Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise to take part in this debate.
This is a very important debate. To pick up on the tone of my learned colleague from Winnipeg—Transcona, opposition and government members alike find themselves in the unfortunate situation of having to debate a bill of substance and importance that has been essentially cross-threaded and put together in a way that is unsettling and disquieting for many Canadians outside of parliament. The bill brings together a number of criminal code amendments that are inconsequential and do not connect in any rational way.
Bill C-15 touches upon issues of wrongful conviction, disarming a police officer, cruelty to animals, amendments to the Firearms Act and the National Defence Act, and home invasion. Some of the issues are straightforward and deal with changes or modernization within the criminal code. One such change would acknowledge the seriousness of trying to take away a police officer's weapon. Such changes to the act would allow the judiciary to respond in a more proportional way.
However the bill has controversial aspects as well, particularly as they relate to firearms legislation which a growing number of Canadians are finding cumbersome, unenforceable and intrusive.
Perhaps more graphic are concerns over the cruelty to animals provisions. However, because of the omnibus nature of the legislation, it is before us as a package. Hon. members opposite applaud that because they know it forces members of the opposition to vote for the entire package. Such members may support nine-tenths of the bill yet find in it something unacceptable to themselves, to their constituents or to the interests they represent.
We saw unanimous consent today for Bill S-4. The bill went through at record pace. We debated all stages and passed the legislation with the greatest spirit of co-operation. Bill C-15 is the antithesis of that. The government is force feeding the opposition and saying that while we may not like some of the bill we must take it all. The bill contains very good and needed legislation. However, it is like vanilla ice cream with a little motor oil poured on that the government is telling us to eat.
Short of dividing up the bill, taking out the offensive legislation and studying it separately, there is no way to allow opposition members the opportunity to deal with it when it comes to a vote. They can do nothing more than put comments on the record. At the end of the day the final verdict will be whether we support the legislation or not.
Let us delve into the substance of the bill. The brave new interconnected world is posing new and sadly innovative ways in which to transport information. That of course has implications for things like pornography. Purveyors of child pornography have in recent years taken advantage of the new technology. Internet sites and chat rooms are not generally controlled or monitored. That raises questions about the responsibility of owners and managers of computer networks, such as private Internet access providers and universities, for the content of the websites and chat rooms they offer their customers.
Courts in Canada and elsewhere have given little direction in this new area of technology. The Canadian Security Intelligence Service, CSIS, 2000 annual report states:
The distribution of child pornography is growing proportionately with the continuing expansion of Internet use. Chat rooms available throughout the Internet global community further facilitate and compound this problem. The use of the Internet has helped pornographers to present and promote their point of view.
This is a very disturbing trend. The legislation would at least attempt to control or police the Internet.
Bill C-15 deals with the issue in the following ways. It talks about the luring of a child via the Internet. Clause 14 of the bill adds the offence of luring. The clause states that every person commits an offence who, by means of a computer, communicates with persons in various age groups and does so for the purposes of facilitating the commission of the following offences: sexual touching, making of child pornography, procuring prostitution of a child under the age of 18, sexual assault, sexual assault with a weapon or threats, and aggravated assault. These of course are some of the more serious and damaging offences that can be committed under the criminal code. Any means, therefore, by which those offences can be perpetrated should be governed by criminal legislation. The bill would do that.
It is not a defence, I might add, for the accused to say they believed the child was over a certain age, whether 18, 16 or 14, unless reasonable steps can be demonstrated to ascertain the age of the child. This is a responsible interpretation and expansion of the criminal law and it would certainly stabilize efforts to police the Internet.
Further to that point, sub-section 11(2) of Bill C-15 adds a new offence. Under the bill, the making, distribution and sale of child pornography would also be criminal code offences when committed via the Internet. This is in keeping with supreme court decisions, the Queen v Sharpe being the most recent case in which the judges had an opportunity to deliberate on the subject. The sentence for this type of offence would lead to a person being liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 10 years or an offence punishable on summary conviction. The Conservative Party is in favour of this type of policing.
This new provision would not criminalize the inadvertent viewing of child pornography on the Internet. The accused must have had knowledge of the presence of child pornography on the site or the specific intention to use it. However, the bill would perhaps open the door for the justice department to further expand on the ways it can prevent and hopefully deter pornography on the Internet. Bill C-15 gives a rather vague commitment to do so in the future and any type of sexual exploitation is something that we must condemn in the strongest possible terms. The Liberal government could have passed measures in advance of the supreme court ruling in Sharpe. One of the minister's favourite phrases “In a timely fashion,” is code for “When we get around to it”.
Recent examples are the Youth Criminal Justice Act which has taken seven years to reach fruition. It is now of being jammed through without proper consultation on some of the changes it would bring in.
In the last general election, the Conservative Party was the only party to propose a national strategy to combat child pornography. Our proposal would have included Internet safety education for children, the training of police in the tracking of pornography and the revamping of current laws to ensure we were not facilitating high tech prostitution. We would suggest, in a constructive way, that this is another area the government and the Minister of Justice look at exploring.
Concern has been expressed by Internet service providers and the high tech industry generally that subclause 163.1(3) would subject Internet servers to criminal liability for third party content unless they could prove they did not have actual or constructive knowledge of the existence of the material. We will perhaps have an opportunity to delve into those issues at the committee level when we hear from those affected by the legislation. We look forward to getting their perspectives in the hope of amending or tightening up the provisions.
It is certainly a positive step, as I indicated. We must ensure that child pornography is not stored on or made available through Canadian computer systems without being subject to the criminal code.
Possible amendments to the section would require that Internet service providers, in particular large providers, such as AOL, be able to police sites and access information. This would come at great expense but steps have already been taken to do just that. Service providers hire staff to take complaints from their users. They also monitor Internet chat rooms and supply information to the proper authorities if they have reason to believe these nefarious activities are taking place.
Other aspects of the bill that have been touched upon are the provisions that affect paintball operators. That is the extreme sport, as it is sometimes called, with respect to the use of paintballs. The limit of velocity at which paintballs can leave the guns is, I understand, 5.7 joules. I suspect the minister's intention was to ban certain types of pellet guns but the limit also affects paintball users and operators. There is concern that the technical description of the velocity limit may need to be amended with respect to paintballs.
It is my understanding, from talking to people who manage those activities, that they are already taking steps to adhere to safety standards. The bill as it is drafted would have serious implications for those types of businesses with respect to the pointing of a firearm. If the description of the velocity is not amended it may make it a criminal offence to participate in such activities.
Home invasion and criminal harassment are other areas of the bill that we support unequivocally. Under clause 23 of the bill the courts must consider break and enter, robbery and extortion as aggressive and aggravating circumstances. They must consider whether a dwelling house was occupied at the time of the offence.
I realize we must start question period so I will continue my remarks at the conclusion of question period.