Debates of May 8th, 2003

Supply

[Brian Fitzpatrick, Canadian Alliance, Prince Albert, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I want to remind the House, since we are speaking on voting matters, that it was a Conservative government led by John Diefenbaker that gave aboriginal people the right to vote in this country, not a Liberal government.

The notwithstanding clause, section 33, is part of our Constitution. The premier of Manitoba, Sterling Lyon, a Rhodes Scholar; Allan Blakeney, the premier of Saskatchewan and a Rhodes Scholar; and Peter Lougheed, a very distinguished premier of Alberta, saw the problem, the conflict between the will of the public and an elitist court system when decisions were clashing. They insisted that the supremacy of Parliament had to be the rule. Everyone agreed to that, including Prime Minister Trudeau. That amendment was made to the Constitution. It is part of our Constitution and part of our charter.

Why does the Liberal government refuse to recognize that section 33 is part of our Constitution and charter of rights?

[Don Boudria, Liberal, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I believe most people who have read the Constitution know that section 33 exists. I can confirm that for the hon. member.

[Richard Marceau, Bloc, Charlesbourg—Jacques-Cartier, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I usually begin a speech by saying that I am pleased to speak on a certain subject, but today, I must admit, I am not pleased with the motion. In fact, I find it rather ridiculous. I think it is unfortunate and I will explain why, that we are spending so much time—a whole day—on a motion that is not even votable.

First, it is obvious that my political party is not a great admirer of the Canadian Constitution. Not only are we sovereignists, who want to get out of the Constitution rather than amend it, but also, most importantly, we believe that the Canadian Constitution, especially in its 1982 form, is illegitimate. It was imposed on Quebec. We remember the “night of the long knives”. No Quebec government since 1981 has wanted to sign this Constitution which was imposed by a conspiracy involving the federal government and the governments of nine Canadian provinces. I think that is the first essential point we wish to make.

My second point—and I will speak to the three points raised by the hon. members of the Canadian Alliance—is the following. In the motion, we are asked to bring in measures to reassert the will of Parliament. I then have the following question: where do the will and business of committees come in?

Let us begin with the first point, the definition of marriage.The Standing Committee on Justice, of which I am a member, is working very hard on this issue, and has been doing so since January. We have heard witnesses in Ottawa, Vancouver, Edmonton, Moose Jaw, Steinbach, Sudbury, Toronto, Montreal, Iqaluit, Sussex, New Brunswick, and Halifax. We are working on it.

So, what is the Alliance trying to do? It is trying to set aside the work of the committee by presenting such a motion. The Alliance, which prides itself on being very democratic, and which commended the democratic process chosen by the committee in going to consult the people across Canada, now comes here with this motion, saying in effect, “Never mind the hundreds of witnesses we have heard; never mind the hundreds of briefs they have submitted; never mind the honourable work done by all the hon. members from all political parties who sit on this committee; none of them matter”.

I am a bit frustrated that the House is being told today that the adopted definition and other things are being threatened, when the Standing Committee on Justice is addressing this very issue. I am sorry to have to say this, but this is an obvious example of the Alliance's lack of respect for this committee's work. By presenting this kind of motion today, it is showing a lack of respect.

On the definition of marriage, the government has said, given the three decisions by the lower courts, that Parliament must address this issue. A discussion paper has been provided to the members and is available to the general public. The public has been asked to tell us what it thinks about the four options.

It will not come as a surprise when I say that, of the four options presented by the government, two are unconstitutional due to the division of powers.

One of the four options is allowing civil unions. However, I would remind members that, under section 91.26 of the Constitution Act, 1867, the federal government has jurisdiction over marriage and divorce, and the provinces and Quebec have jurisdiction over all other matters relating to family law. This means, for example, that anything Parliament wants to do relating to family law, if it does not concern marriage or divorce, falls outside this Parliament's jurisdiction. For marriage, Parliament has jurisdiction only over its basic conditions. So, the idea of civil unions must be set aside based on the division of powers.

The other option is for the state to withdraw from marriage and leave this up to organized religion. Persons solemnizing marriages in the provinces get their licence from the provinces. For example, in Quebec, priests, rabbis or imams solemnizing marriages are officers of civil status. Consequently, it is not up to Parliament to tell Quebec and the provinces who has the power to solemnize the union of two people. So, these two options must be set aside given the division of powers.

The committee therefore has to choose between keeping the current definition of marriage—in other words, the union of one man and one woman, to the exclusion of all others—or changing the definition. On this, I would simply like to point out that the courts, such as the British Columbia Court of Appeal most recently, have ruled that the current definition is discriminatory and that this is not justifiable in a free and democratic society.

People can complain as much as they want, they can criticize this idea of judicial review, they can do whatever they want. The fact is that the principle of judicial review forms the very foundation of how our democracy operates. I will remind the House that this idea in Canada goes back to an old principle adopted by Chief Justice Marshall of the U.S. Supreme Court, in 1835. Canada could not use the example of the British Constitution because it is unwritten, so this notion of judicial review came from the United States.

