Bill C-291

An Act to amend the Criminal Code and to make consequential amendments to other Acts (child sexual abuse and exploitation material)

This enactment amends the Criminal Code to replace the term “child pornography” with “child sexual abuse and exploitation material” and makes consequential amendments to other Acts.

Criminal Code

[Rhéal Fortin, Bloc, Rivière-du-Nord, QC]

Madam Speaker, Bill C‑291 is a bill that could, in other circumstances, be described as practically useless. It only changes some words. Changing the title of a bill and the name of a crime in the Criminal Code may seem rather inconsequential.

In this case, there is absolutely nothing inconsequential about it. In this case, we are talking about holding criminals responsible for their actions.

[Gary Anandasangaree, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada]

Madam Speaker, at the outset let me acknowledge that I am speaking to you from the traditional lands of the Algonquin and Anishinabe people.

As this is my first opportunity to speak since the passing of the Hon. Jim Carr, I want to express my deepest condolences to the Carr family and my appreciation to them for sharing Jim with us, both in Parliament as well as in Canada, and for the remarkable legacy that he leaves in being who he was, such an honourable gentleman who crossed party lines and in many ways reached out across the aisle. I am heartened to see so many very positive comments coming from everyone, from all parties.

I wanted to particularly express my condolences to Ben Carr, whom many in the House may know as someone who was very much part of our government at the beginning stages. He moved on to Winnipeg, to serve his community locally.

As we close the year, Jim's passing should give us some guidance in terms of how we should not only work with each other and towards strengthening this institution, but also work across the aisle to make things happen for Canadians. As we know, one of the last things Jim did was see the passage of his private member's bill to build a green prairie economy, Bill C-235, which received unanimous support.

Today, we are in a very similar moment here, with Bill C-291, an act to amend the Criminal Code and to make consequential amendments to other acts in respect of child sexual abuse material, brought forward by the member for North Okanagan—Shuswap, providing that opportunity.

I would note that during this process we worked very well together, collaboratively, with him and his colleague, the member for Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, in terms of getting this bill both through the House and through the committee stage at the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights. I want to thank the member and his colleague, and all members who are part of the justice committee, for working on this bill expeditiously and getting us to this point.

We must take measures to fight child sexual exploitation. We have comprehensive and robust criminal laws against it. We need to have strong and effective law enforcement, and we need to continue to advance and facilitate measures that seek to support victims.

I would like to take this time to highlight the vital work done by the child and youth advocacy centres across this country. These centres provide a coordinated, multidisciplinary approach in a safe, comfortable environment to address the needs of children and youth and their families. Children and youth who are victims or witnesses of crime in Canada deserve protection and justice. Online child sexual exploitation is some of the most disturbing conduct facing society today. The pandemic has contributed to a rise in sexual offences committed against children, including their facilitation through technological means.

In the fiscal year 2021-22, the RCMP's national child exploitation crime centre received 81,799 complaints, reports and requests for assistance relating to online child sexual exploitation, which was a 56% increase compared to the previous fiscal year in 2020-21, with only 52,306 reports received, and an 854% increase compared to 2013-14, when 8,578 reports were received, based on the internal numbers provided by the NCECC.

The website cybertip.ca, run by the Canadian Centre for Child Protection, reported a 120% increase in reports of children being victimized online in comparison to prepandemic rates.

According to Statistics Canada, in 2020, police reported crime data which included the first year of the pandemic, as indicated, and that incidents of making or distributing child pornography had increased by 26% in 2021 compared to 2019, and by 58% over the five-year period of 2017 to 2021. Possession of or accessing child pornography increased by 44% in 2021 compared to 2019, and represents a 146% increase since 2017. Incidents of luring a child via a computer have gone up 23% compared to 2019, a 48% increase from the previous five years.

This bill changes the term “child pornography” to “child sexual abuse and exploitation material”. This new term captures the full scope of Canada's law, as well as the jurisprudence available from the last 30 years. The Government of Canada, therefore, is committed to preventing and protecting children from sexual abuse and exploitation of any kind, including internationally.

Canada works closely with international partners to combat online child sexual exploitation. This includes not only the extent of information regarding new and emerging threats, but also the sharing of best practices and lessons learned in combatting this crime.

Canada is a state party to a number of international agreements to protect children from sexual exploitation, including the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, the optional protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography, and the convention on cybercrime, or what is called the Budapest convention.

