Canadian Heritage Committee on June 11th, 2024

[Rachael Thomas, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

Why would you have to pick one and not the other?

[Dr. Jocelyn Monsma Selby]

The problem is that there are so many platforms that offer material that is problematic. How do you decide who you're going to implement the technology with?

[Rachael Thomas, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

I think that's up to legislators to determine.

[Dr. Jocelyn Monsma Selby]

I think that is a huge challenge for you. That is a huge challenge.

Look at what's going on in Texas and all these other states. They've cherry-picked who they're implementing an age verification technology with and they've also cherry-picked which technology they're using. As we've heard today, many of them have not been proven effective or do not actually protect what they say they're going to protect. We have some issues here. That's why we go to the device level, as it just gets everything. You can't turn on your phone without—

[Rachael Thomas, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

I'm sorry. I have to make sure that my colleague gets some time here.

I'll switch it over to Kevin.

[Kevin Waugh, Conservative, Saskatoon—Grasswood, SK]

Thank you, Ms. Thomas.

I sat and listened to debate on Bill C-63 Friday. There was, I think, a high school class watching from the gallery. It was kind of interesting, because as Bill C-63 was debated—and I give the teacher a lot of credit—the government had their statement and the opposition had their statements, and there's a trade-off between a guarantee of their security and their Charter of Rights. We have seen that in many of these bills.

Ms. Selby, what would your recommendation be to those high school students? Many of them are just coming into the adult world. What would your recommendation be on the Charter of Rights and their security around sexual exploitation?

[Dr. Jocelyn Monsma Selby]

Well, that is an interesting question. I don't know if many of you are aware of this, but if you go to the United Nations rights of the child, there is an optional protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on a communications procedure that was ratified by 41 nations. That protocol gives individuals a right to file a complaint with the committee alleging a violation of their rights under the convention. That includes, under numerous provisions, a failure to protect the child from harmful exposure to pornography.

Therefore, kids can actually file a complaint with the United Nations, if they decide kids are children. If they decide—

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you, Dr. Selby. Your time is up.

I'll move to Mr. Coteau for five minutes.

[Michael Coteau, Liberal, Don Valley East, ON]

We're going to split our time. I'll take two and a half minutes and then pass it over.

I want to thank all the witnesses for being here today. This is, of course, a very important issue to all of us in the room here. I want to say thank you especially to Carol Todd. Thank you for sharing your story.

I want to ask a question of Mr. Vachon.

Sir, you said there was a large increase from 2019. I think you said it was about 300%. You went from 1,000-plus cases to 4,000 cases.

Do you have an understanding of why that increase has happened so drastically over the last few years?

[Marc-Antoine Vachon]

I think the detection methods that digital service providers use are improving. Artificial intelligence is used not only for nefarious purposes but also for good reasons.

Moreover, prevention efforts in schools also encourage children, teens and adults to report that type of crime. They can go to the police or do so anonymously on special lines such as through the Sûreté du Québec's criminal information centre. So people are being encouraged to report more of those crimes. I also think that, over time, the police are improving the support they give victims and their way of dealing with them.

These prevention efforts and improved techniques are increasing the number of reports made and processed by police officers.

[Michael Coteau, Liberal, Don Valley East, ON]

I'd like a really short answer to this question.

Because you're on the front line, is there a way in which you take that knowledge you have and transfer it to those who work with young people in order to put in preventive measures?

I have only about 30 seconds left, and then I have to pass the floor to my colleague.

How do we capture that information and transfer it?

[Marc-Antoine Vachon]

Police organizations have prevention teams that we work with often to create guides. In Quebec, a continuum of prevention efforts begins in grade one to help children learn right from wrong, what can be done and what must not be done, which leads to incidents being reported. The issue of consent and so forth is also discussed. The prevention team is not part of my division, but we work hand in hand with them and help them strengthen their tools.

[Michael Coteau, Liberal, Don Valley East, ON]

Thank you so much for your work.

[Anna Gainey, Liberal, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Westmount, QC]

Thank you very much.

Thank you, as well, to all the witnesses for being here.

