Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on
Legal and Constitutional Affairs
Issue 20 - Evidence for February 10, 2011
OTTAWA, Thursday, February 10, 2011
The Standing Senate Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs, to which was referred Bill C-22, An Act respecting the mandatory reporting of Internet child pornography by persons who provide an Internet service, met this day at 10:38 a.m. to give consideration to the bill.
Senator Joan Fraser (Chair) in the chair.
[English]
The Chair: I see a quorum. Welcome, colleagues and members of the public.
[Translation]
We are continuing our consideration of Bill C-22, An Act respecting the mandatory reporting of Internet child pornography by persons who provide an Internet service.
[English]
We are delighted to have with us, as our first witness this morning, from the Office of the Federal Ombudsman for Victims of Crime, Ms. Sue O'Sullivan, who is the Federal Ombudsman. I think you have an opening statement. Please proceed with that, and then we will ask you questions.
[Translation]
Sue O'Sullivan, Federal Ombudsman, Office of the Federal Ombudsman for Victims of Crime: Madam Chair and members of the committee, thank you for inviting me here to speak with you and to share our views on Bill C-22, An Act respecting the mandatory reporting of Internet child pornography by persons who provide an Internet service.
These discussions are quite timely in light of Safer Internet Day this past Tuesday. As you are aware, the Office of the Federal Ombudsman for Victims of Crime was created in 2007 to help victims of crime across Canada.
We do that by assisting victims both on an individual basis, when they call our office with an inquiry or complaint, and collectively, by making recommendations and providing input on important legislation, such as the bill before us today.
[English]
In the case of Internet-facilitated child sexual abuse, the office has also produced a special report entitled Every Image, Every Child, which contains nine recommendations to the Minister of Justice and the Minister of Public Safety for how we can more effectively and systemically tackle this very difficult issue. I have provided the clerk with copies for members' reference.
Before speaking directly to the content of Bill C-22, I think it is important to contextualize the true nature of the crimes we are discussing and to understand the scope of the problem. Often discussions around the creation and distribution of child sexual abuse images focus on catching and punishing the offenders, not only those physically abusing children but those searching out this horrendous material and downloading it for personal use.
This is clearly an important part of addressing the issue. However, if I might shift the lens slightly, we must also keep in mind that every single image or video circulating on the Internet — and we know there are hundreds of thousands of them — represents something far more important: an abused child.
These children are victimized not only during the creation of this material but each and every time their image is shared, downloaded and viewed. As one 13-year-old victim stated:
Usually, when a kid is hurt and the abuser goes to prison, the abuse is over. But because XXX put my pictures on the Internet, the abuse is still going on.
In terms of scope of the problem, I do not think it will be news to any of you that the problem of online child sexual abuse images and videos is growing at an alarming rate. It is increasing in both the volume of what is available and the number of people who are searching for and accessing the material. According to the United Nations, an estimated 750,000 predators are expected to be connected to the Internet at any one time.
The Internet Watch Foundation found that, between 2003 and 2007, the volume of serious child sexual abuse material quadrupled. At the same time, the content is getting more violent and the children younger and younger. The vast majority — 82 per cent — of children in these images are now younger than 12 years of age, and over 80 per cent of the images include penetration. Furthermore, the United Nations Children's Fund estimates there are more than 4 million sites featuring victims who are young minors, including children under the age of two. Clearly this is a serious issue, and we need to take action.
The issue of Internet-facilitated child sexual abuse is broad and includes identifying and prosecuting offenders, rescuing children, helping child victims heal, and finding ways to stem the flow of this material.
Bill C-22 addresses two of these four main issues. First, the bill requires Internet service providers, or ISPs, who are advised of an IP address or website that makes child pornography public to report that information to a designated agency. There is research that suggests that the mandatory reporting may be effective in identifying individuals or companies who may be accessing or distributing abuse materials.
In April 2009, Manitoba became the first province to enact legislation that requires the mandatory reporting of child pornography. The legislation made it mandatory for all people who reside in Manitoba to report suspected child pornography to Cybertip.ca. Over the course of the next year, a study conducted by the Canadian Centre for Child Protection found a 126 per cent increase in the number of reports submitted.
Further to that, the new legislation resulted in 17 reports containing information on an identified child victim and/or suspect in Manitoba being forwarded to Child and Family Services. Child and Family Services determined that several children had been sexually abused by a subject identified in one report, and criminal charges against the suspect are pending. Eight of the reports remain active investigations with Child and Family Services.
Although the Manitoba legislation requires all individuals to report, as opposed to only ISPs, it demonstrates that mandatory reporting can have an impact. Beyond increasing the submission of reports, mandatory reporting may also help by adding a measure of accountability for those facilitating the transfer and sharing of these images, even inadvertently, and ensures their cooperation in stemming the flow of these images.
It may also have the added benefit of making the issue more top-of-mind for IPSs, which in turn could potentially help spur more progress and innovation in finding ways to track, trace and stop this material from circulating. All of these potential outcomes will be positive for victims.
In addition to the duty to report, Bill C-22 also requires the ISPs to notify law enforcement or other public safety officials if they believe their Internet service is being used to commit a child pornography offence. This can, in the right circumstances, assist law enforcement in identifying, locating and rescuing children. However, we must be aware of the complexities of these types of offences and the fact that originating offences can take place anywhere in the world. The resulting images can be bounced off dozens, if not hundreds, of different servers and IP addresses.
In the study I referenced earlier, the Canadian Centre for Child Protection found that the majority of reports forwarded to law enforcement — 90 per cent — were forwarded to law enforcement outside of Manitoba. To effectively rescue a child, law enforcement must try to determine where those materials were created — a very time- consuming process — and then contact the appropriate officials.
Finally, the third point on the proposed legislation touches on an area that our office identified as an issue in its report on Internet-facilitated child sexual abuse, and that is the preservation of data. The key to being able to prove and prosecute these types of offences is accessing a suspect's client logs, which contain information about when a client logged on to the Internet, what the client did while on the Internet, and the IP address the session was linked to. This information is very useful for law enforcement agencies investigating a case.
In order to obtain this information, police must obtain judicial authorization, or a warrant, and in some cases, by the time this authorization is secured, the system has already purged the client logs.
Bill C-22 requires that anyone who comes forward to report abuse material must preserve all data in relation to that notification for 21 days in order to permit law enforcement the time necessary to obtain the judicial authorization. While this is a positive step forward, and certainly helpful, it does not address the issue of data that is frequently lost for offences that law enforcement may discover though its own investigations.
For that reason, our office recommended that the federal government introduce legislation to require ISPs to retain customer name and address data, traffic data and content data for two to five years. This is a recommendation I will encourage the committee to consider in looking at this bill.
Over all, and as indicated for each the three main points of the bill, Bill C-22 takes positive steps toward further enhancing our ability to identify child sexual abuse material and to preserve it for the purposes of prosecuting offenders and hopefully helping to rescue innocent children.
As such, our office fully supports the bill and encourages the government to move forward as quickly as possible with bringing it into force.
However, while I am fully supportive of this bill, I must also point out that there is still much more to be done in order to effectively address the issue of Internet-facilitated child sexual abuse. Bill C-22 will not, in and of itself, eradicate child sexual abuse material from being created or shared; nor will it address the challenges that law enforcement will face in pursuing these cases without the necessary authority to compel ISPs to provide basic customer name and address information in order to identify and locate the individuals associated with a particular IP address.
Currently in Canada, ISPs are allowed but not obliged to provide customer name and address information without a warrant. Though many companies do cooperate, some can and do refuse to cooperate with law enforcement. In fact, according to the National Child Exploitation Coordination Centre in 2007, 30 per cent to 40 per cent of requests are denied. Without this information, law enforcement may be forced to close a case before a detailed investigation ever begins.
Furthermore, while this proposed legislation will most likely help law enforcement to identify further leads, it will not address the current backlogs that many law enforcements agencies face in investigating these cases, due to a lack of resources and staffing.
In closing, I would like to reiterate that our office supports Bill C-22 and the measures it introduces to facilitate the identification of Internet-facilitated child sexual abuse and the preservation of computer data. I would also like to state again the unequivocal importance of including in our discussion not only the prosecution of the offender, but the rescue and healing of innocent children.
[Translation]
As I mentioned, I have made available to members of the Committee our report, Every Image, Every Child, which contains nine recommendations to the Ministers of Justice and Public Safety on how we can more effectively and systematically tackle this very difficult issue.
I would be pleased to answer any questions you may have. Thank you for your time.
[English]
Senator Wallace: Thank you, Ms. O'Sullivan. It is always good to have you here. We have seen you here in more than one capacity in the past years. Your input is always helpful to us. You have outlined an excellent overview of the issue this morning.
Could you expand on your understanding of the current situation in Canada as it relates to child pornography on the Internet? You referred to Manitoba as the first province to enact this type of legislation and said that Manitoba had conducted a study that found a 126 per cent increase in the number of reports submitted.
Since Bill C-22 relates to child pornography on the Internet that originates in Canada, as opposed to in other countries, what knowledge do have you about the extent of this type of material originating in Canada in addition to Manitoba? How extensive is it, and what has the trend been? Are these issues arising in one particular part of the country, or does it seem to be widespread?
Ms. O'Sullivan: I know you have several witnesses after me who have a tremendous amount of expertise, including representatives of the National Child Exploitation Coordination Centre, who will be speaking next, and I know they will be able to add to this.
We deal with the issues in the data that will be brought forward, and that is information that other people have seen on the Internet and reported, or people who have come forward. Part of it is that many of these incidents will not be reported, as we know with much data. We must rely on the studies that have been done here, and I have quoted a few.
You can see this is an international issue, and it is complex. I am aware of Cleanfeed, which also looks at blocking Internet child sexual abuse images that come from outside Canada. Many of the organizations and ISP providers are participating in that, as well, to block images coming from outside.
The question often is how many people who view child sexual abuse images go on to offend. I know some research might indicate 50 per cent. I do not have the expert data on that. That is a huge concern.
