Richard Marceau

[Supply, October 28th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, you will have some idea how odd it is for me to be asked a question on the intentions of the minister of justice. I am not one of his confidants, far from it.

The best way to respond is to invite members of the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights, and then the members of this House, to be constructive in their criticism. Some of the criticism of the bill has been justified. I said that again today in committee. I believe that, with good will, we can complete consideration of a bill in the House before November 7, since we are probably going to stop sitting on November 7.

Instead of saying that this is no good, must be scrapped, set aside, I think we have a duty to bring in amendments, in committee or here in the House, that will allow it to achieve its purpose. I would like the Alliance members—the hon. member for Wild Rose in particular, who has been working on this issue for years—the members of the Bloc Quebecois, the Progressive Conservatives and the NDP, as well as the Liberals, who also have some questions and reservations on Bill C-20, to work together on this.

The Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights is working very hard on this already. We are sitting endlessly. Let us improve this bill along with the justice minister, whom I invite, beg even, to be open to any amendments we might suggest. Let us ensure that, after November 7, thanks to this bill from this House, our children will be better protected than before. That is my goal.

I will not come to the defence of my colleague, the justice minister. If, however, he accepts the amendments the Bloc Quebecois proposes, the bill will be more solid, will be a better bill, and will protect our children better. That is the objective of all members of this House.

[Supply, October 28th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, first, I would like to thank the hon. member for Wild Rose for his question. One of the first things that must be done if we are to retain the idea of public good in this bill is to make it more specific. A number of witnesses, some who were more liberal in their interpretation of child pornography and some from the other side, said it was too broad. No one is sure what it means.

Police officers appeared before us, saying that from their front line position, they did not know how they should interpret such a broad concept as “public good”. We need more direction. The Toronto police were among those who told us that, and it affected me deeply.

Another example of what could be done would be to permit the introduction in evidence of a certain number of images of child pornography, rather than the thousands of images that can be found in a computer. When someone is prosecuted for drug possession—say, a tonne of cocaine—the entire tonne of cocaine is not brought into court. Samples are brought in. The same thing could be done with the pornographic pictures.

Something else that is essential to help the police is to know what happens to an encrypted file, that is, supposing someone has encrypted their pictures. The police are unable to open them. We should include in C-20 a specific infraction that if the owner or user of the computer does not give the encryption key for the file, he may be charged with another criminal offence. All of this would be to help police track everything to do with child pornography, using electronic means among others.

For these three examples, I will be moving a number of amendments in committee. This is a bill that we in the Bloc Quebecois take very seriously. As a father of young children, as the hon. member for Wild Rose pointed out, I am particularly sensitive to this issue. Having seen what can be found on the Internet, I think we must deal very severely with these child pornographers.

[Supply, October 28th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak on behalf of the Bloc Quebecois on this final allotted day on the business of supply. It is worth noting that last year the final opposition day was in early December. This indicates the government's firm intention to avoid the embarrassing situation that would arise if the member for LaSalle—Émard were to return to the House after his coronation on November 14 as de facto head of the federal government.

The Canadian Alliance motion reads as follows:

That, in the opinion of this House, the government should protect our children from further sexual exploitation by immediately eliminating from child pornography laws all defences for possession of child pornography which allow for the exploitation of children.

The wording of this motion could give rise to a number of questions. I will start by addressing its intent, and will move on to the wording later on. It is rather a rare occurrence for the Bloc Quebecois to be so strongly in agreement with the Canadian Alliance, whose repressive and regressive approach generally does not correspond with the vision of Quebec.

Nevertheless, no one could oppose the highly sensitive subject we are addressing today, for the simple reason that it is a basic matter of protecting those who are fundamental to the continuation of our society: our future, that is our children.

In my opinion, the sexual exploitation of children is the most vile and perverse form of pornography. Parliamentarians have a moral duty to protect the must vulnerable members of our society, our children, who also constitute our greatest treasure. In my opinion, of all deviant behaviours, sexually deviant behaviours that is, the exploitation of children is the one that is evidence of the most vile and profound psychological disturbance.

It may be astounding to some of us that certain individuals entertain sexual fantasies involving children, the same sort of angry shock we feel when cases of pedophilia and child pornography are made public. Unfortunately, this is the sad reality, and the advent of new communications technologies has made possible a dramatic increase in this phenomenon, in the more anonymous, as it were, setting of the Internet.

There is no doubt whatsoever in the minds of any of us who have had the misfortune to see just what horrors, what disgusting material, can be found on the Internet, that action must be taken, action that must be as firm and immediate as possible.

Bound children, tortured children, exploited children, wounded children who will remain damaged all their lives, that is what we can find much too easily today, on the Internet and elsewhere. As parliamentarians it is our duty to say, “Enough. Stop it now,” and to put into place all the necessary legislative measures to protect our children and provide the police with the tools they need to fight this plague.

