Mr. Speaker, it is always a pleasure to rise on behalf of the people from Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo. It is especially a pleasure to rise when we are speaking to a bill that is on a subject I am very passionate about.

I have spoken before in this House about things I said when I was on the doorstep, in my time, dealing with Internet exploitation of children. That was something I devoted a number of years to in my professional career. It is something I am very proud of, and it is something that taught me a lot about life, about healing, about trauma and, sadly, about how prolific this type of exploitation is.

I believe it was my colleague from the Bloc who spoke about increases in numbers. If memory serves, when we talk about sexual exploitation of children, the spike in numbers happens, and this is not something that gets mentioned when opposing parties speak about the Harper government and its tough-on-crime agenda. One thing that does not get mentioned is that a number of providers, be it media providers or ISP providers, were getting a free ride. They knew or ought to have known that their platforms were being used to facilitate either the potential or actual sexual exploitation of children, which typically begins with the offence of Internet luring.

What happened, I believe in 2012, is that the Harper government passed legislation that placed a positive obligation on service providers to report suspected abuse of children. No longer could a platform simply look the other way. No longer could a platform simply say that it did not know what was going on. A lot of platforms probably knew it was going on or chose not to know that it was going on, because it was easier and cheaper to do business as usual. From 2012, if we look at the graphs, we can actually see this spiking. That spike really has not receded to this day.

I was speaking at the B.C. ICE conference with a number of brave officers, pediatricians and workers who put their lives into addressing sexual offences against children. There were probably about 100 people in a room, generally from British Columbia. It was one of the most profound honours I have had as a member of Parliament. I attended this conference as an attendee, just somebody who was trying to learn more. This year I was invited to be one of the keynote speakers. What a profound honour to go from attendee to keynote speaker.

We still see this spike. Technology and the law are really not working hand in hand, especially when we think about technology and how far we have to go: not only how far we have to go when it comes to technology, but how far we have to go when it comes to sentencing.

I will pause here to note that in 2011, in a case called Woodward, a former Supreme Court of Canada justice, Justice Moldaver, when he was on the Ontario Court of Appeal, actually said that when it came to Internet luring, we should be looking at sentences of three to five years. This is a judge who later went on to the Supreme Court of Canada. I still remember the language he used. He talked about “this insidious crime”, the one that targets children in such a hidden way. Here we are dealing with it.

When I was on the doorsteps of Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, when I was running for office, one of the things I committed to was changing the name of “child pornography” to “child sexual abuse and exploitation material”. I am very proud that my colleague from North Okanagan—Shuswap and I will be giving evidence as witnesses at third reading in the Senate on Thursday on Bill C-291. I researched the bill. I authored the bill, and I put forward the bill. My colleague sponsored the bill. It was unanimously passed at second reading and third reading, and now it is at third reading in the Senate and is about to be considered at committee. Again, it is a profound honour to be able to do this.

It is my hope that when we talk about things that are in Bill C-270, for instance, that we would eliminate the term “child pornography”. Pornography implies consent. Pornography implies adults who are voluntarily doing things. Children can never consent, so it is time we eliminate the term from our legal lexicon. Bill C-270 tells us why we need to be aware of this, so it is my hope that we will receive royal assent very quickly on Bill C-291.

I am just going to go through a few of the aspects of Bill C-270 and provide some input as to why I do support it, particularly as it relates to child sexual abuse and exploitation material that is being put on the Internet. Obviously I support the punishment at subsection 2 and the designation of the offence.

The reality is that I cannot adequately say how many times the police will come to ask questions when someone deals with this type of matter in a prosecutorial context. It is an area of law that someone needs to sink their teeth into in order to understand it. Unless someone spends a lot of time with it, I find, it has a really steep learning curve. It took me a long time. I still felt like a bit of an amateur even when I was elected here, with respect to the nature of the law on these types of things.

One of the struggles that the police would communicate to me when it was an attempt to prove Internet luring or possession of child sexual abuse and exploitation material was the age of the person being dealt with. That puts forward, again, a positive obligation. For those, like my mother, who are at home watching this on CPAC and who may wonder what I mean by a positive obligation, it is a requirement for somebody to take action.

One thing I really like about the bill is that it is not stating that somebody would need to refrain from doing something, which would be a negative obligation. There would be a positive obligation to ascertain the age. A failure to do that, to take that step, is the nature of the offence that I am speaking of right now, the failure to ascertain that a person is actually 18 years of age.

In my view, child sexual abuse and exploitation material is a blight on our society. If anybody thinks that it is just something that happens over there or happens elsewhere, in my experience it is something happening far more than we want to admit, yet what have we seen when it comes to sentences? I referenced Justice Moldaver earlier on Internet luring.

We have seen the Supreme Court of Canada come out with a case called R. v. Friesen that said mid-single-digit penitentiary terms should not be odd; they should be the norm. I cannot recall whether the maximum sentence for possession of child sexual abuse and exploitation material is 10 or 14 years, but for Internet luring it is 14 years, and for production, I believe, it is 14 years.

The court said that a maximum sentence should not be all that uncommon. I still look, to this day, at B.C. Court of Appeal decisions every day, just because I find them interesting. I cannot remember one time seeing anything close to the maximum sentence. In fact, what I am seeing more of is what used to be considered outlier cases, where community-based sentences are now being provided.

In 2011, a respected jurist said that we should be looking at three to five years for Internet luring. Then there was the Supreme Court of Canada case R. v. Friesen that said sentences should range from the upper-single digits to double digits on sexual offences against children, and the maximum should not be there. What are we seeing? We are just not seeing it come to fruition.

I know I have not touched on this as much as I could. I could obviously speak a lot more. I wholeheartedly endorse the bill. It is time that we address sexual offences in this country and that we do it with full vigour. I, my colleagues and, I believe, my colleagues across the aisle, should be focused on this. It is something that cannot wait another day.

Frank Caputo

$736,168.00