Debates of Nov. 20th, 2014

Tougher Penalties for Child Predators Act

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, we hear a great deal about advances through technology, and particularly about the positive impacts the Internet has on society. One of the things that we do not hear enough about or that there is not enough debate about in the House of Commons is the issue of the negative impacts on our society. One of the greatest negative impacts is the exploitation of children through the Internet. There are private members' bills with respect to that from all sides of the House. All political parties are trying to get a better sense of the need for national leadership with respect to dealing with the predators who are exploiting our children. Could the member provide some comment on the need for us to be diligent in terms of what is taking place on the Internet today that is causing harm to our children?

[Jonathan Genest-Jourdain, NDP, Manicouagan, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his question.

His comments remind me of the visit I made last week to an elementary school in Sept-Îles, in my riding. The children spoke a lot about online predators and the realities of social media.

This made me realize that when I was their age, these kinds of things simply did not exist. I was 21 years old the first time I had access to a computer. I was almost in university. At 19 or 20, the first few times I saw the Internet, I had a hard time understanding it all.

However, in 2014, kids who are 8 or 9 years old were practically born with tablets in their hands. There is a need for enforcement measures and better verification of the content on the Internet.

However, although this is very troublesome, it is outside the scope of this discussion and this study. There are experts who are examining this issue. The teacher I met with was well trained to handle the children's concerns.

[Wayne Marston, NDP, Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I want to start by saying that I am pleased that our justice critic has brought forward a recommendation to send this bill to committee for study. I also want to thank our member for Manicouagan for his reasoned responses.

In Hamilton a sexual offender was released after he had been assessed as likely to reoffend, which concerned the Chief of Police to the point that the police posted what part of town he was in, his name, and his picture. Ultimately, he could not live within the boundaries of the court order and turned himself in to the police. He is back in custody, and since he has been back in custody, he has caused quite a few problems.

My concern, and the concern of my constituents, is this: how do we deal with a situation like that? This is more of a comment than a question. Hopefully the committee will review that portion of the problem of child sexual abuse and take a good look at how we can manage to ensure that it does not happen and that people will receive proper health care as well.

[Jonathan Genest-Jourdain, NDP, Manicouagan, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the hon. member for his intervention.

He talked about posting the individual's whereabouts and picture. Those are methods and practices that have been used in the United States and perhaps even here in Canada. However, that may open a Pandora's box because people could become vigilantes. We do not want that. I can guarantee that if people decide to take the law into their own hands, there will be implications. This is worth considering at committee to determine whether action by the public is a good thing and workable on the ground.

As I said in the beginning, this is a distinct group. These criminals and offenders already enjoy a dubious kind of popularity in prison. Their safety is jeopardized because of the circumstances. The other inmates have it in for them. We need to ensure that the same thing does not happen in broader society. It is worth looking into.

[Bob Dechert, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak on the second reading of Bill C-26, the tougher penalties for child predators act. However, I must say that although I fully support this bill, I do so with sadness, because like every member of this House, I wish it were not necessary, but unfortunately it is.

We discussed earlier the statistics from Juristat, which describe the problem. Over 3,900 sexual violations against children were reported to police in 2012, which was an increase of 3% from 2011, and the same increase was seen from 2010 to 2011. There were approximately 33,000 sex offenders on the National Sex Offender Registry, of which approximately 22,000 had a conviction for a child sex offence as of October 2013.

This is very unfortunate. It is the one type of crime in Canada that continues to increase year by year.

I was told by Karyn Kennedy, the executive director of the Boost child advocacy centre in Toronto, an agency that is doing fantastic work to assist child and youth victims of sexual offences, that they cannot keep up with the demand. They opened a centre a year ago expecting to have about 1,400 cases in that year, and they had almost double that number during that period.

It is an endemic problem. It may be fuelled in part by the availability of the Internet and the ease of luring and abusing children over the Internet. Unfortunately, it is a heinous crime that is being perpetrated against the most vulnerable people in our society, and we must all take action to do whatever we can to reduce and eliminate it.

This bill reflects the ongoing efforts of the government to protect our children from sexual exploitation. My remarks today will focus on the bill's proposals to ensure that the sentences imposed for child sexual offences adequately reflect the appropriate level of denunciation and deterrence.

We know that children are far more likely to be victims of sexual crimes than are adults. It is worrisome to see that the trend is increasing. One of the factors contributing to this trend in recent years has been the Internet, which has expanded the reach of sexual predators to the globe with a click of a button.

The justice committee heard considerable evidence of the use of the Internet to lure, exploit, and sexually bully children during its study of Bill C-13, the protecting Canadians from online crime act. The proposed reforms to our Criminal Code and our new investigative powers in that bill are necessary to protect children, as are the provisions in the bill before us.

The Canadian Centre for Child Protection is an impressive organization that has, since 2004, received support from the federal government as part of the national strategy to protect children from sexual exploitation on the Internet. It delivers programs to increase the personal safety of children and reduce their risk of sexual exploitation. These programs include education and prevention, research, and the coordination of national efforts on child protection with the private sector, government, and law enforcement.

It also operates cybertip.ca, Canada's national 24/7 tip line for reporting online child sexual exploitation. As noted on its website, between September 2002 and June 2010, cybertip.ca received 39,783 reports of online child sexual exploitation, 90% of which were for child pornography offences. These numbers paint a horrifying picture that clearly demonstrates that we must do more to stop child sexual exploitation, including by online predators. The proposed amendments contained in this bill would assist in achieving this objective by ensuring that sentences handed down would properly denounce and deter all forms of child sexual exploitation.

Bill C-26 proposes to increase the mandatory minimum penalty for nine existing child sexual offences as well as increase the maximum penalties for 16 existing child sexual offences. For example, the maximum penalty for section 171.1 of the Criminal Code, making sexually explicit material available to a child for the purpose of facilitating the sexual abuse of the child, would increase from two years of imprisonment on indictment to 14 years of imprisonment, with a corresponding increase in the mandatory minimum penalty from 90 days to six months imprisonment.

