Information & Ethics Committee on Feb. 19th, 2021

[Dr. Francis Fortin]

My hypothesis is that, when a complaint is filed with the police, it's usually established that the material is indeed child pornography. The police then look to obtain the necessary warrants to take action, which requires time. The web host is then asked to remove the images. The web host will claim that it didn't know, that its system is complicated and that it will remove the images as soon as it can technically do so. Soon after, another police force in Canada makes the same request.

There doesn't appear to be any concerted action. Since the requests come from various police forces, they don't see the full extent of the issue concerning these companies. Each police force believes that it's doing its job. However, there's no comprehensive approach to investigations.

[The Chair, Conservative, Chris Warkentin]

Thank you to our panellists.

Committee members, we have a decision to make. We really are getting very close to the end of our time. I would look to the committee to see if there are questions that remain and if we would like to go for another round, or if committee members would like to indicate simply by showing their hands that they have a specific question that would be a short question.

I see that Mr. Gourde has his hand up.

You do have a question? We'll turn to you, Mr. Gourde.

[Jacques Gourde, Conservative, Lévis—Lotbinière, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I also want to thank the witnesses for their presentations, which are very valuable to us.

I'll ask the three witnesses a very quick question.

If you had virtually unlimited mean and the support of governments, police forces and everyone else to eliminate this scourge, where would you start?

What measures could we put in place to protect our young people?

Mr. Fortin, you can answer first.

[Dr. Francis Fortin]

Thank you.

I actually listed several of them. I tried to refer to all the measures in my presentation, and I meant to explain them in detail.

It's important to support and help the victims. A crackdown is one thing. However, I think that the priority should be to remove the images as quickly as possible to prevent the re-victimization of the people concerned. To this end, all means should be used to demand the swift removal of content and to require providers to remove content quickly. It shouldn't take 10 days to remove content, as we heard in the presentations.

In my opinion, this isn't about replacing the legal process. The main priority is to remove the content. I'll send you my written submission.

[Jacques Gourde, Conservative, Lévis—Lotbinière, QC]

Thank you.

Do you have anything to add, Ms. Walker?

[The Chair, Conservative, Chris Warkentin]

Ms. Walker, we'll turn to you.

[Megan Walker]

I'll say that I think our six recommendations are very sound and were developed in consultation with the global community. I will make sure that you get those and the rationale for them in writing.

We have a criminal justice system that unfortunately continues to rely on victim testimony for a conviction or for any further action. As a victims rights advocate, I would say that we need to take a really good look at that, because victims are so hesitant to come forward due to fear. Second, the courts are taking so long, and with the Jordan decision, many times the offenders are being released because it has extended past the length of time allowed. We have a problem with the criminal justice system, and we also have a problem with educating the criminal justice system providers.

I would say that our recommendations are solid and need to be followed and, second to that, we need to focus on the rights of victims and make sure they do not have to testify in order to get a conviction. We also need to make sure that we're appointing more judges so that the courts can move at a faster pace.

[The Chair, Conservative, Chris Warkentin]

Thank you, Mr. Gourde.

We'll turn to Mr. Angus.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Thank you.

Mr. Fortin, do you have any recommendations, particularly with regard to the legal aspect? Do any legislative gaps stand in the way of our ability to protect young people from websites, particularly Pornhub? Your proposals could help the committee with its study.

Second, quickly, Madam Mickelwait, you say you have documents. If you could present those documents to us, it would be very helpful.

Also, if you have documentation of emails of attempts by the survivors that you've dealt with to get legal satisfaction from Pornhub or to get them to comply, anything you could forward to our committee would be very much appreciated. Certainly, if it has to do with survivors or victims, we would treat that with great respect and confidence.

[Laila Mickelwait]

I will do that. Thank you.

I don't know if it would be possible for me to make a quick suggestion with regard to a solution. I think it's important for us to serve those who have been victimized, to provide the important trauma therapy and services for victims, but it's also very important to work on the prevention side of this.

The truth of the matter is that once a video gets online, on a site like Pornhub where they have a download button or anyone could do a screenshot for that matter, this victimization and this trauma lives on. It's a level of trauma that is really incomprehensible and multiplied for these victims to where it's hard for them to ever recover. Many times we see that they become suicidal.

We need legislation that would require, with harsh penalties, the verification of every single person and every single video on these big porn sites to be age verified and to be consent and agreement verified, not just the uploader but every single person. I think that would go a long way to prevent this kind of abuse from happening in the future.

I also think we need accountability. When a site like Pornhub and a company like MindGeek has engaged in this kind of behaviour, a slap on the wrist for them is truly a slap in the face to the countless victims whose lives have been destroyed over the past decade by this predatory company.

It would be a huge deterrent for others in the future to see true justice for these victims and to see this company be truly held accountable.

[The Chair, Conservative, Chris Warkentin]

We're going to go to Ms. Sahota and then Ms. Stubbs for short questions.

