Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
To all of you here today, I want to commend you for appearing before us, for your bravery and for sharing and advocating through the pain and sorrow you have experienced. Whatever we say here won't do justice. This is the justice and human rights committee, but it won't do justice to the pain you've experienced and to the pain that you continue to experience from the fact that you have lost your loved ones—Mr. and Mrs. Ilesic, your son; Sharlene, your husband; and your daughter, her father.
I want to ask Ms. Andrews a question.
Thank you for the conversation we had earlier today regarding publication bans. I want to put this on record. I asked you on the phone if you recognized the name Rehtaeh Parsons and you said you did. In my home province of Nova Scotia, Rehtaeh Parsons was a 17-year-old victim of child pornography. In 2012, she was victimized by four boys. Pictures were taken of her and circulated online. Rehtaeh ended up taking her own life as a 17-year-old high school girl who lived in Dartmouth and was known in her school and in her community.
When I entered public life as a provincial member of Nova Scotia, I was handed the task of being minister of justice and attorney general. The case came to my desk in 2014. A publication ban had been placed on her name under subsection 486.4(3) of the Criminal Code. The ban was in place despite the wishes of her mom, her dad and all the supporters.
I remember that just before Christmas in 2014—it had taken weeks; it was a very challenging time—I issued a ministerial directive to the Public Prosecution Service, one I was told at the time had never been done before, that said that no breach of the publication ban on Rehtaeh's name in any form would be prosecuted. I added that this applied unless her name was used in a derogatory way. This was probably me as a mother, as a woman and as a person who had not really been in politics before.
At the time, that was difficult to do because the prosecution hadn't seen it and, needless to say, neither had the justice department and everyone else, but it was the right thing to do. I am sympathetic to what you're advocating for.
What you told me on the phone and what you shared with me is that through your activism you have encountered many other women with stories. I promised to give you the chance, for the couple of minutes I have left, to tell us their stories and put them on record for the benefit of this committee.