The sexual exploitation and abuse of children has devastating and long-lasting consequences on victims. We remain committed to taking meaningful action to combat child sexual exploitation and abuse materials. Canada's existing criminal laws against child sexual exploitation and abuse materials are among the most comprehensive in the world. The Criminal Code prohibits all forms of child sexual exploitation and abuse materials, including against possessing, accessing, making or distributing it, which can be punishable with a term of imprisonment of up to 14 years for each event.

Serious crimes deserve serious consequences. I, along with my fellow members, look forward to watching this important bill progress in the other place. As a community, we all have a role to play in protecting children.

[Mel Arnold, Conservative, North Okanagan—Shuswap, BC]

moved that Bill C-291, An Act to amend the Criminal Code and to make consequential amendments to other Acts (child sexual abuse material), be read the third time and passed.

Madam Speaker, I am honoured once again to rise in the House as a representative of the amazing people of North Okanagan—Shuswap to speak to my private member's bill, Bill C-291, an act to amend the Criminal Code and to make consequential amendments to other acts.

This may be the last time this bill is debated in the House, and I am compelled to thank the many Canadians who have helped progress this important legislation forward.

At the outset, I must thank the hon. member for Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, who was central to the conception and drafting of this bill. The hon. member possesses a keen sense of how we can and should improve Canada's laws. I thank the member for his work on the bill.

I must also thank the member for Kelowna—Lake Country, who has worked with us to move Bill C-291 through the process. I know that she strongly supports increased protection of children and support for victims of crime, and I thank her for assisting in today's debate.

It was only 26 days ago that the House debated this bill at second reading, and I thank all members of the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights for their timely and thoughtful examination and support of this bill. I thank the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada for proposing amendments to the bill to ensure that it captured exploitation and aligned with the definition in the Criminal Code. I also thank members of the justice committee and Department of Justice officials for their examinations of the bill at committee.

I would further like to thank the Canadian Centre for Child Protection, Ratanak International and the Centre to End All Sexual Exploitation for supporting this bill. I thank them for the difficult but essential work they do every day to fight abuse and exploitation of children.

I thank the hundreds of Canadians who signed e-petition 4154 calling on the House to pass this bill.

I believe we also owe thanks to the staff and officials who allow our work and debates to occur. I send my thanks to the office of the law clerk and parliamentary counsel, the Private Members' Business office, journals branch, Parliamentary interpretation and the interpretation bureau, and all of the House of Commons and parliamentary personnel who work with us every day.

I also extend my thanks to law enforcement and judicial personnel who deal with child sexual abuse exploitation in their daily roles and hope that this bill will help in their work of increasing safety for children. I thank them all.

As I stated in previous debates, child sexual abuse material is a growing problem in Canada, and Canadians look to us, their elected representatives, to take the steps, big and small, that are required to deal with problems like the sexual abuse and exploitation of children. This bill is a meaningful step that we are taking together, and I thank hon. members from all parties in supporting it. Together, we are serving Canadians.

There has been discussion between all parties and to my knowledge there was agreement to allow the debate to collapse today by keeping our speeches short so that Bill C-291 can be voted on tomorrow, moving it one step closer to calling child sexual abuse and exploitation material what it really is.

[Mel Arnold, Conservative, North Okanagan—Shuswap, BC]

moved that Bill C-291, An Act to amend the Criminal Code and to make consequential amendments to other Acts (child sexual abuse and exploitation material), as amended, be concurred in.

(Motion agreed to)

The House proceeded to the consideration of Bill C-291, An Act to amend the Criminal Code and to make consequential amendments to other Acts (child sexual abuse and exploitation material), as reported from the committee.

Justice and Human Rights

[Randeep Sarai, Liberal, Surrey Centre, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present, in both official languages, the seventh report of the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights, entitled “Improving Support for Victims of Crime”. Pursuant to Standing Order 109, the committee requests that the government table a comprehensive response to this report.

I also have the honour to present, in both official languages, the eighth report, in relation to Bill C-291, an act to amend the Criminal Code and to make consequential amendments to other acts (child sexual abuse material). The committee has studied the bill and has decided to report the bill back to the House with amendments.

[The Chair, Liberal, Randeep Sarai]

Thank you, Mr. Arnold.

I actually echo that. I still recall being a young articling student when I had to review that for a defence firm, and it was quite traumatic. It's not easy to go through those. I can only imagine law enforcement...who have to deal with this on a daily basis and go through voluminous material that is very horrific, and the amount of stress and post-traumatic stress that might appear.

