Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak today to a bill referred to the House of Commons by the Senate, Bill C-15A.
At the risk of being extemporaneous, I may have to basically confine my comments to my rudimentary knowledge of the bill, but it is important for us to understand that the context of the bill is a very laudable attempt by the House of Commons to modernize its thinking on the fundamentals of child pornography as it is transmitted and disseminated through the Internet.
It is also equally a bill that has come as a result of a compromise, as has been mentioned earlier by previous members. It is a question of dealing with matters more specifically in a way that would divide this omnibus bill into two areas so that parliament could deal with this very weighty and laudable issue.
I had no idea that the bill was coming up. During the intervention of the member for Provencher, he mentioned a document which I circulated. It is basically an agreement among the 37 members of parliament who attended a meeting which I scheduled in light of the decision, the second round of Sharpe, by Justice Shaw of the B.C. supreme court some three weeks ago. The decision of course, in light of the supreme court decision of the previous year, upheld the validity of the more questionable sections dealing with possession of written material.
This clearly sounded alarm bells for all members of parliament. I want to assure members that the issue of child pornography, and by implication the issue of child pornography for all Canadians, is one that we in our totality do not accept. There is no doubt in the minds of 85% to 90% of Canadians that no amount of the benefit of the doubt should be given to anything other than the protection of children.
It is for this reason that the decision taken by the supreme court, and more recently by Justice Shaw, triggered the need for parliament to act in a way that it was not prepared to do some two and a half years ago. The genesis on this is very clear. Yes, indeed, the hon. member for Provencher mentioned that his side of the House had proposed a motion dealing with the notwithstanding clause. I think there are a panoply of options available to this parliament to address what is for most Canadians a very serious wrong, and I say so respectfully to the supreme court and to the justices with respect to the recent decision.
One of them of course is the notwithstanding issue and the ability of the House to consider in instances where it believes, as it should in this case, that the fundamental right of the protection of children must be paramount.
There is obviously a question that deals with whether or not the Supreme Court of Canada made a correct decision. I will go to section 163 of the SCC decision in January 2001 in which the issue is the defence of artistic merit, which incidentally is contained in the bill but is not amended in the bill proposed through the Senate. It says that where a court finds artistic merit, that it will adjudge that to be a sufficient defence against the prosecutorial powers and the weight of the criminal code as it deals with child pornography.
In essence, the qualification was of such a low threshold that justices in the majority said that artistic merit, however small, would be a sufficient defence to allow somebody who was in possession of written material to provide an excuse or not to be prosecuted. This of course was part and parcel of the decision made just some weeks ago in British Columbia by the same supreme court that earlier referred the issue and referred the child pornography section 163, inter alia, to the Supreme Court of Canada by striking them down.
This has clearly left a vacuum. One can talk of a moral vacuum. One can also speak of a legal vacuum. The reality however is that there is more than just the question of artistic merit. There is also the question of advocacy and counselling, which is really the basis on which the decision was made to allow, in this case, Mr. Sharpe to get off free or receive a get out of jail free card as it relates to written material.
Bill C-15A is an excellent attempt at modernizing parliament's view of child pornography as it is disseminated around the world, but I see two problems.
First, law enforcement agencies across the world and in Canada have readily identified the need for Internet service providers not just to bear some responsibility, but more important, to ensure that the images which they are storing and providing on behalf of clients are also kept for a period of time. The 37 members of parliament who attended the round table function two nights ago know exactly how it is done. There is a technical and serious problem if we do not hold ISP Internet service providers accountable for the undertakings of their accounts. If there is a dissemination of this harmful, deleterious information, then it may be lost forever. That would be the destruction of evidence even if the police and peace officers were able to obtain by warrant or other means the necessary information to provide a conviction.
Bill C-15A also speaks to the shortcomings of resources that can be handled at the House of Commons. This is not a provincial matter, but rather a federal matter that can be dealt with right now in a very timely fashion.
The second concern, which I hope will also be subject to more debate by members of parliament, is the consideration of the much wider impact of artistic merit, which I suspect will create an inordinate amount of controversy over the next few weeks. Parliament has the unique opportunity to begin tackling that. This could be done perhaps with the wisdom of our justice department, the Minister of Justice and his very capable parliamentary secretary who is just a few ridings over from me and a very able member of parliament for the Port Hope and Cobourg area. I am speaking about the member for Northumberland.
I want to talk more broadly about the issue of child pornography because it has been raised in this case.
The hon. member for Provencher talked about my region of Toronto. Many of us were astounded, shocked and probably are still recovering from the idea that there may be as many as 400 pedophiles using the Internet to disseminate material that is directed against children. Our law enforcement agencies are unable to detect these individuals. There is a problem of enforcement. The problem of enforcement is further complicated by the needs, as I was told recently, since January 1.
