Bill C-270

Stopping Internet Sexual Exploitation Act

An Act to amend the Criminal Code (pornographic material)

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

[Jacques Marcoux]

Mr. Kurek, just so I'm clear, isn't Bill C-270Mr. Viersen's private member's bill?

[Damien Kurek, Conservative, Battle River—Crowfoot, AB]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Marcoux, you're not in the room here, but we have an Amber alert that just rang, and I certainly pray that the child is found soon, safely and quickly.

It speaks to how live of an issue protecting kids is. I spent some time at the justice committee discussing Bill C-270, a bill that would help with ensuring that there's that accountability for the distribution of non-consensual explicit material and would ensure that it is taken down and that there would be responsibility for both those who would share it and the companies that in some cases make it just incredibly difficult for victims. There are heartbreaking stories, and I shared some of that testimony during my time at the justice committee.

Here we are discussing freedom of expression. We have an Amber alert, which highlights how this is such a live issue. I'm wondering if you can comment specifically on Bill C-270 with regard to making sure that when it comes to protecting kids, there is accountability for those who would share explicit material without consent—whether it be children or adults, maybe intimate partners or the like—and ensuring that there's accountability for both those who would share and the companies that have profited in many cases off that material.

[Michelle Ferreri, Conservative, Peterborough—Kawartha, ON]

Madam Chair, this is just for clarification for anybody who's following at home.

We had a motion on the table:

That the Committee request an extension of 30 sitting days to the period of Committee consideration for Bill C-270.

The amendment put forward was to add “and that the Committee invite the Minister of Justice to appear for one hour on the Supplementary Estimates (B) and reinvite Arnold Viersen to appear on the subject of Bill C-270.”

What that means is that we're talking about this amendment. We're debating an amendment that's been put forward. However, when we ask a minister to come in and talk about supplementary estimates, we now have a lot of latitude in terms of what we're going to discuss.

This is the justice committee. As you can imagine, there's not a person or a Canadian, I assume, who isn't watching at home who hasn't felt the impact of the increasing crime after nine years of the Prime Minister.... What we're doing now is really trying to ask the Liberals, the NDP and the Bloc to really dive into the crisis that this country is under.

I have so many things, obviously, as the critic for families, children and social development. This is one of the biggest impacts to families across this country. Public safety should be there for everyone, and it's not.

In my community, in Peterborough, for example, it feels like at least every day there is a headline of another stabbing or a shooting in what was once a very sleepy, sweet town. That is really what we're here to discuss. How do we improve that? That's what committees are designed to do. You can't correct a problem if you don't acknowledge a problem.

In this committee, we are tasked with bringing forward information, listening to experts and really having tough discussions about what's happening.

Let's put it into the context of data. I think everybody knows there's nobody out there who has gone outside who can't say that things don't feel less safe in Canada after nine years of Justin Trudeau. That's just a fact. Total sexual assaults are up 75%. Sexual violations against children are up 119%. Forcible confinement or kidnapping is up 11%. Indecent and harassing communications are up 86.4%. Non-consensual distribution of intimate images is up 801%.

[Michelle Ferreri, Conservative, Peterborough—Kawartha, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

As I was saying, what are we doing here today? Well, we're talking about a bill, and then an amendment that was put forward. Bill C-270 is much, much needed. It's an act to amend the Criminal Code related to pornographic material. What I was speaking about at the beginning of this was sextortion. For a lot of parents, you know, this is a tough conversation to have at home, but it's important that we know what this is.

What is sextortion? Well, it is where people are having a conversation online through an app. It can be Snapchat or Instagram or a lot of these applications that our children use every day and that adults use, but obviously it's a different can of worms when minors are impacted or involved. There is an exchange or an ask for an image, an intimate image. That person says okay and they send it to them. That picture or image or video, or whatever it is, is then used to extort that person. They are asked for money.

[Chris Bittle, Liberal, St. Catharines, ON]

I'm requesting an addition. The amendment would be at the end of the motion. It would be, “and that the Committee invite the Minister of Justice to appear for one hour on the Supplementary Estimates (B) and reinvite Arnold Viersen to appear on the subject of Bill C-270.”

I sent it to the clerk.

[Chris Bittle, Liberal, St. Catharines, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

Let me repeat. It's genuinely surprising. If Liberals spent hours filibustering a bill using victim testimonies, I'd be genuinely curious about what the Conservatives would say. I guess it's easier to do this job sometimes if you don't have any shame. It's been shocking to watch what the Conservatives are willing to do to prevent Mr. Viersen from testifying for an hour. It's not like he's coming for weeks and going to be grilled for weeks. Mr. Fortin is right. He goes on podcasts quite a bit, it seems. I'm sure he's been stopped recently from going on podcasts and shouting his views from the rooftops. That's great. That's why we're here. We talk about what we believe in. However, using victim testimonials to prevent Arnold Viersen from testifying is shocking.

We could have started this bill already. We could have Mr. Viersen come later. Perhaps there are some things going on. We can have him come later, at the end of the day. I noticed on his Facebook page that he was on a hunting trip last week. He's not busy, so why isn't he here? This is important to him. I know it is. I have been hearing him talk about issues like this since 2015. For nine years, he has wanted an opportunity to do this. It's probably from the leader's office, because it takes some organization to set up a filibuster over multiple meetings. Yet, here his colleagues are, continuing to prevent this.

As a side note, I hope that, when the online harms act comes up, there's the same willingness to listen to victims. I doubt there will be. I'm predicting we'll see filibusters on the other side when that comes forward and we are dealing with the issue.

I have tried to move a motion for unanimous consent, in order to get this study moving quicker. It was denied. I sent an amendment to the clerk. I will move an amendment to the motion at the end.

The whole motion will now read:

That the Committee request an extension of 30 sitting days to the period of Committee consideration for Bill C-270,

The amendment is:

and that the Committee invite the Minister of Justice to appear for one hour on the Supplementary Estimates (B) and reinvite Arnold Viersen to appear on the subject of C-270.

I think that's reasonable. Let's get on with business. Let's get Mr. Viersen here. Let's get the minister here. Let's get on with our job. I think Mr. Fortin is right. Let's do what we're here to do. Let's help the victims. Let's move things forward. I know Mr. Brock is shocked that questions may get asked of Mr. Viersen outside of the scope of something. I don't think I've ever seen a minister appear on the estimates where the questions were contained to the estimates, but let's keep things moving. Let's do what the committee is here to do. Let's get to work. Let's study this and also have the minister appear. You can ask him whatever you want on whatever topic you like, as is your right and as is the case. Let's keep this moving.

Thank you.

[Rhéal Fortin, Bloc, Rivière-du-Nord, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

We've been trying for I don't know how many hours to debate Bill C‑270. It's been going on for a few days now. This is an important bill.

I listen to my Conservative colleagues, for whom I have a lot of respect, and my Liberal colleagues, for whom I also have a lot of respect, and I'm stunned. It's mind-boggling. Both sides say there are victims, and I agree. Mr. Brock has just come back to the poignant testimonies of young people who are victims of pornography. We're talking here about people under 18 appearing in photos or videos circulating on the net. We, the parliamentarians elected by the general public, could solve the problem. We agree on this and we know how to solve this problem. Mr. Viersen has tabled a bill. Each of us might want to propose certain amendments to it, when the time comes, but we all agree that this problem needs to be resolved.

I don't know how to describe our attitude. I say “our” attitude as a committee, because that includes me. I don't want to blame anyone, but it just doesn't make sense. The only reason for dithering and filibustering on this bill is that Mr. Viersen is against abortion. Everyone knows this, both in Parliament and across the country. Mr. Viersen makes no secret of it. He has given press conferences on the subject. Is he right or wrong? I have my opinion on that, but I don't think it's relevant to this bill.

On the one hand, the Conservatives don't want Mr. Viersen to testify, because they suspect the Liberals will ask him about abortion. So they are systematically obstructing him. They say he won't be heard and that another witness should be called. On the other hand, since the Liberals want to boost their election campaign by saying that Mr. Viersen is anti-abortion, they insist that he testify. So we're at war over whether or not Mr. Viersen will come to support his bill.

However, this is immaterial to us. If the victims whose testimonies Mr. Brock has been recounting were sitting here, they'd be discouraged to see us acting this way. They'd be reminding us how messed up they are and how much they need our help, when all we can do is argue about whether or not Mr. Viersen will testify. Couldn't we declare a truce, agree to pass this bill, after which we'll have plenty of time to quibble?

I'm sure no one in Canada is going to vote differently in the next election because Mr. Viersen will have come here to testify. He's going to say he's against abortion, that's for sure. He's said it in every forum. He's not going to change his mind, he's going to repeat it. What will that change? The Conservatives won't be any less well represented or any different in the next election campaign. For their part, the Liberals have nothing to gain. We know as well as anyone that Mr. Viersen is against abortion. It's all over the media. Just recently, I read a few reports about it.

What's distressing, however, is that there are victims, young people under 18 who appear in pornographic videos circulating on the web. We all agree that this makes no sense. Yet it's simple: Bill C‑270 says that, before distributing a pornographic film or publishing such images, the distributor will have to make sure that the protagonists are of age, i.e., over 18, and consenting. I simply can't believe that we're going to continue to bicker for weeks on end, and that at the end of the day, we're going to tell these people that they're going to continue to be victims and that we're sorry, but that it's not our fault, because that's the way things are, all because we're being stubborn.

I don't understand the reasoning behind this. Quite frankly, I find the situation very unedifying. As I've already said, I have a great deal of respect for my colleagues who, on both sides, are now systematically obstructing this bill. I believe they are intelligent men and women. Most of us are professionals, and we're all aware that the way we're acting right now makes no sense whatsoever. Couldn't we make a little effort? For my part, I'm ready. I don't know if there's anything I can do, but if there is, I'm going to do it.

Please, let's spare a thought for these victims. Instead of using them by saying that Mr. Viersen would come and say this or that, or that he would think this or that, let's think about these victims and pass Bill C‑270.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

[Larry Brock, Conservative, Brantford—Brant, ON]

Madam Chair, I'll continue:

Between the time an image is uploaded, detected and taken down, it could have been viewed, shared or reposted millions of times—even if all of this occurs within a 24-hour period. Platforms must be required to have mechanisms in place to verify age and consent of those depicted in sexually explicit material to ensure illegal content is never uploaded in the first place.

We urge the committee to support Bill C-270's measures to ensure illegal content is not uploaded in the first place. Please ensure AI-generated content is addressed.

I now want to move on and read out the personal stories of various victims, some of whom have testified at committee.

[Larry Brock, Conservative, Brantford—Brant, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I welcome back all colleagues after our constituency week. I hope we all had some rest. I know most of us, if not all of us, usually have schedules chock full of activities in our ridings. I was no exception to that, so it's good to be back, and it's good to be back to continue our discussion on Bill C-270.

Where I left off was providing the voice of our colleague Arnold Viersen. Clearly, there were certain members of the Liberal Party who were so eager to hear from him, but at the same time, they were not hiding from the fact that they had ulterior motives to hear from Mr. Viersen to fully cross-examine him on his personal views.

I might reiterate, just as I started off my last intervention, how disappointing and, quite frankly, shameful the actions being taken by certain Liberal members are in voicing their ulterior motives. This is because, as I indicated at the outset, weeks have now passed since a list of key stakeholder witnesses who wanted to participate in this debate was submitted not only to the clerk, but also to you, Madam Chair, with a recommendation that the last couple of meetings be set aside to hear from witnesses, as opposed to demanding that the sponsor of the bill, Arnold Viersen, attend and speak to the matter first.

In fact, if the schedule had been adhered to, today would have been set aside for clause-by-clause consideration after we had heard from those stakeholders, who definitely want to weigh in and add their voices to this discussion. It's shameful that political gamesmanship has been resorted to instead of dealing with the substance of Bill C-270, which would stop the Internet sexual exploitation of the most vulnerable members of our community.

Continuing my train of thought of providing voices to this discussion, I want to return to one church group, the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada, which has submitted a brief that I wish to read into the record at this time. It is entitled, “Submission to the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights on Bill C-270”, and it is dated November 5, 2024. It reads:

The Evangelical Fellowship of Canada (EFC) appreciates the opportunity to participate in the committee’s review of Bill C-270. We believe it’s crucial for Parliament to require pornography platforms ensure child sexual abuse materials and intimate images shared without consent are not uploaded to their sites. It is evident many of these platforms will not take such measures unless required to and held accountable for doing so.

The acronym for Evangelical Fellowship of Canada is EFC.

The EFC is the national association of evangelical Christians in Canada. Established in 1964, the EFC provides a constructive voice for biblical principles in life and society and a forum for engagement and collaboration for the roughly 2.2 million Evangelicals who are part of our constituency.

Our approach to this issue is based on the biblical principles of respect for human life and dignity, justice and care for those who are vulnerable. These principles are also reflected in Canadian law and public policy.

Under the heading of “The impact of posted images”, it reads:

There are devastating, lifelong consequences for those whose images are uploaded and distributed online. Children and youth face severe and extensive impacts when images of their abuse and exploitation are streamed and distributed.

In its 2021 hearings on the protection of privacy and reputation on platforms such as Pornhub, the Ethics Committee heard harrowing testimony from survivors whose intimate images, including images of abuse, had been posted on pornography platforms without their knowledge or consent. Some of the witnesses whose images had been posted on Pornhub were as young as 13 years old at the time the images were taken.

One young woman told the Ethics Committee how she was pressured to send the boy she liked an intimate video of herself when she was [only] in Grade 7. She then discovered the video had been uploaded to pornography sites. This video has been viewed millions of times. This young woman dropped out of school and her social circle, became homeless, fearful, anxious and suicidal.

Madam Chair, I want to pause for a moment. I want to reflect on my former career, when I prosecuted matters such as this, particularly those dealing with the possession, distribution and making of child pornography images. A point the experts unanimously agreed on, in unison with all of the victims I had the privilege of working with and assisting in the prosecution of these matters, is that they are a special class of victim.

They are unlike victims of sexual assault, which is horrendous in its very nature. They are unlike victims of a personal injury offence. Again, this could have lifelong implications for those victims. By and large, those two classes of victim are victimized once, with long-term—sometimes lifetime—consequences. The difference with victims in this particular area of the law is this: Each and every time their image is viewed, uploaded, saved and shared, they are revictimized. It's over and over again. As my esteemed colleague Mr. Van Popta eloquently put it, once an image hits the internet, there are limited means by which you can take it down. What you can't do is stop the purveyors of this filth from resharing those images on the Internet. That's why these victims hold a special place in my heart.

In this particular case, in reference to this 13-year-old girl, imagine the legacy she is going to carry for the rest of her life because she trusted a boy and shared an image. It is disgusting.

I'm going back to the report. It says:

One witness told of her discovery that her partner had taken videos and pictures of her without her knowledge or consent which were then posted on Pornhub. She described the destructive impact on her life, emotional trauma, suicidality and the toll on her health and employment.

Another witness told the Ethics Committee about discovering a video of herself on Pornhub in which she was unconscious, with a tag that said “sleeping pills.”

The viewers, rather than being turned away by sexual assault videos, were actively searching out that content. The tags made this possible, and they knew what they were watching before they clicked. It is a profound betrayal to know that thousands of men saw your assault and not only did nothing to flag it but actively sought it out and enjoyed it.... This video is not a one-off that slipped through a filter. Sexual assault is not an anomaly on the porn sites; it is a genre. This leaves little incentive for these sites to moderate such content.

These are real people in vulnerable moments who shared with parliamentarians the devastating impacts of their abuse and intimate images being shared online.

In each of these cases, the victims found the platform either unresponsive or slow to respond to their requests to have their images taken down.

Once a person's intimate images or images of their abuse or exploitation are uploaded, what happens to those images is beyond their control. They may be downloaded, shared or reposted countless times. A report by the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada in February [of this year] told of a professional take-down service that found 700 copies of one person's intimate images on more than 80 websites. The report noted the devastating effects on employment, social network and mental health.

Once these images are online it is nearly impossible to have them permanently removed. In a report by the Canadian Centre for Child Protection, survivors of recorded child sexual abuse indicated that the imagery impacted them in a different way than the initial abuse. “The information shared by the respondents to this survey makes it clear that the recording of abuse and its distribution adds an extraordinary layer of trauma for a victim”.... Survivors describe feeling powerless to stop the destruction of the images. It is ongoing trauma.

Then we have under the heading, “Scope of the Problem”:

Child sexual abuse material (CSAM) online

Over 20 million suspected images of child sexual abuse were triggered for review by the Canadian Centre for Child Protection's web crawler between 2017-2020.

According to Statistics Canada, 15,630 incidents of online sexual offences against children and 45,816 incidents of online child sexual abuse material were reported by police from 2014 to 2022

Studies show that prepubescent children are at the greatest risk of being depicted in CSAM and 84.2% of these videos and images contain severe abuse.

Approximately one million reports of child sexual exploitation are received by the National [U.S.] Center for Missing and Exploited Children...CyberTipLine each month. The hotline has received, in total, more than 45 million reports.

That's just the United States.

The report continues:

Lianna McDonald, executive director of the Canadian Centre for Child Protection, described a “tsunami” of victims coming to organizations like theirs for help to get their images removed from the internet.

Non-Consensual Distribution of Intimate Images (NCDII)

Police-reported Canadian data indicate 896 cases of NCDII [have been] reported in 2022 [alone].

In police-reported incidents of NCDII, youth aged 12 to 17 years accounted for almost all(97%) victims with the large majority (86%) of victims being girls.

NCDII may include:

-images which are recorded without consent, including images of sexual assault or rape (no consent to sexual activity, e.g., drugged or sleeping individuals) or of a person's exploitation, and then distributed; or

-images which were recorded with consent, but where no consent was given to their sharing or distribution.

The 896 police-reported cases of non-consensual distribution of intimate images in 2022 are likely a fraction of the incidents of NCDII. These numbers only reflect the images that have been discovered and reported to the police.

It begs the question:

How many Canadian women and teens don't yet know their images have been posted without their knowledge or consent, or who to approach for help if they do?

One can only imagine, on this committee, the staggering numbers that really exist in this particular area.

The report continues:

As Canada's Privacy Commissioner notes in his report, “Investigation into Aylo (formerly MindGeek)'s Compliance with PIPEDA”, Canadian adults who are the victims of NCDII face a variety of risks:

Individuals who have had their intimate content disclosed without their consent have experienced severe consequences including reputational, financial and emotional harm. These harms can come in the form of targeted harassment that occurs online or in person, loss of job opportunities and mental health impacts up to and including suicide.

One study found that young women who have experienced NCDII “revealed declines in overall mental health, anxiety, depression, post-traumatic stress, suicidal [ideation], increased alcohol and drug consumption, and low self-esteem and confidence.” Victims of NCDII also face ongoing trauma and an ongoing violation of their privacy as they live with the permanence of their intimate images on the Internet.

The following is under the heading “Generative AI”:

A new and escalating threat is the use of AI technology to generate child sexual abuse materials depicting either real or fictional children, and intimate images or pornography made of a person. “According to one study, more than 96% of AI generated pornography was produced without the consent of those featured in it....” The use of images created through AI harasses, harms and humiliates victims, like all CSAM and NCDII. We need urgent action to develop legislation that protects victims of all ages from generative AI and deepfake pornography.

A study by the University of Toronto professors notes that Canada is one of the countries that has not yet taken meaningful action on this front. It also states, “These manipulations thrive in the pornography industry, where women's faces are superimposed onto others' bodies to create video illusions, resulting in non-consensual sexual image abuse and other harm.” The study's authors go on to say, “The sheer volume of CSAM that can be generated and distributed using AI tools, a number that is growing exponentially every year, far exceeds the existing capacities, resources, and abilities of law enforcement organizations, NGOs, platforms, moderators and tech companies to respond to, investigate, and address.”

Next we have under the heading, “The urgent need to act”:

Commercial pornography sites must be held responsible to ensure exploitive and non-consensual images are not uploaded in the first place.

The onus must not be on children and youth to monitor commercial pornography sites to ensure that depictions of their abuse and exploitation are not posted or, if discovered, to ensure they are swiftly removed. The onus must not be on victims of non-consensual uploads to watch for their content and ensure it is removed.

Companies must be responsible for ensuring that the content they host and profit from is not child sexual abuse material, that the people depicted in images or videos are not minors, and that they consent to their image being posted.

Bill C-270 would prevent illegal content from being uploaded in the first place. This is essential, as once the images or video are uploaded—

—as I've mentioned already—

—it is nearly impossible to control their circulation and remove them.

Testimony to the Ethics Committee and the report by the Office of the Privacy Commissioner both describe the extensive spread of such images to other platforms and the extreme difficulty in having images removed once posted. As we noted above, the Privacy Commissioner’s report told of a professional take-down service that found 700 copies of one person’s intimate images on more than 80 websites.

By requiring that the age and consent of every person depicted in sexually explicit material be verified before it is posted online, Bill C-270 puts the responsibility where it belongs.

Bill C-270 would fulfill the second recommendation in the Ethics Committee report, Ensuring the Protection of Privacy and Reputation on Platforms such as Pornhub.

We note and recommend to this committee the Privacy Commissioner’s recommendations to Aylo...as a template of what should be required of all those who create pornography for a commercial purpose. The Privacy Commissioner recommended that

the company: (i) cease allowing the upload of intimate content without first obtaining meaningful consent directly from each individual appearing in that content; (ii) delete all content that it previously collected without obtaining such consent; and (iii) implement a privacy management program to ensure that it is accountable for information under its control.”

Canada’s legal frameworks must require verification of the age and consent of all individuals depicted in sexually explicit content created or hosted for a commercial purpose. This framework must also include AI-generated content.

The current version of Bill—

[The Chair, Liberal, Lena Metlege Diab]

We are now back in session.

Good morning, everyone.

I will ask all in-person participants to read the guidelines written on the updated cards on the table, as a refresher. These measures are in place to help prevent audio feedback incidents.

This is to protect the health and safety of all participants, including interpreters.

You will also notice a QR code on the card, which links to a short awareness video.

I remind you that this is the continuation of meeting 121 of the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights.

The committee is meeting in public to continue its study of Bill C-270, an act to amend the Criminal Code regarding pornographic material. We are here in public to resume debate on the motion by James Maloney, a request for an extension of 30 sitting days to the period of committee consideration for Bill C-270 and reporting the bill back.

I am now ready to give the floor to members wishing to speak. I'm going to start a new list, because I'm not sure who ended last time.

Was it you, Mr. Brock?

[Damien Kurek, Conservative, Battle River—Crowfoot, AB]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

I look forward to continuing to hear what Mr. Brock has to say and to hear the specificity in which he is addressing the very important issues related to Bill C-270 and the motion that Mr. Maloney moved, which is actually on the agenda.

I would just note, Madam Chair, that in terms of departure from the Standing Orders, the continual introduction of issues of debate into the conversation at hand by, in particular, members from the Liberal side, I would just suggest that those members simply put their names on the speaking list. I look forward to hearing from them when their names come up on the speaking list.

I would just ask that you outline again for the committee who exactly is on that speaking list. I know there's been a bit of discussion, with people going back and forth, and I know there was some discussion around a member who is present, although he is not a regular member of the committee. Perhaps we could have some clarity on that. I know you appreciate and respect having clarity and acting with precision, which is key for the smooth functioning of these parliamentary proceedings.

[Larry Brock, Conservative, Brantford—Brant, ON]

Thank you.

To recap, members from the government and the NDP want to hear words from Mr. Viersen. This is what Mr. Viersen had to say at second reading:

Madam Speaker, imagine being the parent of a teenage daughter who has been missing for months and somebody discovers 50 explicit videos of that daughter being sexually abused on Pornhub, the most popular porn site in the world. Imagine how one would feel if intimate images of one's sibling was uploaded and Pornhub refused one's request to remove that content. Now, imagine if those videos of their exploited loved ones were being monetized and published for profit by Pornhub and were made available to Pornhub's over 130 daily visitors.

I think ”130 daily visitors” is a typo. I would imagine it's probably in the millions worldwide.

He continues:

How would someone feel if Pornhub's only response was an auto-reply email? Understandably, one would be outraged. One would be furious, yet this happens over and over. Survivors, including a 12-year-old from Ontario, have had to seek justice through their own lawsuits because in Canada, the onus is on survivors and on law enforcement to prove, after the material has been uploaded, that the individuals depicted in those videos are either under age or have not consented to their distribution. This is a serious problem that Bill C-270, the stopping internet sexual exploitation act, seeks to fix.

It's important to note that for years survivors, child protection agencies and the police have spoken out about this exploitation. They have not been silent. Survivors have shared how pornographic companies like Pornhub have been profiting from content depicting minors, sex trafficking victims, sexual assault, intimate images and gender-based violence for years. As early as 2019, companies like PayPal cut ties with MindGeek due to the availability of exploitive and abusive content.

In March 2020, a few parliamentarians and I wrote a public letter to the Prime Minister to alert him about the exploitation that was happening on MindGeek. We followed up in November 2020 with a letter to the then Minister of Justice, urging him to ensure that our laws were adequate to prevent women and girls from being exploited by Pornhub.

It was The New York Times exposé on December 4, 2020, in a piece written by Nicholas Kristof, that finally got the public's and the government's attention. It was entitled “The Children of Pornhub: Why does Canada allow this company to profit off videos of exploitation and assault?” That article finally kicked off a firestorm of international attention on Pornhub, which is one of many pornographic websites owned by MindGeek, a Canadian company based in Montreal. About a year ago, it was bought and rebranded as Aylo by a company called Ethical Capital Partners, based in Ottawa.

A few days after that article, the House of Commons ethics committee initiated an investigation into Pornhub. I joined the ethics committee for its study on Pornhub and listened to the harrowing stories of young women who had videos of sexual assaults or intimate content shared without their consent.

I know Mr. Van Popta has shared some of those quotes.

Mr. Viersen continues:

Many of these women were minors when the videos were created and uploaded to pornography sites like Pornhub. I want to take a moment to share some of their testimony.

Serena Fleites, whose story was covered by The New York Times exposé, had videos of her at age 13 uploaded by her ex-boyfriend. After that, her whole life came crumbling down. She experienced depression and drug use. She was harassed by people at her school who found her video and sent it to family members. She was blackmailed. She had to pretend to be her mother to have the videos taken down from Pornhub. This was all while she was 13 years old. In the end, she stopped going to school. She told us:

I thought that once I stopped being in the public so much, once I stopped going to school, people would stop re-uploading it. But that didn't happen, because it had already been basically downloaded by [all the] people...[in] the world. It would always be uploaded, over and over and over again. No matter how many times I got it taken down, it would be right back up again.

It basically became a full-time job for her to just chase down those images and to get them removed from Pornhub.

Some witnesses appeared anonymously to protect their identities. One witness stated, “I was 17 when videos of me on Pornhub came to my knowledge, and I was only 15 in the videos they [were] profiting from.” She went on to say, “Every time they took it down, they also allowed more and more videos of me to be reuploaded.” That witness also said, “Videos of me being on Pornhub has affected my life so much to the point that I don't leave my house anymore. I stopped being able to work because I [am]...scared to be out in public around other people.”

Another survivor who spoke to us at committee is Victoria Galy. As a result of discovering non-consensual images and videos of herself on Pornhub, she completely lost her sense of self-worth, and at times, she was suicidal. She told us at committee, “There were over eight million views just on Pornhub alone. To think of the amount of money that Pornhub has made off my trauma, date rape and sexual exploitation makes me sick to my stomach.” She added, “I have been forced to stand up alone and fight Pornhub”.

It is a serious failure of our justice system when survivors have to launch their own lawsuits to get justice for the harms caused by companies like MindGeek. This Canadian company has not faced a single charge or consequence in Canada for publishing its videos of exploitation and for profiting from them. This is truly shameful.

Last year, a survivor named Uldouz Wallace reached out to me. Uldouz is a survivor of the 2014 iCloud hack. She is also an award-winning actress, executive producer, activist and director of Foundation RA. Uldouz had photos and videos taken in the 2014 iCloud hack and uploaded onto porn sites like Pornhub, and she fought for years to get them taken down. As a result of this, she told us, “I lost followers, I lost everything that you could think of. It was just such hard time for me. I ended up spending over a million dollars over a three-year span just to get the content taken down on me with no success.... They're making so much money off of the non-consensual uploading of images and videos. The re-uploading is also a billion dollar industry.” She added, “There's still no federal laws. There's barely any laws at all to hold anyone online accountable. There's currently foreign revenge laws but for people like me there's nothing.”

Rachel, a survivor from Alberta, said that it was devastating and that it is going to haunt her for the rest of her life. She said that she will always be someone's porn.