The other aspect, if I may speak frankly, is that we have not seen a lot of research about the impact on victims and the fact that their abuse is in cyberspace forever. We have not seen any substantive research about the impact it will have on victims. We would like to see more research on that area because it is something different. Once it is out there, you have no control on where it ends up and how many times. I have used only one quote to emphasize that, which is about the complete devastation to know that every time that is played, you are re-victimized, and also by not knowing what and how much is out there. That is an area where we would like to see more research.
Senator Wallace: Are you aware of how other countries have dealt with this problem within their jurisdictions? Again, we are somewhat constrained in Canada with the laws we enact here. They relate to this material that originates in Canada and perpetrators that are in the country. In the work that you and your organization have done, have you looked at what other countries have done in similar circumstances, how they have approached this problem, and whether they require this type of notification or reporting that is in Bill C-22?
Ms. O'Sullivan: The United States has used Title 18. USC Chapter 110 was passed in 2002, making it a duty for anyone providing a telecommunication service to report child pornography. In 2005 Australia passed similar legislation to that of the U.S. The United Nations Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography, 2000, requires state parties to protect children from all forms of sexual exploitation and abuse and to take appropriate measures. Similar legislation is out there. Making the reporting mandatory is an important first step.
The other piece of this proposed legislation is outlined in the original testimony, the importance of the preservation of that evidence to be able to prosecute.
Senator Wallace: Ms. O'Sullivan, you made reference to the report that your organization did, Every Image, Every Child: Internet-facilitated child sexual abuse in Canada, which contains nine recommendations. Do you see Bill C-22 as responding to some of the recommendations of that report?
Ms. O'Sullivan: It responds to some of the recommendations, but not all. I have made this available to the committee for your review. Obviously, there will be resource and capacity issues when this bill is implemented, if it is. It is important to give law enforcement the tools to be able to access, at the very least, the customer's name and address.
Senator Wallace: Thank you.
[Translation]
Senator Boisvenu: Ms. O'Sullivan, I first want to thank you and congratulate you on your brief, which I think provided a very good overview of the issue, and also on your appointment. The Minister of Justice made a very, very good choice and I can guarantee him that victims will be very well represented in your office as a result of your appointment.
I am mainly going to talk to you about your report, on the question of whether we can go further. I agree with you that what is in Bill C-22 seems to be the basics. I will not get into a more legalistic discussion of the provisions of the bill, as my colleagues did. I'm not a lawyer, so I will leave that to my colleague opposite, Senator Baker, who is a specialist in legislative details. Personally, it is more your philosophy that interests me.
You say that this bill is the minimum, and I think everyone will agree with the philosophy of this bill, but I would like to know how to go further. What strikes me is that this type of crime is on the rise in Canada and in a number of modern countries where there is easy Internet access. Internet users are getting younger and younger. Fifteen years ago, internet users were adults because it was expensive and it was new. Now, young people are on the Internet from the age of seven or eight and it is an everyday tool, like the telephone was for us in our day. But much more dangerous, because a lot of communication on the Internet takes place anonymously.
Your history as a former police officer gives you a more critical view of this kind of crime, so I would like you to talk a little more about how to go further to protect our children when they use this tool, other than parental responsibility, because parents have always had a responsibility. How could we go further in our Criminal Code and our legislation to protect children better?
[English]
Ms. O'Sullivan: Thank you for that. I know that some experts will be speaking after me, and I did spend 30 years looking into this. You have touched on an important point.
Legislation is one part of a response when trying to look at how to eradicate these kinds of crimes. It is like a continuum, and just as important as the legislation are education, prevention and arming our children with the information they need to protect themselves.
I had the opportunity in December to visit the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre in London, England, and I looked at some of the tools they have developed as our centre has. In our country, we have some very experienced and committed law enforcement teams that investigate this and work with our international partners. When we do look at the answer to this, it must be that continuum of arming our children with education and information to protect themselves and, for parents, ensuring the proper enforcement tools are in place.
I would like to focus again on the other part, and that is looking at the amount of devastation to the victims, and looking at having the proper supports in place and ensuring research looks at what we know is a devastating impact but that we do not have a handle on. This is going on, and the re-victimization occurs with this type of offence in particular. There are questions we have not answered. For example, if during an investigation victims are discovered who may not know images are out there, do you tell them? When do you tell them? How do you tell them? A tremendous amount of information needs to be looked at in that regard. I hope that answers your question, but if there is more I would be happy to expand.
[Translation]
Senator Boisvenu: One point that struck me in your report is that when you say we have to go further, you say it will not address the challenges that law enforcement face in pursuing these cases without the necessary authority, i.e. warrant, to compel ISPs to provide basic customer name and address information in order to identify and locate the individual associated. Should this bill include a provision to that effect?
[English]
Ms. O'Sullivan: Law enforcement needs the ability to have at the very least the address and name of the IP user. If I can use an analogy, if you have a car registered to you, the police can access your name and address in the same manner. That is a tool. I am aware there are privacy concerns, but any other information will require judicial authorization. To have the ability to get the name and address of the IP user, yes.
The Chair: On a supplementary, if I may, clause 12 of this bill empowers the Governor-in-Council to make regulations respecting the notification that the ISP has to follow. Why could those regulations not simply say that when you make a notification, you do not just say, "There is this strange material at this Internet address," you also provide the physical name and address. Can that not be done by regulation?
Ms. O'Sullivan: I defer to you as to whether that can be done by regulation. That information would need to be provided by the ISP.
The Chair: I can understand that the police cannot get very far if they do not know who is responsible.
Ms. O'Sullivan: I defer to the legal expertise around the table.
Senator Runciman: I was curious about that issue, too, and the retention of the data for two to five years. I am trying to get my head around that, but I am not the most computer-literate guy. Can you take us through the way you think this should work from a policing perspective?
Ms. O'Sullivan: I will be careful not to step on the toes of my former job.
Many times throughout investigations, as you know, police would need a warrant or judicial authorization to get the data they need for prosecution.
Senator Runciman: Can you take us from step one? The police have come across something of their own volition, which I think is in your comment there. They spot something on their own, the sex crimes unit or whatever it might be, and then they go in to try to determine who is involved.
Ms. O'Sullivan: Law enforcement will receive a report of child pornography from a citizen or Cybertip or will locate images themselves. They then try to locate the IP address on the computer where the images are being exchanged or distributed. An internet protocol or IP address is a numerical identifier given to the particular computer device when it is hooked up to the Internet. The IP address is analyzed by law enforcement to determine the location of the offender by providing more information about the Internet service provider that offender is using, as well as the geographic location of the user. Once the geographic area is defined, law enforcement can contact the ISP to ask for the name and address of the customer registered to that IP address, and the ISP may, at this point, voluntarily provide the customer name and address to law enforcement, but it is not obliged to do so.
We are saying ISPs should be obliged to provide the name and address of the user. I am not a technological expert either, but I understand that in this environment, it is massive amounts of storage, so ISPs tend to clear their information on a fairly regular basis.
Senator Runciman: We heard it is yearly.
Ms. O'Sullivan: I am saying that if they were to hold it for two to five years — and I do not know the capacity and storage issues they face with that — that would allow investigations to keep that data. As you know, some of these investigations, particularly the international ones, can go on for some time.
Senator Runciman: The one concern we had from a provider was storage capacity, so that may be the issue. Thank you for raising it, and we can pursue it with other witnesses.
Regarding your role as advocate for victims of crime, we saw a case in December where 57 were charges laid, and close to 50 per cent of them were in Canada. We saw four I think, in the Ottawa area, and one involving a four-year- old child.
What happens to these kids? What kinds of challenges do they face, for lack of a better word, in terms of salvaging them? What is out there for kids who find themselves unfortunately in these situations?
Ms. O'Sullivan: I thank you for asking that question because one of the messages we have here today is the need for research to look at both the short-term and the long-term implications of this kind of crime.
I think you have heard service providers talk about the challenges around access, no matter what community in Canada they are in. Every victim is unique and will have different needs, once a needs assessment is done, and there is the question of what services are available. Some of the services needed will require the expertise to work with particularly with young children. Also, we have not talked about children who are older and children with concurrent issues. There is a huge need to be able to provide services. I am sure I could get thousands of service providers to speak to some of the needs that way.
I do thank you for raising that, because the other issue is to get research going on about the impact, particularly of the fact that these victimization and re-victimization issues are out there in cyberspace forever at this point.
Senator Baker: Thank you for your submission. I and other senators found it informative and instructive.
You did mention Bill C-46. Just for the sake of persons watching this broadcast, Bill C-46 was the former bill that was introduced into the House of Commons, which died on the Order Paper in the House of Commons.
It is the same as the bill we have before us, except that, as you pointed out, that bill contained a procedure for a production order, which would allow the police within that short period of time of 21 days to obtain the information. That would be a new addition to the Criminal Code, if I understand it correctly. Is that what you were talking about, a mechanism whereby the police could obtain the impugned information we are talking about?
Ms. O'Sullivan: There were two pieces, Bill C-46 and Bill C-47. One dealt with production orders, but Bill C-46 allowed that they would have to provide the name and address of the IP user. That is the beginning. They need to be able to access that information.
Senator Baker: Why do you think it is missing in this bill?
Ms. O'Sullivan: I cannot answer that.
Senator Baker: I will ask another question relating to the 21 days. From your experience as a police officer, you know full well the difficulties that a police officer has in supplying a warrant, which demands reasonable grounds to believe. You know that as well as other members of this committee. It is a very complex and high standard because a computer has just as high a level of privacy as a home. That has been judged by the Supreme Court of Canada right down. A person's computer has a high expectation of privacy, and you have to prove to the judge or the justice of the peace that you have reasonable grounds to believe, and you cannot do it in 21 days. That is the point we made earlier, and you are suggesting two to four years would be a reasonable period of time.
Were you a bit alarmed that the bill actually says that Internet service providers must destroy the information after 21 days? Not only do they not have to keep it, but they also have to destroy it.
Ms. O'Sullivan: Yes.
Senator Baker: Are you concerned about that? Are you also alarmed at that as well?
