Debates of Nov. 26th, 2009

Child Protection Act (Online Sexual Exploitation)

[Rick Casson, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

Mr. Speaker, when my colleague from Malpeque got around to talking about the bill, it was good to hear his arguments in support of it. When it comes to the issue of child pornography, we as members of Parliament need to stand united in any kind of fight to stop this most terrible of crimes. The fact that we are willing to work together to protect the most vulnerable in our society is important.

I want to relay to the member opposite that a number of years ago I believe it was Detective Matthews from the Ontario Provincial Police and others who came to the Hill to talk to us in committee about this issue. Detective Matthews set up his computer in the committee room, went on the Internet and went into, I do not know where they go, a chat room or something and indicated that he was an underage person looking for some company.

By the time our meeting was over, we had reviewed some disturbing images that none of us will ever forget related to child pornography. I do not know how people who deal with this day after day can keep their focus because it is absolutely terrible.

In the matter of an hour, there were a number of hits on that website from people to take advantage of this supposed child. I think the more we can do and the faster we can do it, the better off our children will be. That is simply a comment for the member.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

Mr. Speaker, I just want to re-emphasize the hon. member's point, Detective Matthews, who appeared a considerable number of years ago, is one of the leading people in getting not only the Canadian government but governments around the world to deal with this serious issue.

I do not think any of us who were sitting in the room that day will forget those images. As I sat there looking at them, I wondered how human beings could do to other human beings what they sometimes do. I guess I will put it that way.

The member's comments remind me of a meeting I happened to attend in Paris as solicitor general on the same subject. This exploitation can take place anywhere in the world and then is viewed across the world. The abuse of human beings and children for people's thrills or, in some cases, financial gain is absolutely shocking. It is one of the worst crimes. It has been on deck for a considerable time and very definitely must be dealt with if we are going to do the right thing for future generations.

I agree with my hon. friend that what we saw that day was very disturbing. I think all of us in the House would agree that police officers and others who track down these kinds of crimes on a daily basis need to be congratulated because it has to be a mental drain to look at these images, track them down and then deal with them constructively.

[Joy Smith, Conservative, Kildonan—St. Paul, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased today to stand in the House of Commons with parliamentarians from all parties to talk about Bill C-58. In this Parliament probably one of the most important things we are doing is addressing the protection of our most vulnerable citizens, our children.

Bill C-58 would provide a level of certainty for all those who supply an Internet service to the public that they would be held to the same reporting standard with regard to child pornography. We have heard in the House that child pornography is on the increase. The images that are displayed are becoming more and more violent. Our government recognizes the efforts of major Internet service providers in voluntarily reporting this type of material.

However, creating a uniform mandatory reporting requirement with respect to Internet child pornography on all who supply Internet services to the public across Canada will strengthen our ability to protect children from sexual exploitation.

As I have listened to the speeches, there has been a thread throughout and this thread has been that all members feel that this is a horrendous crime against children. Mr. Speaker, you have small children and I know that it must touch your heart because our children are our most precious gift.

The bill would improve the law and improve law enforcement's ability to detect potential child pornography offences and help reduce the availability of online child pornography. It would also facilitate the identification of victims so they may be rescued and help identify and apprehend offenders. This is a very important piece of legislation. We have heard in the speeches that there are 1,400 police reported child pornography incidents of which 440 resulted in charges, and that is not even up to date. There are more today in the year 2009 going into 2010.

Many good people across this nation are watching and putting the lens on what Parliament is doing in terms of protecting our children. Traditionally speaking, Parliament is a place that sometimes can go wonky. Even though a good bill is presented, sometimes it does not get passed. We have a lot of unnamed people making a lot of unnamed speeches that sound good, but in the end the laws sometimes do not get passed.

As we know, after we deal with the laws here in the House of Commons, they then go into the Senate where they must be examined before they can receive passage.

I want to talk about people across the country who have made a big difference and who are watching what our government is doing in terms of child pornography. I am proud that our government also introduced related bills that have supported Bill C-58. So there is a concerted effort with our government to address our most vulnerable citizens and to protect our children.

Our government recently produced three hard-hitting related bills and one is Bill C-46 which was brought forward on June 18. That bill would require Internet service providers to provide police with email and ISP addresses of those viewing child pornography. It also would require ISPs to freeze child pornographic data for 21 days. It also would require cell phone companies to assist police in tracking child porn on cell phones and BlackBerries.

Again, Bill C-47, which was passed on June 18, was a bill that permitted police to obtain information about clients from ISPs and requires companies to acquire the technical ability to allow police to intercept information. Bill C-58 is just another building block on this foundation that helps protect our children.

In my travels over the past decade, I have met many of the people working on this issue of human trafficking and child porn in our country. As a mother of six children and the mother of an RCMP officer who used to be in the integrated child exploitation unit, I have seen first-hand the cost that a lot of these police officer have paid. They sat there and viewed those images. They went out and tried to get the bad guys. I pay honour and respect to all the police officers who have done that.

Many of the projects across the country outside of Parliament Hill have really put pressure on all of us as members of Parliament to stop this horrific crime. When we talk about child porn over the Internet, it brings to mind Mr. Brian McConaghy who was the founding director of the Ratanak Foundation. He is a forensic scientist with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and has served with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police for 22 years. He worked tirelessly to help build the case against Donald Baker. For 19 of those 22 years, he performed his duties with the RCMP while setting up and running this foundation. After that, he continued on.

I was talking to Mr. McConaghy yesterday. He and I work on different things.

When we are talking about the Olympics, human trafficking or child porn, they are all connected. What makes these police officers and front line workers who work with the victims of Internet child porn so special is their heart.

