Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to rise and address Bill C-215 today. I want to start where my friend from Pictou—Antigonish—Guysborough left off, by congratulating the member for Calgary Northeast who has been relentless in bringing forward this bill. He is deeply concerned about children and that is a sentiment that is shared around the House.
But I also want to note that what is troubling about this is that it has been raised a number of times. While the issue is complex, and I agree with both the parliamentary secretary and also my Conservative friend that it is complex, there are some things that we all agree on. One of those things is this: I do not think that there is anybody in this place who believes that it is perfectly licit for an adult, a 35 year old or 40 year old man, to seek out and prey upon, for instance, a 14 year old girl. I think just about everyone in this place thinks that is wrong and that is the sort of thing we need to get at.
With respect, I think the parliamentary secretary was somewhat disingenuous when he tossed out red herrings about Bill C-215 not addressing things like luring over the Internet. He knows very well that this is not the intent of the bill. What my friend from Calgary Northeast wants to do is draw attention to something very specific. He wants the age of consent raised from 14 to 16 so that we do not see the type of activity that already has been referred to in the House, whereby adults prey upon naive young people who are not yet mature enough to distinguish between somebody who is preying on them and somebody who truly cares about them. That is what we are trying to get at. That is why my friend brought forward the bill. I wish the government would get that message instead of trying to get us off track with red herrings.
I remind the House that back on April 23 the official opposition, urged by our leader, the member for Calgary Southwest, who had only been our leader for a few weeks at that time, brought forward a particular supply motion which called for the age of consent to be raised to at least the age of 16. Sadly, most of the government members, and to their credit not all of them, voted against that. I would like to think that they were simply naive about what was at stake. I will not attribute anything to them other than that, because this is an issue that the public is deeply concerned about. I am sure that there is not a member in this place who has children who does not shudder at the thought of having their 14 year old son or daughter being preyed upon by somebody who is much older, preyed upon explicitly for the purpose of having sex.
Not awfully long ago, just a number of months ago, my friend from Lethbridge and I went to the border crossing at Coutts, Alberta. One of the things that the customs officials told us they were running into more and more was instances of sexual predators trying to lure young men and women into the United States. They would come up into Canada and try to pick them up and take them back across the border, or it would work in reverse. The point is that this is something that is increasing in prevalence. The government is not doing its job if it does not start to put in place some measures to begin to address this.
I acknowledge that in Bill C-15A the government did do something about this with its changes to the Criminal Code affecting Internet luring. The Canadian Alliance, by the way, was at the forefront of promoting that. We wanted that legislation in place. I am glad that the government followed our advice when it came to that. We were able to get the bill split so that we could pass it very quickly. We were happy to do that, along with other members of the opposition, but the government simply has not gone far enough.
Maybe the best way of making my point is to say that when one is involved in an area where there are a lot of complexities and it is unclear which way to proceed, my guidance to the government is to always proceed in a way that gives the benefit of the doubt to the potential victims. That is the answer. When we are not sure, we should err on the side of protecting victims, in this case, on the side of protecting children. Governments, in their misguided desire to be completely fair to everyone, think that is an excuse for not acting at all and that is unacceptable. It is unacceptable when we are talking about young children, 14 years of age and 15 years of age in this case. That is completely unacceptable.
It is my hope that in the discussions the justice minister says he will have with the provinces eventually, the government will bring forward legislation that reflects the intent of my friend's bill. As the member for Pictou—Antigonish—Guysborough pointed out, very often the government will stand up and decry particular pieces of private members' business only to turn around and adopt particular pieces of it later on and laud how wonderful they are and what a great job they are doing for the public. Let us hope that the government is not being disingenuous this time. I suspect that to some degree it is.
Of course I hope that in the end it adopts this legislation, but if it is going to do that then it should have the courage of its convictions and should congratulate my friend from Calgary Northeast for what he is trying to do, again to protect children. I see many good members on the government side right now who I know believe in the intent of my friend's bill. I hope that they push the justice minister and the parliamentary secretary to do the right thing and support this bill, although it is not votable, which in and of itself is a shame. Although it is not votable, we do hope that they will push the justice minister and the justice committee to do the right thing and adopt the spirit of Bill C-215 and also give credit where credit is due, and not just to my friend from Calgary Northeast. He has pointed out that there have been many others in this place and outside it who have promoted raising the age of consent to the age of 16. He has mentioned Chief of Police Fantino, the Canadian Police Association, the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police, and Focus on the Family Canada, headed up by our friend Darrel Reid, who does a wonderful job in promoting issues that protect and strengthen families.
All of these people deserve credit. I can assure everyone that this place would receive praise and accolades from the entire public if the government would quit dragging its heels on this important piece of legislation and adopt what my friend from Calgary Northeast is arguing for.