Rick Casson

[An Act to amend the Criminal Code (cruelty to animals and firearms) and the Firearms Act, April 30th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, the member opposite when dealing with issues from the agricultural community should remember the old adage about never cussing a farmer with one's mouth full and that there would be more respect in coming to the House chewing on something in order to get into the debate.

To continue, the new U.S. farm bill adds another $4.8 billion per year to U.S. subsidies. That will distort the marketplace and certainly will hurt producers on this side of the border. The country of origin labelling included in that bill would cause anything produced in Canada if it is to be sold in the United States to be labelled as such. The people who will market the products in the United States have already said that they will just separate the two or they will not have Canadian products in their stores. That is another issue our people have to worry about.

A couple of weeks ago the U.S. government put a tariff on incoming steel. The Russians replied by keeping chicken out of Russia. That has started a snowball effect which has driven the price of meat down all across North America. That is something else to worry about.

Input costs, taxes, food safety and the anti-terrorism bill are all issues facing our farmers and then comes Bill C-15B. That is something they are very concerned about.

A full page ad was taken out in the Hill Times by an organization that tried to malign Stephen Harper, the new leader of the Canadian Alliance. It is absolutely unfortunate that money which was probably donated to that organization by people with good intentions was put to that type of use. It is an absolute disgrace.

It is a concern to many that we are allowing a well-organized, well-funded and vocal small number of people to dictate to rural Canadians how they will live their lives and how they will carry out their day to day functions. Of course, their opinion is needed and should be part of the debate but to stoop to that level of discussion is absolutely wrong.

These people have been in my office in the past to discuss issues. I have listened to them and they have listened to me. We have had a pretty good debate, but I am pretty sure what my reply will be the next time that organization phones to have a little bit of this MP's time.

Are we letting a few people dictate to people in our rural communities how they will carry on their livelihood? We have been heavily lobbied on this issue. It is all about the balance. There are people who want the bill passed and there are people who are concerned with some aspects of it.

The underlying message we are getting from everyone, and which our party supports, is that they want the legislation. We need to protect the animals. Anybody who abuses an animal in any way should have the full extent of the law thrown at them.

I want to make sure that people fully understand that, particularly the organization that put the full page ad in the paper today. We have been on the record from day one that we support cruelty to animal legislation. Anyone who abuses an animal in any way should be subject to the full extent of the law.

There are two sides to the issue. We have to be very careful that we come up with a piece of legislation that properly addresses the situation. There is one thing of major concern. I have letters from the Canadian Cattlemen's Association, the Canadian Federation of Agriculture, the Manitoba Cattle Producers, Keystone Agricultural Producers, and Canadians for Medical Progress, who are people concerned with research.

The letters on research are very interesting. One of them is from Pierre Berton, a very famous Canadian. He supports research, as we do. He is very concerned that the bill could affect the type of research needed to bring about cures for many diseases and a better way of life for Canadians. These people have very grave concerns about where the bill could lead us.

Bill C-15B would take the whole animal cruelty aspect out of a certain part of the criminal code and put it into another. This would make the bill a target for well heeled organizations which would challenge absolutely every aspect of it in the courts. It could well change the way producers in Canada are allowed to produce the food we and the world need to sustain life. We must be careful that does not happen.

The new animal cruelty legislation may cause the courts to interpret such offences in a different light. This could have significant and detrimental implications for farmers, hunters and other agriculture producers who are dependant on animals for their livelihood.

The Canadian Cattlemen's Association points out in its brief a number of issues it is concerned with. It asked that the animal cruelty provisions not be moved out of the property section of the criminal code. It also asked that the definition of animal be removed or modified to exclude “or any animal that can experience pain”.

It is these two aspect of Bill C-15B that are causing concern. If we go through the letters of the organizations I have mentioned, almost all of them have the same problem with the bill. These are the issues we in my party are trying to bring to the debate.

The government says Bill C-15B would not affect the hunting industry, the way farmers and producers handle animals, or the way research is carried out. If this is so why will it not put into the legislation a clause or two to put all the fears at risk? We have not seen such a clause. It did not come forward in the amendments. The concerns go on. The government and those supporting the bill should put forward amendments we in our party can support. We can then move on.

Moving the animal cruelty provisions from property offences into a new and separate section could elevate the status of animals in the eyes of the courts. We want to make sure animals are protected. However if moving the provisions brings about a whole new set of court challenges it could prove detrimental to certain aspects of our society.

