Bill C-26 (Historical)

Tougher Penalties for Child Predators Act

An Act to amend the Criminal Code, the Canada Evidence Act and the Sex Offender Information Registration Act, to enact the High Risk Child Sex Offender Database Act and to make consequential amendments to other Acts

This enactment amends the Criminal Code to
(a) increase mandatory minimum penalties and maximum penalties for certain sexual offences against children;
(b) increase maximum penalties for violations of prohibition orders, probation orders and peace bonds;
(c) clarify and codify the rules regarding the imposition of consecutive and concurrent sentences;
(d) require courts to impose, in certain cases, consecutive sentences on offenders who commit sexual offences against children; and
(e) ensure that a court that imposes a sentence must take into consideration evidence that the offence in question was committed while the offender was subject to a conditional sentence order or released on parole, statutory release or unescorted temporary absence.
It amends the Canada Evidence Act to ensure that spouses of the accused are competent and compellable witnesses for the prosecution in child pornography cases.
It also amends the Sex Offender Information Registration Act to increase the reporting obligations of sex offenders who travel outside Canada.
It enacts the High Risk Child Sex Offender Database Act to establish a publicly accessible database that contains information — that a police service or other public authority has previously made accessible to the public — with respect to persons who are found guilty of sexual offences against children and who pose a high risk of committing crimes of a sexual nature.
Finally, it makes consequential amendments to other Acts.

The House proceeded to the consideration of Bill C-26, An Act to amend the Criminal Code, the Canada Evidence Act and the Sex Offender Information Registration Act, to enact the High Risk Child Sex Offender Database Act and to make consequential amendments to other Acts, as reported (with amendment) from the committee.

Tougher Penalties for Child Predators Act

[Joe Oliver, Conservative, Eglinton—Lawrence, ON]

moved that the bill, as amended, be concurred in at report stage.

[The Acting Speaker, Bruce Stanton]

Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Acting Speaker, Bruce Stanton]

(Motion agreed to)

When shall the bill be read a third time? By leave, now?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[Joe Oliver, Conservative, Eglinton—Lawrence, ON]

moved that bill be read the third time and passed.

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to voice my support for Bill C-26, the tougher penalties for child predators act, during third reading debate. This is critical legislation that addresses concerns that I believe we all share.

Bill C-26 reflects the ongoing efforts by this government to combat all forms of child sexual exploitation and denounce the grave and reprehensible nature of such heinous crimes. The bill is another concrete example of our commitment to protect Canadian families, communities and, above all, to protect the most vulnerable and valuable members of our society, our children.

We know that children are particularly vulnerable to sexual abuse and exploitation, and are far more likely to be victims of sexual crimes than are adults. Our violent crime rates are trending downward in Canada. It is very worrisome that the number of child sexual offences reported to police continues to rise.

In 2013, police reported some 4,200 incidents of sexual violations against children, a 6% increase in the rate from the previous year. As noted by Statistics Canada, in its report on police reported crime released in July 2014, sexual offences against children was one of the few categories of violent crimes to increase in Canada in 2013.

I think we can all agree that these numbers are a cause for concern. Let me assure the House that the troubling reality behind those numbers is exactly what the tougher penalties for child predators act aims to address.

One of the amendments to criminal law proposed in Bill C-26 seeks to deter people from committing such horrific crimes by ensuring that offenders are liable for the harm they cause children and by improving our capacity to monitor these offenders and prevent recidivism.

More specifically, Bill C-26 proposes increasing mandatory minimum penalties and maximum penalties for many sexual offences against children.

For example, Bill C-26 will ensure that anyone who commits any hybrid offence involving sexual contact is liable to imprisonment for a term of not more than two years less a day when the person is found guilty on summary conviction and a term of 14 years when the person is found guilty on indictment.

Bill C-26 also proposes to increase the penalties for making and distributing child pornography and to make these offences strictly indictable to better reflect their seriousness. Child pornography offences can have long-lasting and devastating impacts on victims, particularly when images and videos are posted on the Internet. Once on the web, child pornographic images can quickly be disseminated around the world and might be accessed indefinitely, with the result of re-victimizing the child victim at every click.

This bill would also ensure that committing a child sexual offence while on a conditional sentence order, parole, or statutory release would be considered an aggravating factor for sentencing purposes to assist in preventing future offences by convicted child sexual offenders.

Bill C-26 proposes to increase maximum penalties for violations of prohibition orders, probation orders, and peace bonds. Canadians are rightly concerned about the mobility and conduct of known child sexual predators once they are released into the community. Stricter measures are needed to ensure that supervision orders are observed and that breaches of conditions result in appropriate consequences. These conditions, which may include refraining from being in contact with a victim or staying away from a specific household or prohibitions around the use of weapons, alcohol, or drugs, are imposed to protect the children. A breach of these conditions generally means that there is an increased risk that the offender may commit further sexual offences. Therefore, Bill C-26 would increase the maximum penalties for breaches of conditions of any of these orders, from six to 18 months if preceded by summary conviction, and from two to four years if preceded by indictment.

Bill C-26 not only sends a strong signal that the protection of children is a paramount value of Canadian society but also communicates the important message that every victim matters.

The reforms in Bill C-26 would also amend the Canada Evidence Act to ensure that spouses of individuals accused of child pornographic offences would be compellable witnesses for the crown. The testimony of an accused spouse may be required to facilitate the prosecution of a child pornography offence when the pornographic material is found on a home computer, for example.

However, the amendments set out in Bill C-26 do not stop there. In order to further address the risk that sex offenders pose to children, Bill C-26 proposes amendments to the Sex Offender Information Registration Act that would require sex offenders to notify authorities of any absences of seven days or more for any trip within Canada or abroad, as well as the dates of their travel and the locations where they will be staying.

It is important to note that child sex offenders will be expected to meet these obligations regardless of the duration of their trip.

The proposed amendments would also increase our knowledge of sexual offenders by authorizing the sharing of information on registered sexual offenders between National Sex Offender Registry officials and the Canada Border Services Agency. In particular, this would assist in preventing and addressing offenders who travel abroad to commit sexual offences against children.

Bill C-26 also proposes to create a national, publicly accessible database of high-risk child sexual offenders who have been the subject of a public notification in a provincial or territorial jurisdiction. A centralized database would help to ensure that law enforcement and the public had greater access to information about high-risk child sex offenders.

Our government recognizes that the issue of child sexual exploitation is not one dimensional and requires a multi-pronged or holistic approach. Although the criminal law reforms proposed in Bill C-26 are a critical part of the overall response, I am pleased that our government has dedicated over $10 million since 2010 for 21 new or enhanced child advocacy centres to address the needs of child and youth victims of crime and to assist with the recovery of victims who have suffered significant trauma as a result of those heinous crimes.

The bill aims to further protect the most vulnerable members of our society, our children, from exploitation by providing measures designed to deter and denounce crimes of a sexual nature committed against them.

The sentencing amendments proposed in the bill include mandatory consecutive sentences, which would ensure that in cases of multiple crimes, including in instances where offences were committed against multiple victims, offenders would not receive what is commonly coined a “sentence discount” at the time they were sentenced.

Before describing the specifics of these amendments, allow me to provide some background with respect to the existing sentencing principles that are applicable to multiple offences. I will then focus my remarks on the proposed amendments to the sentencing regime with respect to child sexual offences.

Generally, the Criminal Code provides that a court has the discretion to order that a term of imprisonment be served consecutively to any sentence the offender is already serving or to any other sentence of imprisonment the court imposes, whether it is a result of the non-payment of a fine or not. If this provision sounds confusing, it is because it represents an amalgamation of sentencing rules that pre-date Confederation. Moreover, amendments over the years have further complicated the statement of the rules contained within the Criminal Code.

In addition to these Criminal Code rules, case law offers guidance with respect to the circumstances in which consecutive or concurrent sentences are imposed on an offender.

In general, courts will order that the sentence for two or more offences arising out of one continuous criminal act or single transaction, also referred to as the “same event or series of events” rule, will be served concurrently, or if members prefer, simultaneously. In these cases, the offender will serve the longer of the sentences imposed.

Offences or multiple convictions that arise out of a separate criminal transaction generally will garner consecutive sentences, which are served one after the other. The imposition of concurrent sentences for offences committed as part of the same event or series of events usually reflects the fact that the guilty mind of the accused is the same throughout the event or events, as opposed to offences arising out of separate criminal transactions. That said, courts will be reluctant to order that offences committed as part of the same event or series of events be served concurrently when it would allow the offender to commit subsequent offences with impunity, especially where the subsequent offence is particularly serious in nature.

For example, courts will order consecutive terms of imprisonment for an offence, the first offence, that is committed while fleeing from the police, the second offence. They will also order that an offence committed while on bail be served concurrently to the term of imprisonment for the predicate offence. The determination of whether sentences are to be served concurrently or consecutively, therefore, is a fact-specific inquiry as to whether the connection between the two offences is sufficiently close to warrant concurrent sentences.

It is important to outline the relevant sentencing principles at play, especially when discussing concurrent and consecutive sentences. The Criminal Code provides that the fundamental purpose of sentencing is to contribute to respect for the law and the maintenance of a just, peaceful, and safe society by imposing fit sentences that have one or more of the following objectives: denunciation, deterrence, separation of offenders from society, rehabilitation, reparation for harms done to victims, and the promotion of a sense of responsibility in offenders.

A fit sentence is one that is proportionate to the gravity of the offence and to the degree of responsibility of the offender. The Criminal Code explicitly directs that a fit sentence must focus on the objectives of deterrence and denunciation.

The last step a court must take before deciding whether to consider that any terms of imprisonment it imposes be served consecutively or concurrently is to consider the totality principle.

Pursuant to subsection 718.2(c) of the Criminal Code, a court that imposes consecutive sentences must determine whether the combined sentence is unduly long or harsh. In other words, the totality principle requires courts to determine whether the totality of the sentence adequately reflects the overall gravity of the offender's conduct. Where the court is of the opinion that the combined sentence is unduly long or harsh, it may order that some of the offences be served concurrently instead of consecutively.

However, where the Criminal Code prescribes mandatory consecutive sentences, a court may impose shorter sentences on some or all of the individual offences in order for the combined sentence to be a fit sentence.

This will be the case for the offences of possession of explosives for a criminal organization, the use of a firearm in the commission of an offence, terrorism offences, or criminal organization offences.

In these cases, the Criminal Code requires judges to order the term of imprisonment for these offences be served consecutively to terms of imprisonment imposed for other offences, whether they arise out of the same event or series of events or not.

The proposed amendments clarify and codify the rules regarding the imposition of consecutive and concurrent sentences, which I outlined earlier in my remarks.

The amendments would also require courts to order in certain cases consecutive sentences on offenders who commit certain sexual offences against children. This would be similar to the current requirement of consecutive sentences for offences that I mentioned earlier: terrorism, criminal organization offences, the use of a firearm.

Specifically, the bill proposes that sentences for child pornography offences be served consecutively to any sentence imposed at the same time for a contact child sexual offence.

It also proposes that in cases of multiple victims, sentences imposed at the same time for contact child sexual offences committed against one victim be served consecutively to those imposed for contact child sexual offences against any other victim.

These amendments recognize the increasing tendency of courts to direct that a sentence for possession or making of child pornography be served consecutively to a sentence for a contact child sexual offence, in recognition of the heinous nature of sexual offending against children, especially where the child pornography material is distributed via the Internet.

Furthermore, requiring child sexual offenders to serve sentences imposed for offences committed against different victims consecutively would address the so-called “volume discounts” given to child sexual offenders sentenced at the same time for multiple child sexual offences. This direction is also valid in cases of multiple child sexual offences, especially where there is more than one victim.

These proposed amendments will reinforce the continued efforts of this government to protect children against sexual offences by ensuring that these crimes are denounced, that child predators are deterred, and that every child victim counts.

In closing, I would encourage all members to support these important amendments that seek to protect our most vulnerable members of society, our young children.

[Françoise Boivin, NDP, Gatineau, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the Minister of Justice of the day, the Minister of Finance, for his speech on Bill C-26.

Since 2006, the Conservative government has taken multiple steps to protect children, including implementing through the Safe Streets and Communities Act new mandatory prison sentences for seven existing Criminal Code sexual offences, including assault, assault with a weapon, aggravated assault where the child is under 16 years of age; and making it illegal for anyone to provide sexually explicit material to a child for the purpose of facilitating the commission of an offence against that child; making it illegal to use computers or other means of telecommunications to agree with or make arrangements with another person to commit a sexual offence against a child; strengthening the sex offender registry; increasing the age of protection; putting in place legislation to make the reporting of child pornography by Internet service providers mandatory; and strengthening the sentencing and monitoring of dangerous offenders.

It all sounds good, but the Minister of Justice stated at committee that sexual offences against children had increased 6% over the past two years. Is Bill C-26 an admission of failure on the part of the government to really better protect children?

[Joe Oliver, Conservative, Eglinton—Lawrence, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member referred to my portfolio, which is not that of justice, but finance. As a member of the government and the cabinet, I am very supportive of this bill, as I believe members on the other side of the House are too. Irrespective of the portfolio they are the critic for, we all share the concern about this important issue.

I thank the member for detailing many of the initiatives that we have advanced to protect our children, the most vulnerable members of our society. This is a demonstration of the importance with which we take this matter and an indication that we do not just talk the talk, but walk the walk as well.

Unfortunately, the nature of cyberbullying and sexual offences is such that the challenge is becoming ever greater, so we have to respond. What we have done is very positive. What we have done was needed. What we have done was right, just, and appropriate, and it is protective of children. But it is clear that we have to do more. That is the purpose of this bill.

[Sean Casey, Liberal, Charlottetown, PE]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to pose a question to the Minister of Finance on this bill. Although he may not believe it, it is probably he, more than the Minister of Justice, who has a greater capacity to contribute to the goal that we all have of there being fewer victims.

I will tell the House what I mean by this. At committee, we heard from witnesses—and the academic literature is replete with the same conclusion—that mandatory minimum sentences do not work. They do not result in fewer victims.

What we heard at committee is that funding programs for rehabilitation and reintegration do work. One program that we specifically heard about at committee was circles of support and accountability, where the success rate of eliminating recurrence is 70% to 80%.

My question for the minister is why does the government insist on going back to mandatory minimum sentences to address this problem when we know that they do not work, while at the same time defunding a program that has an 80% success rate?

[Joe Oliver, Conservative, Eglinton—Lawrence, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the mandatory minimum sentences and the maximum sentences are but a part of the legislation. I would invite the member to read the whole bill. He is focusing on a few sections, but it is important to read the entire bill to get a full understanding of it.

Statistics are a part of the story. The facts that we have had on more sexual offences cry out for tougher sanctions and more practical steps to put tools in the hands of police officers and the courts to help protect children. They cry for innovative solutions that would allow us to put in place a more protective perimeter around children when it comes to protecting their vulnerability. This is all part of a comprehensive approach by our government.

There are some 30 justice initiatives, some of which were raised by the previous member opposite, and many of which are designed to put in jail people who offend against and sexually abuse children, and to put them in jail for a longer time. We think this is in the best interests of our most vulnerable people.

[Mark Warawa, Conservative, Langley, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I really want to thank the minister for all the work he has done on this important file and this bill.

Why do the Liberals and the NDP have such a long legacy of focusing on the offender and not the victim? Why are they falsely telling the House that mandatory minimum sentences have no effect when, in fact, they do have a very strong effect?

Can the minister address those important questions about the reasons for the misleading information from the opposition and why they have a legacy of sticking up for the offender and not the victim?

[Joe Oliver, Conservative, Eglinton—Lawrence, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for that important question, but I am actually not well placed to answer it. I have been puzzled repeatedly by the fact that no matter what bill we propose to impose fines, penalties and, potentially, prison sentences against people who break the law and commit crimes, there is opposition to that. The opposition members are there to oppose, but not to oppose, one would hope, legislation that is in the public interest. I really cannot understand why, but there is a long record of shame in that regard.

[Jasbir Sandhu, NDP, Surrey North, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I listened to the finance minister's speech on this particular bill. I want to share a couple of stories from my communities and to ask a question of the Minister of Finance.

I have had two dangerous offenders released into the community. One of them, a sex offender, sadly ended up murdering a very young girl. The second offender who was released last month, James Conway, was actually dropped into the community with several conditions to monitor him in the community. The conditions were similar to those put onto the first sex offender I mentioned. James Conway was arrested after nine days of roaming around the community. Thankfully, he was arrested successfully.

I have heard from the community. Once these individuals are released into the community, there is a lack of funding and monitoring of them.

Since we have the Minister of Finance here, I want to ask him this. Does he have additional funding to monitor these individuals? We had a program called circles of support and accountability. That funding has been cut by the current government. The government also promised more RCMP support for the communities, but that has not been delivered.

My community, my mayors, and my constituents are asking the government and Minister of Finance whether there will be additional funding for the programs that monitor these monsters in our communities.

[Joe Oliver, Conservative, Eglinton—Lawrence, ON]

Mr. Speaker, as I think the member opposite knows, I cannot comment on individual cases. However, we are taking action in respect to this bill, and have taken action in the past to deal with this issue of released prisoners. Of course, mandatory minimum sentences will help in that regard.

Information would be shared between the national sex offender registry and the Canada Border Services Agency as a result of amendments in the bill.

We will also address concerns about exploitation in respect to those who travel in Canada and abroad. This is very important. The proposed amendments would address concerns about accountability of registered sexual offenders who travel across Canada, for example. They would be required to report all passport and driver's licence numbers and their absence for seven days or more for travel within or outside of Canada for the duration of any trips; any address or location where they are expected to stay; and actual dates that have been planned for trips outside Canada and within Canada. This information would be shared and, of course, it would be shared by law enforcement agencies.

[The Acting Speaker, Bruce Stanton]

Before resuming debate, it is my duty, pursuant to Standing Order 38, to inform the House that the question to be raised tonight at the time of adjournment is as follows: the hon. member for Thunder Bay—Superior North, Natural Resources.

[Françoise Boivin, NDP, Gatineau, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am tempted to begin my speech in the House on Bill C-26 by pointing out the latest attempt by the member for Langley to demonize the official opposition and the second opposition party.

Any time we examine a justice bill, whether it is Bill C-26 or any other justice bill, I look carefully at what the bill says. This bill is An Act to amend the Criminal Code, the Canada Evidence Act and the Sex Offender Information Registration Act, to enact the High Risk Child Sex Offender Database Act and to make consequential amendments to other Acts.

Sometimes I receive a letter from the Minister of Justice, but not always, explaining a little about the context of his bill, which I appreciate.

In the case of Bill C-26, the main objective is to deter criminals and denounce sexual offences against children. The next step is to examine the bill and see whether that is what the bill actually does.

When I hear the Conservatives say over and over again that we care more about offenders and criminals than we do about victims, I find that rather biased and I take offence to such comments, which add absolutely nothing to the debate.

Obviously we are talking about criminals when we are studying a bill like this. They are the main focus of the bill. Talking about them does not mean that we like them, or support them, or that we are behind them saying, “good job, do it again”, like a bunch of cheerleaders. Not at all.

However, if the government tells me that it is denouncing sexual offences against children in order to deter criminals, then I will look at the bill to see whether that is indeed what the government is doing.

It is rather sad that closure was invoked at second reading stage of such an extremely important and complex file, because we can see from the title of the bill alone that it affects a number of statutes at the same time. It introduces a specific database for offenders who are at risk of reoffending and committing more serious offences than the ones described in the current database.

As I was saying to the Minister of Finance, who was well informed but was perhaps not the person who worked directly on this file, the House has passed many laws regarding sexual offences against children.

In fact, we have to question why, by the Minister of Justice's own admission, there has been a 6% increase in offences in the past two years alone. That still bothers me somewhat because if one of the main objectives of the law is to deter criminals from committing crimes and to report sexual offences against children, there may well be some flaws. I do not want members to tell me that this did not exist before. Minimum sentences did exist.

Bill C-26 does not include any new minimum sentence or any new maximum sentence. All that happened was that the length of the sentences was increased. Both minimum and maximum sentences were increased. Perhaps these types of sentences did not work. In short, we could have done the analysis, but first there was closure in the House, then we went to committee.

I must confess that I was a bit wary in the beginning. We were under the impression that the members sitting on the government benches wanted to work very quickly and take shortcuts. Nevertheless, I admit that we were finally able to call the witnesses that we wanted to hear.

I am not quite so positive when it comes to the amendments. Only the government's amendments were accepted, which is always the case. I think that is unfortunate because one of our amendments was based on the very solid evidence given by a criminology expert.

She told us that the information the government wants to put in the new registry—or high risk sex offender database—that it wants to create and that is mentioned in clause 29 of Bill C-26 might be used to identify some victims. This government claims to be on the victims' side and tells us that we are the mean ones who always side with the criminals.

I presented a very simple amendment but the government decided it was too complicated and unnecessary because the notion was implied. When I studied law at the University of Ottawa I was taught that if it is clear, you spell it out. You write it and that is that. Leaving things open to interpretation is another story. All we were asking was that, “under no circumstances must the information referred to in subsection (1) be used to identify the victims”. The amendment was rejected.

This government likes to introduce all kinds of bills. Sometimes it seems as though it is lacking a plan or a person to make sure that the different bills do not contradict each other or that a bill, like Bill C-13 on cyberbullying, which amended a lot of other laws, is not affected in any way by Bill C-26. Sometimes I wonder whether the government is losing control and losing its way.

We presented a perfectly reasonable amendment, requesting that the minister of justice be required to prepare a report specifying the number of persons whose name has been added to the database and the information specified in paragraphs 5(f) and (g), which have to do with the type of offence. This information could have been interesting to look at with respect to each of these individuals. The amendment stipulated that the minister of justice would have to table the report to each house of Parliament within the first 15 sitting days after the report has been prepared.

Once again, this seems to me like a reasonable amendment. The Conservatives will probably give me the same answer. The answer that was given by the Department of Justice and the Conservatives is that it is a public registry—as if I did not know that. The word itself says it all. Since it is a public registry, it is up to me to find the information I need. Every year, I will have to go and check the registry to find the information. If the government was interested in promoting these things and ensuring that its bills work well, this is the type of work that would normally be done. They want to complicate our lives. That is fine. That is good. We will put that in our pipe and smoke it.

However, that being said, it would have been much simpler to do this the way we are proposing. It could also have been useful for the government, since it could have found some missing information right in this report. The government may well say that the 6% increase could be due to the fact that the minimum sentences were not yet harsh enough. On this side of the House, we think that the increase is more likely related to the fact that the government does not spend much and, even worse, it is making cuts to programs that are working really well and that have been successful. That is also what experts told us in committee.

As I said before on the radio and here in the House at second reading, it is all well and good to have a registry. We already have one. The person responsible for the registry at the RCMP came and told us in committee that the RCMP is already doing this. When a dangerous person moves into a community, the RCMP informs the people living there. The RCMP does not need the government to keep the public safe. The government created this registry saying that it would formalize what the RCMP is already doing.

I will digress for a moment. When we had the minister's press conference after the Prime Minister's presentation, everyone who talked about Bill C-26 made it sound as though it was the ultimate goal and that it would solve all of the world's problems. Finally, the Deputy Commissioner of the RCMP answered one of my questions and said that it would affect perhaps a dozen cases a year.

That brings us back to reality. The National Sex Offender Registry already exists for such offenders. The additional “high risk” aspect pertains to about a dozen people. One thing is clear, and I am surprised that the Conservative government has not paid more attention to it. In fact, instead of talking in glowing terms about this type of measure, it should instead be worried about the fact that these high risk offenders are in our communities. That worries me a lot. I sometimes feel that this government works a lot harder on paper, with words, because that goes hand in hand with its rhetoric that makes it appear to be tough and to be doing something. However, in reality, when we look at the resources available to the RCMP and police forces to conduct investigations, that is not the case. I shudder when I hear police services say that some types of crime will have to be ignored because combatting terrorism is now the priority. Perhaps the minister was right to specify the criteria for a sentence. Yes, there is rehabilitation, deterrence and all that, but one of the government's main purposes is to protect its citizens. Putting more eggs in one basket than in another is not necessarily good management.

There is nothing real there. As for minimum sentences—that is what the member opposite was talking about—I am of the same mind as a former Supreme Court justice who appeared before us and said, in the context of another justice-related file, that all minimum sentences are not necessarily unconstitutional. It is simply not a tool that should be overused. First of all, and this is very important, even the witnesses who appeared in committee, whether they were victims or people who work with organizations that support victims, told us that minimum sentences were not the issue. If, for the kind of offence and the seriousness of the crime committed, we were to impose the minimum sentences that the Conservatives proposed in Bill C-26, there is a problem somewhere. However, there could be a case that has absolutely nothing to do with the kind of stereotype we have of that kind of offence. Therein lies the problem. We heard it directly from legal experts. To say that we are against minimum sentences for this kind of offence does not mean we are defending criminals.

The fact is that, ultimately, the minimum sentence may not even be imposed by the court, because the court, as a general rule, will give more than that, and that is what we want. Look at the bill dealing with child kidnapping—it was clear from the case law that was brought before the committee that the average sentence exceeded the minimum sentence that the Conservatives wanted to impose.

Basically, this is mostly just smoke and mirrors; however, in some cases, it can lead to some strange outcomes. This is why there are constitutional challenges. With a constitutional challenge, all you need is one case that is flawed, that does not fit the minimum sentence formula, for the provision to be struck down; it will then be sent back here for us to do over again. That is one of the problems.

