Madam Speaker, it is my pleasure to speak on Bill C-27.
It is interesting to read the preamble of the bill. The government is trying to set the stage by using what appears to be a lot of red book promises to indicate where this bill is hoping to go. My concern is that although the direction is fine, although the government is dealing with issues that need to be dealt with, it seems to be falling short of going all the way.
It is important to support the government's direction and the move toward addressing these issues. However, I encourage the government to have the committee look at this bill and then look at the committee's recommendations to flesh the bill out a bit more and to seriously consider taking to a higher degree the steps the government is taking in many of these areas.
I want to talk about a couple of specific issues, one of which is child prostitution. I use my householders for two-way communication in my constituency and I get a good number of responses. I put a couple of questions in one of my householders last fall to which I received 4,386 responses.
One of the questions I asked was: Do you believe that prostitution should be legalized and regulated by the provincial government and the municipalities? The reason I asked it was that a number of people had talked about the need to get control over prostitution in their communities. My constituency is very conservative and I was really amazed and surprised by the response. Over 54 per cent voted yes, they wanted prostitution to be legalized and regulated.
I also offer an opportunity in the householders for constituents to give comments. The comments fleshed out why a very conservative community with traditional families and a senior population thought that maybe it was time to legalize and regulate prostitution. Many of the comments in those 4,300 responses dealt with child prostitution. They thought it was time for some regulation to be brought in to try to keep young people off the streets, to try to somehow deal with a problem they thought was increasing.
Daily we see the tragedy of young people who for whatever reason end up on the street trying to make a living or who are forced to make a living by prostituting themselves. They are young boys and young girls. In urban centres, the bigger cities, their age can be as low as 12 or 13 years. I do not think there is any person in this country who feels that is something we want to encourage or promote. Every Canadian is concerned about young children who are vulnerable, who should have more to look forward to than prostituting themselves.
I look at the amendment the government is proposing, a mandatory minimum of five years for profiting from juvenile delinquency. That acknowledges it should get some sentence but I would suggest there may be cases where we would want it to be more than five years. I understand that is a minimum but we have seen in our justice system that a minimum almost establishes the norm. Whatever the minimum sentence is tends to be the sentence that is given out. The government is going to provide measures to facilitate the arrests. It is nice to know there will be something there to support it.
The government is talking about making it easier for young people to testify against their pimps. They will have some protection so they will not be identified, which I think is very important. Many of those young people are there because they cannot get out, because of threats of bodily harm from their pimps. It is very important if we want to stop this from happening that we make it easier for them to report their pimps and to bring our attention to it.
The other aspect is making it illegal to procure somebody under 18 years. I have concerns that just putting in provisions to make it illegal is not going to stop it. It is already illegal for the 12 and 13-year olds to be on the streets prostituting. We have to do more than just put it in legislation. We have to give the courts the teeth and society the resources to deal with the problem of our young people on the streets. We need preventative measures. We need to give these young people other options, some resources they can go to when they are pulled off the street.
The seriousness of child prostitution or the vulnerability of young people who are on the street was made very clear to me by a tragedy that happened in my community when Melanie Carpenter was murdered. The individual who murdered Melanie Carpenter had a history of violently assaulting two young prostitutes in the Toronto area to the point where they feared for their lives. The sentence that individual got was two years less a day. Because the young people were prostitutes, it was felt there was an element of consent and therefore it was not serious.
We as Canadian legislators have to recognize that the courts have a very important role to play. I hope this legislation and the changes to it will send a very strong message to the courts that Canadians want the courts, the prosecutors, the defence attorneys and the judges to treat seriously people who are encouraging and keeping young people in prostitution and people who are using the child prostitutes.
I will move on to the changes in this legislation that would bring what is called tourist prostitution to an end. The government is recognizing that we cannot condone the use of child prostitutes even if it happens outside of our country. If Canadian citizens are going to Thailand, the Philippines or wherever to avail themselves of child prostitutes, it should be condemned and we should come down with the force of the law.
