Thank you.
Mr. Chairperson and distinguished members of this committee, I thank you very much for giving our agency the opportunity to provide a presentation on Bill C-32.
My name is Lianna McDonald, and I am the executive director of the Canadian Centre for Child Protection, a registered charity providing national programs and services related to the personal safety of all children. Joining me today is my colleague Monique St. Germain, general counsel for our agency. She will answer some questions later on.
Our goal today is to provide insight and support for Bill C-32, legislation that will create a federal victims bill of rights. We will offer testimony based on our role in operating the many programs aimed at reducing the sexual exploitation of children.
Our agency was founded in 1985 as Child Find Manitoba after the disappearance and murder of 13-year-old Candace Derksen. Candace disappeared while on her way home from school. Her disappearance and death had a profound and lasting effect on our province and our community.
Today our organization operates MissingKids.ca, a national missing children program, as well as Cybertip.ca, Canada's tip-line for reporting the online sexual exploitation of children. Since launching nationally, we have received 125,000 reports from the public regarding the online sexual abuse and exploitation of children. It is through this work that we have seen the most brutal behaviours towards children, everything from the recording of graphic sexual or physical assaults against very young children by predatory adults to teens coping with the aftermath of a sexual crime that has been recorded.
Through the course of our work, we have had the opportunity to hear from and work closely with many families devastated by sexual victimization. We are acutely aware that the sexual abuse of children is a vastly under-reported crime that can go unrecognized for years. We know that when victims do come forward, a conviction is nowhere near certain. In many cases, moving forward with the court process can result in additional trauma for the victim. Finally, we know that the sentencing process to date has not adequately recognized the impact on the specific victim or on society as a whole.
What we have heard loud and clear is that every victim needs a voice and every victim needs to count. We see this bill as an important step towards ensuring that victims not only obtain the information and support they need but also are able to participate in the justice system in a meaningful way that respects their dignity throughout the process.
For the above reasons, we welcome the creation of this bill. I want to highlight and speak to some key components that we've identified.
The first is restitution. Restitution is a component of sentencing that is common to property and fraud cases but rarely considered in other cases. Yet a victim has often incurred, and will continue to incur, significant intangible expenses as a result of the crime. For example, a parent whose child has been abducted by the other parent may incur travel, legal, and other costs to search for and recover the child. A victim of child sexual abuse may need to obtain specialized counselling or other services to help them deal with the aftermath of abuse and disclosure, and cope with the ongoing court processes.
Having a standardized form will assist victims in identifying these losses for the court, and will help level the playing field for all victims. Making it mandatory for a judge to at least consider restitution will not only increase the chance that restitution is ordered in appropriate cases; it will also provide the court with a concrete way to better understand the financial impacts of crime and the extent to which those costs are borne by individual, innocent victims.
While we realize that offenders will not have the means to pay restitution, and that in some cases the need for incarceration will outweigh the benefit of any restitution order, there will be cases where it will be appropriate. While we would have hoped for recognition within the bill of the types of losses that may be specifically associated with the abuse of technology, we believe the bill's provisions on restitution provide an important starting point that can be built on going forward.
Additionally, adding the words “protect society” as a fundamental purpose of sentencing to proposed section 718 is an important and welcome change, particularly considering the vulnerability of children. We have seen all too often that those convicted of crimes against children, those who by the very nature of their crime pose a clear and obvious danger to children, receive sentences that do not adequately protect society.
We realize that sentencing is an individualized process with many competing factors to be taken into account, but mandating that the protection of society be considered will help to rebalance the scorecard and strengthen the court's ability to impose meaningful sentences that adequately address the risk an offender poses to society.
I'm going to provide a case in point. The case involves the offender, Peter Whitmore, who is currently serving a life sentence for two counts of kidnapping and sexual assault causing bodily harm, among other offences. In 2006 he took a 14-year-old boy from Manitoba, then abducted a 10-year-old boy from Saskatchewan. He told both boys he would kill them and their families. He made them watch child pornography and sexually assaulted them.
While the details of that case are shocking, what is even more shocking is that Mr. Whitmore had, on at least two prior occasions, abducted and sexually assaulted young children, and had sexually assaulted at least five other children. He had taken his first known victim, an 11-year-old boy, and sexually assaulted him for several hours. The sentence imposed for that assault, along with the sexual assault of four other victims, was 22 months.
Within nine days of release from custody, he engaged in repeated sexual assaults against an eight-year-old girl over the course of three full days. When news of that assault became public, another victim came forward. He received a four-and-a-half-year sentence for the assaults on those two victims. After being released, and committing a series of parole violations, he went on to kidnap and sexually assault two boys from Manitoba and Saskatchewan.
The repeated and serious behaviour of this offender posed an obvious danger to children and nearly cost these children their lives. It is for cases such as this one that the sentencing changes will be most meaningful.
We also welcome the addition of provisions to formalize the use of community impact statements. The inclusion of these types of statements will pave the way for broadening the scope of information considered by the court, and ensure a more accurate picture of the way in which a particular crime impacts the community.
Crime is more than just about one victim and one offender. Certain types of crimes have a long-lasting and profound impact upon an entire community. Consider the case of a child who has been abducted. Whether the child is returned, seemingly unharmed, as in the case of the young child abducted from his bedroom by Randall Hopley in 2011, or if the outcome is much more tragic, as in the case of young Tori Stafford, entire communities are forever impacted. Safety and security is shattered. Children are no longer free to go and play. The heightened anxiety, and the distrust that can build while a case remains unsolved, are things that can cause lasting harm, which cannot be properly conveyed through an individual impact statement.
What I want to point out for our work, in particular, is that for some crimes the victim is unknown. In child pornography, the space that we're most involved in, most of the children depicted are unidentified, and therefore no one can file a victim impact statement. A community impact statement may be an effective way to convey important information about the nature and extent of the harm posed by such crimes, a way to give a voice to those who cannot speak for themselves.
Finally, we are pleased to see adjustments to the provisions on testimony. For example—I'll just name a few—expanding the things a court must consider when an application has been made to exclude the public from the courtroom will help to ensure consistency in decision-making, and will be important to victims.
In particular, requiring a court to consider the ability of the witness to give a full and candid account of the acts complained of, if the order were not made, is key in the context of child sexual abuse. It is often very difficult for a victim of any sexual crime to come forward to police. It is intimidating and traumatic for a victim to have to recount that abuse in a courtroom full of strangers. It can be even worse if the victim comes from a small community. While a publication ban may be available, a publication ban will not be enough if the people sitting in the courtroom know who you are, know where you live, and know your abuser.
Also, in cases involving child pornography of an identified victim, the trauma of the sexual abuse has already been compounded by the recording of the abuse. It is hard enough for such a victim to know that the prosecutor, defence lawyer, and judge are viewing the abuse. Having the recording of the abuse also played before a courtroom full of strangers can result in unnecessary damage and re-traumatization of the victim.
In closing, our agency is supportive of the changes brought forward through Bill C-32. Every victim should have a voice. Every victim should matter, and every child brave enough to come forward should know that their voice will be heard, and that they too can have confidence in our criminal justice system.
Thank you.