Ms. O'Sullivan: When it comes to privacy, the victim's privacy issues also need to take precedence. I do not think there is anything that violates your privacy more as a victim than having your sexual abuse be out there circulating in cyberspace. It is about balance and about respecting the privacy rights of the victims of sexual abuse.
I know technology is looking at ways to tag these files when they are out there. Probably people in the technological world may not, but they can flag the images to try to stop them from continuing to be distributed. That is the technology we want to see.
I cannot speak to the capacity issues. There may be legitimate ones, and I will leave that for the experts to speak to. We are saying hold on to these images and the evidence required to prosecute for a reasonable period of time, as you say, in a complex and complicated investigative environment.
Senator Baker: You mentioned the ICE teams. Some people viewing may not know what an ICE team is. We here on the committee know what that is, but could you explain it?
Ms. O'Sullivan: It is investigators who have level of expertise and training.
Senator Baker: What does ICE stand for?
Ms. O'Sullivan: It stands for Integrated Child Exploitation.
Senator Baker: This is a team separate from the centre in Ottawa. This team works with Interpol and everybody else and instructs the police officers across Canada on how to fill out search warrants and how to do this and that.
We were alarmed when we noticed this year in case law some evidence given by ICE teams. Corporal Filotto, who has been with the RCMP for 19 years, explained that they do not have the resources required to fully carry out the workload they have. That is from 2010 Carswell BC 3669 at paragraph 23, just a couple of months ago.
I am sure you would agree it is very important that these people be given the adequate resources because now a whole new workload will be placed on their shoulders. Would you agree with that?
Ms. O'Sullivan: I absolutely think that resources and capacity need to be addressed as well.
[Translation]
Senator Chaput: Thank you, Ms. O'Sullivan, that is extremely interesting. It tells us things I might have preferred not to know. But reality is what it is.
I have taken an quick look at the report we received. I went to the recommendations, and I wondered whether, in those recommendations, you would be able to tell the committee members which are the priority. In the sense that if the committee considered amendments to the bill, which of those recommendations should be included or could be included in the amendments? It is all important and the bill is a good start. If we add to the bill to improve it, what would be the additions or amendments we could make. I don't know whether you want to answer.
[English]
Ms. O'Sullivan: That is a very difficult question. I will give you an example. First, one of the recommendations is that we do not call it "child pornography," although that is how it is defined in the legislation, but that we call it "child sexual abuse images," because that is what it is. Pornography implies some type of consent. There is no consent here. It is child sexual abuse images and materials.
To answer your question, I am having a difficult time because it is important that we expedite this legislation and that we require ISPs to supply the name and address to law enforcement and that we require ISPs to retain the data for a reasonable period of time.
I will be frank. If some of this data is password-encrypted, then they must be required through the legislation to provide that password as well so that law enforcement can access the data.
What is important here is that the federal government, in partnership with the provinces, makes sure we that identify a national strategy. I say national because it is so complex. It is obviously linked to the international community as well. To truly get a handle on this, we need to be able to use technology to one day capture these images so that we can stop them from being traded in cyberspace. Victims could then know that those images of them are being captured as they are being used, and we could destroy those images.
We talk about child advocacy centres, and recently there has been some federal funding for that. Senator Runciman asked the question. There is no doubt that dealing with children at different ages and developmental levels requires expertise. It should be that the services wrap around the victim, not the victim having to go to 10 different services to get his or her needs met. That is one example of an approach that wraps around the victims, making sure the services come to them.
This proposed legislation is an important step, and I would encourage you to expedite it. Common sense says that you have to give law enforcement the tools to do the job and that we have to make sure that as a country, as a global community, we are investing in looking at the needs of these victims and ensuring we are doing the right thing, supporting them and making those services available to them.
Senator Joyal: I would like to come back to clause 4(1) of the bill, which deals with the preservation of computer data for 21 days.
I raised this issue yesterday with the minister, and I was surprised by his answer. His answer was that the reason it is such a short period is to compel the police forces to act quickly, that is, within the 21 days. I have difficulty reconciling that answer with your recommendations this morning. Recommendation 3 of your report, which is at page 41, is that the federal government should introduce legislation to require ISPs to retain customer name and address data, traffic data and content data for two to five years.
I wonder where we have to cut the apple here. Do we favour putting pressure on the police forces to act quickly, as the minister said, or do we make sure that we preserve the proof or the elements of the proof needed to prosecute the offender? In your brief, you mention that there is a backlog of so many years, and in the last page of your brief you say that it will not address the current backlog that many law enforcement agencies face in investigating these cases, due to a lack of resources and manpower.
It seems to me that on the one hand the minister says we should make it short term because it puts pressure on the police. However, at the same time, the police do not have resources and manpower to prosecute. In other words, we will lose the elements of proof that police need to investigate, according to what you told us this morning. What should do we do?
Ms. O'Sullivan: My answer would be to preserve the evidence for a period of time, and that is the recommendation I would make here. You will have other witnesses who will provide more information.
There is a tremendous amount of work in relation to this kind of crime. That requires capacity and resources. Again, I will defer to the experts, but when you seize a hard drive you have to search it, and depending on the level of technology, that can take a long time. You will have experts here who can to speak to that.
Regarding getting police to move more quickly, I know I am wearing the ombudsman hat, but we spoke to the agencies we consulted on the original document, and we also did follow-up to make sure the message was consistent prior to coming before the Senate. We spoke to the Canadian Centre for Child Protection, the Media Awareness Network, Victims of Violence, Child Abuse Prevention Network, the National Child Exploitation Coordination Centre. I could continue, but we have consulted with many of these national agencies in the development of this report.
This information is not specific to the Office of the Federal Ombudsman for Victims of Crime. This is as a result of consulting with people.
Senator Joyal: It is a consensus.
Ms. O'Sullivan: I do know whether I can say "consensus" — that is not the word I would use — but it is as a result of consultation.
From my past experience, I want to assure you that the officers and civilian members working on these types of investigations are working as hard as they can and as quickly as they can. The reality is that there are a tremendous number of images and offences out there, and it requires assets and capacity to deal with them.
I will speak to my personal experience in dealing with members who investigate in this area. They are extremely committed to working as quickly as they can to try to identify and rescue children and to conduct comprehensive and objective investigations in this area.
Senator Joyal: Thank you for your answer. I know where my stance is now.
My other question is about clause 6 of the bill. I want to relate it also to one recommendation you make this morning. Clause 6 says:
Nothing in this Act requires or authorizes a person to seek out child pornography.
I was of the opinion at first that this clause was not needed and that in fact it might be harmful. In your remarks, under the heading "The Need to go Further," you recommend the following:
. . . to compel ISPs to provide basic customer name and address information in order to identify and locate the individuals associated with a particular IP address.
You go further to say they should cooperate more using the devices that they can use in their systems to obtain the identification of those who use pornography sites.
Ms. O'Sullivan: Here it is:
. . . in turn, could potentially help spur more progress and innovation in terms of finding ways to track, trace and stop this material from circulating.
Senator Joyal: That it is. On the one hand we are saying to them in the law that they are not required or authorized. If there were a device that existed that they could put into the system, a bug of some sort, whereby the sites would bounce back, it seems to me that is the thing to do if you want to effectively fight child pornography.
Ms. O'Sullivan: I think we are saying similar things. The proposed legislation is not putting the onus on the ISP companies to track and monitor whether there are child sexual abuse images.
I know many of the companies are looking to work with law enforcement in ways that will allow them to try to tag items. My understanding is every image has a hash number that identifies that photo. There may be a way to use that technology so that once a child sexual abuse image is out there, if it continues to be used, the technology can track it and then stop it and block it.
There are two different things. In my understanding of the legislation, that comment is not to put the onus on the ISP companies to do this significant effort of trying to monitor the massive amount of traffic that their servers are providing. That is a job for law enforcement that does the investigations. That is my understanding of that.
Senator Joyal: However, as you said, again on that same page I was quoting:
Though many companies do cooperate, some can, and do, refuse to cooperate with law enforcement. In fact, 30 to 40 per cent of requests are denied.
Ms. O'Sullivan: Yes.
Senator Joyal: We will tell them that nothing in this act requires or authorizes them to seek out child pornography. We already have a problem of cooperation, and we are going to give them a blessing in the law?
Ms. O'Sullivan: I will defer to what the intent was when the bill was designed. I could be wrong, but my understanding is that that was put in there to say they do not have an onus to actively have people forming special groups to try to monitor. I will defer to what the intent of that was.
This is not just about legislation, frankly. To me it is also about moral and ethical commitment, not only from the public who may come across this. Legislation will make it mandatory to report, but I think most people want to be able to report and know where and how to report. That is the public education piece, should this bill come into existence. There should be discussion not only on how people can report, but getting that information out there. There needs to be awareness of how to report and to whom to report, once the decisions are made.
I am in agreement with you in the sense that we want to encourage Internet service providers to work with law enforcement. I know many of them continue to work to find new technology to help us deal with the legislation as we move forward.
The actual clause in the bill that speaks to the statement that it should not be mandatory that they actively seek it out, I believe, has to do with not putting a legal requirement on them to form special teams. I could be wrong about that. They would not have to have teams specifically there to monitor all activity. That is my understanding.
Senator Joyal: Frankly, I would have preferred a clause saying that the ISPs are invited to cooperate with police forces. It would have been more positive than to say to them, "You guys do whatever you want; you are not compelled to do anything."
Ms. O'Sullivan: I cannot disagree with you there.
Senator Joyal: I do not understand the philosophy of this clause in relation to the objective of fighting child pornography. I am still wrestling with having this clause in the bill. I see a loophole for the 30 per cent or 40 per cent who do not want to cooperate and who sit on their benches and do nothing.
Ms. O'Sullivan: I thank you for that, because there have been some very horrific cases here in this country. I can think of one where there was actual abuse going on at the time. I think we are all familiar with that case. It took some real pushing to get. That was actual abuse in progress. Thank you for your comments.
