March 8, 2010

Mr. Anderson: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I'm honoured to rise in this House today to begin review of Bill 202, the Mandatory Reporting of Child Pornography Act. I cannot praise enough the hon. Member for Calgary-Fish Creek for taking initiative and leadership on this important and vital issue. She, more than any other member in this House here today, has consistently fought for the safety of our children with multiple private member's bills and during her time as Solicitor General of this province, and I thank her for that on behalf of the children of Alberta and on behalf of all Albertans. Her experience as Solicitor General was pivotal in crafting this crucial piece of legislation.

Mr. Speaker, this issue could not be more important to this province. Twenty-five years ago child pornography had been virtually eliminated as a threat to our children. The predators were on the run, and they were nearly extinct. With new technologies came new life to this disgusting problem. They are organized, and they are stronger than they have ever been in the history of the world. Child pornography is a sophisticated, international industry with revenues of over $30 billion annually. Sophisticated fraudulent financial techniques involving credit cards and shell corporations are used to perpetuate this filth. The innocence of children is being bartered to satisfy the greed of criminals and the lust of sexual predators.

As evil as this content is, the industry has taken on an even more brutal and savage nature. The victims are increasingly younger, the content ever more graphic. Over 80 per cent of the content involves children younger than the age of 12. There are over a million pictures of child exploitation on the Internet every day. The victims are primarily very young girls, our future mothers and wives. This problem is only growing with time, Mr. Speaker. It must be stopped. Brutal images depicting abuse of children increase exponentially with each passing year.

Sadly, this is an issue that could not be closer to home. Canada is the second-largest commercial distributor of child pornography in the world. We must fight the tide of this filth at all costs. Law Enforcement needs every available resource to combat this affliction, and Alberta, sadly, is not immune. In December a man from Camrose was arrested for distributing child pornography. In February a Calgary man was convicted for luring minors into child pornography. Last week in Calgary a man was convicted for distribution. He had over 5,000 images of child pornography.

This bill is but another step in a long journey. It will require the reporting of child pornography to police and protection for those who step forward for the greater good of humanity. Any material believed to be child pornography must be reported to the proper authorities for analysis under this bill. Offensive material will be investigated, and those responsible will be brought to justice. Police and child and family services will step in to protect the child and pursue the predator.

Action will be mandatory, Mr. Speaker. No excuses. There's no excuse for it not to be mandatory. Investigations will be performed. Child and family services will be called in, securing children from danger. Police will pursue the predators, who will become the prey. There is no artistic grey area with this issue. There is no place where one can agree to disagree. This is a clear case of black and white, right and wrong morality. The vast majority of people arrested for child pornography have also molested a child.

Barriers have been created in the name of other principles, Mr. Speaker. For example, privacy and freedom of expression are vital, as we all know, to any democratic culture such as ours, but the souls and innocence of children cannot be sacrificed for anonymity and entertainment. They must be challenged in the name of our children. Those who wish to make the world a better, safer place must not be stifled and must not be frustrated. This bill will save lives. It will save childhood innocence. Step by step we can make the world a safer place for our children.

This bill has the support of law enforcement and all law-abiding Albertans. With the support of this Assembly we can make a difference in this war.

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker.

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No Excuses - We Must Protect Our Children
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March 22, 2010

Mr. Anderson: Thanks, Mr. Chair. On the amendment itself. I don’t think there are too many members in this House that would dispute that this legislation is needed. I think we can derive that from the speeches that have been given on the bill. I guess we’re talking about timing here. I would say that, you know, I’ve read through this act. There are 11 sections in it. These are not very difficult areas to figure out the regulations for. This is not an overly complex statute. This is not an overly complex bill. We’re talking about mandatory reporting for child pornography. It’s pretty basic.

There is some work to do, for sure, and I think the hon. Member for Calgary-Fish Creek realizes that. But, I mean, let’s go back. It took this government exactly one month to adopt the recommendations for a new royalty framework and a few months thereafter to put in place the regulations, which they have since changed in the last year about six times. If we can do something like that in such a short period of time to our most important and complex industry in this province, surely we can find the time in the next eight months or nine months to do what we need to do to bring in the regulations for this very, very simple bill.

