Mr. Speaker, it is hard not to agree with the hon. member that some of the laws we have here governing child pornography, especially the kind of laws that deal with written material and artistic merit, are indeed a joke. I have heard many people in the legal profession and many police officers say the same thing. What the hon. member said has some merit indeed.
I go back to a comment I made earlier today. What kind of laws do we have here? We have to ask ourselves who is drafting the laws in this country of ours. I wish I were a lawyer. I wish I could argue the case from a narrow legal point of view, but I cannot do that.
The hon. member is correct. Some of our laws which are supposed to be designed to protect our children are just not getting past the courts.
Every now and then we blame the courts for falling short, but the blame belongs squarely on the House of Commons. We are the people who pass laws. The people who frame these laws, the lawyers, the civil servants, the deputy ministers must be asleep when we consider some of the loopholes in the law today. There are loopholes big enough to drive a truck through. There are loopholes that favour the predators, the people who prey on children and wish to spread that kind of filth around the country.
We have to be more vigilant. We have to have a greater commitment to the weak in our society. Who could be weaker and more vulnerable in our society than children? We have to concentrate on that.
Hopefully the framers of these laws and the government itself will come rushing to the House fairly soon with a law plugging the loopholes in the existing legislation.