Justice Committee on Jan. 31st, 2011

[Daniel Petit, Conservative, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

My other question is for Mr. Rushfeldt. I have a specific question for you.

Quebec is an expert in rehabilitation. And yet, you still see incest and child pornography cases reported in the papers every day. Our courts deal with these types of cases every day. Our lawyers earn quite the living handling these cases.

Once the case is over, we have an obligation to help the victims, who need lifelong support, as Ms. Campbell mentioned. They have problems with drugs, alcohol and suicide. We have to deal with those problems. Not the person in prison, but us.

In your opinion, is it worthwhile to increase mandatory minimum sentences, which will remove people from society and protect children, in the cases I mentioned earlier?

[Brian Rushfeldt]

Yes, I certainly support what's proposed here, in principle. As I said earlier, I don't believe it's strong enough on some of the sentences. But I do think that with the whole notion of how sex crimes against children are exploding—and I think the police officer has told us how it's exploding in the numbers—clearly we have to do something on stopping that.

We know that counselling treatment may help some of them. We also know that as long as they're out there, too many of them reoffend. They're multiple offenders and reoffenders too often.

I have thought about this and I have talked to a number of people about whether there's another solution besides incarcerating these people. I do not think there is another solution, simply because, in my opinion, we don't have another solution, another way. And, yes, it's going to cost us some money, but in the long run it also will save some of those children who will be abused from ever having to go through counselling, treatment, drug costs for depression and suicide, and all those things.

So to me it is a very, very wise investment to increase the sentences for these kinds of crimes.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Fast]

Thank you.

Normally, Mr. Rathgeber would go next.

Are you allowing...?

All right. Mr. Dechert will have five minutes.

[Bob Dechert, Conservative, Mississauga—Erindale, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Rushfeldt, you mentioned in your opening comments something about the timing of this legislation and why it is necessary and implored us to move quickly. We all have noticed in the media over the last few weeks the continual speculation about a possible spring election triggered by a defeat of the government on the budget.

Is it your recommendation that all parties work together as quickly as possible to make sure that this legislation passes through both the House of Commons and the Senate before any vote on the budget?

[Brian Rushfeldt]

I'm not sure about the process, whether it has to go through the Senate. I don't know that process.

[Bob Dechert, Conservative, Mississauga—Erindale, ON]

It does.

[Brian Rushfeldt]

I would like to see it passed into law before there is an election, because I think it's too critical for the number of children who.... By the time there's an election—and whoever gets re-elected really doesn't matter to me, in one sense—

[Bob Dechert, Conservative, Mississauga—Erindale, ON]

The process is that if there were an election, this would reset to zero, and we'd have to start all over again.

[Brian Rushfeldt]

Yes, this basically goes back to zero, and to restart it again will take a number of months and maybe years. I think one of the members mentioned that five years into the current government, this is just finally getting forward. We can't afford to let be abused the number of children who will be abused between now and another year, or two years, or another five years.

I wouldn't necessarily like to see it go forward into law the way it is, because I don't think it's tough enough, but I certainly would like to see something tougher, and see it passed before the election.

[Bob Dechert, Conservative, Mississauga—Erindale, ON]

We need to move quickly.

[Brian Rushfeldt]

Yes.

[Bob Dechert, Conservative, Mississauga—Erindale, ON]

Ms. Campbell, do you have any comment on the timing?

[Ellen Campbell]

Well, I agree. Just while we've been sitting here talking today, how many children have been tortured, raped? The number is high. So it's urgent. I really encourage you to hopefully.... And please use us, in any way we can support you, to get the public awareness out; we would do that.

[Bob Dechert, Conservative, Mississauga—Erindale, ON]

Okay, thank you.

Inspector Naylor, as you know, this Bill C-54 creates two new offences dealing with the exploitation of children using the Internet. It creates an offence to provide sexually explicit material to a child for the purpose of facilitating the commission of a sexual offence against the child; and it makes it an offence to use telecommunications, including the Internet, to communicate with another person to agree or make arrangements to commit a sexual offence against a child.