Again, for the fire code recommendations, that were alluded to in question period earlier today, it took roughly seven months to adopt the recommendations, and it took roughly the same amount of time thereafter to put those into place. Well, again, this is far, far more simple than that. Giving eight or nine months for the department, for the Solicitor General’s office – it would be the Solicitor General’s office, I imagine – to institute these regulations I think is more than enough time, and if they can’t, then there is something wrong.

The point is that we cannot wait any longer than eight or nine months. We have got to move this file forward. The abuse is happening everywhere. The proliferation of it has increased, and there is no point in delaying this. We understand the government needs time to put the regulations in. No one is disputing that. But surely eight or nine months is enough time. I hope we can move forward with this business. We obviously need to do this. Everyone in this House seems to agree that we need to do this, so let’s move forward, get it done, and have something in place by December of this year.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

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Why Won't the Government Implement Protections for Children?
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Protecting Children from Abuse
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April 12, 2010

Mr. Anderson: Thank you, Mr. Chair. I don’t at all believe that there are members in this House that don’t understand the importance of child pornography or are not against child pornography. That is absolutely clear. We don’t want to descend into an area where we’re accusing each other of not caring about that issue or not thinking that it’s wrong or whatever. However, where we have a very legitimate disagreement is on the priority or the urgency that this government is showing for this bill. That’s where the difference of opinion is.

You know, I just cannot believe that the hon. Solicitor General would stand up and actually, after all the work that this hon. Member for Calgary-Fish Creek has done in the protection of children for years . . .

Mr. Oberle: Eight years, right? Eight years.

Mr. Anderson: Much more than that hon. member over there has done, much more than anyone here has ever done. He has the audacity to stand up and question her on it. It’s just beyond belief. The smugness, the arrogance is just, well, indicative of this government, and it’s indicative of why Albertans have totally lost faith in this government, that type of smugness.

Mr. Chair, it is with absolutely great sadness that we’re going to have to pass a bill that doesn’t have an implementation date. It’s wrong. I don’t care what the history of private members’ bills is. I couldn’t care less. What I do care about is that we pass a bill with an implementation date – with an implementation date – and get this legislation put into law as quickly as possible. That’s what I care about.

The reason I care about that, Mr. Chair, is because I know of children and I know of individuals that have been affected by this scourge that is child pornography and child abuse because of the road that child pornography leads to. I think many of us in this room know of people who have been affected by this and have been absolutely scarred beyond almost any hope of rehabilitation. So I don’t understand.

I can understand, you know, if it’s a complicated bill. I mean, if it’s like the royalties, which took seven months to implement, from accepting the findings of the Hunter report to actually saying: this is what we’re going to do. It took them seven months there. Lots of complications there. I can understand that it takes a long time to do that, but they still did it. They didn’t get it right, but that’s beside the point. The point is that some bills do require some time.

This is a very simple law. It is very simple, and it is very urgent. It is needed. The longer we wait on this law, the longer certain children will suffer. That’s just the way it will be. This is another tool that we need to give our law enforcement right now.

Now, I’m not going to sit here and say that these other 15 bills here, that were passed or are going to be passed, are not important. They are important. Well, some of them are important; some of them I disagree with. Some of them were important, and we needed to pass them for sure. What I don’t understand is that there’s such an urgency to pass those bills, yet there’s not an urgency to see this through and make sure that not only is it passed, this anti child pornography bill, but that it is also proclaimed into law as soon as possible. There is no reason not to do this, Mr. Chair.

The former minister of health, the current Minister of Energy, when he was going to reform the health system and centralize services into Alberta Health Services, had a 30-, 60-, and 90-day plan. This is the biggest budget that we have in government, the biggest department: a 30-, 60-, 90-day plan. Well, that’s okay. It was quick. Again, not very good but quick. You’ve got to give him that. They got the bureaucrats in there working, and they got that thing done. And you’re telling me that a bill that’s about three pages thick, that has very, very few things actually being added – but what is being added is very important – that March 31, 2011, isn’t enough time to implement them? Is that some kind of bad joke? I just don’t understand this.

