Mr. Speaker, this is a timely bill.
I have a number of questions. The minister was absolutely correct in talking about the exponential growth in this heinous area of activity. However, as the bill targets those who permit child pornography to be distributed, and that in my view is as bad as creating child pornography, which is covered by the Criminal Code, I wonder why the government chose not to put these offences in the Criminal Code right next to section 163. They are very germane. We could look at doing so in committee as well.
The minister admitted that in 2005, the previous government widened the definition of child pornography, which was a good thing and also brought in the mandatory minimum sentence of one year, which was a good thing, but really I have only been here since January 2006 and there has been little done by the government on this file.
Why did it take so long? Why are we so far behind the EU and Germany in this regard?