I want to point out the incredible courage of Victoria, Serena, Uldouz, Rachel and many other survivors who have spoken out. In the midst of one of the most difficult moments of their lives, they are fighting back against a billion-dollar industry that seeks to profit from their pain and exploitation. I thank Victoria, Serena, Uldouz, and Rachel for refusing to back down. I thank them for their courage. I thank them for their relentless pursuit of justice. I would encourage members to listen to their full testimonies, and they can do so at www.siseact.ca.

Throughout the ethics committee hearings and from the interactions I have had with survivors since, it is clear that this is a common problem. Pornographic companies are publishing and monetizing content without verifying the age and the consent of the people depicted in them. This is particularly a problem for Canada as many of those websites are hosted here

That is a shameful legacy of this country.

He went on:

Bill C-270, the stopping Internet sexual exploitation act, would stop this. I am going to quote right from the summary of my bill. It states that the SISE act would:

...prohibit a person [including companies] from making, distributing or advertising pornographic material for commercial purposes without having first ascertained that, at the time the material was made, each person whose image is depicted in the material was 18 years old or older and gave their express consent to their image being depicted.

The SISE act would also allow individuals to revoke their consent. This is an important part to express the ongoing consent. Finally, the SISE act would provide for aggravating factors when the material created or published actually depicts minors or non-consensual activity.

I am also pleased to share that I consulted on the bill with a variety of child protection agencies, law enforcement groups and the Canadian Centre for Child Protection to ensure that there are no gaps and that police have the tools to ensure they can seek justice.

The heart of the bill is consent. No one should be publishing sexually explicit material without the express consent of everyone depicted in that material. Children cannot consent to exploitation. Victims of sex trafficking and sexual assault cannot consent. Those filmed without their knowledge cannot consent, yet pornography companies freely publish this content and profit from it because there is no onus on them to verify the age or the consent of those depicted.

That is why the second recommendation of the 2021 ethics committee report is:

That the Government of Canada mandate that content-hosting platforms operating in Canada require affirmation from all persons depicted in pornographic content, before it can be uploaded, that they are 18 years old or older and that they consent to its distribution, and that it consult with the Privacy Commissioner of Canada with respect to the implementation of such obligation.

We have heard from survivors who testified that their images of abuse would not be online if companies like Pornhub had bothered to check for age and consent. Bill C-270 would fulfill this important recommendation from the ethics committee report and, importantly, I should add that this report was unanimously supported by all parties at the ethics committee.

The recommendation also suggests consulting with the Privacy Commissioner. I am happy to share with my colleagues that on February 29, 2024, the Privacy Commissioner released his investigation into Pornhub's operator Aylo, formerly MindGeek. The report was initially scheduled to be released on May 23, but it was delayed for over nine months when MindGeek, or Aylo, and its owners, Ethical Capital Partners took the Privacy Commissioner to court to block the release of that report.

The Privacy Commissioner’s investigation into Aylo, MindGeek, was in response to a woman whose ex-boyfriend had uploaded intimate images of her to MindGeek's website without her consent. The young woman had to use a professional service to get it taken down and to remove her images from approximately 80 websites, where they had been re-posted more than 700 times.

The report shared how the publishing of the woman’s intimate images led to a permanent loss of control of the images, which had a devastating effect on her. It caused her to withdraw from her social life and to live in a state of fear and anxiety. The Commissioner stated:

“This untenable situation could have been avoided in many cases had MindGeek obtained direct consent from each individual depicted in content prior to or at the time of upload.”

“Pornhub’s own Monthly Non-Consensual Content reports suggest that non-consensual content is still regularly uploaded and viewed by thousands of users before it is removed.”

“We find that by continuing to rely solely on the uploader to verify consent, MindGeek fails to ensure that it has obtained valid and meaningful consent from all individuals depicted in content uploaded to its websites.”

Ultimately, the Privacy Commissioner recommended that Pornhub and its owners adopt measures that would verify age and consent before any content is uploaded. I would urge all members to read the Privacy Commissioner's report on Pornhub.

While Pornhub and its owners are the biggest pornography company in the world, this bill would ensure that age verification and consent applies to all pornography companies because whether it is videos of child exploitation, sex trafficking, AI deepfakes, sexual assault or an intimate encounter filmed by a partner, once a video or image has been uploaded, it is virtually impossible to eliminate. Each video can be viewed and downloaded millions of times within a 24-hour period, starting an endless nightmare for victims who must fight to get those videos removed, only for them to be uploaded again within minutes or hours.

Canada must do more to prevent this exploitive content from ever reaching the Internet in the first place. I hope I have the support of my colleagues in ending this nightmare for so many and in preventing it for so many more. To the survivors, some of whom are watching today, we thank them. Their voices are being heard.

I want to thank the organizations that have supported me along the way in getting this bill to this point: National Centre on Sexual Exploitation, National Council of Women of Canada, Ottawa Coalition to End Human Trafficking, London Abused Women's Centre, Defend Dignity, Vancouver Collective Against Sexual Exploitation, The Salvation Army, Survivor Safety Matters, Foundation RA, Montreal Council of Women, CEASE UK, Parents Aware, Joy Smith Foundation, Hope Resource Centre Association, Evangelical Fellowship of Canada, Colchester Sexual Assault Centre, Sexual Assault and Violence Intervention Services of Halton, and Ally Global Foundation.

Those, colleagues, are the words of Arnold Viersen, whom you so passionately asked that he present this bill—

[Larry Brock, Conservative, Brantford—Brant, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I think I will start my intervention by recapping some of the important points and areas that I've heard from my colleagues yesterday and today.

The most important point that I wish to reiterate is for what I trust to be thousands of Canadians who are following this and watching this particular committee. I'll give them advance notice that this committee will potentially sit until 11:30 this evening.

The important point that I wish to make—this is following up on my colleague Mr. Van Popta's earlier interventions—is that there is an overriding theme that is being developed here. It's not being propagated and established by any party other than the Liberal Party of Canada, supported by their coalition partners, the NDP.

If they truly cared about victims—I intend to go through some legislative history over my three-plus years as a parliamentarian that demonstrates the complete opposite of empathy towards victims in this country—they would not be engaging in this particular position that they are taking. This is nothing more than political gamesmanship. It is partisanship and, quite frankly, it's petty politics, which I find extremely disgusting.

As Mr. Van Popta pointed out, this particular bill reached our committee before we recessed this past summer, in June 2024. We returned to Parliament in mid-September, and committees resumed toward the end of September. While the justice committee was studying two important reports regarding the rise of both anti-Semitism and Islamophobia, Bill C-270 was always waiting in the wings. You, Madam Chair, would bring it up from time to time.

I'm also mindful of the fact that we had many meetings over the course of two-plus months that ended early. Some meetings didn't actually happen at all. I can't say with any degree of confidence that all the meetings that have been scheduled for the justice committee since we returned this past fall have been utilized effectively in terms of utilizing all the resources that we had available to us. Here we are now, with a looming deadline that we were all made aware of weeks ago.

Not to put too fine a point on it, Madam Chair, but the Conservative Party of Canada submitted a significant list of witnesses—subject matter experts in this particular area. That was last Friday. In that interim, we had a meeting on Monday. We had a meeting yesterday. We're meeting today. Perhaps we're meeting again next week, but there is absolutely no sense, no urgency and no direction from this committee that this committee is prioritizing the hearing of witnesses.

When I listen to some Liberal members—

[Tako Van Popta, Conservative, Langley—Aldergrove, BC]

Thank you.

Let me take the opportunity to point out once again that we could have witnesses here today. Whether or not Mr. Viersen appears, we could have witnesses here today. There are a lot of important witnesses we could hear from who would give valuable testimony that would help inform our report back to the House of Commons. Again, today we are failing to take that opportunity.

The sense that I have is that the Liberals do not like Bill C-270. At second reading, they voted in favour of sending it to committee, but with “serious reservations”. What are some of those reservations? I'm just going to continue here with some more of Mr. Maloney's comments. I just want to underline, Mr. Maloney, that it was a good speech. It was well-researched and useful information. We might just disagree on the direction that we should be going.

He said:

Individuals who informally make or distribute pornographic material of themselves and of people they know are unlikely to verify age by examining legal documentation.... They are also unlikely to secure formal written consent. It concerns me that such people would be criminalized by the bill's proposed offences, where they knew that everyone implicated was consenting and of age, merely because they did not comply with the...regulatory regime....

We're getting to the heart of their objection. They think that it is a regulatory scheme and that it's not going to work. They also prefer the government bill, Bill C-63, the online harms act, which picks up on some of the direction that the private member's bill that is before us today is taking, but it, too, creates a regulatory scheme. So they are saying, “We don't like your regulatory scheme; we prefer our regulatory scheme.” Is that what it's coming down to?

I think this is a good point to talk about what a couple of the witnesses who appeared at the ethics committee for its study in 2021 said, which goes right to the point that I'm making here. This is witness 1, unidentified, and she had this to say:

When I was 24, I met someone I thought was a really nice guy. I married him, and as soon as he thought I was stuck, he stopped being nice pretty quickly. In April 2020, I moved away from our home to be safe, and obviously, we're not together anymore.

It's going to go on for just a couple of paragraphs, but I think this is really important to get on the record to set the context.

During our relationship, I had let him take some pictures. I was uncomfortable at first, because I had never been in any picture like that, but I trusted him and I wanted to keep him happy. It wasn't until August of 2020 that I discovered those private photos had been uploaded to porn sites, including Pornhub.

Here I want to make a point, Madam Chair. She was of age and she gave consent, but not for what he did with it later, so he would have had a defence against the bill that the Liberals are suggesting would be better than Bill C-270.

She goes on:

I was upset about the photos, but it was about to get worse. Finding the photos led me to a video. I did not know the video existed. I found out about it by watching it on Pornhub.

I don't want to get into the details. It was quite distasteful, but she was drugged. In any event, she was asleep. She had no recollection of it, and she was filmed in—I'm trying to find a polite way to say it—a compromised position. This is what was on the Internet. It was all over the Internet. It was taken by her husband. She was of age. She had consented to some form of photos, but not to that and not to the uploading on Pornhub.

She goes on:

My video had been uploaded in August of 2017, so by the time I found it, it had been active on Pornhub for over three years, and I had no idea.

Then she made a comment about Pornhub and sites like that:

Sexual assault is not an anomaly on the porn sites; it is a genre. This leaves little incentive for these sites to moderate such content.

To give an idea of the scope of the spread, as of early January 2021—after the December purge, and after the RCMP had removed a bunch for me—googling the name of my Pornhub video still returned over 1,900 results....

Thanks to Pornhub, today is day 1,292 that I have been naked on these porn sites.

This is what we are trying to fight. This is what the private member's bill, Bill C-270, is all about. We think it is worth fighting for.

Now, another objection from the Liberals is that the private member's bill is apparently “not consistent with the basic principles of criminal law”, in that it does not require mens rea. Most of us are lawyers here, but for those who aren't, mens rea is the Latin term for the mental element of a crime. Not only must the Crown prove that an event happened, but the Crown also has to prove that the person who caused the criminal event to happen had a guilty mind about it and knew that what they were doing was wrong. Then they go on: “for example, that the accused knew or was reckless as to whether those depicted in the pornographic material did not consent or were not of age.”

Well, in response to that, I'm going to just read something from another person who appeared before the same ethics committee. This is someone who was known only as “Witness 2”. This is what she had to say. It's just a few paragraphs:

I'm now 19 years old. I was 17 when videos of me on Pornhub came to my knowledge, and I was only 15 in the videos they've been profiting from.

“They” means the porn sites.

When I was 15, I was extorted by a man who was unknown at the time into sending massive amounts of videos and images of me.

Why she did that.... It was probably not very wise, but she did it.

Then, two years later.... She said:

This was the first time I had any knowledge of being on their site.

During this time, I stopped eating and leaving the house, and I was even considering suicide. I started getting hundreds of follow requests daily on my social media accounts and at least 50 messages a day sending me links of videos of me on Pornhub. That's when I realized that my name and social media had been posted alongside the videos.

[Tako Van Popta, Conservative, Langley—Aldergrove, BC]

Thank you.

Just in response to Mr. Bittle's intervention, nobody on this side of the table had any objection to who appeared at the meetings. They were all active participants and added value to the discussion. I would just underline that. But there was a problem stemming from what certainly appeared to us to be two groups not having conversations with each other. The analysts did their best to create some sort of a concordance between the two reports. That took time. Now we are at a place where we are running against the clock.

I appreciate what you said, Madam Chair, that the potential witnesses hadn't been invited until recently, or the list hadn't been made available until recently. I wasn't expecting that this would have been done in September, but surely in the last four to six weeks we could have found a way to start on this very important study and get the witnesses here.

To get into the substantive part of Bill C-270 and what it's all about, I want to read briefly the summary of the bill, as follows:

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

There are two things here, the age requirement and the consent requirement, keeping in mind that people under age can't actually give consent. Personally, I'd never thought too much about the topic, but I was eager to get into the study. I did sit in once when the private member's bill was debated. It was debated twice at second reading, once on April 9 and once on May 7. I sat in for part of the May 7 debate, I believe. I heard some stories about victims and survivors and I became very interested in the topic.

Reading in Hansard these two hours of debate on the private member's bill, I felt a sense of multi-party co-operation on an issue that is so important to all of us—namely, preventing children from being exploited sexually online and stopping the uploading and distribution of non-consensual images. I felt a sense of co-operation among all the speakers. As I said, I was there for only one of them, but I read all the speeches from both hours of debate.

I just want to highlight a couple of them. First, MP Rempel Garner, who happens to be a co-sponsor of Bill C-270, had this to say on April 9: “I am very pleased to hear the multipartisan nature of debate on these types of issues, and that there is at least a willingness to bring forward these types of initiatives to committee to have the discussions”.

MP Garrison, from the NDP, on that same day made this positive comment about the initiative being brought forward by this private member's bill:

It is also important to remember that whatever we do here has to make our law more effective at getting those who are profiting from the images. That is really what the bill is aimed at, and I salute the member for Peace River—Westlock for that singular focus because I think that is really key.

I want to quote from MP Larouche of the Bloc Québécois. It's important to note that she also chaired the All Party Parliamentary Group to End Modern Slavery and Human Trafficking. She has a long track record of being interested in this topic and advocating for victims. She had this to say: “Let us not forget that these [online porn] companies are headquartered right in Montreal. The fact that our country is home to mafia-style companies that profit from sexual exploitation is nothing to be proud of.”

I would say, Madam Chair, that that is an understatement. That's an embarrassment for us. The New York Times picked up the story on this, and the world now knows that Canada is headquarters for mafia-style companies and child pornography. I applaud those who are fighting to combat that.

Even the Liberals supported this private member's bill at second reading, but with serious reservations. This is what MP Maloney had to say. I believe he is online, so I'm going to quote my friend and colleague, Mr. Maloney. He had this to say: “I want to say at the outset that the government will be supporting this bill, Bill C-270, at second reading, but with some serious reservations.” He then pointed out that Bill C-270 was in response to a 2021 report of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics. That committee, the ethics committee, commenced that study at least partially in response to the New York Times story that had run earlier that year, or it might have been the previous year.

I just want to read a couple of pieces from that report, because I think it is very relevant to what we're talking about today. I'm not going to belabour the point, because the report is available for anybody to read. These are just a couple of paragraphs from the summary of that report:

Recent reports regarding the presence of child sexual abuse material (CSAM) and other non-consensual content on the adult platform Pornhub led the House of Commons Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics (the Committee) to undertake a study on the protection of privacy and reputation on online platforms such as Pornhub. [This is a Canadian company.] This study gave the Committee a window into the world of adult websites and how their content moderation practices have failed to protect the privacy and reputation of individuals online.

The Committee heard harrowing accounts from survivors who had had images and videos of themselves uploaded to the Pornhub website without their consent. Some were minors. Some were adults. All encountered difficulties in having those images and videos taken down. The Committee also heard from the executives of MindGeek and Pornhub, who told the Committee that they have appropriate practices in place and are constantly striving to improve these measures.

I, for one, do not believe that, and certainly the investigation that this committee undertook and the conclusions that they came to would underline that as well.

I just want to read one of the recommendations. This is recommendation 2 of 14 recommendations. I am not belabouring the point; I'm just picking up on some of the highlights, some of the important things to set a context for what we're talking about today.

Recommendation 2 concerning the duty to verify age and consent.

That the Government of Canada mandate that content-hosting platforms operating in Canada require affirmation from all persons depicted in pornographic content, before it can be uploaded, that they are 18 years old or older and that they consent to its distribution, and that it consult with the Privacy Commissioner of Canada with respect to the implementation of such obligation.

Madam Chair, that was recommendation 2 from that 2021 report from the ethics committee, which forms the foundation of the private member's bill that is before us now, and that was the point that Mr. Maloney was making in his speech in the House on May 7.

I have another quote from Mr. Maloney's speech, which was a good speech and it's worth quoting from.

[Tako Van Popta, Conservative, Langley—Aldergrove, BC]

Of course. Thank you.

I am not going to belabour the point. I am just saying that we were undertaking two very important studies at the time, so we could not get into the study on Bill C-270 immediately. I get that. I appreciate that. I understand that.

The first six meetings on these two studies went very well, when we listened to witnesses. That brought us to the end of the sitting before the summer break. We had an opportunity to have a meeting with the analysts to give drafting instructions. We told them to go ahead, prepare both reports and have them available to us when the session began again in September. They indeed did that and gave us very well-written reports.

But then it became frustrating, Madam Chair. I know that all of these meetings were in camera—reading through the reports, analyzing them, drafting them—so I will not give any particulars at at all about what happened there. Suffice it to say that there were five meetings on each one, and this was after our very professional analysts drafted excellent reports. Why did it take that long? I've been thinking about that a lot. This committee is mostly made up of lawyers, although not all of us are. Some of us had the advantage of never having gone to law school, but most of us are lawyers, and I suppose we like the sound of our own voice and testing out our ability to argue our points of view. Those meetings dragged on and on and on.

I think there was a second reason those meetings went so long. On the Liberal side of this table, it was a different bench depending on which topic we were discussing. When we were discussing the anti-Semitism report, we had one group of Liberals. When we were discussing the Islamophobia report, there was a different bench of Liberals. We were more or less alternating back and forth, first anti-Semitism and then Islamophobia. It became abundantly clear to us on this side of the table—

[Tako Van Popta, Conservative, Langley—Aldergrove, BC]

Okay. Good. Thank you.

It was just a simple motion to extend for 30 days. That motion was made 30 days ago. How many meetings have we had since then where we could have had witnesses? Now we have another 11 hours and still no witnesses here. I think the Liberals are just playing games. I don't know what their endgame is here or what their objective is, but we're just wasting a lot of time. It's an unproductive use of this committee's efforts.

To pick up where I left off, in response to that motion for an extension of 30 days, I was going through the schedule of events of this committee for the last six months. I was trying to understand how we got to this point where we are now in a crisis where we need an extension of 30 days to deal with our business. Why didn't we deal with it before?

For the benefit of those who are new to this committee today, the private member's bill that is the subject of the debate, once we get going on it and once we get witnesses here, will be Bill C-270, which was referred to this committee on May 8. That was six months ago. Why do we need another 30 days? What are we going to do in those 30 days that we couldn't have done in the six months that have passed in the meantime?

I won't belabour the point, but I'll be giving a little bit of background to those who weren't part of the discussion yesterday. I'm doing it for the benefit of those who are gracing us with their presence today. I really appreciate all of them coming, from all sides of the House.

On May 8, we were engaged in two very important studies. One was on anti-Semitism; the other was on Islamophobia. The anti-Semitism study was on a proposal from the Liberals. On the Conservative side of this table, we agreed to that. We thought it was very important, given what was happening, particularly on university campuses.

[The Chair, Liberal, Lena Metlege Diab]

We are back in session.

For the first time on this committee, French speakers outnumber English speakers. That's great.

Welcome. This is meeting number 121 of the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights. The committee is beginning consideration of Bill C‑270, An Act to amend the Criminal Code (pornographic material).

We are here in public to resume the debate that started on the motion of James Maloney, which was a request for an extension of 30 sitting days to report Bill C-270 to the House.

When we left off, we were with MP Van Popta. I wasn't sure if he had concluded or not.

Reference to Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs

[Damien Kurek, Conservative, Battle River—Crowfoot, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I am glad the member took me up on my offer to continue the debate on this very important issue in the House of Commons. I would simply suggest that he tell his leader, the Prime Minister, and members of the cabinet he sits with that the answer to the problem of Parliament being paralyzed is to release the documents.

When it comes to Bill C-270, I would hope the member would support a bill that would place strict penalties on anybody who would share, without consent, explicit material and that would have age verification for any explicit material shared in this country. That is pretty clear common sense.

It is too bad the member and the Liberals have so mismanaged the legislative agenda that their scandals are paralyzing the good work this place should be able to do.

[James Maloney, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada]

Mr. Speaker, I have spent almost the entire day listening to the member speak. He talked about accountability. I just spent three hours in the justice committee listening to him filibuster, trying to block his own colleague from Peace River—Westlock because he had a very compelling argument that Bill C-270 should come to the House as soon as possible to be debated. Now I come to the House and I am listening to him give a speech about this privilege so nothing can be debated.

I want to know whether the member is prepared to make the argument to his House leader that was so compelling this morning to see if Conservatives will end this privilege nonsense and allow his colleague to, one, appear at committee and, two, come to the House to have this discussion again.

[Tako Van Popta, Conservative, Langley—Aldergrove, BC]

I'm very happy that the clerk also has it in front of him, and I'm sure that he will point out if and when I am wrong, but I think I'm pretty accurate about what's going on.

I was saying that we started the Islamophobia study on June 3, keeping in mind that the private member's bill, Bill C-270, had been with us for almost a month by then already. I'm just setting the framework to come to an understanding as to why, after six months, it is now becoming a crisis that we need to deal with this private member's bill.

On June 3, we had witnesses appear before us on the Islamophobia study. Later that week, on Thursday, June 6, again we had witnesses appear before us on the Islamophobia study, and then again the following week, on Monday, June 10, we had witnesses come here on the Islamophobia study. I remember those meetings well, and I was impressed with the testimony and the courage with which the witnesses came to us to give testimony and the heartfelt stories that we were receiving. I knew there were going to be good reports coming out of these two studies.

June 13, I believe, was the last day that we had witnesses come to us on the anti-Semitism study, so we were sort of going back and forth. I believe on June 13 we also gave instructions. I don't know if we had witnesses, but we took time to give instructions to the analysts as to what we thought was important to put into the report on anti-Semitism. Then, on June 17, the next week, it was the same thing with the Islamophobia study. We had all gone through the witness testimony, or at least I did, over the weekend. I read the testimony and highlighted what I thought was important to be put into the report. I remember at the time that we told the analysts, “You are very good at what you do, as highly educated people and great drafters. Please go ahead and go through all the testimony and put the report together as best you can, including the recommendations.”

I've been on committees where the members of the committee actually spent time writing the recommendations themselves and then submitted them to the analysts. I have seen the analysts have a hard time, on the one hand, paying respect to the drafter of the recommendations and, on the other hand, trying to make the report coherent as though it was written by one person, so I was very happy that the other committee members agreed that we would just give free rein to our analysts to work on the two reports, including writing the recommendations, over the summer and present them to us in September. Indeed, that is what happened.

Of course, those meetings are in camera when we're reviewing the reports, so there's only so much I can say about what happened at those meetings. I would just say this: As I expected, the reports came back very well written and very thorough. I remember going through them sitting in the airplane on the way here with my highlighter and my pen. I thought, “I might have said this one slightly differently, or I might have done it that way, or I might have put the paragraphs in a slightly different order,” but in the end, you know, we had delegated this task to our analysts. They did a good job, and I wanted to respect them.

Madam Chair, at that time, I could have accepted at least the narrative part of each of those reports as they were written and then, with my committee colleagues, gone into the recommendations to see if I thought there was probably going to be room there for some disagreement, for some debate and for some refining. In my opinion, that would have been one two-hour meeting on each report, but that's not what happened.

On September 23, we had set aside an in camera meeting for the Islamophobia study. Later that week, on Thursday, September 26, we had a two-hour meeting in camera to review the first draft of the anti-Semitism report. On Thursday, October 10, we had a second two-hour in camera meeting to review another draft of the Islamophobia report.

On Monday, October 21, we had a third meeting, a two-hour in camera meeting, debating the drafting of the report. On Thursday, October 24, we had—let me count here—

[Damien Kurek, Conservative, Battle River—Crowfoot, AB]

Thank you very much.

The good news, for Mr. Bittle's sake, is that I am keeping it absolutely on topic. While I am tempted to diverge from the subject at hand, I want to keep politics out of this as much as possible. For his benefit.... We'll see. I might have an opportunity to have a dialogue with him later in the House of Commons related to the SDTC issue.

Madam Chair, I've read some quotes, and I have a few more that I will get to, because the amount of support we have before us for the passing of Bill C-270 is almost overwhelming. Parliament has this clear opportunity to be able to say, “Okay, let's simply get the job done.”

What's interesting is that.... When we have some issues before us, there are the political sides, and that's fair. That's a very common thing. That's the nature of discourse. There are two sides to each debate. What is interesting, when it comes to the subject we have at hand, is that we have, I hope, a desire to see the right thing accomplished. When it comes down to it, it is not just talking about a bill as it stood after a second reading vote, when it received unanimous endorsement; it's actually seeing it get implemented in a way that works toward solving some of the significant challenges we face.

In this particular case, those who have been victims of this egregious exploitation.... Throw the book at those who deserve to have the book thrown at them and put them away, where they belong, for a very long time. Ensure that victims are given the support and the peace in knowing we've taken every action possible to ensure that there is the least likelihood possible that what happened to them will happen to anyone else.

Madam Chair, I would like to highlight a quote from the Soroptimist International Western Canada Region. They said:

To be protected when vulnerable is a human right as outlined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Soroptimist International recognises that for the pornography industry, women and girls have greater vulnerabilities, that include young age, financial insecurity, and exposure to sexualized violence. Social protections for youth must include protection from participation in pornographic materials and sexualized images being shared online. That is why Soroptimist International WCR (Western Canada Region) supports Bill C-270 and will continue to educate women and girls about their rights.

Madam Chair, we have before us.... As was highlighted, those who are disproportionately at risk of becoming victims.... To be able to send the signal very clearly to those actors in our country, and to the world, that Parliament—the supreme law-making authority of the land—is willing to take this issue seriously and do something about it is absolutely key.

To highlight, the stopping Internet sexual exploitation act will prohibit making or distributing pornographic material for a commercial purpose without verifying the age and getting the express, voluntary consent of the people depicted in it. It allows surety around that idea of consent and the ability to revoke consent and express consent, and doing so in a voluntary manner.

The number of endorsements this bill has is absolutely astounding. I've read through some of the quotes, but we have before us the Montreal Council of Women, the Colchester Sexual Assault Centre, DD, working to end sexual exploitation, VCASE, the Sexual Assault and Violence Intervention Services of Halton, The Salvation Army, the Ottawa Coalition to End Human Trafficking, CEASE UK, Parents Aware, the London Abused Women's Centre, Foundation RA, the Ally Global Foundation, the National Centre on Sexual Exploitation, the National Council of Women of Canada, the Hope Resource Centre Association and the Joy Smith Foundation. I know there are so many others.

I'm not sure if I'm close to the conclusion of my remarks—we'll have to see about that—but this is certainly something that is of the utmost importance in the subject matter before us.

I am going to share some survivor testimonies. To ensure that we protect victims, we need to highlight the devastating impacts of what happens when they are not protected. I'm going to share a few of these things. I won't let just the words of a politician from rural Alberta speak, but the words from individuals who have faced the devastating consequences of the gaps that exist in the legal, criminal, legislative and regulatory frameworks in our country. They are why, again, I'm highlighting the need to not delay this by 30 days, but to get this bill passed.

There's an individual who goes by the name Rachel, from Canada, who said, “It’s devastating. I mean, this is something that is going to haunt me for the rest of my life. I will always be someone's porn.” She also said, “I did not consent to this video being made, nor to it being uploaded to Pornhub.” I don't think, Madam Chair, that any commentary is needed on that, other than for Rachel, in her comments, to speak to why we need to get the job done.

I'll share testimony from the standing committee on ethics' study on Pornhub in 2021.

Serena said:

I stopped going to school. I got really depressed. I thought that once I stopped being in the public so much, once I stopped going to school, people would stop re-uploading it. But that didn't happen, because it had already been basically downloaded by people all across the world. It would always be uploaded, over and over and over again. No matter how many times I got it taken down, it would be right back up again.

Again, that was testimony in the standing committee on ethics' Pornhub study.

