Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to participate today in debate on Bill C-15, an act to amend the criminal code and to amend other acts. When the bill was first introduced almost two months ago, one of my new colleagues asked “Animal cruelty, child pornography, and firearms, what do any of these issues have to do with one another?” and said he did not understand why they would all be put in one bill.
While past practice has often demonstrated that logic is not essential to the legislative process or for the legislative provisions themselves, there is a clear logic to grouping together the diverse provisions of this bill. It is a Machiavellian logic motivated by the politics of cynicism. It is a logic that raises the spectre of the worst of the American legislative process.
It is a logic that attempts to coerce agreement from opposition parties by requiring their consent to a political agenda of flawed partisan legislation as a precondition to the enactment of legislation widely recognized as necessary for the protection of the most vulnerable in our society. How else can one logically explain, for example, the coupling of the provisions seeking to amend the fundamentally flawed legislation concerning the billion dollar long gun registry failure with provisions that seek to protect our children from sexual predators?
This omnibus bill is a deliberate and cynical attempt to curtail any substantive debate on the flaws of the political agenda evident in the long gun registry provisions and to require members either to accept legislation that our constituents fundamentally disagree with or to vote against legislation that our constituents would never want to oppose, such as laws aimed at protecting children.
There is no question that there are some good provisions in the bill. Most important, the legislation contains long overdue laws against luring children over the Internet for the purposes of committing a sexual offence. I commend these initial efforts to protect children from criminals using the Internet.
The Canadian Alliance has consistently called for legislation to protect children from those who keep finding ways to prey on their vulnerability. Law enforcement agencies and child care agencies regularly advise the public through the media or otherwise that predators frequently use the Internet, mask their identities and pretend to be children or young adults in order to lure children into a situation where they could be sexually abused. These situations are becoming more common and I am relieved to see that the government has finally recognized the great need to amend the law. It is a good first step, at any rate.
However, I have serious doubts whether the legislation, which attempts to provide protection to children from sexual predators, will be either effective or sufficiently broad. The same government that has to date failed to create an effective national sex offender registry now wants us to believe it can keep track of the criminals who lure children over the Internet or who deal in child pornography. Why should we believe that it would follow through with effective measures that enforce the legislation?
Furthermore, these provisions would only provide legislative protection for children who are less than 14 years of age. Canadians would be shocked to learn that even under this legislation an adult could lure a 14 year old girl or a 14 year old boy over the Internet with no legal consequences. Parents and children deserve a greater measure of assistance and protection from these predators.
I agree with those law enforcement and child care agencies that recommend that the law set out for child luring should be extended to all children under the age of 16. This way parents and other concerned authorities would have some legal recourse to protect children of 14 and 15 years of age who fall prey to sexual predators they encounter over the Internet.
There are also new offences set out for transmitting, accessing or distributing child pornography over the Internet, punishable by a maximum of 10 years. This is a laudable goal, but I would be interested in being advised of the practical difficulties involved with these kinds of investigations and prosecutions in order to determine whether these legislative proposals meet those very real concerns.
Similarly, I would like to point out that in Bill C-15, although there are provisions for substantial maximum sentences for accessing child pornography, luring children for sexual purposes, animal cruelty, criminal harassment and a variety of other offences, the legislation will be ineffective if judges will not impose appropriate sentences.
When maximum sentences are increased it is rare to see a proportionate increase in sentences, as many judges simply ignore the direction signalled by parliament when it enacts these changes in legislation. Not only do the appeal courts appear to be reluctant to establish sentencing ranges that are proportionate to the crime committed and the legislative penalty provided, there is a corresponding reluctance on the part of the government to send clear, legislative directions to the courts that the sentences imposed on many serious and repeat offenders are simply inadequate.
This apparent reluctance on the part of the government is compounded by the imposition of new and fundamentally misleading sentencing tools that encourage the pretence that offenders are in fact imprisoned, while the truth is that they are free to exploit more victims in our communities.
I refer of course to the practice of authorizing and imposing conditional sentences. As crown attorneys continue to advise, the enforcement of breeches of these conditional sentences are increasingly rare because of the lack of adequate resources to apply these very complex provisions. Then the failure to provide the appropriate resources fulfils another political agenda of the Liberal government to make it appear that these sentencing provisions are in fact working because there are so few reported breeches.
Accordingly, unless the government takes the necessary steps to implement effective and truthful sentencing in the Canadian justice system, these important child protection provisions in the bill will simply be another example of the failure of our laws to protect the vulnerable in our society.
In terms of the animal cruelty sections of the bill, I am aware that the government has made certain changes from the previously proposed legislation, Bill C-17. However there are still significant concerns that many organizations, businesses and individuals have in respect of these provisions.
I know that some of my colleagues in the Canadian Alliance will go into further detail on many of these issues, but I would also like to touch briefly on the issue on behalf of the various groups that took the time to contact me personally to raise their concerns. These groups included the Ontario Federation of Anglers and Hunters, the Ontario Farm Animal Council, the Ontario Veal Association and the Canadian Cattlemen's Association.
