Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure for me to rise today and talk to what I believe is a very important issue. The issue of cyberbullying is very real, it is tangible, and it happens every day. It affects the lives of thousands of Canadians throughout our great land. There is a responsibility for government to do its best to ensure that we have the tools that are necessary to make a difference. That is really what we in the Liberal Party want. We would like to see a comprehensive approach to dealing with the issue of cyberbullying. That is what is really important here.
The legislation is one part of it. The additional resources, ideas, budgets, and throne speeches are another part of it, where we see a government that wants to focus its attention on dealing with an issue that many Canadians are quite concerned about. They want the government to demonstrate leadership on such an important issue.
I listened to the member, and I posed a question specifically; I appreciated the frankness in the answer that he provided. However, the point is that we have before us a piece of legislation that deals with a number of changes. Some of those changes I do not think would do any service by being incorporated into the important issue of cyberbullying. We remember the old Bill C-30, which had some fairly significant implications regarding lawful access. The government gave assurances on that bill and it died on the order paper.
Why incorporate some of the things they have into this very important issue? It made reference to the cable industry and cable theft. I suspect that if we canvass the House we would find that there is a great deal of interest in the issue of cyberbullying today. It is nothing new. It has been there for many years. We can talk about the cyber.ca website, and I would recommend that people check it. People can draw fantastic information from it. We need to get more people educated about the process of bullying that takes place.
In 2005, legislation under former Prime Minister Paul Martin was proposed. We have had other members bring it forward. In particular I look to my colleague from Vancouver, the wonderful Liberal Party health critic, who has brought forward the issue of cyberbullying. This issue has been before us for a number of years, and it keeps growing in its seriousness and the importance for the House to take more action in dealing with it.
Today, we have Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, and a litany of other programs and applications through the Internet that are used as mechanisms to inflict hurt upon someone else. One cannot underestimate the tragedies that have been caused by the type of cyberbullying or harassment that is taking place every day.
When we look at this legislation in principle, I believe all members, but assuredly members of the Liberal caucus, are quite supportive of taking action that would assist us in dealing with that very important issue of cyberbullying.
However, Liberals want to go further than that. We want to challenge the government to look at refocusing some of its priorities. The member made reference to advertising commercials. There is a great deal of benefit in using advertising as a wonderful tool to educate our population, because not everyone listens to the 6 o'clock or 10 o'clock news. The member is right that purchasing advertising spots in sports and children's programming would be of great value.
Think of the hundreds of millions of dollars the government spends on advertising its budget, its economic program, or whatever we want to call it. It spends hundreds of millions of dollars on something of no real great value. It is a bunch of spin coming from the government on what it is doing. Why not use some of the hundreds of millions of dollars on good, solid programs that are going to make a difference, such as developing and paying for advertising in our multimedia world today to educate individuals about cyberspace? That is what we should be doing. We challenge the government of the day to be a bit more creative on that front.
We need to work with stakeholders. How can we develop a strategy to educate and encourage people to get a better understanding of such an important issue if we are not prepared to work with the different stakeholders in society? One example would be schools. In Manitoba, there is in excess of 200,000 students attending public school. What is being done to encourage some sort of programming that educates our young people? I do not want to have to rely on Facebook and independent thinking that takes place in a locked room where all sorts of mischievous behaviour could be occurring in terms of educating our young people. It has to be far broader than that. Schools, school divisions, and departments of education all need to play a role.
What about the private sector? We talk about harassment that takes place in the cyberworld. Vindictive attitudes and how quickly individuals attack potential victims by posting pictures or images or making statements on the Internet that have strong, profound negative impacts on people's lives are incredible. Only one level of government, the national government and the Prime Minister, has to realize just how important it is that it is set as a priority issue. Every day that goes by that the Conservative government chooses not to be more aggressively proactive on this issue, we are destroying lives because we allow it to continue to the degree at which it is moving forward today, at a very rapid pace.
Liberals welcome the idea of action, support action to deal with anti-bullying, and want more of a comprehensive, all-inclusive strategy that is going to change more than the criminal law. It is time that the Government of Canada starts working with stakeholders. We could make a much larger difference if the government became interested in doing that.