I pointed out to many colleagues in a letter sent to them some weeks ago that some 750,000 images of over 10,000 different children, some as young as three days old, have been portrayed in pictures seized by police. That is a very small number the police and enforcement agencies have been able to impact. We have a very serious problem that knows no bounds, but for which there must be the blunt instrument and determination of parliament to understand and apply appropriate language.
Most members of parliament should expect to receive within the next 24 hours a copy of proposals and options as well as the issues surrounding child pornography. This material will not just assist this side of the House but will assist all parties to come together on an issue that must not be divided on party lines. I was heartened to hear members of the opposition say that they were not looking to score political points on this. I think they too, as we on this side, recognize the value and importance of getting the wording in the legislation right.
I want to be very careful here. I do not think we should use the notwithstanding clause to protect children until such times as we have exhausted the wording that we think is necessary to protect children. I do not want this House of Commons or parliament to fall or be divided on the basis of semantics, words and language. The irony about words being such an important consideration for the protection of children is that it is simply trivialized by those who say the written word means nothing.
There is an obvious dichotomy that the words have to be written legislatively to protect children against pedophiles. At the same time, the words mean absolutely nothing, particularly when it comes to being in the hands of those who create or possess this information or worse, disseminate it. There is an obvious contradiction there. The House of Commons will have to try to resolve that. It will have to resolve that as quickly as it humanly and possibly can.
I have been challenged by the belief that somehow those who have written information which leads in many cases to the rape, torture and masochism of young children might in some way have some artistic merit and that the merit is somehow subjective.
A child molester and a pedophile are people who have a sickness. These people can never be cured of that sickness. It is a disease. It requires therapy, not obtuse legal reasoning. I cannot give a much better display of where we have surrendered our obligation to posterity than in the case where parliament does not act to fill the void.
I am convinced that the Minister of Justice and parliament are of one mind, that all issues must be put aside until we can deliberate on this issue to ensure the maximum penalties and force of law and to ensure that the charter of rights and freedoms brought forth by the hon. prime minister of many generations ago, Pierre Trudeau, is not intended in any way, shape or form to undermine the rights of children. I point out that while there are those who talk about fundamental freedoms, particularly section 2(b), freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression, they certainly would not have precluded the life, the liberty and the security of the person and the right not to be deprived thereof, except in accordance with the principles of fundamental justice.
The constituency which we are speaking of is a constituency that pervades our society and thankfully so. For if it were not for children we probably would not have a future generation.
Let us understand something about child pornography. When minors are involved in a situation where their names or identities are reproduced around the world and are reproduced permanently, that puts those children in a position of victimization.
The House was in an uproar a few years ago about Martin Cruz, an individual who had been molested by pedophiles. We know what happened to poor Martin after his plea and his passionate coming out to talk to people about this issue. He took his own life because he was tormented by what had happened to him over generations. No human being should suffer that kind of indignity. Whether we talk about the issue of consent, human beings should be put in the position where a person in a position of trust can take advantage of them and forever inflict a wound which can never ever be healed.
I share the frustrations of members of parliament, but I also know that many members of the House have worked diligently and have a pretty good idea of those things that need to be done. We need one important element. This parliament must decide the laws of this land. This parliament must be the vanguard of the rights, the liberties and aspirations of human beings and of Canadian citizens who enjoy benefits and rights thereof.
We need to ensure that the role of the supreme court and the courts are there to interpret the limits of law, not to write in the law. I respectfully submit that in the case of the Supreme Court of Canada on Sharpe, they got it wrong. Parliament must now get it right.
To that end, it is fortuitous that the minister has brought forth through the Senate Bill C-15A.
Its timeliness is not to be gainsaid but it also means that there are opportunities here for us to use this as a model of what we plan to do in the not too distant future.
I know the appeal period for the decision in British Columbia is about to expire. It may be as soon as April 25. On behalf of members of parliament I would like to encourage the attorney general of the province of British Columbia, and by saying encourage I do not to tell him what to do but simply to urge to encourage him to seek the appeal.
Like the hon. member for Provencher, I think there were a number of errors in law. They are too weighty and would probably take me over 10 or 15 minutes to deliberate. I understand, in the interest of time, that what we can do here as a House of Commons is to work diligently, ensure that the amendments reflect the expectations of the public and that we do not get caught in dilatory or nonsensical defences or excuses that somehow obfuscate and derogate our understanding of the importance of protection of people within society who must have the life, liberty and security of person to be able to benefit from the things that make us unique as Canadians.
Parliament had to rush in 1993 to use certain wording. The intent may have been right, the wording may have been wrong but the intent to protect children must always be paramount whether that be a decision of the House of Commons or that supreme court.
We cannot allow people to undertake fishing expeditions at the expense of people who happen to be the most vulnerable in society but who happen to be the most precious constituency that we have in this country.
I boldly commend the Minister of Justice for having the courage to bring this forward. I look forward to working with members of parliament, to look at the number of options that they and experts have raised and to make this parliament not just relevant in our time but relevant for future generations to come.