In the case of our daughter, Rehtaeh Parsons, it was text messaging. It was an image shared on cellphones, basically.
It would have been extremely easy to solve this crime. They were admitting what was happening in the photograph, that she had too much to drink, that she was throwing up sick and was drunk. They were openly admitting who they were, their names: this is him, him, and him, and we all did this.
If the sharing of this image was not against the law—and we had it explained to us very clearly by the RCMP officer in charge of this case that it was not against the law to spread that throughout the entire school district—my answer is very simple. If it had been against the law, could this have turned out completely differently? I think it would have. I think it would have taken a day. They could have gone and gotten this and asked who they had shared it with and seized their cellphones. They could have said, we'll find out who you shared this with and we're going to go after them.
It would have been simple. It would have been easy, and I believe that it would have made a difference because it would have stopped this from happening, so that when Rehtaeh started a new school across the whole city of Halifax.... She moved from Cole Harbour to Halifax and lived with me. She went to school for three weeks and here was this photograph showing up again. We called the police, and they said, we already told you that it's not against the law.