Daniel Petit

[Aerospace Industry, September 28th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, today, the Minister of Public Works and Government Services met with representatives of Canadian companies who came to Ottawa from all over Canada to express their support for the investment our government has made in the F-35 joint strike fighter program.

This investment in Canadian aerospace companies all over the country will create jobs, economic growth and opportunities over the next 40 years.

By replacing a plane that is at the end of its lifespan, the government is showing its continued support for the armed forces, and is injecting money directly into the Canadian economy, thus creating jobs.

Our government supports families in Quebec and Canada who earn a living working for our aerospace companies. The opposition continues to play political games and to jeopardize the thousands of jobs that this kind of investment will create in the decades to come.

[September 20th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to take this opportunity to respond to some of the remarks made this evening by the opposition member.

The Government of Canada recognizes the importance of supporting the development of minority language communities. To that end, in June 2008—I was also here—the government announced the Roadmap for Canada's Linguistic Duality 2008-2013, an unprecedented government-wide commitment with a budget of over $1 billion, based on two components: participation of all in linguistic duality and support for official language minority communities in the priority sectors of health, justice, immigration, economic development, arts and culture.

As the government has stated in the past, the overriding principles guiding the selection of members of the judiciary, including those of the highest court, are merit, legal excellence and overall representation. Such an assessment would have to include examining the bilingualism of candidates, but that would not be the only factor.

[September 20th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, I am happy to speak today to affirm this government's commitment to providing access to justice in both official languages.

The Government of Canada is strongly committed to enhancing the vitality of English and French linguistic minorities in Canada and fostering the full recognition and use of both English and French in Canadian society, including our justice system.

The member for Acadie—Bathurst raised the issue of filling vacancies in the Nova Scotia Supreme Court, in particular the appointment of a bilingual judge last August in Yarmouth, in southern Nova Scotia. This appointment enhances the court's bilingual capacity, with two other supernumerary judges.

We recognize that there must be significant linguistic capacity in our courts to provide equal access to justice in both French and English. I can confirm that bilingualism is already one of the enumerated criteria in the assessment of the judicial candidates by the judicial advisory committees. This ability is evaluated along with 14 other criteria, such as intellectual ability and analytical skills.

I am confident that the current appointment process was crafted in a way that permits the Minister of Justice to address the need for access to justice in both official languages and to ensure that the federal judiciary linguistic profile provides adequate access to justice in official language minority communities.

Under the current process, before recommending appointments, the minister confers with the chief justice of the relevant court to determine the court's needs, including linguistic capacity. As hon. members are likely aware, a chief justice's primary responsibility is to determine the overall direction of sitting on his or her court and to assign judges to cases. The chief justice strives to ensure that all cases, especially criminal cases, are heard in a timely manner.

The chief justice is, therefore, in an excellent position to understand the needs of the communities served and identify particular needs where vacancies arise. As a result, the minister consults with the chief justice of the court for which a candidate is being considered to determine any particular needs to be addressed, including linguistic capacity. The minister also welcomes the advice of any group or individual with respect to considerations that should be taken into account when filling current vacancies.

It is important to understand that the federal judicial appointments process operates on the basis of detailed personal applications from interested candidates and, as such, relies primarily on a system of self-identification.

With a view to improving the pool of bilingual judicial candidates, the government invites the French-speaking jurist associations and their national federation to identify individuals with the necessary qualifications and encourage them to apply, and to share their recommendations with the Minister of Justice.

While bilingualism remains an important criterion considered in the appointment process, it is not and should not be the only factor in the selection of our judges. The primary consideration in all judicial appointments is legal excellence and merit. Other criteria must also be taken into account, such as the specific needs of the court, be it criminal or family.

[Combating Terrorism Act, September 20th, 2010]

Madam Speaker, I rise to take part in today's debate on Bill C-17, An Act to amend the Criminal Code (investigative hearing and recognizance with conditions). I am pleased to take part in the debate at second reading of Bill C-17, which would restore the Criminal Code provisions pertaining to investigative hearings and recognizance with conditions that were created by the Anti-terrorism Act of 2001.

Unfortunately, these important anti-terrorism tools ceased to be in effect in March 2007 under a sunset clause. The investigative hearing provisions gave judges the power, on application by a peace officer and with prior authorization of the Attorney General, to compel an individual to appear before the court to answer questions about past or future terrorism offences.