[Jag Sahota, Conservative, Calgary Skyview, AB]

Mr. Chair, I want to thank all the witnesses for coming here today, and for their time and evidence.

MindGeek executives continue to talk at length about their fingerprinting software for preventing reuploads of illegal content to the site. What is your knowledge about that software and its implementation?

[Laila Mickelwait]

I can speak to that, if you'd like.

[The Chair, Conservative, Chris Warkentin]

Sure.

[Laila Mickelwait]

Like I mentioned before, MindGeek itself has emailed victims, telling them that they acknowledge that the software does not work. MindGeek itself came to this committee and said that to this committee, that they acknowledge that the fingerprinting software does not work in every case because you can make small edits to these videos, and then the hashing and the fingerprinting doesn't work anymore.

It's extremely problematic when a company is relying and touting this kind of software as a solution, and at the same time, fully understanding that it doesn't work and telling victims that it doesn't work. It speaks to the issue that we have to go to the front end. We have to go to the point of upload, and have these procedures and compliance in place to prevent these videos from getting on the site in the first place.

[The Chair, Conservative, Chris Warkentin]

Ms. Stubbs, we'll turn to you.

[Shannon Stubbs, Conservative, Lakeland, AB]

The query I had was addressed, but I think Mr. Fortin wanted to address the previous question as well.

[Dr. Francis Fortin]

From a legal standpoint, you'll recall that a fast approach is available. The approach is set out in section 163.1 of the Criminal Code, which deals with child pornography. I think that you could consider an equivalent provision for the non-consensual distribution of intimate images. You could build on these powers, which allow for the quick removal of illegal content.

That said, you need funding to create teams dedicated to this issue. I know that it's hard to say that one case is more serious than another. However, the police forces that are already dealing with child pornography cases would be prioritized. What happens when images of an older person are involved? I think that you should also look at creating police units or hybrid units, whose mandate would be to address this issue using the proper legal tools.

Regarding the digital footprint, certain technologies already make it possible to recognize what's happening in a video. We've moved beyond mathematical calculations and hashing to find the digital footprint. Software is now available that can help us do this quite well. In my opinion, everyone should check the illegal content database before allowing content to be distributed.

[The Chair, Conservative, Chris Warkentin]

Ms. Walker, I can see that you'd like to jump in here.

[Megan Walker]

I just want to say really quickly that in the testimony of the MindGeek CEO and COO, I found that they really don't care one bit about interfering legally or about any software. They say in their testimony that for the last two years they've been building the tool called “SafeGuard” to help fight the distribution of non-consensual images. I don't believe that to be true. I would like to see evidence of that.

Also, I would say further that I really don't care if they have that software or not. The reality is that they should not be self-regulating, because they really don't care about anything except how much money they're going to bring in.

[The Chair, Conservative, Chris Warkentin]

Thank you.

Mr. Bowe, I see that your hand is up. I think there's consent from the committee to hear from you. Do you have some comments?

[Michael Bowe]

I did, just in response to some of the questions, first of all with respect to laws already being on the books that simply aren't being applied, and also to Ms. Walker's last point about whether this is a group of people that can be trusted to self-regulate.

By their own testimony, their own public statement, they keep everything that has ever been uploaded to the site, even if it's been disabled from the public. We know that with few exceptions they have never really been reporting to NCMEC or to Canadian authorities, which they're required to report to when they find child pornography.

The fact of the matter is that in servers in the United States and Canada this company is probably the largest repository of child pornography in North America, which we all know is flat out a crime. It's all there. It hasn't been reported, and they haven't followed all the rules and regulations to handle it.

The second thing I would say is that I think Ms. Walker was talking about the corporate structure. We've been investigating this company for about a year. I've mentioned the corporate structure before. I've done many international cases involving many complicated companies. I've never seen anything like this company's corporate structure. It is the absolutely quintessential structure set up to avoid accountability, transparency and liability.

I'll leave you with this. We have some monsters in the U.S. We had a monster named Harvey Weinstein. We had a monster named Epstein. MindGeek is Canada's monster. It is. This is a bad, unaccountable rogue company.

[The Chair, Conservative, Chris Warkentin]

Thank you.

Colleagues, we are pretty well out of time here.

Ms. Stubbs, you do have your hand up. We'll turn to you.

[Shannon Stubbs, Conservative, Lakeland, AB]

Thank you, Chair.

Thanks to the previous witness. That is a question I have. Would all witnesses want to make a brief comment—if the chair would allow that—on exactly this issue about MindGeek's or Pornhub's reporting to the proper authorities about child sexual assault material in Canada, and whether or not they view it to be a violation of Canadian law? I think that would be a worthy thing for witnesses to address if they would so choose.

[The Chair, Conservative, Chris Warkentin]

We'll turn first to you, Ms. Walker.