Mr. Speaker, the government's policy of protecting children with alleged tough legislation against sexual exploitation has a big hole in it. That is the defence of our artistic merit under the so-called charter of rights freedom of expression ambit.
There is no absolute right in this world. Rights always have to be balanced. When somebody exercises a right that imperils or seriously endangers the rights or the security of someone else, especially children, the law has to step in to protect those people. The government has failed to do that.
It has two clear ways of dealing with this matter and managing it. I will put both of these to the hon. member and I would like his response to them.
The first is to clearly define the limits of the defence of artistic merit and put some real meaning behind this thing rather than leaving it open-ended and leaving it to a judge, probably a Liberal-leaning judge, to interpret what is meant by this defence. Our children need something better than that and that is why we are here. We are here to make laws for this country and we seem to be reneging on our responsibility by not dealing with that matter.
The other option is to do what the fathers of the charter of rights intended; that the House would have an override when the public was crying for some action.
My interpretation of the Sharpe decision is that from coast to coast, and I will not use all the other coasts to which my friends across the way always like to refer, there is real anger at that decision. People feel that children are being left vulnerable and that the government is unwilling to act.
However Pierre Trudeau and the 10 premiers who created the charter of rights fully understood that the House, under some extraordinary circumstances, would override a Liberal-minded court that made decisions which flew in the face of what the public expected.
Why will the government not take emergency action to define clearly what is meant by artistic merit and remove it from the interpretation of Liberal-type judges or exercise the notwithstanding clause in the name of protecting our children against sexual exploitation?