As I was saying, they can complain about it and criticize it, but the fact is that today our society operates this way. This is the constitutional arrangement that we have set up. Being a sovereignist, I hope that when Quebec becomes independent, we will also have some way of protecting minorities from decisions of the majority. I also hope that the constitution of an independent Quebec will contain a judicial review process. This a key element for the rule of law and one of the fundamental elements for healthy democracy.

That was the first point. The second point refers to house arrest for child sexual predators, which allows them to produce and possess child pornography. Obviously, as a father of young children, I completely agree with all those who defend children as our greatest resource and say that we must protect them. That seems quite obvious to me. I think it is unfortunate that they would play politics on this by accusing other member of the House of not having the interests of children at heart.

I have been in politics for 15 years now, and I was elected almost six years ago now. I have no hesitation whatsoever in saying that there is not one person in this House, from any of the five different political parties here, that does not have the interests of children at heart. No one can say that.

It is all right to criticize the government's approach, for the opposition parties to criticize each other, but to say that someone in this House does not have children's interests and protection at heart is bad faith and demagoguery. In politics, I believe demagoguery always backfires on the one who uses it.

We are all aware that this part of the motion by the Canadian Alliance refers to the Supreme Court judgment in Sharpe , with which the members of this House are rather familiar. Apparently, the Alliance was upset by two particular aspects of this judgment. First, the Court's interpretation of the defence of artistic merit. In fact, a large part of the decision was taken up with this. The court interpreted this defence as follows:

I conclude that “artistic merit” should be interpreted as including any expression that may reasonably be viewed as art. Any objectively established artistic value, however small, suffices to support the defence. Simply put, artists, so long as they are producing art, should not fear prosecution under s. 163.1(4).

This judgment indicates that two types of material must be excluded from the definition of child pornography:

(1) written materials or visual representations created and held by the accused alone, exclusively for personal use; and (2) visual recordings created by or depicting the accused that do not depict unlawful sexual activity and are held by the accused exclusively for private use.

We presume that the text of the motion refers to one of the above two points, although I cannot read the minds of our Alliance colleagues. Since I have trouble understanding the intervention by the Alliance, however, I must base my intervention on a premise, and this is the one I have chosen.

We have trouble understanding how the Alliance could apparently overlook the fact that the government introduced a bill last December 5 that was specifically aimed at amending the Criminal Code as it relates to child pornography. The amendments proposed by the government address precisely those two aspects. They are the focus of the bill.

First, there is a proposal for a new public good defence and, moreover, the bill tightens up the definition of child pornography, which will cover aspects it did not use to cover.

While we in the Bloc Quebecois question the constitutionality of such a change to the definition of child pornography, we intend to do serious work in committee, considering the proposed changes and listening to testimonies in this regard.

I think much greater respect for parliamentary procedure and for Parliament per se would have been shown, had committee work taken place before such a motion were put forward. The Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights should have been given an opportunity to hear testimony from victims, lawyers, constitutional experts, peace officers, and artists before such a motion was put forward.

We believe that studying Bill C-20 in that environment will allow a much more serious and intelligent consideration of the issues raised in part (b) of the motion with respect to child pornography than the present debate does.

I will now address conditional sentences. Naturally, we deal with many things, and cannot deal with everything at once. But again, I would like to remind the House that the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights is considering conditional sentences and that we are not done putting our recommendations together.

Once again, for the third time in as many points, if the Canadian Alliance wants to be respectful of the legislative process and Parliament, it should do a good job in committee.

The Alliance should make sure it does its work in committee thoroughly, seriously and studiously, instead of presenting a motion such as this.

The Alliance motion is probably referring to the Supreme Court decision in R. v. L.F.W. In that case, the Attorney General appealed a conditional sentence of 21 months given to an offender convicted of indecent assault and gross indecency.

In this case, the offences were committed between 1967 and 1973 and the complaint was filed in 1995. At the time the offences began, the victim was six years old and the accused was 22.

The Supreme Court was divided in its decision but the Attorney General's appeal was rejected.

The Bloc is of the opinion that trial judges and courts should have all possible latitude in determining sentences for each case they hear, on a case-by-case basis.

They are in the best position to determine sentences. Any given sentence does not have the same impact on everyone; the impact varies from one person to another. In committee, I raised certain other questions—sometimes by questioning the witnesses—that we will continue to raise and to examine as part of the committee's business. Instead of holding a debate here on a non-votable opposition motion, a motion that is all over the place and serves as a sounding board for the Canadian Alliance, it would have been more appropriate to do this work in committee, and do it more seriously.

I see that I have only three minutes left. I have so much to say in such a short time. To conclude, I will talk about granting prisoners the right to vote.

In the case of Sauvé v. Canada (Chief Electoral Officer)—a 2002 decision—the Supreme Court of Canada was asked to rule on the constitutionality of section 51 of the Canada Elections Act, which disqualifies persons imprisoned in correctional institutions serving sentences of two years or more from voting in federal elections.

