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Results: 1 - 15 of 54
View Charlie Angus Profile
NDP (ON)
Thank you, Minister, for coming today.
I'd like to ask you right off the top, on what date did the cabinet begin to discuss the issues of the allegations of sexual violence against young people on Pornhub?
When did cabinet start to talk about the Pornhub issue?
View Steven Guilbeault Profile
Lib. (QC)
As you know, there is confidentiality around cabinet discussions, so I'm not at liberty to disclose this information.
Jennifer Clamen
View Jennifer Clamen Profile
Jennifer Clamen
2021-04-19 11:06
Thank you.
I am Jenn Clamen. I'm the national coordinator of the Canadian Alliance for Sex Work Law Reform. We are an alliance of 25 sex worker rights groups across the country, the majority of which are led by sex workers working in the sex industry. The alliance was created in 2012 as the means of getting sex workers' voices to people like you, to Parliament, as a means of building respect and legitimacy for the voices and the experiences of sex workers where we are otherwise ignored and not taken seriously.
Also, the alliance was really created as a mechanism for sex workers to get involved in the policies and practices that affect their everyday lives, and that's the work we do together.
That's where I want to focus my intervention today, on the ways and the duty of parliamentarians to take direction and leadership from sex workers who are really best placed to speak to any policy or practice that may regulate online sex work or online porn.
I'll start by saying that it's important—obviously we all feel that it's really important—to remain really critical of abusive and exploitive practices on the Internet, and more so for people who are targeted for violence. Sex workers understand this. We have been organizing for over 50 years against violence and abuse in the industry. It's why we started organizing. We didn't start organizing for the right to work in the industry. We started organizing against abuse and violence. For this reason, sex workers are the best placed to be at the centre of this discussion. Sex workers are mitigating violence all of the time in the context of criminalization and stigma that is perpetuated against the industry.
I want to talk about meaningful consultation and why it's so important, and also how to do it. We've been involved in so many of these parliamentary discussions, and people talk about consultation, and we get invited at the last minute, on a Friday evening to a meeting on Monday morning. Some people might not know how to do consultation, and that's okay, but we're here to explain how to do that as well. We want to teach you how to do that and hope that you're open to those learnings.
So far, your committee hearings have really promoted a set of values that have been extremely damaging for sex workers to watch across the country and across North America. Our alliance member groups, as well as individual sex workers across Canada and the States, have been pressuring for a seat at this table since day one of these hearings. On day one of these hearings, you all heard from Rape Relief as a means of framing the discussion. They framed it, not surprisingly, as one of exploitation; and that has been really clear to sex workers and really harmful to sex workers across the country.
It is made clear that sex workers are not welcome at this table and are not considered valued participants. We were told outright that this committee didn't concern us, and it hasn't been safe for sex workers to come and publicly testify as a result in this what we consider a hostile setting.
I want to talk about meaningful consultation, and what it means, what you need to do, and I'm happy to send this all in written form. Meaningful consultation is something we consulted our members on years ago, and we wrote it down for exact moments like this. Meaningful consultation means treating sex workers like experts on the impacts of laws related to sex work. Often the only people who are treated as experts in conversations like the ones happening in this committee are lawyers, academics, politicians, social workers and, in the case of this committee, people who don't work in the sex industry. So, sex workers are most affected by any regulation, and sex workers' perspectives need to be at the centre of your discussion.
Meaningful consultation also means proportionately weighing the consultation based on who is affected by the laws. Sex workers currently working in the sex industry are most affected and live the experience of criminalization and regulation every day, so their perspectives should hold more weight for all of you who are considering regulation.
Meaningful consultation also means scrutinizing who is considered an expert on sex work issues. Exodus Cry, Rape Relief, RCMP—it's a hard no on all of that from our end. How can any of these people explain to you how exploitation or violence happens in the industry when they don't work in it? They're merely providing an ideological perspective.
