Mr. Speaker, to carry on with this, I encourage the Internet service providers, instead of using veiled threats, to work with all levels of government and the police forces in order to stop and do everything possible to prevent the use of the Internet for child pornography. That is not going to be easy. Nobody said that it would be. The fact is that now that the Internet is here, which is a great service for people around the world to be able communicate with each other, it can also be used in communication for some evil things. As the hon. member for Wild Rose has said and the member from Surrey said before, we must work with the police officials in our country to do everything we can to minimize the impact on our children, not just in this country but in countries around the world.
Will this Parliament or any parliament around the world be able to successfully eradicate child pornography? Probably not, but we should do everything we can in order to ensure that we try, and we should put the adequate resources in there in order to do it.
I know that in certain countries around the world, where they have devastation and poverty beyond our recognition, some parents, unwillingly or just through plain ignorance or severe lack of education, may sell off their children or use their children in this regard. Those children's pictures are shown on the Internet around the world. They do it for money, which shows that we possibly may do a lot of good in this country down the road, but we are going to have to help those people around the world. We will have to educate them. We will have to discourage them and prevent them from using their own children for sexual exploitation in order to put bread on the table.
We have heard of many cases in countries like Pakistan and India where parents will more or less sell off their children to work in weaving rooms or on looms in order for them to gain a bit of money to bring back to the family. A lot of these young children, especially girls, are sold into prostitution, not only in those countries but literally around the world. That is unacceptable, but we have to ask ourselves why they are doing that. I cannot honestly believe, no matter what culture, what ethnicity, what religion or what morality people have, that anyone who bears a child and cares for that child would honestly want to do that. I may be ignorant about that, but for the life of me I just cannot see them wanting to do that. However, when people are desperate and have nothing they resort to drastic measures.
The real problem is with the people who buy those services, the people who use those children and manipulate those families for the sake of the almighty dollar. They use those children, manipulate them like birds in a cage and exploit them, not only in their own countries but around the world through the Internet. This is reprehensible. It does not just happen in Canada; it happens around the world. We have heard just recently of that international bust of people who have done that.
For the life of me, I do not understand why people feel they need to have some sort of enjoyment or fulfillment or release, for lack of a better word, from looking at children in a pornographic way. It boggles the mind. I may not be the greatest practising Christian in the world but I do believe in God and I know that God would not want his flock to do that, so why do people do it? Is a longer jail sentence the answer? Obviously these people must be severely ill or demented. I could use much stronger language, Mr. Speaker, but you would throw me out, so I will not.
I will try to be as courteous and as kind as I can using parliamentary protocol, but it bothers me greatly that even though my own children are safe, along with those of many of my friends, there are probably children in my own riding who are being exploited in this regard and I would be unaware of it.
I speak to policemen on this subject, not on a regular basis, and I know that my former colleague, Mr. Chris Axworthy, did a tremendous amount of work with police associations across the country when they mounted the campaign in 1995-96 in order to facilitate this type of legislation. It is quite amazing that this bill has been on our books for six to eight years and yet the government chose not to take even any aspect of the bill into its legislation. I can assure members that I will be actively working with my colleagues in order to facilitate this type of bill into the legislation, either through moral persuasion, through the debate in the House of Commons, or through committee or public pressure to try to get the government and my opposition colleagues to look at this type of legislation and enact it into the current Bill C-20. If we can honestly do that, I believe we would go a long way in protecting not only our children in this country but children around the world.