The issue the Court considered in this case was the following: does this provision infringe the rights guaranteed by section 3, namely the right to vote, and section 15, equality rights, of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms?

The court, and this is important to remember since it is obviously a difficult subject for both parliamentarians and judges alike, overturned the previous decision by five to four. The majority opinion, signed by Justice McLachlin, ruled that the right to vote is fundamental in our society and cannot be lightly set aside.

The court found that to deny prisoners the right to vote is to lose an important means of teaching them democratic values and social responsibility. That is the purpose of sending people to prison, to tell them, “You have done something wrong. We want to rehabilitate you so you do not stay in prison for the rest of your life”. At least, I hope that no one in this House wants to see anyone remain in prison for life without any chance of getting out and becoming a full-fledged, law-abiding, responsible citizen who will find a job and contribute to society.

The government's novel political theory that would permit elected representatives to disenfranchise a segment of the population finds no place in a democracy built upon principles of inclusiveness, equality, and citizen participation.

The court adds that the argument that only those who respect the law should participate in the political process is unacceptable. Denial of the right to vote on the basis of attributed moral unworthiness is inconsistent with the respect for the dignity of every person that lies at the heart of Canadian democracy and the Charter.

The court ruled in the Sauvé decision that the Canada Elections Act provision denying the right to vote to inmates serving a sentence of two years or more infringed section 3 of the Charter and was not justified under section 1.

The Bloc believes that it is not appropriate to seek to amend this decision. Furthermore, it should be noted that inmates already had the right to vote in provincial and municipal elections in some provinces, including in Quebec.

In closing, I think that this is a waste of time, that this motion is badly structured, and that it shows a lack of respect for the committees, particularly the justice committee, which is working on three of the four issues mentioned in the Alliance motion.

[Myron Thompson, Canadian Alliance, Wild Rose, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I have a short question for the member. I am sure the member would agree with me that Canadian children deserve nothing less than a total ban on child pornography. If we were looking for the Canadian people to be behind one issue, I do not think we would have any problem in finding well over 95% of them who would say that child pornography has totally detrimental results for the children of our land.

Pornography has become an industry. It is growing in leaps and bounds and by billions of dollars through all kinds of technology. What I fail to understand is the fact that there is no serious effort on the part of the government to fight this problem. Police departments all across the country are begging for resources and help to contend with this problem, which was magnified to a great degree because of the decision in the Sharpe case. Every piece, item and article of pornography has to be looked at to determine if it has any artistic merit, and in the future it looks like it will be to determine if it has any public good. There is an urgency here when thousands of young children are being victimized by the terrible disease of child pornography.

Does the member agree with me that child pornography should be banned in its totality? Does he agree that we in the House should do everything in our power to see that this happens, not through hours and weeks of committee work, but immediately? We must immediately address this problem that Canadians are obviously asking us to address through the thousands of petitions that have been tabled.

[Richard Marceau, Bloc, Charlesbourg—Jacques-Cartier, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to begin by thanking the member for White Rose for his question and to tell him that I have absolutely no doubt of his desire to protect children. This is an issue that is very close to my heart, being the father of a 5-year-old boy.

In order to show where our opinions diverge, however, let us look at the following example. A psychiatrist or psychologist is trying to study pedophiles' attraction to children. To do so he needs written or pictorial material created by a pornographer in order to provide care to the mentally ill persons involved in pornography and in order to investigate what make this sexual deviant a danger to the children in our society.

Would what the hon. member is proposing—and this is what I want to question in committee as well—deprive researchers and scientists of the possibility of studying this phenomenon in order to combat it?

We can, of course, fight the spread of child pornography, via the Internet in particular, with the help of law enforcement officers and specially developed technologies. This is being done, of course, but it is also important to get to the source of the problem, not just the causes. Not only must the symptoms be addressed, but work must also be done directly with the dangerous offenders that are the source of the problem. If they are to be able to do this, our researchers, our doctors, psychiatrists and psychologists must have access to the tools required.

As a result, this will be an issue I will be wanting to pursue when the bill is debated in committee, so that our children will be protected today and in the future. There may be a way to provide these people with the treatment they so badly need, and thereby to provide our children with the protection they also need.

[Elsie Wayne, Progressive Conservative, Saint John, NB]

Mr. Speaker, I have to say that when I look at the bill I am absolutely shocked. As a member of Parliament I am asking myself what has happened here in Canada such that we no longer protect children, that we no longer protect marriage.

As the hon. member has stated, he is a father. I am sure he wants to protect his children and their future. The police came here from Toronto and we had a meeting with them; I could not look at the pictures being shown. It was horrendous what was happening. I have to say that the psychiatrists, in my opinion, do not need the pedophiles to see that. These people are mentally sick.

I ask the hon. member, as a father how could he possibly even support allowing any of this pornography to take place in Canada? We will find another way. We will all work together to find another way when it comes to these pedophiles. I ask the member to please not support pornography in any manner whatsoever.

