Mr. Speaker, I will keep my remarks brief today as I think we all want to see the bill move forward without unnecessary delay. I would once again like to thank the minister for consenting to split the bill, a move which has enabled the House to adopt quickly the relatively noncontentious provisions of the bill while allowing the more contentious provisions now found in Bill C-15B to be debated at greater length. Most important, now that the bill has been split we can get down to the business of protecting children from sexual predators on the Internet, something that members of the Canadian Alliance have been supporting strongly from the beginning.
Although all opposition parties have agreed to pass Bill C-15A as quickly as possible, I would like to mention again a few of the concerns I have regarding the bill so that perhaps at some time in the future we can revisit these provisions and make further amendments.
One of the matters that causes the greatest concern for me is related to the creation of the offences relative to the sexual exploitation of children. With the current age of sexual consent at 14, this long needed legislation to protect children from Internet predators will be provided only to children under 14 years of age. I believe that is too low and that the age should be raised to 16, not just for these offences but for all offences relating to the sexual exploitation of children by adults. I need not recount to the House the devastating effects that sexual predators can have on 14 year old and 15 year old children. I have commended this suggestion that the age be raised to the minister's staff for consideration.
In respect of increasing the maximum penalty for criminal harassment, I have concerns about the lack of minimum penalties. It seems it is often futile to increase maximum penalties, in this case from 5 years to 10 years, when the courts do not reflect that increase in their sentencing. In light of the reluctance of the courts to reflect these kinds of changes and our lenient parole laws, these changes the minister is introducing may not prove to be effective.
In respect of home invasions, the provisions in the bill are a step in the right direction, however, my position is that it should be a separate offence, not simply an aggravating factor in sentencing. Parliament needs to send a clear message to the court of the seriousness of these types of offences.
In respect to the new offence of disarming or attempting to disarm a peace officer, the Canadian Alliance and I myself have been very supportive of this and believe it is long overdue. We need to provide our law enforcement officials with the support that the new offence would provide to them.
The last comment I want to make is with respect to the preliminary inquiries. Preliminary inquiries, particularly in light of charter guarantees and the court cases arising out of these charter guarantees, could be eliminated entirely. In fact, many judges I hear from consider them to be very ineffective. Even years ago when I was a prosecutor doing preliminary hearings it was suggested by many provincial court judges that the time could have been spent doing substantive work rather than preliminary inquiries. Preliminary inquiries simply slow down procedure and create backlog without a substantive contribution to the administration of justice in Canada.
Understandably defence lawyers are very concerned about the entire loss of the preliminary hearing, however, I think we need to revisit the issue and ensure that while we have safeguarded the rights of the accused, preliminary inquiries have done nothing to protect the rights of the accused and certainly have contributed to problems in the efficient and fair administration of justice. There has been abuse of preliminary inquiries in the past and I think the legislation is a recognition of that. All the attorneys general of the provinces support this step and indeed I believe they would like to see it go further.
I want to put on the record in the House the comments from the justice minister at the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights with respect to a question I asked her on October 3. I think it is important that this is on the record in the House.
She stated and I quote:
Regarding preliminary inquiries, this is an instalment. I think the provinces and territories would like us to look at more radical reform as it relates to preliminary inquiries. You rightly identified that there is grave concern from the criminal defence bar, and that is something we will continue to work on. What we're doing here is streamlining the use of the preliminary inquiry.
She continued on with respect to the age of consent, the other issue I spoke to. She said:
With regard to age of consent--from 14 to 16--we have our child as victim consultation paper. We discussed that at our federal-provincial justice ministers' meeting in September in Nova Scotia. Those consultations will be concluded and reported on by December 31 of this year, and I think we will see that a consensus is emerging that with certain safeguards we should probably be moving on the age of consent from 14 to 16. But as with some of these things, they look simple on the surface, but they're not quite so simple. It requires a fair number of changes to the code; we're going to have to review all those sections where age is found. But it's certainly an issue very much on our agenda.
Although I want to see the bill passed into law quickly and without further delay, I hope the minister will take my concerns into account and honour the commitments she made in committee, and that we will review the legislation at some time in the future for possible improvements.