The Chair: I do not know whether this is a devil's advocate question or just completely naive. From what we heard yesterday from the minister and the officials, I inferred that that clause would be a safeguard against a pedophile cruising the Internet to find sites and then using, as a defence in court, "but I was just trying to be a good citizen so I could make reports, as is my citizen's duty under Bill C-22." Have you ever heard that concern expressed?
Ms. O'Sullivan: I have not.
The Chair: Okay. If you could clarify for me, on the two- to five-year retention, are you talking about a provision that would require ISPs to retain all of the traffic information for everybody, which could be huge, or just customer name and address data, traffic data and content data for cases that law enforcement has stumbled upon?
Ms. O'Sullivan: For everybody. Again, I do not know the capacity or cost issues associated with that. For this report we brought many key people to the table, and that is the recommendation that came forward.
The Chair: I gather from what you have told us that there is now no way for law enforcement officers who stumble upon a case to compel the ISP folks to preserve the data. I suppose they could go to court and get an order for preservation, but short of that they cannot just notify the company.
Ms. O'Sullivan: At this point it is not a legal obligation.
The Chair: It is not a legal obligation to provide name and address, and it is not a legal obligation to preserve the evidence either?
Ms. O'Sullivan: They can get a judicial authorization to preserve the evidence.
The Chair: A judicial authorization, okay. We will clarify that.
Ms. O'Sullivan: I believe the Royal Canadian Mounted Police is next, from the child centre.
The Chair: Thank you so much, Ms. O'Sullivan. You have been extremely helpful.
Ms. O'Sullivan: Thank you for the invitation to participate.
The Chair: Colleagues, we continue our study of Bill C-22, An Act respecting the mandatory reporting of Internet child pornography by persons who provide an Internet service.
We are fortunate to have as our next witnesses, from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, Chief Superintendent Daniel Comeau and Staff Sergeant S.K. Parmar of the National Child Exploitation Coordination Centre. Thank you both very much for joining us. I think you have an opening statement.
Chief Superintendent Daniel Comeau, Acting Assistant Commissioner, Technical Operations, Royal Canadian Mounted Police: Yes, I do. Thank you very much for the opportunity to provide you with an overview of the work that Canadian and international law enforcement agencies are doing in the area of information technology or IT-enabled child sexual exploitation.
It is a privilege to be here today as a representative of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police's Canadian Police Centre for Missing and Exploited Children, CPCMEC. One of the program areas of the CPCMEC is the National Child Exploitation Coordination Centre. Due in part to the national strategy, Canadian law enforcement has made significant progress in its response strategies to IT-enabled child sexual exploitation. We have Integrated Child Exploitation units, commonly called ICE units, from coast to coast, and we now have trained investigators in every province and territory. As you may recall, Project Salvo in 2009 demonstrated clearly the police presence and effectiveness across the country, as offenders were arrested in almost every province and territory during that project.
One of our most important roles as a national centre is in triaging reports to the appropriate law enforcement jurisdictions. Reports are received from several agencies, including Cybertip, Canadian police agencies, the public, and also through our international partnerships. Our National Child Exploitation Coordination Centre works closely with the U.S. National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, and we also receive reports directly from international policing agencies such as the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and several other national police agencies from Europe, Asia and South America. We not only forward these cases but also provide investigational packages that include value-added information, such as administrative subpoena results, that allows investigators to identify account holders, open source intelligence, research analysis, and provide a multitude of services to assist the agencies in their investigations.
The CPCMEC has stayed true to its early conception of being an integrated unit. At the current time, we have a Canada Border Services Agency representative, a Saanich police officer, an Ottawa Police service officer and an investigator from the Department of Homeland Security posted at the centre. We are currently negotiating the secondment of Toronto and Saskatoon police services members.
The co-location of these positions enhances our ability as a national centre to serve our field officers in an effective and efficient manner. As a founding member of the Virtual Global Taskforce, the CPCMEC continues to represent Canada's policing community within the international police alliance dedicated to combating IT-enabled child sexual exploitation. CPCMEC undercover operators and investigators are currently involved in several Virtual Global Taskforce operations allowing the international network of operators to work together and share best practices techniques.
A cornerstone of successful service delivery at the national centre is communication: It is important that we have helped to develop police expertise across Canada, but it is also important how these experts communicate and network with both their Canadian and their international partners. Prior to the national strategy, much of the work of police was done in isolation, and while this is never the most effective approach, it was extremely detrimental in terms of Internet-related crimes, as the Internet knows no boundaries. The majority of our investigations are multi- jurisdictional in nature. The offender and the victim might not even live in the same community, town or country.
The ability to communicate with anyone anywhere is both the most concerning and the most beneficial attribute of the Internet and technology. Rest assured that offenders are not the only ones who are making technology work to further their efforts. Through the further refinement and implementation of the Child Exploitation Tracking System, CETS, across Canadian police agencies, the police community is able to share investigational information in a secure environment. Countless hours of duplicate investigative efforts are now avoided due to the use of CETS. It has provided a forum through which partnerships and collaboration can be enhanced. It is important to recall that the initial development of CETS was largely made possible through the strong partnership with Microsoft Corporation, Toronto Police Service and the RCMP. This highlights another key component of the national centre, which is establishing partnerships with industry, non-governmental organizations, NGOs, and other agencies dedicated to child protection.
As we all know, the sexual exploitation of children is a broadly owned issue deserving the commitment of us all. We continue to engage members of NGOs — for example, World Vision; Beyond Borders; Kinsa, Kids' Internet Safety Alliance; and Child Protection Partnership — who in some cases have been working in the area of child protection for many years. We all have a role to play in Canada's response to IT-enabled child sexual exploitation.
This commitment to partnership cannot be overstated. When we hear stories of children identified by law enforcement, we see how important is. It is often the culmination of efforts of many officers from both national and international agencies that results in the identification of a child.
Our Victim Identification Unit at the CPCMEC is gaining strength and recognition as an international best practice. The unit is responsible for collecting cases across the country where child pornography images have been seized and beginning the process of image analysis with the objective of identifying the victims depicted.
On a regular basis, victim identification investigators from agencies across Canada gather to train, develop policies and practices, and work jointly on current investigations. That reflects one of the central objectives of the CPCMEC — to assist in coordinating law enforcement efforts across Canada.
However, our victim identification efforts are not limited to Canada. Canadian statistics and images collected are submitted to Interpol's international database, where a group of international police offices, including one CPCMEC analyst, dedicate their time and effort to identifying the children depicted to decrease duplication of efforts.
The international victim identification efforts have resulted in 2,083 identified and rescued victims thus far. It is important to note that these represent cases where images of child pornography were discovered and the whereabouts and identity of the child depicted was not known at first. Without the victim identification efforts, the children would remain unidentified and hence not be removed from the sexually abusive environments. Of those 2,083 victims worldwide, 206 were Canadian children who have now been identified and rescued.
We have reached a time wherein our efforts can now be more refined. At the CPCMEC, we will be enhancing our efforts in victim identification and intelligence, and we will be placing our attention on ensuring that the services we offer — research, technology and training — continue to reflect the changing needs of the Canadian police community and are also reflective and inclusive of the outstanding work done by our non-police partners.
Let me reassure you that the police, both in your own communities and internationally, are working together. We have specialized training, technological experts and very committed people, and we are making progress. However, IT- enabled child sexual exploitation is not only a police issue; rather, it is a social issue that requires the commitment of multiple agencies from various sectors. That being said, we welcome any tool given to us to fight online sexual exploitation of children.
The Chair: Thank you very much.
Senator Wallace: Thank you. That was very informative. Most of your presentation related to the national and international strategy with which you and your colleagues are closely involved in dealing with this serious issue.
Earlier this morning we heard from Ms. O'Sullivan, the Federal Ombudsman for Victims of Crime, and she reiterated the importance of having an internationally coordinated strategy. She left me with the impression that perhaps we did not have one in Canada, but from what you said, we do seem to have one. Can you comment on that?
Mr. Comeau: I will let Staff Sergeant Parmar, who works at the centre, answer the question.
Staff Sergeant S. K. Parmar, National Child Exploitation Coordination Centre, Royal Canadian Mounted Police: I have been at the national centre since 2009, during which time the focus of our officer in charge has been the national and international component. We represent Canada, the RCMP and Canadian police services in a number of working groups in which we advocate the protection of children from Canada's perspective. The mandate given to us by the Department Public Safety Canada was to be that national coordination centre, and it is a role we take very seriously.
Senator Wallace: You obviously work very closely with each of the provinces as well.
Mr. Parmar: Yes, we do. We have Internet Child Exploitation officer-in-charge meetings about four times a year to discuss changes, new issues and new strategies that we need to address. The next meeting is in three weeks.
Senator Wallace: You have not given your opinion on the extent to which Bill C-22 would be a valuable tool to help you do your job. How do you see Bill C-22?
Mr. Parmar: Any tool given to us to protect children is welcome.
Senator Wallace: Do you see the mandatory reporting requirement of ISPs as a significant improvement over the voluntary system that exists today?
Mr. Parmar: As Chief Superintendent Comeau and I have said, any tool to help ensure that children are safe, be they Canadian children or children from other countries, is absolutely welcome.
Senator Wallace: Do you see any major shortcomings in the situation as it exists today with voluntary reporting by ISPs? Does that present a serious problem for you?
Mr. Parmar: Not that I am aware of.
Senator Wallace: Thank you.
[Translation]
Senator Carignan: My question is a little more practical. And I'm going to give you an introduction. I agree with the bill. I am going to support it and keep working to try to combat this scourge of child pornography and crime against children in all its forms.
But I am also concerned about whether the laws we pass can be enforced, to make sure we don't just pass them, but they can actually be enforced in the real world. I had the opportunity, in another life, to chair the Quebec Police Services Council, whose mandate was to advise the minister on matters relating to police services and the organization of the police in Quebec.
I happened to hear about difficulties that sometimes arose in enforcing certain laws, whether it was about testing for drugs in vehicles, that they don't have qualified technicians to enforce, or about drugs in homes where there may be 10 or 15 per cent of cases that are investigated, that are known to the police, but that are the only ones investigated, the others are "burned", as they say in that world.