Mr. Vachon, I also have a question for you.

Ideally, images of the sexual abuse of children would never be published online, of course. Bill C‑63 includes provisions requiring removal of material within 24 hours.

I'd like to know what you think of that tool proposed in the act. Further, are there other tools that could improve this bill or that we should consider?

[Marc-Antoine Vachon]

Yes, that has to be done. Giving a time limit for mandatory removal is a very good idea. In many cases, companies do not respond, especially if they aren't Canadian. We have seen that in the case of removal requests relating to complaints made through the Canadian Centre for Child Protection website, replies are not always received. So setting a time limit is important, but I think it is also important to impose fines to penalize service providers that do not comply with the time limit.

As to the removal of online images, the international policing community feeds information into a database. Each file has a digital footprint similar to a digital fingerprint. So there is a database that receives information from the international policing community, and that database is made available to the National Centre Against Child Exploitation in Ottawa, as well as the Canadian Centre for Child Protection. They use the database and other technologies and use bots to search websites and identify images of child pornography.

Those organizations offer free tools to companies. Requiring Canadian companies to use the tools of the Canadian Centre for Child Protection would therefore be a very good idea, in my humble opinion, because it would help remove content already stored on servers and stop things from being added that are already on the servers. That would block the material at the source. It would not be perfect because there are always images circulating and there will always be producers, but at least it would remove a good chunk of the material.

There are a number of other sites available to victims to have images removed, but unfortunately there is no monitoring of the effectiveness of those sites.

[Anna Gainey, Liberal, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Westmount, QC]

That's a good suggestion.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

You have 18 seconds.

[Anna Gainey, Liberal, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Westmount, QC]

Did you say it's an international database?

[Marc-Antoine Vachon]

Yes, it's international. It includes all policing communities.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you.

I now go to Monsieur Champoux for two and a half minutes, please.

[Martin Champoux, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

Thank you. Two and a half minutes, that's not much time.

I'm glad you already answered the questions I would have asked in my short turn.

I have a 13-year-old daughter and I sense that the message about being careful does not always reach young people that clearly.

I suppose it is primarily the consumers that you arrest. Do you think the message is getting out more clearly? Are there things we could improve, not only as parents but as a society? I'm thinking of how to make girls who are 13, 14 or 15 years old realize that it isn't cool to be photographed or videoed by their friends who in turn do whatever they want with it.

Have we got the right approach now? What could we do better?

[Marc-Antoine Vachon]

Honestly, yes, I think we have the right approach.

Let me tell you about Quebec. Our prevention work is effective, as I said earlier. The policing community is changing more and more. In Quebec, when we were young, William Bumbray would show up with his big moustache. I see policing communities adjusting to their clientele. The Sûreté du Québec now makes videos that are posted online, on YouTube. We are on social networks.

That is how we can reach teens. We maintain our presence on social media, adapting our prevention message according to age, make it funny and a bit lighter rather than simply saying not to do this or that. That is where the Sûreté du Québec is at in terms of the videos we publish.

So prevention is important. As I said earlier, the prevention continuum starts in grade one. We have to hammer home the prevention message, along with the potential lifelong consequences, because there are lifelong consequences. I think that is how we can reach young people today. There will of course always be people who downplay things.

[Martin Champoux, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

It's a lucrative industry with a lot of customers. Demand is high. I think you have answered all our questions about the coercive aspect.

Who produces the content though? Is it street gangs? Or is it individuals? Is it organized crime? Who produces those videos and that content?

[Marc-Antoine Vachon]

There are obviously a lot of opportunities to produce the content all over the world, given the ready access to those images. They are online so it is a global problem. In Quebec, we often see people who are very close to the victim such as a father, uncle or child-care provider do that kind of thing. So they are crimes of opportunity: People have access to the victim and obviously have an interest in that kind of sexuality.

I have not seen street gangs involved in those crimes because they are more interested in procuring and that kind of thing.

[Martin Champoux, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

Since production of the content is not specifically organized, that also makes things more difficult. That must make your work harder because those individuals are operating on their own in a way.