Marlene Jennings

[Protecting Children from Online Sexual Exploitation Act, October 4th, 2010]

Yes, Mr. Speaker. I have already stated that I would welcome the House sending Bill C-22 to committee. When the committee looks at the scope of the bill and at the fines that we find as two different ideas, it should also look at what is being done in other countries and what has been successful. The member mentioned the blocking of sites in Germany and Sweden. I do not know whether that could be done in Canada given our Constitution. That would require bringing in experts and I am open to that.

This is such an important issue that we want to ensure we get it right. We also want to ensure we go as far as we can with the technology that we have but respecting our Constitution and our charter.

[Protecting Children from Online Sexual Exploitation Act, October 4th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, I guess today is be kind and gentle and friendly to opponents. I congratulate the member for his re-election as chair to the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights, and I was pleased for that. He has done a very good job as chair. I look forward to working with him and all colleagues from other parties on the justice committee.

I believe the issue of the level of fines should definitely be examined by justice committee members when and if the bill gets enough support from the House to send it to committee. A second area that should be looked at is whether the idea of blocking sites, as Germany does, is a possibility. If it is, is it something that could be added to the legislation? We know sometimes that we cannot go outside of the scope of the bill in committee, but there are a number of issues that the committee should look at and I look forward to that work.

[Protecting Children from Online Sexual Exploitation Act, October 4th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to be participating in the debate regarding Bill C-22.

I will say at the outset that, as my colleague also said during the debate in June, we, the Liberals, support the goal of this bill. We will support this bill so that it can be sent to the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights.

I would also like to mention that I will be sharing my time with the hon. member for Davenport.

I would like to talk a little bit about how this bill came to be.

The bill was first introduced in the House of Commons as Bill C-58 in the previous legislative session. When the Prime Minister decided to prorogue Parliament towards the end of 2009, he effectively killed the bill.

When Parliament resumed in March 2010, the government clearly did not see the bill as a high priority because it waited two months before it reintroduced Bill C-58 as what we know as Bill C-22. Then it sat on the order paper for more than a month before the government finally moved second reading. Debate in the House then could have begun in the month of June.

It is interesting that the government did not place as high a priority on the bill as it should have. This should have been the first bill reintroduced. It should have been the first bill to be moved at second reading. We could have had this bill to committee, possibly out of committee, back for report stage and third reading before we broke for the summer. All of that could have been done expeditiously.

I am happy the government has finally moved second reading on the bill and that debate is now happening. The Liberals will be supporting it.

This bill came out of the agreement reached at the meeting of federal, provincial and territorial ministers on the coming into force of reporting requirements for Internet service providers and online service providers with regard to child pornography.

Bill C-22, as I have already mentioned, is identical to the previous bill, Bill C-58. Under current Canadian law, distributing child pornography online is a criminal offence. When there are reasonable grounds to believe that child pornography is accessible through an Internet service provider, a judge can order the ISP to hand over information to the authorities. Judges can also order such content to be removed if the source can be identified.

The purpose of Bill C-22 is to fight child pornography on the Internet by requiring Internet service providers and others responsible for providing Internet related services to report incidents involving child pornography when they are advised of an address that makes such content available to the public or when they have reasonable grounds to believe that the Internet services they are managing are being used to transmit child pornography.

As the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of the Environment said, Manitoba passed similar legislation in 2008 and Ontario in December 2008. The United States and Australia passed legislation in 2002 and 2005 respectively imposing such requirements on ISPs. Accordingly, Canada has fallen behind some of its international partners and friends, but the step this government is taking to finally modernize the parts of the Criminal Code that cover the production and distribution of child pornography is a step in the right direction.

As I was saying, the parties all agree when it comes to the need to address the exponential increase of child pornography available online. Statistics Canada indicates that illegal activity related to child pornography increased in Canada from 55 cases in 1998 to 1,408 cases in 2008.

A study conducted by Cybertip.ca revealed that nearly 60 countries were hosting child pornography. Canada hosts 9% of the world's child pornography sites, which is unacceptable. This puts us in third place, after the United States, which hosts 49% of these types of sites, and Russia, which hosts 20%. As many have already said in this House, that is truly unacceptable.

I will not repeat the percentages for pornographic images that involve children. The Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of the Environment provided this information today, and my fellow member of the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights already gave them when he made his speech in June 2010. I will also not bother to speak about the fines. I think that topic will have to be studied, and we will have to hear from experts to determine whether the amounts of the fines in this bill are appropriate.

Perhaps we should consider increasing the fines that can be imposed.

The NDP member also brought up a point when he indicated that two countries, Germany and I believe Sweden, have implemented legislation to allow the government to block these sites completely. Are such measures possible here? Could the bill be amended to include such measures?

I think that the experts will be able to tell us whether this is possible in Canada, under our legal framework, because we do not have the same constitution as Germany or Sweden. We always want to ensure that our legislation is constitutional. The experts will be able to tell us whether blocking this type of site is possible under our Constitution and our legal and legislative framework.