The offences of making child pornography, subsection 163.1(2), and distributing child pornography, subsection 163.1(3) of the Criminal Code would be converted from hybrid offences to indictable offences, and the maximum penalties would increase from 10 to 14 years.

As well, the maximum penalties on indictment for luring a child on the Internet, section 172.1 of the code, and for an agreement or arrangement to commit a sexual offence against a child through the use of telecommunications, section 172.2 of the code, will increase from 10 to 14 years of imprisonment. These are serious crimes, and this bill will ensure that they receive serious penalties.

This bill goes further to ensure that the objective of these amendments, to impose penalties that properly reflect the seriousness of the offence, is not defeated through sentence discounts for offenders sentenced at the same time for multiple child sexual offences.

Courts have, over time, developed rules to assist sentencing judges in the determination of whether sentences should be served concurrently, at the same time, or consecutively, that is, served one after the other. The general rule is that offences committed as part of the same transaction or same event should be served concurrently. For instance, an offender who sexually abuses a child and also makes a permanent record of that abuse by making child pornography should in theory be ordered to serve two sentences concurrently. Where an offender is sentenced at the same time for offences that are not committed as part of the same transaction, those sentences are normally served consecutively.

However, sometimes it happens that an offender is sentenced at the same time for sexual offences committed against different children, that is, committed as separate events. There have been a number of notorious serial child sex offenders whose crimes have come to light in much later years and were then tried together. Those offenders sometimes get a sentence discount through sentences that are imposed concurrent to each other rather than consecutively. Such an approach, in my view, sends a message, in the case of multiple victims, that not every victim counts. That is unfortunate.

Increasingly, however, sentencing courts are recognizing that consecutive sentences are warranted in certain cases of child sexual exploitation. These situations include, for example, where the offender has sexually abused a child, made child pornographic recordings of that abuse, and then disseminated those images worldwide via the Internet.

Imposing consecutive sentences in these circumstances, as some courts have already done, recognizes the reality that once such images are distributed, they will forever be available on the Internet and that the child depicted in those images will be revictimized every time the images are viewed.

For these reasons, Bill C-26 proposes to codify this growing practice by requiring courts that are sentencing an offender at the same time for child pornography and child sexual abuse to impose consecutive sentences for these offences.

The bill would also require a sentencing court to consider imposing consecutive sentences on an offender who is sentenced at the same time for sexual offences against multiple child victims; that is, the sentence imposed for child sexual offences committed against one child would be served consecutive, meaning one after the other, to the sentence imposed for sexual offences committed against another child.

Those are all important and welcome steps to ensure that all child sexual offenders are held fully accountable for their crimes. This bill will treat each victim equally and with dignity. This bill will end volume discounts for serial child sexual offenders.

This bill will also look beyond the sentence and seek to enhance community safety where the offender is released into the community under a prohibition order, under section 161; a probation order, under section 731; or a peace bond, under 810.1 of the Criminal Code.

A sentencing court must consider imposing a prohibition order on an offender convicted of a child sexual assault offence. Probation orders, under section 731, can be imposed on offenders who are sentenced to less than two years' imprisonment. Peace bonds can be imposed where there is a reasonable fear that the person will commit a child sexual offence, which is under section 810.1 of the Criminal Code.

Many experts tell us that most, if not all, child sexual offenders can never be rehabilitated, that once they have this problem, this issue, this proclivity, there is really nothing that can be done to ensure that they do not have that proclivity in the future. There are people, unfortunately, in our society who must always be under some kind of probation order or watch and must be listed on an offender registry so that Canadians can keep their children safe.

All of these orders can impose conditions restricting the offender's contact with children and use of the Internet or other digital networks with a view to preventing the offender from committing a child sexual offence.

The Criminal Code currently provides for a maximum penalty on indictment of two years' imprisonment for breaches of the supervision orders. Given that they are crucial in protecting our children from sexual offenders, including from recidivists, the bill proposes to increase the penalty for a breach of these orders to a maximum term of imprisonment on indictment of four years.

The bill also proposes to impose consistent penalties for breaches of these orders when prosecuted summarily. There have been many cases, unfortunately, of child sexual offenders who, on release and on some form of probation, then committed a second, third, or fourth subsequent offence, and that is problem we are trying to address with these provisions in Bill C-26.

Currently, breaches of peace bonds and prohibition orders are both punished on summary conviction by a maximum fine of $5,000 or six months' imprisonment, or both. Yet breaches of probation orders are punishable on summary conviction by a maximum fine of $2,000 or 18 months' imprisonment, or both.

To ensure the harmonization of the penalties for breaches of these supervision orders, the bill would provide that the maximum penalty on summary conviction for breaches would be 18 months' imprisonment or $5,000, or both.

The last element I wish to touch upon is the amendment to the proposed Canada Evidence Act. The Canada Evidence Act provides that the spouse of a person accused of most offences can neither testify for the prosecution nor be forced to testify against the spouse. However, there are exceptions to this rule for most child sexual offences, but not, unfortunately, in the case of child pornography offences.

In child pornography cases, the evidence of the accused's spouse may be required to prove the guilt of the accused. That is why the amendments proposed in this bill would make the spouse competent and compellable to testify for the prosecution in cases of child pornography.

There are a number of other provisions that I think are very important in the bill that I would like everyone listening to know about. The bill would also establish a publicly accessible database of high-risk child sexual offenders who have been the subject of a public notification in a provincial or territorial jurisdiction. It would assist in ensuring the safety of our communities.

In addition, the bill would provide for legislation to enable information-sharing, on certain registered sex offenders, between officials responsible for the National Sex Offender Registry and those with the Canada Border Services Agency so that foreign nations may be notified when these types of offenders are travelling to other jurisdictions.

