Mr. Speaker, my colleague mentioned a couple of aspects of the bill but one aspect that is of particular interest to me is the portion dealing with the ability of the courts to take away the equipment used in the production and distribution of child pornography upon conviction. That was part of a private member's bill that I introduced in the House. In working with the parliamentary secretary to the justice minister at the time, we were able to convince the government that it was an important aspect of the criminal code that was missing and needed to be amended. I appreciate the government putting it in this bill.
However, instead of having a bill to deal with the whole issue of child pornography and the availability of the awful material on the Internet, even though it is an important enough issue to stand on its own, the government has included it in an omnibus bill with issues such as disarming a police officer and cruelty to animals. I believe this is wrong.
We should be able to debate this particular issue of child pornography on its own. It is important enough that we should do that. We have repeatedly asked the House leader to separate the bill so we can deal with the separate areas but that has failed to happen. I may be in the very uncomfortable position, when this bill does come to the House, of having to vote against it, even though the part that I lobbied for and promoted is in the bill, because of the way it is structured. We still maintain that the government should split the bill apart.
Could my colleague give us his comments on why the government is unable to split the bill, which deals with such a wide array of justice issues, so that each individual issue can be dealt with separately?