The environment minister wants me to keep going on this. The thing is that it was his government that gave the Senate the chance to do that. The government keeps attacking the Senate but it keeps giving the Senate the chance to do this. If it were really serious about dealing with the Senate, it would do what the NDP has advocated for decades now and abolish it so that we are not faced with this kind of delay to legislation that our country badly needs.
Let us look at some of the things that are in the bill. The government talks about being tough on crime. There is a section that is badly needed for our judges to be able to deal with the plague of child pornography. Right now the Criminal Code has no provision that gives a judge, once someone has been convicted of child pornography, to seize the equipment that the person used to create the child pornography, whether it is photographic equipment or computer equipment. None of that can be ordered seized by the court after a conviction.
The section is there now but it should have been law by now. However, because of the determination by the government to prorogue Parliament and cause further delay to some of the crime bills, this one in particular, we do not have it yet. That is added to by the other chamber being grossly irresponsible in further delaying the bill. The government gave the Senate the opportunity to do it and the other chamber took the opportunity to further delay. It is really sad to say that our criminal justice system is, in this case, at this stage.
There are provisions in the bill that would allow for the expeditious use of technology today to obtain warrants and have other paperwork processed rapidly and transferred among the provinces. We have a major problem with this and have for a long time. Paperwork needs to be done in a very limited, specific way that really hinders the work our police officers are doing across the country because of so much more paperwork they have to do.
A number of the amendments would help clear that up and bring it into the 21st century. The amendments would allow the police officers to produce paper from computers and emails rather than having to rely on printed material, having to send it through the mail or having it delivered by messenger. It is crazy that we are at the stage that we have not changed this a long time ago.
We cleaned that up and made it possible for them to come into the 21st century and use technology much more efficiently and process the files much more efficiently. It is sitting in this House. I suppose only someone with much more wisdom than I will figure out whether it goes back to the Senate and it decides to do further amendments.
There are other provisions in here that were necessary for the law to be clarified. As we heard from my colleague from the Bloc, some provisions with regard to the rights to have a trial in the other official language other than the dominant one in the province where the charges were applied. Again, this is one area where there were some good amendments at committee and they were passed on to the Senate. The Senate has now decided that it wants to tinker with this more and further delay the use of it.
One other amendment that my colleague from the Liberal Party has referred to was the need to update the level of fines. It was an amendment that the government brought forth to increase the fines up to $10,000. I, quite frankly, got an amendment at committee that reduced the fines to $2,000 from $5,000, given that these are for more minor crimes. They are crimes that would be more likely to be committed by people who are unable to pay a fine of $10,000 and would have ended up spending extended periods of time in jail simply because they were in the lower economic classes of our society.
We got all that through. There was a fair amount of work done on this at the justice committee and then sent back to this House, passed in a democratic process and sent on to the Senate to involve itself in a totally undemocratic process.
The Senate has put forward six amendments. The government is prepared to accept them, which is wrong. I have to say, on behalf of my party, that, because the bill is so important and we need it so badly, we will accept these amendments, the four the government recommended and the fifth amendment that the Liberal Party has now moved. I would have taken the sixth one because generally these amendments do not do anything of any importance and, to avoid further delay, we would support it.
The other chamber felt that it had the right to tell this chamber that we should do a review of this bill, ignoring the reality that the justice committee is responsible for, by last count, something like 20 or 25 laws on which we are supposed to have done reviews and that we are behind in doing.
By imposing on us a mandate, which the government has accepted to do, that in three years we will review this law, it is impractical. We will not be able to do it given how busy the schedule is for the justice committee. However, that is one the government accepted.
Amendment No. 1 would impose a responsibility upon the judges. I have heard from the other opposition parties that they are prepared to accept this. I want to say that this is not the process that I see that should be applied by judges.
The existing law requires a judge to ensure that the persons before him or her is aware of their right to have a trial in the other official language. The Senate now says that is not good enough and wants to impose this duty on the judiciary to tell individuals their rights.
I want to take issue with my colleague from the Liberal Party who said that this is usual. It is not usual. This is not the role of the judiciary. It is the role of defence counsel, the legal aid system and it may be the role of the prosecutor. The role of the judge is to ensure that it happens but it is not the judge's responsibility to give legal advice.
Amendment No. 1 from the Senate would impose that role on our judiciary. It is extremely rare for the judiciary to tell the petitioners before them their rights. That is a role to be played within the advocacy system that we have, either by the defence or the prosecutor. This amendment is wrong in law and wrong in terms of the practice it would impose on our judiciary. On top of everything else, it is meddling by an unelected, irresponsible body.
Some of the other Senate amendments are technical because of the initial amendments it made. Other amendments needed to be made in order for the legislation to make sense and be cohesive.
I have one final point to make with regard to the amendment, which I think all of us are opposing. The amendment would impose the responsibility to gather data on the provinces. Under our constitutional framework, the administration of justice, which would include gathering this statistical material, is the responsibility of the provinces. If that duty is to be imposed upon them, it must be imposed, in my opinion, by the legislatures of the provinces, not by this federal legislature. I do not know if the Department of Justice has actually looked at that amendment from that vantage point, but it is definitely improper in my opinion given the constitutional relationship between the federal government and the provinces.
An argument could be made, although I do not think it would be sustained, that under our criminal law we, in this legislature, have the right to impose that responsibility on the provinces. The administration of justice power given to the provinces is the dominant one here, so that amendment is wrong and would be found to be unconstitutional.
As a result of the government's own ineptitude, it has caused a further delay in the passage of badly needed legislation that would affect a number of our laws that have needed to be amended for a number of decades. It delayed the legislation by several months because of its prorogation decision. The legislation finally gets to the Senate where that unelected body decides to tinker with it unnecessarily and produces amendments that are either unconstitutional or unnecessary and of a minor nature. However, that does not in any way justify the delay that we have been put through and will continue to be put through, especially if an election intervenes. We all know we are sitting on the edge.
Therefore, as a result of a really bad decision by the government and gross misconduct on the part of the other chamber, the bill may not even get through this Parliament and be delayed again, not just months, but it could be delayed again for another year or two before we can access its benefits.
We are dealing with a bill that is badly needed in a number of areas. We are also dealing with an unelected body that is obviously intent on meddling in and delaying this legislation just simply to justify its existence.
It has been a long time practice, when speakers from my party have risen in the House, to use the opportunity to emphasize the need to get rid of the other chamber, to bring us into the 21st century, to recognize that this is a democracy and should be a full democracy. I hope I have been able to convey that message clearly today on behalf of my constituents and my party.