Pornographers and pedophiles often succeed in infiltrating what are called “e-circles”, clandestine, transient, electronic networks, which grow up and die off quickly, making it more difficult for the police to infiltrate them.

Of course, some perverted people will inevitably make a mistake that gives away their identity, but too often, many more get away.

According to Cpl. François Doré of the Sûreté du Québec, the Ottawa Interpol office dealt with more than 500 cases of juvenile pornography on the Web during 2001, which was double the previous year's total.

In an article on January 21, 2002 in La Presse , the same Cpl. Doré quite rightly observed:

That is not just an increase; it is an explosion.

He calls upon us to act. That is one more reason why governments, with all the means at their disposal, must fight to eliminate this plague that attacks the most vulnerable and most fragile among us, our children.

Internet chat rooms are also favourite places for sexual predators, who often lure young people into virtual conversations, or chats. In these virtual forums it is all too easy for a 50-year-old to pass for a 13 year-old boy and strike up erotic or sexual conversations with girls or boys the same age.

The purpose of the Canadian Alliance motion is to eliminate all possible forms and means of defence in the legislation on child pornography, for anyone possessing the material targeted by the law. Here we must be very careful.

As we know, the House is considering Bill C-20, which deals specifically with amendments to the Criminal Code. This legislation has been debated and studied for some time in the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights.

The Bloc Quebecois has developed the best approach to the issue, in my view, because we have taken into account specific situations that could prevent the spread of this scourge. We also listened carefully to all the experts, particularly the police experts, who appeared before the committee and shared their point of view.

As we have said, we are in favour of Bill C-20 because we feel that this bill touches on several important aspects of criminal law and introduces new provisions that have become necessary because of the technology around us.

However, obviously some of the provisions raise questions, doubts and reservations in our minds, particularly with respect to the sensitive issue of possession of child pornography.

I cannot emphasis strongly enough the profound perversion associated with child pornography. However, it is important for parliamentarians to question the need, for a therapist for instance, to possess a certain amount of this material for the purpose of clinically treating sexual deviances.

To encompass some possible defences, the government introduced the concept of public good. We have not expressed any reservations with respect to the concept of public good in Bill C-20, but we will have many reservations if the concept is not defined better. We are going to present many amendments in committee in order to establish a clear definition of public good, if it is to stay in the bill.

I have examples of clarifications to be made to the concept of public good. We all agree that the possession of pornographic videos involving children would be considered a criminal offence. However, a psychiatrist specializing in the treatment of pedophiles could justify having such videos in his possession for treatment purposes because his possessing such tapes serves the public good. In this case, the possession of videos is more helpful than harmful.

Another example which I find justified or justifiable concerns the law enforcement agencies specialized in cracking down on child pornography. It seems normal to me that these agencies should have access to a certain amount of material in order to track sexual predators on the web, or Internet, and convict them.

The next example concerns medical research or teaching, police officers for instance, those called on to fight this scourge, what child pornography is all about and how it can be detected, or teaching future psychiatrists and psychologists in university possible treatments for the sexual deviances or perversions affecting child pornographers.

Without going as far as proposing an amendment to the motion of our colleagues from the Canadian Alliance, I would encourage all hon. members to give some thought to what I have said as they reflect on the motion. I encourage them to consider in an open yet in-depth manner this bill, which the justice minister himself described as subject to improvement.

In addition, I encourage the government to be open to constructive amendments from all sides of the House, because we must all work hand in hand, as parliamentarians, in order to eradicate this scourge in our society.

Finally, while the wording may not be the most appropriate, I urge my hon. colleagues to support the motion anyway, because its basic intent is clearly to protect our children. This intent of protecting our children could be acted on by improving the bill brought before us through constructive amendments to ensure that our children, the most precious and vulnerable members of our society, are protected as much as possible, because they represent our future.

[Criminal Code, October 27th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, it is with great pleasure that I rise today to speak to Bill C-45. As you know, the purpose of the bill is to carry out an indepth review of the principles of law governing the liability of corporations and other associations of persons for all criminal offences.

I want to commend committee members for their cooperation. All parties put their shoulders to the wheel so that the bill could be passed quickly, and in as non-partisan a fashion as possible.

It is also interesting and crucial to remind the House that this bill is the outcome of the efforts of ordinary members of this House and not an initiative of the government. Members worked hard to ensure that tragedies such as the one we saw at the Westray mine would never occur again or, if they did, that very harsh penalties could be incurred.

To understand the issues, it is important and even essential to put them into context. We remember that at the Westray mine, in Nova Scotia, 26 men, 26 mine workers died, leaving wives and children behind, creating sadness for women and children who did not deserve to lose their loved ones. We also remember that the public inquiry revealed that the tragedy was caused in large part by the negligence of the bosses, who had turned a blind eye to some serious safety problems.