Finally, Bill C-26 would require registered sex offenders to provide more information regarding their travel abroad. We want to protect not only children in Canada but children around the world, and unfortunately, there are those in our society who would leave our borders to find victims around the world. Canada will live up to its international obligation to protect children around the world by ensuring that high-risk child sexual offenders notify the Canada Border Services Agency when they intend to travel abroad.

The heinous nature of sexual crimes committed against children, especially the online sexual exploitation of children, requires all of us in this chamber to support the proposed amendments contained in the bill. I was gratified to hear a few moments ago that my friends in the NDP will be supporting the bill to go to the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights for study. I look forward to working with them at the justice committee to study the bill and ensure that it addresses the needs of the children we are trying to protect in Canada.

[Françoise Boivin, NDP, Gatineau, QC]

Mr. Speaker, we will support this bill to send it to committee. I think that everyone in the House agrees that this is an extremely important issue. As everyone knows, the NDP and all parties and politicians have always had zero tolerance for sexual assault or assault of any kind against children.

That being said, the devil is often in the details. My colleague from Hamilton East—Stoney Creek raised an interesting point, and earlier, my colleague from Manicouagan gave us a very good overview of the bill itself. Basically, people have kind of forgotten Bill C-26 because the last time we talked about it was in June, when we debated it for a few hours late at night, close to midnight. I remember rising in the House then to discuss this bill. The Minister of Justice was marketing it as a panacea, with the new database on high-risk sex offenders.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice made it clear in his speech that a few minimum sentences will be increased. Let us not get carried away. Sometimes minimum sentences are increased from six months to one year. It is nothing to write home about. We know through jurisprudence that high-risk offenders are given much longer sentences than that. That is not the problem.

I would like the parliamentary secretary to put his notes aside. How can we keep our communities safe when, essentially, the problem is not knowing that these people are free, but the fact that they are free, period? That is what escapes me. How can we keep our communities safe by being a little tougher, and not with things like Bill C-26, which seems to be all razzle-dazzle? How can we realistically ensure that a dangerous sex offender does not end up in our communities?

[Bob Dechert, Conservative, Mississauga—Erindale, ON]

Mr. Speaker, my hon. friend is right that more needs to be done. Simply increasing penalties is not the whole answer to the problem, but we must make a very strong statement of our abhorrence as a society of those who would commit these kinds of offences against children. That is what Bill C-26 is attempting to do.

The member will also know that there are a number of provisions, which I outlined in my speech, about prohibition orders, probation orders, and peace bonds that could be applied to known child sexual offenders to protect children.

As I mentioned, we are also creating a special high-risk child sex offender registry that will be made available to the public through the Internet. This will be designed in conjunction with the advice of the RCMP and the provincial and territorial attorneys general to ensure it is done in a way that will actually give Canadians the information they need, so that they will know if a sexual offender is in the community and what steps they can take to ensure that their children are safe.

[Sean Casey, Liberal, Charlottetown, PE]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the parliamentary secretary for his speech and the work he does on the justice committee.

I want to raise with him a matter that I raised with the minister when he appeared before the committee on the bill. First, I hope it goes without saying that on all sides of the House we absolutely abhor these types of crime and agree that measures that work to reduce them should be taken.

In the the Safe Streets and Communities Act, Bill C-10, there were several mandatory minimum penalties imposed for these types of offences. Bill C-10 took effect in 2012. We heard from the parliamentary secretary that since 2012, incidents of these types of crime have gone up by 6%. I counted eight types of existing offences, and the parliamentary secretary said there were nine. However, we are increasing again the mandatory minimum sentences that were put in place or increased in Bill C-10. If they have not worked, why are we doing it again?

[Bob Dechert, Conservative, Mississauga—Erindale, ON]

Mr. Speaker, certainly by keeping the offender in jail longer, we protect children more significantly. That is one reason we do it.

Obviously we are trying to address the fact that there has been increase, year over year, in these types of offences. Part of it may be because there is better reporting and the fact our government has been investing in child advocacy centres across Canada to assist with that reporting and make it easier for child sexual assault victims to report offences against them.

The mandatory minimum penalties are designed to ensure that anyone who would commit a sexual offence against a child would spend time in jail, an appropriate time in jail, and the longer they are in jail, even if it is a few more days, those are a few more days of protection for the children in that community from that child sexual offender.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I want to say at the outset that I appreciate both the tone and the content of the speeches made to date. I think it is a reflection of how seriously we all take this issue.

My question will be brief and quite specific. The hon. parliamentary secretary was speaking about the difference between consecutive and concurrent sentencing, which those of us who are not lawyers maybe do not have a full grasp of.

However, as I understand the parliamentary secretary, he was saying that in the case of someone making child porn, there would be three offences, perhaps, including the actual abuse of the child, the documenting or the making of a record of that abuse, and then the broadcasting of that abuse. They may be separate crimes but the problem is that the judge might see fit to impose only one sentence for those three offences, or three sentences served concurrently, rather than consecutively.

I would like him to expand a bit further on that.

Also, the notion of volume discounts surely is offensive to the sensibilities of anyone in this room, given the nature of the crimes. What in Bill C-26 would stop this notion of volume discounts?

[Bob Dechert, Conservative, Mississauga—Erindale, ON]

Mr. Speaker, first, with respect to the child pornography offences, there is a growing understanding that the child is actually re-victimized each and every time that image is distributed or viewed over the Internet. There is the offence of assaulting the child; there is the offence of making the record of that assault in the first place; and then the offence of it getting distributed many times. There is an increasing understanding at the bar and in the courts that the child is actually being re-victimized a number of times and, therefore, that this requires, and demands, that sentences for each of those offences be served consecutively, rather than concurrently.