The new definition of animal is extremely broad. It includes “a vertebrate, other than a human being, and any other animal that has the capacity to feel pain”. This would extend legal protection to a number of living organisms which have never before been provided this kind of protection. There is concern about this. There are people who claim plants and all kinds of organisms have the capacity to feel pain. Are we saying they would be part of this? Whether the government likes it or not, that would be the challenge.

There are many issues I want to deal with but 10 minutes does not allow me to. My colleagues will be addressing some of the others. However I would like to add an amendment to the motion. The end of the motion reads:

--taking into consideration the importance of ensuring that the legitimate use of animals by farmers, sportsmen and medical researchers should be protected under this Bill.

I move:

That the motion be amended by adding:

“and that the committee report back to the House no later than December 4, 2002”.

[An Act to amend the Criminal Code (cruelty to animals and firearms) and the Firearms Act, April 30th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, if the parliamentary secretary wants to act now, I suggest we ring the bells, bring the members in and we can vote. I think one of the reasons we are not doing that is the government is not too sure it could win the vote right now.

Just for a minute, imagine being a primary producer who on getting up in the morning reads the newspaper or turns on the news to learn about a number of issues. There is Bill C-5, the species at risk act that does not offer compensation for landowners. That would be something a landowner would have to worry about. Then there is the Kyoto protocol which the government is considering implementing which would cost 10¢ a litre for fuel. That would add to the costs for the producer and would be something else he would have to worry about. Then he would hear about the European Union which is subsidizing its farmers. That is distorting production and driving the price of the producer's products down and he has that to worry about. Then there is--

[Privilege, April 25th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I do not believe what the member opposite is raising is a question of privilege. You have already dealt with the issue and that is the end of it. If he continues to raise this, the issue is between him and another member and it should be dealt with that way. The time being wasted in the House is inappropriate.

[Supply, April 23rd, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I do not think it can be any better addressed than it was in an editorial by Stephen Harper, the leader of the Canadian Alliance, along with the member for Provencher and the member for Regina--Lumsden--Lake Centre who brought the motion forward.

They stated:

The purpose of the Canadian Alliance motion is not to criminalize sexual activities between young people close in age or those that are legally married. Rather, the intention is to provide protection to children and young people in situations where they find it difficult to protect themselves. The current age of consent leaves children and teenagers open to becoming targets of pornographers, Internet sex scams, pedophiles and sexual abuse.

When we did the research a couple of years ago on the first private member's bill that I brought forward, which eventually ended up as an amendment to the criminal code, we talked to an awful lot of people across Canada who had been involved in the issue of fighting for the protection of our children. All these issues came forward at that time and we were able to discuss them. However we must keep bringing it back to the fact that we have to do something to protect the people who cannot protect themselves and the young people who are becoming targets.

The Internet has become an absolute haven for these predators, these pedophiles, who use the information, pictures and writings to keep bombarding children until the children think that is the normal way to act. That is why the possession of it, the distribution of it and anything that depicts children in any kind of a situation that would lead to their exploitation is something that we have to work hard to expose and eliminate.

That is what this motion is about today. All this other technical, fuzzy things around the edge should be dealt away, and let us talk about this.

[Supply, April 23rd, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to be given the chance to speak to this motion today. However discussion of things such as child pornography and the age of sexual consent brings no joy to me at all. What I personally bring to the House today is a deep, serious concern about the peril of our children, the peril they are in from sexual predators who would destroy their innocence and in essence their very lives, and the alarming lack of support that the government provides our crime fighters and our courts to deal with sexual exploitation of children.

As far as my constituents are concerned, there is no other issue that gets as much attention as our country's lack of comprehensive child pornography laws and our embarrassingly low age of sexual consent. Petition after petition, letter after letter, the message is clear: things need to change and they need to change now.

Two things are very clear to the vast majority of Canadians. Adults having sex with children, whatever the medium it is documented by or on, has no artistic merit. Fourteen year olds do not have the confidence nor emotional maturity to consent to having sex with people possibly twice or three times their age. Those two things are so self-evident that many are flabbergasted by the lax laws our country has on these issues. If we as a nation of compassionate, intelligent people cannot protect the most vulnerable members of our society, then what are we doing? We need to protect our children or we have indeed failed in the creation and maintenance of a just and safe society.

The message the government sends to Canadians about our children is they have no rights as people, they are property to be used and abused as any adult sees fit and it hopes they make it through life, but as a government, it does not bother ensuring their safety. That is wrong and that needs to be changed.

This is not about the morality of the right or the liberalism of the left. This is vital and intrinsic to a functioning healthy society and crosses over every party line. Children cannot be allowed to be sexually abused and used and be expected to grow up into balanced and well-adjusted adults. It is foolish and irresponsible to assume otherwise and do nothing.