First of all, do you think these offences are necessary? Will they help protect children, and can you give us some examples from your experience of how they'll protect children?

[Det Insp Scott Naylor]

Yes, I can, specifically on the first one—and I'll get back to the other member's comment about indecent acts . What I'm speaking to you about is very tame, because I live in a very ugly world. What happens in a practical application of what's going on is that in Internet luring offences with young people, it is a matter of seconds before someone is exposing themselves inappropriately in front of a webcam in front of people.

What we traditionally charge people with in these cases is committing an indecent act. The change in this legislation gives more teeth and gives the charge a specific identification as to what is going on. That helps law enforcement a lot, with a definition of what the specific offence was.

The second offence that's created is that these like-minded people are often offering up their children to do sexual things. Basically, what they're doing is prostituting their children out. Until such a time as the act is committed, that is not an offence. The creation of this legislation creates an offence just by virtue of the agreement that's going on between the two like-minded individuals. So it puts a lot more teeth, from an investigative perspective, in the legislation.

[Bob Dechert, Conservative, Mississauga—Erindale, ON]

Okay, thank you.

Do you I still have time, Mr. Chair?

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Fast]

You have one minute.

[Bob Dechert, Conservative, Mississauga—Erindale, ON]

Thank you.

Ms. Dawson, you mentioned in your comments that when sentences don't fit the crime, essentially, the public's confidence in the justice system is undermined. I wonder if you could expand on that a little and tell us how you think the mandatory minimum penalties in this proposed legislation might improve the confidence of the public in our justice system.

[Catherine Dawson]

If you listen to or read anecdotal reports or work in a victims services office as I do as a volunteer, you hear stories that have coloured people's perspective on justice in Canada. When you search on the Internet and actually have contact with people who are luring children, they too know what's going on in Canada and that it's a safe haven.

I believe that sending the message—and sending it out viral—that Canada is toughening up its sentencing guidelines and that you will serve time in jail will send a very strong message to the offenders. It will recognize the victims, but will more assuredly improve the public confidence that we're taking this seriously.

[Bob Dechert, Conservative, Mississauga—Erindale, ON]

Mr. Rushfeldt, do you have a comment on the confidence of the public in the justice system and how sentencing impacts it?

[Brian Rushfeldt]

Yes. Clearly, the more information that's out there on these issues.... And we hear about this every week. In fact, in January of this past year, 32 men were charged in Ontario; months later, 28 were charged. The police are doing a phenomenal job across the country. So it's surfacing every day, almost, in Canada.

I've had so many people ask me what the government, not meaning the Conservatives, but what those guys down there are doing to stop this kind of thing, because look at the explosion; it's everywhere. As somebody mentioned, there are lawyers...there's the whole gamut; it's not exclusive to any segment of society. And it undermines what people think about government and certainly about justice, when they see that there's not a whole lot happening and yet we have this thing going on.

I got a little case just in January, two weeks ago. We have a man who was charged in Cambodia. He faces 13 years in jail, if he goes to Cambodia. He's in Canada. He has no restrictions on him at all while he's in Canada; the judge removed every restriction. So he is out here, avoiding going to Cambodia, because he knows he will go to jail. Here he has no sentence. There's no monitoring; there's nothing. Here he lives with his freedom, and he has abused we don't know how many children in Asia.

[Bob Dechert, Conservative, Mississauga—Erindale, ON]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Fast]

We've come to the end of our time. I want to thank each one of our witnesses. This was a very informative panel. You've come from different perspectives, but you've delivered a pretty strong message. So thanks to all of you.

We'll excuse the witnesses.

[Joe Comartin, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

I have a point of order, Mr. Chairman. With regard to the request I made of Mr. Rushfeldt about the state in Australia, if he could provide whatever specific information he has to the clerk, it could be then distributed.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Fast]

That's a good point.

Mr. Rushfeldt, just get in touch with Ms. Burke, the clerk.