Bob Dechert

[Ukraine, January 27th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the hon. member for her speech tonight and for her comments at the rally in support of the Maidan protesters and martyrs yesterday in Toronto. I had the opportunity to participate with her.

She mentioned the NDP critic for foreign affairs earlier and some of the comments he has made. I understand that when Canada's Minister of Foreign Affairs was in Kiev in early December, he went to Maidan and stood in solidarity with those protestors. I understand that the member for Ottawa Centre said, “Joining a protest signals that you are on one side”. He criticized the minister for doing that.

I wonder if the member could explain exactly what her colleague meant by those comments.

[Economic Action Plan 2013 Act No. 2, December 6th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, I thought my hon. colleague did a really good job of explaining why predictable EI rates were so important to businesses as they plan future hiring decisions.

He mentioned the former Liberal government and the way it raided EI funds over the years, and this absurd notion the opposition puts forward of a 45-day work year.

He also mentioned the small business hiring tax credit. I represent the city of Mississauga, which has a number of large employers, manufacturers, but it also has many small businesses especially. It is a diverse community made up of a lot of new Canadians. Many new Canadians operate those small businesses.

Could he tell us how the small business hiring tax credit could benefit those types of business and encourage them to hire new employees?

[Aboriginal Affairs, December 6th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, our government is focused on taking action to actually deal with the tragic issue of missing and murdered aboriginal women.

For example, we recently passed legislation that gives women living on first nations reserves the same matrimonial rights as all Canadians, including access to emergency protection orders in violent situations. Unfortunately, the opposition parties voted against that legislation and against advancing the rights of first nations women. Shame on them.

The special parliamentary committee is continuing its study, and we look forward to participating in that study.

[Protecting Canadians from Online Crime Act, November 29th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, I want to commend the member for Sackville—Eastern Shore for his speech.

There are a couple of quotes that I remember from his speech. He said that all parents need to have a conversation with their children about cyberbullying and about bullying in general. We absolutely agree with that. I think everyone here agrees with that. He also said that it is our collective community responsibility to give young people the tools they need to protect themselves against any form of bullying. I commend him for that, and I think we all agree with that as well.

Earlier we talked about the Canadian Centre for Child Protection and the things it is doing with NeedHelpNow.ca. The member for Ottawa Centre mentioned Digital Voices. These are all tools that are available now to help people.

The member also mentioned 37 clauses that have nothing to do with cyberbullying, but I do not think he is correct. If he looks at recommendation 4 of the working group report he would see that they require data preservation demands and orders, new production orders to trace a specified communication, new warrants of production orders for transmission data, improved judicial oversight while enhancing efficiencies in relation to authorizations, as well as warrants and orders and other amendments to existing offences to give the police the investigative power they need to in fact make the cyberbullying provisions work.

I submit to the member that if we were to take out many of the provisions he is highlighting in that number, the cyberbullying bill that we are all here to debate today would be toothless and unenforceable.

[Protecting Canadians from Online Crime Act, November 29th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, my friend is quite right: bullying and cyberbullying are about more than just Criminal Code provisions. They are a social issue that needs to be addressed by schools, by non-governmental organizations and by community groups. In fact, he is probably aware that the government has supported for over two years several programs developed by the Canadian Centre for Child Protection on just the issue of bullying and cyberbullying. The government has provided over $10 million for these programs. The Canadian Centre for Child Protection operates two websites: cybertip.ca and needhelpnow.ca. They provide counselling and preventative information to young people about the threat of social and consequences of social media.

The member mentioned the sad case of Jamie Hubley. Has he heard these words from his father, Allan Hubley, about Bill C-13? On November 20, he said:

When we were younger, you always knew who your bully was, you could do something about it. Now, up until the time this legislation gets enacted, they can hide behind that. Not only does it start to take the mask off of them, through this legislation there is serious consequences for their actions.

[Protecting Canadians from Online Crime Act, November 29th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague made some very interesting points in her speech.