A couple of years ago the member from Pickering--Ajax--Uxbridge brought together some crime fighters on Parliament Hill. He did the same thing a week ago. However, two years ago when we got together, Detective Matthews from the OPP pornography unit brought an issue to my attention that needed addressing in the criminal code. I brought forward a private member's bill to amend the criminal code to allow for the forfeiture of equipment used in the production and distribution of child pornography. I am proud to say that it is in Bill C-15A and is part of the bill that will hopefully be law soon.

When the member brought these same people back together last week, I was able to attend. What we heard and saw was truly distressing. We heard from the woefully understaffed police agencies on child pornography, from police officers to lawyers to intelligence officers, and the message was loud and clear: Canada provides very little protection for its most helpless citizens.

The Toronto sex crimes police unit showed the round table about 40 seconds the 400,000 images it seized from one arrest in the city. Some of the children were as young as six months old. They were real children. They were being raped, tied up and tortured. It was the most revolting 40 seconds of my life and it is something I never want to have to see again. However it would have been selfish not to have witnessed, to know exactly what was going on and to try to help. It is my duty as an adult, as a father, as a grandfather and as an elected representative to help change things for the better and to ensure that this filth is not permitted to be produced, traded or possessed within our borders.

The John Robin Sharpe case will forever be linked to child pornography. I suppose that is understandable. What we cannot allow is for him to be lauded as a freedom fighter. He is for organizations, such as NAMBLA, that aggressively advocate sex with children claiming to truly understand that children are sexual creatures. Sharpe's writings are not the documents we should be waving around as examples of freedom of thought and expression.

Last month Sharpe was found guilty of possessing boxes of child pornography. However he was found not guilty for the stories he had written and obtained from other pedophiles. Justice Duncan Shaw's reasoning was that however vile they were they had artistic merit.

The guidelines for granting this exception are foggy at best and the laws concerning this area must be specifically and carefully rewritten so as to allow for things like Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet to be studied in schools but to allow the banning of the diatribes filled with the rape and torture of children and luring stories read to children by pedophiles to normalize sex. One thing pointed out to us by these crime fighters was that these writings and pictures were used to brainwash children so they would eventually think it was a normal action. To say that there is any artistic merit in this type of filth is simply unjustified. In a tactic to recruit and groom, as was mentioned earlier, there is one lever that we must take away from child pornographers and pedophiles.

Since Sharpe's textual child pornography had an introduction, a body and a conclusion, while being somewhat grammatically correct, it was considered to have artistic merit. We have to make amendments to ensure that this does not happen again. One psychiatrist who testified at the trial said it was one of the most violent things he had ever read. Yet someone says there is artistic merit.

People promoting hatred through writings are not permitted to use artistic merit as a defence but child pornographers are. If writings and comics that depict children being stalked, kidnapped, tortured, raped, sodomized, murdered and cannibalized are not hate literature, then what is? If a 14 year old is permitted to consent to being videotaped while having sex with a 40 year old man, how can we as a nation say with a straight face that we care about our youth?

There have been a number of meetings on the Hill with people who fight this vile stuff everyday. They have told us that there needs to be a national task force specifically dedicated to fighting child pornography and the spread of this stuff. They do not have the resources. As was pointed out earlier, there is one case in Toronto that has a whole unit tied up. They have to catalogue every one of the 400,000 images seized in this one case and present them in court. This ties up their entire force. Another 400 cases have been reported but they cannot get to them.

In the cases of drug seizures, a sample is good enough as proof in court. They do not have to bring in the two tonnes of marijuana or whatever. A sample is sufficient. I think simple changes in the law such as that would take a tool away from these people when they came to court to fight these things.

If we want to get into the debate about the technicalities of some laws existing and some not, let us forget about this. This is about parliamentarians, parents and grandparents doing something to protect our children. If we cannot put aside some of these party specific issues and come together as a parliament to do something, then something is drastically wrong.

I want to read some quotes by witnesses that the committee heard a week ago today.

Detective Sergeant Gary Ellis in Toronto stated “Police exist to protect the weak from the strong and right now we cannot do that properly”. I thought that was a little misleading but after thinking about it for awhile, I decided he was right. We have the weak when we speak of our children and they are the most vulnerable people in our society. There is an aspect of that quote and I understand what he was getting at.

Detective Bob Matthews spoke about studies and all of this posturing with no concrete action. He stated “We've educated ourselves stupid on this issue”. I agree with him. We have talked and talked and this issue is still in front of us. Let us bloody well do something to change it.