Meaningful consultation also means gathering experts by asking sex workers who their allied organizations and community groups are, where they access services. We've been trying to send you lists and lists of people you can speak to from day one, and unfortunately that's gone ignored—and I'm not just chastising you. Please see this as more than chastising you for what this committee hasn't done. It's really an invitation to open and change the way things are moving forward, so that any regulation or any policy moving forward is actually centring sex workers at its base.
Meaningful consultation also means accounting for structural barriers in consultations. This means considering anonymity for sex workers, who have the right to remain anonymous and have to remain anonymous; considering pseudonyms; or allowing them not to show their face. It means offering in camera or private face-to-face dialogues with sex workers and chosen supporters. It means ensuring that there's sufficient time in the lead-up to the conversations to allow sex workers to prepare for these moments of intervention. It means providing information in advance on the kinds of questions you're asking and the kinds of interrogations you're doing. It means making particular efforts to contact communities of more marginalized sex workers, such as racialized sex workers, indigenous sex workers, Black sex workers and trans sex workers. It means holding informal meetings in these kinds of conversations for sex workers who are marginalized, particularly by poverty, immigration status or indigeneity.
This committee has received briefs and written testimony from sex workers who have experienced violence in the industry, and this testimony outlines how violence happens and makes suggestions for ways to mitigate that violence. Every industry has violations. Industries that are criminalized and stigmatized have more, and we need to work to address them. The most basic premise here would be the inclusion, centring and leadership of people who are experiencing those violations. No other industry would create regulation without the input of workers.
This committee has the challenge of addressing exploitation that some people experience, without infringing on the rights of sex workers. The people on the front lines of this industry—sex workers—are best placed to help shape any existing or proposed regulation. Any approach that fails to consider their needs will harm sex workers. I promise you this. Sex workers are systematically ignored in policy that impacts our lives.
Consultation isn't an easy process. In 2007, the Canadian Alliance for Sex Work Law Reform held a consultation, over a year and a half, with our member groups and sex workers in our member groups to create a series of 54 recommendations for law and policy reform. It was a collective process to write those recommendations, and they are a clear rejection of criminal sanctions and other repressive measures of the industry, not based on ideology but based on the impacts of regulation.
Those recommendations are underscored by a series of principles that I want to share with you, because I think the committee could benefit from this set of principles. Based on the hearings so far and the ways that these conversations have been going—and we've been listening very closely—this committee really needs a dose of neutrality rather than ideology, and a dose of evidence. We want to share with you some of the principles that underscored our recommendations.
Selling or trading sexual services is not inherently immoral, harmful or a public nuisance.
Sex work does not inherently damage the physical or mental health of those who do it, and sex workers do not become unfit employees, parents, tenants, customers, clients or people who can testify at committees.
Stigma towards sex work and against sex workers is real and pervasive, and it's deeply ingrained in Canadian society and around the world. It contributes to harassment, discrimination, violence and abuse. It also contributes to bad policy, as we've been seeing in the discussions at this committee. Laws and policies and their enforcement often reflect and reinforce the stigma, or encourage or tolerate the abuses that flow from it.
Eliminating stigma against sex workers needs to—
View Arnold Viersen Profile
CPC (AB)
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you to the witnesses for making time to appear at our committee today.
I'm not sure if the members are aware, but on Friday the Pulitzer Prize winning New York Times journalist, Nicholas Kristof, released another significant column on this story around online exploitation, which our committee had studied. It's an incredibly compelling article, and I hope that all of you have had a chance to read it.
He highlights a story of a Canadian survivor from Alberta—that's where I'm from—and I wanted to share her story.
Mr. Kristof writes:
Heather Legarde, a young woman in Alberta, felt the world crashing down on her last August. She had discovered that her ex-husband had posted intimate videos of her online, she told me, and people around the world were gazing at her naked body.
“I’m all over the internet,” she told me sadly. “Not what I wanted to be famous for.”
