme Court, let us talk about the justice department. The justice department has a job to review legislation to ensure that it is charter compliant, that it meets the overall legal framework of this country. We see time and time again the advice that is given is ignored, or perhaps the Conservatives decide to favour their political masters, because this is a government that runs and butts its head again and again on the basic issues of the Constitution and the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. They are beginning to look increasingly ridiculous. Rather than the Conservatives stepping back and saying that they have to respect the Supreme Court, even though they will respect no other institution in this country, the Prime Minister personally led an attack on the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.

The Conservatives attempted to bring in a judge who was not able to sit on the Supreme Court. They had legal advice on this. They ignored it. They created an unnecessary crisis.

We saw the Conservatives' prostitution law thrown out by the Supreme Court. The Conservatives have gone right back at the Supreme Court, banging their heads against it with a bill that will also be found unconstitutional, because it ignored the fundamental issues in the Bedford decision.

Nowhere is this more obvious than on the Spencer decision last Friday that talked about the fundamental legal obligation to get a warrant to get access to IP information and cellphone information. I heard one of the parliamentary secretaries the other day saying, “Oh my God, this is going to mean a four- to six-week delay in police investigations.” Nonsense. It is a one-day turnaround.

We also have, within the legal system in Canada, the right the police have, if they believe a crime is being committed, to get that information without a warrant. The proviso is that they have to be able to show to a judge later on that there was the urgency. There is still judicial oversight.

The government believes that there is no need for judicial oversight. We have a situation now where 1.2 million times a year, government agencies are grabbing information on private citizens without any apparent warrant. The government says that it is only being done in cases of extreme threat, terrorism, or violence. Obviously that is not true, given that there are 1.2 million requests a year.

All that being said, we had Vic Toews, who tried to bring in his warrantless snooping bill, who stood up in this House and told ordinary Canadians that they were on the side of child pornographers if they wanted to defend privacy rights. They put the run on Vic Toews pretty quickly.

The Conservatives then came back with Bill C-13, which would create the provisions to give legal cover for the telecoms to hand over this information, and Bill S-4, which would allow corporate interests to get at Canadians' information without warrant or disclosure to people.

The other provision, the absolutely bizarre one, is that the Conservatives are now going to allow personal tax information to be transferred without warrant or oversight. They somehow think this is going to get past the Supreme Court. Since Friday's ruling, it is clear that it is not.

Rather than use this institution for the benefit of all Canadians to ensure that we have clear, definable rules in this country, we are going to see the government running and butting its head against the Supreme Court and then howling like a victim when the Supreme Court does what its job is to do, which is to maintain legislative and constitutional obligations.

This brings me back to the Conflict of Interest Act. The government's response and its recommendations, which will protect its ministers, will dilute the act and turn the office of accountability into an unmanageable and unenforceable branch. It has completely broken the commitment it made in 2006 to Canadians.

It was very interesting when we heard from Ms. Dawson, the commissioner, the other day. We asked her about one of the most serious cases we have had in memory in terms of a breach of the act, which was the secret payment made out of the Prime Minister's Office to a sitting senator.

I am not a lawyer, but when I read section 16 of the Parliament of Canada Act, it says to make a payment to a sitting senator to make a political problem go away is an indictable offence. The RCMP chose not to follow through. The RCMP said that there was nothing to see here, ladies and gentlemen, move on, yet when we looked at Corporal Horton's ITO, there were serious questions about who was involved in that $90,000, and it was clearly an issue of quid pro quo.

If the RCMP is not going to follow through, and the RCMP said that it had received all the legal advice necessary but did not appear to have talked to the Department of Public Prosecutions, which has oversight in this, then the issue goes back to Mary Dawson. Mary Dawson has no ability to go after the senators. The senators are in a closed world unto themselves. However, Mary Dawson does have the authority to investigate Nigel Wright. She says that she is not investigating Nigel Wright, because she is under the impression that the $90,000 was still under investigation by the RCMP. I find that surprising, because I do not know how it could be illegal to receive the money but not illegal to pay the money. I am not exactly sure. I think Ms. Dawson would do us all a favour if she could explain.