[Richard Marceau, Bloc, Charlesbourg—Jacques-Cartier, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I hope this is a translation problem, because to suggest that I could condone pornography in any manner whatsoever is very dangerous; it is a very slippery road to go down. I do hope the problem is with the translation, and that the member did not say or suggest, whether directly or indirectly, that I condone child pornography in any way. I think it must be made clear.

I think that child pornography is wrong. I think that we must fight it any way we can. I think that one way we can do it is indeed to through the police and technological means. I will repeat, and the member said so herself, these are sick individuals; if they are sick, let us try to heal them. Let us look for a cure like we do for cancer, through research. But the fact that we do research on cancer does not mean that we are for cancer. Similarly, studying child pornography, its causes and deviances, does not mean that we are for child pornography, far from it. Just the opposite.

I hope that I made myself clear this time, be it in French or in English, translation or no translation.

[Betty Hinton, Canadian Alliance, Kamloops, Thompson And Highland Valleys, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I have listened very carefully to the speech made by my colleague from the Bloc. I have a very serious concern about some of the things he said today.

Yes, it is a sickness. I would agree completely that it is, but it is a mental sickness. It is not a sickness like cancer or diabetes or something that is curable. This is an incurable disease and we need to keep children safe from these kinds of people.

I would ask the member if he could answer just a very simple question for me. Does he believe that there is any artistic merit in child pornography?

[Richard Marceau, Bloc, Charlesbourg—Jacques-Cartier, QC]

Mr. Speaker, my answer to the second question is that, personally, I see no artistic merit in child pornography. The question is pretty simple indeed.

Also, once again, I do hope that the hon. member is not suggesting that mental sickness is not curable. There are thousands of Canadians with mental diseases and who can be treated. I am not talking about those with a dependence on pornography.

I repeat, and I want to make it very clear, I am against child pornography. I believe we must do everything in our power to fight it and that our action can take many forms.

However, to make it an issue, as I have heard suggested, borders on demagoguery. I would have so much more to say but, unfortunately, I am out of time. People may not necessarily support this particular motion put forward by the Canadian Alliance to fight child pornography, but to accuse these people or suggest directly or indirectly that these people condone such horrors is something that should never be done in this Parliament.

[Wendy Lill, NDP, Dartmouth, NS]

Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to make some comments on this opposition day motion today. I will be splitting my time with the member for Halifax.

First I would like to say that I wish the opposition had taken this important and rare opportunity to have a debate in the House, a public trust, to raise an issue that the public actually cares about. Frankly, my constituents do not come to my office or call to complain about judges. They are concerned about real problems for real people.

I have spoken to people this week about issues around disability and around the high costs of insurance, car insurance, and pharmaceutical drugs. They care about the fisheries; we are facing a crisis in the fisheries in the east. They care about the environment. There are many issues that they care about and I do not see why we cannot be looking at those issues here today.

Instead, opposition members have decided to debate this motion. They have decided that their political future depends on retreating into a campaign of divisiveness, of playing on misunderstanding of and bigotry against gays and lesbians and of preying on parents' fears for their children by attacking the courts, the one institution unable by law to defend itself. It is sad that the opposition has descended to this level. Let us look at the motion:

That this House call upon the government to bring in measures to protect and reassert the will of Parliament against certain court decisions that: (a) threaten the traditional definition of marriage as decided by the House as, “the union of one man and one woman to the exclusion of all others”; (b) grant house arrest to child sexual predators and make it easier for child sexual predators to produce and possess child pornography; and (c) grant prisoners the right to vote.

That is the justice agenda of the opposition. In fact, it is an agenda of creating fear, spreading misinformation, preying on maternalistic and paternalistic fears for children, and opposing equality. Opposition members seem compelled to find a murderer behind every bush in spite of a falling crime rate. They are compelled to take away the historical rights of first nations communities and generally be opposed to individual equality rights enshrined in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. This motion shows how they have shrunk in the polls. They have been reduced to attacking the one group that cannot talk back: the judiciary.

Frankly, I think it is a good thing the NDP is in Parliament so that Canadians have a real opposition voice here, one that talks about real and important issues like health care. The NDP is the only party raising the fact that the government has continued to underfund health care and is not implementing the Romanow report. We are the only party keeping the government accountable for the fact that it is still underfunding the health system by over $5 billion, according to Romanow. We are the party raising the alarm about endangered public health policy across the country and how this mess has shown itself in the haphazard responses to SARS and the West Nile virus. A plan could have stopped SARS, but we have to rely on the brave doctors and nurses to risk their lives in a policy vacuum.

The NDP is also spending its time talking about the smog crisis that is covering our country every spring and--

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. Bélair)]

I am sorry to interrupt. The Chair certainly hopes that somehow the hon. member will tie up her remarks on health and SARS, being the last one in the debate at hand. We are anxiously awaiting her comments.

[Wendy Lill, NDP, Dartmouth, NS]

Mr. Speaker, raising the issues that we are bringing to the floor is to make the point that we too believe the House of Commons is a place where issues that Canadians care about should be addressed. We are saying that we have to reassert the power of the House of Commons and we are doing that with bringing the issues of Canadians into play.