I would note, because I think this bears emphasizing, that when it comes to the first quote I shared from Rachel about when she was trying to get the video of which she was the subject removed, the company told her that removing the content was her responsibility. How absolutely and utterly disgusting is it that you have a bad corporate actor, because of a gap that exists in criminal law, being able to suggest that somehow the victim is responsible for dealing with the problem?

Victoria Galy said in testimony, again on the previous ethics study on this issue:

There were over eight million views just on Pornhub alone. To think of the amount of money that Pornhub has made off my trauma, date rape and sexual exploitation makes me sick to my stomach.... I too feel like Pornhub has become my human trafficker, and they have been relentless in doing so.

That was Victoria.

Again, in testimony that was heard, Rose Kalemba said:

Six videos of my rape at age fourteen, uploaded by one of my attackers, stayed on PornHub while they refused to remove them for over half a year. My cries to them where I begged them to take them down, stating that I was a minor and that it was not consensual, both of which were glaringly obvious, went unheard. Every single day I had to watch the view counts continue to rise while ads appeared along with the rape video. The number of views eventually exceeded 2 million.

A gap exists that needs to be filled.

Another witness had this to say. I would highlight, Madam Chair, that because of the sensitive content, there are a lot of people who don't want their names shared. I understand that, because this is a process of retraumatizing. This witness said, “It wasn't until August of 2020 that I discovered those private photos had been uploaded to porn sites.... Finding the photos led me to a video. I did not know the video existed. I found out...by watching it on Pornhub.... Whether I was asleep or drugged is impossible to know after the fact, but what is clear in the video is that I am not conscious and there is nothing to suggest consent.”

I spoke earlier about how the victimization doesn't end at the conclusion of what would be a horrific and life-changing moment. It continues and continues. To close the gaps that exist in regulation, Madam Chair, I think it is incumbent upon all of us as members to, again, get the job done. We shouldn't delay it by 30 days, but get the job done. The fact is that this is a well-studied subject. I'm glad that there's opportunity and testimony that exists on the stark reality of what happens when criminal law doesn't put behind bars those who need to be behind bars.

Further, there is another testimony that says, “I was 17 when videos of me...came to my knowledge, and I was only 15 in the videos they've been profiting from.... Every time they took it down, they also allowed more and more videos of me to be reuploaded.... I don't leave my house anymore. I stopped being able to work”.

I would highlight that the study that took place at the ethics committee was very specific to MindGeek, the company that owns Pornhub, and this is pretty specific to that. I would, Madam Chair, emphasize that this is one example, one of many bad actors in an industry that is built on exploitation.

There was a submission, again, to the ethics committee study on this where David.... I mentioned before that the victims of this are disproportionately women, but it's certainly not limited to women. I'll quote from one of the submissions to that committee study: “David at 15 years old, was given Rohypnol, known as 'having been roofied' or 'a date rape drug,' one evening after having snuck into a club.... After searching several gay porn sites, he found himself in several videos. David found it impossible to have his videos removed and he was a non-consenting minor”. It goes on to talk about how that led to a cycle of addiction, including “alcohol, cocaine and eventually methamphetamine to try and erase the memories” of the abuse he faced. It's hard. That's the sort of testimony that feels like a gut punch.

That's why I would suggest that, when it comes to the issue of the motion to see this extended, I highlighted some of the procedural stuff that exists for a reason, and the need to get this bill studied and reported back to the House so that we can have the best chance possible of it getting sorted.

I would hope that some of the testimony I've shared, as well as the organizations that have endorsed Bill C-270.... I've highlighted some of the specifics around why it matters, but then, specifically, I would simply conclude by saying this. There is a chance that MPs have to help get this bill across the finish line. I've shared quotes from organizations that are involved with victims, and then what is, I would suggest, some of the toughest stuff that I've read into the record in Parliament in terms of words from victims themselves.

As I wrap up my remarks here, I would suggest that this doesn't need to be extended. This needs to be passed and reported back to Parliament. I would therefore ask.... I believe I'm on the right procedural ground, so I can ask for UC, but we'll still have the floor after that. I would ask for unanimous consent that the committee pass this bill and report it back to the House at the earliest opportunity.

[Damien Kurek, Conservative, Battle River—Crowfoot, AB]

Well, I would suggest, Madam Chair, that it is incredibly relevant to the conversation we are having, because if Mr. Bittle had read Bill C-270, he would have noted the close parallel to what I am discussing and exactly what we are talking about here today, as well as the fact that Bill C-270 very specifically articulates the need for consequences for egregious actions that have taken place.

The good news, as I described very briefly earlier, is the autonomy that we are granted as members of Parliament. In the guidelines of being able to stay relevant, the Justice Defense Fund, I would suggest, has a particular expertise on the subject at hand. That expertise is being lent to this committee for the purpose of saying that we need to get this done. For the benefit of Mr. Bittle, I'll just emphasize one part of their endorsement of this bill: “This is...urgently needed [and] has the potential to protect thousands, if not millions of individuals, including children, from facing life altering, traumatic, sexual abuse.” I would hope that Mr. Bittle takes that very, very seriously.

I would suggest further, Madam Chair, that, as I think I've outlined quite fairly and have endeavoured to not get super political here.... Now, that will be something that I know some of my colleagues from the other side might have trouble believing. However, when we have a bill that was supported by all members, that has such widespread support.... I would suggest that there are a lot more areas where I could have gotten political, even in what I think could have been a significantly longer intervention thus far. I've endeavoured to keep it as brief as I can, but I want to ensure that we have this very direct understanding of what we are trying to accomplish here. I would suggest that it is key for ensuring that we can actually get it done.

I would just note that one of the aspects of Parliament that we.... Sometimes, it gets a bad rap for not getting any stuff done. If you look at how the Liberals have paralyzed the House of Commons over the last number of months, it's certainly evidence of that. However, I want to stick to Bill C-270 here. This is a chance where we can truly get something accomplished and then get to work at ensuring that it can pass in the other place as well—or what we refer to as “the other place”, that being the upper chamber of Canada's Parliament, the Senate of Canada—where I would hope and certainly have the expectation.... I know that it has addressed a number of bills similar to this in the past and has been able to endorse them, and that certainly gives me some hope that we can get this sorted out.

When it comes to actually getting this done, if this is delayed by 30 days, as the motion that we are discussing here today proposes, all of the things that I've endeavoured to articulate as succinctly as possible get lost, and we have to restart this process. We don't want to do that. We want to actually get stuff done. I think Canadians want to see that this action is, in fact, taken.

I'd like to share a quote, if I could, Madam Chair, from Andrea Heinz. She has this to say:

An integral part of this valuable bill is to focus on our youth and ensure each person whose image is depicted in the material is a consenting 18 years or older. Having worked over 7,000 cases of survivors of human trafficking and their families, it is critical the Criminal Code be amended to ensure the safety of these underaged individuals.

Now, I'm very glad that Mr. Bittle brought up something that has such close relevance to this bill. I would suggest that one of the things that we've heard and that I've certainly heard from constituents in relation to the concerns around Bill C-63 is that it's off the point in terms of actually accomplishing the set objective. I don't think anybody is opposed to what they would suggest the bill accomplishes. However, as they say, the proof is in the pudding.

Here we have an example of how and where I would suggest that bill falls short, and there's a whole host of issues that I don't want to get into here because we're sticking to the very relevant subject matter at hand, although we could probably talk at length about Bill C-63 and some of the issues related to that.

Where Bill C-270 really hits the mark is that it puts very clear parameters into ensuring that there are consequences for bad actors. I would suggest it is that clarity, as I outlined before when I went through the bill, that ensures there is this needed certainty so that Canada marks that line, as I've talked about, that signals to those actors and to the world that Canada is not a haven for these bad actors.

I would just note that in this quote, this individual says she had worked with 7,000 cases of survivors related to human trafficking; that's a big number. That is a lot of individuals who have faced the incredible impact that crime has on victims and those survivors. I would suggest, Madam Chair, that we look at that number and don't just gloss over it, because you're talking about 7,000 individuals who have parents—a mom and a dad—and who have siblings. They have, in some cases, kids, and they have grandparents. Certainly, the number of people impacted by just this individual's work speaks to how important an issue this is to ensure that we're actually addressing the issues that Canadians expect us to be able to address.

I would, Madam Chair, further like to share a quote from the Ottawa Coalition to End Human Trafficking, which says, “This is an issue that requires priority, attention, and dedication on all fronts, and thus far has not been treated in this manner” by Parliament. This is a legislative gap that Bill C-270 will fill in our criminal justice system. “The victims involved in this investigation and the thousands of other victims out there deserve our greatest efforts and support.” Bill C-270 will provide this support in more ways than one. Sometimes you just can't time things better than this, but certainly, when it comes to the issue at hand, we're debating an extension, and the Ottawa Coalition to End Human Trafficking talks about how Bill C-270 fills the gaps as needed.

I would suggest that the simple, straightforward and common-sense solution, while we should have been addressing the issue with witnesses here today, is that we do not want to see this unnecessarily delayed. This is to ensure, as there are organizations like this that are highlighting some of the concerns, that we take the diligence and the need to get this stuff sorted out. In this case, let's get Bill C-270 back to Parliament. We don't need to extend it by 30 days. We need to get it back to Parliament so that, hopefully, it can get passed, or at least so that it has the very best chance of passing before this Parliament comes to an end—although, certainly, if the Liberals just handed over the documents related to SDTC, we'd be back to private members' business, but I digress on that front.

Further to that, I would suggest that there is a—

[Damien Kurek, Conservative, Battle River—Crowfoot, AB]

Thank you. I appreciate it.

I think it touches on something incredibly relevant, because we could have witnesses before us who could be talking about how important this bill is, yet we have instead a proposal by the Liberals to delay and quite possibly kill this important bill, a bill that would help set a standard in this country to say it is not okay to exploit those who are most vulnerable.

I will continue to share some organizations that have made a very clear statement, sharing how important it is that we pass this bill and that we pass it quickly.

When it comes to the members of the governing party, since they supported this bill at second reading, I hope they do not have some nefarious motive in standing up for some of the most egregious actors, both individuals and corporations, in our society.

Certainly, when it comes to the history, I referenced earlier the close connection this bill has with Bill S-210. Quite frankly, it was astounding to have the government, and in particular the Liberal cabinet, bow down to the lobbyists of some of the most egregious corporate actors on the planet instead of standing up for minors, in the case of Bill S-210, and ensuring that they are protected in our society.

In the absence of having witnesses before us—and I would note that they could have been there today, but they're not—I will read a quote from Parents Aware. They describe their organization a bit in the quote, so I will share with the committee their endorsement of Bill C-270. They said:

Parents Aware offers our full support on the Criminal Code amendments that are proposed in the Stopping Internet Sexual Exploitation Act. We feel that the addition of these offences with penalties is an effective way to hold companies and individuals criminally responsible when creating and distributing pornographic content depicting underage participants.

Here you have another organization that does good work in helping to bring awareness to some of the risks that exist in the online world and in particular the impact they can have on minors.

I'll just note something I found interesting. We did a TikTok study during my time on the ethics committee, which was very enlightening. It connects to this because it speaks to the speed with which technology is evolving. In particular, there are studies that suggest that the use of TikTok has endorphin-type responses in the brain similar to those from pulling the handle of a slot machine. It's that sort of thing, and the algorithms and the content that exist.

I know there was a big announcement yesterday—and I won't get into the specifics of it because it would be off topic, and I wouldn't want to get off topic—from the government related to TikTok, which I have no doubt will be studied. It will probably be studied by the ethics committee.

We have this responsibility to ensure that the justice system is responsive to the bad actors preying on some of the advances that have taken place and the access we have.

I think it's access. We are in the Internet age. I've talked quite a bit at different points in time about the first version of the Internet. It was that idea that the world could be connected, that there was access and that one computer could connect to another computer. That was a revolutionary concept. It obviously expanded significantly. It came with the idea that there was information associated with it.

We then moved into this “web 2” type of scenario. We had “web 1”, which was the access part. A news website would be a good example of that. You now have access to content—an encyclopedia, so to speak, at your fingertips—that you might not have had prior to that point, and then “web 2” came along.

That's very much the idea of social media. It's this interactive type. My social media will look different from my colleagues' social media, different from the social media of other folks and, Madam Chair, different from your social media. It all looks different, and it's the same thing in every aspect of that. You have algorithms. That idea of "web 2" is that it is no longer just a brochure or a library online; it's something that is actually responsive. It's a kitchen table that is truly the entire world all at once, all speaking at the same time.

We are moving from that, however, to what is often referred to as “web 3”, and that is the world in which it is certainly less tangible, in the sense that you're involving artificial intelligence.

I think there are certain expectations of AI. You look to sci-fi, dystopian-type future movies in which robots take over the world, and that's not what I think the point is. The point is that you now have the ability for the Internet to start to do some of the content curation on its own, so it's not simply responding to you but interpreting how you would want it to respond to something. That can have an impact in the ability for content to be created, and that's what I referenced before—the work that's been done by one of my colleagues in terms of deep fakes. That's one small part of it. That's the creation of content.

It can also be the scraping of content. We see this in terms of copyright for music. You can ask ChatGPT today or any AI chat generator to write you a song, and it's quite something. I'd encourage those who maybe haven't had the chance to do so to go play around with that, because it gives you some insight into the level of interaction that the “web 3” world will have, and you see it in the context of a chat generator.

The reason it connects so closely with Bill C-270 is that in the absence of a clear framework for accountability, it does not limit the leaps and bounds of advancement in how that will impact people, including victims of exploitation in the future. It started off and was pretty easy with “web 1” because it was just basically the world going online and being connected. Access was a big part of it. “Web 2” algorithms have been, and still are, a big part of what this future is, but “web 3” is now taking it to the next step. We have to make sure, in particular when it comes to the content for which there may not be consent, that we develop the legal framework to ensure that there are consequences for the actions of bad actors, both corporate and individual.

When it comes to the role of Parents Aware as an organization, I know there are a whole host of other groups that are doing good work in talking about how to keep kids safe online. It's of course the bogeyman type of scenario, with a bad actor on the other end who would try to do terrible things, but it's becoming more than just that. It is opening up a world of danger online that we all carry with us and have access to in the devices we all keep in our pockets and vote on. We have to ensure that the actors who would perpetrate the crimes can still be held responsible. That's what it really comes down to. In the organization that I just referenced, you have a clear example of the ability for consequences for those actions.

Madam Chair, I had spoken a little bit about the story of Joy Smith. My wife, Danielle, had the opportunity to volunteer in her office back in 2015, and see the incredible legacy and the work that's been done.

I know my colleague across the way has done a tremendous amount of work when it comes to helping to combat human trafficking. I believe his bill received royal assent. Did it?

[Damien Kurek, Conservative, Battle River—Crowfoot, AB]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

I hope everyone was able to take care of the call of nature. We look forward to being able to get back to this very important discussion.

I would just note, Madam Chair, that I've been very intentional in my remarks. I've talked with precision about organizations and their endorsements of this bill and I've talked about the need to get it across the proverbial finish line.

I would just share that when I was originally planning to join this conversation, I hoped there would be the opportunity for us to ask questions of some of the important witnesses whose names were submitted. I believe our side submitted them close to a week ago. However, we are here today, discussing the bill and the amendment to extend the study, which puts at risk the ability for this very important piece of legislation....

As we're getting back to the discussion here today, I'll just highlight how important it is that we actually get this across the finish line. A 30-day delay is quite possibly the equivalent to what I discussed quite briefly earlier, about seeing it die at committee. It is so important that we get this sorted and get it across the finish line.

Madam Chair, I'll continue to share some of the organizations that have done such good work across the country, and in other parts of the world as well, especially with the Internet. I'll get back to the endorsements this bill has from so many organizations.

Again, it was supported by every member of Parliament. It's been endorsed by a whole host of organizations. However, I think one thing is understated. It used to be, prior to the advent of the Internet, that when we had issues come forward, particularly of a criminal nature, it was pretty easy to delineate what had happened, where it had happened and how. You were in a jurisdiction, a crime had been committed in that jurisdiction, and then the prosecution could take place, etc. With the advent of the Internet, and cyberspace more generally, the virtual nature of it has really changed the understanding of borders in terms of the impact.

The key with Bill C-270 is making sure that we're drawing that line that is so important to say Canada is not the place for this. It is also very important in the context of saying Canada cannot be a place where this is allowed to happen. If we can get this bill across the finish line, that could very well have a global impact.

I won't get into it here, but I could speak at length about the frustrations I have with the Trudeau government's foreign policy and the deterioration in how Canada is viewed abroad and a whole host of things around that. I don't want to get into that because I want to stay very focused on Bill C-270, but one of the things I think the world needs to know is that Canada's willing to take a strong stand to say that there are things that are not acceptable and that in Canada, we draw the line. We have the opportunity to ensure that when it comes to sexual exploitation, the materials associated with that and the wide impact they have, this bill will be the signal to the world that says that Canada is not a haven for these sorts of corporate bad actors.

It will be that signal to the world that it is not allowed; that there are consequences to this that we can stand, in terms of our global partners, through various law enforcement agencies, intelligence, etc., to be able to say that Canada is a place where justice and the rule of law is strong and that there are consequences to exploiting those who are most vulnerable within our society.

That signal would not be important just in the context of where we are on this issue; there are also a host of peripheral issues around law and order. I want to stay focused on Bill C-270, but the issues surrounding Internet sexual exploitation and some of the crime, and the nature of how that happens in different parts of the underground economy, for example.... We have seen a massive growth in some of these things over the last number of years. As a result, there are many who are questioning Canada's ability to stand up for the rule of law.

Whenever we talk about these things, we have to keep the victims at the forefront of our minds. In this case, it's those who are the subject of this exploitive material. That's pretty straightforward. However, when it comes to criminal justice matters across the board, there is, I would suggest, a very clear need to be able to say that Canada is not a place where crime can flourish. We are a country that expects the rule of law to be upheld. As a result, with the rule of law being upheld, we can ensure that the victims of crime are in fact protected. This is because the best way to ensure that victims are protected is to ensure that there are fewer victims.

That's one of my biggest frustrations about many of the discussions around criminal justice and some of the reforms that have been brought about. Especially over the last nine or so years, we have seen a deterioration of the things that have traditionally been.... You used to be able to just take for granted that somebody convicted of a crime would stay in prison, that there would be justice for individuals who perpetrated an injustice. I think there are tangible aspects to the deterioration of that trust. You can hear it from anybody who's been the victim of a crime. You can hear it in their voice. There's a very clear understanding of that.

We have before us an example of how we're able to take steps in the right direction to ensure that we protect Canadians. We can—and, I would suggest, need—to send the signal to the world that Canada is not a safe haven for lawlessness and that we're not a safe haven for bad corporate actors when it comes to things like explicit material that has been obtained through non-consensual means. We need to send a signal that there's a clear mechanism to protect some of the most vulnerable.

The best solution, especially when it comes to law and order reforms—these justice reforms that are so important—is to reduce the number of victims. It's a somewhat intangible thing, because that solution means that there will be fewer people affected. However, that's the point. When there are fewer victims, it demonstrates that you are actually able to address some of these challenges.

There is a responsibility for all of us around this table and for every MP supporting this bill in getting to this stage. I wish we could have been able to question witnesses today. However, instead, we're debating an extension that could regrettably kill this bill if it were to pass. There are all of these things surrounding this.

At the very root of all of this, it has to be.... We can stand up for the past victims and we can help reduce the number of victims going forward. As a result, I think it's incumbent upon all of us to ensure that this does, in fact, happen. Certainly I and my colleagues—including the sponsor of this bill, who's done a ton of work to make it happen—have this responsibility. My hope is that the members of the government who are trying to delay the passing of this bill, instead of putting—

[Damien Kurek, Conservative, Battle River—Crowfoot, AB]

Thank you.

I appreciate my colleague's intervention.

Certainly, the key thing we have before us.... We have tons of people who have supported this.

I'll emphasize that I appreciate my new colleague from Portage—Lisgar. It's a great part of southern Manitoba. He comes from a farming family. We share some of those down-to-earth values and the need for common sense in the discourse we have before us.

The amendment we have here would extend the study of something that people support. I have read through a number of organizations that are great examples of this and that have shared their unequivocal support for the work that is being done to ensure that Bill C-270 gets across the finish line. I just referenced that there are a number of organizations that provide unique perspectives and expertise, including some that are non-partisan and, certainly, some that I don't think would call themselves traditional Conservative supporters.

It speaks to the non-partisan nature with which we can approach this and actually get it back to the House of Commons, get to those final hours of debate and get it voted on. Hopefully, we can get it to our friends in the other place, known as the Senate. Although it often seems much further away than just down the street, nonetheless, it is down the street. Hopefully, our friends there can likewise see the support the House has thus far given Bill C-270.

CEASE UK describes itself as:

CEASE UK is a human rights charity, working to end sexual exploitation by exposing and dismantling its cultural and commercial drivers. As a result, our sights are set on the pornography industry, which has evaded regulation and accountability for decades. We thoroughly welcome Bill C-270, which will prevent pornography sites from profiting from videos of non-consensual pornography and child abuse.

It goes on:

Legislation that demands age and consent checks from anyone featured in pornographic content is necessary as a minimum standard for ensuring individuals’ safety and wellbeing, and we urge the Canadian parliament to support this bill.

I think—

[Damien Kurek, Conservative, Battle River—Crowfoot, AB]

Thank you very much.

The issues that this committee is studying are important. In particular, I've taken the opportunity since Bill C-270 was introduced in the House of Commons...and with some of the context surrounding it, especially making sure that the Canadians who are facing these incredibly vulnerable situations are protected. There is nothing more devastating to someone and their ability to live a full life than when explicit material, often without consent—or even if it was obtained through consent but is used in a manner that is entirely inappropriate. That destroys people's lives. I know there are, of course, some headline-grabbing incidents that we can all point to, and I know that it's not uncommon that those headlines garner needed attention to this important issue.

Before getting into that, I would note that we are entering a space where, because of the advancements in technology.... I've worked with a number of my colleagues who are very in touch with this. Bill C-270, of course, is dealing with the specifics around material that has been created and distributed without consent, but the whole idea of deepfakes is something that is a growing concern.

With all of us around this table being elected officials, I would imagine we've attended election forums where we've had the chance to discuss at length important issues that our constituents bring forward. I think back to the last couple of elections that I've had the opportunity to run in, but I further think back to the many hours I spent volunteering as a politico in rural Alberta and the various other places where I've had the opportunity to be involved across Canada. With cellphones and cameras everywhere, one assumes that everything now is being recorded. That's just the assumption, or at least that's the attitude I've expected. What is interesting is that in the world in which we live today, it is not simply a camera recording something that speaks to something that happened. With artificial intelligence and some of the technology, and of course animation, including very, very good animation.... I know that occasionally you'll see reports of something that could be video games, and I know there are probably members...because I know that Canada has a booming video game industry, which allows for an augmented reality-type circumstance.

We're entering a space where this confronts us as elected officials on a daily basis when it comes to the politics of the nation. Something could be attributed to you that you did not say but nonetheless is attributed to you. Somebody who may have a political agenda against you could have a video made that could look very realistic. In fact, it's something that I know my team, when these things happen...whether it's me or any other political figure who has something that is known as a deepfake, you report it to Facebook or Twitter or Instagram, whatever the case is.

I think that where there's the intersection with what we're talking about here is that this type of technology really has an impact when a photo can be taken of an explicit nature, which may or may not have been obtained without consent, but certainly, as we've heard, it was not taken for the purposes of distribution. With technological application, there is incredible damage that can be done to somebody's reputation with things that may or may not have actually happened, especially when it comes to individuals who could be in a vulnerable situation, where there are incredible emotions involved and there's quite often shame. We've heard about some of those tragic things.

My encouragement, through you, Madam Chair, to the committee.... This is a space that is evolving very quickly. As we look into some of the specifics surrounding Bill C-270, we have to be aware that the environment about which we are having these discussions is changing dramatically, and there are further risks.

There are tools, I have no doubt, within the justice system. I'm thinking of my colleague Ms. Rempel Garner, who has done a lot of work on this, acknowledging that this cross-section, so to speak, of this tech and people who are in a vulnerable situation can be absolutely destructive to someone's life. It's the importance of having frameworks. What is at this point, I think, in the conversation very much.... This isn't simply because I'm a Conservative and there's a Liberal government, but I think that one thing that quite often is the case is that government, especially in areas regarding criminal matters, is often playing a game of catch-up. We've seen this throughout history, so it's not new, but the pace of the understanding of things like criminal prosecution in relation to how technology is advancing at a breakneck speed...and then you add AI on top of that. What's interesting is the conversation around AI. Of course, you can use ChatGPT. You'll hear news stories about that use and how universities deal with it. There are all of these things that happen, but I think that it's not well understood that the advancement of some of these technologies is not just the advancement of the technology itself but the pace that these technologies allow for advancement. I think that's something that needs to be very much kept in mind.

The circumstance of vulnerable individuals facing content, quite often explicit, that's being shared is the devastating consequence of that and the speed at which it can be distributed. It can be devastating.

We hear the instances that make headlines. I know that many of those involved in this conversation could point to those headline-type instances where somebody's content was shared without consent. They made headlines. Sometimes the content was stolen. I know that, regarding actors and movie stars, you will see a headline that something was stolen from their phone because of a hacker or whatever the case may be. That's one thing, but for every headline, there are untold numbers of individuals who don't have a massive public following, don't have the ability to call a reporter at The New York Times and don't have a legal team to try to deal with these instances. I would encourage the committee, especially surrounding the devastating consequences that can result from this, to be looking out for the proverbial little guy. The team of lawyers, the ability to bring legal action and injunctions against a social media company or an individual is one thing, but when it is somebody who.... Maybe it was because of a domestic challenge, an abusive relationship or something that could have been released because of a simple password hack. There's a whole spectrum to what that could have looked like. It's not just the big instances here.

I know that when it comes to some of the circumstances that are faced here, they touch at some incredibly vulnerable moments for these individuals, and there's the embarrassment that often comes along with that. I know there are instances where people are afraid to bring it up. They just want it to go away. They're hoping it goes away, or they don't want to make a bigger fuss about it.

Over the course of caring about this and making sure that these vulnerable Canadians in particular are protected, you hear some heart-wrenching instances. There is the process by which they are trying to deal with this embarrassing situation, which affects their livelihood because of a job, or it damages relationships. A whole myriad of consequences could come out of it as a result. We are now in a situation where the processes that exist are not designed to help the victims. In some cases, they add further challenges to the vulnerability that these individuals, who are already in vulnerable circumstances, are facing.

As a result, it speaks to the need to ensure that we stop Internet sexual exploitation. There are numerous cases where we have seen specific examples of what this could look like, but we need to do more than just nail down a specific example. It's about making sure there are consequences for these actions.

I would like to share a couple of quotes that I think are incredibly relevant to the conversation. Then I'll get into some of the environment that led us to this point where it seems that some of these bad actors are able to continue working with impunity.

A survivor of a 2014 cloud hack, an actress involved in media, said about this particular bill, “I support [the act]. Canada's Parliament needs to urgently implement [the act] which would save many lives. Everyone deserves basic human rights, dignity and a life without online exploitation.” This individual has the real lived and life experience of facing her content being distributed without her consent. The consequences of that are life-altering. Those of us in public life, we're used to being in the public eye, but for an individual, whether it's an actress or a college student who just got out of a relationship, whatever the case is, there has to be that understanding of the devastating impact that Internet sexual exploitation can have on someone's life.

I have to acknowledge that there are many instances where there are individuals who feel utterly hopeless. As a result, tragically, they have either tried to take or, in some cases, have taken their own lives. Again, it's the devastating consequences of that and the loss of an innocent life because their password was compromised. Maybe they shared an image with somebody, and that was then shared because somebody thought it was funny. It speaks to how there has to be accountability and the whole idea of ensuring that consent is ascertained. Let me talk a little bit about why that is so important.

My work on the ethics committee talks a lot about that consent, about releasing information and about what that looks like. Especially with regard to this online world, I would suggest that there's been a radical shift in the attitudes and how this has been understood over time. However, what I think is clear.... Certainly, when it comes to material that people may or may not like that exists, it is important that the concept of consent is very, very clearly articulated. The reason for that is that, when it comes to consent, somebody can consent, whether it's explicit material or otherwise, and to have that consent ascertained and have a process by which it is lawfully done then empowers that individual.

I know, from my time at the ethics committee when dealing with social media in particular, about the idea of the right to be forgotten. It's a fascinating discussion. It relates directly to these conversations, where we have this intersection. The old adage is that—and I would suggest that it is accurate—once it's on the Net, it never goes away. You can't get rid of it, and some individuals within politics know that very well. However, I would suggest that the idea of the right to be forgotten, what happens with your information, what that looks like in terms of your ability to press “Delete”, and what that means....