Obviously, the NDP supported Bill C-26 at second reading. We took our work seriously and sought the extra information we needed, even though the bill is far from perfect and is not necessarily the type of bill we would introduce. I think our analysis would be more thorough. Indeed, offenders need to be punished, but we must also ensure that the people who leave prison are not a danger to the public. Earlier, the Liberal member mentioned the circles of change program. In committee we learned that the program had a 70% to 80% success rate. Who would scoff at that? None other than the Conservative government, because it does not want to talk about that type of thing.

The government just wants to talk about things that create the impression that it is dealing with criminals. Of course, we are all against criminals.

When I return to my riding at the end of the day and talk to the people of Gatineau, because I like to connect with my community, I tell them I am proud of the work we did that week. In this case, we passed a victims bill of rights and we worked on a bill to deal with sexual predators. I would just like to add, for once in my life, that I am sure that this will be useful.

In any case, I can tell them I tried very hard in committee to have the government listen to reason, not to defend criminals, but to ensure that the bill will withstand the constitutional challenges that will test it in the coming years, that it is consistent with other bills, and that it achieves its objectives.

The government claims to be helping victims with the victims bill of rights, but they need real rights, as I said in my speech. The right to lodge a complaint cannot be hypothetical. The government brings in minimum penalties but it is cutting resources for police officers—the ones who catch criminals and bring them to justice. The justice system is crying for help, and we are in need of judges and crown prosecutors. How does this make any sense?

I weep for victims because they will never get the services they need. That will not change, even in one, two or three years. What is even sadder is that they will have been promised the world. It is even more disappointing when they are told that something will be fixed.

As for the registry, people from the RCMP have told us that they already have a hard time keeping criminal cases and criminal records up to date. The member for Langley presented a petition earlier regarding impaired driving. I agree that we still have a long way to go. When we hear in the papers that someone was convicted for the sixth time, we have to wonder how that can be possible. However, these situations happen because nothing is written in the records of these repeat offenders, even though everyone knows that they have been to court six times and that this is not their first conviction.

Civil and criminal justice need to be consistent. There needs to be some follow-up. The bill gives the governor in council the power to make regulations by establishing the criteria for determining whether a person who is found guilty of a sexual offence against a child poses a high risk of committing a crime of a sexual nature; and, in subclause (b), by prescribing anything that is to be prescribed by this act. This means that this legislation retains some harmful legal grey areas.

This is moving too fast even for the people at the Department of Justice. I asked them what impact Bill S-2 would have. People like me who follow justice issues know that this was the bill concerning statutory instruments and how to enact regulations. We all know that a law is one thing, but that three-quarters of the obligations are set out in the regulations.

When the government tells us that the Governor in Council, namely cabinet, will be establishing the criteria, that tells us who is going to be making the decisions and that we will not know exactly when and how those decisions will be made. I asked them whether Bill S-2 would apply since we are talking about delegation and regulation by reference. That means that we would not even have a separate list of criteria. The answer that I got from the expert at the Department of Justice was that he did not know and that he would check.

That means that the government is not making connections between its various bills. I got an answer today, just a few hours before I rose in the House for the debate, and I was told that, yes, Bill S-2 would apply.

There are ramifications, and I get the impression that we will be forced to revisit many of these bills. However, as it now stands, Bill C-26 is unfortunately a lot of talk, just like the Canadian victims bill of rights. As one of the victims, Mr. Gilhooly, so aptly stated, even if the bill were passed as it stands, it would not change what he experienced in any way.

Once again, the government is misleading victims by giving them the impression that it is tough on crime and imposing law and order, but in the end, the law will not be enforced.

[Mark Warawa, Conservative, Langley, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the member across the way. She definitely is passionate. She is bright. She is a lawyer, and that is not an insult. However, she said a lot.

To summarize, she said that the government has promised a lot. That is true. We have promised to make Canada safer. We have one of the best judicial systems in the world, but it needs to be improved, and that is what Bill C-26 does. She said we are doing a lot, and she is correct. We are doing a lot to make sure we have kept our promises.

One of the key parts of Bill C-26 is to hold offenders to account and to protect the victims. If offenders reoffend during their warrant period, should the sentence for that offence be served concurrently or consecutively? Should it be at the same time they are serving their initial sentence, or should it be added on?

There is another question on concurrent and consecutive sentences in the case of multiple victims. If victim number one was sexually assaulted and then victim number 2, at a different time, was also sexually assaulted, and then victim number 3 was sexually assaulted, would those be three convictions? If there were three convictions, would those sentences be served all at the same time by that person, or should the sentences be consecutive and be served one after another?

I think Canadians want them served one after another. I would ask for the ideology of the NDP on that issue.

[Françoise Boivin, NDP, Gatineau, QC]

Mr. Speaker, we are supporting Bill C-26, so I think that speaks volumes to those factors.

The Conservatives talk a lot about consecutive sentencing. The Minister of Finance talked about it also, but I would submit that in the same way the charter of victims rights has been conceived—with a lot of “could”, “might”, and so on—it would still be left to the discretion of the court. I believe that a crime should be punished according to what the crime is.

I have practised labour law my entire life. Thank goodness it is not about crime and it is not the same thing. However, when someone is fired or is brought before a disciplinary board, the same principle has always been applied, and this is the same societal principle that we apply to criminals: the person who commits a crime must pay. However, if their crime is stealing a chocolate bar from a corner store, they will not be put in prison for 10 years, as would the fellow who goes to a bank with a shotgun and waves it in the teller's face. It is all relative. That is how our system works.

The government talks a lot about consecutive sentences, but that is at the court's discretion. That suits the NDP. That is the principle to be retained. However, they should stop talking as if consecutive sentences were automatic because victims are being misled if they are led to believe that, as of now, all sentences will be consecutive. That is not true. There is the principle of totality, according to Mr. Gilhooly, who is a victim. Consecutive sentences will not work because of this principle. People have to stop spouting nonsense.

[Sean Casey, Liberal, Charlottetown, PE]

Mr. Speaker, I have two questions for my colleague, who is a member of the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights.

She worked very hard during the study of this bill. She proposed some amendments, but they were all rejected. She talked about two of those amendments.

I wonder if she could tell us about the process for proposing amendments in committee and how the government reacted in response to those amendments and all that work.

I doubt that everyone understands the process and the fact that there is no real discussion on the value of each amendment. The member also talked a bit about the circles program. I listened carefully to earlier debates, today's debates and debates in committee. We never received a proper explanation, either here in the House or in committee, as to why cuts were made to that program.

Does the member know why? Does she have any more information about the cuts than what we have before us now?

[Françoise Boivin, NDP, Gatineau, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I will begin by answering the first question about the process in committee and the amendment stage. My colleague also proposed an amendment that made sense to me. It seemed well-thought-out and logical given what we had heard. Once again, the government flat out said no. It is all very sad.

When NDP members of the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights make speeches, they do not get sheets of paper telling them to say this or that, unless a colleague wants to help out and has a great idea. We are rather autonomous. I imagine the same goes for my Liberal colleague. He is going to give his speech a little later. He will surely figure it out for himself.

To hear the Conservative backbenchers, we get the impression that they do not get much of a say. They seem to be run by some tiresome remote control. I thought that being a member of a committee meant doing this work for our colleagues in the House: coming back after report stage and reporting on what all of us, from all parties, heard and what we think.

On the matter of the circles program, unfortunately, the answer will be brief. It is sad because we had with us the Minister of Finance who holds the purse strings. If he really believes in Bill C-26, then he needs to allocate a bit more money.

Unfortunately, justice is the poor cousin. If we do not have social justice in the country, then that is pretty pathetic.

[Carol Hughes, NDP, Algoma—Manitoulin—Kapuskasing, ON]

Mr. Speaker, this is up my alley because I worked for probation and parole for 13 years, and my daughter Mindy is a correctional worker at the Brampton youth correctional centre.

One of the questions that was posed a while ago was about whether sentences should be concurrent or consecutive. I can say that the government and Parliament have a responsibility to ensure that the Criminal Code is clear about what an offence constitutes, but at the end of the day it will be a decision by a judge that will determine whether or not that sentence should be consecutive or concurrent, based on the assessment, the pre-sentence reports, the pre-disposition reports, and whether the offender is an adult or a youth.

As well, it is a bit rich that we are studying a bill about sexual offences right now when the government did not spend the $10 million of funds that were earmarked for the National Child Exploitation Coordination Centre. Maybe my colleague can elaborate on that.

The other thing that I would like the member to elaborate on is the importance of prevention and rehabilitation and how that can help us as a society and ensure that we will all be safe at the end of the day.

[Françoise Boivin, NDP, Gatineau, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for her questions, which could well be the topic of a dissertation.

It is disgraceful that the $10 million in question was not spent, since that money was supposed to be used to provide direct assistance to victims. The Conservatives often say that we on this side of the House do not care about victims. Nevertheless, we are talking about many programs that have proven their worth. They do not cost much, but they provide really good value for money. It seems to me that the Conservatives are completely missing the mark on this.

I would also like to thank my colleague for asking a question about prevention. Asking that question has nothing to do with favouring criminals over victims. On the contrary, I would not want any repeat offenders to be allowed to reintegrate into the community. I am not proud to say that such a registry will be created to inform me of the presence of dangerous people in my community. I would prefer that those people not be in my community. We need to work on that. We have to help the people who can be rehabilitated by using programs that have proven their worth. We need to think about other measures to deal with those who cannot be saved.

[Sean Casey, Liberal, Charlottetown, PE]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak to Bill C-26, the tougher penalties for child predators act.

Protecting children from predators is a Liberal priority, as I am sure it is a priority of everyone in the House. For that reason, we will support the bill, though in many respects we view it as a missed opportunity from a policy perspective. I want to be clear. Sexual violence is traumatic and devastating at any age, but even more so for children.

The attempt of criminal sentencing to in some way quantify the impact of sexual violence is a failure from the outset. As with all violent crime, no criminal sentence or civil remedy can undo the wrong that has occurred, though we would hope that healing is possible for every victim.

However, the law can only deliver an imperfect measure of justice. No, consecutive sentence, increased maximum penalty, no order for damages can undo the actions that society would justly have offenders repay.

The hearts of everyone in the House, including my colleagues on the justice committee, go out to the victims of childhood sexual offences. The testimony of victims we heard at committee was gut-wrenching and, frankly, at times difficult to listen to.

I want to say for the record that I was particularly struck by the testimony of Mr. Greg Gilhooly, a victim of the terrible crimes of Graham James. Mr. Sheldon Kennedy also appeared by teleconference, but unfortunately we experienced some technical difficulties into his testimony. In any case, I would like to commend both of them for assisting the committee with its work, along with Mr. Alain Fortier and Mr. Frank Tremblay of Victimes d'agressions sexuelles au masculi. Their bravery in going on the public record for the benefit of Canadian society is truly admirable and most appreciated.

As to the purpose of Bill C-26, Liberals support the policy objectives of reducing sexual offences against children, denouncing such heinous acts when they occur and separating offenders from society where necessary. However, from the Liberal perspective, the bill should have focused more on reducing crimes in the first place, rather than on punishing offenders once a child had been victimized.

In our committee over the past year we have talked a lot about victims, and rightly so, but we should put more focus on having fewer victims to talk about. Reducing rates of child sexual crime will require making meaningful fiscal commitments instead of these repeated changes to the Criminal Code.

Liberals believe it is crucial for criminal justice policy to be evidence-based. That belief is at the core of our support for the charter, which requires our courts to weigh a law's intended purposes against its actual effects in real life. Unfortunately, the bill is largely a missed opportunity when it comes to reducing sexual offences against children.

As we heard at committee, the data shows that a reduction in the incidence of these crimes would require investing in rehabilitation programs. Instead, we heard that the Conservatives had cut programs that successfully achieved reductions.

In addition, some provisions in Bill C-26 that reduce judicial discretion are problematic, though not fatal to our support for the bill. I will explain these conclusions in a minute. However, I would like to go over the provisions of Bill C-26 for the benefit of the House.

Bill C-26 seeks to amend the Criminal Code to increase mandatory minimum and maximum penalties for certain sexual offences against children, including sexual assaults and offences related to child pornography.

Bill C-26 would also increase the maximum penalties for violations of various court orders, including probation orders, peace bonds and so forth. In addition, it would amend the Canada Evidence Act to ensure that the spouses of the accused would be competent and compellable witnesses for the prosecution in child pornography cases.

The bill would also amend the Sex Offender Information Registration Act to increase the reporting obligations of sex offenders who travelled outside of Canada.

Finally, Bill C-26 would enact the high risk child sex offender database act to establish a public-accessible federal database that contains an amalgamation of already public information with respect to high-risk sex offenders.

I want to say a few words about rehabilitation, which I know is a principle of sentencing that the government prefers to ignore. However, from a public policy perspective, it is absolutely crucial. I say that not because anybody wants to put support for offenders above support for victims, but because we want to have fewer victims.

Some in this chamber may recall that at second reading I expressed considerable skepticism about the bill before us. After all, in 2012, many of the criminal provisions in Bill C-26 were amended in Bill C-10 to create or increase minimum penalties or to increase maximums. Since Bill C-10 came into force, the Minister of Justice, as repeated again today by the Minister of Finance, indicated that child sexual offences had risen by 6%. Therefore, it serves to reason that either Bill C-10 was ineffective at reducing the number of offences or that the government is again increasing penalties, without waiting to see whether Bill C-10 was effective.

I understand that maybe the focus here is denunciation and separating offenders from society, but I would plainly ask, why are we not doing more on prevention? Why is reduction not our central policy focus when it comes to child sex offences or at least worthy of equal focus to denunciation and separation from society?

Liberals will support the bill, but we would like a direct answer to this question from the government. Where is the prevention?

I would like to draw the government's attention to some specific testimony from the committee. We heard from two representatives from an organization, which was discussed earlier in debate, called Circles of Support and Accountability, or COSA.

COSA is a community-based reintegration group that holds sexual offenders accountable for the harm they have caused, while assisting with their re-entry into society at the end of their sentences. COSA was started by the Mennonite Central Committee, and there are chapters across the country.

At committee, we heard about the organization's remarkable success at reducing recidivism. Specifically, research indicates that offenders involved with COSA have a reduction of sexual recidivism of 70% to 80% compared to those who are not. The program is also very cost effective. For example, the annual budget in Ottawa, which would work with about 8 to 12 offenders a year, is less than the cost to incarcerate one offender in the federal system for a year.

COSA had been receiving $2.2 million in government money annually for two decades. However, the government ended that funding, which in Ontario, for example, supported 70% of its operations.

From a public policy perspective, how does it make sense to tinker with the Criminal Code, while defunding programs that are proven to reduce recidivism by 70% to 80%? Think of how many fewer victims that means, or maybe do not, because it is too heartbreaking.

Also on this point of prevention, speaking about the proposed federal sex offender registry, the Privacy Commissioner, Mr. Daniel Therrien, told the committee:

—evaluations that have been done based on the experience in the United States suggest that there is little or no evidence that registration and notification laws are effective, either in terms of deterring sex offender recidivism or in reducing reported sex offences.

Any government's time and money are limited resources. Is Bill C-26 an efficient allocation of those resources to serve the worthy objective of reducing child sexual offences? Again, I repeat, it is a missed opportunity.

I also want to mention that it remains my view, and the view of the Liberal Party, that some of these changes inappropriately remove judicial discretion from the sentencing process. Perhaps Conservatives look at these changes and think, “Great, higher sentences across the board”.

However, a key point that gets missed here is that discretion is not eliminated. It is simply downloaded to law enforcement and prosecutors. The result, in some instances, might be that we see no charge where we would currently see a relatively minor or moderate charge, because a new mandatory minimum would make an appropriate outcome impossible. Dr. Stacey Hannem, the chair of the policy review committee of the Canadian Criminal Justice Association, drew our attention to the particular problem of eliminating summary offence options.

In any event, I want to reiterate that Liberals will support this bill, because we indeed support the denunciation of child sexual offences and separating offenders from society where necessary. None of my criticisms of this bill detract from the gravity of these types of crimes. However, their gravity is why I wish the government would do more to prevent these crimes in the first place, rather than focusing exclusively on dealing with their consequences.

As I said, this is a missed opportunity to prioritize the prevention of these intolerable crimes.

[The Acting Speaker, Bruce Stanton]

Before we start questions and comments, I just wanted to indicate to hon. members that I know that this is an important and complex question. However, I do notice that in the period allowed for questions and comments, even when it is 10 minutes, we have scarcely been getting three interventions into that 10 minutes.

I am appealing to hon. members, for their colleagues who may wish to participate in that period, to the extent members can, to keep those interventions as brief and as succinct as they can.

The hon. member for Gatineau.

[Françoise Boivin, NDP, Gatineau, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I take the message to heart. I know that I am one of the guilty people on that front.

The question that I would like to ask my colleague, who is the Liberal justice critic, is as follows.

We spoke about the work that was done in committee. In committee, I was concerned about the only two amendments that the government accepted. They were presented as technical amendments, but in the end, people from the department said that those amendments actually addressed fundamental errors and omissions.

This is the second bill where the government has introduced new provisions and new topics that were not examined by the committee on the very day that we were studying the bill clause by clause. I would like to hear what my colleague has to say about that.

[Sean Casey, Liberal, Charlottetown, PE]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for her question.

What she mentioned is exactly what happened a few times in committee. Unfortunately this shows a lack of respect for those participating in the committee. It would absolutely have been possible to present these amendments and to discuss them with the witnesses during the study in committee.

The fact that these amendments were received after all of the testimony, during the clause-by-clause study, was unfair and truly showed a lack of respect for all of the participants, who are there to try to improve the bill. That is what I think. There is no problem with presenting amendments like that at the last minute. However, when the government knows about an amendment, it should present it as soon as possible. It is best to discuss these amendments with the witnesses.

[Brad Butt, Conservative, Mississauga—Streetsville, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my friend from Charlottetown for his intervention on this bill this afternoon, and I want to thank the members of the Liberal Party and the New Democratic Party for indicating their support for this bill. It is an important bill.

I am the father of two daughters, 15 and 11, and God forbid that anything should ever happen to them in any way that would be covered under this kind of legislation.

One of the reasons this bill is before the House is that we have seen many instances when this type of criminal conduct has not been taken seriously by the courts. The name of this bill is the “tougher penalties for child predators act”. It speaks for itself.

I want to ask the member if he believes that in the past we have seen lenient and unacceptable sentences. Does he believe that victims have not always been fully respected by the courts? Does he agree that this bill is designed to do just that?

[Sean Casey, Liberal, Charlottetown, PE]

Mr. Speaker, it strikes me as passing strange that we have a question that would indicate a lack of faith in the judiciary when it comes to imposing sentences in criminal matters, when over the last few days, we have heard that it is only members of the judiciary, and not parliamentarians, who are the appropriate ones to oversee national security in this country.

My answer for my colleague would be that very capable people are appointed to the bench. We trust judges, and judges should have discretion. That discretion should not be unduly fettered in the manner it has been. It results in a whole panoply of unintended consequences, mostly at the lower range of the scale. It does not result in our having fewer victims, and that should be our focus.

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I commend my colleague for his speech, once again. He shows the distinction in his background as a career lawyer. However, I want to go back to the notion of mandatory minimum sentences.

My colleague now knows this. In the United States, there is a bipartisan effort among Republicans and Democrats to do away with mandatory minimum sentences, because the Americans have decided in Congress that they are not working. Whether it is in Texas, California, or New Jersey, there is a movement to do away with them, because they are extremely expensive. As the Americans like to say now, mandatory minimum sentences are all about being dumb on crime and tough on taxpayers.

I would like to ask my colleague to comment a bit more on the fact that these mandatory minimums the government is shoving down the throats of judges are not working. Also, could he just help us understand why it is that the director of criminal law policy at Justice Canada, Mr. David Daubney, who was a Conservative member of Parliament before moving on to that distinguished career, held a press conference just before his retirement two years ago and slammed the Conservatives for not listening to the evidence or the good work being provided by the criminal law policy unit at Justice Canada?

[Sean Casey, Liberal, Charlottetown, PE]

Mr. Speaker, I know that you wanted the questions and answers to be short, but indeed, a 20-minute dissertation would not be time enough to point out all of the weaknesses of mandatory minimum sentences. Allow me to give the House the Coles Notes.

The academic research and the testimony at committee were unanimous that mandatory minimum sentences do not deter crime. They contribute to prison overcrowding. They discriminate disproportionately against aboriginal Canadians. They are an unjustified attack on judicial discretion. They do not eliminate discretion at all, but as I indicated in my remarks, simply pass it down to the prosecutorial and police-enforcement level, and they are a waste of taxpayers' dollars. That is the Coles Notes.

We need to be seeking more upstream solutions. Our goal should be for there to be fewer victims. Mandatory minimum sentences do not work. The members opposite would not be able to point to a single study that contradicts that. The evidence is absolutely uncontradicted. Upstream solutions is where we should be.

The answers are not in legislative measures. They are not in tinkering with the Criminal Code. The answers are in making investments on the front end in things like poverty reduction and mental health and addiction services. Also, I cannot stress enough the wrong-headed move by the government to cut the rehabilitation and reintegration program, Circles of Support and Accountability, which it has been shown works with a success rate of 70% to 80%. Those are the answers, not mandatory minimum sentences.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I find myself in complete agreement with the hon. member for Charlottetown. The only difference is that I feel so strongly that mandatory minimums are the wrong way to go and unconstitutional that I probably will vote against this bill. As much as I want to do whatever it takes to protect children from child predators, I do not see that this bill is going to be effective.

I would love to hear more from the member for Charlottetown as to what he sees as those upstream solutions. What more could we be doing in prevention? As a mother and grandmother, I cannot find words adequate to express my contempt and loathing for anyone who commits these kinds of crimes. We want to protect our children. What is the best way?

[Sean Casey, Liberal, Charlottetown, PE]

Mr. Speaker, the answers lie in social programs that are designed to address the root causes for many of the troubled individuals who find themselves in conflict with the criminal justice system. We have seen those social programs under attack and falling at the altar of the obsession with balancing the budget. They include things like mental health and addictions. They include things like poverty reduction. All these sorts of programs require a collaborative approach with stakeholders within communities, and indeed with provincial governments, because there is absolutely an overlap.

That is why I believe it is so difficult for the government to make a serious investment in upstream solutions. As Kyle Kirkup said, if you have a complex social problem, we have a prison for that. Anything that is nuanced, sophisticated, a bit complex, or cannot be fixed with an amendment to the Criminal Code seems to be, sadly, beyond the government's comprehension.

[The Acting Speaker, Bruce Stanton]

I would compliment hon. members. On such a topic, we got in four interventions in 10 minutes. That was much better.

The House resumed consideration of the motion that Bill C-26, An Act to amend the Criminal Code, the Canada Evidence Act and the Sex Offender Information Registration Act, to enact the High Risk Child Sex Offender Database Act and to make consequential amendments to other Acts, be read the third time and passed.

[Scott Armstrong, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Employment and Social Development and Minister of Labour]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to inform you that I will be splitting my time with the articulate and passionate member for Mississauga—Streetsville.

Before I begin my official remarks, I would like to say I have never seen an upstream solution or a social program that can cure a pedophile. That is absolutely ridiculous. I have spent 18 years as an educator, over 10 of those as a school principal, and I have seen the victims of child predators. I have seen the victims of pedophilia, and no slap on the wrist, no upstream solution, no social program is going to stop them from violating the rights of our most precious commodity, our children. When they are sitting in a prison cell, predators cannot and will not molest a child. That is the solution for pedophilia in this country.

I am pleased to voice my support for Bill C-26, the tougher penalties for child predators act, during third reading debate. Bill C-26 would significantly strengthen our approach to addressing sexual offending against children. The proposed reforms are targeted at deterring these heinous crimes; ensuring that offenders are held accountable for the harm they cause to the most vulnerable members of our society; and enhancing our ability to monitor these offenders to assist in preventing recidivism.

We know that children are particularly vulnerable to sexual abuse and sexual exploitation. In fact, children represent the majority of all police reported sexual assault victims, and 55% of all police reported sexual assault victims in 2012 were children. It is shocking. Moreover, recent increases in police reported sexual offences are of particular concern. In 2013, they increased by 5% from the previous year, in contrast with the decline in recent years of violent crime generally. This is a higher rate than the two previous years in 2012 and 2013, which each saw a 3% increase. So this is a growing problem.

What are these numbers telling us? In my view the message is clear: we need to do more as a society to protect our children from this harm. That is precisely why Bill C-26 builds on recent reforms enacted by the Safe Streets and Communities Act in 2012, including increasing mandatory minimum penalties and maximum penalties for certain child sexual offences.

Recent jurisprudence reflects the importance of these types of reforms. Judicial consideration of denunciation and deterrence and the imposition of lengthier sentences for child sexual offences have increased following passage of the Safe Streets and Communities Act. These reforms strengthen penalties for child sexual offences. Judges are taking note of Parliament's efforts to recognize the seriousness of these types of offences.

Specifically, the British Columbia Court of Appeal noted: “Parliament has made it very clear that the protection of children is a basic value of Canadian society which the courts must defend”. The Ontario Court of Appeal has also commented on this important legislative objective. That court noted: “...recent amendments to the Criminal Code and decisions of this court have signalled a determination to address, in a more powerful and effective fashion, the need to denounce and deter crimes that involve the sexual victimization of children.”

I believe these are objectives that we can and should support, and they are clearly reflected in Bill C-26's proposed reforms. They are also supported by clear statements of principle contained in the Criminal Code. Section 718.01 clarifies that primary consideration should be given to the principles of denunciation and deterrence when a court imposes a sentence for an offence that involved the abuse of a child. In these cases, the protection of children from those who might harm them is the single most important factor.