I will get back to some of the issues that are being addressed here. I think the official opposition is bringing forth in this motion somewhat of a shopping list on rights that it wants to remove from the Constitution. In the motion it complains that the courts have said that all Canadians are equal, including gays and lesbians. Because the Alliance is opposed to equality rights for gays and lesbians, it attacks the courts which are simply doing their jobs as told to them in the Constitution.

This shows that the Alliance believes in the Animal Farm approach to equality. It says that all Canadians are equal, but some should be more equal than others. The motion says that if someone is gay or lesbian, that person should not be equal and the law should sanction bigotry against those Canadians. The only problem with this narrow-minded concept of heterosexual superiority is that as soon as we say some Canadians can be legally allowed to have fewer rights, then in reality all Canadians have fewer rights.

I recall reading Animal Farm , the excellent short story by George Orwell. If anyone remembers George Orwell's Animal Farm , the farm was the attempt at the creation of a utopia represented by the animals driving humans off the farm. While the notion of self-government by the animals was great for a time, eventually some of the animals took over and decided that they were more important than all the other animals. They therefore changed their basic slogan that all animals are created equal to some animals are more equal than others.

Another premise of this motion is that judges are out of line. Judges interpret laws passed by this place. That is their job. Parliament and nine provincial legislators passed the Constitution, including the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Judges have started interpreting this law passed by this place.

If the official opposition has problems with the equality provisions of the charter, it should say that and not hide behind attacking the judiciary. I support maintaining judicial independence. It is fundamental that judges be able to implement the laws without political interference.

I did not hear the official opposition attacking the Supreme Court when it upheld the Latimer conviction, even though there was considerable public debate over the case. The court properly, in my opinion, said that the rights of a disabled victim are equal to all other Canadians. I do not remember the Alliance standing and calling for the judges' heads on that one. It seems to pick and choose.

Another strange aspect of this is the contradiction between this motion and the opposition's obsession with becoming American. The opposition has spent an inordinate amount of time trying to say that Canadians should be American. Its cultural policy is, let the Americans do it. Its defence policy is, let us do what the Americans say. Its foreign policy is to follow the Americans in whatever adventure the Pentagon decides is best for it.

If the opposition was really pro-American it would never put forward such an anti-American bill, I would suggest, because in fact it would have understood that one of the great strengths of the American system is the protection of basic individual rights as stated by the U.S. bill of rights and protected by an independent judiciary. These things are central to the American system of law and government. Indeed, the U.S. supreme court has been more activist than Canadian courts on important issues such as segregation in the schools, abortion, due process for criminals, the use of the death penalty, cruel punishment for prisoners and have given an absolute freedom of speech blanket to even pornographers, but the official opposition seems to have forgotten that.

In conclusion, I wish the Alliance had decided it had something more useful to talk about today, such as the environment, health care, peace, or the crumbling state of our cities. Instead we see this myopia, this sense of betrayal by our courts which in fact I believe is one of the strengths of our democracy.

[Chuck Strahl, Canadian Alliance, Fraser Valley, BC]

Mr. Speaker, that was an interesting speech but it was given by a member whose party uses Animal Farm as an instruction booklet, not as a critique on government policy. When we talk about irrelevant, it is the NDP.

We have a motion before us dealing with things that Canadians feel are important. They are not the top issue every day. We have had many other important issues, such as the war in Iraq, health care and so on, but the motion today is important.

I had a professional poll conducted in my riding a little while ago and 68% of the people in my riding supported the traditional definition of marriage. The last time the House discussed this issue, members, by an overwhelming majority, felt that Parliament should take all measures necessary to protect the definition of marriage. We are suggesting that it is time to do that.

On the other issue of sexual predators, if people do not think it is important that sexual predators be sent a message, then I say to them that they are not reading the tea leaves and they are not listening to the people.

We need to send a message to the population, to the sexual predators and others, that we mean business in this place and we will not be ignored by the courts or anyone else.

[Wendy Lill, NDP, Dartmouth, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I am not exactly sure what the question was but I will make the point that the NDP and this particular member are just as concerned as everyone else in the House about the issue of child pornography. There is absolutely no question about that.

However what is important is that we not bring out some kind of scare tactic, some kind of red herring at this point in time about how we are going to solve the problem of child pornography. The motion today, as far as I can see, will result in not one less child being abused in this country because the courts will strike it down as unconstitutional, leaving us back at square one.

If people really care about protecting children, we need to make sure that the child pornography legislation that is now on the table is carefully looked at in committee, that it solves the problems that we all want to solve and that it is good law and protects the rights of Canadians.

[Myron Thompson, Canadian Alliance, Wild Rose, AB]

Mr. Speaker, over the last few years, with all the studies on child predators, and the problems we have with the assaults that have taken place throughout our society, we are ending up with thousands of young children being victims.

I constantly hear the NDP saying that we need to know the root causes. Studies have shown, and pedophiles and sexual predators themselves have indicated this very strongly, that child pornography was what started them on their trail of doing what they do. These are all well documented studies. That is the root cause of the problem.