For more than five years, the government did not do a thing in response to this inquiry. MPs had to bring pressure to bear to get substantial legislative changes passed to ensure that such a situation will happen again. These members worked hard, with the fierce and constant support of the families of the victims of Westray.

In June 1999, a motion was put forward to amend the Criminal Code and other federal legislation so that the directors and officers of a company would be held responsible for workplace safety. At the time, the Bloc Quebecois supported the motion, but when Parliament was dissolved, the motion died on the order paper. Since then, similar motions were brought in on several occasions. But we must recognize that the government dragged its feet until it introduced Bill C-45.

Bill C-45 is based on eight key points I will review here:

First, to the use of the term organization, rather than corporation. This will broaden the definition, thereby affecting more institutions.

Second, companies can now be held criminally liable for the acts of their employees who are not necessarily in positions of authority or, as they are commonly referred to, the higher ups.

Third, the material aspect—the act of committing a crime—and the moral aspect—the intent to commit a crime, the mens rea —of criminal offences attributed to companies and other organizations no longer need be the work of the same person.

Fourth, the category of persons whose acts or omissions can constitute the material aspect—meaning the criminal act that can be attributed to a corporation or any other organization—is broadened to include all employees, representatives or contractors.

Fifth, with regard to crimes resulting from negligence, generally referred to as criminal negligence, the fault can now be attributed to the organization to the extent that one of the senior officers of the organization can be charged with the offence.

Sixth, in the case of deliberate crimes, an organization can now be held responsible for the actions of its senior officers to the extent that a senior officer is party to the offence, directs other employees to commit an offence or, knowing that an offence will be committed by other employees, does nothing to prevent it. It is important to clarify, nonetheless, that the acts or actions of senior officers must be committed with the specific purpose of procuring an advantage for the organization.

Seventh, the bill is designed to place the onus explicitly on anyone who undertakes to direct the work of other employees to take all reasonable steps to prevent bodily harm to these employees

Finally, the bill also contains provisions for establishing general sentencing principles and probation conditions in respect of the organizations.

We are therefore extremely pleased with this bill. We support it, although we would have liked to have seen it sooner.

Although enactment of Bill C-45 cannot of course compensate the families, the women and children who have lost husbands, fathers, brothers, we do hope that Bill C-45 will at least lessen their suffering somewhat and will give those who have lost loved ones in such tragic circumstances some feeling that justice has been done.

[Royal Canadian Mounted Police, October 27th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, does the minister realize that if he remains silent and there is no investigation, it will be impossible to find out whether or not the RCMP committed illegal acts that might have led to the death of an innocent child?

[Royal Canadian Mounted Police, October 27th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, in a soon-to-be-published book spotlighting the role of the RCMP in the struggle against criminal gangs, we learn that the RCMP was prepared to allow murders to be committed rather than jeopardize the work of its informant, Dany Kane.

Can the Solicitor General tell us whether he intends to open an investigation as quickly as possible in order to shed more light on the RCMP's behaviour in this matter?

[Holocaust Memorial Day Act, October 21st, 2003]

moved for leave to introduce Bill C-459, an act to establish Holocaust Memorial Day.

Mr. Speaker, it is with a great deal of emotion that I rise today to speak about the introduction and passage of a bill to establish the Holocaust Memorial Day.

One of my best friends, Howard Rudolph, lost his father Albert not too long ago, unfortunately. Albert Rudolph was a holocaust survivor. Tattooed on his skin was an indelible mark of this dark period in human history. His skin bore the mark of a regime that tried to kill him and wiped out his family and friends and his village, just because he was born a Jew. Albert Rudolph's death made me realize that, unfortunately, time is rushing on and that there are not too many survivors left. Hence the numbers of direct witnesses of this dark period are gradually declining.

It is therefore important for society as a whole and for government to take these witnesses' place and ensure that everyone, especially young people, know what happened at that time.

I would like to thank the members for York Centre, Lanark—Carleton, Kings—Hants and Winnipeg South Centre for all their work toward having this bill passed unanimously. I would also like to thank Senator Jerahmiel S. Grafstein and Senator Noël Kinsella, who undertook to ensure speedy passage of this bill in the Senate. I specifically want to thank the member for Winnipeg North Centre who accepted that such legislation should be unanimously passed by the House. I also thank all my colleagues for allowing this bill to go through, to help us ensure—at least as far as the Bloc' is concerned—that Quebec's national motto, Je me souviens —I remember—will be associated with what the Holocaust should teach each and every one of us, that is: Never again.

[Border Security, October 20th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, Ahmad Cheriam, an individual wanted by the Quebec police in connection with a juvenile prostitution ring, crossed the Canadian border without any problem, in spite of two arrest warrants and a national all points bulletin.

How can the government explain that, despite the investments in security that were made, our borders are still sieves?