I want to ask whether she is aware that there is a significant difference between Bill C-13 and the previous Bill C-30. For instance, all production orders, all search warrants, for retention of any of this information that would be important for the police and prosecutors in order to properly prosecute a case for cyberbullying, is subject to prior judicial oversight. I wonder if she could tell us whether she knows that or if she has a comment on that.

Also, I wonder if she could take a look at recommendation four of the Cybercrime Working Group report, which she referred to in her speech, and tell us which of those investigative powers she thinks is valid. The Cybercrime Working Group report said that all of those investigative powers were needed in order to support an offence of cyberbullying.

Could she take a look at those to see if she is prepared to accept them as part of the cyberbullying bill, or does she still want those separated into two different bills?

[Protecting Canadians from Online Crime Act, November 29th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, I listened to my colleague's speech and to his answer to the previous question. I think he said splitting the bill into two pieces, one with just the Criminal Code offence of cyberbullying and another with the investigative powers in it, would be a good idea.

I wonder if he could tell us if he has had an opportunity to read the federal-provincial-territorial report on cyberbullying, and in particular recommendation 4 that report, which talks about the investigative tools that are absolutely necessary to allow the police to gather evidence so that they could actually lay the charge and convict someone of cyberbullying. If it were simply stripped down to the offence itself, obviously there would not be.

I wonder if he could explain the comment by his colleague, the member for Windsor—Tecumseh, when he said they know a number of investigations that have gone on and have failed and of a number of charges that have been laid and have failed simply because the terminology in the code was not up to modern-day standards. I wonder if he could tell us which of the recommendations in recommendation 4 of the Cybercrime Working Group report he would not include in the cyberbullying bill.

[Protecting Canadians from Online Crime Act, November 27th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, I believe the member was referring to a private member's motion previously brought forward by a member from Vancouver. I do not know if it referred to cyberbullying. In response to the Liberal critic's comment is that this motion was not well designed. It did not include the investigative powers necessary to allow the police to actually investigate crimes, preserve the evidence of cyberbullying and to locate and arrest those responsible for the offence. However, I would be happy to speak to my colleague about Motion No. 385, that she refers to, at a later date.

[Protecting Canadians from Online Crime Act, November 27th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, it is obviously very important for the victims. We have victims in well known, reported cases who have asked the government and have spoken out publicly for these types of crimes to be addressed. Also, there are victims we do not know about. There are perhaps thousands of young people who have been cyberbullied in various ways. Some have suffered greatly as a result of that. Some may even have taken their own lives. We do not know their stories. Their stories have not been told and we need to reach out to those victims as well.

We need to ensure that all our criminal laws redress what we have seen over the years as an imbalance between the rights of the offender and the rights of the victims and law-abiding citizens of Canada. When we do that, we restore the faith of the Canadian people in the justice system, and that is very important.

[Protecting Canadians from Online Crime Act, November 27th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, the member opposite is quite correct. There are some additional powers beyond those recommended in the Cybercrime Working Group report. The government has taken the opportunity to update the Criminal Code to enable our investigative authorities to investigate things like child pornography or terrorism. These are all things that need to be done. The Criminal Code needs these amendments.

With respect to the cable, I would like the member to consider if his cable were being tapped into by someone who was transmitting child pornography over the Internet, or if his home Wi-Fi was being tapped into by someone who was using it to cyberbully another child, he would want to know about that and he would want that to stop. The modernization of those provisions is simply to bring them up to date.

The amendments proposed on those long-standing offences of stealing cable are already in the Criminal Code in section 327. They simply update the telecommunication language to expand the conduct, to make it consistent with other offences, such as importation and makes available to the prohibited conduct, which is also set out in section 327. These are really in the manner of housekeeping amendments, which need to be done to make those particular provisions more effective.

However, I would like him to think about the potential for someone who is doing cyberbullying, transmitting child sexual images, or perhaps planning a terrorist act, doing it by tapping into some law-abiding citizen's cable or Wi-Fi Internet access.