The Conservatives are angry, Mr. Speaker, because of the tactics I am pointing at and the clear pattern we have been seeing.
The powers in lawful access would help provide police the powers and the tools they need to catch extortionists, things the Conservatives bring up in the House every single day. They complain about a problem, but they do not want a solution. Also, it would help catch pedophiles.
Right now, even if the police know the IP addresses all across the country where people are downloading child pornography, they are unable to act on that information quickly because they need to go through procedural court orders, which takes a very long time. In many of these extortion cases, we are seeing the criminals go free and commit more and more extortions. Child predators are continuing their work because it takes up to six months at times to get judicial authorization. It is so important to give these modern tools to police.
Our Five Eyes allies all have these types of modern tools, but the Conservatives will not allow us to be able to give that to our police agencies. I think they are listening to an extreme base that they have right now and bending to its wishes.
Another pattern I have seen is really interesting, because the Conservatives used to be pro-police. However, we have heard the Conservative leader calling the RCMP “despicable” and then the co-deputy leader getting up in the House and saying enforcement is the problem in this country. Meanwhile, our law enforcement officers have been working incredibly hard, giving us the proper recommendations we need so we can put them into our legislation.
We presented this legislation, we have debated it in the House, but all we have seen from the Conservatives are stall tactics and misleading information being spread to Canadians about how the government is going to go after their data. That is absolutely false. That is not true. There is no interest in going after anyone's data. However, it is important for police to be able to narrow down the suspects they have, to rule out suspects they have in cases, so that they can act quickly and so criminals do not go on to commit other crimes. This is the important work that is being held up in the justice committee.
Like I said, for Bill C-9, there has been three hours and 30 minutes of debate in the House already, and eight hours in the committee that could have been 11, but the Conservatives filibustered. They heard from 23 witnesses, which should have been 33, but the Conservatives filibustered. Now they are saying the work is not done and we should let them take a fancy tour across the country, pack it all up, spend and waste taxpayer dollars to go and continue to spread disinformation across the country.
We have done it before in the House, where all parliamentarians from all sides have gotten together to do what is right, to work in the best interests of Canadians, not in the best interests of themselves or their fundraising campaigns. Let us pass these crucial bills, these urgent bills that victims are calling for and police are calling for.
That is why this work is so important. It is actually life or death right now. I would plead with the Conservatives to help us pass this—