Thank you once again for your great round of questioning, though it be short.

In the interest of time, I'd like to provide the members of the committee with some instructions and a few comments before the committee proceeds with the clause-by-clause consideration of Bill C-291.

As the name indicates, this is an examination of all the clauses in the order they appear in the bill. I will call each clause successively, and each clause is subject to debate and a vote. If there are amendments to the clause in question, I will recognize the member proposing it, who may explain it. The amendment will then be open for debate. When no further members wish to intervene, the amendment will be voted on. Amendments will be considered in the order in which they appear in the bill and in the package that each member received from the clerk. Members should note that amendments must be submitted in writing to the clerk of the committee.

The chair will go slowly to allow members to follow the proceedings properly.

Amendments have been given an alphanumeric number in the top right corner to indicate which party submitted them. There's no need for a seconder to move an amendment. Once again, you will need unanimous consent to withdraw it.

During the debate of an amendment, members are permitted to move subamendments. These amendments must be submitted in writing. They do not require the approval of the mover of the amendment. Only one subamendment may be considered at a time, and that subamendment cannot be amended. When a subamendment is moved to the amendment, it is voted on first, then another subamendment may be moved, or the committee may consider the main amendment and vote on it.

Once every clause has been voted on, the committee will vote on the short title, the title and the bill itself, and if amendments are adopted, an order to reprint the bill may be required so the House has a proper copy for use at report stage. Finally, the committee will have to order the chair to report the bill to the House. That report contains only the text of any adopted amendments as well as an indication of any deleted clauses.

Just so you know, I'll be looking down at my phone, but it's not to do text messaging. I'm checking in case my clerk or the legislative clerks have given me any messages.

Now we'll begin the clause-by-clause consideration.

(On clause 1)

Amendment G-1 has been proposed.

Is there any debate?

[Mel Arnold, Conservative, North Okanagan—Shuswap, BC]

Thank you, Chair.

It's an honour to be speaking here for the first time [Technical difficulty—Editor] an act to amend the Criminal Code and make consequential amendments to other acts.

At the outset, I would like to express my thanks to the honourable member for Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, Mr. Caputo, who is a full-time member on this committee and who was central in the conception and drafting of this bill. The honourable member's experience as a crown prosecutor has afforded him insight into how we, as parliamentarians, can strengthen our federal statutes to enhance the protection of Canadians, especially children, and I thank him for his work on this bill.

As I stated in the second reading debate, I believe it is essential that the Criminal Code of Canada contain terms that accurately describe prohibited activities. I also believe that the code's use of the term “child pornography” is a misnomer in that it fails to accurately describe prohibited activities.

What the Criminal Code currently calls child pornography is more severe than pornography, because it involves children, it is not consensual, it is exploitative and it's abusive, and the Criminal Code should clearly reflect these realities.

Mr. Chair, the Criminal Code of Canada contains many elements, including essential elements that define, prohibit, deter and penalize criminal activities. Bill C-291 does not propose any amendments to definitions, prohibitions or penalties. It clearly and succinctly proposes to change the term “child pornography” to “child sexual abuse material”.

As Mr. Anandasangaree correctly noted in the second reading debate of this bill, the intent of the bill:

...is not to change the definition. Rather, it is to more accurately reflect the definition in the name. Courts should not change their interpretation of the law based on the change in title.

At second reading, Mr. Savard-Tremblay astutely noted that:

By calling it “child sexual abuse material”, we do two things: We name the abuse that the child suffered, and we also describe the accused as a sexual abuser of children.

Mr. Savard-Tremblay also noted that:

It puts things into perspective: There is a victim of abuse in a crime involving child pornography, and there is a person sexually abusing children.

I also acknowledge Mr. Garrison, and thank him for his comments at second reading, in which he highlighted the need for enforcement resources—especially for the specialized law enforcement units that “work so hard” to combat child abuse and exploitation—and “improvements to services and supports for survivors”.

I agree with all of these points and thank those who participated in the second reading debate and voted to move this bill forward quickly to today's examination here at committee.

Child sexual abuse material is a growing problem in Canada, and Canadians look to us, their elected representatives, to take the steps—big and small—that are required to deal with the problems like sexual abuse and the exploitation of children.

I would like to acknowledge today the response and support received from the Canadian Centre for Child Protection Inc. and Ratanak International, which have supported the movement of this bill.

