Madam Speaker, the reason I said that is that there are so many attacks on our children in these days in our society. Every time we try to do something about it what we get from the other side, and now even from the member speaking on behalf of the PCs in the corner, are all the reasons why we cannot do it.
I would just love to see that attitude changed. I would like to see the people on the government side say, yes, our children are important, as she said, and yes, we want to take measures to protect them, as she said, but then, instead of saying “we cannot do it, we cannot do it”, I would like them to say, “And we will leave no stone unturned until it is done. We will work on it to find a way that will work instead of making excuses as to why it cannot”.
I want to be rather specific here on some of the reasons given for not supporting the legislation. One of the things both speakers talked about was that it was unenforceable. That is just not true. The member from the PCs just said that someone could just get into a car and drive into the States and then go to another country. Lots of luck: Getting across the border into the United States these days is not that easy.
For a number of years already, people have been required, if going on an international trip by airplane or across the border into the States at the border by car, to prove that they have legal custody and that their possession, if we want to use that term, of the child is valid. That is done right now, so why is it so difficult to say that if people are boarding an airplane they will have to show some documentation to prove that they are the legal custodial parent or legally entitled to have the custody of this child?
For example, I might get on an airplane with my little grandson. There is nothing wrong at all with me having a certificate or a letter or something that says, “Yes, grampa can take his grandson to Vancouver”. That is fine. There is nothing wrong with that. I have to do that if I want to take the kid to Seattle, so why not to Vancouver? It is not that big a deal. Instead, we get a bunch of excuses that the government will not do it. We get the same thing with the sex registry. The government says it is going to have a big sex offender registry but it is not going to put anybody on it. This is stupid. What is a computer going to do? It is a giant paperweight if it is not used for a reasonable purpose.
We always are given all of these reasons for why we cannot implement procedures to protect our children from attack. This is doubly important nowadays because of the fact that we have such an intrusion into our lives and into our homes by things like television and the Internet, which are very, very evil, and I am going to use that word. They are evil. We have totally lost the moral perspective on how we deal with each other with regard to sexuality and now we are getting it with children. I cannot believe it. Adults who want to have sex with children are getting onto the Internet. It is being used to lure these children.
It is so easy because children are so trusting. The other day I was standing with other people milling around and suddenly I felt something on my leg. It was a little toddler, probably about two years old, who did not realize that he had grabbed my leg instead of his dad's. How trusting. Those two year old and three year old children totally trust the adults in their life. When they get to be five or six they start generating a little bit of the self-protective mechanisms, but in that interval it is our responsibility as adults and as parents and as legal custodians to protect them from people who would betray that trust.
We are not doing it in this country. We are not doing it with our legislation. We are not doing it and we are not serving those children and their protection when a member like the one from Lethbridge brings forward a step, just one, that is going to improve the protection of children and all we can do is stand up and say that we cannot do it. What a pathetic response. I am really totally disgusted with it.
Because it cannot fix everything the government will do nothing. I admit that if this were implemented there would probably still be some abductions. There would still be some people who would engage in forgery and other things that are illegal, but at least two things would happen. First, it would reduce them and we would save some children. Second, there would be a serious breach against persons who broke the rules in order to abduct a child. There would then be another thing on them and they could have the book thrown at them.
We do not need these people in our society, the ones who would steal our children, and use and abuse them. It is time to clamp down on them hard, not continue to say we cannot do anything, let them be and that is okay.
I am not speaking just about my own children and my precious five grandchildren. I am speaking of millions of children in Canada who are looking to us for protection. It is time that we give it. If I were the Liberal government I would not wait for the next election. I would resign. I would say that I am so inadequate at my job that I am quitting to let someone do it who can do it. It is time for it to happen.
I would like to say with respect to the Internet that, unfortunately, I am aware of at least one person who was lured by the Internet. I wish I did not know it but I do. The results are totally devastating to that family. In this particular case it was not a child who was lured, it was an adult. A mother was lured through the Internet to go and meet a guy. What a sad thing that was. If it can happen to an adult, one can bet it can happen to children.
We had better start thinking of all sorts of ways to prevent these predators from getting onto an airplane and moving that trusting child to another location, even within Canada. These excuses we got are lame. The procedures are already in place for international flights. All we have to do is apply them to domestic flights. To say it cannot be done is just the lamest of lame excuses. The fact is that it is very necessary.
I know that some of the members present who have heard my speech have recoiled against it and I apologize. I was very hard on members opposite, but I am challenging them. I am saying to them, for the sake of our children, to vote in favour of this. If it is not good enough let us get it into committee. Let the committee improve it and make it better but let us do something. Let us not just say that this is no good and we will not do it. We will betray our children, let them down, and we will say that here is another success to put on the wall for the predators.
We are on the wrong side of this issue if we say that in debate. Yet, this is exactly what is happening. I appeal to all the Liberal members over on the other side, about 170 of them. They are the ones who have the numbers to control the outcome of these votes.