He is right that everyone here abhors sentence discounts for multiple child sex offenders with multiple child sex victims, but, unfortunately, these things have been happening in our courts. There is a famous case with respect to an individual who committed offences against young men over a number of years at the Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto. That is a case in point. There is also the case of Graham James, the hockey coach, who sexually exploited many young men over many years in Manitoba and other places. In each of those cases, the offender did not get consecutive sentences for each of those victims. Bill CC-26 would require that the court consider consecutive sentences in each of those kinds of cases.

[Jinny Sims, NDP, Newton—North Delta, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of Bill C-26, an act to amend the Criminal Code, the Canada Evidence Act and the Sex Offender Information Registration Act, to enact the High Risk Child Sex Offender Database Act and to make consequential amendments to other acts. I stand in support of the bill at second reading because I, and I am sure all members of the House whether on that or this side of the chamber, believe that protecting our children should be one of our top priorities.

We do a huge range of things in Parliament, but I do not take anything as seriously as the protection of children. Being a mother and a grandmother and having been a teacher for quite a few decades and worked with thousands of children, I realize the importance of child protection on a personal level. I am sure that every member of Parliament would agree that nothing is more abhorrent or as sick as the sexual assault of children. Even individuals who have not had children would, I think, consider this kind of criminal activity abhorrent and absolutely heinous.

As my esteemed colleague from Winnipeg said earlier, I am pleased by the tone of the debate in this room today, and that it is because we want to get this right. I want to get it right. I want each and every one of us to do whatever it takes to make sure that we do this in a way that would actually protect our children.

In order to do that, I am going to plead with my government colleagues not to cut off debate on this legislation, which we have seen done in this place many times. This is too important an issue to be rushed through. The government could have brought this legislation forward a long time ago but it did not. Now that it is here, let us do our job and make sure that we do everything we can to protect children.

As a member of Parliament I am pleading with my colleagues across the way to make sure that at committee we take the time to bring in witnesses, and not just a couple of witnesses. Last week on a piece of legislation I was dealing with, the official opposition was allowed only one witness and then given only five minutes to ask questions of that witness. I want to believe that everyone is genuine when it comes to tackling something as serious as child protection, specifically the sexual assault of children. With that in mind, it is really critical that when the bill gets to committee, we not only take the time to hear expert witnesses but also that we make decisions that would make things better.

All members of Parliament love photo ops. We have them in our ridings all the time when we are making announcements or when a festival occurs, or when we go to a tree lighting ceremony, like I am soon to do in Surrey. These are the kinds of photo ops we should take part in, but when it comes to the protection of our children from sexual assault, it is not something we want to be rushing through just so that we can say that we are doing something.

I do not sit on justice committee, but I have a great deal of trust in our critic and other members of the committee. I trust them to do due diligence on this issue, but in order to do that they need time. They need time to have discussions with the witnesses and to deliberate. Then they need time to put forward thoughtful amendments.

With this legislation, I hope my colleagues across the way will not say that it is their way or the highway. I hope they will give serious consideration to the amendments the New Democrats put forward, of which I am sure there will be many because my colleague, the NDP critic, is a very experienced lawyer who has a lot of expertise in this area and she takes this file very seriously. I know she will have some great suggestions.

Once again, let us ensure, as we tackle the very difficult, sensitive and heart-wrenching issue of the protection of our children from sexual offenders, that we get it right so our children are truly protected. That is the goal of all of us.

I have three grandchildren and like every other grandparent would say about their grandchildren, they are most gorgeous grandchildren on this planet. I think grandparents get the right to say that over and over again. As I watch them, I compare their lives to the way my children grew up. They have access to the Internet. My daughter is one of those moms who has all kinds of filters, and checks and balances that follow where the kids go on the Internet, but not every parent has the knowledge or time to do that.

As said, our children are exposed to so much more and no matter how much monitoring a parent does of their children's use and activity on the Internet, we know there are opportunities for those who seek to assault our children, to use the Internet in a way that probably even shocks and surprises many of us in this room who are a little more literate in these areas. I am sometimes shocked at what pops up when I am on the Internet.

There is a lot we need to do to protect our children. It is a different world. I always worry about what my grandchildren and other children are confronted with. If they have a sad moment and write something on Facebook or any other social media, what kinds of predators are waiting to pounce on that? We have heard about all the bullying that takes place on the Internet and the dire consequences of that.

Getting back to the legislation, let me make it very clear. There is no doubt that every NDP member sitting in our caucus has a zero tolerance policy on matters involving sexual offences against children. We absolutely respect the principles of jurisprudence and fundamental laws. At the same time, we have a zero tolerance policy when it comes sexual offences against children.

I do not want to keep bringing this up, but sometimes we have to remind ourselves. It was the NDP that offered to fast track parts of former Bill C-10 that dealt with sexual offences against children. We were in agreement on that component. We were willing to separate that out and have it go through, but, of course, to no avail.

The NDP members have also introduced private members' initiatives, which the government ultimately adopted, with a view to preventing the sexual exploitation of children and making it illegal to use a computer to perpetrate an offence against a child. That was long before my time. It was put forward by former NDP member Dawn Black, who is now retired and enjoying a political life in a different arena.

As I said, our goal is to protect our children. We also know that in order to have child protection, having legislation itself is not enough. We can pass all of the legislation we like, but unless our communities have the resources they need, that legislation is just words on paper.

I come from the city of Surrey. As many have heard, we have had some pretty tragic events and murders in our city. My city is still waiting for a commitment that was made by the federal government for additional policing, and it has not lived up to it.

One of my major concerns is that I am from a municipality that is really stretched when it comes to policing, not only to deal with an increase in petty crimes, mental health and drug related crimes, but also to deal with gangs, drug cartels and all of those things. I worry that sometimes, as parliamentarians, we pass legislation because we absolutely believe in it and think it is good, but then undermine our own legislation when we do not provide the resources that are needed by communities. This is one thing I hope the government will keep in mind as we move forward with this legislation.

I cannot remember who it was, but somebody once said to me that if harsher and longer prison sentences, and the death penalty could end crime, the U.S. would have very little crime. However, we know that is not true.

