Status of Women Committee on Sept. 28th, 2016

[Signy Arnason]

I also think we can tell a horror story, as you heard; I'm the grim reaper talking in my speech.

At the end of the day there are lots of things we can be empowering children with, and we're very committed to that—the concept of healthy relationships, how children deserve to be treated, what they should expect when they're entering into a sexual relationship and what that looks like.

I don't think we do a very good job, because I quite frankly don't think most adults know what a healthy relationship looks like.

We have to be prepared to educate children about this additional layer that's been entered into the equation, which is as lethal as it comes. That's technology. Once the image is out there, you're in big trouble. This is where we see the Amanda Todds, the Rehteah Parsonses. Depending on the age, they really do believe their life is over. That's normal. That's totally normal.

[Karen Vecchio, Conservative, Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON]

Yes, absolutely.

[Signy Arnason]

We need to get in front of this and do a better job of intervening early, supporting them properly, really taking their concerns seriously if we're to start making a dent in this issue.

[Karen Vecchio, Conservative, Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON]

Excellent.

You mentioned that in 2011 the legislation that was then making service providers.... Have you seen an impact from that? Are people using it? Are we getting results from that legislation?

[Lianna McDonald]

We are, but again it all depends. It's about the content provider. I think there's some confusion; the Internet service providers, which are primarily the pipes, are not necessarily the companies—

[Signy Arnason]

They're not serving up the content.

[Lianna McDonald]

They're not serving up the content. The Facebooks, the Twitters, the content providers have a more important role.

We're hearing from our police partners, certainly the RCMP's NCECC that I believe you heard from the other day. They've received quite a big pickup in those reports coming in. I also think there needs to be a lot more education about how we do that. If we look even at computer repair shops and we start looking at how we engage people to start understanding....

The one point we want to make today is that the idea of child pornography being a picture and being an isolated issue completely misses the mark. I trust, in terms of your proper understanding of this, that you see that it's not only about a recording of a child who's been sexually abused, but it's the way in which it moves around, and the propagation, the normalization. That child is being re-victimized every single time that it's looked at. We have to understand the seriousness of this problem that we are talking about.

[Karen Vecchio, Conservative, Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON]

We talk about the normalization of hypersexuality. We talk about young girls. You're talking about being fully dressed, or just the sexual posing. Is this a healthy thing to be teaching our children? How do we start working with our children on what's healthy and what's not healthy? Should it be normalized, or do we put them at greater risk? What are your personal opinions on that, if you don't mind?

[Lianna McDonald]

We have resources to address this exact issue you're talking about. It is not simple. We recognize that it's an ongoing educational process. What a 13-year-old and a 16-year-old experience are going to be completely different things, so the conversation about what constitutes a healthy relationship is really relevant to the ages by which those kids are experiencing this thing.

I think also we want to be clear that when Signy was talking about sexualized child modelling, it is absolutely separate from adolescents who are exploring their sexuality and taking provocative poses and putting them on the Internet. Those are very distinct things.

[Signy Arnason]

Yes. Critical in this equation, which I don't think is considered enough, are the developmental milestones. When you look at children—when you look at where they're at and where their brains are at and what they're prepared for—I don't think you'll see that we have a good understanding of those things. I think those aspects can start to shape what's appropriate and not appropriate, in addition to those other layers, in getting kids to trust their instincts when they're asked to do things they're uncomfortable with doing and saying no.

When girls are falling in love and they think they've met the person, and they're experimenting, these can be very serious challenges for them. I think that in terms of sex and sexuality, we have an enormous problem in society with grooming children, which presents some very serious challenges raising them.

[Lianna McDonald]

I'll say just one last thing, because I can't stop.

The other thing is this whole idea—and you're going to hear a lot about it—of digital literacy. It's not so simple. People are people. This idea of parents owning all of this and that it's a parental responsibility to be monitoring their children full time—it's impossible.

[Signy Arnason]

It's ridiculous.

[Lianna McDonald]

We cannot be telling Canadian parents that they have to own this, that this is their burden. It's impossible. Anyone who's raised a child absolutely knows that part of the time you're snowed. You're not going to know everything, nor should you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

Time is up. I'm really sorry. We're very pressed today because we've got votes at 5:30.

We'll go to Ms. Malcomson for seven minutes.

[Signy Arnason]

We could go on.

[Sheila Malcolmson, NDP, Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC]

I'll invite Ms. Arnason to finish her sentence. I want to hear.

[Signy Arnason]

Well, it's crazy that we hand this over to parents as if somehow it's a parental problem. We all grew up with our parents knowing very little of what we did as teenagers, and you think you're going to know what they're doing online? Are you half out of your mind?

Do parents need to be more tuned in? Take, for example, sextortion. We have this problem when we see children in their bedrooms. They're tweens or teens, and they're on video. They're doing things that might be provocative, and outside the door—we've had a couple of these—you could hear mom say, “Get to bed now”, not realizing what their child is doing.

I do think there needs to be insistence that parents need to be more aware of the access and what kids are doing, but to hand this over as if we're solving this problem if parents are more tuned in is absurd. It's absolutely absurd.

[Sheila Malcolmson, NDP, Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC]

Thank you.

I meant to start by saying I'm so grateful for your work and for your presentation. It was very powerful, and it was horrifying, and we need to hear both of those, so thank you for your work.

I'm particularly interested in the role that your group has taken on to coordinate the national efforts around child protection in all its forms. I note that you're collaborating with non-profit agencies, with government, with industry, with law enforcement, with educators, and with families, so I'd like to hear more about your experience with that—whether you've identified gaps, how that collaboration works, and whether there are ways that the federal government could address some of those collaboration gaps.

[Lianna McDonald]

I know you can't. This is probably the million-dollar problem.

The biggest issue we face as an organization is the challenges with the various provincial educational systems. As you would all know, where there isn't any jurisdiction federally, the biggest problem is getting consistency in the educational programming and making sure that it's being used. We work with all the provinces and territories in doing that. It is a very significant challenge. What a family in Quebec may expect is going to be very different from what a family in British Columbia expects, depending on the lay of the land. That is very significant.

We have no issue getting people at the table. We have no issue in terms of getting people to step up and want to get behind the work we're doing. The challenge at the end is really how we are touching every Canadian in a way that's meaningful for them, in a way that's valuable, and in a way that's making a difference in how they're able to parent and how they're able to protect their children.

We are always looking at legislative changes. We have a federal action plan that we tabled last year and we're happy to send it to anyone. It's on our website and it asks for concrete legislative steps.

The biggest thing is at the end of the day is that the most important people around a child have the opportunity to protect that child, to disrupt or uncover anything that's getting in their way to either hurt them or take away some avenue of protection. How do we do that public awareness? In a way, as I mentioned, having that touch point is probably the most significant thing. At the end of the day, though, we do believe educators in schools, who are with kids every single day, have a very significant role, and we haven't completely figured that one out in terms of how we make sure every child in Canada is getting that type of education.

[Sheila Malcolmson, NDP, Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC]

If you haven't already tabled that federal report, would you be able to send it to the clerk?

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

Absolutely, please.

[Sheila Malcolmson, NDP, Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC]

Then it would be in evidence, and we can all draw on it.

[Lianna McDonald]

Thank you.

[Sheila Malcolmson, NDP, Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC]

I'm going to leave it there. What you've told us is all-encompassing, and I know we're short on time, but thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

Okay, very good.

Then we will go over to Mr. Serré for seven minutes.