[Contraventions Act, October 10th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, it is with great pleasure that I rise to speak at this stage in the debate on Bill C-38 which, as you and I both know, is getting a lot of media coverage and is the topic of much conversation in the homes of Quebec and Canada, because this is an issue that really grabs people. Often the debate is based on preconceived ideas. I would therefore encourage my colleagues in this House to ignore any preconceived ideas and to address the problem in the most objective way possible, and not to be blinded by ideology.

There are two statements that need to be made at the outset. First, smoking, regardless of what substance is smoked, is not good for people's health. This is, in my opinion, a very obvious statement, unless one is blinded by some ideology, just as one can say that drinking alcohol is not exactly the healthiest thing to do either.

Second, the repressive approach used by governments, particularly those in North America, is not working. Despite the millions of dollars, the amount of effort and the law enforcement resources invested in the battle against drugs, there is no disputing that government repression has not worked. Just about everyone agrees on these two statements, I believe.

Having made those two statements, let us now look at what direction we can take to deal with the problems referred to. It must be pointed out that Bill C-38 is supported in principle by the Bloc Quebecois. We do, however, believe that any measures to soften the approach to cannabis possession must go hand in hand with preventive and educational measures aimed at the population in general, but young people in particular.

The provinces must be the ones involved in prevention, because—being education—it falls under their jurisdiction, and not the federal government as part of a so-called national drug strategy.

I must point out in this connection that the Bloc Quebecois agrees that possession of marijuana will always be illegal and that there will always be sanctions, though not under the Criminal Code. This is an approach the Bloc Quebecois agrees with.

We do have one problem, however, since we do not know the breakdown of the $245 million allocated to the national drug strategy. In order to be logical, within this federal system we are living in but want out of, this money ought to go to the provinces, and to agencies reporting to the provinces with expertise in drug education, prevention and the campaign against drug abuse.

There is one other thing that disturbs us about Bill C-38 and that is the latitude given to police officers. Members will recall that one of the reasons for suggesting that the penalty for simple possession of marijuana be changed—so instead of having a criminal record, it would be a question of fines—was that the law was being enforced differently all over Canada. Often, in large urban centres, the police, overloaded with other cases, ignored simple possession, while the same person in a smaller city would be charged with a crime. That introduces issues of geographic inequality into the enforcement of the Criminal Code.

Contrary to the committee's recommendations, the first version of Bill C-38 left some discretion to police in deciding whether to lay criminal charges for possession of 15 to 30 grams of cannabis.

We recently heard that the Minister of Justice wants to lower that quantity from 15 to 10 grams. I want to remind everyone that this is one third of the amount envisaged by the committee established by the House. I am eager to hear the explanation for lowering it from 30 to 10 grams, which leaves even more discretionary power to the police. I really want to hear what the Minister of Justice has to say to this. I hope he will have some very serious figures to back him up, studies that will demonstrate and explain the reasoning behind this decision he seems to have already made.

It is all very well to say he is open to amendments, but I do not think the minister is saying this out of the goodness of his heart; I think he was unable to resist the pressure from some of his backbench MPs and pressure from his American counterpart. Therefore, I hope he will have good answers to give us regarding the lowering of the quantity on which criminal charges can be based.

Furthermore, I am quite eager to ask the Minister of Justice questions about an inconsistency when it comes to small-scale growers. Individuals possessing small quantities could be fined instead of charged, but individuals cultivating small quantities would be charged and could face harsh penalties.

My question for the minister—and I am prepared to consider any number of solutions—is that in doing this, we are forcing infrequent users to buy their supplies on the black market, which is controlled by organized crime rings.

Do we want to help these criminals earn more, even if only indirectly? I am asking because this bill lacks consistency, and I am very interested to hear how the Minister of Justice will respond to what I see as this obvious inconsistency in the bill before the House.

Furthermore, if we consider Bill C-38 in a broader context, the decriminalization of simple possession is a measure that will have a limited impact on changing the foundations of the war on drugs. Decriminalization, as I said at the beginning of my speech, is not the same as legalization. One would want to control the distribution, quality and price of products, and ensure adequate supply. That is the avenue suggested by a senator in a Senate report.

The Bloc Quebecois supports the principle of Bill C-38. However, we feel that there are various inconsistencies that must be remedied and corrected. Our overall approach to this bill is to leave ideology at home and hold an open discussion in the belief that a solution can be found. We hope that the Minister of Justice is doing likewise, and we are looking forward to working in committee to ensure that Canadian law is more responsive to the problems I raised at the beginning of my speech.

[Cinar, October 9th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, the government should always be transparent on this kind of issue. It gladly shares information when it suits its purposes, as demonstrated by the leader of the Bloc Quebecois, but withholds information when it does not.

Really, is it acceptable behaviour for a government to be controlling information to serve its own interests? Is that acceptable?