The Baker file has been forgotten in some cases but other files keep coming up. They come and go. They are horrendous and yet they are forgotten. I know everybody remembers the Willie Pickton file in B.C., which was a horrendous case that hit the front pages. The RCMP officers and the police vice officers who were working on Internet child porn and on these cases were deeply touched by the victims of this crime.

When we have people watching these images on the Internet and when they go across the ocean and act on those images and fantasies, they come back and continue that appetite for acting on the fantasies because they have allowed themselves to go into that dark place that human beings often have with child pornography.

We talk about the front line officers and we talk about the victims but I want to talk about one victim just to impact our Parliament today so that we understand.

Serena Abbotsway was killed by Willie Pickton. She was a kind young girl who was on the streets helping young people who were victims of human trafficking and child pornography. She underwent many beatings in trying to rescue people because she herself was a street person.

Mr. McConaghy is off to Cambodia right now but when I was talking to him the day before yesterday, he was telling me, as a forensic scientist, how he became attached not only to the cases but also attached to the victims.

He told me what it felt like to look at the skull of Ms. Serena Abbotsway and to look at the picture he had of her. She was baptized at a church on the east side. She worked on the streets and was involved in all kinds of different things. There, before him, was her remains.

He treated her remains with respect as he went through her particular case. When he finished doing his forensic science work, he put her skull away and said goodbye to her. He told her that he would never forget her and that he would do the best he could to ensure that other victims were not hurt.

We can talk about people like Matt Logan. In Parliament the public needs to know about these unsung heroes who work so hard every day. Matt Logan is a recently retired RCMP officer. He has penetrated the psyches of countless psychopaths, pedophiles and hostage-takers. He has spent time in the jail system assessing predatory sex offenders. He is one of only seventeen people in North America who are both police officers and qualified psychologists, and one of even fewer who specialize in the criminal mind.

The member opposite mentioned the toll it took on the police officers. I know many police officers who have taken that toll because of their work. Matt Logan knows an awful lot about pedophiles and about their minds. He knows how to get into those minds and how to rescue the victims.

Staff Sergeant Logan has done so much to bring this issue to the forefront on our national scene. He said that he had a hard time believing that, given an opportunity, the child predators, when after watching victims, would not act on their fantasies. He said, “Child pornography exists primarily for the consumption of predatory child molesters”.

It is the beginning of something that can grow. Logan, who is a criminal psychologist in the RCMP's behavioural science group, has done extensive work with sex offenders. He has been called on more and more to consult on child exploitation cases.

RCMP Matt Logan describes two types of child molesters, the situational and the preferential. He says that most molesters fit into the situational category. He says that means most are male and are indiscriminate with victims, committing sexual assault based on accessibility to a victim. If they have a pornography collection, child porn is usually a small portion of it. He says that the preferential child molester can be of any age, driven by fantasies centred on a specific age, gender or even the look of a child. Most gravitate to prepubescent. Is that not shocking?

RCMP Logan said that although he had worked with some whose fetish was newborns, preferential child molesters also had a long-term pattern of behaviour and almost certainly collect child porn. He says, “The images and erotic stories fuel the fantasies that “drive the bus” to hunting and molesting a child”. This is a statement from a seasoned 22-year RCMP officer who worked in this area.

Bill C-58 is extremely important.

Talking about close to home, my son is an RCMP officer and is in the ICE unit. On his days off, he goes all over the country, talking to associations and groups about how to protect their children against child molesters. In fact, next Friday night he and I will do a joint presentation at one of those locations.

There are other people, like Lianna McDonald, who is the head of the Canadian Centre for Child Protection. She does so much to try to get the cybertip lines up and running. She works hand-in-hand with Beyond Borders, with Roz Prober.

For the first time, businesses across the country are putting money toward organizations that are fighting child trafficking and child porn. One of those organizations is The Body Shop. It has recently launched a huge initiative about hand cream. My Christmas baskets are going to be filled with its hand cream because of its support for the protection of child victims from human trafficking and from child porn.

I want to talk about Paul Gillespie. Paul Gillespie was on the streets protecting children, victims of child abuse. He worked on the ground with many of these young women. I have met some of the young women whom he has rescued. Now he is with KINSA, the Kids Internet Safety Alliance. He works with Canadian law enforcement and other partners to deliver training and build capacity among the police of developing nations to help them find and rescue victims of child abuse, whose images are shared on the Internet. Once rescued, he helps the victims and their families receive support to help them heal through the Mothers Online Movement, MOM. It is a powerful community network. These are the unsung heroes who are listening today to what is going on in Parliament.

Paul Gillespie, a former police officer, built and led the child exploitation section of the Toronto Police Service Sex Crimes Unit. He has become widely known as a world leader on this issue. I consider him a very good friend of mine and someone who is one of those unsung heroes. He has never been brought to the forefront for his work. Today I want to do that and to thank him.

Then we have the small groups that are springing up all over our nation, those groups that do not receive any money from anyone, but they find out about human trafficking and child porn. They go out and educate people. I have always said that education is our greatest tool.

We can talk about Naomi Baker from Canada Fights Human Trafficking. She has brought so many people together and educated many of them on how to protect their children.

We can talk about Natasha Falle. She is my hero because she was a victim of trafficking and was the daughter of a cop. She is off the streets now. She has helped so many people. She now runs Youth Unlimited. We will never find a more articulate, more beautiful, more grounded person than Natasha Falle. She is the poster girl for getting programs in place that will protect and help these victims because they can be rehabilitated.

We can talk about the beautiful Temple Committee Against Human Trafficking in Montreal, started by Rabbi Lerner.

Many people are working so hard to ensure that this horrendous crime is suppressed. Even today in the other chamber, Bill C-268 is awaiting the passage by the Senate. We look forward to all senators supporting that bill.

Over and over we hear in Parliament that this issue has to be a non-partisan one. When it comes to the protection of our children, parliamentarians have to work together. It is so important.