The provision on recognizance with conditions gave judges the power to impose reasonable conditions to prevent terrorist acts from being carried out if certain criteria were met.

In the aftermath of September 11, Canada was certainly not the only democratic country in the world to have legislated new powers in order to prevent terrorist acts.

In creating the Anti-terrorism Act in 2001, Parliament duly took into account the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. That is why, compared to those of other democratic countries, our provisions on investigative hearings and recognizance with conditions stand out by guaranteeing the protection of basic human rights. Those same guarantees can also be found in the provisions presented here today, and still others have been added.

In comparing the measures taken in Canada and those taken by other parliamentary democracies, it is quite clear that Canada took a moderate approach and fully considered basic rights and freedoms, values that are at the very core of our Canadian identity.

First, regarding the investigative hearing provisions set out in the bill, let us begin by looking at what some other countries, specifically the United Kingdom, the United States and Australia, have done in that regard.

In the United Kingdom, the closest thing to the investigative power may be the Terrorism Act 2006. That act is based on previous legislation on organized crime and enables an investigative authority, such as the director of public prosecutions, to require a person to provide documents, answer questions and provide information relevant to the investigation of a terrorism offence. Generally speaking, no judicial authorization is necessary, which is what makes that legislation very different from Bill C-17.

The United Kingdom has other legislation that goes further than investigation before a judge. The Terrorism Act 2000 was amended in 2001 to create the offence of refusal by a person to disclose to police, as soon as reasonably possible, information they know or believe to know that could be used to help prevent the perpetration of a terrorist act by another person. It applies if the person knows or if they have reasonable grounds to suspect that the police are investigating a case involving terrorism or are planning to do so. The proposed sentence is a maximum of five years in prison.

Bill C-17 does not include a similar power. I repeat; it does not include a similar power. According to a recent article, in Great Britain—we are familiar with the events—27 charges were laid for that offence between 2001 and 2007.

Under the United States' long-standing grand jury procedure, a federal grand jury can subpoena any person to testify under oath, subject to claims of privilege. Anyone who obstructs a grand jury risks being held in contempt.

Australia has specific procedures similar to the Canadian investigative hearing. The Australian equivalent is covered in the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation Act.

This legislation allows the ASIO, after being authorized by the Attorney General, to ask an independent authority—a federal magistrate—to issue a warrant to question individuals for the purposes of a terrorism investigation. A warrant may also be issued in some cases to authorize the detention of a person for the purpose of questioning. A person may be detained for the purpose of questioning for up to a maximum of 168 hours. The questioning carried out under a questioning warrant or a questioning and detention warrant must be done in the presence of a prescribed authority, generally a retired judge, according to the terms set out by that authority.

The Australian law prevents the individual from contacting a lawyer of his choice in some cases, for example, when the prescribed authority is satisfied, on the basis of circumstances relating to that lawyer, that if the individual is permitted to contact the lawyer, a person involved in a terrorism offence may be alerted that the offence is being investigated.

Furthermore, if the person specified in the warrant, or his lawyer, directly or indirectly discloses operational information as a result of the issue of a warrant or the doing of anything authorized by the warrant, while a warrant is in force, or in the two years following the expiry of a warrant, this constitutes an offence punishable by a maximum of five years imprisonment. In such a case, strict liability applies to this offence.

As we can see, by proposing the investigative measures provided for in Bill C-17, Canada is not an odd man out among other democracies, a number of which are among our closest allies. However, it is important to note that by creating the legal obligation to disclose information that could help a terrorism investigation and making the failure to do so a criminal offence, the United Kingdom goes much further than Bill C-17.

Let us look at how the parts of the bill that deal with recognizance with conditions compare to the legislation passed by other countries, starting with the United Kingdom.

Pursuant to subsection 41(1) of the Terrorism Act 2000, a constable may arrest without a warrant a person whom he reasonably suspects to be a terrorist. All that is needed is reasonable suspicion. The maximum period of pre-charge detention is 28 days. The British government has tried unsuccessfully to increase this to 42 days.

Furthermore, in 2005, the United Kingdom created a system of control orders that apply to citizens and non-citizens alike. There are two kinds of control orders: derogating and non-derogating control orders. The first are those that derogate from the European Convention on Human Rights, and the second are those that contain obligations that respect the convention.