Bill C-26's proposal to increase minimum mandatory penalties for these types of offences is entirely consistent with those objectives. In fact, they further those objectives. The application of minimum mandatory penalties to child sexual offences is not new. We now have experience in this regard. For example, Mr. David Butt, who testified before the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights, noted in respect of minimum mandatory penalties:

...the sky has not fallen, in the sense that we still have responsible sentences; we still have a realistic opportunity to present in a sentencing hearing where the appropriate sentence should fall in the range. This is not eviscerated judicial discretion; it has simply moved the floor.

We have to ask ourselves whether it is appropriate to move the floor.

Mr. David Butt, the legal counsel for the Kids Internet Safety Alliance, made those comments on February 4, 2015.

The answer to Mr. Butt's question regarding minimum mandatory penalties for child sexual offences is an unequivocal yes. I agree that minimum mandatory penalties recognize an appropriate level of moral opprobrium, as he stated, for child sexual offences. Furthermore, I am convinced that these types of sentencing measures contribute significantly to the realization of the Criminal Code's important objectives of denunciation and deterrence with respect to child sexual offences.

These are the reasons why Bill C-26 proposes further penalty increases for child sexual offences, as well as mandatory consecutive sentences where offenders are sentenced at the same time for contact child sexual offences and child pornography offences, or for contact child offences against multiple victims. This is another critical aspect of Bill C-26.

I will be clear. Bill C-26's consecutive sentencing reforms mean that sentencing judges must impose consecutive sentences in these cases, regardless of the totality principle, which maintains that the total length of sentences ordered to be served consecutively should not be unduly long or harsh. Judges would be specifically directed to impose a sentence for each conviction and order that they be served consecutively. This would respect each individual victim.

Importantly, these reforms would ensure that the harm done to each child victim is recognized specifically. There would be no more sentence discounts for offenders who are sentenced for multiple offences against multiple victims at the same time. Bill C-26 is clear on this point: offenders must be, and I repeat, must be held accountable for each and every victim they have harmed.

Recent sentencing cases demonstrate the importance of these reforms. Now, although courts have generally been imposing consecutive sentences in cases where offenders are sentenced at the same time for contact child sexual offences and child pornography offences, often in recognition of the additional harm caused when material is distributed via the Internet, the approach to cases involving convictions for offences against multiple victims is much more inconsistent.

We are seeing judges impose concurrent sentences for offences committed against different child victims. I am concerned that such an approach to sentencing might be seen by some pedophiles, in some sort of perverse way, as an incentive to actually violate the rights of multiple victims. Of course, that is not the intention of sentencing. However, we are concerned about the effect of a particular law or practice, not its intention. Certainly, it could not be said that the practice of imposing concurrent sentences in these types of cases serves the important objectives of denunciation and deterrence, which are enshrined in the Criminal Code itself.

These reforms are clearly needed. The victims who testified before the committee on justice and human rights were very clear on this point. However, Bill C-26's sentencing reforms would not stop there. The bill would increase these penalties for breaches of supervision orders, which could be imposed to prevent future offending. The breach of a condition included in such an order is a factor indicating that the offender is at risk of offending again. Therefore, it is critical that penalties for breaches of such orders act as a deterrent.

Accordingly, Bill C-26 would ensure that anyone convicted of breaching a probation order, peace bond, or a prohibition order would be subject to a maximum penalty of 18 months on summary conviction, rather than the existing 6 months, and 4 years on indictment, rather than the existing 2 years.

I have focused on Bill C-26's proposed sentencing reforms, but the bill proposes other important reforms that would assist in ensuring that the evidence of an accused's spouse is available in child pornography prosecutions. Information could be shared between Canada and foreign countries concerning Canadians and permanent residents of Canada who may travel abroad to sexually offend against children. Moreover, the public would be informed of high-risk offenders who might offend against our children.

I see that my time is running out. I will stop there and pick it up in questions and comments.

[Niki Ashton, NDP, Churchill, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I listened to a good part of the member's speech in highlighting the current government's agenda when it comes to crime and, loosely, the concept of justice.

What we have seen, not just in this bill but also in a series of other bills in this area, is problematic doublespeak. The government claims to be committed to fighting child sexual offences. It seems committed to throwing people in jail. Yet, we know that over a five-year period, the RCMP withheld some $10 million in funds earmarked for its National Child Exploitation Coordination Centre. The cuts, made partly as an RCMP contribution to the government's deficit reduction action plan, have occurred even as the number of child exploitation tips from the public increases exponentially.

We are hearing from government members that they are taking tough action, and yet we know that the RCMP itself did not spend the money allocated, and instead returned it to government coffers so that the government could make it work, supposedly.

I would like to ask what this doublespeak is all about and why this took place.

[Scott Armstrong, Conservative, Cumberland—Colchester—Musquodoboit Valley, NS]

Mr. Speaker, these funds were intended to support very difficult and challenging jobs. If we cannot find people who are qualified or capable of delivering those services, we do not want to spend the money on people who cannot do the job or are not qualified to do it. We have to find qualified, trained people.

This is an opposition distraction technique to try to distract from the fact that they do not really support mandatory minimum penalties for people who commit child sexual offences. As I said at the beginning of my speech, there is no social program, no upstream solution, that can stop pedophiles from committing sexual offences against children. This is an absolute fact. We need to put policies, laws, and penalties in place that would actually protect our children.

[Sean Casey, Liberal, Charlottetown, PE]

Mr. Speaker, there actually is a program. It is called circles of support and accountability. It has a 70% to 80% success rate.

My question relates to a comment made early in the speech where the hon. member said that the measures in Bill C-26 build on those taken in Bill C-10. He is right. In Bill C-10 there were several instances where mandatory minimum penalties were increased, and they were increased again in Bill C-26. What happened between the introduction of the mandatory minimums in Bill C-10 and the increase in those mandatory minimums in Bill C-26 was that the rates of these types of crimes went up.

I believe it was Albert Einstein who said the “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results”. Could the member explain why we are re-increasing mandatory minimums when the ones that were increased in Bill C-10 did not work?

[Scott Armstrong, Conservative, Cumberland—Colchester—Musquodoboit Valley, NS]

Mr. Speaker, it is a bizarre argument that an increase in mandatory minimum penalties could work to increase the amount of violence against children. That is ridiculous.

As I said at the beginning of my remarks, no pedophile can violate the rights of, or commit a sexual crime against, a child if they are incarcerated. We know that many of these criminals violate children over and over again. This is not something that is easily cured. Therefore, we need to make sure that the rights of the victim are protected here. We need to make sure that children are protected in Canada, and mandatory minimum sentences that are consecutively served will do just that.

[Brad Butt, Conservative, Mississauga—Streetsville, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to Bill C-26, the tougher penalties for child predators act, now at third reading. This is a critical piece of legislation and we should all support its important objectives.

Bill C-26 would strengthen our existing approach to protecting children from sexual predators by building on numerous recent initiatives in that regard.

I am pleased that our government has implemented a number of important initiatives, including raising the age of consent to sexual activity, also known as the age of protection, from 14-years to 16-years; requiring those who provide Internet services to the public to report when they are advised of an Internet address where child pornography may be available to the public; requiring all of those convicted of sexual offences abroad to report to a police service within seven days of arriving in Canada; and creating two new offences prohibiting anyone from providing sexually explicit material to a child for the purpose of facilitating the commission of a sexual offence against the child, and prohibiting anyone from using any means of telecommunications, including the Internet, to agree or make arrangements with another person for the purpose of committing a sexual offence against a child. Those are just to name a few.

Unquestionably, our government has worked hard to protect children from sexual predators and it continues to do so, as is currently reflected in Bill C-26's proposed reforms. Our children deserve no less.

Available statistics paint a disturbing picture of sexual offences against children, both at home and abroad. Sadly, this type of offence has been facilitated by the Internet, which may play a role in the recent increases in police-reported child sexual offences.

The most recent statistics indicate a 6% increase in 2013 as compared to 2012. This includes a 30% increase in police-reported incidents of luring a child via a computer, an 11% increase in police-reported incidents of sexual exploitation, and a 21% increase in police-reported incidents of child pornography offences.

Furthermore, the Canadian Centre for Child Protection, which operates cybertip.ca, Canada's tip line for reporting online sexual exploitation of children, provided the committee on justice and human rights with data that also caused deep concern.

Specifically, it has received 125,000 reports from the public since 2004, when cybertip.ca was launched. The majority of these reports related to images that are online and that depict children being sexually abused.

The centre noted that in the 2014-15 fiscal year alone, its child protection analysts assessed and categorized over 6,000 images of child pornography. Disturbingly, 69% of these images depicted children that were under the age of 12.

These numbers are telling us that more must be done. Bill C-26 would do just that.

First, it would increase penalties for certain child sexual offences, including child pornography, which has become a global scourge, as the statistics clearly show. Child pornography does not just harm the children who are abused in the images, it harms all children by sending the abhorrent message that it is acceptable for adults to use children for their own sexual gratification.

To better denounce and deter this crime, Bill C-26 would increase both mandatory minimum and maximum penalties for possessing and accessing child pornography. Moreover, Bill C-26 would make the most serious child pornography offences, making and distributing child pornography, strictly indictable with a mandatory minimum penalty of one year and a maximum penalty of 14 years. This is to reflect the severity of these crimes and the harmful impact they have on children.

The Supreme Court of Canada has commented on the pervasive nature of the harm caused by this type of offending in its 2008 L.M. decision. It said:

Finally, I note that L.M. disseminated his pornography around the world over the Internet. The use of this medium can have serious consequences for a victim. Once a photograph has been posted on the Web, it can be accessed indefinitely, from anywhere in the world. [The victim] will never know whether a pornographic photograph or video in which she appears might not resurface someday.

In addition to its proposed penalty increases, Bill C-26 would also require judges to impose consecutive sentences in cases where offenders are sentenced at the same time for contact child sexual offences and child pornography offences, and where offenders are sentenced at the same time for contact child sexual offences against multiple victims. No more sentence discounts for prolific child sex offenders. Every victim matters.

These are some of the bill's critical messages that serve the important objectives of denunciation and deterrence, which, as our Criminal Code apparently clarifies, are paramount in cases involving the abuse of a child.

That is not all. Bill C-26 also proposes to increase the maximum penalties for breaches of supervision orders, which impose conditions on suspected or convicted offenders, and are intended to prevent offending and protect children. We cannot ignore the fact that all breaches of such orders indicate a risk to children. That is why it is imperative that offenders are held accountable for breaching conditions imposed to protect children.

In a similar vein, Bill C-26 would also ensure that evidence of an offence committed while the offender was subject to a conditional sentence order, on parole, or on statutory release, would be considered an aggravating factor for sentencing purposes.

Offenders who reoffend, while subject to conditions imposed to protect those they have harmed, should be held to account, not just for the new offence but also for their violation of the conditions themselves. This is the appropriate way to effectively denounce violations of such conditions.

I am the father of two daughters, 15 and 11 years old, and thank God this kind of thing has not ever happened to them. I could not even imagine going through that as a parent and I could not even imagine what that would do them.

I believe these measures, in addition to the proposed new high risk child sex offender database also proposed in Bill C-26, address the dangers and risks posed by child sexual offenders.

I trust that these reforms will get support from all members of this House. I know that all members of Parliament are committed to protecting children from harm. Toward that end, I urge all honourable members to join me in support of this important legislation.

[Carol Hughes, NDP, Algoma—Manitoulin—Kapuskasing, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is important to recognize that this is a serious issue and discussion we are having. I do not think, nor would I hope, that there is anybody in this House who does not support the fact that we need to ensure the safety of young children or any victim when it comes to sexual exploitation or sexual assaults. However, we need to ensure that we invest our money wisely. We can make all the laws we want and change all the legislation we want, but without the proper resources it would not amount to anything.

In a previous intervention, the member's colleague said that sex offenders cannot be rehabilitated. My question is geared toward the prevention and rehabilitation piece because on the government's website it states that research shows that treating sex offenders does make a difference.

Does the hon. member support his previous colleague's comments that a sex offender cannot be rehabilitated? Does he not believe that if we invest in prevention and rehabilitation, we would help build a safer society?

[Brad Butt, Conservative, Mississauga—Streetsville, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I know my colleague from Algoma—Manitoulin—Kapuskasing has had a long history in the criminal justice system prior to being elected in this place. I respect the work that she and her colleagues have done, particularly within the prison system.

We know that quite a lot of resources are expended within our prison system on the rehabilitation of individuals who are in prison. For some offenders rehabilitation does work, but for many it does not. We do our best, we try, but there are some individuals who just cannot be rehabilitated.

The recidivism rate for these individuals is high once they are released. The whole idea is to ensure that the people who are committing this kind of serious, heinous crime on children spend a maximum amount of time in prison where they can certainly access to rehabilitation services.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I would never, in any fashion, attempt to defend these types of hideous crimes that take place. They are abhorrent and we want to do what we can as a society to prevent them from taking place in the first place.

The question I have is not that far off in terms of the issue of resources. The government has come forward with legislation to show that it is getting tough on crime. However, I was just on a political CBC panel where we found out that the Conservatives have not been allowing a full expenditure by the RCMP to deal with cyberexploitation as there was $2 million that had not been spent.

The member himself has indicated that we need to do more. Yet, because the directive has gone out that the Conservatives need to save money wherever they can because of this $2 billion income splitting plan that they need to finance somehow, they are talking about $2 million annually coming out of fighting cyberbullying.

I wonder if the member could provide some comment on the importance of the RCMP using that budget in order to fight these important issues on which Canadians are demanding more action.

[Brad Butt, Conservative, Mississauga—Streetsville, ON]

Mr. Speaker, to the best of my knowledge the Canadian Centre for Child Protection is located in Winnipeg. It is one of the strongest supporters of this government's allocation of resources and initiatives to fight child pornography, child exploitation, and ensure that we are standing up for victims of crime. I do not believe it is suggesting that this government has short-changed organizations with respect to resources to do this important work in any way.

What is important today is that we are debating a piece of legislation that will amend the Criminal Code of Canada. It is our job as parliamentarians to pass laws that protect Canadians. That is the focus tonight and that is what we should continue to do, do our job and pass legislation that protects children.

[Carol Hughes, NDP, Algoma—Manitoulin—Kapuskasing, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time.

This is an issue that affects all of us. I do not know that anybody in society, as I mentioned before, supports having offenders out there who prey on young people, but sexual offenders actually do not just prey on young people; they prey on all people.

We will support this particular bill at third reading. However, we remain concerned with the type of legislation that the government keeps putting forward without providing proper resources.

As I mentioned before, I worked at Probation and Parole Services in Ontario for 13 years. I must correct the record as well. I mentioned my daughter working at the Brampton youth correctional centre, but she is actually a correctional officer at the Roy McMurtry Youth Centre. I just clarify that for the record. She has been working there for quite some time. She works mostly with level 1 offenders.

People may wonder what a level 1 or a level 2 offender is. I think we have to look at whether or not an offender is high risk when we look at the prevention and rehabilitation aspect, but it is important that we actually do look at rehabilitation and prevention. Reintegration into society is also important, because at some point in time people do get released.

Our perspective is that we are not opposed to the legislation, but when we put legislation in place, we need to make sure that it is the right legislation and that we provide the tools required to make sure it will actually be effective. We need to make sure that the statistics at the end of the day will show that it was the right thing to do.

When we are look at the crime bills that the government has been putting forward, over and over again we see that the resources are just not there. On this particular bill, it is ironic that the government has tabled legislation dealing with an act to amend the Criminal Code, the Canada Evidence Act and the Sex Offender Information Registration Act, to enact the high risk child sex offender database act and to make consequential amendments to other Acts when we have just been advised that over $10 million in funding that was allocated to the National Child Exploitation Coordination Centre went unused. The parliamentary secretary basically said that they did not spend all that money because there were human resource challenges stemming from the nature of the work.

If there were these types of challenges, should the government not have acted? Should it not have said, “Let us make sure we have proper staffing.”? It is telling us there is a big demand and that a lot of casework needs to be dealt with on this issue; it is true that we have seen an increase in people being charged, but imagine all the other people out there who are not being charged because the RCMP does not have the proper resources. The government decided to pay down the deficit instead of investing in the protection of Canadians, of our young people, of our children. That is the big problem we see with the government.

Earlier in the debate, Conservatives raised questions with respect to whether sentences should be consecutive and concurrent. As I indicated, the Conservatives can put all they want into the legislation, and I think that is what we need to do as legislators, but we also have to listen to what the judges have to say. We have to make sure that the people hearing the cases have legislation that actually works, but at the end of the day we have to allow them to do what they need to do in the judicial process.

Having worked in the field for quite some time, I know that when a serious crime has been committed, especially when it involves a sex offender, the judge will order a pre-sentence or pre-disposition report that will give the whole story of what actually happened, along with the person's history. Judges make their decisions on sentencing based on that report.

I want to go back to what was said in the House. One of the Conservative members tried to say that there was no rehabilitation for sex offenders, yet the ministry's website talks about rehabilitation for sex offenders. It states:

More than most crimes, sex crimes instill feelings of fear and anger in citizens. When a past sex offender is released from custody, fear and anger can consume a community.

It goes on to say:

Media stories about sex crimes often serve to inflame emotions and rarely tell the whole story about the treatment and rehabilitation of sex offenders.

It further states:

Research shows that treatment of sex offenders does make a difference. Sex offenders who receive treatment are less likely to re-offend. Offenders who don't receive treatment are likely to re-offend at a rate of 17% compared to 10% for offenders who have received treatment. Indeed, most sexual offenders do not re-offend after a certain age.

It is important that the conversation we are having is about the need to ensure that the proper resources are in place when we put this type of legislation in place.

[The Acting Speaker, Barry Devolin]

The hon. member for Algoma—Manitoulin—Kapuskasing will have three minutes remaining when this matter returns before the House.

It being 5:39 p.m., the House will now proceed to the consideration of private members' business as listed on today's order paper.

The House resumed from February 25 consideration of the motion that Bill C-26, An Act to amend the Criminal Code, the Canada Evidence Act and the Sex Offender Information Registration Act, to enact the High Risk Child Sex Offender Database Act and to make consequential amendments to other Acts, be read the third time and passed.

[The Speaker, Andrew Scheer]

The hon. member for Algoma—Manitoulin—Kapuskasing has three minutes remaining to conclude her remarks.

[Carol Hughes, NDP, Algoma—Manitoulin—Kapuskasing, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Newton—North Delta.

I must say that I never thought it would be a full month before I had the opportunity to finish three minutes of my remarks on Bill C-26.

As I stated in February, this is an issue that affects all of us. It is impossible to imagine that anybody in society supports the kinds of offenders we are discussing. I will also remind the House that these predators do not just prey on young people; they prey on all people.

As I mentioned in the first part of my speech, I worked at Probation and Parole Services in Ontario for 13 years. My daughter and her partner are correctional officers at the Roy McMurtry Youth Centre and work mostly with level one offenders. I know from first-hand experience the importance of rehabilitation and prevention, and how it allows us to better deal with the reintegration of individuals who are eventually released back into the general population.

New Democrats are not opposed to this legislation, but have concerns that need to be addressed in this process to ensure we are pursuing the right measures while also providing the tools to ensure it will actually be effective. This is important because the government's record to date has given us crime legislation, but has shown a weakness when it comes to providing the resources needed to do the job properly. The bill is a perfect example of that.

As we debated this a month ago, we had only just learned how more than $10 million earmarked for the National Child Exploitation Coordination Centre went unused. Therefore, we found ourselves debating legislation to better deal with sex offenders, which is extremely important, but also digesting the fact that the money allocated to do some of that for initiatives that were already in place was left on the table by the government.

Cynics will ask if that was intentional. If that is how one builds a surplus these days, I guess that is the way the government likes to go. Surely, being tough on crime should amount to more than just uttering the phrase.

I am reminded of that old TV commercial with the catch phrase, “Where's the beef?” It is important that the Canadian public understands that about the current government and it is probably more important that we look out for that kind of mixed commitment when it comes to dealing with these offenders.

I will close by reminding the House that research shows that treatment of sex offenders does make a difference, that sex offenders who receive treatment are less likely to reoffend. In fact, offenders who do not receive treatment reoffend at a rate of 17%. For those who have received treatment, the number drops to 10%.

While New Democrats will be supporting the legislation, we would like to see the money earmarked for finding offenders spent and we would like to see an honest attempt at rehabilitation that will ultimately help protect potential future victims as these offenders re-enter society.

As I indicated, it is important to invest in resources to ensure that when offenders are actually released into the community, the proper treatment and rehabilitation processes are in place. It is not by cutting those services that we will be able to be successful.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I would go right to the Prime Minister's Office, which came up with the name for this particular legislation. The PMO chose to call this piece of legislation tougher penalties for child predators.

The member made reference, in her closing remarks, to millions of dollars that were not spent. When we look at child exploitation, a great deal of it occurs on the Internet, as we know, and yet there has been the underspending of significant amounts of dollars that could have gone a long way in dealing with the issue at hand.

We have the Prime Minister of Canada saying one thing in terms of the name of a piece of legislation, but saying another thing when the Minister of Finance wants to collect money not being spent, at a great cost.

I am wondering if the member might want to expand on that point. In other words, it is tough talk, but there is very little happening in terms of action.

[Carol Hughes, NDP, Algoma—Manitoulin—Kapuskasing, ON]

Mr. Speaker, as I mentioned, the government has actually saved $10 million, which was allocated to the National Child Exploitation Coordination Centre. When funding is not used, that is supposed to be used to protect the public, then there is a problem, only because the Conservatives want to pay down their deficit and make themselves look good. That is quite problematic.

The other thing we need to realize is that the federal government also recently announced that it is cutting the measly $650,000 in funding that if offers to Correctional Service Canada. Again, these are dollars that went toward trying to put some offenders back on the right track.

In addition, there is the circles of support and accountability program that receives funding from the National Crime Prevention Centre, which is also set to end this fall. Again, the government is not putting the money where its mouth is, and when it does put money on the table, it quickly pulls it back.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Mr. Speaker, for many members of Parliament and certainly for many of the people I represent in the northwest of British Columbia, this issue strikes at the heart of some of the most grievous offences we can imagine, sexually harming young children.

It is important for a government to take on this issue. It is of public importance. One would think that this importance would carry right through, beyond the announcements, photo ops, and crafting of the title of a new bill into the actual delivery of the program.

On the preventative side, as my friend has pointed out, $10 million would have gone a long way to protecting our kids and going after some of these offenders. Then on the rehabilitation front, unless the government's plan is, and so far it is not, to lock everybody up forever, we need to do the rehabilitation so offenders do not commit the crimes again.

If the government does not spend the money on the prevention and does not spend the money on actual treatment, so that people do not cause harm again, what can it possibly say to the victims, the future victims who are ensnared in one of the traps set by these predators?

If the government simply says that it has decided to put the money into deficit cuts instead and that it does not have any money for treatment as it is for other more important things, what could it say to those families and those kids?

[Carol Hughes, NDP, Algoma—Manitoulin—Kapuskasing, ON]

Mr. Speaker, when it comes to funding, we need to ensure that we actually spend it in the right direction and that we put it where it belongs. We also need to ensure that it is actually used. The Conservatives can purport to support victims, but at the same time they turn around and do not fund any of the programs properly.

Let us look at the circles of support and accountability program. All in all the program costs $2.2 million a year and it is help rehabilitate offenders. It has 700 volunteers across the country who meet with offenders after they are released to help them find jobs and places to live, or to just catch up over coffee.

This is to provide them the proper support and to keep them on the right track, and here, the government is looking at cutting funding. Is that not shameful?

[Jinny Sims, NDP, Newton—North Delta, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of Bill C-26, an act to amend the Criminal Code, the Canada Evidence Act and the Sex Offender Information Registration Act, to enact the high risk child sex offender database act and to make consequential amendments to other acts.

We are talking about a very serious issue. I can tell members that as a parent, mother, grandmother and as a teacher, I take this issue very seriously, as I am sure does every other member in this House. There is nothing that is more offensive or heinous than the impact of sexual exploitation of children. I am sure, whether one sits on this side or that side of the House, all of us are impacted by this greatly.

During my years as a teacher, I had to deal with some pretty sensitive and horrible situations. In that context, there is absolutely nothing that is more gut wrenching then when a child reports a sexual assault molestation. As a teacher and counsellor, I took that very seriously, and the pain stays for a long time. In a similar way, as a parent, one cannot imagine the pain or even the thought of the sexual molestation of one's child. It causes very deep, unimaginable pain.

On this side of the House, as I hope on all sides of the House on this issue, we take this issue very seriously. We have a zero tolerance policy when it comes to sexual offences against children.

I am so proud of my party that it has taken this position, as it has held this position for a long time. It is because of that, that we are supporting the bill before us, but at the same time acknowledging that it contains deficiencies. It is not perfect. We are disappointed that the bill does not go further by offering truly effective measures to protect children and keep our communities safe.

I am hoping that not all of my colleagues here have had to deal with instances of serious sex offences in their ridings. We had one in September 2014. It shook the city of Surrey when 17-year-old Serena Vermeersch went missing and then she was found. A high-risk sex offender was charged. Surrey RCMP Chief Fordy said:

Serena should be at Sullivan Heights [her school] having a laugh with classmates and thinking about graduation. Sadly that is not the case. These types of crimes galvanize our community and touch them in an incredible way.

Even today, every time I think of Serena, my heart goes out to her family, friends, neighbours, and the whole Surrey community because I know the pain and anguish everyone went through.

As I said, we will be voting in favour of the bill, but once again, it seems that the government is really into optics. Here we have another bill that purports to do something, but then it is missing or lacking the resources that are needed in order to actually implement it.