I know there are huge numbers of Internet crime cases. To the point that I attended a training session last week. The cybercrime trainer said that if you have clients who are victims of fraud, don't even call the police, don't waste time calling the police, they won't have the time to look into it, there are far too many. In one case here, we aren't talking about economic fraud, but child pornography. I imagine it is on a higher rung, in terms of urgency, for dealing with it. But I am well aware of the resources in municipal police forces that are the smallest municipal forces. And even if you have possibilities in that connection, it always goes beyond the reach of the municipal police and they might get called.
And I am very concerned about the 21-day limit for retaining evidence, because knowing the level of organization in some municipal forces, knowing the level of Internet fraud complaint calls you receive every day, I'm afraid that the 21 days will not be sufficient to conduct investigations or when you get to the scene the evidence will already have disappeared.
Can you give us any assurance about the 21-day limit, in terms of both the length of time, is it sufficient, and second, in terms of the organizational steps you intend to take to enforce these new provisions, to make sure that both in your organization and in your partners across Canada there are special connections made for acting within the 21 days?
Mr. Comeau: Before passing the mike to my colleague, who will answer you and tell you what has to be done in that 21 days, I would like to say that you are right to be concerned. Yes, police resources are sometimes lacking. In these areas, we can put all the resources we want into it and we will keep them 100 per cent busy, virtually as much as you can put into it.
One thing I would like to note is that on cooperation among police forces, you mentioned fraud. That is an example. Police forces are often busy with their home turf, with their local situation, and cooperation often comes second.
When it comes to children, national, international police cooperation, that is virtually never the case. That is, local squabbles disappear. So at least we have that going for us, we have that in our favour for this issue.
In terms of the 21 days, my colleague can perhaps explain what has to be done when a complaint comes in, what has to happen in that 21 days.
[English]
Mr. Parmar: From the perspective of the national centre, as Chief Superintendent Comeau said in his opening remarks, we receive complaints from national and international partners as well as Cybertip and agencies such Interpol and the Department of Homeland Security. When a complaint comes in, our role is to determine whether we have sufficient information to get it out to the police services so that we are not overburdening them with one-off complaints. To that end, we create an investigational package for them. We try to gather as much information on the identified target as possible, whether it is an IP address, a URL address, or an actual person that has been identified.
After gathering as much information as possible and identifying the jurisdiction, we send it to the local jurisdiction.
We are satisfied that what we have turned over to them will get the investigator to the next step in the local jurisdiction. Our role is not to go into the local jurisdictions to investigate. We provide them with an investigational package that will assist them with the next step.
The Chair: How long does that take?
Mr. Parmar: That depends on the type of information we are seeking. For example, we are fortunate that we have a Department of Homeland Security agent embedded with us, and he helps us out with administration subpoenas to get information from U.S. service providers. On average, it takes approximately 20 to 21 days to get that information from the U.S.
Senator Baker: You say it takes 21 days by affidavit. I presume that would be similar to an information to obtain in Canada?
Mr. Parmar: No, in Canada we would use what CCAICE — the Canadian Coalition Against Internet Child Exploitation — has allowed us to use: a law enforcement request that is specific only to child sexual exploitation. We submit a form where we lay out the grounds of what we have and provide that to the Internet service provider. The ISP is not obligated to give us the information; it is voluntary.
Senator Baker: Therefore 30 per cent to 40 per cent would not supply you with the information.
Mr. Parmar: I do not have that answer in front of me, sir.
Senator Baker: That is what the previous witness said. It is from an RCMP report, from t he National Child Exploitation Coordination Centre, from October 2007; 30 per cent to 40 per cent of requests are denied. That was what the last witness said, and the source was your centre.
Mr. Parmar: Yes. Unfortunately, senator, in 2007 I was not there, so I cannot give the facts of the day, but that may have been accurate then.
Senator Baker: The offences we are talking about here have mandatory minimum jail sentences, whether prosecuted summarily or indictably, and Parliament, the Senate, passed legislation that contains mandatory minimum jail sentences for anybody convicted of accessing or possessing. I do not know whether you can answer this question, but when perpetrators download something from the Internet and then find out the police are investigating, can they eliminate it quickly from the computer, or do you have means of finding out what has been downloaded?
Mr. Parmar: Are you referring to a personal computer in a home? There is no way we would be able to do that without a legal authorization.
Senator Baker: Any computer, yes. Of course, with legal authorization — assuming that you have the legal authorization, that you received the report and that a judge gave you the authorization to go in and seize the computer, because that is where you look in the computer to get the evidence to prosecute, right? You have already said that.
I am asking about a case where someone who knows the warrant is coming would just start erasing things on his computer.
Mr. Parmar: That is a possibility, senator, yes.
Senator Baker: Do you have the mechanism then to find out what he downloaded prior its being erased?
Mr. Parmar: It would depend on how the system was erased. Now we are talking about digital evidence processing, and the best source for that would be the technological crime branch at the RCMP. The people there would be better suited to answer that question.
Senator Baker: The witness cannot answer that question.
Madam Chair, it would be interesting to find out the answers to these questions because, as you know, as everybody knows, practically every computer in Canada at one point or another, by accident or by these spam things, could download such material. Under the child pornography provisions, the definition of a child is anybody up to the age of 18 years.
Mr. Comeau: If I may, senator, I am not an expert, but from a third party I understand that if someone deletes something, a forensic technical investigator will be able to recover the information; however, if it is a reformat of the disk or a deeper reformatting or a full formatting, they may not be able to do that.
If your question was in relation to a quick delete because the police are at the door, a forensic technical investigator will be able to recover the information.
Senator Baker: From reading case law we learned that you have these resources, these specialists who can draw from the substance of the computer everything that has been cached, even temporarily, and files that have been downloaded and so on. That was the reason for the question.
I have one further question about ICE. I was struck by some testimony five or six months ago in a case in which someone employed on the ICE team said they do not have the resources required to fully carry out the workload they have. I put that on the record previously.
You are pressed for resources. This bill will undoubtedly lead to an incredible increase in your workload, because if a person, a technician, anyone who is looking at someone's computer suspects an offence, then the investigation takes place and you need the ICE team working.
What does the RCMP intend to do, or do you have any indication from the government that you will be receiving new resources with the passage of this bill? I do not know whether you can answer that, and of course you do not have to answer that if you do not wish to do so.
Mr. Comeau: For sure we do not know the effect on the workload the bill might have until it is passed.
Mr. Parmar: I can provide some clarification on that. Our ICE units — Integrated Child Exploitation units — in the provinces are provincially funded and usually attached to major crime units. We at the national centre are funded federally. When you are talking about a resource issue federally, we are funded from Public Safety Canada to provide support nationally, but our money does not go specifically into the provinces.
Senator Baker: Every province contributes toward the RCMP officers in that province, but the federal government decides on your pay. You are not paid by the provincial governments. The ICE teams are not paid by the provincial governments. The money goes to the federal government because they are using the RCMP as a police force.
I have just one final question, if I could. You coach the police in different areas of the country. You mentioned affidavits and sworn warrants and so on. Do you have to keep track of the most recent pronouncements of the Supreme Court of Canada on the inadequacy of many of these warrants, reasonable grounds to believe? Do you suggest the wording? You are probably familiar with the term "boilerplate language." Do you suggest the wording on the sworn affidavits to obtain that are used by police forces across the country? If you do, then are you now in the process of substantially changing that suggested wording to meet the requirements of recent rulings of the Supreme Court of Canada?
Mr. Parmar: I cannot comment on that right now because my particular function at the centre does not involve the operational side, so I am not up to date on those particular changes.
Senator Lang: I would like to turn our attention to the issue of the blocking of websites, which was referred to by the previous witness. I am trying to get clear on this, and perhaps you can comment on how successful it is. Given our technological ability, how able are we to block this information in cyberspace from being utilized by people within our country, or is it possible?
Mr. Parmar: There is a program called Cleanfeed, which voluntarily provides to the ISPs in Canada a list of known sites that have child pornography for blocking. That is done on their side. It has not been done by or pushed by the RCMP. Cybertip has taken that on, and that is part of their mandate. Cybertip is one of our partners in the national strategy, and we do not duplicate those efforts.
Senator Lang: How successful are we at being able to do this? That is a major part the strategy as well.
Mr. Parmar: I do not have those particular numbers here, but the technology works at the ISP level, so the ISP is given the offender's domain, the IP address or the URL, and the ISP blocks it. As a Canadian who uses a Canadian Internet service provider, when I put that address in it will not let me access it; it will stop me because it is right at the ISP level. Again, it is voluntary.
Senator Lang: I realize it is voluntary, but would anyone within your organization know how successful this is, or are we just saying they are doing it and we feel we are blocking a number of addresses?
Mr. Parmar: We could look into that.
The Chair: It would be helpful if you could, if there are any metrics, any measures, any data at all. As is usually the case with these committees, I would have to ask you to get us that information rapidly — yesterday, if possible.
Mr. Parmar: Yes, senator, I will do that.
Senator Runciman: When we had the break I was advised that the issue that Ms. O'Sullivan raised related to providing basic information, identity and location of individuals associated with an IP. That was an issue she raised. Senator Baker mentioned Bill C-46, I believe, which died with prorogation, and that that issue has been addressed in Bill C-51. It might be helpful if our researcher could get those elements and provide them to the committee members.
The Chair: Consider that a formal instruction.
Senator Runciman: Thank you.
I want to go back to the 21-day issue. Senator Joyal emphasized that the minister was attempting to put pressure on police. I did not hear him that way. I thought his priority was children and the victimization and acting speedily, and I thought there was an effort to work with police to find what was an appropriate timeline here so that we could do as much as we could from a policing perspective but also keeping, as our number one priority, the protection of those kids who are being victimized.
Do the 21 days pose a problem for you or other police agencies? Do you feel this will work? Can we get some feedback on that?
Mr. Parmar: When the consultation was done in 2008 that would have been appropriate, absolutely.