I would like to speak about one last point before I conclude.

It is very difficult to determine where the images and websites are hosted, but they can be supported from different locations in the world. As such, oftentimes each photo and each site must be individually tracked, something highly difficult to achieve. Bill C-22 would go somewhere toward solving that, but there is more work to be done.

For one website depicting the sexual exploitation of children, Cybertip.ca tracked it for 48 hours, two days, and the site went through 212 different Internet addresses in 16 different countries. ISPs running the networks to which these computers are connected should be able to suspend service to these computers. This is another point at which the justice committee should look. I hope all members will support sending the bill to committee.

[September 30th, 2010]

Madam Speaker, Le Centre des travailleuses en maisons privées in Montreal had its federal funding cut by this government.

When the hon. member opposite talks about the spending cuts and program cuts of the Liberal governments in the 1990s, from 1993 to 1996, he forgets that his party, at the time called the Reform Party, and the Prime Minister, who was around at the time, were actually criticizing the Liberal government. They said that government was not going far enough in its program and spending cuts to tackle the $42-billion Conservative deficit, which has now been surpassed by the new Conservative deficit, which is in the $50-billion range.

Back in 2005, the Prime Minister said when a government starts trying to cancel dissent or avoid dissent is when it is rapidly losing its moral authority to govern.

When did the Prime Minister stop believing what he said in 2005? Was it when he became Prime Minister?

[September 30th, 2010]

Madam Speaker, on May 7, I asked the government House leader several legitimate questions about the conduct of his government. Instead the House leader completely sidelined the question and attempted to steer the opposition. I will not go into the details of the allegations made by the minister, but I will say that it is an insult to the intelligence of Canadians.

What is even more insulting is that Canadians wanted answers to the questions that I asked of the government minister. Groups such as the Centre des travailleuses en maisons privées in Montreal listened when I asked the questions, listened to his responses and were not very happy about it.

Instead, this centre had its funding cut this year and as their funding was cut he chose to slap them straight in the face, to add insult to injury, in revving up the political rhetoric in deflecting my questions, which were legitimate ones.

This is an issue of the muzzling of groups by the Conservative government and it is a serious issue. For years the government and the Prime Minister have attempted to silence any reasoned and credible opposition, not just from other parties but also from individuals and groups of average citizens. Anyone with damaging information or a contrary opinion to the government is told to “shut the f— up”, to use the words of a Conservative senator, if they do not want to suffer the consequences.

I will name just a few of those who have been muzzled: Linda Keen, former president of the Nuclear Safety Commission; Peter Tinsley, once head of the Military Police Complaints Commission; Paul Kennedy, once chair of the RCMP public complaints commission; Adrian Measner, once president and CEO of the Canadian Wheat Board; Yves Côté, once the ombudsman for the Department of National Defence and the Canadian Forces; Munir Sheikh, once the head of Statistics Canada; Steve Sullivan, once the Federal Ombudsman for Victims of Crime; Kevin Page, the Parliamentary Budget Officer; Richard Colvin, a Canadian diplomat. I could go on.

This government clearly has a history of attacking in particular what it calls “fringe groups”, meaning ordinary Canadian community groups and government bodies that are following their legal mandate, and muzzling groups with which it does not agree.

For example, the Prime Minister cut the court challenges program. The court challenges program was designed:

to provide financial assistance for important court cases that advance language and equality rights guaranteed under Canada's Constitution.

It was cut by the Conservative government.

In the meantime, when we talk about equality rights, Canadian women are still only earning 71¢ to every dollar earned by their male counterparts.

Here is what one former watchdog had to say about this government.

Peter Tinsley reportedly suggested that his removal from the Military Police Complaints Commission is part of a broader pattern with this Conservative government. Mr. Tinsley said that the former Liberal government, in contrast, deliberately did not remove Shirley Heafey, who oversaw the controversial inquiry into the pepper spraying of protesters by the Mounties at the 1997 APEC summit in B.C., because the Liberal government wanted to avoid the appearance of trying to shut down a tribunal that was generating negative publicity for that government.

[Firearms Registry, September 30th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize the significant work of two great Canadians: Chief Bill Blair, president of the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police; and Dr. Wendy Cukier, president of the Coalition for Gun Control.

Chief Blair and Dr. Cukier provided the House public safety committee with invaluable information and statistics about the use of the federal long gun registry, which helped to inform Parliament and Canadians on this important matter of public safety.

Our country is very lucky to have people like Wendy Cukier and Toronto's police chief, Bill Blair. It is because of their efforts that we were able to maintain the gun registry.

Thanks to their dedication, we were able to save the long gun registry.

On behalf of the Liberal caucus, I would like to thank Police Chief Bill Blair and Dr. Wendy Cukier for their work.

[Census, September 28th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, the government knows its decision will make the census more expensive and less effective. It knows the information will be useless to many federal institutions, but also useless to businesses, to charities and to the Bank of Canada.