It is very difficult for service providers when we as parliamentarians pass legislation and want them to carry out and enforce the new laws we make, but we do not give them the tools they need.

I am sure many of them are absolutely sick to death of hearing us or others, like their employers, telling them to do more with less. In the conversations I have had with RCMP members and other front-line service providers, it is very difficult for them to do more with less. They are feeling really stretched.

When we look at legislation like this, which purports to seriously address sexual offences against minors and our children, we really need look at where we were and what we have done. Ever since the Conservatives, and even the Liberals, have been in power, many pieces of legislation have been passed. At justice committee, the Minister of Justice stated that sexual offences against children had increased 6% over the past two years. This is quite staggering. This is after the Conservative government has taken many steps.

We need to listen to experts and informed opinion. We need to ask if some of the repressive measures that have been taken so far are working. Obviously, they are not. Are the resources there? As well as punishment, what are we doing in the area of rehabilitation and healing? What are we doing to support those who are the victims?

This is such a sensitive area. I do not want to politicize it.

We also have to ensure that the RCMP, which we charge with responsibility for much of this area, has the resources for a registry and budgets to support victims. Just having nice words on a piece of paper to say that we are all for victims and that we will provide support for victims does not make it happen.

I can remember the NDP fighting very hard for the Circles of Support and Accountability program, which was real and tangible. It was being used very effectively. Here is a quote from Steve Sullivan:

—the federal government recently announced it was cutting the measly $650,000 in funding Corrections Canada provides. CoSA also receives funding from the National Crime Prevention Centre; that's also set to end this fall. In total, the program costs $2.2 million a year.

Like most community-based victim services, CoSA is a fairly cheap program. It has 700 volunteers across the country; they meet with offenders after their release, help them find jobs and places to live, meet with them regularly for coffee. They support offenders as they start to live normal lives, ones that don't involve new victims. They hold them accountable.

The Conservative government left money unspent when it came to child protection. I get so offended when it calls itself champions of protecting our children.

[Jamie Nicholls, NDP, Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague mentioned that the number of cases of abuse has grown in recent years.

Can she go into more detail about why that number has gone up despite the fact that the Conservatives like to talk about how they are dealing with the issue?

[Jinny Sims, NDP, Newton—North Delta, BC]

Mr. Speaker, since I have been in the House, I often have heard a lot of rhetoric. We pass legislation, but we do not provide the necessary resources. When it comes to sexual predators and sexual violation of our children, we need to provide support for the victims, but there also needs to be punishment and consequences. Also, we know there has to be some level of rehabilitation because if we do not do that, the chances of repeat offences are more likely to happen.

The government had $10 million in funds earmarked for its national child exploitation coordination centre and related projects. Those funds went unspent. That really begs this question. How serious is the government about its anti-child pornography agenda?

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I have had the good fortune of being a parliamentarian at the provincial and federal levels for a number of years. Through that we have seen significant changes in the exploitation of children in a very negative way. That comes in the form of the Internet. The number of children who are exploited continues to grow year after year, and it is important we do more.

It is more than just legislation. The member made reference to the issue of financing. I made reference to that in the first question I had a few minutes ago in regard to the government's inability to ensure that, at the ground level, the RCMP was equipped to deal with the growth of child exploitation on the Internet.

The government and the Prime Minister need to be more proactive in dealing with it at the ground level. By the ground level, I am talking about getting feet on the ground, providing the RCMP and other law enforcement agencies with the necessary resources to achieve the desired impact that Canadians expect of the government in terms of leadership on this file. Would the member agree?

[Jinny Sims, NDP, Newton—North Delta, BC]

Mr. Speaker, we absolutely need to ensure that our service providers and front line intervention have the resources they need. If we do not give them the tools they need, then we are remiss in our duties and responsibilities when we pass legislation.

On this side of the House, we believe we need concrete and truly effective measures to protect our children from sexual abuse and to make our communities safer. We need more resources to prevent crime and combat sexual abuse against children. Tougher prison sentences alone are not enough. We want the the government to be open and willing to work with the opposition parties and experts to improve the bills it tables in Parliament, especially when they target vulnerable groups such as children, instead of the mantra of the Conservatives, which is “my way or the highway”.

[Robert Goguen, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice]

Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to speak in support of Bill C-26, the tougher penalties for child predators act. I will be sharing my time with the hon. member for Macleod.

Bill C-26 is a part of the government's continuing effort to ensure that child sexual offences result in sentences of imprisonment that denounce the heinous nature of these crimes. We hear the opposition members question the necessity of this bill in light of amendments that this government made in the past, especially those enacted by Bill C-10, the Safe Streets and Communities Act.

The Safe Streets and Communities Act was a good step in the right direction, and Bill C-26 proposes to build on those reforms to fully recognize the devastating impact that these crimes have on the lives of victimized children.

We have heard criticism particularly directed at the effectiveness of mandatory minimum penalties in achieving this objective. A brief discussion about the current sentencing regime in the Criminal Code is warranted in order to explain the necessity of the proposed reforms.

The Criminal Code states that the fundamental purpose of sentencing is to contribute, along with crime prevention initiatives, to the respect for the law and the maintenance of a just, peaceful and safe society.

In order to achieve this fundamental purpose, a sentence may have the following objectives: denunciation, deterrence, separation of the offender from society when necessary; rehabilitation of the offender; providing reparation for the harm done to the victim or community; the promotion of a sense of responsibility in offenders; and the acknowledgement of the harm done to victims and the community.

It is important to note that a just sentence does not have to reflect all of these sentencing objectives, but only those that are essential to achieve the fundamental purpose of sentencing.

In sentencing offenders for sexual offences committed against children, section 718.01 of the Criminal Code directs courts to consider denunciation and deterrence as the paramount sentencing objectives. How can we as legislators ensure that primary importance is also given to these objectives for these types of crimes?

Both social denunciation of a crime and the deterrence of criminals are achieved in our laws in two ways. First, maximum terms of imprisonment send a clear signal of what punishment is proportionate for the worst offender who commits a crime in the worst circumstances. Second, mandatory minimum terms of imprisonment represent the lowest punishment that we as a society consider important for certain serious crimes.

By increasing both minimum terms of imprisonment and maximum terms of imprisonment for certain sexual offences committed against children, Bill C-26 focuses on denunciation and deterrence and thereby ensures that sentences imposed contribute to a just, peaceful and safe society.

The fundamental objective of a sentence can only be achieved if the sentence imposed is just. According to the Criminal Code, a just sentence is one that is proportionate to the degree of responsibility of the offender and the gravity of the offence. In determining a just sentence, a court must consider the sentencing principles described in the Criminal Code. For example, a sentence must be increased to account for any aggravating factors relating to the offender or the offence.

Two of the listed aggravating factors in subsection 718(a) of the Criminal Code play an important role in child sexual cases.

First, paragraph 718.2(a)(ii.1) of the Criminal Code directs courts to treat the fact that an offender, in committing the offence, abused the person under the age of 18 years of age as an aggravating factor for sentencing purposes.

Second, paragraph 718.2(a)(iii) of the Criminal Code directs the fact of the offender in committing the offence abused a position of trust or authority in relation to the victim also be considered an aggravating factor for sentencing purposes.

Both these aggravating factors further indicate that the significant punishment as proposed by Bill C-26 is justifiable for child predators.

Another important contribution of Bill C-26 rests with the proposed reforms that relate to the imposition of concurrent and consecutive sentences. These amendments would clarify and codify applicable rules in situations where an offender would be sentenced for multiple offences, whether committed against the same victim or not.

Apart from the explicit reference to mandatory consecutive sentences in the context of terrorism acts, criminal organization offences and the use of a firearm in the commission of the offence, the general sentencing principles found in subsection 718.3(4) of the Criminal Code regarding consecutive and concurrent sentences only offer limited guidance to courts.

Bill C-26 proposes to improve on this by, among other things, directing courts to consider ordering that the terms of imprisonment for offences arising out of separate events, or a separate series of events, be served consecutively to one another.

This represents a codification of the rules developed by courts over the years. Courts will generally order that sentences be served consecutively unless they are committed as part of the same event or series of events, or as some have described it, as part of a criminal transaction. Where several offences are committed as part of the same criminal transaction, the courts will generally determine what is a proportionate sentence for the most serious offence committed and order that the other offences be served concurrently. However, where an offence committed as part of the same criminal transaction is gratuitous or dangerous, courts will generally consider ordering that the sentences be served consecutively to discourage offenders from committing serious offences with impunity.

This approach is codified in Bill C-26 by directing courts to consider ordering consecutive sentences in situations where one of the offences was committed either on judicial interim release or while the accused was fleeing from a peace officer.

The totality principle represents the final step in the determination of whether sentences of imprisonment should be served consecutively. This sentencing principle, described in paragraph 718.2(c) of the Criminal Code, prevents courts from ordering that terms of imprisonment be served one after the other if the combined sentence is unduly long or harsh. Where the combined sentence is, in the court's opinion, unduly long or harsh, it may order that certain terms of imprisonment be served concurrently instead of one after the other.

I understand that in ordering concurrent sentences in such cases, courts intend to craft a combined sentence that is proportionate to the overall responsibility of the offender. However, in the context of sexual offences committed against children, this approach translates into a sentence discount for the offender.

To address this problem, Bill C-26 proposes that sentences of imprisonment for child pornography offences be served consecutively to any sentence imposed at the same time for a contact child sexual offence, and in cases of multiple victims, that sentences imposed at the same time for contact child sexual offences committed against one victim be served consecutively to those imposed for contact child sexual offences committed against any other victim.

Requiring that these terms of imprisonment be served consecutively to one another would send a clear message that every sexual offence committed against children is serious and is clearly unacceptable. These amendments will also send a clear and unequivocal signal that a proportionate sentence is one that acknowledges that every child victim counts.

[Jamie Nicholls, NDP, Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I asked my colleague this question earlier.

Even though these measures have been taken, the incidence of abuse has gone up by 6% over the past five years. I believe that is the figure. Could my hon. colleague explain why the measures taken so far have not worked?

[Robert Goguen, Conservative, Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe, NB]

Mr. Speaker, an increase in offences against children is certainly all the more reason to send serious messages about the heinous nature of these crimes and how they are totally unacceptable to Parliament and the people of Canada.

The measures we have taken are designed to protect the public and certainly to protect our most vulnerable citizens: children. The face of crime is rapidly changing. There are more and more crimes being done on the Internet. We have to double down to make sure that children are protected.

Keeping repeat child offenders in jail, where they cannot reoffend, is a measure the Canadian public accepts as a valid way of protecting people from such heinous crimes.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, here is a question I have posed to opposition members. I would love to have the hon. member provide a detailed answer, as time allows.

We have a conflict here in the sense that we have legislation with which the Prime Minister's office is trying to send the strong message that we want tougher penalties for child predators, which is the short title of the bill. This implies that the Prime Minister wants to see action on the file.

Yet when it comes to fighting cyberexploitation, we have seen chronic underspending by the government to allow law enforcement officers to ensure that there is some justice brought to those individuals being exploited and to assist victims of this exploitation.

What I am referring to is the $2 million underspent by the RCMP, which is supposed to deal with this issue. Can the member explain why the government encourages underspending in areas of this nature, when we know full well that this is an important issue for Canadians?

[Robert Goguen, Conservative, Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe, NB]

Mr. Speaker, when it comes to the question of protecting the Canadian public, every nickel finds a spot, whether it finds its way into the budget of the RCMP or finds it way into a $10-million grant to child protection agencies and centres, such as cybertip.ca or NeedHelpNow.ca.

Fighting child offences is not just a matter of handcuffs and pistols. It is a matter of a total panoply of programs to help combat them, whether it be against cyberbullying, whether it be tips to prevent cyberbullying, or whether it be boots on the ground. Our government is committed to giving all the resources necessary to protect our most vulnerable children. It is not necessarily with the RCMP, with pistols and handcuffs, that this is accomplished. It is a full scope. It is all the elements that are needed to protect the Canadian public.

[François Lapointe, NDP, Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC]

Mr. Speaker, more and more people are coming forward with reports of abuse they have suffered at the hands of their abusers. This is bad news, generally, however, there is reason for hope: society no longer tolerates this kind of behaviour. Together, we are trying to address the problem head-on and solve it as much as possible. There is some bad news, however: the RCMP's budget has been cut by $10 million. That money should have been used to tackle this problem.

We support the bill in question, but as legislators, how can we consider increasing penalties if, while society is trying hard to eradicate the problem, police forces have fewer resources to tackle it? It does not make any sense.

How can my colleague across the aisle justify such a thing?

[Robert Goguen, Conservative, Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe, NB]

Mr. Speaker, as I said earlier, fighting this kind of offence requires a multi-faceted approach. The RCMP is not alone in fighting this. I would remind the House that we have brought in legislation that involves Internet service providers. In fact, when ISPs identify a problem of cyberbullying, they are obligated to report the source of abuse to the RCMP. We are certainly putting more resources into tackling this problem, but police forces are not the only ones working on it; members of the community and companies are also working on it. There is a wide range of possible solutions. The RCMP is not the only solution to this serious problem.

[John Barlow, Conservative, Macleod, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the parliamentary secretary for sharing his time with me today.

I am pleased to have the opportunity to participate in today's debate on Bill C-26, the tougher penalties for child predators act. Today I am going to focus the bulk of my remarks on the part of Bill C-26 that creates higher penalties for breaches of supervision orders. However, I want to devote a few moments on the other key features of this initiative.

I am a father of three children, and as such, it is important to me to highlight the end goal of Bill C-26: deterring child predators and focusing on the seriousness of child sexual offences. One way we can achieve that is through higher mandatory minimum penalties and higher maximums.

However, one of the reasons I am supporting Bill C-26 is that the amendments also clarify and codify the use of consecutive sentences in child sexual abuse cases. This would ensure not only consistency in application of the law but also justice for each life devastated by an offender's sexual abuse.

The amendments to supervision orders in this bill are yet another facet of this criminal law initiative that would strengthen the protection of children from sexual predators.

Supervision orders empower judges to impose conditions on child sexual offenders or persons who might commit child sexual offences. There are various orders a court can use to ensure the supervision of the offender in the community. These orders include probation orders, peace bonds, and prohibition orders. It is important to understand how each of these orders operates to fully grasp how they would achieve the underlying objective of Bill C-26. The underlying objective is to protect children from sexual predators.

First, probation orders can be imposed where offenders are sentenced to less than two years of imprisonment. They can also be stand-alone orders, and in all cases, they have a maximum duration of three years. These orders can vary substantially in scope. For instance, some conditions, such as keeping the peace, are mandatory, whereas other conditions are left to the discretion of a judge. These conditions can also include requiring the offender to be under house arrest except for predetermined absences, such as employment. These optional conditions must be reasonable, clear, and most importantly, certain. These conditions aim to protect society by preventing recidivism and facilitating the offender's successful rehabilitation and safe re-insertion into the community.

Peace bonds, on the other hand, can be used where there is a reasonable fear that a person will commit a child sexual offence. In fact, section 810.1 of the Criminal Code allows any person, under reasonable grounds, to lay information before a provincial court judge based on a fear that an individual will commit a certain sexual offence against a young person under 14 years of age. A court will order a person to enter into a peace bond if it is convinced, on a balance of probabilities, that the informant's fear is reasonably grounded. Peace bonds can encompass a variety of conditions, including prohibiting an offender from communicating on a computer with young people or attending public places where children could reasonably be expected to be present.

Lastly, prohibition orders allow courts to prohibit the offender from having contact with children where there exists an evidentiary basis for concluding that the offender poses a risk to young children. This prohibition may take different forms, such as a ban from specified places where children are present, restriction on employment involving a position of trust or authority over children, and access to the Internet.

The Criminal Code requires a judge to consider such orders in every case involving an enumerated offence, and they can last for the offender's lifetime.

Maximum penalties for breaches of probation orders, peace bonds, and prohibition orders, referred to collectively as supervision orders, would be increased under Bill C-26. This would ensure that those who violate conditions imposed by the courts to protect children would be held accountable.

Bill C-26 would raise the maximum penalty for breaches of all supervision orders from two to four years on indictment. In addition, it would increase the maximum penalty for breaching prohibition and peace bonds from six months to 18 months on summary conviction. The proposed new maximums would ensure that offenders who breached these supervision orders were liable to the same penalties, regardless of the type of order, according to whether the breach was a prosecuted indictment or a summary conviction.

Furthermore, fines for breaching probation would increase from $2,000 to $5,000. The supervisory aspect of these orders helps to rehabilitate offenders, but, more importantly, ensures the maintenance of a just, peaceful, and safe society.

According to Statistics Canada, a number of studies with a follow-up period of 15 years noted that the average rate of recidivism among sex offenders is about 24%. However, alarmingly, the highest rate for recidivism found in this review was 35.5% for a sample of offenders who sexually offended against children. These offenders were followed for a 23-year period. The source of that information is the Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics in a study called “Police-reported sexual offences against children and youth in Canada, 2012”, which was released on May 28, 2014.

It is, therefore, absolutely crucial that serious breaches of these conditions be denounced and deterred. One way that Bill C-26 would protect children is by ensuring that once child sexual offenders are released into the community, a breach of their conditions will result in serious consequences commensurate with the objective that these types of orders are designed to fulfill—namely, the protection of the most vulnerable members of our communities, our children.

For instance, a key component of the sentencing reform in Bill C-26 would ensure that any evidence that an offence was committed while the offender was subject to a conditional sentence, on parole, or while on statutory release would be an aggravating factor in their sentencing. Treating such instances as aggravating factors is necessary to denounce, deter, and punish offenders who deliberately persist in reoffending even after they have been placed under varying forms of supervision.

Such amendments are also necessary to protect the community when rehabilitative and reintegration efforts are clearly not working for these offenders. Increased penalties for those who violate conditions imposed by the courts to protect children would serve two very important functions: first, they would hold offenders accountable; second, they would prevent future harm to vulnerable children. This is especially true in the context of child sexual offences, where breaches of supervision orders may indicate a risk that the offender will re-victimize children. Thus, increasing the minimum and maximum penalties for breach of supervision orders is an important tool that courts can use in appropriate circumstances. Not only would these measures dissuade offenders from committing offences, but they would also separate child sexual predators from society before they commit repeat offences.

Breaching a supervision order is not a trivial offence. For instance, persons subject to probation and prohibition orders have already been processed through the criminal justice system and released on conditions that are intimately intertwined with the alleged or previous offences committed. As such, breaching these orders is serious, because it is concrete acknowledgement of a refusal by that offender to be rehabilitated. We must send a clear message. Such breaches require a clear, proportionate, and dissuasive response.

It is important to remember that these supervision orders have not been imposed in a vacuum. Combined, the amendments in Bill C-26 would send a clear message. We will not allow offenders to commit crimes with impunity while being under community supervision, especially when such breaches put children at risk. Additionally, they would achieve consistency in punishment for all heinous sexual offences against children.

These features of Bill C-26 are important and necessary. As a result, I urge all hon. members of the House to support this bill and its swift passage.

[Francine Raynault, NDP, Joliette, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his speech. I have a quick question for him.

The government wants to amend the Canada Evidence Act to ensure that the spouses of the accused would be competent and compellable witnesses for the prosecution in child pornography cases. Why?

[John Barlow, Conservative, Macleod, AB]

Mr. Speaker, it is a very good question. Right now, under the Canada Evidence Act, common-law partners or spouses are not asked or not allowed to testify against their spouse, but in this case, we are adding child pornography to the list of exemptions. The main reason for that, especially because of the emergence of online child pornography, is that it is really difficult to come to a conviction beyond reasonable doubt without the support of the spouse. There is a legitimate question there in terms of who is responsible for pornographic images on a home computer without having a spouse there to testify against the person who is charged.

We want them to have that ability so that when computers within the household are shared pieces technology, the spouse would be able to testify against the person who is charged.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, again I want to emphasize that over the last number of years we have seen significant growth in child exploitation through cyberspace or the Internet. The Government of Canada, in working with other levels of government and different stakeholders, does have a strong leadership role to play on this issue. When I say that, it means more than just legislation; it also means budgetary measures.

I would ask the member if he would not agree that while legislation is one thing, it is equally important to make sure that we have the right resources in the right places. The government's decision not to allow the RCMP to spend its full budgets in this area, some $2 million annually, will do very little in fighting the cybersex exploitation and child exploitation that is taking place. If the RCMP is not spending that $2 million, then it is not doing what is necessary to track down some of these issues in a very real, tangible way, thereby sparing victims and ensuring that there is more justice given to those who are perpetrating this terrible crime.

[John Barlow, Conservative, Macleod, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my hon. colleague for Winnipeg North for that question. I am really glad that he asked it. However, I think the way in which he spun the question was interesting.

The member said that the government did not allow the RCMP to spend its allotted budget, which is absolutely not true. There was $10 million sent back over the five years, but there are reasons for that, and I would like to talk about that briefly.

I had the opportunity to work with Sheldon Kennedy at the Child Advocacy Centre in Calgary. He built that program. I was able to tour the facility when it was opened and meet with many of the RCMP officers who are working as part of the team at the CAC in Calgary.

They spoke about some of the issues they are facing and how traumatic and extremely difficult this line of work is. It is something they are passionate about, certainly, but it is also something that I think any law enforcement officer would have a great deal of difficulty doing for more than a couple of years. One of the issues they talked about was the high rate of turnover as part of that job.

I was able to speak to many of those RCMP officers about the traumatic pictures they were seeing and having to sit down with these children who were brought to the CAC to discuss the issues they had gone through. The stories were horrific. Because of that, we are seeing a high turnover among the RCMP in this industry.

Therefore, a great deal of those RCMP dollars went unspent. It was not because we did not allow the RCMP to spend that money, but because of human resources issues. The RCMP just could not fill those child advocacy roles and carry out the cyberjustice activities we were looking to do.

However, we have looked at other ways. We have given $10 million to child advocacy centres across the country. We found other ways to use those dollars. I think it is important to clarify the difference.

[Jasbir Sandhu, NDP, Surrey North, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles.

It is a honour to speak to Bill C-26, which amends a number of acts that deal with sexual offences against children. I would like to speak as a father, as an uncle, and hopefully someday as a grandfather.

I have two children. Any time the subject of child exploitation comes up, I think all parents across Canada would have zero tolerance for any sort of child exploitation that occurs in our society.

The bill is a good step in the right direction; however, a number of amendments and a number of recommendations from expert witnesses and stakeholders introduced at committee provided very good evidence to amend the bill. As usual, the Conservatives failed to entertain any of them.

That said, when I and all my colleagues talk about our children, there is no doubt that whether one is on this side of the aisle or the other side, every single member of the House is dead set against child exploitation. Not only that, in the last number of years the House has brought in a number of initiatives that have tightened the laws regarding child sexual exploitation, and we were happy to support those initiatives.

Members will remember Bill C-10, an omnibus crime bill introduced by the Conservatives. We actually wanted to fast-track the sections that dealt with child exploitation. One side of the story is to bring in legislation to ensure that our children are safe, and as parliamentarians we should be doing that. I am very proud of the record of the NDP, the official opposition, in supporting initiatives that enhance the safety of our children.

It is one thing to be tough on crime, but we cannot be soft on community safety. That is the record of the Conservative government. The Conservatives have been soft on community safety. If we really want protection, laws alone will not provide it. We need to provide additional resources. Money must be invested into communities to ensure that service providers, other stakeholders, and law enforcement agencies have the tools and resources to ensure that our children are safe from predators. Earlier the member talked about the money that was unspent, and I will talk about that in a second.

I want to quote Steve Sullivan at the committee. He is the former federal ombudsman for victims of crime and he would certainly know something about resources in the community. He wrote:

...the federal government recently announced it was cutting the measly $650,000 in funding Corrections Canada provides. [The Circle of Support and Accountability program] also receives funding from the National Crime Prevention Centre; that's also set to end this fall. In total, the program costs $2.2 million a year.

He went on:

Like most community-based victim services, [Circles of Support and Accountability] is a fairly cheap program. It has 700 volunteers across the country; they meet with offenders after their release, help them find jobs and places to live, meet with them regularly for coffee. They support offenders as they settle into normal lives, ones that don't involve new victims. They hold them accountable.

This program has shown success. Here are some of the statistics that have come out. Circles of support and accountability numbers are impressive. One study found a 70% reduction in sexual offences recidivism for those who participated in circles of support and accountability compared to those who did not. Another study found an 83% reduction in child sexual offences recidivism.

This is the record of the government. If we are really concerned about ensuring safety for our children and safety in our community, why is the government cutting the very programs that have shown success in communities? They provided 700 volunteers. These are Canadian parents that are willing to volunteer their services to ensure that our communities remain safe, yet the government pulled the rug out from underneath this very successful program. We can create all the laws we want. We can say we are tough on crime, but it does not work if we are soft on community safety. That is the record of the government.

We had a couple of cases in Surrey, British Columbia. There was a young lady murdered by a sex offender who was known to the RCMP and who was on the list of those likely to reoffend. My heart goes out to the family. My heart goes out to the parents. What we did as a society, as a government, was let this happen in our community. Where was the support? How are we monitoring these people when they are released into the community?

If we know these people are likely to reoffend, why are they being dropped into the community without some sort of support, whether we provide resources to the RCMP or to the very front line workers who provide these services to monitor these individuals? We had programs in place where the recidivism rates for sexual offences were reduced by 83%, yet the government is cutting these very programs.

In fact, the mayor of the city of Surrey has called for more resources to ensure that once offenders are released, if they are released, that we have proper resources to ensure monitoring and ensuring there is support in place to ensure the safety of our children.

