Mr. Speaker, having heard your ruling I accept it. The bill is not one with which there is a degree of comfort on the part of many members. That is not to say for a moment that we do not support the positive changes contained in the legislation. However the issues are in many instances difficult to deal with at one sitting because of their complex nature.
Eight separate and distinct issues are contained in this omnibus bill. We have asked numerous times, as recently as a few moments ago, to split the bill because it contains unrelated issues. In my opinion some of these issues trivialize the more important ones within the legislation.
I am talking particularly about changes that would ensure greater protection for children on the Internet and changes that would provide greater protection for police officers by making maximum sentences more proportionate to the harm that can be done when an individual tries to disarm a police officer.
When we compare these with some of the more minor procedural changes within the bill it makes it confusing to deal with in the Chamber and difficult for Canadians to understand. When the bill goes to committee we will be forced to bring forward witnesses from all four corners of the country to talk about all the different bills at one time. That is not a productive and positive use of members' time.
The minister obviously has a bit of a political agenda. She wants to ask members of the House of Commons to vote for her amendments though she knows there is great resistance and reluctance on the part of some, particularly to the bill's cruelty to animal provisions. These are very troubling for cattlemen, ranchers, and those involved in hunting and angling.
There is also a great deal of resistance because of the ill-fated, ill-conceived, cumbersome, overexpensive, bureaucratic and quite useless long gun registry foisted upon the country at a cost of nearly a billion dollars.
Jamming all this superfluous legislation down the throats of members by bringing it forward in an omnibus form is quite offensive. The minister has indicated she will bring forward more legislation in the same vein.
Turning to more important matters within the bill such as those dealing with child stalking on the Internet, this is the type of legislation for which we have been crying out for some time. Had the bill been presented properly in the first instance these elements of it would have been passed last June.
However the minister again dug in her heels and decided she would stick to her guns. We know the minister wants to get rid of all long guns and ensure that somehow only criminals and police will have guns.
There is concern from the high tech industry regarding the bill's child stalking provisions. Subsection 163.1(3) would subject Internet service providers to criminal liability for third party content unless they could prove they did not have actual or constructive knowledge that the information was being disseminated on the Internet.
There is therefore concern about the resources that would be required of Internet providers to police the Internet on their own.
We are supportive of the home invasion and criminal harassment aspects of the bill. Clause 23 states that in cases of break and enter, robbery and extortion the courts must consider as an aggravating circumstance the fact that the dwelling house was occupied. This refers to the principle of home invasion.
We would have preferred that a separate offence be created for home invasion. It would have a greater deterrent effect and would be a more straightforward way to deal with this type of offence. There is no specific reference to home invasion in the criminal code.
The courts refer to it. Police, prosecutors and lawyers know what we speak of when we talk about home invasion. It is perhaps one of the most startling experiences a person can have, particularly elderly people who feel quite threatened in their own homes.
We in the Progressive Conservative Party/Democratic Representative Caucus Coalition would prefer to have a separate offence created for home invasion.
We also support the bill's criminal harassment elements. In 1993 the Progressive Conservative government of the day passed Bill C-126 which added the offence of criminal harassment to the criminal code.
Bill C-15 would increase the maximum prison term under paragraph 264(3)( a ) of the criminal code from five years to ten years. This is a suggestion we support. Senator Oliver in the other place has brought forward similar legislation. It is a cause he has supported for many years.
Bill C-15 would not increase penalties for harassing phone calls, indecent remarks or intimidation on the phone. Yet these are forms of harassment which can result in or give rise to more serious crimes. Perhaps we will have an opportunity to delve into that at committee.
The cruelty to animals provision is one of the controversial elements I pointed out in my earlier remarks. In recent years numerous incidents of cruelty and mistreatment of animals have alarmed Canadians and caused great public concern. Cruelty to animals may be the precursor to violent behaviour toward people. Bill C-15 might help prevent certain types of violent crime against people if it is enforced in a logical and reasonable fashion.
Although the amendments target the behaviour Canadians reasonably expect people to exhibit toward animals, there is particular concern about the wording.
The offence section contains wording such as wilful, reckless or without regard for the consequences of the act. One would hope the judicial interpretation of these words would protect the longstanding practices we have seen exercised by furriers, ranchers and those who make their living working with animals.
No one in the PC/DR coalition wants in any way to condone cruelty to animals. However we must be mindful and protective of those who engage in activities that are their livelihood. Changes that would require licence renewals, authorization and more bureaucratic steps would have a financial impact on people who have conducted their businesses reasonably for many years without any sort of cruelty toward animals.
This is a complicated bill. I wish I had more time to delve into other aspects of it. It deals with amendments to the criminal code that touch on miscarriages of justice which have allowed individuals like Stephen Truscott to suffer grave injustices at the hands of prosecutors and our justice department.
There are elements of the bill we hope to be able to sort through at committee. I look forward to that opportunity.