I would like to see the Solicitor General or the Justice minister stand up in this House, one of the two, and tell us when this is going to be proclaimed. If they’re going to say that they don’t want a proclamation date because they don’t want to set some kind of precedent, fine, go ahead, but at least tell this House when we can expect, when the children of this province can expect to have this bill passed. I am sick and tired of politicians sitting on their butts, doing nothing on this issue, Mr. Chair. It is absolutely embarrassing. This is probably the biggest issue we’re facing.

Every report that comes out in the media over the last several years on this subject says that this problem is rampant. It is absolutely rampant. It is one of the most disgusting, sickest problems of our time, and it is not a minority problem. It’s not like a small, little: oh, a few people do it. It is unbelievable to me and to many people in this House that many people in our society, even in Alberta – even in Alberta – are participating in this stuff, in this filth. We need to be doing everything we can. That should have been Bill 1. If they wanted to take this and soup it up and do even more with it or whatever, then that should have been Bill 1 or 2 or 3 or 15 or 16. Instead, we’re going to shut the House down here after this week. We’re going to shut it down, and we’re going to put this off, and we’re going to put a whole bunch of other things off for whatever reason. I mean, this is ridiculous. Let’s pass something on this that’s effective.

This former minister and current member has been working on this for years. The Solicitor General, of course, makes light of that because he hasn’t done a darn thing yet. She has, and he hasn’t. Until you do something, then maybe you should just cool it.

The point is, Mr. Chair, that we need to pass this. We need to pass this bill right now and with a proclamation date so that right now, from this point on, at the end of this session, when they read the bills that have been passed, when they proclaim them into law, we can know that the clock has been set on getting this bill implemented. I will be, obviously, extremely disappointed.

Every week I write an article or opinion piece for my local papers. It’s like a weekly blog. Many of us in here do. Not once in the whole time I’ve been here, with the exception, probably, of when I crossed the floor, has one article elicited as much response and definitely as much uniform response as this one. I’ve never seen anything like it. You post it on there, and all of a sudden there were, like, a hundred responses to it. It was unbelievable. On Facebook. On Twitter. On the website itself. Through e-mails coming in. People saw this in my local community, and they said: “You know what? That has to be passed and implemented right away.” Not one person disagreed. I guarantee that if you polled Albertans, I bet you it’d be 99 per cent that would agree that this thing needs to be passed immediately and that it needs to be proclaimed into law probably immediately, definitely within the next few months, because it is that big of a problem.

Now, Mr. Chair, I am, again, not saying that the members on that side of the House are for child pornography or something like that. Definitely I am not saying that. But there is an urgency issue here. There’s an urgency issue that needs to be addressed, and I want to see some urgency from this government on this issue rather than some smiles and some snide remarks. That’s what I’d like to see. So far all I’ve heard is snide remarks, and all I’ve seen is smiles. That’s unacceptable, especially on a serious subject, where people are dying and having their innocence stolen from them as we speak. We’re going to close the House up and leave. Why don’t we sit down here and start having a real debate and start working together as a House and as a team on how to figure out a way to better protect our children? That is what I care about.

It’s unbelievable, Mr. Chair, the smugness and the arrogance. It just blows my mind. That’s why Albertans are leaving. That’s why I left. That’s why this member left, and that’s why people continue to leave, because of the arrogance and the smugness. Their priorities and their urgency do not match the priorities or urgency of Albertans, and frankly they don’t match the priorities and urgency of a lot of the people in that backbench right now. Sorry. Oh, that’s an offensive remark. Sorry. The private members.

I know for a fact that there are many private members over there that want to support this bill. They want to support this bill, and they want it proclaimed immediately. You know, maybe the Deputy Premier doesn’t want it proclaimed. I don’t know, but I’ll tell you one thing for sure: they’re not going to vote that way because there’s no semblance of democracy over there, and they know it. That is unacceptable.

If there was really a free vote in this Legislature, this bill would be passed. It would be proclaimed within months. But it’s not going to be because you’re too busy thinking about yourselves and no one else.