Basically, the home secretary—I am still talking about the UK—can apply to a court to impose obligations on an individual where there is a reasonable suspicion that the individual is or has been involved in terrorism-related activities and this measure is considered necessary in order to protect the public from terrorism.

The duration of the orders varies depending on the kind of control orders imposed by the court. Non-derogating control orders are enforced for a maximum of 12 months while derogating control orders are enforced for up to 6 months. They can be renewed under certain conditions. As of September 10, 2010—so just recently—there were nine control orders in effect, all concerning British citizens. None of the orders derogated from the convention.

This system of control orders has been very controversial. The House of Lords ruled that imposing a curfew of 18 hours a day violated the right to liberty guaranteed by the European Convention on Human Rights.

Another House of Lords later concluded that a person subject to a control order must be provided with sufficient information about the allegations against them to be able to give meaningful instructions to the special advocate concerning these allegations.

Although critics have questioned the validity of the control order system, Lord Carlile of Berriew, the independent reviewer of Britain's anti-terrorism legislation, concluded that this system is still valid. In his February 2010 report on control orders in the United Kingdom, Lord Carlile concluded that abandoning the control orders system would have a damaging effect on national security and that there is no better means of dealing with the serious and continuing risk posed by some individuals.

However, I would like to inform my hon. colleagues that the new coalition government—that is, the coalition government in England—is currently studying anti-terrorism measures. The study will focus on control orders as well as pre-charge detention of suspected terrorists, including reducing the maximum detention period of 28 days. The study findings are to be reported to Parliament this fall.

In addition, I would like to mention that the Counter-Terrorism Act 2008 contains a provision whereby someone convicted of a terrorism-related offence can be required, once out of prison, to periodically provide police with certain information such as their name, home address and any changes to this information. The person subject to this requirement can also be subject to a foreign travel restriction order, which limits their movements outside the United Kingdom in order to participate in another terrorist act.

I would like to add that Australia has also adopted a control order system. Upon request, a court can place obligations upon a person if, on the balance of probabilities, it is satisfied that the control order would substantially assist in preventing a terrorist attack, or that the subject provided training to or received training from a terrorist organization In general, a control order is valid for up to 12 months. We know that two control orders have been issued since the system was put in place. These orders are no longer valid.

Furthermore, the governments of Australia and its states authorize the preventive arrest of terrorist suspects. Under that system, the Australian federal police, in the case of an actual or imminent act of terrorism, may ask the judge to order the preventive arrest of a suspect for a maximum period of 48 hours. In Australia, states and territories allow for preventive detention for up to 14 days.

Therefore, how do these international measures compare with the proposals outlined in Bill C-17, the bill currently before the House? The provision for recognizance with conditions requires that there be reasonable grounds to believe or suspect. In addition, the intent of this provision is not to arrest people but to detain suspects in order to prevent a potential terrorist attack.

Similarly, although the provision provides for arrest without a warrant, it is very narrow in scope, as in an emergency.

In summary, it is fair to say that the measures of other countries are similar to and sometimes go further than those proposed by this bill. For example, an overview of the differences between Canada, the United Kingdom and Australia indicates that Canada, unlike the United Kingdom, does not have a maximum detention of 28 days prior to charges being laid. Unlike the United Kingdom and Australia, Canada does not have a system of restrictive measures. However, in contrast to the United Kingdom, Canada does not criminalize the failure to provide a peace officer with information pertinent to a terrorist offence.

Unlike Australia, we do not restrict the selection of lawyers for the investigation and unlike the United Kingdom, Canada does not impose the requirement to report or travel restrictions on persons found guilty of terrorist acts, as we saw previously.

I have attempted to prove that, like other democratic nations, Canada has recognized the need to provide for additional powers in order to investigate or prevent terrorism. It is a very unique crime that requires unprecedented solutions.

The honourable members should be reassured by the fact that the provisions of the bill include abundant guarantees and are narrow in scope when compared to measures adopted by other parliamentary democracies, such as the United Kingdom.

By re-establishing the powers provided for by Bill C-17, Canada can prove that it can play a leadership role and is taking steps to fight terrorism, all the while respecting human rights.

Consequently, I am asking for the speedy passage of this very useful bill to combat terrorism.

