Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise to debate this bill, which I know fairly well.
Together with my Bloc colleague, the member for Témiscamingue, I met with Mrs. Martine Ayotte at the very beginning, when she started her petition and her giant puzzle. She wanted to raise the awareness of politicians, but mostly she wanted to find out what they thought of this kind of toys. She was interested in the Bloc's position, and more specifically its justice critic's.
Right from the start she got the unwavering support of her federal MP in this matter, but she wanted to know what a member of the Standing Committee on Justice thought of her petition and giant puzzle.
I will not repeat what has been said so far on the issue. It can easily be summed up as follows: a woman realized that in Canada in the 1990s you can purchase a toy with instructions inciting young people to violence. These instructions were aimed at young children. Teenagers do not play with trolls, young children do.
We know how vulnerable young children are. The instructions said “To make your troll happy you must beat it up, throw it around, lock it up in the dark without food, and so forth”. This will make a troll happy. Is this the kind of instructions we want to give children in Canada? Of course not. I can see that all the representatives of the opposition parties are against this kind of violence.
Since this is allowed and legal, one must wonder if is it normal that in a country as advanced as ours in every respect, toy manufacturers, merchants, and stores are allowed to market toys inciting children to violence.
What a five or six-year old does will stay with him all his life. We know that at that age, at five or six, children are very vulnerable and impressionable. If they are told that to make a toy happy they must mistreat it, they might eventually come to believe this is the way to behave when they grow up. This is unconscionable.
The private member's bill introduced by the member for Témiscamingue deals with dolls. It could have included video games, board games, violent movies and so forth. But to respond to the request of one person in particular, Mrs. Martine Ayotte, the member specifically restricted its scope to dolls, more particularly trolls.
What member for Témiscamingue and I are asking its that the House unanimously agree to make this item votable.