In illustrating the purpose of the long title, I'd like to refer to the short title, which, unfortunately, we didn't have an opportunity to discuss a moment ago.
The Canadian Centre for Child Protection was here today and gave us a very good presentation on why this bill is about more than simply the material of child pornography, why this is about protecting children both in Canada and around the world from sexual exploitation.
If my honourable friends opposite had taken the time to read the very good materials that were presented by the centre, they would have seen the term “sexually exploited children” used in virtually every line, phrase, and recommendation of the report.
I asked Ms. McDonald why she used that term, why she didn't simply refer to child pornography. And she made a very good and very fulsome argument about how the actual material itself leads to the exploitation and abuse of children.
This bill is about more than just restricting a picture. This bill is about putting in place criminal provisions and sanctions against people who use this material and who therefore may actually be abusing the children in order to create this material. We want to be able to use this legislation to rescue children who can be identified by the images that are disseminated on the Internet. We want to be able to prevent other children who have not yet been abused from being abused, because the people who get this material, who see other children being abused, might get the idea that maybe somehow that's okay. That's what this is about. And that's why this bill had the proper short title, Protecting Children from Online Sexual Exploitation Act. For the life of me, I can't understand why any reasonable person would object to that.
Thank you.