Hello.
I'm pleased to be here today.
I'd like to start by acknowledging that the land that we gather on is a traditional unceded territory of the Algonquin Anishnaabe.
While we know that pornography in the Internet age is clearly an important health and social issue, the role of public health in addressing this issue is much less clear. We know that public health is concerned with protecting the health of the aggregate. We know also that the raison d'être for public health is essentially to utilize the organized efforts within society to keep people healthy and to prevent illness, injury, and premature death. As part of its mandate, for example, the Public Health Agency of Canada is tasked with developing, implementing, and evaluating public health policies, programs, and services aimed at promoting and protecting the health of Canadians.
While health promotion and disease prevention are key elements of how public health undertakes its mandate, it's really under the subprogram areas of conditions for healthy living, healthy child development, and perhaps healthy communities in the PHAC report on plans and priorities 2016-17 that we can see an obvious connection with public health on the issue of the potential public health effects of violent and degrading sexually explicit material on children, women, and men.
When we think of the role of public health in promoting sexual health, on the one hand, and in preventing illness on the other, the issue of pornography is not as straightforward as public health responses to, for example, the prevention of communicable diseases or infectious diseases. Through epidemiology, rates of disease and related poor health outcomes can often be attributable to specific etiology such as lack of clean drinking water, poor housing, physical inactivity, and so on. The cause and effect of pornography as a public health issue is muddied by other structural inequities associated with issues of gender-based violence and misogyny that are, to an extent, regulated and enforced by our laws, legislation, social norms, values, and mores, which we know are subject to change over time.
We know that pornography, by definition, is concerned with the development of and circulation of books, magazines, videos, art, and music aimed at creating sexual excitement. However, the exact cause and effect of pornography in relation to sexual violence and poor health outcomes is still hotly debated. That said, it's still important to note that with the growing use of Internet-based pornography and the relative ease by which it can be accessed, the question about what role public health can play is indeed timely.
From a health promotion perspective, encouraging safe behaviours and improving health through healthy public policy, community-based interventions, active public participation, advocacy, and action on the key determinants of health can prove useful in addressing concerns associated with the ready access to Internet-based forms of pornography, as well as other forms of pornography. However, a review of existing sexual health education provided in Canadian schools suggests the need for additional supports to appropriately address sexuality, sexual health, and sexual expression. In fact, many Canadian youth do not receive the level of sexual health education they need to make informed decisions about risk-taking, including the risks associated with the use of web-based technologies such as cellphones for sexting or sharing homemade porn on the Internet with their friends.
More studies are not likely going to tell us what we already know. For example, we already know that sexually explicit materials are widely available online and elsewhere. A potential action in this regard, I would argue, would be the development of a national sexual health promotion strategy that would be included in school sex health education, through online partner agencies as well as through other media venues. This proposed national sexual health promotion strategy would offer information on things such as healthy relationships, sexually transmitted and blood-borne infection, STBBI, prevention and testing, as well as information on the potential impacts that violent pornography can have on youth and young adults, including the reality of possible criminal sanctions for those producing or circulating pornography without consent.
I applaud the efforts of our MPs in championing the issue of violent pornography as an important public health issue. However, we need to pay close attention to the seemingly universal truth that misogyny, sexual violence, and rape are gendered in nature. I would argue that this is the real challenge for us to focus our collective energies on in moving forward.
In addition, we need to address the failure of our school system in adequately equipping our youth and young adults with the tools they need to distinguish between what is morally, legally, or otherwise inappropriate in relation to sexual violence. The recent media coverage of parent organizations challenging school administrators about not wanting sexual health education that includes, for example, non-heteronormative perspectives, suggests that we still have a very long way to go.
The time for a national sexual health promotion strategy, one that offers information on potential repercussions of unwanted sexual advances, sexual assault, sexting, and posting of sexual images without consent is now. Ask yourselves if you believe that our youth have a clear understanding of these issues in the new frontier of cybersex, online porn, sexting, and sharing of homemade porn. In addition to ensuring that youth are aware of the difference between consensual sex and sexual assault, they also need to be aware of the role they can play as upstanders when they witness a sexual assault.
As we know from the recent cases in the media, including the Rehtaeh Parsons case from Nova Scotia, there is an urgent need to do more to prevent sexual assault, sexual exploitation, and other forms of sexual violence. Whether the impetus for such behaviours can be squarely pinned on the ready access of violent online pornography or not, the reality is that youth have access, but may not have the knowledge to determine what is real, what is criminal, or otherwise.
I'd like to bring us back to the issue of gender-based violence, which is a long-standing concern in Canada, as well as for many other countries. Despite this fact, gender-based analyses of how well existing sexual health interventions, including those made available in the school system, are or are not addressing gender-based violence in sexual education, is sadly and largely absent.
In this regard, it is noteworthy that the Government of Canada has signed on to a variety of constitutional obligations on gender-based analysis from 1981 onwards. Yet we do not see the widespread use of the Canadian GBA+ framework in advancing our understanding of the ways in which sexual health education is meeting the information needs of both male and female youth in our school system.
In closing, I would like to urge the Standing Committee on Health to look more closely at how well we are currently equipping youth and young adults in Canada with the sexual health promotion knowledge they need to make informed choices about the place of pornography in their lives. In this regard, I firmly believe that a national sexual health promotion strategy, one which includes evaluative components such as a gender-based analytic framework, will prove instrumental in addressing this complex issue.
Thank you for your attention.