Justice committee  That's correct. Bill C-54 does not change anything in the Criminal Code as it applies right now to what we refer to as the age of consent and a close-in-age exception, so it does apply. If a person over the age of consent engages in consensual sexual activity, it is not an offence.

Justice committee  Clause 2 of the bill is amending the provision that we commonly refer to as the “child sex tourism provision” in the Criminal Code. This provision provides Canadian authorities with extraterritorial jurisdiction to assume an investigation and prosecution of a Canadian citizen or resident who travels abroad and commits one of the enumerated offences that, if it had been committed in Canada, could have resulted in the person's being charged and prosecuted here.

Justice committee  If I might, I'll briefly respond on the first question. Did we undertake an assessment of any decrease in charging convictions of child sex offences since the 2005 amendments? We did look at the outcome, we did look at the number of cases. I don't have data or a study to provide to you.

Justice committee  No. There is a bit of work that this committee will know. Reference has been made to it on mandatory minimums generally. More specifically, it's under way in terms of firearms and the impacts they've had there. But I'm not in a position to be able to provide the committee with that information in the context of child sex offences, beyond our own looking at the numbers and the ones you will probably hear about on Monday.

Justice committee  I have researched extensively in the area, and if it exists I'm not aware of it. It's possible.

Justice committee  When we look at how our laws compare with those of others, I would suggest that the comparison needs to look at not just what the mandatory minimum is, but at the nature of the offence and what the maximum penalty is that's imposed in the other law as well, because the approach presented in Bill C-54 seeks to bring a consistency across the board for the offences that we have here in Canada.

Justice committee  As I said, the reference is to the comparable child pornography in Australia, the United Kingdom, and France: no mandatory minimum penalties, but the maximum is around ten years, on average. That's close to what we have here, but in Canada you would have mandatory minimum penalties as well.

Justice committee  In fact it's even more fundamental. The offence that's proposed in clause 13 of Bill C-54--it may occur through the Internet, but it does not have to. The intention here is to.... First of all, you'll see that the definition of sexually explicit material excludes child pornography.

Justice committee  I can indicate to the committee that variations of this may exist in other countries. In the United States, at the federal law level they have an offence of using the mails to provide child pornography—for example, material to a young person. I believe there might be something similar or a variation of it in the United Kingdom's Sexual Offences Act.

Justice committee  In terms of your first question, the minister was very generous in his remarks. I really don't know everything. I do know and can tell you that when you do look at the mandatory minimum penalties that may be imposed for different offences in other countries, you will see differences.

Justice committee  Well, I think there's no question that the Criminal Code has not had a consolidated reform in quite a number of years, and as you amend it, you do lose some of the coherence between sections.

Justice committee  I don't believe I have the figures in the sense that you mean. I have not seen the presentation that my colleagues at Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics will provide. I'm hoping they will provide the data that shows the baseline that I've referred to. I'm certainly able to provide you with those high-level numbers that I mentioned in my earlier response, but I suspect that the fuller presentation will provide you with greater detail.

Justice committee  My short answer is I would agree with the premise of the question that the hearing aid wouldn't be transmitting, communicating, providing access to the World Wide Web or other.... I suppose there are some medical devices like a heart halter that might be transmitting data to a recipient computer, but it's not providing access to the Internet or other digital networks in the sense that it would provide the offender with the ability to access or communicate with a child or access illicit material such as child pornography.

Justice committee  The Supreme Court continued to say that depictions of nudity or intimate sexual activity, but not casual sexual contact.... But it has to be for a sexual purpose. The example that was provided would not fit within that interpretation.

Justice committee  I think the case law is clear in saying that on its own, by itself, it likely may not fit within the definition of child pornography, but found together, in the context of other materials that may point out the sexual purpose behind that photo, if that was the case, that could be an issue that could be argued.