Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to address the amendment and talk about this issue one more time.
I am at a point of true frustration when it comes to this particular issue, which I consider to be an absolute no brainer.
We have in the country people who own, possess, manufacture, sell and profit from the exploitation of our children through child pornography. It is a big industry. It is creating a great amount of risk for our kids throughout the country.
We continually sit back and debate the legalities of this or that, or one thing or another. We are fearful that we might step on someone's toes and harm some individual who has some artistic talent or is a great writer of some sort. That is the most frustrating part about this whole episode.
Are we truly taking the steps necessary to protect the children of our country? Are we? We are debating legal parts of a particular bill. By the way, all the expert witnesses before the justice committee indicated that this was not the way to go, that it was a bad bill and would not achieve its goal. All the expert witnesses said that in the committee. Yet the committee has brought the bill forward with no changes.
While the justice minister stands on his feet with his parliamentary secretary and others insisting that this will be the great thing that will protect our children forever and ever, the legislation is still allowing a defence of public good which no one can define because it is too broad.
Therefore, I applaud the NDP for bringing forward a motion that would delete clause 7 of Bill C-20. The bill needs to go back to the minister's office, back to the justice department, and it needs to reflect the will of Canadians.
What is the will of Canadians? We had a vote in the House of Commons. All members who were present stated loud and clear that, on behalf of their constituents, they were casting a vote in favour of eliminating all defences that exploit children when it comes to child pornography. That is not some defences; that is not one or two defences. That is all defences.
There is no debate about what certain experts are doing with this material in trying to fight it, for example, police have possession of it because they confiscate it and they want to get to the bottom of it so they can clean it up. However, what stops them from doing their job properly? It is weak legislation like Bill C-20. They have to examine this material because it might have some public good.
I fail to understand what kind of possible public good could come out of something that exploits our children in the manner that we have all witnessed through different methods.
I too received a letter from John Sharpe. It was a wonderful letter. It is not very often that an MP can brag about getting a letter from a pornographer. The member from the Bloc said he received a letter. I think several of us received this letter from this ingenuous artist who has artistic merit in his writings, who even dared to put a quote in about how some people were saying that a sexual relationship between an adult and a child was healthy and it should be blossomed and encouraged. It stated that teachers in schools should have sexual relations with their students because it was good. What are we coming to when we allow that to go on?
It takes real courage and determination to say no, we are not going to allow it, it is utter nonsense that we even entertain these kinds of things, and we are going to end it.
Bill C-20 will not end it.
Clause 7 of the bill allows “public good”. It is a broad statement and nobody knows what it really means. Sure, I support the motion to get rid of that clause, and far better yet, I say, we should get rid of the bill, go back to the drawing board, start over and say that we are going implement something that has some real teeth in it, something such that judges will clearly understand that the people of Canada, through their elected representatives, want child pornography wiped off the face of the earth. Let us say that we are going to put all our ammunition toward fighting this war and get the job done.
Instead, we debate and debate. I am so disgusted with the media across the land, with the news items and all of that which they keep flourishing while they do very little on this extremely dangerous thing that is affecting our children. I wish the media would get off their rear ends and start telling the truth about what child pornography is all about and how it is harming this nation. When we start harming our kids, we harm our families and we harm the nation. As my colleague said a few moments ago in his speech, a nation that allows this to carry on is a nation that is doomed.
Let us talk about democracy. We had a vote in the House of Commons. You know what the vote was, Mr. Speaker. Everyone said yes, let us have legislation that will eliminate the defences for child pornography. Let us eliminate them, everybody said.
On that side of the House, they all know that Bill C-20 does not do that. How can they, with good conscience, stand in the House of Commons and declare on one day that this is what must happen and be proud of it--and I was proud of them for doing so--and then turn around and defeat a motion on this amendment because they want to keep Bill C-20, which does not accomplish the job. And they know it.
The justice minister needs to give his head a serious shake if he thinks for a moment that Bill C-20 is the answer to defeating child pornography in this country. He needs to listen loud and clear to those who appeared as witnesses at committee and said how ineffective this particular bill is in accomplishing a very important mission for the sake of our kids, our grandkids and our future grandchildren.