Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to Bill C-20, a bill proposing changes to the Criminal Code and the Canada Evidence Act.
Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with my colleague from Wild Rose.
The Minister of Justice maintains that these proposed changes will protect children in Canada. The provisions in Bill C-20 are unnecessarily complex and cumbersome. They will not make it easier to prosecute sexual predators, which is supposed to be the goal because that is what Canadians are demanding. They want their children protected.
As a result of recent court decisions and development of Internet technology which brings formerly distant places much closer together, it has become clear that more protection is needed for Canadian children. We need to be able to more easily prosecute those who exploit, abuse or otherwise violate children in Canada.
I cite the infamous Sharpe case. Canadians were appalled by this decision that legitimized literary musings about sexual relations between adults and children. There was much outrage expressed by many people in my constituency of Surrey North surrounding that case. It was the catalyst that caused Canadians to demand that the federal government take measures to protect children.
In Bill C-20 the Liberal government attempts to tackle the controversy surrounding decisions like this. The government proposes to take the existing defences of child pornography, that is, artistic merit, educational, scientific or medical purpose and public good, and reduce them to the single broad defence of public good. This is simply not sufficient. There is no substantial difference between this public good defence and the previous community standards test that was rendered ineffective by the Supreme Court in the 1992 Butler case.
There is no positive benefit in the government's attempt to recycle laws that have already been discredited by the courts. The minister has simply renamed and repackaged the artistic merit defence. Canadians want the defence, regardless of what it is called, scrapped entirely. They do not want adults able to defend the sexual exploitation of children on the basis that there is some kind of public good or artistic merit in the harming of young people.
The Liberals have not done so. They have simply hidden it in a list and labelled them all public good defences which will continue to be available and used by defendants trying to fight child pornography charges. This is not what Canadians want.
The bill does nothing to address the age of consent for sexual activity between children and adults. Canadians have consistently for years demanded that it be raised from 14 years to 16 years.
The bill we are debating merely creates a category of sexual exploitation to protect children between the ages of 14 and 18. This category requires that in determining whether an adult is in a relationship with a young person that is exploitive of that young person, a judge must consider the age difference between the accused and the young person, the evolution of the relationship, and the degree of control or influence by the person over that young person.
The problem is that it is already against the law for a person in a position of authority or with whom a young person between 14 and 18 years of age is in a relationship of dependency to be sexually involved with that young person.
Because the Liberals have failed to prohibit adults having sex with children under the age of 16, police and parents are faced with a continuing risk to children that is not effectively addressed by the bill. Only by raising the age of consent will young people be truly protected under the Criminal Code of Canada.
The Liberals have left a great deal of wiggle room by allowing debates to continue over whether a person is in a relationship with a young person that is exploitive of that young person. This is not what Canadian parents want. It is not the protection young people need in Canada. It is an escape hatch to be used by sexual predators.
The bill increases maximum sentences for child related offences, including sexual offences, failing to provide the necessaries of life, and abandoning a child. Maximum sentences are meaningless if the courts do not impose them, choosing instead to mete out little more than a slap on the wrist with time served in the community.
Canadians need to have the government eliminate statutory release and conditional sentences for sex offenders and mandate minimum sentences in order to deter child predators.
Modern technology has surpassed legislation that governs the use of evidence in Internet child pornography cases. The bill fails to address those shortcomings and amendments are required in order to deal with the child pornography cases effectively and efficiently.
A few short weeks ago, Canadians watched in disbelief as police vented their frustration in trying to work through hundreds of names of people in our country suspected of trafficking in hundreds of thousands of photo images of sexually exploited children. Not only are law enforcement agencies sorely lacking in resources, but they are also woefully bogged down in procedure. They refer to the federal Liberal government's support and co-operation as a nightmare.
If the justice minister were serious about protecting our children, he would provide law enforcement agencies with the resources they need and streamline the process, particularly in the rules governing disclosure. Imagine what even a fraction of the $1 billion wasted on the firearms registry could have done had it been directed to protecting children from sexual predators. This government is failing.
We have the technology to chase down these predators, but there is nothing in the bill about that. On the other hand, given advances in camera technology, the bill does provide some protection for Canadians. The bill creates a new offence of voyeurism and the distribution of voyeuristic material, making it illegal to observe or make a visual recording of a person who should have a reasonable expectation of privacy. This is a positive step.
Given the fact that the Liberals have chosen to address advances in camera technology, Canadians are left to wonder why they chose not to do something about the advances in the Internet technology and the trading of images depicting the sexual exploitation of children.
There is not much more to say about this weak and largely ineffective legislation. It is a great disservice to Canadian parents, police and young people vulnerable to sexual predators. The Liberals are missing the target with Bill C-20. It should target those who torture, harm, humiliate, degrade and violently and sexually assault young people in Canada. Instead we have legislation that merely confuses things.
In the end, defence lawyers will make a great deal of money successfully getting their clients off because of this weak and ineffective law that will no doubt be torpedoed through this place without amendment. The bill offers nothing substantive that will benefit children and their families. The government should be ashamed for turning its back on the young people whose innocent faces peer out from the images that document their suffering.
I urge each member of this place, especially members on the government side, if they have not already done so, to spend some time with the seasoned police veterans who are haunted by the disturbing images of this horrible treatment of young people. Just look at the evidence. Spend some time with the police. Spend a night in a police patrol car on the kiddie stroll in many of our larger cities. Talk to the drug addicted teen prostitutes. Spend some time with their families and understand the heartache that is caused by this. Then come back here and make a speech about how this bill will do the job of rescuing and protecting these kids.
Bill C-20 is a disappointment.