We absolutely have to take a very close look at this legislation, but we also have to take a look at it in a way that will achieve our goal. Our goal is to protect our children. I have not had the time to go through the bill in detail, but what I have discovered, with my colleagues across the way, is often the devil is in the details. That is why we need experts to speak to the potential effectiveness of the proposed changes.

I know my limitations. I am not a lawyer, so I need to rely on the justice committee and our critic, who is a very experienced lawyer, as well as the experts who are called before the committee to ensure we make this legislation right. That is our goal, and that is where we should go with this.

Like other colleagues have said in the House today, on the whole, we are told that nationally the crime numbers have gone down. Every time that is said in Surrey, the people there do not believe it, because of their lived experience day in and day out. I have been at recent municipal debates where people are very offended when that is said. They have a high level of anxiety around their own safety.

What is really concerning is that despite the changes made by the government since 2006 to better protect children, and there have been about nine of them, the Minister of Justice, at committee, stated that sexual offences against children had increased 6% over the past two years. That is a shocking number. As a parent, I looked at this and thought how could that be? This is in spite of the fact that since 2006, the tough on crime agenda has been worked on or is in place

We all know, and I worked as a counsellor on a number of different issues, that along with being tough on crime, we also have to keep in mind the rights of the victims, protect them and provide them the resources they need after the crime.

I do not know about other provinces, but in my province, beautiful British Columbia, the area of child protection does not work too well. In fact, it is very disconcerting to hear the kinds of cuts that are being made in the area of social workers and other preventative measures.

Therefore, as well as having a tough on crime agenda, we also need support for the victims to help them rehabilitate after the crime. The trauma, especially when it comes to sexual assault, is great. One or two sessions with a counsellor will not to cut it for every child. Therefore, I am looking really hard for resources that would help rehabilitate our young children. I am not saying it is something a child, or any person, could get over. It would be very presumptuous of me to say that. However, without systematic and ongoing support, we will leave our children even more vulnerable. It becomes really critical that we have the resources to support the children.

At the same time, if we are going to ask our police forces to do more monitoring and many other things, then we should be looking at ensuring the RCMP and others have the necessary resources a well.

Going back to the children, every time a child is sexually assaulted, we need to look at support for the whole family. The whole family goes through the trauma, parents, siblings and everyone else in the vicinity as well, including grandparents. We have to do much more in that area.

We also need to do much more to protect our communities from repeat offenders. The tragic murder that occurred this year in my riding was a case of a repeat offender. He was on probation and was being monitored, yet in spite of all of that, a young woman in the prime of her life was killed.

We have to look at what actually works. I am not saying that we on this side of the House have the answers. What I am saying is we have to rely on experts and those who know far more than parliamentarians do about this whole issue. We have to look at how we deal with those who offend.

The NDP has put forward a valiant fight for the Circles of Support and Accountability Program.

Steve Sullivan, former federal ombudsman for the victims of crime, said this:

...the federal government recently announced it was cutting the measly $650,000 in funding that Corrections Canada provides. CoSA also receives funding from the National Crime Prevention Centre; that's also set to end this fall. In total, the program costs $2.2 million a year.

He went on to say:

Like most community-based victim services, CoSA is a fairly cheap program. It has 700 volunteers across the country; they meet with offenders after their release, help them find jobs and places to live, meet with them regularly for coffee. They support offenders as they start to live normal lives, ones that don't involve new victims. They hold them accountable.

Those services have been reduced or cut totally in some areas.

Let me finish by saying that we support sending this bill to committee. I am pleading with my colleagues across the way to give us the time that is needed to do our due diligence at committee, to be open to amendments, to be open to expert advice, and to listen to those who know more about this issue than we do so that we end up with good legislation. I am also pleading with them to fund the legislation so we can actually see its effect.

[Sean Casey, Liberal, Charlottetown, PE]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for her thoughtful speech.

There were several specific themes that she touched upon that really resonated with me. I certainly appreciate her comments with respect to the need to support victims. We are grappling with that issue right now at the justice committee with the victims bill of rights.

The member said we need to adopt measures that will work. What we know is that the go-to, the default tool of the government, is mandatory minimum sentences. We saw a bunch of them imposed in Bill C-10; now we hear that there is 6% increase in these horrible crimes after the imposition of these mandatory minimum sentences. What are we doing in this bill? We are increasing them again.

The member referred specifically to two non-legislative initiatives that should be encouraged. That was also something that resonated with me. She talked about increased policing and the circles of support and accountability.

In keeping with our mutual wish to adopt measures that work, knowing that mandatory minimums do not, I invite the member to perhaps add some additional comments or thoughts on where our efforts should be focused if we are truly targeted on trying to have fewer victims.

[Jinny Sims, NDP, Newton—North Delta, BC]

Mr. Speaker, when it comes to minimum sentencing, it is very clear that the leader of the third party is against mandatory minimum sentences. He has been very clear about that, and this bill will not create any more mandatory sentences.

However, I want to remind my colleague that it was the Liberal Party that introduced many of the mandatory minimum sentences. Sometimes we want to rewrite history a little, but it behooves us to do our due diligence and know that those originated with that party. The custom has been carried on by my colleagues across the way.

One of the things I know is that if we want to ensure the safety of our children, we do have to look at prevention and we also have to look at support. Even when people are incarcerated behind bars, we have to look at what kind of support we are providing while they are in there. Then we have to make sure that they are only released when they are not likely to reoffend. If there is even an iota of a chance that they may, we have to make sure we have processes in place to ensure our children's safety.

I am not an expert on what it would look like on the ground. I think it needs to be not members of Parliament but experts, including our RCMP and community groups, that deal with this issue. We have to accept the fact that rehabilitation is not always possible.

[Alain Giguère, NDP, Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC]

Mr. Speaker, from what I gather from the many dealings I have had with people who work in field of sexual offences, I must say that one of the main problems is not the punishment, but proving guilt. Before someone is sentenced to prison, their guilt must first be proven beyond a shadow of a doubt. That is a serious problem.