Worst of all, in one video her former husband sexually assaulted her as she lay unconscious in their bed. Legarde has no recollection of the assault and no idea how the video was made. One clue: It was tagged “sleeping pills.”
Mr. Chair, how much time do I have?
View Arnold Viersen Profile
CPC (AB)
All right.
Over 200,000 people had watched the video of her being assaulted while she lay drugged and unconscious. On that day in August, mortified, dizzied by her discovery of the betrayal, Legarde prepared to tie a noose.
“I was standing in my garage, under a beam, holding onto a rope”, she recalled, but finally, she changed her mind. She said, “I said to myself, 'If this is your situation, he'll do it to someone else tomorrow.'” Legarde resolved her own story and fought back, so now it doesn't have to happen to other girls.
We've heard several stories like this from people who have come to this committee.
Nicholas Kristof points out that this isn't about pornography. This is about rape and sexual abuse. He's also heard from a Canadian student who said, “I have no problem with consensual adults making porn.” Her concern is that many people in the pornographic videos weren't consenting adults, like her. Kristof writes that after she turned 14, a man enticed her to engage in sexual play over Skype. He secretly recorded her. A clip, along with her full name, ended up on XVideos, the world's most-visited pornography site. Google searches helped direct people to this illegal footage of child sexual abuse. This Canadian student shared with Kristof how she begged XVideos to remove the clip. Instead, XVideos hosted two more copies so that hundreds of thousands of people could leer at her at the most mortifying moment in her life.
I also want to highlight another study that came out at the beginning of the month and that may be important to this committee's work. The study, published in The British Journal of Criminology, looked at the ways in which mainstream pornography positions sexual assault violence as normative sexual script. By analyzing videos and titles found in the landing sites of these three most popular pornography sites in the United Kingdom—XVideos, Pornhub and XHamster—the study drew the largest research sample on online pornographic content to date, over 130,000. It is unique in its focus on the content immediately advertised to the new user. The academics found that one in eight titles shown to a first-time user on the main page of the porn sites depicted sexual violence or non-consensual content.
Mr. Chair, we have heard from people from across the spectrum about how they have been targeted and exploited by companies such as Pornhub, and that is what this study is all about.
Kate was 15 years old. Her ex was 20. He was into making homemade videos and stuff, and he videotaped her. One day he said, “Let me show you something.” She tried to get the content taken off Pornhub. It took her years to get rid of that content.
Rosa was 16. She was drunk at a friend's party. She woke up and there were naked pictures of her on Pornhub, with her name and her phone number. She had endless calls and texts. She had to change her number.
Nicole was 14. She made a decision that changed her life. She was having a sexual FaceTime with someone she didn't know. “I didn't know anything about him, his name or his age or anything”, she said, “but I showed him areas of my body that were private. I didn't know it at the time but he was recording it and uploaded it to Pornhub. The name of the video was even 'Young Teen', but that wasn't enough for Pornhub to analyze it and take it down. No, years later, classmates of mine found out about me and the pornography that was shot of me as a child. I've had the police involved on multiple occasions and cannot get the videos taken down.”
This is a video of Rosella, who was raped when she was 14, yet the video is still up on Pornhub.
Kyra, at the age of 15, was coerced into making a film of a sexual act. The video had been uploaded, without her consent, to Pornhub. The uploader was also underage. No one confirmed anyone's age or consent. “I've been dealing with image issues, PTSD, sexual discomfort since the incident and into adulthood. This is my personal account, and I have heard similar stories from other women. I will never forgive Pornhub for allowing my abuse to be shared publicly. It caused me to relive my pain, year over year over year.”
View David Lametti Profile
Lib. (QC)
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I'm accompanied today by François Daigle, the associate deputy minister of the Department of Justice. Thank you for the invitation to appear before you today.
I'd like to make some general comments on some of the issues raised during previous meetings of the committee's study.
I'd like to emphasize that the government is committed to keeping our children safe, including online, as Minister Blair just said. Canada's criminal legislation in this area are among the most comprehensive in the world.
