Mr. Speaker, I too am pleased to stand and represent all the constituents of Saanich--Gulf Islands, although on a very troublesome topic. It is not a topic that is about political parties or partisan politics. This is a topic about the most vulnerable in our society, our children. It is our duty and our obligation as parliamentarians to ensure that children are protected, no matter from which walk of life we come.
This all goes back to the Robin Sharpe case. I remember being in Vancouver, speaking at rallies and listening to parents. They had genuine concerns. To see this man go through the courts, the Supreme Court, the Court of Appeal, and have the decision upheld that it was legal for him to be in possession of child pornography, was absolutely sick. Our laws said that it was illegal to duplicate it but that it was okay to have it for one's own personal use.
That creates a demand in the market to produce this absolutely sick material. I would argue that clause 1, that the greater interest of public good, that the charter would override the argument that was made under the charter that it was freedom of expression and that he was entitled to have this.
I wish the government had acted sooner, especially when the case was first before the courts, but it actually has dealt with the defence of artistic merit. Unfortunately, it has been replaced with the single defence of the public good.
From a legal perspective we need to ask ourselves what that means. This is not politics. It is strictly factual. I put this out as information and hopefully we can correct this very serious flaw in the legislation. The Supreme Court of Canada has already dealt with this. We do not have to ask it for a ruling on the defence of public good. The Supreme Court ruled that there was no substantial difference between the defence and the previous defence. The communities standards test that was rendered ineffective by the Supreme Court in the 1992 Butler case. The communities standards test, just like the public good defence, was concerned primarily with the risk of harm to individuals in society. There is no positive benefit in recycling laws that have already been discredited by our courts. The Supreme Court of Canada has already ruled on this matter.
It is our duty and our obligation to ensure that there are no loopholes. I would argue, even if we infringe on the rights of the individual protected under the charter, that the infringement is so minimal compared to the greater good of society and that it should be saved by clause 1.
I would plead with all members of the House to ensure that our children are protected. We have heard other members talk about how sick this material is. I am sure all members know that. I do not think there is a member in the House from any political party who is not as horrified as I am. They are as concerned about the children of this nation as I am.
I would ask all members to go back to their respective colleagues and have a good look at the bill, go back to the Department of Justice and tell them that they have concerns about this and that loopholes need to be closed. We cannot leave the door cracked open. If the government wants to crack it open on an adult, although I do not know if that would be okay, but absolutely not on our children. We must slam the door shut.
As I was discussing this morning in another piece of legislation, when legislation is ambiguous and a little uncertain, it is our job to make it crystal clear. You and I did that this morning, Mr. Speaker, in another committee.
We should be doing that here. I feel very strongly about that. I have two young children, ages seven and nine. I am sure many members do as well. I want our children to have our full protection. We do not want to allow this sick, degrading behaviour by anyone for any reason. We absolutely must send a message that it will not be tolerated at all.
I think we should be going further. We should not be allowing conditional sentences for any child predator. Most animals are probably more humane than human predators. This has to be the most sick, warped, demented behaviour. We as parliamentarians can do something about that. We can ensure that a situation like Robin Sharpe does not happen. We can ensure that child predators from other countries know that Canada is closed for business, that we do not want them here, and that if they ever do come here and they act in this manner they will be dealt with in the most severe way and with the harshest penalties we can impose in our courts. It is simply not okay.
I would ask the members of all parties to have a hard look at the legislation while we still have an opportunity to amend it.