These organizations have consistently said that they welcome amendments to the criminal code that would clarify and strengthen provisions relating to animal cruelty and that they do not condone intentional animal abuse or neglect in any way. Many of these groups support the intent of the bill as its objective is to modernize the law and increase penalties for offences relating to animal cruelty and neglect. However, despite the minor improvements to this legislation, they advise that this bill requires significant amendments before it becomes acceptable to the vast majority of hunters and farmers, many of whom are dependent on the harvesting and husbandry of animals for their livelihood.
One of the central concerns with the bill is that the criminal code would no longer provide the same level of legal protection presently afforded to those who use animals for legitimate, lawful and justified practices. The phrase “legal justification, excuse or colour of right” in subsection 429(2) of the criminal code currently provides protection to those who commit any kind of property offence. However in the new bill, the fact that the animal cruelty provisions would be moved out of the general classification of property offences and into a section of their own would effectively remove these provisions outside the ambit of that protection.
Moving the animal cruelty sections out of the ambit of property offences to a new section in its own right is also seen by many as emphasizing animal rights as opposed to animal welfare. This significant alteration in the underlying principles of the legislation is something that needs to be carefully considered. These groups are concerned that elevating the status of animals from property could in fact have significant and detrimental implications for many legitimate animal dependent businesses.
Another major and very serious concern is that the definition of animal is too broad, subjective and ambiguous. The proposed definition of animal in Bill C-15 includes non-human vertebrates and all animals having the capacity to feel pain. This definition marks a significant departure by providing protection for an extremely wide range of living organisms which have never before been afforded this kind of legal protection.
In terms of practical difficulties, this definition as worded could cause potentially enormous problems by extending the criminal law to invertebrates, cold blooded species such as fish, as well as the extremely wide variety of other types of both domestic and wild animals.
In her speech last Thursday, the justice minister assured us that what was lawful today in the course of legitimate activities would be lawful when the bill received royal assent. She promised the House that these changes would not in any way negatively affect the many legitimate activities that involve animals, such as hunting, farming or medical and scientific research.
Her statement was at the same time self-evident, but also misleading. Of course the new provisions would not prevent legitimate activities from being carried out. The law only prescribes illegal activities. The problem is, and therefore the concern, that these new provisions would arguably narrow the scope of what constitutes legitimate activities by increasing the scope of this provision.
If it is not the minister's intent to prohibit the presently acceptable and legitimate activities in Canadian agricultural or fur industries, I would suggest that the wording of the legislation be amended to clarify the intent of these provisions. If it is not amended, I and many of my colleagues will have a very difficult time supporting the bill.
The riding of Provencher, which I have the honour to represent, is primarily a rural riding. The farmers and hunters and other businesses associated with those activities have enough to worry about these days without having to wonder if they are going to be criminalized for practices they have been carrying out their entire lives. I have the option of voting against the bill on the basis that farmers and others who use animals legitimately have voiced reasonable and serious concerns regarding the implications the bill would present. However, in this case I would also be voting against new laws to protect children.
It is a difficult situation and one of which I am certain will be exploited by the Liberals for crass political advantage. It is truly unfortunate that the minister is asking us to consider provisions that deal with the lives of children in the same context with provisions that impose conditions on how farmers and hunters and related businesses should handle animals.
There is no legal requirement to proceed to weigh the merits of this bill on the basis of such inappropriate relative comparison. It demeans the value of human life and at the same time prevents the House from fully considering the impact of the animal cruelty provisions on the economic circumstances of many rural people of Canada.
Bill C-15 contains a number of good things. As I have said, it contains updated legislation to protect children to some extent from sexual predators on the Internet. It would make viewing, transmitting and distributing child pornography over the Internet an offence punishable by up to 10 years.
More important, the bill would increase protection for police by creating the new offence of disarming a police officer. The bill outlines reforms to rules governing criminal procedure. These are procedural reforms that are long overdue. Much of this legislation in the bill is in fact badly needed. The opposition has been calling for these provisions for years. Personally, I am relieved to see that the measures are being finally introduced.
As I have said before, I would like to support the bill. The bill presents a very difficult situation. I am disappointed that the government would put such diverse and I would argue completely unrelated issues in the same bill. As I stated earlier, I see this approach to lawmaking as a blatant and cynical political move on the part of the Liberal government to force flawed legislation through the House. More important, it shows a callous disregard to the constituents who have asked us to serve their best interest in the House.
I would ask the minister to consider introducing a motion to split this legislative package into several bills. That would remove the provisions that have a broad base of support in the House so that those provisions could be fast tracked and proclaimed. We saw an example of that this morning with Bill S-4.
Members in the House are willing to co-operate. I believe that on many provisions there is broad if not unanimous consensus in the House to move them forward. The technique of bringing forward a motion to split the bill would accommodate the need to move those provisions that do have that broad consensus, while subjecting the others to a more rigorous debate and, I suggest, to better legislation. If need be, I am prepared to sit down with representatives from all parties to facilitate that discussion.