[Combating Terrorism Act, September 20th, 2010]

Madam Speaker, I have a question for my colleague, who did a great job introducing the terrorism bill. I want to point out to the House that the Air India crash killed 325 people. Our population is 33 million, and the United States' is 300 million. The attack killed 3,000 people. That is about the same, proportionally speaking. Before 9/11, the Air India bombing was the deadliest terrorist attack in North America.

I have a question for my colleague, who was also with the police before coming to the House to help us introduce our bills. Can she tell us if any other countries have laws more or less the same as the one we are going to introduce, a law that is not harsh, but that seeks to protect our people?

[Protecting Children from Online Sexual Exploitation Act, June 15th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for his question.

It should be noted that, in the systems that bring Internet to our homes, a Canadian company monitors or houses the system that is called a server. The server is Canadian. It communicates with other servers located in other countries.

When our Canadian server discovers, is told, or reports to the police that it houses a child pornography site, it is the one that would be penalized. Therefore, it will stop housing pornographic sites from another country. Servers communicate among themselves. They can stop an activity, and that is what we are requiring them to do with our commercial trade partners. We are asking them to monitor everything that comes from other countries, since they are interrelated. This means they can put an end to an activity.

As regards the hon. member's second question, it is true that the organized crime may be behind this and may make billions of dollars. However, I should point out that the penalties are gradual. For example, in the case of an individual, it is $1,000 for a first offence, then $10,000 for a second offence, and so on. We felt that international companies and large corporations for which $50,000 is not much money should keep in mind that we can have a different scale for a small company and an individual.

[Protecting Children from Online Sexual Exploitation Act, June 15th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, I want to explain something to the hon. member. When what is known as the main drive is located in the United States, its content is released through a system that is licensed in Canada, namely the Internet service provider. That ISP is governed by Canadian laws. Even if the main drive is located in the United States, the Canadian company will have to convey the information. That is what I mentioned in my speech. Where is the child pornography site, and where is its geographical location? If the Canadian provider does not want to be at fault, it will simply have to stop presenting the content of this site.

[Protecting Children from Online Sexual Exploitation Act, June 15th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, through you, I want to thank my colleague for her question. Indeed, for the past four or five years, Cybertip.ca, a not for profit agency, has already been helping the system uncover pornography distributed by Internet providers.

I would like to point out that under the bill, Cybertip.ca may be one of the agencies chosen to help us fight sexual exploitation and child pornography on the Internet. Funding will be provided to these agencies that are already helping us for free.

[Protecting Children from Online Sexual Exploitation Act, June 15th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, through you, I would like to mention that, according to our information, most pornographic sites are hosted in the United States and others are hosted in Canada and other countries. Most of the rules will apply to any company, big or small, that hosts child pornography sites. The company will be required to take the necessary steps to protect children from this abuse and, to some degree, help the victims.

[Protecting Children from Online Sexual Exploitation Act, June 15th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, I am honoured to speak in support of Bill C-22, the Protecting Children from Online Sexual Exploitation Act, a government bill.

I think everyone in this House would agree there is no greater duty for us as elected officials than to ensure the protection of children, the most precious and vulnerable members of our society.

Although the Canadian laws designed to combat child pornography are among the most exhaustive in the world, we can and must do more to make sure our children are protected from sexual exploitation.

The creation of the Internet has provided new means for offenders to distribute and use child pornography, resulting in significant increases in the availability and volume of child pornography.

This bill is aimed at the Internet, and in particular the distribution of child pornography on the Web. Exactly as Bill C-58 did in the previous session, it proposes to enhance Canada’s capacity to protect children from sexual exploitation by requiring that Internet service providers report child pornography on the Internet.

This piece of legislation would strengthen Canada's ability to detect potential child pornography offences. It would also help reduce the availability of online child pornography, and would facilitate the identification, apprehension and prosecution of offenders. Most importantly, this bill would help identify victims so they may be rescued from sexual predators.

Last summer, the federal ombudsman for victims of crime released a special report entitled “Every Image, Every child”, which provided an overview of the problem of online sexual exploitation of children. According to a special report, the number of charges for production or distribution of child pornography increased by 900% between 1998 and 2003. Additionally, the number of images of serious child abuse quadrupled between 2003 and 2007.

Again according to that report, 39% of those accessing child pornography are viewing images of children between the ages of three and five, and 19% want to see images of children under three years old.