This is the kind of work Ms. Dawson is intended to do. It is to ensure that secret payments are not made to insiders, that backroom pals do not have access that ordinary Canadians do not have. This is why we were supposed to have the Federal Accountability Act. Unfortunately, with the motion and the report, the government has signalled that it has no intention of following through on those commitments.

Victims Bill of Rights Act

[Alexandre Boulerice, NDP, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague from La Pointe-de-l'Île for her speech. She clearly pointed out that an abstract right does not do much to help people in their lives. The government needs to put its money where its mouth is.

Before he leaves, I would like to thank my colleague from Timmins—James Bay for giving one of the best speeches I have heard in the House in the past three years. His speech was enlightening and clearly pointed out the hypocrisy of the Conservatives' approach. The Conservatives are always very good about claiming to stand up for rights and victims, but they are taking a completely unbalanced approach and applying a double standard when it comes to the victims of residential schools and the young aboriginal women who have gone missing or been murdered.

I would like to reiterate, on behalf of the NDP, that this is a priority for us. Something terrible has been happening here in Canada for years. Dozens of people have gone missing, and the government is doing nothing when it should be launching an inquiry. I repeat, we want a public inquiry into the missing and murdered aboriginal women. We do not understand why the Conservative government is ignoring this request.

To come back to Bill C-32, even though I have not done it very often in recent years, I am going to sing a little:

Just words, always words...
Nothing but words
Words, words, words

That is a song that was sung by the artist Dalida about 30 or 35 years ago. I get the feeling that Bill C-32 is a reflection of those lyrics in that it has many good intentions but absolutely no foundation. This bill will not have any effect if we do not flesh it out.

For eight years now, the Conservatives have been going on about the importance of defending victims. They say that the bad guys in the opposition are always siding with criminals, that the justice system is against victims and that they are the only ones who care about victims and are doing something to protect them. They have held so many press conferences and photo ops and put out so much advertising on this theme. They have not stopped playing politics when it comes to this issue. They have dragged this out for eight years and now they are introducing a bill that is nothing but a statement of intent.

Many interested parties warned us that this could simply be a statement of intent, some sort of lip service that would not be carried out. We are very concerned about that. We will support the bill at second reading so that we can study it carefully in committee, because we think there is room for improvement. However, as of right now, there is not much to this bill.

For example, Bill C-32 does not create a legal obligation for those who work in the justice system to enforce the rights that are set out in the bill. That is a huge problem. The Conservatives seem to have their heads in the clouds. If no one is required to enforce the legislation and follow the rules, what good will this legislation do in real life? How will it truly help people?

The devil is in the details, as the saying goes. We want to conduct a clause-by-clause study of this bill in order to find ways to improve it, so that it can be truly effective and so that we can be sure we are doing good legislative work.

Today, the Supreme Court gave the Conservative Party a good slap in the face. It told the Conservatives that they put several bills on the agenda without first waiting to hear whether the Supreme Court ruled them admissible. This could have an impact on cyberbullying victims. I am talking about Bill C-13, which could be struck down and dragged before the courts in light of the Supreme Court's ruling this morning.

The NDP asked the Conservatives to wait for the ruling we got this morning from the Supreme Court and to split the bill in two in committee, so that we could move forward with the cyberbullying provisions and be cautious about privacy and the tools being given to police forces. Unfortunately, the Conservatives refused to listen once again. They are stubborn and follow their own ideology. They told us that they did not need to listen to us because they do not have to listen to anyone.

Now, because the Conservatives refuse to listen to anyone, we will not be able to move forward, and it could become a lot more complicated to protect our children and teens from cyberbullying.