The Olympics are coming upon us in a very short time. I happen to know the bad guys now are getting all the girls together. I know some towns from where they have taken some of these girls.

We cannot sit and wait. This is Canada's hidden secret. This is one of our darkest spots in history when child sex slavery is allowed and when child porn has become something of a joke to some of the people in our country. We have to take this seriously. We have to speak out. As parliamentarians, we cannot afford the luxury of in house bickering. We can only afford the luxury of the privilege of putting laws forward that will protect our most vulnerable victims.

[Rick Casson, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague from Kildonan—St. Paul for her message today and for her tireless work on the issue of human trafficking. She has chosen that as a focus for her efforts and she has done a tremendous job on that.

I would like to ask for her opinion and her thoughts on the fact that our government has passed legislation to increase the age sexual consent from 14 to 16. I was certainly in favour of that and we worked for many years to make that happen, hoping to protect our children for two more years of their lives.

In the hon. member's focus and in her specialty on human trafficking, has the bill worked? Has the raising of the age of sexual consent helped our police officers and our authorities in the fight against the terrible crime of human trafficking?

[Joy Smith, Conservative, Kildonan—St. Paul, MB]

Mr. Speaker, raising the age of consent was long overdue. I wish we could have raised it to 18 or 21, but we did get it raised to 16 and I am grateful for that.

Throughout the country children are now being targeted. Children who are virgins get a higher price when they are sold to predators. This is alarming and unconscionable. We always thought it happened in other countries, but it is also happens in Canada.

Our government has put a lot of very strong laws in place that are very important to protect our most vulnerable citizens. I applaud members opposite who have supported these bills and these initiatives. I know there are many good members in opposition who take the welfare of our most vulnerable citizens seriously over their own personal gain.

Parliament is about that. It really does not matter who is in front of the cameras. It really does not matter who gets the credit. We have to stand very firm as a federal government, with the support of opposition members, to help these bills go through.

[Mario Laframboise, Bloc, Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak on behalf of the Bloc Québécois to Bill C-58 on mandatory reporting of child pornography sites, which requires Internet service providers to report child pornography activities they are aware of.

I will start by saying that the Bloc Québécois supports this bill in principle. We will vote in favour of the bill at this stage so that it can be analyzed in depth in committee.

It is always necessary to examine Conservative bills individually, because of the Conservatives' approach to tackling crime. We have to be extremely vigilant. It is important that the men and women who are watching are aware of this. The government may want to crack down on crime, but it has decided to replace the judiciary with minimum sentences—that is its approach—instead of addressing the issue of judicial appointments. The government sees that people are very much opposed to this. In any case, should judges be replaced or brought into line with the right-wing Conservative philosophy? Yet the government has decided to introduce minimum sentences in bill after bill. Its goal is to increase sentences and fill the prisons with criminals, and yet it wants to abolish the gun registry.

What does this mean? It means that everyone could have hunting rifles at home, yet the government is going to try to fill the prisons with criminals and to increase sentences. I have a lot of trouble following the government's logic when it comes to issues like the gun registry. I just renewed my licence, because I used to be a hunter. I say that I used to be, because I do not have time to hunt now. I have other demands on my time. In politics, you often have to give things up. I do not have time to hunt now, but I still have my hunting rifles. I had to ask my wife to sign my licence form, but I did not have a problem with that. She was very proud to sign it, because she knew I did not have a history of violence or anything. She signed. I think that this is a good way to ensure that couples continue getting along and also that people who might be violent think twice about getting a licence. Obviously, if I had been violent, I never would have dared ask my wife to sign my form. I would have known she would refuse.

I cannot understand how anyone could be against the gun registry when one of its purposes is to prevent violence against women. I have difficulty understanding the Conservative philosophy. But again, only the Conservatives and their republican way of seeing things can answer my questions. Nonetheless, it is only logical that a spouse's signature be required on forms or applications for obtaining a firearms licence for owning a gun or maintaining ownership of a gun. I am having a hard time understanding the Conservatives' philosophy behind this.

Meanwhile, next week they will be all worked up in the days leading up to the national day of action on violence against women. Once again, they will get all dramatic and say that we must do something about violence against women. However, they are against the idea of getting the spouse of a prospective gun owner to give permission by signing a form.

That is why, every time the Conservatives introduce a justice bill, we have to ask questions. That is what the Bloc Québécois has done. We will not rely on the Conservatives' conclusions to support Bill C-58, but on statistics and studies conducted by the Canadian Centre for Child Protection.

We have to wonder how it is that today, in 2009, Internet service providers can allow themselves not to have a policy to prevent child pornography from ending up on their sites. It is scary, but that is what it boils down to.

I have had many discussions with my teenage son. He is an adult now. He is part of the Internet generation.

For this generation, all information should be available and accessible. The Internet is a global meeting place where anything goes. I have had some serious discussions with my son and I told him that even though all information is accessible, illegal information should not be on Internet sites, no matter their origin.

Even though it should not have happened, it has. I will give some statistics from the analyses and surveys prepared by the Canadian Centre for Child Protection. That way we will have some benchmarks.

The following statement is found on the centre's website: “Parents list abduction and sexual exploitation as 2 of the top 3 concerns facing Canadian children.” Naturally, every good parent wants their children to be protected against exploitation or abduction. It also states that: “Most Canadian parents are using outdated and ineffective information to teach their children about personal safety.”

It is difficult for parents to be told by an organization such as the Canadian Centre for Child Protection that we are using outdated and ineffective information to teach our children. However, that is the reality. But why is that?

For one thing, I did not grow up with the Internet but my children did. Inevitably, parents of my age, in their early fifties, are not accustomed to this new technology. Because of my work I have had to learn quickly. But it has not been easy for some of my friends. Our children have learned to use this technology much more quickly.

