Thank you, Madam Chair.
To that point about reading documents or not, I was reading quotes from testimony. I thought it was important to get the words in, as the witnesses had testified in their own words. I was not reading from any other documents. I did read two paragraphs out of the ethics committee report, which I think was important to get on the record to frame what we're talking about today.
I want to just highlight what one other witness said to the committee. She actually had a name, Serena. I won't read it, but I will just summarize very quickly.
She was a young girl in elementary school, maybe middle school. At her new school, she had a boyfriend who put her under a lot of pressure to film herself undressing. She gave consent at the time. She wasn't old enough to give consent, but she did give consent—but not for what he did with it. For a few dollars, he sold it to a porn site. The story goes on how, for several years, she fought and fought for her dignity and her protection. She was an A student until this happened, and she almost failed going through high school. She transferred to a different school. By the time she got there, she thought she might be safe, but no: Everybody at the new school already knew what had happened. That was the nature of the Internet.
There's no protection for victims like her, and that is why this bill is so important. This bill would prohibit the posting and the commercialization without prior consent in writing from the person depicted in the videos. I think it is a good bill. I think that everybody should support it.
We know that there has been criticism of this bill from the Liberals. Once we get into the debate of the bill itself, I'm sure we'll hear more of that. They voted yes at second reading, intending to gut it; “serious reservations” is what they're saying they have. I believe what they want is a watered-down bill to come back to the House, one that they can vote for but that won't have any teeth. The last thing they want is for this bill to come back to the House unamended, because I believe they will vote against it, which politically is going to be very difficult for them to do.
The way I see it, there are three options.
Number one is that we get their 30-day extension, which we're saying is not necessary. The Liberals have mismanaged the legislative agenda, not only here but also in the House, and now they're trying to buy extra time. I'm saying that we could have had witnesses in the last couple of meetings already. We could certainly have them right now.
They can let the 60-day deadline pass, but then the bill will go back to the House unamended. They don't want that.
They can prorogue Parliament to get rid of this problem and some other problems that have been caused by their inability to manage the legislative agenda, both in committees and in the House.
There's a fourth option, and that's the one I would recommend, which is that the Prime Minister takes a walk over to the Governor General's mansion and asks for her to dissolve this Parliament so we can go ahead and have an election and let the people decide who is right.
With that, Madam Chair, I'm going to cede the floor. I will have more to say later on, but I know that some of my colleagues also want to speak.
Thank you.