At first glance, the bill seems to address certain requests and recommendations that came out of consultations. For example, there was a recommendation to expand the definition of victims or crime, and one to codify the victims' right to information, protection, participation and restitution. However, there are no legal obligations in the justice system.

We think that it could be a major problem that this bill includes possible access to just one rather weak complaint mechanism within federal departments or agencies that play a role in the justice system when victims' rights have been violated. That needs to be clarified, and that is why we want this bill to go to committee so that the necessary adjustments can be made.

Another important element is that no budget has been allocated. There is no budget to implement the measures in Bill C-32 and ensure that they are enforced. The numbers are quite striking and they come from the Department of Justice, no less.

A study released in 2011 by the Department of Justice found that the total cost of crime is an estimated $99 billion a year, 83% of which is borne by the victims. A total of 83% of the cost of crime, nearly $100 billion, is borne by the victims. We have a victims bill of rights, but there is no envelope associated with it.

I do not know how people will get support, training, psychological support or financial compensation if there is no public funding or monies that would ensure the real-life enforcement of the rights being proposed.

I would like to use my time to speak about other forgotten victims. I want to talk about this because a motion about workers, firefighters specifically, was passed in the House. No compensation fund has been set up for families when a firefighter dies on the job. This exists for RCMP officers and for members of the Canadian Armed Forces. The motion was passed in the House, but the Conservative government has taken no action whatsoever.

We believe that firefighters who die while fighting a fire should be entitled to this kind of fund so they can provide for their families. We know that many of the firefighters who die under these circumstances are very young, so their families deserve this support.

I want to raise this issue again. There are other kinds of victims, such as victims of workplace accidents. Some people die on the job. Unfortunately, the government is doing absolutely nothing for these victims.

The government always talks about being tough on crime. For example, it does not want prisoners to have a cell to themselves. They see that as some kind of luxurious privilege. I would like to express other people's point of view on that subject.

It might sound good during a press conference or look good on a householder to talk about how harshly they treat criminals. I am concerned about another group of people, however: correctional officers.

Correctional officers have to deal with prisoners and that is a problem when there is double-bunking. This work jeopardizes the health and safety of the correctional officers. They are extremely worried about the changes to the Canada Labour Code under Bill C-4. This is going to complicate matters for workers when it comes to refusing to go to work if their health and safety are at risk.

Unfortunately, once again, the government is being insensitive to the consequences of its laws. The government is jeopardizing the lives of workers who deal with these prisoners. The risk of injury is much greater now than it was before. I wanted to point that out.

Mr. Sullivan, the former federal ombudsman for victims of crime had this to say in April:

I think the biggest problem though is that the Minister of Justice promised this would put victims at the heart of the justice system, and it falls very short of that

He was the first ombudsman for victims of crime in Canada. He also said:

The concern I have is that a lot of victims who are out there who aren’t going to read the bill, who aren’t going to go through the fine print are going to read the headlines and think that the system has fundamentally changed and it hasn’t.

Earlier today, my colleague used an expression that I will echo. Once again, this is all smoke and mirrors. We want more than just words. We want concrete measures. We have to improve this bill for victims.

Justice and Human Rights

[Bob Dechert, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice]

Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present, in both official languages, the sixth report of the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights in relation to Bill C-13, An Act to amend the Criminal Code, the Canada Evidence Act, the Competition Act and the Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters Act.

The committee has studied the bill, and has decided to report the bill back to the House with an amendment.

Privacy

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

Mr. Speaker, there was another Supreme Court decision this morning, this one telling the Government of Canada that it cannot request telecoms companies to provide information on citizens without a warrant. In layman's terms, it means that spying on Canadians without a warrant is illegal.

Beyond Bill C-13 and its misdirection, we know that the government operations centre has ordered all departments to report on any and all demonstrations within their jurisdictions. These are not illegal demonstrations.

Will the government suspend that directive to spy on Canadians through the government operations centre immediately?