I commend the government for taking the steps of including charges against Canadians who are availing themselves of child prostitutes outside of Canada. It is something that is being addressed by other countries around the world. Canada is smart in co-operating and becoming part of the international community that is trying to bring an end to this type of abuse of children.
I am reminded of a program I saw a few months ago on CBC. It was a documentary on a Thai group which was trying to relocate young children who had been kidnapped from their rural communities. Many of these children were six to eight years old when they were forcibly removed from their rural communities and put into prostitution in the main cities.
The documentary followed who the children were, how they were removed, how they were taken into the main cities and also who was using the child prostitution services. It was quite sickening to see the aeroplanes full of individuals from North America, Australia, Europe, from all over the world who were visiting those communities for one purpose only, to use these six, eight and ten year old children for sexual gratification. That is not something Canadians encourage or support. I commend the government in its
attempt to bring Canada into the international community by trying to deal with those issues.
There is also the issue of female genital mutilation. I was pleased to support one of our hon. colleagues from the Bloc who introduced a private member's bill to bring something into the Criminal Code that would deal with the issue here in Canada.
I am pleased the government is acknowledging that something has to be done, that female genital mutilation has to be considered to be illegal in this country but I worry that it has not gone far enough. I worry that it is only going to protect young women under the age of 18. A 19-year old girl who is facing that situation needs our protection just as much as a 17-year old does.
There should not be an age limit placed on this protection. The procedure of female genital mutilation should be made illegal. Anybody who is aiding, abetting, recommending or supporting it should be charged as such and treated with all the force of the law. We have to send a very strong message to all people who live in our country that this procedure is something which is not acceptable.
I am concerned with the wording in the legislation which allows for an exception for the medical community. I have a lot of respect for the medical community and I do not for minute want to suggest that there will be an abuse of it. I know there are circumstances where reconstructive surgery and other things that deal with female genital situations are needed.
I want to make sure that this legislation would not allow a medical doctor who agrees with the practice to be able to continue the practice in Canada for whatever reason. That area needs to be looked at more closely. We have to make sure the full protection is there, not just for women under 18, but for all women who are faced with this kind of invasive attack on their person. We have to make sure there is no element where it can be abused in Canada.
I commend the government for having considered the private member's bill which one of our honourable colleagues presented, which was included in this legislation. Again I would have liked the government to have been a little more definitive and a little tougher on that issue.
I will briefly touch upon the issue of stalking and first degree murder. I do not think there is any question that Canadians want individuals who deliberately harass, stalk and threaten another person to be taken to the absolute limit of prosecution. However, I do have to wonder about whether we can justify a first degree murder charge for somebody who was not intending to murder. The full force of the law should be against anybody who is harassing, attacking or threatening.
I have been very upset many times over the past couple of years with the limitation that our law enforcement officers have in protecting individuals who are being stalked or harassed by a predator, an ex-spouse or whomever. There has to be more protection. The government and the courts must deal with it more seriously.
I am not sure that those people should be automatically charged with first degree murder. Our legal system has the ability to charge those offenders with second degree murder, or first degree murder if it can be proven that the intent of the stalking or the harassment was to kill. If the proof is not there, I have difficulty with the fact that automatically if a person has been involved in stalking they will be charged with first degree murder.
This legislation is going in the right direction. I like the fact that the government seems to be listening to a number of issues which private members are bringing forward. I like the idea that the government is trying to address the concerns of safety for women and children. However, this legislation needs work.
I hope that my Reform colleagues, Bloc members and certainly government members who sit on the justice committee will look at areas where the legislation can be improved and toughened to protect a broader scope of Canadian women and children. I hope these changes will see the light of day to make the bill much better. The bill has a good beginning, but it needs work. I hope the justice minister and the government will allow input from the committee to make it a better bill.
I thank my colleague for giving me the opportunity to speak on this legislation. I hope the bill becomes much stronger in the days to come.