I often talk about this. Facts and research are not something Conservatives believe in because we know where they get their facts from. We have seen them pick their facts from Kijiji rather than relying on science or what works in the community. What works in the community are programs like circles of accountability and support.

I want to talk about the changes. I do not understand this as a parent. I do not understand as a member of Parliament. The government wants to enact a high-risk child sex offender database to establish a publicly accessible database that contains information that a police service or other public authority has previously made accessible to the public with respect to persons who are found guilty of sexual offences against children and who pose a high risk of committing crimes of a sexual nature.

If the offenders pose a high-risk of repeating crimes of a sexual nature, why are they being released into the community in the first place? That is how idiotic the government is.

If we are really concerned about ensuring the safety of our children, we need to provide resources. Bill C-26 does not provide any resources to ensure the safety of our communities.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to provide a comment with respect to the whole issue of prevention, in particular, the circumstances that children who are living in our communities will often find themselves in. Quite often, we find dysfunctional families and within those families, we will see that a child is far more vulnerable to being exploited.

I believe that the Government of Canada, working with the provincial governments and other entities, can help develop and encourage programs that would give some of these high-risk children, who are living in communities, a better chance at being able to avoid being exploited.

We do not talk enough inside the House of Commons about the fact that there is so much more we could be doing by working with others and developing the programs necessary in order to provide a helping hand to children who are more susceptible to being exploited.

I wonder if the member might want to provide some comment on that aspect. It is not good to only bring in legislation dealing with one end, we also have to be responsible in dealing with the other end.

[Jasbir Sandhu, NDP, Surrey North, BC]

Mr. Speaker, certainly, we can do more. We had $10 million earmarked for the RCMP to deal with child exploitation which went unspent. The current government clawed it back to put it into general revenue. If we are really concerned about ensuring safety in our communities and the safety of our children, the least we can do is provide those funds to the various front line service providers that need these resources.

I have spoken with a number of RCMP officers and front line workers who deal with families and children. I can assure the House that there is lack of funding and commitment from the government to ensure that the safety of our children is put first and foremost.

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

Mr. Speaker, I was not going to stand up because I will give a speech a little later, but I could not stay silent. My son is an RCMP officer. My son was in the ICE unit. The people who go into those units are special people because they have a lot to face. They have to look at videos of children being raped, hearing their screams and know that they have to find those children. There are not many officers who want to go into the ICE unit or those kinds of units because they have not been specially trained.

Therefore, the $10 million was not spent by the RCMP because they could not find the specialized people to deal with this unit. We can say many things in this House, but they have to be truthful and they have to reflect the realities of the day.

[Jasbir Sandhu, NDP, Surrey North, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the public safety minister is in charge of the RCMP. If $10 million is not being spent, does the public safety minister not know that this is happening in his department, especially when this is concerning the safety of our children? Is the public safety minister asleep at the switch when it comes to the safety of our children?

I am glad the member brought that question up. If we are going to protect children and ensure safer communities, we need to ensure that the government and the public safety minister pay more attention to ensuring that we take steps to properly train those people in a timely fashion and provide resources to the community.

Perhaps the member across the aisle would like to ask the public safety minister where he has been and why he has not been paying attention to the $10 million that had not been spent and was clawed back into general revenue?

[The Acting Speaker, Barry Devolin]

Before we resume debate, it is my duty pursuant to Standing Order 38 to inform the House that the questions to be raised tonight at the time of adjournment are as follows: the hon. member for Saanich—Gulf Islands, Public Safety; the hon. member for Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, Fisheries and Oceans; the hon. member for Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, CBC/Radio Canada.

The hon. member for Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles.

[Anne-Marie Day, NDP, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak to this debate on tougher penalties for sex offenders. In my professional career, I never stopped advocating for women's rights or for the fight against childhood poverty.

There is nothing sadder than to see children in vulnerable situations, whether because of an unstable family life, family violence, or just because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time.

We all have a duty in the House to ensure that we are doing everything we can to keep our families, children and communities safe and sound. Over the past few years, a significant number of children, girls and boys, have been victims of sex crimes in far too many of Canada's communities. This has an adverse effect on many aspects of their lives, on their self-confidence, their ability to trust others, their mental health and so many other things. So many families are wounded, broken and devastated because of these reprehensible crimes.

Furthermore, this bill is part of a complex societal debate because it involves several levels of government—municipal, provincial and territorial; police services such as the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, and provincial and municipal police forces; many advocacy groups; and various professions such as youth protection workers, psychologists, street workers and psychosocial workers.

I am bringing my perspective as a mother, and also as the former president of the Regroupement des groupes de femmes de la région de la Capitale-Nationale to this debate. This bill does not do enough for the women and children traumatized by the horrors perpetrated by sex offenders.

The Conservatives consider themselves to be tough on crime. However, they are mistaken if they believe that the legislative measures proposed in this bill are sufficient. This is not the first nor the last time that I will admonish this government for its wishful thinking. I rise today with the expectation that this government will realize the importance of prevention, understand that simply handing out harsher sentences does not yield the desired results and grasp that we need meaningful action and not just fine words to look good for the cameras. Our children are paying the price for the lack of leadership to search for concrete solutions.

I want to talk about a statistic that shocked me and that could shock many people listening to me today. Sexual offences against children have increased 6% over the past two years. This statistic was shared by none other than the Minister of Justice, when he appeared before the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights. A 6% increase is cause for concern.

Over the last decade, Canada has seen a significant increase in the number of people charged in cases of sexual interference, invitation to sexual touching, sexual exploitation and luring a child using a computer.

I will use my time today to talk about three important points. First, I will give a critique of the proposal for harsher prison sentences, which do not do enough to fix the problem. Second, I will talk about the cuts made to public protection services. Third, I will talk about how what the public really needs is meaningful, comprehensive action.

First, I would like to emphasize the fact that the NDP has always had a zero tolerance policy when it comes to sexual offences against children. I think it is important to repeat that. We have zero tolerance for sexual offences against children.

When preparing this speech on Bill C-26, I wondered why the Conservatives, who claim to be the champions in the fight against crime, have only one solution for every crime: tougher sentences. Tougher sentences alone do not work. A more comprehensive approach is needed.

Once again, the fact that sexual offences against children have increased by 6% in the past two years shows that the Conservatives are taking a minimalist approach. That is disgraceful. I would not want to be in the shoes of the Minister of Justice, who has to justify that statistic to Canadians, particularly victims and their loved ones.

One of the amendments proposed by the NDP sought to obligate the minister to submit an annual report to Parliament on the effectiveness of the law. That amendment was rejected. Once again, how can the government justify that to victims and their loved ones?

As I have said repeatedly, what I have seen since entering federal politics is a government that is too often reacting instead of being proactive.

They do not seem to think it is important to invest in preventing crime. I do, however, and so do the people of Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles and many Canadians.

The government absolutely must invest in crime prevention and other practical solutions to keep our communities safe. I have to say that we are disappointed that this bill does not do more to introduce effective solutions that will do a better job of protecting our children and making our communities safer.

That brings me to my second point, which is about budget cuts and funding shortfalls. If we want to reduce the number of sexual crimes against children in this country, we have to back that up with resources. Disappointment on that front too: there is no new funding in this bill.

Resources on the ground cannot always keep up with the Conservative government's harsher law and order policies. The NDP believes that our communities need resources to combat child sexual abuse.

In regard to funding for police services, police forces are having to do more with less. The RCMP is already having difficulty keeping the criminal records registry up to date, for lack of resources. This bill will only further increase their workload, without adding any trained personnel to protect our children.

That is why I was so surprised to learn recently that the RCMP did not spend the $10 million earmarked for the National Child Exploitation Coordination Centre and other projects to fight child pornography, even though more and more people are coming forward all the time to report child exploitation. How can this government justify that?

To illustrate my third point, I want to talk about how the Conservatives stubbornly refuse to listen to the questions being asked by people in communities across Canada and by experts. For the NDP, passing legislation is not something we take lightly. We always encourage the relevant committees to examine the bills. We meet with experts, associations and professionals with full transparency in order to understand their point of view. We often propose amendments based on the arguments of workers on the ground who are familiar with the realities facing victims.

This bill is no different; however, one thing that has not changed about the process is that the Conservatives continue to reject our amendments.

We understand the political game they are playing. However, I take exception to this government ignoring the recommendations made by the professional associations and experts who testified in committee. The experts are the ones we turn to for opinions and clarification. So why do the Conservatives ignore their recommendations?

What we want is simple. We want the government to stop turning a deaf ear and understand the scope of the problem. We want it to be open to working in collaboration with the opposition parties and the experts.

In closing, we are here to work in the interest of Canadians. This is not an easy task and we do not have all the answers.

Child sex offences have increased by 6%. We are asking the government to do more to improve those statistics and ensure that children are no longer victims of sexual offences and that communities have more resources to work on preventing and condemning reprehensible acts.

We are voting in favour of Bill C-26, but I want to add my list of concerns.

I encourage the government to get its head out of the sand and stop thinking that tougher sentences will solve the problems, because they will not.

I urge the government to give victims support organizations and the police the resources they need to properly discharge their mandate in view of the growing number of complaints, including those about online practices.

I am asking the government to listen to the experts in order to improve this bill.

What measures will truly help protect the must vulnerable, such as children? How and when will these measures be incorporated in the government's policies?

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I compliment the member on many aspects of her speech, a couple of which stand out for me. It reinforces, using her term, the “lack of family guidance”. There are many situations where children lack that guidance, which leads them into a very vulnerable position. Many of them will ultimately be exploited in some fashion.

As she pointed out, and I indicated earlier, we have this growing exploitation of children through the Internet. She made reference to the 6% factor in the last couple of years. We are talking about hundreds of children every year who are exploited.

Does the member want to add some further comment with regard to the important role the government has to play in working with others to deal with some of the causes that bring into being the lack of family guidance, or dysfunctional families or whatever one might want to call it?

[Anne-Marie Day, NDP, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the member is quite right and I must agree with his comments.

The government should really provide better funding as well as more powers and options to organizations that work with child victims and also to prevent others from being victimized. This also means working with repeat offenders and sex offenders. The government should also give police more opportunities to intervene and work in collaboration with municipalities, provincial police services and the RCMP in order to make our system more effective. With the advent of the Internet, it is all too easy to participate in the sex trade.

[François Lapointe, NDP, Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague raised several important issues including, unfortunately, the increase in the number of reported incidents of pedophilia and people arrested for that offence. It is horrible.

I heard the stories of very competent people who have an extremely thankless job. I am the father of three children and I find individuals with pedophilic tendencies or those who act on these tendencies to be repugnant. I am a parent like everyone else.

I heard interviews with people who work in two organizations. One of them tries to support people with this problem before they act on it, while the other works with potential repeat offenders. I listened to these interviews on the radio, and the two representatives of these two organizations pointed out that they have a great deal of difficulty obtaining funding for their work.

I want to explain. I find the people who are served by these organizations to be repugnant. However, I want them to get help because, as a parent, I do not want them to abuse a child. I would like to hear what my colleague has to say about this problem of failing to do what is necessary to ensure there will be no new victims.

[Anne-Marie Day, NDP, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

Mr. Speaker, there are unfortunately far too many sexual deviants in our society, and the problem seems to have increased with access to the Internet. We need youth protection groups, psychologists, outreach workers and psychosocial workers.

We must intervene before, during and after. We have the names of people who are registered or on lists. It is always possible to create support groups to prevent individuals from reoffending or to simply encourage them not to reoffend. They will talk to them or intervene. However, this requires a lot of workers and funding, and this must obviously be done in co-operation with the provinces and with police forces. It is very important that we take action now for the sake of the children who have not yet been victimized by sexual predators.

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

Mr. Speaker, I am very happy to provide some input in this very important bill. It is of paramount importance that it pass through Parliament as quickly as possible.

Our government has had a very strong desire to protect children. When it comes to criminal activity such as sexual exploitation against our most vulnerable, our children, we know we must never back down in our efforts to stop these terrible crimes. When one child is hurt or exploited, it is one child too many. As a parliamentarian and a mother of six children, I am convinced that we need to do more to protect our children against sexual exploitation and believe strongly that the legislation before the House today would do just that.

I feel strongly that Canadians all across the country will pay attention to the speeches today, to the responses and to the positions of everybody on this issue. I am sure every member in the House, whether a parent, uncle, aunt, grandparent or friend, would agree that we must ensure that individuals who sexually exploit children are held fully accountable. I hope every member agrees that we must ensure the laws allow our justice system to hand out appropriate sentences that match the seriousness of the crime.

With Bill C-26, the tougher penalties for child predators act, we have an opportunity today to take an important step to protect our children from this crime that occurs far too often. As the statistics show and as was mentioned earlier, there is a 6% increase in sex offences against children. I urge all members of the House to support the passage of this bill without delay. Our children are too important, and it affects every family in Canada in one way or another.

Child sexual abuse is a crime of the most heinous nature. It causes unimaginable devastation to the lives of children. Studies have shown that it profoundly affects victims into adulthood and throughout their lives, and I dare say it affects their families as well.

Children under the age of 18 accounted for more than half the victims of sexual offences reported to police in 2012, and these numbers are unacceptable. They call for the kind of tough and decisive measures our government has proposed in this legislation. The bill contains a number of important elements, some of which fall under the responsibility of the Minister of Justice, including, as the name suggests, tougher penalties for those convicted of child sexual offences, and that is exactly what they should get: tougher penalties.

Legislation would require judges to impose consecutive sentences when convicted child sex offenders were sentenced at the same time for contact child sexual offences against multiple victims or for child porn and contact child sexual offences. With this legislation, both the maximum and minimum penalties for child offences would be increased, as would the maximum penalties for violating conditions of supervision orders. This is well put when 6% more offences are occurring in our great country.

The bill also includes many practical measures at better safeguarding children against sexual exploitation, both in Canada and abroad. Our government often speaks about the need to ensure that law enforcement has the tools it needs to do its job of helping to keep citizens safe. That is certainly a key preoccupation of mine and I am proud of our government's record. It is a record upon which we can further build this legislation.

For the purposes of our discussion today, the tool in question is the National Sex Offender Registry, administered by the RCMP and used by police officers all across the country. It goes without saying that law enforcement agencies need to be aware of the location of registered sex offenders, and that is where the registry comes in. As of January 2015, there were approximately 37,000 registered sex offenders on the registry. Of those, approximately 25,000 have a conviction for a child sex offence.

Clearly, the National Sex Offender Registry is a vital tool for police in that it provides officers with rapid access to information on registered sex offenders who are living or working in a given area and can help police in their work to prevent or investigate sexual crimes.

Members in this House know that our government has made some legislative improvements already to enhance the effectiveness of the registry. In 2011, we ensured that convicted sex offenders were automatically included in the registry and were required to give a mandatory DNA sample to the National DNA Data Bank.

However, we could do more to strengthen its effectiveness as a tool to assist police in carrying out their work. To do that, we need to make some important amendments to the legislation that governs the registry, namely the Sex Offender Information Registration Act. As members know, that act came into force in 2004 and authorized the establishment of the data base containing information on convicted sex offenders across Canada. It includes information such as the offender's name, address, place of employment, and physical description.

Let me describe how the proposed amendments in the legislation before us would improve the effectiveness of the registry, beginning with the enhanced reporting requirements that would be imposed on sex offenders.

Obviously, reporting requirements are very important to ensure that police have up-to-date information on the whereabouts of registered sex offenders, including when they travel outside of Canada. As it stands today, registered sex offenders are required to report in person to registry officials on an annual basis and within seven days if they change either their addresses or legal names. They must also notify registry officials within seven days of a change in employment or volunteer activity, including the type of work they do.

All registered sex offenders are required to report the dates of absences of seven days or more for travel either within or outside of Canada. These are critical reporting requirements from the perspective of both accountability and public safety. However, they do not go far enough. At present, these offenders are only required to provide specific destinations and addresses for travel within Canada. Here is where it is obvious that there is a need for increased accountability and reporting.

Canada is one of many countries on the international stage that is gravely concerned about child sex tourism. Our determination to protect children from sexual crime does not stop at our borders. It extends to children everywhere. That is why, with this bill, we are taking measures to increase the reporting requirements for sex offenders who travel abroad and are imposing even more stringent requirements on those who have committed these crimes against children.

Registered sex offenders with a child sex offence would be required to report, in advance, international travel of any duration. This would now include a requirement to provide the address or locations where they will be staying and the specific dates of their travel.

As for other registered sex offenders, that is, those who do not fall into the category of child sex offender, their reporting requirements would be as follows.

They would have to report any trips of seven days or longer, again including the dates and addresses or locations where they would be staying. They would also be required to report their passport and driver's licence numbers. Of note, the new reporting obligations would apply to those currently in the registry and those convicted after the legislation comes into force. Taken together, these changes would have the effect of ensuring that police have better information regarding the whereabouts of travelling sex offenders.

Another critical part is information sharing. The next element in the bill I will highlight is how we would provide for the exchange of information on certain registered sex offenders between the officials responsible for the registry and those at the Canada Border Services Agency, CBSA.

As members have heard, under the current legislative framework, there is no specific legal mechanism for this information to be shared at the present time. While the current legislation allows registry information to be shared in certain circumstances, including to police services, there is no such authority for sharing with CBSA. This gap in information sharing obviously inhibits our knowledge about the travel of sex offenders. It is a gap that needs to be addressed.

Given its responsibility for management of our borders, CBSA can and should be one of the authorities involved in receiving and providing information that assists in monitoring the travel of sex offenders.

With this bill we would close the information gap by providing the authority for officials at the registry to regularly disclose information to the CBSA about child sex offenders who are assessed as a high risk to reoffend. The bill would also allow sharing of information between the RCMP and CBSA on other registered sex offenders on a case-by-case basis.

I would note here that the RCMP would implement a risk assessment process to determine those child offenders who present the highest risk to reoffend. The experts in the police forces are the people to do this.

Upon receiving a list of these offenders, the CBSA would then ensure that the sex offenders' names were placed on their lookout system. Border officials would also be authorized to collect travel information from these offenders upon their return to Canada and to share it with National Sex Offender Registry officials, including the date of departure and return to Canada and every address or location at which they stayed outside of Canada.

This type of enhanced information sharing would achieve two very important outcomes. The first is that we would better enable authorities to investigate and prevent crimes of a sexual nature. The second is that we would put the authorities in a better position to address any potential breaches in the reporting obligations of the offenders.

These are reasonable changes that just make sense. If we are going to keep a closer eye on the travel habits of sex offenders, it only stands to reason that our border officials and National Sex Offender Registry officials need to be able to share the information.

The final element of the bill is one that would allow us to further deliver on our commitment to Canadians to protect our communities from sex offenders. This is very important to our government, because Canadians want and deserve access to information they feel could protect their families. They feel that they need to have this information, and that includes information about potentially high-risk individuals who live in their communities. That information should be easily accessible and available to all Canadians, and this bill would pave the way for that.

The proposed public database, the high risk child sex offender database, would be separate from the National Sex Offender Registry, which is accessible only to police. This new high risk child sex offender database would be searchable by the entire Canadian public. It would include information about those high-risk child sex offenders who have already been the subject of a public notification in a provincial or territorial jurisdiction. They would be well known anyway to the public.

Our government believes that it is only right that Canadians have the ability to access this type of information with a few simple clicks on the computer. After all, knowledge of the presence of high-risk child sex offenders in the city would empower parents to take appropriate precautions to protect their children.

To that end, I can assure members of this House that consultations are under way with the provinces and territories regarding police notifications and the proposed database. We continue to work closely with these partners to develop further criteria to define the high-risk child sex offenders who would be included in the new publicly accessible database

As members can see, our government has developed a clear path forward to better protect the public from offenders with one of the most troubling forms of criminal behaviour we have to face in society. I am speaking as one who has worked with many trafficked victims and many children who have been sexually violated.

There is an impact on a family, and it is not just poor people, aboriginal people, or girls who are out looking for a boyfriend, or whatever people say. What we are talking about is a predatory kind of crime that looks to prepubescent children for the perpetrator's sexual gratification.

This bill would do much to close the gaps out there now. When we see a 6% increase in child exploitation and child sex offences, clearly, in Canada, there is a problem. That is why our government has taken bold steps to protect children. It has taken bold steps to ensure that we do every possible thing to enhance information sharing and communication between police forces and to protect our children from sexual exploitation and sexual crimes.

We would improve the accountability of sex offenders and better protect those who need safeguarding from crimes of a sexual nature. Those are our children.

I have to say that I am very proud to be part of a government that has taken a very clear stand on this. Today it is particularly interesting to hear some of the comments, because we as parliamentarians have to take a very responsible attitude and make sure that the children throughout our country are protected from sexual predators. It is frivolous to vote against or block anything that would do that. Certainly this particular bill would close many gaps. Even now, a lot of children are at risk without these gaps being closed.

I hope parliamentarians on all sides of the House will put aside their partisan concerns. I know that an election is coming soon, but by the same token, Canadians all across the country want these laws. They want their children protected. They want to know where the individuals who have been convicted of sexual offences against children reside.

We cannot heal sexual offences against children. They learn how to be survivors, but the occurrence comes back to them over and over again. The first thing I believe parliamentarians have to do in one voice is protect the most vulnerable in this country.

This is too important for political interference. We need to take the heart of the nation and the heart of the parents and children who are reaching out to the House of Commons today and put these laws into place and ensure that their families are safe.

[Francine Raynault, NDP, Joliette, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for her speech. I remind the government that the NDP is supporting this bill at third reading.

We know that the RCMP already has a hard time keeping criminal records up to date because they do not have adequate resources. How does the Conservative government think the RCMP can do all of this extra work effectively without additional resources?

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

Mr. Speaker, in this economy, we can always say that we need more money and more police officers. We also need more education. What has happened throughout this Parliament is that our government has educated all of Canada. It takes a nation to stop this kind of thing.

As for the $10 million that keeps coming up, it was not spent by the RCMP. If anyone has ever seen RCMP officers from units like that, it takes a lot to go into a unit like that. It takes training. It takes heart. It is a sacrifice for the family. That money was not spent, but right now in this country, for the first time, we have laws on human trafficking. For the first time, we have put laws in that people are learning about, and more training is coming to the forefront.

I can see that as we move on in this manner, we will have less of this problem, and the resources will be utilized very prudently.

[Adam Vaughan, Liberal, Trinity—Spadina, ON]

Mr. Speaker, one of the most tragic elements of child sexual abuse is the fact that people who are abused are often the people who end up becoming perpetrators. It is a horrible dynamic we have to deal with.

There are three things we absolutely know about high-risk sex offenders when it comes to children. First, most of those who victimize have been victimized themselves. Second, the most serious offenders are almost automatically listed as dangerous offenders nowadays, but they also have a history of escalating charges. In other words, they get caught committing relatively minor offences and it escalates, as there is not progressive punishment.

Finally, preventing repeat offenders is the most effective way of protecting children. Fundamentally, the most important step a government can take is to stop repeat offenders from repeating.

With all of this in mind, why did the government cut the most important, successful, and effective program that stopped offenders from reoffending? If we know that as a matter of science, why on God's earth would we stop the most effective program from being present in our communities and protecting our children? How does the government square that directive?

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

Mr. Speaker, I have to ask how the members across the way square the fact that they voted against increased penalties for sexual offences against children when Bill C-10 was here in this Parliament.

Our government has been, as the first in many governments, focused on the victims, focused on the families first. There is a limited amount of resources. We have other programs that do address these other issues as well. However, when we talk about what is important, how in the world can anybody vote against protecting children?

It is a deterrent when people have increased penalties. It is a deterrent when the communities are looking at how they can keep their communities safe. We have people in schools and churches all across this nation who are gathering and talking about how they can have neighbourhood watch and how they can ensure that they know more about where sexual predators are.

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

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

Mr. Speaker, members across the way laugh about this, and I think that is kind of a sad commentary because the protection of our children is of paramount importance.

[Phil McColeman, Conservative, Brant, ON]

Mr. Speaker, could my colleague comment on those of us who have been involved with policing in our own communities, and the difficulty actually of finding individuals within the policing community who really want to go down this road? As has been mentioned across the aisle many times, they accuse the minister of not spending the $10 million. Frankly, having been on the governance side of policing in my community, the challenges that police face in this category of crime are enormous.

I know the member has a personal relationship with that, and she mentioned it during her speech. I wonder if she could comment further on that. This is unbelievable policing when it comes down to where the rubber meets the road on this issue.

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

Mr. Speaker, it would take a former police officer to ask a question like that. I thank my colleague.

Having said that, the member talks about the difficulties of policing and being in ICE units. How do police officers sit for hours watching a TV that shows the rapes, and hearing the children's cries? They know that they have to go and find out where those children are, because many of the predators film what they do. How do they go into an establishment and pick up a child when they have finally found her, and take her out after she has been sexually abused for a very long time? When they take the hand of that child, that hand is the same as the hand of their children. I know when I rescued a 14-year-old, her hand reminded me of my youngest daughter's hand when I took it.

Those police officers connect personally with what happens. I know, years afterward, they still hear the cries, the dreams still come. I know my own son talked about it, that when he went to sleep he could hear the cries of the children and he could not get the door down, and that was a recurring dream. That happens to a lot of ICE officers. The policing of this kind of thing is very challenging.

[François Lapointe, NDP, Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC]

Mr. Speaker, if I am not mistaken, the son of our colleague from Kildonan—St. Paul worked on child pornography investigations. First, if that is the case, I commend his son. It must be a very hard job to have to search through the evidence in these sorts of cases. It really must be very difficult. I applaud his son for the work that he does.