Senator Runciman: Are you saying it is not today?
Mr. Parmar: Based on how we are preparing investigational packages, currently it is taking us 21 days on average to get a package together to submit to the investigational unit.
Senator Runciman: We will be hearing from other police services. Will they have the same experience? You are dealing with these folks on a regular basis. Is this in general right across the policing spectrum?
Mr. Parmar: This is what we can factually say from the centre; this is what we are seeing.
Senator Runciman: I want to talk about how big a problem this is. I referenced the case in December with 57 charges worldwide and 27 of them in Canada, 10 in Ontario, although I may have my numbers wrong. Last summer, Statistics Canada reported but did not highlight, for some weird reason, that sex crimes against children increased from 1,435 instances to 2,620 instances, an 80 per cent increase. Going back to 2007, it is a 350 per cent increase in such crimes.
This is clearly a shocking statistic. How big a problem is this in Canada, and how much of this is being produced here, for example? How effective are your efforts to date?
Mr. Parmar: Some of the statistics we collect include the number of complaints that come in, and yes, we have seen a steady rise since we started keeping statistics. For example, we have child pornography and luring — luring being online coercing a child to meet; in 2006 we had 1,588 complaints, and in 2009 we had 3,611. There has been a steady increase. A part of that steady increase is the proliferation of the Internet across society.
Senator Runciman: I think most of the witnesses we have heard to this point on this are generally supportive of this bill as a step toward addressing the problem. What else do you think the federal and provincial governments could be doing, perhaps should be doing, to broaden your ability to really attack this growing problem?
Mr. Parmar: I will have to draw on Chief Superintendent Comeau's last comment: Any tool that we get that supports children, which helps us support children —
Senator Runciman: That is a political answer. We are looking for specific suggestions that we can perhaps pursue.
Mr. Parmar: Unfortunately, senators, the way technology changes, whatever I say to you today will be irrelevant tomorrow. It is very difficult for me to sit here and say, "Please do this, and we will be fine." It may be good only for a week or six months or a year. Technology changes that rapidly.
Senator Runciman: I have a riding open for you.
The Chair: I have a quick supplementary. On the 21-day business, you say it takes you now 21 days to prepare an investigative package to hand over to the local authorities. Is that a package where you are starting basically from scratch, where you have found a site? Would that interval be lessened if you started with a notification from an ISP?
Mr. Parmar: That is starting off with a complaint, whether it is from scratch or whether we found it.
The reasons we prepare the investigational packages are, one, to ensure the jurisdiction and, two, to ensure law enforcement in the jurisdiction will have all the details they need to be able to take it and get to that next step.
The Chair: Underlying my question is whether the provisions of this bill diminish the length of time it takes you to prepare that package, or perhaps just enable you to prepare more packages.
Mr. Parmar: It is difficult to say because we would have to see the format of what the ISPs will give us. It will be dependent on that information.
The Chair: Mine was a supplementary to Senator Runciman, so I guess he gets a supplementary to mine.
Senator Runciman: I am still somewhat confused about the 21 days. I would like to hear an explanation of what is involved in the development of a package. If we are saying 31 days is more appropriate, but if 20 days or 15 days gives the policing authority an opportunity to say they have strong suspicions that this notification has merit, then they have the opportunity through that period to go to the courts. Again, can you explain a bit more about this package and the package itself you are forwarding to another agency to pursue to that point? Are there sufficient grounds when you get to that stage to go to the courts so that the 21-day period becomes moot?
Mr. Parmar: In hearing your question I realize I should clarify one thing. We are working on the assumption that all the complaints, or the entire intake, will be done by the National Child Exploitation Coordination Centre. We may have ISPs that are in a local jurisdiction that complain directly to their local jurisdiction. We are working on the assumption that everything is coming to the centre. If it is coming to the centre, our investigational package, as we call it, includes open source information on, for example, whether we had an email address.
I will use sunny@hotmail.com as an example. If we receive that as an offender, then we do a workup on that email address. We ask the Department of Homeland Security to contact Microsoft for us to get an administration subpoena to find out who the subscriber is. At the same time, we are trying to figure out the jurisdiction, and once that subscriber information comes in then, if the person's name was given to us we look at whether we have any open source information on this person on the Internet. Is it perhaps a school teacher or a police officer, or is it just Joe citizen?
When the investigators in the jurisdiction receive it, they can be satisfied when they pick it up that they have something to work with. They do not have to try to sift through and triage it again. It is value-added for investigators in the field to get them that one step ahead.
The Chair: We are getting short on time.
When you are forwarding information to us, would it be possible for you to include maybe on one sheet of paper a description of what would be included in a typical package? If we have a chance to look at the thing, we might have a better, more grounded understanding, bearing in mind that none of us has an RCMP background, to the best of my knowledge, and we need help to understand properly what it is that you do.
[Translation]
Senator Rivest: I would like to come back to what other senators have said about staffing. You indicated that it is a huge problem, for one thing, and the Ombudsman said that you couldn't deal with all the complaints you have at present, for another. Here we have a new bill that is going to bring you more cases.
Before introducing this bill, did the government meet with law enforcement agencies and were they able to tell the government, in terms of staffing, how many police officers and what additional human and financial resources they would need to implement this bill? You are already way behind. If the effect of this bill is to bring you new cases that you can't handle because of a lack of personnel, what does that accomplish? It's still the same problem.
The government has tightened criminal laws, has made parole harder. The consequence is to keep people in prison and the prisons are overcrowded. And here we are going down the same path.
Is there a plan for staffing? If so, can you provide the committee with it? If it has not yet been completed, it would useful for all of my colleagues to hear about it and to hear about the financial and administrative actions the government has in mind to implement this bill, because otherwise, if there isn't one, this bill is going to swell the complaints and they won't be dealt with. It will be a pointless bill, in spite of its merits and its ambitions.
Mr. Comeau: I am not aware of whether there were consultations with the police forces before the bill was introduced. However, before we can really see its effect, the law will have to be implemented, to see the effect on our workload.
When we say we are preparing packages to help investigators, even if at our level we are able to do that quickly, and do the work we have to do, there may be difficulties on the ground. Triage is important. Even if there is a heavy workload, perhaps the investigators will work on better cases and will have more success instead of working on colder cases or cases where it is harder to succeed. At that point they will be able to do tighter triage.
I will let my colleague answer you.
[English]
Mr. Parmar: I am aware that there was consultation with the federal-provincial-territorial working group, which occurred in 2008, I believe. I am also aware that since 2009 there has been no submission requesting extra resources or funding with respect to this.
[Translation]
Senator Joyal: Mr. Comeau, I would like to come back to the testimony heard from the representatives of the Department of Justice and the Ombudsman this morning. A person who provides information about the existence of a site or the use of child pornography is not required to give you the name and address of the person and you will have to take them to court to obtain a court order authorizing you to go back to the Internet service provider to give you that information.
Don't you think the amendment that would be most useful to you to shorten investigation time and reduce the backlog of potential cases would be the opportunity to get the report of the site and the address and identity of the users or user at the same time, that would facilitate the conduct of your investigation more. Obviously, often, as we have already said, an underage child could be rescued. Because ultimately, that is what we are trying to achieve, that is the objective, to rescue the victims.
Don't you think that would be the next step in improving the tools available to you, to be able to be more effective and eliminate what we were told this morning, and you acknowledge.
[English]
In investigating these cases, many law enforcement agencies face a lack of manpower resources.
[Translation]
They don't have enough resources because there are too many cases and some cases are more difficult than others, certainly, to investigate.
Is that not the thing that should be done as a priority to help you in your investigations and in your research in fighting child pornography?
[English]
Mr. Parmar: If I understand your question, I believe you are referring to the CNA, customer name and address, legislation, which will look at addressing that as the next step. This bill is one of the steps in getting us to that point, and although I am not well versed in it, my recollection is that CNA would be providing us that information.
Right now we do have voluntary compliance from the members of CCAICE, the Canadian Coalition Against Internet Child Exploitation. They are Internet service providers who have a similar mindset about protecting children online; they have been very good with us with respect to the law enforcement requests.
Mr. Comeau: Some of them.
Senator Joyal: Yes, some of them, but the point is why not all of them. What should we do to have all of them complying with the information you need to launch the investigation immediately?
I feel this bill is not a bad bill. It has a good objective, to which we all subscribe. However, will it be sufficient in this day and world of Internet reality that we have to adapt the information and shorten the steps and compel everyone?
What I do not accept is that some Internet providers will be very cooperative with you and will use modern devices to pick up the information you need, but some others will just sit on their backsides and wait for the court order. In my opinion, it is unfair for the objective of the policy, because if it is provided spontaneously by one Internet provider it should be the responsibility of everybody to give it. That is why I feel there is a mishap in the system that we should fill to allow you to be more effective and save a greater number of children.
Mr. Parmar: That absolutely makes sense. I am not a legislator, so I can only say that whatever tools you provide us will be a step in the right direction, and you have come up with one there.
Senator Joyal: What additional tools do you need immediately that we could include in this bill that would make you more efficient in your work?
Mr. Parmar: That which you have proposed would absolutely help us.
The Chair: The 30 per cent to 40 per cent refusal figure that we have been so concerned about comes from a submission to Public Safety Canada by your centre in October 2007 in response to the customer name and address information consultation. If that is a public document, could you provide us with a copy of it, please?
Mr. Parmar: Absolutely.
The Chair: We thank you both for your help. This has been very interesting, and we are grateful to you for the time you have taken. Allow me to add that all Canadians are grateful for the work you do.
Honourable senators, we welcome once again, from Statistics Canada, Ms. Julie McAuley, Director, Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics; Mr. Craig Grimes, Senior Analyst, Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics; and Ms. Mia Dauvergne, Senior Analyst, Policing Services Program, Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics. By now you know how we work, and I expect and you have a statement to begin.
