Mr. Speaker, I appreciate very much the comments of my friend opposite.
I particularly appreciate her expressions of condolences and compassion for the victims of cyberbullying. She was right to say those things. At the same time, she said she was taking a non-partisan approach to the bill.
Much of what my friend says is undeniably true. This is a complex bill. It does go very much beyond simply the issue of cyberbullying and the government's efforts to respond to this very real problem that has affected the lives of so many people in Canada, particularly young people.
However, in her reading of Spencer, she somehow would leave the House, and Canadians, with the impression that this creates new police powers or this is somehow going to lead to further breaches of privacy. Nothing could be further from the truth. What Spencer did in fact was confirm the fact that no new powers were going to be bestowed upon the police. What we are attempting to do is to very much ensure that the police do have, with lawful access, the ability to protect people online, to protect seniors, to protect young people, to protect businesses from flagrant abuses or breaches of privacy that allow criminality to happen online. The bill is very much an attempt to modernize those practices and also to ensure that people's privacy is protected.
We, of course, will respect the Spencer decision. We believe that the bill does meet the balance that is called for in the effort to give police powers to investigate, but at the same time to protect privacy rights. We believe, as well, that there is still ample opportunity to examine the bill in a meaningful way.
I do appreciate the fact that we have had a debate in the House of Commons now and that there will be debate in the other place. However, it is important that we continue to move forward and make progress in this critical area where people's lives are literally at stake.