The Canadian Centre for Child Protection is right: parents are using ineffective and outdated means to teach their children about safety, especially on the Internet. The following statistics are from its website.

Children account for 61% of all victims of sexual assault reported to the police and 21% of all victims of physical assault.

Thus, children are involved in many sexual assaults.

I will continue.

72% of Canadians feel that if someone wanted to access child pornography online, it would be very easy to do so.

92% of Canadians are concerned about child pornography being distributed on the Internet and 96% feel it is important to have a place to report child pornography online.

Cybertip.ca processes over 600 reports per month relating to the sexual exploitation of children on the Internet and receives over 800,000 website hits per month from people seeking educational information.

In homes without rules about Internet use, 74% of children report that an adult is never present when they use the Internet

Cybertip.ca is a tip line operated by the Canadian Centre for Child Protection.

According to a study conducted by the centre, parents are using outdated and ineffective information to teach their children about the Internet. Some 74% of children say that they are not supervised at home. Parents need to understand how important it is to supervise their children's Internet usage.

There is software that prevents certain kinds of data from downloading. Computers look harmless. They are just machines that we turn on, nothing more. But there is all kinds of information out there on the Internet, and more and more abusers. We have to take control of the situation.

Why does the House have to discuss Bill C-58? Because this is 2009, and website owners are still allowing child pornography on their websites. That is unbelievable, but it all comes down to money. Where there is money, there are humans, and where there are humans, there is human nature. People will do anything to make more money, so they allow child pornography on their websites, or they do not take necessary measures or spend money to keep it off their websites.

The purpose of this bill is to make the operators of these sites responsible. They will have to pay the fines because they were not vigilant and did not do their best to prevent this. Legislators are often accused of passing laws, putting up obstacles and going in circles. I am sorry, but these website operators have gone too far; it is over.

The Bloc Québécois wants this bill to be passed as quickly as possible. However, it must be carefully examined in committee, because this bill deals with parts of Canada's and Quebec's charters of rights and freedoms. We must ensure that human freedoms are being respected. But when we are talking about child pornography, rights and freedoms will have to take a back seat. We must carefully protect our children. Once again, we must hold those who run these sites responsible.

According to statistics from the Canadian Centre for Child Protection, 21% of children report having met someone in person they met first online. That is very worrisome. This study was conducted in 2005. This means that one out of every five children reports having met someone in person they first met online. Since we know that there are predators online, we cannot ignore this statistic.

My teenager would not like to hear me say this, but children are often naive. That is the truth. They think they are the best at everything. We must try to understand them and try to remember how we were at their age. They must all have their own experiences, but when we know that 21% of children report having met someone in person they met first online, that is worrisome. Good for them if they are meeting people their own age. But the problem with the Internet is that people lie about their ages and claim to be teenagers when they are really adults.

We know this, and we know that 74% of children use the Internet at home without an adult present, because as parents, we think that the computer on the desk is not that important or dangerous. We think all they do is play games on it. But that is not true; they do more than play games. They chat and talk, and can fall victim to online predators. More and more pedophiles are showing up on the Internet, to the point that now, we need to protect our children from sexual exploitation. That is what Bill C-58 would do.

I would also like to read part of a press release issued on November 18, 2009 by the Canadian Centre for Child Protection. I hope everyone is listening, because this is important. It says the following:

“What makes this particularly concerning is the very young age of the children in the images [the child pornography sites were analyzed]. These children are most likely being accessed and sexually abused by someone they know. Not only is it devastating for a child to be abused, but to have the abuse recorded and distributed on the Internet adds another layer of trauma,” said Lianna McDonald, executive director of the Canadian Centre for Child Protection. “This is a call to action to all Canadians to learn to recognize the signs of abuse, and to report their suspicions of abuse. We need to disrupt and hopefully stop child sexual abuse and prevent it from being memorialized and traded on the Internet.”

This is important because it has become a money maker. That is what I was saying earlier. We might still wonder why, in 2009, the operators of these Internet sites have not resolved this problem. The answer is because there is money to be made.

I am not accusing them. I do not want to make any accusations, but the fact remains that technology certainly must allow them to block these images on their sites, to track down these people wanting to send them links to a website or images of child pornography, and report them themselves.

That is what should have happened. We should not have to legislate this issue. However, because of business and money, certain situations arise, and of course I mean exploitation. Any time there are images of young men and young women on the Internet, this generally implies sexual exploitation. We must track down all these exploiters, these abusers and these criminals, because exploiting children is a horrible offence. That is why the Bloc Québécois supports this bill.

I wanted to come back to the study done by the Canadian Centre for Child Protection, which issued 12 recommendations in the areas of education and public awareness, technical and policy development, and research opportunities. This goes well beyond simply saying, fine, we will pass legislation in order to find the perpetrators of those horrendous crimes or we will impose specific fines on the operators of the sites that break the law. The fact remains that we all need to be more socially aware.

I would like to talk first about the importance of the bill, because it addresses situations that need to be addressed. First, under the bill, providers of Internet services—Internet access, email, hosting and social networking sites—will now be required to report to a designated organization any information they receive about websites or child pornography that may be available to the public. They will be required to do so once the bill is passed, because the bill still has to go through a few readings and needs some work, and it has to go to the Senate. I will not talk about how useless the Senate is, but once again, because the Senate has not been abolished, we will have to waste two or three months talking with the senators, when they spend half their time sleeping.

Now, operators who provide Internet access, email and hosting and networking sites will be required to report to a designated organization any information they receive about websites or child pornography that may be available to the public.

Second, they will be required to notify the police and preserve the evidence if they believe that their Internet service has been used to commit a child pornography offence.

