Mr. Speaker, I would first like to thank the members of this House who support this bill, that have a concern for the future of many young people, who made it very clear that they have strong desires to see some changes in the law which would enable the protection of our children, or our youngsters.
I would like to thank the member for Wild Rose for having the courage to stand up and actually make it an important issue, supporting the parents in his area where he was the principal of a school and who brought a youngster—I do not know the outcome of that particular story—into the fold of their home where there was protection and not in the home of some sexual predator that wanted to prey on her because of her age.
I would also like to thank the member for Calgary Centre who has had concerns about our youngsters in this country for a long time, which is one of the reasons he sits in parliament. I remember the day he was elected. He was elected because he had these concerns about how our laws were impacting on the family and family issues, and children are part of the family.
I want to thank those members and the member from Nova Scotia for supporting this endeavour, Bill C-209.
Unfortunately, on the government side a lot of red herrings were thrown out saying that it is going to be difficult to pass this kind of legislation because so many other things will impact on it in such a way that it is going to be more negative than it is positive. That is a defeatist attitude from the very beginning. It is unfortunate the parliamentary secretary had to make such comments because those are in fact red herrings. All one has to do is ask any parent in this country whether they would want some good sound legislation to protect their children and they would say yes.
Who else should you consult other than the parents or grandparents of those children? I do not know of anybody else. Social services? The Elizabeth Fry Society? Who? No, it has to come back to the family, to the parents. They are the most concerned. They give the reasons why their children should be protected and it is up to us as legislators to make sure that does happen.
For three years I have fought for the bill and for those it would affect most, the police. It would have a direct affect on how the police handle situations. They need more authority as the member for Wild Rose clearly pointed out. They need the authority to walk into a place and take children out who are being sexually abused.
I ran across the same thing when I was a police officer. As a police officer I stuck my neck out way beyond probably where it should have been to do the very same thing that the member for Wild Rose spoke of because all of a sudden the charter, a wonderful charter, protects those who are being abusers. It should it be the other way around.
Certainly, there would be an impact on the courts. I think the courts should be able to decree that we will place that child back in the home. That is where he or she belongs and it should be enforced. The unfortunate part of it is the opposite is actually happening. Nobody wants to get involved. Nobody wants to stick their neck out to protect somebody that is innocent. It is very unfortunate.
I believe our laws on sexual consent must be strengthened so that the police no longer are powerless to take action against those who exploit our children for their own sexual gratification.
For the sake of these children, I appeal to the members of the House to really give the bill another look. It will come up again and when it does I ask members to give it their full consent so that ultimately we can protect the young and vulnerable in our society from the predators in our society.