[Bob Dechert, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice]

Mr. Speaker, Bill C-13 has been extensively studied, as the member will know, both in committee and in the House of Commons. We have had 12 hours of debate in the House of Commons and 22 hours of study and extensive evidence from all witnesses and all experts on all sides of the issue.

We respect the work of the court, but we will continue to crack down on cyberbullies and online criminals to protect children and all Canadians.

[Ève Péclet, NDP, La Pointe-de-l'Île, QC]

Mr. Speaker, this morning the Supreme Court reminded the Conservatives that they cannot make up rules when it suits them.

The right to privacy and the protection of personal information are very important concerns for Canadians. The way in which the government rejects these concerns is unacceptable.

In light of this morning's ruling, will the government finally accept the NDP's request to split Bill C-13 in two, so that the provisions that constitute serious violations of privacy are taken out of the bill? This must be done so that victims of cyberbullying can quickly obtain justice.

[Ève Péclet, NDP, La Pointe-de-l'Île, QC]

Mr. Speaker, once again the Conservatives have rejected almost all the opposition's amendments to Bill C-13 on cyberbullying.

This morning the Supreme Court rebuffed the Conservatives again. The court unanimously ruled that a warrant is required in order to obtain a client's IP address from Internet providers. This casts serious doubt on the constitutionality of their Bill C-13.

Why did the Conservatives not agree to the NDP's request to await the Supreme Court ruling before moving forward with the clause-by-clause study of their bill?

[Peter Julian, NDP, Burnaby—New Westminster, BC]

Mr. Speaker, Conservative incompetence has reached a new high. This morning, the Supreme Court ruled what the NDP and privacy experts had been warning all along, that allowing police to pull private information from telephone companies without warrant was unconstitutional, yet the Conservatives are steamrolling ahead with Bill C-13, which also allows unconstitutional spying on Canadians.

With yet another bill struck down by the Supreme Court, when will the Conservatives finally take a balanced approach that keeps Canadians secure without infringing on constitutional rights?

Agricultural Growth Act

[Ève Péclet, NDP, La Pointe-de-l'Île, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to say hello to everyone who is watching. I hope they enjoyed their cereal this morning because we know that cereal is a product of agriculture. Everything we eat is a product of agriculture. There are stories of people and farms behind everything we eat, stories of farmers who were taken to court by big companies and lost money. Family farms have had to shut down because they could no longer fight against the big companies.

It is good that we are modernizing and keeping up to date with new regulations. That is not a bad thing, but in so doing, we have to come up with a plan to protect those who may be pushed aside as a result and who do not have the expertise, money or ability to be part of such a market. It is important to recognize that.

My colleague gave an excellent speech about the type of situation that can occur. The farm he mentioned is not the first farm that has been taken to court by a big company for unknowingly having patented plants on its land, and it will not be the last.

We know how agriculture works. The wind scatters seeds elsewhere. There are no borders. It is important to comply with the new regulations, but there must be a plan for the smaller farmers. There must be a plan to protect those who do not have the capacity to keep up with the big multinationals.

It is important to mention that no one is opposing intellectual property. However, in agriculture, intellectual property does not necessarily have borders, as my colleague demonstrated. If I own a field and the seeds from the adjacent property come over to my field, I cannot do anything about it. I cannot put a net over my field so that other seeds do not land on it. The situation is more complex than what the Conservatives are trying to tell us. They are telling us that everything is fine, that everything is going well, and that the regulations will work. It is more complicated than that.

One of the first things that the Conservatives did when they came to power was eliminate the Canadian Wheat Board. What was the role of the Canadian Wheat Board? It protected small farmers from bigger farmers.

I went to Europe, where I met farmers who dreamed about having that kind of board to protect them from multinationals. We know how it works: the bigger farms swallow up the smaller ones, and the Conservatives have decided to disregard this type of relationship by giving more power to agricultural multinationals. What will we end up with? Agriculture that will no longer have local products or local farms.

If the Conservatives do not adopt a Canada-wide agriculture strategy or a national strategy to protect local producers, what will we end up with? Agriculture that does not respect the Canadian tradition of protecting its farmers.

