Madam Speaker, one of the things I wish to advise my colleague is that for many years there was a bill before the House of Commons on child Internet pornography. It was first introduced in 1995 by Mr. Chris Axworthy, who was a long-time member of Parliament and became the attorney general of Saskatchewan.
The government was asked to introduce legislation through this bill or any bill it wished that would make ISP providers partially responsible to monitor their sites and when they noticed any that may have child pornography, they would be required to report it to the authorities. That is basically the bill in a nutshell, as well as certain amounts of time offenders would have to serve.
Child Internet pornography, in my own personal view, is one of the most despicable crimes perpetrated upon unsuspecting children. I have worked with OPP and RCMP officials on this and when I speak with them, they get quite emotional and concerned when they speak about what they have seen on these sites.
As a Parliament we need to do everything we possibly can in order to ensure that we mitigate, reduce and eventually stop this action. I know people are concerned about privacy rights. In fact, most ISP providers I have spoken to do not like me very much because of the fact that a bill such as this would force them to be partially responsible to monitor their sites.
I would like to ask the hon. member, who I know is an extremely intelligent and well-versed person on justice issues, not just in Quebec but in Canada, what does he think about asking ISP providers to be partially responsible, through legislation, to ensure that any pornography on websites can and will be reported to the authorities so they can do their job properly?