The Toronto chief of police stated “If we can't protect our children, then we should, as a society, fly the white flag or surrender because all is lost”. I agree with that entirely. If we as parliamentarians cannot do what is right for our children, then we have no business being part of this parliament.

A corporal in Interpol stated “It's an explosion. And these are horrible images. There are kids that have been abused to produce those”. In one instance children were as young as six months old. One person who saw some stuff provided by Interpol said that a baby who still had the umbilical cord attached was being sexually abused. When we think about the degree of heinousness this takes to perpetuate, then we have to do everything in our power to provide protection.

Detective Matthews stated “Canadians produce as much or more child pornography, per capita, as any other developed country”. Our lawmakers are saying this to us and it is up to us to do something to help them.

[Supply, April 23rd, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for his participation in our opposition day motion.

We are dealing with the exploitation of our children, the use and manipulation of our children by predators and pedophiles. Some issues that are intended to cloud the issue are being brought into the debate. We have to continually go back to the fact that we are trying to put forth a debate that in the end will result in further laws and further protection of our children.

I want the member to comment on one fact we heard last week at a meeting with some crime fighters which was set up by the member opposite. They indicated that the international police services consider Canada's child protection laws to be a joke. We have heard from the government side today that we have great laws and that the government is doing wonderful things to protect our children. It has been stated in meetings on the international stage that what Canada has on the books as far as protecting children is a joke.

Would the member comment on those issues?

[Committees of the House, April 18th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I compliment my colleague on his well prepared and well delivered remarks today. This is a huge issue.

I would like him to address what I feel is once again a slight of parliament by the health committee spending many hours looking at the issue and preparing a report. I know the official opposition, with the former member, Preston Manning, had a lot of input into the issue and came up with a minority report with some good recommendations.

We have all received many letters and have heard many comments from constituents in our ridings who do want to have input into this issue. Through the actions of the CIHR this has been circumvented to some degree. I think that is wrong. Parliament should have supremacy.

I would like the member to comment a little further on the whole idea of using embryonic stem cell research from what is left over from the in vitro fertilization process. Does he feel that this is not the right way to go? What would happen if we did go down that road?

[Curling, April 16th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, last Sunday Canada once again rose to the pinnacle of world curling supremacy. The Randy Ferbey Rink from the Ottwell Curling Club in Edmonton, Alberta, won the 2002 world curling championship in Bismark, North Dakota, disposing of Norway 10-5 in the final.

With Randy Ferbey skipping and throwing third stones, Dave Nedohin throwing skip rocks, Scott Pfeifer at second and Marcel Rocque lead, they took on the world's best and brought the crown home to Canada where it belongs. The Randy Ferbey Rink also entertained the crowds at the Brier in Calgary this year, combining sheer talent with hard work and good sportsmanship.

Dave Nedohin's triple raise takeout to score four will rank among the best shots in the history of the game. It proves once again that good sports can win and that one can have some fun along the way.

We in the House of Commons and Canadians from coast to coast to coast congratulate Randy, Dave, Scott and Marcel. They are truly great ambassadors for Canada. We hope to see them next year at the Brier in Halifax.

[Agriculture, April 15th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, the United States congress is considering a bill that would cripple our country's agricultural sector. The bill would severely affect our exports at the border, all under the guise of safety from agri-terrorism. Our exporters would have to notify the border up to 12 hours in advance of shipments. This would activate any number of random inspections, preventing our products from getting to the American market.

This action is nothing short of protectionism. What is the minister of trade doing to stop this injustice and what is his game plan for when our agricultural exports grind to a halt?

[Pest Control Products Act, April 15th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, yesterday when we were leaving southern Alberta there was a horrific windstorm. The residents said that there was more dust and dirt in the air than there was in the thirties.

Farming practices have improved dramatically over the years. One of the things that has enabled farmers to keep soil erosion down to a minimum is the use of some of the products that we are talking about that the pesticide management review agency has to deal with.

We have forced our agricultural producers to produce more and more from an acre of land to be able to meet their financial needs and by doing so we have certainly changed the way some farming is done but almost all of what has changed is for the good. The use of products, such as the ones we have mentioned here, is really necessary if we are to have a competitive agricultural sector in Canada.

Harmonization between ourselves and our closest trading partners is another issue. A lot of our agricultural producers produce the same thing and things are different on both sides of the border. I believe the PMRA is one of the agencies that needs to be very active in making sure that products are harmonized, that legislation and regulation on both sides of the border are the same. I would like my colleague to expand on that somewhat.