However, I disagree with one of my colleague's comments. I did not understand it. The Conservatives themselves admitted that $10 million was not used. That money should have been used by the police units tasked to investigate pedophilia cases. Our colleague was saying that the money was not spent because—and surely his argument is valid—it is very difficult to find police officers who are willing to participate in these investigations and that those officers then have to be given a lot of training. I understand all that. It must be a long and difficult process. However, what I do not understand and what I would like my colleague to explain is why, rather than sending those millions of dollars elsewhere, was the money not kept and heavily invested in recruiting and training these people, if it is so difficult to get the job done?

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

Mr. Speaker, that is a very good comment. This government put forth a national action plan against human trafficking for exactly that, for training for police officers. The laws in Canada are very new on human trafficking and some of them are newer on child exploitation and sexual offences. When the member mentions the money that goes into that, our government put lots of money in to try to meet the needs that are out there because the need is greater than what has been addressed today. We need trained police officers.

I also want to point out that public safety did put in $2.5 million to combat child sexual exploitation. Those dollars were used for programming, for awareness and for all those kinds of things as well. It is not only that $10 million, but there are other dollars that have gone in to help on the other side of it too.

[Jamie Nicholls, NDP, Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to say that I am splitting my time with the member for Laval—Les Îles.

The stats are troubling. One out of three girls and one out of six boys will be sexually abused before the age of 18. These statistics mean that right now in Canada there are five million girls who have been sexually abused and 2.8 million boys. That number is too high. That is a statistic that should trouble everyone in Canada.

That is part of the reason why we are supporting Bill C-26 going forward, but we do not believe that the bill goes far enough and I will explain why. Some 95% of child sexual abuse victims know their perpetrator in some way, a statistic from the Badgley commission in the eighties, and 68% are abused by a family member, someone within their family: stepfather, father or an uncle. When we think of these statistics, the problem becomes much more complex.

I am the father of a 10-year-old girl. I have another daughter on the way. She is due to be born in June. These statistics are troubling to me as a father. It is something that is always on my mind. It is always a worry that one day something might happen to my daughter.

New Democrats have zero tolerance for child sexual abuse. I would like to think that zero tolerance for child sexual abuse does not mean that we only get the predator after the perpetrator has abused the child, because that, in effect, is what the bill is addressing. For everything that is addressed in the bill, the sexual abuse has already happened. My hope as a father is that we could get rid of child sexual abuse before it happens, before any child in this country is abused.

There is nothing in Bill C-26 that will stop a child from being abused. I will explain why. The reason is that once the police put a predator in jail, the predator has abused a child. Once a perpetrator's name is in a database, the perpetrator has abused a child already. The abuse has already happened.

My question to my colleague, who may or may not be listening to me speaking about this, is that we have to find the solution to stopping sexual abuse before it happens. We have to reduce this problem that is in our country.

That said, we do support measures to remove child sexual predators from general society to protect the children they may further abuse. We even went to the point during the debates on Bill C-10 to approach the House leader and the minister responsible to say that we would take all the measures for child sexual predators out of the omnibus legislation and fast-track them through the House right away, make them into law right away. Unfortunately, the other side did not accept that. We thought that the need to pass them was pressing and that is why we proposed that. We would agree with putting these predators away so that the abuse stops.

However, we have to start talking about real action and we have to back up this action with actual funding, because tough words will not solve the problem. We also have to keep an open mind when we discuss this, because child sexual abuse is a wicked problem. It does not have simple solutions.

The statistics I cited at the top of my speech should make members think. Often when abuse happens in a family, the child is unwilling to speak because it may be a father or a stepfather. In the children's minds, they are trying to protect their family in one way, and yet they are trying to protect themselves. It is a very confusing experience for a child.

The Child Molestation Research & Prevention Institute in the U.S. says:

Professionals - physicians and therapists - can never put an end to sexual abuse; neither can the police or the courts. Why? Because they come on the scene too late. By the time they get there, the children have already been molested.

Therefore, the question we should be asking is, how do we prevent child abuse? We need to have frank discussions. The member across mentioned education, but part of the education piece that needs to happen is how to talk within families about abuse. It should not just be talking about the predator being a stranger outside of the family who is somehow going to infiltrate the family to abuse the children. Often the abuser is within the family already. Therefore, we need the tools to have these frank discussions about issues of abuse and issues of consent. As I said, 95% of the people are known to the children and 68% are often a family member.

At the core, sending molesters to jail as a solution to child molestation will always fail our children because in order for a molester to be jailed children will be abused. This is again from the institute. It is the same with treatment. When people who perpetrate child sexual abuse are identified for treatment, they have often already abused the child.

The member across the way also said that what we think of child sexual predators is not always the case. It is not one ethnic group and not one social class. There was actually a study done. It was called the Abel and Harlow child molestation prevention study. It looked at 4,000 admitted child molesters, men from the ages of 18 to 20. They found the following statistics: 77% were married; 93% were religious, men of faith; 46% had college educations; and 65% had normal steady work. After stating that, what does a child sexual predator look like? Physically, it could look like many of the men in this chamber. It is not what we imagine it to be on the outside.

They look like normal men on the outside, but on the inside they have a disorder that has been identified under the DSM as pedophilia. Pedophilia is an awful mental disorder. We do not discuss attacking this disorder enough. Often pedophilia is identified in the teenage years in men. There are signs that appear that can be signals. If we flag them soon enough, we might be able to prevent sexual abuse from occurring. If we could identify in the teenage years the signs of this disorder, then we could actually attack it right at the root.

This is where we have to attack it because then we could actually prevent these men, and sometimes women, from actually committing the sexual abuse. We have to focus on the cause. We have to develop a prevention plan to prevent sexual abuse from ever happening.

Bill C-26 does a wonderful job of looking at what to do after someone has abused a child. We would put them in jail and put them in a database. However, we really need to take action on finding a way to prevent child abuse from ever happening in the first place.

The way we are going to do that is to have a frank discussion. We have to stop portraying this as a stranger that is going to perpetrate sexual abuse on a child. We know the statistics. There have been many studies done. We have to really put the resources toward the root of the problem and start having frank discussions within our families and with our neighbours about the roots of sexual abuse.

We need to start to put our energy into this, so that those seven million children in our country, that I cited as the next generation, will have even less abuse and eventually, hopefully, we can eradicate this problem from our society entirely.

[John Barlow, Conservative, Macleod, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the member for his impassioned speech. As a father of two daughters, as well, I can certainly understand where he is coming from.

He did touch a bit on the crux of the issue. He said we do not know who these people are. They could be any one of us, and certainly, dealing with pedophilia and child sexual assault is multi-faceted.

Why does the member think that serving sentences consecutively and having an increase in maximum prison sentences for sexual offences in Bill C-26 is not going to stop additional attacks on children?

Certainly, we can start at the root of the problem, but this is also going to address repeat offenders. That is also very important. Why does he not think this would address that?

[Jamie Nicholls, NDP, Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC]

Mr. Speaker, as I said in my speech already, New Democrats are supporting the legislation. I also said that imposing jail sentences does stop the further abuse. I do not think I said anything in my speech that contradicted the fact that we need to stop further abuse.

The crux of my speech was that we have to actually stop abuse before it happens. This bill addresses elements after the abuse has happened. I would like to see legislation put before the House that would actually reduce the prevalence of abuse, get to the root of it, and stop people from abusing, rather than addressing it after the fact and being reactionary after the abuse has already happened.

[Adam Vaughan, Liberal, Trinity—Spadina, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the problem with a crime and punishment agenda is that it requires crime and only responds with punishment. I would be interested in the member's comments on the notion that the most prevalent cohort of child sexual offenders are people who are offended themselves. In other words, only criminalizing and only punishing attacks victims themselves.

I would like to know what the member's thoughts are on how that relates to preventive strategies as being a way of eliminating this horrible blight altogether.

[Jamie Nicholls, NDP, Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC]

Mr. Speaker, there certainly is a cycle of abuse. I knew people in my childhood who were abused and I knew that their parents were abused as well. Therefore, the parent was both abused and the abuser. It is tragic.

The thing about the crime and punishment agenda is that yes, it is necessary to protect our society from these predators, but at the same time, sometimes the crime and punishment agenda takes away from the frank discussions that we should be having about the cycle of abuse and the effect it is having on us as a society.

It takes resources away from what we could perhaps do in preventing abuse from happening in the first place and treating this as a serious matter in families.

[Alexandrine Latendresse, NDP, Louis-Saint-Laurent, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I want to sincerely thank my colleague from Vaudreuil-Soulanges for his speech.

I think it is important to commend the courage it took to deliver such a speech. Everyone agrees that in our society, people who sexually abuse children are among the most ostracized, and everyone also agrees that these offences are the ones we try the hardest to combat, and rightly so. However, there was one really important point in his speech that he repeated several times. Yes, of course, we must put those people in prison and the penalties must be very stiff; we do need to send a clear message. At the same time, however, every time we send someone to prison, that means a child was abused somewhere. If there is something we can do to prevent it from happening in the first place, instead of patting ourselves on the back for sending someone to prison, then that is really important.

I wonder if the member could come back to that for the few seconds he has left.

[Jamie Nicholls, NDP, Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I can honestly say that that is what bothers me the most. These bills come into play after the abuse has already taken place. A child has already been abused. For once, could we work on preventing the abuse from happening? Could we put an end to these offences altogether?

[The Acting Speaker, Barry Devolin]

Resuming debate. The hon. member for Laval—Les Îles has only two minutes remaining.

[François Pilon, NDP, Laval—Les Îles, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I will start by saying that we will be voting in favour of Bill C-26. Based on the questions raised since this morning, the other side is still undecided.

As several of my colleagues mentioned this afternoon, the bill deals with the incarceration of sexual predators. We seem to be forgetting about the children. Children who have been abused are scarred for life. Clearly, incarcerating sexual predators is a good thing. However, the ideal solution would be to prevent sexual predation. As the member who spoke before me said, there is nothing in this bill to prevent sexual predators from committing the abuse. Of course they will not be able to do so once in prison, but there will be other sexual predators, because this type of abuse has always existed. We have to treat these people.

I am in a good position to talk about the damage done to abused children. My sister provides emergency foster care for youth protection services. She fosters children who must be taken away from their families on an emergency basis. Quite often the children she cares for have been taken away from their family because they were sexually abused by their own parents. These children believe that they were taken away from their families because they did something wrong.

This could all be avoided if, instead of introducing a bill to put sexual predators in jail, the government tried to prevent this type of abuse at the source.

The House resumed from March 25 consideration of the motion that Bill C-26, An Act to amend the Criminal Code, the Canada Evidence Act and the Sex Offender Information Registration Act, to enact the High Risk Child Sex Offender Database Act and to make consequential amendments to other Acts, be read the third time and passed.

[François Pilon, NDP, Laval—Les Îles, QC]

Mr. Speaker, today I am pleased to rise to finish the speech that I started on Wednesday about Bill C-26, which is back before us today.

Previously, I was talking about how important it is to punish those who commit sexual abuse against children, and that is why we will vote in favour of Bill C-26.

It is imperative that we eradicate this scourge. As parliamentarians, it is our responsibility to prevent these crimes from happening. As I said on Wednesday, even a single case of child abuse is one too many. We must therefore take a preventive approach, which Bill C-26 does not do.

Since 2006, the Conservative government has taken steps to protect children, and we commend those measures. Among other things, they made it illegal to provide sexually explicit material to a child for the purpose of facilitating the commission of a sexual offence, strengthened the sex offender registry, increased the age at which a young person can legally consent to sexual activity from 14 to 16 years, put in place legislation to make the reporting of child pornography by Internet service providers mandatory, and made it illegal to use computers or other means of telecommunications to agree with or make arrangements with another person to commit a sexual offence against a child.

I was hoping that those measures could have been effective. However, when he appeared before the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights concerning the supplementary estimates, the Minister of Justice said that sexual offences against children have increased 6% over the past two years.

That statistic is extremely troubling. It also shows that the government is taking a rather minimalist approach. One thing is clear: paying lip service is not enough. The lack of financial resources, in terms of both enforcing existing laws as well as preventing these crimes, makes any new legislation pointless.

For instance, the NDP has always supported the circles of support and accountability program, or COSA. However, the government recently announced that it was cancelling funding provided by Correctional Service Canada. This is penny wise and pound foolish, since it will have a huge negative impact on this prevention plan and community services to victims, which are already operating on a very meagre budget of just $2.2 million.

We also learned recently that, over a period of five years, the RCMP did not spend over $10 million that was earmarked for the National Child Exploitation Coordination Centre and other essential government projects to fight child pornography.

The cuts, made in part as the RCMP's contribution to the deficit reduction action plan, were imposed even as the number of public reports of child abuse was increasing at an alarming rate.

Tougher prison sentences and stricter measures are certainly effective ways of preventing repeat offences, but they do nothing to eliminate the problem in the long term if the necessary human and financial resources are not assigned to prevention programs and efforts to raise awareness among the public and the authorities about this absolutely appalling type of crime.

As I said, we will support Bill C-26, since the NDP has always had a zero tolerance policy when it comes to any type of sex crime. That is another reason why we are disappointed that the bill did not go further and propose truly effective measures for protecting our children and tangible preventive measures to make our communities safer.

In that sense, we are disappointed that Bill C-26 does not include any new funding or financial resources. Tougher prison sentences are a good start, but they are not enough. Our communities need resources to deal with the sexual abuse of our children, and Bill C-26 offers nothing new to that effect.

The other thing we take issue with is this government's lack of co-operation and refusal to do non-partisan work on a bill that we all agree on. All of us, as parliamentarians, could have worked together on this bill and pulled together to eliminate this terrible problem of child sex abuse.

Victims and the general public would have benefited from the government being more open-minded on such an important, non-partisan issue. The Conservatives ignored the recommendations of the associations, experts and professionals who testified in committee. It is sad and shameful to see the government turn such a serious and important issue into a partisan issue.

Nevertheless, in closing, the NDP will support this government's Bill C-26 simply because we believe that the measures proposed in it are a good start.

However, the NDP would have liked to take this further, particularly when it comes to prevention and allocating financial resources to the authorities and stakeholders in the field.

We hope that in future, the government will take expert and stakeholder opinion into account in important legislation like this. This is not about winning an election. This is about the well-being of our children, and political partisanship should have no part in that.

[Guy Caron, NDP, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his excellent speech. I know that the lack of allocated resources has been a regular bone of contention. It has been a recurring theme in all the criminal justice bills.

There is also the matter of prevention. My colleague talked about that in his speech. I know that there is an existing initiative, proposed by a woman in my riding, to launch an awareness campaign about pedophilia, among other things, and the fact that this problem still exists to this day, unfortunately.

I would like my colleague's opinion on the need for such an awareness campaign. Does he have any advice for the government, not only about the resources needed for such a campaign, but also about how to ensure that such a campaign reaches all of Quebec and Canada?

[François Pilon, NDP, Laval—Les Îles, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his question.

As I said in my speech, it would be good for the government to invest in prevention, and for police officers and social workers to go into schools to help prevent these types of situations or, at the very least, to meet with people and find out whether a child has a problem. As I said on Wednesday, my own sister provides emergency foster care, and there are still far too many children who are abused by their own parents. This bill does nothing to prevent that.

[Pierre Nantel, NDP, Longueuil—Pierre-Boucher, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I have a very serious question for the member.

There is obviously a lack of resources. In each of our ridings police forces often tell us that they are short on staff to carry out investigations, in cases of pedophilia, of course, but also those involving street gangs. Take, for example, the horrendous case of Jenique Dalcourt back home in Longueuil which is yet to be resolved. There is still a killer on the streets of Vieux-Longueuil, and a lot of people are very worried, even police officers.

What does my colleague think about the fact that with all of the Conservatives' never-ending talk of law and order, they still fail to take real action? Is it not true that we do not have the funds to help our municipal police forces?

[François Pilon, NDP, Laval—Les Îles, QC]

Mr. Speaker, as usual, my colleague from Longueuil—Pierre-Boucher is absolutely right, and my colleague from Vaudreuil-Soulanges probably would have been as well.

I am from a Laval neighbourhood of 10,000 people. When I was young, there were 10 murders in 20 years in the area. It was frightening. The City decided to invest in a local police station and there were no murders at all over the next 20 years.

It it not just by putting people in prison that we make our streets safer. We need to invest in prevention, where it counts. Of course children who are abused will be glad if their abuser goes to prison for the rest of his life, but that does not change anything in the child's life. If something was really done to prevent the abuse from happening, these children would be able to lead much more normal lives.

[Cathy McLeod, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Health and for Western Economic Diversification]

Mr. Speaker, before I begin, I would like to note that I will be sharing my time with the member for Saskatoon—Wanuskewin.

When we come to this place, we all come with certain reasons behind what we want to accomplish. One, of course, is to improve the lives of Canadians. Another is sometimes to fix things that we believe are terribly wrong with our systems. For me, this legislation fits in the latter category of fixing something that we believe is terribly wrong.

Many people have been fortunate, in their careers and their lives, and they have never been touched by this particular issue. They have been spared the heartbreaking view of what happens to these young children when they are violated. In my career, I spent many years working in a rural emergency department. When I rise both to speak to this bill and to vote, it will be with the victims that I will be making that vote. I will give just a few small examples before I actually talk about the technical aspects of this bill.

I remember very clearly the 14-month-old who came in with incredibly bruised genitalia and a fractured femur. I remember three little girls. I remember the day their dad died in an accident. Two years later their mother remarried someone who then began to abuse those little girls. I remember a rape kit we had to pull out of the cupboards for a 12-year-old, barely pubescent young girl who had gone out and had a few drinks for the first time in her life. She had overdone it, and had then been brutally raped.

I remember a nurse who worked the night shift. One day she went home and her daughter revealed that the step-dad had been climbing into the beds at night, and the absolute trauma and the guilt that this nurse experienced as she dealt with the fact that she had married someone who was abusing her most precious possessions.

These are just some examples of what I experienced in my career. However, I was only representing a small area of this country, a small area of the province in terms of providing services. We have to recognize that these things are being repeated across the country many times over. Some are being reported; some are not.

I have witnessed young girls going into the criminal system to share their testimony and not meeting that burden of guilt that was required, and seeing the person who had violated them go free.

I hope this is a personal issue that everyone can stand up and support.

I need to talk about the specifics of this bill. It set out to recognize the devastating impacts such crimes have on the lives of the victims. It ensures that justice is not only done for each victim, but also for each crime by requiring sexual offenders to serve sentences that are proportional to the degree of harm inflicted on each victim.

What is it going to do? It is going to increase penalties for sexual offences committed against children. This includes increasing existing maximum and mandatory minimum terms of imprisonment for certain offences, as well as ending sentence discounts for child pornography offences where there are multiple child victims. Bill C-26 also increases the penalties for breach of a number of supervision orders. These amendments are necessary to protect the community from offenders who deliberately persist in reoffending, and this despite having been given the privilege of being conditionally released in the community.

Such amendments are not only integral to the protection of our communities, but necessary to incapacitate repeat sex child offenders who choose recidivism over rehabilitation, and continue unlawful conduct over peaceful reintegration into the community.

Again, there is not one of us who as members of Parliament have not had concerned citizens phoning our offices when there is a repeat child offender released into their communities. In many cases I have seen them go on to repeat their crimes. We are all absolutely horrified that the system that we had in place did not actually address those issues.

These proposed amendments would ensure consistency in punishment for breaches of prohibition orders imposed on child sexual offenders, section 161, breaches of probation orders, section 733.1, and breaches of peace bonds, section 811, imposed on individuals feared to be at risk of committing a sexual offence against a child.

In all these cases, offenders would be liable to a maximum of four years imprisonment on indictment and 18 months imprisonment on summary conviction.

The bill would provide the same penalty for a breach of the new prohibition order, section 162.2, created by Bill C-13, the Protecting Canadians from Online Crime Act, which can be imposed for the new offence of the non-consensual distribution of intimate images. Bill C-13 came into force on March 10, 2015.

Furthermore, Bill C-26 would make it an aggravating factor on sentencing for an offender to commit an offence while on parole, statutory release, or an unescorted temporary absence or while being subject to a conditional sentence order.

The proposed amendments would also ensure that the relevant evidence was available in prosecuting child predators in the case of child pornography.

As a general rule, the spouse of a person accused of most offences cannot testify for the prosecution, even if the person wants to. The exceptions to this rule permit spousal testimony for most child sexual offences and the offence of violence against young persons, but it is important to note that it does not include child pornography offences.

In the case of child pornography, evidence of the accused's spouse is often required to prove the guilt of the accused. For example, the spouse's denial of responsibility for child pornography or a shared home computer may be necessary to prove the accused's guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.

Bill C-26 proposes to amend the Canada Evidence Act to add child pornography to the list of exceptions and to therefore make the spouse competent and compellable to testify for the prosecution.

Bill C-26's proposed reforms also seek to build on existing measures to better protect children in Canada and abroad against sexual abuse by convicted child sex offenders. The bill proposes to establish a new, publicly accessible national database of high-risk offenders convicted of child sexual offences.

Currently, all provinces and territories have the power to advise the public about the release of high-risk offenders. These notifications are made at the discretion of the police, and they contain characteristics about the offender and the nature of the offences committed.

However, such notifications are limited to the jurisdiction and province where they are made. The bill seeks to expand access to all of those local notifications on a national scale. We do not have any boundaries in terms of where people go in Canada. The establishment of such a database would be a great example of a coordinated effort to protect the community against convicted high-risk sex offenders, because it would consolidate existing notifications in one publicly accessible spot.

As I mentioned earlier, a complete and comprehensive response to child sexual exploitation also requires a coordinated effort that encompasses programs, services, and partnerships among key stakeholders, including federal, provincial, and territorial governments, law enforcement agencies, and civil society. In this respect, since 2010, the government has allocated $10.25 million for new or enhanced child advocacy centres to address the needs of child and youth victims of crime.

We obviously have existing criminal prohibitions against child sexual abuse. However, the fact that it has been growing in the last few years at an extraordinary rate, as indicated earlier by my hon. colleague opposite, and the fact that children account for 55% of all victims of police-reported sexual offences, even though they account for only 20% of the Canadian population, is a stark reminder that more must be done.

We must stop such heinous crimes. As such, I urge all members of the House to unanimously support the passage of Bill C-26.

[Alexandrine Latendresse, NDP, Louis-Saint-Laurent, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank our colleague for her speech. I find it very touching that she shared her own experiences from her previous career with us. I think that she has clearly understood the importance of protecting the people who have been victimized by such terrible crimes.

I would like to know whether she agrees with the basic principle. We wholeheartedly agree with tougher sentences for such horrific crimes. However, when it comes right down to it, there is a victim for every crime, and I believe that we can do more to prevent these children from being victimized by such horrific crimes.

Would it be possible to commit to doing more in terms of prevention and work harder to ensure that these crimes are not committed in the first place? I want to thank my colleague again.

[Cathy McLeod, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to acknowledge the importance of what the hon. member opposite said.

Absolutely, prevention is critical. As she knows, this is a piece of criminal justice legislation. I briefly alluded to some significant dollars, $10.25 million, for new and enhanced child advocacy centres. More importantly, it is in partnership with the provinces and stakeholders that we work on the issue of prevention.

I think it is important to again point out that this is a piece of justice legislation. It does not in any way preclude our obvious commitment, in many areas, to preventing these horrific and heinous crimes.

[Marc Garneau, Liberal, Westmount—Ville-Marie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, notwithstanding the fact that it has taken nine years to present this legislation, I have to say that I agree with the comments of my hon. colleague from the Conservative side. The whole problem needs to be addressed holistically, not only in terms of legislation but in terms of prevention and rehabilitation. There is also one other important aspect, which is to fight cybersexual exploitation and sexual exploitation in general.

We understand that the RCMP regularly underspends its budget to combat cybersexual exploitation by a couple of million dollars. I would like to hear from my hon. colleague what explanation there is for this underspending, considering just how important a problem this is.

[Cathy McLeod, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

Mr. Speaker, of course, the issues of cyberbullying and child pornography online are incredibly important. Our government is committed to expending significant resources in that area in the budget.

I talked a bit about my personal experiences and how horrific it was to deal with some cases we had to deal with. I can only imagine the incredible challenge it is to have people in those positions. We need to have people in those positions doing the job, but members should never underestimate what a soul-destroying job it is.

[Ryan Leef, Conservative, Yukon, YT]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the parliamentary secretary how important it is to have this kind of legislation as a deterrent in Canada. She anecdotally talked about the people closest to the perpetrators not being able to recognize that. From a prevention standpoint, it makes it very difficult if the closest people cannot recognize the illness and criminality of the individuals perpetrating these kinds of offences. This kind of legislation will serve as a deterrent and will ensure that reoffending will be a lot more difficult further down the road.

[Cathy McLeod, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

Mr. Speaker, for one thing, the increase in mandatory minimums and maximum sentences would keep these perpetrators off the streets for a longer period of time. That would not only allow for the increased opportunity for some rehabilitation in the system but would also keep them off the streets and away from the ability to reoffend.

[Maurice Vellacott, Conservative, Saskatoon—Wanuskewin, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to rise today to speak about our government's decisive action to keep our streets and communities safe. I am proud to note that we have a particular focus on protecting the most vulnerable of all in our society, and that is our dear children.

Since 2006, we have taken a number of actions in this regard, including, among many others, enacting new and increasing existing mandatory minimum penalties for child sex offences and making it illegal for anyone to provide sexually explicit material to a child for the purpose of facilitating the commission of a sexual offence against that child.

Recently, as members of this House will know, we took action to crack down on cyberbullying. That has been mentioned in speeches here already. We have all been moved by several tragic cases we have heard about, from across the country and North America, where young lives have been lost due to the emotional torment caused by cyberbullying. That is why last year we passed legislation to give police and prosecutors new tools to effectively address cyberbullying.

