Hon. Wayne Easter (Malpeque, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to Bill C-58. I think it is important to summarize again what the bill is all about.

    This bill would impose reporting duties on Internet service providers, ISPs, and on those who offer Internet services to the public when child pornography appears in accounts provided to their subscribers, or if they have reasonable grounds to believe that their service is being or has been used to commit a child pornography offence. That basically summarizes the bill.

    As a party, Liberal members support the bill at second reading and sending it to committee.

    It is important to look at a little history.

    The governing party tries to leave the impression that it is the only party that believes in law and order, but I want to outline the fact that it is not the only party that believes in law and order. All of us in the House believe in law and order.

    This issue has been on the agenda for a long time. We looked at when we were in government. When I was solicitor general, we were very worried about child pornography.

    Although the Internet is a wonderful tool in terms of providing information to citizens, it is also a tool that others can use to exploit children and exploit people in many other ways.

    When we pass laws in this place we have to ensure that they are balanced laws and that they will do what they are intended to do without creating unseen consequences and complications for others in society.

    As with all legislation that mandates a third party to report online dealings to the police, a balance needs to be struck between policing and privacy concerns to protect Internet neutrality. Liberal members intend to examine these questions at committee.

    That is why it is extremely important that we get the bill to committee and allow the proper witnesses to come forward, witnesses who work on the Internet system and would understand the technicalities and the difficulties of imposing this new burden on providers, for all the right reasons albeit. We need to understand the implications of that in terms of the laws that we make as well.

    I might point out another reality, and the member for Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe mentioned this yesterday in a somewhat similar tone.

    The reality is that in 2005 the mandatory minimum sentence of one year for an offence of possessing and creating child pornography was instituted by a Liberal government. The definition of child pornography was broadened by a Liberal government to include depictions, digital or otherwise, in order to trap more perpetrators of the crime. That took us up to late 2005.

    Then we take the canvas over to January 23, 2006. The hon. member for Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe said:

    

I have sat through the justice committee meetings and read the literature since that time without interruption. I have not attended every meeting, but I have been there for the whole agenda. There has been nothing on child pornography in that time. If we are all united in Parliament to try to do some good and combat the ill effects of the web and child pornography exploitation in particular, we ought to say to each other that this is not good enough.

    I agree with the key point that the member is making and that is that we have to come together quickly. As I said, when I was solicitor general in 2003 this was an issue. Each and every day the Internet system is used for the exploitation of others, so we have to get this issue dealt with at committee. It has taken the government a considerable amount of time to bring this issue forward.

    As well, I would point out that all attorneys general across Canada, from the attorney general meetings with the provinces, basically support the move in this direction, and because of the slowness of the federal government in terms of moving forward, some of those governments are taking action on their own.

    If we are going to have good laws in Canada, there has to be coordination across the board, and that is why it is so important that the federal government take the lead in terms of the implementation of these laws, so I do think it is important that we get Bill C-58 to committee, have our hearings and get it acted upon.

    While I am on my feet talking about law and order issues, and I have mentioned this before in the House of Commons, there is an area that I am really concerned about and it fits into this in some fashion, we will see, and that is the whole way that the Minister of Public Safety is undermining the rehabilitation aspect of inmates by abolishing the prison farms.

    I have said before that this is an extremely important issue. We have a government that is talking about law and order, but its law and order agenda just seems to be to go out there and build super-jails and put more people in prison. If we are going to have a justice system that works, it has to be one that rehabilitates people, and one of the best rehabilitative aspects of that system is in fact for those inmates to be able to work on farms.

    There are six of them across the country and one of the most productive farms is in the Kingston area. I have been there. In fact it is the Speaker's home riding. There are six institutions in that area. The Pen Farm in that area has one of the best, most productive dairy herds in Canada, and the government is talking about closing it down, a farm in which inmates get out there work with cattle and produce crops, supply other institutions in the Kingston area and across the country to Laval, Quebec, with food, productivity in which they take pride.

    Contrary to what the Minister of Public Safety states, that skills of farmers are no longer worthy, they are in fact worthy. They do not just learn how to be a mechanic or how to milk a cow. They learn teamwork. They learn management. They learn computer skills and they learn how to relate through the use of feeding and working with cattle and livestock.

    I just want to take the opportunity, while I am on this bill, to emphasize this point again. The decision of the government, with no supporting data, to close those prison farms across the country and lose that productive ability, lose the rehabilitative aspects of working on farms for inmates, is a terrible decision. It is a wrong decision and I would encourage the minister to come to his senses and recognize that they are an important part of our corrections system and should remain.

    I will admit that I got a wee bit off track from Bill C-58, but my point in expressing the seriousness of the decision of the government on prison farms is that while it talks about law and order, while it is great on messaging, its actions are not always in the same direction on which it is leaving the impression they are moving forward.

    Just to conclude on Bill C-58, the bill is important. It does stem from an agreement reached at the 2008 meeting of federal-provincial-territorial justice ministers to enact mandatory reporting requirements for ISPs and online content providers for child pornography cases.

    The major components of this bill that we in the Liberal Party support are: the mandatory reporting of all website addresses that ISPs are aware may contain child pornography; mandatory reporting to police when ISPs believe that a child pornography offence is or has been committed using their services; and that the provider must also preserve the relevant computer data for 21 days after notifying police, unless required by judicial order that the data is to be destroyed after the 21-day period..   

: Mr. Speaker, just to re-emphasize the hon. member's point, Detective Matthews appeared a considerable number of years ago and is one of the leading people in getting not only the Canadian government but governments around the world to deal with this serious issue.

    Any of us who were sitting in the room that day will not forget those images. As I sat there looking at them, I wondered how human beings could do to other human beings what they sometimes do. I guess I will put it that way.

    The member's comments reminds me of a meeting I happened to attend in Paris as solicitor general on the same subject. This exploitation can take place anywhere in the world and then is viewed across the world. The abuse of human beings and children for people's thrills or in some cases financial gain is absolutely shocking. I think it is one of the worst crimes. It has been on deck for a considerable time and very definitely has to be dealt with if we are going to do the right thing for future generations.

    I agree with my hon. friend that what we saw that day was very disturbing. I think all of us in the House would agree that police officers and others who track down these kinds of crimes on a daily basis need to be congratulated because it has to be a mental drain to look at these images, track it down and deal with it constructively.

    Those are valid reasons and my party is certainly willing to give support to this legislation, to send it to committee to be studied further and to be implemented I hope quickly so that this terrible issue of child pornography and exploitation of children on the Internet can in fact be dealt with.