Health Committee on Feb. 7th, 2017

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

I guess that my entire thesis is based on the fact that the top 50 videos viewed in the world include sexually violent and degrading material.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

I have heard that evidence. You have given that already.

I want to move quickly to the correlation versus causation issue because being the health committee, being a science-based committee, of course, technically science is based on conducting experiments, randomized control, and repeatable experiments. I've read some researchers on the subject who talk about the difficult ethical considerations in conducting research.

Technically you would have to expose subjects in a lab to violent, degrading pornography, observe the effects after, and see if they were more prone to commit violent acts. It can be very difficult from an ethics point of view. Also, there's an issue of self-selection; that is, do people prone to violence seek out violent pornography, or does pornography have that impact on people who are non-violent?

Do you have any advice to give this committee in terms of the correlation-causation issue?

I'll add one more thing, the multiplicity of factors. When someone commits a violent act sexually, there are literally dozens and dozens of factors that would go into why that person committed it. Do you have any thoughts on any of those?

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

I know exactly what you're talking about. It is a huge concern to all the researchers as well, and they address that in their research significantly. They spend a lot of time. It's not like you want to expose people to this and then see what happens.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

As you said, you don't want us to watch it, never mind research it.

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

It has been more a matter of interviewing individuals who have perpetrated these acts and seeing whether it correlates backwards, so to speak.

That said, I would love for you to listen face to face to the people who have actually done the research. It's cutting-edge research, 2016. The folks who have done it are still around, so it would be great to hear from them. Every one of them spent a significant amount of time in their reports talking about exactly what you just voiced. I guess that's probably why it has taken so long to come to a causation rather than a correlation because of those exact things that you bring up.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

That concludes our questioning.

Mr. Viersen, I want to thank you very much. I think you have outlined your motion very clearly, explained it to us very clearly, and done a good job of it.

[John Oliver, Liberal, Oakville, ON]

Mr. Chair, I don't know if it's a point of order or not, but the witness has made several references to cutting-edge 2016 research. I had asked if he would submit to the committee a list of the scientists or researchers who did that research. I want to confirm that we will get that list from the witness.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

Can you confirm that?

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

I will confirm that, for sure. I will send it over immediately.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

Here's where we go from here. Today is Tuesday. On Thursday, we're going to do our Bill C-37. On Thursday, February 16, we will decide on witnesses to hear for M-47. We need everybody to submit the proposed witnesses to hear this motion by this Thursday. The steering committee will meet on the next Thursday, the 16th, to decide.

Next Thursday we'll decide whether you can attend. Mr. Webber has proposed that you attend. I'm not clear on how that works. I have to get clarification. On Thursday, we will let you know whether that's going to be part of it.

That's it for now. We're going to suspend for a minute, and then we have a little committee business to do.

Thanks again, Mr. Viersen.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

Okay. We have a little committee business. I want to point out there are extended hours on Thursday so people should be prepared for that. Whether we sit through question period or not is up to the committee at the time. We'll have to decide if we are still going. I don't know what's going to happen on Thursday. We'll see how it goes. We have to have all our questions answered by five o'clock and then deal with it after that. We could sit through question period, just so you're aware of that.

We need all of the suggested witnesses for M-47 by five o'clock on Thursday. When we have our steering committee meeting on the 16th, we'll decide whether Mr. Viersen can attend or not. I think he can, but we have to clarify the rules. We're going to talk about M-47 and Bill C-277 at that time, and how we're going to handle it.

We'll have to figure out how many meetings we're going to have on the M-47 motion, as well. The witnesses are talking about six, seven, or eight meetings. I don't know if we can do that or not, but we'll talk about that at that time.

That's really everything I have on my list. Is there any other committee business?

Mr. Webber.

[Len Webber, Conservative, Calgary Confederation, AB]

Just a quick question regarding all the witnesses that want to attend, whose letters we've been receiving through the clerk. Will they be on the list or do we have to request that they now go on the list of witnesses?

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

Could you prioritize the ones that you'd like to have most? Maybe you could include the whole list, but put them in priority of the ones that you'd really like to have for sure.

[Len Webber, Conservative, Calgary Confederation, AB]

Okay, so all who requested to come and witness will be on the list?

[Karin Phillips, Committee Researcher]

Yes, they'll be on the list.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

We want to keep to the motion too. We can go anywhere with this motion if we're not careful. We can get into all kinds of legal and international aspects, but we want to keep it to the health impact. That's our purview. That's our area, so the witnesses should reflect the health impact of the ease of access.

Are there any other questions or issues at this moment?

Mr. Davies, go ahead.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Mr. Chair, I don't know what your intention is. Will we be discussing how much time we're going to allot to this study at our subcommittee meeting?

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

I would say we will.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Okay, excellent.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

Mr. Kang.

[Darshan Singh Kang, Liberal, Calgary Skyview, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

How far are we willing to go with this study? Are we just going to study the facts on public health? Where are we going to cut the debate on this?

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

I think we should stick to the wording of the motion, because you can go anywhere with this subject. We'll stick to the words of the motion on the health impacts of the access to violent—

[Darshan Singh Kang, Liberal, Calgary Skyview, AB]

That was my concern. We don't want to veer off into some direction where, you know, we just—

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

No. I don't think he's looking for us to go off on all kinds of tangents. He wants to talk about the health impact and he quickly repeated that, based on Mr. Oliver's questions. That's our mandate. It's to discuss that motion. It's a very narrow motion really, in a way. It's just health impacts. It doesn't talk about the access. It talks about the health impacts of the access.

That's my interpretation of it. We're going to have a hard time fitting this in with everything else anyway, so we can't be meandering around with this and going off on tangents.

Mr. Davies, as our legal counsel, I just have a question. If there is illegal content on the Internet, can the Canadian authorities do anything if it's coming from some other country? If it's obviously obscene and against the laws that you quoted, I mean if it's underage or violent or meets any of the criteria that you were talking about, can Canadian law be applied here?

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

If obscene material is published in Canada, then the Criminal Code is invoked and a charge could be laid. Then those words like it's against the law to make, disseminate, or provide would apply, and you'd have to find someone on Canadian soil, I suppose, who you could charge. If there was someone internationally, then I suppose Canada could engage Interpol. It gets a bit more difficult when you have perhaps someone who's committing a crime in Canada but not on Canadian soil. That can be difficult, but technically, yes.

I think a lot of what Mr. Viersen is talking about is already against the law. It's just a question of its not being enforced.