Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the member's speech. I also appreciate his question about the legislation, which has been asked several times: will it achieve its intent? That is a question we have to ask ourselves every time any kind of legislation comes forward. Will it achieve the intent? Like Bill C-46, will it achieve the intent with whistleblowers? Will it achieve the intent with corporate criminals?
Will we clean up our own house when we deal with corrupt activities within our government? We cannot send corporate vice-executives who are guilty of fraud, or whatever the corporate crime might be, to other parts of Europe to be ambassadors. We just cannot continue down that path. That achieves nothing.
Nothing is achieved when Liberals come up with a bill like Bill C-20, but they will not incorporate a clause in it that eliminates all defences that exploit children, like the illegal use of pornography. The minister continually wants to talk about how the doctors have it, psychologists have it and the police have it in their possession, that it is for a good intent, for the public good, and that we need to have that defence in there. That is not what we are talking about. We are talking about defending children.
I realize the justice minister is a lawyer. I sometimes get the impression that the Liberals want to create more court cases to keep all the lawyers busy. I cannot imagine where they are coming from on all this, but it is just one example after another, as the member mentioned in his speech. He brought up several different issues.
Why can we not be specific about what we want to achieve, so there is no question about the intent?
The intent about child pornography was made here last Tuesday when 100% of the members who were present voted for the motion that favoured developing legislation, which would say that there would be no defence for child pornography when it exploited children, for possession, distribution, or anything. I do not have trouble understanding that. I understand that to mean exactly what it says, and that is the kind of legislation for which we are looking.
Would the member comment on why the minister and the government cannot be more specific and put it in words where most people would understand our intentions loud and clear? We will protect our children. We will protect our corporations. We will protect our taxpayers. We will do the right thing by getting it done without all this legislation that never clearly indicates whether the intent will be met.