The federal ombudsman's special report quotes Ontario Provincial Police detective inspector Angie Howe, and this quotation was from her appearance before the Senate committee in 2005. She said:

As recently as one year ago, we did not often see pictures with babies, where now it is normal to see babies in many collections that we find. There is even a highly sought-after series on the Internet of a newborn baby being violated. She still has her umbilical cord attached; she is that young.

According to this report, commercial child pornography is estimated to be a multi-billion dollar industry worldwide. Thousands of new images or videos are put on the Internet every week and hundreds of thousands of searches for child sexual abuse images are performed daily.

There are more than 750,000 pedophiles online at any given time and some of them may have collections of over a million child sexual abuse images.

The conclusions in the special report from the Federal Ombudsman for Victims of Crime were quickly used in a more recent report from the Canadian Centre for Child Protection, which presents an overview of the information obtained through tips received by Cybertip.ca.

Cybertip.ca is a Canada-wide tipline for the public reporting of online child sexual exploitation, which includes child pornography, Internet luring, child prostitution, child sex tourism and child trafficking for sexual purposes.

I would like to quote from this report because it contains troubling statistics about the prevalence of online child sexual exploitation. It also reports that the images are becoming increasingly violent and are showing increasingly younger children.

The results of this assessment provide some disturbing data on the issue of child abuse images. Most concerning is the severity of abuse depicted, with over 35% of all images showing serious sexual assaults. Combined with the age ranges of the children in the images, we see that children under 8 years old are most likely to be abused through sexual assaults. Even more alarming is the extreme sexual assaults which occur against children under the age of 8 years. These statistics challenge the misconception that child pornography consists largely of innocent or harmless nude photographs of children.

The government is committed to doing everything it can to put a stop to this growing problem. That is why we are reintroducing in the House this legislative measure to create a uniform mandatory reporting regime across Canada that would apply to all Internet service providers.

The new measures in Bill C-22 will complete a series of existing measures in Canada that are intended to protect children from sexual exploitation, including child pornography.

Canadian criminal laws against child pornography are among the most comprehensive in the world and apply to representations involving real and imaginary children. Section 163.1 of the Criminal Code prohibits all forms of making, distributing, transmitting, selling, importing, exporting, accessing, advertising and possessing child pornography.

The Criminal Code provides a broad definition of child pornography that includes any visual, written and audio depictions of sexual abuse of a young person under the age of 18 years, and any written material or audio recording that advocates or counsels such unlawful activity, or whose dominant characteristic is the description of such unlawful activity.

The Criminal Code sets out tough sentences for child pornography offences, including a maximum sentence of 10 years for producing or distributing child pornography. Since 2005, all child pornography offences carry a mandatory minimum term of imprisonment, which prevents persons found guilty of such an offence to be given a conditional sentence, for example house arrest.

In addition, committing a child pornography offence with intent to make a profit is an aggravating factor when determining the sentence. Since 2005, the courts responsible for sentencing have had to pay particular attention to the objectives of denunciation and deterrence when imposing a sentence for an offence involving the sexual exploitation of children.

The government recognizes that, although tough criminal laws are necessary to fight this scourge, they are not enough. For that reason, we announced last year that we were renewing our commitment to work with our partners on the national strategy for the protection of children from sexual exploitation on the Internet. This strategy has been successful and has played an important role in recent years in ensuring that the increasing number of youth using the Internet are protected and that measures to stop sexual predators are in place. The government will invest $71 million over five years to ensure that this national strategy continues to be successful.

This money will make it possible for the government, through the National Child Exploitation Coordination Centre, to increase its capacity to fight against the sexual exploitation of children on the Internet by identifying the victims, conducting investigations and helping to bring offenders to justice, and also by improving the capacity of municipal, territorial, provincial, federal and foreign police by providing training and support for investigations.

We also want to enhance the centre's ability to help young people take charge of their own safety while engaging in online activities, and enable the public to report possible cases of online sexual exploitation of children through initiatives like Cybertip.ca

The international community has also recognized that the protection of our children is of paramount importance in the many treaties that address the issue. In particular, the Council of Europe Convention on Cybercrime seeks to standardize a definition of child pornography and offences related to child pornography in an attempt to foster international co-operation in combating crimes against children.