I'd like to thank the committee for taking time out of their busy schedule to examine the bill. I look forward to your questions.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Randeep Sarai]

Pursuant to the order of reference of November 23, 2022, we will now proceed to the study of Bill C-291, An Act to amend the Criminal Code and to make consequential amendments to other acts (child sexual abuse material).

I'd like to welcome the sponsors of the bill, Mel Arnold, the member for North Okanagan—Shuswap, and Mr. Frank Caputo, the member for Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo.

For the first hour, I will allow five minutes of presentation by the sponsors, followed by questions from the members. The last 30 minutes will be devoted to the clause-by-clause study of the bill.

I'll begin with Mr. Arnold for five minutes.

[The Chair, Liberal, Randeep Sarai]

Thank you, Mr. Bachrach.

We'll conclude our round of questions there. It's 11:40, and we'll try to get the votes in for the supplementary estimates. Then we'll be doing Bill C-291.

If we're okay, I will now call for vote 1b under the Canadian Human Rights Commission. Is there any discussion on the vote?

[The Chair, Liberal, Randeep Sarai]

I call this meeting to order.

Welcome to meeting number 42 of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights.

Pursuant to the order of reference of November 17, 2022, this committee is meeting to begin its study of the supplementary estimates (B) 2022-23 of the Department of Justice. Pursuant to the order of reference of November 23, 2022, we will proceed later today to the study of Bill C-291, an act to amend the Criminal Code and to make consequential amendments to other acts (child sexual abuse material).

Today's meeting is taking place in a hybrid format, pursuant to the House order of June 23, 2022. Members are attending in person in the room and remotely using the Zoom application.

I would like to make a few comments for the benefit of the witnesses and the members. Please wait until I recognize you by name before speaking. For those participating by video conference, click on the microphone icon to active your mike. Please mute it when you're not speaking.

For interpretation for those on Zoom, you have the choice at the bottom of your screen of the floor, English or French. For those in the room, you can use the earpiece and select the desired channel.

I would remind you that all comments should be addressed through the chair.

For members in the room, if you wish to speak, please raise your hand. For members on Zoom, please use the “raise hand” function. The clerk and I will manage the speaking order as best as we can, and we appreciate your patience and understanding in this regard.

For the first hour of this meeting, we will now proceed to supplementary estimates (B) 2022-23 for the following items. We have vote 1b under the Canadian Human Rights Commission, vote 1b under the Courts Administration Service, votes 1b and 5b under the Department of Justice, vote 1b under the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions and vote 1b under the Registrar of the Supreme Court of Canada.

To present those items, we have with us the honourable David Lametti, Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada.

Welcome, Minister.

I would also like to welcome François Daigle, deputy minister of justice and deputy attorney general of Canada; Michael Sousa, senior assistant deputy minister of the policy sector; and Bill Kroll, chief financial officer and assistant deputy minister of the management sector.

I will now give the floor to Minister Lametti to give his statement, and then we will go to a round of questions.

[The Chair, Liberal, Randeep Sarai]

I want to thank all the witnesses in this study for the time they've given us. It's very valuable testimony.

That concludes the testimony part of this meeting.

I have a few matters that I want to mention. Witnesses are free to leave if they want to, or they can sit around with us if they would like to see this.

Members, we will be proceeding to the study of the draft report on the government's obligation to the victims of crime. You should receive a confidential first draft tomorrow in order to prepare for Monday's meeting. Hopefully, that will give us enough time. That's what the analysts have told me.

We'll have to adopt a budget to reimburse our witnesses who appeared on Bill C-9 and adopt the revised budget for the trip in March 2023.

I also want to remind you that you have a deadline to submit amendments to Bill C-9: Monday, November 28 at 6 p.m.

Finally, yesterday we received Bill C-291, an act to amend the Criminal Code and to make consequential amendments to other acts regarding child sexual abuse material. We will have to find time to proceed to this study. It is Mr. Mel Arnold of North Okanagan—Shuswap who has presented this bill in the past. At the latest, we have to report the bill 60 sitting days after the date of the order of reference. That is April 26, 2023, so we have some time for that.

Go ahead, Mr. Garrison.

Criminal Code

[Frank Caputo, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

Mr. Speaker, Quebec has some good lawyers as well. There are good lawyers everywhere. We will just leave that aside for now.

The importance of fingerprinting is not actually that well known, but it is very important. This is something that must be modernized.

