Jim Maloway

[Protecting Children from Sexual Predators Act, December 3rd, 2010]

Madam Speaker, earlier today when the member for Scarborough—Rouge River was making his presentation, he indicated that he had added up all the amendments to the Criminal Code and found that the government has 15 amendments to the Criminal Code. He stated that the government could have simply created one omnibus bill and brought it before the House, in much the same way the government seemed to be able to do with the last two budgets.

That brings us to the next suggestion. The Criminal Code is now 100 years old and is in serious need of a complete revamp. Perhaps the government should come clean with the citizens of Canada and approach the provinces and look at public hearings on a complete rewrite of the Criminal Code.

Is that a reasonable suggestion for the government to follow, or does the member think the government is simply interested in bringing amendments out one at a time for short-term political gain?

[Protecting Children from Sexual Predators Act, December 3rd, 2010]

Madam Speaker, I am very pleased to listen to the comments of the member for Scarborough—Rouge River on Bill C-54.

I was intrigued by his observations that the government had introduced perhaps 15 Criminal Code amendments, which are fairly simple. The suggestion he has made, being a well-regarded lawyer who has been around the House for many years, is that perhaps the government could have proceeded by way of an omnibus bill. It certainly managed to that with the 980 page budget bill, which was not appropriate for that case. However, in this case, a revamp of the Criminal Code, putting all these amendments into one bill, would not only be appropriate, but would probably be the preferred way to do.

The other aspect of it is that the Criminal Code is 100 years old and is probably in need of a very large revamp as it is. Does the hon. member agree that perhaps the federal government should have engaged in consultation with the provinces and had a series of road show type hearings across the country about what should be involved in a total rewrite of the Criminal Code? The Conservatives could start by involving the opposition parties. By doing that, they would have a better possibility of having a productive Parliament and actually achieving something during the government's tenure in office.

[Petitions, December 3rd, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, I am presenting a petition signed by dozens of Canadians. It is a call to end Canada's military involvement in Afghanistan.

In May 2008, Parliament passed a resolution to withdraw Canadian Forces by July 2011. The Prime Minister, with agreement from the Liberal Party, broke his oft-repeated promise to honour the parliamentary motion, and furthermore, refused to put it to a vote in this House. Committing 1,000 soldiers to a training mission still presents a lot of danger for our troops and unnecessary expense when our country is faced with a $56 billion deficit.

The military mission has cost Canadians more than $18 billion so far, money that could have been spent to improve health care and seniors' pensions right here in Canada. Polls show a clear majority does not want Canada's military presence to continue after the scheduled removal date of July 2011. Therefore, the petitioners call upon the Prime Minister to honour the will of Parliament and bring the troops home now.

[Health, December 3rd, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, in the Manitoba first nations community of Garden Hill two people recently died and a third is sick, and influenza seems to be the cause.

Last year, during the H1N1 crisis, two-thirds of the flu victims were aboriginal. Because of poor living conditions and a lack of medical care, people living on reserves are especially vulnerable.

Health care on reserves is a federal responsibility. Will the government act now to prevent more deaths and illness?

[Protecting Children from Sexual Predators Act, December 3rd, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, it seems to me that the criminal injuries compensation fund idea that was started in Manitoba some 40 years ago is something that his government should look at. It has certainly fulfilled a very valuable function in my home province.

If the government is as concerned as it says it is, and we believe it is, with the plight of victims in society, then it should not only talk about it, but actually do something about it. Certainly the experience with the previous holder of the office was that he was not happy with the lack of commitment to victims.

[Protecting Children from Sexual Predators Act, December 3rd, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the member whether the government has any plans for a criminal injuries compensation fund similar to the fund we have in Manitoba that was set up under the NDP government of Ed Schreyer in 1969 or 1970.

There is a lot of damage caused to people on a long-term basis. Does the government have any way for these victims of crime to receive compensation? Are there any plans afoot to have a federal victims' compensation fund or provisions like that?

[Protecting Children from Sexual Predators Act, December 3rd, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, while I certainly support the intent of this bill, I wonder whether we will see a move on the part of some of these people to engage in sex tourism in other countries. We have had that problem for many years, and the countries change over the years. Thailand was a big source for this activity and I am sure there are other countries.

Does the government have any plans, or is it making any effort, to make certain that we are enforcing our own sex tourism laws? What efforts are being made to deal with other countries to toughen up their laws?

If all we do is export the problem somewhere else, we are not really getting ahead on a worldwide basis.

[Protecting Children from Online Sexual Exploitation Act, December 3rd, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, back in June 2008 when I was in the Manitoba legislature we dealt with whole issue of Cybertip.ca.

At that time it seemed to have been a good idea. We supported it. I think the history of Cybertip.ca has been rather positive. The member is actually fairly knowledgeable in this area, so I would ask him to give us an update on that.

It is interesting that we have gotten more answers out of this member today than we have been able to get from any government member on this issue throughout the entire debate. As a matter of fact, we rarely see any government—

[Protecting Children from Online Sexual Exploitation Act, December 3rd, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, I did pay attention to the member's concern about the two-year limit not being long enough.

I would ask the member to explain that a little further. When we looked into this whole issue, we found that Canada was a large producer and host of this type of activity, with 9% of the worldwide number of sites. As a matter of fact, the United States was the largest at 49% of the total sites. Russia had 20%, Japan had 4.3% and South Korea had 3.6%.

We recognize that when efforts are being made to stamp these sites out, they will simply move on to other jurisdictions. This is a long-term effort here that is going to have be waged by jurisdictions. It just seems to me that we should be looking at best practices. We should be looking at the Swedish situation.

I do not know whether anyone at committee dealt with that particular issue. I would ask the member to deal with the issue of two-year limits and also the question of whether or not any witnesses were brought in who could give us some inside information about how the system is working in Sweden and other countries, including China.

[Protecting Children from Online Sexual Exploitation Act, December 3rd, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, my second question deals with the issue of offences.

For example, in the case of individuals, we are talking about $1,000 for a first offence, $5,000 for a second offence and a maximum of $10,000 or six months for a third offence. For corporations, we are talking about $10,000 for the first offence, $50,000 for the second offence and $100,000 for the third offence.

I would expect that at the end of the day, if we strip away the veils, we would find that these pornographic sites are largely owned and run by criminal enterprises. I wonder whether or not these fines would be high enough, because they could be seen by criminal organizations as nothing more than the cost of doing business. They do not seem high enough to stop people who are making millions of dollars on these types of sites.

I would like to ask the member what he personally thinks about that. I recognize that we can always increase them in the future if, after a certain period of time, we find out that they are not high enough. However, it just seemed to me at the beginning that, if we are dealing with organized crime, perhaps these would not be high enough penalities here.