Far too often, I have seen cases thrown out for lack of evidence. To get valid testimony from a child or someone who is delayed or mentally disabled takes a team of specially trained police officers. That is the real issue when it comes to the bill before us. I would like to see a provision in the bill for training police officers so that they can get the evidence they need to lead to convictions.

[Jinny Sims, NDP, Newton—North Delta, BC]

Mr. Speaker, our colleague has just reminded me, and I do not see how I could have forgotten, that today is actually the UN day of the child. I thank my colleague for reminding me of that. It is apropos that we are discussing this legislation today.

There are many issues when it comes to sexual assault. There are many victim-related issues, and we always have to be careful that we do not revictimize the victims and do further harm. We also need to have processes in place that ensure those victims are protected from further abuse, but as my colleague said, we have a legal system, and I trust the people in the legal system to be able to deal with the issues as they arise.

Our job as parliamentarians is to pass clear legislation that can be interpreted by those who have to implement it. I will go back to this point again. We have to ensure we put resources in place both for victims, for rehabilitation, and for other supports that are needed to protect children. The safety of our children has to be our number one priority. There is nothing more heinous for any of us to imagine than the sexual assault of minors.

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

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Newton—North Delta for her insightful speech today.

I have heard in this House comments about child sexual abuse having gone up by 6% since mandatory minimum sentences were put in place. The question earlier today was that mandatory minimums are not working, so why do we do it?

There is one factor that has not been taken into consideration in this House today. The fact is that because of the bills that have been put forth in this House, more victims are coming forward and speaking out. I find the mandatory minimum sentences extremely helpful. They protect the child.

The tenor in this parliamentary chamber today is so gratifying. I hear my colleague across the way speaking from her heart for the safety of children and I hear my other colleagues saying that it is of paramount importance that children be protected. However, we have to look at the whole picture when it comes to mandatory minimums. They are of paramount importance because of the increase in the number of people coming forward.

I want to ask my colleague across the way if she has looked statistically at how many people, and how many children, are coming forward now in comparison to three and four years ago? I think she would be quite gratified to see the change in those numbers.

[Jinny Sims, NDP, Newton—North Delta, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague. I have a great deal of respect for the work she has done around trafficking issues. I know her heart is in that work and I have had the privilege of enjoying conversations with her on those issues, so I know how seriously she takes legislation like this.

For me, the 6% increase in sexual offences against our children is a horrendous figure. Even one child who is sexually assaulted is one child too many, in my books, and no amount of statistics is going to make me think any differently about that.

I think I was very careful not to single out minimum sentencing in my speech. I generally referred to all the tough-on-crime agenda components, and I want to stress that again. This is not about throwing darts and arrows. For me, it is about getting something right. If we as parliamentarians cannot put aside our darts and arrows when it comes to children's safety and to protecting children from sexual predators, or if we make the kinds of comments that members made in this House when I made a comment a few minutes ago, it diminishes us in the public domain. We need to rise above all of that and focus on doing this right.

[Robert Goguen, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to voice my support for Bill C-26, the tougher penalties for child predators act, during second reading debate.

In order to support the Canadian government's commitment to stand up for victims of crime, the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada and the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness introduced a bill to better address the problem of sex offences committed against children in Canada and abroad.

The bill builds on the government's concerted efforts to protect children from those who would prey on their vulnerability.

Some examples of what this government has done to better protect children from sexual predators include the Safe Streets and Communities Act in 2012, which established new mandatory minimum penalties for seven existing child offences, increased the mandatory minimum penalties for nine existing child sex offences, and increased the maximum prison sentences for four existing child sexual exploitation offences to better reflect the serious nature of these offences.

It also created two new offences to prevent anyone from providing sexually explicit material to a child for the purpose of facilitating the commission of sexual offences against that child, which is section 171.1 of the Criminal Code, and to prohibit anyone from using any means of telecommunications, including the Internet, to agree or to make arrangements with another person for the purpose of committing sexual offences against a child, which is section 172.2.

It also requires judges to consider prohibiting suspected or convicted child sex offenders from having any unsupervised contact with a young person under the age of 16 or having any unsupervised use of the Internet or other digital network.

There was also the law called “An Act Respecting the Mandatory Reporting of Internet Child Pornography by Persons Who Provide an Internet Service” in 2011, which requires those who provide Internet services to report when they are advised of an Internet address where child pornography may be available to the public.

As well, the Protecting Victims from Sex Offenders Act of 2011 required all those convicted of sexual offences abroad to report to a police service within seven days of arriving in Canada, and the Tackling Violent Crime Act of 2008 doubled the duration of peace bonds and protective orders for persons convicted of child sexual offences or suspected of committing such an offence in the future, and of course raised the age of sexual activity, known as the age of protection, to 16 years.

This last amendment is significant. It brought Canada in line with other like-minded countries to ensure a higher level of protection for children in Canada by preventing Canadian children from being targeted by foreign pedophiles, who used to view Canada as a safe haven to pursue sexual activity with 14- and 15-year-olds.

Our government has also taken broader measures to help young victims of crime. We have provided over $10 million for new or enhanced child advocacy centres, or CACs, since 2010. So far, CAC projects have been funded in 20 cities or municipalities across Canada.

Teams of professionals at these centres help young victims and witnesses cope with the trauma they have experienced and navigate the criminal justice system. We also launched www.getcybersafe.gc.ca, the Government of Canada’s public awareness website on online safety. The site contains information for parents on how to protect their children from people who go online for the purpose of exploiting, manipulating or abusing children.

We joined the Global Alliance Against Child Sexual Abuse Online in June 2013. The goal of the global alliance is to strengthen international efforts to fight Internet predators and child abuse images online. It focuses on identifying and helping victims, prosecuting offenders, increasing public awareness and reducing the availability of child pornography online.

