Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to the motion today.
I feel a little like an expectant father in the sense that much of this debate today, which is certainly long overdue, hopefully will ultimately create an environment whereby members do not fall on a partisan basis on what is being proposed.
The motion itself deals with the more interesting question of consent which is reflected in the actual decision itself. However most Canadians understand this issue from the perspective of the decision by Shaw in Sharpe number two, the most recent one last month, in which the decision was made based on the judge not finding an advocacy or counselling of child pornography or molestation. The second one, which received wider media attention, was on the more limited subject of artistic merit as a defence.
The motion which comes from the Canadian Alliance does not deal contextually with the concerns that have been expressed readily. We have had some debate over Bill C-15. The member for Scarborough Southwest has made some pretty good comments with respect to Internet service providers and the requirements we are making. The government should be lauded for moving in the right direction.
On April 16, a week ago this evening, as is reported in some of the papers today, a meeting did take place. I note that some of the facts and figures that came out of a meeting with experts on the subject of child pornography have found their way into the speeches of hon. colleagues. It is interesting that those speeches were taken to heart because subsequently there was a commitment made by most of those members to deal with the issues as they were raised and there were some 11, and options.
The first option deals with the age of consent being raised from 14 to 16 while maintaining the close in age exemption. The suggestion was that there be an amendment to section 151 to substitute 16 for 14 but with the qualifier to retain the age of 18 as a consent for trust relationships.
A number of other issues were raised, such as eliminate the defence of artistic merit; determine that child pornography, written or otherwise, is a form of hate crime; and require that written child pornography be found to advocate in sin and counsel sexual activity. There would be appropriate changes for that.
Another issue was that private recordings of lawful sexual activity privately held for personal use would be subjected to a constraint. There would be an option to restrict such exceptions to recordings between persons under 18 not engaged in explicit sexual activity, clearly indicating both knowledge and consent that the activity is being recorded, not kept in a manner where it is capable of distribution to others, and possession is for the exclusive personal use or the person's possession.
There was concern about expressive material in issue number five, which was a clarification or writing of the Supreme Court of Canada.
Concern was raised on another issue and an option that was given about the necessity for police to provide copies of every image seized. It is a little like a drug bust, where one would have to haul in the entire containership as opposed to bringing in a sample. This makes the jobs or resources for police unnecessary and depletes the resources in combating child pornography.
There were other sections that dealt with DNA and other sections that dealt with the issue of a primary designated offence. We were also talking about minimum mandatory penalties for those who commit these kinds of activities.
There was the idea of a national child protection strategy and the concern about, as we saw in the Bernardo case, the re-victimization of certain individuals as a result of permitting the defence an opportunity to see the tapes and having to go through legal gymnastics in order to get the tapes destroyed.
There was also a concern about the retention of information by Internet service providers which I alluded to in my debate last week.
It is pretty hard to argue against a motion in which, as poorly worded as it may or may not be, the intent is correct, that there must be action by this parliament. I said so in a letter to the Prime Minister 45 minutes after the final decision of Justice Shaw.
I was involved with the contemplation of the use of the notwithstanding clause back in 1999-2000 at the first round. I have made a number of interventions on this in a number of different forums. There is a way for parliament to work out the entire issue of child protection in an environment where we can ensure that the maximum degree of protection is afforded our children and yes, not be afraid of using the criminal code to do that.
Before we get to the notwithstanding clause and before we put awkwardly worded questions into law, we must first understand the importance of the issue that the public expects us to address. Very clearly, the artistic merit defence as qualified by the Supreme Court of Canada, as qualified by saying artistic merit however small, should never be used as a sop to ignore the real purposeful risk that exists to children as a result of written information.
Why is that critical? It is critical for one simple reason. The people who look at, purvey and create these images do it so they can suppress the cognitive distortions or use as a distortion but suppress what would otherwise be an affront to most people. It normalizes the degradation, the torture, the raping of children. It allows them an opportunity to fulfill the belief that what they are doing can be vindicated and can be acceptable.
Of course, normal people in society cannot deal with this because the question of the community harm standard was removed. We also know on this issue that short of the community not having a role to play, we were also told that any simple, tiny, minute form of artistic merit would be enough to outdistance and outclass the importance of protecting children.
It is clear to me, and I say so respectfully to the judges, that the Supreme Court of Canada got it wrong. Justice Shaw went even further in a couple of areas alluded to by me and the justice critic for the Bloc Quebecois, as to how there were a number of errors committed in law.
Ultimately, an action plan could contemplate the direction to the B.C. supreme court to at least review and appeal the issue as we did in the case of Marshall and in the case of Askov. We said that the supreme court made a decision and the lower courts got it wrong so we are going to refer it back to the supreme court to give a decision. We could look at that as an option. However, for this parliament not to delve into it and deliberately set itself upon the notion of having to tackle this issue head on, in my view is an abdication of our responsibility regardless of what party or what corner of a province or part of the country we come from.
It is for this reason I have often felt it was important. It was good enough for the premier of Manitoba 24 hours after the decision to ask the federal government to consider protecting the interests of children and not perverts. It was good enough for the province of Alberta and for other others to make the comments. It was good enough for 85% of Canadians to say on the question of written information, they do not believe that the question of expression and the freedom to express it should be boundless.
There is a line that has been crossed here not just on who calls the shots in terms of the laws of this country, but also a determination of the rights of individuals. If we are so willing to give the benefit of the doubt in the most minute form to people to express themselves while completely ignoring the life, liberty and security of the person which are also guaranteed in the charter, then who will speak for the children?
I cannot be more forceful on that point. I do not think there is any relevance in this parliament going forward with other ideas, debates and issues if in the first instance we cannot protect the next generation.
What is some 750,000 images of 10,000 different children, some as young as six months of age in my community in Toronto? That is significant. There are things we cannot correct because they deal with social mores but we can at least take the time to consider options here and now that restore not only the integrity and the confidence the public has in this place and the other place, but also the confidence in the next generation.
It would be helpful if opposition members who proposed the motion would at the very least consider the annoying part that has caused some difficulty over the question of consent. If they could qualify that, as we did in issue number one which was referred to a little earlier, it would be extremely helpful. I think we would find that a lot more members would support the resolution.