OTTAWA, February 12, 2004 - Today, the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada, Irwin Cotler, announced the reinstatement in the House of Commons of proposed legislation to better protect children and other vulnerable persons from sexual exploitation and other related harm.

"The purpose of this legislation, simply put, is the protection of the rights of children and other vulnerable persons. In particular, these reforms reflect the commitment as outlined in the Speech from the Throne, to keep children safe from all forms of exploitation, abuse and neglect," said Minister Cotler. "This Bill, when combined with other recent measures to protect children from sexual exploitation, including the luring and exploitation of children on the Internet, will give us the strongest child protection legislation of its kind anywhere in the world."

The proposed legislation would modernize the Criminal Code by:

• Strengthening child pornography provisions by narrowing existing defences of child pornography to a single defence of "public good". A person would be found guilty of a child pornography offence when the material or act in question does not serve the public good or where the risk of harm outweighs any public good it serves. The proposed reforms would also expand the existing definition of written child pornography to include material that describes prohibited sexual activity with children, where the description is the predominant characteristic of the work and it is done for a sexual purpose.



• Creating a new category of sexual exploitation that better protects young persons between 14 and 18 years of age. Under the proposed reform, courts may find that a relationship is exploitative based on its nature and circumstances, including the age of the young person, any difference of age, the evolution of the relationship, and the degree of control or influence exercised over the young person. This new category focuses the court's determination on the conduct or behaviour of the accused, rather than on the consent of the young person to the sexual activity.



• Increasing maximum sentences for child-related offences, including sexual offences against children, failure to provide the necessities of life, and abandonment of a child. The abuse of a child in the commission of any Criminal Code offence would also have to be considered as an aggravating factor by the court and could result in a tougher sentence.



• Facilitating the testimony of child victims and witnesses by providing for greater clarity, consistency and certainty for the use of testimonial aids (including screens, closed-circuit television and support persons) for child victims and witnesses under the age of 18 years. The reforms would also allow children under 14 to give their evidence when they are able to understand and respond to questions. A competency hearing, which is currently mandatory, would no longer be required.



• Introducing new offences of voyeurism, which would make it a crime - in specific cases - to deliberately and secretly observe or record another person where a reasonable expectation of privacy exists. Distributing material, knowing that it was produced through an offence of voyeurism, would also be a crime.

These proposed reforms build on other recent measures to provide increased protection to children from sexual exploitation. These measures included criminal law reforms that created new offences to target criminals who use the Internet to lure and exploit children or to transmit, make available, export or intentionally access child pornography.

An online version of the proposed legislation is available at www.parl.gc.ca.

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