“We still do not know what kind of powers this new commission will have. A committee needs to look into this much more closely.”

“Mr. Speaker, there are a lot of concerns about the unknowns, like what unknown capabilities and superpowers the commission would have. Those are things we definitely have to dig deeper into at committee.”

“This bill lets young people back onto social media once platforms follow new safety guidelines. But we do not know what those rules will be yet, or if they will keep kids safe. Big tech companies often have too much say in these decisions. Can the member promise that these rules will be written without big tech lobbyists, and put young people's safety first?”

“Mr. Speaker, Bill C-34 would allow young people back onto social media platforms once providers meet the guidelines that would be established by the commission, but we do not know yet what those guidelines would require or whether they would be good enough to keep young people safe. Too often, big tech companies and their lobbyists are given a seat at the table when these decisions are made. Can the member assure the House that these guidelines would be developed independently of big tech companies and their lobbyists, with the safety of young people as their priority?”

“Children need real protection online, but I question whether this bill is the right way to do it. This method is not working in Australia.”

“Mr. Speaker, children need real protection online. Is Bill C‑34 the best solution? This method is not working in Australia.”

“I want the government to give longer prison sentences to people who target children online, instead of focusing on an internet regulator. The harms this bill talks about are already illegal under criminal law. Anyone who lures or sexually assaults a child should face life in prison.”

“Mr. Speaker, it is always a pleasure to rise on behalf of the people of Kamloops—Thompson—Nicola. It is always an honour to speak in the House of Commons, but on this occasion, it is a particular honour. Before I begin, I want to recognize and honour the life of Attilio Sirianni, who passed away last month in Kamloops—Thompson—Nicola. He leaves behind his children Ferro, Teresa, Mario, Gino, Maria and Raffelina. I extend my deepest condolences to Attilio’s family. May perpetual light shine upon him. Before I get into my speech, I want to recognize the life of Angelo Carusi, who recently passed away in Kamloops—Thompson—Nicola. Those who are left to mourn him include his father Tino, who I have gotten to know through the Colombo Lodge, our local Italian cultural centre; his son Angelo; and his siblings Augie, Ed and Rina. May perpetual light shine upon him. I extend my deepest condolences to the Carusi family. When I was young and growing up, I basically spent my time watching baseball. I was a huge Blue Jays fan. Because I was on the west coast, the Blue Jays games would start at 4:30 p.m. every day. I would come home from school and that is essentially what I did. I had a 286 computer that I would use for word processing. My dot matrix printer was always there and always ready to help me out. I used that all the way until I was in my third year of university. In 1999, I think I got a Windows-based computer. That tells members how old I am. At the end of the day, the computer was a tool for work. I had terrible handwriting, so I would often type out my things. My mom was a legal assistant and could type about 60 or 70 words a minute, so I would sometimes conscript her into typing out my work assignments, for which I thank her. Things were simply different. For instance, I have a background as someone who has worked extensively to combat Internet luring, but the luring of children, back when I was a child, was all done face-to-face. When people wanted to meet one another, they took out classified ads. The young people would read these ads and make fun of them. That was essentially how people met. Let us face it, kids were not generally responding to these ads. Luring takes place when somebody deliberately targets a child and, through that, attempts to lure the child into a relationship. It is almost never initiated by the child. That is why it is called luring. This is an area that I devoted a fair amount of my time to. It is no wonder, when we think about how much time kids spend online. The Internet has changed a lot of things, but in some ways I think it has made the predatory world even more predatory. The anonymity of the Internet is something else. I remember attending a workshop about luring and the difficulties for children. We were told about all these social media vehicles where people did not even have to enter their name or email address and they could instantly go into a chat room and start talking to people, or do something that essentially was a crime immediately without any oversight. For far too long, it has been my view that service providers and social media providers have looked the other way. When people look at the stats, they see that a number of crimes have skyrocketed. That is one of the reasons why I put forward my bill, Bill C-291, in the last Parliament, which received royal assent. I did that with the former member of what is now Kamloops—Shuswap—Central Rockies. The reason we put that bill forward to change the name of child pornography to child sexual abuse and exploitation material was to reflect the gravity of the offence. If somebody were to look at a chart, what they would see for 2013 is this massive skyrocketing, probably by about 10 to 15 times, of the reporting of offences. That is not just because more predators were born in, say, 1993 or something, and the offences are now coming to fruition. The difference was a difference in reporting. For far too long, we saw organizations and providers essentially turning a blind eye, as in they knew that luring was happening and the Internet was an unsafe place, yet nothing was done. In 2012, and I am proud to say this as a Conservative, the Conservative government imposed a positive obligation on service providers to report. People might ask what a positive obligation is. Most laws are negative obligations in criminal law or in traffic law. “Do not speed” is a negative obligation. Someone has to not do something. “Do not assault” is another example. A positive obligation requires a person to do something. For instance, paying taxes is a positive obligation. This law imposed a positive obligation for service providers to report, and the numbers absolutely skyrocketed. It was not just that this was happening more; it was being detected more. I recently went to the RCMP to meet with RCMP commissioner Duheme and deputy commissioner Larkin, as well as many others, many of whom are in the business of protecting children. I went with the member for Oxford. It was a great meeting. These are the unsung heroes, in my view, of our law enforcement community. The reason is that they deal with child sexual abuse and exploitation material, day in and day out. They do not get a reprieve. They are the ones who have to deal with it, so I want to give a shout-out to those people because they are not paid more to do this, yet they put their lives and mental health on the line so that others do not have to, as they protect our children. This is all to say that this is a crucial area of law. The Internet, let us face it, is not a safe place. Where I would like to see things go and where I would actually challenge the government to go on this point is with respect to sentencing. We are talking about an Internet regulator, but so much of what concerns us in our discourse here in Bill C-34, what we are aiming to do, the pernicious and insidious harms, if we will, of kids being on the Internet, is actually already regulated by criminal law. I think we should be looking at the sentencing. I will give an example. Internet luring began with a sentence of five years in jail, maximum. A maximum sentence is a sentence that can be imposed, but not must be imposed. It started at five years, and then it went to 10 years. As Conservatives, I am proud that we upped it to 14 years. Bill C-299 is a private member’s bill I tabled last Parliament. I believe sentencing should go to life in prison. I believe someone who offends against children for that offence, or for sexual interference, which is essentially the sexual assault of a child, because children cannot consent, should be liable to life. If someone touches a kid, they should see the inside of a jail cell. I have said it before and I will say it again: If I am ever in charge of making laws on the government side, I will not stop until sex offenders see the inside of a jail cell for a darn long time. I know I am already running short on time just talking about this. It is an area of great passion for me. I really do think that we have to value the mental health of children. We really do. This is not something that I think only the Conservatives value or only the Liberals value. Let us be real. Everybody in here values the mental health of children. How we go about it is what we need to debate substantially. I would invite the government to consider thinking about the sentencing aspect. Before I end, I want to reflect on the life of Iolanda Bartella, somebody from Kamloops—Thompson—Nicola who recently passed away. Iolanda leaves behind her sons Frank, Carmelo and Rob. I actually taught her granddaughter Kiely at law school in a class on sentencing, probably eight or nine years ago. Kiely is now a lawyer. I send my deepest condolences to the Bartella family. May perpetual light shine upon her.”