Again, we should not have to pass this bill. They should be dealing with this themselves. But no, we will force them into it because they have taken this a bit too far.

Failure to comply with the duties under this act would constitute an offence punishable by graduated fines of up to $1,000 for a first offence, $5,000 for a second offence, and $10,000 for a third offence. Obviously, there is something in place for sole proprietors and corporations. For a corporation, the graduated fine scheme would be up to $10,000, $50,000 and $100,000. This legislation covers more than just Internet service providers, a term that is commonly used in relation to those who provide access to the Internet. The legislation would apply to all persons who provide an Internet service to the public.

Since I have just one minute remaining, I would also like those who are watching us to know that the Canadian Centre for Child Protection issues very important recommendations to all members of the community. Parents, families and friends have to take charge and educators and the entire system have to do whatever it takes to make sure these pedophiles who use cyberspace to commit their crimes are reported. The sexual exploitation of children is a horrible crime. Rest assured that the Bloc Québécois will support this bill.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the hon. member for his contribution to the debate. I must admit that when this member gets up, he always adds to the debate. I was most interested in, and I would like to speak to it as well, other things that we should be doing, particularly, in the area of prevention. We need to anticipate much more than to simply punish after we have a problem. A dollar best spent in most situations is a dollar spent on preventing a problem, in the first case.

The member outlined a couple of items, such as the need for public education, awareness, et cetera. I wonder if the member would like to simply highlight some of the other approaches that would be appropriate with respect to the matter before the House.

[Mario Laframboise, Bloc, Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his excellent question. This will allow me to quote some of the recommendations made by the Canadian Centre for Child Protection. Its recommendations for public awareness include the following:

The creation of educational materials for children 12 years and under in order to help young children recognize signs of the abuse process...

Collaboration between tiplines such as Cybertip.ca around the world to begin tracking infants and toddlers in child abuse imagery...

Creation of gender-related educational materials in response to the large percentage of girls depicted in abuse imagery.

Working with law enforcement and Internet service and content providers to remove illegal content from Canadian servers.

Establishing international standards for the personal information a registrant is required to provide when registering a new domain name [for the entire Internet].

Partnering with domain name registrants to have domains hosting illegal content discarded from use so new website owners cannot purchase domains known to host child pornography and reuse it for the same purpose.

Need for further research on the impact of child sexual abuse on victims and whether the Internet has changed the nature and extent of their trauma and healing process.

Collaboration and data sharing between organizations...

Research is needed to determine how words are being used on websites...

There are three other recommendations but I am short on time. We have to be able to foster awareness in the entire community. The sexual exploitation of children is a very serious crime, a horrible crime and a scourge that will only be eradicated by our entire society working together.

[Jim Maloway, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Mr. Speaker, the member for Mississauga South talked about prevention being the answer. I think he is totally right. It seems that this bill, while it is well-intentioned and one that we can all support, in fact, would perhaps just slow the problem down a bit because it would depend upon how many people reported.

The fact of the matter is we had a member in the House report yesterday that there are better practices in other jurisdictions, such as Germany, Sweden and Brazil. I asked a government member earlier today whether the government had even looked into those cases and he could not answer the question as to whether it had or had not.

In the case of Germany, for example, it simply blocked access to the sites. To me, that makes sense because that provides a solution to the problem rather than simply tinkering with the problem. We already know we are not going to get very solid results, or at least not as good results as we would get if we simply blocked the site in the first place.

[Mario Laframboise, Bloc, Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague is absolutely right, and that is why the committee will carefully examine this bill. Our problem is that we have charters of rights and freedoms in both Quebec and Canada. In both jurisdictions, there are website operators, and these businesspeople will say that they also have rights and freedoms. So what I was saying is that perhaps the charter of rights and freedoms will have to take a back seat to the prevention of sexual exploitation of children on the Internet.

This is an issue that could probably be resolved very quickly but, considering the laws that protect our rights and freedoms, we will have to examine this bill carefully, so that everyone, including website operators, understands its objective.

[Yves Lessard, Bloc, Chambly—Borduas, QC]

Mr. Speaker, first of all, I would like to congratulate my colleague, the member for Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel on his speech. The member brought up how difficult it is to follow the Conservatives' logic regarding the firearms registry. The only explanation for this is their ideological position.

I would like to hear some more about how he feels about the Conservatives' attitude. We agree on the principle of the bill; that goes without saying. The government knew and tolerated, for example, that a child soldier was tortured at Guantanamo. It also tolerates the torture that goes on in Afghanistan.

[Mario Laframboise, Bloc, Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague is right. Because of how they do things, we have to analyze and pick apart every justice bill the Conservatives introduce. Often the only thing they are trying to do, especially when it comes to justice, is win the public opinion battle so they can go up in the polls. That is how the Conservatives operate.

That has never been the Bloc Québécois' position. Everyone knows that we have always been very respectful. We have always stood up for Quebec. We have always opposed all forms of pedophilia and child abuse. We have always been consistent in our stances. We have always trusted our judges, and we have always believed in our justice system.

Judges have been appointed. Every case is different, and we have always had faith in the justice system. We have never been drawn into the media storm whipped up around certain cases. That is not what the Bloc Québécois has chosen to do. We have always been against torture, not just when the media are paying attention, like the Conservatives. Since first coming here, and for as long as we are here, we have always been and will always be against the torture of children and prisoners. That has always been our position, and we believe that it is consistent with the values of Quebeckers. That is what we have stood up for every day in this House, and that is what we will continue to do, as long as I am here, at any rate.

[Brian Murphy, Liberal, Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe, NB]

Madam Speaker, I have a question for the member about the situation in Quebec in particular.

I would like to know whether the police have enough resources to enforce the provisions of this bill. When this government introduces new legislation to combat crime, it does not give the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights enough information to determine whether there will be enough money and resources to enforce this legislation.