Members around this table might be interested to learn that the Library of Congress in the United States sponsors what is called the Wayback Machine. If you ever have a chance, just google the Wayback Machine and go to a website. For example, you could pick a Canadian news website—say, CTV News. What is interesting is that you put that news URL into the Wayback Machine, and you can go back through the number of times that particular website has been archived. You can look back throughout the entire history of that URL's having existed and the content that was on that particular website as it was archived.

Now, in some cases—and I'm sure I don't know the number of times that ctvnews.ca would be visited—it triggers that sort of thing for these types of larger websites. Of course, there are a lot of political happenings in the United States this week, so it might be an interesting thing for anybody who would look back. You could go back to the 2000 election, the 2004 election, the 2008 election. These URLs that are common, you know.... I mentioned CTV News. You could do CNN. You could do Fox News. You could do MSNBC or whatever the case is. You could look back and see that on that day, that's what that website looked like. It's fascinating, because unlike with a book, where you have.... In particular, the Library of Congress has this protocol so that when a book is published, you send the book to the Library of Congress, although I don't think it keeps every single book that is sent to it. However, unlike a book, there's this preservation of data. The flip side of that—and the reason it is so relevant to the discussion we're having here today—is that when something is put on the Internet, it is very, very difficult to get rid of.

When it comes to archiving world events, I think nobody would suggest that there isn't a place to ensure that it can be accurately maintained, to ensure that when a public figure speaks.... All of us in this place, when we speak in the House of Commons, we deal with this very, very specifically in terms of what we all affectionately refer to as Hansard. For those of us who reference a name or a date or something.... I know that there's a whole host of conversations taking place in the House related to SDTC and the Liberals' green slush fund. That is permanently preserved. The neat thing about Hansard, and part of its value for democracy, is that when something is said in the House of Commons, it is there forever. It can be referred to for time immemorial, and there's value to that.

At the same time, we have to ensure that when a bad actor takes information, takes explicit material obtained or distributed without consent, there are clear parameters and an understanding to ensure that we have what I would suggest needs to be attention. You have this permanence that exists on the Internet. It has to be matched with an understanding that there are consequences when somebody is not willing to respect...or is trying to harm, in many cases. I know that it was absolutely shocking when it came to some of the conversations around Bill C-270 and the SISE Act. There's a whole industry on revenge porn. I look at that and wonder how sick it is that this is in fact the case. To ensure that there is a very clear mechanism.... I know the act speaks very specifically both about the production of pornographic material and what that means for explicit...for just defining what that is without one's consent, and then, of course, the distribution of that material. It's important to have those clear parameters. In particular, quite often although not exclusively, it is women, specifically vulnerable women, who face the biggest consequences in relation to these sorts of things. It's not just me saying that. The statistics show that women are disproportionately affected by this.

We need to ensure that there are consequences for the individuals who would attempt to abuse and take advantage of...for whatever reason, whether it's money, power, leverage, whatever the case is, to ensure that there is a clear consequence and an understanding of what the consequences are when it comes to the unauthorized, non-consensual distribution of material that could have devastating consequences.

We are debating the specifics of a motion that would extend debate on this. I mentioned one, and I will read, in a moment, some more quotes that speak to why it's important that this gets reported back, that this gets done.

Conservatives have been very clear that we want a carbon tax election, but to be able to pass Bill C-270.... The fact that it was voted for unanimously in the House of Commons is, I think, a good example of how, in the midst of what is a very political environment, there are those moments when you can say, “Okay, we're doing what's best here.”

If we extend this, however, by 30 days, with it not being reported back on what the original deadline is, it reduces the ability for...and certainly reduces the likelihood that this would become law. The consequences of that relate back to what I've been talking about in terms of making sure that vulnerable Canadians who may be put in these circumstances are ultimately protected. That includes ensuring that those who are disproportionately affected, like women who are in vulnerable situations...that there are clear consequences for this sort of thing. We have to keep that in mind as we discuss these issues.

I would, Madam Chair, like to share as well a quote from the National Council of Women of Canada:

The National Council of Women of Canada...welcomes the proposed Bill “Stopping Internet Sexual Exploitation Act” that calls for amendments to the Criminal Code to protect those whose rights are brutally ignored. Content, acquired and shared without consent, is unacceptable in a just society.

Madam Chair, I think this touches on a few things that I'd like to expand on just very briefly, if I could. The Criminal Code is meant to ensure what's often referred to in philosophy as a social contract. You give up something in order to ensure that something is protected, and that is the case here. As Canadians, we understand that the Criminal Code is that guiding principle that Parliament, in particular, has brought forward and the history of that.

In fact, it was John Sparrow Thompson—who was, I believe, Canada's fourth Prime Minister—when he was justice minister under Sir John A. Macdonald.... He was a Catholic from the Maritimes, and at the time, that was actually a big deal. At that point in time, there was some controversy surrounding that. I know that seems hard to imagine, but certainly back in the late 1800s, there was some controversy around that. In his work as justice minister in the Macdonald government, he brought forward what we now know as the Criminal Code of Canada. Although it's been updated and the language obviously has changed over the last century and a half, there is this understanding that for someone's God-given rights to be protected, there has to be this backstop. There is a threshold that is crossed by criminality. There are obvious answers here. We all believe that murder and things like homicide are wrong.

However, the modern Criminal Code.... I forget. I don't have a copy of the handbook Criminal Code with me here today. I know it's hard to believe. Maybe my colleague from the NDP does. It has hundreds of pages and the outline for what that means for civil society to be able to function in a way that ensures that rights are protected.

As the National Council of Women of Canada has outlined, it's these individuals whose rights have been brutally ignored. I think that speaks to why Bill C-270 and getting it passed quickly is so important. In the case we're talking about, you have Internet sexual exploitation, the non-consensual creation, taking or sharing of explicit content. You have an example where there is an actor—not in the film sense of the word, but someone taking an action that has devastating consequences for another individual. The fact is, we have the opportunity, as Parliament, to be able to very clearly broadcast that clear consequences will exist and that there is a framework if somebody undertakes these actions. Then there is the protection that this would ensure for those who are facing the consequences of these illegal actions. There's that clarity.

Further, the accountability.... I just want to mention very briefly again, Madam Chair, the need to ensure that there are consequences for the corporate actors involved as well. I know that we're talking a lot about those who take and distribute the content, but it's to ensure that there is a clear consequence for the corporate actors involved.

Canada has played host to some of the worst corporate actors, I would suggest, in modern history when it comes to Internet sexual exploitation. I don't want to give them credibility, so I won't mention some of those companies, but it is astounding to see some of the ways that these companies have put Canadians, and also people around the world, at risk because of the ways in which these companies conduct themselves.

I know my colleague from Kamloops was successful in seeing a bill brought forward that changes the name from “child pornography” to “child sexual abuse and exploitation material”. I think that's a simple signal to say, “Look, when it comes to this egregious stuff that exists, it is not something that can happen within civil society.” I believe, just a number of months ago, that bill actually received royal assent. That's a good step and an acknowledgement that Canada is drawing a line here to say what is right and what is wrong.

When it comes to explicit material being created and shared without consent, we have before us the opportunity to, again, share that defining line to say, “Look, as a country, we are saying this is wrong” and send a signal to corporate actors as well, which, in some cases, make billions of dollars off sexual abuse material. It is astounding.

I don't have it in front of me, but I believe it was The New York Times that did an overview of how this Canadian company was responsible through not doing its job. It was a company that provided explicit material online. That was the objective of the company, but it was not doing its job to ensure that the consent of those who were featured on its website had been obtained. Reading through this investigative report, it is absolutely horrifying to see the measures that were undertaken to, in some cases, bully or threaten, whether through financial means or whether through trying to use addiction. Even when, on occasion, consent was obtained, it certainly wasn't done in a way that would stand up in a court of law.

Again, we have before us the opportunity, through Bill C-270, to draw a line here to say that we have an expectation that there will be criminal consequences for individuals and, in the larger sense, corporate actors who are guilty of doing these absolutely egregious things.

Further, the National Center on Sexual Exploitation had this to say, which speaks very well, I think, to what I've just attempted to outline:

The pornography industry systemically fails to verify age or consent — leading to horrific trauma for survivors of sex trafficking, child sexual abuse, and non-consensually shared/recorded intimate images as their sexual exploitation is viewed around the world. It is time for a paradigm shift, and for survivors to be heard. This bill is an important step in that direction.

As I've outlined, corporate actors here are not exempt from this. There has to be that understanding.

That's where we come back to the idea of consent and what that looks like. You download an app on your phone or a program on your computer, and before you're able to use it, there's a long legal explanation. I think most of us have gotten pretty used to that long thing. What do most of us do? We scroll to the bottom and press “Okay”. Sometimes there's a checkbox.

Now, I am not a trained lawyer. There are trained lawyers at the table here. I share with classes that there are only three job requirements to be a politician: You have to be 18; you have to be a Canadian; and you have to get more votes. That leads to a hodgepodge of individuals, some of whom are lawyers. I'm sitting at the table with lawyers. While I've spent a lot of time looking at the law, I am a lawmaker, not a lawyer.

To ensure that we have this understanding that the law is meant to.... There have to be protections that exist. When it comes to the idea of consent and what that looks like, it looks different in different contexts. Obviously, when it comes to the examples we have that led to where we are with Bill C-270, we need to make sure as a society that we have the understanding that it's about more than just scrolling to the bottom and pressing “Okay”. It's about more than just having a contract given to somebody and expecting their John Henry at the bottom. There has to be a full understanding of what that looks like.

Again, to share some of the overall perspective of what was heard from some of the reporting.... I believe it was in the 42nd Parliament when there was a motion whereby Parliament condemned—I don't have the motion in front of me—violent pornographic material and the consequences it had on Canada, specifically for women and girls and vulnerable communities. A devastating side of this is that we've seen how some of these corporate actors have simply failed to do their basic due diligence.

This is where the law in the Criminal Code.... I mentioned earlier John Sparrow David Thompson, who wrote the Criminal Code 140-some years ago. There's a lot that's changed in that period of time. The telephone didn't exist and newspapers were still made by putting lead presses together. Obviously, things change, and we're in an environment today where a video can be made and, in a matter of seconds, somebody's life can be destroyed. I think that's why we need to ensure that the Criminal Code reflects those realities to ensure that there are consequences.

When libel law was first brought into being, the understanding was that you couldn't just make unfounded remarks about somebody. There was that base understanding. Now we have, I think, close to a century's worth of case law in Canada that speaks to that.

Here, though, we have the rapid evolution whereby somebody, because they either made a mistake or got themselves into a situation.... In many cases, they regret it. In some cases, they may have even shared it with implied consent, but certainly not to the extent where it would have been meant.... We have example after example after example. There are many that we'll never hear about, because—and this probably includes our constituents—there are those individuals who have faced these sorts of circumstances, but they simply want them to be in the past and have them stay in the past. They don't want to talk about them. They don't want to come to testify before a parliamentary committee. They don't want to have their name exposed, because of the pain, the injustice and, in many cases, the shame associated with them.

To speak further about some of these bad actors, I would quote here from the London Abused Women's Centre, which said:

Companies like PornHub and MindGeek are normalizing violence against women and girls. The actions of these companies do not protect women and girls from sexual exploitation but the SISE Act can. We know that children, non-consenting adults and trafficked women have been raped and tortured for the world to see on these websites, it is time for them to be held accountable for their actions. Parliament must protect those who are most vulnerable, the SISE Act provides important tools to help accomplish this.

I would add, as that emphasizes some of the discussions I've shared around the corporate bad actors on this side of things, to ensure that there are those consequences, especially in the case of these corporate actors—and I read them in the context of a quote—who may bank off the abuse of, in particular, women. It is absolutely, I would suggest, criminal. The fact that they've been able to get away with it is certainly something that demands action.

I know there's been a lot of conversation around online harms and whatnot. I know the government brought forward a bill, but that's not what's being debated here. I've certainly shared some of my opinions on that. It's the need to take action to ensure that there are consequences and that those who are most vulnerable in our society are, in fact, protected. That speaks to how we're at a place, I would suggest, that is a little bit unique in our country. We have seen a lot of the things that....

Perhaps I will digress just for a moment, because I think this has very clear relevance. I spent some time working in Ottawa. I did an internship. I spent some time when Prime Minister Stephen Harper was in power. While those were the good old days, we can maybe get some common sense back to our country. Nonetheless, it was a real honour to be able to spend some time. At that point in time, my predecessor, the Honourable Kevin Sorenson, whom I have a ton of respect for, was Minister of State for Finance and was able to help work on the last balanced budget that we had in this country—despite promises in the three subsequent elections that this would be the case. Certainly, that has not been followed through.

My wife Danielle, in particular, worked as a volunteer for Joy Smith. Joy Smith is a great story. For those who, I'm sure, are watching, look up the story of Joy Smith, because she is a stellar example of somebody who was not willing to sit back and let injustices happen. When she was first elected and was starting to raise awareness around the idea of human trafficking, a lot of people at that point in time said that doesn't happen in Canada, that just doesn't happen here. That was the response. She shares these stories about how she simply wasn't taken seriously, yet she got involved in politics because of.... I'd encourage people to read her story. I know there are some videos, documentary-type things, that speak about her history and her history on that issue.

She now runs a foundation, the Joy Smith Foundation, that is continuing the work she started when she was in Parliament. My wife had the opportunity to volunteer for Mrs. Smith, and helped detail and track, in some cases, some of the incredible injustices done to Canadians. That was in 2015. When Mrs. Smith started the journey of.... She had two private member's bills passed, actually, which is impressive to all of us around the table who are in Parliament. To see two private member's bills passed in a career is an impressive accomplishment. They were two private member's bills that were helping to ensure that there was action taken against human trafficking. That directly relates to this, because so often those who face these vulnerable situations are victims or, in some cases, periphery victims, which may be the trigger that gets them into a situation where they could be a victim of something as horrific as human trafficking.

Over the course of the Harper government, there was an acknowledgement that, in a country like Canada—the amazing country that it is, with the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the Bill of Rights that preceded it, and the understanding that we care about the most vulnerable and all these things—you had these egregious actions taking place, in many cases in the very communities and neighbourhoods of what people would say was the Canadian dream. It would be anything but, for those individuals who are facing human trafficking and some of the consequences of this.

Being an Alberta MP, I know that some of us spend a lot of time in airports flying across the country on a weekly basis. You see now that there's human trafficking awareness that's been done. Posters in bathrooms, for example, say that, if you're a victim, you can reach out so that you can get help. It may seem strange that it's become somewhat normalized so that we're able to talk about that today. Well, that started because there was an effort to ensure that something that had previously been happening in the shadows was brought to light and could be combatted.

It's not to say that there wasn't good work. I know law enforcement.... Again, if you look at Mrs. Smith's work, she talks about how her son, I believe, was involved in police operations to help ensure that victims of human trafficking were caught and that the perpetrators were prosecuted and whatnot, before it had garnered national attention. For her, it was something that she had seen and had experienced by walking alongside some of those victims, yet it wasn't something that was on the national radar. Over the course of the Harper government, and I would suggest the awareness that resulted from that, she saw two private member's bills passed, a significant step in the right direction.

There are some stats that I might get into later about how, despite the work that has been done, there are some trends that are certainly not encouraging in terms of human trafficking and what those numbers show in terms of Canada today.

I would, however, like to link this back to Bill C-270, because it speaks to that issue and a very specific part of it. You know, I signed up for Twitter. I think I looked at it the other week. It was, I think, 2009 when Facebook became a thing, or maybe it was the year before that, 2008. These were new technologies, access to the World Wide Web. The web has existed since, I think, 1993 or 1992, something like that. Over the course of 30 or so years, we've seen a rapid evolution of technology. What would have been a case of distributing explicit material that was obtained without consent or taken without consent would have looked very, very different 30 years ago. Yet we are in a circumstance today where it can take on a life of its own because of things like the Internet, algorithms and the ability for things like a video to be shared or a link to be texted and that type of thing.

The organization Defend Dignity, when talking about the stopping Internet sexual exploitation act, has this to say:

Individuals who have been victimized are faced with the overwhelming task of trying to remove illegal content that should never have been distributed and profited from in the first place. It's time for pornography websites to be held accountable. Content should not be hosted without proof that all individuals depicted are adults and have consented to both the creation and distribution of the material on that platform.

They give full support to the stopping Internet sexual exploitation act. Again, that's from the organization Defend Dignity. I think, again, that it speaks to that intersection where you need to be able to hold the individuals and corporate actors responsible.

I was also proud to support Bill S-210, which speaks to some meaningful age verification. I know the Liberals have tried to share some misinformation about that, which I'm a little bit confused about because some of their members initially had voted in favour of that. I know that work was done to try to ensure that, while respecting Canadians' rights, you would stop what has been very clearly shown through studies and through the work that has been done.... When children are exposed to explicit content, it can have a detrimental effect on their mental health. I'm a little bit confused as to why the Liberals have tried to politicize that particular issue, but I'd be happy to maybe hear from them at some point on that matter, because certainly I think that seems like common sense, similar to what we're discussing here today.

Again, there would be an expectation that there would be accountability, to ensure that those corporate actors are not.... It's a little bit like.... You know, it's illegal to sell cigarettes to a minor, because nicotine is addictive and it's not good for you. It has devastating health impacts. Personally—and I know there may be smokers in the room—I don't smoke, and I think that it's a bad habit, but if somebody chooses to do that, well, I guess it's their right to do so. I can respect that, but we have rules and an understanding in our society that you can't have a tobacco company target advertisements towards young people—they can't advertise in Canada any longer, period—because they're not able to make the judgment call that is required to be able to deal with the addictive properties of nicotine and the health impacts, etc.

When it comes to accessing something that could have devastating impacts on mental health and can very much change the perspective of what healthy relationships are and should be, it just makes sense that there would be that meaningful age verification. That's not to say that if somebody wants to access explicit material, as much as someone may disagree with that as a life choice.... It would ensure that their rights are protected, but young people.... I mentioned smoking and buying tobacco products, but it's the same thing with other things. It's the same thing with alcohol. It's the same thing with cannabis. You don't sell that stuff to minors, because minors aren't equipped to be able to make decisions related to that.

I think that it is one of those things where, just because it's online, it doesn't mean that.... In fact, I would suggest that it has a pretty clear correlation with what we're discussing here today, especially in the timeliness and being able to pass it and the overlapping relevance of the two issues. There is online gambling allowed in Canada now, but it is illegal for somebody who is underage to participate in online gambling. Yet it is not illegal for them to access explicit material that would otherwise be illegal for them to access, for example, if they were to go into a convenience store and wanted to purchase that sort of content there.

With that, I would suggest that these overlapping issues, while closely connected, speak to the heart of a suite of changes that can be made to ensure that there are consequences for actors who would perpetrate these actions, whether from the corporate side by not ensuring that there's consent for explicit material that is uploaded, or whether for the individuals themselves, to ensure that a clear line in the sand is drawn accordingly.

The Vancouver Collective Against Sexual Exploitation said this:

As a non-partisan collective of diverse individuals, survivors, and organizations working together to end all forms of sexual exploitation, VCASE strongly supports [Bill C-270].... Canadians, especially the young and vulnerable, urgently need this protection. We urge all members of Parliament to support this bill.

Madam Chair, the good news is that, in the second reading vote.... For those watching, I'll just explain a little bit, because it's always a little bit confusing, I think, when people hear things like “first reading”, “second reading”, etc. First reading is when a bill is introduced. Second reading, when it comes to a private member's bill, is when it has the opportunity to be debated within a private members framework, which is guaranteed and awarded via lottery in terms of the order in which something can be introduced.

I've introduced a bill myself, Bill C-407. I'm not close on the order, and it's likely that, in a Parliament like this, we're not going to get to my bill being debated. It's about the national symbol for a livestock brand in Canada, which is very unrelated to this, so I won't talk about that bill here today, for fear that I'll be point-of-ordered, but I look forward to it. I'd be happy to send you information off-line. It's a great way to share our western heritage and frontier heritage in our country.

Second reading is generally the first opportunity that MPs have to vote on an issue, and while it's called “second reading”, it is the first step of the debate process. As soon as second reading ends, that triggers a vote. It's different for private members' business versus government business, but it follows a similar pattern.

The neat thing...and it relates to what VCASE has asked for here. They've specifically said that they're non-partisan and they want a non-partisan approach to support Bill C-270. I have some good news on that front. There was, I believe, unanimous support for Bill C-270 at that second reading stage, which was the first opportunity for a vote to take place in the House of Commons.

Then, if any bill passes the second reading vote, it is referred to a committee. Because this is a bill related to criminal matters, of course, the rightful place for it to come to was the justice committee, and I'm so thankful for the opportunity to be able to join you here today to discuss it.

When it comes to private members' business—and this is quite different—legislation takes precedence in committee time. Committees decide themselves what they want to study, but when it comes to House references, it takes on a little bit of a different flavour because the House references that a bill...or it could be a motion. In fact, at the heritage committee, through kind of a bizarre set of circumstances, the Liberals actually sent back a study to committee that condemned the paying of $18 million in bonuses to CBC executives, but I digress on that because, again, that's not related to the subject here. However, it was a bizarre set of circumstances so, of course, we were glad to have the opportunity to deal with that at the heritage committee.

There was a change made when it comes to the specifics around how a committee can deal with private members' business. This is important because, with a government bill and the reference of a bill to committee when it's a government bill, you have the weight of the government behind it to ensure that the bill is studied and passed, and it can be incredibly complex. You have something like an omnibus budget bill. Despite the Liberals saying that they never put omnibus bills forward, they still seem to end up before various committees, but it can take a long time. You have a lot of different aspects. You have witnesses and you have discussion, and when there's controversy, it can take a very long time. We saw this, for example, when it came to Bill C-21. The Conservatives brought forward a whole host of issues, and there was an outcry from across the country, whether it was from indigenous groups or others, when it came to how the Liberals were approaching the issue of firearms.

What I think is important to note here is that with private members' business, there was a tendency previously...and this was not unique to the Canadian Parliament. Our Westminster system of governance has.... There are quite a few Westminster-style Parliaments that, of course, we reference. In fact, the opening line of the Constitution Act of 1867, known previously as the British North America Act, is that we will have a Parliament similar in structure to that of the United Kingdom. Don't quote me on the exact words, but that's very close to what it says.

In the United Kingdom, there is a House of Commons, and in their case, they have a House of Lords, who are peers, which includes the dukes and duchesses, etc., while also bishops and peers are appointed for various reasons, whether that be through family peerage or appointments because of people who have done notable things. I've had the opportunity to visit, and it's very interesting. I think there are about 900 lords, but generally they only have about 100 who are there, and they're only paid when they show up, interestingly. Maybe that's something we could take into account when it comes to how we pay our senators.

It's similar in terms of the structure to the Westminster style, where you have a bicameral legislature. What has been noted, not just in Canada, but at different points in time, is that when there is a bill that passes, despite opposition, generally from the government—although I don't think it has to be limited to that, as there could be a specific actor or person who has influence—it could go in and just die at committee. That was a tendency for private members' bills. If the government didn't like it, it could just die at committee. They just wouldn't study it.

It's interesting, though, because changes were made to the Standing Orders. For those watching, the Standing Orders are basically the rules by which, whether it's a committee or the House itself, the House of Commons governs itself. It's called a standing order. It's a fairly thick book of all the different standing orders. It's stuff that makes a lot of sense that nobody disagrees with. Then there's stuff that can be more controversial. Interestingly, generally standing orders were agreed to by consent of all parties. The Liberals, however, broke that trend and actually imposed votes with changes to the Standing Orders that were not universally agreed to by members of Parliament.

When it comes to private members' business, there was this history of bills that they didn't like going to committee to die. That was noted by all parties, because a member of Parliament being the highest elected office in the land...which is an interesting thing. I think a lot of people forget. I couldn't believe it, what must have been.... I noted that CBC spent a lot of time covering the American election as of late. I thought it was interesting that Canadian tax dollars were going to cover the American election. Nonetheless, you have the members of Parliament, who are given a level of autonomy, as should be the case. It's very specific being an MP. It's this unique office that is held. You occupy a seat in the House of Commons, the same as, interestingly, the Prime Minister. In fact, when I speak to classes, I ask them how many votes the Prime Minister gets to cast on election day. How many votes does the Leader of the Opposition get to cast? It's always interesting, because it's a confusing question. It's almost too easy. They get to cast one. Likewise, I ask how many seats the Prime Minister or the Leader of the Opposition gets in Parliament. Likewise, it's almost confusing in its simplicity. It's like, well, you get one. I would suggest that this is the strength of the Westminster democratic system and that is why I'm so vocal in its support.

There's the ability for MPs to bring forward a private member's bill, like we have before us with Bill C-270. We have the ability for an MP to do so. However, because somebody didn't like what they had to say, even though it passed, it would go to committee to die. What is an interesting anecdote is that this was seen to be, and not just by those who faced those circumstances, a scenario where it was removing the rights of members to be able to actually exercise their duties as a duly elected member in the unique circumstances when something might have been supported and then sent to committee and it wasn't able to move forward. There was what I would suggest was a creative—and, quite frankly, I support it—ability for there to be an automatic reporting mechanism for private members' bills.

This is why we have this here today. The government is trying to extend the study of this bill when we have clear, unanimous support. For various reasons, they are saying that we need to delay it. The committee can do that. That's a mechanism within the Standing Orders. It gives them the ability to delay the reporting back to the House. We could have been seized with this and we had the opportunity to deal with this before, but the key here is that we need to get it back to the House. As the chair very aptly noted at the beginning, that will happen here in just a week or so.

The reason why these mechanisms exist is an important evolution to our democratic system to ensure that in the case of members and this unique ability we have through what is a private member's bill, which any member can introduce..... As I mentioned before, I have introduced one, although it likely won't be debated, and that's by nature. There had to be a fair way to figure out who gets to go first, so to speak, and it was decided that this would be done by pulling names out of a hat. I don't actually know the history. It would be an interesting thing, I'm sure, to look into. It's kind of an archaic way, but at least you know it's fair and for people who get picked to go first, that's done in a way that is very straightforward, fair and without bias. To note, I believe government ministers and the Prime Minister do not get a private member's bill because of the nature of their positions and the influence they hold.

We are in a circumstance here today where we have a bill before us, Bill C-270, an act to amend the Criminal Code regarding pornographic material—the stopping Internet sexual exploitation act—which is supported by all members of Parliament. Again, that's a great show of non-partisan support. We have the ability to, on occasion, ensure.... I would just note that I think that quite often the headline-grabbing stuff that comes from this place is the controversy, and rightfully so. Trust me, I'm happy to talk about controversy. In fact, I look forward to being able to continue on the discussion of the green slush fund that's taking place in the House of Commons and the controversy associated with that. It's now more than a month that Parliament's been paralyzed by the government's refusal to release these documents, which they could do at any point in time, but I digress on that. I look forward to litigating that in the House.

Here you have an example of where MPs agree on something, and I wish, just on occasion, that a headline would show that MPs agree on, in this case, fighting Internet sexual exploitation. Wouldn't that be a great headline? It would showcase that MPs agree that some of the most vulnerable in our society need to be protected. When I referenced the quote from the Vancouver Collective Against Sexual Exploitation, they called on all MPs to support this bill. They're doing so from the perspective of being a non-partisan organization. We can't overstate how there are these moments where you have that cross-partisan collaboration. The unanimous support of something like this bill, I think, is a huge opportunity.

With some of the history that I outlined when it comes to the reporting requirements, we don't want this bill to die in committee. It would certainly be a shame for this bill to not go forward because of the proposed 30-day extension. Let's get back. We agree with it.

Getting unanimous support on anything is certainly very impressive. I think it speaks to how we can accomplish an objective here, which is protecting people who otherwise don't have the legal protections at this point in time, but have faced unbelievable circumstances that could be life-changing. In many cases—I've read some of the testimony and the stories—they've had truly life-devastating circumstances related to the non-consensual sharing of their materials.

I would, as well, like to speak about the Salvation Army. We all know the Salvation Army. I'm sure there would be very few of us across the country who would not have a Salvation Army in their constituency in one form or another. I know the work that they do in terms of helping the most vulnerable, whether it be through addictions recovery, whether it be through ensuring that the most vulnerable are supported, or whether it be through their church and spiritual care. I know I've spoken to so many, and in the work that the Salvation Army does they're driven by that true love that's talked about throughout the Bible, a desire to see our communities and people serve that whole idea of the greatest commandment: love God, love people. The Salvation Army certainly does that incredibly well.

I will quote what they have to say about Bill C-270:

The Salvation Army has worked closely over the years with people who have experienced or survived sexual exploitation. We know that their voices and wishes are rarely heard or respected. The Stopping Internet Sexual Exploitation Act is an important step toward establishing safeguards to protect adults and minors from having unwanted images of them posted and shared over the internet for commercial gain at their expense.