What we say is that Canadian children deserve to have child pornography totally banned. Canadians, through thousands and thousands of petitions, have been asking for that. I know there are people in the hon. member's riding who are asking for the same thing.

Does the member believe, as I believe, that child pornography should be banned in its entirety?

[Wendy Lill, NDP, Dartmouth, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to raise an issue that I think has become a red flag for members of that party. They believe that artists are out there somehow promoting child pornography. There is a sense that we have to remove any provisions for artistic merit.

[An hon. member]

No.

[Wendy Lill, NDP, Dartmouth, NS]

I am sorry but that is the kind of objection I have heard.

I do not know one artist who does not want to see strong child pornography laws. Everyone wants to see laws that will protect our children. Artists have children as well. We all want to see the obliteration of child pornography and the protection of our children.

[Alexa McDonough, NDP, Halifax, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have an opportunity to make a few comments on the opposition motion that is before the House today. I had not intended to enter the debate. However I was in my office, busy dealing with some other things, when I suppose I was provoked into saying that I would not sit this one out or bite my tongue in the face of what seems to me to be a continuation of the kind of scaremongering and scandalmongering in which this particular party has indulged itself, in fact has almost perfected the art of, to the point where it sometimes is puzzling as to what it is those members think is accomplished by the way in which they go about tackling the issues that they bring before the House.

I want to be very clear that an opposition day is an opportunity to bring forward issues that one's party believes are the priority issues that Canadians would want addressed through their members of Parliament.

If the members of that party believe this is an issue of top priority, which I guess they do by the endless amounts of hand-wringing and hurling of accusations, then I guess they have a perfect right to bring it forward. However what provoked me was in listening to the member for Provencher, the sponsor of the motion before us today, attempting to discredit and devalue, with great indignity, and harrumphing the extremely important work of the Supreme Court of Canada and the independence of the Supreme Court of Canada, and suggesting that most people probably did not even know the names of the nine members of the Supreme Court of Canada.

After listening to the member I wondered what point he was trying to make. I will grant, absolutely and without a moment's hesitation, that the vast majority of Canadians could not stand and give us the names of the nine members of the Supreme Court of Canada. As a matter of fact I will admit that I had to really stretch to remember the names of the nine members of the Supreme Court.

Maybe it would be useful to read the names into the record if this is the real concern which the Alliance thinks needs to be debated on the floor of the House. We have the Right Honourable Madam Justice Beverley M. McLachlin; the Honourable Mr. Justice Charles Doherty Gonthier; the Honourable Mr. Justice Frank Iacobucci; the Honourable Mr. Justice John C. Major; the Honourable Mr. Justice Michel Bastarache; the Honourable Mr. Justice William Ian Corneil Binnie; the Honourable Madam Justice Louise Arbour; the Honourable Mr. Justice Louis LeBel; and the Honourable Madam Justice Marie Deschamps.

Now we have the names of the nine members of the Supreme Court of Canada, but what is the point of the member for Provencher?

He went on to talk about how the Supreme Court somehow usurps the powers and takes over the responsibilities of the Government of Canada.

I listened to my colleague from Dartmouth and she clearly set out something. I know the member who introduced this motion and the other members of his party understand that the Supreme Court does not usurp powers. The Supreme Court is there to interpret the laws that are passed by all governments and to ensure the rights and freedoms of all Canadians, which are guaranteed, are respected, protected and upheld.

It may surprise the member for Provencher to hear me say this but I agree with him that there are areas of social policy in which the government has been negligent. The government has not followed through in the way that it ought to, to be giving the kind of political leadership to some of the social policy issues of the day. I do not disagree with the member on that.

However, I then heard him say that an example of what is so wrong about what is going on is that repeatedly Supreme Court decisions have acknowledged that the rights, for example, of gay and lesbian Canadians are not being fully respected and protected. He uses that as an example of how the Supreme Court is somehow usurping powers.

I think it is absolutely clear. Unless that party will be absolutely insistent that it remain in the 19th century instead of dragged through the 20th century and into the 21st century, it is time to recognize that the definition of marriage as offered up by the Liberal government in 1999 is an antiquated shrunken down notion of marriage in today's context.

When I hear these members freak out at the notion that the definition of marriage should be modernized to recognize that it is not only a man and a woman in a relationship who want to make a commitment to one another, but that there are women who enter into loving lifelong relationships and men who enter into loving lifelong relationships who want to take on the commitments and benefits that go with that, I ask myself, what world are these Alliance members living in?

When the Supreme Courts points out that this is an issue that must be addressed, instead of beating up on the government for not sticking with the antiquated definition of marriage that it rammed through this place in 1999, that party should be applauding it because it recognizes that there needs to be some changes in the law to reflect reality.

When I see how insecure and traumatized some of these Alliance members are by the notion that there are relationships between women and there are relationships between men that are lifelong commitments, I wonder whether their problem is that they are insecure about marriage. And I am not suggesting about their own marriages. Maybe they are just insecure about their own sexual identity that they cannot cope with the reality that not everyone has the same sexual orientation that they do.