The hon. member may know the situation of the Sûreté du Québec very well. In his opinion, does it have sufficient resources to implement this bill?

[Mario Laframboise, Bloc, Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC]

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for his question.

Before I came to the House of Commons, I was head of the Union des municipalités du Québec. Quebec has the Sûreté du Québec, and municipal police forces, as well, which are also important. Successive ministers of public safety in Quebec have always said that to strike the right balance, it was necessary for the Montreal urban community to have one-third of the police officers, the Sûreté du Québec to have one-third and the other municipal police forces to have one-third.

That is the reality. My colleague asked a good question. We are probably going to pass a law, but will there be enough money so that the police forces can work together? In order to combat cybercrime and child sexual exploitation on the Internet, there has to be enough funding.

As I said earlier, the Conservatives' goals are to score political points in the short term in order to boost their popularity in the polls. They have introduced a bill, but what will happen once it is passed? It will be difficult to implement, and it will take money. The necessary funding will have to be in place so that all the police forces can work together. In Quebec, the Sûreté du Québec and the municipal police forces will have to get their share in order to combat cybercrime against children.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to participate in this debate at second reading of Bill C-58, the latest bill the government has brought forward.

It struck me as peculiar that the bill was just tabled and, all of a sudden, it is before the House for debate without briefing notes from the minister, without a legislative summary, and without consultation or somehow engaging the members to consider the issue before us.

The issue is not really about Internet laws, but about the protection of children. That is what the bill is about. If we put it in that context, we will understand that this specific bill relating to child protection is a very small piece of the discussion. That concerns me, and I think that concern is slowly emerging.

We are at second reading of this bill. The reason I wanted to rise is that I would like to encourage members to put on the table as many recommendations as possible for committee to consider, not just this very narrow bill as it stands. We need to examine how this bill could have been part of a comprehensive approach to child protection beyond simply dealing with those who happen to detect child pornography on a computer, whether they be individuals or organizations.

When I saw the penalties for a first offence, in this particular case a $1,000, I thought, “My goodness, child pornography probably generates millions of dollars, so the $1,000 just does not seem to be in the ball park”. My premise is that if one is not part of the solution, then one must be part of the problem.

The previous speaker from the Bloc raised for members' consideration the issue of prevention and, of course, the Canadian Centre for Child Protection raised the need for us to do much more.

Whenever a criminal justice bill is before the House, not being a lawyer, I can enjoy the luxury of asking, what do I know about and how do I feel about this bill and what does it do to address the problem before us? I look at the issue that we are talking about and why we are doing what we propose and the elements of penalties and incarceration that are included. I also ask what are the issues with regard to rehabilitation, if possible, and what are the issues with regard to prevention?

I say this because when we talk about criminal justice issues, we have to deal with them before and after we have the problem. We know from all of the work that has ever been done on health and justice issues and from wherever we have social problems that understanding and admitting that we have a problem is the first step. The next step has to be, how do we prevent some of these problems?

I should say at the outset that the bill, in its narrow way, is worthwhile sending to committee and, I suspect, supporting to become law. But it is so narrow in its approach, it is tinkering. How many times have we asked why does the government not come forward with comprehensive legislation that actually addresses the issue? The issue is child protection, and we have problems there.

When I looked at the speech by the Minister of State for the Status of Women, who gave the government's position, I am pretty sure that somebody wrote it for her. Nonetheless, at least two or three times it mentions that Canada has “one of the most comprehensive frameworks in the world to combat child pornography” and that “we can and must do better”. A little later in the speech, the minister continued that “Canadian criminal laws against child pornography are among the most comprehensive in the world and apply to representations involving real and imaginary children”. That point is later repeated.

We can say that is the truth, but if Canadians look at the statistics, they should know that 39% of those accessing child pornography are viewing images of children between the ages of three and five years of age, and 19% are viewing images of infants under three years old. The public does not really know that, but we should consider that we are talking about a significant problem of children five years of age or younger. The vast majority of this problem is among children five years of age or younger.

Why does the government not ask itself how is it that a child five years or under could actually be a victim of child pornography? Can we imagine our own children being involved in this? If so, why? If not, why not? From our knowledge and experience, we know collectively the conditions that are fertile for bad or wrong things happening. We understand those things, but we are tinkering here. We have a serious problem. The minister of state admits it, but also says that we have the most comprehensive framework to deal with it. Well, we do not.

When we have a problem as pervasive as this, we can look back at some of the history of it and recall that we had a joint Commons-Senate report entitled “For the Sake of the Children”. It dealt with issues of family breakdown and recommended, for example, that if there were a custody dispute in an acrimonious divorce, there must be a parenting plan in place before a divorce can be granted by the courts. That was a joint Commons-Senate report done years ago.

It never happened. I have spent a fair bit of time working on children's issues. I wrote a book called The Child Poverty Solution dealing with the causes of child poverty. Child poverty is one of those things that tugs on the heart. Who could be against dealing with child poverty? However, it is family poverty, because every child in a poor family is poor. Why are families poor? On a scale divided into quartiles, no matter how much anybody makes, somebody will be in the fourth quartile.

Under the definition we have right now, if one is in the fourth quartile, one is basically counted as being among Canada's poor. Poverty needs a definition, but I am not going to get into that because the bill is not about child poverty other than the fact that such poverty is a contributing factor to a child being accessible and vulnerable to being a victim of child pornography.

I wrote another book called Divorce—The Bold Facts, which also dealt with family breakdown and the impact on children. The research that I did was just amazing. The implications for children of family breakdown are enormous. Where those children end up and the quality of care they get and the circumstances they have to live in, tell me that these are fertile areas for bad things to happen.

