Mr. Speaker, I am happy to rise today to speak to Bill C-26 and its very long title. It is a bill that touches on a number of different pieces of legislation, including the Criminal Code and Canada Evidence Act. It would enact a high-risk child sex offender database act as well, and there would be consequential amendments to other acts. We are at second reading here and it seems that we might as well support this bill's passage to committee so that we can hear from some experts on this subject.
As suggested by its title, this act seeks to do a number of things. It would increase the maximum penalties for violations of prohibition orders, probation orders, and peace bonds. It would increase existing mandatory minimum penalties and maximum penalties for certain sexual offences against children. It would clarify and codify rules regarding the imposition of consecutive and concurrent sentences. It would require courts to impose, in certain cases, consecutive sentences on offenders who commit sexual offences against children. It would ensure that spouses of the accused are considered competent and compellable witnesses for the prosecution in child pornography cases. As well, it would increase reporting obligations on sex offenders who travel outside Canada and would establish a high-risk child sex offender database act and other things. It is a far-reaching bill.
What we note about this long list of acts and amendments to existing legislation is that it is more of what the current government has done in the past, more of a turning of the screws in the same direction. We note that the Conservative government in this and previous Parliaments has already implemented new mandatory minimums for assaults where victims are under 16 years of age; it has identified grooming activities as a criminal offence; it has made the use of computers and other telecommunications devices for the purpose of making arrangements to commit a sexual offence against a child an offence; it has amended the sex offender registry already; it has increased the age at which a person can consent to sexual activity from 14 to 16; it has required Internet service providers to report child pornography; and it has increased sentencing and monitoring of dangerous offenders.
Apart from the wisdom of any of this, the problem presented by this bill is that the Minister of Justice has provided information that sexual offences have increased by 6% over the last two years. That statistic is offered by the minister in support of further action in support of this bill. However, at least equally if not more so, that statistic calls into question the approach taken by the current government to date. It seems to suggest that mandatory minimums, longer maximums, increased scrutiny and surveillance via a sex registry and so on may not be effective responses to this issue. This is worrying because of the particular nature of this issue of child sexual assault or child sexual abuse. It is so incredibly harmful and hurtful, leaving lasting emotional and psychological scars on its victims, things that victims have to live with and cope with for the rest of their lives if they can or do in fact live out their lives with the hurt caused.
I am the son of two teachers. When I grew up, chat around the dinner table was always about education and teaching and what was going on in the classroom. However, I married a criminal lawyer who did criminal defence work for 14 years before moving over to the crown side, where she has been for six years. There have been lots of stories brought home about crimes that she has had to be engaged with, either on the defence or prosecution side. They are not happy stories, and for the most part not stories to be talked about around the dinner table.
However, there is a story that I would like to tell that is not related to the many stories I have heard through my wife, but through my own experience as a kid. I had the great fortune of growing up in a lovely, picturesque, and historic Canadian town with a particularly a beautiful downtown in which to live. It is an older and largely more affluent part of the city, filled with old limestone houses, occupied mainly by professionals, doctors, lawyers, professors. As it turns out, it was also the hunting ground of a child sex predator, the choirmaster at one of the local cathedrals. He was a much trusted, highly respected person in the community. He taught music not only through the cathedral but to other kids in town as well. I happened to be a member of one of his non-secular choirs for a very brief time, because I do not have much of a voice.
Things started to come undone for the choirmaster in 1990 when two families in the congregation alleged publicly, in stories in the local paper, that the choirmaster had sexually molested their sons and that the abuse was directly linked to their sons' suicides. Both boys had hanged themselves, one as a teenager and the other as a young man working on his doctorate at an ivy league university. I played tennis with one of those boys as a kid, and I went to nursery school with the other one. It is a small town.
Ultimately the choirmaster plead guilty to charges involving 13 boys over a 12-year period. Over time more victims came forward, making this story much longer and an ever more complicated one. In retelling the story there may be wounds that get reopened, but I want to use the story to the complicated social facts that surround such matters.
The fact that it is a long and complicated story ought to give us all cause to pause and think through carefully our response to this issue. How does someone like this win the trust of both kids and parents? How does a predator like this find support, even from some of his victims? How does he retain the loyalty and support of a significant portion of the congregation? How did he get pardoned, at one point in time? How does he win the support of a new community and congregation?
These are all questions that in the abstract need to be addressed if we are to protect kids from this kind of predatory behaviour. We need to understand better how these things work, because most of this story is about the pain and harm caused to the kids, harm that includes the suicides of two young men full of great promise.
It would seem useful to take this bill to committee so that we can have that discussion and call before the committee witnesses who, based on their expertise and experience, can speak to some of the issues raised in a case like one I referred to today.
Perhaps some parts of this bill will be considered useful by those who testify at committee, but the statistic offered by the minister in support of Bill C-26, that there has been of a 6% increase in sexual offences against children, suggests to me that we ought to be discussing at committee other types of resources to counter the sexual abuse of children, other methods of prevention, other precautions to take, other forms or opportunities for education for both parents and kids.
In the 2011 budget, the Conservatives announced $250,000 in funding over two years as part of the federal victims strategy for programs to protect children. Budget 2012 included $7 million over five years to fund child advocacy centres, as well as limited funding for victims services organizations. This seems paltry in light of the scope and seriousness of the problem.
Can the government tell us whether any of this was effective? We know by way of Steve Sullivan, the former federal ombudsman for the victims of crime, that the circles of support and accountability program was very effective. That is being cut through cuts to Corrections Canada and national crime prevention centres.
In a hopeful moment, a moment in anticipation of a good faith response by the Conservative government, it seems to me that it would be useful to put this bill and other thoughts and ideas before committee for the purpose of looking not only at the bill specifically, but also at the issue more broadly with a view to thinking through what we can do as members of Parliament to prevent further stories like that of the sexual predator I told today, and to prevent the harm that predators like him do to kids, to prevent the kind of pain that would cause two young men to take their own lives.