I want to talk about a side of the conversation here that I don't think is as well understood. We talk about some of the headline-grabbing issues and whatnot, but part of what Bill C-270 does.... This was highlighted, in particular, in the New York Times report that talked about some of the studios that, as a business model, produce explicit content. That, I would suggest, is probably not a comfortable subject for many people to talk about, the abuses that would often take place, so people would just say, well, that happens over there, so we'll just let them do that; that's those people making those choices.

But what was learned over the course of some of that study, and I know we've had that before various committees before this Parliament, is that we see how it's not as simple as that. These are not studios that have actors coming in good faith to create this sort of content. In many cases, it has a close connection to human trafficking. It has a close connection to sexual exploitation. In many cases, there's a corporate structure that ends up complicating the ability for accountability to take place. It's not just a cameraman and a producer and whatever is required to create that sort of content, but the legal complications associated with that have inhibited even some individuals within these sectors who may have initially consented to create certain material and end up being in a circumstance where they are not paid, not given the monetary promises that were initially made to them.

Certainly, when it comes to not honouring a contract.... But then because of the legal complexities associated with some of that and because of the legal ambiguity that exists with the sharing of that information.... If this was the case in any other sector, if it was a Hollywood-type television movie, there is a whole bunch of copyright case law associated with that content and how it gets protected. There are clear protections that exist. Yet when it comes to somebody who may have, in good faith, decided to enter into a contract, yet they're not being paid for the work that they did, that is wrong. I think it is another example where you have to create clear criminal consequences for an instance where you see abuse take place. In that case, the abuse may not have been in the initial stages, but it certainly would be the case later on when a contract was not being honoured.

At this point in time, it has become incredibly difficult for these individuals to be able to get compensation, even though the companies that are hosting their content are making, in some cases, billions of dollars, because it is an absolutely massive industry. In some cases, we hear how promises were made by these recruiters and these producers, whatever the case is, and they were not kept to begin with, but they were told, “Don't worry, you'll get paid,” and then they ended up not getting paid, and it then contributed to a downward cycle in these individuals' lives. Again, this disproportionately seems to affect women—how they were taken advantage of in the beginning and told that they would be compensated, but then they ended up not being compensated. Certainly, it comes to the need for, again, a line to be drawn, that Canada is not a place where we allow this sort of thing to happen.

In particular, I will reference this because of the context in which we find ourselves speaking in relation to the Salvation Army. I know the work they do in terms of shelters, addictions and recovery—there's a lot of good work that's done there—but so often we see, whether it's somebody...because of the revenge of an ex or whether it be a circumstance when it comes to a contract that was signed with a big company where they were promised they would get paid but ended up not getting paid, you have these two very different sides of a similar cycle of exploitation that exists.

You have individuals who end up being the victims of what can, in many cases, become a difficult circumstance to overcome. In many cases, we hear stories of how drugs and alcohol fuel much of the recruitment, and that's where, in some cases, if you call them actors, they are recruited, and then a cycle of addiction happens and on and on it goes. You have a circumstance where a cycle of abuse started, and then it has continued and can, in many cases, have absolutely devastating consequences.

To pull this back and make the connection with how this has a direct correlation with human trafficking.... Just for the benefit of those who are watching, I'm very proud of the work of many of my colleagues. I mentioned Joy Smith, although we didn't overlap; she chose not to run again in 2015. Many of my colleagues have done incredible work, and there is another example of where there's been cross-partisan co-operation in that regard, to help combat things like human trafficking.

Quite often, I think people need to acknowledge that human trafficking is not somebody being put in handcuffs and thrown in the back of a van. It can be somebody who walks by you in the airport who is dressed in nice clothes. It can be somebody who is not handcuffed by physical means but handcuffed by a video of them doing something compromising, by addiction, by mental health challenges or by a whole series of other things. I think that one of the keys here and why Bill C-270 is so important to this larger conversation is that it provides a very clear framework to say that in Canada, this is not okay.

There's more work that needs to be done to combat human trafficking. I know I mentioned earlier some of the startling statistics in terms of how that has been growing. We have the opportunity to see, in short order, without an extension of the debate, a bill that was supported by everybody, and to be able to say, “Okay, here is how we actually get some of this stuff done, take action and ensure there are consequences for the egregious acts of a few that are devastating so many.”

I would, Madam Chair, like to share another quote in support of this bill from an organization called Survivor Safety Matters. It goes as follows:

Survivor Safety Matters believes that every person should have the right to protect their privacy and have control over their personal information and images. We support the SISE Act and the requirement for informed consent to be obtained before pornographic images of an individual can be shared with anyone. It is no secret that women and girls are routinely degraded and exploited online through the unauthorized sharing of their private and personal images. This causes lasting harm to the individual that often cannot be undone.

Madam Chair, just to highlight the last sentence there, it said, “This causes lasting harm to the individual that often cannot be undone.” I think that we have here, again, headline-grabbing tragedies and headline-grabbing circumstances, and it could be a movie star who has images that are shared without their consent. Of course, that's wrong and needs to be condemned. You have the tragedies that exist, and I know there are a whole host of examples that make it out to more than just regional media, but then think of the number of people who suffer in quiet shame and suffer in silence.

My hope is that part of the discussion surrounding this bill would ensure—even if those individuals probably don't want to come and testify and share their story before a parliamentary committee because of some of the shame and embarrassment and fear of the damage that it could do to their professional reputation or their personal reputation, whatever the case is—that we acknowledge the harm and the violation of the individual that can't be undone. Disproportionately, this does affect women—the statistics show that very clearly—although it is certainly not limited to women and vulnerable people. It's the sort of thing where you may have differences in the types of response based on where you come from and how much money your family has or whatever the case is. There'd be a difference maybe in the type of response, but it's the sort of thing where this is not going to be a crime that simply happens to people without money or people with money. This is something that can affect anyone. Again, it disproportionately affects women, although it is not limited to them.

We can have the opportunity to provide clear definitions surrounding this to ensure that we have an ability to stand up for those who are most vulnerable and to ensure that there is the space within our justice system and the parameters that are needed within our Criminal Code to be able to say, “Okay, here is what is not allowed,” and ensure that both the individuals involved and also the bad corporate actors would be held to account.

I know my colleague with whom I served on the ethics committee, and despite having significant political differences, there were times when we would find agreement when it came to things like consent and the right to be forgotten and whatnot. I touched a little bit on that earlier, but I think that the idea of consent and the meaningful nature of that is something that is important.

I'll use an example. If a thief robs a convenience store with a gun and asks the person behind the counter to hand over the cash from the register, and that person hands over the cash, is that consent? I think anybody would say, “Well, absolutely not. There's nothing consensual about that.” You could say, “Well, the action of that individual handing over the cash must imply consent, or it must say that they did it willingly.” However, you have a very clear instance and an extreme example where people would say, “Well, it's just common sense.” The person guilty of the crime here is the individual who was pointing the gun or the knife at the clerk behind the counter. There's nothing consensual about that interaction. You wouldn't want to call it a relationship, but it's certainly an interaction between a thief and a worker who was being robbed.

I think that it's that context that I would encourage those who are watching to consider when it comes to explicit content that might have been taken. You do not have a consensual type of circumstance that always exists when it comes to the information, the content. You may have obtained it in a way that was questionable, but you'd be able to point back and say, “Oh, well, there was consent.” Well, that's...especially when it comes to vulnerable individuals or even somebody who may not be in a vulnerable life situation. It could have been a vulnerable instance in their life. We need to ensure that there is that very clear protection that exists, and just to ensure that the idea of consent is very clearly articulated, which is why this bill talks about how...and this, in particular, is so important when it comes to the corporate actor side of things. It needs to have that clarity.

The word that stands out.... I won't read the entire definition, but it does say that it is a “voluntary agreement”. It has to be voluntary. It's not something that can be forced. To use the example of the clerk and the thief, that's not a voluntary arrangement, nor are so many of the circumstances where consent might be suggested—when it comes to addiction or when it comes to some of the circumstances related to human trafficking, where some of this content seems to be created, etc.

To emphasize, the need for consent and that ability to consent to something hinge upon the understanding that there has to be a voluntary nature to that arrangement, and then if somebody is making a voluntary agreement, giving consent, well, that is something that is then able to.... You know, when it comes to explicit content, while one might not like that or might disagree with that on the personal side of things, if you are giving that voluntary consent, well, then that is something for which there is an ability for that content to be distributed, but without that.... The crux is that it has to be that voluntary consent, and we see too many examples, Madam Chair, where that is simply not the case.

We mentioned a little bit before just how, when it comes to survivors, there are a lot of individuals who suffer in silence. This can have a devastating impact on mental health, and that can fuel addiction and other challenges. I would just suggest that we have a clear understanding that this sort of thing, whether it's something that has been shared online.... You hear some stories where somebody made some content and either didn't initially realize what they were doing or they were forced into it, or it was in relation to addiction or whatever the case is, or it comes to more of the revenge side of things. You have these instances where that hangs over an individual for the rest of their life. It is something that has a deep impact on mental health. Throughout the rest of their life, there is the possibility that the person....

In fact, I read a very poignant survivor story where it talked about how they had just come from.... The last time I looked at this was in the last Parliament, when we were discussing some of these issues at the ethics committee, so you'll forgive me for not having the story exact. It was something along these lines: This young lady had just shared her story about being involved in human trafficking and getting out of it. She had never been paid for some of the content, and she had tried to have it removed. It was a terrible, heart-wrenching story that existed out of what she called a mistake she had made early in her life. Coming out of this testimony, she was in an elevator and somebody recognized her from the content she had been fighting so hard to see removed from some of these popular websites that were continuing to distribute the very material. It was that for her. It was a story she shared after the fact.

I read this. How devastating it was for her to try to combat it, yet even in the midst of trying to combat these circumstances, somebody in an elevator pointed out the exact thing she was trying to address.

When you create clear parameters around what consent is and ensure that with both the making of this explicit material and the distribution of it, there is clarity when it comes to this in the context of there being accountability, then these actors, whether they are individuals or companies, can be held accountable.

I have a few more quotes that I'd like to get to, but I'll just speak to there being a whole host of circumstances around that. One of the reasons I appreciate Bill C-270 and why it needs to get back to the House to be debated and voted on at third reading.... If the government would just hand over those documents, we could get back to private members' business. Again, I don't want to distract from the Bill C-270 conversation, but it seems like there's an increasingly close connection.

One thing I think is helpful for folks to understand about this bill is that it ensures that the context surrounding the instance of the content that might be created or distributed.... There are two pieces to this. They're connected, although they're very different in terms of the instance....

You have a host of issues in Bill C-270. This is not always common when it comes to private members' bills, so I appreciate the work my colleague has put into ensuring that this is comprehensive and that there is a full understanding of everything associated with what is required to ensure that the line in the sand, so to speak, in Canada can be drawn.

It talks about what the punishment is, including the different types of offences and what the sentences for them could be. There's the evidence and there are the commercial purposes surrounding some of this information.

There's the issue surrounding age verification. I referenced earlier just how significant it is as a symbol that we've changed the name so that it's child exploitative material in this country. It's no longer something that anybody could suggest is anything other than disgusting, criminal, exploitative material when children are involved in this sort of thing, which surrounds the idea of age verification. There's that age verification side of things. Obviously, if it's someone who is underage, that goes into an entirely different set of.... I hope every time that happens, the book can be thrown at those individuals and they can go exactly where they belong.

However, when it comes to the aggravating factors, the bill very specifically outlines those. There is an understanding of the questions surrounding them. Because this is a rapidly evolving space, there is the need for both clarity and the understanding that with this bill.... This is an evolving space. The technology we are dealing with is evolving at a pace that is hard to keep up with. It is certainly moving faster than any of us can comprehend.

I mentioned that a bit earlier in terms of some of the peripheral challenges that exist and some of the work that one of my colleagues is doing on deepfakes, artificial intelligence and including what victimization means. My colleague from Langley—Aldergrove and I have talked about this in the past, but the idea of victimization changes when, all of a sudden, there is the ability for a computer to start creating content that could be based on things that are not.... It's changing things, and it could be explicit material that doesn't necessarily have a victim. I know there are some complications with a lack of examples, both in case law and in our legal frameworks in this country. We don't necessarily have a clear answer for what that is and what that should look like, especially when we have, in our case, 150-some years' worth of legal precedent that is based on victimization versus other factors. We have to be willing to come and address this.

I was disappointed that when the Liberals introduced Bill C-63, they didn't address that stuff. They certainly brought forward some things that would silence and could be weaponized against things like freedom of speech and freedom of expression, but they didn't actually address some of the real challenges we are facing when it comes to the idea of online harms. This bill really gets to the crux of that matter. It talks about the “maker” and a “distributor”. There are some specifics about those and what they look like.

This is an interesting dynamic that exists when it comes to the issues surrounding this particular bill. Particularly for those watching, I'll explain this very briefly. Quite often—in fact, in all instances—what happens is that a bill.... I talked a bit about the Westminster parliamentary process before and how it is unique in the sense of the autonomy members have.

Just as a shout-out, I suspect there are some Liberal members who wish they had voted for the Reform Act at their first caucus meeting, but I don't want to get distracted here.

One of the things that are key is the parliamentary supremacy in our governmental system that is so fundamental in how we do things. I think its true impact and the importance it has in the way we do things are sometimes undervalued.

It's evolved over time. For example, we have a constitutional framework in this country, whether it be the Constitution Acts of 1867 to 1982.... There are actually a whole bunch of other Constitution acts related to small changes that have been made, such as the admission of provinces into the federation and the creation of the territories. In fact, we voted on one. My colleague from Regina-Lewvan amended the Constitution, through a motion in the House of Commons, in relation to an archaic tax issue dating back 140-some years, I think. He amended that.

The Constitution has an amending formula, and there are a whole host of acts surrounding that. What's unique, though—and this is actually part of what differs between the Canadian circumstance and what is referred to as the “mother Parliament” in the United Kingdom—is that we have far more written and defined frameworks of what our constitutional framework looks like in Canada than the United Kingdom has. Theirs is largely based on the assumption of tradition that has long been litigated.

Again, for those who are watching, the prime minister, as an individual, is not mentioned once in our Constitution—not just the current Prime Minister, but the title of prime minister. That's tradition.

The reason I use that as an example is that we have this understanding that it's Parliament that creates acts, so it is by the power of Parliament that anything gets accomplished in terms of a governing perspective. Then it gets a little bit complicated when you add common law and civil law into the discussion and the impacts those have on the Supreme Court. It includes the history of the coming together of two very different systems and the creation of what is modern-day Canada. On that side, I'd let the lawyers in the room speak to more of the specifics of that.

What is interesting and the reason I explain that when it comes to the relevance to Bill C-270 is that Parliament is basically applying itself to a criminal matter, saying, “This is our expectation.” Then it does create some space for regulations to be made to ensure that it gets done.

Everything that exists in terms of government in Canada—and this is something that often gets forgotten, actually.... In fact, there was a little bit of controversy when—I believe it was around 2015, maybe just after the 2015 election—a reporter said that, well, government stays but Parliaments come and go. In a sense, that is practically true. However, the only reason government exists is that Parliament says it does, so a department exists because Parliament says that a department exists—or not. Government is, in effect, a function of Parliament.

I'll say that again, because it's a very important aspect of how our system works. Government, in our Westminster system of governance, is a function of Parliament, and it's a key part of how we ensure that things actually get accomplished. This is part of why the power that can be exercised through the process of a private member's bill and the reporting requirement to get back to the House so that we can do our best to get this passed without having a delay on something, whether it was 338 members.... There may have been a few individuals who were paired or not there, but the fact that it received unanimous support is a big deal.

The fact that Parliament is able to project itself and say, “This is our expectation. Here will be the penalties. Here is what our expectation is. Here is the line in the sand that says that this is not a permitted activity in our nation,” is key.

The act very specifically empowers different government departments to say, “Here's how we're empowering you to make sure that this gets fulfilled.” That is a key element of how we ensure that it actually solves the problems that it is set out to, in fact, solve.

I know that there's a lot of talk about what's happened, from all political sides and whatnot, when it comes to what's been dominating the headlines for our friends south of the 49th parallel.... I think we are south of the 49th parallel here, actually, but I come from the west, where the 49th parallel is a big deal. It's one of those key differences between the way that we govern ourselves north of the border and the way that the Americans govern themselves in the sense of their constitutional republic.

I lament that we don't have more constitutional history taught in our schools. I find it really interesting, and I won't get too much into this because I might not be able to stop talking. However, the whole Americanization of Canadian discourse and how the Liberals are famous for this.... They are often accusing their political opponents of it, but they are truly the ones that often, and throughout Canadian history, have....

I'll just share this very brief anecdote. When John A. Macdonald won his second majority government I think it was, the then Liberal Party wanted to build the Canadian Pacific Railway through the States, because it would have been easier. Wow, we might not have had a country today if that had been the case. Anyway, I digress on that front.

Another quote that is, I think, very important to share in the context of the discussion we're having is from the Montreal Council of Women. It says the following:

On behalf of the membership of the Montreal Council of Women (MWC) I wish to confirm our deep concern for those whose lives have been upended by having their images involuntarily and/or without consent shared on websites and other platforms such as the Montreal based PornHub. The proposed “Stopping Internet Sexual Exploitation Act” bill calls for much needed amendments to be made to the Criminal Code to protect children and those who have not given consent for their images and other content to be shared and commodified.

I've talked a bit about the idea of consent, about the corporate actors involved and the amendments to the Criminal Code, and just a little of the history surrounding some of those things, but I would just note there's one word there that I think deserves being highlighted in addition to the entire quote and the endorsement of the SISE act. That is the idea of this content being commodified.

I think it's a key word that deserves a bit of exploration, because when it comes to...you have in many cases.... I've shared some of where this explicit material...how it might have been obtained, whether it was consensual or not, whether it was known that it would be taking place or not. Those are all things that need to be addressed. This bill does a good job of helping get to the point where we can start to do exactly that.

There is, though, the idea of the commodification of something like this. Certainly there's, I think, a larger philosophical and political argument that could be had about the commodification of intangible things, but I want to pare this down to the very basics of what this means for an individual who would have their picture, or video, or it could be something else that is revealing.... The fact that you have something that could be commodified for the monetary.... The whole idea of a commodity is that it by definition is something that then would be bought and sold, but here is, again, where we had that previous understanding of what a relationship is between a thief and the clerk behind the counter being told to hand over the cash. You have something similar here.

This is not a fair trading relationship in terms of what a commodity would be. You have, in many cases, corporate actors that are making decisions on how their platforms work that have devastating consequences. You have the individual who is the subject of this material who did not give consent, or the consent they did give was not voluntary, as we explored very briefly here just a few minutes ago.

You have that commodity idea that there's a back-and-forth. This is not that. It is the fact that it's without the consent, without the ability for the individual who is the subject of the content.... They have been removed from this commodification type of exchange. As a result, they are impacted the most, and we've talked a little bit about some of the devastating consequences, whether that be mental health, whether that be shame, leading to addiction, whatever the case may be.

You have an example here, though, where the subject has been removed from the exchange, and that is an absolutely devastating consequence. I would suggest further that what makes it truly something that should be criminal is the fact that they are the ones who face the most significant impacts of that.

I think it speaks to how important it is that the weight of the justice system can be involved in ensuring that you can stop that exchange—that commodification of something that should never have been commodified because the subject who has been commodified was not a beneficiary and was not involved in the decision-making process. As we've discussed, the consequences can be absolutely horrific.

Another quote from an organization that has.... I've talked a bit about the United Kingdom's parliament, but—

[The Chair, Liberal, Lena Metlege Diab]

I call the meeting to order.

Welcome to meeting 121 of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights.

The committee is meeting in public to begin its study of Bill C-270, an act to amend the Criminal Code regarding pornographic material.

We are here in public to resume debate on the motion that was put before us last time by MP James Maloney, requesting an extension of 30 sitting days to report Bill C-270 to the House.

I would simply ask that each member please wait to be acknowledged by the chair before intervening. The clerk will assist me in keeping a list of speakers.

We are resuming debate on the motion:

That the committee request an extension of 30 sitting days to the period of committee consideration for Bill C-270.

As you know, the expiry date will be the Tuesday after we return from Remembrance Day. We need to get this extension in order to be able to study this bill in committee. Thank you very much for that.

We have a speaking order. We will resume debate, and we will ask MP Kurek to please begin.

[Alistair MacGregor, NDP, Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC]

Madam Chair, I hate interrupting someone, but on a point of order, I need to call relevance.

The question before the committee right now is whether we agree to a 30-day extension or not. All arguments and comments should be in support of that. We should not be talking about what other committees did during the summer.

I have great tales about what the public safety committee did during the summer, too, but the question before the committee right now is whether we agree to a 30-day extension on Bill C-270.

Madam Chair, I would ask that you enforce relevance, because I want to see commentary specifically for or against that particular point.

[Michelle Ferreri, Conservative, Peterborough—Kawartha, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Again, I'm going to take people back to the summer. On July 31, 2024, the status of women committee sat. There's a real overlap right now in terms of what's happening in status of women and the justice failures in this country.

An emergency meeting was called in July.

For people who don't know, committees don't sit in the summer, but this emergency meeting was called because StatsCan released these shocking statistics. Since 2015, when Justin Trudeau came into power, all we've seen is this rapid increase of crime across this country: Total sexual assaults are up 75%; sexual violations against children, which is pertinent to this study, Bill C-270, are up 119%; forcible confinement or kidnapping is up 11%—

[James Maloney, Liberal, Etobicoke—Lakeshore, ON]

—and ask them how well James Maloney responds to direction. I'll leave that there.

Let's be clear here, on the other side what I'm hearing is we want to deal with the anti-Semitism study and get it behind us, and we want to deal with Bill C-270. We could have been finished the anti-Semitism report about half an hour ago if they had just voted yes to the motion, which is to do the second part of what they say they want to do. I don't know whether it's hypocritical or ironic or both. It's absurd, what I'm hearing from the other side.

What I heard from Mr. Brock was that the person who introduced this private member's bill gave him a list of witnesses, which I now have to assume means his own name isn't on it.

As for the contents of my tweet, I did not raise this issue. Mr. Viersen did. This is not a break-the-glass scenario, Mr. Brock. The issue is in the public and being discussed because Mr. Viersen raised it. Full stop.

If you guys are serious over there and you want to deal with the anti-Semitism issue and you want to deal with this report, there's a really simple way to do it: Vote yes to my motion, and we can use the remainder of the time we have today to deal with it.

For the record, I'm prepared to come back here after question period and listen to you talk all afternoon if your intention is to just delay and delay, because my goal is to get back to that study, get it completed as quickly as possible and get this bill before this committee so we can do our job.

[Tako Van Popta, Conservative, Langley—Aldergrove, BC]

Before I cede the floor, I have just one quick question.

Is there enough time for us to get witnesses on Bill C-270 for at least one day, for one meeting? Is there enough time for that?

[Tako Van Popta, Conservative, Langley—Aldergrove, BC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

The motion before us is to extend by 30 days the study on Bill C-270, the stopping internet sexual exploitation act.

I have to ask myself why we need that extension. This bill has been with us since May 8. Madam Chair, I think that's the date you said earlier in today's discussion. Now it's October 31. What has taken so long?

Mr. Brock said earlier that we've been ready for weeks to go ahead with the commencement of the study of this very important legislation. I think it was at a meeting probably two weeks ago that it was.... It must have been a Thursday, because it was suggested that perhaps we could have witnesses at our committee meeting on Monday, just a few days later. I believe that the clerk was absolutely accurate when he said that didn't give us enough time to get headsets out to the witnesses. Some of them were going to come in by video conference, and that would take a bit more time.

I'm just an ordinary member of this committee, so I wasn't part of the organizing of events and the schedule for this fall session, but I had expected that those witnesses would be here on the Thursday. That would have given us enough time to get whatever materials out to them and to get them prepared. Instead, what were we doing on that Thursday? We were writing the anti-Semitism report. This was all done in camera so I need to be careful about what I say about those two studies, but we were studying anti-Semitism, and we were studying Islamophobia.

That goes back to the spring of this year, when a motion was put forward that this committee should study anti-Semitism and its rise in Canada, particularly at Canadian universities. I agree that's a very important study. We all agreed with that, and we wanted to move forward. Then it became complicated when there was another motion put forward to also study Islamophobia, which was also a very important study. We suggested that maybe that could be put off for a later time, but it was decided that we were going to study those two issues at the same time, not as one study, but as two separate studies. That was all on the public record, so I can say that.

We had witnesses come in on those two studies, again all on the public record. I'm very impressed with the courage of the witnesses who came forward and spoke very openly about the issues that were facing them, whether it was on the Islamophobia study or on the anti-Semitism study. They came here and gave testimony. It was very heartfelt. We all realized that these are issues that are front and centre for Canada, and that we need to deal with them.

Over the summer months.... I think we had six meetings over six days, three on anti-Semitism and three on Islamophobia. We heard from many witnesses, and then over the summer months the analysts spent some time preparing the draft reports.

We came back in September, and these reports are in front of us.

Madam Chair, until now, we are still drafting those reports. I can't believe how long it is taking to do that. Part of the problem is that on the Liberal side of this committee, it's a different bench depending on whether it's the Islamophobia study or the anti-Semitism study. It is clear to us on this side of the table that those two groups are not talking with each other and that there's conflict in the Liberal caucus about these two very important issues. That's what's been dragging things on and on.

Again, I need to be careful about what I say, because this is all being done in camera. We on this side of the table are trying our best to produce these two reports, so that they can be made public and we can talk about them publicly.

I had expected that was what we were going to be doing today. We were so close on the anti-Semitism report. I think with just a little more discussion, we're going to get them done. That's why I supported the dilatory motion of my colleague, Mr. Brock, to go forward with finalizing that study, and believed that the next day we could go ahead and finalize the Islamophobia study.

Now things are just dragging on and on, not through any fault of ours on this side of the table. We've been doing our best to move these two issues forward.

I think it would be very useful to this committee and to this Parliament if the members of the Liberal Party would talk with each other about these two important issues and resolve the conflicts amongst themselves so that we can go on and get these two studies finished.

I am prepared to go ahead with studying Bill C-270. I've read some of the major speeches that were given in the House at second reading. I'm not really familiar with these issues, and that's why I'm very anxious to delve into the study. However, when reading those speeches, I read about some of the very heartfelt testimony that has been given by witnesses who are victims of pornography. These are usually young girls who are being victimized by owners of porn sites, who are making a lot of money from these poor victims. I think that we need to get on with that study, and I think it is such a shame that the Liberal members of this committee are trying to politicize it.

I, too, would love to hear from Mr. Viersen, to hear what he has to say. However, when I read these tweets from Mr. Maloney, I can't blame Mr. Viersen for being reluctant to come here. He wants to come here to give testimony about the issues that are important. He wants to talk about the matters of Bill C-270, and it is clear that the Liberal members of the House want to talk about something else when he is here. I think that is just unacceptable.

Madam Chair, I think that it is time to move forward on all three of these studies. Let's get the anti-Semitism study done. I think we still have time today. If the Liberals would reconsider the motion of my colleague, Mr. Brock, to go ahead and finish that study, we can then go into an in camera session, and we can finish off that study.

Let's proceed with the other witnesses on Bill C-270. Let's move forward with that, regardless of whether or not Mr. Viersen is going to come here. There are a lot of good witnesses we should hear from. I think it would be best if Mr. Viersen were here, but it's not necessary. We can proceed without him, and I think that's exactly what we should do.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

[Larry Brock, Conservative, Brantford—Brant, ON]

—but, also as a lawyer, I'm very cognizant of how words are statutorily interpreted.

In this case, “ordinarily” is not mandatory. I think we can all agree with that conclusion. “Ordinary” is in the sense that it's customary, but it is not etched in stone that on each and every occasion a private member's bill must commence by way of committee study with the sponsor.

To give but one example, there are precedents where private member's bill sponsors didn't appear at committee. There was a Bloc private member's bill recently, where the sponsor, the Bloc member, did not appear, but witnesses in place of that sponsor did.

Over the last couple of weeks, a study of Bill C-65 and the Canada Elections Act was discussed at PROC, and no minister appeared, only officials. I guess that little example highlights why “ordinarily” is used as opposed to “mandatory” and “must”.

I wanted to emphasize that, Madam Chair, because I think we all agree on the importance of Bill C-270, the content and what it means to this nation, as a G7 nation taking a stand against child pornography and its proliferation and access.

Then, when I read the tweets, as I often do in my spare time—whatever spare time I do have—one such tweet caught my eye, and that was from Liberal member James Maloney. Quite clearly, it started off appropriately about the importance of the study of this bill, but then it denigrated into partisanship, and it even suggested, as my colleague Ms. Ferrari pointed out, that the leader was somehow gagging Mr. Viersen from attending.