I wrote another book called Strong Families... Make a Strong Country dealing with the same thing. It showed statistically that the intact family, a child with a biological mother and biological father, had the least incidence of bad outcomes for children. The statistics show this out; it is not a subjective opinion. It is subjectively determinative, and this has been shown so many times. Another related book I wrote was called TRAGIC TOLERANCE... of Domestic Violence.

I am wearing my white ribbon because we are talking right now about an area that is extremely important. Domestic violence and violence against women are still rampant in our country. I spent five years on the board of my shelter for battered women, called Interim Place, and helped them get a second shelter built. However, I am hoping that these shelters will go out of business. In a perfect world, we would not need shelters for women and children who are abused.

We just considered Bill C-36, the bill dealing with the faint hope clause. Here, four out of the six women who applied for the faint hope clause were abused women who had killed their husbands and been convicted of first degree murder. All of them had children. Four of the six who applied actually were granted early parole, and while they still have a life sentence, they were granted early parole because of the compassionate understanding that bad things happen. In a couple of those cases, the husband was having an affair on the side and there were other consequential things, but there was a first degree murder. It is terrible that murder occurs, but Bill C-36 eliminates the opportunity for parole after 15 years. It says that if someone commits first degree murder, that person is going to serve 25 years before he or she gets the first opportunity for parole. Can we imagine what that does to a family with children? I do not understand why repeal of the faint hope clause is going to happen. I do not support the elimination of faint hope, but that is not before us right now.

I have said so many times in this place that public education—

[Brent Rathgeber, Conservative, Edmonton—St. Albert, AB]

You did not vote against it.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

I did.

Public education is always part of the solution for all of our problems. When there are social problems, we have to look at them and understand them. Canada cannot pretend to be the creator of all good ideas; those ideas do come from other places. Other countries have done a lot of work on this, and yet the bill was so hastily put together that it actually is anemic in its approach to the issue of child protection. While it is okay to do what the bill proposes, and it will not harm things, I do not think the bill is going to help as much as people think it is.

We even have a question with regard to how we should police this and how we should make this happen. When we pass laws in this place, by and large, the federal police, the RCMP, will not be responsible for enforcing the laws we pass, but the provincial and regional police forces across the country. They are the ones. Ask them today. Ask them province-by-province, region-by-region, territory-by-territory, what is the shape of their budgets with regard to policing.

Why pass laws that we cannot enforce or whose potential we cannot actualize? If we cannot support the policing, is it there? Have we talked concurrently of a special fund being set up, or special task forces or special policing forces, because when one finds a “little nest”, that nest may be part of a whole colony. It is going to take time, but if we are serious about dealing with child protection in the context of child pornography, there has to be a strategy. The strategy should not be a matter of our tinkering with this and that. Then we cannot boast that we have the most comprehensive strategy and are the best in the world. It is misleading Canadians.

The previous member from the Bloc who spoke said that we have to make people aware. We all have to be part of the solution. We all have to be aware. We need the tools and the information, but here we are as parliamentarians and what we have is: a bill. Here is the bill. After one rips out all of the boilerplate pages that have nothing to do with the law, the document comes down to four items: Situations where there may be an offence by individuals or persons, and then there are the offences and the punishments for them.

For the first offence, an individual who has knowledge of but does not disclose that there is child pornography on a particular site can be fined not more than $1,000. When I read that, I thought we are not serious. We cannot be serious.

If we think that maybe the ISPs just did not realize what their legal obligation was, and that probably will be the case, that in itself is a reason for us to launch a major national public education and awareness campaign about this problem and about the tools we have and we should ask Canadians to be part of it. However, that is not in this bill.

Somebody decided that we ought to do this just because of what is happening in the world regarding domestic violence and crimes involving children and because we should get tough on crime. This is about punishing people after problems occur or after people get sick.

When I was elected to Parliament, the first committee I wanted to be on was the health committee. I remember that at the very first meeting I attended, officials appeared to give us the state of the union of the health care system in Canada. They told members of the committee that 75% of what we spend on health care deals with curing people after they have a problem, and 25% is spent on prevention. Their conclusion at the time was that the model of 25% prevention and 75% remediation after the problem occurs was not sustainable.

They built on it to say that the benefit of $1 spent on prevention was worth three times more than the benefit of $1 spent on cures and remediation. In other words, the value of prevention has a multiplier effect in terms of good and better outcomes. The same principle applies to criminal justice.

It is not good enough to say that if people do the crime, they will do the time, that we will throw people in jail and throw away the key because they are bad people. If we could reduce the number of people who are in jail or who have to be fined, that would be a good outcome.

We know statistics bear that out for things like conditional sentencing. They say that people who qualify for conditional sentencing, house arrest or whatever actually have a lower recidivism rate than do those who have to serve all of their time in jail. That is not just my opinion. Those are the facts, that there is lower recidivism if fewer people go to jail and more get conditional sentencing or early parole.

It makes some sense, but we do not make sense when we come forward with bills that are so narrow. They are almost political documents as opposed to justice documents. This is a political advertisement.

We will support the bill, but why not come forward with notes and information for members of Parliament so they can discuss it and make recommendations to the House, so that when the committee receives this bill it will be able to address some of the items that we addressed? That is what we should be doing at second reading, telling the committee what we are concerned about and asking it to look at our concerns. It has the opportunity to do it. I know the members on the justice committee will look at it.

We have to stop bringing bills forward that are not our best work. They could be much better. I hope that hon. members will get engaged, start debating this bill, and instruct the committee on the kinds of approaches we should take to make this legislation better, and, further, recommend to the House that there are other areas in which we should consider bringing forward legislation for the protection of children.

[Brent Rathgeber, Conservative, Edmonton—St. Albert, AB]

Madam Speaker, I thank the hon. member for his contribution to this debate, which I listened to with some interest. I have a couple of questions.