There was also consultation with the public and stakeholders in order to better understand the different opinions on which rights should be recognized and protected by a federal victims bill of rights. These consultations are crucial to determining how best to enshrine victims' rights in a single federal law.

Since 2006, the government has allocated more than $120 million to meet the needs of victims of crime through programs and initiatives delivered by the Department of Justice.

This is only a sampling of the measures that this government has undertaken to strengthen the criminal justice system's protection of children from such heinous crimes, but these measures are the foundation on which Bill C-26's proposed reforms are built. I believe that the import of Bill C-26's reforms can only be truly appreciated in this context.

First and foremost, sentencing reforms in Bill C-26 would ensure that those who prey upon children receive the sentences they deserve.

In Canada, more than 3,900 sexual offences against children were reported to the police in 2012. That is a 6% increase over 2010. We must take action.

This bill proposes nine new measures that reflect the commitment the government made in the 2013 throne speech to re-establish Canada as a country where those who break the law are punished for their actions, where penalties match the severity of the crimes committed, and where the most vulnerable victims—children—are better protected.

The measures are as follows: requiring those convicted of contact child sexual offences against multiple children to serve their sentences consecutively, one after another; requiring those convicted of child pornography offences and contact child sexual offences to serve their sentences consecutively; increasing maximum and minimum prison sentences for certain child sexual offences; increasing penalties for violation of conditions of supervision orders; ensuring that a crime committed while on house arrest, parole, statutory release or unescorted temporary absence is an aggravating factor at sentencing; ensuring that spousal testimony is available in child pornography cases; requiring registered sex offenders to provide more information when they travel abroad; enabling information sharing on certain registered sex offenders between officials responsible for the national sex offender registry and at the Canada Border Services Agency; and establishing a publicly accessible database of high-risk child sex offenders who have been the subject of a public notification in a provincial or territorial jurisdiction to assist in ensuring the safety of our communities.

The bill proposes to increase the mandatory minimum penalties for 9 existing child sexual offences as well as to increase the maximum penalty for 16 existing child sexual offences. The offences cover the full range of conduct engaged in by child sexual offenders.

Some offenders engage in conduct that is preparatory to a contact sexual offence. This process is sometimes referred to as “grooming”. For example, some offenders may show children sexually explicit material to normalize the sexual activity in which they wish to engage. Others may attempt to make an agreement with another adult who has control over a child to sexually abuse that child. Still others may directly contact a child through the Internet to prepare the child for sexual abuse.

I stress that all this contact is specifically prohibited by the Criminal Code, sections 171.1 to 172.2. Bill C-26 would ensure that the penalties for engaging in this conduct are commensurate with the severity of the crime. Applicable mandatory minimum penalties would be increased, and a maximum penalty of 14 years on indictment would be imposed for all these preparatory child sexual offences.

The Criminal Code also prohibits sexual contact with children through child specific sexual offences, sections 151 to 153, and general sexual offences, sections 271 to 273. Maximum penalties for child specific sexual offences as well as for the general sexual assault offences, section 271, where the victim is under 16 years, would increase from 18 months to 2 years less a day on summary conviction and from 10 years to 14 years on indictment. The maximum penalty for sexual assault with a weapon where the victim is under age 16 would increase from 14 years to life imprisonment.

Bill C-26 would also strengthen the child pornography provisions, which prohibit making, distributing, possessing, or accessing child pornography, section 163.1. First, the bill would make the offence of making and distributing child pornography strictly indictable and increase the maximum penalties from 10 years to 14 years to reflect the particularly heinous nature of these crimes. It would also increase the mandatory minimum penalties for possessing and accessing child pornography from 90 days to 6 months on summary conviction and from 6 months to a year on indictment. In addition, it would increase the maximum penalties for these offences from 18 months to 2 years less a day on summary conviction and from 5 to 10 years on indictment.

However, Bill C-26 does not stop there.

The bill would also increase penalties for breaches of supervision orders. These orders can be imposed to prevent future offending. Therefore, it is critical that penalties for breaches of such orders act as a deterrent.

Accordingly, Bill C-26 would ensure that anyone convicted of breaching a probation order, peace bond, or prohibition order would be subject to a maximum penalty of 18 months on summary conviction rather than the existing 6 months, and 4 years on indictment rather than the existing 2 years.

I have focused on the reforms Bill C-26 proposes that would increase penalties for child sexual offences, but the bill also proposes other important sentencing reforms, including to require that offenders who offend against multiple child victims, or commit child pornography offences and contact child sexual offences, serve their sentences for these offences consecutively rather than concurrently if they are sentenced for such offences at the same time. This means no more sentence discounts.

Bill C-26 would also ensure that committing an offence while subject to a conditional sentence order—that is, a sentence that was served in the community or while on parole or while on statutory release—is also considered an aggravating factor for sentencing purposes.

All of these sentencing reforms taken together would assist in strengthening the criminal laws' intricate web of protection for children.

In short, these reforms would send a message: Canada will not tolerate sexually offending against children. We must do everything we can to prevent such offending, protect children, and hold offenders to account.

I am also pleased that this bill contains some important reforms that would assist in ensuring that the evidence of an accused's spouse is available in child pornography prosecutions; that information could be shared between Canada and foreign countries concerning Canadians travelling abroad to sexually offend against children; and that the public would be informed of high-risk offenders who may offend again against our children.

I will quote Sharon Rosenfeldt, president of the Victims of Violence. She said:

We need to protect the vulnerable and make sure they have the tools to get help, heal and move forward with their lives—especially our children. We at Victims of Violence welcome the federal government’s move to strengthen laws surrounding sexual abuse, so children are protected from abuse and exploitation, victims are heard and our communities are made safer.

There is no doubt in my mind that Bill C-26 is a critical piece of legislation that would serve to protect our children and our communities and keep them safe. Accordingly, I encourage all hon. members to join me in support of Bill C-26.