I have many criticisms of the government on a lot of fronts, but the fact that it finally opened up for public debate the issue of the definition of marriage is a step in the right direction. It was the Supreme Court of Canada, bringing in repeated decisions, that acknowledged that gays and lesbians are being discriminated against. This has finally forced the government to begin to address the issue. That is the system of checks and balances. That is what it means to have judicial review. It allows each and every citizen who feels their rights are not being respected and upheld to have an opportunity to have their day in court, and then to have a review and an appeal of a decision.

I do not agree with everything that the Supreme Court of Canada decides, but it scares the wits out of me to think that an official opposition party, that could become the government, would have that much disrespect not just for the current Supreme Court of Canada but for the whole system of checks and balances that is at the very heart of a healthy, dynamic democracy that is responsive to the needs, rights and freedoms of our citizens.

[Roy H. Bailey, Canadian Alliance, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I am appalled at the representative of the party that has just spoken in the defence that has been put forth.

I have stood in many classrooms and have been called to many classrooms to see the results of a nine year old or an eight year old who has been sexually abused. Do these children have any rights? Or are we here to defend the rights of those who have done the abusing? That is the question.

I lived through a period of time that when we saw it, we did something about it. Now we get some whacky individuals who prevail on these kids and they must have rights, they must have defenders, but nobody is stepping forward and saying that an eight year old girl or a seven year old boy must be defended and their rights must supercede the rights of those who offended them.

Since the beginning of time the idea has been of a man and a woman consummating marriage. Time does not change the meaning of that nor will it ever change the meaning. When I represent a constituency that is 90% in agreement with that, I am not about to change it. One can call it a red herring if one likes. The NDP is wrong on these issues and so is anybody else who wants to defend it.

[Alexa McDonough, NDP, Halifax, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I did not hear a question but the usual rant. This is what demeans Parliament in views of many people. Members stand up, and rant and rave about how only the Alliance is concerned about children victimized by sexual predators because it introduces these motions again and again, as if it does anything to address the real issues of victimization.

There is not a thinking Canadian over the age of, I will arbitrarily say, 13 years old who thinks that, despite differences of opinion in the House and the diversity of ideological views, there is anybody in the House who is in favour of the sexual exploitation of children. It is an absurdity to stand up and say that. It does earn the disrespect of Canadians who wonder what all the nonsense is about.

I listened to the words of the questioner a few moments ago. He talked about how it was time that we made it clear in Parliament that we mean business when it comes to dealing with pedophiles. There is no one in this House who does not mean business when it comes to dealing with pedophiles, but we are not like minded in how far we would go to tip the balance in the direction of saying we should arbitrarily ban all kinds of things.

Yes, the issue is to protect children from exploitation and exposure. We must look at ways to do that. However, we must also be concerned with the arbitrariness and the fanaticism that gets expressed by members from that corner of the House on issues of freedom of speech and expression. We must be concerned about how far we go to give them the power to trample on freedom of speech and expression. What else will they ban? Will they stop at issues concerning the victimization of children? Will they start banning ideas that they do not like, and so on?

That may seem extreme, but that is why we have a system of checks and balances. It is to curb the excesses that may occur on all sides of these kinds of issues. Thank heavens we have a judicial system. It may not be perfect. I do not agree with every decision and nobody here would agree with every decision, but I will entrust to the Supreme Court the interpretation of the law and continue to insist that we in the House, as parliamentarians, take the responsibility for the implementation of progressive laws.

[Elsie Wayne, Progressive Conservative, Saint John, NB]

Mr. Speaker, I will be dividing my time with the hon. member for New Brunswick Southwest.

I must say that I never thought, when I came to the Hill in 1993, that I would ever have to rise in the House of Commons and debate the definition of marriage. I cannot believe that this is happening.

In recent years Canadians have become concerned about the appearance that courts have encroached upon the supremacy of the Canadian Parliament by reading into our laws interpretations that appear to be inconsistent with or outside the intent of the laws passed by Parliament.

I heard the hon. member from Nova Scotia refer to the hon. members in the Supreme Court of Canada. If they are going to be honourable members, then they had better define marriage as a union between a man and woman and then I will call them honourable, but I will not if they do not.

This is in large part why we are having this debate today. There are those who believe that the unelected who serve in the top courts of our land must not be allowed to dictate public policy and should stick strictly to the letter of the law based on precedent.

We have so many people who are out of work, who are hurting, and we should not have to bring this for debate before the House of Commons.

I mentioned earlier about attending a meeting with the Toronto police department. Concerning John Robin Sharpe, I could not believe that the Supreme Court of Canada, or a court of Canada, would say that it was artistic merit. That man was so sick with what he had. It was pathetic. It was unbelievable. It brought tears down the side of my face. I could not look at half of what he had. I could not believe that anyone in Canada would have the likes of that in their possession and the court called it artistic merit. That is sick.