Although our government has taken significant strides to protect our children, more work remains to be done. Of course, more work always remains to be done. Sadly, other threats to our children exist, perhaps none so disturbing as the threat from child sexual offenders, and that seems to be growing domestically and abroad. In 2013 alone in Canada, some 4,200 sexual violations against children were reported to police. Those were just those cases that were reported, not to mention the many others that have no doubt occurred and for one reason or another were not reported.

Child sexual exploitation is a horrible, evil crime. Although most of us could never fully imagine the extent of devastation caused by abuse of this sort, we understand that the impact on the victims endures long after the abuse ends. That is why we are committed to doing everything we can to protect our children, and that is why our government has introduced the comprehensive legislation before us.

The tougher penalties for child predators act would help us better address the enormity of this crime and further crack down on offenders convicted of child sexual abuse offences. It proposes a range of measures to protect our children. It will take a few moments for me to outline some of these changes we have proposed, beginning with the proposed changes to the Criminal Code.

The first is to ensure that those convicted of child pornography and child-contact child sexual offences serve their sentences one after another, consecutively, instead of discounting them, where we pile one sentence on the other and the offenders get a break and less time served. Particularly, this would be for offenders who have victimized multiple children. Further, this legislation would increase both maximum and minimum penalties for child sex offences and would increase penalties for the violation of conditions in supervision orders. Finally, it would ensure that the spouse of a person charged with child pornography offences could be obliged to testify in court. That is important, as often it is the spouse who can provide the testimony needed to secure convictions in these cases.

Now I would like to turn our attention to some of the important proposed amendments to the Sex Offender Information Registration Act.

Before I get to the changes, I would note that this act, which came into force in 2004, allowed for the establishment of a database containing information on convicted sex offenders across Canada. It is called the National Sex Offender Registry. It is administered by the RCMP and is used by police across Canada to help them prevent and investigate crimes of a sexual nature. There are currently approximately 37,000 sex offenders listed on the database, of which 25,000 have been convicted of a sex offence against a child.

Certainly some important reporting obligations are already in place in the current system. For example, offenders are required to report annually and any time they change their address or legal name, and all registered sex offenders are required to report absences of seven days or more for trips either within or outside of Canada.

It is also worth noting that significant reforms came into effect in 2011 to strengthen the registry and the National DNA Data Bank. Those changes include the automatic inclusion, and mandatory DNA sampling, of convicted sex offenders in the registry, proactive use of the registry by police to prevent offences, registration of sex offenders convicted abroad, and parallel amendments to ensure that reforms apply to those convicted of sex offences through the military justice system.

Nevertheless, legitimate concerns remain about our ability to know the whereabouts of sex offenders, particularly given offenders' mobility to travel abroad to other countries.

Internationally, approximately one million children are exploited by sex tourists and sex traffickers each year. Our government is committed to taking action to protect children from sexual exploitation no matter where in the world it may occur.

Indeed, the changes we are proposing to the Sex Offender Information Registration Act would allow us to better protect children from sexual exploitation, both in Canada and abroad, by ensuring that police have more information about the travel plans of sex offenders. One proposed change is to broaden the reporting requirements for registered sex offenders about their international travel plans.

I mentioned a moment ago that all registered sex offenders are required to report absences of seven days or more for trips within or outside of Canada. However, currently the requirement for them to provide specific destinations and addresses is for domestic trips only.

We are proposing that sex offenders convicted of child sex offences be required to report absences of any duration for trips abroad, and, again, provide specific travel dates and locations. Registered sex offenders travelling abroad would be required to report every address or location at which they expect to stay for a trip of seven days or longer, and the specific dates that they will depart and return.

This brings me to the next proposed change, which is one that would allow for the establishment of information sharing between officials with access to the National Sex Offender Registry and officials at the Canadian Border Services Agency. Although this may surprise some, there is currently no mechanism for information sharing regarding sex offenders between those two organizations. It goes without saying that it limits our knowledge of sex offenders when they travel.

To close this gap, the bill proposes to authorize registry officials to disclose information about certain registered sex offenders to officials at the Canadian Border Services Agency, particularly in cases of child sex offenders assessed as high risk, so that they can be placed on a lookout system. In addition, border officials would be authorized to collect travel information about these sex offenders upon their return to Canada and then share it with National Sex Offender Registry officials.

Finally, the bill includes provisions that would authorize the RCMP to establish and administer a publicly accessible national database of high-risk child sex offenders. Essentially this would be a separate database that would centralize public access to certain information on high-risk child sex offenders who have already been the subject of a public notification in a provincial or territorial jurisdiction.

In conclusion, these changes would allow us to further deliver on some of the worthy commitments we have made to Canadians, namely to ensure that those who break the law are punished accordingly for their actions, that penalties match the severity of the crimes, and that the rights of the victims come before the rights of the criminals. Above all, these changes would allow us to better shelter children, both in Canada and abroad, from the horrific crime of child sexual exploitation.

Therefore, I call on members of all parties in this House for their support of this very worthy measure.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to follow up on the question that my colleague from Mount Royal put forward, which is in regard to the issue of the RCMP funding.

It is great to see the legislation, but having said that, we are watching what the government is doing with the budget. This budget assists us in dealing with the issue of child exploitation, particularly through the Internet. The RCMP has now consistently underspent that very important aspect of the budget by $2 million, which will work out to about $10 million over five years. If the government is so committed to dealing with child exploitation, the greatest growth of that child exploitation that we are witnessing today is in the cyberworld.

My question to the member is, from his perspective, why would the RCMP not be spending its full budget?

[Maurice Vellacott, Conservative, Saskatoon—Wanuskewin, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I think the member asked a very good question. Of course, it is probably better directed to the Commissioner of the RCMP, and I hope he is listening today so that those dollars are expended in the pursuit of those individuals who are using the Internet for these nefarious purposes.

The RCMP should be using those dollars effectively and efficiently to get at the root of this problem, which is very often on the internet. We hope the RCMP spends to the appropriate extent to get at the Internet issue, which is the biggest problem here of all.

[Ryan Leef, Conservative, Yukon, YT]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask my hon. colleague to follow up on the tenor of the speeches we heard from the opposition side in respect of the absolute need for prevention first.

Obviously when we present these kinds of bills, they are not done in a vacuum. We have a suite of investments, programs, and services that exist beyond a single piece of legislation on the prevention end. Of course, prevention also includes deterrence, the ability for the Canadian court system to deploy reasonable sentences on people to ensure their ability to reoffend is completely diminished. It also sends a signal to the victims in our country of how seriously this government and our nation takes crimes of this nature.

I am wondering if the hon. member can comment generally on that viewpoint.

[Maurice Vellacott, Conservative, Saskatoon—Wanuskewin, SK]

Mr. Speaker, of course that is the highest task and demand of a government: to protect its own citizens in various ways. The hon. member for Yukon well makes the point that we need to be doing that. We need to be making sure that our citizens are protected and we are taking the kinds of measures that send a very strong message, an incentive or inducement, I guess, to many others to avoid that. However, as he also alluded to, there is no question that we need to do what we can on the prevention side.

Our government is trying to get at both of those aspects. Any responsible government will look at the preventive aspects, how it can prevent people from getting into situations in the first place. That is a whole other kettle of fish, as we have said. The use of the Internet is a big part of that problem, and we need to work with providers so that some of this is shut down.

As my colleague rightly makes the point, we need to provide those kinds of measures in the Criminal Code that provide punishment and send the message. We have done this with this thicker bill, and others as well. I thank the member for the good work he has done throughout his riding and in respect of these kinds of measures. I know he has pushed them hard and supports them, and I thank him for that.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, it is a privilege to stand in the House to comment on very important issues facing Canadians today. Certain social policy issues have been there for a number of years. Yesterday we spent a great deal of time talking about ISIL, as an example. Today we have before us an important piece of legislation that deals in a positive way with some steps forward on the issue of child exploitation. Once again, we have an issue before the House that is of critical importance. Canadians have an expectation that the government will do whatever it can to have a positive impact on a very important social issue.

I would like to take a different perspective on the debates and discussions that I have heard thus far on Bill C-26. First I would like to clearly indicate that the Liberal Party does support Bill C-26, the tougher penalties for child predators act. We see this as a move in the right direction. However, in dealing with the issue, there is a lot more to it than just bringing forward legislation.

They say “the proof is in the pudding” or “actions speak louder than words”. Quite often we find that the government's actions have fallen short in dealing with the important issues that Canadians want the government to deal with.

We hear a lot about child sexual exploitation. There is a great deal of growth in the Internet aspect of child exploitation. There is absolutely no doubt about that. I hope to get some time to reflect on that toward the end of my speech.

For now I want to talk about the social conditioning, what is actually taking place in our communities. The issue of exploitation has been there for many years. We have seen a significant increase in that exploitation as the technology of the Internet continues to expand with access to child videos. These children are being exploited in a way that is absolutely and totally unacceptable by the standards of true Canadian values.

Yesterday we were talking about out heroes, members of the Canadian Forces, whether male or female, who are out there defending us and executing what we, as legislators and as Canadian society, believe is important. They are heroes. We have other types of heroes as well. We talk about the RCMP and the fine work that they do. We talk about other law enforcement agencies. There is a special group of law enforcement agents that I would like to single out. These are the individuals who are at the ground level having to fight child exploitation, in particular sexual exploitation, day in and day out.

I have had the opportunity to personally meet a number of police officers or law enforcement officers who have had to deal with this issue. One in particular talked about having the unfortunate responsibility of having to view literally hours and hours of images and how horrendous these images are, whether in the form of a still picture or a video production. We have law enforcement officers in Canada who have to do this horrendous work in order to ensure that justice is brought to society, in particular for our victims, and that those who are perpetrating this horrendous crime are brought to justice.

I recognize the efforts of those law enforcement officers and others who are engaged on the ground in protecting some of the most vulnerable in society. As far as I am concerned, they should be applauded and recognized as heroes. It is not an easy job, as I have indicated. Other members have made reference to this profession and the responsibilities of it.

I would like to speak to the issue of social conditioning and what takes place in our constituencies. I will cite an example of what I believe is a huge success story. Marymound, which happens to be located in Winnipeg North but has been in Manitoba for about 100 years, recognizes that there are different forms of exploitation and that it has taken place for many years.

On a couple of occasions over the years, I have had the opportunity to visit Marymound. I have toured the grounds and have participated in some discussions on exactly what Marymound does. I would emphasize how wonderful it is to have a special group of people who make a difference in the lives of youth.

I will give members a sense of the responsibilities of Marymound. There are many different types of families, some of which are dysfunctional, where guidance is not provided to children. Often children end up being on the streets and as result, they are exploited. Some individuals are really challenged in accepting what most Canadians would perceive as acceptable behaviour. Marymound is a home that provides an alternative in the short term for many of these challenged young ladies who are trying to get their lives in order.

On one of the tours of the facility, which spoke to me in a very loud way, I met a young lady. The social worker taking me on the tour introduced me to her. She indicated that the staff were so proud of her because it was one o'clock in the afternoon and she had not hit anyone. Imagine the condition in which that individual grew up. I would guess she may have been in her late teens, maybe 18. If we were to get a sense of the clients of Marymound, I suspect we would get many horror stories about the many different types of exploitation that happen in our communities today.

We can talk about child prostitution. We can talk about the drugs in our communities. There is a reason why children are encouraged to take drugs, and in good part it is about sexual exploitation. We can talk about individuals who have been exploited over the Internet.

Why do I bring up Marymound? I believe there are many wonderful organizations, some of which have been well established for 100 years, like Marymound. Others have been established over the last five to ten years. There are other organizations that want to establish foundations or support groups so they can be there for the victims of exploitation, to assist them in their recovery and give them a better chance at success in life.

These are the types of groups and associations that government should look at to see how we can invest in the resources to support those young ladies. It is predominately young ladies, but there are also many young boys who are exploited, whether it is through the Internet or on the streets of many of our communities across Canada.

These are the types of things the government should be addressing in a more progressive fashion. We are disappointed that the issue has not been dealt with or received the type of debate in the House. It has not received the sense of co-operation with the different levels of government working together to have the desired impact that Canadians want on such a very important issue.

Let us talk about exploitation. If I wanted to get very specific with the government, one of the greatest, if not the greatest, growth areas in child exploitation takes place on the Internet. There is no doubt about that. In the last couple of years, we have seen a 6% increase in exploitation. This exploitation ranges from the age of four, and I sadly suspect even younger, to young ladies and men aged 17 to 19.

I talked about those heroes, the law enforcement officers. We have a situation where the Government of Canada has an exploitation unit of sorts, which is supported by the RCMP in monitoring and looking into what is taking place on the Internet, tracking down some of these perpetrators, and trying to shut down Internet sites that are promoting child exploitation. They are out there, trying to identify those pedophiles who are causing so much harm to our young people in all regions of our country.

A budget has been allocated for that special unit and it has been constantly challenged to underspend that budget. Depending on who we talk to, I have heard very specific comments about a challenge to all government members and ministers and their departments to underspend their budgets. We know for a fact that the government continues to allocate certain blocks of money, then stands on a pedestal, says that it is committed to fighting x and that it has allocated this kind of money to it. However, in reality, it constantly underspends. There has been no exception, not even when it comes to fighting sexual exploitation online taking place today and is a growing industry in Canada.

The RCMP has underspent its budget by approximately $2 million annually. That is more than $10 million overall that could have been used to shut down the sites that cause the problems and to deal with critically important prosecutions of individuals who mastermind and take advantage of these young children.

The Liberal Party has raised these issues inside and outside the House. It is completely unacceptable. The government needs to recognize that this is an important issue about which all Canadians are quite passionate. They want the government to do what it can.

It is great that we have legislation before us that will have a good, but limited, impact. We support the legislation. However, we want the government to do more than just bring in legislation. This is an election year, and I suspect that is one of the reasons why the government is motivated to bring in some of the legislation it has introduced in recent months.

I and others have cited the RCMP as one issue, but there are others. In committee we had great explanations about the cuts to the Circles of Support and Accountability program. The federal government has cut back on a program that has been very successful. Professionals came before the committee and testified to the degree of its success.

It has been indicated that 240 sexual crimes never happened because of this program. This is according to a government study. When the government talks about dealing with this type of exploitation, legislation is one thing.

[The Speaker, Andrew Scheer]

The member will have two minutes after question period.

The House resumed consideration of the motion that Bill C-26, An Act to amend the Criminal Code, the Canada Evidence Act and the Sex Offender Information Registration Act, to enact the High Risk Child Sex Offender Database Act and to make consequential amendments to other Acts be read a third time and passed.

[The Speaker, Andrew Scheer]

The hon. member for Winnipeg North has two minutes left to conclude his remarks.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise to conclude my remarks on Bill C-26. As I indicated, the Liberal Party supports the bill and recognizes that it would have a positive impact in our communities.

We like to think that in addressing the issue of child exploitation, it involves more than just bringing in legislation. We want to see a government that is prepared to allocate the resources necessary to work with the different governments and support our many different non-profit and other organizations in our communities and throughout our country that deal with the issue of child exploitation, especially when we look at the ways it has expanded.

I will conclude my remarks by very briefly commenting on how technology has been used to advance something that is so abhorrent and unacceptable to the vast majority of Canadians, and that is the sexual exploitation of our children. This problem is a growing concern. I understand that in the last couple of years we have seen a 6% increase in child exploitation through the Internet. I suspect it is even higher than that.

There is so much more the government could be doing and should be doing to try to resolve an issue that has such a profound negative impact on our children in all regions of our country and in all the socio-economic strata of our children. There are some children who are put in vulnerable positions more than others and we need—

[The Speaker, Andrew Scheer]

Questions and comments, the hon. member for Vaudreuil—Soulanges.

[Jamie Nicholls, NDP, Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I was impressed by my colleague's speech. He mentioned an institution that I am sure does good work, but I was alarmed it is anchored in the values of the Sisters of Good Shepherd. If we look at history, in Ireland this order ran four Magdalene laundries. If we look at the history of faith based orders taking care of these problems, we can see that in Canada we had forced adoptions at many of these maternity homes, although not this one in particular.

I know the member for Winnipeg North is a man of faith. He voted for Motion No. 312. Is it the Liberal plan to increase funding to faith based agencies to deal with the problems of child sexual abuse?

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, can assure the member that, for the last 100 years, Marymound has had a positive impact on hundreds of children.

I was a member of the Manitoba Legislature for just under 20 years. From what I can recall, Marymound received the unanimous support of virtually every MLA, not only during the 20 years I sat inside the Legislature but even before that.

This is an organization that has, first and foremost, put the welfare of vulnerable children first. Individuals who have been involved over the years go beyond just individuals of any particular faith. Maybe the member should become better acquainted with it.

The point I was trying to get across is that there are many non-profits and other organizations out there that deal with individuals who are in the very vulnerable position of being exploited. There are many organizations that deal with the victims and try to give them better opportunities. I think we need to look at how we can support these organizations, whether they are faith based or not. Both have a role to play in our society.

[Judy Sgro, Liberal, York West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is one thing to bring in all kinds of laws and so on to put people in jail and do all of that.

The question is how do we prevent these crimes from happening. Much of the damage that is done through child predators and bullying, and whatever is going on through Internet, is pretty horrendous for the children. Sending someone to jail for 50 years might make us feel good, but it is not helping in the prevention of that very issue.

I would like to hear more from my colleague about what we can be doing. I am hosting a forum on how to protect children on the Internet. I would like to hear more from my colleague on the issue of how we can do better at preventing this from happening.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, as usual, the member for York West has a candid way of getting right to the issue that is so important to the constituents we represent.

The best example that I could give, that has been raised and brought to the attention of the government, is the group called Circles of Support and Accountability. It has done an incredible amount of work. What is important to note is that the government has cut back funding. The member is talking about prevention. Let us imagine, and this is coming from a government report, that 240 sexual crimes never happened because of Circles of Support and Accountability.

We can do more to prevent crimes of this nature from taking place. When the member makes reference to cyberspace or Internet exploitation, we just need to look at how the government has mandated that departments save money and not spend their full budgets. We have the RCMP unit responsible for child exploitation over the Internet which has constantly underspent by $2 million. By doing that, we are allowing for child exploitation, and that could have been targeted by the RCMP had they spent their full budget. We are talking about $10 million.

[Guy Caron, NDP, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

Mr. Speaker, this gets back to the question of resources allocated. Any bill that calls for much stricter monitoring of people charged with or convicted of committing sexual offences against children requires resources. Whenever the government introduces these kinds of bills, however, it rarely includes additional resources for our police forces and law enforcement agencies.

Another important aspect is the issue of prevention. One of my constituents has initiated a movement to raise awareness about pedophilia, among other issues. Unfortunately, this problem does still exist today, and people need to be aware of it.

I would like to hear what my colleague from Winnipeg North has to say about the resources that should be at the government's disposal, not only to impose tougher penalties but also to prevent these acts from happening in the first place and to raise awareness about the scourge of sexual assault against children.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, the member is quite right. It is more than just passing legislation. Bill C-26 has the support, from what I understand, of all members of the House. I do believe that all members recognize the importance of the issue, and we are voting in favour of and passing the legislation.

However, there is a great deal of difference between this side of the House and the government side of the House in terms of what the government is doing to provide the resources that are necessary and demonstrating the leadership that is necessary, if I could focus on this point, to work with the different stakeholders, to deal with the issue of child exploitation, whether on the Internet or in the communities, whether dealing with socially dysfunctional families in our communities to those troubled youth who are having a difficult time because of circumstances that they have found themselves in, being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

There is so much more that we could be doing. That means working with the different groups, the non-profits and others. It means working with the different levels of government at the municipal and provincial levels and developing a more comprehensive plan to deal with this very important issue. This is something that the leader of the Liberal Party is committed to doing and that our caucus and, I suspect, other caucuses are attempting to do. From the Liberal Party's perspective, we take this issue seriously and we challenge the government not only to present the budget but to deal with issues of this nature in the budget, along with middle-class jobs I must say.

[Kellie Leitch, Conservative, Minister of Labour and Minister of Status of Women]

Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Natural Resources.

I am pleased to rise and speak to Bill C-26, the tougher penalties for child predators act. Bill C-26 seeks to ensure that child sex offenders are held accountable for the horrific crimes they commit against the most vulnerable members of our society, Canadian children.

This bill proposes to achieve this important goal through a range of different measures, which include amendments to the Criminal Code and the Sex Offender Information and Registration Act, as well as the creation of a high risk child sex offender database.

The objective of Bill C-26 should be one that all parliamentarians support, yet some have questioned the necessity of the proposed amendments. These amendments are necessary, sadly, because the incidence of child sexual offences continues to rise.

In 2013, police-reported sexual offences against children increased again, this time by 6%, and 2011 and 2012 each saw a 3% increase. As Statistics Canada noted, “...sexual violations against children was one of the few categories of violent offences to increase in 2013.” These numbers are cause for concern, and we feel compelled to reinforce our response to these serious crimes.

Bill C-26 better reflects the seriousness of child sexual offences by proposing to increase mandatory minimum penalties and maximum penalties for many child sexual offences. I can say from personal experience, from meeting these young children in emergency departments, that these are horrific crimes. These children are damaged for life, mentally and physically, and it is appalling to me that some members of the House may not be supporting these most basic protections and may not be supporting how we propose to treat the individuals who perpetrate these crimes against children.

In addition to increasing the penalties for making and distributing child pornography, which is also included in the bill, Bill C-26 proposes to make these offences strictly indictable to better reflect their severity. Child pornography offences have devastating and long-lasting impacts on victims, particularly when they are posted on the Internet, where they can reside for someone's entire life.

The bill would also ensure that it would be considered an aggravating factor to commit an offence while subject to a conditional sentence, order, parole, or statutory release.

To assist in preventing future offences by known or suspected child sexual offenders, Bill C-26 proposes higher penalties for those convicted of breaching supervision orders. It is our responsibility, once those offenders are released into the community, to ensure that supervision orders imposed on them are observed and that breaches of conditions imposed to protect children result in serious consequences.

To achieve this objective, Bill C-26 proposes to increase the maximum penalties for breaches of prohibition orders, probation orders, and peace bonds. These types of orders often contain conditions intended to protect children. Maximum penalties for breaches of conditions of any of these orders would be increased from six to 18 months if proceeded on by summary conviction and from two to four years if proceeded on by indictment.

Our government is committed to ending sentence discounts for child sexual offenders. To that end, Bill C-26 requires courts to order, in all cases, that sentences imposed for child pornography offences be served consecutively to sentences imposed for other contact child sexual offences. Bill C-26 would also ensure that offenders who sexually abuse multiple children do not receive sentence discounts just because they are sentenced at the same time for offences involving multiple victims.

Bill C-26 would clarify the text of the subsection of the Criminal Code that contains the general rules regarding concurrent and consecutive sentences. Its current wording is the result of an amalgamation of rules that predate Confederation and, as such, require clarification and modernization.

Bill C-26 also proposes to codify certain sentencing rules applicable to the imposition of concurrent and consecutive sentences, such as the imposition of concurrent sentences for offences committed as part of the same criminal transaction, also referred to as the “same event or series of events” rule.

Bill C-26 also proposes to codify certain sentencing rules applicable to the imposition of concurrent and consecutive sentences. By way of example, one such rule provides for the imposition of concurrent sentences for offences committed as part of the same criminal transaction, also referred as “the same event or series of events” rule.

However, courts have also acknowledged that consecutive sentences should be imposed in certain circumstances even if the offences in question were committed as part of the same event or series of events. Bill C-26 would recognize two of these circumstances. An offence committed while fleeing from a peace officer would be served consecutively to any other sentence arising out of the same event or series of events, and a sentence imposed for an offence committed while on bail would also be served consecutively to any other sentence imposed.

Bill C-26 would also amend the Canada Evidence Act to ensure that spouses of individuals accused of child pornography offences are compelled witnesses for the crown. In some situations, the testimony of an accused's spouse may be required to prove guilt beyond reasonable doubt. An example would be a case in which child pornography was found on a home computer.

Our government recognizes that criminal legislation alone is an incomplete response to child sexual abuse, and the criminal justice system's response to sexual violations against children must be multi-pronged. Bill C-26 forms an integral part of that response. I must say that I am also particularly pleased that our government has allocated over $10 million for new or enhanced child advocacy centres to address the needs of child and youth victims of crime. These centres assist in the recovery of children and youth who have undergone this incredible trauma.

As I can say from personal experience with the children that I have met, these resources that are being made available now through child advocacy centres across the country are needed. We as a government are focused on a multi-pronged approach that uses legislation and enforcement to not only make sure that the perpetrators of these crimes are held accountable but also that these young victims of crime receive the support they require so that they can rehabilitate and have prosperous lives.

I hope that all members of the House will support this important legislation to protect children at third reading.

[Emmanuel Dubourg, Liberal, Bourassa, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for her speech.

The Liberal Party agrees with the measures in Bill C-26. It is important to take appropriate measures to combat the growing problem of child pornography and child abuse. We have to do something. We also agree that there should be more penalties set out for these situations.

We still do not know when the next budget will be tabled, but can we expect it to include money and resources to address this situation?

[Kellie Leitch, Conservative, Simcoe—Grey, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I cannot speculate on what is in the next budget, nor will I. That is obviously something we will all learn in the future. However, what I will say—and I ask the member opposite not to mislead the public—this government has made substantive investments in making sure, through a multi-pronged approach—that children are protected and supported.

Child advocacy centres across the country in more than 20 locations provide exactly those supports. As well, the government's substantive investment to support victims since 2006 amounts to over $120 million. These are things that the opposition members have not supported in many cases, so if they are passionate about this and we move forward on these initiatives, I would urge them to please support all of them. Victims of these heinous crimes deserve their support, and I would hope that the members opposite would find it in themselves to continually support these initiatives.