Then he circled back to the age-old issue, the divisive issue, the wedge issue. “In case of emergency, break glass.” Clearly, we have a raging fire at the Liberal Party of Canada right now in terms of its standing in Canada and the position of its leader, who is not loved at all by the public. In fact, almost 70% of Canadians polled from coast to coast to coast want him gone and are prepared to pack his suitcase to see him out of politics entirely.

When you have a situation in which you're down 20-plus points in the polls and you have been so for the better part of a year and a half, and no matter what sort of policy you're introducing as a government, no matter what sort of fall economic statement you produce, no matter what spring budget you produce, which ordinarily is a great bump up for any government in terms of its economic outlook for the nation.... Generally, historically, you always saw a bump in support with the release of those economic statements telegraphing to Canadians that there is hope on the horizon, but when you're dealing with the Liberal government under Justin Trudeau, and you've experienced literally for the last nine years a living hell from coast to coast to coast, there has been no bump.

What have we seen in the House of Commons for the last two or three weeks? We've had the foreign interference issue that has raised its head, with, somehow, every member from the Prime Minister to the ministers to the back bench all claiming, “What is the leader of the Conservative Party hiding? He doesn't want to get his clearance.”

Do you know what? Canadians aren't interested in that. Canadians are interested in feeding their families. Canadians are interested in paying their bills. Canadians are interested in actually being able to afford a mortgage, pay the rent and put gas in their vehicle, which are being crippled by the inflationary factors that this government has created and have made life miserable.

Over two million people lined up at our food banks across the nation. I've toured my food bank numerous times. People who proudly gave and donated over the years now find themselves, because of the disastrous fiscal policies of Justin Trudeau, actually the recipients of food banks. That's not unique to my riding of Brantford—Brant. It's probably happening to every member of the Liberal bench, as well as every member in Parliament. It is a fact of life under Justin Trudeau.

It's no small wonder that they want to change the page, distract, divide and talk about anything but the miserable hell that this government is putting Canadians through. We had foreign interference. Now we have the right to choose.

When I see Mr. Maloney, whom I have known for some time and have great respect for, use that tried, old, tired approach to somehow distract Canadians.... It's not working.

Unfortunately, we see this happening now in committee. They don't want Arnold Viersen to proudly talk about why he sponsored this bill and why he's so passionate about victims' rights and child pornography. No. they want to get on their soapbox and talk about a woman's right to choose—every one of those members.

I find it appalling. I find it disgusting and hypocritical when they say, “Oh no, we care about victims' rights—

[Larry Brock, Conservative, Brantford—Brant, ON]

I'm ready to speak. Thank you, Madam Chair.

If all members will recall, for at least two weeks, whenever the issue of Bill C-270 has come up, along with the issue of the availability of the sponsor, I have always confirmed the availability of a number of witnesses, and I may have even provided a list of, potentially, up to eight or nine witnesses.

The push-back I seem to recall receiving on each and every occasion was, “Well, that's fine,” but there was never any expression of any interest from the chair or the clerk to ask for that list with a view to scheduling and inviting those witnesses to attend. It was always my belief—and I think precedent certainly confirms this—that a study does not, each and every time, have to commence with the sponsor of the bill. If there are witnesses ready and able to offer insight on this particular topic, on which we have subject matter experts—

[The Chair, Liberal, Lena Metlege Diab]

The motion that you are speaking to, or are supposed to be speaking to, is this:

That the committee request an extension of 30 sitting days to the period of committee consideration for Bill C-270.

If that motion does not pass, we risk not being able to study this bill here in committee.

[Alistair MacGregor, NDP, Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC]

I saw this scenario play out before with Bill S-210 at the public safety committee. There was a Conservative filibuster at the public safety committee, which prevented us from completing our study with witnesses and prevented the committee from doing a clause-by-clause review of the bill. We reached the deadline, and the bill was automatically reported back to the House.

If we don't extend this, we're going to face a similar situation with Bill C-270.

Again, if we just had a simple “yes” vote on this, I think it would be very reasonable to ask for an extension. What I think is completely unacceptable is for this committee to completely abandon its duty to do a fulsome study of each piece of legislation that comes before it. We need to have witnesses. If Mr. Viersen doesn't want to come, that's fine. We can proceed with other witnesses.

I will not tolerate a delay on this bill that prevents us from doing due diligence and a thorough clause-by-clause review. Reporting it back to the House without doing a study would be a dereliction of the duties of this committee. I think we should vote for the extension.

[James Maloney, Liberal, Etobicoke—Lakeshore, ON]

Thanks, Madam Chair.

Now that we know that Mr. Viersen's open to the invitation, we're hoping to get an answer as soon as possible. However, this issue of dealing with the bill has taken longer than anticipated for the reasons we're talking about, so I would like to move another motion:

That the committee request an extension of 30 sitting days to the period of committee consideration for Bill C-270.

[The Chair, Liberal, Lena Metlege Diab]

Yes, I mean on the motion or on Bill C-270.

[The Chair, Liberal, Lena Metlege Diab]

For the purpose of trying to suggest dates here for you with the clerk, I will say that my hope is that the anti-Semitism draft is completed today. We will then have one more meeting to complete the report on Islamophobia.

After that, we are open for new items. At the moment, we have no other items that take precedence over this private member's bill, Bill C-270.

The question is.... We would like him to appear, probably, a week from today. That would be the....

I think I have people putting their hands up.

Mr. Mendicino.

[James Maloney, Liberal, Etobicoke—Lakeshore, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I wasn't privy to that conversation. I must say I'm very disappointed to hear that.

In the over nine years I've been a member of Parliament, it has without exception been my experience that people who introduce private member's bills are passionate about their issue. They're quite anxious to appear at committee to share their insights into why the issue is so important to them and enlighten the committee members as to why they should support it.

As I'm thinking and talking, I am quite astonished by the fact this individual is not available or not willing to come to the committee to speak to his bill. I've seen him in the House recently, so we know he's around.

Just to make the wishes of the committee crystal clear, I would like to move this motion:

That the committee invite Arnold Viersen, as the sponsor of Bill C-270, to appear for one hour as soon as possible to begin committee consideration of this legislation.

That's the legislation we are tasked with dealing with.

I can't imagine there would be any opposition to this motion around the table, but I guess I remain to be surprised, as I sometimes am, by events at the committee and in Parliament.

There it is. I hope we can deal with this in very fast order, so we can move on to other pressing business. I do have another motion I would like to table subsequently, which I will deal with later. It deals with extending the time for this committee to consider the bill by 30 days, given the delay that has taken place so far.

I would like to deal with the motion inviting Mr. Viersen first. I'd be interested in hearing from other members of the committee on their views.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Lena Metlege Diab]

I call the meeting to order.

I call this meeting to order.

If you can't hear me, I suggest you put your microphones on. I have to let you know that I have an infection in both of my ears, so I will do my best.

Welcome to meeting 119 of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights.

The committee is meeting in public to begin its study of Bill C-270, an act to amend the Criminal Code with respect to pornographic material. The bill was referred to this committee on May 8.

Based on a conversation I had with Mr. Brock last meeting, in which he indicated that the sponsor of the bill will not be attending to be a witness, I need direction. The committee has to tell us how you would like to begin, so we can begin the study, whether the sponsor wishes to proceed with it or not.

I'm ready to give the floor to members.

Mr. Maloney.

Stopping Internet Sexual Exploitation Act

[The Deputy Speaker, Chris d'Entremont]

The House will now proceed to the taking of the deferred recorded division on the motion at second reading stage of Bill C-270 under Private Members' Business.

The House resumed from May 7 consideration of the motion that Bill C-270, An Act to amend the Criminal Code (pornographic material), be read the second time and referred to a committee.

[Arnold Viersen, Conservative, Peace River—Westlock, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I am grateful for the opportunity to wrap up the debate on the SISE act at second reading.

I have appreciated listening to the members give their speeches. At the outset, I want to briefly urge members to use the term “child sexual abuse material”, or CSAM, rather than “child pornography”. As we heard from the member for Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, the latter term is being replaced with CSAM because pornography allows for the idea that this could be consensual. That is why the member for Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo has put forward a bill that would change this in the Criminal Code as well.

During the first hour of debate, we heard from the member for Laurentides—Labelle, who gave a passionate speech outlining the many serious issues of the impact of the pornography industry on women and youth. I simply do not have the time to include all of that in my speech, but we both sat on the ethics committee during the Pornhub study and heard directly from the survivors who testified.

It was the speech, however, from the Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons that left me scratching my head. I do not think he actually read Bill C-270 or even the Liberals' own bill, Bill C-63. The parliamentary secretary fixated on the 24-hour takedown requirement in Bill C-63 as the solution to this issue. However, I do not think anyone is opposed to a 24-hour takedown for this exploitative intimate content sharing without consent or the child sexual abuse material. In fact, a bill that was solely focused on the 24-hour takedown would pass very quickly through this House with the support of everyone, but that does not take into account what Bill C-270 is trying to do. It is completely missing the point.

The 24-hour takedown has effect only after harmful content has been put up, such as CSAM, deepfakes and intimate images that have been shared. Bill C-270 is a preventative upstream approach. While the takedown mechanism should be available to victims, the goal of Bill C-270 is to go upstream and stop this abusive content from ever ending up on the Internet in the first place.

As I shared at the beginning of the debate, many survivors do not know that their images are online for years. They do not know that this exploitative content has been uploaded. What good would a 24-hour takedown be if they do not even know the content is there? I will repeat the words of one survivor that I shared during the first hour of debate: “I was 17 when videos of me on Pornhub came to my knowledge, and I was only 15 in the videos they've been profiting from.” She did not know for two years that exploitative content of her was being circulated online and sold. That is why Bill C-270 requires age verification and consent of individuals in pornographic material before it is posted.

I would also point out that the primary focus of the government's bill is not to reduce harm to victims. The government's bill requires services “to mitigate the risk that users of the regulated service will be exposed to harmful content”. It talks about users of the platform, not the folks depicted in it. The focus of Bill C-270 is the other side of the screen. Bill C-270 seeks to protect survivors and vulnerable populations from being the harmful content. The two goals could not be more different, and I hope the government is supportive of preventing victims of exploitation from further exploitation online.

My colleague from Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke also noted that the narrow focus of the SISE act is targeted at people and companies that profit from sexual exploitative content. This is, indeed, one of the primary aims of this bill. I hope, as with many things, that the spread of this exploitative content online will be diminished, as it is driven by profit. The Privacy Commissioner's investigation into Canada's MindGeek found that “MindGeek surely benefits commercially from these non-compliant privacy practices, which result in a larger content volume/stream and library of intimate content on its websites.”

For years, pornography companies have been just turning a blind eye, and it is time to end that. Bill C-270 is a fulfillment of a key recommendation made by the ethics committee three years ago and supported by all parties, including the government. I hope to have the support from all of my colleagues in this place for Bill C-270, and I hope to see it at committee, where we can hear from survivors and experts.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to say a few words in support of Bill C-270, which is an excellent bill from my colleague from Peace River—Westlock, who has been working so hard over his nine years in Parliament to defend the interests of his constituents on important issues like firearms, forestry and fracking, but also to stand up for justice and the recognition of the universal human dignity of all people, including and especially the most vulnerable.

Bill C-270 seeks to create mechanisms for the effective enforcement of substantively already existing legal provisions that prohibit non-consensual distribution of intimate images and child pornography. Right now, as the law stands, it is a criminal offence to produce this type of horrific material, but there are not the appropriate legal mechanisms to prevent the distribution of this material by, for instance, large pornography websites.

It has come to light that Pornhub, which is headquartered in Canada, has completely failed to prevent the presence on its platform of non-consensual and child-depicting pornographic images. This has been a matter that has been studied in great detail at parliamentary committees. My colleague for Peace River—Westlock has played a central role, but other members from other parties have as well, in identifying the fact that Pornhub and other websites have not only failed but have shown no interest in meaningfully protecting potential victims of non-consensual and child pornographic images.

It is already illegal to produce these images. Why, therefore, should it not also be clearly illegal to distribute those images without having the necessary proof of consent? This bill would require that there be verification of age and consent associated with images that are distributed. It is a common-sense legal change that would require and affect greater compliance with existing criminal prohibitions on the creation of these images. It is based on the evidence heard at committee and based on the reality that major pornography websites, many of which are headquartered in Canada, are continuing to allow this material to exist. To clarify, the fact that those images are on those websites means that we desperately need stronger legal tools to protect children and stronger legal tools to protect people who are victims of the non-consensual sharing of their images.

Further, in response to the recognition of the potential harms on children associated with exposure to pornography or associated with having images taken of them and published online, there has been discussion in Parliament and a number of different bills put forward designed to protect children in vulnerable situations. These bills are, most notably, Bill C-270 and Bill S-210.

Bill S-210 would protect children by requiring meaningful age verification for those who are viewing pornography. It is recognized that exposing children to sexual images is a form of child abuse. If an adult were to show videos or pictures to a child of a sexual nature, that would be considered child abuse. However, when websites fail to have meaningful age verification and, therefore, very young children are accessing pornography, there are not currently the legal tools to hold them accountable for that. We need to recognize that exposing young children to sexual images is a form of child abuse, and therefore it is an urgent matter that we pass legislation requiring meaningful age verification. That is Bill S-210.

Then we have Bill C-270, which would protect children in a different context. It would protect children from having their images depicted as part of child pornography. Bill C-270 takes those existing prohibitions further by requiring that those distributing images also have proof of age and consent.

This is common sense; the use of criminal law is appropriate here because we are talking about instances of child sexual abuse. Both Bill S-210 and Bill C-270 deal with child sexual abuse. It should be clear that the criminal law, not some complicated nebulous regulatory regime, is the appropriate mechanism for dealing with child abuse.

In that context, we also have a government bill that has been put forward, Bill C-63, which it calls the online harms act. The proposed bill is kind of a bizarre combination of talking about issues of radically different natures; there are some issues around speech, changes to human rights law and, potentially, attempts to protect children, as we have talked about.

The freedom of speech issues raised by the bill have been well discussed. The government has been denounced from a broad range of quarters, including some of their traditional supporters, for the failures of Bill C-63 on speech.

However, Bill C-63 also profoundly fails to be effective when it comes to child protection and the removal of non-consensual images. It would create a new bureaucratic structure, and it is based on a 24-hour takedown model; it says that if something is identified, it should be taken down within 24 hours. Anybody involved in this area will tell us that 24-hour takedown is totally ineffective, because once something is on the Internet, it is likely to be downloaded and reshared over and over again. The traumatization, the revictimization that happens, continues to happen in the face of a 24-hour takedown model.

This is why we need strong Criminal Code measures to protect children. The Conservative bills, Bill S-210 and Bill C-270, would provide the strong criminal tools to protect children without all the additional problems associated with Bill C-63. I encourage the House to pass these proposed strong child protection Criminal Code-amending bills, Bill S-210 and Bill C-270. They would protect children from child abuse, and given the legal vacuums that exist in this area, there can be no greater, more important objective than protecting children from the kind of violence and sexualization they are currently exposed to.

[Julie Vignola, Bloc, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the subject that we are dealing with this evening is a sensitive one. My colleagues have clearly demonstrated that in the last couple of minutes.

We all have access to the Internet and we basically use it for three reasons: for personal reasons, for professional reasons and for leisure, which can sometimes overlap with personal reasons. Pornography is one of those uses that is both for leisure and for personal reasons. To each their own.

The use of pornography is a personal choice that is not illegal. Some people might question that. We might agree or disagree, but it is a personal decision. However, the choice that one person makes for their own pleasure may be the cause of another person's or many other people's nightmare. Basically, that is what Bill C-270 seeks to prevent, what it seeks to sanction. The purpose of the bill is to ensure that people do not have to go through hell because of pornography. This bill seeks to criminalize the fact that, under the guise of legality, some of the images that are being viewed were taken or are being used illegally.

I want to talk briefly about the problem this bill addresses and the solutions that it proposes. Then, to wrap up, I will share some of my own thoughts about it.

For context for this bill and two others that are being studied, Bill S‑210 and C‑63, it was a newspaper article that sounded the alarm. After the article came out, a House of Commons committee that my esteemed colleague from Laurentides—Labelle sits on looked at the issue. At that time, the media informed the public that videos of women and children were available on websites even though these women and, naturally, these children never gave their consent to be filmed or for their video to be shared. We also learned that this included youths under 18. As I said, a committee looked at the issue. The images and testimonies received by the committee members were so shocking that several bills that I mentioned earlier were introduced to try to tackle the issue in whole or in part.

I want to be clear: watching pornography is not the problem—to each their own. If someone likes watching others have sex, that is none of my concern or anyone else's. However, the problem is the lack of consent of the people involved in the video and the use of children, as I have already said.

I am sure that the vast majority of consumers of pornography were horrified to find out that some of the videos they watched may have involved young people under the age of 18. These children sometimes wear makeup to look older. Women could be filmed without their knowledge by a partner or former partner, who then released the video. These are intimate interactions. People have forgotten what intimacy means. If a person agrees to be filmed in an intimate situation because it is kind of exciting or whatever, that is fine, but intimacy, as the word itself implies, does not mean public.

When a young person or an adult decides to show the video to friends to prove how cool it is that they got someone else to do something, that is degrading. It is beyond the pale. It gets to me because I saw that kind of thing in schools. Kids were so pleased with themselves. I am sorry, but it is rarely the girls who are so pleased with themselves. They are the ones who suffer the negative consequences. At the end of the day, they are the ones who get dragged through the mud. Porn sites were no better. They tried to absolve themselves by saying that they just broadcast the stuff and it is not up to them to find out if the person consented or was at least 18. Broadcasting is just as bad as producing without consent. It encourages these illegal, degrading, utterly dehumanizing acts.

I am going back to my notes now. The problem is that everyone is blaming everyone else. The producer says it is fine. The platform says it is fine. Ultimately, governments say the same thing. This is 2024. The Internet is not new. Man being man—and I am talking about humankind, humans in general—we were bound to find ourselves in degrading situations. The government waited far too long to legislate on this issue.

In fact, the committee that looked into the matter could only observe the failure of content moderation practices, as well as the failure to protect people's privacy. Even if the video was taken down, it would resurface because a consumer had downloaded it and thought it was a good idea to upload it again and watch it again. This is unspeakable. It seems to me that people need to use some brain cells. If a video can no longer be found, perhaps there is a reason for that, and the video should not be uploaded again. Thinking and using one's head is not something governments can control, but we have to do everything we can.

What is the purpose of this bill and the other two bills? We want to fight against all forms of sexual exploitation and violence online, end the streaming and marketing of all pornographic material involving minors, prevent and prohibit the streaming of non-consensual explicit content, force adult content companies and streaming services to control the streaming of this content and make them accountable and criminally responsible for the presence of this content on their online sites. Enough with shirking responsibility. Enough with saying: it is not my fault if she feels degraded, if her reputation is ruined and if, at the end of the day, she feels like throwing herself off a bridge. Yes, the person who distributes pornographic material and the person who makes it are equally responsible.

Bill C‑270 defines the word “consent” and the expression “pornographic material”, which is good. It adds two new penalties. Essentially, a person who makes or distributes the material must ensure that the person involved in the video is 18 and has given their express consent. If the distributor does not ask for it and does not require it, they are at fault.

We must also think about some of the terms, such as “privacy”, “education”, but also the definition of “distributor” because Bill C-270 focuses primarily on distributors for commercial purposes. However, there are other distributors who are not in this for commercial purposes. That is not nearly as pretty. I believe we need to think about that aspect. Perhaps legal consumers of pornography would like to see their rights protected.

I will end with just one sentence: A real statesperson protects the dignity of the weak. That is our role.

[James Maloney, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to speak to Bill C-270, an act to amend the Criminal Code (pornographic material), at second reading.

I would like to begin my remarks by stressing the bill's important objective. It is to ensure that those who make, distribute or advertise pornographic material verify that those depicted in that material are at least 18 years of age and have consented to its production and distribution.

As the sponsor has explained, the bill's objective is to implement recommendation number two of the 2021 report of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics. Specifically, that report recommends that the government “mandate that content-hosting platforms operating in Canada require affirmation from all persons depicted in pornographic content, before it can be uploaded, that they are 18 years old or older and that they consent to its distribution”.

This recommendation responds to ongoing concerns that corporations like Pornhub have made available pornographic images of persons who did not consent or were underage. I want to recognize and acknowledge that this conduct has caused those depicted in that material extreme suffering. I agree that we must do everything we can to protect those who have been subjected to this trauma and to prevent it from occurring in the first place. I fully support the objective of the committee's recommendation.

I want to say at the outset that the government will be supporting this bill, Bill C-270, at second reading, but with some serious reservations. I have some concerns about the bill's ability to achieve the objective of the committee's recommendation. I look forward, at committee, to where we can hear from experts on whether this bill would be useful in combatting child pornography.

The bill proposes Criminal Code offences that would prohibit making, distributing or advertising pornographic material, without first verifying the age and consent of those depicted by examining legal documentation and securing formal written consent. These offences would not just apply to corporations. They would also apply to individuals who make or distribute pornographic material of themselves and others to generate income, a practice that is legal and that we know has increased in recent years due to financial hardship, including that caused by the pandemic.

Individuals who informally make or distribute pornographic material of themselves and of people they know are unlikely to verify age by examining legal documentation, especially if they already know the age of those participating in the creation of the material. They are also unlikely to secure formal written consent. It concerns me that such people would be criminalized by the bill's proposed offences, where they knew that everyone implicated was consenting and of age, merely because they did not comply with the bill's proposed regulatory regime governing how age and consent must be verified.

Who is most likely to engage in this conduct? The marginalized people who have been most impacted by the pandemic, in particular sex workers, who are disproportionately women and members of the 2SLGBTQI+ communities. Notably, the privacy and ethics committee clearly stated that its goal was “in no way to challenge the legality of pornography involving consenting adults or to negatively impact sex workers.” However, I fear that the bill's proposed reforms could very well have this effect.

I am also concerned that this approach is not consistent with the basic principles of criminal law. Such principles require criminal offences to have a fault or a mental element, for example, that the accused knew or was reckless as to whether those depicted in the pornographic material did not consent or were not of age. This concern is exacerbated by the fact that the bill would place the burden on the accused to establish that they took the necessary steps to verify age and consent to avoid criminal liability. However, basic principles of criminal law specify that persons accused of criminal offences need only raise a reasonable doubt as to whether they committed the offence to avoid criminal liability.

I would also note that the committee did not specifically contemplate a criminal law response to its concerns. In fact, a regulatory response that applies to corporations that make, distribute or advertise pornographic material may be better positioned to achieve the objectives of the bill. For example, our government's bill, Bill C-63, which would enact the online harms act, would achieve many of Bill C-270's objectives. In particular, the online harms act would target seven types of harmful content, including content that sexually victimizes a child or revictimizes a survivor, and intimate content communicated without consent.

Social media services would be subjected to three duties: to act responsibly, to protect children and to make content inaccessible that sexually victimizes a child or revictimizes a survivor, as well as intimate images posted without consent.

These duties would apply to social media services, including livestreaming and user-uploaded adult content services. They would require social media services to actively reduce the risk of exposure to harmful content on their services; provide clear and accessible ways to flag harmful content and block users; put in place special protections for children; take action to address child sexual exploitation and the non-consensual posting of intimate content, including deepfake sexual images; and publish transparency reports.

Bill C-63 would also create a new digital safety commission to administer this regulatory framework and to improve the investigation of child pornography cases through amendments to the Mandatory Reporting Act. That act requires Internet service providers to report to police when they have reasonable grounds to believe their service is being used to commit a child pornography offence. Failure to comply with this obligation can result in severe penalties.

As I know we are all aware, the Criminal Code also covers a range of offences that address aspects of the concerns animating the proposed bill. Of course, making and distributing child pornography are both already offences under the Criminal Code. As well, making pornography without the depicted person's knowledge can constitute voyeurism, and filming or distributing a recording of a sexual assault constitutes obscenity. Also, distributing intimate images without the consent of the person depicted in those images constitutes non-consensual distribution of intimate images, and the Criminal Code authorizes courts to order the takedown or removal of non-consensual intimate images and child pornography.

All these offences apply to both individuals and organizations, including corporations, as set out in section 2 of the Criminal Code. Should parliamentarians choose to pursue a criminal response to the concerns the proposed bill seeks to address, we may want to reflect upon whether the bill's objectives should be construed differently and its provisions amended accordingly.

I look forward to further studying such an important bill at committee.

[Frank Caputo, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it is always a pleasure to rise on behalf of the people from Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo. It is especially a pleasure to rise when we are speaking to a bill that is on a subject I am very passionate about.

I have spoken before in this House about things I said when I was on the doorstep, in my time, dealing with Internet exploitation of children. That was something I devoted a number of years to in my professional career. It is something I am very proud of, and it is something that taught me a lot about life, about healing, about trauma and, sadly, about how prolific this type of exploitation is.

I believe it was my colleague from the Bloc who spoke about increases in numbers. If memory serves, when we talk about sexual exploitation of children, the spike in numbers happens, and this is not something that gets mentioned when opposing parties speak about the Harper government and its tough-on-crime agenda. One thing that does not get mentioned is that a number of providers, be it media providers or ISP providers, were getting a free ride. They knew or ought to have known that their platforms were being used to facilitate either the potential or actual sexual exploitation of children, which typically begins with the offence of Internet luring.

What happened, I believe in 2012, is that the Harper government passed legislation that placed a positive obligation on service providers to report suspected abuse of children. No longer could a platform simply look the other way. No longer could a platform simply say that it did not know what was going on. A lot of platforms probably knew it was going on or chose not to know that it was going on, because it was easier and cheaper to do business as usual. From 2012, if we look at the graphs, we can actually see this spiking. That spike really has not receded to this day.

I was speaking at the B.C. ICE conference with a number of brave officers, pediatricians and workers who put their lives into addressing sexual offences against children. There were probably about 100 people in a room, generally from British Columbia. It was one of the most profound honours I have had as a member of Parliament. I attended this conference as an attendee, just somebody who was trying to learn more. This year I was invited to be one of the keynote speakers. What a profound honour to go from attendee to keynote speaker.

We still see this spike. Technology and the law are really not working hand in hand, especially when we think about technology and how far we have to go: not only how far we have to go when it comes to technology, but how far we have to go when it comes to sentencing.

I will pause here to note that in 2011, in a case called Woodward, a former Supreme Court of Canada justice, Justice Moldaver, when he was on the Ontario Court of Appeal, actually said that when it came to Internet luring, we should be looking at sentences of three to five years. This is a judge who later went on to the Supreme Court of Canada. I still remember the language he used. He talked about “this insidious crime”, the one that targets children in such a hidden way. Here we are dealing with it.

When I was on the doorsteps of Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, when I was running for office, one of the things I committed to was changing the name of “child pornography” to “child sexual abuse and exploitation material”. I am very proud that my colleague from North Okanagan—Shuswap and I will be giving evidence as witnesses at third reading in the Senate on Thursday on Bill C-291. I researched the bill. I authored the bill, and I put forward the bill. My colleague sponsored the bill. It was unanimously passed at second reading and third reading, and now it is at third reading in the Senate and is about to be considered at committee. Again, it is a profound honour to be able to do this.

It is my hope that when we talk about things that are in Bill C-270, for instance, that we would eliminate the term “child pornography”. Pornography implies consent. Pornography implies adults who are voluntarily doing things. Children can never consent, so it is time we eliminate the term from our legal lexicon. Bill C-270 tells us why we need to be aware of this, so it is my hope that we will receive royal assent very quickly on Bill C-291.

I am just going to go through a few of the aspects of Bill C-270 and provide some input as to why I do support it, particularly as it relates to child sexual abuse and exploitation material that is being put on the Internet. Obviously I support the punishment at subsection 2 and the designation of the offence.

The reality is that I cannot adequately say how many times the police will come to ask questions when someone deals with this type of matter in a prosecutorial context. It is an area of law that someone needs to sink their teeth into in order to understand it. Unless someone spends a lot of time with it, I find, it has a really steep learning curve. It took me a long time. I still felt like a bit of an amateur even when I was elected here, with respect to the nature of the law on these types of things.

One of the struggles that the police would communicate to me when it was an attempt to prove Internet luring or possession of child sexual abuse and exploitation material was the age of the person being dealt with. That puts forward, again, a positive obligation. For those, like my mother, who are at home watching this on CPAC and who may wonder what I mean by a positive obligation, it is a requirement for somebody to take action.

One thing I really like about the bill is that it is not stating that somebody would need to refrain from doing something, which would be a negative obligation. There would be a positive obligation to ascertain the age. A failure to do that, to take that step, is the nature of the offence that I am speaking of right now, the failure to ascertain that a person is actually 18 years of age.