However, as with any system there will be situations that do arise where conflicts will occur. As the motion points out, there are three such items that do not seem to coincide with public perception today. When I look at the motion that we have before us concerning the granting of house arrest to child sexual predators that makes it easier for them to produce and possess child pornography, there is something wrong.

I have two grandchildren. I would never ever want them to see what I saw at the Toronto police department. I would never want them to see that.

When it comes to people who wish to live together, whether they are women or men, why do they have to be out here in the public always wanting to call it marriage? Why are they in parades? Why are men dressed up as women on floats? They do not see us getting up on floats to say we are husband and wife. We do not do that. Why do they have to go around trying to get a whole lot of publicity? If they are going to live together, they can go live together and shut up about it. There is no need for this nonsense whatsoever and we should not have to tolerate it in Canada.

We have witnessed a number of cases at the Supreme Court level in the last year which have in effect seemed to take away from the supremacy of Parliament and it seems to contradict society values that we hold dear. That is the Supreme Court of Canada. I refer once again to the John Robin Sharpe case. When I think about it, it was the courts overruling rules that were laid down here for Canadian society.

We have also witnessed three provincial cases in Ontario, Quebec and most recently British Columbia, which have decided that the legal definition of marriage is a violation of the charter rights afforded to same sex couples.

Let me say this. We have a Charter of Rights and Freedoms and that Charter of Rights of Freedoms does not lean to addressing same sex unions, same sex marriages. It is pathetic that with all the problems we have in this country from coast to coast we would be spending this time discussing this sort of thing. I really and truly am shocked to think that here we are in the House of Commons debating whether or not there should be same sex marriages. As I have stated before, if people wish to live together they can go live together, but do not expect us to endorse it as marriage because they live together.

To many it seems that the reading into the intent of laws by the courts seems to be a violation of the basic constitutional principles that we have, that Parliament makes the laws, the executive implements them and the courts interpret them. I am really worried about the way the courts are interpreting the laws we make. Who would think that in this day and age we would have to stand in the House of Commons and debate the definition of marriage? Who would think we would have to do that? I would never have thought when I came to Ottawa in 1993 that this day would come.

I have to say I am really hurt when I think of this. As I have stated, I look at these young people, our pages who are sitting here, bless their hearts, and we want to have a great country for them. We want to make sure that we have a solid foundation for their future, and a solid foundation for their future is to make sure that we stand up and we speak out for the values that are good for them for the rest of their lives. That is what we are here for: to build a solid foundation.

I will say right now that when I look at the definition of marriage being changed that is not a solid foundation for the future of our children. When we are going to change the definition of marriage and allow John Robin Sharpe what is called artistic merit, and now we are saying we will be granting prisoners the right to vote as well, I am going to tell--

[An hon. member]

Where are we going?

[Elsie Wayne, Progressive Conservative, Saint John, NB]

Yes, where are we going? In what direction are we going?

It is time for everyone on both sides of the House to get down to debating and working toward building a better foundation from coast to coast for all of our people in Canada. I have to say that redefining marriage is not the way to go nor is giving John Robin Sharpe the right to make use of and abuse young, little children. I could not believe that we would endorse it, that anyone sitting in the House of Commons in the 301 seats we have would support the likes of that. I cannot believe that. I cannot believe that has happened in Canada.

As for the Supreme Court saying that this is his right, where are the rights of those little children? Where are the rights of those little children we saw in the picture? If you had seen what they did to those little boys and those little girls, Madam Speaker, you would not have been able to look at it. I had to put my hands over my eyes, for I could not believe that here in Canada we would allow that to happen.

We will continue to fight for what is right. We will continue to fight for the traditional marriage. We will continue to fight against the John Robin Sharpes. We will not stop and we want the Supreme Court of Canada to know it.

[Darrel Stinson, Canadian Alliance, Okanagan—Shuswap, BC]

Madam Speaker, I listened quite closely and agree with the hon. member on many of the issues she brought forward in her speech. I did have some idea in 1993 that these issues would probably come before the House of Commons. I have seen the country deteriorate on the morality aspect so badly in the last few years. It was one of the reasons I got into politics.

I cannot believe some of the comments I have heard here from some members of the House. In regard to these issues, I have heard members say it is not a concern in their areas or maybe not a concern in Canada and that they are red flag issues, that we are trying to stir up things and that it is not as big a problem as we say it is. I will stand here and say all these issues are, if not the number one concern, certainly in the top two or three anywhere I have travelled in Canada.

I have to ask the hon. member a question. I came here with the understanding, and I was led to this belief even through school, that the House of Commons is the highest court in Canada, that we were here to make the laws and the courts were to interpret them and if we did not like the courts' interpretation of the laws, we were to stop it and change the laws. I would like to know how the member feels about this. As I see it, we have a government today that has passed the buck, so to speak, so that it does not take any heat. The government likes to say that it is the unaccountable judges who are making the decisions so the government does not have to stand up and take the heat in the country for what it deserves.

This is the highest court in the land and we, the members of Parliament, have to be held accountable for decisions the judges make.