The Criminal Code prohibits all forms of making, distributing, transmitting, making available, accessing, selling, advertising, exporting and possessing child pornography, which the Criminal Code broadly defines as material involving the depiction of sexual exploitation of persons under the age of 18 years.
The Criminal Code also prohibits luring—that is, communicating with a young person, using a computer, including online, for the purpose of facilitating the commission of a sexual offence against that young person. It prohibits agreeing to or making arrangements with another person to commit a sexual offence against a child, and it prohibits providing sexually explicit material to a young person for the purpose of facilitating the commission of a sexual offence against that young person.
Furthermore, the Criminal Code also prohibits voyeurism and the non-consensual distribution of intimate images, which are particularly germane to both the online world and the discussion we are having today.
Offences of a general application may also apply to criminal conduct that takes place online or that is facilitated by the use of the Internet. For example, criminal harassment and human trafficking offences may apply, depending upon the facts of the case.
Courts are also authorized to order the removal of child sexual exploitation material and other criminal content, such as intimate images, voyeuristic material or hate propaganda, where it is being made available to the public from a server in Canada.
In addition to the Criminal Code, as Minister of Justice, I'm responsible for the Act respecting the mandatory reporting of Internet child pornography by persons who provide and Internet service. This act doesn't have a short title, but law practitioners refer to it as the mandatory reporting act.
In English, it's the mandatory reporting act, or MRA.
Under the mandatory reporting act, Internet service providers in Canada have two main obligations. The first is to contact the Canadian Centre for Child Protection when they receive child pornography complaints from their subscribers. This centre is the non-governmental agency that operates Cybertip.ca, the national tipline for reporting the online sexual exploitation of children.
The second obligation of Internet service providers is to inform the provincial or territorial police when there are reasonable grounds to believe that its Internet services have been used to commit a child pornography offence.
While Canada's laws are comprehensive, it is my understanding that there has been some concern as to how they are being interpreted and implemented, especially in relation to the troubling media reports about MindGeek and its Pornhub site.
Since I am the Minister of Justice, it would not be appropriate for me to comment on ongoing or potential investigations or prosecutions, but I would also note that the responsibility for the administration of criminal justice, including the investigation and prosecution of such crimes, including the sexual exploitation offences, falls largely on my provincial colleagues and counterparts.
However, as the Prime Minister stated during question period on February 3:
...cracking down on illegal online content is something we are taking very, very seriously. Whether it is hate speech, terrorism, child exploitation or any other illegal acts....
In fact, the government takes these measures so seriously that the Prime Minister has given four ministers the mandate to address different aspects of online harms. Minister Blair and I are two of these ministers. As he has mentioned, the Minister of Canadian Heritage is one of the lead [Technical difficulty—Editor] as well.
While the Internet has provided many benefits to Canada and the world, it has also provided criminals with a medium that extends their reach—and thus, their victim base—and a medium that elevates the level of complexity of investigations. One complicating factor is that telecommunications networks and services transcend international borders, while the enforcement authority of police, such as the RCMP, is generally limited to their domestic jurisdiction.
Further, under international law, court orders are generally enforceable only within the jurisdiction of a state. With limited exceptions, their enforcement requires the consent of the other state in which they are sought to be enforced.
Canada is obviously not the only country facing these challenges, which is why we continue to work with our international partners to facilitate international co-operation in the investigation and prosecution of these crimes, notably to strengthen bilateral co-operation and negotiation of new international mutual legal assistance treaties in criminal matters in order to address these issues.
Although mutual legal assistance treaties are a universally accepted method of requesting and obtaining international assistance in criminal matters, even in emergency situations, they weren't designed for the Internet age, where digital evidence is a common component of most criminal investigations and where timeliness is essential to the collection of this evidence because of its volatility.
Canada is actively working with its international partners to address these issues. For example, we are currently participating in the negotiation of a second protocol to the Council of Europe Convention on Cybercrime to enhance international co-operation on cross-border access to data.
