During the Fall session of Parliament, our Conservative Government has been continuing to deliver on our commitment to put the rights of victims ahead of the rights of criminals. We recently introduced several new pieces of Justice legislation aimed at ensuring that law enforcement and the Justice system have the tools they need to keep Canadians safe, as well as ensure that the most vulnerable Canadians – our children – are protected against sexual exploitation.
In the 2010 Speech from the Throne, our Conservative Government made a commitment to ensure that justice is served, and served swiftly, even when a trial is very complex and wide-ranging. To help fulfill this commitment, we have introduced the Fair and Efficient Criminal Trials Act (Bill C-53), which will help streamline long, drawn-out “mega-trials” so that justice can be delivered more swiftly to those involved in organized crime, white collar crime or terrorism-related offences. Mega-trials involve a large amount of complex evidence, numerous charges against multiple accused and the need to call many witnesses. This can take up a lot of court time and generate excessive delays, increasing the risk of mistrials. Once in place, Bill C-53 will ensure that justice can be carried out in a timely way even when a trial is complex and wide-ranging, so that justice can be delivered more swiftly, without compromising fairness.
New and evolving technologies provide new ways of committing crimes, and make them harder to investigate. That is why we introduced the Investigative Powers for the 21st Century Act (Bill C-51), which will give our law enforcement agencies the tools they need to investigate crimes in today’s complex computer and telecommunications environment. This proposed legislation has been designed to strike the right balance between protecting the public and preserving the privacy rights of Canadians. It is similar to measures already in place in the United Kingdom, the United States, Australia, New Zealand, Germany and Sweden, and will provide law enforcement and national security agencies with up-to-date tools to fight crimes such as gang- and terrorism-related offences and child sexual exploitation.
The sexual exploitation of children is a very serious offence and our Conservative Government is committed to taking tough action against it. We recently introduced the Protecting Children from Sexual Predators Act (Bill C-54) to enhance the protection of vulnerable children and youths against adult sexual predators by amending the Criminal Code to provide tougher mandatory prison sentences for those who commit sexual offences against children and youths. This legislation will strengthen the protection of children against sexual exploitation by ensuring that the punishment imposed in child sexual abuse cases better reflects the extremely serious nature of these heinous crimes.
As well, our Conservative Government has sent a letter to the website Craigslist asking them to remove the erotic services ads from their Canadian websites. We are concerned that these advertisements may be facilitating serious criminal offences, such as living on the avails of child prostitution and trafficking in persons. It is important to note that these ads have already been removed from the American Craigslist website. This is just one of many steps we are taking to make our communities safer, and protect children from sexual predators.
These latest steps build on measures our Conservative Government has already put in place to protect Canadian children, such as:
- Raising the age of consent to 16 years;
- Introducing legislation to make it mandatory for Internet providers to report to a designated agency any information they receive about the appearance of child pornography on the web;
- Enacting tougher sentencing for child traffickers; and
- Making it mandatory for sex offenders to be included in the National Sex Offender Registry.
I am proud to be part of a Government committed to protecting Canadians and ensuring that victims – not criminals – have a stronger voice in the criminal justice system.