Moving to the substance of the act, judicial systems have massive backlogs. I believe a few years ago the maximum time to lay a summary conviction offence expanded from six months to one year. I was happy to see that, but we still have a massive backlog. Trials are just not getting on.

Members may have heard the saying, “Justice delayed is justice denied.” This is problematic. A right to a fair trial is embraced within the charter text, obviously. We have often thought about an accused person's right to a fair trial that has a speedy element required, constitutionally obviously, but what about a victim's right to a fair trial? With time, memory fades. It is a proven fact. I do not know anybody who says that their memory is better a year and a half later than it was two weeks after an incident or even six months after an incident. A backlog in the justice system actually contributes to a less efficient system.

At the end of the day the court should exist to get to the truth in a just manner. If getting to the truth is not necessarily a memory contest, then we have a problem when there is a massive backlog. I remember a victim saying that to me one time early on in my career. I said the trial had been adjourned, and he asked about his right. I had to tell him that, as a victim, he did not have a right.

A lot of victims often come to the courts and say they just figured it would be adjourned. I have actually seen instances when courts generally sit for about five hours a day, if we were to compress all of the time together, and up to 12 to 15 hours of court time is crunched into that five hours. That is how much of a backlog there is. This could result in people being released back into the community who should not be released into the community.

One thing we do not generally talk about here is delay, and that delay has been discussed by the Supreme Court of Canada in a case called Jordan. The Jordan decision talked about the right to trial within a reasonable time, the constitutional right to be tried, which is within 18 months, or a year and a half, if the matter is preceded by summarily, which is considered a less serious type of offence, or 30 months, or two and a half years, by indictment.

The greater the strain on resources, the longer it takes for a trial to occur. More cases mean a greater backlog and a greater backlog means even longer, and this affects bail. The problem we have is the following. With the Jordan principle, the clock, and what I mean by clock is the time, the two and a half years, starts ticking the moment a charge is laid.

There have been expansive requirements for disclosure since the Stinchcombe decision in, I think, 1988. There have been massive changes in disclosure, to the point where disclosure is probably one of the single biggest reasons we have delays. It is one of them. We, as Parliament, have not addressed that issue. One might be asking why disclosure matters. It matters because it takes months, sometimes years, to get disclosure together on major cases. If someone, a police officer or a prosecutor, has a case, that case may have literally 30,000 pages of documents.

Because of the Jordan decision, there is a hesitation to lay a charge, because it may take a year to a year and a half, maybe two years, to get those documents together. This might include people who are dangerous, a person who, at this point in time, should not be roaming freely and should at least have conditions on bail or be detained pending their trial.

However, because of the Jordan decision, those people will often be free for the duration, so a year and a half to two years, without any conditions and without any detention. Frequently, these are the most serious cases, because the most serious cases generate the most paperwork, and the most paperwork generates the most disclosure. These are frequently homicides, so we are not talking about cases that are not serious. In fact we are talking about cases that are the most serious in nature.

I will give another example. Members have heard me talk frequently in the House about sexual offences. This is how the Jordan issue affects these offences and why we need to address the streamlining of these cases, especially for sexual offences.

I am being hypothetical here. A person has child sexual abuse material, which is what we voted on today in Bill C-291, and has that material found on their computer. In order to prove that case beyond a reasonable doubt, a prosecutor needs to prove who owns that computer, who possessed that computer and who accessed those materials. That is typically done by an expert. Right now there are not a lot of experts out there, and it takes time to go into a hard drive. These are the same people who go into hard drives often for terrorism-related offences or for homicides, or who are looking at text messages or messages that were sent digitally.

There is a strain on resources when it comes to these sorts of things. Therefore, a person who is alleged to have committed a sexual offence against a child, like possession, production or distribution of child sexual abuse material or Internet luring, some of the most serious cases against children, will have their computer seized, and it will be 12 months or more before that computer can be analyzed. For 12 months that person is roaming the community without conditions. We are not even talking out on bail. They have no conditions at all because of the Jordan decision.

The question is this. How should Parliament respond? This is not a question of admonishing the rule of law; it is a question of how we should respond to these obviously prominent issues that are before the House in Bill S-4. How do we respond? While Bill S-4 would make some changes, we have so much further to go.

I had 14 pages of notes and I am on page 3. I may have to cut out a bit.

[Frank Caputo, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it is always a pleasure to rise on behalf of the people in Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo. I am mindful of the fact that I cannot point out people in the gallery, even if three of them 11 and under bear a striking resemblance to me.