In my view, child sexual abuse and exploitation material is a blight on our society. If anybody thinks that it is just something that happens over there or happens elsewhere, in my experience it is something happening far more than we want to admit, yet what have we seen when it comes to sentences? I referenced Justice Moldaver earlier on Internet luring.

We have seen the Supreme Court of Canada come out with a case called R. v. Friesen that said mid-single-digit penitentiary terms should not be odd; they should be the norm. I cannot recall whether the maximum sentence for possession of child sexual abuse and exploitation material is 10 or 14 years, but for Internet luring it is 14 years, and for production, I believe, it is 14 years.

The court said that a maximum sentence should not be all that uncommon. I still look, to this day, at B.C. Court of Appeal decisions every day, just because I find them interesting. I cannot remember one time seeing anything close to the maximum sentence. In fact, what I am seeing more of is what used to be considered outlier cases, where community-based sentences are now being provided.

In 2011, a respected jurist said that we should be looking at three to five years for Internet luring. Then there was the Supreme Court of Canada case R. v. Friesen that said sentences should range from the upper-single digits to double digits on sexual offences against children, and the maximum should not be there. What are we seeing? We are just not seeing it come to fruition.

I know I have not touched on this as much as I could. I could obviously speak a lot more. I wholeheartedly endorse the bill. It is time that we address sexual offences in this country and that we do it with full vigour. I, my colleagues and, I believe, my colleagues across the aisle, should be focused on this. It is something that cannot wait another day.

[Rachel Blaney, NDP, North Island—Powell River, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am here today to speak to Bill C-270, which is an act to amend the Criminal Code around pornographic material.

We all, in the House, agree that we do not want to see children treated in a way that is sexualized. Children deserve to be children as long as possible. We know that, far too often, without consent, young people are exposed to predators who take advantage of their vulnerability.

I think it is important. I look forward to seeing the bill go to committee, where we can do some of the work. However, we also have to acknowledge some factors that move us into this place of having images online without young people's consent. We want to make sure that people participating in this realm are 18 or older. We need to find ways to address this.

We know that the resources are not there, as well, for enforcement to go after some of these very serious predators. We need to see the resources there, and they need to be supported so that we can move forward and protect young people.

I look forward to hearing those witnesses. We know that, as we move forward with this type of legislation, we have to look at ways that express consent can be given safely. This is something that we should be talking about a lot here, not only the outcome of this behaviour. We see young people being exploited; we see predators using technology to groom young people and mislead them into thinking they are someone else, then young people are sharing content about themselves that they should not be sharing.

When we think about this behaviour, we have to understand that these are predators. The bad people are not easy to see, and whenever it is revealed, we are often shocked by the members of our community who are part of this. I hope this discussion also looks at how we address that.

When we think of preventative measures, a significant part of prevention is looking at how we see sex education through our education fields and in the places where young people can come together and learn factual information. There is a lot of factual information that supports this.

I was looking at the report by Action Canada for Sexual Health and Rights, which talks about the state of sex ed in Canada. I love the hashtag. It says #SexEdSavesLives, and I believe that is absolutely true. If young people are exposed, it is getting harder and harder for people who love them to try to find ways to keep them safe. That is the world we live in, with technology right now, as young people have access to information.

Part of keeping young people safe is allowing them to have the appropriate education for their needs. The report says some things. It says:

In sum, the sex-ed most young people in Canada receive is:

1. Not meeting international standards and best practices nor is it meeting our own 2019 Canadian Guidelines for Sexuality Education;

2. Outdated;

3. Not comprehensive;

4. Not monitored or evaluated to ensure high-quality delivery; and

5. Offered by educators who receive low to no support from provinces and educational systems and whose comfort levels are often low.

This leads to a lack of safety for young people if they do not understand the information that is around them. If a person has issues around sexuality as a young person, or really at any age, and they are fearful and do not know whom to ask, often they go where there are secrets. They do this because they are keeping a secret about their own understanding.

We have to think about that. We have to think about how young people are prepared or not prepared for these things.

As they are exploring, if they do not have a safe adult to go to and learn more from, if they do not have a place of education that teaches them factual information about their bodies and what is happening, then they are left vulnerable. It is really important that we do not leave young people vulnerable.

I had the great pleasure of raising two beautiful sons, and we spent a lot of time talking about things so that they would have an understanding. What I found is that my openness led to their friends coming to ask me questions, and sometimes they were very interesting questions. However, it allowed for that safe adult who was going to talk to them openly about it, who was not going to create a secret or hiding place but be open and up front, and it seemed to help.

I will read again from the report, and the amazing people in the House should not worry. I will make sure to send the link so that they know where the content is coming from. It reads:

...the federal government, as signatory to international human rights treaties, is failing to hold provinces and territories accountable to delivering comprehensive sexuality education in line with human rights obligations. This runs contrary to positions taken by Canada at the UN that support the full implementation of comprehensive sexuality education around the world.

The threat is everywhere. I know it is scary, but a defence mechanism is making sure that people are properly educated, especially young people. I think that, regardless of our opinions on a lot of things in the House, everybody here understands, hopefully, that children are a precious gift and that we want to protect them as long as we possibly can. However, ignoring reality is not protecting them. Not talking about things that are happening for them and their friends is not helping them. It is keeping them less safe. Let us make sure that we educate people who will educate our children, that we are engaged in that process and that we make sure it is one of the beautiful lines of defence that we have created in our children, knowing that they can talk about these things openly.

The other thing that has come up as a concern around the bill, which I hope we address meaningfully in the study that we are doing, is around the safety of sex workers, and this is something that I am very passionate about. We know that there are a lot of people who are of the age of consent, and they are doing this work. It has happened forever. I cannot tell members when it was not happening. We know that sex work continues to be something that is just part of us as a people across the planet. One of the things that worries me is that we have to look at how we are building the defences so that we can protect our children. Part of building defences is making sure that sex work is safe, that people have the ability to talk about what is happening to them and that they are not put into positions where they are made increasingly vulnerable.

I was reading a report that Pivot Legal Society in B.C. sent as a submission to the special rapporteur on violence against women and girls for its report to the UN Human Rights Council on prostitution and violence against women and girls, and it was done in January of this year. One of the things that it talked about was this:

Qualitative research and data from Canada consistently shows that criminalization and policing of clients, under demand legislative models, shape sex workers’ health and safety, and that police-based enforcement heighten the risk of violence, by reducing sex workers’ ability to employ client screening mechanisms and negotiate safer terms of sexual transactions, including condom use for prevention of HIV/STI....

When we think about this, when we look at the legislation that we are making in this place, across this country and in every province and territory, part of what we have to be addressing is how we keep people safe.

When we have sexuality and that part of our human nature secret, repressed and pushed down, it comes out in ways that are dysfunctional, sick and violent, and that worries me. We need to make it safer for people to do what they do, because it takes it out of the shadows and makes it something that we can actually deal with that is out there. The more we repress it, push it aside and pretend it is not happening, the less safe children are and the less safe people are, and it is not okay.

I think of times in my community when I was approached about particular segments of the community that refused to use condoms when they were having sex with sex workers, and desperate people were getting into desperate situations. However, the spreading of STIs and HIV was only increasing, and the health outcomes were terrible.

When we look at this issue, we should make sure that we are keeping children precious, make sure that we are keeping sex workers safe and make sure that education is at the core of it.

[Andréanne Larouche, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

Mr. Speaker, as the member for Shefford and the Bloc Québécois critic for the status of women, I want to say that we support Bill C-270 in principle. We would like to examine this bill in committee. The Bloc Québécois fully supports the bill's stated objective, which is to combat child pornography and the distribution and commercialization of non-consensual pornography.

Since the first warning about the tragedy of women and girls whose sexual exploitation is the source of profits for major online porn companies, the Bloc Québécois has been involved at every stage and at all times in the public process to expose the extent of this public problem, which goes to our core values, including the right to dignity, safety and equality.

On this subject of online sexual exploitation, as on all facets and forms of the sexual exploitation of women, we want to stand as allies not only of the victims, but also of all the women who are taking action to combat violence and exploitation. I will begin by giving a little background on the topic, then I will explain the bill and, in closing, I will expand on some of the other problems that exist in Canada.

First, let us not forget that the public was alerted to the presence of non-consensual child pornography by an article that was published in the New York Times on December 4, 2020. The article reported the poignant story of 14-year old Serena K. Fleites. Explicit videos of her were posted on the website Pornhub without her consent.

This Parliament has already heard the devastating, distressing and appalling testimony of young Serena, which helped us understand the sensitive nature and gravity of the issue, but also the perverse mechanisms that porn streaming platforms use to get rich by exploiting the flaws of a technological system that, far from successfully controlling the content that is broadcast, is built and designed to promote and yet conceal the criminal practices of sexual exploitation.

Reports regarding the presence of child sexual abuse material and other non-consensual content on the adult platform Pornhub led the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics to undertake a study on the protection of privacy and reputation on online platforms such as Pornhub. My colleague from Laurentides—Labelle has followed this issue closely.

The committee noted that these platforms' content moderation practices had failed to protect privacy and reputation and had failed to prevent child sexual abuse material from being uploaded, despite statements by representatives of MindGeek and Pornhub who testified before the committee.

That same committee looked at regulating adult sites and online pornography, without challenging the legality. The committee heard testimony from survivors, critics of MindGeek's practices, child protection organizations, members of law enforcement, the federal government, academics, experts and support organizations, and it received many briefs.

The Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics made 14 recommendations regarding the problems it had studied. The committee's 2021 report was clear and it recommended that the government introduce a bill to create a new regulator to ensure that online platforms remove harmful content, including depictions of child sexual exploitation and non-consensual images.

We know that sexually explicit content is being uploaded to Pornhub without the consent of the individuals involved, including minors, and that these individuals have tried and failed to get Pornhub to remove that content. We know that these survivors have been traumatized and harassed and that most of them have thought about suicide. That is the type of testimony that we heard at the Standing Committee on the Status of Women with regard to cases of sexual exploitation.

We know that even if content is finally removed, users just re-upload it shortly afterward. We know that the corporate structure of MindGeek, which was renamed Aylo last August, is the quintessential model for avoiding accountability, transparency and liability. We know that investigations are under way and that there has been a surge in online child sexual exploitation reports.

We must now legislate to respond to these crimes and deal with these problems. We also need to keep in mind the magnitude of the criminal allegations and the misconduct of which these companies are accused. Just recently, a new class action lawsuit was filed in the United States against MindGeek and many of the sites it owns, including Pornhub, over allegations of sex trafficking involving tens of thousands of children.

Let us not forget that these companies are headquartered right in Montreal. The fact that our country is home to mafia-style companies that profit from sexual exploitation is nothing to be proud of. The international community is well aware of this, and it reflects poorly on us. For these reasons, we have an additional obligation to take action, to find solutions that will put an end to sexual exploitation, and to implement those solutions through legislation.

With that in mind, we must use the following questions to guide our thinking. Are legislative proposals on this subject putting forward the right solutions? Will they be effective at controlling online sexual exploitation and, specifically, preventing the distribution of non-consensual content and pornographic content involving minors?

Second, let us talk a little more about Bill C‑270. This bill forces producers of pornographic material to obtain the consent of individuals and to ensure that they are of age. In addition, distributors will have to obtain written confirmation from producers that the individuals' consent has been obtained and that they are of age before the material is distributed. These new Criminal Code provisions will require large platforms and producers to have a process for verifying individuals' age and consent, without which they will be subject to fines or imprisonment.

The House will be considering two bills simultaneously. The first is Bill C-270, from the member for Peace River—Westlock, with whom I co-chair the All-Party Parliamentary Group to End Modern Slavery and Human Trafficking. The second is Bill C-63, introduced by the Minister of Justice, which also enacts new online harms legislation and aims to combat the sexual victimization of children and to make intimate content communicated without consent inaccessible.

We will need to achieve our goals, which are to combat all forms of online sexual exploitation and violence, stop the distribution and marketing of all pornographic material involving minors, prevent and prohibit the distribution of explicit non-consensual content, force adult content companies and platforms to control the distribution of such content, and make them accountable and criminally responsible for the presence of such content on their online platforms.

There is a debate about the law's ability to make platforms accountable for hosted content. It also raises questions about the relevance of self-regulation in the pornography industry.

Third, let us talk about what we can do here. Due to the high volume of complaints it receives, the RCMP often reacts to matters relating to child sexual abuse material, or CSAM, rather than acting proactively to prevent them. Canada's criminal legislation prohibits child pornography, but also other behaviours aimed at facilitating the commission of a sexual offence against a minor. It prohibits voyeurism and the non-consensual distribution of intimate images. Other offences of general application such as criminal harassment and human trafficking may also apply depending on the circumstances.

In closing, I will provide a few figures to illustrate the scope of this problem. Between 2014 and 2022, there were 15,630 incidents of police-reported online sexual offences against children and 45,816 incidents of online child pornography. The overall rate of police-reported online child sexual exploitation incidents has also risen since 2014. The rate of online child pornography increased 290% between 2014 and 2022. Girls were overrepresented as victims for all offence types over that nine-year period. The majority of victims of police-reported online sexual offences against children were girls, particularly girls between the ages of 12 and 17, who accounted for 71% of victims.

Incidents of non-consensual distribution of intimate images most often involved a youth victim and a youth accused. Nearly all child and youth victims, 97% to be exact, between 2015 to 2022 were aged 12 to 17 years, with a median age of 15 years for girls and 14 years for boys. Overall, nine in 10 accused persons, or 90%, were youth aged 12 to 17. For one-third of youth victims, or 33%, a casual acquaintance had shared the victim's intimate images with others.

Here is a quote from the Montreal Council of Women: “On behalf of the members of the Montreal Council of Women, I wish to confirm our profound concern for those whose lives have been turned upside down by the involuntary and/or non-consensual sharing of their images on websites and other platforms such as the Montreal-based Pornhub. The ‘stopping Internet sexual exploitation act’ will make much-needed amendments to the Criminal Code to protect children and those who have not given consent for their images and other content to be shared and commercialized.”

We must act. It is a question of safety for our women and girls. Young women and girls are depending on it.

The House resumed from April 9 consideration of the motion that Bill C-270, An Act to amend the Criminal Code (pornographic material), be read the second time and referred to a committee.

National Defence

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Madam Speaker, the member is so sensitive to us calling out what the Conservative Party is doing. I just finished saying that the most important reality of our Canadian Forces is the families, and he is standing up on a point of order. Does he not realize that the families of the Canadian Forces members are, in fact, what this report is all about?

As someone who was in the Canadian Forces and who was posted in Edmonton, I understand the issue of housing. I understand the pros and cons, the dips and so forth that take place, the waiting list for PMQs, for barracks and the whole process in which housing has evolved in the Canadian Forces, and I understand how important the issue is. I knew this not only today, and it did not necessarily take the report coming to the floor to be debated. This is not new. There has always been waiting lists to get into PMQs since the days when I was in the forces. I had to wait, and I actually lived in a PMQ. There have always been waiting lists.

Why did the Conservative Party wait until today to introduce this motion? If, in fact, Conservatives were genuine and really cared about the families and the Canadian Forces, they could have introduced some form of a motion on an opposition day. They should have done that if they genuinely cared about families and those in the forces representing our country and doing a phenomenal job, whether in Canada or abroad.

The Government of Canada has the backs of those members in the Canadian Forces and their families a lot more than Stephen Harper ever did. When I was first elected to the House of Commons in 2010, Stephen Harper literally closed down veterans offices, not two or three, but nine all over the country.

Members can imagine the veterans who already served in the forces in many different capacities and were going into private homes and facilities, some even in the non-profit area, when Stephen Harper shut down those access offices. In Manitoba, it was in Brandon. I was glad that when we took over the reins of power, we actually reopened those offices to continue to support our veterans.

There are two issues here that really need to be talked about. First and foremost is the motivating factor of the Conservative Party today and why the Conservatives are moving this motion. As the NDP House leader clearly attempted to get this motion passed, the Conservatives said no. It was not because of interest for members of the forces but rather to prevent legislation from being debated.

Just yesterday, I was in the House and had the opportunity to speak to a private member's bill, Bill C-270, which dealt with the issues of child porn and non-consensual porn. I stood in my place and provided commentary on how serious and important that issue is, not only to the government but also to every member inside this chamber. Throughout the debate, we found out that the Conservative Party was actually going to be voting against Bill C-63, which is the online harms act.

That was important to mention because the Conservatives were criticizing the government for not calling the legislation. They were heckling from their seats and were asking why we did not call the legislation if it was so important.

The Conservatives realize that when they bring in motions, as they have done today, they are preventing the government from bringing in legislation and from having debates on legislation. Then, they cry to anyone who will listen. They will tell lies and will do all sorts of things on social media. They spread misinformation to Canadians to try to give the impression that the House and Canada are broken.

There is no entity in the country that causes more dysfunction in the House of Commons, or even outside of the Ottawa bubble, than the Conservative Party of Canada under the leadership of the far right MAGA leader today. That is the core of the problem. They have a leader who genuinely believes and who wants to demonstrate that this chamber is dysfunctional. The only thing that is dysfunctional in this chamber is the Conservative Party. It does not understand what Canadians want to see.

If we look at some of the commitments we are making to the Canadian Armed Forces, we are talking about billions of dollars in the coming years. We have a target, and a lot depends on economic factors, but we are looking at 1.7% by 2030.

Let us contrast that to the Conservative government of Stephen Harper, who was the prime minister when the current Conservative leader was a parliamentary secretary and was a part of that government in a couple of roles. We saw a substantial decrease in funding. I made reference to the veterans and to shutting them down. What about the lack of general funding toward the Canadian Forces? We hit an all-time low under the Conservative Party and Stephen Harper. It was 1% of the GDP. That would be awfully embarrassing to go abroad and to start talking to people in the United States or to any of our ally countries in NATO. They were laughing at the Harper regime.

The Liberal government had to straighten out the problems of the Conservatives' inability to get a jet fighter. For years, they tried and failed. The Liberal government is now delivering on getting the jet fighters. The Liberal government continues to look at ways we can enhance our Canadian Forces, not only for today but also into the future. We will have new search and rescue aircraft that will be operating out of places like the city of Winnipeg.

Stopping Internet Sexual Exploitation Act

[Ben Carr, Liberal, Winnipeg South Centre, MB]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to join the second reading debate with respect to Bill C-270, an act to amend the Criminal Code on pornographic material, which was introduced on April 28, 2022, by the member for Peace River—Westlock.

I want to take an opportunity off the top to thank an organization that has played a critical role in advocacy in terms of dealing with so many of the challenges that the members opposite have raised. This organization, the Canadian Centre for Child Protection, is located in the heart of my riding in Winnipeg South Centre. I want to thank Lianna McDonald, Signy Arnason, Noni Classen and the entire team at the Canadian Centre for Child Protection for the work that they have done and continue to do in helping to protect children across this country.

I know we all agree that non-consensual distribution of intimate images, child sexual abuse, sexual assault and human trafficking, as well as any images of such conduct, are among the most heinous crimes. I know that we are all deeply concerned that depictions of these crimes have been uploaded and shared on online platforms.

Ensuring that our policies and legislation effectively address this serious issue is a priority for our government. Victims must be protected, and digital platforms have a critical role to play in protecting them.

I know we all agree that non-consensual distribution of intimate images, child sexual abuse, sexual assault and human trafficking, as well as any images of such conduct, are among the most heinous crimes. I know that we are deeply concerned—

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke, BC]

Madam Speaker, New Democrats support, as all parties do, tackling the important issues that the bill before us seeks to tackle. We also know that there has been an explosion of sexual exploitation of individuals online without their consent and an explosion of child pornography. What we have to do is find those measures that would be effective in bringing an end to these heinous practices.

Like the member for Peace River—Westlock, I would like to support and salute the survivors who have told their tales, at much personal sacrifice and much personal anguish, publicly acknowledging what has happened to them and the impact it has had on their lives. We would not be making progress on these issues without that work by those survivors, so I think we all want to salute them for their bravery in taking up this problem.

However, the challenge with these issues is to find what will actually work to end sexual exploitation. We know that a lack of resources for enforcement is almost always at least equally important to any gaps in legislation. What we need to see is dedicated funding to specific and skilled police units to tackle these questions because it can become highly complex and highly convoluted in trying to bring these cases to prosecution, and we know that is one of the problems with the existing legislation. It is difficult to prosecute for these offences under the Criminal Code as it now stands.

We look forward, as New Democrats, to hearing from expert witnesses in committee on what measures will actually be the most effective in bringing an end to these practices, and whether and how the measures proposed in Bill C-270 would contribute to bringing an end to online sexual exploitation. The bill, in some senses, is very simple. It would require checking ID and keeping records of consent. Some would argue that the existing law already implicitly requires that, so is this a step that would make it easier to prosecute? I do not know the answer to that, but I am looking forward to hearing expert testimony on it.

While this legislation is not specific to women, it is important to acknowledge the disproportionate representation of women as victims of both child pornography and of sexual exploitation online without consent. However, I would also note that we have had a recent rash of cases of sexploitation or sextortion of young men who thought they had been speaking to other partners their own age online. They later find out that they were being threatened with the images they had shared being posted online and being asked for money or sexual favours to avoid that. Yes, it is primarily women, but we have seen this other phenomenon occurring where men pose as young women to get young boys to share those images.

Obviously, we need more education for young people on the dangers of sharing intimate images, although I am under no illusion that we can change the way young people relate to each other online and through their phones. Education would be important, but some measures to deal with these things when they happen are also important.

If we look at the Criminal Code, paragraph 162.1(1) already makes it illegal to distribute an intimate image without consent. Of course, child pornography, under a succeeding subsection, is also already illegal. This was first brought forward and added to the Criminal Code 11 years ago. I was a member of Parliament at that time, and the member for Peace River—Westlock joined us shortly after. It came in an omnibus bill brought forward by the Conservatives. In that bill, there were a number of things, to be honest, that New Democrats objected to, but when the bill, which was Bill C-13 at the time, was brought forward, our spokesperson Françoise Boivin offered to the government to split the bill, take out the section on online exploitation without consent and pass it through all stages in a single day. The Conservatives refused, at that point, to do that, and it took another year and a half to get that passed into law.

New Democrats have been supportive in taking these actions and have recognized its urgency for more than a decade. We are on board with getting the bill before us to committee and making sure that we find what is most effective in tackling these problems.

What are the problems? I see that there are principally two.

One, as I have mentioned before, is the difficulty of prosecution and the difficulty of making those who profit from this pay a price. All the prosecutors I have talked to have said that it is difficult to make these cases. It is difficult to investigate, and it is difficult to get convictions. Are there things we can do that would help make prosecution easier, and are the things suggested in the bill going to do that? I look forward to finding that out in committee.

The second problem is the problem of takedown, and we all know that once the images are uploaded, they are there forever. They are hard to get rid of. As members of the government's side have pointed out, there are measures in government Bill C-63 that would help with warrants of seizure, forfeiture, restitution and peace bonds in trying to get more effective action to take down the images once they have been posted. I am not an optimist about the ability to do that, but we seem to lack the tools we need now to make a stab at taking the images off-line. It is also important to remember that whatever we do here has to make our law more effective at getting those who are profiting from the images. That is really what the bill is aimed at, and I salute the member for Peace River—Westlock for that singular focus because I think that is really key.

We also have to be aware of unintended consequences. When subsection 162.1(1) became law, in court we ran into a problem fairly early on of minors who share private images between each other, because technically, under the law as it is written, that is illegal; it is child pornography, and it certainly was not the intention to capture 15-year-olds who share intimate images with each other.

Whenever we make these kinds of changes, we have to make sure they do not have unintended consequences. Whether we like the practices that young people engage in online or not is not the question. We just have to make sure we do not capture innocent people when we are trying to capture those who profit from exploitation. The second part, in terms of unintended consequences, is I think we have to keep in mind there are those who are engaged in lawful forms of sex work online, and we have to make sure they are not captured under the broad strokes of the bill.

Again, I am looking forward to hearing the testimony about what will work to tackle these problems. We know the images are already illegal, but we know we lack effective tools in the legal system both to prosecute and to get the images taken down. New Democrats are broadly supportive of the principles in the bill. We are looking forward to the expert testimony I am certain we will hear at committee about what will actually work in tackling the problem. I look forward to the early passage of the bill through to committee.

[Marie-Hélène Gaudreau, Bloc, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

Madam Speaker, on November 21, 2022, a team from the TV show Envoyé spécial travelled from Paris to my office on the Hill. The France 2 team was there for a major investigation into Pornhub and the tragic experience of women and girls being sexually exploited by massive online pornography companies for profit.

The French public television team wanted to see me because, during the 43rd Parliament, I was a member of the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics, where we studied this unbelievable industry. I would actually describe this industry as disgusting, and people can understand why. It exploits and abuses women to create and distribute pornographic content with neither their knowledge nor their consent. I was absolutely shocked by what I heard.

The committee heard from Serena Fleites, whose story was reported in a New York Times article. According to the article, the 14-year-old found herself in sexually explicit videos uploaded to Pornhub. It is abominable.

I was also shocked by when the administrators of MindGeek, the parent company behind Pornhub, whose office was in Montreal at the time, came before the committee. I was stunned by the administrators' pathological lack of consideration for victims. As far as they were concerned, it was not really their fault if those videos ended up on their platform, and it would not harm their lives. It was appalling.

The work we did in committee on Pornhub's practices enabled every member from every party present to understand the dubious mechanisms by which platforms distributing pornographic material get rich by exploiting the flaws in a technological system that is far from being able to control the content being distributed. In fact, it is built and designed to encourage criminal sexual exploitation practices by covering them up.

The committee I was on heard about the failure of moderation. We were told that the content was moderated, that people's privacy and reputations were protected. We heard about the failure to prevent the presence of child sexual exploitation material, despite the claims of the MindGeek representatives who testified in committee.

The committee made a number of recommendations, including the following: We must now, as a matter of urgency, pass legislation to respond to these crimes and deal with these troubling issues. I would remind the House that this study took place during the 43rd Parliament, which ran from 2019 to 2021. Now it is 2024. We had to wait for a bill from a Conservative member before we could finally talk about it in Parliament. What is the government waiting for? We are talking about human dignity. Young girls are having their reputations tarnished. Young people are committing suicide because they have been manipulated and cheated, because people have abused their trust. This has to stop.

I am going to give some figures on what happened from 2014 to 2022. This is important because we will understand the seriousness of the situation. Police reported 15,630 incidents of online sexual offences against children and 48,816 incidents of online child pornography.

The rate of police-reported online child sexual exploitation has risen since 2014, reaching 160 cases per 100,000 Canadian children and youth in 2022. Between 2014 and 2022, making and distributing child pornography accounted for three-quarters of child pornography cases, while possessing or accessing child pornography accounted for the remainder. The rate of online child pornography increased 290% in that short period of time.

Girls were overrepresented as victims for all offence types over the nine-year period. The majority of victims of police-reported online sexual offences against children were girls, particularly girls between the ages of 12 and 17.

Incidents of non-consensual distribution of intimate images most often involved a youth victim and a youth accused. Nearly all—97%—child and youth victims between 2015 and 2022 were aged 12 to 17 years, with a median age of 15 years for girls and 14 years for boys. Nine in ten accused persons were minors. For one-third of youth victims, a casual acquaintance shared the victim's intimate images with others. The goal is that once the image has been uploaded, it can be uploaded again, even months after it has been viewed.

I am calling on my colleagues to refer this bill to committee so that it may be improved and become an example to the world. We must no longer allow sexual exploitation.

Bill C‑270 “amends the Criminal Code to prohibit a person from making, distributing or advertising pornographic material for commercial purposes without having first ascertained that, at the time the material was made, each person whose image is depicted in the material was 18 years of age or older and gave their express consent to their image being depicted.” To me, that is essential.

The voluntary agreement, in writing, of the person whose image is depicted in the pornographic material will be required before the content can be uploaded to the platforms.

Makers and distributors who do not comply with the requirements of the legislation will be subject to fines of up to half a million dollars and a prison sentence of up to two years. Alternatively, the offence may be punishable on summary conviction and liable to a fine of not more than $100,000. What is more, convicted distributors or makers will be subject to an order.

I could go on at length, but I have only 30 seconds left. I just want to close by saying that this is a serious subject that raises a lot of questions, that this bill must be referred to committee and that the Bloc Québécois will vote in favour of it.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Madam Speaker, to be very clear, with regard to the issue of non-consensual pornography and child pornography, I like to believe that every member in the House would be deeply offended by any activity that would ultimately lead to, encourage or promote, in any fashion whatsoever, those two issues. It angers a great number of us, to the degree that it causes all forms of emotions. We all want to do what we can to play an important role in making our online world experience a safer place.