The second thing they did was jeopardize supply management by putting it on the table during trade agreement negotiations. Small farms that are protected by supply management will not be able to keep up with the market and will once again be swallowed up by bigger players.

The ideas in Bill C-18 are valid and legitimate, and it is important to stay up to date and bring in new regulations for the agricultural sector, but we must not forget that people and farmers might suffer as a result. That is all I am trying to say to the government. We need to have a plan.

For example, the National Farmers Union opposes this bill because, it says, it will deprive the smallest farmers of their independence, increase costs for farmers and increase their exposure to lawsuits.

Is that really what the government wants to do? Do they really want to create that kind of instability for our farmers? The Conservatives have already done away with the Canadian Wheat Board, and now they want to get rid of supply management. Is that really how they want to treat our farmers? Do they really want to put them in a position that threatens their security and robs them of their independence?

That would give multinationals an unfair advantage, more power and more control. Is that really what our farmers deserve? No. I can name many people who agree with me. For example, the president of Keystone Agricultural Producers, which represents Manitoba farmers, said:

We're hearing this has been very successful in other countries in attracting investment in our industry, so that should be positive in the long-term for producers.

We'll be looking to our members for guidance on how they want to see this played out, but I'm glad to hear the Minister talk about farm-saved seed being a priority. That's what I hear from members as well.

Keystone Agricultural Producers believes that intellectual property is extremely important, but that we must also protect our farmers. Therefore, seeds stocked by farms are a priority. I hope that the witnesses who appear in committee will be heard and that the Conservatives will vote for our amendments, if we propose any, or that they will change the legislation.

Based on the Conservatives' record, they very rarely vote for opposition amendments. Yesterday alone, the NDP proposed some thirty amendments to improve Bill C-13, and the Conservatives voted against each and every one.

The Conservatives must stop talking out of both sides of their mouths. They tell farmers from their provinces that they take their interests to heart, but then they introduce legislation that, unfortunately, will eliminate their independence and create economic uncertainty.

This could open the door to legal action against them by big multinationals who have plenty of lawyers and plenty of money. Unfortunately, smaller farms will be swallowed up by the bigger farms. That is the Conservative ideology.

Protection of Communities and Exploited Persons Act

[Françoise Boivin, NDP, Gatineau, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I have a lot of questions, but I will save some for our work in committee.

I am not clear on how the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice interprets public places, so I would like him to clarify. For example, does he think that where Bill C-36 refers to an offence committed next to a school, that means only during school hours? Does this clause apply elsewhere in the bill to criminalize sex workers?

I asked the minister that question, but he never gave me an answer. Maybe that is because he does not know the answer. Maybe the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice knows. Can he define the expression “sexual services”? What does the bill mean by that?

Also, what about the new Bill C-13, which has just passed another stage without amendment, or rather with just a tiny, inconsequential one, even though we proposed 34 amendments? Could the provisions in Bill C-13, which give more powers to police officers, also apply in this context, with or without a warrant, if a person were advertising sexual services on the Internet? Would the Internet service provider also be guilty of a crime?

Justice

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the fact remains that at the last minute, Conservative votes were swapped or changed in order to block an amendment to Bill C-13 that would have protected those most subject to hate crimes in Canada. This was an amendment that the Minister of Justice said in committee that he supported in principle.

Instead, Conservatives voted to deny equal protection against hate crimes to transgendered and gender-variant Canadians, even though this very same protection has already passed the House of Commons twice, only to be blocked in the Senate. What do Conservatives have against standing up for vulnerable Canadians?

[Philip Toone, NDP, Gaspésie—Îles-de-la-Madeleine, QC]

Mr. Speaker, yesterday, the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights rejected an NDP amendment to Bill C-13 that would have made discrimination on the basis of gender identity a hate crime. It just so happens that right before the vote, the member for Kootenay—Columbia, who supported the amendment, was replaced by the member for Lambton—Kent—Middlesex. Why did the Prime Minister's Office intervene to block this important amendment?