Victims, especially children, need our support.

I invite members of all parties to join me in supporting this bill.

[Françoise Boivin, NDP, Gatineau, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice, whom I have the pleasure of working with in committee. We will certainly have some interesting discussions about Bill C-26.

This bill looks good on paper. However, since we are both lawyers, the member and I both know that when you factor in the provisions, the Criminal Code and reality, there may be major obstacles standing in the way of what looks good on paper.

Reality is catching up with the Conservatives. I would like to believe that they have a good reason for enacting tougher legislation. However, doing so will not increase the number of police officers to deal with these cases, the number of probation officers to monitor the offenders or the number of crown prosecutors to prosecute these cases. Therein lies the problem. We can impose harsher sentences and say that a person is liable to 14 years in prison, but that does not mean that the court will come to that conclusion.

In reality, crown prosecutors—and he knows this as well as I do—have to deal with a hundred cases and a hundred defence attorneys who are coming to them to say that their client will plead guilty to such and such a charge. This is why people sometimes get the feeling that justice is not easily served.

Sometimes, the system becomes bogged down because there are so many cases and they all take time. However, Bill C-26 does not seem to reflect that reality.

I would like the government to specifically address the discrepancy between what is written down on paper and the resources that are available to all of the stakeholders. There is still a serious shortage of judges in Ontario, Quebec, Alberta and other provinces. The government is dragging its feet.

There is a saying that “justice delayed is justice denied”. The government can create all the laws it likes, but that will not improve access to justice and ensure that cases are resolved quickly so that victims can recover from these incidents. I do not see anything in Bill C-26 that will speed up the process.

Will the government introduce a more comprehensive solution to the problems with Canada's criminal justice system?

[Robert Goguen, Conservative, Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe, NB]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for her question. Clearly, we should not let perfectionism stand in the way of something that is already fundamentally good. This bill protects the most vulnerable members of our society: children.

Throughout Canada's history, there have been numerous amendments to the Criminal Code. There have been many occasions where the justice system—meaning prosecutors, defence lawyers and victims' rights groups as well—has had to adapt to changes and modify how it works. However, how could anything be more motivating for stakeholders in the justice system to change how they work than making child protection the ultimate goal?

Is there always enough money to ensure that every bill is absolutely perfect? No. However, this is a step in the right direction. Protecting our most vulnerable, Canada's children, is a very commendable goal.

[Sean Casey, Liberal, Charlottetown, PE]

Mr. Speaker, I believe, on all sides of the House, it is fair to say that we abhor these terrible crimes and we should all seek to have fewer victims.

I would like to have an adult conversation about mandatory minimum penalties.

We believe in evidence-based decision making. In 1990, the justice department said, in a report:

The evidence shows that long periods served in prison increase the chance that the offender will offend again.

In 1999, research commissioned by the Solicitor General concluded that:

To argue for expanding the use of imprisonment in order to deter criminal behaviour is without empirical support.

In 2004, a Massachusetts report called mandatory minimums “a recipe for recidivism rather than a recipe for effective risk reduction”.

Would the parliamentary secretary point us to one study that shows that mandatory minimum sentences would create fewer victims?

[Robert Goguen, Conservative, Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe, NB]

Mr. Speaker, probably the most important study that a parliamentarian could observe, read, and study is the sentiment of the public that the justice system was really shortchanging them. The reason there are mandatory minimum sentences, the reason why they increased the sentence in the case of child sexual offences, is that the public abhorred the fact that people were committing absolutely heinous crimes and were getting off scot-free. The public, in consultations that the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness had, has given us a resounding response: look, crimes of this nature will no longer be tolerated.

We have acted in accordance with those wishes. We feel that those wishes are definitely in line with what all of Canada wants, and our values. That is why we have mandatory minimum sentences. That is why we have increased maximum sentences. They reflect the gravity of the crime.

Even in the Bible, there are 10 commandments. Let us just say that maybe murder is more serious than, perhaps, stealing. They are both crimes. However, not every crime is of the same magnitude in the Criminal Code.

We feel that offences against children, the most vulnerable, are the ones that must be penalized most severely. That is the message we are conveying.

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

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague for his very insightful and very knowledgeable speech. Regarding what was said in this House a few minutes ago about mandatory minimums, anybody can have the feeling, philosophically, that mandatory minimums are not useful.

However, in actual fact, in Canada right now, because of the mandatory minimums that were put in for human trafficking offences, because of the mandatory minimums that are being put here, there is a difference. Again, I say something that a lot of parliamentarians across the way are not addressing in this House today. The fact is that more and more people are speaking out. That is why we are having an increase. The victims are feeling safer.

I even have a lot of older men and women coming to me, saying, “You know, this happened to me as a child. I couldn't say anything. There was nothing. No one would stand by me”.

Would my colleague please comment on the fact that our government has done much in the protection of children, and this is why we are hearing about so much of this in this day and age?

[Robert Goguen, Conservative, Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe, NB]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for her question and her help on this file.

The justice system is a means to an end. Certainly, the justice system is there to protect children. In the past, we always respected the fact that a husband and wife were married, that they would not be able to testify against one another and that they were sometimes reluctant to do so. This bill would bring an amendment to subsection 4(2) of the Canada Evidence Act to render an individual compellable against their spouse in the case of child pornography. It is the case of many child sexual offences.

In criminal law, it is a question of public order. It is all a question of balancing the interests of the citizens. Sometimes there is an intrusion on one right in favour of another, and we have to evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of each one's rights and values. However, in this case, the government has thought so strongly about protecting the rights of children that it has done something that is unusual in common law. It has gone so far as to make a spouse, a husband and wife, compellable against each another in order to produce evidence of offences against their very own offspring.

That is the sentiment. That is the depth of our commitment to trying to protect children. It is not that we do not respect married life, but that first and foremost, the most vulnerable, the children, must be protected.