I must say that I was a little surprised when the member for Peace River—Westlock responded to the issue of Bill C-63. I did have some concerns.

When one thinks of non-consensual pornography and child pornography, they are already illegal today in Canada. We know that. I appreciate what is being suggested in the private member's legislation, but he was asked a question in regard to Bill C-63, the government legislation dealing with the online harms act. It is something that is very specific and will actually have a very tangible impact. I do not know 100%, because this is the first time that I heard that members of the Conservative Party might be voting against that legislation. That would go against everything, I would suggest, in principle, that the member opposite talked about in his speech.

The greatest threat today is once that information gets uploaded. How can we possibly contain it? That is, in part, what we should be attempting to deal with as quickly as possible. There was a great deal of consultation and work with stakeholders in all forms to try to deal with that. That is why we have the online harms act before us today.

I wanted to ask the member a question. The question I was going to ask the member is this: Given the very nature of his comments, would he not agree that the House should look at a way in which we could expedite the passage of Bill C-63?

By doing that, we are going to be directly helping some of the individuals the member addressed in his opening comments. The essence of what Bill C-63 does is that it provides an obligation, a legal obligation, for online platforms to take off of their platforms child pornography and non-consensual pornography. For example, the victims of these horrific actions can make contact and see justice because these platforms would have 24 hours to take it off. It brings some justice to the victims.

I do not understand, based on his sincerity and how genuine the member was when he made the presentation of his bill. I have a basic understanding of what the member is trying to accomplish in the legislation, and I think that there are some questions in regard to getting some clarification.

As I indicated, in terms of the idea of child pornography not being illegal, it is illegal today. We need to make that statement very clear. Non-consensual pornography is as well. Both are illegal. There is a consequence to perpetrators today if they are found out. What is missing is how we get those platforms to get rid of those images once those perpetrators start uploading the information and platforms start using the material. That is what the government legislation would provide.

Hopefully before we end the two hours of debate the member can, in his concluding remarks, because he will be afforded that opportunity, provide some thoughts in regard to making sure people understand that this is illegal today and the importance of getting at those platforms. If we do not get at those platforms, the problem is not going to go away.

There was a question posed by I believe a New Democratic member asking about countries around the world. People would be surprised at the motivation used to get child pornography on the net and livestreamed. I have seen some eye-opening presentations that show that in some countries in the world the person who is putting the child on the Internet is a parent or a guardian. They do it as a way to source revenue. They do it for income for the family. How sad is that?

How angering is it to see the criminal element in North America that exploits these individuals, and children in particular. This is not to mention of course the importance of non-consensual pornography, but think of the trauma created as a direct result of a child going through things a child should never, ever have to experience. This will have a lifetime effect on that child. We know that. We see generational issues as a direct result of it.

That is the reason I like to think that every member of the House of Commons would look at the issue at hand and the principles of what we are talking about and want to take some initiative to minimize it. Members need to talk to the stakeholders. I have had the opportunity in different ways over the last number of years to do so. It is one the reasons I was very glad to see the government legislation come forward.

I was hoping to get clarification from the member on Bill C-270. He may be thrown off a little because of Bill C-63, which I believe will be of greater benefit than Bill C-270. After listening to the member speak though, I found out that the Conservative Party is apparently looking at voting against Bill C-63.

We come up with things collectively as a House to recognize important issues and put forward legislation that would have a positive impact, and I would suggest that Bill C-63 is one of those things. I would hope the member who introduced this private member's bill will not only be an advocate for his bill but be the strongest voice and advocate within his own caucus for the online harms act, Bill C-63, so we can get the support for that bill. It would literally save lives and take ungodly things off the Internet. It would save the lives of children.

[Arnold Viersen, Conservative, Peace River—Westlock, AB]

moved that Bill C-270, An Act to amend the Criminal Code (pornographic material), be read the second time and referred to a committee.

Madam Speaker, imagine being the parent of a teenage daughter who has been missing for months and somebody discovers 50 explicit videos of that daughter being sexually abused on Pornhub, the most popular porn site in the world. Imagine how one would feel if intimate images of one's sibling was uploaded and Pornhub refused one's request to remove that content. Now, imagine if those videos of their exploited loved ones were being monetized and published for profit by Pornhub and were made available to Pornhub's over 130 daily visitors.

How would someone feel if Pornhub’s only response was an auto-reply email? Understandably, one would be outraged. One would be furious, yet this happens over and over. Survivors, including a 12-year-old from Ontario, have had to seek justice through their own lawsuits because in Canada, the onus is on survivors and on law enforcement to prove, after the material has been uploaded, that the individuals depicted in those videos are either under age or have not consented to their distribution. This is a serious problem that Bill C-270, the stopping internet sexual exploitation act, seeks to fix.

it’s important to note that for years, survivors, child protection agencies and the police have spoken out about this exploitation. They have not been silent. Survivors have shared how pornographic companies like Pornhub have been profiting from content depicting minors, sex trafficking victims, sexual assault, intimate images and gender-based violence for years. As early as 2019, companies like PayPal cut ties with MindGeek due to the availability of exploitive and abusive content.

In March 2020, a few parliamentarians and I wrote a public letter to the Prime Minister to alert him about the exploitation that was happening on MindGeek. We followed up in November 2020 with a letter to the then Minister of Justice, urging him to ensure that our laws were adequate to prevent women and girls from being exploited by Pornhub.

It was The New York Times exposé on December 4, 2020, in a piece written by Nicholas Kristof, that finally got the public's and the government’s attention. It was entitled “The Children of Pornhub: Why does Canada allow this company to profit off videos of exploitation and assault?” That article finally kicked off a firestorm of international attention on Pornhub, which is one of many pornographic websites owned by MindGeek, a Canadian company based in Montreal. About a year ago, it was bought and rebranded as Aylo by a company called Ethical Capital Partners, based in Ottawa.

A few days after that article, the House of Commons ethics committee initiated an investigation into Pornhub. I joined the ethics committee for its study on Pornhub and listened to the harrowing stories of young women who had videos of sexual assaults or intimate content shared without their consent. Many of these women were minors when the videos were created and uploaded to pornography sites like Pornhub. I want to take a moment to share some of their testimony.

Serena Fleites, whose story was covered by The New York Times exposé, had videos of her at age 13 uploaded by her ex-boyfriend. After that, her whole life came crumbling down. She experienced depression and drug use. She was harassed by people at her school who found her video and sent it to family members. She was blackmailed. She had to pretend to be her mother to have the videos taken down from Pornhub. This was all while she was 13 years old. In the end, she stopped going to school. She told us:

I thought that once I stopped being in the public so much, once I stopped going to school, people would stop re-uploading it. But that didn't happen, because it had already been basically downloaded by [all the] people...[in] the world. It would always be uploaded, over and over and over again. No matter how many times I got it taken down, it would be right back up again.

It basically became a full-time job for her to just chase down those images and to get them removed from Pornhub.

Some witnesses appeared anonymously to protect their identities. One witness stated, “I was 17 when videos of me on Pornhub came to my knowledge, and I was only 15 in the videos they [were] profiting from.” She went on to say, “Every time they took it down, they also allowed more and more videos of me to be reuploaded.” That witness also said, “Videos of me being on Pornhub has affected my life so much to the point that I don't leave my house anymore. I stopped being able to work because I [am]...scared to be out in public around other people.”

Another survivor who spoke to us at committee is Victoria Galy. As a result of discovering non-consensual images and videos of herself on Pornhub, she completely lost her sense of self-worth, and at times, she was suicidal. She told us at committee, “There were over eight million views just on Pornhub alone. To think of the amount of money that Pornhub has made off my trauma, date rape and sexual exploitation makes me sick to my stomach.” She added, “I have been forced to stand up alone and fight Pornhub”.

It is a serious failure of our justice system when survivors have to launch their own lawsuits to get justice for the harms caused by companies like MindGeek. This Canadian company has not faced a single charge or consequence in Canada for publishing its videos of exploitation and for profiting from them. This is truly shameful.

Last year, a survivor named Uldouz Wallace reached out to me. Uldouz is a survivor of the 2014 iCloud hack. She is also an award-winning actress, executive producer, activist and director of Foundation RA. Uldouz had photos and videos taken in the 2014 iCloud hack and uploaded onto porn sites like Pornhub, and she fought for years to get them taken down. As a result of this, she told us, “I lost followers, I lost everything that you could think of. It was just such hard time for me. I ended up spending over a million dollars over a three-year span just to get the content taken down on me with no success.... They're making so much money off of the non-consensual uploading of images and videos. The re-uploading is also a billion dollar industry.” She added, “There's still no federal laws. There's barely any laws at all to hold anyone online accountable. There's currently foreign revenge laws but for people like me there's nothing.”

Rachel, a survivor from Alberta, said that it was devastating and that it is going to haunt her for the rest of her life. She said that she will always be someone's porn.

I want to point out the incredible courage of Victoria, Serena, Uldouz, Rachel and many other survivors who have spoken out. In the midst of one of the most difficult moments of their lives, they are fighting back against a billion-dollar industry that seeks to profit from their pain and exploitation. I thank Victoria, Serena, Uldouz, and Rachel for refusing to back down. I thank them for their courage. I thank them for their relentless pursuit of justice. I would encourage members to listen to their full testimonies, and they can do so at www.siseact.ca.

Throughout the ethics committee hearings and from the interactions I have had with survivors since, it is clear that this is a common problem. Pornographic companies are publishing and monetizing content without verifying the age and the consent of the people depicted in them. This is particularly a problem for Canada as many of those websites are hosted here.

Bill C-270, the stopping Internet sexual exploitation act, would stop this. I am going to quote right from the summary of my bill. It states that the SISE act would:

...prohibit a person [including companies] from making, distributing or advertising pornographic material for commercial purposes without having first ascertained that, at the time the material was made, each person whose image is depicted in the material was 18 years of age or older and gave their express consent to their image being depicted.

The SISE act would also allow individuals to revoke their consent. This is an important part to express the ongoing consent. Finally, the SISE act would provide for aggravating factors when the material created or published actually depicts minors or non-consensual activity.

I am also pleased to share that I consulted on the bill with a variety of child protection agencies, law enforcement groups and the Canadian Centre for Child Protection to ensure that there are no gaps and that police have the tools to ensure they can seek justice.

The heart of the bill is consent. No one should be publishing sexually explicit material without the express consent of everyone depicted in that material. Children cannot consent to exploitation. Victims of sex trafficking and sexual assault cannot consent. Those filmed without their knowledge cannot consent, yet pornography companies freely publish this content and profit from it because there is no onus on them to verify the age or the consent of those depicted.

That is why the second recommendation of the 2021 ethics committee report is:

That the Government of Canada mandate that content-hosting platforms operating in Canada require affirmation from all persons depicted in pornographic content, before it can be uploaded, that they are 18 years old or older and that they consent to its distribution, and that it consult with the Privacy Commissioner of Canada with respect to the implementation of such obligation.

We have heard from survivors who testified that their images of abuse would not be online if companies like Pornhub had bothered to check for age and consent. Bill C-270 would fulfill this important recommendation from the ethics committee report and, importantly, I should add that this report was unanimously supported by all parties at the ethics committee.

The recommendation also suggests consulting with the Privacy Commissioner. I happy to share with my colleagues that on February 29, 2024, the Privacy Commissioner released his investigation into Pornhub's operator Aylo, formerly MindGeek. The report was initially scheduled to be released on May 23, but it was delayed for over nine months when MindGeek, or Aylo, and its owners, Ethical Capital Partners took the Privacy Commissioner to court to block the release of that report.

The Privacy Commissioner’s investigation into Aylo, MindGeek, was in response to a woman whose ex-boyfriend had uploaded intimate images of her to MindGeek's website without her consent. The young woman had to use a professional service to get it taken down and to remove her images from approximately 80 websites, where they had been re-posted more than 700 times.

The report shared how the publishing of the woman’s intimate images led to a permanent loss of control of the images, which had a devastating effect on her. It caused her to withdraw from her social life and to live in a state of fear and anxiety. The Commissioner stated:

This untenable situation could have been avoided in many cases had MindGeek obtained direct consent from each individual depicted in content prior to or at the time of upload.

Pornhub’s own Monthly Non-Consensual Content reports suggest that non-consensual content is still regularly uploaded and viewed by thousands of users before it is removed.

We find that by continuing to rely solely on the uploader to verify consent, MindGeek fails to ensure that it has obtained valid and meaningful consent from all individuals depicted in content uploaded to its websites.

Ultimately, the Privacy Commissioner recommended that Pornhub and its owners adopt measures that would verify age and consent before any content is uploaded. I would urge all members to read the Privacy Commissioner's report on Pornhub.

While Pornhub and its owners are the biggest pornography company in the world, this bill would ensure that age verification and consent applies to all pornography companies because whether it is videos of child exploitation, sex trafficking, AI deepfakes, sexual assault or an intimate encounter filmed by a partner, once a video or image has been uploaded, it is virtually impossible to eliminate. Each video can be viewed and downloaded millions of times within a 24-hour period, starting an endless nightmare for victims who must fight to get those videos removed, only for them to be uploaded again within minutes or hours.

Canada must do more to prevent this exploitive content from ever reaching the Internet in the first place. I hope I have the support of my colleagues in ending this nightmare for so many and in preventing it for so many more. To the survivors, some of whom are watching today, we thank them. Their voices are being heard.

I want to thank the organizations that have supported me along the way in getting this bill to this point: National Centre on Sexual Exploitation, National Council of Women of Canada, Ottawa Coalition to End Human Trafficking, London Abused Women's Centre, Defend Dignity, Vancouver Collective Against Sexual Exploitation, The Salvation Army, Survivor Safety Matters, Foundation RA, Montreal Council of Women, CEASE UK, Parents Aware, Joy Smith Foundation, Hope Resource Centre Association, Evangelical Fellowship of Canada, Colchester Sexual Assault Centre, Sexual Assault and Violence Intervention Services of Halton, and Ally Global Foundation.

Pornography

[Arnold Viersen, Conservative, Peace River—Westlock, AB]

Mr. Speaker, it is a real pleasure to stand up today to present a petition.

The petition I am presenting today comes from Canadians from across the country who are concerned about the consent and age verification of those depicted in pornographic material. The petitioners are asking the government to follow recommendation 2 of the 2021 Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics report on MindGeek, which would require all content hosting platforms to verify age prior to uploading content.

Bill C-270, the stopping Internet sexual exploitation act, would add two offences to the Criminal Code. The first requires age verification and consent prior to distribution. The second requires removal of that material if the consent withdrawn.

The petitioners are calling on the House of Commons to pass Bill C-270.

[Arnold Viersen, Conservative, Peace River—Westlock, AB]

Mr. Speaker, it is my privilege to rise today to present a petition from Canadians across the country, including many of my own constituents, who are concerned about the consent and age verification of those depicted in pornographic material.

The petitioners ask for the government to follow recommendation 2 of the 2021 Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics report on MindGeek. This requires that all content-hosting platforms in Canada verify age and consent prior to uploading content on platforms that operate on a commercial basis.

Bill C-270, the stopping Internet sexual exploitation act, would add two offences to the Criminal Code. The first would require age verification and consent prior to distribution; the second would require the removal of that material if consent is withdrawn. As such, the petitioners are calling for the quick passage of Bill C-270, the stopping Internet sexual exploitation act.

[Arnold Viersen, Conservative, Peace River—Westlock, AB]

Mr. Speaker, the next petition I have comes from Canadians from across the country who are concerned about the folks who are showing up in pornographic material. The petitioners want the Government of Canada to pass Bill C-270, the stopping internet sexual exploitation act, which will be up for debate tomorrow.

[Ted Falk, Conservative, Provencher, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I have two petitions here. In the first petition, the petitioners would ask that the government follow recommendation no. 2 from the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics' 2021report on MindGeek, which recommends that all content-hosting platforms in Canada verify age and consent prior to uploading content. Bill C-270, the stopping internet sexual exploitation act, would add two offences to the Criminal Code. The first would require age verification and consent prior to distribution; the second would require removal of material if consent is withdrawn.

As such, these petitioners call on the House of Commons to pass Bill C-270, the stopping internet sexual exploitation act.

[Arnold Viersen, Conservative, Peace River—Westlock, AB]

Mr. Speaker, the last petition I have to present today comes from Canadians from across the country who are concerned around the use and consent and the age verification of those depicted in pornographic material. They are calling on the House of Commons and the Government of Canada to quickly pass Bill C-270, the stopping Internet sexual exploitation act, which adds two offences to the Criminal Code.

[Arnold Viersen, Conservative, Peace River—Westlock, AB]

Mr. Speaker, the next petition I have is from Canadians from across the country, including many of my own constituents, who are concerned about the consent and age verification of those depicted in pornographic material.

Petitioners ask for the government to follow recommendation 2 from the 2021 Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics report on MindGeek, which required that all content-hosting platforms in Canada confirm consent and age before uploading this content.

Bill C-270, the stopping Internet sexual exploitation act, adds two offences to the Criminal Code. The first would require age verification and consent prior to distribution. The second requires the removal of that material if consent is withdrawn.

As such, the petitioners are calling on the House of Commons to quickly pass Bill C-270, the stopping Internet sexual exploitation act.

[Arnold Viersen, Conservative, Peace River—Westlock, AB]

Madam Speaker, I have two petitions to present today.

The first one is from Canadians from across the country who are concerned about how easy it is for young people to access sexually explicit material online, including violent and degrading explicit material. They comment how this access is an important public health and safety concern.

Petitioners also note that in an era in which we say we do not want violence against women, there are serious harms that come from this sexually explicit material including the development of attitudes favourable to the harassment of women and sexual violence. As such, the petitioners are calling on the House of Commons and the government to pass Bill S-210 quickly and forthright.

The second petition comes from Canadians from across the country who are concerned about the age and consent verification of those depicted in pornographic material.

The petitioners are asking the government to follow recommendation 2 from the 2021 Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics report on MindGeek, which would require that all content-hosting platforms in Canada verify age and consent prior to the uploading of content.

Bill C-270, the stopping Internet sexual exploitation act, would add two offences to the Criminal Code. The first would require age verification and consent prior to distribution. The second would require the removal of that material if consent is withdrawn. As such, the petitioners are calling on the House of Commons and the Government of Canada to pass Bill C-270 to stop Internet sexual exploitation.

[Arnold Viersen, Conservative, Peace River—Westlock, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I rise to present a petition from Canadians from across the country, including many of my own constituents, who are concerned about the consent and age verification of those depicted in pornographic material.

The petitioners call on the government to follow recommendation 2 of the 2021 Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics report on MindGeek, which would require that all content-hosting platforms in Canada verify age and consent prior to uploading content.

Bill C-270, the stopping Internet sexual exploitation act, would add two offences to the Criminal Code. The first would require age verification and consent prior to distribution, and the second would require the removal of material if consent is withdrawn. As such, the petitioners are calling on the Government of Canada and the House of Commons to pass Bill C-270 quickly to stop Internet sexual exploitation.

[Arnold Viersen, Conservative, Peace River—Westlock, AB]

Madam Speaker, the final petition I have today is another petition which calls on the Government of Canada to ensure the quick passage of Bill C-270, the stopping Internet sexual exploitation act.

This bill comes out of recommendation number two from the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics report on MindGeek, which requires all content-hosting platforms in Canada to verify age and consent prior to uploading this content.

As such, the petitioners are calling on the House of Commons to pass Bill C-270 quickly and expeditiously.

[Arnold Viersen, Conservative, Peace River—Westlock, AB]

Madam Speaker, the next petition is from Canadians from across the country. They want to draw to the attention of the House of Commons there is no laws requiring makers, distributers or advertisers of commercial pornographic material to ascertain or document the consent or age of those depicted in the material.

They also want to highlight the ethics committee's report on MindGeek, which stated, “That the Government of Canada mandate that content-hosting platforms operating in Canada require affirmation from all persons depicted in pornographic content, before it can be uploaded, that they are 18 years old or older and that they consent to its distribution”.

They want to offer their support to Bill C-270, the stop Internet sexual exploitation act, which would add two offences to the Criminal Code. These would be for creating pornographic material for commercial purpose without verifying the age or obtaining consent of the individual shown, and to distribute pornographic material without verifying the age and consent of those depicted, and also for not removing that material if, in writing, consent is withdrawn.

Finally, they want to recognize the work of organizations such as Defend Dignity, the National Council of Women, the London Abused Women's Centre, the Montreal Council of Women, Parents Aware and the National Child Exploitation Crime Centre. They have all expressed their support for Bill C-270. Therefore, they call on the Government of Canada and the House of Commons to adopt Bill C-270 quickly and expeditiously.

The next petition I have to present comes from Canadians from across the country who are concerned about the age verification that is not happening for those depicted in pornographic material.

The petitioners are also calling for the Government of Canada to ensure that age verification and consent are confirmed prior to distribution. They are also calling on the Government of Canada to pass Bill C-270 quickly and expeditiously.

[Arnold Viersen, Conservative, Peace River—Westlock, AB]

Madam Speaker, I rise today to present a petition from Canadians from across the country, including my own constituents, who are concerned about the age of consent and age verification of those depicted in pornographic material.

The petitioners note that the government should follow recommendation 2 from the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics report on MindGeek, which requires that all content-hosting platforms in Canada verify the age and consent prior to that content being uploaded.

Bill C-270, the stopping Internet sexual exploitation act, would add two offences to the Criminal Code. The first would require age verification and consent prior to distribution, and the second would require the content to be removed if the consent is withdrawn. As such, the petitioners are calling on the House of Commons to speedily pass Bill C-270, the stopping Internet sexual exploitation act.

Online Pornography

[Arnold Viersen, Conservative, Peace River—Westlock, AB]

Mr. Speaker, after eight years of the Liberal government, Traffickinghub continues to operate with impunity. New undercover videos confirm that MindGeek continues to profit off these videos of CSAM, sex trafficking and rape. This is what survivors have said all along. The Canadian company is facing nine lawsuits with 195 victims, and these courageous survivors tell me that their fight continues to take these videos down off of MindGeek websites.

I raised this issue over four year ago. In 2020, The New York Times embarrassed the Liberals into acknowledging it. The ethics committee has made over 14 unanimous recommendations, and MPs from all parties have spoken out. The Liberal response has been nothing: no legislation and no justice for survivors. MindGeek's response was to bring on Liberals on their board and change their name. Even Germany is banning MindGeek to protect its kids.

Conservatives have common sense solutions such as Bill S-210 and Bill C-270. Survivors need justice. It is time to bring it home.

Pornography

[Arnold Viersen, Conservative, Peace River—Westlock, AB]

Madam Speaker, the next petition I have to present is from Canadians from across the country, including many of my own constituents.

The petitioners are concerned about the age of consent and the age verification of those depicted in pornographic material. They are asking that the government follow recommendation 2 of the 2001 Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics report on MindGeek, which required all content hosted on these platforms to be verified in age and consent prior to uploading it.

Bill C-270, the stopping internet sexual exploitation act, would add two offences to the Criminal Code. The first would require age verification and consent prior to distribution, and the second would require the removal of that material if the consent is withdrawn. As such, the petitioners are calling on the House of Commons to rapidly pass Bill C-270, the stopping internet sexual exploitation act.

Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Madam Chair, I appreciate the opportunity to participate in this important take-note debate on combatting violence against indigenous women in Canada.

In each parliamentary caucus, we know that there are individual members who share information with each other and who shape our understanding of this particular topic. I want to recognize the member for Kenora, who just spoke, and many other members from our caucus who have contributed to my understanding of these issues, and members of other parties who have given excellent speeches tonight.

I want to express particular gratitude to my friend from Peace River—Westlock, who was such a champion for victims of violence and for indigenous peoples in his riding and beyond. His insights in particular have helped me and have informed my understanding. I have appreciated the legislative initiatives he has brought forward as well. Many important points have been raised by colleagues during this debate. In the brief time I have I do not want to repeat what has been said, but rather try to discuss some new points and some particular initiatives that we can pursue that will make a practical difference in terms of reducing violence against women, in particular, and against all victims.

My colleague from Peace River—Westlock has recently tabled Bill C-270. This bill would require that anyone making, distributing or advertising pornographic material must be able to demonstrate that those depicted in that material are over 18 and have given consent. The same member put forward Motion No. 47 in a previous Parliament to advance a study to examine the public health effects of easy access to violent and degrading sexually explicit materials. These initiatives are an important part of the fight against violence.

The fact that many boys are exposed to violent sexual material at a young age can shape a false perception on their part that violence in the context of sex is normal and desirable. Studying the effects of early exposure to violent sexual images, combatting the depiction of violence and pornography, and requiring meaningful age verification for those accessing pornography would go a long way toward combatting the normalization of sexual violence.

The taking of sexual images of minors, with or without consent, can contribute to cycles of violence and exploitation. Members from various parties have done important work holding Pornhub and other companies accountable for a failure to prevent non-consensual images from appearing on their platform, but more work is needed. The non-consensual distribution of intimate images is a form of violence in itself, and it contributes to further violence.

While private members' bills such as Bill C-270 are important ways of addressing these issues, legislation proposed by the government would have the potential to move much more quickly in this place, and we would welcome government action in this regard. Criminalizing the distribution of intimate images without clear age verification and the confirmation of consent would help to reduce the victimization of children, women and all Canadians.

I also want to highlight the action proposed in Motion No. 57, a motion I tabled in this House a few weeks ago. Motion No. 57 seeks to promote bystander awareness and intervention training as critical tools for combatting violence. Often, when we talk about violence, we think about the role being played by the perpetrator and the presence of the victim, but we need to think more as well about the role of the bystander, the person who is neither the victim nor the perpetrator, but who sees or is aware of the situation and has some capacity to do something about it.

Too often, well-meaning bystanders fail to intervene. Even if they do not lack for good intentions, they could fail to intervene because they do not react fast enough, because they fail to notice what is happening, because they are scared or because they do not know what to do that would be effective. I understand how it can happen and that good, well-intentioned people could fail to intervene, but as the saying goes, the road to hell is paved with good intentions. We can take concrete action to empower bystanders to know how to step up and make a difference, and that means providing potential bystanders with the tools and the information to react quickly.

Motion No. 57 is about asking the federal government to promote training so that more people have the tools and more people would be able to intervene effectively. Data consistently shows that bystander intervention training reduces violence. It may even deter crime if potential criminals are more likely to expect intervention by bystanders. I hope that Motion No. 57, as well as Bill C-270 from my colleague, will have the full support of colleagues and perhaps will be incorporated into government legislation.

We know that acts of violence disproportionately affect the most vulnerable communities that are already disadvantaged as well as victims of colonialism and other forms of violence, past and present. Indigenous women are particularly likely to be victims of violence. It shows up in the data on sexual assault, on all forms of violence and on human trafficking. I believe it is our obligation to address violence in general, to pay particular attention to those who are most likely to be victims, and to work on recognizing universal human dignity and empowering the most vulnerable.

Finally, I would like to emphasize that a great deal of harm has been done to indigenous people because of a lack of esteem and recognition for the value and dignity of the family. The horror of residential schools, in particular, involved children being taken away from their communities, and it also involved children being taken away from their families. This attack on the sacred bond between parents and children by a system that thought it had a right to replace parental authority with state-coordinated enculturation in dominant values was deeply evil. One of the key lessons that we should draw from this era is about the need to preserve and defend the parent-child bond from attacks by the state and by its institutions.

Stopping Internet Sexual Exploitation Act

[Arnold Viersen, Conservative, Peace River—Westlock, AB]

moved for leave to introduce Bill C-270, An Act to amend the Criminal Code (pornographic material).

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the hon. member for Calgary Shepard for seconding this bill today. I call it the SISE act, the stopping Internet sexual exploitation act. It is an honour to rise today on behalf of the victims and survivors of companies like MindGeek, which have victimized women and girls across this country and across the world. It is great to reintroduce this bill. I introduced it in the last Parliament as well.

For years, online pornographic platforms in Canada have published sexually explicit material without satisfying any requirement for verifying the age or consent of those depicted in it. As a result, horrific videos of sex trafficking, child exploitation and sexual assault have proliferated on Canadian pornographic websites. This has to stop.

The SISE act would implement recommendation 2 of the 2021 ethics committee report on MindGeek by requiring those making or distributing pornographic material for a commercial purpose to verify the age and consent of each person depicted. It would also prohibit the distribution of this material when consent has been withdrawn.

Consent matters. If a website is going to profit from the making or publishing of content, the SISE act would ensure that they must verify the age and consent of every individual in every video. Once a video of exploitation has been uploaded, it is virtually impossible to eliminate. We must prevent these videos from ever reaching the Internet in the first place, and the SISE act would help put the burden of due diligence and corporate responsibility on companies rather than survivors.

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