[Roxanne James, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness]

Mr. Speaker, while the minister was delivering her speech, I went online to search for child advocacy centres and looked at some of the statistical information with regard to the number of both female and male children and youth who have suffered some form of sexual abuse before the age of 18. I found the statistics actually quite staggering. I was shocked to read those in print on multiple sites.

I am wondering if my hon. colleague could elaborate on the importance of the child advocacy centres that are across Canada.

[Kellie Leitch, Conservative, Simcoe—Grey, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague, the parliamentary secretary for public safety. She is doing outstanding work, particularly in areas like this and on other bills, such as Bill C-51.

The child advocacy centres across the country serve an important purpose. They have teams of professionals who support children. They also provide opportunities for victims to bring forward their stories when they are under the most traumatic of circumstances. The Sheldon Kennedy Child Advocacy Centre in Calgary, for example, which is supported by this government, is one of those centres and makes sure that the young victims of these horrendous crimes are well supported.

In addition to that, our government has been very focused on a number of initiatives to make sure that children in particular are safe. I encourage all members in the House to look at getcybersafe.gc.ca and to tell others about it. It is a substantive initiative to make sure that young Canadians are protected in their own communities.

[Pierre Nantel, NDP, Longueuil—Pierre-Boucher, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for her speech.

The NDP obviously supports this bill. We are not opposed to virtue. In fact, there is nothing more important to our society's future than our youth. There is nothing more destructive for them than the shocking attitude of these psychopaths who are very active online, for instance.

I understand my colleague's irritation when the party that was not more active than hers asks for more money. However, I deplore the attitude of the Conservatives when they said that they do not know what is in the budget and, above all, that we voted against this type of initiative.

As we speak, we can see that the Conservatives want to rush to make these announcements and ignore what certain experts said in committee. The witnesses who told us their stories said that it is not a bad bill and that they actually support it, but that it would be better if the Conservatives were more open-minded.

Why are the Conservatives so doggedly determined to attain their own objective rather than seeking more of a consensus on something that everyone obviously agrees with?

[Kellie Leitch, Conservative, Simcoe—Grey, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I will be very clear on the reason we are pressing on this issue. I will be frank: I am not here to protect child predators; I am here, and my impression from the member opposite is that he is as well, to protect Canadian children.

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Natural Resources]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to rise in this House today to speak to Bill C-26, the tougher penalties for child predators act.

Before I begin, I would like to thank the members of the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights for their important study of the bill and for moving it forward in an expeditious manner.

Since our government was elected, we have taken tremendous steps forward to ensure that streets and communities are safe places to live, work, and raise our families. We have worked tirelessly for these changes, especially when it comes to protecting the most precious and vulnerable members of our society, our children.

In 2011, we strengthened the National Sex Offender Registry through the implementation of the Protecting Victims from Sex Offenders Act. This legislation ensures that every individual convicted of a sexual offence is automatically registered with the National Sex Offender Registry and must provide a DNA sample to the National DNA Data Bank. It also added provisions to include on the National Sex Offender Registry those individuals who have been convicted of sex offences abroad and who then return to Canada.

In addition to these key reforms, the Protecting Victims from Sex Offenders Act addressed several important operational issues, such as the inclusion of registered sex offenders' vehicle information in the National Sex Offender Registry and allowing federal and provincial correctional services to notify registry officials when a registered sex offender is admitted into custody or is released into the community, including for temporary releases of seven days or more.

Through the Safe Streets and Communities Act, passed in 2012, we strengthened the Criminal Code's prohibitions against sexual exploitation by creating new mandatory minimum sentences for existing offences related to child exploitation and by increasing the mandatory minimum penalty for other existing offences; by prohibiting convicted child sex offenders from having any unsupervised contact with a young person under the age of 16 or having unsupervised use of the Internet or other digital devices; and by prohibiting convicted child sex offenders from being in public places where children can reasonably be expected to be present, requiring them to remain in specified geographic areas, and requiring them to abstain from drug and alcohol abuse or use.

We have also passed legislation that makes it illegal to provide sexually explicit material to a child for the purpose of facilitating the commission of an offence against that child.

We have increased the age of protection, the age at which a young person can legally consent to sexual activity, to 16 years of age, where previously it was 14.

We also continue to keep Canadians safe at the border with our Canada Border Services Agency officers employing effective border policies that prevent sex offenders from entering Canada. In fact, in 2014 alone, referrals provided by U.S. Customs and Border Protection concerning sexual offenders travelling to Canada led to 59 instances when the Canada Border Services Agency was able to refuse entry at the border.

We have reached significant milestones to make our streets and communities safer for everyone, but there is still work to do.

Canadians have the right to go about their daily lives without fear, and that is especially true when it comes to the fear of their children experiencing the emotional turmoil of sexual abuse.

In 2013, police reported approximately 4,200 incidents of sexual violations against children. That is a 6% increase from 2012. I am sure that all members can agree that one child victim is one too many.

We must ensure that our focus is balanced and that it protects the rights of victims and law-abiding citizens. This brings me to why I am speaking today. The changes proposed in Bill C-26 before us would allow our government to strengthen measures to better protect our children from sexual exploitation.

First and foremost, there are a number of amendments to the Criminal Code and the Canada Evidence Act, including requiring that those convicted of contact child sexual offences against multiple children serve their sentences consecutively, one after another, to recognize the serious nature of the offence against each victim; requiring that those convicted of child pornography and contact child sexual offences serve their sentences consecutively; increasing maximum and minimum penalties for child sexual offences; increasing penalties for violations of conditions of supervision orders; and allowing spouses to provide testimony that is often needed to secure convictions in these important cases.

This legislation will also make vital changes to the National Sex Offender Registry by enhancing law enforcement's knowledge of registered sex offenders who are travelling abroad. For example, a registered sex offender would be required to give advance notice of the dates and every address or location at which they expect to stay for travel of seven days or more outside Canada. Those with a conviction for a sex offence against a child would be required to provide this information for all travel, regardless of the duration of the trip.

As part of this legislation, we would improve information sharing about high-risk sex offenders between officials responsible for the National Sex Offender Registry and the Canada Border Services Agency. As it currently stands, officials in charge of the registry are not authorized to share information on registered sex offences with Canada Border Services Agency.

What is more, officers at the border are not able to provide information to the officials at the National Sex Offender Registry to confirm the date of a sex offender's departure and return and where the person has stayed outside Canada. It is of utmost importance that we give our border services officers the authority and information they need to do their jobs and keep Canadians safe.

Therefore, we are proposing that all registered sex offenders be required to report every driver's licence number and passport number they hold and the name of each respective issuing jurisdiction. This would enable officials to disclose this information to the Canada Border Services Agency with other identifying information about registered sex offenders, particularly in cases of high-risk child sex offenders, and ensure that they are included in the Canada Border Services Agency lookout system.

The final element in this bill would further contribute to the safety of our communities by providing the public with access to a database of information regarding high-risk child sex offenders. The high risk child sex offender database act would authorize the RCMP to establish and administer a national publicly accessible database containing information on high-risk child sex offenders who have been the subject of a public notification in a provincial or territorial jurisdiction. Public safety officials are consulting with their provincial and territorial counterparts to discuss public notifications for high-risk offenders and the criteria to be used to determine which high-risk child sex offenders would be included in the database.

In summary, the bill before us today would ensure that penalties for child sexual offences better reflect the serious nature of these crimes. We believe that all child sex offenders should be held fully accountable for their actions.

These heinous crimes cause unimaginable devastation in the lives of children and their families. This is why, as a government, we must do everything in our power to protect our most vulnerable. I am very pleased to know that all hon. members in this House support this important piece of legislation.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, the Liberal Party has been fairly clear on this piece of legislation. We support it. We feel that there are things the government can do to improve the conditions for dealing with child exploitation. This is a bill that will provide an opportunity to assist. To that extent, members of the Liberal caucus will be voting for it.

In my speech and in the speeches of other members, and in particular that of the Liberal Party critic, we have talked about the importance of resources. I wonder if the member is prepared to provide any thoughts on what she believes should or could be incorporated in the budget in terms of resources, emphasizing that it takes not only legislation to deal with this very important issue.

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Saskatoon—Rosetown—Biggar, SK]

Mr. Speaker, while I will not speculate with regard to what will be in the budget, it is my understanding that no new federal funding will be required. Both the RCMP and CBSA will be able to apply the new legislation within their current resources.

We know that policing across Canada involves many jurisdictions and that there may be resource implications for the provinces and territories in implementing the measures in this bill, as they are responsible for the implementation of the SOIRA in their respective jurisdictions, including enforcement orders by police.

We will continue to work with our provincial and territorial partners in the implementation of the legislative proposals introduced in this bill.

[Roxanne James, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness]

Mr. Speaker, one of the reasons I decided to get into politics was because of my strong views on improving the criminal justice system and support for victims, but I have to say that at the top of the list was the protection of the most vulnerable members of society, our children.

I remember that when we introduced this legislation, I wrote directly to my constituents and received overwhelming support for the measures contained in this act, including those for ending the two-for-one deals child sexual predators were given when multiple offences of child sexual abuse were committed against different children.

I would like to ask the member why this legislation is so important for the protection of children.

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Saskatoon—Rosetown—Biggar, SK]

Mr. Speaker, reforms enacted by the Safe Streets and Communities Act, specifically those relating to child sexual offences, came into effect in August 2012. They increased the penalties for some child sexual offences, but more needs to be done to further protect our children.

Every day in Canada vulnerable children are the victims of sexual abuse. As was mentioned, over 3,900 sexual violations against children were reported to police in Canada in 2012, an increase of 3% from 2011, and the same increase was seen from 2010 to 2011.

There are also increased concerns regarding the mobility of travelling sex offenders. Internationally, approximately one million children are exploited by sex tourists and sex traffickers each year. This is unacceptable, and we must do more to deter and punish offenders. The new measures now being introduced would assist in ensuring that all child sex offenders are held fully accountable for acts of child sexual exploitation and abuse.

[Steven Fletcher, Conservative, Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the parliamentary secretary if she could expand on her comments about the punishments associated with these reprehensible acts and also if she could give us a perspective on what her constituents would support in this important area. It seems that many Canadians would be surprised that the laws are not already stricter.

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Saskatoon—Rosetown—Biggar, SK]

Mr. Speaker, these amendments would increase penalties for many child sexual offences to better reflect the serious nature of these offences and would ensure that sentencing takes into account each victim in these cases.

Currently, when an offender is sentenced for multiple separate offences, courts can require that the sentences be served consecutively, one after the other, or concurrently, at the same time. The new law would require these sentences to be served consecutively in certain cases.

As a mother and a grandmother, I know that this legislation is very important when it comes to our children and the real fear that they will experience the emotional turmoil of sexual abuse should something ever happen, and I know that my constituents reflect that view as well.

[Murray Rankin, NDP, Victoria, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I wish to advise you that I will be sharing my time with the hon. member for Châteauguay—Saint-Constant.

I support Bill C-26 to amend the Criminal Code to do a number of things to deal with the scourge of child predators. It would amend the Sex Offender Information Registration Act and create a high-risk child sex offender database, as well as make a number of changes to the Criminal Code, which I will discuss during my remarks.

This bill is consistent with the zero tolerance policy that my party, the NDP, has with respect to child sexual crimes. Sexual crimes against children have to be dealt with in the most effective manner possible. The issue then before us is whether this bill will do what it says it is trying to achieve, a goal which we applaud. The question, then, is whether some of the mandatory new minimum sentences and the consecutive sentences provisions will do the job or whether judicial discretion, which has been the case before this, will still be a relevant way to proceed.

It will be my argument that although the bill is useful in some regard, it seems to ignore the evidence in a couple of key provisions, evidence that was brought before the committee that studied the bill, which I will refer to during my remarks.

It would increase existing mandatory minimum and maximum penalties. It would amend the Evidence Act to ensure that spouses of the accused would be competent and compellable witnesses where child pornography would be involved.

It would also amend the Sex Offender Information Registration Act to increase the reporting requirements when sex offenders travelled outside the country. There is some question as to wether the laudable end goal would be achieved in practice. It would enact a high-risk child offender database to establish a publicly accessible database containing information that police would have previously made accessible to the public in other places. We have that under the legislation in my province and in others, I understand. This would create that kind of accessibility across the country.

As I said at the outset, our party has a long-standing zero tolerance policy when it comes to sexual offences against children and we therefore wonder whether this bill will do the job, protect children and keep our communities safe. For reasons I will describe, I am not sure it will do so. Simply having a tough on crime rhetoric and building more prisons and the like will be ineffective, as many of the experts said when they testified.

It is a question of having the resources available in the communities to do the job, as well as having legislation, which in and of itself is a partial measure. However, if we give people the tools and they do not have the ability to implement them because they do not have the budget, what good have we done except disappoint Canadians in our response? Therefore, are the necessary resources available? The answer appears to be no.

We have suggested that necessary resources be earmarked for the RCMP registry and budgets be made available to support victims. For example, the NDP fought for the Circles of Support and Accountability program only to find out that the measly $650,000 in funding that Correctional Service Canada offered was simply all and that it would not do the job.

CoSA, which is the Circles of Support and Accountability to which I have referred, receives funding from the National Crime Prevention Centre, which will end this fall. It costs $2.2 million a year. CoSA has been extraordinarily successful in having people settle into normal lives. Just having coffee and ensuring people are on track has proven, as it has been studied, to actually work and make a difference. Will there be money available for such programs? I do not think so, and that is what is so problematic about the bill.

If the government really were tough on crime, aside from getting good talking points, it would put its money where its mouth is.

Let us talk about what some of the experts have said about the specifics of the bill and see whether it is evidence-based or merely populous.

The politics are that we all join in wanting to make our communities safer for children, but one of the ways the Conservatives think they will do so is to have what they call mandatory minimum sentences for various offences. A long list is created.

The law requires, however, that there be a proportionate sentence for the offender and the offence. That is what the Constitution tells us. Rather, the Conservatives have mandatory minimum sentences throughout this. The message from Mr. Michael Spratt, who testified on behalf of the Criminal Lawyers' Association to the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights, is that it will not work. From evidence on February 16, he said:

—the message that's being sent, that minimum sentences and harsher sentences make us safer. You know that's not true. You've been told that before. You've been told that by me, and you've been told that by other experts. The evidence suggests quite the opposite —minimum sentences don't make communities safer. They don't deter the commission of offences. They impede rehabilitation. They are costly, and they can be unconstitutional.

It looks good, sounds good, but it does not work.

Another witness from the Canadian Bar Association, a former crown attorney, Mr. Paul Calarco, said that there were very significant increases in this statute with respect to minimum offences, but stated:

I believe it is far more likely now that there will be constitutional challenges, there will be a finding of gross disproportionality, and that means the entire sentencing regime must be struck down.

Does that sound like a good way to protect our children?

It is not just these people. The famous Professor Anthony Doob from the University of Toronto testified that, “mandatory minimum penalties of this kind do not deter crime”. “Steve Sullivan testified, not only speaking to the ineffectiveness of minimum sentences but also how they can make the situation worse”. So many experts testified, asking and making the same point, that it would be likely to be held unconstitutional, therefore being a waste of time.

Also in terms of lack of evidence regarding the sexual offence registry, Mr. Calarco talked to the fact that:

There is little evidence to suggest that sexual offender registries, as they are presently constituted, prevent sexual assaults. This can be seen in both the reports of the Auditor General of Ontario and the John Howard Society....

[The] bill does not make the prevention of sexual exploitation any more likely. [Its] reporting requirements are unlikely to have any discernible effect on public safety, or will be unenforceable when they deal with matters outside [the] country....

He goes on to say that so many of the people involved in these horrible crimes are in family situations and that it will do nothing for them. A registry would not prevent these kinds of incidents. One of the most important ways to ensure a safe and just society is by rehabilitating the offenders.

Is that not what we want, to rehabilitate as opposed to simply show society's disgust with the crimes at issue?

If the experts and the evidence are saying that these kinds of measures, minimum mandatory sentences, simply will not work, if they are saying that we need more money to do the job, and if they are saying that the registries are not particularly effective, we need to address why in committee the Conservatives rejected the amendments that were proposed by the NDP to try to improve the bill.

The New Democrats suggested, for example, that the information in the new database could not be used to identify the victims and that it should be clarified. That was rejected. It was suggested to require that the minister report annually to Parliament on whether the bill was working. The Conservatives did not want that either. It is unclear why they would reject that kind of accountability. The Conservatives like to brag about accountability in their rhetoric, but when it comes to actually doing the job, they do not want to take those steps.

This is a position that puts us in great difficulty. Of course we support this bill because we have zero tolerance for sexual crimes involving children. However, we are dubious as to whether it will achieve its objectives. We wish it were more evidence-based because the evidence before the committee and before Parliament is that some of these measures will not do the job.

Nevertheless, we stand in support of the bill, wishing the Conservatives would allow a review, as they have done with other legislation, after a certain period of time so Parliament can assess whether it has been effective.

[Sylvain Chicoine, NDP, Châteauguay—Saint-Constant, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to speak to Bill C-26.

Like most members on this side of the House, I am a bit concerned. We will support this bill at second reading, but I would like my colleagues across the way to keep an open mind so that we can study the bill calmly and ensure that it does what it claims to do.

This bill is entitled An Act to amend the Criminal Code, the Canada Evidence Act and the Sex Offender Information Registration Act, to enact the High Risk Child Sex Offender Database Act and to make consequential amendments to other Acts. It is commonly referred to by the Conservatives as the tougher penalties for child predators act.

The Conservatives always try to make themselves look good by saying that they are against child sex offenders and depicting the members from the other parties as defending the offenders. I would say that everyone in the House is against child predators. It is often the government's approach to things that we disagree on.

This bill was introduced over a year ago with much fanfare. We soon realized that the cases mentioned in the many press conferences held by the Minister of Justice and the Prime Minister were more than 10 years old. The government is using certain cases that are already quite old. This is yet another bill that will essentially increase the existing mandatory minimum penalties. In recent years, this government has amended a lot of laws by adding mandatory minimums.

Furthermore, Bill C-26 increases the maximum penalties for violations of prohibition orders, probation orders and peace bonds. It clarifies and codifies the rules regarding the imposition of consecutive and concurrent sentences. I should point out that there is currently a case before the Supreme Court regarding the lawfulness of consecutive sentences. In the short or medium term, a lot of the decisions made here could be looked at from a whole other perspective. That is why we need to examine this bill calmly in order to eventually achieve what the government claims to want to do, which is to reduce the number of crimes committed against children.

The bill will require courts to impose, in certain cases, consecutive sentences on offenders who commit sexual offences against children. It will ensure that a court that imposes a sentence must take into consideration evidence that the offence in question was committed while the offender was subject to a conditional sentence order or released on parole, statutory release or unescorted temporary absence.

What is more, the bill will amend the Canada Evidence Act to ensure that spouses of the accused are competent and compellable witnesses for the prosecution in child pornography cases. It also amends the Sex Offender Information Registration Act to increase the reporting obligations of sex offenders who travel outside Canada.

What is new about this bill is that it enacts the high risk child sex offender database act to establish a publicly accessible database that contains information—that a police service or other public authority has previously made accessible to the public—with respect to persons who are found guilty of sexual offences against children and who pose a high risk of committing crimes of a sexual nature. It also makes consequential amendments to other acts.

The NDP has always had a zero tolerance policy when it comes to sexual offences against children, despite what the Conservatives would have people believe. One of the tactics they used to colour people's opinions with omnibus Bill C-10 was to refuse to split the bill since we disagreed with some of its provisions. Because we planned to vote against that bill, the Conservatives said that we were voting against a bill that goes after sexual predators. They wanted to make it look like we were defending these individuals, which is completely ridiculous.

It seems that it did not work because the provisions of Bill C-10 to implement several mandatory minimum sentences do not seem to have had the desired effect. I would like to hear the minister tell us, in committee, how these new mandatory minimum sentences will succeed this time when they failed in the past.

That is one of the serious concerns that I have about this file. Many Conservative bills do nothing but increase mandatory minimum sentences while claiming to solve the problem of a particular type of crime, and this does not have the desired effect.

Every time we debate this we ask the Conservatives to back up their statements. Is it because the sentences are not tough enough? If there is an increase in crime, is it because of the sentence or because of anything related to the services? We are given very few clear answers to these questions.

Canada now has 34 million inhabitants. Let us take a look at some sexual crime statistics. In 2008, 241 people were accused of sexual interference; in 2009, there were 574; in 2010, there were 818; in 2011, there were 918; and in 2012, there were 916. The number keeps going up. Still, this is probably the least serious sexual crime in the Criminal Code compared to sexual assault on a child, for example.

For invitation to sexual touching, there were 56 cases in 2008, and that number rose to 206 in 2012. For sexual exploitation, there were 17 cases in 2008, and that went up to 49. It was fairly stable from 2010 to 2012. Of course, we do not yet have any statistics about making sexually explicit material available to a child because that new offence was created in 2012. Luring a child using a computer rose from 54 cases in 2008 to 127 in 2012.

We must not lose sight of the fact that all of these statistics are from years under the Conservative reign. During that time, we have, on many occasions, instituted or increased mandatory minimum sentences. According to these statistics, that approach has not deterred criminals.

Scientists have shown that mandatory minimum sentences do not deter criminals from committing crimes. I agree with criminologists that the likelihood of getting caught is what deters people from committing crimes, not the remote possibility of being sentenced to 10, 15 or 20 years. That does not deter criminals. It is clear that mandatory minimum sentences have had no effect in this area either.

Moreover, RCMP personnel strength keeps dropping. Commissioner Paulson mentioned recently in committee that he has had to shut down large squads that fight organized crime and assign the staff to other positions. That is completely ridiculous. The government is also not giving the RCMP any additional resources to establish this new data bank that it wants to create. It makes no sense. The RCMP will once again be forced to make cuts to other squads in order to get it done.

We have been raising the problem of updating criminal records for years now. We are not moving in the right direction. Let us give the RCMP the power to carry out its mission and stop moving in a direction that is doing nothing to deter criminals.

[Guy Caron, NDP, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his excellent speech.

When we are talking about a bill such as this one, we have to talk about resources. We also have to talk about prevention. My colleague has put his finger on one of the major problems associated with this kind of government bill, which tightens the rules and imposes harsher penalties after the fact. Very limited resources are available, and there are no additional resources for our police forces to enforce the law or to put towards prevention, in order to help the social and community groups that are trying to raise awareness about the issue.

I would like to hear my colleague's thoughts on the importance of prevention and the lack of resources allocated by the government to address this issue.

[Sylvain Chicoine, NDP, Châteauguay—Saint-Constant, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for raising these important points.

Indeed, I was talking about this at the end of my speech, when I ran out of time, so I will come back to that now. Very few resources are being given to police officers. Minimum sentences are being increased, which means the prison population is increasing, but the budgets keep shrinking. Criminals are being sent to prison for longer periods. Services are being cut, including rehabilitation services that are necessary for ensuring that individuals do not reoffend when they are released.

These people are being sent into prisons that do not really have the resources to handle them. The RCMP is being given more responsibilities just as their budget is being cut. This makes no sense at all and it is not the first time this is happening. There have been a number of bills whereby the RCMP gets more responsibility and less money, or at least is not given the necessary budget to do its work.

In this case we are talking about creating a sex offender registry without giving more money to the RCMP. This government is not going in the right direction. It is also making cuts to rehabilitation services and to funding for the community resources that provide prevention services.

Having a balanced approach would be much more effective than relying on mandatory minimum sentences or stricter rules—in some cases, this is good—without giving correctional services or the RCMP the money they need. We are going nowhere with this.

[Alain Giguère, NDP, Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC]

Mr. Speaker, it is the whole administration of justice problem that is at issue here. In theory, punishment is a good thing, but in practice, the theory must translate into effective action.

Unfortunately, there was a terrible situation in Quebec recently. The police were able to bring down a criminal organization known as the Hells Angels. Everything was going well. All the members were arrested. Unfortunately, they forgot about the Conservative Party. Serious mistake. There were not enough judges to preside over the trials because of the Conservatives' systematic cuts. The time limits were exceeded. It took too long and the accused were released. Good going. That is marvellous. That is being tough on crime.

My question is quite simple: what is the use of having laws that sentence an individual to 150 years in prison if the government's actions prevent that person from ever going to court because there are not enough judges?

[Sylvain Chicoine, NDP, Châteauguay—Saint-Constant, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would also like to thank my colleague from Marc-Aurèle-Fortin for that clarification and the information provided.

As I mentioned, there is a problem with the administration of justice. There is a dire shortage of judges and Crown prosecutors, which means things are not going anywhere. We are not headed in the right direction. Criminals are put in jail for longer periods and the budgets for all these people are being cut. That makes no sense. We are not going in the right direction in many areas. Furthermore, the provinces are not consulted. With Bill C-10, prisons are overflowing. The prison population has increased by 10%, but not the budget to deal with it. The government is sticking the provinces with the bill.

[The Speaker, Andrew Scheer]

Is the House ready for the question?

[Some hon. members]

Question.

[The Speaker, Andrew Scheer]

The question is on the motion. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Speaker, Andrew Scheer]

I declare the motion carried.

(Motion agreed to, bill read the third time and passed)

I see the hon. member for Oxford rising on a point of order.

[Dave MacKenzie, Conservative, Oxford, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I believe you would find consent to see the clock as 1:30 p.m.

[The Speaker, Andrew Scheer]

Shall I see the clock as 1:30 p.m.?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.