They know all this, yet the Conservatives still want to make the government less expensive and less efficient. Why?

[Census, September 28th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, the Fédération des communautés francophones et acadienne du Canada is fighting the Conservative decision to eliminate the long form census because it threatens French-language services.

In court yesterday, we learned that the government knew from the outset that eliminating the mandatory long form questionnaire would make the data useless for numerous federal institutions.

So why are they persisting when they know that their new questionnaire will be more expensive and will make the government less effective? Why?

[Baseball, September 22nd, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, it gives me great pleasure to rise in the House today to celebrate the achievements of the Notre-Dame-de-Grâce Major and Junior Lynx baseball teams.

The Major Lynx team won the provincial championship this past summer after defeating archrival Valleyfield in a hard fought victory on our home turf in NDG. The team then went on to proudly represent the province of Quebec in the 2010 Canadian Little League Championship in Ancaster, Ontario.

The very same weekend in Brossard, the NDG Junior Lynx also won the provincial championship. In the final game, the NDG Lynx defeated Drummondville 16 to 0. The Junior Lynx then went on to the Canadian Championship in Lethbridge, Alberta.

Let us celebrate the volunteer coaches and all players for their outstanding performance and sportsmanship.

It gives me great pleasure to congratulate the two teams and to say “Go Lynx Go”.

[Committees of the House, September 21st, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, one of our responsibilities as members is to debate bills whose objectives we either support or oppose. I already spoke to this bill at another stage, at second reading, I believe. I very clearly expressed my support for maintaining the firearms registry.

I will not repeat the reasons I support it. Anyone interested can simply consult Hansard and read my speech, or visit my website, where my speech is posted.

This evening I would like to talk about the cynicism of one political party and one member in particular. I am referring to the member who sponsored the bill, trying to pass the bill off as a private member's bill, although everyone knows that this is a government bill. The government has deployed all its weapons, political as well as financial, to defend this bill. This government is not at all interested in the facts, the science or the empirical data, which all show that the firearms registry saves lives and that the majority of Canadians want the registry to be maintained.

I will list a few organizations that support the firearms registry, starting with our national police force, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. There is also the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police, the Canadian Police Association, and the Canadian Association of Police Boards. All of these associations are strongly urging us to keep the registry. The Ombudsman for Victims of Crime has just announced that she has recommended that the government maintain the firearms registry for long guns.

A number of stakeholders have submitted a lot of data on the frequency with which the police query the firearms registry database and it turns out that they do so several thousand times a day.

In April, 28 medical organizations, including nurses, paramedics and suicide prevention agencies, as well as 33 professionals working in those fields sent an open letter to members stressing the importance of the firearms registry in preventing domestic murders, accidents and suicides.

In 2006, 774 Canadians were killed by firearms and 70% of these cases were suicides. And yet, all the data and studies show that the number of suicides using a firearm has dropped substantially since the Firearms Act came into force. We cannot turn a blind eye to the fact that the majority of wives and women who are murdered are killed by long guns.

Emergency doctors have confirmed that 26% of all murders in 2008 involving a firearm were committed using rifles and shotguns, whereas long guns were used in 72% of domestic murders where a firearm was involved.

I listened to the member for Portage—Lisgar make several observations and assertions, many of which were dubious. I simply want to point out to her that she and her colleagues, and even the Prime Minister, clamour to have members listen to their fellow citizens and to listen to the constituents in their ridings. I would like to ask her why she does not listen to the women who reside in her riding of Portage Lisgar.

When you look at the number of incidents across Canada involving a firearm, most of which involved the use of a long gun, the data are very interesting—and I have not fabricated the data. The statistics are sourced directly from Statistics Canada.

In Toronto, there were 95 incidents involving firearms resulting in deaths, attempted murders and suicides.

In the riding of Portage—Lisgar, there were 115 incidents involving firearms. This riding has the highest rate of incidents that involve firearms, including long guns, and endanger lives. The member for Portage—Lisgar does not seem to be aware of this fact. Why is she not listening to her own voters, the women who live in her riding and whose lives have been threatened by people armed with long guns?

In the past four years, the number of on-line queries of the Canadian firearms registry by police officers from the Portage—Lisgar riding has doubled. These were not automatic queries. The Conservatives keep saying that when a police officer checks a vehicle's licence plate, the query is automatically linked to the firearms registry.

The number of queries by Portage—Lisgar police doubled when deliberate queries of the registry were tallied. However, the member is not listening. She even denies the fact that the police in her riding of Portage—Lisgar is responsible for the majority—two thirds—of all registry queries from Manitoba for the purpose of obtaining court affidavits.

The registry has made it possible, for police working in the Portage—Lisgar riding, to track 70% of the firearms that are confiscated for reasons of public safety.

I am asking the member to stop spouting purely ideological arguments, to look at the statistics for once in her life, and to listen to the women who live in her riding of Portage—Lisgar. From the number of crimes committed with firearms in this riding, it would seem that the women living there are in more danger than women living in Toronto and Montreal.