Privacy

[Peter MacKay, Conservative, Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada]

Mr. Speaker, based on the way that Bill C-13 is constructed, which would enable the police to act with modern tools not only to enforce the existing law but also to enforce the new legislation that would criminalize the non-consensual distribution of intimate images, it makes no sense to split the bill. We have to not only protect the public through passing the legislation; we also have to enable the police to have the modern tools necessary to enforce that law.

[Charmaine Borg, NDP, Terrebonne—Blainville, QC]

Mr. Speaker, despite the concerns that have been raised about the new privacy commissioner's background and his potential conflicts of interest, he himself believes that Bill C-13 should be divided.

He also believes that the information telecommunications companies have on their clients should be better protected. This kind of information is not the same as what is found in a phone book. This information is much more sensitive.

Will the Conservatives listen to the person they just appointed?

Tougher Penalties for Child Predators Act

[Sean Casey, Liberal, Charlottetown, PE]

Mr. Speaker, I felt quite confident that the House would certainly want to hear from the member for Ottawa South, and I appreciate the indulgence of my colleagues for that.

Today it is my honour to stand to speak to Bill C-26, and I want to state from the outset that I am reluctant to support the bill. However, we will vote at second reading to send the bill to committee, and will do so in order to provide the government with an opportunity to present what evidence, if any, has emerged since 2012 that has prompted the introduction of even more mandatory minimum sentences.

It was just two years ago that many of these same provisions were contained in Bill C-10. In the two years since the coming into force of Bill C-10, child sex offences, as we heard from the minister, have risen by 6%. To repeat, in the two years since the coming into force of Bill C-10, child sex offences have risen by 6%.

The House will remember that when the Conservatives introduced Bill C-10, in 2011, they spoke at length about how these measures would combat child sex offences. I think we are still in agreement that reducing child sex offences is a priority that we all share. The government has made much of the fact that it imposed mandatory minimum sentences, stating that this would somehow reduce incidents against children.

Again, that legislation, Bill C-10, came into force in 2012. Since the coming into force of that bill, and despite the rhetoric from the Conservatives, it must be accepted, and indeed it was earlier in debate this evening, with obvious concern, that child sex offences have actually risen.

I want to make it clear that I do not for one minute believe that the Conservatives planned or hoped for this result, but I do believe that they need to accept the idea of being smart on crime.

At the justice committee this past March, I raised this issue with the minister. It was the same issue that I raised with him in the question and answer period following his speech this evening. I wanted to know why the government would introduce further flawed legislation for these offences when very clearly the evidence suggested that its previous approach had not worked.

The same question was posed at the justice committee when these statistics were introduced by the minister at committee, as they were again this evening. I asked him where the statistics came from, and at that point he did not know. He indicated he would get back to me, and I guess that happened tonight. We now know that these statistics came from Justice Canada.

I asked the minister at committee, on March 6 of this year, “Do you not agree that the stats that show that child sexual offences have increased in the last two years indicate that the increases that you put in C-10 haven't worked?”

The minister responded, and not exactly in the same fashion as he did this evening, but his response was:

I'd answer that two ways.First, I would say that C-10 would hardly have had effect in the time period we're looking at. Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, it indicates to me that we have more to do. It indicates very clearly that we have to take more steps toward prevention, deterrence, and denunciation.

That was, in part, the exchange that I had with the minister this past March at the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights, a part of which we heard repeated here this evening.

If it were the intent of the government when introducing Bill C-10 to reduce crime as it relates to child sex offences, then it must recognize and accept that its efforts have failed. Some members of the Conservative caucus, including the minister, would argue that not enough time has passed to properly measure the impact of Bill C-10. I assume they believe that with the passage of time, the data will indicate Bill C-10's effectiveness.