Today we are discussing Bill S-4. Bill S-4 is an act to amend the Criminal Code and the Identification of Criminals Act and to make related amendments to other acts, COVID-19 response and other measures.

Before I begin, and this is somewhat related to what we discussed, I want to note the pleasure I have here that I just voted for Bill C-291, and the House unanimously, as I understand it, voted to bring Bill C-291 to committee. That bill will hopefully change the name of child pornography to “child sexual abuse material” to reflect the fact that sexual abuse of children is not pornographic but is abuse, and we should call it what it is. Words do matter. When I stood on doorsteps prior to my election, this is something I said I wanted to come to Parliament to do.

I am very happy and pleased to have partnered with my colleague and friend from North Okanagan—Shuswap to have addressed this problem at second reading. I look forward to our having a strong bipartisan effort at committee in hopes of having this bill passed by Christmas.

Bill S-4 relates to the efficiency of the criminal justice system. When we talk about efficiency in the justice system, we are often talking about inefficiency in the justice system. In fact, prior to my being elected, I contemplated doing some academic writing in law that talked about inefficiencies in the justice system and how we might address them. I am going to talk about some of those here today, some of those things that are, in fact, missing.

We cannot forget that there are people within the justice system who make it go around who really do not get the recognition they deserve. Sheriffs in British Columbia, for instance, are tasked with courtroom security. Frankly, they are underpaid for what they do. They escort people into custody. They are dealing with people on the front line, often who have just been arrested, who are coming down off of drugs, and they put their personal health, well-being and safety on the line in order to protect other criminal justice system practitioners. I thank them for it.

I thank our clerks, our judicial case managers, who keep our courtrooms running. I thank our judges, who often leave lucrative careers behind to serve the public good for the benefit of the rule of law.

When we talk about the justice system, we have to remember something, which is that times change and the law should change as well. This is most notable when we look at a section that is not contemplated here. That is section 525 of the Criminal Code. Section 525 of the Criminal Code deals with bail reviews.

I am not sure exactly when section 525 of the code was passed, but if we were to look I am sure we would see it was passed at a time when people went to trial much more quickly than they do today. Section 525 says, and I am simplifying this, that if somebody is detained on bail, they are entitled to a bail review at 90 days. How often has a trial date even been set in that time? That in itself is a bit of an issue, but sometimes it has not even been set within that time.

That was a different time. I remember looking at a homicide file from 1984 when I was practising law as a prosecutor. Around that time, a trial date would be set within two months, or three months perhaps, and somebody would go to trial often within six, seven or eight months. Times have changed. The system is backlogged. The evidence is different.

I looked at that file, which I believe was from 1984, and it looks like a file that would now be reflected with a “theft under” file, as in a shoplifting file. That was the thickness. There were a few photos of the alleged homicide and a few statements maybe a couple of pages long, and that was it.

Times have changed. Now the system is dealing with section 525, which says that somebody should not languish in custody. The reality is that a person now does not go to trial so quickly. That is the type of thing I would have liked to see addressed in Bill S-4.

I note, as has been noted by others, that Bill S-4 is essentially the same as Bill C-23. What changes is when the bill will come into force. I believe there is a 30-day lag period in order to allow courts to prepare. This legislation also identifies the Identification of Criminals Act.

As a bit of a sidebar, a local lawyer in Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, Jay Michi, has frequently told me, or at least he has told me once or maybe twice about the Identification of Criminals Act. His point has always been that it should not be called the Identification of Criminals Act, because a person is not yet convicted. Mr. Michi is now in Hansard, and his point has been made in the House of Commons.

Believe it or not, the Identification of Criminals Act could actually, as I recall, be the basis for a failure to appear in court, which could relate to detention on a primary ground of bail. It could also cause a number of issues.

When it comes to the importance of fingerprinting, a lot of people do not know this, but that is how criminal records are generally kept across Canada, through fingerprints. An FPS number is a fingerprint serial number. Somebody has their fingerprint taken, and that is how, on a CPIC record, it is called, a criminal record can be identified for somebody who has a conviction in Nova Scotia, where most good Speakers come from, or from British Columbia, where most good lawyers come from. I guess a few good lawyers have attended the University of Alberta, but we will put that aside for the time being.

[The Speaker, Liberal, Anthony Rota]

It being 3:18 p.m., pursuant to order made on Thursday, June 23, the House will now proceed to the taking of the deferred recorded division on the motion at second reading stage of Bill C‑291 under Private Members' Business.

Call in the members.