He talked about the faint hope clause. I am not sure there is a clear nexus or relation between that and the bill under consideration, but he spoke in favour of the faint hope clause and, by definition, against what happened yesterday when the House voted at third reading to abolish it. I am curious as to why he did not vote against Bill C-36 yesterday if he felt so strongly.

With respect to his rhetorical question as to why a child under five could be the subject of sexual abuse, which is a very good question, I am curious as to his thoughts respecting this government's universal child care plan, a plan that provides families with support to make choices and to provide balance between work and home thus allowing parents to be more interactive in the raising of their children.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Madam Speaker, we should not be talking about the faint hope clause. The issue was that there was a feeling that we had to punish rather than prevent.

With regard to the faint hope clause, I gave the example that four out of the six women who were abused and who murdered their husbands, after going through the very rigorous process, were able to apply for early parole.

I voted in favour of the motion to strike out everything in the bill and refer it back to committee. That was my vote, to negative the bill. That was a clear vote. I voted to scrap the bill and throw it back to committee.

With regard to the universal benefit, it is not universal in the same sense because $1,200 a year is not enough for a family to be able to afford to put one child into child care for more than about three or four weeks.

I would suggest to the member that it is a very weak argument in regard to child protection issues.

[Jim Maloway, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Madam Speaker, I want to thank the member for his comments. Yesterday when the minister was introducing the bill, she said that $42.1 million over five years was being provided to law enforcement as more resources to deal with the problem.

When I asked her whether that was new money or not, she said that she did not know and she was going to get back to me. I guess that just points to what the member for Mississauga South has said, that the bill has been rushed, the notes are not available, and the government has not done the research it should have.

For example, earlier on today I asked one of the members from the government side whether or not they had done any research as to best practices in other jurisdictions. That is a logical thing to do. Clearly, the government has not been doing that in some other cases, for instance when it followed the California prison system, which has been a total failure for 20 years. The government does not really have a history of checking around the world for best practices.

Yesterday the member for the Liberal Party very clearly pointed out that in Sweden they block child porn. In Germany they block access to the sites. That takes care of the problems.

This bill is only going to take us partway. It is a bill that we are going to support and it should be supported. The horse is out of the barn here, and the way to deal with the problem is to look at what works in other countries.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Madam Speaker, I think the member is quite right.

First of all, this was not the best effort of the government, quite frankly. It has not thought it through carefully. It has not taken the opportunity to look at ways in which we can have legislation that is going to deal with the incidents.

For some odd reason, the government seems to think that if we have a tough enough penalty out there, that is going to be a deterrent. That does not work. Bad criminals simply do not respond. They do not think about what the penalty is under the Criminal Code, and then decide whether or not they are going to do the crime. That is not the case.

With regard to the question about the money, the member is quite right. If the government has a bill and is prepared, then it has anticipated the questions and it will have the answers.

When Bill C-36 was before committee, the government did not even have an answer about how many people actually applied under section 745. Why is it that the government does not get it? It does not understand that if it is serious about legislation, it better bring forward the facts and the information, put it all on the table and let it stand on its merit. That would be good legislation.

[Brian Murphy, Liberal, Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe, NB]

Madam Speaker, the hon. member will recall, and I will not because I was not here, that in November 2005, in the last days of the last Liberal government, there were changes to the Criminal Code, which broadened the definition of child pornography. The changes included more offences out there, which was a good thing, and mandatory minimum sentences were introduced for this crime. That was four years ago.

The hon. member has been sitting in Parliament with me for four years while we have heard train after train of the Conservative government's crime agenda come in and out of the station so often. Why does he think the Conservatives have forgotten this very important aspect?

We know from Cybertip.ca, and everybody in the House also admits, that because of the burgeoning distribution through the Internet, this is a very quickly growing crime. Why did the Conservatives wait four years to do something about it? Why have they not moved the minimum mandatory sentences, and they seem to love minimum mandatories, for simply making pornography to one year and for possession of pornography to 45 days? Why have they not attacked those in a bill like this rather than going after the Internet providers in a private, out of the Criminal Code bill, and why did they keep the defences? There are defences to making child pornography. Why did the Conservatives not take those out of the code?

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

I could not say it better, Madam Speaker.

I ask why we have this bill and why now. Why is it so weak? Is it just another facade? Is there any commitment to the issue of child protection? We can use all the words we want to say that we really care about that, but I bet I could pick a half-dozen people out of this place, get together as a committee, look at best practices around the world, get the facts, hold some public hearings and come up with a draft piece of legislation for the government to consider. I would love that opportunity, because I think that members in this place who were not muzzled and were not forced to follow linear thinking on criminal justice issues, members who were free to openly discuss and deal with these things would come up with much better legislation.

[Cathy McLeod, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

Madam Speaker, I have listened to both the speech and the questions and answers. The hon. member talked about prevention at length. Prevention comes through the health transfers, the social service transfers, which of course we have increased every year compared to what the Liberals did when they were actually in power, because it is the provincial governments that are dealing with a whole host of issues in that area.

There are a number of things that I have done in my own riding in terms of prevention, which the federal government has funded. We are not talking about prevention here. We know prevention is important. We are talking about protecting children. Instead of ambling into many areas, this is an important bill, and if the member could clearly speak to the importance of the bill in protecting children, I would really appreciate it.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Madam Speaker, the member has to admit that fining someone $1,000, as the penalty for a first offence, for having pornography on their website that is available for distribution is an anemic punishment.

The member has to admit that this has nothing to do with protection; it has to do with punishment. Somehow the member thinks that the bill and its anemic response to the problem will reduce the incidence. It will not. That is the difference in the Conservatives' thinking on criminal justice issues. They think it will provide some sort of prevention or deterrence. That is just not the case.