Honourable senators, I rise today to speak to Bill C-291, An Act to amend the Criminal Code and to make consequential amendments to other Acts (child sexual abuse and exploitation material). As senators, it is our responsibility to look at bills with a critical eye. The only criticism I can share with you is that this bill does not increase the prison sentence for those guilty of these heinous crimes against children. But I digress.

I’m honoured to have the opportunity to speak to this bill and to lend my voice in support of this legislation. First, I would like to recognize the work of MPs Frank Caputo and Mel Arnold, both from my home province of British Columbia, who have taken on the challenge of championing this important legislation as a private member’s bill, which recently received unanimous support in the other place.

Of course, I also want to applaud our colleague Senator Denise Batters for carrying this forward to the Senate as sponsor, delivering a compelling and comprehensive speech on March 30 and introducing this legislation to you. I hope we can ensure that it receives the attention it deserves, sending it to committee and shepherding it through third reading in the very near future.

I would also like to recognize the brave men and women at every level of law enforcement who dedicate themselves to protecting children from heinous acts of child abuse and exploitation.

Colleagues, investigating child sexual abuse and exploitation on the internet is not easy work. Involuntarily exposing oneself to unimaginably horrific online sexual abuse material to protect children’s safety and innocence is courageous. Investigating these crimes requires confronting some of the ugliest aspects of humanity and necessitates spending time in some of the deepest and darkest corners of the internet. It comes at a tremendous personal cost to health and well-being.

This material has become more and more invasive and now commonly depicts everything from acts of bestiality to penal and digital penetration of children of every age, including toddlers and even infants. One cannot unsee the images or unhear the screaming. We owe a debt of gratitude to the investigators — an incalculable debt, I might say. This is child abuse and exploitation at its very worst, and any suggestion that it might be viewed, characterized or defined as pornography is ridiculous. Even the most depraved and even the most tolerant consumers of porn would find this unimaginable.

Bill C-291 is a simple amendment to the Criminal Code, but it holds significant importance because the language we use when discussing sexual exploitation of any form is important. Suggesting that this material is somehow salacious or anything short of disgusting or disturbing cannot stand. As someone said earlier today and is often said, “Words matter.” I would like to quote Sergeant Natalie Davis, who is in charge of the British Columbia Internet Child Exploitation Unit and has dedicated ten years of her life to this important and difficult work:

Each child is a victim, and they deserve the respect and support of the judicial system to call it what it is.

Changing the Criminal Code and other legislation to replace the words “child pornography” with “child abuse and exploitation material” seems like a small thing, but it’s an important step in addressing online child sexual abuse. As mentioned, the term “pornography” itself is typically used to describe sexual content between consenting adults. Without any judgmental diatribe about pornography, this disgusting material featuring children doesn’t belong in that genre. It can never be consensual, and it is never legal. The issue before us and the issue this bill strives to address is that the term “child pornography” risks implying that we’re simply talking about just another category of pornography. To avoid this, this bill proposes a new term that truly reflects the sickening nature of such exploitation.

For precisely this reason, the RCMP’s National Child Exploitation Crime Centre and other Canadian agencies do not use the word “child pornography.” Rather, they use the term “child sexual exploitation material,” a term already used internationally. As a lead agency on the national and international stage, the National Child Exploitation Crime Centre serves as a central point of contact for investigations related to online sexual exploitation of children when either the victim or the offender is Canadian. It has been very successful at bringing offenders to justice, sometimes even rescuing the most vulnerable victims in real time.

Corporal James Jenkins of the Kelowna, British Columbia, RCMP Internet Child Exploitation, or ICE, Unit explained that the unit’s goals are:

. . . to ensure children are not being actively offended against, identify and remove images from the internet, and successfully prosecute those who access, produce, and traffic in this material.

Just next door in Alberta, the ICE team does similar work. It has recently taken to social media to issue a stark warning to all Canadians regarding the dangers of anonymous online chat rooms, an insidious spinoff targeting children made possible by social media. Investigators also raised the alarm that predators are attempting to convince kids of all ages in anonymous chat rooms to send sexually explicit images or perform sexual acts on social media apps such as Instagram and Snapchat. Once they receive the explicit photos, the perpetrator will traffic these images or threaten to expose them to friends and family and demand compensation in exchange for keeping the images secret. This practice disproportionately targets vulnerable children, who are often still developing their sexual identity and a sense of self.

These devastating cases of sextortion can have real consequences. You may remember the tragic death of Amanda Todd, a teenager from Port Coquitlam, who died by suicide in 2012 after posting a heartbreaking video on YouTube using flash cards to detail her years of being sexually extorted online. In the Prairies, just last summer, a Manitoban youth died by suicide three hours after being sexually extorted online.

These shocking incidents of child abuse are not rare. National statistics paint a bleak picture. A Statistics Canada report showed that from 2019 to 2021, the police-reported rate of child sexual abuse and exploitation material increased nationwide by 31%. In B.C. in 2022 alone, there were over 8,000 reported incidents of child exploitation. This year, B.C. has already reported 5,700, and it’s only April. This worrying trend highlights the need for action by all levels of government. As the sponsor of Bill C-291, Mel Arnold, noted in his speech in the other place, this bill is a small but important step in the right direction.

I suggest, colleagues, that we are now at a place of opportunity to continue this work together. Passing Bill C-291 is a significant step forward in combatting child sexual abuse and exploitation and bringing the perpetrators of this disgusting crime to justice. I firmly believe that changing the language and thus the mindset we use in discussing this issue will help frame the dialogue needed in combatting child sexual abuse and exploitation. As I mentioned before, words matter.

I hope this important bill will find your support in getting through committee and third reading as quickly as possible so we might use this opportunity to make a significant difference for those most vulnerable and at risk in our society. I want to thank you, honourable senators, for your time. Meegwetch.