On May 6, 2010, the government reintroduced this important bill in the House to enhance our ability to co-operate with our international partners in combating this scourge.

I would now like to explain how this piece of legislation will work. The bill focuses on the Internet and those who supply Internet services to the public, because the widespread adoption of the Internet is largely responsible for the growth in child pornography crimes over the last 10 years or so.

Because Internet service providers provide Canadians with the Internet services through with child pornography crimes are committed, they are in the best position to discover these crimes. That is why this legislative measure requires them to report to the police any Internet address related to child pornography that can be publicly accessed on the Internet, to notify the police if they think that their Internet services have been used to commit a child pornography crime, and to preserve any related evidence.

It should be noted that this act will cover more than just ISPs. The term ISP usually refers to those who provide access to the Internet, in other words, the wires that go into our homes and deliver signals. This bill applies to ISPs and to all those who supply electronic mail services such as webmail, Internet content hosting, which would include web designers and co-location facilities, and social networking sites that allow members to upload images and documents. The law would also apply to those providing free Internet services to the public, such as cybercafés, hotels, restaurants and public libraries. This wide application will eliminate as many pedophile safe havens as possible.

This legislation would impose a certain number of obligations on those who provide Internet services. First, if a person is advised, in the course of providing an Internet service to the public, of an Internet address where child pornography may be available, that person would be required to report that address to the organization designated by the regulations. To be absolutely clear, these providers would be required to provide only the Internet address. No personal information would be sent to the designated organization. We chose this route in order to comply with the Privacy Act and because the designated organization would not require additional information to fulfill its obligations under the regulations. Even though the regulations have not yet been written, we foresee the organization's main roles to be: one, to determine if the information communicated about that Internet address does give access to child pornography in the meaning of the Criminal Code; and two, to determine the geographic location of the server where the content is stored, if applicable. Once this information has been confirmed, the organization would send it to the appropriate law enforcement agency.

The second duty C-22 would impose on Internet service providers would be to notify the police if they have reasonable grounds to believe that their Internet service has been used to commit a child pornography offence. For example, an email provider that realized while maintaining its message server that a user's mailbox contained child pornography would be required to notify police that it had reasons to believe that a child pornography offence had been committed. In addition, the provider would be required to preserve the evidence for 21 days after notifying police. However, to minimize the impact on the privacy of Canadians, the Internet service provider would also be required to destroy the information that would not be retained in the ordinary course of business after the expiry of the 21-day period, unless required to keep it by a judicial order.

So as not to prejudice a planned or ongoing criminal investigation, a person could not disclose that they had made a report or a notification under the legislation.

The general principle behind this legislation is that it must not promote the use or distribution of child pornography. In keeping with this principle, the bill expressly states that it does not require or authorize anyone to seek out child pornography. As well, the bill is not worded in such a way that Internet service providers themselves are required to check the information on an Internet address or investigate users' activities

The last two things I would like to talk about are offences and punishment. Failure to comply with the duties under this proposed legislation would constitute an offence punishable by summary conviction with a graduated penalty scheme.

Individuals, or sole proprietors, would be subject to a fine of not more than $1,000 for the first offence, a fine of not more than $5,000 for a second offence, and a fine of not more than $10,000 or imprisonment for a term of not more than six months, or both, for each subsequent offence.

Corporations and other entities would be subject to a fine of not more than $10,000 for a first offence, a fine of not more than $50,000 for a second offence, and a fine of not more than $100,000 for each subsequent offence. This two-level penalty system takes into account the diversity of the Internet service sector in Canada, where there are just as many sole proprietorships as there are multinational corporations.

Some might feel that these penalties are light, but we have to remember that this bill is a complement to all of the existing measures to protect our children against sexual exploitation, including the harsh penalties provided for in the Criminal Code for child pornography offences.

This bill sends a message to those who provide Internet services to the public that they have a social and moral obligation, and now also a legal one, to report the existence of this heinous material when they become aware of it.

We believe that the penalties provided for in this bill would allow us to balance the objective of the bill with its effectiveness. In order to achieve the objective of this bill, to better protect children, the government wants to ensure that all Internet service providers in Canada abide by the law, not just the major Internet service providers who already voluntarily declare such cases and assist the police.

In conclusion, I hope that all parties and all parliamentarians will support Bill C-22, the Protecting Children from Online Sexual Exploitation Act.