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Alberta Needs a Bill to Protect Children From Exploitation
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April 19, 2010

Mr. Anderson: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to rise and again convey my full support for Bill 202, the Mandatory Reporting of Child Pornography Act. I have mixed feelings today because, I mean, this is such an urgent bill. It’s one that needs to be passed and proclaimed, and I wish we could have done so in a way that would have seen a proclamation date for the fall. But the good news is, I think, that several members on that side of the House have alluded to the fact that we might be able to see this proclaimed and the regulations put in place some time this upcoming fall.

I sure hope that they find it in their best interests as well as the children’s best interests across Alberta to get that done by this fall. I can promise them that if they don’t get it done and proclaimed by this fall, I will make it my mission for the fall to remind them of it and to remind them of it in their constituencies.

This is not a bill that should be delayed at all. There is no excuse for it. You know, the groans and everything else: there’s no reason for it. It’s a bill that is long overdue. The hon. Member for Calgary Fish Creek has done countless hours of work on it consulting, getting it right, and although I’m sure we’ll need to add even more legislation on this issue, as the last hon. member spoke about, we need to move forward with this.

We have, I believe, four ICE teams. Is it four ICE teams? There might be just two ICE teams in place right now. That’s not enough at all. I’d like to see some of that wasted carbon capture and storage corporate welfare handout that they’re giving out right now used, maybe a tenth of that or a fifteenth of that, and put it into new ICE teams to tackle this issue.

You know, it’s just a matter of priorities. It’s like anything else. We spend a heck of a lot of money in this province, Mr. Speaker, and there is no reason why we can’t prioritize and put first things first and put needs before wants. If ever there was a need before a want, it would be more ICE teams to enforce the child pornography laws that we have in this province and to put a huge amount of our resources as a government on that side of the House into making sure that the regulations get made for this bill, which is likely going to pass third reading today, making sure that it gets passed and that those regulations get proclaimed and the bill gets proclaimed and receives royal assent as soon as possible. That absolutely should be job one for the Solicitor General, for the Justice minister, and for this Premier. I sure hope that by the fall they will get that done.

I had a constituent come up to me in Airdrie over the weekend at a function. Her little girl had been sexually abused, and they had just been able to get a decision against the criminal who did this. She was very emotional, as you would expect a mother to be in that situation. In that situation there were people that knew about what was going on and didn’t say anything. That does happen in our society. There are people today that know what’s going on, and they say, “Oh, it’s not my business” or “That so-and-so is addicted to it, and I have to help him through it.” You know, there’s just no excuse for that sort of behaviour. There is no grey area; there’s none.

If you know about a child that is being abused, if you know about a child that is involved in child pornography, if you know of someone who is purchasing child pornography on a website or you come across it by some accident or someone brings it to your attention, there is absolutely no reason for any resident, any citizen in this province to turn a blind eye to this. It is totally unacceptable.

There’s no grey area on this issue. You just do it because there are little boys and girls right now, one as young as two years of age, who are being grossly violated every day. We talk about a lot of things in this Legislature, in this House, but I just cannot think of anything that is more important than what we’re dealing with in this bill, which is trying to eradicate one of the most disgusting and serious scourges of our society today.

I again commend the hon. Member for Calgary-Fish Creek for the bill. I hope and would ask again that the government and Solicitor General and Justice minister make sure that they make it their number one task going into the summer to get their departments working on the regulations, get things together so that by the fall we can take a big step forward, proclaim this bill, and move forward as a province. I know that today it looks like we’ll probably receive unanimous approval of this bill, which is good. I don’t question and never once have I questioned any of the other members of this Assembly as to their views on child pornography. Obviously, we’re all very much opposed to it for what it is. But there is a question of urgency.

Perhaps the question is really just that we get our minds tied up with other things, and these crimes are so horrific that perhaps at times we think, “Well, it can’t be that big of a problem,” because it’s just beyond our comprehension to believe that stuff like this occurs. But it does occur, and it occurs lots, more often than I think any of us in this Assembly are aware of. That’s why we have to kind of refocus and be reminded sometimes that some things can’t wait. This is one of those things that can’t wait.

Mr. Speaker, those are my remarks. Again, I support this bill wholeheartedly. Thank you.

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Protecting Children from Abuse
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