Julie McAuley, Director, Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics, Statistics Canada: Thank you for the opportunity to present to the committee on the issue of child pornography and Internet luring offences in Canada. Statistics Canada does not take a position on the proposed amendments in the bill. The presentation we prepared contains our most recent data. All data sources used are clearly indicated on the slides, as are any pertinent data notes. Distributed for your consideration are some recent Juristats that may be of assistance during your examination of child pornography and Internet luring legislation in Canada.
My colleagues, Ms. Mia Dauvergne and Mr. Craig Grimes, will help answer any questions.
Using data received from police services across Canada, we can examine trends in police-reported incidents of sexual offences committed against children. Over the last 10 years, the rate of police-reported sexual offences committed against children in Canada has remained relatively stable. In 2009, police reported approximately 14,000 incidents of sexual offences committed against children in Canada. This represents a slight increase from the year prior.
Again, using data received from police services across Canada, we can turn our attention to the specific offences of child pornography and luring a child via the Internet, as shown on slide 3. Both of these are low-volume offences, when compared with sexual offences committed against children.
In 2009, police reported approximately 1,600 incidents of child pornography and 400 incidents of luring a child via the Internet in Canada. Both of these represent increases from the year prior and the continuation of upward trends in police-reported incidents of these offences over the last decade.
The practices of local police may influence the number of incidents of child pornography and luring a child via the Internet that are reported. For example, a number of police forces across Canada have established cybercrime units in recent years. The purpose of these units is to track criminal activities that are related to these two offences. Through our work with police forces across Canada, we also know that campaigns exist that explain to both children and parents the risk of Internet use and encourage victims to come forward to the police.
The offence of luring a child via the Internet came into effect in July 2002. As not all police services across Canada began reporting the offence immediately, the numbers of this offence may be under-counted initially. Therefore, they should be interpreted with caution. That being said, during the seven years since the introduction of this offence, we see an increase in the rate of police-reported Internet luring.
On slide 4, we can examine the geographical variation in the rates and incidents of police-reported child pornography and Internet luring offences. In 2009, the highest rate of both police-reported child pornography and Internet luring offences in Canada were in the North. Rates are used to ensure that trends are not biased by variations in populations. However, it is important to note that the geographical distribution of the number of incidents of these offences in Canada is quite different from the rates.
In 2009, the highest number of incidents of child pornography and luring a child via the Internet were found in Quebec and Ontario.
In 2009, for both child pornography and luring a child via the Internet, about 8 in 10 incidents were committed by an individual under the age of 50, the vast majority of whom were male. We also see on slide 5 that in cases of police- reported child pornography, in 17 per cent of incidents, a 12- to 17-year-old was accused.
The next slide is based on 2009 data reported to Statistics Canada by police services. It provides an overview of the ages of victims of police-reported Internet luring. In general, for police-reported sexual offences committed against children and youth, we know that females are more likely than males to be the victim and that teenage girls are most at risk. This finding holds true for victims of police-reported offences of luring a child via the Internet.
In 2009, regardless of age, more young females than males were the victims in incidents of police-reported Internet luring. More incidents were reported of females aged 13 to 15 being the victims than those in other age groups.
The number of child pornography and Internet luring cases completed in adult criminal courts in Canada is increasing, as is seen on slide 7. In 2008-09, there were approximately 1,100 child pornography charges in Canada, which were contained in approximately 470 court cases. This is an increase from the year prior and a continuation of an upward trend seen since 2000-01. In 2008-09, there were approximately 185 charges of luring a child via the Internet, which were contained in approximately 70 court cases.
Cases involving child sexual offences often include charges for other offences as well. Slide 8 shows the proportions of guilty findings for charges of both child pornography and luring a child via the Internet regardless of whether this was the most serious offence in the case.
In 2008-09, 69 per cent of cases that contained a charge of child pornography and 77 per cent of cases that contained a charge of luring a child via the Internet resulted in a finding of guilt.
On slide 9, we look specifically at the distribution of charges for child pornography by the four subsections of the offence: publication, distribution, possession and accessing. As mentioned previously, in 2008-09 there were over 1,100 charges for child pornography offences in Canada. This is an increase over the year prior and a continuation of the upward trend. The lowest number of charges in 2008-09 were for accessing child pornography, regardless of means of access, while the highest number were for the possession of child pornography.
In 2008-09, 46 per cent of charges relating to the possession of child pornography resulted in a finding of guilt, compared with 33 per cent for charges of distribution, 28 per cent for charges of accessing, and 24 per cent for charges of publication of child pornography.
Slide 10 shows the difference in the types of sentences imposed for cases of child pornography and luring a child via the Internet. In 2008-09, custody was the most serious sentence imposed in 85 per cent of cases involving child pornography and 70 per cent of cases involving Internet luring. Conditional sentencing and probation were more prevalent in cases involving luring a child via the Internet. Fines were not imposed as the most serious sentence for either of the two offences.
In 2008-09, for those cases where the accused was sentenced to custody, the median length of custody for child pornography was four months. It was nine months for luring a child via the Internet. Seven per cent of all guilty cases of child pornography and 16 per cent of all guilty cases of luring a child via the Internet involve sentencing to federal custody for two years or more. This can be compared with only 4 per cent of adult guilty cases in general. These longer custody lengths may indicate the seriousness with which the courts treat these cases. This ends my presentation. Thank you again for the opportunity to present to the committee.
[Translation]
Senator Boisvenu: Thank you for your very interesting presentation. I find the statistics in terms of crime very interesting. We often get a picture that is slightly different from what the official statistics describe; there are always the unreported crimes, the reported crimes, victimization, and there is often a large discrepancy.
You aren't in the police, but I would like to ask you a question about a point I find striking. We know that the in world of Internet pornography there are a lot of pedophiles. We also know that pedophilia is a deviance and not a disease. In addition, the deviant behaviour is often permanent. It can't be cured, it has to be controlled.
Consider the sentences these criminals get when they are caught, a majority of them are prison sentences. We know that a pedophile in prison, with other men, will behave in a relatively well-balanced way. It is only when he is released, without supervision, that he then comes into contact with children and the merry-go-round starts again.
I note that no fines have been imposed. We have to recall that these people are not all receiving social assistance, because pedophilia affects all social strata: people who have money and people who don't.
Why would there not be a balance between imprisonment and fines? We have to hit them in the pocketbook somewhere. We know that for these people, even with a year or two in prison, the rehabilitation effect is virtually nil.
A study of pedophiles was done by Dr. Ben Simon; 800 pedophiles in British Columbia were followed up by the rehabilitation programs. The recidivism rate for those who were in a rehabilitation program was 20 per cent and the rate for those who were not in a rehabilitation program was 21 per cent. So that means, whether or not they are in a rehabilitation program in prison, there is very little rehabilitation effect.
Should there not therefore be a balance between imprisonment and fines in sentencing these people?
I'm asking you the question knowing that you aren't in the police.
The Chair: Or a lawyer.
Senator Carignan: That's no failing.
Senator Boisvenu: It struck me that these data are not all available.
[English]
Ms. McAuley: That is an excellent question. Unfortunately, I am not able to answer that. I would only be able to direct you to the information that we have presented on the sanctions given by the courts to individuals found guilty of those offences, whether they be a child luring or child pornography.
[Translation]
Senator Boisvenu: Obviously this type of crime, from the data presented, has been constantly on the rise for 10 years. If we want to stabilize this type of crime, and perhaps reduce it, which I think is what we all want, are you comfortable with the positions the government is taking to tighten the laws, in the Criminal Code, to try to put a halt to these crimes so that in 10 years we don't have statistics that have surpassed what is in your presentation?
[English]
Ms. McAuley: I am here representing Statistics Canada. I am not here to give my own personal opinion. In my opening comments, I mentioned that Statistics Canada does not take a position on the amendments put forward in the bill. I will not be able to comment.
The Chair: On slide 9, you show a horrifying rate of increase in the number of charges for possession of child pornography in particular. All of these offences are terrible, and the numbers of charges laid are on the way up.
In addition to reporting on police-reported cases, charges laid and the outcome of those cases, Statistics Canada also does a separate survey on victimization — people who will tell you that they suffered an offence even though they have not gone to the police. You cannot do that for child abuse or for child pornography, can you? Do we have any idea of the magnitude of the gap between the number of police-reported cases and the number of incidents?
Ms. McAuley: Questions are included on the General Social Survey for 2009 focusing on victimization, and they do look at Internet-related offences, whether bullying or sexual offences. We are currently analyzing those data. I would be happy to provide the clerk with copies of those questions. However, the data have not been analyzed. The summary of the findings of that analysis should be out within the next few months. If at that time you would like us to come back and discuss it, we would be happy do so.
The Chair: We would be interested to receive it. I suspect that by that time we will have long since completed our work on this bill. However, unfortunately, the problem will probably be back before us. In fact, I think there is a bill on the way through the House of Commons now dealing with other elements of this terrible situation. Thank you.
[Translation]
Senator Carignan: The question I wanted to ask was asked by the committee chair. I referred to the documentation you provided to us, and I would like to thank you for your work. Your information is always relevant and helpful and is very much appreciated.
In 2008, Cybertip said that 21,000 reports had been made between when it started, in 2002, and January 2008; 90 per cent of those reports related to child pornography. When I observed the number of cases reported by the police, I noted that we have hardly finished the race. When we see the conviction rate for charges laid, which is actually fairly high, we can expect that the number of unreported victims or cases is quite large.
We will be following the results of your study with great interest and we hope to have a presentation on it before long.
[English]
Senator Runciman: You have police-reported sexual offences committed against children versus incidents of sexual crimes committed against children. What is the distinction between these two categories in this graph?
Ms. McAuley: We are showing the incidents that come forward to the police and are then reported, so they are police-reported — as opposed to the self-reported information that we provide through the General Social Survey where we are asking directly.
Included in the first graph on slide 2, we are looking at all three levels of sexual assaults. Also included are other sex offences, which we presented to you last week, that are predominantly committed against children, such as exploitation and invitation to sexual touching. Those are incidents that have come to the attention of police.
