Mr. Speaker, that is a false dichotomy in the question because, in fact, this bill would not create warrantless access. That is a mythology. It is an incorrect, factually wrong statement that is being repeated time and time again by members opposite.
This bill would require and necessitate judicial oversight. It does not attempt to go around that power. It does not propose to bestow new powers on the police to perform warrantless search. They would have to get access with a judicially authorized warrant.
That was the very crux, the ratio decidendi, of the Spencer decision. It talked about the fact that people have a reasonable expectation of privacy when they go online. I do not know whether all Canadians actually believe that when they go online; we know there is lots of hacking that is not being done by the government that puts some of that data at risk.
The reality is that this legislation is about modernizing the Criminal Code sections, about putting in the hands of the police tools with judicial authorization that would allow them to go after fraud artists, child pornographers, and those who are using the Internet to intimidate and harass people. They could go after those who are taking part in activities that in the real world, not the virtual world, clearly would be criminalized.
That is what we are attempting to do through this bill. It is modernizing it. It is moving us into the 21st century, into the modern age of technology. That is what we are doing. To suggest that we should split the bill and put the Criminal Code sections in one part and put the police powers in another is like saying we should give somebody a paddle but not a boat.