Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you to all the witnesses. That is certainly a probing and in-depth analysis of this legislation. It's pretty clear that the debate is about balancing the protection of the public and, of course, the protection of privacy.
Everyone knows that on the Internet now everything acts lightning fast, so the balance, of course, has to be tempered with the ability to react rapidly. Of course getting information for a warrant takes so much time that it's often not possible to get the information before it's deleted, and therefore that hampers the police.
I came across a very interesting article. This was in the Canwest News Service. I'm not accustomed to reading out these things, but this is very telling. It was from March 12, 2009 and it's basically an article based on data that has been gathered by Cybertip.ca—which, of course, the federal government subsidizes—and it's much in tune with what Mr. Butt does. I'm sure you're aware of this organization.
The article says the following:
Canada's first statistical portrait of Internet child-luring tells a story of police who are losing the battle to catch cyberspace predators, and judges who are unlikely to jail the few who end up in court.
Statistics Canada reported Thursday that two out of...three cases are never solved, and the vast majority of luring is never reported in the first place.
Even when the suspects are charged and the perpetrators convicted, courts are more likely than not to spare them jail time, said the data-collection agency.
The first analysis of the seven-year-old Criminal Code offence concluded that the police track record in solving the borderless crime is worsening as technology advances—and children are, increasingly, living their lives online and offering up personal information that makes them easy prey.
The numbers are as follows: Cybertip.ca received a total of 21,000 tips about online child exploitation between its launch in 2002 and January 2008. Ninety per cent of the tips were about child pornography; eight per cent of the tips were about online child luring; one per cent of the tips were about child exploitation through prostitution; and one per cent were about child sex tourism.
So let's talk about the tie. Should the balance not go in favour of the police, who are trying to obtain information to protect children by using minimal intrusions into privacy, or should it go to the privacy of the people who are offending?