In the same vein, Minister, when we talk about the predecessor to this bill--I think it was Bill C-58--it seems that the provinces have leap-frogged us, and leap-frogged you in fact, Minister, and the government.
It's a good bill. There is nothing very outrageous in it that we would object to, I don't think. It should be passed, there is no question. We could hear some witnesses, and so on.
But in the time it took to get back here in the fall of 2010--through prorogation and other political agendas that your government was on--the Province of Nova Scotia brought forward its Child Pornography Reporting Act, which came into force in April of 2010. Then the Province of Alberta brought forward its Mandatory Reporting of Child Pornography Act. They even have stronger language than your act, Mr. Minister. It came into force July 1, 2010.
Now that the ribbing is over, I want to get into something substantive; that is, why then do some provinces in Canada have stricter laws? And specifically I'll pick Nova Scotia. Section 3 notes, “ Every person who reasonably believes that a representation or material is child pornography shall promptly report...”. Whereas your bill--or we'll say our bill, because we're in it together here--is strictly for the service providers. It's much more narrow.
I think your statement was that you want to coordinate it with provinces that have already brought in this legislation. But I'm thinking of the federal obligation to have laws across this country that provide the same sort of protection and weed out the child pornography that exists in all provinces. Why wouldn't you consider beefing up your federal law to be more in tune, for instance, with that section I read from the Nova Scotia act? The Alberta act is similar.
I'm not sure that there would be a lot of opposition because there is a mandatory duty. Was there some reason we picked sort of a weaker version?