Senator Runciman: In your report from last summer, you had sex crimes against children increased from 1,435 incidents to 2,620 incidents, which is an 80 per cent increase. Are you saying in your opening statement that this graph does not reflect that or does reflect that?
Ms. McAuley: In this graph we are not looking at the actual number of incidents and the trend in the incidents. Rather, we are looking at the rate of incidents per 100,000 of the population. However, if you would like, we can provide the underlying data to the committee through the clerk.
Senator Runciman: It is volume versus rate.
Ms. McAuley: Yes.
Senator Runciman: People could have a misplaced sense of this not being a significant problem.
I have one other question that relates to that issue. This has to with your most-serious-incident methodology. If an individual is arrested for a child pornography offence, and a charge arises out of the single incident, and upon arrest the police determine that the individual is in breach of bail or probation or uses drugs and there are multiple other offences, in terms of counting from a Statistics Canada perspective, is that reported as a single offence?
Craig Grimes, Senior Analyst, Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics, Statistics Canada: In terms of cases in criminal court, we have looked at the data on multiple charges in these types of cases, and we have looked at all the cases that have at least one of these types of charges, whether it be child pornography or Internet luring.
Senator Runciman: He is charged with multiple offences arising out of a single incident; and I use child pornography as the example. You are saying that from your perspective, you do not report that as a single offence.
Ms. McAuley: When the police are looking, they can include up to four offences in each incident that comes forward. We can look at all of the different offences that would be included. When we look at the court information, we can look at whether there are any guilty charges, or we can look even at the case composition and at what happens in terms of the most serious offence, and then what happens with all of the other underlying offences and the rate of guilt and guilty charges that are applied to the accused individual.
Senator Runciman: I am having a tough time gleaning an answer from that.
On a regular basis, do you record that as a single offence? That is all I wanted to know.
The Chair: It is a single case but not a single offence. Do I have that straight? I believe that is what Senator Runciman is asking.
Senator Runciman: The potential for under-reporting a crime is what I am driving at.
Ms. McAuley: Using the police-reported data, we can look at it in two different ways. We can provide counts according to the most serious violation that would have occurred within an incident; or we could look at the number of violations in total for all incidents up to four.
The Chair: I will try to come at this from a much more lay perspective. Someone breaks into a house and steals the valuable silver, then goes to the computer, steals a USB and downloads some child pornography. Then, in hopes of covering his tracks, he sets fire to the house and leaves. This action entails multiple offences, probably four but maybe more. You will get that reported as one case but four offences.
Ms. McAuley: Yes.
The Chair: The child pornography element of that will be reflected in these data.
Senator Runciman: Not necessarily.
Mr. Grimes: In the way that we organize the data to help this committee answer some of these questions, yes, we looked at all the cases that had at least one child pornography or Internet luring offence, even if that case —
The Chair: — involves arson, et cetera.
Mr. Grimes: That is right. Normally we would look at the most serious outcome for a criminal case, and that would be the most serious offence. For example, if on the child pornography charge in the example that you used the individual was found not guilty, it would still show up in the data.
The Chair: Okay. Was I more or less on the same track as you, Senator Runciman?
Senator Runciman: Yes, that was helpful. Thank you.
Senator Joyal: Thank you for your help in understanding the reality at the base of this bill.
My first question relates to slide 4, which shows the number of police-reported child pornography and Internet luring offences by province and territory. I am surprised by the very high number in Quebec. It is the highest of all provinces in child pornography and Internet luring offences reported, for example in comparison with Ontario at 383. Is there any additional information you could provide about why this is reported more in Quebec than in any other province of comparable size?
Ms. McAuley: I have no additional information than what is before you. You would most likely need to follow up with representatives of the policing community in Quebec to see whether they have any specific initiatives under way through cybercrime units or other educational campaigns that might influence the reporting to police.
Senator Joyal: That is essentially what I am trying to get at. Can we evaluate the efficiency of an information campaign targeting teenagers, as shown at page 6, because it seems that age group has the highest number of victims? For instance, from ages 12 to 15, we see the highest number. Is it the result of an information campaign targeting teenagers in the schools about reporting that kind of crime? Are there other factors that could explain the fact that in Quebec people report that type of incident more spontaneously?
Ms. McAuley: Again, senator, unfortunately I do not have that information. You would need to follow up with individuals within the jurisdiction.
Senator Joyal: My other question is about the chart at page 5 on the ages of those accused. When you appeared last week, we asked you questions about statistics identifying the level of relationship between the victim and the adult. Can we make such a relationship between child pornography and Internet luring offences?
Ms. McAuley: I do not have before me the information for child pornography, although I have some police statistics on luring offences. We see that for 2009, luring offences were predominantly committed by a stranger — 70 per cent; and 17 per cent were committed by a casual acquaintance. We do not have that information for child pornography.
Senator Joyal: For Internet luring it is almost the reverse of what we heard you say last week, which is that 80 per cent were committed by family members or relatives of a child or by a person in a position of authority over the child.
Ms. McAuley: That is correct. The percentages today are only for Internet luring. We do not have the information for child pornography.
Senator Joyal: Danger lies more with strangers than with the adult circle of family and acquaintances surrounding the child.
Ms. McAuley: With Internet luring, we see that the accused is a stranger in 79 per cent of the cases that came to the attention of the police in 2009.
Senator Joyal: My next question concerns custody at chart 10. When you appeared last time, you made a relationship between the seriousness of the crime and the length of prison time. How do the custody results fare? The chart shows 80 per cent for child pornography and 75 per cent for luring of a child versus the other serious crimes for which you have statistics.
Ms. McAuley: I do not have those numbers in front of me, but I will obtain them and give them to the clerk.
Senator Joyal: Do you understand the question?
Ms. McAuley: I understand.
Senator Joyal: This will give us an idea of how well the courts appreciate the seriousness of the crime of child pornography.
Ms. McAuley: Yes.
Mr. Grimes: I have some of those statistics. I have the figures for custody overall, in comparison to the slide you have before you. For total offences upon conviction for cases, it is 34 per cent. For crimes against the person, which includes homicide, attempted murder, robbery, sexual assault, major assault and common assault, it is 32 per cent. You would think that number surprisingly low, but it really is a factor of common assault, assault level 1, being in that category. Most of the other offences have a higher use of custody. For example, homicide is 76 per cent; attempted murder is 81 per cent; and robbery is 76 per cent. I can provide these numbers to the clerk.
The Chair: If you would do so, yes.
Mr. Grimes: The chart before you at 85 per cent and 70 per cent is in comparison a much higher use of custody than we see for most offences in criminal court.
Senator Joyal: Can we draw the general observation that the courts are more prompt to order prison for those kinds of crimes than for any other crime?
Mr. Grimes: I would not want to say "any other crime" because we are looking at a small subset here, where we are looking at in some cases broader categories in the statistics I mentioned a couple of minutes ago. This is a high use of custody in comparison to those broader categories.
Senator Joyal: That is so especially when I look at conditional sentences and probation that are rather low. Can you compare those results with other information you might have?
Ms. McAuley: We can provide that to you after, and it will give you a better understanding of the numbers and the relative proportions going into each of the different sentences.
The Chair: Continuing on slide 10, what is "other" likely to be? If you have already said this, forgive me.
Mr. Grimes: "Other" would include absolute or conditional discharge, suspended sentence, or some other order imposed by the court.
The Chair: Thank you.
[Translation]
Senator Boisvenu: I have some technical questions about how you calculate your statistics. I will give the example of my daughter, who was murdered. Before the murder, she was abducted, unlawfully confined, raped and murdered. In Canadian statistics, she counts as one statistic, the murder. Because the criminal was sentenced for murder, the other crimes, the crime of unlawful confinement and rape, don't appear in the statistics because he was convicted of the most serious one.
The Chair: Were there charges?
Senator Boisvenu: Yes, but because he was found guilty of the murder, the most serious crime, the other charges were automatically dropped.
The way you calculate your statistics, I know that in crimes against the person, you have a crime severity ratio in relation to less serious crimes. You produce a ratio, and this gives a trend. You give the crime a value. For example, a murder, that is 10 points, a break-in at a residence, two points. You get an average crime severity, is that right?
[English]
Ms. McAuley: When we are calculating the Crime Severity Index, we look at all of the crimes that happen in Canada and at the severity aspect by looking at national sentencing lengths that are given through the courts. We do not look at it from the local jurisdictions. It is very much at the national level. That is how we calculate the severity. It allows us to be able to say that more violent crimes have a higher level of severity than those that are non-violent.
Senator Boisvenu: Is that the same in sexual offences?
[Translation]
Do you give a severity value in your statistics?
[English]
Ms. McAuley: Slide 1, to which you refer, does not show results from the Crime Severity Index. Rather, it shows the rate of police-reported offences by 100,000 population.
[Translation]
Senator Boisvenu: If the population rose by 20 per cent between 1999 and 2009 in Canada, that means in absolute terms, if the curve is the same, the number in absolute terms rose by 20 per cent.
[English]
Ms. McAuley: We show rates to ensure that there is no bias due to variations in the population.
[Translation]
Senator Boisvenu: That wasn't my question. If, for example, we have 300 crimes per 100,000 population, we had a population of 25 million in 1999 and we have 35 million, so there has been a 25 per cent increase in population, if the rate is the same in percentages but the population rose by 20 or 25 per cent, the number of victims also rose by 25 per cent?
Ms. McAuley: Yes.
The Chair: This has to be the last one.
Senator Boisvenu: The curve gives us the impression that crime is staying the same, but in absolute terms it is rising with the population. That is what is misleading in the statistics when we look at a table.
The Chair: When we see only the rates. Yes.
[English]
Mia Dauvergne, Senior Analyst, Policing Services Program, Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics, Statistics Canada: If you are looking strictly at the numbers, then yes, that would be the case, which is why we make adjustments according to the population.
The Chair: As you can hear, we are being summoned. As usual, when you appear before the committee you bring us information that promotes infinite numbers of questions. We are grateful for your patience with us and for your contribution to our work.
Honourable senators, we meet again in this room on Wednesday next at 4:15 p.m.
(The committee adjourned.)