“We should not rush this bill through Parliament. The opposition is taking time because the government did not make a good case for it, and it has flaws that need work. We need to look at this bill carefully to make sure it is done right.”

“Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for her question. I practise my French with the member once in a while, and I have enjoyed sitting with her on the public safety committee. There is a lot to go through here, and I am not going to be able to get through it all, but one of the things I want to say about Bill C-22, and I talked about Internet luring, is that my life in my former career revolved around lawful access. It really did. We heard that the opposition delayed it. I will say that I do not know that the government made the best case for the bill. I think there were a lot of areas we really needed to address, but at the end of the day, crime is not an issue. What I want to see is the best bill possible and, as parliamentarians, we should be endeavouring for the best bill possible. When people say we need speedy passage, no, we need proper passage and we need prudent passage. I will always scrutinize bills to get prudent bills.”

• Answered
  ?

  Reply to a debate question

  Relevance 100 of 100

  Of this reply, 100% addressed the question or point raised.

  See full analysis →

“We should not rush this bill. We need to send it to a committee to study it and hear from experts in other countries, like Australia and New Zealand. I want to know if these laws actually work to remove young people's accounts, and whether computers can really tell teenagers' exact ages.”

“Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his question. I am not an expert on what other jurisdictions are doing. In one jurisdiction, as I was preparing for the speech, I came across something, I believe it may have been in Australia, that said that, once the law was enacted, not necessarily every account disappeared for a young person. I think that is something we have to contend with. The other thing we have to contend with, even with age verification, is that AI might be smart, it might be “intelligent”, but can it really differentiate between somebody that is 15, 16, 17 or 14? To me, those are the types of things we need to study a committee. We just heard about Bill C-22. I would invite the government not to rush through this. Let us hear from people from Australia, New Zealand and places like that, because it is important that we, as parliamentarians, hear everything on this bill.”

“The Department of Justice admits this bill affects free speech, equality rights based on age, and privacy. But their report relies on future rules that do not exist yet. I want the member to explain how our committee will study this bill to reassure Canadians that their rights are protected.”

“Mr. Speaker, in the charter statement for this bill, the Department of Justice acknowledges that the bill engages freedom of expression under subsection 2(b) and equality rights under section 15, because it distinguishes on the basis of age, and, of course, privacy interests under section 8 because of the age verification. I find it striking that the charter statement relies on future commission guidelines, future regulations and a number of things that have not been determined yet. I am just wondering if the member could comment on the work that needs to be done in committee to reassure Canadians in this way.”

“The government's report on how this bill affects people's rights is flawed. We cannot know if the bill protects our rights when the actual rules have not been written yet.”

“Mr. Speaker, my hon. colleague has been a wonderful addition to our B.C. caucus and our federal caucus here in the 45th Parliament. I have read a number of charter statements, and I am not always impressed. I would say that sometimes they are deficient. When we start talking about how the charter applies to things that no longer exist, I think that jeopardizes what the rule of law says should be unparalleled transparency. If we do not know what might be there in regulation, how can we say how the charter is going to apply?”

• Didn't answer
  ?

  Reply to a debate question

  Relevance 47 of 100

  None of this reply addressed the specific point raised or the topic under debate.

  See full analysis →

“This bill bans content that bullies children, but the law does not define what bullying is. We need the best possible law to protect children. I want the member to define bullying and give an example.”

“Mr. Speaker, right at the beginning, the member said that this is a better bill, and I think when it comes to children, we need the best. Under the seven categories of harmful content, Bill C-34 lists “content used to bully a child”. There is currently no legal definition of bullying. I would like to ask the member if she can define what bullying is and provide an example.”