Thank you.
View Shannon Stubbs Profile
CPC (AB)
View Shannon Stubbs Profile
2021-04-12 11:17
Thank you, Chair.
Ministers, thank you for being here.
Minister Blair, 70 MPs across parties have written to you about the cases of child exploitation, child sexual assault material, and instances of human trafficking and rape on MindGeek sites. Early in November and again in December, you assured us of the robust framework on prohibitions in the Criminal Code, which certainly Minister Lametti has just outlined in depth as well.
[Technical difficulty—Editor] December, and you sort of alluded to this. You said you reached out to the RCMP to offer support in response to these abhorrent revelations about MindGeek, Pornhub and other sites. Can you tell committee members what exactly and specifically that looked like, what support you offered?
View Bill Blair Profile
Lib. (ON)
Thank you very much, Ms. Stubbs.
Yes, I did in fact have a conversation with the RCMP and asked what they needed in order to respond appropriately to the concerns raised by our colleagues with respect to child exploitation and human trafficking. As a direct result of those conversations, we brought forward, in supplementary estimates (C) and the main estimates that were recently voted on, additional funding for the RCMP in response to their concerns.
The responsibility for conducting these investigations is shared between the RCMP and the police of jurisdiction. We asked what they needed in order to do that. We also provided funding available to [Technical difficulty—Editor] police services to have their own child exploitation units. I did have a conversation with the commissioner with respect to what the RCMP needed to respond appropriately to these concerns. As well, we included that funding in the main and supplementary estimates that we brought forward.
View Shannon Stubbs Profile
CPC (AB)
View Shannon Stubbs Profile
2021-04-12 11:19
I won't, of course, ask you to comment on any kinds of details about any specifics, because you can't, and I appreciate that. Can you tell members if you have confirmed, just simply, that there are investigations ongoing?
View Bill Blair Profile
Lib. (ON)
Thank you very much, Ms. Stubbs. You quite rightfully identify that the Minister of Public Safety cannot direct an investigation of any kind. Although I can be briefed on certain aspects of the investigation, it's entirely the responsibility of the RCMP to reveal—
View Shannon Stubbs Profile
CPC (AB)
View Shannon Stubbs Profile
2021-04-12 11:19
Right, so is there one going on? For Canadians, have you confirmed that there is one going on?
View Bill Blair Profile
Lib. (ON)
—to confirm or not the existence of an investigation. Frankly, I would be very concerned—
View Bill Blair Profile
Lib. (ON)
—about compromising their effectiveness by revealing information that isn't appropriate for me to reveal.
View Shannon Stubbs Profile
CPC (AB)
View Shannon Stubbs Profile
2021-04-12 11:20
Sure, but a yes or no, of course, doesn't compromise anything. It would just confirm for Canadians that elected officials and law enforcement have taken action on this very heinous crime, as you've outlined.
In your opening comments, you mentioned funding in the 2018 and 2019 budgets, as well as anticipated legislation for a regulator. I guess what I'm [Technical difficulty—Editor] that, by your own words and also in the words of a variety of experts.... For example, the Friends of Canadian Broadcasting told this committee they had released a report. It is a comprehensive legal analysis showing that under long-standing Canadian common law, these platforms are already liable for the user-generated content they promote and for circulating illegal user-generated content.
Also, as a representative of the Department of Justice said, “The definition of child pornography in the Criminal Code is among the world's broadest. It's not only images that we protect against or criminalize the distribution of, but it is also audio pornography and two forms of written pornography.” He continued, “The problem often is the application of the law, and how that works when the rubber hits the road.”
On behalf of all Canadians, and most importantly on behalf of victims who are heinously exploited and continue to be victimized in Canada right now, and as a call for justice, accountability and consequences on behalf of all of those innocent Canadians, what exactly are you going to do as the minister responsible for public safety to ensure that Canada's laws are actually enforced?
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