Mr. Speaker, as you know, Canadians from coast to coast to coast have been touched and deeply saddened by the tragic deaths of Rehtaeh Parsons, Amanda Todd, and so many others. My NDP colleagues and I believe that we need to do everything we can to prevent that cyberbullying.
In fact, I was delighted, just this week, when I got a number of postcards from members of the Catholic Women's League in my riding of Hamilton Mountain as well as others in our community who want us to take action not only to develop a national strategy to stop cyberbullying but to stop the distribution of intimate images.
What has become clear to us is that the lack of legal tools available to intervene when intimate images are being distributed without consent must be addressed urgently. That is why my colleague, the NDP member for Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, tabled a private member's bill to address that very issue. We wish the Conservatives had just taken this opportunity to work with us on this bill months ago instead of delaying and complicating the issue.
We would have hoped that the government would have been reasonable and would have presented stand-alone legislation to accomplish that goal, but of course, as we know today, it did not. In fact, what we have now, as the member rightly pointed out, is a bill that addresses cyberbullying but also gives police heightened powers of surveillance to track terror suspects as well as individuals who use computer programs to gain unpaid access to WiFi or cable TV services.
Really, that is not what should have been at stake here. I wonder if the member could tell me whether she agrees that this is cynical and disappointing and that there is a whole bunch of irrelevant stuff in the bill that is going to distract from the legitimate discussion on how to fine tune the bill to get it absolutely right for those Canadians who are desperate for a national anti-cyberbullying strategy.