If that is the case, why are we here today discussing Bill C-26? Why are we here debating this bill, if, as the minister himself suggested, we need more time to properly assess the impact that Bill C-10 will have in reducing crimes against children? It does not make sense. It has caused many of us on this side of the House to wonder why the government is doing this.

Albert Einstein once said, “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result”. No one in the House would accuse the Minister of Justice of being Einstein, but the government's behaviour on this issue gives rise to the suspicion that they are playing politics with a very serious issue.

I have said time and again that I find it very troubling that the government would seemingly use sensitive subjects as a potential wedge issue, or worse, to raise money from its base leading up to an election. We have seen this approach to cyberbullying in Bill C-13, presently before the justice committee, where the government is using real victims of cyberbullying to bring in measures that have absolutely nothing to do with cyberbullying. It is using victims to bring in a law that would allow for the widespread invasion of our privacy.

Suffice it to say, though, that on the matter of crimes committed against children, the House is very united. I want to reiterate that no one in this House is immune from heartache when we hear of any child who has suffered because of the actions of an adult. I know that members on all sides share this view.

The Liberal Party remains steadfastly committed to the protection of the most vulnerable of the vulnerable, our children, against the most predatory of practices: child pornography and sexual offences against children. We support concrete measures aimed at the prevention of sexual offences against children as well as appropriate punitive sanctions against those who commit such heinous acts.

I earlier quoted the justice minister, who had indicated in a response to a question I posed that he believed that we need to do more to combat crimes against children. He indicated that we need to do more in the areas of prevention and deterrence and that prevention and deterrence are important elements in reducing crimes against children. This bill, however, includes no measures to prevent sexual offences against children or measures to ensure the treatment, rehabilitation, or reintegration of sex offenders. Again, why this glaring inconsistency?

By increasing mandatory minimums, the bill would reduce judicial discretion and could result in charter challenges.

We need to know that the laws we are passing will be effective in reducing the incidence of sexual violence against children and will not be merely symbolic expressions. That is why we will seek a detailed study and analysis with stakeholders at committee. Liberals will seek to ensure that the policies adopted in this area reflect the best evidence and the latest research available and will not be based on fear and ideology, or worse, on an effort to raise money from a political base using the Criminal Code and this sensitive issue as a way to exploit the fears of Canadians.

We also want an effective law that addresses these issues and not laws that will be met with endless charter challenges defended at taxpayers' expense.

We have some concerns about charter challenges to the sentencing provisions of the bill and about privacy suits that may arise from the offender database. Moreover, travel restrictions may raise concerns as to the mobility rights of Canadians, as guaranteed by the charter. I raise these issues knowing that the government's record on crime legislation is abysmal. Time and again, we see the courts tossing out its legislation, because it is found to be unconstitutional.

Sexual violence, like other forms of violence, is traumatic and devastating. The minister also suggested in committee that along with prevention and deterrence, we need denunciation of those charged and convicted of crimes against children. No one would disagree with that position, but denunciation does not equal deterrence. We must endeavour to find methods of prevention, as well as punishment, while not overlooking the importance of treatment and rehabilitation and the reintegration of offenders.

Evidence-based criminal law policy is a guiding principle of the Liberal Party of Canada. It is through this perspective that we review and critique all legislation.

While we have supported mandatory minimums in this area in the past, we no longer support them as a matter of policy, given that they are ineffective in achieving their stated objectives and may violate the charter. Indeed, mandatory minimums should be the exception, not the rule. Under the current government, they have become the rule, not the exception, despite the fact that mandatory minimums have no basis in evidence pointing to their effectiveness.

There would not be one member of the Conservative caucus who could rise today in his or her place and point to any independent study that would suggest that mandatory minimums work. Indeed, that challenge was advanced to the minister immediately after his speech.

This is not an issue that should divide the House, because we all want to protect children. We in the Liberal Party want to do it in a way that respects the charter, respects evidence and facts, and respects the overwhelming need to be smart on crime.