Bill C-302 (Historical)

An Act to amend the Criminal Code (pornographic material)

This bill is from the 43rd Parliament, 2nd session, which ended in August 2021.

Sponsor

Introduced as a private member’s bill. (These don’t often become law.)

Status

Outside the Order of Precedence (a private member's bill that hasn't yet won the draw that determines which private member's bills can be debated), as of May 27, 2021
(This bill did not become law.)

Summary

This is from the published bill.

This enactment amends the Criminal Code to prohibit a person from making pornographic material for commercial purposes without having first ascertained that each person whose image is depicted in the material is 18 years of age or older and has given their express consent to their image being depicted. It also prohibits a person from distributing or advertising pornographic material for commercial purposes without having first ascertained that each person whose image is depicted in the material was 18 years of age or older at the time the material was made and gave their express consent to their image being depicted.

Similar bills

C-270 (current session) Stopping Internet Sexual Exploitation Act

Elsewhere

All sorts of information on this bill is available at LEGISinfo, an excellent resource from the Library of Parliament. You can also read the full text of the bill.

Bill numbers are reused for different bills each new session. Perhaps you were looking for one of these other C-302s:

C-302 (2022) An Act to amend the Canada Labour Code (replacement workers)

C-302 (2016) Protecting Burnaby Lakes and Rivers Act

C-302 (2013) Louis Riel Act

C-302 (2011) Louis Riel Act

C-302 (2010) Italian-Canadian Recognition and Restitution Act

C-302 (2009) Italian-Canadian Recognition and Restitution Act

Criminal CodeRoutine Proceedings

May 27th, 2021 / 10:50 a.m.

Conservative

Arnold Viersen Conservative Peace River—Westlock, AB

moved for leave to introduce Bill C-302, An Act to amend the Criminal Code (pornographic material).

Mr. Speaker, on December 4, 2020, a New York Times article by Nicholas Kristof, entitled “The Children of Pornhub”, shook the world.

This bill hopes to address that issue by requiring that the age and consent of the individuals depicted in videos be verified before these videos are put up. At the ethics committee, we heard from Serena Fleites, a 14-year-old girl who had her image shared on Pornhub. She has spent years trying to get that image taken down.

This bill, the stop Internet sexual exploitation bill, the SISE act as I call it, would hope to address that by introducing two pieces to the Criminal Code: first, that the creation of pornographic material for a commercial purpose be required to prove that the age and the consent of the individuals depicted in it would be verified; second, that the distribution of pornographic material for commercial purposes would have the age and consent verified; and, if the consent had been revoked, it would no longer be shared.

We hope the situation faced by Serena Fleites will never again happen in Canada. As we see, some of these platforms are based in Canada.

It is my privilege to introduce the SISE act today.

(Motions deemed adopted, bill read the first time and printed)