Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to rise in the House to speak to Bill C-13.
The first part of the bill is very clearly a critical issue that we have been dealing with in Canada. I would hope that every member in this House would support expedited action, across the board, to prevent cyberbullying and the inappropriate, illegal, non-consensual distribution of sexual information, in particular related to children.
I welcome the fact, as do my colleagues, that the government is finally coming forward with a more reasonable bill, and that we do not have the slinging of insults. We appreciate the respect being given to this matter and the more respectful bill, and perhaps it is because the bill is now being tabled by the Minister of Justice. We hope we will have a better balancing of rights to privacy and the rights of children, and other people who are harmed by inappropriate acts through the Internet.
I do wish to bring to the attention of the House that this is not the first time that members of the House have sought action on the issue of cyberbullying and action, particularly where youth have been harmed, and in some cases have committed suicide, because of extensive bullying.
I would like to bring to the attention of the House the motion M-385, tabled by the member for Chicoutimi—Le Fjord in October 2012. It was debated in this House. The member recommended that there be a broad-based strategy on dealing with cyberbullying.
It is noteworthy that just before I rose to speak a member across the way referenced the report on cyberbullying that was put together by federal, provincial and territorial ministers of justice and public safety. The very first recommendation is that the working group acknowledged the benefits of a multi-pronged, multi-sectoral approach to the issue of cyberbullying and called for action in a comprehensive manner.
That is very appreciated. Obviously, the justice ministers and the public safety ministers across this country recognize that we need to have clarification in criminal law. However, we need a lot more than that.
The member for Chicoutimi—Le Fjord recommended that. He recommended a broad-based strategy that all members of the House could develop together and, heavens forbid, reach a consensus on the measures we need to move forward on. Very sadly, the Conservative members all voted down that motion.
Also, members on this side brought forward Bill C-540, a private member's bill, from the member for Dartmouth—Cole Harbour. In that bill, he recommended the creation of an offence to produce or distribute intimate images of an individual without their consent. That was the response to the tragic suicide of Rehtaeh Parsons in his province.
In addition, another member on this side, the member for New Westminster—Coquitlam, tabled Bill C-213, which very succinctly addressed the matter of communication for the purposes of child luring.
Very clearly, the members of the official opposition strongly support action by the government to address child luring and to address and punish any cyber crime that would lead to bullying and could cause serious harm or suicide of our children.
Canadian families would clearly be grateful for expedited action, certainly the families of the victims of previous bullying incidents would. Most importantly, we would like to prevent any such incident from ever occurring again. I think all members of the House would concur with that.
What we want to do is to protect our families from harm. I concur. I join with my colleagues in strongly supporting the first provisions of this bill, which deal with and address cyberbullying. I am certain that we did our best to try to suggest to the government that it would be wise to expedite these measures by dividing the bill.
We may need to strengthen the investigative powers but, as I will speak to later on, we need a lot more than stronger criminal law; we need to make sure that our enforcement officers are fully capable of actually taking action on these matters.
However, as I mentioned at the outset, the most important measures we need are ones to prevent these acts from occurring at all, not simply taking enforcement action after the fact.
Why do we have these issues? Why are Canadians, in particular legal experts and privacy experts, raising concerns with the majority of the provisions of this bill? I am informed that 37 of the 47 clauses of the bill do not directly relate to cyberbullying. Therefore, it appears eminently reasonable that we would have further debate on those provisions to expedite the cyber crime provisions.
One of the matters that was of deep concern to Canadians from coast to coast to coast, in particular legal scholars, was the previous provision of a bill that was tabled in the previous Parliament. It would have allowed for intervention into accessing Internet material without a warrant. When objections were raised, the then minister of public safety accused anybody who had raised any concerns or had proposed amendments to the bill of being pro child pornography. That caused the government to ultimately withdraw its bill, and I think appropriately.
We are encouraged that the government has moved forward now with a more reasonable bill. However, legal experts are raising some concerns with the direction the bill is taking on the way it is imposing conditions on warrants. Those are critical matters.
We have long-standing legal precedents on when it is appropriate to allow for the seizing of material and where it might be a violation of a charter right. The prerequisites to obtain a warrant have been long debated in the courts. If we are to move in any way on shifting the burden on having to show cause before obtaining a warrant, it justifiably merits a good discussion in committee over those matters. However, the government has decided that it does not want to divide the bill, so unfortunately all matters will be going to committee.
I previously mentioned the matter of the warrantless disclosure. An equally concerning matter is the possibility for Internet providers to voluntarily disclose information. I would suggest that is a matter that also needs to be looked at closely. People exchange information of a private matter day in and day out. There should be some level of protection when there is an exchange of that information.
As I only have a few minutes left, I would like to speak to a matter that comes from my personal experience. I was involved for many years in the field of environmental enforcement. One of the lessons I learned from that is that the best way to deter a crime is to have a high probability of detection and punishment.
In order to make that happen, most agencies now, when they are developing legislation, are simultaneously taking a look at the capacities of their enforcement agencies to deliver. They ask whether they have enough personnel and whether they are appropriately qualified. This is an area that police and enforcement officers have been identifying for quite some time, that it takes very special skills and training.
I have not seen the government come forward with a parallel skills, training and capabilities strategy. I would encourage it to move expeditiously on that, so that the moment the bill becomes law, the government is immediately capable of enforcing that law.
In closing, the bill is going in the right direction, generally speaking. However, it will be important for particular matters, including the changing of the burden of proof and warrants, to be explored at committee with the appropriate experts.